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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of One Maid's Mischief, by George Manville Fenn
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: One Maid's Mischief
+
+Author: George Manville Fenn
+
+Release Date: July 13, 2011 [EBook #36723]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONE MAID'S MISCHIEF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+One Maid's Mischief
+By George Manville Fenn
+Published by Ward & Downey, London.
+This edition dated 1887.
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ONE.
+
+ONE OF HER VICTIMS.
+
+Seven o'clock in the morning, and _chee-op--chee-op--chee-op--chirrup--
+pee-yew_--a splendid thrush waking the echoes with his loud notes; the
+blackbirds down in the copse whistling a soft love-song to their silent
+mates, waiting in their cup-like nests for the first chip of the
+blotched eggs; Coelebs, the chaffinch, pouring down tinkling strains
+from the pink-blossomed apple-trees; while the larks high above the
+young corn and clover, twittered their joyous hymn in rivalling accord
+to the May-morning sun.  The dew lay heavy and cold upon the tawny,
+sweet-scented wallflowers, and the freshness of feeling in the shade
+whispered that the silvery whiteness of their hues was not far removed
+from frost.
+
+So thought the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, as he stood contemplating the
+flower-beds in front of the quaint old Rectory, whose windows were
+framed in the opening blossoms of a huge snaky-stemmed wistaria, one of
+which windows--his own--was wide open, and had been for an hour, while
+its fellow over the little drawing-room was delicately draped in snowy
+dimity.
+
+Geraniums formed the subject of the Reverend Arthur's contemplation as
+he stood upon the closely-shaven, dewy lawn; and he had just come to the
+conclusion that he had better wait another week before filling his beds
+with the scarlet trusses, when there was the sharp sound of brass rings
+upon a rod.  The dimity curtains were drawn aside, the casement window
+was opened and carefully hooked back, and the kit-cat living portrait of
+a pleasant plump little woman of about forty appeared in the frame.
+
+"Arthur, I'm sure you are getting your feet wet," she chirped.
+
+The tall, very thin curate of Little Magnus looked dreamily up at the
+window, and then down at his feet, stooping a good deal to obtain a
+nearer view.  Slowly rising, he looked up at the window again, took off
+his soft felt hat, smoothed his thin grey hair, and said slowly:
+
+"No, my dear, I think not."
+
+"But I'm sure you must be, Arthur; it's a very heavy dew?" cried the
+little lady, emphatically.
+
+"Yes, my dear Mary," he replied, in a slow, deprecating way, "it is a
+very heavy dew, but I have got on my goloshes."
+
+"Ho!" exclaimed the little lady, and she disappeared.
+
+The Reverend Arthur Rosebury began to make a peculiar humming noise,
+somewhat suggestive of a large bumble-bee trying to practise a chant,
+which was his idea of singing, and was walking slowly off towards a
+laurel-shaded walk when the little lady once more appeared at the
+window.
+
+"Arthur!"
+
+"Yes, my dear Mary?"
+
+"Don't you go far away; breakfast won't be long."
+
+"No, my dear Mary."
+
+"Where shall you be?"
+
+"Down by the bees."
+
+"You'll come when I whistle?"
+
+"Yes, my dear Mary."
+
+The lady disappeared once more, and the curate of Little Magnus went
+slowly and deliberately down the garden of the Rectory, where he had
+been for many years resident; the wealthy rector, who was a canon of
+Dunchester, finding a sermon or two a year nearly all he could give to
+the little parish.
+
+The bees were visited, both those dwelling in the round-topped,
+old-fashioned straw hives and the occupants of the modern square boxes,
+cunningly contrived to enable the proprietor to commit honied burglaries
+without adding bee-murder to the offence.
+
+The bees were as busy as those immortalised by Dr Watts, and coming and
+going in the bright sunshine, making a glorious hum in a snowy
+cherry-tree close at hand, and suggesting to the curate's mind ample
+supplies of the cloying sweet, about five hundredweights of which he
+hoped to sell at a shilling a pound.
+
+The Reverend Arthur went slowly away, smiling in his heart--he rarely
+smiled visibly--happy and thankful for his lot; opened the white gate in
+the tall green hedge, and after closing it carefully, began to walk
+across the drenched grass, a couple of soft-eyed, mousy-skinned Alderney
+cows slowly raising their heads to stare at him, munching the grass the
+while, and then coming to meet him, lowing softly.
+
+"Ah, Dewnose!  Ah, Bessy," he said, pulling the great flapping ears of
+each in turn, and inhaling the puffs of warm, sweet-scented breath as he
+passed, the cows watching him for a few moments, and then, evidently
+thinking fresh dewy grass preferable to the best of curates, they
+resumed their quiet "crop crop" of the verdant meal.
+
+The meadow crossed, another gate led back into the garden, where a long
+glass-house stood with open door inviting the Reverend Arthur to enter
+and breathe the warm, deliciously-scented air.  The sun was shining
+brightly and came in a shower of rays upon the red-bricked floor, broken
+up as it were by the silvery shoots of the vines whose leaves were
+fringed with drops of pearly dew.
+
+A glance at the leafy roof displayed so much attention needed that the
+Reverend Arthur, after a little contemplation and a few moral
+comparisons between the wild growth of the vine and that of the young
+and old of the parish, slowly took off his coat, lifted a heavy plank
+and placed it across two of the iron rafter-ties of the building; and
+after satisfying himself of its safety, mounting a pair of steps,
+climbing on to the plank, and seating himself in a very unclerical
+attitude, he began to snap off the redundant branches of the vine.
+
+"Chirrup!" went a shrill whistle as the first branch was snapped, but
+the Reverend Arthur heard it not, and in a rapt, dreamy manner went on
+snapping off at their joints branch after branch just beyond where the
+young bunches of grapes were beginning to show.
+
+"Chirrup!" went the whistle again, but still unheard, for the Reverend
+Arthur had just placed one of the succulent branches he had broken off
+between his lips, and, as if imitating the ways of Dewnose and Bessy, he
+was sedately munching away at the pleasant acid growth.
+
+"Chirrup!" again, but this time in another direction, and, perfectly
+unconscious of the summons, the Reverend Arthur went on with his
+pruning, breakfasting the while off the tender acid shoots.
+
+Chirrup after chirrup mingled with the songs of the birds, and at last
+the bustling little figure of the lady lately seen at the Rectory window
+appeared at the door.
+
+"Why, here you are Arthur!" she exclaimed.  "What a shame it is!  You
+said you'd be down by the bees."
+
+"I'm--I'm very sorry, my dear Mary," said the guilty truant, with a look
+of appeal in his face.
+
+"That's what you always say, sir, and here is the ham getting cold, the
+eggs will be quite hard, and I've got my feet soaking wet running all
+over the place."
+
+"I really am very sorry, my dear Mary," said the Reverend Arthur, slowly
+descending from his perch.
+
+"I never did see such a man," cried the little lady, with her pleasant
+face a droll mixture of vexation and good-humour.
+
+As she spoke she took up the curate's long coat, and held it ready for
+him to put on, tip-toeing to enable him to thrust his long thin arms
+into the sleeves, and then tip-toeing a little more to reach up and give
+him a hearty kiss.
+
+"There, I won't be very cross," she cried, "only there never was such a
+thoughtless, tiresome man before.  Just look at your hands!"
+
+"It's only vine-juice, my dear Mary," he said, looking at his long thin
+fingers in turn.
+
+"Well, come along.  You will have time to go and wash them while I
+change my shoes and stockings.  Just look there."
+
+Miss Mary Rosebury made no hesitation about drawing her grey cloth dress
+aside to display a very prettily-shaped pair of feet and ankles, soaked
+with dew and muddied by the garden paths, before taking her brother, as
+it were, into custody and leading him up to the house.
+
+Five minutes later they were in the prettily-furnished dining-room,
+before a most temptingly spread breakfast-table, where everything was
+clean and neat as the home of an old bachelor, tended by a maiden
+sister, might be expected to be.  There were flowers and hand-painted
+screens; the linen was snowy white, and the eggs, and butter, and cream
+were as delicious as the coffee.
+
+The morning prayers were read in presence of Cook and Jane; then the
+coffee was poured out in a dark amber stream, and for the first time the
+Reverend Arthur smiled.
+
+"Really, my dear Mary," he said, "I don't think any two people could be
+happier than we are."
+
+"Than we should be if you would not do such foolish things, Arthur,"
+said the little lady, sharply.
+
+"Foolish things, my dear?" he replied, rather blankly.
+
+"Yes, foolish things.  I don't mind your being so fond of your garden
+and natural history, but it doesn't look becoming for you to come back
+as you did yesterday, with a bunch of weeds in one hand, a bundle of
+mosses in the other, and your hat pinned all over with butterflies.  The
+people think you half mad."
+
+"But I had no pill-boxes, my dear Mary, and Thompson, of the
+Entomological, asked me to get him some of the large sulphurs."
+
+"Then I wish Thompson, of the Entomological, would come down and catch
+his butterflies himself.  Give me a bit more fat."
+
+"For my part I should never wish to change."
+
+"Well, I don't know," said the elderly lady, slowly, as she made a very
+hearty breakfast.  "Little Magnus is very nice and the garden very
+pretty, but there seems to be a something wanting.  Tilt the dish and
+give me a little more of that gravy, Arthur.  Why don't you pass your
+cup?"
+
+"And yet we have an abundance of the good things of this life, Mary,
+that we could not enjoy in a town."
+
+"Ye-es," said the little lady, dubiously; "but still there seems to be a
+something wanting."
+
+"I think we shall have plenty of honey this year, my dear Mary."
+
+"So we did last year, Arthur."
+
+"The mushrooms are coming on very fast in the pit.  By the way, what did
+you do with those Saint George's agarics I brought home yesterday?"
+
+"Threw them away."
+
+"My dear Mary!"
+
+"And the best thing too, Arthur.  Now, once for all, mushrooms are
+mushrooms; but I'm not going to have you poison yourself nor me neither
+with all kinds of toadstools, to gratify your love of experiment."
+
+The curate sighed, and there came a pause, broken by Miss Mary Rosebury
+saying:
+
+"Yes, I suppose we ought to be perfectly contented, and I think I am;
+but sometimes it seems a pity that we should always go on like this
+without any change.  Oh, here's Brown."
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWO.
+
+A DANGEROUS VISITOR.
+
+Miss Mary Rosebury left her chair at the breakfast-table and hurried out
+to the rose-covered porch as a heavy step was heard upon the gravel; and
+directly after a sturdy-looking man, with half-a-dozen leather bags
+slung from his shoulder, appeared at the door.
+
+"Fine morning, miss.  Two letters--three letters--four letters.
+`Stan'ard,' `Gar'ner's Chronkle,' `Beekeep's Junnel;' that's all, miss;"
+and before the little lady had had time to speak, the heavy step was
+receding over the gravel.  "Four letters for you, Arthur.  Shall I open
+them?"
+
+"Please, my dear Mary," said the Reverend Arthur, without evincing the
+slightest interest in the arrival of the post, for he was carefully
+filling up the holes in some well-made dry toast with the freshest of
+fresh butter.
+
+Miss Mary Rosebury laid the letters upon the table while she fished a
+spectacle-case from her pocket, balanced her glasses upon her rather
+decided-looking nose, gave the two little bunches of curls on either
+side of her white forehead a shake, and opened the first letter, reading
+aloud:
+
+"`Messrs. Spindle and Twist beg to call your attention to a very curious
+sherry, and'--um--um--um--um--Ah! you don't want to lay down sherry, do
+you, Arthur?"
+
+"No, my dear Mary," said her brother; and letter number two was opened.
+
+"`Mr Hazelton is now prepared to make advances upon personal security
+to the clergy, gentry--' Bah! money-lenders!" exclaimed Miss Mary
+Rosebury, throwing aside the second letter.  "I wish these people
+wouldn't bore us with their applications.  What's this?"
+
+As she spoke she took up a large blue official-looking envelope.
+
+"Looks important, my dear Mary," said the Rev Arthur, displaying a
+little more interest.
+
+"Yes," said his sister, turning the letter over.  "Oh!  Arthur, suppose
+it means preferment at last--a vicarage somewhere."
+
+"I don't think I should be very much pleased, my dear Mary.  I am very
+happy here."
+
+"Oh, yes, of course we are, Arthur; but as I have often said, there does
+seem to be a something wanting, and--`The directors of the New
+Polwheedle and Verity Friendship Tin Mining'--Oh, dear, dear, just as if
+we had money to throw down Cornish mines.  What's this?  I don't know
+this hand.  There's a crest upon the envelope, and `H.B.' in the corner.
+Oh! it's from Doctor Bolter."
+
+"Postmark Penang?" said the Reverend Arthur.  "Wondered I had not heard
+from him."
+
+"No, it's from London.  Let me see.  All about specimens, I suppose."
+
+  My Dear Rosebury,--
+
+  I'm in England for a month or two, and am coming down to see you and
+  chat over old times.  Don't make any fuss, old fellow!  Bed on a sofa
+  will do for an old campaigner like me.  I've got business your way--to
+  see some young ladies at Mayleyfield--daughters of two people out in
+  the Peninsula.  Been educated at home, and I am going to be their
+  escort back.  Nuisance, but must do it; expect me to-morrow.
+
+  Yours very truly,--
+
+  Harry Bolter.
+
+  The Reverend Arthur Rosebury.
+
+"Why, Arthur, he's coming here!"
+
+"Yes, my dear.  I'm very glad!"
+
+"But to-day, Arthur!  What shall I do?"
+
+"Do, my dear Mary?  Nothing!  Bolter never wants anything done for him,
+unless he's very much altered, and I don't think he will be."
+
+"But the young ladies at Mayleyfield?  Why that must be at Miss
+Twettenham's establishment!"
+
+"Very probably, my dear!" said the Reverend Arthur, getting up to walk
+up and down the room.  "I shall be very, very glad to see Harry Bolter.
+I wonder whether he has brought any specimens?"
+
+"To be sure, I've heard that the Misses Twettenham have several young
+ladies there whose parents are in India."
+
+"Not India, my dear.  Henry Bolter has been in the Malay Peninsula.  He
+was at Singapore and then at Penang."
+
+"And the house in such a terrible muddle!" exclaimed Miss Mary.
+"Whatever shall I do?"
+
+"What a little world this is," said the Reverend Arthur.  "How strange
+that Henry Bolter should, so to speak, have friends as near as
+Mayleyfield!"
+
+"Oh, Arthur, Arthur, you really have no thought whatever!  To-day is
+baking day!"
+
+"I am very glad, my dear Mary!  Henry Bolter was always, I remember,
+fond of new bread.  We used to call him Hot-roll Bolter at college."
+
+"Arthur!"
+
+"Yes, my dear Mary."
+
+"I really am thankful that you never married!  You would have worried
+any reasonable woman into her grave!"
+
+"I am very sorry.  I hope not, my dear Mary!  I think if I had ever seen
+any lady I should have liked to call my wife, my whole study would have
+been to make her happy!"
+
+"Yes, yes, my dear Arthur!" said the little petulant lady, placing her
+hands upon her tall, thin brother's shoulders once more to pull him down
+to be kissed, "I know you would; but you are so tiresome."
+
+"I'm--I'm afraid I am, my dear Mary.  I think sometimes that I must be
+very stupid."
+
+"Nonsense, Arthur; you are not.  You are one of the best and cleverest
+of men; but you do get so lost in your studies that you forget all
+ordinary troubles of life.  Why, there, actually you have come down this
+morning without any shirt-collar."
+
+"Have I?  Have I, Mary?" said the Reverend Arthur, looking hastily in a
+glass.  "How very foolish of me!  I was anxious to get down, I suppose."
+
+"What we are to do for dinner I don't know!" exclaimed Miss Mary.  "The
+butcher won't kill till the day after to-morrow."
+
+"Chickens," suggested her brother.
+
+"You can't feed men always on chickens, Arthur."
+
+"No, no, my dear; but Henry Bolter has been a great deal in the East;
+and you might do a deal with chickens."
+
+"Oh, I know, Arthur," said the little lady, pettishly.  "Roast and
+boiled."
+
+"And curried!  Bolter is sure to like curry."
+
+"And then grumble at it, and say it is not as good as he gets abroad.
+You never have anything in the garden either!"
+
+"I have some very fine asparagus, my dear Mary."
+
+"Ah, well, that's something."
+
+"And some forced rhubarb."
+
+"I could use that too.  But really it is too bad to take one so by
+surprise.  Men are so unreasonable!"
+
+The Reverend Arthur Rosebury took a turn or two up and down the room,
+with a troubled look in his face, ending by stopping short before his
+sister.
+
+"I--I am very sorry, my dear Mary," he said.  "Can I help you a little?"
+
+"What by getting in the way, Arthur?" said the little lady, pettishly.
+"Nonsense! stuff!"
+
+He smoothed his long, thin, closely-shaven face with one hand, gazing
+pensively at his sister.
+
+"I--I used to be very fond of Henry Bolter," he said, in a hesitating
+way.
+
+"Why?" she said sharply.  "I don't believe in these very warm
+friendships between men!"
+
+"It was when our father died, Mary, more than twenty years ago; and for
+want of a hundred pounds I thought I should have to leave college."
+
+"Yes?" said the little lady, sharply.
+
+"Henry Bolter found it out, and he forced the money into my hand."
+
+"He did?"
+
+"Yes, my dear Mary, and he never would let me pay it back again."
+
+"But didn't you try, Arthur?"
+
+"Four times over, my dear Mary; but he always sent the money back to me
+in a letter with only one word in it."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+There was a dry, half-pitiful smile in the Reverend Arthur's face as he
+replied, gazing fixedly the while at his sister:
+
+"`Beast!'"
+
+"What, Arthur?"
+
+"He said `beast.'  He met me afterwards, and vowed he would never speak
+to me again if I alluded to the money, which he said was a gift; and it
+has never been repaid to this day."
+
+"Beast!" ejaculated Miss Mary, thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes, my dear Mary, but I have that sum put away, ready for him to take
+when he will."
