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

“But how am I to find him, sir?”

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

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

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

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

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

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