TELLS OF A VOYAGE ACCOMPLISHED FROM SCYLLA TO CHARYBDIS.
_From Miss Sylvia Freyne to Miss Amelia Turnor._
Muxadavad, _End of September_ 1756.
At last I find myself once more able to take up a pen for the purpose
of writing to my Amelia, but how vastly different is my situation from
any that she has yet been made acquainted with! My last letter was
scribbled on my knee in the chamber at Fort William where I sat
watching by my papa’s side, and was handed to Mr Hurstwood to be
conveyed on board the ships. Whether it has ever reached my dear girl
I know as little as whether her eye will ever rest on this. To write
some account of what has befallen our factory and my wretched self is
an exercise that offers me the pleasing prospect of a moment’s
forgetfulness of my present situation, and to write it in the form of
a letter to my dear Miss Turnor is only just, in view of the compact
entered into between us before we parted. To say that I have neither
the means nor even the hope of advancing the epistle towards its
destination might seem to pronounce it a sad waste of time to write
it, but since the Moors (they say) preserve with the most scrupulous
care imaginable any piece of written paper they may find, lest it
should chance to bear upon it the name of _Alla_, it may happen that
some scrap of this letter may yet reach the hands of my Amelia Turnor,
and serve to shed a little light both upon the destruction of our
Calcutta settlement, and upon the fate of the unhappy Sylvia Freyne.
But if this is to be the case, I must set down in order the whole
history of our calamities.
(_Here follows the narrative incorporated into chapter xii._)
How long this merciful swoon lasted, which rendered me insensible
alike to the horrors of the prison and the miserable deaths of my best
friends, I don’t know, but on recovering my senses I found myself laid
on a native bedstead in an apartment which I took to be the cabin of a
boat, since I could see the shining of water reflected upon the roof
through the _checks_ at the sides. The only other person in the
chamber was a female wrapped in a blue cloth and seated in a corner.
Rising when she found my eyes fastened upon her, I saw her to be an
elderly Moorwoman, decently but poorly clothed.
“_Salam, Beebee_!” says she in Moors (which is as much as to say, Your
ladyship’s humble servant), approaching me with an air of great
timidity and respect.
“Where am I?” I said, putting my hand to my head, for I was in the
strangest state of mind, my dear, conscious that something terrible
had taken place, but knowing no more what it was than if I had been
dead. I remembered nothing; I suppose I could not have declared my own
name had I been asked it. My eye fell on my clothes,--they were torn
to rags, frightfully soiled, and stained with blood. I lifted my
arms,--they were covered with bruises, and the knuckles and elbows
grazed. My hair hung in a great mat, all rough and dishevelled, and I
had the notion that there was something relating to it that I could
not recollect. It had to do with my pocket, surely, and turning with
difficulty, I pulled out a cap and a parcel of hairpins, tied round
with two or three ribbons. Then I remembered everything--the Captain’s
disguising me, my papa’s death, our being hurried into the black hole
of the Fort, and the awful night that we passed in that horrid prison.
Reaching this point, my spirits could no longer endure the
recollections that came crowding upon ’em, and I burst into a passion
of sobs and tears that seemed as if it could never cease, so that the
old woman, who stood patiently by, became alarmed, and sought to quiet
me.
“Alas, Beebee,” she said, “why should a young lady of your fine
prospects indulge yourself in such transports of grief? ’Tis true you
have been roughly used, but you was fated to undergo a short trial,
that it might bring you the greater felicity thereafter. Your slave
has no such hope, and has lost more than you, but she bows to the
decrees of fate.”
“And is it possible,” I cried, “that there’s a human being on this
earth more unfortunate than I? Pray, good woman, tell me your history,
that I also may learn to endure my miseries with something of your
philosophy.”
“Indeed, Beebee,” says she, “the tale’s but a mean one to relate to a
lady of your quality. Your slave was mistress of no more than a small
house and a decent business in the Great Buzar, but she rejoiced in
the company of her children and grandchildren. When the Nabob’s army
came, her shop was plundered, her house burnt, and her family slain or
dispersed until she was left alone. In the morning, yesterday, she was
weeping over the ruins of the beloved spot, when there came along a
parcel of soldiers, who seized her also.”
“Alas, my poor woman, you have indeed suffered!” I cried. “But pray
tell me your name, that I may know how to call you.”
“I am named Misery, Beebee. In the Buzar they call me Misery
Bye.”[14.01]
I could scarce restrain myself from crying out when I heard this
ill-omened name, but fearing to hurt the poor woman, “Tell me,
Misery,” I said, “was you carried off to attend upon me?”
“Even so, Beebee. They said there was a servant needed to wait upon a
young lady of very great birth, who was to be sent to Muxadavad for a
present to the Nabob.”
