[Chapter 31]: In which friends meet, and part: and our hero hints a proposal.
The fight was over. It was Diggle's quarrel; neither the Frenchmen nor the natives had any concern in it, and when their leader was dead they had no more interest in continuing the struggle. They drew off; the weary defenders collected the dead and attended to the wounded; and Desmond went into the house.
"God bless you, Mr. Burke!" said Mrs. Merriman, tears streaming from her eyes as she met him and clasped his hands. "You are not hurt?"
"Just a scratch or two, ma'am: nothing to trouble about."
But the ladies insisted on bathing the two slight wounds on head and arm which in the heat of the fight he had not noticed. And then Mrs. Merriman told him all that had happened since the day he left them in such merry spirits at Khulna. How they had been trapped by Diggle, pretending to be a Monsieur de Bonnefon: how he had conveyed them to the house of his friend Sinfray: how after many months their whereabouts had been revealed to Surendra Nath by one of his numerous relatives, a man who had a distant cousin among Sinfray's servants: how the Babu, displaying unwonted energy, had come with a number of friends and fallen unawares upon their captors, afterward taking them to a house of his father's in this village: how the old man and his son had both been stricken with jungle fever, and the father died, and when the Babu lay helpless and unconscious on his sickbed they had found no means of communicating with their friends.
Mrs. Merriman shuddered as she spoke of the terrors of their captivity. They had been well treated, indeed; Monsieur de Bonnefon, or Diggle, as she afterward learned to call him, had visited them several times and seen that their wants were supplied. But their enforced seclusion and inactivity, their dread of the unknown, their uncertainty as to what might have befallen Mr. Merriman, had told heavily upon their health and spirits. Rumor brought news of the tragedy of the Black Hole: they heard that the few survivors were prisoners of the Nawab; and they feared the worst. From Surendra Nath they learned that they need not despair; and since then they had lived on in the hope that, when the Babu had recovered from his illness, he would find some means of restoring them to the husband and father from whom they had so long been parted.
"Surendra Nath has a heart of gold, Mr. Burke," said Mrs. Merriman in concluding her story. "Poor man! he has been very ill. We must do something to show our gratitude for his devotion when we get back to Calcutta."
Desmond then in his turn told them all that had happened since their disappearance. When they learned of the result of the Battle of Plassey, and that Clive was marching toward Murshidabad, they were eager to set off at once.
"Yes, ma'am," said Desmond, "we shall start as soon as possible. I shall leave you to make your preparations. It may not be possible to start before night, the country being so disturbed, so that if you can sleep through the day you will be fitter for the journey."
He left them, and going into the compound, found Bulger and Toley looking with curiosity at the body of Diggle.