“Do you perceive, Beebee, that the slightest movement will bring destruction on your slave and also on Mr George?”
“Yes, I understand, and nothing shall persuade me to move or speak. You can’t think that I would sacrifice my only hope of escape, to say nothing of the persons that are befriending me.”
“Be it so, Beebee. From this moment, then, don’t speak above a whisper. You are dying, remember.”
But indeed, Amelia, I had not felt so much alive since my misfortunes had commenced. The finding myself confronted with the possibility of an honourable escape, and freed also from those pangs of remorse that had beset me for Misery’s sake, forbade me to sleep, and I must have passed hours in anticipating to myself every the minutest particular of the morrow’s enterprise. But this excitement also worked well for Misery’s plans, for towards morning it was succeeded with a heavy stupor, in which I lay as one dead. During this period of insensibility the poor woman contrived to effect a prodigious amount, for on my waking I found her seated on the floor beside me, not engaged in lamentations, but watching eagerly for my opening my eyes, in order to tell me of the success she had met with.
“Your slave has settled everything, Beebee,” she said, so eager as not to wait for me to address her first. “There’s but one thing fallen out different from what we planned, and that is, that Mr George is departed with his new-married lady to his house in Dacca, but his brother, Mr Gregory, who received my message instead, recognised in me the healer of his father, and will entertain us when we escape, and provide for our forwarding to Dacca, where you’ll questionless be able to obtain shelter on board a Europe ship, lying hid in Mr George’s house until the chance offer itself. The Jemmautdar and his soldiers believe you dead, for I departed so far from my duty as your attendant as to permit the chief rascal to peep in at the door, and see you lying stretched and stiff upon your bed, and he fancies that I landed when we reached Santipore merely in order to hire some hallicores”[03] (these are persons of low cast), “to carry away your body. In that he was right, Beebee, but those persons will be servants of Mr Gregory in disguise, and they will carry you to the Armenians’ garden on the outskirts of the place, where they bury such Christians as die here. There a palanqueen will be in waiting, with relays of bearers, which will set off at once with you and your slave, to carry us to another branch of the river, where a boat will be ordered to be ready on which we may drift down the stream to Dacca. This will mean an increase of the length of our voyage, but my Beebee won’t care for that, since ’tis to end in freedom.”
“You’re right, indeed. How shall I ever repay you, Misery, for your faithfulness to an unhappy alien, who can’t even reward you with money?”
“Sure the applause of your slave’s conscience will be her reward, Beebee. And now let your slave entreat you to speak no more, and to remain lying stiffly, as you was just now, lest any of the soldiers should be so profane as to peep in. The bearers won’t arrive till sunset, and there’s more than an hour to that yet. We must travel all night to reach the Dacca river.”
“Tell me only one thing, Misery. How did the Jemmautdar take the news of my death?”
“Indeed, Beebee, he swore in an extraordinary manner at first, and cursed the day he was born; but on your slave’s reminding him that the event was ordered by the decrees of fate, he became calmer, and is now engaged with his hooker.”
Thus satisfied that the Jemmautdar would not be drove to any rash courses by my evasion, I turned my mind for the next hour to the business of remaining still; and, indeed, my dear girl won’t know how vastly hard it is to lie perfectly quiet until she has done it knowing that the slightest movement may bring ruin not only on herself but on her humble friends. After a time Misery brought out a great parcel of cotton cloths, and wrapped me in them, over my own clothes, fastening my arms to my side, and swathing my head, in particular, so tight that I could neither see nor hear anything, nor scarcely breathe. Knowing that she took these precautions for fear of any rash or undesigned movement on my part I durst not protest, lest she should again urge upon me the drug (to which I was resolved not to submit, since who could tell into whose hands I might fall when in that state?), and resigned myself to enjoying only just so much air as would keep me alive. Presently I was sensible that the bedstead on which I lay was being lifted and carried along, and hearing sounds as though from a great distance, I guessed that the soldiers were passing their ribald remarks upon my funeral. Two angry voices that pierced even my wrappings I determined to be those of the Jemmautdar and Misery—she demanding, at first in an obsequious manner, but later with much warmth, some reward for her services such as might enable her to return to Calcutta; he declaring that she might be thankful to escape with her own life after her carelessness in suffering me to die. But in a break in their wrangling there reached me another voice, which must surely have made me forget my promise to Misery if I had been able to speak or move, for it cried out in English, “What, dead? Poor maid, poor maid! But one can see as how it’s best for her.” This English voice filled me with the strongest excitement, for I had heard no English spoken on board the boat, nor had Misery told me of any English person there, but after my first surprise I remembered my part sufficiently to make no attempt to stir. My bier was carried for some distance, passing, as I judged, through the town, and was then suddenly set upon the ground, when I was raised from it, and placed, as I guessed, in a palanqueen of the French or native style, which was immediately put in motion, even before Misery, who accompanied me, could begin to unwrap the cloths that swathed me.