At these awful words the full horror of my situation became clear to
me, and I fell into a frenzy, crying out that I was indeed undone, and
that death was my only hope. Misery stood quiet beside me, save that
once she seized my hands, fearing that I designed to dash myself
against one of the beams in my madness, and when I was become a little
calm, said very earnestly--
“Why this passion, Beebee? You are treated honourably, and you have a
great prospect to look forward to. Instead of these rags you’ll wear
the finest gauzes and the richest silk and tinsel, your hair will be
braided with gold, and such jewels as you have never even imagined
will load your hands and feet and face and neck. Only lay aside this
frenzy, which will but damage your beauty, and permit your slave to
practise the arts with which she is acquainted for soothing your
spirits and restoring the charming colour of which your troubles have
robbed you, and I’ll assure you that instead of the Nabob’s being your
conqueror, you shall be his. You shall have the finest palaces in
India for a residence instead of your poor Calcutta houses, and you
shall be the envy not only of all the ladies of his Highness’s
seraglio, but of all the women in Bengall, and rule the province and
spend all its revenues if you will.”
Was ever such a bare-faced proposition made before to a Christian
Englishwoman, my dear--nothing less than that I should sell myself,
body and soul, to this wicked heathen prince for money and jewels? I
sat up on my bed.
“Misery,” I said, looking at her with great sternness, “I have
suffered you to speak this once, since you have never learnt better.
But you must understand now that for a female that is a Christian and
a Briton there could be no greater disgrace and wretchedness than to
become the Nabob’s slave, as you propose, were he ten times as great
and rich as the Emperor of Delly himself. I can die, if it please
Heaven so to decree, but I had rather die a hundred times over than
purchase a dishonoured life by a weak compliance.”
“Your slave is a poor ignorant Moorwoman, Beebee,” she replied, “and
don’t understand such fine notions. What good would they be when you
was dead? But it is fate, and it en’t for your slave to complain that
you design to slay her as well. She has but to submit.”
“Pray,” said I, but feebly, for the warmth with which I had spoke had
wearied me, “how can my persistence injure you?”
“Alas, Beebee! your slave has incurred the displeasure of Ally Verdy
Cawn Begum, his Highness’s grandmother. Knowing that I was skilled in
treating the sick, the Begum sent to me when I lived at Muxadavad for
a medicine to cure a favourite slave-girl of some ailment. Unhappily
the remedy fell into the hands of another slave--a rival of the young
person in the good graces of the Princess--who mingled poison with it,
and succeeded in effecting the death of the favourite. The unhappy
event was attributed to me, and had I not fled precipitately to
Calcutta, I had fallen a victim to the Begum’s resentment. You are
carrying me back to Muxadavad, Beebee, and what can I look for but
death? If you enjoyed the Nabob’s favour you might protect your slave,
but resolved as you are to withstand him, there’s nothing but
destruction for both of us. But it is my fate.”
She sat down again in her corner, and covered her head with her cloth,
wailing to herself in a subdued manner, while I tossed and turned upon
my bed, endeavouring to discover some means of saving the poor soul
from sharing my destruction while maintaining my own punctilio.
“Misery,” I cried at last, “there’s no need for you to perish with me.
The soldiers will surely permit you to walk on the deck, since you are
their countrywoman, and you must seize your chance and slip on shore
at some place we touch at. They won’t even perceive your absence if
you are prudent.”
“Nay, Beebee,” said she, with a dogged air, “I was carried hither to
attend upon you, and I’ll do it. If I am fated to die, die I must, but
I won’t abandon the lady I have the honour to serve.”
And as though to show that the matter was put aside, she brought some
water, and asked whether she should wash my face and dress my hair;
but when this was done, and I found myself somewhat refreshed, she
returned to her corner and her lamentations in the oddest and most
resolved manner. I can’t be quite sure how the time passed after this,
for I had a great deal of fever, but in the intervals of my disease,
if Misery were not waiting upon me, which she did with a curious sort
of skilfulness that I found very soothing to my aching frame, I heard
her still bewailing herself. This did not add to my comfort, as my
Amelia will guess, indeed it perturbed my spirits extremely; but I
could not see that I was called upon to sacrifice myself for the sake
of this unfortunate woman, even though ’twas her unaccountable
fidelity to me that kept her from saving herself. Also, I must
confess, I had sometimes the notion that she was endeavouring to work
upon me to play the infamous part she had proposed, through my pity
for her, but in this I did her an injustice, as you’ll perceive. I
suffered more and more from the fever as the time went on, regaining
my senses less frequently, and finding myself continually weaker, and
this gradual decline served to suggest an expedient to Misery.
“Beebee,” she said to me, as she tried to make me drink some sort of
broth she had brought in, “your slave would fain offer you her
counsel.”
“Say on, Misery,” said I, too weary to do anything but wish she would
be silent.
