“But you yourself admit that he is not yet competent for the oar in my barge.  What is to recompense me for the food he will eat while he is growing?  No, Diggle sahib, if I take him I must have some allowance off the price.  In truth, I will not take him unless you send me from your vessel a dozen good muskets.  That is my word.”

“Still, huzur—­” began Diggle, but Angria cut him short with a gesture of impatience.

“That is my word, I say.  Shall I, Tulaji Angria, dispute with you?  I will have twenty muskets, or you may keep the boy.”

Diggle shrugged and smiled.

“Very well, huzur.  You drive a hard bargain; but it shall be as you say.  I will send a chit to the captain, and you shall have the muskets before the ship sails.”

Angria made a sign to one of his attendants.  The man approached Desmond, took him by the sleeve, and signed for him to come away.  Desmond threw a beseeching look at Diggle, and said hurriedly: 

“Mr. Diggle, please tell me—­”

But Angria rose to his feet in wrath, and shouted to the man who had Desmond by the sleeve.  Desmond made no further resistance.  His head swam as he passed between the dusky ranks out into the courtyard.

“What does it all mean?” he asked himself.

His guide hurried him along until they came to a barn-like building under the northwest angle of the fort.  The Maratha unlocked the door, signed to Desmond to enter, and locked him in.  He was alone.

He spent three miserable hours.  Bitterly did he now regret having cast in his lot with the smooth-spoken stranger who had been so sympathetic with him in his troubles at home.  He tried to guess what was to be done with him.  He was in Angria’s power, a prisoner, but to what end?  Had he run from the tyranny at home merely to fall a victim to a worse tyranny at the hands of an oriental?  He knew so little of Angria, and his brain was in such a turmoil, that he could not give definite shape to his fears.

He paced up and down the hot, stuffy shed, awaiting, dreading, he knew not what.  Through the hole that served for a window he saw men passing to and fro across the courtyard, but they were all swarthy, all alien; there was no one from whom he could expect a friendly word.

Toward evening, as he looked through the hole, he saw Diggle issue from the door of the palace and cross towards the outer gate.

“Mr. Diggle!  Mr. Diggle!” he called.  “Please!  I am locked up here.”

Diggle looked round, smiled, and leisurely approached the shed.

“Why have they shut me up here?” demanded Desmond.  “Captain Barker said I was to return at once.  Do get the door unlocked.”

“You ask the impossible, my young friend,” replied Diggle through the hole.  “You are here by the orders of Angria, and ’twould be treason in me to pick his locks.”

“But why? what right has he to lock me up? and you, why did you let him?  You said you were my friend; you promised—­oh, you know what you promised.”