``Is it possible you do not know the Queen of
Sheba?'' You must know, then, that she is the
daughter of a Scotch emigrant, who lived and died
at Pondicherry, a sergeant in Lally's regiment.
She managed to marry a partisan officer named
Montreville, a Swiss or Frenchman, I cannot tell
which. After the surrender of Pondicherry, this
hero and heroine---But hey---what the devil are
you thinking of?---If you stare at her that way,
you will make a scene; for she will think nothing
of scolding you across the table.''
With
a voice which in the force of its accents corresponded
with her commanding air, Mrs Montreville
addressed him in English, which savoured slightly
of a Swiss patois,---``You have come to us very
fast, sir, to say nothing at all. Are you sure you
did not get your tongue stolen by de way?''
``Some fair-skinned speculation of old Montreville's,
I suppose, that she has got either to toady
herself, or take in some of her friends with.
---Is it possible you have never heard of old Mother
Montreville?''
``Well, this lady is the
widow of a Swiss officer in the French service, who,
after the surrender of Pondicherry, went off into
the interior, and commenced soldier on his own
account. He got possession of a fort, under pretence
of keeping it for some simple Rajah or other;
assembled around him a parcel of desperate vagabonds,
of every colour in the rainbow; occupied a
considerable territory, of which he raised the duties
in his own name, and declared for independence.
But Hyder Naig understood no such interloping
proceedings, and down he came, besieged
the fort and took it, though some pretend it was
betrayed to him by this very woman. Be that as
it may, the poor Swiss was found dead on the ramparts.
Certain it is, she received large sums of
money, under pretence of paying of her troops,
surrendering of hill-forts, and Heaven knows what
besides. She was permitted also to retain some
insignia of royalty; and, as she was wont to talk
of Hyder as the Eastern Solomon, she generally
became known by the title of Queen of Sheba. She
leaves her court when she pleases, and has been as
far as Fort St George before now. In a word, she
does pretty much as she likes. The great folks here
are civil to her, though they look on her as little
better than a spy. As to Hyder, it is supposed he
has ensured her fidelity by borrowing the greater
part of her treasures, which prevents her from
daring to break with him,---besides other causes
that smack of scandal of another sort.''
``Your old acquaintance,
Mr Tresham, or Mr Middlemas, or whatever else
he chooses to be called, has been complimented by
a report, that he stood very high in the good graces
of this same Boadicea. He certainly commanded
some troops which she still keeps on foot, and
acted at their head in the Nawaub's service, who
craftily employed him in whatever could render
him odious to his countrymen. The British prisoners
were intrusted to his charge, and, to judge
by what I felt myself, the devil might take a lesson
from him in severity.''
``And was he attached to, or connected with,
this woman?''
``So Mrs Rumour told us in our dungeon. Poor
Jack Ward had the bastinado for celebrating their
merits in a parody on the playhouse song,
`Sure such a pair were never seen,
So aptly formed to meet by nature.' ''
...such a woman...
into an apartment. The room opened on one
side into a small garden or parterre, filled with the
brilliant-coloured flowers of eastern climates; in
the midst of which the waters of a fountain rose
upwards in a sparkling jet, and fell back again into
a white marble cistern.
A step was heard---the door opened---
a female appeared-but it was the portly form of
Madame de Montreville.
``What you do please to want, sir?'' said the
lady; ``that is, if you have found your tongue this
morning, which you had lost yesterday.''
``How is this, my dear?'' said Mrs Montreville,
with unruffled front;
"`are you not gone out for two or three days, as I
tell this gentleman?--mais c'est égal--it is all one
thing. You will say, How d'ye do, and good-bye,
to Monsieur, who is so polite as to come to ask
after our healths, and as he sees us both very well,
he will go away home again.''
``That is to say, get you gone? but I do not
allow that---I do not like private conversation between
young man and pretty young woman; cela
n'est pas honnête. It cannot be in my house.''
The Queen of Sheba,
notwithstanding her natural assurance, was disconcerted
by the composure of Miss Gray's manner,
and left the room, apparently in displeasure.
--why with this woman?''
``She is not, indeed, every thing that I expected,
but I must not be prejudiced by foreign manners,
after the step I have taken---She is, besides,
attentive, and generous in her way, and I shall
soon be under better protection.''
Mrs Montreville, a lady of
rank, having large possessions and high interest in
the Mysore, would receive me on my arrival at
Fort St George, and conduct me safely to the dominions
of Hyder. It was further recommended,
that, considering the peculiar situation of Mr Middlemas,
his name should be concealed in the transaction,
and that the ostensible cause of my voyage
should be to fill an office in that lady's family.
