Sea of Poppies

Eight

Once the Ibis had been berthed, Zachary and Serang Ali opened the account books and paid the crew their accumulated addlings. Many of the lascars disappeared immediately into the gullies of Kidderpore, with their copper and silver coins carefully hidden in the folds of their clothing. Some would never see the Ibis again, but some were back in a matter of days, having been robbed or cheated, or having squandered their earnings in toddyshacks and knockingdens – or having discovered, simply, that life ashore was far more attractive when you were at sea than when your feet were a-trip on the slick turf of lubber-land.

It would be some time yet before the Ibis could be accommodated at the Lustignac dry docks in Kidderpore, where she was to be repaired and refurbished. During the time she was moored in the river, only a skeleton crew remained on board, along with Zachary and Serang Ali. Although shrunken in size, the crew continued to function much as at sea, being divided into two pors, or watches, each of which was headed by a tindal; as at sea, each por was on deck for four hours at a stretch, except during the chhota-pors, which were the two-hour dogwatches of dawn and dusk. The safety of port came at the price of an increased risk of pilferage and theft, so there was no slackening in the vigilance required of the por; nor was there any easing in the pace of work on board, for there were inventories to be made, inspections to be completed and most of all, a great deal of cleaning to be done. Serang Ali made no secret of his view that a sailor who would send his ship untended to the dry dock was worse than the worst shorebound scum, worse than a ma-chowdering pimp.

Gali was one domain of the Laskari tongue in which no one could outdo the serang: in no small measure was it because of the fluency of his swearing that Jodu held him in unbounded respect. It was a matter of great disappointment to him that his regard was entirely unreciprocated.

Jodu knew well enough that freshwater-jacks like himself were held in contempt by ocean-going lascars: often, while rowing past some towering three-master, he had looked up to see a grinning seacunny or kussab shouting taunts, calling him a stick-man – a dandi-wálá – and spinning out insults about the uses to which sticks could be put. For taunts and jibes, Jodu was well-prepared and would even have been glad of, but the serang would allow no familiarities between him and the other lascars: indeed he lost no opportunity to make it clear that he had taken Jodu into the crew against his will and would prefer to see him gone. If he had to be put up with, at Zachary's insistence, then it would only be as a topas, the lowliest of lascars – a sweeper, to scrub piss-dales, clean heads, wash utensils, scour the decks and the like. To make things as unpleasant as possible, he even made Jodu saw his jharu in half: the shorter the broom, he said, the cleaner the work – this way you'll be so close to the droppings you'll know what the tatti was made of when it went in the mouth. On the serang's right foot, there was a single, carefully tended toenail, a half-inch in length and filed to a sharp point. When Jodu was on all fours, scouring the deck, the serang would sometimes steal up to kick him: Chal sálá! You think it hurts to be spiked in the stern? Be glad it's not a cannon up your gundeck.

During his first weeks on the Ibis, the serang would not allow Jodu to go below for any reason other than to clean the heads: even at night, he had to sleep on deck. This was a problem only when it rained, which didn't happen often – at other times, Jodu was by no means the only hand to be looking for the 'softest plank on deck'. It was thus that he was befriended by Roger Cecil David, known as Rajoo-launder to his shipmates. Tall and thin, Rajoo had the upright mien of a tent-pole, and a complexion that almost matched the tarry tint of the schooner's masts. Having been raised in a succession of Christian missions, he liked to wear shirts and trowsers, and was often to be seen in a cloth cap – not for him the lungis and bandhnas of the other lascars. These were ambitious tastes for a ship-launder, and they earned him much derision – not least because his garments were patched together from scraps of sailcloth. The joke about him, in short, was that he was the schooner's third dol – a human mizzen-mast – and his forays into the ringeen were often accompanied by much hilarity, with the foretopmen vying with each other to make cracks at his expense. The possibilities of suggestion here were very rich, for unlike sailors elsewhere, lascars often spoke of their ships in the masculine, referring to the vessels' masts as their manhood – the word for which was much the same as the commonly used term for 'ship's-boy', with but a syllable removed.

… lundto yahã, par launda kahã…?

… here's the prick, but where's the pricker…?

… lowering his canvas…

… waiting for a blow…

Rajoo, for his part, would have been overjoyed to give up his place among the foretopmen – not only because of their jokes, but also because he had no head for heights and was always queasy while aloft. It was his fond ambition to move off the yards, into some position such as mess-boy, steward, or cook, where his feet would be firmly planted on deck. Since Jodu, on the other hand, wanted nothing more than to be up on the foremast with the trikat-wale, they quickly decided to put their heads together, to make the exchange come about.

It was Rajoo who took Jodu through the cramped companionway that led to the fo'c'sle, where the lascars' hammocks were hung. The lascars' word for this space was faná, or hood, as in the outspread crown of a cobra – for if a ship were to be thought of as a sinuous, living creature, then the head was the exact part to which the fana would correspond, being tucked between the bows, below the main deck and above the cutwater, just aft of the fang of the bowsprit. Although he had never before set foot on the exalted precincts of an ocean-going vessel, Jodu was familiar with the word fana, and had often wondered what it would be like to live and sleep inside the skull of the great living creature that was a ship. To be a fana-wala – a fo'c'sleman of the hood – and to live above the taliyamar, forging through the oceans, was the stuff of his dreams: but in the sight that met his eyes now, as he entered the fana, there was nothing of wonder, and certainly no trace of the fabled jewels of a cobra's crown. The fana was airless, hot and dark, with no source of lighting except a single oil-lamp hanging on a hook; in the glow of the sputtering flame, it seemed to Jodu that he had tumbled into some musty cave that was densely festooned with cobwebs – for everywhere he looked there was a webbing of hammocks, hanging in double rows, suspended between wooden beams. The cramped, shallow space had the form of an elliptical triangle, with sides that curved inwards to meet at the bows. In height, it was not quite as tall as a full-grown man, yet the hammocks were hung one above another, no more than sixteen regulation inches apart, so that every man's nose was inches away from a solid barrier: either the ceiling or an arse. Strange to think that these hanging beds were called 'jhulis', as if they were swings, like those given to brides or infants; to hear the word said was to imagine yourself being rocked gently to sleep by a ship's motion – but to see them strung up in front of you, like nets in a pond, was to know that your dreaming hours would be spent squirming like a trapped fish, fighting for space to breathe.

Jodu could not resist climbing into one of the jhulis – but only to leap out again when he caught a noseful of its odour, which consisted not just of the stench of bodies, but of the accumulated smell of sleep itself, compounded of the reek of unwashed bedding, hair-oil, soot, and several months'-worth of dribbles, trickles, leaks, spurts and farts. As luck would have it, the next job to which he was set was that of scrubbing and washing the hammocks: so thoroughly were the jhulis steeped in soot and grime that it seemed to Jodu that not all the water of the Ganga would clean them of the sweat and sin of their former occupants. And when at last the job seemed done, the serang clipped him on the ear, and made him start all over again: Call that clean, do you, you tatter-arsed plugtail of a launder? Many a backslit is cleaner than this.

With his nose in the grime, Jodu yearned to leap up into the ringeen, to be with the trikat-wale, chatting in the crosstrees – not for nothing did lascars call that lofty chair a 'kursi', for that was where they went when they chose to lounge at ease, cooled by the breeze. How wasted was this privilege on Rajoo-launder, who never made use of it – and yet for him, Jodu, to so much as glance aloft was to risk a stinging blow from the serang's foot. To think of all the years he'd spent learning to tell one mast from another, one sail from the next – the kalmí from the dráwal, the dastúr from the sawái – all that effort and knowledge wasted while he squatted by the scuppers, washing a fana-ful of jhulis.

Unpleasant though it was, the task had one fortunate consequence: with the fana emptied of its jhulis, all its occupants now had to sleep on the main deck. This was no great trial, for the weather was growing ever hotter, in anticipation of the coming monsoons, and it was better to be out in the open, even if it meant sleeping on wood. What was more, the fresh air seemed to have the effect of loosening everyone's tongue, and the lascars often gossiped late into the night as they lay under the stars.

Serang Ali never joined in these sessions: along with the steward, the silmagoor, the seacunnies, and a few others, he had his quarters not in the fana but the deckhouse. But the serang kept himself aloof, even from the other inhabitants of the deckhouse. This was only partly because he was, by nature, a crusty and unforgiving disciplinarian (no shortcoming in the eyes of the lascars, none of whom liked to serve with serangs who were excessively familiar or played at favourites): the serang stood apart also because of his origins, which were obscure even to those who had served with him longest. But this again was not unusual, for many of the lascars were itinerants and vagrants, who did not care to speak too much about their past; some didn't even know where their origins lay, having been sold off as children to the ghat-serangs who supplied lascars to ocean-going vessels. These riverside crimps cared nothing about who their recruits were and where they came from; all hands were the same to them, and their gangs would kidnap naked urchins from the streets and bearded sadhus from ashrams; they would pay brothel-keepers to drug their clients and thugs to lie in wait for unwary pilgrims.

Yet, varied as they were, most of the lascars on the Ibis knew themselves to be from one part or another of the subcontinent. The serang was one of the few exceptions: if asked, he would always say that he was a Muslim from the Arakan, a Rohingya, but there were those who claimed that he had served his launder-hood with a Chinese crew. That he was fluent in Chinese was soon common knowledge, and was regarded as a blessing, for it meant that often, of an evening, the serang would take himself off to the Chinese quarters of Calcutta 's docklands, leaving the lascars free to make merry on board.

At times when both Serang Ali and Zachary were gone the Ibis was a vessel transformed: someone would be sent aloft to watch for their return, and someone else would be dispatched to fetch a pitcher or two of arrack or doasta; then the whole lashkar would gather, on deck or in the fana, to sing, drink and pass around a few chillums. If there was no ganja at hand, they would burn a few shavings of sailcloth, which was, after all, made from the same plant that had given canvas its name and provided something of a cannabis savour.

The two tindals – Babloo-tindal and Mamdoo-tindal – had served together since their launder-hood: they were as devoted as a pair of nesting cranes although they were from places far apart, one being a Cooringhee Hindu and the other a Shia Muslim from Lucknow. Babloo-tindal, whose face was pitted with the scars of a childhood duel with smallpox, had a quick pair of hands and a knack for beating out rhythms on the backs of metal pots and khwanchas; Mamdoo-tindal was tall and lissom and when the mood was on him he would doff his lungi and banyan and change into a sari, choli and dupatta; with kohl in his eyes and brass rings dangling from his ears, he would assume his other identity, which was that of a silver-heeled dancer who went by the name of Ghaseeti-begum. This character had a complicated life of her own, strewn with heart-breaking flirtations, sparkling exchanges of wit and many besetting sorrows – but it was for her dancing that Ghaseeti-begum was best known, and her performances in the fana were such that few among the crew ever felt the need to visit a shoreside nautchery: why pay on land for what was free on board?

Sometimes, the lascars would gather between the bows to listen to the stories of the greybeards. There was the steward, Cornelius Pinto: a grey-haired Catholic from Goa, he claimed to have been around the world twice, sailing in every kind of ship, with every kind of sailor – including Finns, who were known to be the warlocks and wizards of the sea, capable of conjuring up winds with a whistle. There was Cassem-meah, who, as a young man, had gone to London as a shipowner's dress-boy, and had spent six months living in the Cheapside boarding house where lascars were lodged: his tales of the taverns set everyone afire for those shores. There was Sunker, a wizened man-boy of indeterminate age, with bandy legs and the sad face of a chained monkey: he had been born into a family of high-caste landlords, he claimed, but a vengeful servant had kidnapped him and sold him to a ghat-serang. Then there was Simba Cader, of Zanzibar, who was deaf in one ear: he was the oldest of all of them, and claimed to have lost his eardrum while serving on an English man-o'-war; when primed with a few swallows of doasta, he would tell of the terrible battle in which his eardrums had been punctured by a cannon-blast. He would speak of it as if it had really happened, with hundreds of ships unloosing cannonades at each other – but the lascars were too wise to give any credence to these entertaining tales: for who could be so foolish as to believe that some great battle had really been fought at a place called 'Three-fruit-house' – Tri-phal-ghar?

Dearly would Jodu have liked to be fully of this contingent, to be assigned to a watch and to find a place on the yardarms aloft – but Serang Ali would have none of it, and on the only occasion when Jodu mentioned his ambition, he was answered with a kick in the buttocks: This is the only part of you that's going to be up on that mast, with the laddu in your scuppers.

It was Steward Pinto, who had seen everything there was to be seen on a ship, who gave Jodu an inkling of why the serang had taken against him. It's because of the young memsahib, said the steward. The Serang-ji has plans for the malum and he's afraid that she's going to lead him off course.

What plans?

Who knows? But this much is for sure, he doesn't want anything to get in the malum's way, least of all a girl.

A few days later, almost as if to confirm the steward's suggestion, Jodu was summoned to the capstan for a talk with Zikri Malum. The malum seemed somewhat ill at ease, and it was in a rather gruff voice that he asked: 'You know Miss Lambert well, boy?'

Drawing on his limited supply of hookums, Jodu answered: 'Fore and aft, sir!'

This appeared to offend the malum, who responded sharply: 'Hey there! Is that any way to talk about a lady?'

'Sorry, sir. Hard-a-weather!'

Since this was going nowhere, the malum decided, to Jodu's horror, to call upon Serang Ali to translate. Squirming under the serang's narrow-eyed gaze, Jodu veered sharp about, providing laconic answers to the malum's questions, doing all he could to suggest that he knew Miss Lambert hardly at all, having merely been a servant in her father's house.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Serang Ali turned away from him to report to the mate: 'Launder say father-blongi-she go hebbin. That bugger do too muchi tree-pijjin. Allo time pickin plant. Inside pocket hab no cash. After he go hebbin cow-chilo catchi number-two-father, Mr Burnham. Now she too muchi happy inside. Eat big-big rice. Better Malum Zikri forgetting she. How can learn sailor-pijjin, allo time thinking ladies-ladies? More better keep busy with laund'ry till marriage time.'

The malum took unexpected umbrage at this. 'Hell and scissors, Serang Ali!' he cried, springing to his feet. 'Don you never think of nothin but knob-knockin and gamahoochie?'

The malum went stalking off, in exasperation, and as soon as he was out of sight, the serang dealt Jodu's ear a vicious little clip: Trying to hitch him to a bride, are you? I'll see you dead first, you little holemonger…

When told of this encounter, the steward shook his head in puzzlement. The way the serang carries on, he said, you'd think he was trying to save the malum for a daughter of his own.

Both Deeti and Kalua knew that their best chance of escape lay in travelling downriver, on the Ganga, in the hope of reaching a town or city where they would be able to disappear into a crowd: some place such as Patna perhaps, or even Calcutta. Although Patna was by far the nearer of the two cities, it was still a good ten days' journey away, and to cover the distance by road would be to risk being recognized: news of their flight was sure to have spread by this time, and in the event of capture, they knew they could expect no mercy, even from their own kin. Caution demanded that they keep to the water, continuing their journey on Kalua's makeshift raft for as long as it was able to bear their weight. Fortunately, there was enough driftwood on the riverbank to buttress the bamboos, and plenty of rushes from which to fashion lengths of rope; after spending a day on repairing and reinforcing the flimsy craft, they set off again, floating eastwards on the river.

Two days later they were within sight of the dwelling where Kabutri was now living with the family of Deeti's absent brother. Once having spotted the house, it was impossible for Deeti to proceed any further without making an attempt to meet her daughter. She knew that a meeting with Kabutri would be, at best, a brief, stolen encounter, requiring much stealth and patience, but being familiar with the terrain, she was confident of being able to stay hidden until she found her alone.

Deeti's childhood home – now inhabited by her brother's family – was a straw-thatched dwelling that overlooked a confluence where the Ganga was joined by a lesser river, the Karamnasa. As witnessed by its name – 'destroyer of karma' – this tributary of the holy river had an unfortunate reputation: it was said that the touch of its water could erase a lifetime of hard-earned merit. The two rivers – the holy Ganga and its karma-negating tributary – were equidistant from Deeti's old home, and she knew that the women of the household preferred to go to the more auspicious of the two when they needed to bathe or fetch water. It was on the shores of the Ganga that she chose to wait, leaving Kalua a mile upriver with the raft.

There were many outcrops of rock along the shore and Deeti had no trouble in finding a place of concealment. Her vantage point commanded a good view of both rivers, and her long vigil afforded her plenty of time to reflect on the stories that were told of the Karamnasa and of the taint it could cast upon the souls of the dead. The landscape on the rivers' shores had changed a great deal since Deeti's childhood and looking around now, it seemed to her that the Karamnasa's influence had spilled over its banks, spreading its blight far beyond the lands that drew upon its waters: the opium harvest having been recently completed, the plants had been left to wither in the fields, so that the countryside was blanketed with the parched remnants. Except for the foliage of a few mango and jackfruit trees, nowhere was there anything green to relieve the eye. This, she knew, was what her own fields looked like, and were she at home today, she would have been asking herself what she would eat in the months ahead: where were the vegetables, the grains? She had only to look around to know that here, as in the village she had left, everyone's land was in hock to the agents of the opium factory: every farmer had been served with a contract, the fulfilling of which left them with no option but to strew their land with poppies. And now, with the harvest over and little grain at home, they would have to plunge still deeper into debt to feed their families. It was as if the poppy had become the carrier of the Karamnasa's malign taint.

The first day afforded two sightings of Kabutri, but on both occasions Deeti was forced to keep to her concealment because the girl was accompanied by her cousins. But to have seen her at all was ample reward: it seemed a miracle to Deeti that her daughter had changed so little, in a period of time in which she herself had stepped between life and death and back again.

With nightfall, Deeti retraced her steps to the raft, where she found Kalua kindling a fire, for their evening meal. At the time of her escape, Deeti had been wearing only one ornament, a silver nose-ring: the rest of her jewellery Chandan Singh had been careful to remove before leading her to the pyre. But this remaining trinket had proved invaluable, for Deeti had been able to barter it, at a riverside hamlet, for some satua – a flour made from roasted gram, a reliable and nutritious staple of all travellers and pilgrims. Every evening Kalua would light a fire and Deeti would knead and cook a sufficient number of rotis to see them through the day. With the Ganga close at hand, they had so far lacked for neither food nor water.

At dawn Deeti retraced her steps to her hiding-place, and the day passed without offering another glimpse of Kabutri. It was not till sunset, the day after, that Deeti spotted her daughter, walking alone to the Ganga, with an earthen pitcher balanced on her waist. Deeti kept to the shadows as the girl waded into the water and only after she'd made sure that her daughter was unaccompanied, did she follow her in. So as not to startle her, she whispered a familiar prayer: Jai Ganga Mayya ki…

This was unwise, for Kabutri recognized her voice at once: she turned around and on seeing her mother behind her, let go of her pitcher and gave a terrified shriek. Then she lost consciousness and fell sidewise into the water. The pitcher was swept away by the current, and so too would Kabutri have been, if Deeti had not thrown herself into the water and taken hold of the end of her sari. The water was only waist-deep, so Deeti was able to get her hands under the girl's arms to drag her to the shore. Once on the sand, she picked her up, slung her over her shoulder and carried her to a sheltered hollow between two shoals of sand.

Ei Kabutri… ei beti… meri ján! Cradling her daughter in her lap, Deeti kissed her face until her eyelids began to flicker. But when the girl's eyes opened, Deeti saw that they were dilated with fear.

Who are you? Kabutri cried. Are you a ghost? What do you want with me?

Kabutri! Deeti said sharply. Dekh mori suratiya – look at my face. It's me – your mother: don't you see me?

But how can it be? They said you were gone, dead. Kabutri reached up to touch her mother's face, running her fingertips over her eyes and lips: Can it really be you? Is it possible?

Deeti hugged her daughter still closer. Yes, it's me, it's me, Kabutri; I'm not dead; I'm here: look. What else did they tell you about me?

That you died before the cremation pyre could be lit; they said a woman like you could not become a sati; that the heavens would not allow it – they said your corpse was taken by the water.

Deeti began to nod, as if in assent: it was best that this be the version that was believed; so long as she was thought to be dead, no one would set out in search of her; she, Kabutri, must never say anything that might suggest otherwise, never let slip a word about this meeting…

But what really happened? said the girl. How did you get away?

Deeti had prepared a carefully considered explanation for her daughter: she would say nothing, she had decided, about Chandan Singh's behaviour and Kabutri's true paternity; nor would she speak about the man the girl had known as her father: all she would tell her was that she, Deeti, had been drugged, in an attempt at immolation, and had been rescued while still unconscious.

But how? By whom?

The evasions that Deeti had invented for Kabutri's benefit slipped her mind; with her daughter's head in her lap, she could not bring herself to practise a wilful deception. Abruptly she said: My escape was Kalua's doing. Woh hi bacháwela - It was he who saved me.

Kalua bacháwela? Kalua saved you?

Was it outrage or disbelief that she heard in Kabutri's voice? Already prey to many kinds of guilt, Deeti began to tremble, in anticipation of her daughter's verdict on her flight with Kalua. But when the girl continued, it was in a tone, not of anger, but of eager curiosity: Is he with you now? Where will you go?

Far away from here; to a city.

A city! Kabutri flung a beseeching arm around Deeti's waist. I want to go too; take me with you; to a city.

Deeti had never wanted to yield to her daughter as much as she did now. But her parental instincts dictated otherwise: How can I take you, beti? Saré jindagi aisé bhatkátela? To wander all your life? Like me?

Yes; like you.

No, Deeti shook her head; no matter how fiercely her heart longed to take her daughter along, she knew she must resist: she had no idea of where her next meal would come from, far less where she might be next week or next month. At least with her aunt and her cousins the girl would be looked after; it was best that she stay there until…

… Until the time is right, Kabutri – and when it is I will be back for you. Do you think I don't want you with me? Do you think so? Do you know what it will mean for me to leave you here? Do you know, Kabutri? Do you know?

Kabutri fell silent and when she spoke again it was to say something that Deeti would never forget.

And when you come back, will you bring me bangles? Hamré khátir churi lelaiya?

Weary though he was of the world, Baboo Nob Kissin realized that he would have to endure it for a while yet. His best hope of finding a place on the Ibis was to be sent out as the ship's supercargo, and the job was unlikely to come his way, he knew, if he gave the appearance of having lost interest in his work. And this too he knew, that if Mr Burnham were to have the least suspicion that there was some heathenish intent behind his seeking of the post of supercargo, then that would put an abrupt end to the matter. So for the time being, Baboo Nob Kissin decided, it was imperative that he apply himself to his duties and display as few signs as possible of the momentous transformations that were taking place within him. This was no easy task, for no matter how closely he tried to keep to his accustomed routines, he was ever more conscious that everything had changed and that he was seeing the world in new, unexpected ways.

There were times when insights passed before his eyes with blinding suddenness. One day while travelling in a boat, up Tolly's Nullah, his eye fell upon a wooden shack, on a stretch of mangrove-covered wasteland; it was just a primitive thatch-covered bamboo platform, but it stood in the shade of a luxuriant kewra tree, and its very simplicity put the gomusta in mind of those sylvan retreats where the great sages and rishis of the past were said to have sat in meditation.

It so happened that just that morning Baboo Nob Kissin Pander had received a chit from Ramsaran-ji, the recruiter: he was still deep in the hinterland, the duffadar wrote, but he expected to arrive in Calcutta in a month's time with a large party of indentured workers, men and women. The news had added a note of urgency to the gomusta's many worries: where were these migrants to be accommodated when they arrived? One month was so little time to provide for so many people.

In the past, duffadars like Ramsaran-ji had usually kept their recruits in their own homes until they were shipped out. But this practice had proved unsatisfactory for several reasons: for one, it plunged the would-be migrants into city life, exposing them to all kinds of rumours and temptations. In a place like Calcutta there was never any lack of people to prey upon simple-minded rustics, and in years past, many recruits had run away because of stories told by trouble-makers; some had found other employment in the city and some had gone straight back to their villages. A few duffadars had tried to keep their recruits indoors by locking them in – but only to be faced with riots, fires and break-outs. The city's unhealthy climate was yet another problem, for every year a good number of migrants perished of communicable diseases. From an investor's point of view, each dead, escaped and incapacitated recruit represented a serious loss, and it was increasingly clear that if something wasn't done about the problem, the business would cease to be profitable.

It was the answer to this question that appeared before his eyes that day: a camp had to be built, right here, on the shore of Tolly 's Nullah. As if in a dream, Baboo Nob Kissin saw a cluster of huts, standing there, like the dormitories of an ashram; the premises would have a well, for drinking water, a ghat for bathing, a few trees for shelter, and a paved space where the inmates' food would be cooked and eaten. At the heart of the complex there would be a temple, a small one, to mark the beginning of the journey to Mareech: he could already envision its spire, thrusting through the wreathed smoke of the cremation ghat; he could imagine the migrants, standing clustered at its threshold, gathering together to say their last prayers on their native soil; it would be their parting memory of sacred Jambudwipa, before they were cast out upon the Black Water. They would speak of it to their children and their children's children, who would return to it over generations, to remember and recall their ancestors.

Lalbazar Jail lay upon Calcutta 's crowded centre like a gargantuan fist, holding the city's heart clenched in its grasp. The severity of the jail's exterior was deceptive, however, for behind its massive red-brick façade lay a haphazard warren of courtyards, corridors, offices, barracks and tope-khanas for the storage of weaponry. Prison cells were only a small part of this enormous complex, for despite its name, Lalbazar was not really a centre of incarceration but rather a lock-up where prisoners were held while under trial. Being also the administrative headquarters of the city's constabulary, it was a busy, bustling place, constantly enlivened by the comings and goings of officers and peons, prisoners and darogas, vendors and hurkarus.

Neel's quarters were in the administrative wing of the jail, well removed from the areas where other, less fortunate, prisoners were detained. Two sets of ground-floor offices had been cleared out for him, creating a comfortable apartment with a bedroom, a receiving room, and a small pantry. Neel was also allowed the privilege of having a servant with him during the day, to clean his rooms and serve his meals; as for food and water, everything he ate and drank came from his own kitchens – for his jailers could scarcely permit it to be said that they had obliged the Raja of Raskhali to lose caste even before his case was brought to court. At night the doors of Neel's apartment were lightly guarded, by constables who treated him with the greatest deference; if sleep eluded him, these sentries would keep him entertained with games of dice, cards and pachcheesi. During the day Neel was allowed as many visitors as he wished and the zemindary's gomustas and mootsuddies came so often that he had little difficulty in prosecuting the estate's business from the confines of the jail.

Although grateful for all these concessions, the privilege that mattered most to Neel was one that could not be publicly mentioned: it was the right to use the clean and well-lit outhouse that was reserved for officers. Neel had been brought up to regard his body and its functions with a fastidiousness that bordered almost on the occult: this was largely the doing of his mother, for whom bodily defilement was a preoccupation that permitted neither peace nor rest. Although a quiet, gentle and loving woman in some ways, the usages of her caste and class were, for her, not just a set of rules and observances, but the very core of her being. Neglected by her husband, and living sequestered within a gloomy wing of the palace, she had devoted her considerable intelligence to the creation of fantastically elaborate rituals of cleanliness and purification: it was not enough that she wash her hands for a full half-hour, before and after every meal – she had also to make sure that the vessel from which the water was poured was properly cleaned, as also the bucket in which it had been fetched from the well; and so on. Her most potent fears centred upon the men and women who emptied the palace's outhouses and disposed of its sewage: these sweepers and cleaners of night-soil she regarded with such loathing that staying out of their way became one of her besetting preoccupations. As for the sweepers' tools – jharus made from palm-leaf bristles – neither sword nor serpent inspired a deeper unease in her than these objects, the sight of which could haunt her for days. These fears and anxieties created a way of life that was too unnatural to be long sustained and she died when Neel was only twelve years old, leaving him a legacy of extreme fastidiousness in regard to his own person. So it was that for Neel, no aspect of his captivity held greater terror than the thought of sharing a shit-hole with dozens of common prisoners.

To get to the officers' outhouse, Neel had to pass through several corridors and courtyards, some of which afforded glimpses of the jail's other inmates – often they seemed to be fighting for light and air, with their noses pressed against the bars, like trapped rats. These sightings of the hardships suffered by other prisoners gave Neel a keen sense of the consideration that he himself had been afforded: it was clear that the British authorities were intent on reassuring the public that the Raja of Raskhali was being treated with the utmost fairness. So slight indeed were the inconveniences of Neel's imprisonment at Lalbazar that he could almost have imagined himself to be on holiday, were it not for the ban on visits from women and children. Yet even this was no great loss, since Neel would not, in any case, have permitted his wife or son to defile themselves by entering the jail. Elokeshi, on the other hand, he would have been glad to receive, but there had been no news of her since the time of Neel's arrest: it was thought that she had slipped out of the city, to avoid being questioned by the police. Neel could not rightfully complain about so well-judged an absence.

The ease of his incarceration was such that Neel was hard put to take his legal difficulties very seriously. His relatives among Calcutta 's gentry had told him that his was to be a show-trial, intended to persuade the public of the even-handedness of British justice: he was sure to be acquitted, or let off lightly, with some token punishment. They were insistent in assuring him that he had no cause for anxiety: great efforts were being mounted on his behalf by many prominent citizens, they said; everyone in his circle of acquaintance was extending their reach as far as they possibly could: between all of them they would almost certainly be able to move some important levers, maybe even in the Governor-General's Council. In any event, it was unthinkable that a member of their class would be treated as a common criminal.

Neel's lawyer, too, was cautiously optimistic: a small fidgety man, Mr Rowbotham had the bristling pugnacity of one of those hirsute terriers that could sometimes be seen in the Maidan, straining upon a memsahib's leash. Generously eyebrowed and lavishly whiskered, almost nothing was visible of his face except for a pair of bright, black eyes and a nose that was of the shape and colour of a ripe litchi.

Having reviewed Neel's brief, Mr Rowbotham offered his first opinion. 'Let me tell you, dear Raja,' he said bluntly. 'There's not a jury on earth that would acquit you – far less one that consists mainly of English traders and colonists.'

This came as a shock to Neel. 'But Mr Rowbotham,' he said. 'Are you suggesting that I may be found guilty?'

'I will not deceive you, my dear Raja,' said Mr Rowbotham. 'I think it very possible that such a verdict will be returned. But there's no reason to despair. As I see it, it's the sentence that concerns us, not the verdict. For all you know, you could get away with a fine and a few forfeitures. If I remember right there was a similar case recently when the penalty consisted of nothing more than a fine and a sentence of public ridicule: the culprit was led around Kidderpore sitting backwards on a donkey!'

Neel's mouth fell open and he uttered an appalled whisper: 'Mr Rowbotham, could such a fate befall the Raja of Raskhali?'

The lawyer's eyes twinkled: 'And what if it did, dear Raja? It isn't the worst that could happen, is it? Would it not be worse if all your properties were to be seized?'

'Not at all,' said Neel promptly. 'Nothing could be worse than such a loss of face. By comparison, it would be better even to be rid of my encumbrances. At least I would then be free to live in a garret and write poetry – like your admirable Mr Chatterton.'

At this, the attorney's ample eyebrows knitted themselves into a puzzled tangle. 'Mr Chatterjee, did you say?' he asked in surprise. 'Do you mean my head clerk? But I assure you, dear Raja, he does not live in a garret – and as for his poetry, why this is the first I've heard of it…'

Nine

It was at the riverside township of Chhapra, a day's journey short of Patna, that Deeti and Kalua again encountered the duffadar they had met at Ghazipur.

Many weeks had passed since the start of Deeti and Kalua's journey, and their hopes of reaching a city had foundered, along with their raft, in the treacherous labyrinth of sand-shoals that mark the confluence of the Ganga with her turbulent tributary, the Ghagara. The last of their satua was gone and they had been reduced to begging, at the doors of the temples of Chhapra, where they had arrived after walking away from the wreckage of their raft.

Both Deeti and Kalua had tried to find work, but employment was hard to come by in Chhapra. The town was thronged with hundreds of other impoverished transients, many of whom were willing to sweat themselves half to death for a few handfuls of rice. Many of these people had been driven from their villages by the flood of flowers that had washed over the countryside: lands that had once provided sustenance were now swamped by the rising tide of poppies; food was so hard to come by that people were glad to lick the leaves in which offerings were made at temples or sip the starchy water from a pot in which rice had been boiled. Often, it was on gleanings like these that Deeti and Kalua got by: sometimes, when they were lucky, Kalua managed to earn a little something by working as a porter on the riverfront.

As a market town and river port, Chhapra was visited by many vessels, and the town's ghats were the one place where a few coppers could sometimes be earned by loading or unloading boats and barges. When they were not begging at the temple, it was there that Deeti and Kalua spent most of their time. At night, the riverfront was much cooler than the town's congested interior, and that was where they usually slept: once the rains came they would have to find some other spot, but until then this was as good a place as any. Every night, as they made their way there, Deeti would say: Suraj dikhat áwé to rástá mit jáwé – when the sun rises the path will show itself – and so strongly did she believe this that not even at the worst of times did she allow her hopes to slacken.

It happened one day that as the eastern sky was beginning to glow with the first light of the sun, Deeti and Kalua woke to find a tall babu of a man, well-dressed and white-moustached, pacing the ghat and complaining angrily about the tardiness of his boatman. Deeti recognized the man almost at once. It's that duffadar, Ramsaran-ji, she whispered to Kalua. He rode with us that day, at Ghazipur. Why don't you go and see if you can be of help?

Kalua dusted himself off, folded his hands respectfully together, and stepped over to the duffadar. A few minutes later he returned to report that the duffadar wanted to be rowed to the far side of the river, to pick up a group of men. He needed to leave at once because he'd received word that the opium fleet was arriving and the river was to be closed to other traffic later in the day.

He offered me two dams and an adhela to take him across, said Kalua.

Two dams and an adhela! And you're still standing here like a tree? said Deeti. Kai sochawa? Why are you stopping to think? Go, na, jaldi.

