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This page intentionally left blank.
Vampire God
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 Vampire God
The Allure of the Undead in Western Culture

MARY Y. HALLAB
Cover design by Kevin Prufer

Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2009 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever

without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including
electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or oth-
erwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY

www.sunypress.edu

Production by Eileen Meehan

Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hallab, Mary Y., 1940–

Vampire god : the allure of the undead in Western culture / Mary Y. Hallab.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-2859-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-2860-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Vampires in literature. 2. Vampire films. 3. Vampires on television. 4. Folk
literature—History and criticism. 5. Fantasy fiction—History and criticism.
I. Title.

PN56.V3H36 2009
809.3'9375—dc22 2009005250

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 Contents

Acknowledgments / vii

Introduction / 1

Chapter 1. Vampires and Science / 17

Chapter 2. Vampires and Society / 33

Chapter 3. Vampires and Psychology: Body, Soul, and Self / 49

Chapter 4. The Religious Vampire: Reason, Romantics,

and Victorians / 67

Chapter 5. The Religious Vampire: The Twentieth Century / 91

Chapter 6. The Vampire God: Nature and the Numinous / 117

Notes / 137

Works Consulted / 145

Index / 161
vi Contents

This page intentionally left blank.

 Preface vii

Acknowledgments

This book couldn’t have been completed without the valuable help of Kevin
Prufer and Martha Collins. Thanks also to Sheryl Craig, Celia Kingsbury,
Charles Martin, Don Melichar, and the good people at the University of
Central Missouri’s Interlibrary Loan office.
This book is dedicated to Kevin Prufer.

vii
This page intentionally left blank.
 Introduction 1

Introduction

Why is the vampire so popular? Why has the vampire been so often seem-
ingly dead and so often revived in literature and drama? Tony Thorne in his
study Children of the Night: Of Vampires and Vampirism (1999) is astonished
to realize that, today, a survey of world cultural history reveals “the constant
presence of a Vampire or vampire-like monster in our narratives—both
grand and humble—and our popular culture.” He concludes that the crea-
ture survives by its “uncanny” ability to mutate into “whatever our society
shuns, but secretly demands” (4). In our society, the vampire, much like its
Eastern European and Greek folkloric antecedents, usually manifests itself as
a dead human who rises from the grave and behaves as though he is living,
more or less. My question is: what hidden void is modern Western society
trying to fill with this fantasy? What is it trying to tell itself? What does
it “secretly demand”?
In Reading the Vampire (1994), discussing Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897),
Ken Gelder says that “a veritable ‘academic industry’ has built itself around
this novel” (65). He provides an extensive, though not exhaustive, review of
differing critical interpretations of vampire literature from relatively early
ethnographic studies of vampire folklore—like John Lawson’s comparison of
Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion (1909)—to his own postmodern
approach to recent vampire films. These lead him to conclude, like Thorne,
that the vampire will not die for the reason that it is so “highly adaptable”
that it can appeal to fundamental urges like desire and fear and respond to
cultural and societal issues (141). And, we might add, because of its unique
bipolarity—both human and supernatural, alive and dead—the vampire leads
us to a larger consideration of the nature of the individual and his search
for significance in a vast and terrifying universe.
Both folkloric and literary, ancient and modern vampires are various
and difficult to sum up with a single set of characteristics. Folklore vampires
are often mixed up in various ways with other supernatural beings, such
as nereiads, morae, witches, werewolves, and ghosts, so that observers are
forced to make arbitrary choices as to what they will or will not classify as
a vampire. We face the same problem today: for example, is Keats’s “Belle

1
2 Vampire God

Dame sans Merci” a vampire or a demon lover? Are the creatures in Night
of the Living Dead (1968) zombies or vampires? I have chosen to include as
vampires only those figures—folkloric, mythical, or literary—who are dead
humans who are still capable of behaving as though they are alive. I will not
consider creatures like various incubi and succubae or lamias or mindless,
lurching zombies simply because they can take human form. Nor will I
consider living humans who drink blood or avoid sunlight, no matter what
they call themselves.
My discussion of folklore vampires will stick to those of Eastern
Europe and the Mediterranean because they are the ones that have pro-
vided the “germ” for vampire literature and the modern mania for vampires
in Western Europe and the Americas. Recognizing, too, that even modern
literary vampires may vary in form and function from culture to culture, I
will limit my focus primarily to those in England and America, with the aim
of discovering what the vampire does for those who engage with it. What are
vampires good for? What do the critics think? What do I think?

The Function of Vampires

Criticism of Bram Stoker’s Dracula explains its popularity through many

theories going in various directions—psychological, Marxist, social, feminist,
queer, Gothic, historical, and archetypal, to mention a few. Dracula is said to
represent the tyranny of the patriarchy, the power of the corrupt aristocracy
or of the nouveau bourgeois capitalists; he represents decadent foreigners,
Slavs or Jews; he is a homosexual, a social outcast, even a mother; and he is
dangerously erotic. Summaries of these and other interesting approaches to
vampires occur in Ken Gelder’s Reading the Vampire cited earlier and in Milly
Williamson’s The Lure of the Vampire (2005).1 Many of these are convincing
interpretations justifiable in the context of a complex, ambiguous, and mul-
tileveled work. Dracula, at least, fulfills more than one modern need.
A rather unfortunate approach, I believe, derives from those theories
that interpret the works in terms of some sort of latent or repressed content
that the writer was supposedly unaware of—and that appeals to the reader’s
unconscious desires or fears. Many of these are psychoanalytic: the uncon-
sciously sexual vampire appeals to our unconscious sexual urges or anxieties.
There is indeed a good deal of sexuality in much vampire literature, often
quite overt (although not necessarily explicit), beginning as early as Heinrich
August Ossenfelder’s short poem “The Vampire” (1748) in which the vampire
promises to “come creeping” to the young lady’s chamber and kiss her “life’s
blood” away. One does not need psychology to find sexuality in a similar scene
in James Malcolm Rymer’s2 Varney the Vampyre or The Feast of Blood (1847), or
 Introduction 3

