Like Another Helen

by Sydney C. Grier

CHAPTER XI.
SHOWING HOW THE FLOOD CAME.

June ye 8th.

Oh, my dear, Cossimbuzar is fallen without striking a blow, and if all be true that we hear, Surajah Dowlah is already marching on Calcutta! Mr Dash came in just after I had finished writing to you this morning, and related the dreadful history to my papa, as he had heard it from being in the vicinity of the council-chamber when the letters arrived. On the 1st of this month, the very day that our rulers despatched their humiliating arasdass from Calcutta, the Nabob sent three Jemindars and Radjbullobdass, the father of Kissendasseat, to hold a parley with Mr Watts, who told them, in spite of the objections of his own officers, that he would trust himself with them if the Nabob would send him a beetle. This is with the Indians a sign of ceremony and friendship, for they wrap this beetle, which is called pawn,[01] in some sort of leaves, and chew it. I don’t doubt but my Amelia, on hearing of this disgusting custom, will unite with me in thinking that to polite minds it would be more agreeable to dispense with both the sign and the friendship. However, the beetle was sent on a silver plate, and Mr Watts, following the meek example of our Council here, humbled himself so far as to enter the Soubah’s presence with his hands across and tied round with a puckery,[02] which is the strip of stuff that the Moors twist into their turbants. That Surajah Dowlah was not to be disarmed by this show of humility the poor gentleman quickly discovered, for he was at once threatened with death for his offering such a hardy resistance, and was only saved by the mediation of the son of the duan Huckembeg, who told the Nabob that Mr Watts was a good sort of a man, that was come at great peril to embrace his footsteps. Whether ’twas the threats or the mediation I don’t know, but Mr Watts was so strangely affected that he forthwith signed a mulchilca,[03] which is an instrument enforced by a penalty, by which he not only surrendered his own factory of Cossimbuzar, but also pledged the Council here to demolish their fortifications, as well the old as the new, within a fortnight, to give up those of the Nabob’s subjects they were protecting against him, and to resign the privileges anciently granted to the Company with respect to dussticks by making good the losses the Soubah had sustained through them. Seeing their chief in the enemy’s power, the garrison of Cossimbuzar felt constrained to fulfil his covenant, and admitted the Moorish army, who treated the unhappy gentlemen with such detestable cruelty that Ensign Elliott, who commanded the military, shot himself in a frenzy of shame. May Heaven pardon the poor man this rash act! Alas, there may be others that will need the same pardon before very long.

Momentous though this news be, ’twas not all that Mr Dash had to tell. Lowering his voice, he asked Mr Freyne with an air of becoming reserve whether it was true that a gentleman of this place had been detected in supplying information to the Nabob. To this my papa replied that he had often heard hints to the effect that some such treachery must be at work, but he had received no word of its having been brought home to any one in particular; and the young gentleman went away disappointed. Shortly after his departure we heard a great beating of drums from the direction of the Fort, which threw me into a prodigious fright lest the Soubah’s army should be already approaching the town. But Mr Freyne sending out one of the servants to ask what might be the cause of the noise, we learned that the President, who, it appears, has at length mustered courage to offer a resistance to the demands of the Nabob, was summoning all the inhabitants to the Esplanade[04] before the Fort, in order to concert measures for defence. Upon this Mr Freyne ordered his chaise, and while arming himself with sword and pistols, was so good as to offer to carry me with him to see the muster, if I chose. My Amelia will guess that I flew to change my gown at once, for I felt an extraordinary anxiety to see how the Council would bear themselves in this alarming situation; but fastened to my pincushion I discovered something that diverted the course of my thoughts altogether. It was a billet like that I had found on my table before, but folded smaller, and superscribed “Lewis to Clarissa” in French. Inside it was wrote, also in French:—

“It is with the most poignant anguish that the unhappy lover quits the vicinity of the coldest and most charming of women, to whom he has ventured to offer the incense of his unavailing adoration. When a more propitious fate shall place him next at the feet of his goddess, it may be that apprehension for her own safety may serve better to melt Clarissa’s icy heart than pity for her slave has succeeded in doing, and that she’ll see fit to grant him those tokens of her favour which his humble passion has never ceased to entreat.”

The menacing style of this message filled me with alarm, but remembering that the writer announced his departure, and that ’twas possible he might never return, I took courage after a moment. Otherwise, I could not but feel apprehensive in the extreme to discover that the person whom Mrs Freyne had revealed as the apostate Sinzaun should still be seeking to enter into communications with me. This Sinzaun, I must inform my dear girl, is a most notorious renegade Frenchman, who is not only a trusted leader of the Nabob’s army, having the management of his train of artillery, but also the vilest of his boon companions in time of peace. His skill had not been needed in the Cossimbuzar matter, but now he was questionless returned to lead his master’s forces against Calcutta. I carried the wretch’s billet to my papa, who read it with great anger; and I ventured to put a question that had troubled me more than once since the day before.

“Had you been sensible, dear sir, who the bold enquirer was that demanded your daughter, and known that he had, as he claimed, the power to save the factory from the Soubah’s vengeance, would you have chose to oblige him?”

“I’m afraid,” says my dear papa, “that my Sylvia Freyne believes me either a coward or a fool. Even had I been base enough to deliver up my daughter to the ruffian’s demands, what security have I that the rogue would keep his word, and not take the girl first and the place afterwards?”

This view of the matter had not occurred to me, and I’ll own that it relieved me from the apprehension I had felt that it might be my duty to sacrifice myself for the safety of Calcutta. Not, my dear, that I had clearly faced the possible necessity of such a shocking act, for I would not have you think me more heroical than I am, but that the dreadful notion had crossed my mind and reduced me almost to despair. Well, my papa and I rode to the Fort, and heard what Mr President had to say of the unexampled ingratitude and perfidy of the Nabob, and of the certainty that he and his army would be speedily crushed by the valour and readiness of the inhabitants of Calcutta. The five captains of the troops had given it as their opinion in writing that there was in the place an abundance both of arms, ammunition, and provisions, and a plan had been drawn out for constructing such additional defences as might reasonably be completed in a few days. But it was necessary that there should be men behind the defences, and therefore his honour trusted that every inhabitant of the place that was fit to bear arms would enrol himself immediately in the militia, and give unremitting attention to his drill until he was called upon to practise in war what he had been taught. This discourse of the President’s was very well received, though with less of excitement, I fancy, than he had anticipated; and all of the male sex present, gentlemen and common persons and Armenians and To-passes alike, made haste to give their names to those who were about to enrol ’em. It was now too late to do any more that evening, and after appointing a meeting of the new-raised militia for this morning, on the green to the south of the Fort, that they might begin to be instructed in their weapons, every one returned home.

The ordinary business of the place being quite at a standstill, Mr Freyne betook himself to-day after the early meal to the Park instead of his dufterconna, and brought home with him to breakfast Captain Colquhoun and Mr Holwell, who were deputed to ride to Perrins Gardens and see what might be done to restore the redoubt there, which was so foolishly dismantled in the panic of last week. Mrs Freyne pleading indisposition as an excuse for her absence, I was set in her place at the head of the table, and found that the gentlemen were not in the highest of spirits.