Several hours later, Deeti was sitting at the entrance to Chhapra's famous Ambaji temple when she saw Kalua coming up the lane. Before she could ask any questions, he said: I'll tell you everything, but first, come, let's eat: chal, jaldi-jaldi khanwa khá lei.

Khanwa? Food? They gave you food?

Chal! He elbowed away the hungry throng that had gathered around them and only when they were safely out of sight did he show her what he had brought: a leaf-wrapped package of succulent satua-stuffed parathas, mango pickle, potatoes mashed with masalas to make aloo-ka-bharta, and even a few sugared vegetables and other sweets – parwal-ka-mithai and succulent khubi-ka-lai from Barh.

After the food had been devoured, they sat a while under the shade of a tree, and Kalua gave her a detailed account of all that had happened. They had arrived on the far side of the river to find eight men waiting, along with one of the duffadar's sub-agents. Right there, on the shore, the men had entered their names on paper girmits; after these agreements were sealed, they had each been given a blanket, several articles of clothing, and a round-bottomed brass lota. Then, to celebrate their new-found status as girmitiyas, they had been served a meal – it was the remains of this feast that had been handed to Kalua by the duffadar. The gift was not given without protest: none of the recruits were strangers to hunger, and replete though they might be, they had been shocked to see so much food being given away. But the duffadar had told them they needn't worry; they would have their fill at every meal; from now on, until they arrived in Mareech, that was all they needed to do – to eat and grow strong.

This assertion had evoked much disbelief. One of the men had said, Why? Are we being fattened for the slaughter, like goats before 'Id?

The duffadar had laughed and told him that it was he who would be feasting on fattened goats.

On the way back, all of a sudden, the duffadar had told Kalua that if he had a mind to join up, he would be happy to have him: he could always use big, strong men.

This had set Kalua's head a-spinning. Me? he said. But malik, I'm married.

No matter, said the duffadar. Many girmitiyas go with their wives. We've had letters from Mareech asking for more women. I will take you and your wife as well, if she wants to go.

After thinking about this for a bit, Kalua asked: And ját – what about caste?

Caste doesn't matter, said the duffadar. All kinds of men are eager to sign up – Brahmins, Ahirs, Chamars, Telis. What matters is that they be young and able-bodied and willing to work.

At a loss for words, Kalua had put all his strength behind his oars. As the boat was pulling up to shore, the duffadar had repeated his offer. But this time he had added a warning: Remember – you have only one night to decide. We leave tomorrow – if you come, it must be at dawn… sawéré hí áwat áni.

Having told his story, Kalua turned to look at Deeti and she saw that his huge, dark eyes were illuminated by questions that he could not bring himself to ask. The sensation of a full stomach had made Deeti groggy enough to hear Kalua out in silence, but now, her head boiled over with the heat of many inadmissible fears and she jumped to her feet in agitation. How could he imagine that she would agree to abandon her daughter forever? How could he conceive that she would go to a place which was, for all she knew, inhabited by demons and pishaches, not to speak of all kinds of unnameable beasts? How could he, Kalua, or anyone else, know that it wasn't true that the recruits were being fattened for the slaughter? Why else would those men be fed with such munificence? Was it normal, in these times, to be so profligate without some unspoken motive?

Tell me, Kalua, she said, as tears welled into her eyes. Is this what you saved me for? To feed me to the demons? Why, it would have been better if you'd left me to die in that fire…

One of the small ways in which Paulette attempted to make herself useful to her benefactors was by writing the place-cards for their dinners, suppers, church tiffins and other entertainments. Being of a comfortable, placid disposition, Mrs Burnham rarely exercised much effort over these meals, preferring to make the arrangements while lying in bed. The head-bobachee and chief consumah were generally shown in first, to discuss the fare: for reasons of propriety, Mrs Burnham would keep her nightcap on her head and her mosquito-net down while this consultation was in progress. But when it was Paulette's turn to enter, the drapes would be pulled back and more often than not Paulette would be invited to sit on the Burra BeeBee's bed, to look over her shoulder as she puzzled over the seating for the meal, writing names and drawing diagrams on a slate tablet. Thus it was that Paulette was summoned to Mrs Burnham's bedroom one afternoon to help with the arrangements for a burrakhana.

For Paulette, the examination of Mrs Burnham's seating charts was usually an exercise in misery: coming as low as she did in the order of social precedence, it almost always fell to her to be seated amidships – or beech-o-beech, as the BeeBee liked to say – which meant that she was usually placed between the least desirable guests: colonels who'd been deafened by gunpowder; collectors who could speak of nothing but the projected revenues of their district; lay preachers who ranted about the obduracy of the heathens; planters with indigo-stained hands, and other such nincumnoodles. Such being her experience of the Burnham burra-khanas, it was with some trepidation that Paulette asked: 'Is this a special occasion, Madame?'

'Why yes, Puggly,' said Mrs Burnham, stretching languidly. 'Mr Burnham wants us to put on a tumasher. It's for Captain Chillingworth, who's just arrived from Canton.'

Paulette glanced at the slate and saw that the Captain had already been placed at the BeeBee's end of the table. Glad of an opportunity to show off her knowledge of memsahib etiquette, she said: 'Since the Captain is next to you, Madame, must not his wife be placed beside Mr Burnham?'

'His wife?' The tip of the chalk withdrew from the slate in surprise. 'Why, dear, Mrs Chillingworth has been gone many a long year.'

'Oh?' said Paulette. 'So he is – how do you say – a veuf?'

'A widower do you mean, Puggly? No, dear, he's not that either. It's rather a sad story…'

'Yes, Madame?'

This was all the prompting Mrs Burnham needed to settle back comfortably against her pillows. 'He's from Devonshire, Captain Chillingworth, and bred to the sea, as they say. These old salts like to go back to their home ports to marry, you know, and that's what he did: found himself a rosy-cheeked West Country lass, fresh from the nursery, and brought her out East. Our country-born larkins weren't mem enough for him. As you might expect – no good came of it.'

'Why, Madame? What was it that came to pass?'

'The Captain went off to Canton one year,' said the BeeBee. 'As usual, months went by and there she was, all alone, in a strange new place. Then at last there was news of her husband's ship – but instead of the Captain, who should turn up at her door, but his first mate. The Captain had been struck down by the hectic-fever, he told her, and they'd had to leave him in Penang to convalesce. The Captain had decided to arrange a passage for Mrs Chillingworth and had deputed the mate to see to it. Well, dear, that was that: hogya for the poor old Captain.'

'How do you mean, Madame?'

'This mate – his name was Texeira as I recall – was from Macao, a Portuguese, and as chuckmuck a rascal as ever you'll see: eyes as bright as muggerbees, smile like a xeraphim. He put it about that he was escorting Mrs Chillingworth to Penang. They got on a boat and that was the last that was seen of them. They're in Brazil now I'm told.'

'Oh Madame!' cried Paulette. 'What a pity for the Captain! So he never remarried?'

'No, Puggly dear. He never really recovered. Whether it was because of the loss of his mate or his wife, no one knows, but his sea-faring went all to pieces – couldn't get along with his officers; scared the cabobs out of his crews; even turned a ship oolter-poolter in the Spratlys, which is considered a great piece of silliness amongst sailing men. Anyway, it's all over now. The Ibis is to be his last command.'

'The Ibis, Madame?' Paulette sat up with a jolt. 'He will be Captain of the Ibis?'

'Why yes – didn't I tell you, Puggly?' Here the BeeBee cut herself short with a guilty start. 'Look at me, rattling on like a gudda when I should be getting on with the tumasher.' She picked up the slate, and scratched her lip pensively with the tip of the chalk. 'Now tell me, Puggly dear, what on earth am I to do with Mr Kendalbushe? He's a puisne judge now you know, and has to be treated with the greatest distinction.'

The BeeBee's eyes rose slowly from the slate and came to rest appraisingly on Paulette. 'The judge does so enjoy your company, Puggly!' she said. 'Just last week I heard him say that you deserve a shahbash for your progress with your Bible studies.'

Paulette took fright at this: an evening spent at the side of Mr Justice Kendalbushe was not a pleasant prospect, for he invariably subjected her to lengthy and disapproving catechisms on scriptural matters. 'The judge is too kind,' said Paulette, recalling vividly the frown with which Mr Kendalbushe had affixed her on seeing her take a second sip from her wineglass: ' "Remember the days of darkness," ' he had muttered, ' "for they shall be many…" ' And of course she had not been able to identify either the chapter or the verse.

Some quick thinking was called for and Paulette's wits did not fail her. 'But Madame,' she said, 'will not the other Burra Mems take offence if someone like me is placed beside a man so puisne as Judge Kendalbushe?'

'You're right, dear,' said Mrs Burnham after a moment's consideration. 'It would probably give Mrs Doughty an attack of the Doolally-tap.'

'She is to be present?'

'Can't be avoided I'm afraid,' said the BeeBee. 'Mr Burnham is set on having Doughty. But what on earth am I to do with her? She's completely dottissima.'

Suddenly Mrs Burnham's eyes lit up and the tip of her chalk flew down to the slate again. 'There!' she said triumphantly, inscribing Mrs Doughty's name on the empty seat to Captain Chillingworth's left. 'That should keep her quiet. And as for that husband of hers, he'd better be sent off beech-o-beech where I don't have to listen to him. I'll let you have the windy old poggle…' The chalk came down on the blank centre of the table and seated Mr Doughty and Paulette side by side.

Paulette had barely had time to reconcile herself to the prospect of making conversation to the pilot – of whose English she understood mainly the Hindusthani – when the tip of the BeeBee's chalk began to hover worriedly once again.

'But that still leaves a problem, Puggly,' the BeeBee complained. 'Who on earth am I to lagow on your left?'

A bolt of inspiration prompted Paulette to ask: 'Are the ship's mates to be invited, Madame?'

Mrs Burnham shifted her weight uncomfortably on her bed. 'Mr Crowle? Oh my dear Puggly! I couldn't have him in my house.'

'Mr Crowle? Is he the first mate?' said Paulette.

'So he is,' said the BeeBee. 'He's a fine sailor they say – Mr Burnham swears that Captain Chillingworth would have been all adrift without him these last few years. But he's the worst kind of sea-dog: piped out of the Navy because of some ghastly goll-maul with a foretopman. Lucky for him the Captain is none too particular – but my dear, no mem could have him at her table. Why, it would be like dining with the moochy!' The BeeBee paused to lick her chalk. 'It's a pity, though, because I've heard the second mate is quite personable. What's his name? Zachary Reid?'

A tremor passed through Paulette, and when it ceased it was as if the very motes of dust had ceased their dance and were waiting in suspense. She dared not speak, or even look up, and could only offer a nod in answer to the BeeBee's question.

'You've already met him, haven't you – this Mr Reid?' the BeeBee demanded. 'Wasn't he on the schooner when you went over to take a dekko last week?'

Having made no mention of her visit to the Ibis, Paulette was more than a little put out to find that Mrs Burnham knew of it already. 'Why yes, Madame,' she said cautiously. 'I did have a brief rencounter with Mr Reid. He seemed aimable enough.'

'Aimable, was he?' Mrs Burnham gave her a shrewd glance. 'The kubber is that there's more than one young missy-mem who's got a mind to bundo the fellow. The Doughties have been dragging him all over town.'

'Oh?' said Paulette, brightening. 'Then maybe they could bring Mr Reid with them, as their guest? Surely Mr Crowle need not know?'

'Why, you sly little shaytan!' The BeeBee gave a delighted laugh. 'What a clever contrivance! And since you thought of it, I'll put you beside him. There. Chull.'

And with that her chalk came swooping down on the slate, like the finger of fate, and wrote Zachary's name on the seat to Paulette's left: 'There you are.'

Paulette snatched the tablet from the BeeBee and went racing upstairs, only to find her rooms under invasion by a troop of cleaners. For once, she summarily bundled them all out, the farrashes, bichawnadars and harry-maids – 'Not today, not now…' – and seated herself at her desk, with a stack of place-cards.

Mrs Burnham liked the cards to be inscribed in an elaborately ornamental script, with as many curlicues and flourishes as could possibly be squeezed in: even on ordinary days it often took Paulette an hour or two to fill them to the BeeBee's satisfaction. Today, the task seemed to stretch on endlessly, with her quill spluttering and faltering: of all the letters, it was the 'Z' that gave her the most trouble, not only because she had never before had cause to inscribe it in capitals, but also because she had never known that it offered so many curves and curls and possibilities: in exploring its shape and size, her pen turned it around and around, shaping it into loops and whorls that seemed, somehow, to want to knot themselves with the humble 'P' of her own initials. And when she grew tired of this, she felt impelled, inexplicably, to stare at herself in the mirror, taking alarm at the straggling mess of her hair, and at the blotches of red where her nails had dug into her skin. Then her feet took her to the wardrobe and held her imprisoned in front of it, rifling through the dresses that Mrs Burnham had given her: now, as never before, she wished that they were not all so severe in their colour, nor so voluminous in shape. On an impulse, she opened her locked trunk and took out her one good sari, a scarlet Benarasi silk, and ran her hands over it, remembering how even Jodu, who always laughed at her clothes, had gasped when he first saw her wearing it – and what would Zachary say if he saw her in it? That notion took her eyes straying out of the window, in the direction of the bungalow in the Gardens, and she fell on her bed, defeated by the impossibility of everything.

Ten

As he stepped past the tall mahogany doors of Mr Burnham's Dufter, it seemed to Baboo Nob Kissin that he had left the heat of Calcutta behind and arrived in another country. The dimensions of the room, with its apparently endless stretch of floor and soaring walls, were such as to create a climate peculiar to itself, temperate and free of dust. From the massive beams of the ceiling, an enormous cloth-fringed punkah hung down, sweeping gently back and forth, creating a breeze that was strong enough to paste the gomusta's light cotton kurta against his limbs. The veranda that adjoined the Dufter was very broad, so as to keep the sun at bay by creating a wide threshold of shade; now, at midday, the balcony's khus screens were hanging low, and the tatties were being wetted constantly, by a team of punkah-wallahs, to create a cooling effect.

Mr Burnham was sitting at a massive desk, bathed in the muted glow of a skylight, far above. His eyes widened as he watched Baboo Nob Kissin walking across the room. 'My good Baboon!' he cried, as he took in the sight of the gomusta's oiled, shoulder-length hair and the necklace that was hanging around his neck. 'What on earth has become of you? You look so…'

'Yes, sir?'

'So strangely womanish.'

The gomusta smiled wanly. 'Oh no, sir,' he said. 'It is outward appearance only – just illusions. Underneath all is same-same.'

'Illusion?' said Mr Burnham scornfully. 'Man and woman? God made them both as they were, Baboon, and there's nothing illusory about either, nor is there anything in between.'

'Exactly, sir,' said Baboo Nob Kissin, nodding enthusiastically. 'That is what I am also saying: on this point no concession can be made. Unreasonable demands must be strenuously opposed.'

'Then may I ask, Baboon,' said Mr Burnham, frowning, 'why you have chosen to adorn yourself with that' – he raised a finger to point at the gomusta's bosom, which seemed somehow to have attained an increased salience within the contours of his body – 'may I ask why you are wearing that large piece of jewellery? Is it something you got from your sammy-house?'

Baboo Nob Kissin's hand flew to his amulet and slipped it back inside his kurta. 'Yes, sir; from temple only I got.' Improvising freely, he rushed to add: 'As such it is mainly for medicinal purposes. Made from copper, which enhances digestion. You can also try, sir. Bowel movements will become smooth and copious. Colour will also be nice, like turmeric.'

'Heaven forbid!' said Mr Burnham with a gesture of distaste. 'Enough of that. Now tell me, Baboon, what's this urgent business you wanted to see me about?'

'Just I wanted to raise up some issues, sir.'

'Yes, go on. I haven't got all day.'

'One thing is about camp for coolies, sir.'

'Camp?' said Mr Burnham. 'What do you mean, camp? I know of no camp for coolies.'

'Yes, sir, that is the discussion I want to raise up. What I am proposing is, why not to build a camp? Here, just see and you will be convinced.' Taking a sheet of paper from a file, Baboo Nob Kissin laid it in front of his employer.

The gomusta was well aware that Mr Burnham considered the transportation of migrants an unimportant and somewhat annoying part of his shipping enterprise, since the margins of profit were negligible in comparison to the enormous gains offered by opium. It was true that this year was an exception, because of the interruption in the flow of opium to China – but he knew that he would still have to present a strong case if he was to persuade the Burra Sahib to make a significant outlay in this branch of his business.

'Look here, sir, and I will show…' With the numbers written down, Baboo Nob Kissin was able to demonstrate, quickly and graphically, that the cost of buying the campsite, erecting huts and so on, would be earned back in a couple of seasons. 'One big advantage, sir, you can sell camp to gov'ment in one, two years. Profit could be healthy.'

This caught Mr Burnham's attention. 'How so?'

'Simple, sir. You can tell to Municipal Council that proper immigrant depot is needed. Otherwise cleanliness will suffer and progress will be delayed. Then to them only we can sell, no? Mr Hobbes is there – he will ensure payment.'

'Splendid idea.' Mr Burnham sat back in his seat and stroked his beard. 'There's no denying it, Baboon, from time to time you do serve up some excellent notions. You have my permission to do whatever's necessary. Go on. Don't waste any time.'

'But, sir, one other issue is also raising its head.'

'Yes? What is it?'

'Sir, supercargo for Ibis has not been appointed yet, no sir?'

'No,' said Mr Burnham. 'Not yet. Do you have someone in mind?'

'Yes, sir. The proposal I would like to moot out, sir, is that I myself should go.'

'You?' Mr Burnham looked up at his gomusta in surprise. 'But Baboo Nob Kissin! Whatever for?'

The gomusta had his answer ready: 'Just, sir, the reason is to observe the field situation. It will facilitate my work with coolies, sir, so I can provide fulsome services. It will be like plucking a new leaf for my career.'

Mr Burnham cast a dubious glance at the gomusta's matronly form. 'I am impressed by your enthusiasm, Baboo Nob Kissin. But are you sure you'll be able to cope with the conditions on a ship?'

'Definitely, sir. Already I have been on one ship – to Jagannath temple, in Puri. No problem was there.'

'But Baboon,' said Mr Burnham, with a satirical curl of his lip. 'Are you not afraid of losing caste? Won't your Gentoo brethren ban you from their midst for crossing the Black Water?'

'Oh no, sir,' said the gomusta. 'Nowadays all are going for pilgrimage by ship. Pilgrims cannot lose caste – this can also be like that. Why not?'

'Well I don't know,' said Mr Burnham, with a sigh. 'Frankly, I don't have time to think about it right now, with this Raskhali case coming up.'

This was the time, Baboo Nob Kissin knew, to play his best card. 'Regarding case, sir, can I kindly be permitted to forward one suggestion?'

'Why, certainly,' said Mr Burnham. 'As I recall, it was all your idea in the first place, wasn't it?'

'Yes, sir,' said the gomusta with a nod, 'it was myself only who suggested you this scheme.'

Baboo Nob Kissin took no little pride in having been the first to alert his employer to the advantages of acquiring the Raskhali estate: for some years, it had been rumoured that the East India Company was to relinquish its control on opium production in eastern India. Were that to happen, poppies might well become a plantation crop, like indigo or sugar-cane: with the demand rising annually in China, merchants who controlled their own production, rather than depending on small farmers, would stand to multiply their already astronomical profits. Although there was, as yet, no clear sign that the Company was ready to make the necessary concessions, a few far-sighted merchants had already started looking for sizeable chunks of land. When Mr Burnham began to make inquiries, it was Baboo Nob Kissin who reminded him that he need look no further than the hugely indebted Raskhali estate, which was already within his grasp. He was well acquainted with several crannies and mootsuddies in the Raskhali daftar, and they had kept him closely informed of all the young zemindar's mis-steps: like them, he regarded the new Raja as a dilettante, who had his nose in the air and his head in the clouds, and he fully shared their opinion that anyone so foolish as to sign everything that was put before him, deserved to lose his fortune. Besides, the Rajas of Raskhali were well known to be bigoted, ritual-bound Hindus, who were dismissive of heterodox Vaishnavites like himself: people like that needed to be taught a lesson from time to time.

The gomusta lowered his voice: 'Rumours are reaching, sir, that Raja-sahib's "keep-lady" is hiding in Calcutta. She is one dancer, sir, and her name is Elokeshi. Maybe she can provide affidavits to seal his fate.'

The shrewd glint in Baboo Nob Kissin's eye was not lost on his employer. Mr Burnham leant forward in his chair. 'Do you think she might testify?'

'Cannot say for sure, sir,' said the gomusta. 'But there is no harm in launching efforts.'

'I'd be glad if you would.'

'But then, sir,' the gomusta allowed his voice to trail away softly so that it ended on a note of interrogation: 'what to do about appointment of supercargo?'

Mr Burnham pursed his lips, as if to indicate that he understood precisely the bargain that was being proposed. 'If you can provide the affidavit, Baboon,' he said, 'the job is yours.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Baboo Nob Kissin, reflecting, once again, on what a pleasure it was to work for a reasonable man. 'You can repose all trust, sir. I will do maximum best.'

On the eve of Neel's first appearance in court the monsoons came crashing down, which was regarded as a good sign by all his well-wishers. To add to the general optimism, the Raskhali estate's court astrologer determined that the date of the hearing was extremely auspicious, with all the stars aligned in the Raja's favour. It was also learnt that a clemency petition had been signed by Bengal's wealthiest zemindars: even the Tagores of Jorasanko and the Debs of Rajabazar, who could agree on nothing else, had put aside their differences in this matter since it concerned a member of their own class. These bits of news provided so much cheer to the Halder family that Neel's wife, Rani Malati, paid a special visit to the Bhukailash temple where she provided a feast for a hundred Brahmins, serving each of them with her own hands.

The news was not enough, however, to dispose entirely of Neel's apprehensions, and he could not sleep at all the night before his first court appearance. It had been arranged that he would be transported to the courthouse before daybreak, under light guard, and his family had been given permission to send a team of retainers to help with his preparations. Dawn was still a couple of hours away when a rattle of wheels announced the approach of the estate's phaetongari; shortly afterwards, the Raskhali retinue arrived at Neel's door and from that point on, mercifully, he had no time to worry.

Parimal had brought two of the family priests with him, along with a cook and a barber. The Brahmin purohits had come bearing the most 'awake' of the images in the Raskhali temple, a gold-encrusted statue of Ma Durga. While the outer room of the apartment was being prepared for the puja, Neel was taken off to the bedchamber inside, where he was shaved, bathed and anointed with fragrant oils and flower-scented attars. By way of clothing, Parimal had brought along the finest Raskhali regalia, including a chapkan jacket ornamented with Aljofar seed-pearls, and a turban fitted with the famous Raskhali sarpech – a gold spray, inlaid with rubies from the Shan highlands. It was Neel himself who had asked for these accoutrements, but once they had been laid out on his bed he began to reconsider. Might it make the wrong impression if he presented himself in court in such a rich array of finery? But on the other hand, wasn't it also possible that a simpler outfit might be seen as an acknowledgement of guilt? It was hard to know what the proper attire was for a forgery trial. In the end, deciding that it would be best not to call attention to his clothes, Neel asked Parimal for a kurta of plain mushru' mulmul and an unbordered dhoti of Chinsura cotton. Parimal was kneeling to tuck in his dhoti when Neel asked: And how is my son?

He was busy with his kites till late last night, huzoor. He thinks you are away in Raskhali. We've made sure that he knows nothing of all this.

And the Rani?

Huzoor, said Parimal, since the moment you were taken away, she is without sleep or rest. She spends the days in prayer and there is not a temple or holy man she has omitted to visit. Today again she will spend the day in our temple.

And Elokeshi? said Neel. Has there been any word of her yet?

No, huzoor, none.

Neel nodded – it was best that she stay in hiding till the trial was over.

With his clothing completed, Neel was impatient to be on his way, but there was much else still to be done: the puja took the better part of an hour and then, after the priests had smeared his brow with sandalwood paste and sprinkled him with holy water and sacred durba grass, he was made to eat a meal composed of various kinds of auspicious foods – vegetables and puris, fried in the purest ghee, and sweets made with patali syrup, from his household's own sugar palms. When at last it was time to leave, the Brahmins led the way, clearing Neel's path of such impure objects as jharus and toilet buckets, and ushering away all carriers of ill-omen – sweepers, porters of night-soil and such. Parimal had already gone ahead to make sure that the constables who were accompanying Neel to the court were Hindus of respectable caste and could be entrusted with his food and water. Now, as Neel was climbing into the shuttered carriage, his retainers joined together to remind him, yet again, to make sure of keeping the windows closed, so that his gaze would encounter no ill-augured sights – on this of all days, it was best to take every possible precaution.

The carriage was slow and took the better part of an hour to cover the distance from Lalbazar to the New Courthouse, on the Esplanade, where Neel's case was to be tried. On arriving there, Neel was whisked quickly through the damp, gloomy building, past the vaulted room where most prisoners were held while awaiting their turn in court. The corridors filled with hisses and whispers as the other defendants began to speculate about who Neel was and what he'd done.

The ways of zemindars were not unfamiliar to these men:

… If this was the one who crippled my son, even these bars couldn't hold me…

… Let me get a hand on him – he'll get a touching he won't forget…

… Give his chute the ploughing my land's longing for…

To get to the courtroom they had to climb several staircases and pass through many corridors. It was clear, from the noise that was reverberating through the New Courthouse, that the trial had drawn a large crowd. Yet, even though Neel was well aware of the public interest in his case, he was in no way prepared for the sight that was waiting for him when he stepped into the venue of his trial.

The courtroom was shaped like a halved bowl, with the witness stand at the bottom, and the spectators ranged in rows along the steep, curved sides. On Neel's entry the hubbub ceased abruptly, leaving a few last threads of sound to float gently to the floor, like the torn ends of a ribbon; among these was a clearly audible whisper: 'Ah, the Rascally-Roger! Here at last.'

The first few rows were occupied by whites, and this was where Mr Doughty was seated. Behind, stretching all the way to the skylights at the top of the room, were the faces of Neel's friends, acquaintances and kin: at one glance, he could see, arrayed before him, all his fellow members of the Bengal Landowners' Association as well as the innumerable relatives who had accompanied him on his wedding procession. It was as if every male of his class, all of Bengal 's acreocracy, had assembled to watch the progress of his trial.

Looking away, Neel caught sight of Mr Rowbotham, his advocate. He had risen to his feet when Neel entered, and he now proceeded to make a confident show of welcoming Neel to the courtroom, ushering him to his seat with much ceremony. Neel had just seated himself when the bailiffs began to bang their maces on the floor, to announce the entry of the judge. Neel stood a moment with his head lowered, like everyone else, and on raising his eyes he saw that the man who was to preside over his trial was none other than Mr Justice Kendalbushe. Being well aware of the judge's friendship with Mr Burnham, Neel turned to Mr Rowbotham in alarm: 'Is that indeed Justice Kendalbushe? Is he not closely linked with Mr Burnham?'

Mr Rowbotham pursed his lips and nodded. 'That may be so, but I am confident he is a man of unimpeachable fairness.'

Neel's eyes strayed to the jury-box, and he found himself exchanging nods with several of the jurymen. Of the twelve Englishmen in the box, at least eight had known his father, the old Raja, and several had been present at the celebration of his son's First Rice ceremony. They had brought gifts of silver and gold, ornamented spoons and filigreed cups; one of them had gifted little Raj Rattan an abacus from China, made of ebony and jade.

Mr Rowbotham had been watching Neel closely in the meantime and he leant over now to whisper in his ear. 'I'm afraid there is some other, somewhat unwelcome news…'

'Oh?' said Neel. 'What is it?'

'I have only this morning received an official chitty from the government's solicitor. They are to introduce a new piece of evidence: a sworn affidavit.'

'From whom?' said Neel.

'A lady – a woman I should say – who claims to have had a liaison with you. I gather she is a dancer…' Mr Rowbotham peered closely at a sheet of paper. 'The name I think is Elokeshi.'

Neel's disbelieving eyes moved away, to glance once again at the assembled crowd. He saw that his wife's oldest brother had appeared in the courtroom and taken a seat at the rear. For a brief but nightmarish instant he wondered whether Malati had come too and great was his relief when he noted that his brother-in-law was alone. In the past he had sometimes regretted Malati's strictness in the observation of the rules of caste and purdah – but today he felt nothing but gratitude for her orthodoxy, for if there was any one thing that could possibly make the situation even worse than it already was, it was the thought of her being present to witness his betrayal by his mistress.

It was this consideration that sustained him through the ordeal of Elokeshi's affidavit, which proved to be a fanciful account, not just of the incriminating conversation in which Neel had spoken of the Raskhali estate's dealings with Mr Burnham, but also of the circumstances in which it had taken place. The Raskhali budgerow, the stateroom, even the coverings on the bed, were described in such painstaking, even salacious, detail that each fresh revelation was greeted by gasps of surprise, exclamations of shock and outbursts of laughter.

When at last the reading was over, Neel turned in exhaustion to Mr Rowbotham: 'How long will this trial last? When will we know the outcome?'

Mr Rowbotham gave him a wan smile: 'Not long, dear Raja. Perhaps no more than a fortnight.'

When Deeti and Kalua went down to the ghat they saw why the duffadar had been in such a hurry that morning: now, the river ahead was clogged by a huge fleet that was bearing slowly down on the ghats of Chhapra, from upstream. In the lead was a flotilla of pulwars – single-masted boats, equipped with oars as well as sails. These quick-moving craft were ranging ahead of the main body of the fleet, clearing the waterways of other traffic, scouting the navigable channels, and marking the many shoals and sandbars that lurked just beneath the water's surface. Behind them, advancing under full sail, were some twenty patelis. Double-masted and square-rigged, these were the largest vessels on the river, not much smaller than ocean-going ships, and they carried a full complement of canvas on each mast, both dols being hung with three sails – bara, gavi and sabar.

Deeti and Kalua knew at a glance where the ships were coming from and where they were going: this was the fleet of the Ghazipur Opium Factory, carrying the season's produce to Calcutta, for auction. The fleet was accompanied by a sizeable contingent of armed guards, burkundazes and peons, most of whom were distributed among the smaller pulwar boats. The large vessels were still a good hour away when some half-dozen pulwars pulled in. Squads of guards jumped ashore, wielding lathis and spears, and set about clearing the ghats of people, securing them for the docking of the stately patelis.

The opium fleet was commanded by two Englishmen, both junior assistants from the Ghazipur Carcanna. By tradition, the senior of the two occupied the pateli that headed the fleet while the other sailed in the ship that brought up the rear. These two vessels were the largest in the fleet and they took the places of honour at the shore. The ghats at Chhapra were not of a size to accommodate many large vessels at one time and the other patelis had to drop anchor at midstream.

Despite the line of guards around the ghat, a crowd soon assembled to gape at the fleet, their attention being drawn particularly to the two largest patelis. Even by daylight, these vessels presented a handsome sight – and after nightfall, when their lamps were lit, they looked so spectacular that few of the townsfolk could resist taking a dekho. From time to time, prodded by lathis and spears, the crowd would be forced to part, clearing a path for those of the local zemindars and notabilities who wished to offer their salams to the two young assistants. Some were sent away without being granted an audience, but a few were accorded a brief reception, on board: one or the other of the Englishmen would come on deck for a few minutes, to acknowledge the proffered obeisances. At each such appearance, the crowd pressed forward to get a closer look at the white men, in their jackets and trowsers, their tall black hats and white cravats.

As the night wore on, the crowd thinned and those of the spectators who remained were able to press a little closer to the stately patelis – Deeti and Kalua among them. The night was hot and the windows in the patelis' staterooms were left open to invite in the breeze. These openings provided occasional glimpses of the two young assistants, as they sat down to their meal – not on the floor, it was observed, but at a table that was brilliantly illuminated with candles. Transfixed with curiosity, the transients of the waterfront kept watch as the two men were served their food by a team of more than a dozen khidmutgars and khalasis.

While jostling for a better view, many spectators speculated about the food that was being put before the white men.

… That's a jackfruit they're eating now, look, he's cutting up the katthal…

… It's your brain that's a jackfruit, you fool – what they're eating is the leg of a goat…

Then, all of a sudden, the crowd was put to flight by a detachment of guards and chowkidars, from the kotwali that was responsible for policing this part of the town. Deeti and Kalua scattered into the shadows as the kotwal himself came waddling down the steps that led to the ghats. A large, officious-looking man, he seemed none too pleased to be summoned to the riverfront at this time of night. He raised his voice in annoyance as he made his way down to the water: Yes? Who is it? Who asked for me at this hour?

He was answered in Bhojpuri, by one of the men who had accompanied the fleet: Kotwal-ji, it was I, sirdar of the burkundazes, who wanted to meet with you: might I trouble you to come down to my pulwar?

The voice was familiar, and Deeti's instincts were instantly alert. Kalua, she whispered, get away from here, run to the sandbanks. I think I know that man. There'll be trouble if you're recognized. Go, hide.

And you?

Don't worry, said Deeti, I've got my sari to hide me. I'll be all right. I'll come as soon as I find out what's happening. Go now, chal.

The kotwal was flanked by two peons who were carrying burning branches, to show him the way. When he had reached the water's edge, the light from the torches fell on the man in the boat, and Deeti saw that he was none other than the sirdar who had let her into the opium factory on the day of her husband's collapse. The sight of him inflamed her ever-combustible curiosity: what business could the sirdar have with the kotwal of Chhapra's river-ghat? Determined to know more, Deeti crept closer, through the shadows, until the two men were just within earshot. The sirdar's voice came wafting through the darkness, in snatches:

… Stole her from the cremation fire… they were seen here together recently, near the Ambaji temple… you're of our caste, you understand…

Kya áfat – what a calamity! It was the kotwal speaking now: What do you want me to do? I'll do anything I can… tauba, tauba…

… Bhyro Singh will pay generously for any help you can offer him… as you can understand, the family's honour won't be restored till they're dead…

I'll put the word out, the kotwal promised. If they're here, you can be sure we'll catch them.

