Tibasu was more
frightened than Michele, for the mob had been taken at the right time.
Michele returned to the Telegraph-Office, and sent a message to Chicacola
asking for help. Before an answer came, he received a deputation of the elders
of Tibasu, telling him that the Sub-Judge said his actions generally were
"unconstitional," and trying to bully him. But the heart of Michele D'Cruze
was big and white in his breast, because of his love for Miss Vezzis, the
nurse-girl, and because he had tasted for the first time Responsibility and
Success. Those two make an intoxicating drink, and have ruined more men than
ever has Whiskey. Michele answered that the Sub-Judge might say what he
pleased, but, until the Assistant Collector came, the Telegraph Signaller was
the Government of India in Tibasu, and the elders of the town would be held
accountable for further rioting. Then they bowed their heads and said: "Show
mercy!" or words to that effect, and went back in great fear; each accusing
the other of having begun the rioting.
Early in the dawn, after a night's patrol with his seven policemen, Michele
went down the road, musket in hand, to meet the Assistant Collector, who had
ridden in to quell Tibasu. But, in the presence of this young Englishman,
Michele felt himself slipping back more and more into the native, and the tale
of the Tibasu Riots ended, with the strain on the teller, in an hysterical
outburst of tears, bred by sorrow that he had killed a man, shame that he
could not feel as uplifted as he had felt through the night, and childish
anger that his tongue could not do justice to his great deeds.
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