Your father was well, then. The governor was a good fellow,
and we had nothing much to complain of. Mr. Holland was a favourite of
his, for, being a sailor, he was handy at all sorts of things. He
could mend a piece of broken furniture, repair the lock of a musket,
and make himself generally useful. He left there before I did, as the
governor was transferred to some other fort--I never heard where it
was--and he took your father with him. I don't know whether he had
Tippoo's orders to do so, or whether he took him simply because he
liked him.
"At any rate, he was the only prisoner who went with him. The rest of
us remained there till a few months back, when the fort was abandoned.
It was just after the capture of Bangalore, and the place could have
offered no resistance, if a body of troops had been sent against it.
At any rate, an order arrived one morning, and a few hours afterwards
the place was entirely abandoned, and we and the garrison marched
here."
"My father was quite well?"
"Quite well. He used to talk to me, at times, of trying to make his
escape. Being a sailor, I have no doubt that he could have got down
from the precipice on which the fort stood; but he knew that, if he
did so, we should all suffer for it, and probably be all put to death,
as soon as Tippoo heard that one of us had escaped--for that was
always done, in order to deter prisoners from trying to get away.
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