There was no need to wait any longer: Deeti hurried into the sandbanks, where Kalua was waiting. When they were a safe distance away, they found a place to sit and she told him what she had learnt – that her dead husband's family was determined to hunt them down, and had somehow come to know of their presence in Chhapra. It would not be safe to remain there one more day.

Kalua listened thoughtfully but said little. They lay beside each other on the sand, under a crescent moon, and neither of them spoke. They lay awake until the hooting of the owls ceased and the call of a hoopoe signalled the approach of day. Then Kalua said, quietly: The girmitiyas will leave at daybreak…

Do you know where their boat is moored?

It's just outside the town, to the east.

Come. Let's go.

Keeping away from the waterfront, they circled through the centre of the town, drawing howls from the packs of dogs that roamed the lanes at night. On reaching the town's eastern boundary, they were intercepted by a chowkidar, who took Deeti for a prostitute and was seized by a desire to take her into his chokey. Instead of arguing, she told him that she had been working all night and was too soiled to go with him without first taking a bath in the river. He let them go after making her promise to return, but by the time they got away from him, the sun had already risen. They reached the river just in time to see the migrants' boat pushing off from its moorings: the duffadar was on deck, supervising the boatmen as they hoisted the sails.

Ramsaran-ji! They ran down a sandy slope shouting his name. Ramsaran-ji! Wait…

The duffadar looked over his shoulder and recognized Kalua. It was too late to bring the pulwar back to the shore, so he made a beckoning motion with his hands: Come! Come through the water; it's not too deep…

Just as they were about to step into the river, Kalua said to Deeti: There's no turning back after this. Are you sure about going on?

Is it even something to ask? she snapped impatiently. Is this the time to stand there like a tree? Come! Let's go – chal, na…

Kalua had no other questions, for his own doubts had been resolved a while before, in his heart. It was without any hesitation now that he swept Deeti into his arms and strode through the water, towards the pulwar.

Jodu was on deck when Captain Chillingworth and Mr Crowle came to inspect the Ibis, so he was one of the few to see the whole tamasha from the start. The timing could not have been worse: they came the day before the Ibis was due to be towed to the dry docks, when things were a little out of sneer anyway. Worse still, they arrived shortly after the midday meal, when every crewman's head was slowed by the heat and their bodies were sluggish and replete. For once, Serang Ali had allowed the watch to go below for a siesta. He had stayed on deck himself to keep an eye on Jodu, whose turn it was to wash the utensils – but the heat was such as to wilt anyone's vigilance, and soon enough he too was stretched out under a strip of shade beneath the binnacle.

With the passage of the sun, the shadows of the masts had dwindled into small circles of shade, and Jodu was sitting in one of these, clothed in nothing but a chequered langot, scouring metal khwanchas and earthen chatties. The only other man on deck was Steward Pinto, who was on his way back to the galley, tray in hand, after having taken Zachary's midday meal to the cuddy. It was the steward who first spotted Mr Crowle and it was his expression of alarm – Burra Malum áyá! – that alerted Jodu: pushing the pots and pans aside, he took refuge in the shadows of the bulwark and thought himself lucky when the Burra Malum's gaze passed over him without pause.

The Burra Malum had the look of a man who expected nothing but trouble from the world; although tall and broad-chested, he walked with his shoulders hunched and his neck braced, as if in readiness to run head-on into all impediments and obstructions. He was neatly, even carefully, dressed in a dark, broadcloth jacket, narrow pantaloons and wide-brimmed hat, but on the sides of his narrow face there was a coarse, reddish stubble that gave him a look of indefinable slovenliness. Jodu observed him carefully as he went by, and noticed that his mouth had an odd twitch, which laid bare the tips of a few cracked and wolfish teeth. Elsewhere, he might well have been a nondescript, unremarkable kind of man, but here, as a sahib amongst a shipload of lascars, he knew himself to be a figure of command, and it was clear, from the start, that he was looking to establish his authority: his blue eyes were darting here and there, as if in search for things to take issue with. And it wasn't long before they chanced upon one such: for there, stretched out beneath the binnacle, was Serang Ali in a tattered banyan and lungi, stupefied by the heat, his chequered bandhna covering his face as he snored.

The sight of the sleeping lascar seemed to light some kind of wick in the malum's head and he began to swear: '… drunk as a fiddler's bitch… at midday too.' The Burra Malum pulled back a foot and was about to unloose a kick, when Steward Pinto bethought himself of a ruse and dropped his tray: the clatter of the metal did what it was meant to, and the serang jumped to his feet.

Cheated of his kick, the Burra Malum swore even louder, telling the serang he was an over-shrubbed sniplouse, and what did he think he was doing lying incog on deck at this time of day? Serang Ali was slow to answer, for he had stuffed, as was his custom, a large wad of paan into his cheek after his midday meal: his mouth was now so full that his tongue could not move. He turned his head, to spit over the rails, but for once his aim failed him and he spewed the macerated red remains over the bulwarks and the deck.

At this, the Burra Malum snatched a bitt-stopper off the bulwark and ordered the serang to get down on his knees and clean up the mess. He had been swearing all the while, of course, but now he used an oath that everyone understood: Soor-ka-batcha.

Son of a pig? Serang Ali? By this time, several other members of the crew had emerged from the fana to see what was happening, and Muslim or not, there was not one among them who did not bridle at this curse. Despite his oddities, Serang Ali was a figure of unquestioned respect and authority, occasionally harsh but usually fair, and always supremely competent in his seamanship: to insult him in this way was to piss on the whole fana. Some of the men bunched their fists and took a step or two in the Burra Malum's direction, but it was the serang himself who signalled to them to stay back. To defuse the situation he got down on his knees and began to swab the deck with his bandhna.

All this had happened so quickly that Zikri Malum had yet to emerge from the cuddy. Now, running up on deck, he found the serang on his hands and knees: 'Hey, what's going on here? What's all this bellerin?' Then he caught sight of the first mate and cut himself short.

For a minute the two officers eyed each other from a distance, and then a heated argument began. To look at the Burra Malum, you'd think a flying gob-line had hit him on the nose: that a sahib should speak up for a lascar, and that too, in front of so many others, was more than he could stand. Brandishing the bitt-stopper, he stepped towards Zikri Malum in a distinctly threatening way: he was by far the bigger man, and much older too, but Zikri Malum didn't give any ground, standing toe to toe with him, and keeping himself under control in a way that won him a lot of respect among the fanawale. Many of the lascars thought he might even get the better of it in a fight, and they would have been none too sorry to see the malums come to blows – whatever happened, it would have made a rare spectacle to see two officers beating each other up, and they'd have had a tale to tell for years to come.

Jodu was not among those who was hoping for an all-out fight, and he was unreservedly glad when another voice rang across the deck to put an end to the altercation: 'Avast there… Bas!'

With the two malums going at it hank for hank, no one had noticed the Kaptan coming on deck: spinning around now, Jodu saw a large, bald sahib holding on to the labran ropes, trying to catch his breath. He was much older than Jodu would have expected, and clearly not in the best of health, for the effort of climbing up the side-ladder had robbed him of his wind, sending streams of perspiration down his face.

But well or not, it was in a voice of authoritative assertion that the Kaptan put a stop to the malums' dispute: 'Stash it there, you two! Enough with your mallemarking.'

The Kaptan's hookum sobered the two mates and they made an effort to put a good face on the incident, even bowing and shaking hands. When the Kaptan headed off to the quarter-deck, they followed in step.

But after the officers had disappeared, there was yet another surprise in wait. Steward Pinto, whose dark face had turned a strange, ashy colour, said: I know this Burra Malum – Mr Crowle. I served on a ship with him once…

Word flew from lip to lip, and by common consent, the lascars retreated into the gloom of the fana, where they gathered in a circle around the steward.

It was some years ago, said Steward Pinto, maybe seven or eight. He won't remember me – I wasn't a steward then; I was a cook, in the galley. My cousin Miguel, from Aldona, was on that ship too: he was a little younger than me, still a mess-boy. One day, while serving dinner in bad weather, Miguel spilled some soup on this Crowle. He flew into a rage and said Miguel wasn't fit to be a mess-boy: took hold of him by the ear, led him out on deck, and told him he would be working up on the foremast from then on. Now Miguel was a hard worker, but he couldn't climb well. The thought of going all the way up to the tabar scared him half to death. He begged and begged – but Crowle paid him no mind. Even the serang went and explained the problem: whip the boy, he said, or make him scrub the heads, but don't send him up there; he can't climb and he'll fall and die. But the serang's efforts only made things worse – for do you know what this Crowle bastard did? When he heard of Miguel's fears, he deliberately made the climb even harder, by taking down the iskat: without the ladders, the trikat-wale could only go aloft by climbing the labran, which were made of coir rope and could slice up your hands and toes. It was hard even for experienced men because you were often climbing with your body hanging down, like a weighted jhula. For someone like Miguel it was close to impossible, and Crowle must have known what would come of it…

What happened? said Cassem-meah. Did he fall on deck?

The steward stopped to brush a hand across his eyes. No; the wind took him – carried him away like a kite.

The lascars exchanged glances, and Simba Cader shook his head despondently: Nothing good will come from staying on this boat: I can feel it, in my elbow.

We could vanish, said Rajoo hopefully. The ship's going into dry dock tomorrow. By the time it comes back, we could all be gone.

Now, suddenly, Serang Ali took command, in a voice that was low but authoritative. No, he said. If we desert, they'll blame Zikri Malum. He's come a long way with us – look at him: anyone can see he's on his way to making good. No other malum's ever shared our bread and salt. We can only gain by keeping faith with him: it may be hard for a while, but in the end it'll be to our good.

Here, sensing himself to be at odds with the others, the serang glanced around the circle, as if in search of someone who would join him in affirming allegiance to the malum.

Jodu was the first to respond. Zikri Malum helped me, he said, and I'm in his debt; I'll stay even if no one else does.

Once Jodu had committed himself, many others said they'd steer the same course – but Jodu knew that it was he who'd steadied the tiller, and Serang Ali acknowledged as much by giving him a nod.

That was when Jodu knew that he was no longer a dandi-wala; he was a real lascar now, assured of his place in the crew.

Eleven

The migrants had been on the Ganga only a few days when the monsoons came sweeping up the river and deluged them with a thunderous downpour. They greeted the rains with cries of gratitude for the preceding few days had been searingly hot, especially in the crowded hold. Now, with powerful winds filling its single, tattered sail, the ungainly pulwar began to make good time, despite having to tack continually between the banks. When the winds died and the showers stopped, the vessel would make use of its complement of twenty long-handled oars, the manpower being supplied by the migrants themselves. The oarsmen were rotated every hour or so and the overseers were careful to ensure that every man served his proper turn. While under weigh, only the oarsmen, the crew and the overseers were allowed on deck – everyone else was expected to remain in the hold below, where the migrants were quartered.

The hold ran the length of the vessel, and had no compartments or internal divisions: it was like a floating storage shed, with a ceiling so low that a grown man could not stand upright in it for fear of hurting his head. The hold's windows, of which there were several, were usually kept shut for fear of thieves, thugs and river-dacoits; after the rains came down they were almost permanently sealed, so that very little light penetrated inside, even when the clouds cleared.

The first time Deeti looked into the hold, she had felt as though she were about to tumble into a well: all she could see, through the veil of her ghungta, were the whites of a great many eyes, shining in the darkness as they looked up and blinked into the light. She went down the ladder with great deliberation, being careful to keep her face veiled. When her eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, she saw that she had descended into the middle of a packed assembly: several dozen men were gathered around her, some squatting on their haunches, some lying curled on mats, and some sitting with their backs against the hull. A ghungta seemed but a paltry shield against the assault of so many curious eyes, and she was quick to seek shelter behind Kalua.

The women's section of the hold lay well forward, in a curtained alcove between the bows: Kalua led the way there, clearing a path through the press of bodies. When they reached the alcove, Deeti came to an abrupt halt and her hand shook as she reached for the curtain. Don't go far, she whispered nervously in Kalua's ear. Stay close by – who knows what these women are like?

Theekba - don't worry, I'll be nearby, he said, ushering her through.

Deeti had expected the women's part of the hold to be just as crowded as the men's, but on stepping past the curtain, she found only a half-dozen figures inside, veiled by their ghungtas. Some of the women were lying sprawled on the floor planks, but on Deeti's entry they moved up to make room for her; she lowered herself slowly to her haunches, taking care to keep her face covered. With everyone squatting and every face covered, there followed a sizing-up that was as awkward and inconclusive as the examination of a new bride by her husband's neighbours. At first no one spoke, but then a sudden gust of wind caused the pulwar to lurch, and the women found themselves tumbling and spilling over each other. Amidst the groans and giggles, Deeti's ghungta slipped from her face, and when she had righted herself, she found that she was looking at a woman with a wide mouth from which a lone tooth protruded like a tilted gravestone. Her name, Deeti would discover later, was Heeru, and she was given to fits of forgetfulness during which she would sit gazing vacantly at her fingernails. It would not take Deeti long to learn that Heeru was the most harmless of women, but at that first meeting, she was more than a little disconcerted by the directness of her curiosity.

Who are you? Heeru demanded. Tohar nám patá batáv tani? If you don't identify yourself, how will we know who you are?

As the newcomer, Deeti knew that she would have to account for herself before she could expect the same of the others. It was on her lips to identify herself as Kabutri-ki-ma – the name by which she had been known ever since her daughter's birth – when it occurred to her that if she was to prevent her husband's kinsmen from learning of her whereabouts, both she and Kalua would have to use names other than those by which they were generally known. What then was to be her name? Her proper, given name was the first to come to mind, and since it had never been used by anyone, it was as good as any. Aditi, she said softly, I am Aditi.

No sooner had she said it than it became real: this was who she was – Aditi, a woman who had been granted, by a whim of the gods, the boon of living her life again. Yes, she said, raising her voice a little, so that Kalua could hear her. I am Aditi, wife of Madhu.

The significance of a married woman using her own name was not lost on the others. Heeru's eyes grew clouded with pity: she too had been a mother once and her name was, properly speaking, Heeru-ki-ma. Although her child had died a while ago, through a cruel irony of abbreviation, his name had lived on in his mother. Heeru clicked her tongue sadly as she mulled over Deeti's plight: So your lap is empty then? No children?

No, said Deeti.

Miscarriages? The question was asked by a thin, shrewd-looking woman, with streaks of grey in her hair: this was Sarju, Deeti would discover later, the oldest among the women. Back in her village, near Ara, she had been a dái, a midwife, but a mistake in the delivery of a thakur's son had caused her to be driven from her home. On her lap lay a large cloth bundle, over which her hands were protectively clasped, as if to safeguard a treasure.

That day on the pulwar, Deeti did not have the presence of mind to think of a proper answer when the midwife repeated her question: Miscarriages? stillborn? how did you lose the little ones?

Deeti said nothing, but her silence was suggestive enough to elicit an outburst of sympathy: Never mind… you are young and strong… your lap will soon be filled…

In the midst of this, one of the others edged closer, a teenaged girl with long-lashed, trusting eyes: the mound of her chin, Deeti noticed, bore an embellishment that perfectly complemented the oval shape of her face – a tattoo of three tiny dots, arrayed in an arrowhead pattern.

É tohran ját kaun ha? the girl asked eagerly. And your caste?

I am…

Once again, just as she was about to provide an accustomed answer, Deeti's tongue tripped on the word that came first to her lips: the name of her caste was as intimate a part of herself as the memory of her daughter's face – but now it seemed as if that too were a part of a past life, when she had been someone else. She began again, hesitantly: We, my jora and I…

Confronted with the prospect of cutting herself loose from her moorings in the world, Deeti's breath ran out. She stopped to suck in a deep draught of air before starting again:… We, my husband and I, we are Chamars…

At this, the girl gave a squeal and threw her arm delightedly around Deeti's waist.

You too? said Deeti.

No, said the girl. I'm from the Mussahars, but that makes us like sisters, doesn't it?

Yes, said Deeti smiling, we could be sisters – except that you're so young you should be my niece.

This delighted the girl: That's right, she cried, you can be bhauji hamár – my sister-in-law.

This exchange annoyed some of the other women, who began to scold the girl: What's wrong with you, Munia? How does all that matter any more? We're all sisters now, aren't we?

Yes, that's right, said Munia, with a nod – but under the cover of her sari, she gave Deeti's hand a little squeeze as if to affirm a special and secret bond.

'Neel Rattan Halder, the time has come…'

No sooner had Mr Justice Kendalbushe begun his concluding address than he had to start pounding his gavel, for a disturbance broke out in the courtroom when it came to be noted that the judge had omitted the defendant's title. After order had been restored, the judge began again, fixing his eyes directly upon Neel, who was stationed below the podium, in a dock.

'Neel Rattan Halder,' said the judge, 'the time has come to bring these proceedings to a close. Having given due consideration to all the evidence brought before this court, the jury has found you guilty, so it now becomes my painful duty to pass upon you the sentence of the law for forgery. Lest you be unaware of the seriousness of your offence, let me explain that under English law your offence is a crime of the utmost gravity and was until recently considered a capital crime.'

Here the judge broke off and spoke directly to Neel: 'Do you understand what that means? It means that forgery was a hanging offence – a measure which played no small part in ensuring Britain 's present prosperity and in conferring upon her the stewardship of the world's commerce. And if this crime proved difficult to deter in a country such as England, then it is only to be expected that it will be very much more so in a land such as this, which has only recently been opened to the benefits of civilization.'

Right then, through the muted patter of a monsoon shower, Neel's ears caught the faint echo of a vendor's voice, hawking sweet-meats somewhere in the distance: Joynagorer moa... At the sound of that faraway call, his mouth filled with the remembered taste of a crisp, smoky sweetness as the judge went on to observe that since it was said, and rightly, that a parent who failed to chasten a child was thereby guilty of shirking the responsibilities of guardianship, then might it not also be said, in the same spirit, that in the affairs of men, there was a similar obligation, imposed by the Almighty himself, on those whom he had chosen to burden with the welfare of such races as were still in the infancy of civilization? Could it not equally be said that the nations that had been appointed to this divine mission would be guilty of neglecting their sacred trust, were they to be insufficiently rigorous in the chastisement of such peoples as were incapable of the proper conduct of their own affairs?

'The temptation that afflicts those who bear the burden of governance,' said the judge, 'is ever that of indulgence, the power of paternal feeling being such as to make every parent partake of the suffering of his wards and offspring. Yet, painful as it is, duty requires us sometimes to set aside our natural affections in the proper dispensation of justice…'

From his place in the dock, all that Neel could see of Mr Justice Kendalbushe was the top half of his face, which was, of course, framed by a heavy white wig. He noticed that every time the judge shook his head, for emphasis, a little cloud of dust seemed to rise from the powdered curls, to hang suspended above like a halo. Neel knew something of the significance of haloes, having seen a few reproductions of Italian paintings, and it occurred to him to wonder, momentarily, whether the effect was intentional or not. But these speculations were cut short by the sound of his own name.

'Neel Rattan Halder,' rasped the judge's voice. 'It has been established beyond a doubt that you repeatedly forged the signature of one of this city's most respectable merchants, Mr Benjamin Brightwell Burnham, with the intention of wilfully defrauding a great number of your own dependants, friends and associates, people who had honoured you with their trust because of their regard for your family and because of the blameless reputation of your father, the late Raja Ram Rattan Halder of Raskhali, of whom it could well be said that the only reproach ever to attach to his name is that of having fathered as infamous a criminal as yourself. I ask you, Neel Rattan Halder, to reflect that if an offence such as yours merits punishment in an ordinary man, then how much more loudly does it call for reproof when the person who commits it is one in affluent circumstances, a man in the first rank of native society, whose sole intention is to increase his wealth at the expense of his fellows? How is society to judge a forger who is also a man of education, enjoying all the comforts that affluence can bestow, whose property is so extensive as to exalt him greatly above his compatriots, who is considered a superior being, almost a deity, among his own kind? How dark an aspect does the conduct of such a man assume when for the sake of some petty increase to his coffers, he commits a crime that may bring ruin to his own kinsmen, dependants and inferiors? Would it not be the duty of this court to deal with such a man in exemplary fashion, not just in strict observance of the law, but also to discharge that sacred trust that charges us to instruct the natives of this land in the laws and usages that govern the conduct of civilized nations?'

As the voice droned on, it seemed to Neel that the judge's words too were turning into dust so that they could join the white cloud that was circling above the wig. Neel's schooling in English had been at once so thorough and so heavily weighted towards the study of texts that he found it easier, even now, to follow the spoken language by converting it into script, in his head. One of the effects of this operation was that it also robbed the language of its immediacy, rendering its words comfortingly abstract, as distant from his own circumstances as were the waves of Windermere and the cobblestones of Canterbury. So it seemed to him now, as the words came pouring from the judge's mouth, that he was listening to the sound of pebbles tinkling in some faraway well.

'Neel Rattan Halder,' said the judge, brandishing a sheaf of papers, 'it appears that despite the waywardness and depravity of your nature, you do not lack for adherents and supporters, for this court has received several petitions in your favour, some of them signed by the most respectable natives and even by a few Englishmen. This court is also in receipt of an opinion, offered by pandits and munshis who are learned in the laws of your religion: they hold that it is not lawful to punish a man of your caste and station as others are punished. In addition, the jury has taken the extraordinary and unusual step of commending you to the merciful consideration of the court.'

With a gesture of dismissal the judge allowed the papers to slip from his hand. 'Let it be noted that there is nothing this court values more than a recommendation from a jury, for they understand the habits of the people and may be aware of mitigating circumstances that have escaped the attention of the judge. You may be assured that I have subjected every submission placed before me to the most serious scrutiny, in the hope of discovering therein some reasonable grounds for diverting from the straight path of justice. I confess to you that my efforts have been in vain: in none of these petitions, commendations and opinions, have I been able to discover any grounds whatsoever for mitigation. Consider, Neel Rattan Halder, the view, offered by the learned pandits of your religion, that a man of your station ought to be exempted from certain forms of punishment because these penalties might also be visited on your innocent wife and child by causing them to lose caste. I freely acknowledge the necessity of accommodating the law to the religious uses of the natives, so far as it can be done in a manner consistent with justice. But we see no merit whatsoever in the contention that men of high caste should suffer a less severe punishment than any other person; such a principle has never been recognized nor ever will be recognized in English law, the very foundation of which lies in the belief that all are equal who appear before it…'

There was something about this that seemed so absurd to Neel that he had to drop his head for fear of betraying a smile: for if his presence in the dock proved anything at all, it was surely the opposite of the principle of equality so forcefully enunciated by the judge? In the course of his trial it had become almost laughably obvious to Neel that in this system of justice it was the English themselves – Mr Burnham and his ilk – who were exempt from the law as it applied to others: it was they who had become the world's new Brahmins.

But now there was a sudden deepening in the hush of the court, and Neel raised his eyes to find the judge glaring directly at him again: 'Neel Rattan Halder, the petition submitted in your favour implores us to mitigate your sentence on the grounds that you have been a person of wealth, that your young and innocent family will lose caste and be shunned and ostracized by their kinsmen. As to the latter, I have too great a regard for the native character to believe that your kin would be guided by so erroneous a principle, but in any event, this consideration cannot be permitted to have a bearing on our reading of the law. As to your wealth and your position in society, in our view these serve only to aggravate your offence in our eyes. In pronouncing your sentence I have a stark choice: I can choose either to let the law take its course without partiality, or I can choose to establish, as a legal principle, that there exists in India a set of persons who are entitled to commit crimes without punishment.'

And so there does, thought Neel, and you are one of them and I am not.

'Being unwilling to add further to your distress,' said the judge, 'it is sufficient to say that none of the applications made on your behalf have suggested a single proper ground for altering the course of the law. Recent precedent, in England as well as in this country, has established forgery to be a felony for which the forfeiture of property is an inadequate penalty: it carries the additional sanction of transportation beyond the seas for a term to be determined by the court. It is in keeping with these precedents that this court pronounces its sentence, which is that all your properties are to be seized and sold, to make good your debts, and that you yourself are to be transported to the penal settlement on the Mauritius Islands for a period of no less than seven years. So let it be recorded on this, the twentieth day of July, in the year of Our Lord, 1838…'

Soon, by virtue of his prodigious strength, Kalua became the most valued oarsman on the pulwar and he alone, among all the migrants, was allowed to take turns whenever the weather permitted. The privilege pleased him greatly, the strain of rowing being more than amply compensated by the rewards of being on deck, where he could watch the rain-freshened countryside going by. The names of the settlements on the banks made a great impression on him – Patna, Bakhtiyarpur, Teghra – and it became a game with him to compute the number of strokes that separated the next from the last. Occasionally, when some storied town or city came into view, Kalua would go down to let Deeti know: Barauni! Munger! The women's enclosure boasted more than its fair share of windows, being endowed with two, one on either bow. With each of Kalua's reports, Deeti and the others would prise the shutters briefly open to gaze upon the settlements as they approached.

Every day at sunset, the pulwar would stop for the night. Where the banks were dangerously unpeopled, it would drop anchor at midstream, but if they happened to be in the vicinity of some populous town, like Patna, Munger or Bhagalpur, then the boatmen would attach their moorings directly to the shore. The greatest treat of all was when the pulwar pulled up to the ghats of some busy town or river port: in the intervals between showers of rain the women would sit on deck, watching the townsfolk and laughing at the evermore-outlandish accents in which they spoke.

When the pulwar was under weigh, the women were permitted on deck only for the serving of the midday meal: at all other times, they were kept in seclusion, in their curtained enclosure between the bows. To spend three weeks in that small, dark and airless space should have been, by rights, an experience of near-unbearable tedium. Yet, strangely, it was anything but that: no two hours were the same and no two days alike. The close proximity, the dimness of the light, and the pounding drumbeat of the rain outside, created an atmosphere of urgent intimacy among the women; because they were all strangers to each other, everything that was said sounded new and surprising; even the most mundane of discussions could take unexpected twists and turns. It was astonishing, for example, to discover that in making mango-achar, some were accustomed to using fallen fruit while others would use none that were not freshly picked; no less was it surprising to learn that Heeru included heeng among the pickling spices and that Sarju omitted so essential an ingredient as kalonji. Each woman had always practised her own method in the belief that none other could possibly exist: it was bewildering at first, then funny, then exciting, to discover that the recipes varied with every household, family and village, and that each was considered unquestionable by its adherents. So absorbing was this subject that it kept them occupied from Ghoga to Pirpainti: and if so trivial a thing could generate so much talk, then what of such pressing matters as money and the marital bed?

As for stories, there was no end to them: two of the women, Ratna and Champa, were sisters, married to a pair of brothers whose lands were contracted to the opium factory and could no longer support them; rather than starve, they had decided to indenture themselves together – whatever happened in the future, they would at least have the consolation of a shared fate. Dookhanee was another married woman, travelling with her husband: having long endured the oppressions of a violently abusive mother-in-law, she considered it fortunate that her husband had joined in her escape.

Deeti, too, felt no constraint in speaking of the past, for she had already imagined, in fulsome detail, a history in which she had been Kalua's wife since the age of twelve, living with him and his cattle in his roadside bier. And if called upon to account for the decision to cross the Black Water, she would blame it all on the jealousies of the pehlwans and strongmen of Benares, who, unable to beat her husband in combat, had contrived to have him driven from the district.

To some of the stories, they returned again and again: the tale of Heeru's separation from her husband, for example, was told so many times that they all felt as though they had lived through it themselves. It had happened the previous year, at the start of the cold season, during the great cattle mela of Sonepur. Heeru had lost her firstborn and only child the month before and her husband had persuaded her that if she was ever to bear another son, she would need to do a puja at the temple of Hariharnath, during the fair.

Heeru knew, of course, that a great many people went to the mela, but she was not prepared for the multitudes that were assembled on the sand-flats of Sonepur: the dust raised by their feet was so thick as to make a moon of the midday sun, and as for cattle and other animals, there were so many that it seemed as if the river's banks would collapse under their weight. It took them a whole day to make their way to the gates of the temple and while they were waiting to enter, an elephant, brought there by a zemindar, ran suddenly amuck, scattering the crowd. Heeru and her husband ran in opposite directions, and afterwards, when she knew herself to be lost, she fell prey to one of her bouts of distracted forgetfulness. For hours she sat on the sand, staring at her fingernails, and when at last she bethought herself to go looking for her man, he was nowhere to be found: it was like searching for a grain of rice in an avalanche of sand. After two days of fruitless wandering, Heeru decided to make her way back to her village – but this was no easy matter for there was a distance of sixty kos to be covered, and that, too, through a stretch of country that was preyed upon by ruthless dacoits and murderous Thugs: for a woman to embark on that journey alone was to invite murder, or worse. She got as far as Revelganj and decided to wait until she encountered relatives or acquaintances who might agree to take her with them. Several months passed during which she sustained herself by begging, washing clothes and carting dust at a saltpetre mine. Then one day she saw someone she knew, a neighbour from the village; she rushed towards him, in delight, but when he recognized her, he fled, as if from a ghost. At length, when she managed to catch up with him, he told her that her husband had given her up for dead and married again; his new wife was already pregnant.

At first Heeru was determined to go back and reclaim her place in her home – but then she began to wonder. Why had her husband taken her to Sonepur in the first place? Had he perhaps intended to abandon her all along, seizing any opportunity that arose? Certainly he had berated and beaten her often enough in the past: what would he do if she returned to him now?

And as luck would have it, just as she was mulling over these questions, a pulwar, filled with migrants, drew up to the ghat…

Munia's story was apparently the simplest of all: when questioned about her presence on the pulwar, she would say that she was on her way to join her two brothers, who had both left for Mareech some years before. If asked why she wasn't married she would say that there was no one at home to find a husband for her, both her parents having recently died. Deeti guessed that this was not all there was to this tale, but she was careful not to pry: she knew that when the time was right, Munia would tell of her own accord – wasn't she, Deeti, the girl's surrogate bhauji, the sister-in-law that everyone dreamed of, friend, protector and confidante? Wasn't it to her that Munia always came when some overly forward man flirted or teased or tried to entice her into assignations? She knew that Deeti would put those men in their places by reporting her tales to Kalua: Look at that filthy luchha over there, making eyes at Munia. He thinks he can tease and provoke and do all kinds of chherkáni just because she's young and pretty. Go and set him right; tell him aisan mat kará – don't you dare do it again, or you'll find your liver on the wrong side of your belly.

Kalua would go lumbering over and ask, in his polite way: Khul ke batáibo – tell me truthfully, were you bothering that girl? Could you tell me why?

This was usually enough to put an end to the trouble for to be asked such a question by someone of Kalua's size was not to the taste of most.

It was after one such episode that Munia poured her story into Deeti's ear: it was about a man from Ghazipur, a pykari agent from the opium factory. While visiting their village, he had seen her working at the harvest and had made it his business to pass that way again and again. He had brought her trinkets and baubles and told her that he was besotted with her – and she, trusting and open-hearted as she was, had believed everything he said. They had started meeting secretly, in the poppy fields, during festivals and weddings, when the whole village was distracted. She had enjoyed the secrecy and the romance and even the fondling, until the night when he forced himself on her: after that, for fear of public exposure, she had continued to do his bidding. When she became pregnant, she assumed her family would cast her out or have her killed, but miraculously, her parents had stood by her, despite the ostracism of their community. But they were people of desperately straitened circumstances – so much so that they had had to sell two of their sons into indenture, just to make ends meet. When Munia's child was eighteen months old, they had decided to take the baby to the agent's house – not to threaten or blackmail, but just to show him that he had given them another mouth to feed. He heard them out patiently and then sent them back, saying he would provide all the help that was needed. A few days later some men had stolen up to their dwelling, in the dead of night, and set it on fire. It so happened that it was Munia's time of the month, so she was sleeping away from the others, out in the fields: she had watched the hut burn down, killing her mother, her father and her child. After that, to remain in the district would have been to court death: she had set off to look for the duffadar's pulwar, just as her brothers had done, before her.

Oh you foolish, dung-brained girl! said Deeti. How could you let him touch you…?

You won't understand, Munia sighed. I was mad for him; when you feel like that, there's nothing you won't do. Even if it happens again, I'll be helpless, I know.

What are you saying, you silly girl? Deeti cried. How can you talk like that? After all you've been through, you must make sure it never happens again.

Never again? Munia's mood changed suddenly, in a way that made Deeti despair of her. She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. Would you stop eating rice, she said, because you broke a tooth once, on a kanker? But how would you live…?

Shh! Thoroughly scandalized, Deeti began to scold: Be quiet, Munia! Have a thought for yourself. How can you prattle so loosely? Don't you know what would happen if the others found out?

Why would I tell them? said Munia, making a face. I only told you because you're my bhauji. To the others I won't say a thing: they talk too much anyway…

It was true that conversation rarely flagged amongst the women – and when it did they had only to prick up their ears to listen to the tales that were being told on the other side of the curtain, among the men. Thus they learnt the story of the quarrelsome Jhugroo, whose enemies had contrived to ship him away by bundling him into the pulwar while drunk; of Cullookhan, the sepoy, who had returned to his village after completing his military service, but only to find that he could no longer bear to be at home; of Rugoo, the dhobi who had sickened of washing clothes, and Gobin, the potter, who had lost the use of his thumb.

Sometimes, when the pulwar stopped for the night, new recruits would come on board, usually in ones and twos, but occasionally in small bands of a dozen or more. At Sahibganj, where the river turned southwards, there were forty men waiting – hills-men from the plateaus of Jharkhand. They had names like Ecka and Turkuk and Nukhoo Nack, and they brought with them stories of a land in revolt against its new rulers, of villages put to flames by the white man's troops.

