"We will stop the lies; we will not allow the best queen and the most virtuous people in the world to be slandered; we are ready to lay down our lives that we may but gain a smile from the illustrious ruler. 'Tis my prayer night and day that the way may be opened for me to prove my devotion to her and her people."
The conversation went on in this fashion for an hour, when Avery made his salaam and withdrew, borne by the same gaudily caparisoned elephant and attended by the same showy escort that had brought him thither.
"I wonder whether there can be any foundation for the rumors that are in the air of Calcutta, of an impending revolt of the sepoys. Can it be that the whole country is on the verge of mutiny? Possibly such is the fact, but if the tempest of fire and blood comes we are sure of one friend, the Maharajah; nothing can swerve him from his loyalty to the Queen."
Now, let it be known that the Rajah from whom Baird Avery had just parted was Nana Dhoonda Pant, known in history as Nana Sahib, the most perfidious wretch since the days of Judas Iscariot. And yet, fiend as he proved himself to be by his massacre of the women and children at Cawnpore, only a few weeks after this interview, the Nana had his grounds for his fierce hatred of the British government.
Bajee Rao, the Peishwa of Poona, was the last ruler of one of those Mahratta dynasties which for centuries had shared the sovereignty of the Central Highlands and the plunder of all Hindostan. He was so vicious that the East India Company dethroned him, confiscated his territories, and forced him to take up his residence at Bithoor, a small town up the river from Cawnpore. His allowance was four hundred thousand dollars annually, enough to afford the old voluptuary all the magnificence, ease, amusement and enjoyment for which he yearned.
The Mahratta had one grief; he was without a son to inherit his possessions and to apply the torch to his funeral pyre. He therefore adopted a son, to whom, by the Hindoo law, belonged all the rights and privileges of an heir born of the body. This son was the one upon whom Baird Avery made his call in the month of April, 1857. Bajee Rao died in 1851, and Nana demanded a continuance of the pension which his adopted father had received from the Company, but it was refused. Although Nana was possessed of great wealth, he never forgave the Inglese for their treatment. But he dissembled well, and no one suspected the treachery of the wretch, until he plunged heart and soul into the sepoy mutiny and proved himself the nearest approach to a fiend ever attained by a human being.
CHAPTER II.
LUCHMAN.
A few days later, Dr. Baird Avery found himself nearing the great city of Delhi, led by an attraction like that of the lodestone for the steel. It was there that the missionary, Reverend Francis Hildreth, lived with his family, consisting of his wife and daughter Marian; and twice during the past three years had the young surgeon gained a leave of absence, extended enough to allow him to spend several weeks in the society of the delightful old gentleman and wife and still more delightful daughter.
He had formed the acquaintance of the family on the steamer Marlborough, of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, while making the passage from England to India. The voyage up the Mediterranean, sometimes so monotonous, was charming in this instance, and the mutual interest of the surgeon and daughter deepened until with the consent of the parents, Marian became the betrothed of Dr. Avery, though the circumstances were such that the date of their marriage hovered uncertainly in the future.