``Your old acquaintance,
Mr Tresham, or Mr Middlemas, or whatever else
he chooses to be called, has been complimented by
a report, that he stood very high in the good graces
of this same Boadicea. He certainly commanded
some troops which she still keeps on foot, and
acted at their head in the Nawaub's service, who
craftily employed him in whatever could render
him odious to his countrymen. The British prisoners
were intrusted to his charge, and, to judge
by what I felt myself, the devil might take a lesson
from him in severity.''
``And was he attached to, or connected with,
this woman?''
``So Mrs Rumour told us in our dungeon. Poor
Jack Ward had the bastinado for celebrating their
merits in a parody on the playhouse song,
`Sure such a pair were never seen,
So aptly formed to meet by nature.' ''
Hartley could listen no longer. The fate of
Menie Gray, connected with such a man and such
a woman, rushed on his fancy in the most horrid
colours, and he was struggling through the throng
to get to some place where he might collect his
ideas, and consider what could be done for her protection,
when a black attendant touched his arm,
and at the same time slipt a card into his hand.
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