If my advice were asked, I would speak boldly
for Shere Ali's liberation and protest against the poor man being bought
and sold in this way. This train of thought reminded me of Isaacs' words
when we left Miss Westonhaugh that morning. "It is not often," he had
said, "that you see such jewels bought and sold." No, indeed!
"You see," said Isaacs, as we neared our destination, "Baithopoor is in
my power, body and soul, for a word from me would expose him to the
British Government as 'harbouring traitors,' as they would express it.
On the other hand, the fact that you, the third party, are a journalist,
and could at a moment's notice give publicity to the whole thing, will
be an additional safeguard. I have him as in a vice. And now put on your
most formal manners and look as if you were impenetrable as the rock and
unbending as cast iron, for we have reached his bungalow."
I could not but admire the perfect calm and caution with which he was
conducting an affair involving millions of money, a possible indictment
for high treason, and the key-note of the Afghan question, while I knew
that his whole soul was absorbed in the contemplation of a beautiful
picture ever before him, sleeping or waking. Whatever I might think of
his bargaining for the possession of Shere Ali, he had a great, even
untiring, intellect.
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