in modern movie vampires like Anne Rice’s Vampire Lestat (1985). However,
although the repressed sexuality explanation may fit many vampires, from
Dracula to Buffy’s Angel, it hardly explains the popularity of vampire toys,
vampire jokes, vampire ballets, operas, breakfast cereals, cartoons, including
good vampires, bad vampires, child, adult, male, female, geriatric vampires,
vampires from space, from next door, dog and bunny vampires, psychological
and psychic vampires, ugly, beautiful, happy, sad vampires, vampire punks,
detectives, cab drivers, travel agents, artists and art collectors, even clergymen
and obstreperous adolescents. Not all vampires are sexy.
But all vampires are living dead—and therefore supernatural and mythi-
cal. Because vampires survive across the impassable boundary, even the puniest
of them have an aura of mystery and transcendence that, coming from the
land of the dead, takes us beyond the mundane. When vampires are sexy,
they are so because they are powerful, dangerous, and forbidden, and not the
reverse, although their erotic attractiveness may be a lure into danger. True,
in early stories like the anonymous “The Mysterious Stranger” (1860), the
message seems to be to young ladies: Beware of infatuation with attractive
strangers. This is the same moral we find in many modern serial killer mov-
ies. But, as with the serial killer, the danger itself is not forbidden or quirky
sex, but death. If the killer enticed children with shiny toys, we would not
say that the story was about shiny toys. Although there may be (intentional
or not) a comment on the dangers of sexuality, as in ballads of the demon
lover, the erotic vampire seducer may say more about the attractiveness of
danger and death than about sex.
Possibly, vampires like Dracula allowed nineteenth-century writers
and readers to explore (supposedly) forbidden topics while pretending to
be frightened, but modern audiences certainly have no such need. Even on
television commercials, we see tampons waved about and enthusiastic tout-
ing of products to cure male impotency. We see talk shows in which the
guests tell about their lives as prostitutes, their incestuous abuse as children,
and their strange plastic surgeries. We have nearly inescapable internet porn.
What do we need vampires for? Yet they survive and even flourish, sug-
gesting that they must offer something besides sex or even danger that is
uniquely their own.
To take another example, even though Stoker’s Dracula may be a
foreigner in England, not all literary vampires incite a fear of foreigners or
other outsiders.3 Not all vampires are foreigners. John Polidori’s Lord Ruthven
in his story “The Vampyre” (1819) is only a Scotsman; the English Varney
the Vampyre and the Styrian Carmilla are not foreign within the context
of their stories. For exotic nefariousness or even seductiveness, poor Varney,
for example, seems so inadequate that one must look elsewhere to find the
source of his popularity in the nineteenth century. This popularity must lie
4 Vampire God

in the fact that he is a living dead. For from folklore to modern films, if we
take away the vampire’s essential quality, its undeadness, the character becomes
considerably less compelling. Imagine Dracula, for example, as nothing more
than a seductive and insidious foreigner. On the other hand, imagine Dracula
as entirely supernatural, a mere ghost with no bodily presence. In short, the
fascination of the vampire lies in his being both human and supernatural.
When the possibility for revival seems most hopeless (when it has been
decapitated, ashed, drowned, and eaten by worms), it can still pop up again,
as much a nuisance as ever, almost as good as new, and significantly, with
its individual identity intact.
True, one appeal of certain vampires lies in their breaking of various
cultural taboos and their warnings about assorted dangers to the community.
But we can and do have sensuality, brutality, arrogance, selfishness, intol-
erance, insidious evil, and even aristocratic bad manners in many Gothic
villains like Ann Radcliffe’s Montoni in The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) or
Hannibal Lector in the film Silence of the Lambs (1991), who seem very
much like vampires but lack the essential element that distinguishes the
vampire—that of being living dead. To some critics, vampire literature offers
a means to understand the world we live in and to formulate our own
identities or sense of identity within this world. In Terrors of Uncertainty:
The Cultural Contexts of Horror Fiction (1989), Joseph Grixti argues that, to
some degree, horror fiction defines reality for us by providing models and
modes of thinking that form a “component of our culturally determined
intersubjectivity” (7). The vampire, for example, embodies (so to speak)
our response to “the horrors of death and corruption as well as those of
earthbound immortality” (14).
However, Grixti regards horror literature negatively, as an inadequate
response to the fear and uncertainty in the modern world, which is assuaged
by a form of magical, as opposed to realistic, thinking. He generally regards
it as a harmful “game” we are enticed into by commercialized horror litera-
ture (148) that exacerbates our fears and anxieties by mythologizing them in
the form of various superstitions and then “proffering magical solutions and
soothing (if ostrich-like) cures for the horrifying and disturbing states which
they invite us to consider” (176). That is, rather than regarding these fears
as innate to humankind and merely expressed in fiction (from Gilgamesh to
the present), he regards them as created by a greedy corporate hegemony for
the purpose, apparently, of driving us into the magical safety zone of escapist
fantasy and superstition also for sale by that hegemony (182–83).
His solution would be for us to reassert our sense of rational control.
But death (real and inevitable death—so unfair) seems to be the very area
of experience that stymies rational thought. Grixti’s approach contains two
mistakes, in my thinking, which I hope to avoid. First, like a number of other
 Introduction 5

critics, he assumes that whatever falls under the general rubric of “horror
literature” (which is not so easy to define) is inevitably horrible and fearful
to the reader or audience rather than, like most vampire literature, eerily and
interestingly uncanny (or even funny). Second, he also apparently believes
that the average reader has little self-awareness or sense of reality and is very
easily led to respond to fantasies like the vampire with terror and anxiety
rather than as a stimulus to speculation and understanding.
In contrast to Grixti, I prefer to take the approach that most people—
peasants and scholars—pretty much know what they think and believe. This
position is argued by the sociologist Kathy Charmaz, in an essay in the third
edition of Death and Identity (1994). She regards human beings “as reflective,
creative, and active” (30), who have, Charmaz says, “selves and minds” (32).
Through conscious interactions, they construct a (more or less) stable reality
shared by a social community. Changes in this constructed world occur as a
result of individual choices and influences, generally based on a “rational and
pragmatic bias,” according to which “meaning is related to utility and to the
practical aspects of experience” (34–35). A particular element of belief—about
the meaning of death, for example—persists through cultural changes and
diversions because it fulfills a significant function at least for some people
(29). However, because individuals are free to make choices, we cannot
expect everyone to think the same way. These choices will be reflected, for
example, in the images by which they decide to represent death, as, say, an
angel song, a violent struggle, or a vampire.
Writers like Nina Auerbach, Carol Senf, and Gregory A. Waller are
concerned with how literary vampires, even Dracula, modify to reflect changing
environmental circumstances and cultural assumptions, from the nineteenth
century to the present. The vampire’s most human quality—its infinite adapt-
ability to people, place, and time—is a major reason for its persistence. This,
along with its very un-human and ambiguous position between the flesh and
the spirit, its mysterious comings and goings, and its variable forms and faces,
allows it to be continually revived in different guises in our differing worlds.
But as diverse as they may be, from the bloated peasant of folklore to the
opera-caped Dracula to the bratty Lost Boys (1987), vampires address issues
and attitudes about death and immortality that are meaningful in all times
and places. However much the contexts and ideologies of death may have
been modified over the years, the fact of death remains the same, inevitable,
irrevocable, and final.
Death, these days, however, is not often clearly constructed or even
discussed. We do not see dying people interviewed on Oprah or cheered up
by Dr. Phil. We do not see dying old people at all if we can help it. We
do not see death explained. Advertisements for “funeral parlors” or “homes”
come discreetly in the mail; the word die is replaced by the phrase “when
6 Vampire God