+
+"Of course," said Miss Rosebury thoughtfully.
+
+"And I should like to give Harry Bolter a warm welcome when he comes,
+Mary; not a welcome of corn and wine, oil, olive and honey, Mary--but a
+welcome from the heart, such as would please him more."
+
+"My dear Arthur," cried the little lady, throwing her arms round her
+brother's lank, spare form, "you mustn't notice my crotchety ways, I'm
+getting an old woman--a fidgety old maid.  Dr Bolter shall have as warm
+a welcome as I can give."
+
+"I knew it sister," he said tenderly embracing her; and it was very
+foolish, but the eyes of both were wet with tears as the little lady
+snatched herself away.
+
+"There, Arthur, now go, and don't you come near me again except to bring
+me the asparagus and rhubarb, for I shall be as busy as a bee.  There's
+the doctor's room to prepare."
+
+"No; let him have mine."
+
+"What, with all that litter of dried plants and flies?"
+
+"Just what he would like."
+
+"There, go away."
+
+The Reverend Arthur Rosebury was about to say something more, but his
+sister checked him, and in a thoughtful dreamy way, he went slowly out
+into the garden, where at the end of ten minutes he had forgotten
+rhubarb, asparagus, even the coming of Dr Bolter, for the sun had shone
+out very hot, and the bees in the fourth hive beginning from the top
+were threatening to swarm.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE.
+
+THE YOUNG LADIES.
+
+"The Firlawns, Mayleyfield, educational establishment for the daughters
+of officers and gentlemen in the Indian civil service, conducted by the
+Misses Twettenham," as it said in the old circulars, for none were ever
+issued now.  Thirty years of the care of young people, committed to
+their charge by parents compelled to reside in the East, had placed the
+Misses Twettenham beyond the need of circular or other advertising
+advocate.  For it was considered a stroke of good fortune by Indian and
+other officials if vacancies could be found at the Firlawns for their
+daughters; in fact the Misses Twettenham might have doubled their
+numbers and their prices too, but they were content to keep on in their
+old conservative way, enjoying the confidence of their patrons, and
+really acting the parts of mothers to the young ladies committed to
+their charge.
+
+It was a difficult task as well as an onerous one, this care of girls
+from the ages of ten or twelve up to even twenty and one-and-twenty,
+especially when it is taken into consideration that, whatever the
+emergency, the parents would be in India, China, or the Eastern
+islands--one or two months' distance by letter, sometimes more.
+
+It was not often that there were troubles, though, at the Firlawns, for
+the Misses Twettenham's was a kindly as well as rigid rule.  Sickness of
+course there was from time to time.  Sadder still, they had had deaths;
+but there were times when some young lady of more than ordinary
+volatility would try to assert herself and resent the bonds that the
+elderly sisters insisted upon tying round her and keeping her back.
+
+There were occasionally handsome curates at Mayleyfield.  There was a
+particularly good-looking young doctor's assistant once in the town; and
+at times Squire Morden's soldier and sailor sons would return home for a
+short stay, when a misguided pupil would form a most hopeless
+attachment, and even go so far as to receive a smuggled note.
+
+Woe be to her if she did!  It was sure to be discovered; and if such a
+course was persisted in the doom was certain.  Transportation was the
+sentence.  Word was sent to mamma and papa in India, China, or wherever
+they might be, and Miss Rebellious had to leave the school.
+
+These were very, very rare cases, for there was scarcely a girl who did
+not look upon the elderly sisters as their best of friends; but such
+accidents had occurred, and there was trouble at the Firlawns now.
+
+"Never," said Miss Twettenham to her sisters twain--"never, my dear
+Julia--never, my dear Maria, in the whole course of my experience, have
+I met with so determined, so obstinate a girl!"
+
+"She is very beautiful," said Miss Julia.
+
+"And it promises to be a fatal gift," said Miss Maria.
+
+"Yes," said the eldest Miss Twettenham; "and if it were not for the
+letter we have received saying that Dr Bolter was coming to fetch her
+away, I should certainly have been compelled to insist upon her being
+recalled."
+
+"I don't think she means harm, dear Hannah," said Miss Maria.
+
+"No young lady brought up here could mean harm, Maria," said Miss
+Twettenham, severely; "but to witness in her such a terrible display
+of--of--of--I really cannot find a word."
+
+"Coquetry," suggested Miss Julia.
+
+"Well, coquetry," said Miss Twettenham, taking the word unwillingly, as
+if it were too bad to touch.  "It is a terrible love of admiration!"
+
+"What did she say, Hannah, when you spoke to her?"
+
+"Laughed, my dear, in the most barefaced way, and said that it was all
+nonsense."
+
+"But that dreadful half-haughty, half-shy way in which she looked at
+him!" said Miss Maria.
+
+"And she almost smiled," said Miss Julia.
+
+"Quite smiled!" said Miss Twettenham, severely.  "I saw her smile at
+him; and then, when he lifted his hat, she raised her eyes and stared at
+him in a haughty, astonished way, as if she had never given him the
+slightest encouragement."
+
+"It is very shocking," murmured Miss Maria.
+
+"But I think she blushed a little," remonstrated Miss Julia, as if to
+try and find some slight extenuating circumstance for the benefit of the
+most handsome pupil at the Firlawns.
+
+"That I deny!" exclaimed Miss Twettenham.  "It was only the reflection
+from the lining of her sunshade!  I repeat it, sisters; I am very--very
+glad she is going away!"
+
+"So am I," said Miss Julia; "and yet I am sorry, for she is a very
+beautiful girl, and I am sure she is affectionate."
+
+"What is beauty without ballast, my dear Julia? or affection that goes
+floating about like a gossamer without a stay?" said Miss Twettenham
+severely, and her sisters sighed.
+
+"I consider it most reprehensible.  And now I think we will have her
+down."
+
+The three grey, elderly ladies seated themselves in three stiff-backed,
+uneasy chairs, wool-worked by former pupils; and as soon as they had
+settled themselves in severe attitudes, Miss Twettenham gave a long
+wool-worked bell-pull a decided tug.
+
+The bell was answered by a quiet, elderly manservant in a neat livery.
+
+"Send word to Fraulein Webling's room that we wish to see Miss Perowne
+and Miss Stuart," said Miss Twettenham; and after sitting in frigid
+silence for a few minutes, the two young ladies were ushered into the
+presence of the principals.
+
+There was a marked contrast between the girls, one being tall, with a
+finely-shaped oval face, dark hair, and peculiarly lustrous eyes,
+fringed by long black lashes; the other decidedly _petite_, with the
+clear skin, blue-grey eyes, and fair hair suggestive of the North.
+
+The dark girl was perfectly composed, and walked over the well-worn
+carpet with an easy, graceful carriage, and a look of languid
+indifference, far from being shared by her companion, whose cheeks were
+flushed as she darted an uneasy look at the three sisters in turn.
+
+The young ladies evidently expected to be asked to take chairs, but the
+words were not forthcoming; and after advancing a few paces, they
+stopped short in the midst of a chilling silence, the three sisters
+sitting very upright with mittened hands crossed in a peculiar way about
+the region of the waist of their old-fashioned dresses.
+
+The dark girl, after a languid glance round, gave her shapely shoulders
+a slight shrug before half closing her eyes, and gazing through the
+tall, blank window at a scaly araucaria upon the lawn.
+
+At last Miss Twettenham spoke:
+
+"Miss Stuart," she began, in chilling tones and with great deliberation,
+"speaking for myself and sisters, I must say that I sadly regret that we
+are under the necessity of drawing you into the discussion that is about
+to take place."
+
+"But, at the same time, my dear," continued Miss Julia, in precisely the
+same formal tone, "we wish to tell you that we exonerate you from all
+blame in the matter."
+
+"And," concluded Miss Maria, "we are glad to say that your conduct since
+you have been under our care has been all that could be desired."
+
+The fair girl made a half step forward, her eyes filling with tears, and
+one hand was involuntarily raised, as if she would have liked to place
+it in that of the last speaker; but the three sisters drew themselves up
+a little more rigidly, and, as if in concert, drew in a long breath.
+
+The dark girl smiled faintly and looked bored.
+
+"It is an unpleasant thing for you to do, Miss Stuart, to have to bear
+witness against your schoolfellow and companion," resumed Miss
+Twettenham, her sisters tightening their lips as if to rigidly keep in
+the indignation they felt, and to subdue their desire to interrupt their
+elder, who, by right of seniority, was the principal spokeswoman upon
+such occasions.
+
+The dark girl raised her eyebrows slightly, and the corners of her
+well-shaped mouth twitched, and were drawn down in a provokingly
+attractive manner.
+
+"Will you kindly inform me, Miss Twettenham," she said, in a low, sweet
+voice, full of _hauteur_, "why I am to be subjected to this examination?
+Of what am I accused?"
+
+"Why, you know!" exclaimed Miss Maria, excitedly.  "Of smiling at a man,
+miss!" and she seemed to shudder with indignant protest.
+
+"My dear Maria," exclaimed Miss Twettenham, severely, "you forget."
+
+"I beg your pardon, my dear Hannah!" exclaimed the younger sister, and
+she drew herself up and tightened her lips more and more.
+
+"I had intended to have approached the subject with more de--I mean
+caution," continued Miss Twettenham; "but since my sister has spoken out
+so plainly, I will only say that your conduct yesterday, Miss Perowne,
+places me under the necessity of confining your future walks to the
+garden."
+
+"My conduct?" said the girl, turning her dark eyes full upon the
+speaker.
+
+"Your conduct, Miss Helen Perowne," said the elder lady austerely.  "It
+has for months past been far from in accordance with that we expect from
+the young ladies placed by their parents in our charge; but yesterday it
+culminated in the smile and look of intelligence we saw pass between you
+and that tall, fair gentleman who has of late haunted the outskirts of
+this place.  I think I have your approval in what I say?" she added,
+turning to her sisters, who both bowed stiffly, and became more rigid
+than before.
+
+"Such conduct is worse than unbecoming.  It is unladylike to a degree,
+and what is more, displays so great a want of womanly dignity and
+self-respect that I am reluctantly compelled to say that we feel our
+endeavours to instil a right moral tone and thoroughly decorous idea of
+a young lady's duties to have been thrown away."
+
+There was a slight twitching of the corners of the mouth and an
+involuntary shrugging of the shoulders here.
+
+"You are aware, Miss Perowne, that your papa has requested us to resign
+you to the care of his friend, Dr Bolter, and that in a short time you
+will cease to be our pupil; but still, while you stay at the Firlawns,
+we must exact a rigid obedience to our rules, and, as I have said, your
+liberty must be sadly curtailed while you are in our charge."
+
+"As you please," said the girl, indifferently.
+
+"You do not deny your fault, then?"
+
+"No," said the girl, without turning her eyes from the window.
+
+"Who was this gentleman--I should say, who is this gentleman?"
+
+"I really do not know," said the girl, turning from the window now with
+a careless look in her eyes, as if of wonder that she should be asked
+such a question.
+
+"Have you had any epistolary communication?" said Miss Twettenham,
+sternly.
+
+"Not the slightest," said the girl, coldly; and then she added, after a
+pause, "If I had I should not have told you!"
+
+"Miss Perowne!" exclaimed the eldest Miss Twettenham, indignantly.
+
+"Miss Twettenham," exclaimed the girl, drawing herself up, and with a
+flash from her dark eyes full of defiance, "you forget that I am no
+longer a child.  It has suited my father's purpose to have me detained
+here among school-children until he found a suitable escort for my
+return to the East; but I am a woman.  As to that absurd episode, it is
+beneath my notice."
+
+"Beneath your notice!" exclaimed Miss Twettenham, while her sisters
+looked astounded.
+
+The fair girl laid her hand upon her companion's arm, but Helen Perowne
+snatched hers away.
+
+"I say beneath my notice.  A foolish young man thinks proper to stare at
+me and raises his hat probably at the whole school."
+
+"At you, Miss Helen Perowne--at you!" exclaimed Miss Twettenham.
+
+"Possibly," said the girl, carelessly, as the flash died out of her
+eyes, her lids drooped, and she let her gaze wander to the window.
+
+"I can scarcely tell you how grieved--how hurt we feel," continued Miss
+Twettenham, "to find that a young lady who has for so many years enjoyed
+the--the care, the instruction, the direction of our establishment,
+should have set so terrible an example to her fellow-pupils."
+
+The girl shrugged her shoulders again slightly, and her face assumed a
+more indifferent air.
+
+"The time that you have to stay here, Miss Perowne, is very short,"
+continued the speaker; "but while you do stay it will be under rigid
+supervision.  You may now retire to your room."
+
+The girl turned away, and was walking straight out of the room, but
+years of lessons in deportment asserted themselves, and from sheer habit
+she turned by the door to make a stately courtesy, frowning and biting
+her lip directly after as if from annoyance, and passing out with the
+grace and proud carriage of an Eastern queen.
+
+"Stop, Miss Stuart," said Miss Twettenham, as Helen Perowne's companion
+was about to follow.  "I wish to say a few words to you before you go--
+not words of anger, my dear child, for the only pain we have suffered
+through you is in hearing the news that you are so soon to go."
+
+"Oh, Miss Twettenham," exclaimed the girl, hurrying to take the extended
+hands of the schoolmistress, but to find herself pressed to the old
+lady's heart, an embrace which she received in turn from Miss Julia and
+Miss Maria.
+
+"We have long felt that it must soon come, my dear," chirped Miss Maria.
+
+"Yes, dear," said Miss Julia, in a prattling way.  "You've done scolding
+now, sister, have you not?"
+
+"Yes," said Miss Twettenham; "but I wish to speak seriously for a minute
+or two, and the present seems a favourable opportunity for Grey Stuart
+to hear."
+
+The younger sisters placed the fair young girl in a chair between them,
+and each held a hand, while Miss Twettenham drew herself up stiffly,
+hemmed twice, and began:
+
+"My dear Miss Stuart--I--I--Oh, dear me!  Oh, dear me!"
+
+The poor old lady burst into a violent fit of sobbing as she rose from
+her seat, for nature was stronger than the stiff varnish of art with
+which she was encrusted; and holding her handkerchief to her eyes, she
+crossed the little space between them, and sank down upon her knees
+before Grey Stuart, passing her arms round her and drawing her to her
+breast.
+
+For a few minutes nothing was heard in the stiff old-fashioned
+drawing-room but suppressed sobs, for the younger sisters wept in
+concert, and the moist contagion extended to Grey Stuart, whose tears
+fell fast.
+
+There was no buckram stiffness in Miss Twettenham's words when she spoke
+again, but a very tender, affectionate shake in her voice.
+
+"It is very weak and foolish, my dear," she said, "but we were all very
+much upset; for there is something so shocking in seeing one so young
+and beautiful as Helen Perowne deliberately defy the best of advice, and
+persist in going on in her own wilful way.  We are schoolmistresses, my
+dear Grey, and I know we are very formal and stiff; but though we have
+never been married ladies to have little children of our own, I am sure
+we have grown to love those placed in our care, so that often and often,
+when some pupil has been taken away to go to those far-off burning
+lands, it has been to us like losing a child."
+
+"Yes--yes," sobbed the younger sisters in concert.
+
+"And now, my dear Grey, I think I can speak a little more firmly.  You
+are a woman grown now, my dear, and I hope feel with us in our trouble."
+
+"Indeed--indeed I do!" exclaimed Grey, eagerly.
+
+"I know you do, my darling, so now listen.  You know how sweet a jewel
+is a woman's modesty, and how great a safeguard is her innocency?  I
+need say little to you of yourself, now that you are going far across
+the sea; but we, my sisters and I, pray earnestly for your help in
+trying to exercise some influence over Helen's future.  You will be
+together, and I know what your example will be; but still I shudder as I
+think of what her future is to be, out there at some station where
+ladies are so few that they all get married as soon as they go out."
+
+This was rather an incongruous ending to Miss Twettenham's speech, but
+the old lady's eyes bespoke her trouble, and she went on:
+
+"It seems to me, my dear, that, with her love of admiration, she will be
+like a firebrand in the camp, and I shudder when I think of what Mr
+Perowne will say, when I'm sure, sisters, we have striven our very
+best."
+
+"Indeed, indeed we have."
+
+"Then we can do no more," sighed Miss Twettenham, who now smiled in a
+very pleasant, motherly way.  "There, Grey, my dear, I am not going to
+cross-examine you about this naughty child, and we will say no more now.
+Some tender young plants grow as they are trained, and some persist in
+growing wild.  I tremble for our handsome pupil, and shall often wonder
+in the future how she fares, but promise me that you will be to her the
+best of friends."
+
+"Indeed I will," said Grey earnestly.
+
+"It will be a thankless office," said Miss Julia.
+
+"And cause you many a heartache, Grey Stuart," said Miss Maria.
+
+"Yes, but Grey Stuart will not pay heed to that when she knows it is her
+duty," said Miss Twettenham, smiling.  "Leave us now, my dear; we must
+have a quiet talk about Helen, and our arrangements while she stays.
+Good-bye, my child."
+
+The _good-bye_ on the old lady's lips was a genuine God be with you, and
+an affectionate kiss touched Grey Stuart's cheek, as she left the room,
+fluttered and in trouble about her schoolfellow, as the prophetic words
+of her teachers kept repeating themselves in her ears.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+DR BOLTER'S QUESTION.
+
+"Dr Bolter, ma'am," said the elderly manservant, seeking Miss
+Twettenham the next afternoon, as she was sunning herself in a favourite
+corner of the garden, where a large heavily-backed rustic seat stood
+against the red-brick wall.
+
+The pupils were out walking with her two sisters--all save Helen Perowne
+and Grey Stuart, who were prisoners; and Miss Twettenham was just
+wondering how it was that a little tuft of green, velvety moss should
+have fallen from the wall upon her cap, when the old serving-man came
+up.
+
+"Dr Bolter!  Dear me!  So soon!" exclaimed the old lady, glancing at
+Helen Perowne, book in hand, walking up and down the lawn, while Grey
+Stuart was at some little distance, tying up the blossoms of a flower.
