Like Another Helen

by Sydney C. Grier

“Have I asked your opinion on the matter, sir?” says Mr Watts.

“Why, no, sir; but the hand is far liker Mr Fisherton’s than the Admiral’s.”

“You’ll oblige me infinitely if you’ll hold your tongue, sir,” said Mr Watts very angrily, as Omichund was brought in.

I did hold my tongue, for the business was none of mine, but I can’t help being persuaded that Colonel Clive and the Council have devised some plan for hoodwinking Omichund with a false copy of the treaty, which they have not dared to ask the Admiral to sign. There’s something ironically suitable, questionless, in the old deceiver’s being thus deceived; yet I can’t but regret that a body of Britons should voluntarily decline to his pagan level in order to get the better of him. The device, whatever it may be, succeeded so far that he departed satisfied; but he has since exhibited fresh apprehensions, and Mr Watts is doing his best to induce him to return to Calcutta with Mr Scrafton, under colour of removing him out of danger, but this kind solicitude is perpetually defeated by Omichund himself, whose avarice forbids him to leave Muxidavad until he has recovered certain further sums due to him, thus continuing from day to day our anxiety as to his intentions.

Mr Watts, meanwhile, continues with the greatest coolness imaginable to attend the Durbar, as though he were not in danger of being denounced as one of those who are plotting to dethrone and kill the Nabob, and is received with varying favour. Since the visit I described to you, madam, I have not attended at Court, but while waiting upon Mr Watts to the Kella, have remained in one of the anterooms until his business was finished, and there I have to-day met with a notion that I hope to employ for the rescue of our dear Miss Freyne. Waiting among the Nabob’s inferior courtiers, I observed that some of these were passing the time by listening to a person that appeared to be relating an improving history of some sort. Mr Watts’ mounshy being with me, I invited him to interpret what was said, and this the story-teller took as an extraordinary great compliment, and told his tale with an eye to me, pausing between the sentences in order to leave the interpreter time. I’ll own that I was not a little disappointed at first with the narrative, which contained none of those wonders that the Easterns are wont to import into their romances. To be brief, madam, it concerned a vizier that had robbed the king his master, and was sentenced to be imprisoned without food or water in the topmost apartment of a lofty tower, there to starve to death. But happening to possess a faithful wife, the lady came by night to the foot of the tower, and desired, weeping, to know how she might gratify her unlucky spouse. “Why, my dear,” says he, “you may save me if you will.” The lady on this dried her tears, and requested the vizier’s commands. “To-morrow night,” says he, “bring here a beetle, some butter, a skein of silk, a ball of twine, and a long and stout rope, and I’ll show you how to employ ’em.” The lady came punctually the next night, bringing with her the desired articles, and at her spouse’s direction placed a small lump of butter on the head of the beetle, and fastened the end of the silk about its body, setting the insect on the wall of the tower as high up as she could reach. The beetle, discovering by the odour of the butter that there was a feast in the neighbourhood, which it judged to be somewhere in advance of itself, crawled up the side of the tower, led on perpetually by the fallacious delight, and came at last into the hand of the vizier, who unfastened the silk from its body, and desired his lady to attach the end of the twine to that of the skein. Pulling up the silk, he then obtained possession of the twine, by the means of which he next drew up the rope, and, fastening it to a pillar of his apartment, descended the tower in safety. This conclusion was much applauded by the audience, and I desired the mounshy to make my compliments to the narrator, which appeared to gratify those who stood round, though it had surprised them prodigiously to guess to what a degree the fellow had really obliged me.

In order that you, madam, may understand my gratification, you must know that Mirza Shaw and I have been seriously disturbed this three weeks by the difficulty of throwing a rope (of a size sufficient to be safe to descend by) from the ground to the roof of a house without making such a clatter as to rouse the whole neighbourhood, even though we had succeeded in opening communications with Miss Freyne. The notion of a grapnel we have been forced to relinquish, owing to the tumbledown and uncertain state of the parapets even in the best houses here, which might involve us in a serious catastrophe should the wall break away. But with the new plan suggested by the tale I had heard it seemed to me that I saw my course marked out, and I opened my mind to the Tartar as soon as we were returned to the house and I could catch him alone. He did not accept my proposition with that eagerness I had anticipated, but I perceived that this was because he was piqued that the suggestion did not come from himself.

“Sure you’ve forgot the situation of the place, Siab,” says he. “The sight of two men carrying such a paraphernalia will rouse the whole quarter against us.”

“Why, as to that,” said I, “we must have the rope of silk, and I’ll wind it round me under my coat.”

“If you look to see your Beeby touch a beetle with her fingers, and fasten a rope so as ’twill be safe, and then consent to descend by it, you’re a rash man, Siab.”

“The lady will forget her feminine fears in such a case,” said I. “We must trust her to fasten the rope safe, and as soon as that’s done I’ll ascend it and lower her down.”