your time comes.” For many today, especially the young, the only place even
to find out about death is in the movies and on television, where there is
plenty of it, mostly of the violent and thus preventable kind—car crashes
or serial killers, for example. Apparently, we do not have to die. Death
always has causes that can be treated and cured if we just know how. Thus
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross shocked America with her book On Death and Dying
(1969, 1997) based on her conviction that the denial of death, the refusal
to acknowledge its inevitability and even its actual occurrence in family and
friends, is a commonplace of modern living.4
A different kind of denial was manifested in John Edwards’s weekly
series Crossing Over (1999–2004) in which he supposedly communicated
(in a very general way) with deceased relatives of audience members. In
HBO television series like Six Feet Under (2001–2005), the dead appear as
ghosts, asserting their continued existence somewhere and their continu-
ing influence on the living as though they were not dead at all. Obvi-
ously, many people are fascinated with death, and almost everyone fears it,
although most of us do not care to acknowledge it just yet. In the popular
media, too, death is treated (when it is treated at all) either as a vague and
mysterious existence in another world or as a horrifying and unfortunate
mistake—one which, however, with healthy living, the right exercise, the
right neighborhoods, or the right faith (sincerely held) might be avoided.
We seldom admit that deaths, even among the very old, are unavoidable;
someone must be to blame.
The vampire provides a fictitious and mythical focus for universal
concerns about death and its reasons—as well as for a good deal of wishful
thinking. In the first place, the vampire is often a bringer of death, even
a personification of death itself—a mortal danger to the protagonists. And
like the popular literature of natural catastrophes or serial killings, vampire
stories and films offer means and methods by which this danger can be
averted. More important, the vampire overcomes death and, in doing so,
promises eternal life on a somewhat earthier and more comprehensible level
than most religious faiths. It posits, at least, the renewal of life, very much
like the archetypal dying god (very likely its remote ancestor). Possibly, it
fulfills for some of its enthusiasts, on some level of consciousness, the role
of this mythical figure, the vegetation deity, which dies and is reborn each
year. Or it is itself a kind of goddess or god of the dead, or Death itself. As
such, it is also the source of fecundity and new life, and its sexuality is that
of the force that makes the dead nature bloom. Stoker’s Dracula and many
others like it can be regarded as retellings of the Hades and Persephone
story or other pagan myths of underworld gods. Whatever it is, the vampire
has mythical significance as an in-between creature of this and the “other”
 Introduction 7

world, hinting to us that such a world might exist, for the very reason that
the vampire refuses to go there. The vampire is popular because it will not
die, and, however monstrous it may seem, unlike other monsters, it remains
a human—who, by virtue of its immortality, becomes a god.
The primary effect of vampire literature is not to threaten readers with
death, but to provide a symbolic and metaphorical means to apprehend,
contemplate, and deal with death within the larger context of life. Dealing
with death and the dead, moreover, involves thinking about the past. The
literary vampire often comes out of an imaginary past more or less Gothic in
nature, peopled with impressive mythical and supernatural figures, impossibly
virtuous maidens, dauntless heroes, satanic villains, and fantastic monsters
that we are familiar with from traditional stories, fairy tales, and Arthurian
legends and that remain alive in the modern imagination. Because of this
association and because popular Gothic literature found early expression in
the Graveyard School of poetry, Gothic critics seem more likely than others
to find in vampires various messages about death.
The Western vampire also has a tradition of its own that begins with
folklore vampires of Greece and the Slavic countries. And in spite of seem-
ingly vast differences (bloated peasant versus suave aristocrat), there is a
surprising consistency in vampire behavior and function from these beginnings
to the present. Folklore vampires provide important clues to understanding
the meaning of vampires in modern popular literature. We are not, after
all, so very far advanced from our own village origins of a few hundred
years ago that we no longer need the comfort and solutions to life’s mys-
teries that folklore and mythology provide. Nor, as we have noted, are our
lives destitute of folklore figures, who survive and multiply in the myriads
of fairies, ghosts, alien invaders, mad scientists, aerobatic superheroes, and,
recently, angelic visitants, and other denizens of the New Age that fill the
media. The modern literary vampire—although superficially advanced from
his folklore peasant origins—arose, one might say, and flourished along with
many other rather unorthodox supernatural beings, that, if not the objects
of firm belief, at least allow the mind to dwell on possibilities beyond those
offered by conventional religion or rational empiricism.

Sources

Unfortunately, before the twentieth century, reliable accounts of vampire

appearances from people who claim to have actually seen them or experienced
their effects are very scarce. Most folk accounts are either old but well-crafted
tales or second- or third-generation retellings of village traditions. This is the
8 Vampire God

case with the outburst of vampire activity in Eastern Europe in the eighteenth
century that first aroused literary and scholarly—and theological—interest.
Particularly, a lengthy report on this phenomenon by Augustine Calmet
(1746)—a biblical scholar appointed to investigate its legitimacy—quickly
became a best seller in Western European countries, primarily France, Ger-
many, and England. This, along with other reports like that by Giuseppe
Davanzati (1744), aroused interest in vampire folklore that—combined with
appropriate mythical and literary figures, like Faust, Milton’s Satan, and
the Byronic Hero—eventually gave birth to the modern literary vampire,
which now has a mythology of its own. Calmet’s survey became a source
for Romantic writers like Southey, Byron, and Stoker, and although many of
his accounts are highly questionable, they provide considerable information
about folk beliefs.
In addition, some Slavic and Greek villagers living until recently in
isolated areas have preserved vampire folklore, which has thus been available
for study in its own environment by modern folklorists and anthropologists
aiming at some degree of objectivity. It is on their accounts that I have cho-
sen to rely for the organizing principle and basis of my discussion, especially
those who have gleaned their information from direct personal contact with
the people they have studied. I have tried to avoid sources about folklore
vampires that seem to be aimed primarily at creating sensational effects
by tossing together all the “lore” they can come across, frequently citing
questionable sources or none at all. This means I will be cautious in using
information from the famous vampire expert Montague Summers, although
I cannot resist commenting on his motives and influence.
Instead, in addition to Calmet, I have chosen to rely primarily on
scholars like Jan Perkowski or Richard and Eva Blum, who show familiarity
with the people and cultures that produced the vampire folklore we know,
and who are objective enough to draw attention themselves to possible biases
in their studies. For example, in The Dangerous Hour: The Lore of Crisis and
Mystery in Rural Greece (1970), Blum and Blum recount the responses by
Greek peasants and shepherds to a systematic survey designed to call up
unusual or uncanny stories related to illness and death. Thus the responses
may suggest a stronger role for these beliefs than actually exists (3–4). Gail
Kligman’s study The Wedding of the Dead: Ritual, Poetics, and Popular Culture
in Transylvania (1988) derives from her firsthand observations while living
among the people of the isolated area of Maramures in northern Transyl-
vania. Her analysis of rituals and laments from weddings and funerals may
be colored by her own feminist dismay at the position of women in this
male-dominated culture. But she has clearly endeavored to report their beliefs
and practices accurately and sympathetically.
 Introduction 9

