July 7. The queen has been told that Mr. Lambert has had a dangerous relapse of the fever, and she sends confidential officers five or six times in the day--different envoys each time--to ask after his health. The officers always ask to be taken into his room, and to see him; probably they have been commissioned to find out if his illness is real or simulated. How the queen would rejoice at Mr. Lambert’s death!
For the last three days Prince Rakoto has not been to see us; for his mother, the queen, treats him almost as a prisoner. She will not let him quit her side, alleging that she is in great danger and needs his protection. Through this really politic course of action she gains the twofold object of making her son appear, on the one hand, as a non-participator in the conspiracy, and of taking from him, on the other, all opportunity of entering into communication with his confederates, who might, perhaps, induce him to strike a decisive blow. She has taken farther precautions. The palace has been surrounded with treble the usual number of guards. No one is allowed to pass near it, and only those are admitted into the interior of whose fidelity and loyalty the queen feels quite assured.
July 8. Our prison is closing more straitly around us, and our position really begins to be very critical. We have just learned that, since yesterday evening, every one has been prohibited, on pain of death, from entering our house. Mr. Laborde now no longer ventures to appear in the streets. I marvel much that our slaves are still allowed to go to the bazar, and make the necessary purchases; but doubtless this will soon be stopped; and I am much mistaken if the moment is not at hand when the queen will throw off the mask, and, openly denouncing us as traitors, cause our house to be surrounded by soldiers, and thus completely isolate us. Nobody can tell what this woman purposes to do to us, and her character gives us no reason to expect any thing good. If we are once made prisoners, she can easily get rid of us by means of poisoned food or by some other method.
Our slaves tell us that more than eight hundred soldiers are employed in searching for Christians; they not only search the whole town, but scour the country within a circuit of between twenty and thirty miles; but, happily, it is said they do not take many prisoners. All flee to the mountains and forests, and in such numbers that small detachments of soldiers, who pursue the fugitives and seek to capture them, are put to flight.