The
references given, the sum of money lodged, were
considered as putting all scruples out of the question,
and my immediate protectress and kinswoman
was so earnest that I should accept of the offer
made me, as to intimate that she would not encourage
me to stand in my own light, by continuing
to give me shelter and food, (she gave me little
more,) if I was foolish enough to refuse compliance.
...this unsexed woman, who can no longer be
termed a European.
"Tell me only,
do you, of your own positive knowledge, aver that
you consider this woman as an unworthy and unfit
protectress for so young a person as I am?''
``Of my own knowledge I can say nothing; nay,
I must own, that reports differ even concerning
Mrs Montreville's character. But surely the mere
suspicion------''
" What, indeed, must
he be, should this Madam Montreville be other than
he represented her?''
Meantime, Madam Montreville, followed by her
domestic, entered the apartment.
It appeared from
the conversation which follows, that they had from
some place of concealment overheard the dialogue
we have narrated in the former chapter.
``It is good luck, Sadoc,'' said the lady, ``that
there is in this world the great fool.''
``And the great villain,'' answered Sadoc, in
good English, but in a most sullen tone.
``This woman, now,'' continued the lady, ``is
what in Frangistan you call an angel.''
``Ay, and I have seen those in Hindostan you
may well call devil.''
``I am sure that this---how you call him---Hartley,
is a meddling devil. For what has he to do?
She will not have any of him. What is his business
who has her? I wish we were well up the
Ghauts again, my dear Sadoc.''
``For my part,'' answered the slave, ``I am half
determined never to ascend the Ghauts more. Hark
you, Adela, I begin to sicken of the plan we have
laid. This creature's confiding purity---call her
angel or woman, as you will---makes my practices
appear too vile, even in my own eyes. I feel myself
unfit to be your companion farther in the daring
paths which you pursue. Let us part, and part
friends.''
``Amen, coward. But the woman remains with
me,'' answered the Queen of Sheba.*
* In order to maintain uninjured the tone of passion
throughout this dialogue, it has been judged expedient to discard,
in the language of the Begum, the patois of Madame
Montreville.
``With thee!'' replied the seeming black---
``never. No, Adela. She is under the shadow
of the British flag, and she shall experience its
protection.''
``Yes---and what protection will it afford to you
yourself?'' retorted the Amazon. ``What if I
should clap my hands, and command a score of my
black servants to bind you like a sheep, and then
send word to the Governor of the Presidency that
one Richard Middlemas, who had been guilty of
mutiny, murder, desertion, and serving of the enemy
against his countrymen, is here, at Ram Sing Cottah's
house, in the disguise of a black servant?''
Middlemas covered his face with his hands, while
Madam Montreville proceeded to load him with
reproaches.---``Yes''; she said, ``slave, and son of
a slave! Since you wear the dress of my household,
you shall obey me as fully as the rest of them,
otherwise,---whips, fetters---the scaffold, renegade,
---the gallows, murderer! Dost thou dare to reflect
on the abyss of misery from which I raised
thee, to share my wealth and my affections? Dost
thou not remember that the picture of this pale,
cold, unimpassioned girl was then so indifferent to
thee, that thou didst sacrifice it as a tribute due to
the benevolence of her who relieved thee, to the affection
of her who, wretch as thou art, condescended
to love thee?''
``Yes, fell woman,'' answered Middlemas, ``but
was it I who encouraged the young tyrant's outrageous
passion for a portrait, or who formed the
abominable plan of placing the original within his
power?''
``No---for to do so required brain and wit. But
it was thine, flimsy villain, to execute the device
which a bolder genius planned; it was thine to entice
the woman to this foreign shore, under pretence
of a love, which, on thy part, cold-blooded
miscreant, never had existed."
``Peace, screech-owl!'' answered Middlemas,
``nor drive me to such madness as may lead me to
forget thou art a woman.''
``A woman, dastard! Is this thy pretext for
sparing me?---what, then, art thou, who tremblest
at a woman's looks, a woman's words?---I am a
woman, renegade, but one who wears a dagger,
and despises alike thy strength and thy courage. I
am a woman who has looked on more dying men
than thou hast killed deer and antelopes. Thou
must traffic for greatness?---thou hast thrust thyself
like a five-years' child, into the rough sports of
men, and wilt only be borne down and crushed for
thy pains. Thou wilt be a double traitor, forsooth
---betray thy betrothed to the Prince, in order to
obtain the means of betraying the Prince to the
English, and thus gain thy pardon from thy countrymen.
