Chapter 18

presents him to a native prince.

About midday a light breeze sprang up from the northwest. The two Indiamen and the uninjured grab, being the first to catch it, gained a full mile before the Good Intent, under topgallant sails, studding sails, royal and driver, began to slip through the water at her best speed. But, as the previous day's experience had proved, she was no match in sailing capacity for the pursuers. They gained on her steadily, and the grab had come almost within cannon range when the man at the masthead shouted:

"Sail ho! About a dozen sail ahead, sir!"

The captain spluttered out a round dozen oaths, and his dark face grew still darker. So many vessels in company must surely mean the king's ships with a convoy. The French, so far as Captain Barker knew, had no such fleet in Indian waters, nor had the Dutch or Portuguese. If they were indeed British men-o'-war he would be caught between two fires, for there was not a doubt that they would support the Company's vessels.

"We ought to be within twenty miles of the coast, Mr. Toley," said Captain Barker.

"Ay, sir, and somewhere in the latitude of Gheria."

"Odds bobs, and now I come to think of it, those there vessels may be sailing to attack Gheria, seeing as how, as these niggers told us, they've bust up Suwarndrug."

"Guess I'll get to the foretop myself and take a look, sir," said Mr. Toley.

He mounted, carrying the only perspective glass the vessel possessed. The captain watched him anxiously as he took a long look.

"What do you make of 'em?" he shouted.

The mate shut up the telescope and came leisurely down.

"I count fifteen in all, sir."

"I don't care how many. What are they?"

"I calculate they're grabs and gallivats, sir."

The captain gave a hoarse chuckle.

"By thunder, then, we'll soon turn the tables! Angria's gallivats--eh, Mr. Toley? We'll make a haul yet."

But Captain Barker was to be disappointed. The fleet had been descried also by the pursuers. A few minutes later the grab threw out a signal, hauled her wind and stood away to the northward, followed closely by the two larger vessels. The captain growled his disappointment. Nearly a dozen of the coast craft, as they were now clearly seen to be, went in pursuit, but with little chance of coming up with the chase. The remaining vessels of the newly-arrived fleet stood out to meet the Good Intent.

"Fetch us that Maratha fellow," cried the captain, "and hoist a white flag."

When the Maratha appeared, a pitiable object, emaciated for want of food, Captain Barker bade him shout as soon as the newcomers came within hailing distance. The white flag at the masthead, and a loud, long-drawn hail from Hybati, apprised the grab that the Good Intent was no enemy, and averted hostilities. And thus it was, amid a convoy of Angria's own fleet, that Captain Barker's vessel, a few hours later, sailed peacefully into the harbor of Gheria.

Desmond looked with curious eyes on the famous fort and harbor. On the right, as the Good Intent entered, he saw a long, narrow promontory, at the end of which was a fortress, constructed, as it appeared, of solid rock. The promontory was joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus of sand, beyond which lay an open town of some size. The shore was fringed with palmyras, mangoes and other tropical trees, and behind the straw huts and stone buildings of the town leafy groves clothed the sides of a gentle hill.

The harbor, which forms the mouth of a river, was studded with Angria's vessels, large and small, and from the docks situated on the sandy isthmus came the busy sound of shipwrights at work. The rocky walls of the fort were fifty feet high, with round towers, long curtains, and some fifty embrasures. The left shore of the harbor was flat, but to the south of the fort rose a hill of the same height as the walls of rock. Such was the headquarters of the notorious pirate Tulaji Angria, the last of the line which had for fifty years been the terror of the Malabar coast.

The Good Intent dropped anchor off the jetty running out from the docks north of the fort. Captain Barker had already given orders that no shore leave was to be allowed to the crew, and as soon as he had stepped into the longboat, accompanied by Diggle, the men's discontent broke forth in angry imprecations, which Mr. Toley wisely affected not to hear.

No time was lost in unloading the portion of the cargo intended for Angria. The goods were carried along the jetty by stalwart Marathas clad only in loincloths, and stored in rude cabins with penthouse roofs. As Desmond knew, the heavy chests that taxed the strength of the bearers contained for the most part muskets and ammunition. The work went on for the greater part of the day, and at nightfall neither the captain nor Diggle had returned to the vessel.