Soon after this, the pulwar crossed an invisible boundary, taking them into a watery, rain-drowned land where the people spoke an incomprehensible tongue: now, when the barge stopped for the night, they could no longer understand what the spectators were saying, for their jeers and taunts were in Bengali. To add to the migrants' growing unease, the landscape changed: the flat, fertile, populous plains yielded to swamps and marshes; the river turned brackish, so that its water could no longer be drunk; every day the water rose and fell, covering and uncovering vast banks of mud; the shores were blanketed in dense, tangled greenery, of a kind that was neither shrub nor tree, but seemed to grow out of the river's bed, on roots that were like stilts: of a night, they would hear tigers roaring in the forest, and feel the pulwar shudder, as crocodiles lashed it with their tails.

Up to this point, the migrants had avoided the subject of the Black Water – there was no point, after all, in dwelling on the dangers that lay ahead. But now, as they sweated in the steamy heat of the jungle, their fears and apprehensions bubbled over. The pulwar became a cauldron of rumours: it began to be whispered that their rations on the Black Water ship would consist of beef and pork; those who refused to eat would be whipped senseless and the meats would be thrust down their throats. On reaching Mareech, they would be forced to convert to Christianity; they would be made to consume all kinds of forbidden foods, from the sea and the jungle; should they happen to die, their bodies would be ploughed into the soil, like manure, for there was no provision for cremation on that island. The most frightening of the rumours was centred upon the question of why the white men were so insistent on procuring the young and the juvenile, rather than those who were wise, knowing, and rich in experience: it was because they were after an oil that was to be found only in the human brain – the coveted mimiái-ka-tel, which was known to be most plentiful among people who had recently reached maturity. The method employed in extracting this substance was to hang the victims upside down, by their ankles, with small holes bored into their skulls: this allowed the oil to drip slowly into a pan.

So much credence did this rumour accumulate that when at last Calcutta was sighted, there was a great outburst of sorrow in the hold: looking back now, it seemed as if the journey down the Ganga had given the migrants their last taste of life before the onset of a slow and painful death.

On the morning of the tumasher, Paulette rose to find that her anxious fingernails had raised an alarming crop of weals on her face during the night. The sight brought tears of vexation to her eyes, and she was tempted to send a chit to Mrs Burnham, claiming that she was ill and could not leave her bed – but instead, presently, she instructed the ab-dars to fill the tub in the goozle-connah. For once she was glad to avail herself of Mrs Burnham's cushy-girls, allowing them to pluck her arms and champo her hair. But the question of what she was to wear had still to be faced, and in addressing it, Paulette found herself yet again on the brink of tears: this was a matter that she had never worried about before and she was at a loss to understand why it should concern her now. What did it matter that Mr Reid was coming? For all she knew, he would scarcely notice her presence. And yet, when she tried on one of Mrs Burnham's hand-me-downs, she found herself examining the rich but stern-looking gown with unaccustomedly critical eyes: she could not face the thought of going down to the tumasher dressed like a marmot in mourning. But what else could she do? To buy a new dress was beyond her capabilities, not just because she had no money, but also because she could not trust her own taste in memsahib fashion.

With no other recourse, Paulette sought help from Annabel, who was wise beyond her years in some things. Sure enough, the girl was a great source of support, and hit upon the expedient of using bits of one of her own chikan-worked dooputties, to brighten the pelerine collar of Paulette's black silk gown. But Annabel's aid did not come without a price. 'Why, look at you, Puggly – you're flapping about like a titler!' she said. 'I've never seen you worry about your jumma before. It's not because of a chuckeroo, is it?'

'Why no,' said Paulette quickly. 'Of course not! It is only that I feel I should not let down your family at such an important evenment.'

Annabel was not taken in. 'You're trying to bundo someone, aren't you?' she said with her wicked smile. 'Who is it? Do I know him?'

'Oh Annabel! It is nothing like that,' cried Paulette.

But Annabel was not easily silenced, and later that day, when she saw Paulette coming down the stairs, fully outfitted, she uttered a squeal of admiration: 'Tip-top, Paulette – shahbash! They'll be showering choomers on you before the night's out.'

'Really Annabel – how you do exagere!' Hitching up her skirts, Paulette bolted away, glad to see that there was no one within earshot except a passing chobdar, two hurrying farrashes, three mussack-laden beasties, two chisel-wielding mysteries, and a team of flower-bearing malis. She would have been mortified if Mrs Burnham had overheard her, but fortunately the BeeBee was still at her toilette.

At the front of the Burnham house, adjoining the portico, lay a reception room that Mrs Burnham laughingly referred to as her shishmull, because of the great quantity of gilt-framed Venetian mirrors that hung on its walls: it was here that guests were usually received and seated before the serving of dinner. Although grand enough, this room was by no means the largest in the house, and when all its chandeliers and sconces were ablaze the shishmull offered very few dark or quiet corners – which was something of a nuisance for Paulette, whose principal expedient, in dealing with the Burnham burra-khanas, was to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. In the shishmull, by dint of experimentation, she had found that her purpose was best served by retiring to a corner where a single, straight-backed chair stood in isolation against an unmirrored patch of wall: here she had succeeded in sitting out the preliminary phases of many an evening without attracting the attention of anyone other than the khidmutgars who were serving iced simkin and sherbet. It was to this corner therefore that she made her way, but tonight her customary refuge did not shelter her for long: she had just accepted a cold tumlet of tart-sweet tamarind sherbet when she heard Mrs Burnham calling out her name. 'Oh Paulette! Where have you been chupowing yourself? I've been looking everywhere for you: Captain Chillingworth has a question.'

'For me, Madame?' said Paulette in alarm, rising to her feet.

'Yes indeed – and here he is.' Mrs Burnham took a half-step aside, bringing Paulette face-to-face with the Captain.

'Captain Chillingworth, may I present Mademoiselle Paulette Lambert?'

Mrs Burnham was gone almost as soon as she had said the words, and Paulette was now alone with the Captain who was breathing rather heavily as he bowed.

'… Honoured, Miss Lambert.'

His voice was low, she noticed, and it had the crunching sound of conkers rattling beneath the wheel of a carriage. Even if he had not been so visibly short of wind, it would have been clear at a glance that he was not in the best of health: the colour of his face was a mottled red, and his figure seemed oddly bloated. Like his body, his face seemed to sag upon a frame that had once been large, square and confident of its power; its lines drooped in apparent exhaustion – the fleshy jowls, the watery eyes and the deep dark pouches beneath them. When he raised his hat, his head was revealed to be almost completely bald, except for a tattered ring of hair that hung down from its edges, like a fringe of peeling bark.

Mopping the sweat from his face, the Captain said: 'I noticed a row of lataniers on the drive. I'm told they were your doing, Miss Lambert.'

'That is true, sir,' Paulette replied, 'it was indeed I who planted them. But they are still so small! I am surprised you noticed them.'

'Pretty plants, latanias,' he said. 'Don't see them much in these parts.'

'I have a great fondness for them,' said Paulette, 'especially the Latania commersonii.'

'Oh?' said the Captain. 'May I ask why?'

Paulette was embarrassed now, and she looked down at her shoes. 'The plant was identified, you see, by Philippe and Jeanne Commerson.'

'And who, pray, were they?'

'My grand-uncle and grand-aunt. They were botanists, both of them and lived many years in the Mauritius.'

'Ah!' His frown deepened, and he began to ask another question – but the query was lost on Paulette who had just caught sight of Zachary, coming through the door. Like the other men, he was in his shirtsleeves, having handed his coat to a khidmutgar before stepping into the shishmull. His hair was neatly tied, with a black ribbon, and his Dosootie shirt and nainsook trowsers were the plainest in the room – yet he looked improbably elegant, mainly because he was the only man present who was not dripping with sweat.

After Zachary's arrival, Paulette was unable to summon much more than a monosyllable or two in response to the Captain's inquiries, and she scarcely noticed when Mr Justice Kendalbushe frowned disapprovingly at her finery and murmured: '"Hell is naked and destruction hath no covering." '

To add to her trials, when it came time to go in to dinner, Mr Doughty began to compliment her effusively on her appearance. ''Pon my sivvy, Miss Lambert! Aren't you quite the dandyzette today? Fit to knock a feller oolter-poolter on his beam ends!' Then, fortunately, he caught sight of the dinner-table and forgot about Paulette.

The table for the evening was of modest size, having been fitted with only two of its six leaves, but what it lacked in length, it more than made up for in the height and weight of its fare, which was laid out in a single spectacular service, with platters and dishes arranged in a spiralling ziggurat of comestibles. There was green turtle soup, served artfully in the animals' shells, a Bobotie pie, a dumbpoke of muttongosht, a tureen of Burdwaun stew, concocted from boiled hens and pickled oysters, a foogath of venison, a dish of pomfrets, soused in vinegar and sprinkled with petersilly, a Vinthaleaux of beef, with all the accompaniments, and platters of tiny roasted ortolans and pigeons, with the birds set out in the arrowhead shapes of flocks in flight. The table's centrepiece was a favourite of the Bethel bobachee-connah: a stuffed roast peacock, mounted upon a silver stand, with its tail outspread as if for an imminent mating.

The spectacle briefly deprived Mr Doughty of his breath: 'I say,' he muttered at last, wiping his forehead, which was already streaming in anticipation of the feast, 'now here's a sight for Chinnery's paintbrush!'

'Exactly, sir,' said Paulette, although she had not quite heard what he had said – for her attention, if not her gaze, was focused upon the place to her left, where Zachary had now appeared. Yet she dared not turn away from the pilot, for she had more than once been reprimanded by Mrs Burnham for the solecism of speaking with a left-hand neighbour out of turn.

Mr Doughty was still exclaiming over the fare when Mr Burnham cleared his throat in preparation for the saying of grace: 'We thank you Lord…' In emulation of the others, Paulette held her clasped hands to her chin and shut her eyes – but she couldn't resist stealing a surreptitious glance at her neighbour, and was greatly discomposed when her eyes encountered Zachary's, who was also peering sideways, over his fingertips. They both flushed and looked hurriedly away, and were just in time to echo Mr Burnham's sonorous 'Amen'.

Mr Doughty wasted no time in spearing an ortalan. 'Tantivy, Miss Lambert!' he whispered to Paulette, as he dropped the bird on her plate. 'Take it from an old hand: have to be jildee with the ortolans. They're always the first to go.'

'Why thank you.' Paulette's words were lost on the pilot, whose attention was now focused on the dumbpoke. With her senior dinner-partner thus distracted, Paulette was free at last to turn to Zachary.

'I am glad, Mr Reid,' she said formally, 'that you could spare an evening for us.'

'Not as glad as I am, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary. 'It's not often that I'm invited to such a feast.'

'But Mr Reid,' said Paulette, 'my little finger has told me that you have been sortieing a great deal of late!'

'Sort… sortieing?' said Zachary in surprise. 'And what might you mean by that, Miss Lambert?'

'Forgive me,' she said. 'I mean dining out – you have been doing so a great deal, no, of late?'

'Mr Doughty and his wife have been very kind,' said Zachary. 'They've taken me with them to a few places.'

'You are lucky,' said Paulette, with a conspiratorial smile. 'I believe your colleague, Mr Crowle, is not so fortunate?'

'Wouldn't know about that, Miss.'

Paulette lowered her voice: 'You know, you must be careful with Mr Crowle. Mrs Burnham says he is an awful thug.'

Zachary stiffened. 'I'm not a'feared of Mr Crowle.'

'But have a care, Mr Reid: Mrs Burnham says she will not have him in the house. You must not tell him you were here tonight.'

'Don't worry, Miss,' said Zachary smiling. 'Mr Crowle's not a man I'm likely to be sharing confidences with.'

'Is he not on the ship then?'

'No,' said Zachary. 'None of us are. The Ibis is in dry dock and we're all liberty-men in the meantime. I've moved into a boarding house.'

'Really? Where?'

'In Kidderpore – Watsongunge Lane. Jodu found it for me.'

'Oh?' Paulette glanced over her shoulder to make sure that no one else had heard Jodu's name, and turned back to Zachary reassured.

Recently, Mr Burnham had installed a new fixture to cool the dining room. Known as a Thermantidote, the device was a winnowing machine that had been fitted with a propeller and a thick mat of fragrant khus-khus. The men who had once pulled the ropes of the overhead punkahs were now employed in operating the Thermantidote: while one wetted the machine's rush screen the other turned the propeller by means of a handle, forcing a constant stream of air through the dampened mat. Thus, by means of evaporation, the machine was supposed to create a wonderfully cooling breeze. Such at least was the theory – but in rainy weather the Thermantidote added greatly to the humidity, making everyone sweat even more than usual, and it also produced a loud, grinding noise that often drowned the conversation. Mr Burnham and Mr Doughty were among the few who could make themselves heard effortlessly, above the machine – but those with feebler voices often had to shout, which only added to the prevailing sweatiness. In the past, when seated beside deaf colonels and infirm accountants, Paulette had often had cause to regret the introduction of the new machine – but today she was unreservedly glad of its presence, since it allowed her to speak with Zachary without fear of being overheard.

'If I may ask, Mr Reid,' she said, 'where is Jodu now? What has become of him?'

'He's trying to earn a little money while the Ibis is being refitted,' said Zachary. 'He asked me for a small loan so he could rent a little ferry-boat. He'll be back on board when we're ready to sail.'

Paulette thought back to the lazy days when she and Jodu had sat in the trees of the Botanical Gardens, watching the ships on the Hooghly. 'So he is to have his wish then? He will be on your crew?'

'That's right: just as you wanted. He will be going to Port Louis with us when we sail in September.'

'Oh? He will go to the Mauritius?'

'Yes,' said Zachary. 'Do you know the islands?'

'No,' said Paulette, 'I have never been there, although it was once my family's home. My father was a botanist, you see, and in the Mauritius there is a very famous botanical garden. It was there that my father and mother were married. That is why I have a great envy to go there…' She broke off: suddenly it seemed intolerably unjust that Jodu should be able to go to this island while she, Paulette, with all her prior claims, could not.

'Is something the matter?' Zachary said, alarmed by her pallor. 'Are you all right, Miss Lambert?'

'An idee came to my mind,' said Paulette, trying to make light of her sudden turn of thought. 'It struck me that I too would love to go to the Mauritius on the Ibis. Just like Jodu, working on a ship.'

Zachary laughed. 'Believe me, Miss Lambert, a schooner's no place for a woman – lady, I mean, begging your pardon. Especially not someone who is accustomed to living like this…' He made a gesture in the direction of the loaded table.

'Is that indeed so, Mr Reid?' said Paulette, raising her eyebrows. 'So it is not possible, according to you, for a woman to be a marin?'

Often, when at a loss for a word, Paulette would borrow a term from the French, trusting that it would pass for English if pronounced exactly as it was spelled. This strategy worked well enough to provide reason to persist, but every once in a while it produced unexpected results: from the look on Zachary's face, Paulette knew that this was one such occasion.

'Marine?' he said in surprise. 'No, Miss Lambert, there sure aren't any woman marines that I ever heard of.'

'"Sailor",' said Paulette triumphantly. 'That is what I meant. You think it is not possible for a woman to sail under a mast?'

'As a captain's wife, perhaps,' said Zachary, shaking his head. 'But never as a member of the crew: not a sailor worth his salt would put up with that. Why, there's many a sailor won't so much as utter the word "woman" at sea, for fear of bad luck.'

'Ah!' said Paulette. 'But then it is clear, Mr Reid, that you have never heard of the famous Madame Commerson!'

'Can't say as I have, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary with a frown. 'What flag does she fly?'

'Madame Commerson was not a ship, Mr Reid,' said Paulette. 'She was a scientist: to be precise, she was my own grand-aunt. And I beg to inform you that she was but a young woman when she joined a ship and sailed all around the world.'

'Is that a fact?' said Zachary sceptically.

'Yes, indeed it is,' said Paulette. 'You see, before she was married, my grand-aunt's name was Jeanne Baret. Even as a girl, she had a passion most heated for science. She read about Linnaeus, and the many new species of plants and animals that were being named and discovered. These diverse facts made her burn with the volontee to see for herself the riches of the earth. What should happen then, Mr Reid, but that she should learn of a great expedition, being organized by Monsieur de Bougainville, with the intention of doing exactly that which she wished? This idee set her afire and she decided that she too, by all hasard, would be an expeditionnaire. But of course it was not to be expected that the men would permit a woman to join the ship… so can you imagine, Mr Reid, what my grand-aunt did?'

'No.'

'She did the simplest thing, Mr Reid. She tied up her hair like a man and applied to join under the name of Jean Bart. And what is more, she was accepted – by none other than the great Bougainville himself! And it was none too hard, Mr Reid – this I would have you know: it was no more than a matter of wearing a tight band over her chest and lengthening her stride when she walked. Thus she set sail, wearing trowsers, just like you, and not one of the sailors or scientists guessed her secret. Can you but imagine, Mr Reid, all those savants, so knowledgeable about the anatomy of animals and plants? – not one of them knew that there was a fillie among them, so completely was she male? It was only after two years that she was undone, and do you know how, Mr Reid?'

'Wouldn't like to guess, Miss,' said Zachary.

'In Tahiti, when the expeditionnaires went ashore, the people took but one look and they knew! The secret that no Frenchman had guessed through two years of living on the same ship, day in, day out, the Tahitians knew tootsweet. But now it did not matter, for of course, Monsieur de Bougainville could not abandonne her so he agreed to let her come along. They say it was she who, out of gratitude, named the flower that is called after the admiral: bougainvillea. This was how it happened that Jeanne Baret, my grand-aunt, became the first woman to sail around the earth. And this too was how she found her husband, my grand-uncle, Philippe Commerson, who was among the expeditionnaires and a great savant himself.'

Pleased to have trumped Zachary, Paulette treated him to a beaming smile. 'So you see, Mr Reid, sometimes it happens after all that a woman does indeed join a crew.'

Zachary took a long sip from his wineglass, but the claret was not of much help in digesting Paulette's tale: he tried to think of a woman attempting a similar impersonation on the Ibis and was certain that she would be detected within days if not hours. He remembered the hammocks, hung so close that one man's tossing would set the whole fo'c'sle astir and a-shake; he thought of the boredom of the small hours, and those contests where the men of the watch would open their trowsers to leeward to see how much of the sea's phosphorescence they could light up; he thought of the ritual of the weekly bath, on deck, by the lee scuppers, with every tar's body bared to the waist and many having to strip naked to wash their one pair of under-clothes. How could a woman join in any of this? Perhaps on a shipful of frog-eating crappos – who knew what devilment they got up to? – but a Baltimore clipper was a man's world and no true salt would want it otherwise, no matter how great his love of women.

Noting his silence, Paulette asked: 'Do you not believe me, Mr Reid?'

'Well, Miss Lambert, I'll believe it could happen on a French ship,' he said grudgingly. He couldn't resist adding: 'Tisn't the easiest thing anyway to tell a Mamzelle from a Monsoo.'

'Mr Reid…!'

'No offence meant…'

As Zachary was making his apologies, a tiny pellet of bread came flying over the table and struck Paulette on the chin. She glanced across to find Mrs Doughty smiling and rolling her eyes as if to indicate that some matter of great significance had just transpired. Paulette looked around, nonplussed, and could see nothing of note, except Mrs Doughty herself: the pilot's wife was extremely stout, with a round face that hung, like a setting moon, under a great cloud of henna-red hair; now, with her gestures and grimaces, she appeared to be undergoing some kind of planetary convulsion. Paulette looked quickly away, for she harboured a great dread of attracting the attention of Mrs Doughty, who tended to speak, at length and with exceptional rapidity, about matters she could not quite comprehend.

Fortunately, Mr Doughty saved her the trouble of having to respond to his wife. 'Shahbash dear!' he exclaimed. 'Perfect shot!' Then, turning to Paulette, he said: 'Tell me, Miss Lambert, have I ever told you how Mrs Doughty once pelleted me with an ortolan?'

'Why no, sir,' said Paulette.

'Happened at Government House,' the pilot continued. 'Right under the Lat-Sahib's eye. Bird caught me smack on my nose. Must have been a good twenty paces. Knew right then she was the woman for me – eyes like a shoe-goose.' Here, having speared the last ortolan with his fork, he waved it in the direction of his wife.

Paulette seized the opportunity to turn her attention back to Zachary: 'But tell me, Mr Reid, how is it that you communicate with your lascars? Do they speak English?'

'They know the commands,' said Zachary. 'And sometimes, when it's needed, Serang Ali translates.'

'And how do you hold converse with Serang Ali?' Paulette asked.

'He speaks a little English,' said Zachary. 'We manage to make ourselves understood. Odd thing is, he can't even say my name.'

'What does he call you then?'

'Malum Zikri.'

'Zikri?' she cried. 'What a beautiful name! Do you know what it means?'

'I didn't even know it meant anything,' he said in surprise.

'It does,' she said. 'It means the "one who remembers". How nice that is. Would you mind if I called you by this name?'

Now, seeing a flush rise to his face, she quickly regretted her forwardness: it seemed a godsend when the khidmutgars distracted everyone by bringing in an enormous jelly-tree – a three-layered stand with many branching arms, each of these loaded with miniature custards, jellies, puddings, trifles, fools, blancmanges, syllabubs and sugared fruits.

Paulette was about to recommend a mango fool to Zachary when Mr Doughty reclaimed her attention with a melancholy story about how a goose hurled at a Government House dinner had led to a duel and brought official disapproval upon the custom of pelleting. Before he had quite finished, Mrs Burnham caught Paulette's eye in the special way that indicated that it was time for the ladies to withdraw to the gol-cumra. The khidmutgars came forward to pull back their chairs, and the women stepped away to follow their hostess out of the dining room.

Mrs Burnham led the way out at a serenely regal pace, but the moment they were out of the dining room, she abandoned Paulette with Mrs Doughty. 'I'm off to the dubber,' she whispered slyly in Paulette's ear. 'Good luck with old fustilugs.'

In the dining room, where the men had gathered around the host's end of the table, Mr Burnham's offer of a cigar was politely declined by Captain Chillingworth. 'Thank you, Mr Burnham,' said the Captain, reaching for a candlestick, 'but I prefer my buncuses, if it's all the same to you.'

'As you please,' said Mr Burnham, pouring a glass of port. 'But come now, Captain: give us the news from Canton. Does it appear that the celestials will see reason before it is too late?'

The Captain sighed: 'Our friends in the English and American factories do not think so. Almost to a man they believe that a war with China is inevitable. Frankly, most of them welcome the prospect.'

'So the Chuntocks are still set, are they,' said Mr Burnham, 'on putting a stop to the trade in opium?'

'I am afraid so,' said the Captain. 'The mandarins do indeed seem quite set in their course. The other day, they beheaded some half-dozen opium-sellers, right at the gates of Macao. Strung up the bodies in full public view, for everyone to see, Europeans included. It's had an effect, no doubt about it. In February the price of the best Patna opium had sunk to four hundred and fifty dollars a chest.'

'Good God!' said Mr Doughty. 'Was it not twice that last year?'

'So it was.' Mr Burnham nodded. 'You see, it's clear now – the Long-tails will stop at nothing to drive us out of business. And they'll succeed too, no doubt about it, unless we can prevail upon London to fight back.'

Mr Justice Kendalbushe broke in, leaning across the table: 'But tell me, Captain Chillingworth: is it not true that our representative in Canton, Mr Elliott, has had some success in persuading the mandarins to legalize opium? I've heard it said that the mandarins have begun to consider the benefits of free trade.'

Mr Doughty laughed. 'You are too optimistic, sir. Damned hard-headed gudda is Johnny Chinaman. Not a chance of changing his mind.'

'But what the judge says is not unfounded,' said the Captain quickly. 'There's a party in Pekin that is rumoured to be in favour of legalization. But the word is that the Emperor's shrugged them off and decided to destroy the trade root and branch. I'm told he's appointed a new governor to do the job.'

'We should not be surprised,' said Mr Burnham, looking around the table in satisfaction, with his thumbs hooked in his lapels. 'Certainly I am not. I knew from the start it would come to this. Jardine and Matheson have said so all along, and I'm of the same mind. No one dislikes war more than I do – indeed I abhor it. But it cannot be denied that there are times when war is not merely just and necessary, but also humane. In China that time has come: nothing else will do.'

'Quite right, sir!' said Mr Doughty emphatically. 'There is no other recourse. Indeed, humanity demands it. We need only think of the poor Indian peasant – what will become of him if his opium can't be sold in China? Bloody hurremzads can hardly eat now: they'll perish by the crore.'

'I fear you are right,' said Justice Kendalbushe gravely. 'My friends in the Missions are agreed that a war is necessary if China is to be opened up to God's word. It's a pity, of course, but it's best to get it over and done with.'

Eyes twinkling, Mr Burnham looked around the candlelit table: 'Since we are all agreed, gentlemen, perhaps I can share a bit of news that has just come my way? In the strictest confidence, of course.'

'Of course.'

'Mr Jardine has written to say that he has prevailed on the Prime Minister at last.'

'Oh, is it true then?' cried Mr Justice Kendalbushe. 'Lord Palmerston has agreed to send a fleet?'

'Yes,' Mr Burnham nodded in confirmation. 'But fleet is perhaps too grand a word. Mr Jardine reckons that no great show of force will be needed to overwhelm China 's antique defences. A few frigates, perhaps, and a couple of dozen merchantmen.'

'Shahbash!' cried Mr Doughty, with a handclap. 'So war it is then?'

'I think we can take it as a certainty now,' said Mr Burnham. 'I'm sure there'll be some pretence of a palaver with the Celestials. But it will all come to naught – we can depend on the Long-tails for that. And then the fleet will go in and wrap it all up in short order. It'll be the best kind of war – quick and inexpensive with the outcome never in doubt. Won't need more than a handful of English troops: a couple of sepoy battalions will get it done.'

Mr Doughty gave a stomach-shaking laugh. 'Oh that's for sure! Our darkies will rout the yellowbellies in short order. It'll be over in a couple of weeks.'

'And I shouldn't be surprised,' said Mr Burnham, stabbing the air with his cigar, 'if there's cheering in the streets of Canton, when the troops go marching in.'

'That's a pucka certainty,' said Mr Doughty. 'The Celestials will be out in force, lighting up their joss-sticks. Ooloo though he might be in some ways, Johnny Chinaman knows a good thing when he sees it. He'll be delighted to be rid of his Manchu tyrant.'

Zachary could no longer hold himself aloof from the excitement that was simmering around the table. He broke in to ask Mr Burnham: 'When do you think the fleet will be ready, sir?'

'I believe two frigates are already on their way,' said Mr Burnham. 'As for the merchantmen, Jardine and Matheson's ships will begin assembling soon, as will ours. You'll be back in plenty of time to join in.'

'Hear, hear!' said Mr Doughty, raising his glass.

Captain Chillingworth alone seemed to be unaffected by the high spirits and general good cheer: his silence having grown too pronounced to be ignored, Mr Justice Kendalbushe bestowed a kindly smile on him: 'A great pity, Captain Chillingworth, that your health will not permit you to join the expedition. No wonder you are gloomy. In your place I would be sorry too.'

Suddenly Captain Chillingworth bristled. 'Sorry?' His voice was emphatic enough to startle everyone. 'Why, no: I am not sorry in the least. I have seen enough of such things in my time; I can well do without another round of butchery.'

'Butchery?' The judge blinked in surprise. 'But Captain Chillingworth, I am sure there will be no more killing than is strictly necessary. There is always a price, is there not, for doing good?'

'"Good", sir?' said Captain Chillingworth, struggling to pull himself upright in his chair. 'I am not sure whose good you mean, theirs or ours? Though why I should include myself in your number I cannot think – heaven knows that very little good has come to me from my doings.'

Two bright spots of colour rose to the judge's cheeks as he absorbed this. 'Why, Captain,' he said sharply. 'You do credit neither to yourself nor to us. Is it your implication that no good will come of this expedition?'

'Oh it will, sir; there's no denying that.' Captain Chillingworth's words emerged very slowly, as if they had been pulled up from a deep well of bitterness. 'I am sure it will do a great deal of good for some of us. But I doubt I'll be of that number, or that many Chinamen will. The truth is, sir, that men do what their power permits them to do. We are no different from the Pharaohs or the Mongols: the difference is only that when we kill people we feel compelled to pretend that it is for some higher cause. It is this pretence of virtue, I promise you, that will never be forgiven by history.'

Here Mr Burnham intervened by placing his glass forcefully on the table. 'Well, gentlemen! We can't keep the ladies waiting till we've solved every problem in the world; it's time we joined them.'

An outburst of relieved laughter broke the awkwardness, and the men rose to their feet and began to file out. Zachary was the last through the door, and he stepped out to find the host waiting for him. 'You see, Reid,' Mr Burnham whispered, placing an arm around his shoulder; 'you see why I'm worried about the Captain's judgement? Much will depend on you, Reid.'

Zachary could not help being flattered. 'Thank you, sir,' he said. 'You can trust me to do my best.'

Mrs Doughty's eyes twinkled as she looked at Paulette, over the rim of her cup. 'Well, my dear!' she said. 'You've certainly worked a bit of jadoo tonight.'

'I pray your pardonne, Madame?'

'Oh, don't think you can play the gull with me!' cried Mrs Doughty, wagging a finger. 'I'm sure you noticed, didn't you?'

'Noticed what, Madame? I do not follow.'

'Didn't you dekko? How he wouldn't touch his ortolans and hardly tasted the foogath? Such a waste! Asked ever so many questions too.'

'Who, Madame?' said Paulette. 'Of whom do you speak?'

'Why, Justice Kendalbushe, of course: you've certainly scored quite a hit there! Couldn't take his eyes off you.'

'Justice Kendalbushe!' cried Paulette in alarm. 'Did I do something wrong Madame?'

'No, you silly bandar,' said Mrs Doughty, tweaking her ear. 'Not at all. But I'm sure you noticed, didn't you, how he jawaub'd the dumbpoke and sniffed at the peacock? It's always a sign, I say, when a man won't eat. I can tell you, dear, he was all a-chafe every time you turned to talk to Mr Reid!' She went prattling on, leaving Paulette ever more convinced that the judge had spotted her using the wrong fork or an inappropriate knife, and was sure to report the solecism to Mrs Burnham.

To make things worse, when the door opened to admit the men, the judge headed straight over to Paulette and Mrs Doughty and proceeded to deliver a homily on the subject of gluttony. Paulette pretended to listen although all her senses were focused on Zachary's unseen presence, somewhere behind her. But between Mrs Doughty and the Captain, there was no getting away until the evening was all but over. It was only when the guests were taking their leave that Paulette was able to speak with Zachary again. Despite her efforts to remain collected, she found herself saying, with much greater vehemence than she had intended: 'You will look after him, won't you – my Jodu?'

To her surprise, he answered with an intensity that seemed to match her own. 'You can be sure I will,' he said. 'And should there be anything else I can do, Miss Lambert, you need only ask.'

'You must be careful, Mr Reid,' said Paulette, playfully. 'With a name like Zikri you may be held to your word.'

'And gladly too, Miss,' said Zachary. 'You can call on me for sure.'

Paulette was touched by the sincerity of his tone. 'Oh Mr Reid!' she cried. 'You have already done too much.'

'What have I done?' he said. 'I've done nothing, Miss Lambert.'

'You have kept my secret,' she whispered. 'Perhaps you cannot conceive what that means in this world I live in? Look around you, Mr Reid: do you see anyone here who would for a moment believe that a memsahib could think of a native – a servant – as a brother? No: the worst possible imputations would be ascribed.'

'Not by me, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary. 'You can be sure of that.'

'Really?' she said, looking him full in the eyes. 'It does not seem uncroyable to you that a bond so intimate and yet so innocent should exist between a white girl and a boy of another race?'

'Not at all, Miss Lambert – why, I myself…' Zachary suddenly began to cough into his fist, cutting himself short. 'I assure you, Miss Lambert, I know of many, much stranger things.'

Paulette sensed that he had something to add, but now there was a sudden interruption, caused by a thunderous detonation. In the awkward silence that followed, nobody glanced in the direction of Mr Doughty, who was examining the knob of his cane with an air of pretended nonchalance. It fell to Mrs Doughty to make an attempt to retrieve the situation. 'Ah!' she cried, clapping her hands cheerily together. 'The wind is rising and we must make sail. Anchors aweigh! We must be off!'

Twelve

Many days passed with no word being received about when exactly Neel was to be moved to the jail at Alipore, where convicts were usually sent to await transportation. In the mean-while, although he was allowed to remain in his former apartment at Lalbazar, the change in his circumstances was made evident to him in dozens of different ways. No longer was he allowed visitors at all times, and days went by when he met with no one at all; the constables who stood guard at his door no longer exerted themselves to provide him with diversions; their manner, once obsequious, now became gruff and surly; at night they took to chaining his doors and he was not allowed to leave his rooms without shackles on his wrists. No longer was he waited on by his own servants, and when he complained of an accumulation of dust in his rooms, the constable on guard answered by asking if he would like to be brought a jharu, so he could do the job for himself. If it were not for the mockery in the man's voice, Neel might have said yes, but instead he shook his head: It's just a few days more, isn't it?

Yes, said the guard, with a guffaw of laughter. And after that you'll be off to your in-laws' palace, in Alipore. You'll be nicely looked after over there – nothing to worry about.

For a short while more, Neel's food continued to come from the Raskhali palace, but then, abruptly, it stopped. Instead, he was handed a wooden basin, a tapori of the kind that was used to serve all the lock-up's inmates: looking under the lid he saw that it contained a gruel-like mixture of dal and coarse rice. 'What's this?' he asked the constable, and was answered by nothing more than a negligent shrug.

