I arrived in Moorshedabad without accident, and at once repaired to the house of the Company’s agent, Mr. Watts.

I found this gentleman in a state of the utmost apprehension. The air was full of suspicion. Moorshedabad swarmed with the Nabob’s spies, who watched the going in and coming out of every person whom their master had reason to distrust, and carried their reports to his infamous minion, Lal Moon. Mr. Watts assured me that he did not consider his own life to be worth a day’s purchase, and the Nabob had uttered such threats against him on the last occasion of his going to the palace that he dared not present himself there again.

Fortunately for me Colonel Clive had provided me with an excuse for my journey in the shape of a letter to Surajah Dowlah, in which the Colonel renewed his expressions of friendship, but demanded the withdrawal of the Nabob’s army from Plassy. This was a step which the conspirators [Pg 261]considered indispensable to their design, as they had no expectation that Colonel Clive could overcome this force of forty thousand men as long as it kept the field.

Armed with the Colonel’s letter I went to wait upon the Nabob, leaving Mr. Watts to exert his utmost diligence in procuring the necessary signatures to the treaties, which I delivered to him for the purpose.

Nothing could exceed the astonishment of the Nabob’s officers when I, who had fled secretly from the city six months before, presented myself before them in the character of an ambassador from Sabat Jung and boldly demanded an audience. They hastened to carry the news to the Nabob, and after a short time they returned and conducted me into his presence.

Although scarcely three months had elapsed since I had last seen Surajah Dowlah, I observed a change for the worse in his appearance. He sat on the royal musnud with the same state as formerly, clad in his gold-embroidered robes and turban sparkling with the light of many gems, surrounded by the same obsequious throng of courtiers and attended by his ferocious guards ready to take the life of any man present, at a nod from their despotic lord. Yet I discovered something in his countenance which I had not seen there before. His head hung down with an air of weariness, and his gaze, instead of darting [Pg 262]fiercely to and fro, seemed to shift and hesitate as if with a lurking distrust of those about him. He appeared to be in ill-health, and shifted fretfully about in his seat as he talked. On my part, I regarded him with different eyes from the time when I had come before him as a captive in his hands, when I had viewed him as a powerful tyrant, invested with all the horror of his recent crimes, and especially of that never-to-be-forgotten atrocity of the Black Hole of Calcutta. Now, on the last occasion on which I was ever to confront him, I did so as the emissary of one whose power was yet greater than his own, as the agent of an intrigue that menaced his throne and perhaps his life. And beneath the surface of pomp and power and the outward show of sovereignty, I looked deeper, and beheld merely a young man, scarce older than myself—in his nineteenth year—the victim of an evil education, corrupted by the possession of despotic power, rent and exhausted by his own evil passions, and surrounded by traitors secretly scheming for his downfall. Some of the dread and hatred which I had formerly felt for him was replaced by milder sentiments, and I could have found it in my heart to pity Surajah Dowlah.

As if to strengthen these impressions in my mind, the young Nabob was in a singularly amiable mood, and appeared glad to see me.

“So it is you again!” he was pleased to say when I was introduced. “I see that you have told me the [Pg 263]truth, and that you are a friend of Sabat Jung’s. But why did you flee from me before? I regarded you with favour, and would not have put you to death.”

“Sir,” I answered, “I am obliged by your kind expressions, but I am an Englishman, and in my country there is no man who can put me to death unless I commit some crime against the laws; nor do I choose to live in any place where I hold my life by the favour of a prince.”

A murmur ran through the throng of courtiers at this reply, some of the high officers whom I knew to be concerned in the plot pretending to be especially shocked.

Surajah Dowlah raised his head and looked at me in some surprise.

“I should not care to be king of your country if I could not put a man to death when I wished to. Allah has created kings, and has put men’s lives into our hands. It is destiny. Those who fall by my hands would perish instead by pestilence or famine or wild beasts if I forbore to slay them. They die because it is the will of Allah.”

I listened in consternation to this frightful profession of fatalism by which Surajah Dowlah sought to decline the responsibility of his wicked acts. In the meantime he read the letter which I had brought from Colonel Clive.

“Why does Sabat Jung so earnestly desire me to disband my troops?” he asked presently.

