moment, in the brightness of that warm and splendid evening, surrounded
by the intoxication of flowers and perfumes, which accelerated the pulses
of his young fiery heart, Djalma was dreaming of those exquisite
creatures, whom his fancy loved to clothe in the most ideal garbs.

It seemed to him as if, at the end of the avenue, in the midst of that
sheet of golden light, which the trees encompassed with their full, green
arch, he could see pass and repass, white and sylph-like, a host of
adorable and voluptuous phantoms, that threw him kisses from the tips of
their rosy fingers.  Unable to restrain his burning emotions, carried
away by a strange enthusiasm, Djalma uttered exclamations of joy, deep,
manly, and sonorous, and made his vigorous courser bound under him in the
excitement of a mad delight.  Just then a sunbeam, piercing the dark
vault of the avenue, shone full upon him.

For several minutes, a man had been advancing rapidly along a path,
which, at its termination, intersected the avenue diagonally.  He stopped
a moment in the shade, looking at Djalma with astonishment.  It was
indeed a charming sight, to behold, in the midst of a blaze of dazzling
lustre, this youth, so handsome, joyous, and ardent, clad in his white
and flowing vestments, gayly and lightly seated on his proud black mare,
who covered her red bridle with her foam, and whose long tail and thick
mane floated on the evening breeze.

But, with that reaction which takes place in all human desires, Djalma
soon felt stealing over him a sentiment of soft, undefinable melancholy.
He raised his hand to his eyes, now dimmed with moisture, and allowed the
reins to fall on the mane of his docile steed, which, instantly stopping,
stretched out its long neck, and turned its head in the direction of the
personage, whom it could see approaching through the coppice.

This man, Mahal the Smuggler, was dressed nearly like European sailors.
He wore jacket and trousers of white duck, a broad red sash, and a very
low-crowned straw hat.  His face was brown, with strongly-marked
features, and, though forty years of age, he was quite beardless.

In another moment, Mahal was close to the young Indian.  "You are Prince
Djalma?" said he, in not very good French, raising his hand respectfully
to his hat.

"What would you?" said the Indian.

"You are the son of Kadja-sing?"

"Once again, what would you?"

"The friend of General Simon?"

"General Simon?" cried Djalma.

"You are going to meet him, as you have gone every evening, since you
expect his return from Sumatra?"

"Yes, but how do you know all this?" said the Indian looking at the
Smuggler with as much surprise as curiosity.

"Is he not to land at Batavia, to-day or to-morrow?"

"Are you sent by him?"

"Perhaps," said Mahal, with a distrustful air.  "But are you really the
son of Kadja-sing?"

"Yes, I tell you--but where have you seen General Simon?"

"If you are the son of Kadja-sing," resumed Mahal, continuing to regard
Djalma with a suspicious eye, "what is your surname?"

"My sire was called the 'Father of the Generous,'" answered the young
Indian, as a shade of sorrow passed over his fine countenance.

These words appeared in part to convince Mahal of the identity of Djalma;
but, wishing doubtless to be still more certain, he resumed: "You must
have received, two days ago, a letter from General Simon, written from
Sumatra?"

"Yes; but why so many questions?"

"To assure myself that you are really the son of Kadja-sing, and to
execute the orders I have received."

"From whom?"

"From General Simon."

"But where is he?"

"When I have proof that you are Prince Djalma, I will tell you.  I was
informed that you would be mounted on a black mare, with a red bridle.
But--"

"By the soul of my mother! speak what you have to say!"

"I will tell you all--if you can tell me what was the printed paper,
contained in the last letter that General Simon wrote you from Sumatra."

"It was a cutting from a French newspaper."

"Did it announce good or bad news for the general?"

"Good news--for it related that, during his absence, they had
acknowledged the last rank and title bestowed on him by the Emperor, as
they had done for others of his brothers in arms, exiled like him."

"You are indeed Prince Djalma," said the Smuggler, after a moment's
reflection.  "I may speak.  General Simon landed last night in Java, but
on a desert part of the coast."

"On a desert part?"

"Because he has to hide himself."

"Hide himself!" exclaimed Djalma, in amazement; "why?"

"That I don't know."

"But where is he?" asked Djalma, growing pale with alarm.

"He is three leagues hence--near the sea-shore--in the ruins of Tchandi."

"Obliged to hide himself!" repeated Djalma, and his countenance expressed
increasing surprise and anxiety.