Persistence and Belief

Accuracy is important because I began my study trying to figure out what

the belief in vampires meant for these villagers. What good did vampires do?
The folkloric accounts support my conviction that human nature, human
motives, and needs remain very much the same across time and across cul-
tures. This is not to dispute that vampires or other folk or literary figures
modify with the times. Twenty-first-century vampires are often quite dif-
ferent from their Victorian precursors—but also strikingly similar—and just
as undead. My discussion focuses on the similarities, moving freely among
vampires of various kinds, times, and places. I include folklore accounts
of ordinary, relatively unsophisticated people in those communities where
vampires, along with other supernatural beings, make up part of the general
worldview, particularly in regard to ideas about death and immortality. I do
not regard these views as “primitive” or wrong or superstitious or magical
simply because they do not concur with our own. (And, after all, what could
be more superstitious or magical than wearing a lucky hat or expecting Jesus
to help us win the lottery?)
In any case, because there are always skeptics in any culture, I will not be
concerned with whether or not all individuals actually believe in every element
of this worldview. Blum and Blum, studying Greek folkloric beliefs related to
death, found extremes of belief and unbelief even within one family. It will
be enough that, in general, they conform to community values and practice.
Vampires also appear, even in rural cultures, as characters in suspiciously
literate and familiar fictions (oral or written) that are obviously not intended
to be taken as true, although they may have some effect on the social reality
as expressions of a popular mythology.5 Van Helsing’s famous conclusion to
Deane and Balderston’s play Dracula (1927)—“remember that after all there are
such things” (150)—may express the secret wish of many modern storytellers
that their creations become real in the minds of their audience.6
And a few, like John Polidori and Bram Stoker, have had some suc-
cess. Through them and other writers, vampires belong to a modern popular
folklore that few will admit to believing but that has become part of a way of
thinking about and ordering our vision of the world around us. Our modern
vampires, too, fall into a rather loose popular mythology that offers mean-
ing in those areas of life that are inadequately explained by more organized,
institutionalized systems of science, psychology, or religion. For example, we
may act as though black cats or broken mirrors can bring bad luck, or use
the expression “an angel is passing over” to explain a pause in conversation,
regardless of whether we actually believe this or not. This popular folklore
comes to us not only through oral traditions (knocking on wood, crossing our
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one who had had a share in the operations, came in for a good deal
of congratulation which he laughingly protested ought to have been
reserved for better men.
Mr. Merriman was among the crowd that welcomed the Tyger,
and as soon as Desmond had delivered his report to Mr. Bourchier,
the genial merchant carried him off to the house on the Green
where he was staying and insisted on having a full account of his
experiences. When he learnt that Diggle had been captured and
would shortly reach Bombay as a prisoner, his jolly face assumed as
intense a look of vindictive satisfaction as it was capable of
expressing.
"By thunder! that's the best of your news for me. The villain will
get his deserts at last. I'm only sorry that I shall not be here to serve
on the jury."
"Are you leaving Bombay then?"
"Yes, and I wanted you to come with me. My ship the
Hormuzzeer came to port two days ago, and I had to dismiss the
second mate, who was continually at odds with the lascars. I hoped
you would accept his berth, and sail with me. I want to get back to
Calcutta. We had advices the other day that things are not looking
well in Bengal. Alivirdi Khan is dying; and there is sure to be some
bother about the succession. All Bengal may be aflame. My wife and
daughter are in Calcutta, and I don't care about being away from
them if danger is threatening. I want to get away as soon as
possible, and thought of taking passage in an Indiaman; but the
Hormuzzeer being here I'll sail in that; she'll make direct for the
Hugli; an Indiaman would put in at Madras, and goodness knows
how long I might be delayed."
"'Tis a pity," said Desmond. "I should have liked of all things to
accept your offer, but I'm bound to stay for Diggle's trial, and that
can't be held until the fleet return."
"How long will that be?"
"I heard the Admiral say he expected it would take a month to
settle everything at Gheria. He wants to keep the place in our hands,
but Ramaji Punt claims it for the Peshwa, and Captain Speke of the
Kent told me that it'll be very lucky if they come to an arrangement
within a month."
"It's uncommonly vexatious. I can't wait a month. It'll take a
week or more to clean the Hormuzzeer's hull, and another to load
her; in a fortnight at the outside I hope to be on my way. Well, it
can't be helped. What will you do when the trial is over?"
"I don't know."
"Did Mr. Clive say anything about a cadetship?"
"Not a word. He only said that I should get a share of the
Gheria prize-money."
"That's something to the good. Use it wisely. I came out to
Calcutta twenty years ago with next to nothing, and I've done well.
There's no reason why you should not make your fortune too if your
health will stand the climate. We'll have a talk over things before I
sail."
A week later the Bridgewater arrived from Gheria, with Diggle
on board. He was imprisoned in the Fort, being allotted far too
comfortable quarters to please Mr. Merriman. But Merriman's
indignation at what he considered the Governor's leniency was
changed to hot rage three days later when it became known that the
prisoner had disappeared. Not a trace of him could be discovered.
He had been locked in as usual one night, and next morning his
room was empty. Imprisonment was much less stringent in those
days than now; the prisoner was allowed to see visitors and to live
more or less at ease. The only clue to Diggle's escape was afforded
by the discovery that, at the same time that he disappeared, there
vanished also a black boy, who had been brought among the
prisoners from Gheria and was employed in doing odd jobs about
the harbour. Desmond had no doubt that this was Diggle's boy Scipio
Africanus. And when he mentioned the connexion between the two,
it was supposed that the negro had acted as go-between for his
master with the friends in the town by whose aid the escape had
been arranged. Among the large native population of Bombay there
were many who were suspected of being secret agents of the
French, and as Diggle was well provided with funds it was not at all
unlikely that his jailer had been tampered with. Merriman's wrath
was very bitter. He had been waiting for years, as he told Desmond,
for the punishment of Peloti. It was gall and wormwood to him that
the villain should have cheated the gallows.
 Diggle's escape, however, gave Merriman an opportunity to
secure Desmond's services. The culprit being gone, the evidence
was no longer required. Finding that Desmond was still ready to
accept the position of mate on the Hormuzzeer, Merriman consulted
Mr. Bourchier, who admitted that he saw no reason for detaining the
lad. Accordingly, at the end of the first week in March, when the
vessel stood out of Bombay harbour, Desmond sailed with her.
The weather was calm, but the winds not wholly favourable,
and the Hormuzzeer made a somewhat slow passage. Mr. Merriman
was impatient to reach Calcutta, and Desmond was surprised at his
increasing uneasiness. He had believed that the French and Dutch
were the only people in Bengal who gave the Company trouble, and
as England was then at peace with both France and the Netherlands,
there was nothing, he thought, to fear from them.
"You are mistaken," said Mr. Merriman, in the course of a
conversation one day. "The natives are a terrible thorn in our side.
At best we are in Bengal on sufferance; we are a very small
community--only a hundred or two Europeans in Calcutta: and since
the Marathas overran the country some years ago we have felt as
though sitting on the brink of a volcano. Alivirdi wants to keep us
down; he has forbidden us to fight the French even if war does
break out between us at home; and though the Mogul has granted
us charters--they call them firmans here--Alivirdi doesn't care a rap
for things of that sort, and won't be satisfied until he has us under
his heel. Only his trading profits and his fear of the Mogul have kept
him civil."
"But you said he was dying."
 "So he is, and that makes matters worse, for his grandson,
Siraj-uddaula, who'll probably succeed him, is no better than a tiger.
He lives at Murshidabad, about 100 miles up the river. He's a vain,
peacocky, empty-headed youth, and as soon as the breath is out of
his grandad's body he'll want to try his wings and take a peck or two
at us. He may do it slyly, or go so far as to attack us openly."
"But if he did that, sure Calcutta is defended; and, as Mr. Clive
said to me in Gheria, British soldiers behind walls might hold out for
ever."
"Clive doesn't know Calcutta then! That's the mischief! At the
Maratha invasion the Bengalis on our territory took fright, and at
their own expense began a great ditch round Calcutta--we call it the
Maratha ditch; but the Nawab bought the Marathas off, the work
was stopped, the walls of the fort are now crumbling to ruins, and
the cannon lie about unmounted and useless. Worst of all, our
governor, Mr. Drake, is a quiet soul, an excellent worthy man, who
wouldn't hurt a fly. We call him the Quaker. Quakers are all very well
at home, where they can 'thee' and 'thou' and get rich and pocket
affronts without any harm; but they won't do in India. Might is right
with the natives; they don't understand anything else; and as sure
as they see any sign of weakness in us they'll take advantage of it
and send us all to kingdom come. And I'm thinking of the women
folk: India's no place for them at the best; and I did all I could to
persuade my wife and daughter to remain at home. But they would
come out with me when I returned last year; and glad as I am to
have them with me I sometimes get very anxious; I can't bear them
out of my sight, and that's a fact."
 Mr. Merriman showed his relief when, on the 30th of April, he
noticed the yellow tinge in the water which indicated that the vessel
was approaching the mouth of the Hugli. Next day the vessel arrived
at Balasore, where a pilot was taken on board, and entered the river.
Mr. Merriman pointed out to Desmond the island of Sagar, whither in
the late autumn the jogis came down in crowds to purify themselves
in the salt water, "and provide a meal for the tigers," he added. At
Kalpi a large barge, rowed by a number of men dressed in white,
with pink sashes, came to meet the Hormuzzeer.
"That's my budgero," said Merriman. "We'll get into it and row
up to Calcutta in half the time it would take the ship. Each of us
merchants has his own budgero, and instead of putting our men in
buttons with our arms and all that nonsense, we give them coloured
sashes--and don't our women squabble about the colours, my boy,
just don't they!"
In the budgero they passed the Dutch factory at Fulta, and the
Subah's forts at Budge Budge and Tanna. At Gobindpur's reach,
Merriman pointed out the pyramid of stone that marked the limit of
the Company's jurisdiction. Soon the gardens of the British
merchants came in sight, then the Company's docks, and at last the
town of Calcutta, where the Company's landing-stage was thronged
with people awaiting the arrival of the budgero in the hope of
getting news from home.
"There's Surendra Nath and his father," said Mr. Merriman, as
they came near the steps. His jolly face beamed when he stepped
on to the ghat.[#] "Hullo, Babu!" he said. "Glad to see you again."
He shook hands with both the men; the elder was much like his son,
a slightly-built Bengali, with white hair and very bright eyes. Both
were clad in dhotis of pure white; their legs were bare from the
knee, their feet shod with sandals. When the greeting had passed
between them and their master, the old man moved towards
Desmond, put his hands together, and made a deep salaam.

