“Because I like and trust you, and know that you would be faithful.”
“Then,” I cried, snatching at the chance of escape, “if you knew I should be faithful, why did you propose such a thing?”
“I do not understand you,” he said coldly.
“I am one of the Company’s officers, sworn to be true to my duties. How can I break my oath? I should be a traitor, and worthy of death.”
“You have been faithful,” he said quietly. “I knew you would say that. But the tie is broken now.”
“No; not while I am in their service.”
“You are no longer in their service,” he said, watching me intently the while. “The great Company is dead; its troops are defeated, scattered, and in a short time there will hardly be a white man left in the land over which they have tyrannised so long.”
I sank back staring at him wildly, for his words carried conviction, and setting aside the horrors that such a state of affairs suggested, and the terrible degradation for England, I began thinking of myself cut off from all I knew, separated from my people, perhaps for ever, asked to identify myself with the enemies of my country—become, in short, a renegade.
“It sounds terrible to you,” he said gravely; “but you must accept it, and be content. It is your fate.”
“No,” I cried passionately, “it is impossible. I cannot.”