In a week you know everything, all the purposes
that Angria's spies have failed to discover. One day you disappear; the
ladies wail and tear their hair; a tiger has eaten you; in a week you
will be forgotten. But you are back in Angria's fortress, no longer a
slave, downtrodden and despised; but a free man, a rich man, a potentate
to be. Is it not worth thinking of, my young friend, especially when you
remember the other side of the picture? It is a dark side; an unpleasant
side; even, let me confess, horrible: I prefer to keep it to the wall."
He waved his gloved hand, deprecatingly, watching Desmond with the same
intentness. The boy was dumb: he might also have been deaf. Diggle drew
from his fob an elaborately chased snuffbox and took a pinch of fine
rappee, Desmond mechanically noticing that the box bore ornamentation of
Dutch design.
"If I were not your friend," continued Diggle, "I might say that your
attitude is one of sheer obstinacy. Why not trust us? You see we trust
you. I stand pledged for you with Angria; but I flatter myself I know a
man when I see one: si fractus illabitur orbis--you have already shown
your mettle. Of course I understand your scruples; I was young myself
once; I know the generous impulses that rule the hearts of youth. But
this is a matter that must be decided, not by feeling, but by hard fact
and cold reason. Who benefits by your scruples? A set of hard-living
money grubbers in Bombay who fatten on the oppression of the ryot, who
tithe mint and anise and cumin, who hoard up treasure which they will
take back with their jaundiced livers to England, there to become pests
to society with their splenetic and domineering tempers.
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