As the palace came into view it was evident that if Surajah Dowlah were not already gone, his presence had ceased to act as a restraint on his former servants. The courtyard was crammed with a struggling throng of palace menials and robbers out of the streets, all engaged in the work of plunder. Some were staggering down the steps, entangled in the folds of brocades and sumptuous shawls, others bore tulwars and scymetars encrusted with gems, some were stripping the gold off robes, others picking rubies and sapphires out of their sockets with the points of daggers, and secreting them about their persons. The ground was strewn with plunder thrown away in favour of something more valuable, rich vessels of green jade lay broken in one place, and silken garments were trodden underfoot in another. And all this was merely the loot of the outer rooms of the palace, for the treasury was not yet touched.
At our approach the work ceased. The rioters began to escape, and the eunuchs and soldiers belonging to the palace shrank back to their quarters. Leaving Meer Jaffier’s officer to deal with them, I dismounted from my elephant and pressed my way through into the deserted palace, taking with me only two men as a protection. I did not stay to explore the empty halls and dismantled chambers, but hurried as fast as I could go into the garden, and on to the well-remembered summer-house where I had caught my last glimpse of Marian on that night a year ago. I ran up to the door at which we had knocked the same night. It was standing open. I darted through, ran into each room, climbed the stair, and searched every nook and cranny above. Not a trace of her I sought was there.
Without lingering a moment I went on and explored the other buildings in the garden. In some of them I found frightened women, left alone, and expecting that I had come to slay them. But from none could I hear anything of the English captive. Here and there a frightened eunuch, dragged cowering from his hiding-place, recalled Marian’s presence a year before, but could or would tell me nothing of her fate. I raved and stormed through the seraglio like one possessed, but it was all in vain.
I turned back to the main building, by this time in the hands of the new Nabob’s servants, who were restoring it to some sort of order. They told me that Surajah Dowlah had got away an hour previously, having let himself down by a rope from a lattice into a boat on the river, with only two attendants. When I showed them the papers I had received from their master and also from Colonel Clive, they offered me every assistance, and even joined in the search. During several hours we ransacked every part of the palace, but found no signs of either of the English prisoners. The principal eunuchs were called and questioned. At first they declined to speak, but when one of the Moors with me threatened them with torture they became more communicative, and finally one of them asked if we had gone down into the secret dungeons.
This hint sent a cold shiver through my veins. I bade the eunuch lead the way, and he conducted us through a secret door, down a narrow winding stair into a horrible basement, constructed under the bed of the Ganges, where no light could come by day or night, except that brought by the torches of the gaolers. The place was like a maze, with branching passages and cells, almost every one of which held some victim of Oriental tyranny. But I had neither eyes nor thoughts for what was around me, as we hurried down passage after passage and opened door after door in the search for those two whom I had come to save. Finally the eunuch stopped at a certain door at the very end of the darkest passage we had yet traversed. It was opened, and I looked in.
I could not at first believe that what I beheld was a human being. Stretched out on the damp soil of the den lay a miserable, shrunken object, a thing like a skeleton wrapped in parchment, with the faint outlines of a man. On our entrance it moved and just raised its head.
“What do you want?” it asked in Indostanee. And then in English it breathed, “Is this the end?”
It was the voice of my cousin Rupert!
With a cry, I was on my knees by his side, lifting his woeful head in my arms.
“Rupert! Look! It is your cousin Athelstane!”