“Since you was pleased to reveal your lofty notions to your slave,
Beebee, she has thought about them very often, and it seems to her
that she has devised a plan by which it might be possible for you to
escape the Nabob.”
“Why, then, tell it me,” I cried, full of eagerness. “I could hear
nothing better.”
“Hush, Beebee. The soldiers or the boatmen might hear. If you’ll
permit it, your slave will approach her head close to you, and
whisper. Well then, Beebee, we have now left Allynagore (as the Nabob
has named Calcutta) four days, and to-morrow the Jemmautdar in charge
of the boat looks to arrive at Santipore. Now in that place there
lives a rich merchant, a Christian, but a very virtuous and charitable
person, though an unbeliever.” (So the Mussllemen call us, Amelia.)
“This gentleman is a friend of the English, and made many
intercessions to his Highness on their behalf when he marched against
their factory, but in vain. If we could get speech of him, sure he
would help us to escape the vigilance of the soldiers, and reach the
shore, where he would receive us into his house and conceal us.”
“But who is this person, Misery? and what claim have we upon him, that
he should expose himself to so much risk and inconvenience?”
“He is called Mr George, Beebee, and he’s of so charitable a
disposition that he believes any person in distress to have a claim
upon him.”
“Sure he’s the very friend we need,” I said; “but how throw ourselves
in this way upon a stranger? Is the gentleman a married man, Misery?”
“Not to my knowledge, Beebee,” she said, somewhat doubtfully, but
seeing my countenance fall, cried out suddenly, “Your slave is a fool,
Beebee. How could she have forgot that Mr George is but lately married
to a young lady of his own nation, whom he adores?”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said I. “Well, Misery, can we get speech of
him?”
“Any idle fellow on the _gott_ would carry a message, Beebee, if you
paid him for secrecy.”
“Alas!” I cried, “I have nothing to pay him with. The plunderers took
everything.”
“Your slave was more cunning than that, Beebee. When the
_louchees_[14.02] in plundering the Buzar stripped her of her jewels,
she contrived to hide this,” and she brought out from a corner of her
cloth, where she had it tied up with great circumspection, a silver
_bangul_, as they call a bracelet, set with corals.
“With this, Beebee,” she said, showing me the jewel, “your slave will
send a message to Mr George, desiring him to meet her in some retired
spot. She cured his aged father of an ague some time since, so that he
won’t refuse her. Then she’ll demand an asylum in his house for you,
Beebee.”
“But how shall we cheat the vigilance of the soldiers, Misery? They
are perpetually on the deck, quarrelling and gaming, and must know
that I have never offered to show myself. Are they also to be bribed,
or how am I to slip past them?”
“No, Beebee. They would not accept of a bribe, for their business here
is well known, and they would pay with their lives to the Nabob for
their slackness. We must deceive ’em. They must think you dead.”
I felt myself grow pale. “But how shall we manage that, Misery?”
“Why, Beebee, they have heard so much of your fever and weakness that
it won’t surprise ’em, and they can’t be held to blame for it.”
“But would you convey me to land in the night, Misery?”
“No, Beebee, for they would desire to know what was happened to your
body. Your slave has a better plan than that. With a drug that she
will administer to you, she’ll make you resemble a corpse, so that
you’re carried out in broad daylight to be buried.”
“In a coffin, Misery? And what of the physician, and the
grave-diggers?” with an increasing horror, for, my dear, your foolish
Sylvia’s mind had flown back to the days when she read “Romeo and
Juliet” by stealth with her Amelia, and she seemed to anticipate for
herself the calamities that attended the personages of our great
poet’s tenderest tragedy.
“The Moors don’t use coffins, Beebee. You would have your head wrapped
in a cloth, and be carried on a bier. Nor do physicians prescribe
remedies for women among the Moors, except very rarely. As for
gravediggers, there won’t be no need of ’em. A Christian would not
receive here the burial of a believer, and ’twill be due to the piety
of your poor attendant that your corpse en’t tossed ashore on some
sand-bank, but carried into the _jungul_,” this is what they call a
wood, “to be covered with branches. You see how easy it will be to
practise for your recovery.”
“Misery,” I said, “I’ll consent to this frightful plan, since your
life is at stake as well as mine, except in one particular. I won’t be
drugged. I have resolution enough to remain motionless while I am
carried on the bier, but I can’t endure to be deprived of my senses.”
“Do you perceive, Beebee, that the slightest movement will bring
destruction on your slave and also on Mr George?”
“Yes, I understand, and nothing shall persuade me to move or speak.
You can’t think that I would sacrifice my only hope of escape, to say
nothing of the persons that are befriending me.”
“Be it so, Beebee. From this moment, then, don’t speak above a
whisper. You are dying, remember.”
But indeed, Amelia, I had not felt so much alive since my misfortunes
had commenced. The finding myself confronted with the possibility of
an honourable escape, and freed also from those pangs of remorse that
had beset me for Misery’s sake, forbade me to sleep, and I must have
passed hours in anticipating to myself every the minutest particular
of the morrow’s enterprise. But this excitement also worked well for
Misery’s plans, for towards morning it was succeeded with a heavy
stupor, in which I lay as one dead. During this period of
insensibility the poor woman contrived to effect a prodigious amount,
for on my waking I found her seated on the floor beside me, not
engaged in lamentations, but watching eagerly for my opening my eyes,
in order to tell me of the success she had met with.
“Your slave has settled everything, Beebee,” she said, so eager as not
to wait for me to address her first. “There’s but one thing fallen out
different from what we planned, and that is, that Mr George is
departed with his new-married lady to his house in Dacca, but his
brother, Mr Gregory, who received my message instead, recognised in me
the healer of his father, and will entertain us when we escape, and
provide for our forwarding to Dacca, where you’ll questionless be able
to obtain shelter on board a Europe ship, lying hid in Mr George’s
house until the chance offer itself. The Jemmautdar and his soldiers
believe you dead, for I departed so far from my duty as your attendant
as to permit the chief rascal to peep in at the door, and see you
lying stretched and stiff upon your bed, and he fancies that I landed
when we reached Santipore merely in order to hire some
_hallicores_”[14.03] (these are persons of low _cast_), “to carry
away your body. In that he was right, Beebee, but those persons will
be servants of Mr Gregory in disguise, and they will carry you to the
Armenians’ garden on the outskirts of the place, where they bury such
Christians as die here. There a palanqueen will be in waiting, with
relays of bearers, which will set off at once with you and your slave,
to carry us to another branch of the river, where a boat will be
ordered to be ready on which we may drift down the stream to Dacca.
This will mean an increase of the length of our voyage, but my Beebee
won’t care for that, since ’tis to end in freedom.”
“You’re right, indeed. How shall I ever repay you, Misery, for your
faithfulness to an unhappy alien, who can’t even reward you with
money?”
“Sure the applause of your slave’s conscience will be her reward,
Beebee. And now let your slave entreat you to speak no more, and to
remain lying stiffly, as you was just now, lest any of the soldiers
should be so profane as to peep in. The bearers won’t arrive till
sunset, and there’s more than an hour to that yet. We must travel all
night to reach the Dacca river.”
“Tell me only one thing, Misery. How did the Jemmautdar take the news
of my death?”
“Indeed, Beebee, he swore in an extraordinary manner at first, and
cursed the day he was born; but on your slave’s reminding him that the
event was ordered by the decrees of fate, he became calmer, and is now
engaged with his _hooker_.”
Thus satisfied that the Jemmautdar would not be drove to any rash
courses by my evasion, I turned my mind for the next hour to the
business of remaining still; and, indeed, my dear girl won’t know how
vastly hard it is to lie perfectly quiet until she has done it knowing
that the slightest movement may bring ruin not only on herself but on
her humble friends. After a time Misery brought out a great parcel of
cotton cloths, and wrapped me in them, over my own clothes, fastening
my arms to my side, and swathing my head, in particular, so tight that
I could neither see nor hear anything, nor scarcely breathe. Knowing
that she took these precautions for fear of any rash or undesigned
movement on my part I durst not protest, lest she should again urge
upon me the drug (to which I was resolved not to submit, since who
could tell into whose hands I might fall when in that state?), and
resigned myself to enjoying only just so much air as would keep me
alive. Presently I was sensible that the bedstead on which I lay was
being lifted and carried along, and hearing sounds as though from a
great distance, I guessed that the soldiers were passing their ribald
remarks upon my funeral. Two angry voices that pierced even my
wrappings I determined to be those of the Jemmautdar and Misery--she
demanding, at first in an obsequious manner, but later with much
warmth, some reward for her services such as might enable her to
return to Calcutta; he declaring that she might be thankful to escape
with her own life after her carelessness in suffering me to die. But
in a break in their wrangling there reached me another voice, which
must surely have made me forget my promise to Misery if I had been
able to speak or move, for it cried out in English, “What, dead? Poor
maid, poor maid! But one can see as how it’s best for her.” This
English voice filled me with the strongest excitement, for I had heard
no English spoken on board the boat, nor had Misery told me of any
English person there, but after my first surprise I remembered my part
sufficiently to make no attempt to stir. My bier was carried for some
distance, passing, as I judged, through the town, and was then
suddenly set upon the ground, when I was raised from it, and placed,
as I guessed, in a palanqueen of the French or native style, which was
immediately put in motion, even before Misery, who accompanied me,
could begin to unwrap the cloths that swathed me.
“Now, Beebee, you’re started on your journey towards freedom!” were
the grateful accents that greeted my ear when she uncovered my head.
“Thanks to heaven and to you, my worthy Misery!” I cried. “But tell
me, whose was the English voice that came so near to rendering our
plan a failure by tempting me to move?”
“There was no Englishman there, Beebee, I’m positive,” she said,
shaking her head. “I had heard there was a country-born clerk a
prisoner on the boat, who is being carried to Muxadavad because he’s
believed to know something of the money that his Highness failed to
find in the Calcutta treasury, and it may be he was moved to cry out
in English when he heard you was dead. I heard some person bawl
certain words in a strange tongue, but knowing no English, I didn’t
recognise ’em.”
“Would that we had been able to save him also!” said I, loth to think
that any person of British speech should remain in the power of the
savage Surajah Dowlah; but Misery pointed out to me that it would not
have been possible for us even to release the unfortunate man from his
bonds, much less to bring him to the shore. We journeyed all that
night, the bearers travelling at a speed most unusual with them, and
relieving one another at the proper intervals with an almost
incredible promptness. Without this assurance that our progress was
extraordinary rapid, my anxiety would have been extreme, and even as
it was, my terror magnified every chance sound into a token of
pursuit. However, at the break of day we arrived safe on the bank of a
river, and there went on board of a boat that was awaiting us, Misery
pointing out the superior convenience and elegancy of the lodging
provided us to that we had left, notwithstanding its smaller size. The
boatmen having with great civility enquired my pleasure through
Misery, we put off at once, but during the four days and three nights
that followed I don’t think I slept once--indeed, the very fever that
had seized me so often of late seemed to have lost its power. Nor must
you think, Amelia, that this wakefulness was all due to fear, although
I never ventured to show myself outside the cabin, and the approach of
another boat, or even of a few persons on the bank, was the signal for
an excessive alarm. I was conscious of a singular exaltation of
spirit, owing to the marvellous manner in which I had been delivered
from the thing that I had greatly feared (as the Scripture saith), and
not even the remembrance that I should arrive at Dacca a friendless,
penniless pensioner on the bounty of an Armenian household with which
I had no acquaintance, could damp my ardour. I was delivered out of
the hands of the Nabob, I was safe, and I could not in view of this
crowning mercy think of the possible humiliations and difficulties
that might await me. My soul was filled with gratitude to Heaven,
which had made use of the poor pagan Misery as an instrument to save
me, by means not only of the affecting fidelity she had exhibited
towards myself, but also of the false accusation which had frightened
her away from Muxadavad. And, moreover, had I been inclined to
undervalue the mercies I had experienced, Misery herself would not
have permitted me to do so, for she related to me perpetually the most
appalling histories of the frightful torments inflicted on unhappy
wretches who had refused to do the pleasure of the Nabob or the old
Begum, so that I might know from what I was escaped, now that I need
no longer fear that some such horrors were before myself.
After sunset on the fourth day of this our second voyage, our boat
came to an anchor (if that’s the proper phrase) off a large town, and
Misery, congratulating me on being arrived at Dacca, besought the
continuance of my favour when I should find myself again among
Christians and safe from my foes, of which I assured her with the
utmost warmth, as well I might, Amelia, might I not? A palanqueen,
with a retinue of servants, was awaiting us, and we were borne along
for a good distance, which served to impress me with a very lofty
notion of the size of Dacca. At last we entered the courtyard of a
house, as I could discern from the echo, and having stepped out of our
machine, found ourselves standing in a varanda that overlooked a
pretty extensive garden, in the midst of which was a pavilion or
garden-house. I had hoped to be greeted on my arrival by Mr George’s
lady, but though there was a parcel of women about they were all
servants, and Moorwomen to boot. I stood waiting in the highest state
of expectation while Misery spoke aside with one of these, and
returning to me, said that the garden-house had been set apart for my
sole residence so long as I remained in the family, and that if I
would repair thither, Mr George would do himself the honour of waiting
upon me at once. My countenance must have displayed the amazement I
felt.
“Sure it’s Mr George’s lady I ought to see?” I said.
“Mr George is a Christian, Beebee,” says Misery, quickly. “He’s
acquainted with European gentlemen, and knowing their customs, was
anxious to welcome you himself to his house, but if you desire it,
your slave will send word that you don’t choose to see him until his
lady has received you.”
“Why, no,” said I, grieved to think of wounding this generous
Armenian, who had undertaken such an incredible expenditure of money
and pains for the sake of an absolute stranger, “since the gentleman
piques himself on his acquaintance with our customs, and don’t
disapprove of ’em, I shall be happy to see him.”
I walked with Misery to the garden-house, one of the Moorish females
carrying a torch before us, and found the principal apartment on the
ground-floor airy and agreeable enough, and very delicately ornamented
with different-coloured marbles and strange devices wrought on the
walls and ceiling. Glancing at these by the light of the torch, I
heard a footstep, and turning, saw standing at the door a tall person
wrapped in a cloak, who bowed deeply, but made no motion to approach
me. Such humility and diffidence, on the part of one who had so vastly
obliged me, filled me with shame, and I sprang towards him.
“Dear sir,” I cried, throwing myself at his feet, “accept the
heartfelt thanks of a poor creature that can never hope to repay you,
but by her gratitude, for your extraordinary great kindness. Sure my
generous host won’t require my stammering tongue to testify to all the
obligations he has laid me under, but will perceive that they’re
impressed for ever on my grateful heart.”
“Fairest Clarissa, welcome to Muxadavad!” said Mr George in French,
and throwing back his mantle, disclosed--oh, my dearest Amelia, pity
me, imagine the agony of the moment--the features of the hateful
Unknown, of the more hateful Sinzaun! I had fled from the Nabob to
place myself in the power of this execrable, this odious and abandoned
man.
The wretch had the assurance to try to touch me, and I fancy I
remember endeavouring to push away his hands as I fell in a fit at his
feet. The treacherous Misery succeeded in restoring me, but as soon as
my eyes fell on Sinzaun I fainted again, and went from one fit into
another as long as he remained near me. He departed at last, leaving a
message for me with Misery to the effect that the alarm which seized
me at the sight of him had caused him the most poignant anguish, that
he desired nothing but my honour and happiness, and that he would make
no attempt to force his presence upon me until I should choose to
express a wish to see him. “If this be true,” thought I, “I am safe
from him for ever,” but I could not bring myself to believe in the
wretch’s departure until, accepting with reluctance the support of my
perjured attendant, I had tottered into all the rooms and varandas of
the garden-house to assure myself that he was not there. Misery
expressed the most excessive concern for my disorder, and would fain
have piled oath upon oath to induce me to believe in her innocency of
the wicked device by which I had been duped, but I cut her short very
sharply. I could not suffer the creature to please herself with the
notion that she had hoodwinked me a second time, and the assurance of
this made the wicked old woman bewail herself most sadly, even while
she entreated me to drink a syrup of fruits which she offered me, and
lie down to sleep. I am almost certain, Amelia, that the foolish
creature had mixed with the syrup some narcotic drug, I hope with no
worse design than to make me sleep and perhaps ward off the attack of
fever she foresaw, but if this was so, she compounded her dose badly,
for instead of sleeping I was never so wide awake in my life. At last
I could lie down no longer, and feeling a prodigious desire to walk in
the open air, I slipped on my gown again, and stepping over Misery,
who lay on the floor wrapped in her cloth, went out into the garden.
There was dark clouds gathering, for this was the season of the rains,
when excessive wet alternates with burning sunshine, but the moon was
shining almost as bright as day, and as I walked about among the
untidy beds of flowers, all as variegated and confused as possible,
and no symmetry anywhere, I considered of my situation.
Now that I was at length undeceived, it seemed to me incredible that I
could ever have been taken in by so complicated a plot. I remembered
that only the night before I had remarked to Misery that the boatmen
appeared still to be rowing against the stream, and not drifting with
it, as she had assured me would be the case, and that she had answered
this showed we were now close to Dacca, which stood upon a third
branch of the river. Not knowing the situation of Dacca, I had
accepted her explication easily, and the reward of my credulity was to
find that the palanqueen which had carried me from the river at
Santipore had brought me back to the same stream higher up, so that I
was arrived cheerfully at the spot I most dreaded in all the world.
The wicked art of the whole design, and the pains taken to make me
imagine myself acting altogether on my own motion, amazed me the more
I thought of them, but I perceived quickly that I owed the cruel
deception to the necessity of deceiving not only the Jemmautdar (if
indeed he was deceived at all), but the Nabob and his people, and also
my own nation. Should that poor country-born clerk that had cried out
in English on seeing me carried forth have speech with any European on
the way to his captivity, he would inform him of my death, and all
enquiry concerning the miserable Sylvia Freyne would be at an end.
This consideration awoke in me the resolve to undo the injury I had
done myself in consenting to appear dead. If I was ever to be saved,
or even if my friends were ever to know my true fate, I must needs
discover some means of opening communication with them. But how was
this to be? I was a prisoner in Muxadavad, in the power of the wicked
Sinzaun so long as I remained where I was, at the mercy of the Nabob
or any of his abandoned soldiery if I left the house. Our factory at
Cossimbuzar was destroyed and the gentlemen there dispersed, and the
foreign factories had shown themselves too friendly to the Nabob to
give me any hope that they would help me. The only expedient that I
could devise was to throw out into the street pieces of paper
containing some account of my situation, confiding in that
superstitious reverence of the Moors for handwriting which I have
mentioned before, and trusting that Heaven would guide these frail
messengers to a suitable destination. I was the more encouraged in
this last hope because there was nothing in any way deceitful or
untrue about this plan, and I was now ashamed to think that I had
anticipated and claimed the Divine assistance in a design so full of
falsehood and deceits as that by which Misery had secured my escape
from the custody of the Jemmautdar.
