The Mountain of Light by Indu Sundaresan

Author:Indu Sundaresan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Washington Square Press

An Alexandria Moon

April, 1850

Four years later

The whole third page of the Bombay Herald, almost all of it actually, was taken up with the advertisement by Dossabhoy Merwanjee and Co., addresses at 6, Parsee Bazaar Street, in Bombay. They were “American” importers, purveyors of all things American, from the basest—kerosene oil, navy stores, ropes, canvas, lumber—to the finest—tobacco, bar soaps, Waltham watches, and Dr. Townsend’s famed and celebrated sarsaparilla, a tonic for the purification of the blood and for curing dullness or lassitude.

Having had his weekly paper all laid out—and to accommodate this relatively late-breaking story—Mr. Wingate, the publisher, cut out a small corner at the bottom right of the full-page advertisement and inserted the story there. It looked odd enough that people noticed it, and consequently the advertisement. And Mr. Dossabhoy, bathed, his beard spruce, fresh and cool in his white vest at the entrance to his store, was gratified to see large crowds who cleaned out his stock of the sarsaparilla.

The story, by “our local correspondent,” read simply, Under other circumstances, the visit of a Governor-General would be nothing less than royal, but not if we are to believe that Lord Dalhousie slipped into Bombay two days ago, under cover of dark, without notice to Lord Falkland, who as Governor of this city, has sorely missed an opportunity to parade the other Lord around with a plenitude of pomp.

Why, one wonders, all this secrecy? Would it have something to do with the annexation of the lands of the Maharajah Ranjit Singh? Or with the jewels of his famed Toshakhana? Or with one specific stone—large as a woman’s clenched fist, the ransom of a king . . . on its way, perhaps, to a Queen?

Mr. Wingate had once been sued for libel and slander by a man who had offended him, and about whom, previously, he had not been flattering in his Bombay Herald. But this story, with its innuendos and delighted whisperings, had to have some truth in it. The Government of India and the East India Company could hardly call him out in public without revealing at least some of those truths.

Two nights ago, driving back in his horse-drawn carriage, Wingate had passed the Treasury part of Fort George, and who should be coming out of it but Lord Dalhousie—with a smile on his face! Now, everyone knew that the dour Governor-General never found occasion for mirth. A smile would spoil that handsome façade of which he was possessed; even perhaps, ruffle that coolly blond hair so carefully brushed across his noble forehead.

So, sitting in his carriage, wrapped in a cigar-smoke fug, his mind pleasantly blurred by an evening of port, brandy, sherry, Madeira, and a splendid dinner, Mr. Wingate was sure that this man was none other than Dalhousie. He had been last reported in the Punjab, in Lahore; for him to appear in Bombay could only mean that he had brought here something from the Punjab. Something so secret, so valuable, it had to be deposited into the Treasury building.

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