+
+Miss Twettenham entered the drawing-room, and then stood gazing in
+wonder at the little plump, brisk-looking man, with a rosy face, in
+spite of the deep bronze to which it was burned by exposure to the sun
+and air.
+
+He was evidently about seven or eight and forty, but full of life and
+energy; a couple of clear grey eyes looking out from beneath a pair of
+rather shaggy eyebrows--for his face was better supplied with hirsute
+appendages than his head--a large portion of which was very white and
+smooth, seeming to be polished to the highest pitch, and contrasting
+strangely with his sunbrowned face.
+
+As Miss Twettenham entered, the little doctor was going on tiptoe, with
+open hands, towards the window, where he dexterously caught a large fly,
+and after placing it conveniently between the finger and thumb of his
+left hand, he drew a lens from his waistcoat pocket, and began examining
+his prize.
+
+"Hum!  Yes," he said, in a low, thoughtful tone, "decided similarity in
+the trunk.  Eyes rather larger.  Intersection of--I beg your pardon!
+Miss Twettenham?"
+
+The lady bowed, and looked rather dignified.  Catching flies and
+examining them in her drawing-room by means of a lens was an unusual
+proceeding, especially when there were so many much worthier objects for
+examination in the shape of pupils' drawings and needlework about the
+place.
+
+Miss Twettenham softened though directly, for the manners of Dr Bolter
+were, she owned, perfect.  Nothing could have been more gentlemanly than
+the way in which he waited for her to be seated, and then, after a
+chatty introduction, came to the object of his visit.
+
+"You see, my dear madam, it happens so opportunely my being in England.
+Perowne and Stuart are both old friends and patients, and of course they
+did not like the idea of their daughters being entrusted to comparative
+strangers."
+
+"So you will be friend, guardian, and medical attendant all in one?"
+said Miss Twettenham, smiling.
+
+"Exactly," said the little doctor.  "I have never seen them; they are
+quite schoolgirls--children, I suppose?"
+
+"Ye-es," said Miss Twettenham, who had a habit of measuring a young
+lady's age by its distance from her own, "they are very young."
+
+"No joke of a task, my dear madam, undertaking the charge of two young
+ladies--and I hope from my heart they are too young and plain to be
+attractive--make it difficult for me."
+
+There was a bright red spot on each of Miss Twettenham's cheeks, and she
+replied with a little hesitation:
+
+"They are both young, and you will find in Miss Stuart a young lady of
+great sweetness and promise."
+
+"Glad to hear it, my dear madam.  Her father is a very dry Scot, very
+quaint and parsimonious, but a good fellow at heart."
+
+"Most punctual in his payments," said Miss Twettenham, with dignity.
+
+"Oh, of course, of course!" said Dr Bolter.  "More so, I'll be bound,
+than Perowne."
+
+"Mr Perowne is not so observant of dates as Mr Stuart, I must own, Dr
+Bolter," said Miss Twettenham.
+
+"No, my dear madam; but he is as rich as a Jew.  Very good fellow,
+Perowne?"
+
+Miss Twettenham bowed rather stiffly.
+
+"Well, my dear madam, I am not going to rob you of your pupils for
+several weeks yet, but I should like to make their acquaintance and get
+them a little used to me before we start on our long voyage."
+
+"They are in the garden, Dr Bolter," said Miss Twettenham, rising.  "I
+will have them sent for--or would you--"
+
+"Like to join them in the garden?  Most happy!"
+
+Miss Twettenham led the way towards a handsome conservatory, through
+which there was a flight of steps descending to the lawn.
+
+"Dear me! ah, yes!" exclaimed the doctor.  "Very nice display of
+flowers!  Would you allow me?  My own collections in the jungle--
+passiflora--convolvulaciae--acacia."
+
+He drew some dry seeds from his pocket, and placed them in the old
+lady's hand, she taking them with a smile and a bow; after which they
+descended to the soft, velvety, well-kept lawn.
+
+"Most charming garden!" said the doctor--"quite a little paradise! but
+no Eves--no young ladies!"
+
+"They are all taking their afternoon walk except Miss Stuart and Miss
+Perowne," replied the old lady.  "Oh!"
+
+She uttered a sharp ejaculation as a stone struck her upon the
+collarbone and then fell at the doctor's feet, that gentleman picking it
+up with one hand as he adjusted his double eyeglass with the other.
+
+"Hum! ha!" he said drily.  "We get our post very irregularly out in the
+East; but they don't throw the letters at us over the wall."
+
+Miss Twettenham's hands trembled as she hastily snatched the stone, to
+which a closely-folded note was attached by an india-rubber band, from
+the Doctor's hands.
+
+"What will he think of our establishment?" mentally exclaimed the poor
+little old lady, as she glanced at the superscription, and saw that it
+was for Helen Perowne.  "I have never had such a thing occur since Miss
+Bainbridge was sent away."
+
+"So Miss Perowne receives notes thrown to her over the garden wall, eh?"
+said the little doctor severely.
+
+"Indeed, Dr Bolter--I assure you--I am shocked--I hardly know--the
+young ladies have been kept in--I only discovered--"
+
+"Hum!" ejaculated the doctor, frowning.  "I am rather surprised.  Let me
+see," he continued.  "I suppose that fair-haired girl stooping over the
+flower-bed yonder is Miss Perowne, eh?"
+
+"My sight is failing," stammered Miss Twettenham, who was terribly
+agitated at the untoward incident; "but your description answers to Miss
+Stuart."
+
+"And that's Miss Stuart is it?  Hum!  Too far off to see what she is
+like.  Then I suppose that tall dark girl on the seat is Miss Perowne?"
+
+"Tall and dark--yes," said Miss Twettenham, in an agitated way.  "Is she
+sitting down?  You said tall?"
+
+"Hum! no," said the doctor, balancing his glasses; "she is standing
+right on the top of the back of a seat, and seems to be looking over the
+garden wall."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Bless my heart!  Hum!  Sham or real?" muttered the doctor.
+
+Real enough, for the agitation had been too much for the poor old lady,
+so proud of the reputation of her school.  A note over the garden wall--
+a young lady looking over into the lane, perhaps in conversation with a
+man, and just when a stranger had arrived to act as escort for two
+finished pupils.  It was too much.
+
+For the first time for many years Miss Twettenham had fainted away.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+A VERY NICE LITTLE WOMAN.
+
+"Fainted dead away, Arthur; fainted dead away, Miss Rosebury; and until
+I shouted aloud there was my fair pussy peeping out of paradise over the
+wall to see if a young Adam was coming.  Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+"I am very much surprised, Dr Bolter," said Miss Rosebury, severely; "I
+always thought the Miss Twettenham's was a most strictly-conducted
+establishment?"
+
+"So it is, my dear madam--so it is; but they've got one little black ewe
+lamb in the flock, and the old ladies told me that if my young lady had
+not been about to leave they'd have sent her away."
+
+"And very properly," said Miss Rosebury, tightening her lips and
+slightly agitating her curls.
+
+"And did the lady soon come to, Harry?" said the Reverend Arthur
+Rosebury, for he seemed to be much interested in his friend's discourse
+over the dessert.
+
+"Oh, yes, very soon.  When I shouted, the dark nymph hopped off the
+garden-seat, and the fair one came running from the flowers, and we soon
+brought her to.  Then I had a good look at the girls."
+
+Miss Rosebury's rather pleasantly-shaped mouth was fast beginning to
+assume the form of a thin red line, so tightly were her lips compressed.
+
+"By George, sir! what a girl!  A graceful Juno, sir; the handsomest
+woman I ever saw.  I was staggered.  Bless my soul, Miss Rosebury,
+here's Perowne and here's Stuart; they say to me, `You may as well take
+charge of my girl and see her safe back here,' and being a good-natured
+sort of fellow--"
+
+"As you always were, Harry," said the Reverend Arthur, beaming mildly
+upon his friend, while Miss Rosebury's lips relaxed a little.
+
+"All rubbish!  Stuff, man!  Well, I said _yes_, of course, and I
+imagined a couple of strips of schoolgirls that I could chat to, and
+tell them about the sea, and tie on their pinafores before breakfast and
+dinner, and give them a dose of medicine once a week; while here I am
+dropped in for being guardian to a couple of beautiful women--girls who
+will set our jungles on fire with their eyes, sir.  By George, it's a
+startler, sir, and no mistake."
+
+"Dr Bolter seems to be an admirer of female beauty," said Miss
+Rosebury, rather drily.
+
+"Not a bit of it, madam.  By George, no!  Ladies?  Why, they have always
+seemed to be studies to me--objects of natural history.  Very beautiful
+from their construction, and I shouldn't have noticed these two only
+that, by George!  I've got to take charge of them--deliver them safe and
+sound to their papas--with care--this side up; and the first thing I
+find is that they've got eyes that will drive our young fellows wild,
+and one of them--the peep out of paradise one--knows it too.  Nice job
+for a quiet old bachelor, eh?"
+
+"You don't tell us anything about yourself, Harry," said the Reverend
+Arthur; and Miss Rosebury seemed a little more at her ease.
+
+"Nothing to tell you, my boy.  Claret?  Yes, thanks.  Have you such a
+thing as a lemon, Miss Rosebury?"
+
+Miss Rosebury had, and as she rang she smiled with satisfaction at being
+able to supply the wants of the bright little man who had been so true a
+friend to her brother in the days gone by.
+
+"Thank you, Miss Rosebury.  Tumbler--water.  Thanks.  The lemon is, I
+think, the king of fruits, and invaluable to man.  Deliciously acid, a
+marvellous quencher of thirst, a corrective, highly aromatic, a perfect
+boon.  I would leave all the finest wines in the world for a lemon."
+
+"Then you believe all intoxicating drinks to be bad, doctor?" said Miss
+Rosebury, eagerly.
+
+"Except whiskey, my dear madam," said the doctor, with a twinkle of the
+eye.
+
+"Ah!" said Miss Rosebury, and the eager smile upon her lips faded; but
+as she saw the zest with which the doctor rolled the lemon soft, and
+after cutting it in half, squeezed the juice and pulp into his glass,
+she relaxed a little, and directly afterwards began to beam, as the
+doctor suddenly exclaimed:
+
+"There, madam, smell my hands!  There's scent!  Talk of eau-de-cologne,
+and millefleurs, and jockey club!  Nothing to it!  But come, Arthur, you
+don't tell me about yourself."
+
+"About myself," said the Reverend Arthur, smiling blandly; "I have
+nothing to tell.  You have seen my village; you have looked at my
+church; you have been through my garden; and you have had a rummage in
+my study.  There is my life."
+
+"A blessed one--a happy one, my dear Arthur.  A perfect little home,
+presided over by a lady whose presence shows itself at every turn.  Miss
+Rosebury," said the doctor, rising, "when I think of my own vagabond
+life, journeying here and there with my regiment through heat and cold,
+in civilisation and out, and after many wanderings, come back to this
+peaceful spot, this little haven of rest, I see what a happy man my old
+friend must be, and I envy him with all my heart."
+
+He reseated himself, and Miss Rosebury's lips ceased to be compressed
+into a tight line; and as she smiled and nodded pleasantly, she glanced
+across at her brother, to see if he would speak, before replying that,
+pleasant as their home was, they had their troubles in the parish.
+
+"And I have no end of trouble with Arthur," she continued.  "He is so
+terribly forgetful!"
+
+"He always was, my dear madam," said the little doctor.  "If you wanted
+him to keep an appointment in the old college days you had to write it
+down upon eight pieces of paper, and place one in each of his pockets,
+and pin the eighth in his hat.  Then you might, perhaps, see him at the
+appointed time."
+
+"Oh, no, no, Harry! too bad--too bad!" murmured the Reverend Arthur,
+smiling and shaking his head.
+
+"Well, really, Arthur," said his sister, "I don't think there is much
+exaggeration in what Dr Bolter says."
+
+"I am very sorry," said the Reverend Arthur, meekly.  "I suppose I am
+far from perfect."
+
+"My dear old boy, you are perfect enough.  You are just right; and
+though your dear sister here gives you a good scolding sometimes, I'll
+be bound to say she thinks you are the finest brother under the sun!"
+
+Miss Rosebury left her chair with a very pleasant smile upon her lips,
+and a twinkling in the eyes that had the effect of making her look ten
+years younger.
+
+"I am going into the drawing-room," she said, in a quick little decided
+way.  "Arthur, dear, I daresay Dr Bolter would like to smoke."
+
+"But, my dear madam, it would be profanity here."
+
+"Then you shall be profane, doctor," said the little lady, nodding and
+smiling, "but don't let Arthur smoke.  He tried once before when he had
+a friend to dinner, and it made him feel very, very sick."
+
+The Reverend Arthur raised his eyebrows in a deprecating way, and then
+shook his head sadly.
+
+"Then I will not lure him on to indulgence in such a bad habit, Miss
+Rosebury," said the little doctor.  "In fact, I feel that I ought not to
+indulge myself."
+
+"Well, I really think it is very shocking, doctor!" said Miss Rosebury,
+merrily.  "You, a medical man, and you have confessed to a love for
+whiskey, and now for tobacco."
+
+"No, no; no, no!" he cried holding up his hands.  "They are nauseous
+medicines that I take to do me good."
+
+"Indeed!" said the little lady, lingering in the room, and hanging about
+her brother's chair as if loth to go; and there was a very sarcastic
+ring in her voice.
+
+"Oh, be merciful, Miss Rosebury!" said the doctor, laughing.  "I am only
+a weak man--a solitary wanderer upon the face of the earth!  I have no
+pleasant home.  I have no sister to keep house."
+
+"And keep you in order," said the Reverend Arthur, smiling pleasantly.
+
+"And to keep me in order!" cried the doctor.  "Mine's a hard life, Miss
+Rosebury, and with all a man's vanity--a little man's vanity, for we
+little men have a great deal of conceit to make up for our want of
+stature--I think I do deserve a few creature comforts."
+
+"Which you shall have while you stay, doctor; so now light your cigar,
+for I'll be bound to say you have a store of the little black rolls
+somewhere about you."
+
+"I confess," he said, smiling, "I carry them in the same case with a few
+surgical instruments."
+
+"But I think we'll go into the little greenhouse, Mary," said the
+Reverend Arthur.  "I feel sure Harry Bolter would not mind."
+
+"Mind?  My dear Miss Rosebury, I'll go and sit outside on a gate and
+smoke if you like."
+
+"No, no," said the Reverend Arthur, mildly; "the green fly are rather
+gaining ground amongst my flowers, and I thought it would kill a few."
+
+"Dr Bolter is going to smoke his cigar here, where I am about to send
+in the coffee," said Miss Rosebury, very decidedly, and the Reverend
+Arthur directed an apologetic look at his old friend.
+
+"Hah!" ejaculated the little doctor, taking out his case, and selecting
+a cigar, "that's just the kind of social tyranny I like.  A man, sir, is
+stronger than a woman in physical development, but weaker in the matter
+of making up his mind.  I never am able to make up mine, and I am quite
+sure, Arthur, old fellow, that you are very weak in the matter of making
+up yours: thus, in steps the presiding genius of your house, and bids
+you do this, and you do it.  Yes, Miss Rosebury, I am going to sit here
+and smoke and--"
+
+"I am ready with a light, Dr Bolter," said the little lady, standing
+close by with a box and a wax-match in her hands.
+
+"No, no, really, my dear madam, I could not think of beginning while you
+are here."
+
+_Scratch_! went the match; there was a flash from the composition, and
+then Miss Rosebury's plump taper little fingers held out the tiny
+wax-light, which was taken; there were a few puffs of bluish smoke, and
+Dr Bolter sank back in his chair, gazing at the door through which Miss
+Rosebury had passed.
+
+"Hah!" he ejaculated.  "I shall have to be off to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!" cried the Reverend Arthur.  "I thought you would come
+and stay a month."
+
+"Stay a month!" cried the doctor.  "Why, my dear boy, what should I be
+fit for afterwards if I did?"
+
+"Fit for, Harry?"
+
+"Yes, fit for.  I should be totally spoiled.  I should become a complete
+domestic sybarite, and no more fit to go back to my tasks in the Malay
+jungle than to fly.  No, Arthur, old fellow, it would never do."
+
+"We shall keep you as long as you can stay," said the Reverend Arthur,
+smiling.  "But seriously, did you not exaggerate about those young
+ladies?"
+
+"Not in the least, my dear boy, as far as regards one of them.  The
+other--old Stuart's little lassie--seems to be all that is pretty and
+demure.  But I don't suppose there is any harm in Helen Perowne.  She is
+a very handsome girl of about twenty or one-and-twenty, and I suppose
+she has been kept shut up there by the old ladies, and probably, with
+the best intentions, treated like a child."
+
+"That must be rather a mistake," murmured the Reverend Arthur, dreamily.
+
+"A mistake, sir, decidedly.  If you have sons or daughters never forget
+that they grow up to maturity; and if you wish to keep them caged up,
+let it be in a cage whose bars are composed of good training, confidence
+and belief in the principles you have sought to instil."
+
+"Yes, I quite agree with you, Harry."
+
+"Why, my dear boy, what can be more absurd than to take a handsome young
+girl and tell her that men are a kind of wild beast that must never be
+looked at, much more spoken to--suppressing all the young aspirations of
+her heart?"
+
+"I suppose it would be wrong, Harry."
+
+"Wrong and absurd, sir.  There is the vigorous young growth that will
+have play, and you tighten it up in a pair of moral stays, so to speak,
+with the result that the growth pushes forth in an abnormal way to the
+detriment of the subject; and in the future you have a moral distortion
+instead of a healthy young plant.  Ha--ha!--ha--ha!"
+
+"Why do you laugh?" said the Reverend Arthur.  "I think what you have
+said quite right, only that ladies like the Misses Twettenham are, as it
+were, forced to a very rigid course."
+
+"Yes, yes, exactly.  I was laughing because it seems so absurd for a
+pair of old fogies of bachelors like us to be laying down the law as to
+the management and training of young girls.  But look here, Arthur, old
+fellow, as I am in for this job of guardian to these girls, I should
+like to have something intermediate."