But now there faced me this new difficulty; how was I to obtain
writing-implements? If I had anticipated my misfortunes I should
questionless have had the prudence, like Pamela, to conceal some pens
and paper about me, but as it was, I had lost even my tablets and
pencil. The only piece of paper I possessed was Mr Fraser’s letter,
which I had carried in my bosom ever since receiving it, and I had
nothing at all with which to write. But the dreadful necessity of my
case proved to be the mother of invention, for remembering some old
story I had read of prisoners that wrote to their friends in their own
blood, I drew my hussy[14.04] from my pocket, and plunged a blade of
the scissors into my arm (I could not do such a thing now, Amelia, but
that night I seemed to be raised above myself). Then with a bodkin
dipped in this horrid ink I wrote twice over on the back of the
letter:--
“I am not dead, but in the power of the wretch Sinzaun, at Muxadavad.
Help me, any Christian that may read this, for the love of God, or at
least tell those escaped from Calcutta where they may find the unhappy
Sylvia Freyne.”
When this was wrote, and dry, I turned to the letter and read it
through again, as though I had not long known it by heart, then tore
off the post-scriptum, which I could not let go. To tear the dear
sheet seemed to be to tear my own heart, but I forced myself to do it,
and folding each piece small, wrote on it in the best Moors I could
manage: “Take this to any hat-wearer (so they call Europeans), and he
will give you ten rupees,” only, as I can’t write the Indian
character, I was compelled to do it in ours, and I don’t know whether
a Moor would be able to read it. After securing the precious
post-scriptum again in my bosom, I hastened through the garden to a
set of stairs that I had noticed led to the house-roof on the side by
which we had entered, and found to my delight that from this roof I
could look into a street. Here I threw my two missives, one from one
end of the roof and one from t’other, and returned with failing steps
towards the garden-house. Whether the effect of the drug was passing
off, or my fever was coming on, I don’t know, but I was sensible of
nothing but a supreme melancholy and listlessness and a most devouring
thirst. My eyes failed me, so that I could not find my way back to the
garden-house, and as I crept along, feeling my path with my two hands,
I seemed to be no longer in the garden, but once again in the black
hole at Fort William. “Water! water!” I cried in a voice of despair,
as I had done there, and as at that time the words appeared to be
echoed by voices of agony all around. I felt sure there was water to
be had, if I might only reach it, and I was fighting my way, as I
believed, through the struggling crowd, when I found my progress
suddenly stopped. It was in vain that I struggled, for Misery was
holding me fast, having pounced out upon me just as I reached the edge
of a great tank or artificial pond of water, and was rating me like a
slave that had run away.
“I saw you try to stab yourself, Beebee,” she cried, “and when you was
frightened at the sight of the blood, I saw you go to the roof and try
to throw yourself over twice. I was close behind you. I knew you would
come here next, and I hid and waited. Do you think I don’t know that
you want to kill yourself, and bring down Meer Sinzaun’s wrath on your
slave, because you hope to punish me? I fear you’ll get your wicked
will by dying of fever from this night air, but I’ll see at least that
you don’t drown.”
I struggled with her again, but in vain, for I could not recall the
word for _drink_ in Moors, and all I could utter was an entreaty to be
allowed to reach the water, which she was resolved I should not do.
Thus, still struggling, she forced me back to the garden-house, where,
seeing me try to reach the water-jar, she perceived at last what I
wanted, and pouring me out a draught, induced me to return to the bed
which I did not leave again for two months, as near as I can tell. I
have quite lost count of days since the beginning of this sickness,
but by noting the time when the rains ended, I am come to believe that
this is now the month of September, the month in which, a year ago, I
landed at the Calcutta Gott. Ah, my dear, what crowds of recollections
rise in my mind when I make this calculation! Sure there never was a
poor creature that in so short a space of time endured such complete
vicissitudes, nor found herself, after them, in so helpless and cruel
a situation. And all these misfortunes I have lived through, if I may
say so, several times over, since, while my fever lasted, my
disordered brain continued to present me now with pictures of my life
in Calcutta, and now with visions of the days (ah, blessed time!)
when, with my Amelia, I passed my hours contentedly in alternate tasks
and simple pleasures, and dreamed as little of my brief exaltation as
of my subsequent fall from being Queen of Calcutta to being Sinzaun’s
captive. But always when I was enjoying a moment’s pleasure in these
charming visions, the sight of Misery, or her voice speaking in Moors,
or even a glimpse of the strange devices on the walls of my abode,
would carry me in a moment to the trials of the siege, the horrors of
the prison, or the dread that seized me when I heard Sinzaun’s
greeting, and so I must live over again all my adversities.
