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 remonstrating, the planter only called out to his men: "Drive them all off, and beat them well." The men on both sides thereupon wielded their clubs, and the planter himself hurried forward, quite prepared to fire. The naib slipped off, and concealed himself in a hedge of wild cotton.

After the fight had lasted a considerable time, the zemindars' people fled, some of them badly wounded. The planter, after this exhibition of his might went off to his factory in great glee, while the ryots returned to their homes, crying out for justice, and exclaiming, amid their tears: "We are ruined: we are utterly undone." The indigo planter proceeded home to his factory after the row, his dog running before him and playing, poured himself out some brandy and soda, and drank it, whistling the while, and singing -- "Taza ba Taza". He knew that it was hard to control him; the magistrate and the judge constantly dined at his house, and the police and the people about the courts held him in great awe because of his associating so much with them! Besides even if there was any investigation made, in a case of homicide, his trial could not take place in the Mofussil courts. Any black people accused of homicide or any other great offence, would always be tried and sentenced in the local courts; whereas any white man accused of such offences would be sent up to the Supreme Court; in which case the witnesses or complainants in the case being quite helpless owing to the expense, trouble, and loss their business that would be entailed, would fail to put to in an appearance; and naturally, when the cases against such persons came on for trial at the High Court, they would be dismissed.

It happened just as the indigo planter had anticipated. Early next morning the police inspector came and surrounded the zemindar's offices. Weakness is a great calamity: