“God is great! What is written is written: the sahib has his servant’s life in his hands,” replied the man—who, like the greater portion of Mahomed’s subjects, was a Mussulman.
“Well, that’s cool,” replied Martin; “but,” he added, “will you honestly answer any questions I may put to you, if we promise to save your life?”
“Sahib,” he replied, “a dead man is of no use to his family.”
“No,” interrupted my brother, laughing; “that is a fact, no doubt.”
“Then, by the head of the Prophet and my hopes of Paradise, I will answer the sahib truly.”
“Is your rascally chief, Mahomed, dead?”
“Sahib, no, but severely wounded, yet not so badly that he cannot direct the attacks upon you here.”
“Why did this young chief, the son of a man so friendly to us, seek to encompass our deaths so treacherously?”
“Because, while the sahibs and the Captain Prabu were in the capital, a Dutch ship came whose captain offered him a great reward in silver, as also the prahu, its guns and cargo, if he would deliver into his hand a certain Captain Prabu.”
“But why did the Dutch want the Captain Prabu? what harm has he done them?” asked our leader himself.