It was when I was somewhat recovered, the fever only gaining the
mastery of my intellects for a part of the day, that Misery came one
evening to say that Meer Sinzaun desired to wait upon me. Words fail
to describe the horror that seized me at the sound of that dreadful
name. I would have sought to flee and hide myself, but wanted the
strength to move, and even with holding up my hands to ward off the
sight of the wretch I fell back upon my bed fit to expire. Misery
scolded me very heartily for what she called roundly my silly
foolishness, but brought word at last that Meer Sinzaun would speak
with me through the curtain that hung over the door, and would not
attempt to penetrate behind it. It was some time before I could
succeed in calming my apprehensions sufficiently to listen to the
wretch, but when I began to understand him he was passing from
compliments and condolences to tell me that he was about to attend the
Nabob on his campaign against the Phousdar of Purranea,[14.05] and
that he trusted to find me restored to health on his return.
“But, madam,” he went on, as though he had apprehended the joyful
confusion that arose in my mind at the prospect of his absence, “you
won’t be left unattended here, I’ll assure you. My steward, a very
worthy person, in whom I repose the utmost confidence, will wait upon
you twice a week, and receive any orders you may desire to give him
through this curtain. He knows you only as a ward of mine called
Nezmennessa Beebee,[14.06] a Mogul damsel of quality from the north,
and you’ll find him as ready as I am to indulge you in any reasonable
matter. But is there nothing that Clarissa will permit me to gratify
her in before I depart? Won’t she believe that her Sinzaun’s whole
fortune is at her disposal?”
At once, to shame the wretch, I asked for writing-implements.
“Why, madam,” he said, “indeed you shall have ’em. Clarissa desires to
divert herself with writing to the charming Miss Howe, I suppose? I
can’t undertake to forward your epistles, indeed, and I fear you’ll
also want the means, but at the least I shan’t suppress ’em, and since
I am unfortunately ignorant of English, I can’t even take pleasure in
the reading them.”
I was at my wits’ end to imagine how this cunning man could reconcile
it with his plans thus to give me the chance of making my situation
known to my friends, but I need not have feared for his schemes.
“There is, however, one restriction that I must lay upon you, madam,”
he continued, when I had expressed my gratitude, “and that is, I can’t
have this indulgence abused. There must be nothing more of this sort.”
He handed a paper round the curtain to Misery, who brought it to me.
Oh, my dear! it was one of the billets I had writ with my blood,
imploring help. I was speechless, after the first exclamation of
horror, and he went on: “That, madam, was picked up in the street by
one of my servants, and handed to me. I can’t read the English, but
its purport I can guess by the ink employed in writing it, and the
words in Moors, which I have made out, though Clarissa will pardon my
saying there’s no Moor that could do it. Now, madam, you can’t deny
that in bringing you here, however much against your will it may be, I
have at least saved you from the Nabob. Suppose this paper was carried
to any Moor that could read English, or some European anxious to curry
favour with Saradjot Dollah” (so he called the Soubah, in the French
fashion), “you would at once ruin me, and destroy yourself. Is that
Clarissa’s design? I think she’ll admit she has been honourably
treated here, and I’ll assure her that anything she pleases to demand
shall be at her service within the hour. Is that a reason for bringing
about the destruction of her adorer? You may write what you will,
madam, but I must have your word that you won’t use my ink and paper
in compassing my ruin.”
“I’ll promise you that, sir,” said I, somewhat ashamed. “You may count
the sheets of paper when I’ve done with ’em, if you will. But I can’t
promise you that I won’t try to escape if any English come to
Muxadavad.”
“Any English!” he said. “I fear, madam, you don’t appreciate the
unhappy situation of your countrymen at this time. The few left in
Bengall are cooped up in the Dutch bounds at Fulta, and are dying like
flies with the unhealthiness of the place. As soon as they can find
ships to carry ’em to Madrass, away they’ll go, so I would not have
you rely on them for deliverance.”
“Indeed, sir, I have given up relying on any power but that of
Heaven.”
“That’s since you found yourself at Muxadavad instead of Dacca, I
suppose, madam?” The profane wretch actually said this, Amelia.
“Perhaps you’ll be pleased to add to your prayers a petition for the
success of his Highness’s arms against the Purranea Nabob, and in
especial for the safety of your humble adorer? If I should fall,
Saradjot Dollah would be my heir, and should we both perish, then
Sucajunk would be master, and in either case Clarissa might find that
she had changed her gaolers for the worse.”
Could anything, my dear, exceed the coolness of this hardened
reprobate?