Next day a large quantity of Indian produce was taken on board. Desmond noticed that as the bales and casks reached the deck, some of the crew were told off to remove all marks from them.

"What's that for?" repeated Bulger, in reply to a question of Desmond's. "Why, 'cos if the ship came to be overhauled by a Company's vessel, it would tell tales if the cargo had Company's marks on it. That wouldn't do by no manner o' means."

"But how should they get Company's marks on them?"

Bulger winked.

"You're raw yet, Burke," he said. "You'll know quite as much as is good for you by the time you've made another voyage or two in the Good Intent."

"But I don't intend to make another voyage in her. Mr. Diggle promised to get me employment in the country."

"What? You still believes in that there Diggle? Well, I don't want to hurt no feelin's, and I may be wrong, but I'll lay my bottom dollar Diggle won't do a hand's turn for you."

The second day passed, and in the evening Captain Barker, who had hitherto left Mr. Toley in charge, came aboard in high humor.

"I may be wrong," remarked Bulger, "but judgin' by cap'n's face, he've been an' choused the Pirate--got twice the valley o' the goods he's landed."

"I wonder where Mr. Diggle is?" said Desmond.

"You en't no call to mourn for him, I tell you. He's an old friend of the Pirate, don't make no mistake; neither you nor me will be any the worse for not seein' his grinnin' phiz no more. Thank your stars he've left you alone for the last part of the voyage, which I wonder at, all the same."

Next day all was bustle on board in preparation for sailing. In the afternoon a peon {messenger} came hurrying along the jetty, boarded the vessel, and handed a note to the captain, who read it, tore it up, and dismissed the messenger. He went down to his cabin, and coming up a few minutes later, cried:

"Where's that boy Burke?"

"Here, sir," cried Desmond, starting up from the place where, in Bulger's company, he had been splicing a rope.

"Idling away your time as usual, of course. Here, take this chit {note} and run ashore. 'Tis for Mr. Diggle, as you can see if you can read."

"But how am I to find him, sir?"

"Hang me, that's your concern. Find him, and give the chit into his own hand, and be back without any tomfoolery, or by thunder I'll lay a rope across your shoulders."

Desmond took the note, left the vessel, and hurried along the jetty. After what Bulger had said he was not very well pleased at the prospect of meeting Diggle again. At the shore end of the jetty he was accosted by the peon who had brought Diggle's note on board. The man intimated by signs that he would show the way, and Desmond, wondering why the Indian had not himself waited to receive Captain Barker's answer, followed him at a rapid pace on shore, past the docks, through a corner of the town where the appearance of a white stranger attracted the curious attention of the natives, to an open space in front of the entrance to the fort.

Here they arrived at a low wall cut by an open gateway, at each side of which stood a Maratha sentry armed with a matchlock. A few words were exchanged between Desmond's guide and one of the sentries; the two entered, crossed a compound dotted with trees, and passing through the principal gateway came to a large, square building near the center of the fort. The door of this was guarded by a sentry. Again a few words were spoken. Desmond fancied he saw a slight smile curl the lips of the natives; then the sentry called another peon who stood at hand, and sent him into the palace.

Desmond felt a strange sinking at heart. The smile upon these dark faces awakened a vague uneasiness; it was so like Diggle's smile. He supposed that the man had gone in to report that he had arrived with the captain's answer. The note still remained with him; the Marathas apparently knew that it was to be delivered personally; yet he was left at the door, and his guide stood by in an attitude that suggested he was on guard.

How long was he to be kept waiting? he wondered. Captain Barker had ordered him to return at once; the penalty for disobedience he knew only too well; yet the minutes passed, and lengthened into two hours without any sign of the man who had gone in with the message. Desmond spoke to the guide, but the man shook his head, knowing no English. Becoming more and more uneasy, he was at length relieved to see the messenger come back to the door and beckon him to enter. As he passed the sentries they made him a salaam in which his anxious sensitiveness detected a shade of mockery; but before he could define his feelings he reached a third door guarded like the others, and was ushered in.

He found himself in a large chamber, its walls dazzling with barbaric decoration--figures of Ganessa, a favorite idol of the Marathas, of monstrous elephants, and peacocks with enormously expanded tails. The hall was so crowded that his first confusion was redoubled. A path was made through the throng as at a signal, and at the end of the room he saw two men apart from the rest.

