“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 {office}, where he found a large staff under the superintendence of the muhri {chief clerk}, 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.

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 {substantial} house, surrounded by a compound and a low wall.

“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. Lyre, 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 learned, and as soon as it arrived the Hormuzzeer would be able to sail for Penang.