And now I must pass quickly over that time of my life on which I should most love to linger, those halcyon hours when, with Marian by my side and the prospect bright before us, we voyaged through those Indian seas, down the long coast of Malabar and up the long coast of Coromandel, past the Isle of Serendib, and the reefs and foaming seas, to where the tangled banyan roots overgrow the muddy mouth of the Hooghley.

Being, as we were, the only two idle persons on board that ship, we were thrown upon each other’s company day after day, and in the long talks we had together she gave me her account of the injuries which she had suffered at the hands of my cousin Gurney. And what pleased me most in these conversations was not to hear her kind and loving professions towards myself, so much as that bitterness which she now manifested against Rupert, for whom, she told me, she cherished a hatred as strong as her former liking and attachment.

[Pg 97]

“You are not to think,” she said, “that I ever held your cousin in that regard which he was vain enough to believe and boast of. It is true we were good friends, and had been such before I had yet made your acquaintance. But he was a man for whom I had a strong distrust, and that in spite of his swaggering airs and gallant speeches, fit to turn the head of some silly, vain girl who knew nothing of the world.”

“How came you to put yourself in that villain’s hands,” I asked, with some reproachfulness, “by venturing on board the Fair Maid?”

“I own that was a wrong, foolish act,” she answered, “of which the wrongs I have suffered in consequence are sufficient proof. But when I first yielded to Rupert Gurney’s solicitations to take my passage in that ship, I looked to the fact that Captain Sims was her commander, and it was him I relied on to afford me protection. Can you not understand how tired I was of my life in Yarmouth, in that old, dreary inn; and how I wished to be abroad and see the great world, and also to embrace my own parents, from whom I have been separated these twelve years?”

Thus she made her defence. Nor was I like to gainsay it, loving her as I did, with the same folly and blindness as of old, and ready to see and to hear just as she bade me, so that I might only be let hug myself in the belief that I had her affection in return.

[Pg 98]

“For the first part of our voyage,” she told me further, “all went well enough, until your cousin recovered of those wounds you had given him. Then he began to take a tone with me which I could ill brook; and you may imagine my uneasiness when I perceived that he had greater interest with the men than Mr. Sims, and that I was fairly in his power. As soon as we had got out in these seas he threw off all pretence of taking me to Fort William; and when I implored him at least to set me ashore in Bombay, where I might find another ship, he flatly refused, and told me plainly that I was nothing more than his prisoner. I applied to Mr. Sims for protection, but he answered that it was none of his business, and since I had come aboard freely there was nothing penal in detaining me. This man, I could see, was afraid of Gurney, who shortly after raised a mutiny against him, put him in irons, and carried him into Gheriah.”

I had forgotten to say that when we took the pirates’ castle, Captain Sims was found among the prisoners, who, producing his papers, and making out a long tale about his being an innocent merchant skipper, fallen into the hands of the Moors, not only got his freedom, but a handsome compensation out of the plunder of the place, with which he took passage home to England.

Marian told me that her complaints and anger at last drove Rupert to put her ashore, where he gave her, like Sims, into Angria’s custody.

[Pg 99]

“And the horrors of that prison,” she said, “are not to be described, nor even conceived by one who has not had experience of it. I was locked into a small cell, with scarce room to move or breathe, and the insufferable heat was such that I was forced to strip naked and lie on the floor, with scarce a rag to cover me. What would have happened to me if the fort had not been taken I dare not think. I must have gone mad or died.”

“Do not let us speak of it,” I said, soothing her. “All those horrors are passed, and not likely to return. Where we are going, in Calcutta, you will find friends and English customs; and your faithful servant, if you will have him as such, Athelstane Ford, will stand guard over you with his life.”

This was the nearest approach which I made to a declaration of my love, choosing rather to drift by force of circumstances into the position of Marian’s accepted lover than hazard all I had gained by seeking to pluck the fruit before it was ripe. It was sufficient for me in the meantime to elicit from her those expressions of abhorrence towards my cousin (and late rival), which assured me that she was effectually cured of her unhappy tenderness for that villain.

“Thank heaven, you are not likely to be troubled with any further sight of him,” I said, to clinch the matter. “After these events Master Rupert will be no such fool as to endanger his neck by trespassing on the Company’s territories.”

[Pg 100]

“I wish never to see him, nor so much as to hear of him again,” Marian answered warmly.

