I gazed at him in horror.
“Do you mean, Rupert, that you have really embraced that idolatrous sect?” I demanded.
“You need not look so scandalised, cousin,” he retorted. “In the first place you are quite wrong to call it idolatrous, images of every kind being strictly forbidden by the Alcoran. In the second place it is a very decent, respectable religion, as religions go, and extremely convenient for seafaring men who sometimes need an excuse for overhauling a Christian cargo.”
“Rupert Gurney,” I replied sternly, “you have within the hour brought me away out of prison, and for that I thank you. But I will neither listen to your blasphemous talk, nor suffer it, and rather than consent to do so I will go back to the place from which you took me but now.”
“Fair and softly, young Athelstane,” he answered grinning. “I see you are as fierce a Puritan as ever, and as I have lost the wish to quarrel with you I will endeavour to refrain from saying anything offensive to your delicacy. But do you, on your part, abstain from flying into a passion at every word that does not happen to sound to your liking; for patience is a virtue recommended, as I believe, by your religion as well as mine, and it seems to me that your stock of it is rather scant.”
I cannot say how deeply mortified I was by this rebuke, which, coming from one whose evil life I held in just detestation, wrought more conviction in me than all the sermons I had heard from good Mr. Peter Walpole of Norwich, when I was a boy. I discovered, as though by a flash of light, how unchristian was the temper I had too often shown in my dealings, not only with my cousin, but with other persons, and from that moment I set an earnest watch on myself in this respect.
Forcing myself to acknowledge my error at once, though much against the grain, I said—
“I ask your pardon, Rupert, if I spoke harshly. But let us leave these questions, and come to the business in hand. What of Marian, and how do you propose that we should effect her escape?”
He looked at me surprised.
“Why, Athelstane, my boy, give me your hand!” he exclaimed, in a more cordial tone than I had ever heard him use before. “Curse me if I don’t heartily wish we had never quarrelled!” I gave him my hand with some reluctance, and he proceeded. “You saw that garden which we passed on our way to this spot? The girl is detained a prisoner in one of the Nabob’s summer-houses which stand within it. I have found means to corrupt one of the eunuchs who is a friend of mine, and anxious to stand well with the English. For I must tell you, Athelstane, that all is not working smoothly in the government here. Surajah Dowlah, by his arrogance and violence, has made many enemies, among whom are his own uncle, Meer Jaffier, and Roy Dullub, the most important of the Gentoos. These men have a just apprehension of the vengeance which the English may take for the late invasion of their settlements, and moreover they stand in dread of the young Nabob’s reckless temper, sometimes bordering on insanity. So that we have more friends than we know of in the Court. This eunuch, then, as I was going to say, has agreed to introduce me into the garden to-night, in about an hour’s time through a small postern in the wall of which he has the key. He is going to conduct me to the summer-house where Marian is. There it may be necessary to use force to overpower the eunuchs in charge of the place, but if we succeed in doing that, as I think there is little doubt we shall, we have nothing to do but to carry her off and retire by the way we came. I have provided a safe retreat afterwards to the coast.”