Presto!--at that serious crisis a Dutch ship makes
apparition and rescues me; but my last state is more desperate than the
first. The Dutch vessel will not stop to replace me on mother earth; she
is for Bombay, across the kala pani {black water}, as we say. I am not a
swimmer; besides, what boots it?--we are ten miles from land, to say
nothing of sharks and crocodiles and the lordly tiger. So I perforce
remain, to the injury of my caste, which forbids navigation. But see the
issue. The Dutch ship is assaulted; grabs and gallivats galore swarm upon
the face of the waters; all is confusion worse confounded; in a brace of
shakes we are in the toils. It is now two years since this untoward
catastrophe. With the crew I am conveyed hither and eat the bitter crust
of servitude. Some of the Dutchmen are consigned to other forts in
possession of the Pirate, and three serve here in his state barge."
Desmond glanced at the sleeping forms.
"No, sir, they are not here," said the Babu {equivalent to Mr.; applied
by the English to the native clerk}, catching his look. "They share
another apartment with your countrymen--chained? Oh, yes! These, my
bedfellows of misfortune, are Indians, not of Bengal, like myself; two
are Biluchis hauled from a country ship; two are Mussulmans from Mysore;
one a Gujarati; two Marathas. We are a motley crew--a miscellany, no
less."
"What do they do with you in the daytime?"
"I, sir, adjust accounts of the Pirate's dockyard; for this I am
qualified by prolonged driving of quill in Calcutta, to expressed
satisfaction of Honorable John Company and English merchants.
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