But me thou shalt not betray. I will not
be made the tool of thy ambition---I will not give
thee the aid of my treasures and my soldiers, to be
sacrificed at last to this northern icicle. No, I will
watch thee as the fiend watches the wizard. Show
but a symptom of betraying me while we are here,
and I denounce thee to the English, who might
pardon the successful villain, but not him who can
only offer prayers for his life, in place of useful
services. Let me see thee flinch when we are beyond
the Ghauts, and the Nawaub shall know thy
intrigues with the Nizam and the Mahrattas, and
thy resolution to deliver up Bangalore to the English,
when the imprudence of Tippoo shall have
made thee Killedar. Go where thou wilt, slave,
thou shalt find me thy mistress.''
``And a fair, though an unkind one,'' said the
counterfeit Sadoc, suddenly changing his tone to
an affectation of tenderness. ``It is true I pity this
unhappy woman; true I would save her if I could
---but most unjust to suppose I would in any circumstances
prefer her to my Nourjehan, my light
of the world, my Mootee Mahul, my pearl of the
palace---''
``All false coin and empty compliment,'' said the
Begum. ``Let me hear, in two brief words, that
you leave this woman to my disposal.''
``But not to be interred alive under your seat,
like the Circassian of whom you were jealous,'' said
Middlemas, shuddering.
``No, fool; her lot shall not be worse than that
of being the favourite of a prince. Hast thou, fugitive
and criminal as thou art, a better fate to offer
her?''
``But,'' replied Middlemas, blushing even through
his base disguise at the consciousness of his abject
conduct, ``I will have no force on her inclinations.''
``Such truce she shall have as the laws of the
Zenana allow,'' replied the female tyrant. ``A
week is long enough for her to determine whether
she will be the willing mistress of a princely and
generous lover.''
``Ay,'' said Richard, ``and before that week
expires------'' He stopped short.
``What will happen before the week expires?''
said the Begum Montreville.
``No matter---nothing of consequence. I leave
the woman's fate with you.''
``'Tis well---we march to-night on our return,
so soon as the moon rises. Give orders to our
retinue.''
``To hear is to obey,'' replied the seeming slave,
and left the apartment.
The eyes of the Begum remained fixed on the
door through which he had passed. ``Villain---
double-dyed villain!'' she said, ``I see thy drift;
thou wouldst betray Tippoo, in policy alike and in
love. But me thou canst not betray.---Ho, there,
who waits? Let a trusty messenger be ready to set
off instantly with letters, which I will presently make
ready. His departure must be a secret to every
one.---And now shall this pale phantom soon know
her destiny, and learn what it is to have rivalled
Adela Montreville.''
While the Amazonian Princess meditated plans
of vengeance against her innocent rival and the
guilty lover...
``Doubt it not---the soldiers of the Begum
Mootee Mahul, whom the Europeans call Montreville,
are less hers than mine. I am myself her
Bukshee, [General,] and her Sirdars are at my
devotion. With these I could keep Bangalore for
two months, and the British army may be before
it in a week. What do you risk by advancing General
Smith's army nearer to the frontier?''
The litter stopped as it approached the tank,
on the opposite side of which the Prince was seated
on his musnud. Middlemas assisted the Begum
to descend, and led her, deeply veiled with silver
muslin, towards the platform of marble. The rest
of the retinue of the Begum followed in their
richest and most gaudy attire, all males, however;
nor was there a symptom of woman being in her
train, expect that a close litter, guarded by twenty
black slaves, having their sabres drawn, remained
at some distance in a thicket of flowering shrubs.
When Tippoo Saib, through the dim haze which
hung over the waterfall, discerned the splendid
train of the Begum advancing, he arose from his
musnud, so as to receive her near the foot of his
throne, and exchanged greetings with her upon
the pleasure of meeting, and enquiries after their
mutual health. He then conducted her to the
cushion placed near to his own, while his courtiers
anxiously showed their politeness in accommodating
those of the Begum with places upon the carpets
around, where they all sat down cross-legged.
It would be
impossible to describe the feelings with which Hartley
recognised the
Amazonian Mrs Montreville.
The Nawaub, faithful to
his promise, remitted a sum of no less than
ten thousand gold Mohurs, extorted, as was surmised,
almost entirely from the hoards of the Begum
Mootee Mahul, or Montreville. Of the fate
of that adventuress nothing was known for certainty;
but her forts and government were taken
into Hyder's custody, and report said, that, her
power being abolished and her consequence lost,
she died by poison, either taken by herself, or administered
by some other person.
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