He took the basin inside, placed it on the floor and walked away, resolving to ignore it. But in a while hunger drove him back and he seated himself cross-legged beside the basin and removed the lid. The contents had congealed into a grey slop and the smell made him gag, but he forced himself to scoop up a few grains with his fingertips. As he was raising his hand to his lips, it occurred to him that this was the first time in all his years that he had ever eaten something that was prepared by hands of unknown caste. Perhaps it was this thought, or perhaps it was just the smell of the food – it happened, at any rate, that he was assailed by a nausea so powerful that he could not bring his fingers to his mouth. The intensity of his body's resistance amazed him: for the fact was that he did not believe in caste, or so at least he had said, many, many times, to his friends and anyone else who would listen. If, in answer, they accused him of having become too tãsh, overly Westernized, his retort was always to say, no, his allegiance was to the Buddha, the Mahavira, Shri Chaitanya, Kabir and many others such – all of whom had battled against the boundaries of caste with as much determination as any European revolutionary. Neel had always taken pride in laying claim to this lineage of egalitarianism, all the more so since it was his prerogative to sit on a Raja's guddee: but why, then, had he never before eaten anything prepared by an unknown hand? He could think of no answer other than ease of habit: because he had always done what was expected of him; because the legion of people who controlled his daily existence had seen to it that it happened in that way and no other. He had thought of his everyday routines as a performance, a duty and nothing more; one of the many little enactments that were required by the demands of a social existence, by samsara – none of it was meant to be real; it was just an illusion, no more than a matter of playing a part in the great charade of conducting a householder's life. And yet there was nothing unreal about the nausea that had seized him now; it was not an illusion that his body was convulsed by a sensation of ghrina, a stomach-clenching revulsion that made him recoil from the wooden container in front of him.

Neel stood up and walked away, trying to steady himself: it was clear now that this was not just a matter of a single meal; it was a question of life and death, whether he'd be able to survive or not. Returning to the tapori, he seated himself beside it, lifted a few morsels to his lips and forced himself to swallow them. It was as if he had ingested a handful of burning embers, for he could feel each grain blazing a trail of fire through his entrails – but he would not stop; he ate a little more, and a little more, until his very skin seemed to be peeling from his body. That night his dreams were plagued by a vision of himself, transformed into a moulting cobra, a snake that was struggling to free itself of its outworn skin.

Next morning he woke to find a sheet of paper under his door. It was a notice, printed in English: 'Burnham Bros. announce the sale of a property awarded by a decision of the Supreme Court of Judicature, a handsome residence known as the Raskhali Rajbari…'

He stared at the sheet in a daze, running his eyes over it again and again. This was a possibility he had not allowed himself to contemplate: the deluge of his misfortunes was such that to protect himself from drowning under them, he had chosen not to inquire too closely into the precise implications of the Supreme Court's judgement. Now, his hands began to shake as he thought of what the sale of the Rajbari would mean for his dependants: what would become of the family's servants and retainers, the widowed female relatives?

And what indeed would become of Malati and Raj? Where would they go? His wife's family home, where her brothers now lived, was not a grand residence, like the Raskhali Rajbari, but it was certainly large enough to accommodate her. But now that she had irretrievably lost caste, along with her husband, there could be no question of her seeking shelter there; if her brothers took her in, their own sons and daughters would never be able to find spouses of their own station. Malati was too proud, he knew, to put her brothers in the situation of having to turn her away.

Neel began to pound upon his chained door. He kept at it until it was opened by a guard. He needed to send a message to his family, he told the constable; some arrangement had to be made to take a letter; he would insist until it was done.

Insist? sneered the constable, waggling his head in derision, and who did he think he was, some kind of raja?

But word must have percolated through, because later in the day, he heard a key turning in the lock. At that hour of the afternoon the sound could only herald a visitor, so he went eagerly to the door, expecting to find Parimal on the threshold – or perhaps one of his gomustas or daftardars. But when the doors swung open, it was to reveal his wife and son, standing outside.

You? He could scarcely bring himself to speak.

Yes. Malati was wearing a red-bordered cotton sari, and although her head was covered, the garment was not draped in such a way as to veil her face.

You've come like this? Neel moved quickly to one side, so she could step out of public view. To a place where everyone can see you?

Malati tossed her head, so that her sari dropped to her shoulders baring her hair. How does it matter any more? she said quietly. We are no different now from anyone on the street.

He began to chew his lip, in concern. But the shame, he said. Are you sure you will be able to bear it?

Me? she said matter-of-factly. What's it to me? It wasn't for my own sake that I kept purdah – it was because you and your family wanted it. And it means nothing now: we have nothing to preserve and nothing to lose.

Now Raj's arm came snaking around Neel's waist, as the boy buried his face in his father's midriff. Looking down at his head, it seemed to Neel that his son had shrunk somehow – or was it just that he could not remember ever seeing him in a coarse cotton vest and knee-length dhoti?

Our kites… are they…? He had been trying to keep his tone light and his voice punished him by dying in his throat.

I threw them all in the river, said the boy.

We've given away most of our things, Malati added quickly. Tucking in her sari, she took the jharu from the corner where the guard had left it and set to sweeping the floor. We've kept only what we can take with us.

Take where? said Neel. Where are you thinking to go?

It's all been arranged, she said, sweeping busily. You shouldn't worry.

But I must know, he insisted. Where are you going? You have to tell me.

To Parimal's place.

Parimal's place? Neel repeated the words after her, in bewilderment: he had never thought of Parimal as having a home of his own, other than his quarters in the Rajbari.

But where is Parimal's place?

Not far from the city, she said. I didn't know of it either, till he told me. He bought some land, years ago, with money saved from his earnings. He's going to give us a corner of it.

Neel sank helplessly on to his string bed, holding his son by the shoulders. He could feel the dampness of Raj's tears on his skin now, soaking through his tunic, and he pulled the boy closer, sinking his chin into his thick black hair. Then his own face began to smart and he realized that his eyes had welled up with a substance that was as corrosive as acid, tinged with the bitter gall of his betrayals of his wife and child, and with the bile that came from knowing that he had spent all his years as a somnambulist, walking through his days as if his life mattered no more than a bit-part in a play written by someone else.

Malati put away the jharu and came to sit beside him. We'll be all right, she said insistently. Don't worry about us; we'll manage. It's you who must be strong. For our sakes, if not your own, you have to stay alive: I could not bear to be a widow, not after all this.

As her words sank in, his tears dried on his cheeks and he spread out his arms to pull his wife and son to his chest. Listen to me, he said: I will stay alive. I make you this promise: I will. And when these seven years are over, I will return and I will take you both away from this accursed land and we will start new lives in some other place. That is all I ask of you: do not doubt that I will come back, for I will.

The tumasher for Captain Chillingworth, with all its fuss and goll-maul, was not long in the past when Paulette received yet another summons to the Burra BeeBee's bedchamber. The call came shortly after Mr Burnham's departure for his Dufter, and the wheels of his carriage were still crackling on the conkers of Bethel 's drive when a khidmutgar knocked on Paulette's door to deliver the summons. This was not an hour of day which often found Mrs Burnham fully awakened from her nightly dose of laudanum, so it seemed only natural to assume that the call was of especial urgency, prompted by an unannounced church tiffin or some other unexpected entertainment. But on being admitted to the BeeBee's bedchamber it became apparent to Paulette that this was an occasion truly without precedent – for not only was Mrs Burnham fully awake, she was actually on her feet, skipping prettily around the room, throwing open the shutters.

'Oh Puggly!' she cried, as Paulette stepped in. 'Pray, where have you been, dear?'

'But Madame,' said Paulette. 'I came all-a-sweet, as soon as I was told.'

'Really, dear?' said the BeeBee. 'It seems like I've been waiting an age. I thought for sure you were off to bake a brinjaul.'

'Oh, but Madame!' protested Paulette. 'It is not the bonne hour.'

'No, dear,' Mrs Burnham agreed. 'It would never do to be warming the coorsy when there's kubber like this to be heard.'

'News?' said Paulette. 'There is some news?'

'Why yes, so there is; but we must sit on the cot, Puggly dear,' said Mrs Burnham. 'It's not the kind of thing you want to be gupping about on your feet.' Taking Paulette by the hand, the BeeBee led her across the room and cleared a place for the two of them at the edge of her bed.

'But what is it that has arrived, Madame?' said Paulette, in rising alarm. 'Nothing bad, I hope?'

'Good heavens, no!' said Mrs Burnham. 'It's the best possible news, dear.'

Mrs Burnham's voice was so warm and her blue eyes so filled with fellow-feeling, that Paulette became a little apprehensive. Something was amiss, she knew: could it be that the BeeBee, with her uncanny powers of divination, had somehow uncovered the most pressing of her secrets? 'Oh Madame,' she blurted out, 'it is not about…?'

'Mr Kendalbushe?' Mrs Burnham prompted her delightedly. 'Why, how did you know?'

Robbed of her breath, Paulette could only repeat, stupefied: 'Mr Kendalbushe?'

'You sly little shaytan!' said the BeeBee, slapping her wrist. 'Did you guess or did someone tell you?'

'Neither, Madame. I you assure, I do not know…'

'Or was it just a case,' continued the BeeBee archly, 'of two hearts chiming together, like gantas in a clock-tower?'

'Oh Madame,' cried Paulette, in distress. 'It is nothing like that.'

'Well then I can't imagine how you knew,' declared the BeeBee, fanning herself with her nightcap. 'As for myself, a talipot in a gale could not be knocked over as easily as I was when Mr Burnham told me this morning.'

'Told you what, Madame?'

'About his meeting with the judge,' said Mrs Burnham. 'You see, Puggly, they had dinner at the Bengal Club yesterday, and after they'd bucked about this and that, Mr Kendalbushe asked if he might broach a rather delicate matter. Now, as you know, dear, Mr Burnham holds Mr Kendalbushe in the highest esteem so of course he said yes. And would you like to hazard a guess, Puggly dear, about what this matter was?'

'A point of law?'

'No, dear,' said Mrs Burnham, 'far more delicate than that: what he wanted to ask was whether you, dear Puggly, might look favourably upon his suit.'

'Suit?' said Paulette, in confusion. 'But Madame, I cannot say. I have no memory of his costume.'

'Not that kind of suit, you gudda,' said Mrs Burnham, with a good-natured laugh. 'Suit of marriage is what he meant. Don't you samjo, Puggly? He's planning to propose to you.'

'To me?' cried Paulette in horror. 'But Madame! Why?'

'Because, my dear,' said Mrs Burnham with a good-natured laugh, 'he is most greatly impressed by your simple manners and your modesty. You have quite won his heart. Can you imagine, dear, what a prodigious stroke of kismet it will be for you to bag Mr Kendalbushe? He's a nabob in his own right – made a mountain of mohurs out of the China trade. Ever since he lost his wife every larkin in town's been trying to bundo him. I can tell you, dear, there's a paltan of mems who'd give their last anna to be in your jooties.'

'But with so many splendid memsahibs vying for him, Madame,' said Paulette, 'why would he choose so poor a creature as myself?'

'He is evidently very impressed by your willingness to improve yourself, dear,' said the BeeBee. 'Mr Burnham has told him that you are the most willing pupil he has ever had. And as you know, dear, Mr Burnham and the judge are completely of a mind in these things.'

'But Madame,' said Paulette, who could no longer control her trembling lip, 'surely there are many who know the Scriptures far better than I? I am but the merest novice.'

'But my dear!' laughed Mrs Burnham. 'That's exactly why you have won his regard – because you're a clean slate and willing to learn.'

'Oh Madame,' moaned Paulette, wringing her hands, 'surely you are pleasanting. It is not kind.'

The BeeBee was surprised by Paulette's distress. 'Oh Puggly!' she said. 'Are you not glad of the judge's interest? It is a great triumph, I assure you. Mr Burnham approves most heartily and has assured Mr Kendalbushe that he will do everything in his power to sway you. The two of them have even agreed to share the burden of your instruction for a while.'

'Mr Kendalbushe is too kind,' said Paulette, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. 'And so is Mr Burnham. I am greatly honoured, Madame – yet I must confess that my sentiments are not the same as those of Mr Kendalbushe.'

At this, Mrs Burnham frowned and sat upright. 'Sentiments, my dear Puggly,' she said sternly, 'are for dhobis and dashies. We mems can't let that kind of thing get in the way! No, dear, let me tell you – you're lucky to have a judge in your sights and you mustn't let your bunduk waver. This is about as fine a shikar as a girl in your situation could possibly hope for.'

'Oh Madame,' said Paulette, weeping freely now, 'but are not the things of this world mere dross when weighed against love?'

'Love?' said Mrs Burnham, in mounting astonishment. 'What on earth are you bucking about? My dear Puggly, with your prospects, you can't be letting your shokes run away with you. I know the judge is not as young as he might be, but he's certainly not past giving you a butcha or two before he slips into his dotage. And after that, dear, why, there's nothing a mem needs that can't be cured by a long bath and a couple of cushy-girls. Believe me, Puggly, there's a lot to be said for men of that age. No badmashee at all hours of the night, for one thing. I can tell you, dear, there's nothing more annoying than to be puckrowed just when you're looking forward to a sip of laudanum and a nice long sleep.'

'But Madame,' said Paulette, miserably, 'do you not feel it would be penible to spend one's life thus?'

'That's the best part of it, dear,' said Mrs Burnham cheerfully. 'You won't have to. He's no chuckeroo after all, and I doubt he is long for this world. And just imagine – after the dear, sainted man is gone you'll be able to swan off to Paris with his cuzzanah and before you know it, some impoverished duke or marquis will come begging for your hand.'

'But Madame,' said Paulette, sobbing, 'what will be my profit from this, if my youth is forfeit and I have wasted the love that is in my heart?'

'But Puggly dear,' protested the BeeBee. 'You could learn to love the judge, could you not?'

'But one cannot learn to love, Madame,' Paulette protested. 'Surely it is more like a coup de foudre – how do you say in English – like being shot by his bolt?'

'Shot by his bolt!' Mrs Burnham clapped her hands over her scandalized ears. 'Puggly! You really must watch what you say.'

'But is it not true, Madame?'

'I'm sure I wouldn't know.' Her suspicions awakened, Mrs Burnham turned to rest her chin on her hand and directed a long, searching glance at Paulette. 'Pray tell me, dear Puggly – there isn't someone else, is there?'

Paulette was in a panic now, knowing that she had given away more than she should have. But denial was futile too, she knew, for to tell a direct lie to someone as shrewd as Mrs Burnham was merely to double the risks of detection. So instead she hung her head, in silence, and lowered her streaming eyes.

'I knew it!' said the BeeBee triumphantly. 'It's that American, isn't it – Hezekiah or Zebediah or whatever? But you're out of your mind, Puggly! It would never serve. You're too poor to throw yourself away on a sailor, no matter how handsome or well-spoken. A young seaman – why, that's the worst kismet any woman could wish for, even worse than a wordy-wallah! They're gone when you need them, they never have a dam's worth of silver to call their own, and they're dead before the children are out of their langoots. With a classy for a husband, you'd have to find a job as a harry-maid just to get by! I don't think it would suit you at all, dear, cleaning up other people's cabobs and emptying their dawk-dubbers. No, dear, it can't be allowed, I won't hear of it…'

Suddenly, as her suspicions deepened, the BeeBee cut herself short and clamped her hands on her mouth. 'Oh! dear, dear Puggly – tell me – you haven't…?… you haven't… No! Tell me it isn't so!'

'What, Madame?' said Paulette, in puzzlement.

The BeeBee's voice sank to a whisper. 'You haven't compromised yourself, Puggly dear, have you? No. I will not credit it.'

'Compromise, Madame?' Paulette proudly raised her chin and squared her shoulders. 'In matters of the heart, Madame, I do not believe that half-measures and compromises are possible. Does not love demand that we give our all?'

'Puggly…!' Mrs Burnham gasped, fanning herself with a pillow. 'Oh my dear! Oh heavens! Tell me, dear Puggly: I must know the worst.' She swallowed faintly and clutched her fluttering bosom: '… is there?… no surely there isn't!… no… Lud!…'

'Yes, Madame?' said Paulette.

'Puggly, tell me the truth, I conjure you: there isn't a rootie in the choola, is there?'

'Why, Madame…'

Paulette was a little surprised to see Mrs Burnham making such a to-do about a matter she usually touched upon so lightly – but she was glad, too, to have the conversation turned in this new direction, since it presented a good opportunity for escape. Hugging her stomach, she made a moaning sound: 'Madame, you are prefectly right: I am indeed a little foireuse today.'

'Oh dear, dear Puggly!' The BeeBee dabbed her streaming eyes and gave Paulette a pitying hug. 'Of course you're furious! Those budzat sailors! With all their udlee-budlee, you'd think they'd leave the larkins alone! My lips are sealed, of course – no one will learn of it from me. But Puggly dear, don't you see? For your own sake, you must marry Mr Kendalbushe at once! There is no time to waste!'

'No indeed, Madame, there is not!' Just as Mrs Burnham was reaching for her laudanum, Paulette leapt to her feet and ran to the door. 'Forgive me, Madame, I must away. The coorsy will not wait.'

The word ' Calcutta ' had no sooner been uttered than every window in the girmitiyas' pulwar flew open. In the men's section, with its greater press of numbers, there was a good deal of jostling and pushing and not everyone was able to find a desirable vantage point; the women were luckier – with two windows to share between them, they were all able to look at the shorefront as the city approached.

On the journey downriver, the pulwar had stopped at so many large and populous towns – Patna, Bhagalpur, Munger – that urban vistas were no longer a novelty. Yet, even the most worldly of the girmitiyas was caught unawares by the spectacle that unfolded around them now: the ghats, buildings and shipyards that lined the Hooghly were so numerous, so crowded and of such a size that the migrants fell into a silence that was in equal measure awestruck and appalled. How was it possible that people could live in the midst of such congestion and so much filth, with no fields or greenery anywhere in sight; such folk were surely another species of being?

As they drew closer to the docks, the river traffic thickened and the pulwar was soon surrounded by a forest of masts, spars and sails. In this company, the pulwar seemed a paltry vessel, but Deeti was suddenly filled with affection for it: in the midst of so much that was unfamiliar and intimidating, it seemed like a great ark of comfort. Like everyone else, she too had often been impatient for this stage of the journey to end – but now it was with deepening dread that she listened to the duffadar and the sirdars as they made preparations for the migrants' disembarkation.

Silently, the women collected their belongings and crept out of their enclosure; Ratna, Champa and Dookhanee hurried off to join their husbands, but Deeti, having appointed herself the guardian of the single women, gathered Munia, Sarju and Heeru around her and took them along to wait with Kalua. Soon the sirdars came down to let the migrants know that from here they would be taken to their camp in hired rowboats, ten or twelve at a time. The women were the first to be called on to make the switch; along with their spouses, they emerged on deck to find a rowboat waiting beside the pulwar.

But how are we going to get down there? said Sarju, in alarm – for the boat sat low in the water, well beneath the deck of the pulwar.

Yes, how? cried Munia. I can't jump that far!

That far! A shout of mocking laughter came echoing back to them from the boat. Why, a baby could do it. Come, come – there's nothing to be afraid of…

It was the boatman speaking, in a quicksilver, citified Hindusthani that Deeti could just about follow. He was a stripling of a fellow, dressed not in the usual lungi and banyan, but in patloon pants and a blue vest that billowed around his wiry chest. His dark, thick hair had a coppery tint because of prolonged exposure to the sun, and it was held in place by a rakishly tied bandhna. He was laughing, with his head thrown back, and his bright, impudent eyes seemed sharp enough to pierce the cover of their veils.

What a dandy of a fellow! Munia whispered to Deeti, from under her ghungta.

Don't so much as look at him, warned Deeti. He's one of those townie flirts, a real bãka-bihari.

But the boatman was still laughing, beckoning them on: What're you waiting for? Jump, na! Do I have to spread my net, to catch you like so many fishes?

Munia giggled and Deeti couldn't help laughing too; it had to be admitted that there was something quite fetching about the fellow: perhaps it was the brightness of his eyes, or the carefree mischievousness of his expression – or was it the quirky little scar on his forehead that gave him the appearance of possessing three eyebrows rather than two?

Ey! said Munia giggling. And what if we jump and you drop us? What'll happen then?

Why should I drop a thin little thing like you? said the boatman, winking. I've caught many fish that are bigger: just take a jump and see…

This had gone far enough now, Deeti decided; as the senior married woman of the group, it was her duty to enforce the proprieties. She turned upon Kalua and began to scold: What's the matter with you? Why don't you step into the boat and help us climb down? Do you want this lecher of a lucchha to be putting his hands on us?

Chastened, Kalua and the other men stepped into the boat and reached up to help the women down, one by one. Munia hung back and waited until there was only one pair of hands that was unoccupied – the boatman's. When she made her jump, he caught her neatly, by the waist, and deposited her gently in the boat: but in the process, somehow, Munia's ghungta slipped – whether by accident or design Deeti could not tell – and there followed a long instant when there was no barrier at all between her coquettish smile and his hungry eyes.

How long the girl would have allowed herself this liberty, Deeti did not know and was not willing to find out. Munia! she said in a tone of sharp admonition. Tu kahé aisan kaíl karala? Why do you act like this? Don't you have any shame? Cover up at once!

Obediently, Munia draped her sari over her head and went to sit beside Deeti. But despite the demureness of her attitude, Deeti knew, from the angle of her head, that the girl's eyes were still entangled with the boatman's.

Aisan mat kará! she said sharply, elbowing the girl's flanks. Don't carry on like this… what will people think?

I'm just listening to what he's saying, Munia protested. Is that a crime?

Deeti had to admit that it was hard to ignore the boatman, for he was talking almost without interruption, keeping up a continuous patter as he pointed out the sights:… there to your left are the opium godowns… fine place to lose yourself, eh?… no end to the happiness to be found there…

But even as he was speaking, he kept turning around so that Deeti knew full well that he and Munia were fencing with their eyes. In indignation, she appealed to the men: Look at how this launda talks! Are you going to let him get away with all his loochergiri? Isn't there something you can do? Show him you have some spirit too – josh dikháwat chalatbá!

But it was to no avail, for the men too were listening open-mouthed: although they had heard stories about the fast-talking haramzadas of the city, they had never seen one in person before; they were mesmerized, and as for remonstrating with him, they knew all too well that the rascal would only make a mockery of their rustic tongues.

The boat made a turn from the river into a nullah, and in a while the boatman pointed to a grim set of walls, looming in the distance. Alipore Jail, he announced gravely; the most fearsome dungeon in the land… oh if you but knew of the horrors and tortures of that place!… of course, it won't be long before you find out…

Mindful of the many rumours they had heard, the migrants exchanged nervous glances. One of them inquired: Why are we going towards the jail?

Didn't they tell you? said the boatman, off-handedly. That's where I've been ordered to take you. They're going to make candles out of the wax in your brains…

There were several audible gasps of alarm, to which the boatman responded with a cackle of knowing laughter:… No, just joking… no, that's not where you're going… no, I'm taking you to the cremation ghat over there… do you see the flames, and smoke?.. they're going to cook the lot of you – alive at that…

This too was met with gasps, which amused the boatman all the more. Goaded beyond endurance, Champa's husband shouted: Hasé ka ká bátbá ré? What're you laughing at? Hum kuchho na ho? You think we're nothing? Want a beating, do you?

From an idiot rustic like you? said the boatman, laughing all the louder. You deháti – one flick of my oar and you'll be in the water…

Suddenly, just as a fight was about to break out, the boat pulled up to a jetty and was tied fast: beyond lay a newly cleared stretch of shore, still littered with the stumps of recently felled trees. Three large, straw-thatched sheds stood in a circle at the centre of the clearing; a short distance away, next to a well, was a modest little shrine, with a red pennant flying aloft on a pole.

… This is it, said the boatman, this is where you get off: the new depot for girmitiyas, just built and readied, in time for the arrival of the sheep…

This? What're you saying? Are you sure?

… Yes, this is it…

It was a while before anyone stirred: the encampment seemed so peaceful that they could not believe that it really was meant for them.

… Be off with you now… think I've got nothing else to do?

While stepping off the boat, Deeti was careful to herd Munia in front of her – but her protective presence did nothing to inhibit the boatman, who flashed them a smile and said:… Ladies, please to forgive any offence… no harm meant… name's Azad… Azad the Lascar…

Deeti could tell that Munia was longing to linger near the jetty, so she ushered her smartly along, trying to draw her attention to the camp ahead: Look, Munia – this is it! Our last place of rest, before we're cast out on the Black Water…

Instead of going indoors, to join the others, Deeti decided to pay a visit to the campground's shrine. Come, she said to Kalua, let's go to the mandir first; a safe arrival calls for a prayer.

The temple was built of plaited bamboo, and there was something reassuringly domestic about its simplicity. Walking towards it, Deeti's steps quickened in eagerness, but then she saw, somewhat to her surprise, that there was a stout, long-haired man dancing in front of it, whirling around and around, with his eyes closed in ecstasy and his arms clasped around his bosom as if he were embracing an invisible lover. Sensing their presence, he came to a stop and his eyes opened wide in surprise. Kyá? What? he said, in heavily accented Hindi. Coolies? Here already?

He was a strangely shaped man, Deeti noticed, with an enormous head, flapping ears and a pair of bulging eyes that gave him the appearance of goggling at the world around him. She could not tell whether he was angry or merely surprised, and took the precaution of seeking shelter behind Kalua.

The man took a minute or two to take account of Kalua's imposing size and once he had looked him up and down, his tone softened a little.

Are you girmitiyas? he asked.

Ji, nodded Kalua.

When did you get here?

Just now, said Kalua. We're the first.

So soon? We weren't expecting you till later…

Devotions forgotten, the man was suddenly thrown into a frenzy of excitable activity. Come, come! he cried, with hectic gestures. You have to go to the daftar first, to be registered. Come with me – I'm the gomusta and I'm in charge of this camp.

Not without some misgivings, Deeti and Kalua followed him across the camp to one of the sheds. With barely a pause to open the door, the gomusta called out aloud: 'Doughty-sahib – coolies are coming; registration proceedings must at once be commenced.' There was no answer, so he hurried in, gesturing to Deeti and Kalua to follow.

Inside, there were several desks, and one capacious planter's chair, in which a large, heavy-jowled Englishman was presently revealed to be reclining. He was snoring gently, his breath bubbling slowly through his lips. The gomusta had to call out his name a couple of times before he stirred: 'Doughty-sahib! Sir, kindly to arouse and uprise.'

Mr Doughty had just half an hour before left the table of a district magistrate, where he had been served a large lunch, copiously lubricated with many brimming beakers of porter and ale. Now, between the heat and the beer, his eyes were gummed together with sleep, so that a good few minutes followed between the opening of his right eye and then the left. When at last he became conscious of the gomusta's presence, he was in no mood for pleasantries: it was much against his will that he had been prevailed upon to help with the registration of the coolies, and he was not about to let himself be taken advantage of. 'God damn your eyes, Baboon! Can't you see I'm having a little rest?'

'What to do, sir?' said the gomusta. 'I do not wish to intrude into your privates, but alas it cannot be helped. Coolies are arriving like anything. As such, registration proceedings must be commenced without delay.'

Turning his head a little, the pilot caught a glimpse of Kalua and the sight prompted him to struggle to his feet. 'Now there's a burra-size budzat if ever I saw one.'

'Yes, sir. Thumping big fellow.'

Muttering under his breath, the pilot lurched unsteadily to one of the desks and threw open a massive, leather-bound register. Dipping a quill, he said to the gomusta: 'Right then, Pander, go ahead. You know the bandobast.'

'Yes, sir. I will supply all necessary informations.' The gomusta inclined his head in Deeti's direction. The woman? he said to Kalua. What's her name?

Her name is Aditi, malik; she is my wife.

'What did he say?' Mr Doughty bellowed, cupping his ear. 'Speak up there.'

'The lady's good-name is reported as Aditi, sir.'

' "Aditty?" ' The tip of Mr Doughty's nib touched down on the register and began to write. 'Aditty it is then. Bloody ooloo name, if you ask me, but if that's what she wants to be called so be it.'

Caste? said the gomusta to Kalua.

We are Chamars, malik.

District?

Ghazipur, malik.

'You bloody bandar of a Baboon,' Mr Doughty broke in. 'You forgot to ask him his name.'

'Sorry, sir. Immediately I will rectify.' Baboo Nob Kissin turned to Kalua: And you: who are you?

Madhu.

'What was that, Pander? What did the brute say?'

As he was about to say the name, Baboo Nob Kissin's tongue tripped on the final dipthong: 'He is Madho, sir.'

'Maddow?'

The gomusta seized upon this. 'Yes, sir, why not? That is extremely apt.'

'And his father's name?'

The question flummoxed Kalua: having stolen his father's name for his own, the only expedient he could think of was to make a switch: His name was Kalua, malik.

This satisfied the gomusta, but not the pilot. 'But how on earth am I to spell it?'

The gomusta scratched his head: 'If I can moot out one proposal, sir, why not do like this? First write C-o-l – just like "coal" no? – then v-e-r. Colver. Like-this like-this we can do.'

The pink tip of the pilot's tongue appeared at the corner of his mouth, as he wrote the letters in the register. 'Theek you are,' said the pilot. 'That's how I'll put him down then – as Maddow Colver.'

'Maddow Colver.'

Deeti, standing beside her husband, heard him whisper the name, not as if it were his own but as if it belonged to someone else, a person other than himself. Then he repeated it, in a tone of greater confidence, and when it came to his lips again, a third time, the sound of it was no longer new or unfamiliar: it was as much his own now as his skin, or his eyes, or his hair – Maddow Colver.

Later, within the dynasty that claimed its descent from him, many stories would be invented about the surname of the founding ancestor and the reasons why 'Maddow' occurred so frequently among his descendants. While many would choose to recast their origins, inventing grand and fanciful lineages for themselves, there would always remain a few who clung steadfastly to the truth: which was that those hallowed names were the result of the stumbling tongue of a harried gomusta, and the faulty hearing of an English pilot who was a little more than half-seas over.

Although the prisons at Lalbazar and Alipore were both known as jails, they no more resembled each other than a bazar does a graveyard: Lalbazar was surrounded by the noise and bustle of Calcutta's busiest streets, while Alipore lay at the edge of a deserted stretch of land on the city's outskirts and silence weighed down on it like the lid of a coffin. It was the largest prison in India and its fortress-like battlements loomed over the narrow waterway of Tolly's Nullah, well within view of those who travelled by boat to the migrants' depot. But few indeed were the passers-by who would willingly rest their gaze upon those walls: such was the dread inspired by the grim edifice that most chose to avert their eyes, even paying their boatmen extra to warn of its approach.

It was late at night when the carriage came to take Neel from Lalbazar to Alipore Jail. To cover the distance took about an hour as a rule, but tonight the carriage took a much longer route than usual, circling around Fort William and keeping to the quiet roadways that flanked the riverfront. This was done to forestall trouble, for there had been some talk of demonstrations of public sympathy for the convicted Raja: but Neel was unaware of this and to him the journey seemed like a prolongation of a special kind of torment, in which the desire to be done with the uncertainties of the recent past was at war with a longing to linger forever on this final passage through the city.

Accompanying Neel was a group of some half-dozen guards who whiled away their time with ribald banter, their jokes being premised on the pretence that they were a marriage party, escorting a bridegroom to his in-laws' house – his sasurál – on the night of his wedding. From the practised nature of their exchanges, Neel understood that they had enacted this charade many times before, while transporting prisoners. Ignoring their sallies, he tried to make the most of the journey – but there was little to be seen, in the darkness of the small hours, and it was largely through memory that he had to chart the progress of the carriage, envisioning in his mind the lapping water of the river and the tree-shaded expanse of the city's Maidan.

The carriage picked up speed when the jail came into view, and Neel willed himself to concentrate on other things: the howls of nearby jackals and the faint smell of night-time flowers. When the sound of the wheels changed, he knew the carriage was crossing the jail's moat, and his fingers dug into the cracked leather of his seat. The wheels creaked to a halt and the door opened, allowing Neel to sense the presence of a multitude of people, waiting in the darkness. In much the way that the legs of a reluctant dog lock themselves against the tug of a leash, his fingers dug into the horsehair stuffing of his seat: even when the guards began to prod and push – Chalo! We're here! Your in-laws are waiting! – they would not yield. Neel tried to say he wasn't ready yet and needed a minute or two more, but the men who had accompanied him were not of a mind to be indulgent. One of them gave Neel a shove that broke his hold; in stumbling off the carriage, Neel happened to step on the edge of his own dhoti, pulling it undone. Flushed with embarrassment, he tore his arms free, in order to rearrange his garments: Wait, wait – my dhoti, don't you see…?

In descending from the carriage, Neel had passed into the custody of a new set of jailers, men of a wholly different cast from the constables of Lalbazar: hard-bitten veterans of the East India Company's campaigns, they wore the red coattees of the sepoy army; recruited from the deep hinterlands, they held all city folk in equal contempt. It was in surprise rather than anger that one of them kneed Neel in the small of his back: Get moving b'henchod, it's late already…

The novelty of this treatment confused Neel into thinking that some sort of mistake had been made. Still grappling with his dhoti, he protested: Stop! You can't treat me like this; don't you know who I am?

There was a momentary check in the motion of the hands that had been laid upon him; then someone caught hold of the end of his dhoti and gave it a sharp tug. The garment spun him around as it unravelled, and somewhere nearby a voice said:

… Now here's a real Draupadi… clinging to her sari…

Now another hand took hold of his kurta and tore it apart so as to lay bare his underclothing.

… More of a Shikandi if you ask me…

The butt of a spear caught him in the small of his back, sending him stumbling along a dark vestibule, with the ends of his dhoti trailing behind him like the bleached tail of a dead peacock. At the end of the vestibule lay a torch-lit room where a white man was seated behind a desk. He was wearing the uniform of a serjeant of the jail, and it was clear that he had been sitting in the room for a considerable length of time and had grown impatient of waiting.

It came as a relief to Neel to enter the presence of someone in authority. 'Sir!' he said. 'I must protest against this treatment. Your men have no right to hit me or tear away my clothes.'