With such assurances she satisfied me. Perhaps my hopes played me false, and made me take gratitude for something dearer; or it may be that Marian, who knew well enough what were my feelings towards her, did return me some fondness at this time, and was resigned to accept my suit. Even if I deceived myself, I will not repent it. For I know that this life of ours is but a series of illusions, where we stand like children at a peepshow in a fair, beholding pictures which we mistake for real things. So that I say that he who falsely thinks himself beloved is just as well off for that time as he who really is beloved. Yet so far as I was concerned, if any man had said to me then that Marian did not love me, I should have scorned him.

Of my love for her I must not speak at all, or I shall never have done. Long before we reached the Hooghley she had recovered from the ill effects of her imprisonment, and moved about the ship with that command which her beauty gave to her. Her charm was such as I have never seen in any other woman: compared with them she seemed like a bright child among old, sleeping men, almost like a living body among the withered tenants of the tombs. And before we had been upon our voyage above a fortnight the commander and both lieutenants of the Thetis were at her beck and call, [Pg 101]while as for the little midshipmen, down to one youngster of twelve, they swore by her as if she were a goddess, and fought duels about her in the cockpit with their dirks.

Before we arrived in Bengal she talked to me much about her parents, who had been settled at Fort William for nearly twenty years. It was a long time since she had had news of them, she told me, but when she last heard her father was prospering in his business, which was that of a drug factor, not in the civil service of the East Indian Company, but trading under their licence, and shipping his merchandise in their bottoms. So much she knew, but nothing besides, and it was with as much curiosity as myself that she saw the Sunderbunds drawing near, and our sloop anchoring off Falta to wait for a pilot up the river.

The Hooghley, famous as it is, is only one of the mouths of that great river the Ganges, sacred and renowned throughout Indostan. Yet it is upwards of forty miles long, for so great was the distance which separated us from our destination. By means of a fair wind we accomplished this difficult navigation, dangerous on account of the numerous shoals, in a very few hours, passing on our way the fort of Budge-Budge, where the Company kept a small garrison.

The scene along the banks of the river was most strange to me at this time, and made an impression not easy to be effaced. The trees which overhung [Pg 102]the most part of the banks, of a character quite unlike those we have in Norfolk, were gloomy and forbidding in the extreme; but when we came to one of the people of the country’s villages, and saw the men dressed in gay turbans, the women walking about with curious earthen vessels on their heads, and the stark naked black children playing in the water, I was altogether bewildered, and could scarcely credit that I, who saw these things and had come to dwell amongst them, was the same boy who had been bred up so peacefully in that English village among the flat meadows bordered by the shallow broad.

However, we came at last to that place since so celebrated, though then considered only as the third among the Company’s settlements in the East; I mean Fort William. The fort itself was at this date of no great size or consequence; but in the neighbourhood along the river bank were many fine warehouses erected by the English. In the rear of these was built the native town, which the Moors call Calcutta. Here the houses are generally mean and dirty; but some of the rich Indians lived in very noble style, having fine gardens round their houses, ornamented with fountains and groves of tulip trees and mangoes.

Marian and I were put ashore in the ship’s gig, having first bid adieu to the officers, and set about inquiring the way to Mr. Rising’s house. In this at first we were unsuccessful, but at last I found an [Pg 103]obliging person on the quay who directed his native servant to guide us to it.

This man, to whom I gave a handful of pice, conducted us through some narrow streets of the town, very ill-paved, and full of a most evil smell, to a lonely neighbourhood on the side of the river further up, where there was a house built in the Moorish fashion, and enclosed in a wild garden much overrun with weeds. All round this garden was a high wall, conformable to the jealous disposition of these people. The entrance was by a narrow gate, and there was a miserable dwelling crouched against the wall inside, the door of which stood open. Some black children were playing in front of this hovel, who cried out when they saw us, and ran indoors. An Indian came out, very gaunt and fierce, who demanded in English what we did there.

“We are come to see Mr. Rising,” I told him, using his own language which Mr. Scrafton had taught me. “Is this his house?”

“It is, my lord,” says the fellow, much surprised, and giving a low bow, which they call a salawm.

With that I dismissed our conductor, and Mr. Rising’s gardener—for such he was—brought us to the house. We now saw that though originally a fine mansion it was sadly decayed. The walls should have been white, but excessive heat had cracked and blistered them, and turned everything to a yellowish hue. The Indian brought us inside, [Pg 104]and into a long, low-ceilinged room with a great window opening on to the ............