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For want of his evidence I lost my case, and having thus achieved one part of their object to pay me off, they let my moonshee go, after insult and abuse, and with threats of future vengeance should he ever dare to thwart or oppose them. This was pretty 'hot' you think, but it was not all.
The elder boys addressed us in very good English, and were, the moonshee told us, well acquainted with the Guzerattee and Mahratta languages; he had also bestowed an education upon his daughters, who were taught to read in the vernacular.
The Arabic alphabet is used in writing Persian, with three or four extra letters added to express sounds which do not exist in Arabic; it is, of course, written from right to left. I had an hour and a half's daily lesson in Urdu from an efficient, if immensely pompous, Moonshee, but I never attempted to learn to read or write the Persian characters.
I had wished to possess myself of something as a remembrance of this fair, but as the old moonshee was the only individual amongst us who carried any money about him, I did not like him to become my banker on this occasion, lest he should not permit me to pay him again, and I should by this means add to the disbursements already made upon our account.
"The particulars," he goes on to say, "of the paper No. 1 were read to me from a Bengal paper by Mr. Hastings's banian, Cantoo Baboo; and if I am not mistaken, the three first lines of that No. 2 were read over to me from a Persian paper by his moonshee.
To the "Moonshee," and to the rubicund veteran Simpson, the departing Andrew Fraser said solemnly, "The Prince is to be the master here until my return." With a joyous heart the London sewing girl embarked as Miss Johnstone's one personal attendant, forgetful of her devoted lover, Joseph Smith, who had temporarily disappeared, gone over to France "on business."
When No. 2 was to be explained, Cantoo Baboo failed him; he was not worth a farthing as to any transaction that happened when Mr. Hastings was in the Upper Provinces, where though he was his faithful and constant attendant through the whole, yet he could give no account of it. Mr. Hastings's moonshee then reads three lines from a paper to Mr. Larkins.
"It is useless to talk about that," Lisle said. "I have told you I mean to go up, and go up I will. There ought to be no difficulty about it. I speak three or four of these frontier languages, as well as I speak English. I have at least learnt that. I have picked them up by talking to the natives, and partly from the moonshee I have had, for four years.
He led his captive by the trebled bell cord passed with double hitches around the burglar's pinioned arms, and the Moonshee now leaped back ready to take a man's part for he easily divined the treachery. Out into the wild night they hurried, leaving behind them the barricaded "Banker's Folly," now gleaming with lights.
That it was expected to be the resort of English guests was apparent, from an inscription painted in white letters, rather askew, upon a black board, to the following effect: "Tea, Coffee, and Pastry-House." We were invited to enter this splendid establishment by the moonshee, who had evidently ordered a refection to be prepared for the occasion.
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