One of them, standing a little back from the other, was Diggle; the other, a tall, powerful figure in raiment as gaudy as the painted peacocks around him, his fingers covered with rings, a diamond blazing in his headdress, was sitting cross-legged on a dais. Behind him, against the wall, was an image of Ganessa, made of solid gold, with diamonds for eyes, and blazing with jewels. At one side was his hookah, at the other a two-edged sword and an unsheathed dagger. Below the dais on either hand two fierce-visaged Marathas stood, their heads and shoulders covered with a helmet, their bodies cased in a quilted vest, each holding a straight two-edged sword. Between Angria and the idol two fan bearers lightly swept the air above their lord's head with broad fans of palm leaves.

Desmond walked towards the dais, feeling woefully out of place amid the brilliant costumes of Angria's court. Scarcely two of the Marathas were dressed alike; some were in white, some in lilac, others in purple, but each with ornaments after his own taste. Desmond had not had time before leaving the Good Intent to smarten himself up, and he stood there a tall, thin, sunburnt youth in dirty, tattered garments, doing his best to face the assembly with British courage.

At the foot of the dais he paused and held out the captain's note. Diggle took it in silence, his face wearing the smile that Desmond knew so well and now so fully distrusted. Without reading it, he tore it in fragments and threw them upon the floor, at the same time saying a few words to the resplendent figure at his side.

Tulaji Angria was dark, inclined to be fat, and not unpleasant in feature. But it was with a scowling brow that he replied to Diggle. Desmond was no coward, but he afterward confessed that as he stood there watching the two faces, the dark, lowering face of Angria, the smiling, scarcely less swarthy face of Diggle, he felt his knees tremble under him. What was the Pirate saying? That he was the subject of their conversation was plain from the glances thrown at him; that he was at a crisis in his fate he knew by instinct; but, ignorant of the tongue they spoke, he could but wait in fearful anxiety and mistrust.

He learned afterwards the purport of the talk.

"That is your man?" said Angria. 'You have deceived me. I looked for a man of large stature and robust make, like the Englishmen I already have. What good will this slim, starved stripling be in my barge?"

"You must not be impatient, huzur {lord}," replied Diggle. "He is a stripling, it is true; slim, certainly; starved--well, the work on board ship does not tend to fatten a man. But give him time; he is but sixteen or seventeen years old, young in my country. In a year or two, under your regimen, he will develop; he comes of a hardy stock, and already he can make himself useful. He was one of the quickest and handiest on board our ship, though this was his first voyage."

"But you yourself admit that he is not yet competent for the oar in my barge. What is to recompense me for the food he will eat while he is growing? No, Diggle sahib, if I take him I must have some allowance off the price. In truth, I will not take him unless you send me from your vessel a dozen good muskets. That is my word."

"Still, huzur--" began Diggle, but Angria cut him short with a gesture of impatience.

"That is my word, I say. Shall I, Tulaji Angria, dispute with you? I will have twenty muskets, or you may keep the boy."

Diggle shrugged and smiled.

"Very well, huzur. You drive a hard bargain; but it shall be as you say. I will send a chit to the captain, and you shall have the muskets before the ship sails."

Angria made a sign to one of his attendants. The man approached Desmond, took him by the sleeve, and signed for him to come away. Desmond threw a beseeching look at Diggle, and said hurriedly:

"Mr. Diggle, please tell me--"

But Angria rose to his feet in wrath, and shouted to the man who had Desmond by the sleeve. Desmond made no further resistance. His head swam as he passed between the dusky ranks out into the courtyard.

"What does it all mean?" he asked himself.

His guide hurried him along until they came to a barn-like building under the northwest angle of the fort. The Maratha unlocked the door, signed to Desmond to enter, and locked him in. He was alone.

He spent three miserable hours. Bitterly did he now regret having cast in his lot with the smooth-spoken stranger who had been so sympathetic with him in his troubles at home. He tried to guess what was to be done with him. He was in Angria's power, a prisoner, but to what end? Had he run from the tyranny at home merely to fall a victim to a worse tyranny at the hands of an oriental? He knew so little of Angria, and his brain was in such a turmoil, that he could not give definite shape to his fears.