[Pg 264]

“Your Highness’s own conscience must tell you that,” I returned. “So long as you keep your army in the field, threatening Calcutta, it is impossible to believe that you are in earnest in your professions of friendship towards the English. The present state of things keeps the minds of the merchants unsettled and prevents the resumption of trade, without which our factories cannot subsist in Bengal.”

“No, no,” the Nabob broke out, speaking very earnestly, “I design nothing against you. But I am in fear of the Morattoes, who meditate another invasion.”

“Have no fear of that, sir. Colonel Clive will protect you, if necessary, against the Morattoes. But you may depend upon it he will never believe in your friendship till your troops are withdrawn from Plassy.”

The Nabob seemed to meditate upon these words for a few minutes, during which nobody ventured to speak to him. Then he looked at me again, seeming as if he would search my heart.

“And suppose I comply with this demand, what security have I that the Colonel will not advance against this city? How do I know that he is not deceiving me? There are plots—yes, there are plots in the air!”

I felt a touch of contempt for him as I answered—

“That is a matter which I must take leave not [Pg 265]to discuss. It is for your Highness to consider whether your conduct has been such as to conciliate the affections of your subjects, or whether it has not rather been calculated to make every man your secret enemy.”

Surajah Dowlah started, and sank back on his seat, terrified by this unexpected plainness, which caused little less alarm among his suite. But I soon saw that my words had been rightly judged. Being an Oriental, the Nabob could not believe that I should have spoken like that if I had really been privy to any intrigues against him. He therefore dismissed his fears, and finally promised to issue orders for his whole army to retire to Moorshedabad.

Satisfied with this success, I took my leave of him, his last words to me as I withdrew being—

“Tell the Colonel I trust him; I look upon him as my friend.”

Moved by these words more than I cared to admit even to myself, I returned to Mr. Watts, and, all being now in train, we pushed forward the affair of the signatures as rapidly as we dared.

During these few eventful days I neglected no means of inquiring after the fate of those whom I had left in the Nabob’s hands on my former flight from Moorshedabad. But though I questioned not merely the great officers of the Court, but also many of the eunuchs and inferior servants about the palace, I could learn nothing definite either of Marian or of [Pg 266]Rupert. That they had not succeeded in recovering their freedom I was pretty well assured, but what had become of them, and whether they were alive or dead, was more than I could learn. The shadow and the secrecy of the East had closed like a curtain over their fates, and I was left to torment myself with miserable guesses in the darkness.

The business of signing the treaty went on as rapidly as it could be pushed. But the greed of the Gentoos at every step of the transaction was most disgusting, and the cowardice and treachery of the Moors scarcely less so. The Dewan, Roy Dullub, at first objected that all the Nabob’s treasure was not enough to satisfy the gratuities provided for in the treaty, but no sooner did Mr. Watts offer to make him agent for the distribution, with a commission of five in the hundred on all sums passing through his hands, than his scruples instantly vanished.

But at last everything was settled except the swearing of the treaty by Meer Jaffier, on which the whole affair turned. The Meer was just now arrived in Moorshedabad from Plassy, where he had been in command of one division of the Nabob’s army, the remainder having before been taken from him and given to Roy Dullub. It was reported that Surajah Dowlah had received his uncle very scurvily, and spoken to him with so much harshness that Meer Jaffier had at once retired to his palace, at the other end of the city, and surrounded [Pg 267]himself with his guards. This palace resembled a fortress, having regular walls and towers, and being provided with cannons and other munitions for a siege.

Thither, on the following day, Mr. Watts went to visit him, but returned in much alarm to say that the Meer had received him in public, in the hall of audience, surrounded by his officers, and had given him no chance to refer to the subject of the treaty.

While we were discussing what this could mean an Indian arrived, who proved to be a private messenger from Meer Jaffier himself.

This man informed us that Meer Jaffier had been obliged to receive Mr. Watts as he had done to deceive Lal Moon’s spies, the Nabob’s suspicions causing him to watch very strictly all intercourse between his great men and the English agents. What he now proposed was that Mr. Watts should come to his palace in the evening in a curtained litter, by which means he might be introduced unsuspected into the women’s apartments, and there have a private conference with the Meer.

I could see that Mr. Watts regarded this invitation with very little confidence, his experiences in the Nabob’s Court having rendered him cautious to an extreme. I therefore undertook to go in his place, an offer which he gladly accepted.

As there was nothing to deta............