Another, used with a man whom he considered lazy, was the tank. Between the dockyard and the river, separated from the latter only by a thin wall, was a square cavity about seven feet deep covered with boarding, in the center of which was a circular hole. In the wall was a small orifice through which water could be let in from the river, while in the opposite wall was the pipe and spout of a small hand pump. The man whom the overseer regarded as an idler was let down into the tank, the covering replaced, and water allowed to enter from the river. This was a potent spur to the defaulter's activity, for if he did not work the pump fast enough the water would gradually rise in the tank, and he would drown. Desmond learned of one case where the man, utterly worn out by his life of alternate toil and punishment, refused to work the pump and stood in silent indifference while the water mounted inch by inch until it covered his head and ended his woes.
Desmond's diligence in the dockyard pleased the overseer, whose name was Govinda, and he was by and by employed on lighter tasks which took him sometimes into the town. Until the novelty wore off he felt a lively interest in the scenes that met his eye--the bazaars, crowded with dark-skinned natives, the men mustachioed, clad for the most part in white garments that covered them from the crown of the head to the knee, with a touch of red sometimes in their turbans; the women with bare heads and arms and feet, garbed in red and blue; the gosains, mendicants with matted hair and unspeakable filth; the women who fried chapatis {small, flat, unleavened cakes} on griddles in the streets, grinding their meal in handmills; the sword grinders, whetting the blades of the Maratha two-edged swords; the barbers, whose shops had a never-ending succession of customers; the Brahmans, almost naked and shaved bald save for a small tuft at the back of the head; the sellers of madi, a toddy extracted from the cocoanut palm; the magicians in their shawls, with high stiff red cap, painted all over with snakes; the humped bullocks that were employed as beasts of burden, and when not in use roamed the streets untended; occasionally the basawa, the sacred bull of Siva, the destroyer, and the rath {car} carrying the sacred rat of Ganessa. But with familiarity such scenes lost their charm; and as the months passed away Desmond felt more and more the gnawing of care at his heart, the constant sadness of a slave.
[Chapter 11]: In which the Babu tells the story of King Vikramaditya; and the discerning reader may find more than appears on the surface.
Day followed day in dreary sameness. Regularly every evening Desmond was locked with his eight fellow prisoners in the shed, there to spend hours of weariness and discomfort until morning brought release and the common task. He had the same rations of rice and ragi {a cereal}, with occasional doles of more substantial fare. He was carefully kept from all communication with the other European prisoners, and as the Bengali was the only man of his set who knew English, his only opportunities of using his native tongue occurred in the evening before he slept.
His fellow prisoners spoke Urdu among themselves, and Desmond found some alleviation of the monotony of his life in learning the lingua franca of India under the Babu's tuition. He was encouraged to persevere in the study by the fact that the Babu proved to be an excellent storyteller, often beguiling the tedium of wakeful hours in the shed by relating interminable narratives from the Hindu mythology, and in particular the exploits of the legendary hero Vikramaditya. So accomplished was he in this very oriental art that it was not uncommon for one or other of the sentries to listen to him through the opening in the shed wall, and the head warder who locked the prisoners' fetters would himself sometimes squat down at the door before leaving them at night, and remain an interested auditor until the blast of a horn warned all in the fort and town that the hour of sleep had come. It was some time before Desmond was sufficiently familiar with the language to pick up more than a few words of the stories here and there, but in three months he found himself able to follow the narrative with ease.
Meanwhile he was growing apace. The constant work in the open air, clad, save during the rains, in nothing but a thin dhoti {a cloth worn round the waist, passed between the legs and tucked in behind the back}, developed his physique and, even in that hot climate, hardened his muscles. The Babu one day remarked with envy that he would soon be deemed worthy of promotion to Angria's own gallivat, whose crew consisted of picked men of all nationalities.
This was an honor Desmond by no means coveted. As a dockyard workman, earning his food by the sweat of his brow, he did not come in contact with Angria, and was indeed less hardly used than he had been on board the Good Intent. But to become a galley slave seemed to him a different thing, and the prospect of pulling an oar in the Pirate's gallivat served to intensify his longing to escape.
For, though he proved so willing and docile in the dockyard, not a day passed but he pondered the idea of escape. He seized every opportunity of learning the topography of the fort and town, being aided in this unwittingly by Govinda, who employed him more and more often, as he became familiar with the language, in conveying messages from one part of the settlement to another. But he was forced to confess to himself that the chances of escape were very slight. Gheria was many miles from the nearest European settlement where he might find refuge. To escape by sea seemed impossible; if he fled through the town and got clear of Angria's territory he would almost certainly fall into the hands of the Peshwa's {the prime minister and real ruler of the Maratha kingdom} people, and although the Peshwa was nominally an ally of the Company, his subjects--a lawless, turbulent, predatory race--were not likely to be specially friendly to a solitary English lad. A half-felt hope that he might be able to reach Suwarndrug, lately captured by Commodore James, was dashed by the news that that fort had been handed over by him to the Marathas. Moreover, such was the rivalry among the various European nations competing for trade in India that he was by no means sure of a friendly reception if he should succeed in gaining a Portuguese or Dutch settlement. Dark stories were told of Portuguese dealings with Englishmen, and the Dutch bore no good repute for their treatment of prisoners.
It was a matter of wonder to Desmond that none of his companions ever hinted at escape. He could not imagine that any man could be a slave without feeling a yearning for liberty; yet these men lived through the unvarying round; eating, toiling, sleeping, without any apparent mental revolt. He could only surmise that all manliness and spirit had been crushed out of them, and from motives of prudence he forbore to speak of freedom.
But one evening, a sultry August evening when the shed was like an oven, and, bathed in sweat, he felt utterly limp and depressed, he asked the Babu in English whether anyone had ever escaped out of Angria's clutches. Surendra Nath Chuckerbutti glanced anxiously around, as if fearful that the others might understand. But they lay listless on their charpoys; they knew no English, and there was nothing in Desmond's tone to quicken their hopelessness.