He paced up and down the hot, stuffy shed, awaiting, dreading, he knew not what. Through the hole that served for a window he saw men passing to and fro across the courtyard, but they were all swarthy, all alien; there was no one from whom he could expect a friendly word.

Toward evening, as he looked through the hole, he saw Diggle issue from the door of the palace and cross towards the outer gate.

"Mr. Diggle! Mr. Diggle!" he called. "Please! I am locked up here."

Diggle looked round, smiled, and leisurely approached the shed.

"Why have they shut me up here?" demanded Desmond. "Captain Barker said I was to return at once. Do get the door unlocked."

"You ask the impossible, my young friend," replied Diggle through the hole. "You are here by the orders of Angria, and 'twould be treason in me to pick his locks."

"But why? what right has he to lock me up? and you, why did you let him? You said you were my friend; you promised--oh, you know what you promised."

"I promised? Truly, I promised that, if you were bent on accompanying me to these shores, I would use my influence to procure you employment with one of my friends among the native princes. Well, I have kept my word; firmavi fidem, as the Latin hath it. Angria is my friend; I have used my influence with him; and you are now in the service of one of the most potent of Indian princes. True, your service is but beginning. It may be arduous at first; it may be long ab ovo usque ad mala; the egg may be hard, and the apples, perchance, somewhat sour; but as you become inured to your duties, you will learn resignation and patience, and--"

"Don't!" burst out Desmond, unable to endure the smooth-flowing periods of the man now self-confessed a villain. "What does it mean? Tell me plainly; am I a slave?"

"Servulus, non servus, my dear boy. What is the odds whether you serve Dick Burke, a booby farmer, or Tulaji Angria, a prince and a man of intelligence? Yet there is a difference, and I would give you a word of counsel. Angria is an oriental, and a despot; it were best to serve him with all diligence, or--"

He finished the sentence with a meaning grimace.

"Mr. Diggle, you can't mean it," said Desmond. "Don't leave me here! I implore you to release me. What have I ever done to you? Don't leave me in this awful place."

Diggle smiled and began to move away. At the sight of his malicious smile the prisoner's despair was swept away before a tempest of rage.

"You scoundrel! You shameless scoundrel!"

The words, low spoken and vibrant with contempt, reached Diggle when he was some distance from the shed. He turned and sauntered back.

"Heia! contumeliosae voces! 'Tis pretty abuse. My young friend, I must withdraw my ears from such shocking language. But stay! if you have any message for Sir Willoughby, your squire, whose affections you have so diligently cultivated to the prejudice of his nearest and dearest, it were well for you to give it. 'Tis your last opportunity; for those who enter Angria's service enjoy a useful but not a long career. And before I return to Gheria from a little journey I am about to make, you may have joined the majority of those who have tempted fate in this insalubrious clime. Horae momento cita mors yen it--you remember the phrase?"

Diggle leaned against the wooden wall, watching with malicious enjoyment the effect of his words. Desmond was very pale; all his strength seemed to have deserted him. Finding that his taunts provoked no reply, Diggle went on:

"Time presses, my young friend. You will be logged a deserter from the Good Intent. 'Tis my fervent hope you never fall into the hands of Captain Barker; as you know, he is a terrible man when roused."

Waving his gloved hand, he moved away. Desmond did not watch his departure. Falling back from the window, he threw himself upon the ground, and gave way to a long fit of black despair.

How long he lay in this agony he knew not. But he was at last roused by the opening of the door. It was almost dark. Rising to his feet, he saw a number of men hustled into the shed. Ranged along one of the walls, they squatted on the floor, and for some minutes afterwards Desmond heard the clank of irons and the harsh grating of a key. Then a big Maratha came to him, searched him thoroughly, clapped iron bands upon his ankles, and locked the chains to staples in the wall. Soon the door was shut, barred, and locked, and Desmond found himself a prisoner with eight others.

For a little they spoke among themselves, in the low tones of men utterly spent and dispirited. Then all was silent, and they slept. But Desmond lay wide awake, waiting for the morning.