+
+"Something intermediate?  I don't understand you.  Thank you; set the
+coffee down, Betsey."
+
+"Hah!  Yes; capital cup of coffee, Arthur," said the doctor, after a
+pause.  "Best cup I've tasted for years."
+
+"Yes, it is nice," said the Reverend Arthur, smiling, as if gratified at
+his friend's satisfaction.  "My sister always makes it herself."
+
+"That woman's a treasure, sir.  Might I ask for another cup?"
+
+"Of course, my dear Harry.  Pray consider that you are at home."
+
+The coffee was rung for and brought, after a whispered conversation
+between Betsey the maid and Miss Mary the mistress.
+
+"What did they ring for, Betsey?" asked Miss Mary.
+
+"The little gentleman wants some more coffee, ma'am."
+
+"Then he likes it," said Miss Mary, who somehow seemed unduly excited.
+"But hush, Betsey; you must not say `the little gentleman,' but `Dr
+Bolter.'  He is your master's dearest friend."
+
+A minute or two later the maid came out from the little dining-room,
+with scarlet cheeks and wide-open eyes, to where Miss Mary was lying in
+wait.
+
+"Is anything the matter, Betsey?" she asked, anxiously.
+
+"No, ma'am, only the little Dr Bolter, ma'am, he took up the cup and
+smelt it, just as if it was a smelling-bottle or one of master's roses,
+ma'am."
+
+"Yes--yes," whispered Miss Mary, impatiently.
+
+"And then he put about ten lumps of sugar in it, ma'am."
+
+"How many Betsey?"
+
+"Ten big lumps, mum, and tasted; and while I was clearing away he said,
+`Hambrosher!'  I don't know what he meant, but that's what he said,
+mum."
+
+"That will do, Betsey," whispered Miss Mary.  "Mind that the heater is
+very hot.  I'll come and cut the bread and butter myself."
+
+Betsey went her way, and Miss Mary returned to the little drawing-room,
+uttering a sigh of satisfaction; and it is worthy of record, that before
+closing the door she sniffed twice, and thought that at a distance the
+smell of cigars was after all not so very bad.
+
+Meanwhile the conversation had been continued in the dining-room.
+
+"What do I mean by intermediate, Arthur?  Well, I don't want to take
+those girls at one jump from the conventual seclusion of their school to
+what would seem to them like the wild gaiety of one of the great
+steamers of the _Messageries Maritimes_.  I should like to give them a
+little society first."
+
+"Exactly; very wisely," assented the Reverend Arthur.
+
+"So I thought if your sister would call on the Misses Twettenham with
+you, and you would have them here two or three times to spend the day,
+and a little of that sort of thing, do you see?"
+
+"Certainly.  We will talk to Mary about it when we go in to tea.  I am
+sure she would be very pleased."
+
+"That's right; and now what do you say to a trot in the garden?"
+
+"I shall be delighted!" was the reply; and they went out of the French
+window into the warm glow of the soft spring evening, the doctor
+throwing away the stump of his cigar as they came in sight of Miss Mary
+with a handkerchief tied lightly over her head, busy at work with
+scissors and basket cutting some flowers; and for the next hour they
+were walking up and down listening to the doctor's account of Malaya--
+its heat, its thunder-storms, and tropic rains; the beauties of the
+vegetation; the glories of its nights when the fire-flies were
+scintillating amidst the trees and shrubs that overhung the river, and
+so on, for the doctor never seemed to tire.
+
+"How anxious you must be to return, doctor!" said little Miss Rosebury
+at last.
+
+"No," he said, frankly.  "No, I am not.  I am very happy here in this
+charming little home; but when I go back, I hope to be as happy there,
+for I shall be busy, and work has its pleasures."
+
+Brother and sister assented, and soon after they went in to tea, over
+which the visiting question was broached, and after looking rather
+severe, little Miss Rosebury readily assented to call and invite the
+young ladies to spend a day.
+
+The evening glided away like magic; and before the doctor could credit
+that it was so late, he had to say "good-night," and was ushered into
+his bedroom.
+
+"Hah!" ejaculated the little man as he sank into a soft easy-chair,
+covered with snow-white dimity, and gazed at the white hangings, the
+pretty paper, the spotless furniture, and breathed in the pleasant scent
+of fresh flowers, of which there was a large bunch upon his dressing
+table.  "Hah!" he ejaculated again, and rising softly, he went to the
+table and looked at the blossoms.
+
+"Why, those are the flowers she was cutting when we went down the
+garden," he said to himself; and he went back to his chair and became
+very thoughtful.
+
+At the end of a quarter of an hour he wound up his watch and placed it
+beneath his pillow, and then stood thinking for a few minutes before
+slowly pulling off his boots.
+
+As he took off one, he took it up meditatively, gazed at the sole, and
+then at the interior, saying softly:
+
+"She is really a very nice little woman!"
+
+Then he took off the other boot, and whispered the same sentiment in
+that, and all in the most serious manner; while just before dropping off
+into a pleasant, restful sleep, he said, quite aloud this time:
+
+"A very nice little woman indeed!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIX.
+
+VISITORS AT THE RECTORY.
+
+The fact of its being the wish of the appointed guardian of the young
+ladies was sufficient to make the Misses Twettenham readily acquiesce to
+an invitation being accepted; and before many days had passed little
+Miss Rosebury drove over in the pony-carriage, into the front seat of
+which Helen Perowne, in the richest dress she possessed, glided with a
+grace and dignity that seemed to say she was conferring a favour.
+
+"I wish you could drive, my dear," said little Miss Rosebury, smiling in
+Grey Stuart's face, for there was something in the fair young
+countenance which attracted her.
+
+"May I ask why?" replied Grey.
+
+"Because it seems so rude to make you take the back seat."
+
+For answer Grey nimbly took her place behind; while, as Helen Perowne
+settled herself in a graceful, reclining attitude, Miss Rosebury took
+her seat, the round fat pony tossed its head, hands were waved, and away
+the little carriage spun along the ten miles' drive between Mayleyfield
+and the Rectory.
+
+Helen was languid and quiet, leaning back with her eyes half closed,
+while Grey bent forward between them and chatted with Miss Rosebury, the
+little lady seeming to be at home with her at once.
+
+Before they had gone a mile, though, the observant charioteer noticed
+that Grey started and coloured vividly at the sight of a tall, thin
+youth with a downy moustache, who eagerly raised his hat, as if to show
+his fair curly hair as they passed.
+
+"Then she has a lover too," said Miss Rosebury to herself; for Helen
+Perowne sat unmoved, and did not appear to see the tall youth as they
+drove by him, but kept her eyes half closed, the long lashes drooping
+almost to her cheeks.
+
+Little Miss Rosebury darted a keen glance at both the girls in turn, to
+see Grey Stuart colour more deeply still beneath her scrutiny; while
+Helen Perowne raised her eyes on finding Miss Rosebury looking at her,
+and smiled, her face wearing an enquiring look the while.
+
+Dr Bolter had gone to town on business, so it had been decided that the
+visitors should stay for a couple of nights at the Rectory, where the
+Reverend Arthur, trowel in one hand, basket in the other, was busy at
+work filling the beds with geraniums when the pony-carriage drew up.
+
+He slowly placed basket and trowel upon the grass as the carriage
+stopped, and forgetful of the state of his hands, helped the ladies to
+alight, leaving the imprint of his earthy fingers upon Helen's delicate
+gloves.
+
+Grey saw what took place, and expected an angry show of impatience on
+her companion's part; but on the contrary, Helen held up her hands and
+laughed in quite a merry way.
+
+"Oh, Arthur," exclaimed Miss Rosebury, "how thoughtless you are!"
+
+The Reverend Arthur looked in dismay at the mischief he had done, and
+taking out his pocket-handkerchief--one that had evidently been used for
+wiping earthy fingers before--he deliberately took first one and then
+the other of Helen Perowne's hands to try and remove the marks he had
+made upon her gloves.
+
+"I am very sorry, Miss Perowne," he said, in his quiet, deliberate way.
+"It was very thoughtless of me; I have been planting geraniums."
+
+To the amazement of Grey Stuart, Helen gazed full in the curate's face,
+smilingly surrendering her hands to the tender dusting they received.
+
+Miss Rosebury was evidently annoyed, for she turned from surrendering
+the reins to the gardener, who was waiting to lead away the pony, and
+exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Arthur, you foolish man, what are you doing?  Miss Perowne's hands
+are not the leaves of plants."
+
+"No, my dear Mary," said the Reverend Arthur, in the most serious
+manner; "and I am afraid I have made the mischief worse."
+
+"It does not matter, Mr Rosebury.  It is only a pair of gloves--I have
+plenty more," said Helen, hastily stripping them off regardless of
+buttons, and tearing them in the effort.  They were of the thinnest and
+finest French kid, and as she hastily rolled them up she looked
+laughingly round for a place to throw them, ending by dropping them into
+the large garden basket half full of little geranium pots, while the
+Reverend Arthur's eyes rested gravely upon the delicate blue-veined
+hands with their taper fingers and rosy nails.
+
+"Come, my dears," exclaimed Miss Rosebury, in her quick, chirpy way,
+"I'm sure you would like to come and take off your things after your
+hot, dusty drive.  This way; and pray do go and wash your hands,
+Arthur."
+
+"Certainly, my dear Mary," he replied, slowly.  "If I had thought of it
+I would have done so before.  I am very glad to see you at the Rectory,
+Miss Perowne.  May I--"
+
+He held out his earth-soiled hand to shake that of his visitor, but
+recollecting himself, he let it fall again, as he did the words he was
+about to speak.
+
+"I do not mind," said Helen, quickly, as she extended her own hand,
+which the curate had no other course than to take, and he did so with a
+slight colour mounting to his pale cheeks.
+
+Grey Stuart offered her hand in turn, her darker glove showing no trace
+of the contact.
+
+"I don't like her," said little Miss Rosebury to herself, and her lips
+tightened a little as she looked sidewise at Helen.  "She's a dreadfully
+handsome, wicked girl, I'm sure; and she tries to make every man fall in
+love with her that she sees.  She'll be trying Dr Bolter next."
+
+It was as if the sudden breath of a furnace had touched her cheeks as
+this thought crossed her mind, and she quite started as she took Grey
+Stuart's arm, saying once more, as in an effort to change the current of
+her thoughts:
+
+"Come, my dears; and do pray, Arthur, go and take off that dreadful
+coat!"
+
+"Yes, my dear Mary, certainly," he said; and smiling benignly at all in
+turn, he was moving towards the door, when Helen exclaimed quickly:
+
+"I am not at all tired.  I was going to ask Mr Rosebury to show me
+round his garden."
+
+There was a dead silence, only broken by the dull noise of the wheels of
+the pony=carriage rasping the gravel drive; there was the chirp of a
+sparrow too on the mossy roof-tiles, and then a fowl in the stable-yard
+clapped its wings loudly and uttered a triumphant crow, as, with
+old-fashioned chivalrous politeness, the Reverend Arthur took off his
+soft felt hat and offered his arm.
+
+For it was like a revelation to him--an awakening from a quiet, dreamy,
+happy state of existence, into one full of excitement and life, as he
+saw that beautiful young creature standing before him with a sweet,
+appealing look in her eyes, and one of those soft white hands held
+appealingly forth, asking of him a favour.
+
+And what a favour!  She asked him to show her his garden--his pride--the
+place where he spent all his spare moments.  His pale cheeks really did
+flush slightly now, and his soft, dull eyes brightened as if the
+reflection of Helen's youth and beauty irradiated the thin face, the
+white forehead, and sparse grey hairs bared to the soft breeze.
+
+Miss Mary Rosebury felt a bitter pang shoot through her tender little
+breast; and once more, as she saw Helen's hand rest upon her brother's
+shabby alpaca coat-sleeve, she compressed her lips, and felt that she
+hated this girl.
+
+"She's a temptress--a wicked coquette," she thought.
+
+It was a matter of moments only, and then she recollected herself.
+
+Her first idea was to go round the garden with Helen; but she shrank
+from the act as being inquisitorial, and turning to Grey, she took her
+arm.
+
+"Let them go and see the garden, my dear.  You and I will go and get rid
+of the dust.  There," she continued, as she led her visitor into the
+little flower-bedecked drawing-room, "does it not strike nice and cool?
+Our rooms look very small after yours."
+
+"Oh! but so bright and cheerful," said Grey, quietly.
+
+"Now I'll show you your bedroom," said Miss Rosebury, whose feeling of
+annoyance was gone.  "I'm obliged to put you both in the same room, and
+you must arrange between you who is to have the little bed.  Now,
+welcome to the Rectory, my dear, and I hope you will enjoy your visit.
+Let me help you."
+
+For Grey had smiled her thanks, and was taking off her bonnet, the wire
+of which had somehow become entangled with her soft, fair, wavy hair.
+
+Miss Rosebury's clever, plump little fingers deftly disentangled the
+bonnet, and then, not satisfied, began to smooth the slightly
+dishevelled hair, as if finding pleasure in playing with the fair, sunny
+strands that only seemed to ask for a dexterous turn or twist to
+naturally hang in clusters of curls.
+
+Miss Rosebury's other hand must have been jealous, for it too rose to
+Grey's head and joined in the gentle caress; while far from looking
+tight, and forming a thin red line, the little middle-aged lady's lips
+were in smiling curves, and her eyes beamed very pleasantly at her young
+visitor, who seemed to be half pleased, half pained at the other's
+tender way.
+
+"I am sure I shall be sorry to go away again," said Grey, softly.  "It
+is very kind of you to fetch us here."
+
+"Not at all, my dear," said Miss Rosebury, starting from her reverie;
+"but--but I'm afraid I must be very strict with you," she continued, in
+a half-merry, half-reproving tone.  "The Misses Twettenham have confided
+you to my care, and I said--I said--"
+
+"You said, Miss Rosebury?" exclaimed Grey, in wondering tones, and her
+large, soft eyes looked their surprise.
+
+"Yes, I said, as we came away, I'm a very peculiar, particular old lady,
+my dear; and I can't have tall gentlemen making bows to you when you are
+in my charge."
+
+"Oh, Miss Rosebury!" cried Grey, catching her hand and blushing scarlet,
+"please--pray don't think that!  It was not to me!"
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the little lady, softly.  "Hum!  I see;" and she looked
+searchingly in the fair young face so near to hers.  "It was my mistake,
+my dear; I beg your pardon."
+
+Grey's face was all smiles, though her eyes were full of tears, and the
+next moment she was clasped tightly to Miss Rosebury's breast,
+responding to her motherly kisses, and saying eagerly:
+
+"I could not bear for you to think that."
+
+"And I ought never to have thought it, my dear," said the little lady,
+softly patting and smoothing Grey's hair.  "Why, I ought to have known
+you a long time ago; and now I do know you, I hear you are going away?"
+
+"Yes," said Grey, "and so very soon.  My father wishes me to join him at
+the station."
+
+"Yes, I know, my dear.  It is quite right, for he is alone."
+
+"And he says it is dull without me; but he wished me to thoroughly
+finish my education first."
+
+"You don't recollect mamma, my dear, the doctor tells me?"
+
+"No," said Grey, shaking her head.  "She died when I was a very little
+child--the same year as Mrs Perowne."
+
+"A sad position for two young girls," said Miss Rosebury.
+
+"But the Misses Twettenham have always been so kind," said Grey,
+eagerly.  "I shall be very, very sorry to go away?"
+
+"And will Helen Perowne be very, very sorry to go away?"
+
+Grey Stuart's face assumed a troubled expression, and she looked
+appealingly in her questioner's face, which immediately became all
+smiles.
+
+"There, there, I fetched you both over to enjoy yourselves, and I'm
+pestering you with questions.  Come into my room, my dear, while I wash
+my hands, and then we'll go and join the truants in the garden.  I want
+you to like my brother very much, and I am sure he will like you."
+
+"I know I shall," said Grey, quietly, but with a good deal of bright
+girlish ingenuousness in her tones.  "Dr Bolter told me a great deal
+about him; how clever he is as a naturalist.  I do like Dr Bolter."
+
+Miss Rosebury glanced at her sharply.  It was an involuntary glance,
+which changed directly into a beaming look of satisfaction, as they
+crossed the landing into Miss Rosebury's own room, where their
+conversation lengthened so that the "truants," as the little lady called
+them, were forgotten.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+A LESSON IN BOTANY.
+
+Meanwhile the Reverend Arthur, with growing solicitude, was walking his
+garden as in a dream, explaining to his companion the progress of his
+flowers, his vegetables, and his fruit.
+
+The beds were searched for strawberries that were not ready; the wall
+trees were looked at reproachfully for not bearing ripe fruit months
+before their time; and the roses, that should have been in perfection,
+were grieved over for their fall during the week-past storm.
+
+It was wonderful to him what sweet and earnest interest this fair young
+creature took in his pursuits, and how eagerly she listened to his
+discourse when, down by the beehives, he explained the habits of his
+bees, and removed screens to let her see the working insects within.
+
+Miss Mary Rosebury took an interest in his garden and in his botanical
+pursuits, but nothing like this.  She did not keep picking weeds and
+wild flowers from beneath the hedge, and listen with rapt attention
+while he pointed out the class, the qualities, and peculiarities of the
+plant.
+
+Helen Perowne did, and it was quite a privilege to a weed to be picked,
+as was that stitchwort that had run its long trailing growth right up in
+the hedge, so as to give its pale green leaves and regular white
+cut-edged blossoms a good long bathe in the sunshine where the insects
+played.
+
+"I have often seen these little white flowers in the hedges," she said
+softly.  "I suppose they are too insignificant to have a name?"
+
+She stooped and picked the flower as she spoke, looking in her
+companion's eyes for an answer.
+
+"Insignificant?  No!" he cried, warming to his task.  "No flower is
+insignificant.  The very smallest have beauties that perhaps we cannot
+see."
+
+"Indeed," she said; and he looked at the blue veins beneath the
+transparent skin, as Helen held up the flower.  "Then has this a name?"
