“If you can’t speak truth, my good woman, at least try to talk sense,” said I, and tearing my gown from her hold, left her, for I was prodigiously vexed to find that she had devised all this scene in Sinzaun’s interest, and was seeking to bend me to his will lest, forsooth, he should misconceive my motives! You’ll agree with me, Amelia, that Sinzaun’s opinion would be the last in the world to weigh with me in considering any matter of right or wrong.
June ye 5th.
I have a strange thing to tell my dear girl this evening. Happening to be in the house for greater coolness during the heat of the day, I found myself not far from the small barred window of which I have spoken before, and hearing a great uproar and noise of voices in the street, went to look out. Below me was a palanqueen attended with several servants. One of the bearers had chanced to fall, and received some hurt, and the rest were scolding and consoling him by turns, while the palanqueen rested on the ground. As I watched, one of the checks was withdrawn a little way, and a face looked out. It was the face of a European, Amelia, an Englishman, if I don’t mistake—an elderly person of respectable appearance. That was all I could see, for the servant that seemed the chief over the rest—a Moorman, but with a turbant such as the Tartars wear, having the puckery twisted round a high pointed cap instead of a small round one—pulled back the check with an extreme haste and violence, and rebuking the bearers for their confusion, bade them take up the palanqueen again. Hearing Misery approaching, I durst not remain at the window, but at least I had gained something on which to meditate. There’s one Englishman, then, left in India—a prisoner, questionless, from the secrecy and severity with which he was secluded, but not used apparently with any great harshness. Sure he might help me in some way, if only I could get speech of him. But how to reach him, since I am secluded at least as rigorously as he? I have passed my time to-day devising a thousand plans, all suggested by this extraordinary event, for opening communications with my fellow-captive, but since he don’t know of my existence, nor I of his place of confinement, and since I can neither leave this house nor find a trusty messenger, I have been forced to reject my designs one by one, as each more wild and extravagant than the last. And to-night, as Misery is just come to tell me, Sinzaun purposes to do himself the honour of paying me a visit. Oh, Amelia, this unfinished sheet may prove to contain my last farewell to you.
June ye 7th.
My sentence is pronounced, Amelia, and your poor friend is now like no one so much as the criminal in Newgate, who knows that the day is his last. I was still writing the words with which my letter of yesterday closed, when I became sensible that there were eyes regarding me, and looking up, I found Sinzaun standing in the doorway. The start I gave on seeing him there almost overturned the smoky native lamp by the light of which I was writing, but I saved it in time to prevent the destruction of my papers, while he complimented me on the assiduity I showed in keeping up a correspondence with my friend. I put up my writing implements hastily, my sole anxiety being to bring the hateful interview to a close, and for this once Sinzaun appeared inclined to second my efforts.
“May I take it that Clarissa has done me the honour to turn over in her mind the proposition I submitted to her at our last meeting?” he asked.
“I have considered of the matter carefully, sir.”
“And may I hope she’ll condescend to make me the happiest of men?”
“I’m sure, sir, I wish you happiness, but I won’t marry you.”
“No, madam? and yet I offer you such advantages of wealth, situation, dress, and jewellery, as would tempt the gross of women.”