The shed was terribly hot. Air came only through the one narrow opening, and before an hour was past the atmosphere was foul, seeming the more horrible to Desmond by contrast with the freshness of his life on the ocean. Mosquitoes nipped him until he could scarcely endure the intense irritation. He would have given anything for a little water; but though he heard a sentry pacing up and down outside, he did not venture to call to him, and could only writhe in heat and torture, longing for the dawn, yet fearing it and what it might bring forth.

Worn and haggard after his sleepless night, Desmond had scarcely spirit enough to look with curiosity on his fellow prisoners when the shed was faintly lit by the morning sun. But he saw that the eight men, all natives, were lying on crude charpoys {mat beds} along the wall, each man chained to a staple like his own. One of the men was awake; and, catching Desmond's lusterless eyes fixed upon him, he sat up and returned his gaze.

"Your Honor is an English gentleman?"

The words caused Desmond to start: they were so unexpected in such a place. The Indian spoke softly and carefully, as if anxious not to awaken his companions.

"Yes," replied Desmond. "Who are you?"

"My name, sir, is Surendra Nath Chuckerbutti. I was lately a clerk in the employ of a burra {great} sahib, English factor, at Calcutta."

"How did you get here?"

"That, sahib, is a moving tale. While on a visit of condolence to my respectable uncle and aunt at Chittagong, I was kidnapped by Sandarband piratical dogs. Presto!--at that serious crisis a Dutch ship makes apparition and rescues me; but my last state is more desperate than the first. The Dutch vessel will not stop to replace me on mother earth; she is for Bombay, across the kala pani {black water}, as we say. I am not a swimmer; besides, what boots it?--we are ten miles from land, to say nothing of sharks and crocodiles and the lordly tiger. So I perforce remain, to the injury of my caste, which forbids navigation. But see the issue. The Dutch ship is assaulted; grabs and gallivats galore swarm upon the face of the waters; all is confusion worse confounded; in a brace of shakes we are in the toils. It is now two years since this untoward catastrophe. With the crew I am conveyed hither and eat the bitter crust of servitude. Some of the Dutchmen are consigned to other forts in possession of the Pirate, and three serve here in his state barge."

Desmond glanced at the sleeping forms.

"No, sir, they are not here," said the Babu {equivalent to Mr.; applied by the English to the native clerk}, catching his look. "They share another apartment with your countrymen--chained? Oh, yes! These, my bedfellows of misfortune, are Indians, not of Bengal, like myself; two are Biluchis hauled from a country ship; two are Mussulmans from Mysore; one a Gujarati; two Marathas. We are a motley crew--a miscellany, no less."

"What do they do with you in the daytime?"

"I, sir, adjust accounts of the Pirate's dockyard; for this I am qualified by prolonged driving of quill in Calcutta, to expressed satisfaction of Honorable John Company and English merchants. But my position, sir, is of Damoclean anxiety. I am horrified by conviction that one small error of calculation will entail direst retribution. Videlicet, sir, this week a fellow captive is minus a finger and thumb--and all for oversight of six annas {the anna is the 16th part of a rupee}. But I hear the step of our jailer; I must bridle my tongue."

The Babu had spoken throughout in a low monotonous tone that had not disturbed the slumbers of his fellow prisoners. But they were all awakened by the noisy opening of the door and the entrance of their jailer. He went to each in turn, and unlocked their fetters; then they filed out in dumb submission, to be escorted by armed sentries to the different sheds where they fed, each caste by itself.

When the eight had disappeared the jailer turned to Desmond, and, taking him by the sleeve, led him across the courtyard into the palace. Here, in a little room, he was given a meager breakfast of rice; after which he was taken to another room where he found Angria in company with a big Maratha, who had in his hand a long bamboo cane. The Pirate was no longer in durbar {council, ceremonial} array, but was clad in a long yellow robe with a lilac-colored shawl.

Conscious that he made a very poor appearance in his tatters, Desmond felt that the two men looked at him with contempt. A brief conversation passed between them; then the Maratha salaamed to Angria and went from the room, beckoning Desmond to follow him. They went out of the precincts of the palace, and through a part of the town, until they arrived at the docks. There the laborers, slaves and free, were already at work. Desmond at the first glance noticed several Europeans among them, miserable objects who scarcely lifted their heads to look at this latest newcomer of their race. His guide called up one of the foremen shipwrights, and instructed him to place the boy among a gang of the workmen. Then he went away. Scarcely a minute had elapsed when Desmond heard a cry, and looking round, saw the man brutally belaboring with his rattan the bare shoulders of a native. He quivered; the incident seemed of ill augury.

