oaded with rich gifts, the next threatened with death
and torture.

Yet so it was. After the attempt whose miscarriage I have just
related, the demeanour of the Nabob underwent a singular change. He
relented from his severity towards us, and in fact a few days after,
riding past our place of imprisonment one morning, he stopped at the
door and calling Mr. Holwell out to him, bade him and his two
companions betake themselves where they would, since he desired never
to hear of them again.

However, in this dismissal he did not include me, choosing to put me
on a different footing from the other prisoners he had taken at Fort
William, and to hold me as a hostage--for so I am sure he considered
me--for the friendship of Colonel Clive. He offered me the choice
between being kept in chains or giving him my parole not to leave
Moorshedabad without his consent. The Moors do not accept each other's
parole, but they trust that of a European, than which there can be no
stronger proof of the dishonesty of their whole nation. I chose to
comply with the Nabob's condition, as I considered that I ought not to
quit the place without having effected something for Marian. And by
giving my parole I trusted to obtain opportunities for communicating
with her, as well as with my luckless cousin Gurney, whom I had not
seen since the morning after our adventure.

Whether Surajah Dowlah suspected my designs, and took particular
measures for baffling them, I cannot say. But during the time that now
followed, try as I would, I never succeeded in so much as hearing the
smallest news of either of the two persons whom I knew to be in
Moorshedabad. So close is the secrecy maintained by Orientals that
they might have both been carried off into the recesses of Tartary,
and yet not been more utterly out of my reach than they were, abiding
in the same city.

Neither was I able to gain any certain tidings of my fellow
countrymen. I only knew that the Nabob, intoxicated with the pride of
his victory at Fort William, had neglected to take measures for
pursuing the refugees and driving them from his country. So that they
lay all together at Fulta, very miserably, wishing for succour to
arrive from Madras, and passed the time, as I have since understood,
in recriminations upon each other, for the misconduct and weakness
which had brought about the fall of Calcutta. What were the real
feelings of Surajah Dowlah towards myself I found it then, and find it