The serjeant looked up and his blue eyes hardened with an incredulity that could not have been greater than if the words had been spoken by one of the chains on the wall – but from what happened next, it was clear that his initial response was prompted not by the burden of what Neel had said, but rather by the mere fact of being spoken to in his own language, by a native convict: without addressing a word to Neel, he turned to the sepoys who had led him in, and said, in rough Hindusthani: Mooh khol… open his mouth.

At this, the guards on either side of Neel took hold of his face and expertly prised his mouth open, sticking a wooden wedge between his teeth to hold his jaws apart. Then an orderly in a white chapkan stepped forward and began to count Neel's teeth, tapping them with a fingertip; his hand, the smell of which filled Neel's head, reeked of dal and mustard oil – it was as if he were carrying the remnants of his last meal under his nails. On coming to a gap, the finger dug down into the jaw, as if to make sure the missing molar wasn't hidden somewhere within. The unexpectedness of the pain transported Neel suddenly to the moment when he'd lost that tooth: how old he was he could not remember, but in his mind's eye, he saw a sunlit veranda, with his mother at the far end, swinging on a jhula; he glimpsed his own feet, carrying him towards the sharp edge on the corner of the swing… and it was almost as if he could hear her voice again, and feel the touch of her hand as it reached into his mouth to take the broken tooth from his lips.

'Why is this necessary, sir?' Neel began to protest as soon as the wedge was removed from his mouth. 'What is the purpose?'

The serjeant did not look up from the log-book in which he was entering the results of the examination, but the orderly leant over to whisper something about marks of identification and signs of communicable disease. This was not enough for Neel, who was now seized by a determination not to be ignored: 'Please, sir, is there a reason why I cannot have an answer to my question?'

Without a glance in his direction, the serjeant issued another order, in Hindusthani: Kapra utaro… take off his clothes.

The sepoys responded by pinning Neel's arms to his side: long practice had made them expert in stripping the clothes from convicts, many of whom would gladly have died – or killed – rather than be subjected to the shame of having their nakedness exposed. Neel's struggles presented no challenge to them and they quickly tore off the remnants of his clothing; then they held him upright, pinioning his limbs so as to fully expose his naked body to his jailers' scrutiny. Unexpectedly, Neel felt the touch of a hand, grazing against his toes, and he looked down to see the orderly brushing his feet with his fingertips, as if to ask forgiveness for what he was about to do. The gesture, in all its unforeseen humanity, had scarcely had time to register when the orderly's fingers dug into Neel's groin.

Lice? Crabs? Vermin?

None, sahib.

Birthmarks? Lesions?

No.

The touch of the orderly's fingers had a feel that Neel could never have imagined between two human beings – neither intimate nor angry, neither tender nor prurient – it was the disinterested touch of mastery, of purchase or conquest; it was as if his body had passed into the possession of a new owner, who was taking stock of it as a man might inspect a house he had recently acquired, searching for signs of disrepair or neglect, while mentally assigning each room to a new use.

'Syphilis? Gonorrhoea?'

These were the first English words the serjeant had used, and in speaking them he looked at the prisoner with the faintest hint of a smile.

Neel was now standing with his legs apart and his arms extended over his head while the orderly searched his flanks for birthmarks and other ineradicable signs of identification. But he did not miss the mockery in his jailer's glance, and was quick to respond. 'Sir,' he said, 'can you not afford me the dignity of a reply? Or is it that you do not trust yourself to speak English?'

The man's eyes flared and Neel saw that he had nettled him, simply by virtue of addressing him in his own tongue – a thing that was evidently counted as an act of intolerable insolence in an Indian convict, a defilement of the language. The knowledge of this – that even in his present state, stripped to his skin, powerless to defend himself from the hands that were taking an inventory of his body – he still possessed the ability to affront a man whose authority over his person was absolute: the awareness made Neel giddy, exultant, eager to explore this new realm of power; in this jail, he decided, as in the rest of his life as a convict, he would speak English whenever possible, everywhere possible, starting with this moment, here. But such was the urgency of this desire that words failed him and he could think of nothing to say; no words of his own would come to mind – only stray lines from passages that he had been made to commit to memory:

'… this is the excellent foppery of the world… to make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon and the stars…'

The serjeant interrupted him with an angry command: Gánd dekho… bend him over, check his arse…

With his head bowed between his legs, Neel still would not stop: 'Proud man, drest in a little brief authority, his glassy essence like an angry ape…' His voice rose till the words were echoing off the stone walls. The serjeant rose from his seat as Neel was straightening up. An arm's-length away, he came to a halt, drew his hand back and struck Neel across the face: 'Shut yer gob, quoddie.'

In some reflexive part of his mind, Neel noted that the serjeant had hit him with his left hand, and that had he been at home, he would have had to bathe and change. But that was in some other life: here what mattered was that he had succeeded at last in making the man speak to him in English. 'A very good day to you, sir,' he muttered, bowing his head.

'Get his bleedin arse out o' me sight.'

In a small adjoining room, Neel was handed a bundle of folded clothing. A sepoy enumerated the articles as he handed them over: one gamchha, two vests, two dhotis of dungri weave, one blanket; better take care of them, they're all you'll have for the next six months.

The unwashed dungaree cloth was thick and rough, its texture more like jute sacking than woven cotton. When shaken loose, the dhoti proved to be half the size, in length as well as breadth, of the six-yard stretch of fabric to which Neel was accustomed. Tied at the waist, it would fall no lower than the knees and was clearly meant to be worn as a langot – but Neel had never had occasion to tie a loincloth before and his hands fumbled so much that one of the sepoys snapped: What are you waiting for? Cover yourself! – as if it were by his own choice that he had been stripped of his clothes. The blood rushed to Neel's head and he thrust his pelvis forward, pointing at himself with a lunatic's abandonment: Why? What have you not seen? What's left?

A look of pity came into the eyes of the sepoy: Have you lost all shame? And Neel nodded, as if to say yes, that's right: for it was true that at this moment he felt no shame at all, nor any other form of responsibility for his body; it was as if he had vacated his own flesh in the process of yielding it to the tenancy of the prison.

Move, come on! Losing patience, the sepoys took the dhoti out of Neel's hands and showed him how to knot it so that the ends could be pulled between his legs and tucked in at the back. Then, using their spear-butts as prods, they hurried him down a dim corridor into a cell that was small but brilliantly lit, with candles and oil-lamps. In the centre of the room, a bare-bodied, white-bearded man sat waiting on an ink-stained mat: his torso was covered with an intricate network of tattoos and on a folded square of cloth in front of him lay an array of glistening needles. The man could only be a godna-wala, a tattooist: when this dawned on Neel he spun around, as if to make a lunge for the exit – but the gambit was familiar to the sepoys who wrestled him quickly to the ground; holding him immobile, they carried him over to the mat and positioned him so that his head was resting on the tattooist's knee and he was looking up at his venerable face.

There was a gentleness in the old man's eyes that allowed Neel to find his voice. Why? he said, as the needle came towards his forehead. Why are you doing this?

It's the law, said the tattooist peaceably. All transportees have to be marked so they'll be recognized if they try to escape.

Then the needle hissed against his skin, and there was no space in Neel's mind for anything but the spasms of sensation that were radiating outwards from his forehead: it was as if the body that he had thought to have vacated were taking revenge on him for having harboured that illusion, reminding him that he was its sole tenant, the only being to whom it could announce its existence through its capacity for pain.

The tattooist paused, as if in pity, and whispered: Here, eat this. His hand circled over Neel's face and pushed a little ball of gum between his lips. It will help; eat it…

As the opium began to dissolve in his mouth, Neel realized that it was not the intensity of the pain that was dulled by the drug, but rather its duration: it so blunted his consciousness of time that the operation, which must have taken hours of painstaking work, seemed to last only for a few concentrated moments. Then, as if through a dense winter fog, he heard the tattooist's voice whispering in his ear: Raja-sah'b… Raja-sah'b…

Neel opened his eyes to see that his head was still in the old man's lap; the sepoys, in the meanwhile, had drowsed off in the corners of the cell.

What is it? he said, stirring.

Don't worry, Raja-sahib, the tattooist whispered. I've watered the ink; the mark will not last beyond a few months.

Neel was too befuddled to make sense of this: Why? Why would you do that for me?

Raja-sahib, don't you know me?

No.

The tattooist brought his lips still closer: My family is from Raskhali; your grandfather gave us land to settle there; for three generations we've eaten your salt.

Placing a mirror in Neel's hands, he bowed his head: Forgive me, Raja-sahib, for what I had to do…

Raising the mirror to his face, Neel saw that his hair had been cut short and two rows of tiny Roman letters had been inscribed unevenly upon the right side of his forehead:

forgerer

alipore 1838.

Thirteen

Zachary's room, in the Watsongunge boarding house, was just about wide enough to turn around in, and the bed was a string pallet, on which he had spread a layer of his own clothes, to protect his skin from the barbed roughness of its coconut-fibre ropes. At the foot of the bed, so close that he could almost rest his toes on its edge, was a window – or rather a square hole that had long since lost its shutters. The opening looked out on Watsongunge Lane – a winding string of grag-ghars, poxparlours and boarding houses that unspooled into the shipyard where the Ibis was being careened, caulked and re-fitted in preparation for her next voyage. Mr Burnham had been none too pleased to know of Zachary's choice of lodging: 'Watsongunge? There's no more godless place on earth, save it be the North End in Boston. Why would a man step into a galavant like that when he could enjoy the simple comforts of the Reverend Johnson's Mission House for Sailors?'

Zachary had dutifully gone to take a look at the Mission House, but only to come away after catching sight of Mr Crowle, who had already taken a room there. On Jodu's advice he had decided to go instead to the boarding house on Watsongunge Lane: the fact that it was a few minutes' walk from the shipyard had served as his excuse. Whether or not his employer was satisfied by this reasoning was not quite clear to Zachary, for of late he had begun to suspect that Mr Burnham had set a spy on him. Once, answering a knock at a suspiciously late hour of the night, Zachary had opened his door to find Mr Burnham's gomusta standing outside. The man had leant this way and that, as if he were trying to see if Zachary had smuggled anyone into his room. When asked what he was doing there, he claimed to be the bearer of a present, which turned out to be a pot of half-melted butter: sensing that it was a snare of some kind, Zachary had refused to accept it. Later, the proprietor of the boarding house, an Armenian, had informed him that the gomusta had asked if Zachary was ever to be seen in the company of prostitutes – except that the word he'd used apparently was 'cowgirls'. Cowgirls! As it happened, after his meeting with Paulette, the thought of buying a woman had become repugnant to Zachary so the gomusta's snooping had gone unrewarded. But he'd carried on undeterred: just a few nights ago, Zachary had caught sight of him, skulking in the lane, wearing a bizarre disguise – an orange robe that made him look like some kind of duppy mad-woman.

This was why, when woken one night by a quiet but persistent knocking, Zachary's first response was to bark: 'Is that you, Pander?'

There was no answer, so he struggled drowsily to his feet, tightening the lungi that he had taken to wearing at night. He had bought several of them from a vendor: one he had strung across the unshuttered window, to keep out the crows and the dust that rose in clouds from the unpaved lane. But the cloth barrier did nothing to lessen the noise that welled upwards from the street at night as sailors, lascars and stevedores sought their pleasures in the nearby nautcheries. Zachary had discovered that he could almost tell the time by the volume of sound, which tended to peak at about midnight, tapering off into silence at dawn. He noticed now that the street was neither at its loudest nor quietest – which suggested that dawn was still two or three hours away.

'I swear, Pander,' he snarled, as the knocking continued, 'you'd better have a good reason for this, or it's my knob you gon be kissin.' Undoing the latch, he opened the door but there was no light in the corridor and he could not tell immediately who was outside. 'Who're you?'

He was answered by a whisper: 'Jodu-launder, sir.'

'Grease-us twice!' Taken aback, Zachary allowed his visitor to step inside his room. 'What the hell you pesticatin me for this time o'night?' A gleam of suspicion came into his eyes. 'Wait a minute – wasn't Serang Ali sent you, was it?' he said. 'You go tell that ponce-shicer my mast don need no fiddin.'

'Avast, sir!' said Jodu. 'Muffle oars! Serang Ali not sent.'

'Then what're you doin here?'

'Bring to messenger, sir!' Jodu made a beckoning gesture as if he were asking to be followed. ''Bout ship.'

'Where'd you want me to go?' said Zachary, irritably. In response, Jodu merely handed him his banyan, which was hanging on the wall. When Zachary reached for his trowsers, Jodu shook his head, as if to indicate that a lungi was all that was necessary.

'Anchor a-weigh, sir! Haul forward.'

Sticking his feet into his shoes, Zachary followed Jodu out of the boarding house. They walked quickly down the lane, towards the river, past the arrackshacks and knockingdens, most of which were still open. In a few minutes they had left the lane behind, to arrive at an unfrequented part of the shore where several dinghies lay moored. Pointing to one of these, Jodu waited for Zachary to step in before casting off the ropes and pushing the boat away from shore.

'Wait a minute!' said Zachary as Jodu began to row. 'Where you takin me now?'

'Look out afore!'

As if in answer, there came the sound of someone striking a flint. Spinning around, Zachary saw that the sparks were coming from the other end of the boat, which was covered by a roof of curved thatch. The spark flared again, to reveal for an instant the hooded figure of a woman in a sari.

Zachary turned angrily on Jodu, his suspicions confirmed. 'Just like I thought – lookin to do some snatchpeddlin huh? So let me tell you this: if I needed to pudden anchor, I'd know to find my own way to the jook. Wouldn't need no hairdick to show me the way…'

He was interrupted by the sound of his own name, spoken in a woman's voice: 'Mr Reid.'

He was turning to look more closely when the woman in the sari spoke again. 'It is I, Mr Reid.' The flint sparked again and the light lasted just long enough to allow him to recognize Paulette.

'Miss Lambert!' Zachary clapped a hand on his mouth. 'You must forgive me,' he said. 'I didn't know… didn't recognize…'

'It is you who must forgive me, Mr Reid,' said Paulette, 'for so greatly imposing.'

Zachary took the flint from her and lit a candle. When the fumbling was over, and their faces were lit by a small glow of light, he said: 'If you don't mind my asking, Miss Lambert – how come you're dressed like this, in a… in a…'

'Sari?' prompted Paulette. 'Perhaps you could say I am in disguise – although it seems less of a travesti to me than what I was wearing when you saw me last.'

'And what brings you here, Miss Lambert, if I may be so bold?'

She paused, as if she were trying to think of the best way to explain. 'Do you remember, Mr Reid, that you said you would be glad to help me, if I needed it?'

'Sure… but' – the doubt in his voice was audible even to him.

'So did you not mean it?' she said.

'I certainly did,' he said. 'But if I'm to be of help I need to know what's happening.'

'I was hoping you would help me find a passage, Mr Reid.'

'To where?' he said in alarm.

'To the Maurice Islands,' she said. 'Where you are going.'

'To the Mauritius?' he said. 'Why not ask Mr Burnham? He's the one can help you.'

She cleared her throat. 'Alas, Mr Reid,' she said. 'That is not possible. As you can see, I am no longer under Mr Burnham's protection.'

'And why so, if you don't mind me asking?'

In a small voice, she mumbled: 'Is it really necessary for you to know?'

'If I'm going to be of help – sure.'

'It is not a pleasant subject, Mr Reid,' she said.

'Don't worry about me, Miss Lambert,' Zachary said. 'My pate's not easily rattled.'

'I will tell – if you insist.' She paused to collect herself. 'Do you remember, Mr Reid, the other night? We spoke of penitence and chastisement? Very briefly.'

'Yes,' he said, 'I remember.'

'Mr Reid,' Paulette continued, drawing her sari tightly over her shoulders, 'when I came to live at Bethel I had no idee of such things. I was ignorant of Scripture and religious matters. My father, you see, had a great detestation of clergymen and held them in abhorrence – but this was not uncommon in men of his epoch…'

Zachary smiled. 'Oh it's still around, Miss Lambert, that aversion for parsons and devil-dodgers – in fact, I'd say it has a while yet to live.'

'You laugh, Mr Reid,' said Paulette. 'My father too would have pleasanted – his dislike of bondieuserie was very great. But for Mr Burnham, as you know, these are not subjects for amusement. When he discovered the depths of my ignorance, he was quite bouleversed and said to me that it was most imperative that he take personal charge of my instruction, notwithstanding other more pressing calls on his time. Is it possible to imagine, Mr Reid, to what point my face was put out of countenance? How could I refuse the offer so generous of my benefactor and patron? But also I did not wish to be a hypocrite and pretend to believe what I did not. Are you aware, Mr Reid, that there are religions in which a person may be put to death for hypocrisy?'

'That so?' said Zachary.

Paulette nodded. 'Yes, indeed. So you may imagine, Mr Reid, how I discuted with myself, before deciding that there could be no cause for reproach in proceeding with these lessons – in Penitence and Prayer, as Mr Burnham was pleased to describe them. Our lessons were held in the study where his Bible is kept, and almost always they were in the evenings, after dinner, when the house was quiet and Mrs Burnham had retired to her bedchamber with her beloved tincture of laudanum. At this time, the servants too, of whom, as you have seen, there are a great many in that house, could be counted on to retire to their own quarters, so there would be no paddings-about of their feet. This was the best possible time for contemplation and penitence, Mr Burnham said, and juste indeed was his description, for the atmosphere in his study was of the most profonde solemnity. The curtain would be drawn already when I entered, and he would then proceed to fasten the door – to prevent, as he said, interruptions in the work of righteousness. The study would be cast into darkness for there was never a light except for the branch of candles that glowed over the high lectern where the Bible lay open. I would walk in to find the passage for the day already chosen, the page marked with a silken placeholder, and I would take my own seat, which was a small footstool, beneath the lectern. When I had myself seated, he would take his place and start. What a tableau did he present, Mr Reid! The flames of the candles shining in his eyes! His beard glowing as if it were about to burst into light, like a burning bush! Ah, but if you had been there, Mr Reid: you too would have marvelled and admired.'

'I wouldn't wager long chalks on it, Miss,' said Zachary drily. 'But please go on.'

Paulette turned away, to look over her shoulder, at the far bank of the river, now visible in the moonlight. 'But how to describe, Mr Reid? The scene would bring before your eyes a tableau of the ancient patriarchs of the Holy Land. When he read, his voice was like a mighty waterfall, breaking upon the silence of a great valley. And the passages he chose! It was as if heaven had transfixed me in its gaze, like a Pharisee upon the plain. If I closed my eyes, the words would scorch my eyelids: "As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil." Are you familiar with those words, Mr Reid?'

'I believe I've heard them,' said Zachary, 'but don't be asking me for chapter and verse now.'

'The passage impressioned me very much,' Paulette said. 'How I trembled, Mr Reid! My whole body shook as if with the ague. So it went, Mr Reid, and I did not wonder that my father had neglected my scriptural education. He was a timid man and I dreaded to think of the anguish these passages would have caused him.' She drew her ghungta over her head. 'So did we proceed, lesson after lesson, until we came to a chapter of Hebrews: "If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons." Do you know these lines, Mr Reid?'

'Fraid not, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary, 'not being much of a churchgoer an all.'

'Nor did I know that passage,' Paulette continued. 'But for Mr Burnham it contained much meaning – so he had told me before he started his lecture. When he stopped I could see that he was greatly emotioned, for his voice was shaking and there was a tremor in his hands. He came to kneel beside me and asked, in a manner most severe, whether I was without chastisement. Now was I thrown into the profondest confusion, for I knew, from the passage, that to admit being unchastened was to acknowledge bastardy. Yet what was I to say, Mr Reid, for the verity is that not once in my life had my father ever beaten me? Shamefully I confessed my lack of chastening, at which he asked whether I should not like to learn of it, since it was a lesson very necessary for true penitence. Can you think, Mr Reid, how legion were my fears at the thought of being chastised by so large and powerful a man? But I hardened the bone of my courage and said, yes, I am ready. But here lay a surprise, Mr Reid, for it was not I who had been chosen for chastening…'

'But then who?' Zachary broke in.

'He,' said Paulette. 'He-the-same.'

'B'jilliber!' said Zachary. 'You're not tellin me it was Mr Burnham who wanted to be beat?'

'Yes,' Paulette continued. 'I had understood wrong. It was he who wished to endure the chastening, while I was but to be the instrument of his punishment. Imagine my nervosity, Mr Reid. If your benefactor asks you to be the instrument of his chastisement, with what face can you refuse? So I agreed, and he then proceeded to assume a most singular posture. He begged me to remain seated and then lowered his face to my feet, cupping my slippers in his hands and crouching, as a horse kneels to drink from a puddle. Then he urged me to draw my arm back and strike him upon his – his fesse.'

'On his face? Come now, Miss Lambert! You're ironing, for sure.'

'No – not his face. How do you say, the posterior aspect of the torso… the de-rear?'

'Stern? Taffrail? Poop-deck?'

'Yes,' said Paulette, 'his poop-deck as you call it was now raised high in the air, and it was there he wished me to aim my chastisements. You may imagine, Mr Reid, my distress at the thought of attacking my benefactor thus – but he would not be denied. He said my spiritual education would not progress otherwise. "Strike!" he cried, "smite me with thine hand!" So what could I do, Mr Reid? I made pretence there was a mosquito there, and brought my hand down on it. But this did not suffice. I heard a groan issuing from my feet – somewhat muffled, for the toe of my slipper was now inside his mouth – and he cried, "Harder, harder, smite with all thine strength." And so we went on for a while, and no matter how hard I struck, he bade me strike still harder – even though I knew him to be in pain, for I could feel him biting and sucking on my slippers, which were now quite wet. When at last he rose to his feet, I was sure that I would meet with reproofs and protests. But no! He was as pleased as ever I have seen him. He tickled me under the chin and said: "Good girl, you have learnt your lesson well. But mind! All will be undone if you should speak of this. Not one word – to anyone!" Which was unnecessary – for of course I would not have dreamed of making mention of such things.'

'Jee-whoop!' Zachary let out a low whistle. 'And did it happen again?'

'But yes,' said Paulette. 'Many times. Always these lessons would begin with lectures and end thus. Believe me, Mr Reid, I tried always to administer my correctionments to the best of my ability, yet even though he appeared often to be in pain, my arm seemed never to be of sufficient strength. I could see that he was growing deceived. One day he said: "My dear, I regret to say as a weapon of punishment your arm is not all that could be wished for. Perhaps you need another tool? I know just the thing…" '

'What did he have in mind?'

'Have you ever seen…?' Paulette paused here, rethinking the word she was about to use. 'Here in India there is a kind of broom that is used by sweepers to clean commodes and lavatories. It is made of hundreds of thin sticks, tied together – the spines of palm fronds. These brooms are called "jhatas" or "jharus" and they make a swishing noise…'

'He wanted to be beat with a broom?' gasped Zachary.

'No ordinary broom, Mr Reid,' cried Paulette. 'A sweeper's broom. I told him: But are you aware, sir, that such brooms are used in the cleaning of lavatories and are regarded as most unclean? He was not at all deterred. He said: Why then, it is the perfect instrument for my abasement; it will be a reminder of Man's fallen nature and of the sinfulness and corruption of our bodies.'

'Now that's got to be a new way of getting your ashes hauled.'

'You cannot image, Mr Reid, what a labour it was to find that instrument. Such things are not to be found in a bazar. Not till I tried to acquire one did I find out that they are made at home, by those who use them, and are no more available to others than a doctor's instruments are to his patients. I had to summon a sweeper and it was no easy matter, believe me, to interview him, for half the household staff gathered around to listen, and I could hear them discuting with each other as to why I might wish to procure this object. Was it my purpose to become a sweeper? To rob them of their employment? But to be brief, at length I did succeed in procuring such a jharu, last week. And a few nights ago I took it to his study for the first time.'

'Pay away, Miss Lambert.'

'Oh, Mr Reid, had you but been there you would have remarked the mixture of joy and anticipation with which he regarded the instrument of his impending oppression. This was as I said, just a few days ago, so I remember well the passage he chose for his lecture. "And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword." Then he put the jharu in my hands and said: "I am the city and this your sword. Strike me, smite me, burn me with your fire." He knelt, as always, with his face at my feet and his poop-deck in the air. How he squirmed and squealed when I flailed the broom upon his rear. Mr Reid, you would have thought him to be in agony: I myself was sure that I was doing him some dreadful injury, but when I paused to inquire whether he would not wish me to stop, he positively shrieked: "No, no, go on! Harder!" So I swung back my arm and lashed him with the jhata, using all my strength – which, you may be sure, is not inconsiderable – until finalmently he moaned and his body went slack on the floor. What horror! I thought, the worst has come to pass! I have killed him for sure. So I leant down and whispered: "Oh poor Mr Burnham – are you all right?" Vaste was my relief, you can be sure, when he stirred and moved his head. But yet he would not rise to his feet, no, he lay flat on the floor and squirmed over the parquet like some creature of the soil, all the way to the door. "Are you hurt, Mr Burnham?" I inquired, following him. "Have you broken your back? Why do you lie thus on the floor? Why do you not rise?" He answered me with a moan: "All is well, do not worry, go to the lectern and read again the lesson." I went to obey him, but no sooner was my back turned than he leapt nimbly to his feet, undid the latch and hurried away up the stairs. I was retracing my steps to the lectern when I saw on the floor a curious mark, a long, wet stain, as if some thin, damp creature had crawled over the parquet. Now was I certain that in a moment's inattention a millipede or a serpent had intruded into the room – for such a thing is often known to happen, Mr Reid, in India. To my shame, I must admit, I shrieked…'

She broke off in agitation and wrung the hem of her sari between her hands. 'I know this may cause me to sink in your esteem, Mr Reid – for I am well aware that a serpent is as much our brother in Nature as is a flower or a cat, so why should we fear it? My father essayed often to reason with me on this subject, but I regret to say that I have not been able to make myself fond of those creatures. I trust you will not judge me too harshly?'

'Oh I'm with you, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary. 'Snakes are not to be messed with, blind or not.'

'You will not be surprised then,' Paulette said, 'to know that I screamed and screamed until at last one of the old khidmutgars appeared. I said to him: 'Sãp! Sãp! A serpent of the jungle has entered the room. Hunt it out!' He stooped to examine the stain and presently when he rose he said the strangest thing, Mr Reid, you will not credit it…'

'Go on, Miss: tip me the grampus.'

'He said: "This was not made by a serpent of the jungle; this is a mark of the snake that lives in Man. " I took this to be a biblical allusion, Mr Reid, so I said, "Amen." Indeed I was wondering whether I should not add an "Hallelujah!" – but then the old khidmutgar burst into laughter and hurried away. And still, Mr Reid, I did not see the meaning of any of this. All night, I lay awake, thinking of it, but at dawn, suddenly I knew. And after that, of course, I could not remain any more in that house, so I sent a message to Jodu, through another boatman, and here I am. But to hide from Mr Burnham in Calcutta is very hard – it would only be a matter of time before I am discovered, and who knows what the consequences might be? So I must flee the country, Mr Reid, and I have decided where I must go.'

'And where is that?'

'The Mauritius Islands, Mr Reid. That is where I must go.'

All this while, even as he was working the oars, Jodu had been listening intently to Paulette, so that Zachary was led to conclude that this was the first he'd heard of what had happened between her and Mr Burnham. Now, as if in confirmation, a heated argument broke out and the boat began to drift, with Jodu resting on his oars as he poured out a stream of plaintive Bengali.

Glancing shorewards, Zachary's eye was caught by a glimmer of moonlight, on the roof of a green-tiled pavilion, and he realized that they had drifted far enough downriver to draw level with the Burnham estate. Bethel loomed in the distance, like the hull of a darkened ship, and the sight of it transported Zachary suddenly to the evening when Paulette had sat beside him at dinner, looking rosily virginal in her severe black gown; he remembered the musical breeze of her voice and how, through the evening, his head had been all a-sway at the thought that this girl, with her strange mixture of worldliness and innocence, was the same Paulette he'd stumbled upon in the 'tween-deck, locked in an embrace with the laundered lascar that she called her brother. Even then he had glimpsed a kind of melancholy behind her smile: now, in thinking of what might have caused it, a memory came to him, of listening to his mother as she told the story of the first time she was summoned by the master – his father – to the cabin in the woods that he kept for bedding his slaves: she was fourteen then, she'd said, and had stood trembling by the door, her feet unwilling to move, even when old Mr Reid told her to quit her snivelling and git over to the bed.

The question of whether Mr Burnham was a better or worse human being than the man who had fathered him, seemed, to Zachary, without meaning or purpose, for he took for granted that power made its bearers act in inexplicable ways – no matter whether a captain or bossman or just a master, like his father. And once this was accepted, it followed also that the whims of masters could be, at times, kind as well as cruel, for wasn't it just such an impulse that had caused old Mr Reid to grant his mother her freedom so that he, Zachary, would not be born a slave? And wasn't it true equally that Zachary himself had benefited enough from Mr Burnham to make it impossible for him to leap easily to judgement? Yet, it had still twisted him in a knot to hear his mother speak of that first time, in Mr Reid's cabin in the woods, and although Paulette's experience with Mr Burnham was in no wise similar, her story too had caused a nippering in the stays of his heart – a stirring, not just of sympathy, but also an awakening of an instinct of protectiveness. 'Miss Lambert,' he blurted out suddenly, breaking in on her altercation with Jodu, 'Miss Lambert, believe me, if I had the means to be a settled man, I would this minute offer to make you…'

Paulette cut him off before he could finish. 'Mr Reid,' she said proudly, 'you are yourself trumping very much if you imagine me to be in search of a husband. I am not a lost kitten, Mr Reid, to be sheltered in a menage. Indeed I can conceive of no union more contemptible than one in which a man adopts a wife out of pity!'

Zachary bit his lip. 'Didn't mean no offence, Miss Lambert. Believe me: wasn't pity made me say what I did.'

Squaring her shoulders, Paulette tossed the ghungta of her sari off her head. 'You are mistaken, Mr Reid, if you imagine that I asked you here to seek your protection – for if there is anything that Bethel has taught me it is that the kindness of men comes always attached to some prix…'

The word stunned Zachary. 'Avast, Miss Lambert! I didn say nothin like that. I know to watch my mouth around a lady.'

'Lady?' said Paulette scornfully. 'Is it to a lady that an offer like yours is made? Or rather to a woman… who sits in the window?'

'You're on the wrong tack, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary. 'Never meant nothin like that.' He could feel his face colouring in mortification now, and to calm himself, he took the oars out of Jodu's hands and began to row. 'So why did you want to see me then, Miss Lambert?'

'I asked you here, Mr Reid, because I wish to discover whether you are fit to bear the name you have been given: Zikri.'

'I don't take your meaning, Miss.'

'May I then rappel for you, Mr Reid,' said Paulette, 'that a few nights ago you told me that if I ever needed anything, I had only to ask? I asked you here tonight because I wish to know whether your promise was a mere bagatelle, lightly uttered, or whether you are indeed a man who honours his parole.'

Zachary could not help smiling. 'You're wrong there again, Miss: many a bar I've seen, but never those of a jail.'

'Word,' said Paulette, correcting herself. 'That is what I mean. I want to know whether you are a man of your word. Come: tell the truth. Are you a man of your word or not?'

'That depends, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary cautiously, 'on whether it's in my power to give you what you want.'

'It is,' said Paulette firmly. 'It most certainly is – or else I would not ask.'

'What is it then?' said Zachary, his suspicions deepening.

Paulette looked him in the eye and smiled. 'I would like to join the crew of the Ibis, Mr Reid.'

'What?' Zachary could not believe that he had heard aright: in that moment of inattention his grip slackened and the current tore the oars from his hands and would have swept them away but for the vigilance of Jodu, who snatched one from the water and used it to pole the other one in. Leaning over the gunwale to retrieve the oar, Zachary found himself exchanging glances with Jodu, who shook his head as if to indicate that he knew perfectly well what Paulette had in mind and had already decided that it could not be allowed. United by this secret understanding, each man took an oar for himself and they started to row together, sitting shoulder to shoulder, with their faces turned towards Paulette: no longer were they lascar and malum, but rather a confederacy of maleness, banding together to confront a determined and guileful adversary.

'Yes, Mr Reid,' Paulette repeated, 'that is my request to you: to be allowed to join your crew. I will be one of them: my hair will be confined, my clothing will be as theirs… I am strong… I can work…'

Zachary leant hard against the oar and the boat surged forward against the current, leaving the Burnham estate in its wake: he was glad to be rowing now, for there was a certain comfort in the hardness of the wooden handle that was grating against the calluses of his palms; there was something reassuring, even, about the dampness on his shoulder, where his arms were grinding against Jodu's: the proximity, the feel and smell of sweat – these were all reminders of the relentless closeness of shipboard life, the coarseness and familiarity which made sailors as heedless as animals, thinking nothing of saying aloud, or even being seen to do, that which elsewhere would have caused agonies of shame. In the fo'c'sle lay all the filth and vileness and venery of being a man, and it was necessary that it be kept contained to spare the world the stench of the bilges.

But Paulette, in the meanwhile, had not ceased to make her case: '… Nobody will know who I am, Mr Reid, except for yourself and Jodu. It is now only a matter of whether you will honour your word or not.'

An answer could no longer be delayed, so Zachary replied by shaking his head. 'You've got to put this out of your mind, Miss Lambert. It just won't do.'

'Why?' she said defiantly. 'Give me a reason.'

'Can't happen,' said Zachary. 'See: it's not only that you're a woman – it's also that you're white. The Ibis will be sailing with an all-lascar crew which means that only her officers will be "European", as they say here. There are only three such: first mate, second mate and Captain. You've already met the Captain; and the first mate, let me tell you, is as mean a hard-horse as I've ever seen. This isn't a kippage you'd want to be in, even if you were a man – and all the white berths are taken anyway. No room for another buckra on board.'

Paulette laughed. 'Oh but you don't understand, Mr Reid,' she said. 'Of course I don't expect to be an officer, like yourself. What I want is to join as a lascar, like Jodu.'