+
+"Yes," he said, rousing himself from a strange reverie, "a very simple,
+homely name--the stitchwort.  Later on in the season you will find
+myriads of its smaller relative, the lesser stitchwort.  They belong to
+the chickweed tribe."
+
+"Not the chickweed with which I used to feed my dear little bird that
+died?"
+
+"The very same," he replied, smiling.  "Next time you pluck a bunch you
+will see that, though tiny, the flowers strangely resemble these."
+
+"And the lesser stitchwort?"
+
+"Yes?" he said, inquiringly.  "Is it like this?"
+
+"Nearly the same, only the flowers are half the size."
+
+"And it grows where?"
+
+"In similar places--by hedges and ditches."
+
+"But you said something about time."
+
+"Yes," replied the Reverend Arthur, who was thinking how wondrous
+pleasant it would be to go on teaching botany to such a pupil for
+evermore.  "Yes, it is a couple of months, say, later than the great
+stitchwort."
+
+"Ah!" said Helen, with a sigh.  "By that time I shall be far away."
+
+The stitchwort fell to the ground, and they walked on together, with
+Helen, Circe-like, transforming the meek, studious, elderly man by her
+side, so that he was ready to obey her slightest whim, eagerly trying
+the while to explain each object upon which her eye seemed to rest;
+while she, glorying in her new power, led him on and on, with soft word,
+and glance, and sigh.
+
+They had been at least an hour in the garden when they reached the
+vinery, through whose open door came the sweet, inviting scent of the
+luxuriant tender growth.
+
+"What place is this?" she cried.
+
+"My vinery.  May I show you in?"
+
+"It would give you so much trouble."
+
+"Trouble?" he said; and taking off his hat he drew back for her to
+enter.
+
+"And will all those running things bear grapes?" she asked, as, throwing
+back her head and displaying the soft contour of her beautifully moulded
+throat, she gazed up at the tendril-handed vines.
+
+"Yes," he said, dreamily, "these are the young bunches with berries
+scarcely set.  You see they grow too fast.  I have to break off large
+pieces to keep them back, and tie them to those wires overhead."
+
+"Oh, do show me, Mr Rosebury?" she cried, with childlike eagerness.
+
+"Yes," he said, smiling; "but I must climb up there."
+
+"What, on to that board?"
+
+"Yes, and tie them with this strong foreign grass."
+
+"Oh, how interesting!  How beautiful!" she cried, her red lips parted,
+and showing the little regular white teeth within.  "I never thought
+that grapes would grow like this.  Please show me more."
+
+He climbed and sprawled awkwardly on to the great plank that reached
+from tie to tie, seating himself astride with the consequence that his
+trousers were dragged half way up his long, thin legs, revealing his
+clumsily-made garden shoes.  In his eagerness to show his visitor the
+growing of his vines he heeded it not; but after snapping off a
+luxuriant shoot, he was about to tie the residue to a stout wire, when a
+cry of fear from Helen arrested him.
+
+"Oh, Mr Rosebury, pray, pray get down!" she cried.  "It is not safe.
+I'm sure you'll fall!"
+
+"It is quite safe," he said, mildly; and he looked down with a bland
+smile at the anxious face below him.
+
+"Oh, no," she cried; "it cannot be."
+
+"I have tested it so many times," he said.  "Pray do not be alarmed."
+
+"But I am alarmed," she cried, looking up at him with an agitated air
+that made him hasten to descend, going through a series of evolutions
+that did not tend to set off his ungainly figure to advantage, and ended
+in landing him at her feet minus the bottom button of his vest.
+
+"Thank you," she cried.  "I am afraid I am very timid, but I could not
+bear to see you there."
+
+"Then I must leave my vines for the present," he said, smiling.
+
+"Oh, if you please," she cried; and then, as they left the vinery, she
+relapsed into so staid and dignified a mood, that the Reverend Arthur
+felt troubled and as if he had been guilty of some grave want of
+courtesy to his sister's guest, a state of inquietude that was ended by
+the coming of Miss Rosebury and Grey.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+HELEN'S DISCOVERY.
+
+The nearness of the date for the long voyage to the East came like a
+surprise to the occupants of the Rectory and the Misses Twettenham's
+establishment.  Dr Bolter had come down to stay at the Rectory for a
+few days, and somehow--no one could tell the manner of its happening--
+the few days, with occasional lapses for business matters, had grown
+into a few weeks, and still there seemed no likelihood of his leaving.
+
+What was more, no one seemed to wish him to leave.  He and the Reverend
+Arthur went out on botanical rambles, and came back loaded with
+specimens about which they discoursed all the evenings, while Miss
+Rosebury sat and worked.
+
+Upon sundry occasions the young ladies from Miss Twettenham's came over
+to spend the day, when Grey would be treated by Miss Rosebury with
+affectionate solicitude, and Helen with a grave courtesy that never
+seemed to alter unless for the parties concerned to grow more distant.
+
+With the Reverend Arthur, though, it was different.  Upon the days of
+these visits he was changed.  His outward appearance was the same, but
+there was a rapt, dreaminess pervading his actions and speech, and for
+the greater portion of the time he would be silent.
+
+Not that this was observed, for the doctor chatted and said enough for
+all--telling stories, relating the experiences of himself and the curate
+in the woods, while Helen sat back in her chair proud and listless, her
+eyes half closed, and a languid look of _hauteur_ in her handsome face.
+When addressed she would rouse herself for the moment, but sank back
+into her proud listlessness directly, looking bored, and as if she
+tolerated, because she could not help it, the jokes and sallies of the
+doctor.
+
+The incident of the tall, fair young man was dead and buried.  Whatever
+encouraging looks he may have had before, however his young love may
+have begun to sprout, it had been cut off by the untimely frost of Helen
+Perowne's indifference; for no matter how often he might waylay the
+school during walks, he never now received a glance from the dark
+beauty's eyes.
+
+The unfortunate youth, after these meetings, would console himself with
+the thought that he could place himself opposite in church, and there
+dart appeal into her eyes; but the very first Sunday he went it was to
+find that Helen had changed her seat, so that it was her back and not
+her face at which he gazed.
+
+A half-crown bestowed upon the pew-opener--young men at such times are
+generous--remedied this difficulty, and in the afternoon he had secured
+a seat opposite to Helen once again; but the next Sunday she had again
+changed her place, and no matter how he tried, Helen always avoided his
+gaze.
+
+A month killed the tender passion, and the young gentleman disappeared
+from Mayleyfield for good--at least so it is to be hoped, for no ill was
+heard of the hapless youth, the first smitten down by Helen Perowne's
+dark eyes.
+
+"And I am very glad we never see him now," said Helen one day when they
+were staying at the Rectory, and incidentally the troubles at Miss
+Twettenham's were named.
+
+"So am I," said Grey, quietly.  "It was such a pity that you should have
+noticed him at all."
+
+"Nonsense!  He was only a silly overgrown boy; but oh, Grey, child,"
+cried Helen, in a burst of confidence, "isn't the Reverend Arthur
+delicious?"
+
+"Delicious?" replied Grey, gazing at her wonderingly.  "I don't
+understand you."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!  He is so droll-looking, so tall and thin, and so
+attentive.  I declare I feel sometimes as if I could make everyone my
+slave."
+
+"Oh!  Helen, pray don't talk like that!" cried Grey, in alarm.
+
+"Why not?  Is a woman to be always wearing a pinafore and eating bread
+and butter?  I'm not a child now.  Look, there comes Dr Bolter along
+the lane.  Stand back from the window, or he'll be blowing kisses at us,
+or some nonsense.  I declare I hate that man!"
+
+"I like Dr Bolter," said Grey, quietly.
+
+"Yes, you like everyone who is weak and stupid.  Dr Bolter always
+treats me as if I were a child.  A silly, fat, dumpy little stupid;
+feeling my pulse and making me put out my tongue.  He makes my fingers
+tingle to box his ears."
+
+"I think Dr Bolter takes great interest in us," said Grey, slowly, and
+she stood gazing through the open window of their bedroom at the figure
+of the little doctor, as he came slowly down the lane, his eyes intent
+upon the weeds, and every now and then making a dart at some plant
+beneath the hedge, and evidently quite forgetful of his proximity to the
+Rectory gate.
+
+"Interest, yes!" cried Helen, who, in the retirement of their bedroom
+threw off her languid ways, and seemed full of eagerness and animation.
+"A nice prospect for us, cooped up on board ship with a man like that!
+I declare I feel quite ashamed of him.  I wonder what sort of people we
+shall have as cabin passengers."
+
+"They are sure to be nice," said Grey.
+
+"There will be some officers," continued Helen; "and some of them are
+sure to be young.  I've heard of girls going out to India being engaged
+to be married directly.  I say, Miss Demure, what fun it would be if we
+were to be engaged directly."
+
+Grey Stuart looked at her old schoolfellow, half wondering at her
+flippancy, half in pain, but Helen went on, as if getting rid of so much
+vitality before having to resume her stiff, distant ways.
+
+"Did you notice how silly the Reverend Arthur was last night?"
+
+"No," replied Grey.  "I thought he was very kind."
+
+"I thought he was going down upon his knees to kiss my feet!" cried
+Helen, with a mocking laugh; and her eyes sparkled and the colour came
+brightly in her cheeks.  "Oh, Grey, you little fair, soft, weak kitten
+of a thing, why don't you wake up and try to show your power."
+
+"Nelly, you surprise me!" cried Grey.  "How can you talk so giddily, so
+foolishly about such things."
+
+"Because I am no longer a child," cried the girl, proudly, and she drew
+herself up and walked backwards and forwards across the room.  "Do you
+suppose I do not know how handsome I am, and how people admire me?
+Well, I'm not going to be always kept down.  Look at the long, weary
+years of misery we have had at that wretched school."
+
+"Helen, you hurt me," said Grey.  "Your words are cruel.  No one could
+have been kinder to us than the Miss Twettenhams."
+
+"Kinder--nonsense!  Treated us like infants; but it is over now, and I
+mean to be free.  Who is that on the gravel path?  Oh! it's poor Miss
+Rosebury.  What a funny, sharp little body she is!"
+
+"Always so kind and genial to us," said Grey.
+
+"To you.  She likes you as much as she detests me."
+
+"Oh, Nelly!"
+
+"She does; but not more than I detest her.  She would not have me here
+at all if she could help it."
+
+"Oh! why do you say such things as that, Helen?"
+
+"Because they are true.  She does not like me because her brother is so
+attentive; and she seemed quite annoyed yesterday when the doctor spent
+so long feeling my pulse and talking his physic jargon to me.  And--oh,
+Grey, hush!  Come gently--here, beside this curtain!  Don't let them see
+you!  What a discovery!  Let's go and fetch the Reverend Arthur to see
+as well."
+
+"Oh, Helen, how wild you are!  What do you mean?"
+
+"That!" whispered Helen, catching her schoolfellow tightly by the arm as
+she wrenched her into position, so that she could look out of the little
+flower-decked window.  "What do I mean?  Why that!  See there!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER NINE.
+
+"I AM FORTY-FOUR."
+
+There was very little to see; and if Grey Stuart had accidentally seen
+what passed with unbiased eyes, she would merely have noted that, as Dr
+Bolter encountered Miss Rosebury at the gate, he shook hands warmly,
+paused for a moment, and then raised one of the lady's soft, plump
+little hands to his lips.
+
+Grey would not have felt surprised.  Why should she?  The Reverend
+Arthur Rosebury was Dr Bolter's oldest and dearest friend, to whom the
+Rosebury's were under great obligations; and there was nothing to Grey
+Stuart's eyes strange in this warm display of friendship.
+
+Helen gave the bias to her thoughts as she laughingly exclaimed:
+
+"Then the silly little woman was jealous of him yesterday.  Oh, do look,
+Grey!  Did you ever see anything so absurd!  They are just like a pair
+of little round elderly doves.  You see if the doctor does not propose."
+
+"What nonsense, Helen!" cried Grey, reproachfully.  "You are always
+talking and thinking of such things as that.  Miss Rosebury and Dr
+Bolter are very old friends."
+
+"That they are not.  They never met till a few weeks ago; and perhaps,
+madam, the time may come when you will talk and think about such things
+as much as I."
+
+Certainly there was little more to justify Helen Perowne's remark as the
+doctor and Miss Rosebury came along the garden path, unless the unusual
+flush in the lady's cheek was the effect of the heat of the sun.
+
+But Helen Perowne was right, nevertheless, for a strange tumult was
+going on in little Miss Rosebury's breast.
+
+She knew that Dr Bolter, although he had not said a word, was day by
+day becoming more and more impressive and almost tender in his way
+towards her.
+
+He lowered his voice when he spoke, and was always so deeply concerned
+about her health, that more than once her heart had been guilty of so
+peculiar a flutter that she had been quite angry with herself; going to
+her own room, taking herself roundly to task, and asking whether, after
+living to beyond forty, she ought ever for a moment to dream of becoming
+different from what she was.
+
+That very day, after feeling very much agitated by Dr Bolter's
+gravely-tender salute at the gate, she was completely taken by surprise.
+
+For towards evening, when the Reverend Arthur had asked Helen if she
+would take a turn round the garden, and that young lady had risen with
+graceful dignity, and asked Grey to be their companion, Miss Rosebury
+and the doctor were left in the drawing-room alone.
+
+The little lady's soul had risen in opposition to her brother's request
+to Helen, and she had been about to rise and say that she too would go,
+when she was quite disarmed by Helen herself asking Grey to accompany
+them, and she sank back in her seat with a satisfied sigh.
+
+"I declare the wicked thing is trying to lead poor Arthur on; and he is
+so weak and foolish that he might be brought to make himself
+uncomfortable about her."
+
+She sat thinking for a few moments as the girls left the room, and then
+settled herself in her chair with a sigh.
+
+"It is all nonsense," she said to herself; "Arthur is like me--too old
+now ever to let such folly trouble his breast."
+
+A loud snap made her start as Dr Bolter closed his cigar-case after
+spending some time in selecting a cigar, one which he had made up his
+mind to smoke in the garden.
+
+Just then their eyes met, and the little lady rose, walked to her
+writing-table, took a brass box from a drawer, struck a match, and
+advanced with it in her fingers towards the doctor.
+
+He replaced his cigar-case, and held out one hand for the match, took
+it, and blew it out before throwing it from the open window.
+
+"Was it not a good one?" said Miss Rosebury, beginning to tremble.
+
+"No," he said, quickly, as he thrust the cigar into his waistcoat
+pocket; "and I could not smoke here."
+
+As he spoke he took the little lady's hand in his left and looked
+pleadingly in her face.
+
+"Dr Bolter!" she exclaimed; and there was anger in her tone.
+
+"Don't--don't," he exclaimed, huskily, and as if involuntarily his
+forefinger was pressed upon her wrist--"don't be agitated Miss Rosebury.
+Greatly accelerated pulse--almost feverish.  Will you sit down?"
+
+Trembling, and with her face scarlet, he led the little lady to the
+couch, where, snatching her hand away, she sank down, caught her
+handkerchief from her pocket, covered her face with it, and burst into
+tears.
+
+"What have I done?" he cried.  "Miss Rosebury--Miss Rosebury--I meant to
+say--I wished to speak--everything gone from me--half dumb--my dear Mary
+Rosebury--Mary--I love you with all my heart!"
+
+As he spoke he plumped down upon his knees before her and tried to
+remove her hands from her face.
+
+For a few moments she resisted, but at last she let them rest in his,
+and he seemed to gain courage and went on:
+
+"It seemed so easy to tell you this; but I, who have seen death in every
+form, and been under fire a dozen times, feel now as weak as a girl.
+Mary, dear Mary, will you be my wife?"
+
+"Oh, Dr Bolter, pray get up, it is impossible.  You must be mad," she
+sobbed.  "I must be mad to let you say it."
+
+"No, no--no, no!" he cried.  "If I am mad, though, let me stay so, for I
+never was so happy in my life."
+
+"Pray--pray get up!" she cried, still sobbing bitterly; "it would look
+so foolish if you were seen kneeling to an old woman like me."
+
+"Foolish! to be kneeling and imploring the most amiable, the dearest
+woman--the best sister in the world?  Let them see me; let the whole
+world see me.  I am proud to be here begging you--praying you to be my
+wife."
+
+"Oh! no, no, no!  It is all nonsense.  Oh, Dr Bolter, I--I am
+forty-four!"
+
+"Brave--courageous little woman," he cried, ecstatically, "to tell me
+out like that!  Forty-four!"
+
+"Turned," sobbed the little lady; "and I never thought now that anybody
+would talk to me like this."
+
+"I don't care if you are fifty-four or sixty-four!" cried the little
+doctor excitedly.  "I am not a youth, Mary.  I'm fifty, my dear girl;
+and I've been so busy all my life, that, like our dear old Arthur, I
+have never even thought of such a thing as marriage.  But since I have
+been over here--seen this quiet little home, made so happy by your
+clever hands--I have learned that, after all, I had a heart, and that if
+my dear old friend's sweet sister would look over my faults, my age, my
+uncouth ways, I should be the happiest of men."
+
+"Pray--pray get up, doctor," said Miss Rosebury sadly.
+
+"Call me Harry, and I will," he cried, gallantly.
+
+"No, no!" she said, softly, and there was something so firm and gentle
+in her words that he rose at once, took the seat she pointed to by her
+side, and would have passed his arm round her shapely little waist, but
+she laid one hand upon his wrist and stayed him.
+
+"No, Henry Bolter," she said, firmly; "we are not boy and girl.  Let us
+act like sensible, mature, and thoughtful folk."
+
+"My dear," he said, and the tears stood in his eyes, "I respect and love
+you more and more.  What is there that I would not do?"
+
+She beamed upon him sweetly, and laid her hand upon his as they sat
+there side by side in silence, enjoying a few brief moments of the
+greatest happiness that had ever been their lot, and then the little
+lady spoke:
+
+"Henry," she said, softly, "my dear brother's dearest friend--my dearest
+friend--do not think me wanting in appreciation of what you have said."
