“Hassan, I seldom speak to any one about my private affairs,” said the Sahib at last; “but I believe that it will be better both for you and for myself if I do so now. You think me close-handed and unwilling to part with my money; you may even think me insincere, and therefore a most inconsistent Christian; but I spoke but truth when I said that I had no money. The fact is”—the Sahib lowered his voice as he went on—“the fact is, that I am in debt to a friend;” and the flush on the young man’s brow and cheek deepened as he uttered the words.
Hassan’s surprise was now twofold; he wondered how the prudent Sahib could have got into debt, and he wondered why any one should blush to own that he had done so. There was nothing shameful to Hassan in the idea of being in debt; like many of his countrymen, he thought it a very small matter, scarcely a misfortune, and not in the least degree a disgrace. It was clear that debt was not regarded in the same light by the English Christian.
It had often been a matter of regret to Alton Sahib to see how lightly debt weighed on the consciences of many in India. He took a deep interest in the spiritual welfare of Hassan, whom he regarded as a brother in Christ. “Shall I see my brother sin, and not tell him of his error?” thought Alton Sahib. “Debt in this land is as the canker-worm in the grain, or the hidden abscess in the human frame. I can best show Hassan how I abhor it by letting him know what efforts I have myself made, and am now making, to get rid of the plague.”
“I feel it due to myself to let you know something of the circumstances that involved me in the debt from which I am, and have been for years, struggling to free myself,” said the young Sahib, after another pause. “When I was in Calcutta, not long after my first arrival in this country, I was robbed at a hotel of all the ready money which I possessed. This was, of course, a source of annoyance to me, but not of serious difficulty, as I had a wealthy friend in a station in Bengal, who would, I knew, at once advance whatever I required to pay my hotel-bill, and to take me up to the Punjaub, the province to which I had been appointed. I believed that the loan would be very soon repaid by my father in England.”
“Your excellency’s mind must have been quite at rest in the matter,” observed the moonshee.
“As I dipped my pen,” continued the Sahib, “to write to my friend the judge to ask for a loan of three hundred rupees, the very smallest sum that would suffice to cover needful expenses, a servant brought in letters from England. I laid down my pen and opened the first one, little guessing the heavy news which it would contain. The letter informed me that, by the failure of a bank, all my father’s property, the savings of many years, had been swept away; and that he who had risen in the morning believing himself to be in affluence, had lain down at night in a state of poverty, which illness made more distressing.”
“Alas! the news was heavy indeed!” exclaimed Hassan.
“My father has since been called to that happy home where there is no more trial,” said Alton Sahib with a sigh; “he had laid up treasure in heaven, in that bank which never can fail. But at the time of which I speak his need was pressing; I wrote to the judge in haste, but instead of borrowing, as I had intended, three hundred rupees with the assurance that the money would be repaid in two months, I asked for the loan of five thousand rupees, to be repaid I knew not when, that I might send home help at once to my sick and afflicted father.”
“And the Judge Sahib gave the money?” asked Hassan.