'Shitten hell…!' Once again Zachary's grip went slack and this time the oar caught a wallop of a crab, dealing him a blow to the stomach that left him gasping and spluttering.

Jodu tried to keep them on a steady course, but by the time Zachary recovered, the current had dragged them backwards and they were again within view of the Burnham estate – but Paulette was as oblivious to the sight of her former home as she was to the groans of pain issuing from the centre of the boat. 'Yes, Mr Reid,' she continued, 'if only you agreed to help me, it could be quite easily done. Anything Jodu can do, I can do also – that has been true since we were children, he himself will tell you so. I can climb as well as he, I can swim and run better, and I can row almost as well. As for languages, I can speak Bengali and Hindusthani as well as he. It is true that he is darker, but I am not so pale that I could not be taken for an Indian. I assure you there has never been a time in our lives when we could not persuade an outsider that we were brothers – it was always just a question of changing my pinafore for a lungi, and tying a gamchha around my head. In this way we have been everywhere together, on the rivers and in the streets of the city: ask him – he cannot deny it. If he can be a lascar then, you may be sure, so can I. With kajal in my eyes, a turban on my head and a lungi around my waist, no one will know me. I will work below deck and never be seen.'

An image of Paulette, dressed in a lungi and turban, flashed before Zachary's eyes – it was so distasteful, so unnatural, that he shook his head to rid himself of it. It was hard enough to reconcile the girl in the sari with the Paulette who had invaded his dreams: the delicate rose he'd first met on the deck of the Ibis, with her face framed in a bonnet, and a spoondrift of lace bubbling at her throat. The sight of her had caught more than his eyes: that he might speak with her, walk out with her – he had wanted nothing more. But to think of that girl dressed in a sarong and headcloth, clinging barefoot to the ratlines, wolfing rice from a tapori and strutting the decks with the smell of garlic on her breath – that would be like imagining himself to be in love with a lascar; he would be like a man who'd gone sweet on an ape.

'Miss Lambert,' said Zachary firmly, 'this notion of yours is just a smoke-sail: it's never going to catch the least breath of wind. To start with, it's our serang who does the 'gagement of the lascars, not us. He procures them through a ghaut-serang… and for all I know, there's not a man among them who's not his cousin or uncle or worse. I have no say in who he signs on: that's for him to decide.'

'But the serang took Jodu, didn't he?'

'Yes, but it wasn't on my say-so – it was because of the accident.'

'But if Jodu spoke for me,' said Paulette, 'he would take me, would he not?'

'Maybe.' Glancing to his side, Zachary saw that Jodu's face was screwed into an angry scowl: there could be no doubt that they were of one mind on this, so there was no reason not to let him speak for himself. 'Have you asked Jodu what he thinks?'

At this, a hissing sound issued from Jodu's mouth and was followed by a succession of words and exclamations that left no doubt about where he stood – 'Avast!… how she live beech-o-beech many mans? Don know hook from hinch… bumkin or wank…' In a final rhetorical flourish, he posed the question: 'Lady lascar?…' – and answered by spitting over the deck rail, with a contemptuous: 'Heave the lead!'

'You must pay the dear little choute no attention,' said Paulette quickly. 'He is blablating because he is jealous and does not wish to admit that I can be just as good a sailor as he can. He likes to believe that I am his helpless little sister. Anyway it does not matter what he thinks, Mr Reid, because he will do as you tell him. It is all up to you, Mr Reid, not Jodu.'

'Miss Lambert,' said Zachary gently, 'it was you as told me that he's like a brother to you. Don't you see you'd be putting him in danger if you went through with this? What'd you think the other lascars would do to him if they knew he'd fooled them into taking a woman into the fo'c'sle? Many a sailor has been killed for less. And think, Miss Lambert, about what would be done to you if you were found out – and you surely would be, no mojo nor conjuration can stop it. When that happens, believe me, Miss, it would not be something that any of us would wish to think about.'

All this while Paulette had been sitting proudly upright, but now her shoulders began to sag. 'So you will not help me then?' she said in a slow, halting voice. 'Even though you gave your word?'

'If I could help in some other way, I would be only too glad,' said Zachary. 'Why, I have some little money saved, Miss Lambert – it might be enough to buy a passage on another ship.'

'It's not your charity I want, Mr Reid,' Paulette said. 'Don't you see that I must give proof of myself? Do you think a few little obstacles would have stopped my grand-aunt from making her voyage?' Paulette's lip trembled and swelled and she had to brush a tear of vexation from her eye. 'I had thought you were a better man, Mr Reid, a man of your word, but I see that you are nothing but a paltry hommelette.'

'An omelette?'

'Yes; your word is not worth a dam.'

'I'm sorry to disappoint you, Miss Lambert,' said Zachary, 'but I do believe it's for the best. A clipper is no place for a girl like yourself.'

'Oh, so that is it – a girl cannot do it?' Paulette's head snapped up and her eyes flashed. 'To listen to you one would think you had invented hot water, Mr Reid. But you are wrong: I can do it and I will.'

'I wish you good luck with that, Miss,' said Zachary.

'Don't you dare sneer at me, Mr Reid,' Paulette cried. 'I may be in difficulties now but I will get to the Mauritius and when I do I will laugh in your face. I will call you names such as you have never heard.'

'Really?' With the end of the battle in sight, Zachary permitted himself a smile. 'And what might they be, Miss?'

'I will call you…' Paulette broke off, searching her memory for an oath that would be insulting enough to express the anger in her heart. Suddenly a word exploded from her lips: 'Cock-swain! That is what you are, Mr Reid – a horrid cock-swain!'

'Cockswain?' said Zachary, in puzzlement, and Jodu, glad to hear a familiar word, translated, as if by habit: Coksen?

'Yes,' said Paulette, in a voice that was tremulous with indignation. 'Mrs Burnham says that it is a most unspeakable thing and should never be in a lady's mouth. You may think the King is your cousin, Mr Reid, but let me tell you what you really are: an unutterable cock-swain.'

Zachary was so taken by the absurdity of this that he burst out laughing and whispered, in an aside to Jodu: 'Is it "dick-swain" she means?'

'Dix?' This exchange had not eluded Paulette. 'A fine pair the two of you, cockson and dixon, neither one man enough to keep his word. But you wait and see – you're not going to leave me behind.'

Fourteen

It was only to the outside world that Alipore Jail presented the semblance of a unitary realm: to its inmates, it appeared rather as an archipelago of fiefdoms, each with its own rules, rulers and ruled. Neel's transition from the outer sphere of the prison, where the British authorities held sway, into the jail's inner domain, took more than a day to complete: he spent his first night in a holding cell and it was not till the evening of the second day that he was assigned to a ward. By this time, he had been seized by a strange sense of dissociation, and even though he knew very little about the internal arrangements of the jail, he betrayed no surprise when his guards delivered him into the custody of another convict, a man who was also dressed in white dungaree cloth, except that his dhoti was of ankle length and his tunic was clean and well-washed. The man had the heavy build of an ageing wrestler and Neel was quick to notice the marks of eminence that he bore on his person: the well-fed surge of his belly, the trimmed grey beard and the massive ring of keys at his waist; when they walked past cells, the prisoners invarably saluted him with deferential greetings, addressing him as Bishu-ji. It was clear that Bishu-ji was one of the prison's jemadars – a convict who, by reason either of seniority, or force of character, or brute strength, had been appointed to a position of authority by the jail's governors.

The ward in which Neel now found himself was laid out around a square courtyard that had a well at one side and a tall neem tree at the other. This courtyard was where the ward's inmates cooked, ate and bathed: at night they slept in shared cells and their mornings were spent working in labour gangs – but the courtyard was otherwise the centre of their lives, the hearth where their days ended and began. Now, the evening meal having been served and consumed, the cooking fires were dying out and the barred gates that ringed the courtyard were clanging loudly as each group of convicts was returned to its cell for the night. Of the men who remained, one lot were clustered around the well, where they were scrubbing cooking pots and other utensils; the others were the ward's jemadars, and they were sitting at leisure under the neem tree, where four charpoys had been arranged in a circle. The jemadars were all attended by a few of their loyalists, for they each headed a band that was part gang and part family. Within these groupings, the jemadars functioned as both bosses and heads of household, and in much the way that zemindars were served by members of their zenanas, they too were waited on by their favourite chokras and followers. Now, at the end of the day, the overseers were taking their ease with their equals, while their attendants busied themselves in lighting their hookahs, preparing chillums of ganja and massaging their masters' feet.

What followed was not unlike a hearing at a meeting of village elders, with the particulars of Neel's case being presented to the others by Bishu-ji. Speaking with the cogency of a lawyer, he told them about the Raskhali zemindary, the charge of forgery and the proceedings of the Supreme Court. How he had come by this information, Neel could not imagine, but he sensed that Bishu-ji wished him no harm and was grateful for his painstaking elaboration of the facts of his case.

From the exclamations of shock that greeted the end of Bishuji's recital, Neel understood that even among these long-term tenants of the jail, the penalty of transportation was regarded with an inexpressible horror. He was summoned to the centre of the gathering and made to display his tattooed forehead, which was examined with fascination and revulsion, sympathy and awe. Neel participated in the display without reluctance, hoping that the marks on his skin would entitle him to certain privileges, setting his lot apart from that of lesser convicts.

Presently, a silence fell, to indicate that the deliberations of the panchayat had ended, and Bishu-ji signalled to Neel to follow him across the courtyard.

Listen, he said, as they walked away, let me explain our rules to you: it is the custom here, when a new prisoner arrives, for him to be allotted to one or other of the jemadars, according to his origins and his character. But with someone such as yourself, this does not apply because the sentence you have been given will tear you forever from the ties that bind others. When you step on that ship, to go across the Black Water, you and your fellow transportees will become a brotherhood of your own: you will be your own village, your own family, your own caste. That is why it is the custom here for such men as you to live apart, in their own cells, separate from the rest.

Neel nodded: I understand.

At this time, continued Bishu-ji, there is only one other man here who bears the same sentence as you: he too is to be transported to Mareech, and the two of you will no doubt travel together. There -fore it is only right that you should share his cell.

There was an undertone in his voice that sounded a warning. Neel said: Who is this man?

Bishu-ji's face creased into a smile: His name is Aafat.

Aafat? said Neel, in surprise: the word meant 'calamity' and he could not imagine that anyone would choose it for a name. Who is this man? Where is he from?

He is from across the sea: the land of Maha-Chin.

He is Chinese?

So we think, from the look of him, said Bishu-ji. But it's hard to be sure, for we know almost nothing about him, except that he is an afeemkhor.

An addict? said Neel. But from where does he get his opium?

That's the thing, said the jemadar. He is an afeemkhor who has no opium.

They had reached the cell now and Bishu-ji was sorting through his keys to find the right one. This corner of the courtyard was dimly lit, and the cell was so silent that at first glance, Neel had the impression that it was empty. He asked where the addict was and Bishu-ji answered by opening the gate to push him inside.

He's there; you'll find him.

Inside there were two charpoys, both covered with a webbing of rope, and in the far corner there was a toilet bucket with a wooden lid. By the wall there stood an earthen pitcher of drinking water: apart from these few things, the cell seemed to contain nothing else.

But he's not here, said Neel.

He's there, said the jemadar. Just listen.

Gradually, Neel became aware of a whimpering sound, accompanied by a soft clicking, like the chattering of teeth. The sound was so close that its source had to be somewhere inside the cell: he dropped to his knees and looked under the charpoys, to discover an unmoving heap lying beneath one of them. He recoiled, more in fear than revulsion, as he might from an animal that was badly wounded or grievously sick – the creature was making a sound that was more like a whine than a moan, and all he could see of its face was a single glinting eye. Then Bishu-ji poked a stick through the bars and thrust it under the charpoy: Aafat! Come on out! Look, we've found you another transportee.

Prodded by the stick, a limb came snaking out from under the bed and Neel saw that it was a man's arm, encrusted with filth. Then the head showed itself, barely visible because of a thick coating of matted hair, and a straggling black beard that was twisted into ropes. As the rest of the body slowly emerged, it showed itself to be so thickly mired in dirt and mud that it was impossible to tell whether the man was naked or clothed. Then suddenly the cell was filled with the smell of ordure and Neel realized that it was not just mud the man was covered in, but also faeces and vomit.

Spinning around in disgust, Neel clutched the bars of the cell, calling out after Bishu-ji: You can't leave me here, have some pity, let me out…

Bishu-ji turned around and walked back.

Listen, he said, wagging a finger at Neel: Listen – if you think you can hide from this man you are wrong. From now on, you will never be able to escape this Aafat. He will be on your ship and you will have to travel with him to your jail across the Black Water. He is all you have, your caste, your family, your friend; neither brother nor wife nor son will ever be as close to you as he will. You will have to make of him what you can; he is your fate, your destiny. Look in a mirror and you will know: you cannot escape what is written on your forehead.

Jodu was not surprised to find Paulette growing increasingly morose and resentful after her late-night meeting with Zachary: it was clear that she blamed him, Jodu, for the failure of her plan, and often now, there was an unaccustomedly ugly edge to their usually harmless bickering. For two people to live in rancour, in a small boat, was far from pleasant, but Jodu understood that Paulette was in a cruel, even desperate, situation, with no money and few friends, and he could not bring himself to refuse her the refuge of his pansari. But the boat was just a rental, from a ghat-side boat-owner, due to be returned when the Ibis was ready to set sail. What would Paulette do after that? She refused to discuss the subject, and he could not blame her for this, since he could scarcely bear to think of it himself.

In the meanwhile, it was still raining hard, and one day Paulette got caught in a ferocious monsoonal downpour. Either because of the drenching or by reason of her state of mind, she fell ill. It was beyond Jodu's power to nurse her back in the boat, so he decided instead to take her to a family who had known her father well: they had long been malis at the Botanical Gardens, and had benefited greatly from Mr Lambert's generosity. With them she would be safe and well looked after.

The family lived in a village a little to the north of Calcutta, in Dakshineshwar, and on arriving at their door, Paulette received a welcome that was warm enough to allay any remaining qualms that Jodu may have had. Rest and get better, he said to her as he was leaving. I'll be back in two-three months and we can decide then what to do next. She answered with a wan nod, and that was where they left the matter.

Jodu rowed back to Calcutta, hoping to make some quick money with his boat. This was not to be, for the last few rainstorms of the monsoons proved to be the most furious of the season, and he had to spend almost all his time moored at the ghats. But when at last the rains ended, the air was cleaner and crisper than ever before, and the winds brisk and redolent of renewal: after the rain-slowed months of the monsoons, the rivers and roadways quickly filled up with traffic, as farmers hurried to bring their freshly harvested crops to the markets, and shoppers swarmed to the bazars, to buy new clothes for Durga Puja, Dussehra and 'Id.

It was on one such busy evening, while ferrying passengers in his boat, that Jodu looked downriver and caught sight of the Ibis, freshly released from dry dock: she was at a berth, moored between two buoys, but even with her masts bare, she looked like a token of the season itself, scrubbed and refreshed, with a new sheathing of copper along her watermark, her masts taunt and a-gleam. Wisps of smoke were curling out of the chuldan chimney, so Jodu knew that many of the lascars were already on board, and for once he wasted no time in haggling over fares and taunting the miserly: he got rid of his passengers as soon as he could, and rowed over to the schooner at full speed.

And there they were, lounging around the deckhouse, all the old familiar faces, Cassem-meah, Simba Cader, Rajoo, Steward Pinto, and the two tindals, Babloo and Mamdoo. Even Serang Ali unbent far enough to give him a smile and a nod. After the slapping and the gut-punching, his boat became the focus of much laughter – Is its roof made from old jharus? Is that an oar or a punkha? No one, he was told, had expected him to return: they thought he'd been lost to the stick-men – wasn't it common knowledge that no dandi-wala could ever be happy without a stick in his stern?

And the malums? The Kaptan? Where are they?

Not aboard yet, said Rajoo.

This delighted Jodu, for it meant that the lascars had the run of the vessel. Come on, he said to Rajoo, let's look the ship over while we can.

They headed first for the officers' section of the vessel, the peechil-kamre – the after-cabins – which lay directly beneath the quarter-deck: they knew they would never again set foot there, except as topas or mess-boy, and were determined to make the most of it. To get to the peechil-kamre they had to go through one of two companionways that were tucked under the overhang of the quarter-deck: the entrance on the dawa side led to the officers' cabins and the other to the adjoining compartment, which was known as the 'beech-kamra' or midships-cabin. The dawa companionway opened into the cuddy, which was where the officers ate their meals. Looking around it, Jodu was astonished by how carefully everything was made, how every eventuality had been thought of and provided for: the table at the centre even had rims around its sides, with little fenced enclosures in the middle, so that nothing could slip or slide when the schooner was rolling. The mates' cabins were on either side of the cuddy, and they were, in comparison, somewhat plain, just about large enough to turn around in, with bunks that were not quite long enough for a man to stretch out his legs in comfort.

The Kaptan's stateroom was furthest aft, and there was nothing about this kamra that was in the least bit disappointing: it extended along the width of the stern and its wood and brass shone brightly with polish; it seemed grand enough to belong in a Raja's palace. At one end of it there was a small, beautifully carved desk, with tiny shelves and an inkwell that was built into the wood; at the other end was a spacious bunk with a polished candle-holder affixed to one side. Jodu threw himself on the mattress and bounced up and down: Oh, if only you were a girl – a Ranee instead of a Rajoo! Can you think what it would be like, on this…?

For a moment they were both lost in their dreams.

One day, sighed Jodu, one day, I'll have a bed like this for myself… And I'll be the Faghfoor of Maha-chin…

Forward of the after-cabins lay the midships-cabin – the beech-kamra, where the overseers and guards were to be accommodated. This part of the schooner was also relatively comfortable: it was equipped with bunks rather than hammocks, and was fairly well lit, with portholes to let in the daylight and several lamps hanging from the ceiling. Like the after-cabins, this kamra was connected to the main deck by its own companionway and ladder. But the ladder to the midships-cabin had an extension that led even further into the bowels of the vessel, reaching down to the holds, storerooms and istur-khanas where the ship's provisions and spare equipment were stored.

Next to the beech-kamra lay the migrants' part of the ship: the 'tween-deck, known to the lascars as the 'box', or dabusa. It was little changed since the day Jodu first stepped into it: it was still as grim, dark and foul-smelling as he remembered – merely an enclosed floor, with arched beams along the sides – but its chains and ring-bolts were gone and a couple of heads and piss-dales had been added. The dabusa inspired a near-superstitious horror in the crew, and neither Jodu nor Rajoo remained there for long. Shinning up the ladder, they went eagerly to their own kamra, the fana. This was where the most startling change was found to have occurred: the rear part of the compartment had been boxed off to make a cell, with a stout door.

If there's a chokey, said Rajoo, it can only mean there'll be convicts on board.

How many?

Who knows?

The chokey's door lay open so they climbed into it. The cell was as cramped as a chicken coop and as airless as a snake-pit: apart from a lidded porthole in its door, it had only one other opening, which was a tiny air duct in the bulwark that separated it from the coolies' dabusa. Jodu found that if he stood on tiptoe, he could put his eye to the air duct. Two months in this hole! he said to Rajoo. With nothing to do but spy on the coolies…

Nothing to do! scoffed Rajoo. They'll be picking istup till their fingers fall off: they'll have so much work they'll forget their names.

And speaking of work, said Jodu. What about our exchange? Do you think they're going to let me take your place on the mast?

Rajoo pulled a doubtful face: I spoke to Mamdoo-tindal today, but he said he'd have to try you out first.

When?

They did not have to wait long for an answer. On returning to the main deck, Jodu heard a voice shouting down from aloft: You there! Stick-man! Jodu looked up to see Mamdoo-tindal looking down from the kursi of the foremast, beckoning with a finger. Come on up!

This was a test, Jodu knew, so he spat on his palms and muttered a bismillah before reaching for the iskat. Less than halfway up, he knew his hands were scraped and bleeding – it was as if the hempen rope had sprouted thorns – but his luck held. Not only did he get to the kursi, he even managed to wipe his bloody hands on his hair before the tindal could see his cuts.

Chalega! said Mamdoo-tindal, with a grudging nod. It'll do – not bad for a dandi-wala…

For fear of saying too much, Jodu responded only with a modest grin – but if he had been a king at a coronation, he could not have felt more triumphant than he did as he eased himself into the kursi: what throne, after all, could offer as grand a view as the crosstrees, with the sun sinking in the west, and a river of traffic flowing by below?

Oh you'll like it up here, said Mamdoo-tindal. And if you ask nicely, Ghaseeti might even teach you her way of reading the wind.

Reading the wind? How?

Like this. Stepping on the purwan, the tindal laid himself down and turned his legs to point at the horizon, where the sun was setting. Then, lifting his feet, he shook out his lungi, so that it opened out like a funnel. When the tube of cloth filled with wind, he gave a triumphant moan. Yes! Ghaseeti predicts that the wind will rise. She feels it! It's on her ankles, on her legs, its hand is inching its way up, she feels it there…

On her legs?

In her wind-maker, you faltu-chute, where else?

Jodu laughed so hard he almost fell out of the kursi. There was only one thing, he realized, with a twinge of regret, that could have made the joke still more enjoyable, and that was if Paulette had been there to share it with him: this was the kind of silliness that had always delighted them both.

It did not take long for Neel to discover that his cell-mate's torments were ordered by certain predictable rhythms. His paroxysms of shivering, for instance, would begin with a mild, almost imperceptible trembling, like that of a man in a room that is just a little too cold for comfort. But these gentle shivers would mount in intensity till they became so violent as to tip him off his charpoy, depositing his convulsing body on the ground. The outlines of his muscles would show through the grime on his skin, alternately contracting into knots and then briefly relaxing, but only to seize up again: it was like looking at a pack of rats squirming in a sack. After the convulsions subsided, he would lie unconscious for a while and then something inside him would stir again; his breathing would grow laboured and his lungs would rattle, yet his eyes would remain closed; his lips would begin to move and form words, and he would pass into the grip of a delirium that somehow permitted him to remain asleep, even as he tossed from side to side, in a frenzy of movement, while shouting aloud in his own language. Then a fire would seem to come alight under his skin and he would begin to slap himself all over, as if to snuff out the spreading flames. When this failed, his hands would become claws, gouging into his flesh as if to rip off a coating of charred skin. Only then would his eyes come open: it was as if his exhausted body would not allow him to wake up until he had tried to flay himself.

Horrible as these symptoms were, none of them affected Neel as much as his cell-mate's chronic incontinence. To watch, hear and smell a grown man dribbling helplessly on the floor, on his bed, and on himself, would have been a trial for anyone – but for a man of Neel's fastidiousness, it was to cohabit with the incarnate embodiment of his loathings. Later, Neel would come to learn that not the least of opium's properties is its powerful influence on the digestive system: in proper doses it was a remedy for diarrhoea and dysentery; taken in quantity it could cause the bowels to freeze – a common symptom in addicts. Conversely, when withdrawn abruptly, from a body that had grown accustomed to consuming it in excess, it had the effect of sending the bladder and sphincter into uncontrollable spasms, so that neither food nor water could be retained. It was unusual for this condition to last for more than a few days – but to know this would have provided little comfort to Neel, for whom every minute spent in the proximity of his dribbling, leaking, spewing cell-mate had a duration beyond measure. Soon, he too began to shiver and hallucinate: behind the lids of his closed eyes, the lashings of shit on the floor would come alive and send out tentacles that dug into his nose, plunged into his mouth and took hold of his throat. How long his own seizures lasted Neel did not know, but from time to time he would open his eyes to catch sight of the faces of other convicts, gaping at him in amazement; in one of these moments of wakefulness, he noticed that someone had opened the gratings of the cell and placed two objects inside: a jharu and a scoop, like those used by sweepers for the removal of night-soil.

If he was to keep his sanity, Neel knew he would have to take hold of the jharu and scoop; there was no other way. To rise to his feet and take the three or four steps that separated him from the jharu took as intense an effort as he had ever made, and when he was finally within touching distance of it, he could not prevail upon his hand to make contact: the risk involved seemed unimaginably great, for he knew that he would cease to be the man he had been a short while before. Closing his eyes, he thrust his hand blindly forward, and only when the handle was in his grasp did he allow himself to look again: it seemed miraculous then that his surroundings were unchanged, for within himself he could feel the intimations of an irreversible alteration. In a way, he was none other than the man he had ever been, Neel Rattan Halder, but he was different too, for his hands were affixed upon an object that was ringed with a bright penumbra of loathing; yet now that it was in his grip it seemed no more nor less than what it was, a tool to be used according to his wishes. Lowering himself to his heels, he squatted as he had often seen sweepers do, and began to scoop up his cell-mate's shit.

Once having started, Neel found himself to be possessed by a fury for the task. Only one part of the cell did he leave untouched – a small island near the waste-bucket, where he had pushed his cell-mate's charpoy in the hope of keeping him confined in a single corner. As for the rest, he scrubbed the walls as well as the floor, washing the refuse into the gutter that drained the cell. Soon many another convict was stopping by to watch him at work; some even began to help, unasked, by fetching water from the well and by throwing in handfuls of sand, of a kind that was useful in scouring floors. When he went into the courtyard, to bathe and wash his clothes, he was offered a welcome at several of the cooking-fires where meals were being prepared.

… Come, here… eat with us…

While he was eating, someone asked: Is it true that you know how to read and write?

Yes.

In Bengali?

In English too. And also Persian and Urdu.

A man approached, on his haunches: Can you write a letter for me then?

To whom?

The zemindar of my village; he wants to take some land away from my family and I want to send him a petition…

At one time, the daftars of the Raskhali zemindary had received dozens of such requests: though Neel had rarely taken the trouble to read them himself, he was not unfamiliar with their phrasing. I'll do it, he said, but you will have to bring me paper, ink and a quill.

Back in his cell, he was dismayed to find much of his work undone, for his cell-mate, gripped by one of his paroxysms, had rolled across the floor, leaving a trail of filth behind him. Neel was able to prod him back into his corner, but was too exhausted to do any more.

The night passed more peaceably than those before and Neel sensed a change in the rhythm of his cell-mate's seizures: they seemed to be waning in their intensity, allowing him longer intervals of rest; his incontinence, too, seemed somewhat moderated, possibly because there was nothing left in him to eject. In the morning, while unlocking the gratings, Bishu-ji said: It's Aafat you'll have to clean next. No way around it: once he feels the touch of water, he'll start to improve. I've seen it happen before.

Neel looked at the starved, emaciated body of his cell-mate, with its caking of ordure and its matted hair: even if he bathed him, overcoming his revulsion, what would be achieved? He would only soil himself again, and as for clothing, the only garment he seemed to possess was a drawstringed pyjama that was soaked in his own waste.

Shall I send someone to help you? Bishu-ji asked.

No, said Neel. I'll do it myself.

Having spent a few days in the same space, Neel had already begun to feel that he was somehow implicated in his cell-mate's plight: it was as if their common destination had made their shame and honour a shared burden. For better or for worse it was he who would have to do whatever had to be done.

It took a while to make the necessary preparations: bartering his services as a letter-writer, Neel acquired a few slivers of soap, a pumice stone, an extra dhoti and a banyan. To persuade Bishu-ji to leave the gratings of the cell unlocked proved unexpectedly easy: as prospective transportees, neither Neel nor his cell-mate were expected to participate in work-gangs, so they had the courtyard mostly to themselves in the first part of the day. Once the other inmates were gone, Neel drew several buckets of water from the well and then half lifted and half dragged his cell-mate across the courtyard. The addict offered little resistance and his opium-wasted body was unexpectedly light. At the first dousing, he stirred his limbs feebly as if to fight off Neel's hands, but he was so weakened that his struggles were like the squirming of an exhausted bird. Neel was able to hold him down without difficulty, and within a few minutes his twitching subsided and he lapsed into a kind of torpor. After scouring his chest with a pumice stone, Neel wrapped his slivers of soap in a rag and began to wash the man's limbs: the addict's frame was skeletal and his skin was covered with scabs and sores, caused by vermin, yet it was soon apparent, from the elasticity of his sinews, that he was not in late middle-age, as Neel had thought: he was much younger than he appeared, and had evidently been in the full vigour of youth when the drug took control of his body. On reaching the knot of his drawstring, Neel saw that it was too tangled to be undone, so he cut through it and ripped away what little was left of his pyjamas. Gagging at the stench, Neel began to sluice water between the man's legs, breaking off occasionally to draw breath.

To take care of another human being – this was something Neel had never before thought of doing, not even with his own son, let alone a man of his own age, a foreigner. All he knew of nurture was the tenderness that had been lavished on him by his own care-givers: that they would come to love him was something he had taken for granted – yet knowing his own feelings for them to be in no way equivalent, he had often wondered how that attachment was born. It occurred to him now to ask himself if this was how it happened: was it possible that the mere fact of using one's hands and investing one's attention in someone other than oneself, created a pride and tenderness that had nothing whatever to do with the response of the object of one's care – just as a craftsman's love for his handiwork is in no way diminished by the fact of it being unreciprocated?

After swaddling his cell-mate in a dhoti, Neel propped him against the neem tree and forced a little rice down his throat. To put him back on his verminous charpoy would be to undo all the cleaning he had done, so he made a nest of blankets for him in a corner. Then he dragged the filthy bedstead to the well, gave it a thorough scrubbing and placed it, top down, in the open, as he had seen the other men do, so that the sunlight would burn away its pale, wriggling cargo of blood-sucking insects. Only after the job was done did it occur to Neel that he had lofted the stout bedstead on his own, without any assistance – he, who by family legend had been sickly since birth, subject to all manner of illness. In the same vein, it had been said of him, too, that he would choke on anything other than the most delicate food – but already many days had passed since he'd eaten anything but the cheapest dal and coarsest rice, small in grain, veined with red and weighted with a great quantity of tooth-shattering conkers and grit – yet his appetite had never been more robust.

Next day, through a complicated series of exchanges, involving the writing of letters to chokras and jemadars in other wards, Neel struck a bargain with a barber for the shaving of his cell-mate's head and face.

In all my years of hair-cutting, said the barber, I've never seen anything like this.

Neel looked over the barber's shoulder at his cell-mate's scalp: even as the razor was shaving it clean, the bared skin was sprouting a new growth – a film that moved and shimmered like mercury. It was a swarming horde of lice, and as the matted hair tumbled off, the insects could be seen falling to the ground in showers. Neel was kept busy, drawing and pouring bucketfuls of water, so as to drown the insects before they found others to infest.

The face that emerged from the vanished matting of hair and beard was little more than a skull, with shrunken eyes, a thin beak of a nose, and a forehead in which the bones had all but broken through the skin. That some part of this man was Chinese was suggested by the shape of his eyes and the colour of his skin – but in his high-bridged nose and his wide, full mouth, there was something that hinted also at some other provenance. Looking into that wasted face, Neel thought he could see the ghost of someone else, lively and questing: although temporarily exorcized by the opium, this other being had not entirely surrendered its claim upon the site of its occupancy. Who could say what capacities and talents that other self had possessed? As a test, Neel said, in English: 'What is your name?'

There was a flicker in the afeemkhor's dulled eyes, as if to indicate that he knew what the words meant, and when his head dropped, Neel chose to interpret the gesture not as a refusal but as a postponement of a reply. From then on, with his cell-mate's condition improving steadily, Neel made a ritual of asking the question once a day and even though his attempts to communicate met with no success, he never doubted that he would soon have a response.

The afternoon that Zachary came on board the Ibis, Mr Crowle was on the quarter-deck, pacing its width with a slow, contemplative tread, almost as if he were rehearsing for his day as Captain. He came to a halt when he caught sight of Zachary, with his ditty-bags slung over his shoulder. 'Why, lookee here!' he said in mock surprise. 'Blow me if it isn't little Lord Mannikin hisself, primed to loose for the vasty deep.'

Zachary had resolved that he would not allow himself to be provoked by the first mate. He grinned cheerfully and dropped his ditty-bags. 'Good afternoon, Mr Crowle,' he said, sticking out a hand. 'Trust you've been well?'

'Oh do you now?' said Mr Crowle, shaking his hand brusquely. 'Truth to tell, I wasn't sure we'd have the pleasure o'yer company after all. Thought ye'd claw off and cut the painter, to be honest. Tofficky young tulip like y'self – reckon'd y'might prefer to find gainful employment onshore.'

'Never entered my mind, Mr Crowle,' said Zachary promptly. 'Nothing'd make me give up my berth on the Ibis.'

'Too soon to tell, Mannikin,' said the first mate with a smile. 'Much too early yet.'

Zachary shrugged this off, and over the next few days, what with stowing provisions and tallying the spare equipment, there was no time for any but the most perfunctory exchanges with the first mate. Then, one afternoon, Steward Pinto came aft to let Zachary know that the schooner's contingent of guards and overseers was in the process of embarking. Curious about the newcomers, Zachary stepped out to the quarter-deck to watch, and within a few minutes he was joined at the fife-rail by Mr Crowle.

The guards were for the most part turbaned silahdars – former sepoys with bandoliers crossed over their chests. The overseers were known as maistries, prosperous-looking men in dark chapkans and white dhotis. What was striking about them, maistries and silahdars alike, was the swagger with which they came aboard: it was as if they were a conquering force, that had been deputed to take possession of a captured vessel. They would not demean themselves by shouldering their own baggage; they deigned only to carry weapons and armaments – lathis, whips, spears and swords. Their firearms, which consisted of an impressive cache of muskets, gunpowder and tamancha handguns, were carried aboard by uniformed porters and deposited in the schooner's armoury. But as for the rest of their luggage, it fell to the lascars to fetch, carry and stow their belongings and provisions, to the accompaniment of many a kick, cuff and gali.

