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, the latter plotted as deeply for
his own purposes. He had waited until such brief twilight as India
enjoys rendered his disguise complete, then set out in haste for the
part of Madras inhabited by the Europeans, or, as it is termed, Fort St.
George.
"I will save her yet," he said; "ere Tippoo can seize his prize, we will
raise around his ears a storm which would drive the God of War from the
arms of the Goddess of Beauty. The trap shall close its fangs upon this
Indian tiger, ere he has time to devour the bait which enticed him into
the snare."
While Middlemas cherished these hopes, he approached the Residency. The
sentinel on duty stopped him, as of course, but he was in possession of
the counter-sign, and entered without opposition. He rounded the
building in which the President of the Council resided, an able and
active, but unconscientious man, who, neither in his own affairs, nor in
those of the Company, was supposed to embarrass himself much about the
means which he used to attain his object. A tap at a small postern gate
was answered by a black slave, who admitted Middlemas to that necessary
appurtenance of every government, a back stair, which, in its turn,
conducted him to the office of the Bramin Paupiah, the Dubash, or
steward of the great man, and by whose means chiefly he communicated
with the native courts, and carried on many mysterious intrigues, which
he did not communicate to his brethren at the council-board.
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