Madam,—At last I enjoy the felicity of assuring Mrs Hurstwood that our fleet leaves Madrass to-morrow, carrying with it Colonel Clive and his army. The continual delays interposed by the arrogant pretensions of certain unqualified persons have, alas! operated in a manner extremely opposed to the wishes of all concerned, so that whereas, by sailing when the news of the Calcutta calamity first reached us, we might have made the mouth of the Ganges in eight days, we must now consider ourselves fortunate to do it in as many weeks, which all adds to the cruel loss of time that has took place. I entreat you to believe, madam, that I am fully sensible of the deep anxiety you will lie under as to the progress of our campaign, since Mr Hurstwood has insisted on carrying you from Fulta to Madrass in hopes of procuring your recovery, and I leave this billet behind me to greet your arrival, and to assure you that I’ll do my best to keep you acquainted of all that passes bearing any reference to the affairs of the lady who is our common care. You’ll perhaps, madam, think me too cheerful in my anticipations, but (I don’t know why) I can’t bring myself to believe that my part in this expedition will be limited to avenging my adored Miss Freyne. Is it impious to suppose that Heaven would interfere to protect, even by miracle, a creature of such transcendent excellence? and in that case, might not mine be the inexpressible joy and honour of restoring the most adorable of created beings to the arms of the friend whose merits alone approach hers? But, madam, I won’t raise your delicate spirits too high with these delightful visions.—I am, &c.
CHAPTER XIV.
TELLS OF A VOYAGE ACCOMPLISHED FROM SCYLLA TO CHARYBDIS.
From Miss Sylvia Freyne to Miss Amelia Turnor.
Muxadavad, End of September 1756.
At last I find myself once more able to take up a pen for the purpose of writing to my Amelia, but how vastly different is my situation from any that she has yet been made acquainted with! My last letter was scribbled on my knee in the chamber at Fort William where I sat watching by my papa’s side, and was handed to Mr Hurstwood to be conveyed on board the ships. Whether it has ever reached my dear girl I know as little as whether her eye will ever rest on this. To write some account of what has befallen our factory and my wretched self is an exercise that offers me the pleasing prospect of a moment’s forgetfulness of my present situation, and to write it in the form of a letter to my dear Miss Turnor is only just, in view of the compact entered into between us before we parted. To say that I have neither the means nor even the hope of advancing the epistle towards its destination might seem to pronounce it a sad waste of time to write it, but since the Moors (they say) preserve with the most scrupulous care imaginable any piece of written paper they may find, lest it should chance to bear upon it the name of Alla, it may happen that some scrap of this letter may yet reach the hands of my Amelia Turnor, and serve to shed a little light both upon the destruction of our Calcutta settlement, and upon the fate of the unhappy Sylvia Freyne. But if this is to be the case, I must set down in order the whole history of our calamities.
(Here follows the narrative incorporated into chapter xii.)
How long this merciful swoon lasted, which rendered me insensible alike to the horrors of the prison and the miserable deaths of my best friends, I don’t know, but on recovering my senses I found myself laid on a native bedstead in an apartment which I took to be the cabin of a boat, since I could see the shining of water reflected upon the roof through the checks at the sides. The only other person in the chamber was a female wrapped in a blue cloth and seated in a corner. Rising when she found my eyes fastened upon her, I saw her to be an elderly Moorwoman, decently but poorly clothed.
“Salam, Beebee!” says she in Moors (which is as much as to say, Your ladyship’s humble servant), approaching me with an air of great timidity and respect.
“Where am I?” I said, putting my hand to my head, for I was in the strangest state of mind, my dear, conscious that something terrible had taken place, but knowing no more what it was than if I had been dead. I remembered nothing; I suppose I could not have declared my own name had I been asked it. My eye fell on my clothes,—they were torn to rags, frightfully soiled, and stained with blood. I lifted my arms,—they were covered with bruises, and the knuckles and elbows grazed. My hair hung in a great mat, all rough and dishevelled, and I had the notion that there was something relating to it that I could not recollect. It had to do with my pocket, surely, and turning with difficulty, I pulled out a cap and a parcel of hairpins, tied round with two or three ribbons. Then I remembered everything—the Captain’s disguising me, my papa’s death, our being hurried into the black hole of the Fort, and the awful night that we passed in that horrid prison. Reaching this point, my spirits could no longer endure the recollections that came crowding upon ’em, and I burst into a passion of sobs and tears that seemed as if it could never cease, so that the old woman, who stood patiently by, became alarmed, and sought to quiet me.
“Alas, Beebee,” she said, “why should a young lady of your fine prospects indulge yourself in such transports of grief? ’Tis true you have been roughly used, but you was fated to undergo a short trial, that it might bring you the greater felicity thereafter. Your slave has no such hope, and has lost more than you, but she bows to the decrees of fate.”