Travels in India (Tavernier) 32.3.2

32.3.2

He went in this way ten or twelve times, and not having been able to restrain himself from telling me one day, I warned him against returning, and told him that he was risking his own destruction, and with himself the destruction of all the Franks. But instead of profiting by my advice, he went again two or three times, and on the last occasion he was discovered by one of the women of the bath, who had charge of the sheets, and who in order to dry them upon the poles which project from the roof, had ascended by a small ladder which led to the top. Seeing a man thus stretched out she seized his hat and began to cry aloud; but the Sieur des Marests, to extricate himself from so dangerous a scrape, and to hinder the woman from making more noise, made a sign to her to be silent, and promptly placed in her hands two tomans, which by good luck he had with him out of the money which I had given him for his expenses. When he returned to the caravansarai I saw he had a scared appearance, and concluding that something unpleasant had happened to him, I pressed him to say what it was. He told me with some reluctance, and at length admitted that he had been discovered by this woman, but had sought to silence her with money. He had no sooner made this confession than I told him he must at once take flight, and that the danger was very much greater than he supposed.