“Sure, Captain,” said my papa, “you wouldn’t have the Council adopt precipitately either one side or t’other?”
“Sir, they have had time enough to make up their minds, and all they have decided is that while they hope the winner will be the Begum, they fear ’twill be Surajah Dowlah. If they had sufficient courage to support their desires, they might turn the scale in the lady’s favour, or possessing a little enterprise, they might bind the Nabob securely to their side; but they’ll do neither.”
“But, Captain,” said Mr Dash, “you would not have the Council embark on such enterprises as have brought us so much trouble in the Carnatic?”
“I would have them strong enough to support the right side if they chose, or to defend themselves if they remained neuter,” said the Captain. “At present they can’t make up their minds what to do in a situation in which it’s equally fatal to act too soon and to act too late.”
“Like myself, sir, you believe the Presidency will delay to support the young Nabob till too late, and then seek to curry favour with him?”
“Just so, sir; and the ladies and gentlemen here will be eating and drinking, and buying and selling, and marrying and giving in marriage, until the very day that the flood comes, and sweeps us all away.”
“Oh, fie, Captain! you’re alarming Miss. En’t you ashamed to have made the fairest cheek in Calcutta grow pale?”
“Miss is no more alarmed than you are, sir,” says Mr Freyne. “She has heard the Captain’s prophecies before.”
This turned the laugh against the Captain, who sat looking vastly stern and grim, and not a whit shaken in his predictions.
“The flood will sweep us all away,” he repeated, “and ’tis well it should. The luxury of our people is grown to an excessive pitch.”