+
+"I could never think your words other than the best," he said, tenderly;
+and the little lady bowed her head before resuming.
+
+"I will not be so foolish as to deny that in the past," she went on,
+"there have been weak times when I may have thought that it would be a
+happy thing for a man whom a woman could reverence and respect as well
+as love to come and ask me to be his wife."
+
+"As I would always strive to make you respect me, Mary," he said,
+softly; and he kissed her hand.
+
+"I know you would," she said, "but it cannot be."
+
+"Mary," he cried, pleadingly, "I have waited and weighed all this, and
+asked myself whether it was vanity that made me think your dear eyes
+lighted up and that you were glad to see me when I came."
+
+"You did not deceive yourself," she said, softly.  "I was glad to see my
+dear brother's friend when he first came, and that gladness has gone on
+increasing until, I confess to you freely, it will come upon me like
+some great sadness when the time is here for you to go away."
+
+"Say that again," he cried, eagerly.
+
+"Why should I?" she said, sadly.
+
+"Then--then you do love me, Mary?"
+
+"I--I think so," she said, softly; and the little lady's voice was very
+grave; "but love in this world has often to give way to duty."
+
+"Ye-es," he said, dubiously; "but where two people have been waiting
+such a precious long time before they found out what love really is, it
+seems rather hard to be told that duty must stand first."
+
+"It is hard, but it is fact," she said.
+
+"I don't know so much about that," said the little doctor.  "Just now I
+feel as if it was my bounden duty to make you my happy little wife."
+
+"And how can I think it my duty to accept you?" she said, smiling.
+
+"Well, I do ask a great deal," he replied.  "It means going to the other
+side of the world; but, my dear Mary, you should never repent it."
+
+"I know I never should," she replied.  "We have only lately seen one
+another face to face, but I have known you and your kindness these many
+years."
+
+"Then why refuse me?"
+
+"For one thing, I am too old," she said, sadly.
+
+"Your dear little heart is too young, and good, and tender, you mean."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"That's no argument against it," he said.  "And now what else?"
+
+"There is my brother," she replied, speaking very firmly now.
+
+"Your brother?"
+
+"You know what dear Arthur is."
+
+"The simplest, and best, and truest of men."
+
+"Yes," she cried, with animation.
+
+"And a clever naturalist, whose worth has never yet been thoroughly
+known."
+
+"He is unworldly to a degree," continued the little lady; "and as you
+justly say, the simplest of men."
+
+"I would not have him in the slightest degree different," cried the
+doctor.
+
+"I scold him a good deal sometimes," said the little lady, smiling; "but
+I don't think I would have him different in the least."
+
+"No; why should we?" said the doctor.
+
+That _we_ was a cunning stroke of diplomacy, and it made Miss Rosebury
+start.  She shook her head though directly.
+
+"No, Henry Bolter," she said, firmly, "it cannot be."
+
+"Cannot be?" he said, despondently.
+
+"No; I could not leave my brother.  Let us join them in the garden!"
+
+"I am not to take that for an answer?" cried the doctor.
+
+"Yes," she replied; "it would be cruel to leave him."
+
+"But Mary, dear Mary, you do not dislike me!" cried the little doctor.
+"I'm not much to look at I know; not a very gallant youth, my dear!"
+
+"I think you are one of the best of men!  You make me very proud to
+think that--that you could--could--"
+
+"And you have owned to liking me, my dear?" he whispered.  "Say _yea_.
+Arthur would soon get used to your absence; and of course, before long
+we should come back."
+
+"No," she said firmly, "it could not be!"
+
+"Not be!" he said in a tone of so much misery that little Miss Rosebury
+added:
+
+"Not for me to go out there.  We must wait."
+
+"Wait!"
+
+"Yes; a few years soon pass away, and you will return."
+
+"But we--I mean--I am getting so precious old," said the doctor
+dismally.
+
+"Yes, we should be much older, Henry," said the little lady sweetly, as
+she held out her hand; "but surely our esteem would never fade."
+
+"Never!" he cried, kissing her hand again; and then he laid that hand
+upon his arm, and they went out into the garden, where the little lady's
+eyes soon made out the Reverend Arthur bending over his choicest
+flowers, to pick the finest blossoms for a bouquet ready for Helen
+Perowne to carelessly throw aside.
+
+Satisfied that her brother was in no imminent danger with Grey Stuart
+present, little Miss Rosebury made no opposition to a walk round; the
+doctor thinking that perhaps, now the ice was broken, he might manage to
+prevail.
+
+"How beautiful the garden is!" said the little lady, to turn the
+conversation.
+
+"Beautiful, yes! but, my dear madam," exclaimed the doctor, in didactic
+tones, "a garden in Malaya, where I ask you to go--the jungle gorgeous
+with flowers--the silver river sparkling in the eternal sunshine--the
+green of the ever-verdant woods--the mountains lifting--"
+
+"Thank you, doctor," said the little lady, "that is very pretty; but
+when I was a young girl they took me to see the `Lady of Lyons,' and I
+remember that a certain mock prince describes his home to the lady
+something in that way--a palace lifting to eternal summer--and lo! as
+they say in the old classic stories, it was only a gardener's cottage
+after all!"
+
+The matter-of-fact little body had got over her emotion, and this remark
+completely extinguished the doctor for the time.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TEN.
+
+MISS ROSEBURY SPEAKS SERIOUSLY.
+
+The next day, when the visitors had been driven back by the Reverend
+Arthur, his sister met him upon the step, and taking his arm, led him
+down the garden to the vine-house.
+
+"Let us go in here, Arthur," she said.  "It is such a good place to talk
+in; there is no fear of being overheard."
+
+"Yes, it is a quiet retired place," he said thoughtfully.
+
+"I hope you were careful in driving, and had no accident, Arthur?"
+
+"N-no; I had no accident, only I drove one wheel a little up the bank in
+Sandrock Lane."
+
+"How was that?  You surely did not try to pass another carriage in that
+narrow part?"
+
+"N-no," hesitated the Reverend Arthur.  "Let me see, how was it?  Oh, I
+remember.  Miss Perowne had made some remark to me, and I was thinking
+of my answer."
+
+"And nearly upset them," cried Miss Rosebury.  "Oh!  Arthur--Arthur, you
+grow more rapt and dreamy every day; What is coming to you I want to
+know?"
+
+The Reverend Arthur started guiltily, and gazed at his sister.
+
+"Oh!  Arthur," she cried, shaking a warning finger at him, "you are
+neglecting your garden and your natural history pursuits to try and make
+yourself a cavalier of dames, and it will not do.  There--there, I won't
+scold you; but I am beginning to think that it will be a very good thing
+when our visitors have gone for good."
+
+The Reverend Arthur sighed, and half turned away to snip off two or
+three tendrils from a vine-shoot above his head.
+
+"I want to talk to you very seriously, Arthur," said the little lady,
+whose cheeks began to flush slightly with excitement; and she felt
+relieved as she saw her brother turn a little more away.
+
+"I want to talk to you very seriously indeed," said Miss Rosebury.
+
+"I am listening," he said hoarsely; but she did not notice it in her
+excitement.
+
+There was a minute's pause, during which the Rev Arthur broke off the
+young vine-shoot by accident, and then stood trying to replace it again.
+
+At last Miss Rosebury spoke.
+
+"Arthur," she said--and her brother started and seemed to shiver, though
+she saw it not--"Arthur, Henry Bolter has asked me to be his wife!"
+
+The Reverend Arthur turned round now in his astonishment, with his face
+deadly white and the tiny beads of perspiration upon his forehead.
+"Asked you to be his wife?" he said.  "Yes, dear."
+
+"I am astonished," cried the Reverend Arthur.  "No, I am not," he added
+thoughtfully.  "He seemed to like you very much, Mary."
+
+"And I like him very much, Arthur, for I think him a truly good,
+amiable, earnest man."
+
+"He is my dear Mary--he is indeed; but--but--"
+
+"But what, Arthur?  Were you going to say that you could not spare me?"
+
+"I--I hardly know what I was about to say, Mary, you took me so by
+surprise.  It would be very strange, though, to be here without you."
+
+"And you will not be, Arthur.  I felt that I must tell you.  I have
+nothing that I keep from you; but I have refused him."
+
+"You have refused him," he said thoughtfully.  "Yes, I felt that it
+would not be right to let a comparative stranger come in here and break
+up at once our happy little home.  No, Arthur, this must all be like
+some dream.  You and I, dear brother, are fast growing into elderly
+people; and love such as that is the luxury of the young."
+
+"Love such as that," said the Reverend Arthur, softly, "is the luxury of
+the young!"
+
+"Yes, dear brother, it would be folly in me to give way to such
+feelings!"
+
+"Do you like Harry?" he exclaimed, suddenly.
+
+"Yes," she said, quietly.  "I have felt day by day, Arthur, that I liked
+him more and more.  It was and is a wonder to me at my age; but I should
+not be honest if I did not own that I liked him."
+
+"It is very strange, Mary," said the curate, softly.
+
+"Yes, it is very strange," she said; "and as I think of it all, I am
+obliged to own to myself, that after all I should have liked to be
+married.  It is such a revival of the past."
+
+The curate nodded his head several times as he let himself sink down
+upon the greenhouse steps, resting his hands upon his knees.
+
+"But it is all past now, Arthur," said the lady, quickly, and the tears
+were in her eyes, "we are both too old, my dear brother; and as soon as
+these visitors are gone, we will forget all disturbing influences, and
+go back to our happy old humdrum life."
+
+She could not trust herself to say more, but hurried off to her room,
+leaving the Reverend Arthur gazing fixedly at the red-brick floor.
+
+"We are too old," he muttered softly, from time to time; and as he said
+those words there seemed to stand before him the tall, well-developed
+figure of a dark-eyed, beauteous woman, who was gazing at him softly
+from between her half-closed, heavily-fringed lids.
+
+"We are too old," he said again; and then he went on dreaming of that
+day's drive, and Helen's gentle farewell--of the walks they had had in
+his garden--the flowers she had taken from his hand.  Lastly, of his
+sister's words respecting disturbing influences, and then settling down
+to their own happy humdrum life once again.
+
+"It is fate!" he said, at last--"fate.  Can we bring back the past?"
+
+He felt that he could not, even as his sister felt just then, as she
+knelt beside one of the chairs in her own sweet-scented room, and asked
+for strength, as she termed it, to fight against this temptation.
+
+"No," she cried, at last; "I cannot--I will not!  For Arthur's sake I
+will be firm."
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+A DIFFICULTY SOLVED.
+
+A week passed, during which all had been very quiet at the Rectory,
+brother and sister meeting each other hour by hour in a kind of saddened
+calm.  The Reverend Arthur was paler than usual, almost cadaverous,
+while there was a troubled, anxious look in little Miss Rosebury's eyes,
+and a sharpness in her voice that was not there on the day when Dr
+Bolter proposed.
+
+No news had been heard of the young ladies at Miss Twettenham's; and Dr
+Bolter, to Miss Rosebury's sorrow, had not written to her brother.
+
+But she bravely fought down her suffering, busying herself with more
+than usual zeal in home and parish; while the Reverend Arthur came back
+evening after evening faint, weary, and haggard, from some long
+botanical ramble.
+
+The eighth day had arrived, and towards noon little Miss Rosebury was
+quietly seated by the open window with her work, fallen upon her knee,
+and a sad expression in her eyes as she gazed wistfully along the road,
+thinking, truth to tell, that Dr Bolter might perhaps come in to their
+early dinner.
+
+Doctors were so seldom ill, or perhaps he might be lying suffering at
+some hotel.
+
+The thought sent a pang through the little body, making her start, and
+seizing her needle, begin to work, when a warm flush came into her
+cheeks as she heard at one and the same time the noise of wheels, and a
+slow, heavy step upon the gravel.
+
+The step she well knew, and for a few moments she did not look up; but
+when she did she uttered an exclamation.
+
+"Tut--tut--tut!" she said.  "If anyone saw poor Arthur now they would
+think him mad."
+
+Certainly the long, gaunt figure of the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, in his
+soft, shapeless felt hat, and long, clinging, shabby black alpaca coat,
+was very suggestive of his being a kind of male Ophelia gone slightly
+distraught as the consequence of a disappointment in love.
+
+For in the heat of a long walk the tie of his white cravat had gone
+round towards the nape of his neck, while his felt hat was decorated to
+the crown with butterflies secured to it by pins.  The band had wild
+flowers and herbs tucked in here and there.  His umbrella--a very
+shabby, baggy gingham--was closed and stuffed with botanical treasures;
+and his vasculum, slung beneath one arm, was so gorged with herbs and
+flowers of the field that it would not close.
+
+He was coming slowly down the path as wheels stopped at the gate just
+out of sight from the window, where little Miss Rosebury sat with her
+head once more bent down over her work; but she could hear a quick,
+well-known voice speaking to the driver of the station fly; then there
+was the click of the latch as the gate swung to, and the little lady's
+heart began to go pat, pat--pat, pat--much faster than the quick,
+decided step that she heard coming down the long gravel path.
+
+Her hearing seemed to be abnormally quickened, and she listened to the
+wheels as the fly drove off, and then heard every word as the doctor's
+quick, decided voice saluted his old friend.
+
+"Been horribly busy, Arthur," he cried; "but I'm down at last.  Where's
+Mary?"
+
+Hiding behind the curtain, for she had drawn back to place her hand upon
+her side to try and control the agitated beating of her foolish little
+heart.
+
+"Oh, it is dreadful!  How can I be so weak?" she cried angrily, as she
+made a brave effort to be calm--a calmness swept away by the entrance of
+the doctor, who rushed in boisterously to seize her hands, and before
+she could repel him, he had kissed her heartily.
+
+"Eureka! my dear Mary!  Eureka!" he cried.  "I have it--I have it!"
+
+"Henry--Dr Bolter!" she cried, with a decidedly dignified look in her
+pleasant face.
+
+"Don't be angry with me, my dear," he cried; "the news is so good.  You
+couldn't leave poor Arthur, could you?"
+
+"No!" she cried, with an angry little stamp, as she mentally upbraided
+him for tearing open the throbbing wound she was striving to heal.  "You
+know I will not leave him."
+
+"I love and honour you for it more and more, my dear," he cried.  "But
+what do you think of this?  Suppose we take him with us?"
+
+"Take him with us?" said the little lady, slowly.
+
+"Yes," cried the doctor, excitedly; "take him with us, Mary--my darling
+wife that is to be.  The chaplaincy of our settlement is vacant.  Did
+you ever hear the like?"
+
+Little Miss Rosebury could only stare at the excited doctor in a
+troubled way, for she understood him now, though her lips refused to
+speak.
+
+"Yes, and I am one of the first to learn the news.  I can work it, I
+feel sure, if he'll come.  Then only think; lovely climate, glorious
+botanical collecting trips for him!  The land, too, whence Solomon's
+ships brought gold, and apes, and peacocks.  Ophir, Mary, Ophir!  Arthur
+will be delighted."
+
+"Indeed!" said that lady wonderingly.
+
+"Not a doubt about it, my dear.  My own discovery.  All live together!
+Happiness itself."
+
+"But Arthur is delicate," she faltered.  "The station is unhealthy."
+
+"Am not I there?  Do I not understand your brother thoroughly?  Oh! my
+dear Mary, do not raise obstacles in the way.  It is fate.  I know it
+is, in the shape of our Political Resident Harley.  He came over with
+me, and goes back in the same boat.  He has had telegrams from the
+station."
+
+"You--you take away my breath, doctor," panted the little lady.  "I must
+have time to think.  Oh! no, no, no; it is impossible.  Arthur would
+never consent to go."
+
+"If you will promise to be my wife, Mary, I'll make him go!" cried the
+doctor, excitedly.
+
+"No, no; he never would.  He could not give up his position here, and I
+should not allow him.  It would be too cruelly selfish on my part.  It
+is impossible; it can never be."
+
+The next moment the doctor was alone, for Miss Rosebury had hurried out
+to go and sob passionately as a girl in her own room, waking up more and
+more, as she did, to the fact that she had taken the love distemper late
+in life; but it was none the weaker for being long delayed.
+
+"It isn't impossible, my dear," chuckled the doctor, as he rubbed his
+hands; "and if I know anything of womankind, the darling little body's
+mine.  I hope she won't think I want her bit of money, because I don't."
+
+He took a turn up and down the room, rubbing his hands and smiling in a
+very satisfied way.
+
+"I think I can work Master Arthur," he said.  "He'll be delighted at the
+picture I shall paint him of our flora and fauna.  It will be a treat
+for him, and we shall be as jolly as can be.  We'll see about duty and
+that sort of thing.  Why, it will be a better post for him ever so much,
+and he's a splendid old fellow."
+
+There was another promenade of the room, greatly to the endangerment of
+Miss Rosebury's ornaments.  Then the doctor slapped one of his legs
+loudly.
+
+"Capital!" he cried.  "What a grand thought.  What a card to play!  That
+will carry her by storm.  I'll play that card at our next interview; but
+gently, Bolter, my boy, don't be in too great a hurry!  She's a splendid
+specimen, and you must not lose her by being precipitate; but, by Jove!
+what a capital thought--tell her it will be quite an act of duty to come
+with me and act a mother's part to those two girls."
+
+"She'll do it--she'll do it," he cried, after a pause, "for she quite
+loves little Grey, and a very nice little girl too.  Then it will keep
+that dark beauty out of mischief, for hang me if I think I could get her
+over to her father disengaged, and so I told Harley yesterday."
+
+The doctor did knock off an ornament from a stand at his next turn up
+and down the room, breaking it right in two; and this brought him to his
+senses, as, full of repentance, he sought the Reverend Arthur Rosebury
+in his study to act as medium and confess his sin.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+PLAYING THE CARD.
+
+The Reverend Arthur had removed the butterflies and wild flowers from
+his hat by the time Dr Bolter reached him, and was walking slowly up
+and down the study with his hands clasped behind him.
+
+There was a wrinkled look of trouble in his face.
