"We owe our lives to you, and
Mr. Merriman his goods. But what was the business that took Mr. Merriman
from Calcutta at this time of trouble?"
"Trouble of his own, Burke," said Mr. Toley. "I guess he'd better have
let the Nawab keep his goods and sent you to look after his womenfolk."
"What do you mean? I left the ladies at Khulna; what has happened to
them?"
"'Tis what Mr. Merriman would fain know. They've disappeared, gone clean
out of sight."
"But the peons?"
"Gone, too. Nothing heard or seen of them."
This serious news came as a shock to Desmond. If he had only known! How
willingly he would have let Coja Solomon do what he pleased with the
goods, and hastened to the help of the wife and daughter Mr. Merriman
held so dear! While in Cossimbazar, he had heard from Mr. Watts terrible
stories of the Nawab's villainy, which no respect of persons held in
check. He feared that if Mrs. Merriman and Phyllis had indeed fallen into
Sirajuddaula's hands, they were lost to their family and friends forever.
But, eager as he was to get back to Calcutta and join Mr. Merriman in
searching for them, he had a strange certainty that it was not to be. The
faintness that he had already felt returned. His head was burning and
throbbing; his ears buzzed; his limbs ached; his whole frame was seized
at moments with paroxysms of shivering which no effort could control.
Unknown to himself the seeds of malarial fever had found a lodgment in
his system.
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