"Without being certain, I think it is because of a duel he fought in
Sumatra," said the Smuggler, mysteriously.

"A duel--with whom?"

"I don't know--I am not at all certain on the subject.  But do you know
the ruins of Tchandi?"

"Yes."

"The general expects you there; that is what he ordered me to tell you."

"So you came with him from Sumatra?"

"I was pilot of the little smuggling coaster, that landed him in the
night on a lonely beach.  He knew that you went every day to the mole, to
wait for him; I was almost sure that I should meet you.  He gave me
details about the letter you received from him as a proof that he had
sent me.  If he could have found the means of writing, he would have
written."

"But he did not tell you why he was obliged to hide himself?"

"He told me nothing.  Certain words made me suspect what I told you--a
duel."

Knowing the mettle of General Simon, Djalma thought the suspicions of the
Smuggler not unfounded.  After a moment's silence he said to him: "Can
you undertake to lead home my horse?  My dwelling is without the town--
there, in the midst of those trees--by the side of the new mosque.  In
ascending the mountain of Tchandi, my horse would be in my way; I shall
go much faster on foot."

"I know where you live; General Simon told me.  I should have gone there
if I had not met you.  Give me your horse."

Djalma sprang lightly to the ground, threw the bridle to Mahal, unrolled
one end of his sash, took out a silk purse, and gave it to the Smuggler,
saying: "You have been faithful and obedient.  Here!--it is a trifle--but
I have no more."

"Kadja-sing was rightly called the 'Father of the Generous,'" said the
Smuggler, bowing with respect and gratitude.  He took the road to
Batavia, leading Djalma's horse.  The young Indian, on the contrary,
plunged into the coppice, and, walking with great strides, he directed
his course towards the mountain, on which were the ruins of Tchandi,
where he could not arrive before night.




CHAPTER XX.

M. JOSHUA VAN DAEL.

M. Joshua Van Dael a Dutch merchant, and correspondent of M. Rodin, was
born at Batavia, the capital of the island of Java; his parents had sent
him to be educated at Pondicherry, in a celebrated religious house, long
established in that place, and belonging to the "Society of Jesus."  It
was there that he was initiated into the order as "professor of the three
vows," or lay member, commonly called "temporal coadjutor."

Joshua was a man of probity that passed for stainless; of strict accuracy
in business, cold, careful, reserved, and remarkably skillful and
sagacious; his financial operations were almost always successful, for a
protecting power gave him ever in time, knowledge of events which might
advantageously influence his commercial transactions.  The religious
house of Pondicherry was interested in his affairs, having charged him
with the exportation and exchange of the produce of its large possessions
in this colony.

Speaking little, hearing much, never disputing, polite in the extreme--
giving seldom, but with choice and purpose--Joshua, without inspiring
sympathy, commanded generally that cold respect, which is always paid to
the rigid moralist; for instead of yielding to the influence of lax and
dissolute colonial manners, he appeared to live with great regularity,
and his exterior had something of austerity about it, which tended to
overawe.

The following scene took place at Batavia, while Djalma was on his way to
the ruins of Tchandi in the hope of meeting General Simon.

M. Joshua had just retired into his cabinet, in which were many shelves
filled with paper boxes, and huge ledgers and cash boxes lying open upon
desks.  The only window of this apartment, which was on the ground floor,
looked out upon a narrow empty court, and was protected externally by
strong iron bars; instead of glass, it was fitted with a Venetian blind,
because of the extreme heat of the climate.

M. Joshua, having placed upon his desk a taper in a glass globe, looked
at the clock.  "Half-past nine," said he.  "Mahal ought soon to be here."

Saying this, he went out, passing through an antechamber, opened a second
thick door, studded with nail-heads, in the Dutch fashion, cautiously
entered the court (so as not to be heard by the people in the house), and
drew back the secret bolt of a gate six feet high, formidably garnished
with iron spikes.  Leaving this gate unfastened, he regained his cabinet,
after he had successively and carefully closed the two other doors behind
him.

M. Joshua next seated himself at his desk, and took from a drawer a long
letter, or rather statement, commenced some time before, and continued
day by day.  It is superfluous to observe, that the letter already
mentioned, as addressed to M. Rodin, was anterior to the liberation of
Djalma and his arrival at Batavia.

The present statement was also addressed to M. Rodin, and Van Dael thus
went on with it:

"Fearing the return of General Simon, of which I had been informed by
intercepting his letters--I have already told you, that I had succeeded
in being employed by him as his agent here; having then read his letters,
and sent them on as if untouched to Djalma, I felt myself obliged, from
the pressure of the circumstances, to have recourse to extreme measures--
taking care always to preserve appearances, and rendering at the same
time a signal service to humanity, which last reason chiefly decided me.

"A new danger imperiously commanded these measures.  The steamship
'Ruyter' came in yesterday, and sails tomorrow in the course of the day.
She is to make the voyage to Europe via the Arabian Gulf; her passengers
will disembark at Suez, cross the Isthmus, and go on board another vessel
at Alexandria, which will bring them to France.  This voyage, as rapid as
it is direct, will not take more than seven or eight weeks.  We are now
at the end of October; Prince Djalma might then be in France by the
commencement of the month of January; and according to your instructions,
of which I know not the motive, but which I execute with zeal and
submission, his departure must be prevented at all hazards, because, you
tell me, some of the gravest interests of the Society would be
compromised, by the arrival of this young Indian in Paris before the 13th
of February.  Now, if I succeed, as I hope, in making him miss this
opportunity of the 'Ruyter' it will be materially impossible for him to
arrive in France before the month of April; for the 'Ruyter' is the only
vessel which makes the direct passage, the others taking at least four or
five months to reach Europe.

"Before telling you the means which I have thought right to employ, to
detain Prince Djalma--of the success of which means I am yet uncertain--
it is well that you should be acquainted with the following facts.

"They have just discovered, in British India, a community whose members
call themselves 'Brothers of the Good Work,' or 'Phansegars,' which
signifies simply 'Thugs' or 'Stranglers;' these murderers do not shed
blood, but strangle their victims, less for the purpose of robbing them,
than in obedience to a homicidal vocation, and to the laws of an infernal
divinity named by them 'Bowanee.'

"I cannot better give you an idea of this horrible sect, than by
transcribing here some lines from the introduction of a report by Colonel
Sleeman, who has hunted out this dark association with indefatigable
zeal.  The report in question was published about two months ago.  Here
is the extract; it is the colonel who speaks:

"'From 1822 to 1824, when I was charged with the magistracy and civil
administration of the district of Nersingpore, not a murder, not the
least robbery was committed by an ordinary criminal, without my being
immediately informed of it; but if any one had come and told me at this
period, that a band of hereditary assassins by profession lived in the
village of Kundelie, within about four hundred yards of my court of
justice--that the beautiful groves of the village of Mundesoor, within a
day's march of my residence, formed one of the most frightful marts of
assassination in all India--that numerous bands of 'Brothers of the Good
Work,' coming from Hindostan and the Deccan, met annually beneath these
shades, as at a solemn festival, to exercise their dreadful vocation upon
all the roads which cross each other in this locality--I should have
taken such a person for a madman, or one who had been imposed upon by
idle tales.  And yet nothing could be truer; hundreds of travellers had
been buried every year in the groves of Mundesoor; a whole tribe of
assassins lived close to my door, at the very time I was supreme
magistrate of the province, and extended their devastations to the cities
of Poonah and Hyderabad.  I shall never forget, when, to convince me of
the fact, one of the chiefs of the Stranglers, who had turned informer
against them, caused thirteen bodies to be dug up from the ground beneath
my tent, and offered to produce any number from the soil in the immediate
vicinity.'[5]

"These few words of Colonel Sleeman will give some idea of this dread
society, which has its laws, duties, customs, opposed to all other laws,
human and divine.  Devoted to each other, even to heroism, blindly
obedient to their chiefs, who profess themselves the immediate
representatives of their dark divinity, regarding as enemies all who do
not belong to them, gaining recruits everywhere by a frightful system of
proselytisin--these apostles of a religion of murder go preaching their
abominable doctrines in the shade, and spreading their immense net over
the whole of India.

"Three of their principal chiefs, and one of their adepts, flying from
the determined pursuit of the English governor-general, having succeeded
in making their escape, had arrived at the Straits of Malacca, at no
great distance from our island; a smuggler, who is also something of a
pirate, attached to their association, and by name Mahal, took them on
board his coasting vessel, and brought them hither, where they think
themselves for some time in safety--as, following the advice of the
smuggler, they lie concealed in a thick forest, in which are many ruined
temples and numerous subterranean retreats.

"Amongst these chiefs, all three remarkably intelligent, there is one in

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