The leader of the paltan, Subedar Bhyro Singh, was the last to step on board, and his entry was the most ceremonious of all: the maistries and silahdars received him as though he were a minor potentate, forming ranks and bowing low to offer their salams. A large, barrel-chested, bull-necked man, the subedar stepped on deck wearing a spotless white dhoti and a long kurta with a shimmering silk cummerbund: his head was wrapped in a majestic turban and he had a stout lathi tucked under his arm. He curled his white moustaches as he surveyed the schooner, looking none too pleased until his eyes fell on Mr Crowle. He greeted the first mate by beaming broadly and joining his hands together and Mr Crowle, too, seemed glad to see him, for Zachary heard him muttering, under his breath, 'Well, if it isn't old Muffin-mug!' Then he called out aloud, in the most cordial tone that Zachary had yet heard him employ: 'A very good day to you, Subby-dar.'

This unusual display of affability prompted Zachary to ask: 'Friend of yours, Mr Crowle?'

'We've shipped together in the past, and it's always the same, inn'it, for us Rough-knots? "Shipmates afore strangers, strangers afore dogs".' The first mate's lip curled as he looked Zachary up and down. 'Not that ye'd know about that, Mannikin, not in the company y'keep.'

This caught Zachary unawares: 'I don't know what you mean, Mr Crowle.'

'Oh don't y'now?' The first mate gave him a grimace of a smile. 'Well, maybe it's best that way.'

Here, before he could be pressed any further, the first mate was taken away by Serang Ali to oversee the fidding of the foremast, and Zachary was left to puzzle over the meaning of what he had said. As luck would have it, the Captain went ashore that night so the two mates dined alone, with Steward Pinto waiting on them. Scarcely a word was said until Steward Pinto carried in some chafing-dishes and laid them on the table. From the smell, Zachary could tell that they were about to be served a dish for which he had once expressed a liking, prawn curry with rice, and he gave the steward a smile and a nod. But Mr Crowle, in the meanwhile, had begun to sniff the air suspiciously and when the steward removed the covers from the dishes, a snarl of revulsion broke from his lips: 'What's this?' He took one look inside and slammed the lid back on the curry. 'Take this away, boy, and tell cookie to fry up some lamb chops. Don't y'ever set this mess o'quim-slime in front o'me again.'

The steward rushed forward, mumbling apologies, and was about to remove the containers when Zachary stopped him. 'Wait a minute, steward,' he said. 'You can leave that where it is. Please bring Mr Crowle what he wants, but this'll do just fine for me.'

Mr Crowle said nothing until the steward had disappeared up the companionway. Then, squinting at Zachary with narrowed eyes, he said: 'Ye're awful familiar with these here lascars, in'ye?'

'We sailed together from Cape Town,' said Zachary, with a shrug. 'I guess they know me and I know them. That's all there is to it.' Reaching for the rice, Zachary raised an eyebrow: 'With your permission.'

The first mate nodded, but his lips began to twitch in disgust as he watched Zachary helping himself. 'Was't them lascars as taught y'ter t'stomach that nigger-stink?'

'It's just karibat, Mr Crowle. Everyone eats it in these parts.'

'Do they so?' There was a pause and then Mr Crowle said: 'So is that what y'feeds on, when ye're up there with the Nabbs and Nobs and Nabobs?'

Suddenly Zachary understood the allusion of that afternoon; he glanced up from his plate, to find Mr Crowle watching him with a smile that bared the points of his teeth.

'I'll bet ye'thought I wouldn't find out, didn'yer, Mannikin?'

'About what?'

'Yer hobnobbin with the Burnhams and such.'

Zachary took a deep breath and answered quietly, 'They invited me, Mr Crowle, so I went. I thought they'd asked you too.'

'Right! And black's the white o'me eye!'

'It's true. I did think they'd asked you,' said Zachary.

'Jack Crowle? Up at Bethel?' The words emerged very slowly, as if they had been dragged up from the bottom of a deep well of bitterness. 'Not good enough to get through that front door, is Jack Crowle – not his face, nor his tongue, nor his hands neither. Missus'd worry about stains on her linen. If ye're born with a wooden ladle, Mannikin, it don't matter if y'can eat the wind out o'a topsail. There's always the little Lord Mannikins and Hobdehoys and Loblolly-boys to gammon the skippers, and pitch slum to the shipowners. Ne'er mind they don't know a pintle from a gudgeon, nor a pawl from a whelp, but there they are – at the weather end of the quarterdeck, with Jack Crowle eating their wind.'

'Listen, Mr Crowle,' said Zachary slowly, 'if you think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, let me tell you, you're half a clock off course.'

'Oh, I know y'for what y'are Mannikin,' the first mate growled. 'Ye're a snob's cat, full o'piss and tantrums. I'se seen the likes o'yer before with yer pretty face and yer purser's grins. I know y'mean nothing but trouble, for y'self and fer me. Best y'get off this barkey while y'can: save me as much pain as yer goin'ter save y'self.'

'I'm just here to do a job, Mr Crowle,' said Zachary stonily. 'And nothing's going to stop me doing it.'

The first mate shook his head: 'Too soon to tell Mannikin. It's a couple of days yet afore we weigh. Time enough that something could happen to help yer change yer mind.

For the sake of preserving the peace, Zachary bit back the rejoinder that sprang to his tongue and ate the rest of his dinner in silence. But the effort of keeping himself under control left his hands shaking, his mouth dry, and afterwards, to calm himself, he took a couple of turns around the main deck. Bursts of animated conversation were welling out of the fo'c'sle and the galley, where the lascars were eating their evening meal. He stepped up to the fo'c'sle deck, leant his elbows on the saddle of the jib-boom, and looked down at the water: there were many lights flickering on the river, some hanging from the sterns and binnacles of moored ships, and some lighting the way for the flotilla of boats and dinghies that were weaving between the cables of the ocean-going fleet. One of these rowboats was pulling towards the Ibis with a number of drunken voices echoing out of it. Zachary recognized the boat as Jodu's, and a twinge shot up his spine as he remembered the night when he'd sat in it, arguing with Paulette.

Turning away, Zachary peered into the looming darkness upriver: he knew that Paulette was in a village somewhere north of Calcutta – he had been alarmed to hear from Jodu that she had been ill and was being looked after by friends. When the boat pulled up beside the schooner, he was powerfully tempted to jump into it and row off, to go looking for her. The impulse was so strong that he might have obeyed it, if not for one thing: it stuck in his craw that Mr Crowle would imagine that he had succeeded in running him off the Ibis.

Fifteen

With the rains over, the sunlight turned crisp and golden. The dry weather speeded Paulette's recovery and she decided to leave for Calcutta, to put in motion the plan that had been gestating in her mind through her illness.

The first step required a private meeting with Nob Kissin Baboo and she gave the matter much thought before setting off. Burnham Bros.'s main offices were on Calcutta's fashionable Strand Road, but the firm's dockside premises were in a dingy corner of Kidderpore, a half-hour's boat ride away: this distance Baboo Nob Kissin Pander was required to traverse almost daily, in the discharge of his duties, and being of a thrifty turn of mind, he chose usually to travel on the crowded kheya-boats that transported people up and down the waterfront.

The Burnham compound in Kidderpore was a large one, consisting of several godowns and bankshalls. The shed that served as the gomusta's private daftar lay in one corner of the compound, adjoining a lane. When prospective clients wished to avail themselves privately of Baboo Nob Kissin's services as a bespoke moneylender, it was there, Paulette knew, that they went to meet with him. This, for instance, was what her father had done – but for herself, in her current situation, the risks attendant upon venturing into a property owned by her former benefactor were too great to make this a comfortable option; she decided instead to waylay the gomusta as he stepped off his ferry, at the nearby ghat.

The ghat in question – known as Bhutghat – proved to be ideal for her purposes: it was narrow enough to be kept easily under watch, and sufficiently busy for a lone woman to loiter without attracting attention. Better still, it was overlooked by an ancient tree, growing on a knoll: the tree was a banyan and its hanging roots formed a beard so dense as to offer easy concealment. Slipping inside this tangled thicket Paulette came upon a root that had looped down in such a way as to form a swinging bench. Here she seated herself, rocking gently, and watched the ghat through a gap in the carefully draped folds of cloth that covered her face.

Her vigil almost came to naught, for the gomusta was so changed, with his long, shoulder-length hair, that he was nearly gone before she recognized him: even the way he walked seemed different, with smaller steps and swaying hips, so she took the precaution of following for a minute or two before she accosted him with a sibilant whisper: Gomusta-babu… shunun… listen…

He spun around in alarm, looking from the river's edge to the nearby lane. Although Paulette was well within the ambit of his gaze, his eyes, which were lined with a thin touch of kajal, passed without check over her sari-shrouded face.

Paulette hissed again, but in English this time: 'Baboo Nob Kissin… it's me…'

This surprised him even more but brought him no closer to recognizing her; on the contrary he began to mutter prayers, as if to ward off a ghost: Hé Radhé, hé Shyam…

'Nob Kissin Baboo! It is me, Paulette Lambert,' she whispered. 'I am here, look!' When his bulging eyes had turned in her direction, she whisked her sari momentarily off her face. 'You see? It is me!'

The sight of her made him leap backwards in shock, so that he landed heavily on the toes of several passers-by – but the drizzle of abuse that rained down on him went unheeded for his attention was transfixed on Paulette's sari-shrouded face. 'Miss Lambert? Why, I cannot believe! You have turned up in my backside? And wearing native garbs also. So nicely you have hidden your face I could not tell…'

'Shh!' Paulette pleaded. 'I pray you, Baboo Nob Kissin, please abase your voice.'

The gomusta switched to a piercing whisper. 'But Miss, what you are doing in this nook-and-cranny, kindly can you inform? We all are searching you left and right, to no avail. But never mind – Master will rejoice like anything. Let us return back right now-itself.'

'No, Baboo Nob Kissin,' said Paulette. 'It is not my intention to go to Bethel. I searched you out for it is with you I must most press-ingly speak. May I pray you to spare a little time to sit with me? If it will not too much derange you?'

'Sit?' The gomusta directed a disapproving frown at the mudsplattered, refuse-strewn steps of the ghat. 'But this locality is sorely lacking in furnitures. How to sit? Our saris – I mean, our clothings may become soiled.'

'Do not fear, Baboo Nob Kissin,' said Paulette, pointing to the knoll. 'Up on that monticule we can put ourselves in the shelter of the tree. Personne will see us, I assure you.'

The gomusta eyed the tree with some concern: of late he had developed a housewifely aversion to all creatures that crept and crawled and was at pains to stay away from anything that might harbour these forms of life. But today his curiosity prevailed over his distrust of greenery: 'Very well,' he said reluctantly. 'I shall comply your demands. Let us put our foot in it.'

With Paulette in the lead, they climbed up the slope and made their way into the thicket of tangled roots; although Baboo Nob Kissin's pace was slow, he made no complaint until Paulette ushered him towards the swinging root that had served as her seat. Having inspected this gnarled offshoot, he made a dismissive gesture. 'This place is not apt for sitting,' he announced. 'Insects are indulging in all type of activities. Ferocious caterpillars may also be there.'

'But caterpillars do not habitate on the roots of such trees,' said Paulette. 'It is safe to sit, I assure you.'

'Kindly do not persist,' said Baboo Nob Kissin. 'I prefer to opt out for foot-standing.' Thus having spoken, he crossed his arms over his bosom and positioned himself so that no part of his clothing or person was in contact with any kind of foliage.

'As you please, Baboo Nob Kissin,' said Paulette. 'I do not wish to impose…'

She was interrupted by the gomusta, who could no longer restrain his curiosity. 'But so tell, no? Where you have been putting up all this time? Which side you went?'

'It is not important, Baboo Nob Kissin.'

'I see,' said the gomusta, narrowing his eyes. 'So then must be true what everyone is telling.'

'And what is that?'

'I do not like to wash dirty linens, Miss Lambert,' said the gomusta, 'but actually, all are saying that you have indulged in unproper behaviours and are now expecting. That is why you have absconded.'

'Expecting?' said Paulette. 'Expecting what?'

'Infructuous issue. You only told to Mrs Burnham, no, that native-bread is cooking in the coal-oven?'

Paulette went bright red and clapped her hands to her cheeks. 'Baboo Nob Kissin!' she said. 'I have indulged in nothing and am expecting nothing. You must believe me: I left Bethel of my own will; it was my decision to escape.'

The gomusta leant closer. 'You can freely admit – with me, formalities need not be there. Chastity is highly depleted, no? Maiden's-head has also been punctured, isn't it?'

'Not at all, Nob Kissin Baboo,' said Paulette indignantly. 'I do not know how you can imagine such things.'

The gomusta mulled this over for a moment and then leant furtively forward, as if to give voice to a thought that he could scarcely bring himself to articulate: 'So tell then: is it because of Master you are absconding?'

Paulette slipped her ghungta down so as to bare her eyes, and looked him full in the face. 'Maybe.'

'Oh my, my!' said the gomusta, passing his tongue over his lips. 'Must be then hanky-pankies were taking place?'

It was clear to Paulette that a desire to learn of his employer's private compulsions was smouldering brightly in the gomusta's head: what use he would make of this knowledge she could not tell, but she understood that his curiosity might well be turned to her advantage. 'I cannot say any more, Nob Kissin Baboo. Not unless…'

'Yes. Kindly proceed.'

'Not unless you are able to provide me with a little morceau of help.'

Ever alert to the hint of a bargain, the Baboo was suddenly watchful. 'And what morsel of assistance is required? Please to spell it out.'

Paulette gave him a long, steady look. 'Baboo Nob Kissin,' she said. 'Do you recall why my father came to see you? And when?'

'Just before departure for heavenly abode, no?' said the gomusta. 'How I could forget, Miss Lambert? You think I am a ninnyhammer? What is said with dying breaths cannot be lightly disposed off.'

'You recall that he wanted to procure me a passage to the Mauritius?'

'Naturally,' said Baboo Nob Kissin. 'This item I only conveyed, no?'

Paulette's right fist crept slowly out of her sari. 'And you told him, did you not, that you could do it in exchange for this?' Opening her palm she thrust towards him the locket he had handed to her a few weeks before.

Baboo Nob Kissin glanced briefly at her palm. 'What you are intimating is correct. But what is the relevance I do not see.'

Paulette took a deep breath. 'Baboo Nob Kissin – I propose to hold you to your words. In exchange for this locket I wish to obtain a passage on the Ibis.'

'Ibis!' Baboo Nob Kissin's mouth dropped open. 'You are mad or what? How you shall go on Ibis? Only coolies and quoddies may be accommodated on said vessel. Passenger traffic is not existing.'

'That matters nothing to me,' said Paulette. 'If I could join the labourers I would be content. It is you who is in charge of them, are you not? No one will be advised of it if you add another name.'

'Miss Lambert,' said the gomusta frostily. 'I daresays you are trying to pull out my legs. How you could forward such a proposal I cannot realize. At once you must scrap it off.'

'But Baboo Nob Kissin,' Paulette beseeched him, 'tell me: what difference will arrive to you if you add one more name to the list? You are the gomusta and there are so many labourers. One more will not be remarked. And as you can see, you yourself would not have recognized me in this sari. No one will learn of my identity: you need have no fear, I assure you, and in return you will have the locket.'

'No, by Jupiter!' Baboo Nob Kissin shook his head so violently that his huge ears flapped like wind-blown ferns. 'Do you know what Master shall do if this scheme is exposed and I am spotted out as the culprit? He shall break my head. And Captain Chillingworth is too much colour-conscious. If he finds I have consigned one memsahib as coolie, he will strangulate and make into tiffin for sharks. Baba-re… no, no, no…'

Spinning around, the gomusta went crashing through the curtain of hanging roots. His voice carried back to Paulette as his steps receded: '… No, no, this scheme will lead only to a big-big mischief. Must immediately be scotched…'

'Oh please, Baboo Nob Kissin…'

Paulette had invested all her hopes in this meeting and her lips began to tremble now as she contemplated the failure of her plan. Just as the tears were beginning to trickle from her eyes, she heard Baboo Nob Kissin's heavy tread coming back through the thicket. There he was again, standing before her, sheepishly twisting the fringe of his dhoti.

'But listen, one thing,' he said. 'You have overlooked to inform about the escapade with Master…'

Under the cover of her ghungta, Paulette quickly dabbed her eyes and hardened her voice. 'You will learn nothing from me, Baboo Nob Kissin,' she said. 'Since you have offered me no assistance nor any recourse.'

She heard him swallow and looked up to see his Adam's apple bobbing pensively in his throat. 'Might be, one recourse is there,' he muttered at last. 'But it is endowed with many pitfalls and loopholes. Implementation will be extremely difficult.'

'Never mind, Nob Kissin Baboo,' said Paulette eagerly. 'Tell me, what is your idee? How can it be done?'

Through the season of festivities, the city resounded with celebrations, which made the silence within the camp all the more difficult to bear. When Diwali came, the migrants marked it by lighting a few lamps, but there was little cheer in the depot. There was still no word of when they would leave and every new day sent a fresh storm of rumours blowing through the camp. There were times when it seemed that Deeti and Kalua were the only people there who believed that a ship really would come to take them away; there were many who began to say, no, it was all a lie, that the depot was just a kind of jail where they had been sent to die; that their corpses would be turned into skulls and skeletons, so that they could be cut up and fed to the sahibs' dogs, or used as bait for fish. Often these rumours were started by the spectators and camp-followers who lurked perpetually outside the fence – vendors, vagrants, urchins, and others in whom the sight of the girmitiyas inflamed an inexhaustible curiosity: they would stand around for hours, watching, pointing, staring, as if at animals in a cage. Sometimes they would bait the migrants: Why don't you try to escape? Come, we'll help you run away; don't you see they're waiting for you to die so they can sell your bodies?

But when a migrant did run off, it was those very spectators who brought him back. The first to try was a grizzled, middle-aged man from Ara, a little weak in the head, and he had no sooner broken through the fence than they caught hold of him, tied his hands and dragged him back to the duffadar: they received a nice little reward for their pains. The would-be escapee was beaten and made to go without food for two days.

The climate of the city – hot, humid and damp – made things worse, for many people fell ill. Some recovered, but others seemed to want to sicken and fade away, so disheartened were they by the waiting, the rumours, and the disquieting feeling of being held captive. One night a boy became delirious: although very young, he had long, ash-smeared locks, like a mendicant's; people said he had been kidnapped and sold off by a sadhu. When the fever took hold of him, his body became scalding hot, and horrible sounds and imprecations began to pour from his mouth. Kalua and some of the other menfolk tried to fetch help, but the sirdars and maistries were drinking toddy and would pay no attention. Before daybreak there was a final outbreak of shouts and curses, and then the boy's body went cold. His death seemed to arouse much more interest among the overseers than his illness had done: they were unaccustomedly prompt in arranging to have the corpse carried away – for cremation, they said, at the nearby burning ghats – but who could know for sure? None of the girmitiyas was allowed to leave the depot to see what happened, so no one could say anything to the contrary when a vendor whispered through the fence that the boy had not been cremated at all: a hole had been bored in his skull and his corpse had been hung up by the heels, to extract the oil – the mimiái-ka-tel – from his brain.

To counter the rumours and ill auguries, the migrants spoke often of the devotions they would perform the day before their departure: they talked of pujas and namazes, of recitations of the Qur'an and the Ramcharitmanas and the Alha-Khand. When they spoke of these rituals, it was in eager tones, as though the occasion was much to be looked forward to – but this was only because the dread inspired by the prospect of departure was so profound as to be inexpressible, the kind of feeling that made you want to squat in a corner, hugging your knees and muttering aloud, so that your ears would not be able to hear the voices in your head. It was easier to speak of the details of rituals, and to plan them minutely, comparing them all the while with the pujas and namazes and recitations of the past.

When the day finally came, it was not as they had envisioned: the only augury of their departure consisted of the sudden arrival at the camp of the gomusta, Nob Kissin Baboo. He hurried into the overseers' hut and was closeted with them for a while; afterwards, the sirdars and maistries gathered everyone together and then Ramsaran-ji, the duffadar, announced that the time had come for him to take his leave of them: from here on, until they reached Mareech and were each allotted to a plantation, they would be in the custody of a different set of guards, overseers and supervisors. This team had boarded their ship already and had made sure that the vessel was ready to receive them: they themselves would be boarded tomorrow. He ended by wishing them sukh-shánti, peace and happiness, in their new home and said he would pray to the Lord of Crossings to keep them safe: Jai Hanumán gyán gun ságar…

In Alipore Jail the season of festivals had been celebrated with no little fanfare: Diwali, in particular, was an occasion for the jemadars and their gangs to compete in a fiery display and many of the jail's inner courtyards had been lit up with lamps and improvised sparklers. The noise, food and festivity had had a perverse effect on Neel, causing a sudden collapse in the resolve that had sustained him thus far. On the night of Diwali, when the courtyard was ablaze with light, he had trouble rising from his charpoy and could not bring himself to step beyond the bars: his thoughts were only of his son, of the fireworks of years past, and the dimness, silence and denial that would be the boy's lot this season.

Over the next few days Neel's spirits sank lower and lower, so that when Bishu-ji came to announce that the date of their departure had been fixed, he responded with bewilderment: Where are they taking us?

To Mareech. Have you forgotten?

Neel rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm. And when is that to be?

Tomorrow. The ship is ready.

Tomorrow?

Yes. They'll come for you early. Be ready. And tell Aafat too.

That was all: having said what he had to, Bishu-ji turned on his heel and walked away. Neel was about to slump back into his charpoy when he noticed his cell-mate's eyes resting on him, as if to ask a question. Many days had passed since Neel had last performed the ritual of asking for his cell-mate's name, but now he stirred himself to say, in gruff English: 'We're leaving tomorrow. The ship is ready. They'll come for us in the morning.' Apart from a slight widening of the eyes, there was no response, so Neel shrugged and turned over on his charpoy.

With departure looming, the images and memories Neel had tried to bar from his mind came flooding back: of Elokeshi, of his home, of his husband-less wife and fatherless child. When he dozed off, it was only to be visited by a nightmare, in which he saw himself as a castaway on the dark void of the ocean, utterly alone, severed from every human mooring. Feeling himself to be drowning, he began to toss his arms, trying to reach towards the light.

He woke to find himself sitting up, in the darkness. Gradually he became aware that there was an arm around his shoulder, holding him steady, as if in consolation: in this embrace there was more intimacy than he had ever known before, even with Elokeshi, and when a voice sounded in his ear, it was as if it were coming from within himself: 'My name Lei Leong Fatt,' it said. 'People call Ah Fatt. Ah Fatt your friend.' Those faltering, childlike words offered more comfort than was in all the poetry Neel had ever read, and more novelty too, because he had never before heard them said – and if he had, they would only have been wasted before, because he would not have been able to value them for their worth.

It was no human agency but rather a quirk of the tides that was responsible for fixing the date of the Ibis's departure. That year, as in many others, Diwali fell close to the autumn equinox. This would have had little bearing on the sailing of the Ibis if not for one of the more dangerous oddities of the waterways of Bengal: namely the bán, or bore – a tidal phenomenon that sends walls of water hurtling upriver from the coast. Bores are never more hazardous than in the periods around Holi and Diwali, when the seasons turn upon an equinoctial hinge: at those times, rising to formidable heights and travelling at great speed, the waves can pose a serious threat to the river's traffic. It was one such wave that determined when the Ibis would weigh anchor: the announcement of the hazard having been made well in time, it was decided that the schooner would ride the bore out at her moorings. Her passengers would come on board the day after.

On the river, the day began with a warning from the harbourmaster that the bore was expected around sunset. From then on, the riverfront was a-buzz with preparations: fishermen worked together to carry dinghies, pansaris and even the lighter paunchways out of the water and up the embankments, taking them beyond the river's reach. Patelis, budgerows, batelos and other river craft that were too heavy to be lifted from the water were spaced out at safe intervals, while brigs, brigantines, schooners and other ocean-going vessels struck their royal and t'gallant yards, and unbent their sails.

During his stay in Calcutta, Zachary had twice joined the crowds that gathered on the river's banks to watch the passing of the bore: he had learnt to listen for the distant murmur that heralded the wave's approach; he had watched the water rising suddenly into a great, roaring head that was topped by a foaming white mane; he had turned to see the bore go by, on its coiled and tawny haunches, racing upstream as if in pursuit of some elusive prey. He too, like the urchins along the shore, had cheered and shouted, without quite knowing why, and afterwards, like everyone else, he had felt a little twinge of embarrassment at all the excitement – because it took no more than a few minutes for the water to resume its normal flow and for the day to return to the even tenor of its ordinariness.

Although no stranger to these waves, Zachary had no shipboard experience of them, having only watched them from shore. Mr Crowle, on the other hand, was well-practised in dealing with bores and macareos, having ridden out many such, on the Irrawaddy as well as the Hooghly. The Captain put him in charge of the preparations and stayed below, letting it be known that he would not come on deck until later in the day. But as it happened, about an hour before the bore was expected, a message was received from Mr Burnham, summoning the Captain to the city on some urgent last-minute business.

As a rule, when the Captain had to be ferried ashore, it was a tindal or seacunny who rowed him over in the ship's gig – a small but handy little rowboat that was kept permanently tethered to the stern while the schooner was in port. But today the Ibis was shorthanded because many of the lashkar were still ashore, either recovering from their pre-departure excesses or making preparations for the long absence ahead. With every available hand occupied in snugging the ship down, Zachary went to Mr Crowle and offered to row the Captain's gig himself.

The offer was made on an impulse, without any forethought, and Zachary regretted it the moment it was out of his lips – for Mr Crowle took a while to chew over it, and his face darkened as he tried the taste of his conclusions.

'So what'd you think, Mr Crowle?'

'What do I think? I'll tell y'Mannikin: I don't think the skipper needs to be jibbering the kibber with yer. If he has to be rowed, then it's best I be the one to do it.'

Zachary shifted his weight uncomfortably. 'Sure. Suit yourself, Mr Crowle. Was just tryin to help.'

'Help? It's no help to anyone to have yer pitching the gammon to the skipper. Ye'll stay where ye're needed and look sharp about it too.'

This exchange was beginning to attract attention from the lascars, so Zachary brought it to an end: 'Yes, Mr Crowle. As you please.'

The first mate went off in the gig, with the Captain, while Zachary stayed on board, to oversee the lascars who were unbending the topgallants and royals. By the time the mate returned, the sky was beginning to turn colour and spectators were gathering along the embankments, to wait for the bore.

'Take y'self aft, Reid,' the first mate growled as he came aboard. 'Don't need yer swilkering about for'ard.'

Zachary shrugged this off and went aft, to the wheelhouse. The sun had set now and the fishermen onshore were hurrying to secure their upturned boats. Zachary was looking downstream, watching for the first signs of the wave, when Steward Pinto came running to the stern. 'Burra Malum calling Chhota Malum.'

'What for?'

'Problem with langar-boya.'

Zachary hurried forward to find the first mate standing between the bows, squinting at the water ahead. 'Something amiss, Mr Crowle?'

'You tell me, Reid,' said the first mate. 'What do y'see over there?'

Shading his eyes, Zachary saw that Mr Crowle was pointing to a cable that linked the schooner's bow to the underside of a buoy, some fifty feet ahead. Having been on board during the initial berthing of the Ibis, Zachary knew that the Hooghly 's bore entailed special procedures for the mooring of ocean-going sailing ships: they were usually berthed far out in the river's stream, where, instead of dropping their anchors, they were tethered between buoys anchored deep in the river's muddy bed. The holdfasts to which the ship's cables were attached lay on the underside of the buoys, beneath the water's surface, and could only be accessed by divers who were accustomed to the near-blind conditions of the muddy river. It was one such mooring-cable that had attracted Mr Crowle's attention – but Zachary was at a loss to see why, for there was not much to be seen of the rope, which disappeared underwater halfway to the buoy.

'Don't see nothing wrong, Mr Crowle.'

'Don't you now?'

There was just enough light to get another look: 'Sure don't.'

Mr Crowle's index finger rose to pick a morsel from his teeth. 'Don't say much for yer know, Mannikin. What if I told you the cable's a-foul of the buoy's anchor-chain?' He raised an eyebrow as he examined his fingernail. 'Didn't think o'that, did ye now?'

Zachary had to acknowledge the truth of this. 'No, Mr Crowle. I didn't.'

'Care to go out in the gig and take a look?'

Zachary paused, trying to reckon whether he would have time enough to get to the buoy and back before the wave came bearing down. It was hard to judge because of the current, which was flowing so swiftly as to carve deep fissures on the river's surface.

As if to preclude his doubts, the first mate said: 'Not a nidget are ye, Reid?'

'No, Mr Crowle,' Zachary said promptly. 'I'll go if you think it's necessary.'

'Stubble yer whids then, and heave on.'

If he was to do it, Zachary knew he would have to be quick. He went aft at a run, heading for the stern where the gig was still tethered – pulling it out of the water was to have been the last item in the preparations for the bore. Looking at it now, Zachary decided that it would take too long to draw the boat around to the side-ladder: better, if trickier, to vault over the stern-rail. He was tugging on the boat's painter when Serang Ali stepped out of the wheel-house to whisper: 'Malum 'ware: gig-bot broken.'

'What…?'

Zachary's question was cut short by the first mate, who had followed him aft: 'What's this now? Fraid o' wettin yer feet, Mannikin?'

Without another word, Zachary handed the gig's painter to Serang Ali who looped it around a stanchion and pulled it taut. Climbing over the stern-rail, Zachary took hold of the rope and lowered himself into the gig, signalling to Serang Ali to set the boat loose. Almost at once the current took hold of the little craft and pulled it along the length of the schooner, propelling it towards midstream.

The gig's oars were on the floorboards and on reaching for them, Zachary was surprised to find that there was a good inch or so of water sloshing around the bottom. He thought nothing of it, for the boat's sides were so low that waves often lapped over them, even when the craft was stationary. When he began to row, the gig responded well enough until he was some twenty feet past the schooner's bow. He noticed then that the water in the boat's bottom had risen past his ankles and was creeping up his calves. He had, so far, concentrated his attention on the buoy, so he was taken aback when he looked over the gig's side – for only an inch or two remained between the gunwale and the fast-flowing river. It was as if holes had been drilled into the gig's hull, with great care, so as not to open up fully until the boat was under oar.

He pushed his shoulders hard against the oars now, trying to turn the gig about, but the stern was wallowing so deep in the water that the bows would not respond. The buoy was only some twenty feet ahead, clearly visible even in the rapidly dimming light, but the current was sweeping the boat wide of its mark, towards the middle of the river. The schooner's cable was tantalizingly close and Zachary knew that if he could but reach it, he would be able to pull himself to safety. But the gap was widening quickly, and although he was a strong swimmer, Zachary guessed that it would not be easy to get to the cable before the wave swept in, not with the current flowing against him. Clearly, his best hope lay in being picked up by another boat – but the Hooghly, usually so tightly packed with river craft, was ominously empty. He looked towards the Ibis and saw that Serang Ali knew he was in trouble. The lascars were labouring to lower the starboard longboat – but there was nothing to be hoped for here, for the process could take as much as fifteen minutes. Glancing shore-wards, he saw that he was being observed by a great number of spectators – fishermen, boatmen and others – all of whom were watching with helpless concern. The sound of the approaching bore was clearly audible now, loud enough to leave no doubt that anyone who ventured into the water would do so at the risk of his life.

This much was clear: it wouldn't do to remain in the foundering gig. Using his toes and heels, Zachary worked his sodden shoes off his feet and tore off his canvas shirt. Just as he was about to jump, he saw a boat sliding down the mudbank: the slim, long craft hit the water with such force that its momentum carried it halfway to Zachary.

The sight of the boat lent Zachary's arms a burst of strength, and he did not pause for breath until he heard a voice, shouting: 'Zikri Malum!' He raised his head from the water and looked up to see a hand reaching towards him; looming behind it was Jodu's face; he was stabbing a finger to point downriver, where the sound of the wave had risen to a rumble. Zachary didn't stop to listen; snatching at Jodu's hand, he tumbled into the boat. Pulling him upright, Jodu thrust an oar into his hands and pointed to the buoy ahead: the wave was too close now to think of rowing back to shore.

As he dug his oar into the water, Zachary threw a glance over his shoulder: the wave was streaking towards them and its foaming crest was a blur of white. He turned away, rowing furiously, and did not look back again till they had drawn level with the buoy. Behind them, the bore was rearing out of the water at an impossible angle, as if springing into a leap.

'Zikri Malum!' Jodu had already leapt on the buoy and was knotting the boat's rope to the hooped holdfast on its crown. He gestured to Zachary to leap too, extending a hand to steady him as he stepped on the slippery, algae-covered surface.

Now, with the wave almost upon them, Zachary threw himself flat, beside Jodu. There was just enough time to pass a rope around their bodies and loop it through the holdfast. Linking one arm with Jodu's, Zachary hooked the other through the iron hoop and sucked a huge draught of air into his lungs.

Suddenly everything went quiet and the wave's deafening sound was transformed into an immense, crushing weight, flattening them against the buoy, holding them down so hard that Zachary could feel the barnacles on its surface slicing into his chest. The heavy float strained against its cable, spinning around and around as the water swept past. Then suddenly, like a windswept kite, it changed direction and shot upwards, with a momentum that lifted it out of the water with a skip and a bounce. Zachary shut his eyes and let his head fall against the metal.

When his breath returned, he extended his hand to Jodu. 'Thank you, my friend.'

Jodu flashed him a grin and grasped his hand with a slap: eyebrows dancing wildly in his face, he said, 'Cheerily there! Alzbel!'

'Sure,' said Zachary with a laugh. 'Alzbel that's end's well.'

Miraculously Jodu's boat had survived unscathed and he was able to row Zachary back to the Ibis before going off to return the hired craft to its owner.

Zachary hauled himself aboard the schooner to find the first mate waiting, with his arms crossed over his chest. 'Had enough, Reid? Changed yer mind yet? Still time to turn around and get y'self ashore.'

Zachary glanced down at his dripping clothes. 'Look at me, Mr Crowle,' he said. 'I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere the Ibis isn't going.'