[#] Landing-stage.

"I have heard what the sahib did for my son. I thank the sahib," he
said.
"Yes, 'twas excellent good fortune for Surendra Nath," said Mr.
Merriman. "I knew you would be overjoyed to see your son again.
But how is the bibi,[#] and the chota[#] bibi?"

[#] Lady: mem-sahib was not yet in use.

[#] Young.

"They were well, sahib, when last I heard. They are on a visit to
Watts Sahib, at Cossimbazar."
Merriman's face fell, but he had no time to say more, for he was
accosted by a friend.
"Glad to see you back, Mr. Merriman. I've wanted your voice on
the Council for some time past."
"Is anything wrong, Mr. Holwell?" asked Merriman anxiously.
"Everything is wrong. Alivirdi died a fortnight ago; Siraj-uddaula
has stepped into his shoes; and Drake has made a mess of
everything, with Manningham's and Frankland's assistance. I want
you to come and dine with me this evening; we must have a serious
talk; I've asked two or three men of our sort in anticipation of your
consent."
"Very well. Let me present my friend Mr. Burke. He escaped
from Gheria; you've heard that Colonel Clive captured the place?"
"Yes; we had despatches from Admiral Watson some days ago. I
have heard of Mr. Burke's adventures; your servant, sir; I am
delighted to meet you. Well, Merriman, three o'clock; I will not
detain you now; you'll want to get home."
Mr. Merriman's bearers were at hand with his palanquin; he got
into it; the men set off at a swinging pace, warning the bystanders
with their cry of "Tok! Tok!" and Desmond walked by the side of the
chair, amused to watch the self-important airs of the peon who went
in front. They passed the Fort and the Company's house, and arrived
at length at a two-storey flat-roofed house with a veranda, the
windows filled, not with oyster shells as at Bombay, but with thin
screens of reeds.
"Here we are," said Merriman with a sigh of relief "Now I'll hand
you over to the baniya[#]; he'll show you to your room. I'm vexed
that my wife is not here; of course she didn't know when to expect
me; and Mrs. Watts is an old friend of hers. 'Tis a relief in one way;
for Mr. Watts is a shrewd fellow--he's head of our factory at
Cossimbazar, and senior member of Council here--and he would
have sent the ladies away if he scented danger. Sorry I shall have to
leave you; I must dine with Mr. Holwell; he's our zamindar--judge of
the Cutcheri court and collector of taxes: a fine fellow, the most
cool-headed man on the Council. But the khansaman will give you
something to eat: and I'll be back as soon as I can. You can take it
easy on the veranda, and you'll find a hookah if you care to try it."
[#] Factotum.

"No, thanks," said Desmond with a smile; "I've no fancy that way."
Shortly afterwards Mr. Merriman left the house in his palanquin,
wearing the short white calico jacket that was then de rigueur at
dinner parties. It was late before he returned. There was an anxious
and worried look on his face, but he said cheerily:
"Well, how have you been getting on?"
"I've been reading, sir: I found a volume of Mr. Fielding's
Amelia, and 'twas a change to read after eighteen months without
setting eyes on a book. I hope you had a good dinner."
"'Pon my soul I don't know. None of us know. I warrant. We had
too much to talk about to think about our appetites. Two or three
members of Council were there, and Captain Minchin, the military
commandant. Things are looking black, Desmond. Alivirdi is dead,
and, as I expected, his scoundrel of a grandson, Siraj-uddaula, is the
new Subah. He has imprisoned one of his rivals, his aunt, and is
marching against another, his cousin Shaukat Jung; and 'tis the
common talk that our turn will come next."
"But why should he be at odds with us?"
"Why, to begin with, he's a native and hates us; thinks we're too
rich; and though he's rich enough he would like to get what we have
and turn us out. Then our president Mr. Drake has acted in the
weakest possible way; the very way to encourage the Subah.
Instead of siding with Siraj-uddaula from the first, as he might well
have done, because the rivals never had the ghost of a chance, he
shilly-shallied. Then he offended him by giving shelter to a fellow
named Krishna Das, who came in a month ago with fifty sacks of
treasure from Murshidabad; it really belonged to the Subah's aunt,
but the Subah had an eye on it and he's furious at losing it. That
wasn't enough. Mr. Watts at Cossimbazar had warned the Council
here of the new Subah's unfriendliness; they talk at Murshidabad of
our weak defences and how easy it would be to overcome us. He
advised Mr. Drake to keep on good terms with the Subah; but what
must he do but turn out of the place a man named Narayan Das, the
brother of the new Nawab's chief spy."
"Sure you don't allow the enemy's spies to live in Calcutta?"
"Sure we can't help ourselves. The place is full of them--spies of
the Subah, and of the French too. We can't do anything. We may
suspect, but if we raised a hand we should stir up a hornets' nest, as
indeed Mr. Drake appears to be doing. But that isn't all. The
Company's ship Delaware came in a fortnight ago with the news that
a French fleet is fitting out under Count Lally, at Brest; 'tis supposed
war will break out again and the fleet is intended to attack us here.
So that we may have the Subah making common cause with the
French to crush us. He'll turn against the French then, but that won't
save us. On top of that comes a fakir from Murshidabad demanding
in the Subah's name that we should stop work on our fortifications;
the insolence of the wretch passes all bounds. Mr. Drake properly
refused the demand; he said we were repairing our defences in case
we needed 'em against the French; but he undertook not to start
any new works, which was a mistake. Altogether, Desmond, things
are in a pretty mess. I'm afraid Mr. Drake is not the man to cope
with a grave situation; but he has the majority of the Council with
him, and we can't alter it. Now I think we had better turn in;
perhaps I shall feel better after a good sleep; I am certainly far from
easy in mind."
Desmond slept like a top on his light mattress, enveloped in his
mosquito curtains. In the morning he accompanied Mr. Merriman to
his daftarkhanah,[#] where he found a large staff under the
superintendence of the muhri,[#] Surendra Nath's father. He
returned to the house for tiffin, spent the afternoon indoors over his
novel, and after the three o'clock dinner accompanied his host in a
walk through the English quarter.

[#] Office.
[#] Chief clerk.

As they returned, Mr. Merriman suggested that they should walk

down to Mr. Watts' house near the river to see if any news had
arrived from Cossimbazar. On the way they passed a large pakka[#]
house, surrounded by a compound and a low wall.

[#] Substantial.

"We were talking yesterday about spies," said Merriman. "In that
house lives a man who in my belief is a spy, and a treacherous
scoundrel--actually living next door to Mr. Eyre, the keeper of our
military stores. He's a Sikh named Omichand, and the richest
merchant in the city. He owns half of it; he's my landlord, confound
him! For forty years he was the contractor for supplying the
Company with cloth, but we found out that he was cheating us right
and left, and dismissed him. Yet he's very friendly to us, which is a
bad sign. 'Twas he who brought Krishna Das with his treasure into
the place, and my belief is, he did it merely to embroil us with the
Subah. Mr. Drake is disposed to pooh-pooh the idea, but I incline to
Mr. Holwell's opinion, that Omichand's a schemer and a villain, ready
to betray us to French, Dutch, or Gentoos as it suits him."
"Why don't you turn him out, then?" asked Desmond.
"My dear boy, he's far too powerful. And we'd rather keep him
in sight. While he's here we can tell something of what is going on;
his house is pretty well watched; but if he were away he might try
all manner of tricks and we should never learn anything about them.
Our policy is to be very sweet to him--to make friends of the
mammon of unrighteousness, as Mr. Bellamy, our padre, puts it.
You're bound to see him one of these days, the hoary-headed old
villain."
Though Mr. Merriman fully relied on Mr. Watts' discretion to send
his visitors back to Calcutta if there were the least sign of danger, he
was so anxious to have his wife and daughter with him that next day
he sent a special messenger up the river asking them to return as
soon as they could. He could not fetch them, public affairs not
allowing him to leave Calcutta at once, but he promised to meet
them somewhere on the way. He spent the day in making himself
acquainted with the business that had been done during his
absence. A valuable consignment of silks, muslins, and taffeties was
expected from Cossimbazar, he learnt, and as soon as it arrived the
Hormuzzeer would be able to sail for Penang.
"A private venture," he said to Desmond, "nothing to do with
the Company."
 Desmond expressed his surprise that the Company's officials
were at liberty to engage in private trading.
"Why, bless you, how could we live otherwise? Do you imagine I
got rich on the Company? What do you suppose my salary is as
member of Council? 'Tis just forty pounds. The factors get fifteen
and the writers five: Colonel Clive began at five pounds a year: so
you may guess that we have to do something to keep flesh on our
bones. And that reminds me of a proposal I wished to make to you.
You have a little money from the sale of the Pirate's grab, and you'll
have more by and by when the Gheria prize-money is distributed.
Why not put some of it into the Hormuzzeer? Let me buy some
goods for you, and send 'em to Penang: they'll fetch top prices there
in the present state of trade. 'Twill be an excellent investment."
"Thank you, sir, I'll be glad to follow your advice."
"That's right. I'll see about it at once, and the sooner these
things come from Cossimbazar the better. The delay is vexing, and I
fear I'll have to change my agent there."
Mr. Merriman being so much occupied with business and public
affairs, Desmond had much time to himself. He soon made friends
among the junior merchants and factors, and in their company went
about Calcutta. Fort William was built near the river, the factory
house in the centre of the enclosure. Around it on three sides were
the houses of individual merchants and officers. A wide avenue
known as the Lai Bazar led from the ravelin of the fort past the
court-house to the native part of the town. On one side of the
avenue was the Park or Lai Bagh, with a great tank by which a band
played in the evening. Around the town was the incomplete Maratha
ditch.
 Desmond became the object of much kindly attention from the
Company's servants and their families. Every one was eager to hear
from his own lips the story of his adventures, and invitations to
dinners and routs and card parties poured upon him. He accepted a
few and politely excused himself from the rest, not from any want of
sociability, but from motives of prudence. His kind host had already
given him a friendly warning; some of the writers and younger
servants of the Company were wild spirits, and spent more time than
was good for them in cards and revels.
On the evening of the third day after landing he went down to
the river to watch the arrival of some country vessels. There was the
usual crowd at the ghat, and as Desmond gradually worked his way
through it he suddenly saw, just in front of him, two men whose
backs were very familiar. They were in the dress of seamen: one was
tall and thin, the other broad and brawny, and Desmond did not
need his glimpse of the iron hook to be sure that the men were none
other than his old friend Bulger and Mr. Toley, the melancholy mate.
They were standing side by side, watching in silence the arrival of
the boats.
Desmond edged his way to them until he was within arm's
length of Bulger's hook. He stood for a moment looking at them,
imagining their surprise when they saw him, wondering if their
pleasure would be as keen as his own. Both appeared rather
battered; Mr. Toley's expression was never merry, and he was
neither more nor less melancholy than usual; but Bulger's habitual
cheerfulness seemed to have left him; his air was moody and
downcast. How came they here? The Good Intent being an
interloper, it was not at all likely that she had ventured to put in at
Calcutta.
By and by Bulger seemed to become aware that some one was
gazing at him, for he turned round slowly. Desmond could not but
smile at his extraordinary change of expression. His first look of
blank amazement quickly gave place to one of almost boyish delight,
and taking an eager step forward he exclaimed:
"By thunder, 'tis Mr. Burke or his ghost! Bless my heart! Ho!
shake hands, matey; this is a sight for sad eyes!"
"Glad to see you, Bulger," said Desmond quietly; "and you too,
Mr. Toley."
Mr. Toley had shown no surprise; but then, nothing ever
surprised Mr. Toley.
"Sure I'm rejoiced," he said. "We had given you up for lost."
His hearty hand-grip was more convincing than his words,
though, indeed, Desmond had good reason to know the real
kindliness that always lay behind his outward solemnity of manner.
"You're better in togs than when I seed you last, sir," said
Bulger, gripping his hand again. "Which you look quite the
gentleman; got a berth as supercargo, sir?"
"Not yet, Bulger," replied Desmond, laughing. "How's Captain
Barker?"
Bulger spat out a quid of tobacco and hitched up his breeches.
"I don't know how Captain Barker is, and what's more, I don't
care," he said. "Me and Barker en't friends: leastways, not on
speakin' terms; which I will say, hang Captain Barker, topsy-versy,
any way you like; and I don't care who hears me."
"What has happened?"
 "Happened! Why, sir, Mr. Toley'll tell you what happened. He
knows the thus, therefore, and whereupon of it."
The good fellow was itching to tell, but in duty bound deferred
to his superior officer.
"Go on, Bulger," said the American, "you've got a looser tongue
than me."
"Which I don't deny, sir. Two days ago--'twas at Chandernagore,
where the Good Intent's been laid up for a matter o' weeks--the
captain he went an' forgot hisself, sir; clean forgot hisself, an' lifted
his hand to Mr. Toley; ay, hit him, sir. Wunst it was, sir, on'y wunst;
then 'twas Mr. Toley his turn. Ah, an' I warrant Captain Barker's in
his bunk to-day. Never did I see sich a sight all the years I've been
afloat, an' that's sayin' something. There was captain spread out on
deck, sir, with his eyes bunged up an' a tooth or two that had lost
their bearin's, and all his bones wonderin' if they was ever goin' to
get joined again. That's the why and wherefore of it, sir. Well, in
course, 'twas no kiss-an'-be-friends arter that; so, bein' in a
mounseer's place, Mr. Toley took French leave, which I did the same,
and here we are a-lookin' for a job.
"But Lor' bless me! what's happened to you, Mr. Burke? When
you didn't come aboard at that there Gheria, Captain Barker he says,
'Log that there knave Burke a deserter,' says he. But I says to Mr.
Toley, 'I may be wrong, sir,' says I, 'but I lay my whiskers that Diggle
has been an' sold him to the Pirate, an' that's the last we shall ever
see of as nice a young fellow as ever hauled on a hawser.' How did
you get out of the Pirate's den, sir?"
"That's a long story, Bulger. I'll tell you all in good time. You're
looking for a job, are you? Well, I happen to know of a skipper here-
-a good man: maybe he'll have a berth for a seasoned salt like you.
I'll present you to him, and I know he'll do what he can for you."
Before he left the men, Desmond took Mr. Toley aside.
"Mr. Toley," he said, "my friend Mr. Merriman wants a mate for
one of his vessels, as I happen to know. You would be willing to sign
on?"
"I would, sir. I'm a man of few words."
"Very well; come up to Mr. Merriman's house by the Rope Walk
and we'll see what he says."
That same day Mr. Merriman invited the American to dinner, and
engaged him, to Desmond's surprise, as first mate for the
Hormuzzeer, with Bulger as bo'sun.
"Don't look so blue," he said to Desmond when Mr. Toley had
gone. "He will, of course, take your place. The fact is, I've taken a
fancy to you, and I think you can do better than by serving as mate
on a country vessel. Look in at the daftarkhanah sometimes, and get
Surendra Nath to explain something of our business methods."
He said no more at that time, and Desmond felt no little
curiosity about his host's intentions.
One evening Desmond was sitting alone on the veranda,
reading, awaiting Mr. Merriman's return from a meeting of the
Council to which he had been hastily summoned. Hearing a footstep
he looked up, and was surprised to see, instead of Mr. Merriman, as
he expected, Bulger hastening up with an air of excitement.
"Mr. Burke, sir, what d'you think I've seed? I could hardly believe
my own eyes. I was walkin' down towards the fort when I seed two
men goin' into a big house. They was Englishmen, leastways white
men, and I may be wrong, but I bet my boots one on 'em was that
there soft-speakin' villain Diggle."
"Diggle!" exclaimed Desmond, springing up. "You must be
mistaken, Bulger."
"I may be wrong, sir, but I never remembers any time when I
was."
"What house did he go into?"
"That I can't tell you, sir, not bein' sure o' my bearin's."
"But you could point it out?"
"'Course I could. Rather. Just so."
"Then I'll come along with you, and you can show me. If it is
Diggle we must have him arrested."
"True, an' I'll knot the rope for his neck."
"How long ago was this?"
"Not a quarter of an hour, sir. I comed up at once."
The two set off together. They quickly reached the house;
Desmond recognized it as Omichand's. The evening was closing in,
but no lights were visible through the chiks[#] that covered the
windows. While Desmond was considering, two figures stepped
down from the veranda and walked rapidly across the compound
towards the gate in the wall. At the first glance Desmond saw that
Bulger had not been mistaken. The taller of the two figures was
disguised, but it was impassible to mistake the gloved right hand. It
was Diggle to a certainty.

[#] Hanging screens made of thin strips of bamboo.

"Are you game to capture them?" said Desmond.

 Bulger grunted and gave a twist to his hook.
"I'll take Diggle," added Desmond: "you go for the other man."
They waited in the shadow of the wall. The gate opened, the
two men came out, and in an instant Desmond and his companion
dashed forward. Taken by surprise, the men had no time to defend
themselves. With his left hand Desmond caught at Diggle's sword-
arm, and pointing his rapier at his heart, said:
"You are my prisoner, Mr. Diggle."
At the same moment Bulger had caught the second man by the
throat, and raising his formidable hook, cried:
"Heave to, matey, or I'll spoil your mug for you."
The man uttered an exclamation in French, which ended in a
wheeze as Bulger's strong fingers clutched his windpipe. But the
next moment an unlooked-for diversion occurred. Attracted by the
sound of the rapid scuffle, a number of natives armed with lathis[#]
rushed across the compound into the street, and came swiftly to the
rescue. Desmond and his companion had perforce to release their
prisoners and turn to defend themselves. With their backs against
the wall they met the assailants; Desmond with his rapier, Bulger
with his hook, dexterously warding off the furious blows of the
excited natives. Diggle and the Frenchman took instant advantage of
the opportunity to slip away, and the Englishmen had already got
home more than one shrewd thrust, provoking yells of pain from the
attackers, when the onslaught suddenly ceased, and the natives
stood rigid, as if under a spell. Looking round, Desmond saw at the
gate a bent old figure with dusky wrinkled face and prominent eyes.
He wore a turban in which a jewel sparkled, and his white garment
was girt with a yellow sash.
[#] Bludgeons.