In a few minutes Desmond found himself among a gang of men who were working at a new gallivat in process of construction for Angria's own use. He received his orders in dumb show from the foreman of the gang. Miserable as he was, he would not have been a boy if he had not been interested in his novel surroundings; and no intelligent boy could have failed to take an interest in the construction of a gallivat. It was a large rowboat of from thirty to seventy tons, with two masts, the mizzen being very slight. The mainmast bore one huge sail, triangular in form, its peak extending to a considerable height above the mast. The smaller gallivats were covered with a spar deck made of split bamboos, their armament consisting of pettararoes fixed on swivels in the gunwale. But the larger vessels had a fixed deck on which were mounted six or eight cannon, from two to four pounders; and in addition to their sail they had from forty to fifty oars, so that, with a stout crew, they attained a rate of four or five miles an hour.

One of the first things Desmond learned was that the Indian mode of ship building differed fundamentally from the European. The timbers were fitted in after the planks had been put together; and the planks were put together, not with flat edges, but rabbited, the parts made to correspond with the greatest exactness. When a plank was set up, its edge was smeared with red lead, and the edge of the plank to come next was pressed down upon it, the inequalities in its surface being thus shown by the marks of the lead. These being smoothed away, if necessary several times, and the edges fitting exactly, they were rubbed with da'ma, a sort of glue that in course of time became as hard as iron. The planks were then firmly riveted with pegs, and by the time the work was finished the seams were scarcely visible, the whole forming apparently one entire piece of timber.

The process of building a gallivat was thus a very long and tedious one; but the vessel when completed was so strong that it could go to sea for many years before the hull needed repair.

Desmond learned all this only gradually; but from the first day, making a virtue of necessity, he threw himself into the work and became very useful, winning the good opinion of the officers of the dockyard. His feelings were frequently wrung by the brutal punishments inflicted by the overseer upon defaulters. The man had absolute power over the workers. He could flog them, starve them, even cut off their ears and noses. One of his favorite devices was to tie a quantity of oiled cotton round each of a man's fingers and set light to these living torches.

Another, used with a man whom he considered lazy, was the tank. Between the dockyard and the river, separated from the latter only by a thin wall, was a square cavity about seven feet deep covered with boarding, in the center of which was a circular hole. In the wall was a small orifice through which water could be let in from the river, while in the opposite wall was the pipe and spout of a small hand pump. The man whom the overseer regarded as an idler was let down into the tank, the covering replaced, and water allowed to enter from the river. This was a potent spur to the defaulter's activity, for if he did not work the pump fast enough the water would gradually rise in the tank, and he would drown. Desmond learned of one case where the man, utterly worn out by his life of alternate toil and punishment, refused to work the pump and stood in silent indifference while the water mounted inch by inch until it covered his head and ended his woes.

Desmond's diligence in the dockyard pleased the overseer, whose name was Govinda, and he was by and by employed on lighter tasks which took him sometimes into the town. Until the novelty wore off he felt a lively interest in the scenes that met his eye--the bazaars, crowded with dark-skinned natives, the men mustachioed, clad for the most part in white garments that covered them from the crown of the head to the knee, with a touch of red sometimes in their turbans; the women with bare heads and arms and feet, garbed in red and blue; the gosains, mendicants with matted hair and unspeakable filth; the women who fried chapatis {small, flat, unleavened cakes} on griddles in the streets, grinding their meal in handmills; the sword grinders, whetting the blades of the Maratha two-edged swords; the barbers, whose shops had a never-ending succession of customers; the Brahmans, almost naked and shaved bald save for a small tuft at the back of the head; the sellers of madi, a toddy extracted from the cocoanut palm; the magicians in their shawls, with high stiff red cap, painted all over with snakes; the humped bullocks that were employed as beasts of burden, and when not in use roamed the streets untended; occasionally the basawa, the sacred bull of Siva, the destroyer, and the rath {car} carrying the sacred rat of Ganessa. But with familiarity such scenes lost their charm; and as the months passed away Desmond felt more and more the gnawing of care at his heart, the constant sadness of a slave.