M.JOSHUA VAN DAEL.
M.Joshua Van Dael a Dutch merchant, and correspondent of M.Rodin, was born at Batavia, the capital of the island of Java; his parents had sent him to be educated at Pondicherry, in a celebrated religious house, long established in that place, and belonging to the "Society of Jesus." It was there that he was initiated into the order as "professor of the three vows," or lay member, commonly called "temporal coadjutor."
Joshua was a man of probity that passed for stainless; of strict accuracy in business, cold, careful, reserved, and remarkably skillful and sagacious; his financial operations were almost always successful, for a protecting power gave him ever in time, knowledge of events which might advantageously influence his commercial transactions.The religious house of Pondicherry was interested in his affairs, having charged him with the exportation and exchange of the produce of its large possessions in this colony.
Speaking little, hearing much, never disputing, polite in the extreme--
giving seldom, but with choice and purpose--Joshua, without inspiring sympathy, commanded generally that cold respect, which is always paid to the rigid moralist; for instead of yielding to the influence of lax and dissolute colonial manners, he appeared to live with great regularity, and his exterior had something of austerity about it, which tended to overawe.
The following scene took place at Batavia, while Djalma was on his way to the ruins of Tchandi in the hope of meeting General Simon.
M.Joshua had just retired into his cabinet, in which were many shelves filled with paper boxes, and huge ledgers and cash boxes lying open upon desks.The only window of this apartment, which was on the ground floor, looked out upon a narrow empty court, and was protected externally by strong iron bars; instead of glass, it was fitted with a Venetian blind, because of the extreme heat of the climate.
M.Joshua, having placed upon his desk a taper in a glass globe, looked at the clock."Half-past nine," said he."Mahal ought soon to be here."
Saying this, he went out, passing through an antechamber, opened a second thick door, studded with nail-heads, in the Dutch fashion, cautiously entered the court (so as not to be heard by the people in the house), and drew back the secret bolt of a gate six feet high, formidably garnished with iron spikes.Leaving this gate unfastened, he regained his cabinet, after he had successively and carefully closed the two other doors behind him.
M.Joshua next seated himself at his desk, and took from a drawer a long letter, or rather statement, commenced some time before, and continued day by day.It is superfluous to observe, that the letter already mentioned, as addressed to M.Rodin, was anterior to the liberation of Djalma and his arrival at Batavia.
The present statement was also addressed to M.Rodin, and Van Dael thus went on with it:
"Fearing the return of General Simon, of which I had been informed by intercepting his letters--I have already told you, that I had succeeded in being employed by him as his agent here; having then read his letters, and sent them on as if untouched to Djalma, I felt myself obliged, from the pressure of the circumstances, to have recourse to extreme measures--
taking care always to preserve appearances, and rendering at the same time a signal service to humanity, which last reason chiefly decided me.
"A new danger imperiously commanded these measures.The steamship `Ruyter' came in yesterday, and sails tomorrow in the course of the day.
She is to make the voyage to Europe via the Arabian Gulf; her passengers will disembark at Suez, cross the Isthmus, and go on board another vessel at Alexandria, which will bring them to France.This voyage, as rapid as it is direct, will not take more than seven or eight weeks.We are now at the end of October; Prince Djalma might then be in France by the commencement of the month of January; and according to your instructions, of which I know not the motive, but which I execute with zeal and submission, his departure must be prevented at all hazards, because, you tell me, some of the gravest interests of the Society would be compromised, by the arrival of this young Indian in Paris before the 13th of February.Now, if I succeed, as I hope, in ****** him miss this opportunity of the `Ruyter' it will be materially impossible for him to arrive in France before the month of April; for the `Ruyter' is the only vessel which makes the direct passage, the others taking at least four or five months to reach Europe.
"Before telling you the means which I have thought right to employ, to detain Prince Djalma--of the success of which means I am yet uncertain--
it is well that you should be acquainted with the following facts.
"They have just discovered, in British India, a community whose members call themselves `Brothers of the Good Work,' or `Phansegars,' which signifies simply `Thugs' or 'Stranglers;' these murderers do not shed blood, but strangle their victims, less for the purpose of robbing them, than in obedience to a homicidal vocation, and to the laws of an infernal divinity named by them `Bowanee.'
"I cannot better give you an idea of this horrible sect, than by transcribing here some lines from the introduction of a report by Colonel Sleeman, who has hunted out this dark association with indefatigable zeal.The report in question was published about two months ago.Here is the extract; it is the colonel who speaks: