And she departed, while Captain Colquhoun and my papa went off together on foot, but not without arming two of the peons with swords and shields, and bidding ’em keep guard in front of the house, to quiet my apprehensions. The time passed without alarm, save in your Sylvia’s foolish bosom, as she divided her attention between scribbling a few words to her Amelia and listening fearfully to every chance sound. The gentlemen returned late, and not in the best of humours, though they had gone straight to Mr Holwell, and obtaining an order from him, had entered the old woman’s abode and found her at home. She made no difficulty about confessing that she had placed the billet on my table, but professed herself unable to say from whom she had received it. ’Twas a tall European gentleman, speaking the Moors language, she declared, but she should never know him again, for all Europeans are alike. (So the Indians say, Amelia, which is very odd to us, since we find it next to impossible to distinguish one of themselves from another.) Leaving a guard over the woman’s house, Mr Freyne and the Captain went to Mr Drake, and were very urgent with him to expel her from the bounds of the settlement at once. But (said my papa) the President, retiring for a moment in the course of the discussion, must have sought and received counsel from Mrs Drake, for he came back to say that he understood the female to be a useful adviser in cases of sickness, and not to be dispensed with by the ladies of the factory, so that he would content himself on this occasion with cautioning her, and promising that in case of repeating her offence she should be drove out of our bounds with ignominy. And this it was that had vexed the two gentlemen, as well it might, to find themselves mocked by a wicked person and his degraded instrument. But your Sylvia, the unhappy cause of all this pother, welcomed their return with delight, her mind having devised a new terror for itself in their absence.
“Do you think it possible, dear sir,” I said to my papa, “that this wicked man can be the Nabob himself?”
“What, and speak French like a Frenchman, and pass for a European?” cried Mr Freyne. “No, miss, I don’t. By all we hear, Surajah Dowlah is black for a Moor, and speaks no civilised language. But what then?”
“Only this, sir, that—that if this person should unhappily possess the power to carry out the cruel threats he utters in this letter, I thought—it might—might be my duty——”
“To oblige him?” cried Mr Freyne, with a strong word. “Sure the fellow has gauged your constitution monstrous skilfully, miss.”
“Oh pray, dear sir, don’t wrong your girl so far as to think such a measure would be agreeable to her. But to save the entire factory——”
“The entire factory may go hang before my girl saves it in any such style, and there’s an end of the matter!” cried my papa.
“Sure you’re no Roman papa, dear sir, or you would instantly sacrifice your daughter for the good of the State.”
“No, miss, I en’t a Roman papa, nor an Agamemnon neither, to sacrifice my daughter for any cause, whether on account of my own fault (though the Captain do always cast it in my teeth) or of the State’s.”
“Indeed, sir,” says Captain Colquhoun, “I’m in the fullest accordance with you here. Miss don’t perceive that this is the wretch’s artfullest touch, to endeavour to lure her away by the hope of benefiting the Presidency, knowing that this will be to ruin her through the finest motions of her nature. ’Tis a flattering testimony to you, madam, though it speaks little for the fellow that uses it. As to his power to carry out his menaces, I don’t think it need alarm you. He would scarce brag of it if he meant to use it.”