Tulaji Angria was dark, inclined to be fat, and not unpleasant in
feature. But it was with a scowling brow that he replied to Diggle.
Desmond was no coward, but he afterward confessed that as he stood there
watching the two faces, the dark, lowering face of Angria, the smiling,
scarcely less swarthy face of Diggle, he felt his knees tremble under
him. What was the Pirate saying? That he was the subject of their
conversation was plain from the glances thrown at him; that he was at a
crisis in his fate he knew by instinct; but, ignorant of the tongue they
spoke, he could but wait in fearful anxiety and mistrust.
He learned afterwards the purport of the talk.
"That is your man?" said Angria. 'You have deceived me. I looked for a
man of large stature and robust make, like the Englishmen I already have.
What good will this slim, starved stripling be in my barge?"
"You must not be impatient, huzur {lord}," replied Diggle. "He is a
stripling, it is true; slim, certainly; starved--well, the work on board
ship does not tend to fatten a man. But give him time; he is but sixteen
or seventeen years old, young in my country. In a year or two, under your
regimen, he will develop; he comes of a hardy stock, and already he can
make himself useful. He was one of the quickest and handiest on board our
ship, though this was his first voyage."
"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.
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