One of Clive's Heroes Part 39

*In which there are recognitions and explanations; and our hero meets one Coja Solomon, of Cossimbazar*

At sunrise next morning Desmond found his party awaiting him at the Causeway beyond the Maratha ditch. The natives salaamed when he came up in company with Mr. Merriman, and Bulger pulled his forelock.

"Mornin,' sir; mornin'; I may be wrong, but 'tis my belief we're goin'

to have a bilin' hot day, and I've come accordin'."

He was clad in nothing but shirt and breeches, with his coat strapped to his back, and a hat apparently improvised out of cabbage leaves. The natives were all in white, with their employer's pink ribands. Some were armed with matchlocks and pikes; others carried light cooking utensils; others groceries for the Englishmen's use; for their own food they depended on the villages through which they would pa.s.s.

"Well, I wish you a good journey," said Mr. Merriman, who appeared to be in better spirits than for many a day. "I'm glad to tell you, Burke, that I got a letter from Mr. Watts this morning, saying that my wife and daughter are on their way down the river with Mrs. Watts and her children. They've got Mr. Warren Hastings to escort them; trust 'em to find a handsome man! The road follows the river, and if you look out I dare say you will see them. You'll recognize our livery. Introduce yourself if you meet 'em. You have your letter for Mr. Watts? That's all right. Good-bye, and good luck to you."

The party set off. The old road by which they were to travel ran at a short distance from the left bank of the Hugli, pa.s.sing through an undulating country, interspersed with patches of low wood and scattered trees. The scenery was full of charm for Desmond: the rich vegetation; antelopes darting among the trees; flamingoes and pelicans standing motionless at the edge of the slow-gliding stream; white-clad figures coming down the broad steps of the riverside ghats to bathe; occasionally the dusky corpse of some devotee consigned by his relations to the bosom of the holy river.

The first halt was called at Barrakpur, where, amid a luxuriant grove of palms and bamboos, stood some beautiful paG.o.das, built of the unburnt brick of the country, and faced with a fine stucco that gleamed in the sunlight like polished marble. Here, under the shade of the palms, Desmond lay through the hot afternoon, watching the boats of all shapes and sizes that floated lazily down the broad-bosomed stream. In the evening the march was resumed, the party crossed the river by a ford at Pulta Ghat, and following the road on the other bank came at sundown to the outskirts of the French settlement at Chandernagore. There they camped for the night. Desmond was for some time tormented by the doleful yells of packs of jackals roaming abroad in search of food.

Their cries so much resembled those of human beings in dire agony that he shivered on his mattress; but falling asleep at length, he slept soundly and woke with the dawn.

He started again soon after sunrise. Just beyond Chandernagore Bulger pointed out the stripped spars of the _Good Intent_, lying far up a narrow creek.

"Wouldn't I just like to cut her out?" said Bulger. "But 'spose we can't stop for that, sir?"

"Certainly not. And you'd have the French about our ears."

Pa.s.sing the Dutch settlement at Chinsura, he came into a country of paddy fields, now bare, broken by numerous nullahs worn by the torrents in the rainy season, but now nearly dry. Here and there the party had to ford a jhil,--an extensive shallow lake formed by the rains. Desmond tried a shot or two at the flights of teal that floated on these ponds; but they were so wild that he could never approach within range.

Towards evening, after pa.s.sing the little village of Amboa, they came to a grove of peepuls filled with green parrots and monkeys screaming and jabbering as though engaged in a compet.i.tion. A few miles farther on they arrived at the larger village of Khulna, where they tied up for the night.

Next morning Desmond was wakened by Surendra Nath.

"Sahib," he said, "the bibi and the chota bibi are here."

"Mrs. Merriman?"

"Yes. They arrived last night by boat, and are pursuing their journey to-day."

"I should like to see them before they go. But I'm afraid I am hardly presentable."

"Believe me, sahib, you will not offend the bibi's punctilio."

"Well, send one of the peons to say that I shall have the pleasure of waiting on Mrs. Merriman in half an hour, if she will permit me."

Having shaved and bathed, and donned a change of clothes, Desmond set off accompanied by Surendra Nath to visit the ladies. He found them on a long shallow boat, in a cabin constructed of laths and mats filling one end of the light craft. The Babu made the introduction, then effaced himself. A lady, whose voice seemed to waken an echo in Desmond's memory, said:

"How do you do, Mr. Burke? I have heard of you in my husband's letters.

Is the dear man well?"

"He is in good health, ma'am, but somewhat anxious to have you back again."

"Dear man! What is he anxious about? Mr. Watts seemed anxious also to get rid of us. He was vexed that Mrs. Watts is too much indisposed to accompany us. And Mr. Warren Hastings, who was to escort us, was quite angry because he had to go to one of the out-factories instead. I do not understand why these gentlemen are so much disturbed."

Desmond saw that Mrs. Merriman had been deliberately kept in ignorance of the grounds of the Englishmen's anxiety, and was seeking on the spur of the moment for a means to divert her from the subject, when he was spared the necessity. Miss Merriman had been looking at him curiously, and she now turned to her mother and said something in a tone inaudible to Desmond.

"La! you don't say so, my dear," exclaimed the lady. "Why, Mr. Burke, my daughter tells me that we have met you before."

His vague recollection of Mrs. Merriman's voice being thus so suddenly confirmed, he recalled, as from a far distant past, a scene upon Hounslow Heath; a coach that stood perilously near the ditch, a girl at the horses' heads, a lady stamping her foot at two servants wrestling in drunken stupidity on the ground.

"You never gave us an opportunity of thanking you," continued Mrs.

Merriman. "'Twas not kind of you, Mr. Burke, to slip away thus without a word after doing two poor lone women such a service."

"Indeed, ma'am, 'twas with no discourteous intention, but seeing you were safe with your friends I--I--in short, ma'am----"

Desmond stopped in confusion, at a loss for a satisfactory explanation.

The ladies were smiling.

"You thought to flee our acknowledgments," said Mrs. Merriman. "La, la, I know; I have a young brother of my own. But you shall not escape them now, and what is more, I shall see that Merriman, poor man, adds his, for I am sure he has forgiven you your exploit."

The younger lady laughed outright, while Desmond looked from one to the other. What did they mean?

"Indeed, ma'am," he said, "I had no idea----"

"That there was need for forgiveness?" said the lady, taking him up.

"But indeed there was--eh, Phyllis? Mr. Burke," she added, with a sudden solemnity, "a few minutes after you left us at Soho Square Merriman rode up, and I a.s.sure you I nearly swooned, poor man! and hardly had strength to send for the surgeon. It needed three st.i.tches--and he such a handsome man, too."

A horrid suspicion flashed through Desmond's mind. He remembered the scar on Mr. Merriman's brow, and that it was a scarcely healed wound when he met him with Clive on that unfortunate occasion in Billiter Street.

"Surely, ma'am, you don't mean--the highwayman?"

"Indeed I do. That is just it. Your highwayman was--Mr. Merriman.

Fancy the hurt to his feelings, to say nothing of his good looks. Fie, fie, Mr. Burke!"

For a moment Desmond did not know whether embarra.s.sment or amazement was uppermost with him. It was bad enough to have tripped Mr. Merriman up in the muddy street; but to have also dealt him a blow of which he would retain the mark to his dying day--"This is terrible!" he thought. Still there was an element of absurdity in the adventure that appealed to his sense of the ridiculous. But he felt the propriety of being apologetic, and was about to express his regret for his mistake when Mrs. Merriman interrupted him with a smile:

"But there, Mr. Burke, he bears you no grudge, I am sure. He is the essence of good temper. It was a mistake; he saw that when I explained; and when he had vented his spleen on the coachman next day he owned that it was a plucky deed in you to take charge of us, and indeed he said that you was a mighty good whip; although," she added laughing, "you was a trifle heavy in hand."

Desmond felt bound to make a full confession. He related the incident of his encounter with Merriman in London--how he had toppled him over in the mud--wondering how the ladies would take it. He was relieved when they received his story with a peal of laughter.

"Oh, mamma; and it was his new frock!" said Phyllis.

"La, so it was, just fresh from Mr. Small's in Wigmore Street--forty guineas and no less!"

"Well ma'am, I'm already forgiven for that; I trust that with your good favour my earlier indiscretion will be forgiven."

"Indeed it shall be, Mr. Burke, I promise you. Now tell me: what brings you here?"

Desmond explained his errand in a few words. The ladies wished him a prosperous journey, and said they would hope to see him in a few days on his return. He left them, feeling that he had gained friends, and with a new motive, of which he was only vaguely conscious, to a speedy accomplishment of his business.

On the evening of the sixth day after leaving Calcutta there came into sight a church of considerable size, which Surendra Nath explained was the temple of the Armenian colony of Cossimbazar. Pa.s.sing this, and leaving a maze of native dwellings and the French factory on the left, the travellers reached the Dutch factory, and beyond this the English settlement and fort. Leaving the Babu to arrange quarters for the peons in the native part of the town, Desmond hastened on past the stables and the hospital to the factory. It was a rough oblong in shape, defended at each corner by a bastion mounted with ten guns, the bastions being connected by ma.s.sive curtains. In the south curtain, windowed for the greater part of its length, was the gateway. Desmond was admitted by a native servant, and in a few minutes found himself in the presence of the chief, Mr. William Watts.

Mr. Watts was a tall man of near forty years--of striking presence, with firm chin, pleasant mouth, and eyes of peculiar depth and brilliance.

He was clad in a long purple laced coat, with ruffles at the wrists and a high stock, and wore the short curled wig of the period. He welcomed Desmond with great cordiality, and, glancing over Mr. Merriman's letter, said: