“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 knows, 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, Sirajuddaula, 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 Sirajuddaula 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 defenses 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 defenses in case we needed ’em against the French; but he undertook not to start any new works, which was a mistake.