+
+As the doctor entered he smilingly placed a chair for his friend, and
+seemed to make an effort to get rid of the feeling of oppression that
+weighed him down.
+
+Then they sat and talked of butterflies and birds for a time, fencing as
+it were, for somehow Dr Bolter felt nervous and ill at ease, shrinking
+from the task which he had set himself, while the Reverend Arthur,
+though burning to ask several questions upon a subject nearest his
+heart, shrank from so doing lest he should expose his wound to his
+friend's inquisitorial eyes.
+
+"I declare I'm as weak as a child," said the doctor to himself, after
+making several vain attempts at beginning.  "It's dreadfully difficult
+work!" and he asked his friend if the lesser copper butterfly was
+plentiful in that district.
+
+"No," said the Reverend Arthur, "we have not chalk enough near the
+surface."
+
+Then there was a pause--a painful pause--during which the two old
+friends seemed to be fighting hard to break the ice that kept forming
+between them.
+
+"I declare I'm much weaker than a child," said the doctor to himself;
+and the subject was the next moment introduced by the Reverend Arthur,
+who, with a guilty aspect and look askant, both misinterpreted by the
+doctor, said, hesitatingly:
+
+"Do you know for certain when you go away, Harry?"
+
+"In three weeks, my boy, or a month at most, and there is no time to
+lose in foolish hesitation, is there?"
+
+"No, of course not.  You mean about the subject Mary named?"
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," cried the doctor, who was now very hot and
+excited.  "You wouldn't raise any objection, Arthur?"
+
+"No, I think not, Harry.  It would be a terrible loss to me."
+
+"It would--it would."
+
+"And I should feel it bitterly at first."
+
+"Of course--of course," said the doctor, trying to speak; but his friend
+went on excitedly.
+
+"Time back I could not have understood it; but I am not surprised now!"
+
+"That's right, my dear Arthur, that's right; and I will try and make her
+a good husband."
+
+"She is a very, very good woman, Harry!"
+
+"The best of women, Arthur, the very best of women; and it will be so
+nice for those two girls to have her for guide."
+
+"Do--do they go--both go--with you--so soon?" said the Reverend Arthur,
+wiping his wet forehead and averting his head.
+
+"Yes, of course," said the doctor, eagerly.
+
+"And--and does Mary say she will accept you, Harry?"
+
+"No," said a quick, decided voice.  "I told him I could not leave you,
+Arthur;" and the two gentlemen started guiltily from their chairs.
+
+"My dear Mary," said the curate, "how you startled me."
+
+"I have not had time to tell him yet," said the doctor, recovering
+himself; and taking the little lady's hand, he led her to the chair he
+had vacated, closed the door, and then stood between brother and sister.
+"I have not had time to tell him yet, my dear Miss Rosebury, but I have
+been saying to him that it would be so satisfactory for you to help me
+in my charge of those two young ladies."
+
+Miss Rosebury started in turn, and coloured slightly.
+
+"And now, my dear old friend," said the doctor, "let me ask you,
+treating you as Mary's nearest relative, will you give your consent to
+our marriage?"
+
+"No, Arthur, you cannot," said the little lady, firmly.  "I could not
+leave you."
+
+"But I have an offer to make you, my dear old friend," said the doctor;
+"the chaplaincy at our station is vacant; will you come out with us and
+take it?  There will be no separation then, and--"
+
+He stopped short, for at his words the Reverend Arthur seemed to be
+galvanised into a new life.  He started from his seat, the listless,
+saddened aspect dropped away, his eyes flashed, and the blood mounted to
+his cheeks.
+
+"Come with you?" he cried.  "Chaplaincy?  Out there?"
+
+It seemed as if he had been blinded by the prospect, for the next moment
+he covered his face with his hands, and sank back in his seat without a
+word.
+
+"I knew it!" cried little Miss Rosebury, in reproachful tones; and,
+leaving her chair, she clung to her brother's arm.  "I told you he could
+not break up his old home here.  No, no, Arthur, dear Arthur, it is all
+a foolish dream!  I do not wish to leave you--I could not leave you.
+Henry Bolter, pray--pray go," she said, piteously, as she turned to the
+doctor.  "We both love you dearly as our truest friend; but you place
+upon us burdens that we cannot bear.  Oh, why--why did you come to thus
+disturb our peace?  Arthur, dear brother, I will not go away!"
+
+"Hush! hush, Mary!" the curate said, from behind his hands.  "Let me
+think.  You do not know.  I cannot bear it yet!"
+
+"My dear old Arthur," began the doctor.
+
+"Let me think, Harry, let me think," he said, softly.
+
+"No, no, don't think!" cried the little lady, almost angrily.  "You
+shall not sacrifice yourself for my sake!  I will not be the means of
+dragging you from your peaceful happy home--the home you love--and from
+the people who love you for your gentle ways!  Henry Bolter, am I to
+think you cruel and selfish instead of our kind old friend?"
+
+"No, no, my dear Mary!" cried the doctor, excitedly.  "Selfish?  Well,
+perhaps I am, but--"
+
+"Hush!" said the curate softly; and again, "let me think."
+
+A silence fell upon the little group, and the chirping of the birds in
+the pleasant country garden was all that broke that silence for many
+minutes to come.
+
+Then the Reverend Arthur rose from his seat and moved towards the door,
+motioning to them not to follow him as he went out into the garden, and
+they saw him from the window go up and down the walks, as if communing
+with all his familiar friends, asking, as it were, their counsel in his
+time of trial.
+
+At last he came slowly back into the room, where the elderly lovers had
+been seated in silence, neither daring to break the spell that was upon
+them, feeling as they did how their future depended upon the brother's
+words.
+
+They looked at him wonderingly as he came into the room pale and
+agitated, as if suffering from the reaction of a mental struggle; but
+there was a smile of great sweetness upon his lips as he said, softly:
+
+"Harry, old friend, I never had a brother.  You will be really brother
+to me now."
+
+"No, no!" cried his sister, excitedly.  "You shall not sacrifice
+yourself like this!"
+
+"Hush, dear Mary," he replied calmly; "let me disabuse your mind.  You
+confessed to me your love for Harry Bolter here.  Why should I stand in
+the way of your happiness?"
+
+"Because it would half kill you to be left alone."
+
+"But I shall not be left alone," he cried, excitedly.  "I shall bitterly
+regret parting from this dear old home; but I am not so old that I could
+not make another in a foreign land."
+
+"Oh!  Henry Bolter," protested the little lady, "it must not be!"
+
+"But it must," said her brother, taking her in his arms, and kissing her
+tenderly.  "There are other reasons, Mary, why I should like to go.  I
+need not explain what those reasons are; but I tell you honestly that I
+should like to see this distant land."
+
+"Where natural history runs mad, Arthur," cried the doctor, excitedly.
+"Hurrah!"
+
+"Oh, Arthur!" cried his sister, "you cannot mean it.  It is to please
+me."
+
+"And myself," he said, quietly.  "There; I am in sober earnest, and I
+tell you that no greater pleasure could be mine than to see you two
+one."
+
+"At the cost of your misery, Arthur."
+
+"To the giving of endless pleasure to your husband and my brother," said
+the Reverend Arthur, smiling; and before she could thoroughly realise
+the fact, little quiet Miss Mary Rosebury was sobbing on the doctor's
+breast.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+ON THE VOYAGE.
+
+In these busy days of rail and steam, supplemented by their quick young
+brother electricity, time seems to go so fast that before the parties to
+this story had thoroughly realised the fact, another month had slipped
+by, another week had been added to that month, the Channel had been
+crossed, then France by train, and at Marseilles the travellers had
+stepped on board one of the steamers of the French company, the
+_Messageries Maritimes_, bound for Alexandria, Aden, Colombo, Penang,
+and then, on her onward voyage to Singapore and Hong Kong, to drop a
+certain group of her passengers at the mouth of the Darak river, up
+which they would be conveyed by Government steamer to Sindang, the
+settlement where Mr Harley, her Britannic Majesty's Resident at the
+barbaric court of the petty Malay Rajah-Sultan Murad had the guidance of
+affairs.
+
+It was one of those delicious, calm evenings of the South, with the
+purple waters of the tideless Mediterranean being rapidly turned into
+orange and gold.  Away on the left could be seen, faintly pencilled
+against the sky, the distant outlines of the mountains that shelter the
+Riviera from the northern winds.  To the right all was gold, and purple,
+and orange sea; and the group seated about the deck enjoying the
+comparative coolness of the evening knew that long before daybreak the
+next morning they would be out of sight of land.
+
+There were a large number of passengers; for the most part English
+officials and their families returning from leave of absence to the
+various stations in the far East; and as they were grouped about the
+spacious quarter-deck of the sumptuously-fitted steamer rapidly
+ploughing its way through the sun-dyed waters, the scene was as bright
+and animated as painter could depict.
+
+Gentlemen were lounging, smoking, or making attempts to catch the fish
+that played about the vessel's sides without the slightest success;
+ladies were seated here and there, or promenading the deck, while other
+groups were conversing in low tones as they drank in the soft, sensuous
+air, and wondered how people could be satisfied to exist in dull and
+foggy, sunless England, when nature offered such climes as this.
+
+"In another half-hour, Miss Perowne, I think I shall be able to show you
+a gorgeous sunset, if you will stay on deck."
+
+The speaker was a tall, fair man by rights, but long residence in the
+East had burned his skin almost to the complexion of that of a Red
+Indian.  He was apparently about forty, with high forehead, clear-cut
+aquiline features, and the quick, firm, searching look of one accustomed
+to command and master men.
+
+He took off his puggree-covered straw hat as he spoke, to let the cool
+breeze play through his hair, which was crisp and short, but growing so
+thin and sparse upon the top that partings were already made by time,
+and he would have been looked upon by every West-end hair-dresser as a
+suitable object to be supplied with nostrums and capillary regenerators
+galore.
+
+"Are the sunsets here very fine?" said Helen, languidly, as she lay back
+in a cane chair listlessly gazing through her half-closed eyes at the
+glittering water that foamed astern, ever widening away from the
+churning of the huge propeller of the ship.
+
+"Very grand some of them, but nothing to those we shall show you in the
+water-charged atmosphere close to the equator.  Ah, Miss Stuart, come
+here and stop to see the sunset.  You grieve me, my child," he added,
+smiling, and showing his white teeth.
+
+"Grieve you, Mr Harley, why?" said Grey, smiling.
+
+"Because I feel as if I were partner in the crime of taking you out to
+Sindang to turn that fair complexion of yours brown."
+
+"Grey Stuart is very careless about such things," said Helen, with
+languid pettishness.  "How insufferably hot it is!"
+
+"Well," said Mr Harley, laughing, "you are almost queen here already,
+Miss Perowne; everyone seems to constitute himself your slave.  Shall we
+arm ourselves with punkahs, and waft sweet southern gales to your fair
+cheeks?"
+
+"Here!  Hi, Harley!" cried the brisk voice of Dr Bolter from the
+forward part of the vessel.
+
+"'Tis the voice of the male turtle-dove," said Mr Harley, laughing.
+"He is separated from his mate.  Have I your permission to go, fair
+queen?"
+
+Helen's eyes opened widely for a moment, and she darted an angry look at
+the speaker before turning away with an imperious gesture, when, with a
+meaning smile upon his lip, Neil Harley, Her Britannic Majesty's
+Political Resident at Sindang, walked forward.
+
+"That man irritates me," said Helen, in a low, angry voice.  "I began by
+disliking him; I declare I hate him now!"
+
+"Is it not because you both try to say sharp-edged words to each other,
+Helen?" said Grey Stuart, seating herself by her schoolfellow's side,
+and beginning to work.  "Mr Harley is always very kind and nice to me."
+
+"Pah!  He treats you like a child!" said Helen, contemptuously.
+
+"Well," said Grey, smiling in her companion's face, "I suppose I am a
+child to him.  Here comes Mr Rosebury."
+
+"I wish Mr Rosebury were back in England," said Helen, petulantly.  "He
+wearies me with his constant talk about the beauties of nature.  I wish
+this dreadful voyage were over!"
+
+"And we have hardly begun it, Helen," said Grey, quietly; but noticing
+that her companion's face was flushed, she said, anxiously, "Are you
+unwell, dear?"
+
+"Unwell?  No."
+
+There was something strange in Helen's behaviour, but she had the skill
+to conceal it, as the newly-appointed chaplain of Sindang came slowly up
+and began to talk to Helen in his dry, measured way, trying to draw her
+attention to the beauty of the evening, but without avail, for she
+seemed _distraite_, and her answers were sometimes far from pertinent to
+the subject in question.
+
+Just then Mrs Doctor Bolter came bustling up, looking bright, eager,
+and full of animation.
+
+She darted an uneasy look at her brother, and another at Helen, which
+was returned by one full of indifference, almost defiance, as if
+resenting the little lady's way, and Mrs Bolter turned to Grey Stuart.
+
+"Where is my husband, my dear?" she said.  "I declare this ship is so
+big that people are all getting lost!  Oh! here he comes!  Now there--
+just as if there were no sailors to do it--he must be carrying pails of
+water!"
+
+For the little doctor came panting along with a bucket of water in each
+hand, the Resident walking by his side till the two vessels were plumped
+down in front of Helen's chair.
+
+"Now, my dear Harry, what are you doing?" began the little lady, in
+tones of remonstrance.
+
+"All right, my dear.  Two pails full of freshly-dipped sea water.  Now,
+ladies and gentlemen, if you will close round, I will show you some of
+the marvels of creation."
+
+As quite a little crowd began to collect, many being ladies, at whom the
+little doctor's wife--only a few days back elderly Miss Rosebury--
+directed very sharp, searching glances, especially when they spoke to
+her husband, Helen rose with a look of annoyance from her chair and
+began to walk forward.
+
+She was hesitating about going farther alone, when a low voice by her
+ear said, softly:
+
+"Thank you, Miss Perowne.  Suppose you take my arm?  We will walk
+forward into the bows."
+
+"Mr Harley!" said the lady, drawing back, with her eyes full of
+indignation.
+
+"I think I was to show you the beauty of the sunset," he said.  "We can
+see it so much better from the bows, and," he added, meaningly, "I shall
+have so much better an opportunity to say that which I wish to say."
+
+"What you wish to say, Mr Harley?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, taking her hand, drawing it quickly through his arm,
+and leading her down the steps.
+
+"I wish to return, Mr Harley," she said, imperiously.
+
+"You shall return, my dear young lady, when I have said that which I
+wish to say."
+
+"What can you wish to say to me?" she said, haughtily.
+
+"That which your eyes have been asking me if I could say, ever since we
+met a fortnight ago, Helen, and that which I have determined to say
+while there is time."
+
+Helen Perowne shrank away, but there was a power of will in her
+companion that seemed to subdue her, and in spite of herself she was led
+to the forward part of the vessel, just as the sun had dipped below the
+horizon; the heavens were lit up like the sea with a gorgeous blaze of
+orange, purple, green, and gold; and little Mrs Doctor Bolter
+exclaimed:
+
+"That wicked, coquettish girl away again!  Grey Stuart, my dear, where
+has your schoolfellow gone?"
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+A TROUBLESOME CHARGE.
+
+Neil Harley, in spite of his strong power of will, had said but very few
+words to Helen Perowne before little Mrs Doctor Bolter bustled up.
+
+"Oh, Mr Harley!" she exclaimed, "you have carried off my charge."
+
+"Yes," he replied, smiling pleasantly; "we came forward to have a good
+view of the sunset."
+
+"Because you could see it so much better at the other end?" said Mrs
+Bolter, drily.
+
+"No; but because we could see it uninterruptedly," replied the Resident,
+coolly.
+
+"Oh no, you could not, Mr Harley," continued the little lady, "because
+you see I have come to interrupt your _tete-a-tete_.  Helen, my dear,
+will you come back and join us on the other deck?"
+
+"To be sure she will, my dear Mrs Bolter, and I shall come too.  There,
+mind those ropes.  That's better.  What a glorious evening!  I hope I am
+to have the pleasure of showing you ladies many that are far more
+beautiful on the Darak river."
+
+Little Mrs Bolter looked up at him meaningly; but the Resident's eyes
+did not flinch; he only gave her a quiet nod in reply, and they climbed
+once more to the quarter-deck, where, in preparation for the coming
+darkness, the sailors were busily hanging lamps.
+
+They had no sooner reached the group of people around Dr Bolter, than,
+as if to revenge herself for the annoyance to which she had been
+subjected, Helen disengaged her hand, walked quickly up to the Reverend
+Arthur, and began to talk to him in a low earnest voice.
+
+"If she would only keep away from poor Arthur," muttered the little
+lady, "I would not care--she is making him infatuated.  And now there's
+Henry talking to that thin dark lady again.  I wish he would not talk so
+much to her."
+
+"Married late in life," said the Resident, quietly, as he lit a cigar;
+"but she seems to have her share of jealousy.  She's a dear, good little
+woman, though, all the same."
+
+He walked to the side watching Helen where she stood beneath one of the
+newly lit lamps, looking very attractive in the faint reflected rays of
+the sunset mingled with those shed down from above upon her glossy hair.
+
+"Why does she go so much to gossip with that chaplain?  If it is to
+pique me it is labour in vain, for I have not a _soupcon_ of jealousy in
+my composition.  She is very beautiful and she knows it too.  What a
+head and neck, and what speaking eyes!"
+
+He stood smoking for a few minutes and then went on:
+
+"Speaking eyes?  Yes, they are indeed.  It is no fancy, but it seems to
+have been to lead me on; and as I judge her, perhaps wrongfully, she
+loves to drag every man she sees in her train.  Well, she has made a
+mistake this time if she thinks she is going to play with me.  I feel
+ashamed of myself sometimes when I think of how easily I let her noose
+me, but it is done."
+
+He lit a fresh cigar, and still stood watching Helen.
+
+"Sometimes," he continued, "I have called myself idiot for this sudden
+awakening of a passion that I thought dead; but no, the man who receives
+encouragement from a woman like that is no idiot.  It is the natural
+consequence that he should love her."