"What is this, sahib?" he said severely in careful English, addressing

Desmond.
"'Tis pretty plain what it is," said Desmond somewhat hotly; "we
have been set upon by these six ruffians----"
The new-comer motioned with his hand, and the men slunk
away.
"I regret, sahib. The men are badmashes; Calcutta is unhappily
in a disturbed state."
"Badmashes or not, they came from your house--if this is your
house."
"It is my house, sahib. My name is Omichand. I must inquire
how the badmashes came to be in my compound. I fear my darwan
is at fault."
"And what about the two men?"
"The two men, sahib?"
"Yes, the two Europeans who came first from the house, and
were protected by these ruffians?"
"You must be mistaken, sahib. English sahibs do not visit at the
houses of Indian gentlemen. If the sahib had been longer in Calcutta
he would know that."
A smile flickered on the Indian's face, but it was gone instantly.
Desmond was nonplussed. It was useless to contradict the
merchant; he was clearly not disposed to give any information;
Diggle was gone. All he could do was to return and report the matter
to Mr. Merriman.
 "Come along, Bulger," he said, with an unceremonious gesture
to Omichand. "We can do no good here."
"The old Ananias!" growled Bulger, as they walked away. "What
in thunder is Diggle's game here? I'd give a year's baccy to have a
chanst o' usin' my hook on him."
Mr. Merriman looked grave when he heard what had happened.
"To think of that villain once more escaping our clutches! The
other fellow was a Frenchman, you say? There's mischief brewing.
Sure if I was president I'd be tempted to arrest that wily old
Omichand. Not that it would be of much use probably. Peloti is a
bold fellow to venture here. You are sure 'twas he?"
"Absolutely. His disguise was good; he has altered his face in
some way, and his dress is altogether changed; but I couldn't
mistake the covered hand."
"'Tis an odd thing, that mitten. Probably it conceals some
defect; the man's as vain as a peacock. The mitten is a thing by
which he may be traced, and I'll send my peons to start inquiries to-
morrow. But I've something to say to you; something to propose.
The Hormuzzeer is ready to sail, save for that consignment at
Cossimbazar I mentioned. My agent there is an Armenian named
Coja Solomon; I've employed him for some years and found him
trustworthy; but I can't get delivery of these goods. I've sent two or
three messengers to him, asking him to hurry, but he replies that
there is some difficulty about the dastaks--papers authorizing the
despatch of goods free from customs duty. Now, will you go up the
river and see what is causing the delay? I'll give you an introduction
to Mr. Watts; he will do all he can for you, though no doubt his
hands are full. You can take Surendra Nath with you to interpret;
and you had better have some armed peons as an escort, and
perhaps a number of men we can trust to work the boats if you can
release the goods. Are you willing?"
"I will gladly do anything I can, sir. Indeed, I wished for an
opportunity to see something of the country."
"You may see too much! I'd say beware of tigers, but Surendra
Nath is so desperately timid that you can depend on him not to lead
you into danger."
"The Hormuzzeer will not sail until I return?"
"Not till the goods arrive. Why do you ask?"
"I should like to take Bulger with me. He's a good companion,
with a shrewd head----"
"And a useful hook. I have no objection. You will be ready to
start to-morrow, then. You must be up early: travelling will be
impossible in the heat of the day."
"At dawn, sir."

CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH

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 pass.
"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, passing 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 pagodas, 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."
Passing 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 passing 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 competition. 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 assure you I nearly swooned, poor man!
and hardly had strength to send for the surgeon. It needed three
stitches--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 embarrassment
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.
Passing 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
massive 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:
"My friend Mr. Merriman needlessly disturbs himself, I think. I
apprehend no immediate difficulty with the new Subah, although 'tis
true there have been little vexations. As to the goods, they are in
Coja Solomon's godown; they were delivered some time ago and
paid for; what the reason of the delay is I cannot tell. One thing I
may mention--it appears that Mr. Merriman is ignorant of it: Coja
Solomon has lately become the agent of Omichand, whose peons
have been seen to visit him, then passing on to Murshidabad. I
happen to know also that he has communicated with Coja Wajid: do
you know anything of him?"
"No, sir, I have never heard his name."
"He's a rich Armenian trader in Hugli, and acts as agent
between the Nawab and the French and Dutch. We suspect him of
encouraging Siraj-uddaula against us; but of course we can't prove
anything. My advice to you is, be wary and be quick; don't trust any
of these fellows further than you can see them. But you can't do
anything to-night. You will allow me to give you a bed: in the
morning you can make a call on Coja Solomon. What has become of
your peons?"
"A Babu I brought with me is looking after them. But I have an
English seaman also: can you tell me what to do with him?"
"Sure he can lodge with Sergeant Bowler close by--near the
south-east bastion. The sergeant will be glad of the company of a
fellow-countryman; your man will be a change after the Dutchmen
and topasses he has to do with."
Early next morning Desmond, accompanied by Surendra Nath,
went to find Coja Solomon. He lived in a house not far from the
Armenian Church, between it and the river. The Armenian was at
home. He received Desmond with great politeness, assuring him
with much volubility that he had but one interest in life, and that
was the business of his honourable employer Mr. Merriman. He
invited Desmond to accompany him to the godown near the river
where the goods were stored--muslins of Dacca, both plain and
flowered, Bengal raw silk, and taffeties manufactured in
Cossimbazar.
"You have not been long in the country, sir," said Coja Solomon,
with a shrewd look at Desmond, "and therefore you will find it hard
to believe, perhaps, that these goods, so insignificant in bulk, are
worth over two lakhs of rupees. A precious load indeed, sir. This
delay is naturally a cause of vexation to my distinguished superior,
but it is not due to any idleness or inattention on my part. It is
caused by the surprising difficulty of getting the dastaks
countersigned by the Faujdar.[#] Without his signature, as you
know, the goods cannot be removed. I dare not venture."
[#] Officer in command of troops, and also a magistrate.

"But why didn't the Faujdar sign the papers?"

"That I cannot tell. I send messengers to him: they come back:
the Faujdar is much occupied with the Nawab's business, but he will
attend to this little matter as soon as he has leisure. He calls it a
little matter; and so it is, perhaps, if we remember that the Nawab's
wealth is reckoned by millions; but it is not a little matter to Mr.
Merriman, and I deeply deplore the unfortunate delay."
"Well, be good enough to send another message at once.
Represent to the Faujdar that Mr. Merriman's ship is prevented from
sailing until the goods reach Calcutta, and that this causes great
inconvenience and loss." Here the Babu whispered in his ear. "Yes,
and add--you will know how to put it--that if the dastaks are sent off
immediately, the Faujdar will receive from Mr. Merriman a suitable
gratification."
The Armenian rubbed his hands and smilingly assented; but
Desmond, who had had some practice in reading faces since he left
Market Drayton eighteen months before, felt an uneasy suspicion
that Coja Solomon was a scamp. Returning to the factory he
acquainted Mr. Watts with the result of his interview and his opinion
of the agent. The chief's eye twinkled.
"You haven't been long reckoning him up, Mr. Burke. I'm afraid
you're right. I'll see what I can do for you."
Calling "Qui hai!"[#] he ordered the peon who appeared in
answer to his summons to go to the black merchants' houses, a row
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