“They’re setting guards to watch the house, sir,” says Mr Ranger, “so as to allow no one to enter unperceived.”
“This might have been serious a week ago,” said Mr Watts, “but now——”
“Sir,” said Mr Fraser on a sudden, “I must ask your pardon for correcting what you said a moment back, but the lady that Moneloll seeks is in the house.”
“In the house, sir? Where?”
“In the godown at the back of the courtyard, close to the small door, sir.”
“And you choose this moment, sir, when all our lives hang upon a thread, and spies among our servants are watching not only our motions, but our looks and words, to embroil me with the Nabob for the sake of a half-cast wench?”
“Sir! the lady is she of whom I told you, who survived the fall of Calcutta.”
“Pray, Mr Fraser, remember I warned you that I could not listen to any account of your aspirations in coming here. Still, you have set the affair in a better light, and kept me from handing the woman back at once to the Nabob, as I was about to do. But if I may presume to ask it, what’s your object in bringing her here?”
“To procure for her your protection, sir, and the means of rejoining her friends.”
“And this when every foot of the way to Calcutta swarms with enemies! Perhaps you en’t aware, sir, that to-morrow you’re to repair to Maudipore with Dr Dacre and Mr Ranger, in order to be ready should I be compelled to quit Mucksadabad suddenly. Pray, is the lady to go with you or remain here with me? How, pray, do you hope to convey her to Calcutta? Sure you had better have left her where she was.”