+
+Just then three or four of the passengers, officers and civil officials,
+sauntered up to Helen, and after the first few words she joined with
+animation in the conversation; but not without darting a quick glance
+once or twice in the Resident's direction.
+
+"No," he said, softly; "the man who, receiving encouragement, becomes
+deeply in love with you, fair Helen, is no idiot, but very appreciative,
+for you are a beautiful girl and very fond of admiration."
+
+He did not move, but still watched the girl, who began to stand out
+clearly against the lamp-light now, more attractive than he had ever
+seen her.
+
+"Yes," he said; "you may flirt and coquet to your heart's content, but
+it will have no effect upon me, my child.  I don't think I am a
+conceited man, but I know I am strong, and have a will.  Let me see, I
+have known you since I went down, at Bolter's request, to be his best
+man at the wedding, and I had you, my fair bridesmaid, under my charge,
+with the result that you tried to drag me at your car.  Well, I am
+caught, but take care, my child, prisoners are dangerous sometimes, and
+rise and take the captor captive."
+
+"Yes," he continued, "some day I may hold you struggling against my
+prisoning hands--hands that grasp you tenderly, so that your soft
+plumage may not be ruffled, for it is too beautiful to spoil."
+
+Just then there was a sally made by a French officer of the vessel, and
+Helen's silvery laugh rang out.
+
+"Yes, your laugh is sweet and thrilling," he continued softly.  "No
+doubt it was a brilliant compliment our French friend paid.  I don't
+think I am vain, if I say to myself even that laugh was uttered to pique
+me.  It is an arrow that has failed, for I am in a prophetic mood.  I
+have seen the maidens of every land almost beneath the sun, and allowing
+for savagery, I find them very much the same when they turn coquettes.
+You could not understand my meaning this evening, eh?  Well, we shall
+see.  Go on, coquette, and laugh and dance in the sun till you are
+tired.  I'll wait till then.  The effervescence and froth of the cup
+will have passed away, and there will be but the sweet, clear wine of
+your woman's nature left for me to drink.  I'll wait till then."
+
+Again Helen's laugh rang out, but the Resident remained unmoved.
+
+"Am I a coxcomb--a conceited idiot?" he said; then softly, "I hope not.
+Time will prove."
+
+"I don't care, Harry; I will not have it!"
+
+"But it is only girlish nonsense, my dear."
+
+"Then the young ladies in our charge shall not indulge in girlish
+nonsense.  It is not becoming.  Grey Stuart never gets a cluster of
+young men round her like a queen in a court."
+
+"More fools the young men, my dear," said the doctor; "for Grey is
+really as sweet a maiden as--"
+
+"Henry!"
+
+"Well, really, my dear, I mean it.  Hang it, my dear Mary! don't think I
+mean anything but fatherly feeling towards the child.  Hallo, Harley!
+you there?  Why are you not paying your court yonder?"
+
+"Because, my dear Bolter, your good lady here has given me one severe
+castigation to-day for the very sin."
+
+"There I think you are wrong, Mary," said the doctor, quickly; "and I
+will say that I wish you, a stable, middle-aged man, and an old friend
+of her father's, would go and spend more time by her side; it would keep
+off these buzzing young gnats."
+
+"If I said anything unkind, Mr Harley," said the little lady, holding
+out her hand, "please forgive me.  I only wish to help my husband to do
+his duty towards the young lady who is in our charge."
+
+"My dear Mrs Bolter," said the Resident, taking the extended hand, "I
+only esteem my dear old friend's wife the more for the brave way in
+which she behaved.  I am sure we shall be the firmest of friends!"
+
+"I hope we shall, I am sure," said the little lady, warmly.
+
+"What do you say, Bolter?"
+
+"I know you will," cried the doctor.  "You won't be able to help it,
+Harley.  She is just the brave, true lady we want at the station to take
+the lead and rule the roost.  She'll keep all the ladies in order."
+
+"Now, Henry!"
+
+"But you will, my dear; and I tell you at once that Neil Harley here
+will help you all he can."
+
+Five minutes later the doctor and his wife were alone, the former being
+called to account for his very warm advocacy of Mr Harley.
+
+"Well, my dear, he deserves it all," said the doctor.
+
+"But I don't quite like his behaviour towards Helen Perowne," said the
+little lady; "and now we are upon the subject, Harry, I must say that I
+don't quite like your conduct towards that girl."
+
+The doctor turned, took her hands, held them, and laughed.
+
+"Why, what a droll little body you are, Mary!"
+
+"And why, sir, pray?" said the lady, rather sharply.
+
+"Four or five months ago, my dear, I don't believe you knew the real
+meaning of the word _love_, and now I honestly believe you are finding
+out the meaning of the word _jealousy_ as well; but seriously, my dear,
+that girl makes me shiver!"
+
+"Shiver, sir!  Why?"
+
+"She's a regular firebrand coming amongst our young men.  She'll do no
+end of mischief.  I see it as plain as can be, and I shall have to set
+to as soon as I get home to compound a fresh medicine--pills at night,
+draught in the morning--for the cure of love-sickness.  She'll give the
+lot the complaint.  But, you dear, silly little old woman, you don't
+think that I--oh!--oh! come, Mary, Mary, my dear!"
+
+"Well, there, I don't think so, Harry," said the little lady,
+apologetically, "but she is so horribly handsome, and makes such use of
+those dreadful eyes of hers, that it makes me cross when I see the
+gentlemen obeying her lightest beck and call."
+
+"Well, she does lead them about pretty well," chuckled the doctor.
+"She's a handsome girl!"
+
+"Henry!"
+
+"Well, my dear, I'll think she's as ugly as sin if you like."
+
+"And in spite of all you say of Mr Harley, I don't think he is behaving
+well.  She gave him a few of those looks of hers when he came down to
+our wedding, and he has been following her ever since.  I've watched
+him!"
+
+"What a wicked wretch!" chuckled the little doctor.  "Has he taken a
+fancy to a pretty girl, then, and made up his mind to win?  Why, he's as
+bad as that scoundrel Harry Bolter, who wouldn't take _no_ for an
+answer, and did not."
+
+"Now, don't talk nonsense, Henry.  This is too serious a subject for
+joking."
+
+"I am as serious as a judge, Polly."
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"What!"
+
+"Is there anything the matter, my dear?" said the little doctor, who was
+startled by the lady's energy.
+
+"What did you call me, sir?"
+
+"Polly, my dear; tender pet name for Mary."
+
+"Never again please, dear Henry," said the little lady.  "I don't wish
+to be too particular, and don't mind tenderness--I--I--rather like it,
+dear.  But do I look like a lady who could be called Polly?"
+
+"Then it shall always be Mary, my dear," said the doctor; "and I won't
+joke about serious matters.  As to Neil Harley and Helen Perowne, you're
+quite right; but 'pon my word, I don't see why we should interfere as
+long as matters don't go too far."
+
+"I do not agree with you, Henry."
+
+"You have not heard my argument, my dear," he said taking her hand,
+drawing it through his arm, and walking her up and down the deck.  "Now
+look here, my dear Mary, six months ago you were a miserable
+unbeliever."
+
+"A what?" cried the lady, indignantly.
+
+"A miserable unbeliever.  You had no faith in its being the duty of all
+ladies to get married; and I came to your barbarous little village and
+converted you."
+
+"Oh, yes, I had great belief," said the little lady, quietly.
+
+"Well, then, you were waiting for the missionary to come and lead your
+belief the right way.  Now then, my dear, don't you see this?  Suppose a
+place where there are a dozen ladies and only one gentleman.  How many
+can be married?"
+
+"Why, only one lady, of course," said Mrs Doctor.
+
+"Exactly, my dear," said the doctor; "but it is a moral certainty that
+the gentleman will be married."
+
+"Well, yes, I suppose so," replied Mrs Doctor.
+
+"Suppose so?  Why, they'd combine and kill him for an unnatural monster
+if he did not marry one of them," said the doctor, laughing.  "Well,
+then, my dear, suppose we reverse the case, and take a young and very
+handsome lady to a station in an out-of-the-way part of the world, where
+the proportions are as one to twenty--one lady to twenty gentlemen--what
+is the moral result?"
+
+"I suppose she would be sure to be married?"
+
+"Exactly, my dear.  Well, as our handsome young charge evidently thinks
+a very great deal about love-making--"
+
+"A very great deal too much," said Mrs Doctor, tartly.
+
+"Exactly so, my dear.  Well, she is going to such a place.  What ought
+we to do?"
+
+"See of course that she does not make a foolish match."
+
+"Ex--actly!" cried the doctor.  "Well, Harley seems to have taken a
+fancy to her at once.  Good man--good position--not too old."
+
+"I don't know," said the lady, dubiously, "I don't quite think they
+would match."
+
+"I do," said the doctor, sharply.  "The very man.  Plenty of firmness.
+He's as genial and warm-hearted as a man can be; but he has a will like
+iron.  He'd break in my young madam there; and, by Jove! ma'am, if I am
+a judge of woman's nature--"
+
+"Which you are not, sir," said the lady, sharply.  "Well, perhaps not;
+but I do say this--if ever there was a Petruchio cut out for our
+handsome, dark-eyed Katherine, then Neil Harley is the man!"
+
+"Here, doctor, where are you?  Come along!" cried the gentleman in
+question.  "Music--music!  Miss Perowne has promised to sing!"
+
+"Have you been persuading her, Mr Harley?" said the little lady.
+
+"I?  My dear madam, no!  She refused me; but has been listening to the
+blandishments of Captain Lindley; and--there--she is beginning.  By
+Jove! what a voice!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+LIEUTENANT CHUMBLEY.
+
+A rapid and pleasant voyage, with a touch here and there at the various
+ports, giving the two girls, just fresh from their life of seclusion, a
+glance at the strange mixture of nationalities collected together in
+these pauses of commercial transit.
+
+It was one continuous scene of interest to Grey Stuart, who was never
+weary of gazing at the hurrying crowds and the strange customs of these
+far-off towns; while Helen, if persuaded to land, found the heat too
+oppressive, and preferred a cane lounge in the shade of an awning, with
+four or five gentlemen in attendance with fans, iced water, or fruit.
+
+The Resident was constant in his attentions to her, and tried, whenever
+the steamer put into port, to get her to join some excursion, the most
+notable of which was at Ceylon; but she invariably refused, when he
+would laughingly turn to Grey and ask her to be his companion.
+
+Mrs Doctor looked serious at first; but, particular as she was, she
+gave way, for the Resident's behaviour to the bright English girl was
+beyond reproach.
+
+"You'll understand Harley better by-and-by," said the doctor.  "He's a
+very old friend of her father, and he might be the girl's uncle from his
+way."
+
+"But do you think it will be proper to let her go?" said the little
+lady.
+
+"I'll answer for Harley's conduct, my dear.  If ever there was a
+gentleman it is he.  Let her go."
+
+So Grey often became Neil Harley's companion in these excursions,
+returning delighted with the wonders of each place; while the Resident
+was loud in his praises of her quiet, sensible appreciation of all they
+saw.
+
+"She's a very amiable, sweet, intelligent girl, Mrs Bolter," he said
+one evening, as he sat with the doctor and his wife.
+
+"Do you think so, Mr Harley?" said the lady drily.
+
+"Indeed I do, ma'am," he replied, "and I am very proud to know her."
+
+"Better hook her, Harley," said the doctor, with a twinkle of the eye,
+as he saw his wife's serious, suspicious glances.  "She'll be caught up
+like a shot."
+
+"Then I hope you and Mrs Bolter will help and see that she makes no
+foolish match.  I beg her pardon, though," he added, hastily; "she is
+not a girl who would do that."
+
+"You are first in the field," said the doctor, in spite of an admonitory
+shake of the head from his lady.  "Why not make your hay while the sun
+shines?"
+
+The Resident sat gazing very seriously out at sea, and his voice was
+very low and tender as he replied:
+
+"No; Miss Stuart is a young lady for whom I feel just such sentiments as
+I should presume a man would feel for his bright, intelligent child.
+That is all, Mrs Bolter," he said, turning quickly.  "I ought to
+congratulate you upon the warm hold you have upon Miss Grey's
+affections."
+
+He rose then and walked away, with the little doctor's wife watching him
+intently.
+
+"Henry," she said suddenly, "that man is either a very fine fellow or
+else he is an arch-hypocrite."
+
+"Well, I'll vouch he isn't the last," said the doctor, warmly, "for I've
+known him ten years, and I've had him down twice with very severe
+attacks of fever.  I know him by heart.  I've sounded him all over,
+heart, lungs, liver: he hasn't a failing spot in his whole body."
+
+"Bless the man!" said Mrs Doctor, "just as if that had anything to do
+with his character for honesty and truth.  Now look there, Henry, really
+I cannot bear it much longer.  That girl's conduct is scandalous?"
+
+"What, Grey Stuart's?"
+
+"No; absurd!  Helen Perowne's.  Why the young men all seem to be mad."
+
+"Moths round a candle," said the doctor.  "There, don't worry yourself,
+my dear, it's only her way.  She loves admiration, and young fellows
+admire her, so it suits both sides."
+
+"But I don't like a young lady who is under our charge to be so fond of
+admiration."
+
+"Oh, there's no harm in her.  She is one of those ladies who seem to
+have been born to exact attention; and as there are plenty ready to pay
+toll, why, what does it matter?"
+
+"It matters a great deal," said the little lady, indignantly; "and no
+good will come of it.  One day she is trying to lead Mr Harley at her
+heels like a lapdog; the next day it is Captain Lindley; the next, Mr
+Adjutant Morris; then Lieutenant Barlow.  Why, she was making eyes at
+Captain Pennelle yesterday at dinner.  I declare the girl seems quite to
+infatuate the men, and you see if trouble does not come of it."
+
+"Oh, tut! tut!  Nonsense, my dear, what trouble should come?"
+
+"Quarrels, and duels, and that sort of thing."
+
+"Men don't fight duels now, my dear.  Oh, no, don't you be uneasy.  We
+shall soon be at Sindang now, and then we can hand your incubus over to
+papa Perowne, and be free of it all."
+
+"I shall be very glad, I'm sure," said the lady.  "There look at her.  I
+suppose that's the last conquest!"
+
+"Whom do you mean?" said the doctor, drowsily, for he had just settled
+himself for a nap in the yielding cane chair.
+
+"That great, tall young officer, who came on board at Colombo."
+
+"Oh, Chumbley," said the doctor, looking up and following his wife's
+eyes to where a great broad-shouldered fellow was bending down talking
+to Helen Perowne, who seemed to be listening eagerly to his words, as if
+on purpose to annoy the half-dozen gentlemen forming her court.
+
+He was a fine, well-set-up young fellow, looking like a lifeguardsman
+picked from among a selection of fair, curly-haired Saxons, and,
+evidently flattered by the lady's notice, he was doing his best to make
+himself agreeable.
+
+"You may call it what you like," said Mrs Doctor.  "I call it
+scandalous!  Here's the very last arrival in the ship."
+
+"Regularly subjugated," laughed the doctor.
+
+"It is nothing to laugh at," said the lady, indignantly.  "I declare I
+have a good mind to go and interfere."
+
+"No, no, don't," said the doctor earnestly.  "She means no harm, and you
+may only make a breach between you."
+
+"I don't care, Henry; it is for the girl's sake that I should interfere;
+and as to the breach, she utterly detests me as it is for what I have
+said.  I think she hates me as much as I do her."
+
+"Oh, nonsense, nonsense, Mary, you could not hate anyone; and as to
+Helen Perowne's foolish coquetry, it will all settle down into the love
+of some stout brave fellow."
+
+"Such as that of Lieutenant Chumbley."
+
+"Perhaps so."
+
+"Well I hope so, I'm sure.  One ought to have a big strong man to keep
+all the others away, for if ever there was a heartless coquette it is
+she; and the sooner we can place her in her father's hands the happier I
+shall be."
+
+"Would you mind whisking a fly off now and then with your handkerchief,
+Mary," said the little doctor, drowsily, as he settled himself for his
+nap.
+
+"I know there'll be some mischief come out of it all," said the little
+lady, as she drove a couple of flies from her husband's nose.
+
+"Only--few days--old Perowne--sure to meet us, and--"
+
+The handkerchief was kept busily whisking about, for the flies were
+tiresome, and the doctor was fast asleep, only turning restlessly now
+and then, when in her eagerness to watch Helen Perowne and Lieutenant
+Chumbley--the young officer coming out to join the regiment into which
+he had exchanged with the hope of getting variety and sport--Mrs Doctor
+forgot to act as guardian against the flies.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+A DANGEROUS CREATURE.
+
+At last Mrs Bolter's troubles were, as she said, at an end, for the
+great steamer had transferred a portion of her passengers to the station
+gunboat at the mouth of the Darak river.  There had been a quick run up
+between the low shores dense with their growth of mangrove and nipah
+palm.  The station had been reached, and the ladies transferred to the
+arms of their fathers, both waiting anxiously for the coming boat upon
+the Resident's island, where in close connection with the fort Mr
+Harley's handsome bungalow had been built.
+
+For the first few days all was excitement at Sindang, for the report of
+the beauty of "Old Stuart's" daughter, and above all that of the child
+of the principal merchant in the place, created quite a furore among the
+officers of the two companies of foot stationed at the fort, and the
+young merchants and civil officers of the place.
+
+"It is really a very, very great relief, Henry," said Mrs Doctor.  "I
+can sleep as easily again now those girls are off my hands.  I mean that
+girl; but really I don't feel so satisfied as I should like, for though
+I know Helen Perowne to be safe in her father's charge, I am not at all
+sure that my responsibility has ceased."
+
+"Ah, you must do what you can for the motherless girls, my dear.  Eh,
+Arthur? what do you say?"
+
+"I quite agree with you, Harry," said the new chaplain, quietly; "but
+the change to here is--is rather confusing at first."
+
+"Oh, you'll soon settle down, old fellow; and I say, Mary, my dear, it
+is a beautiful place, is it not?"
+
+"Very, very beautiful indeed," replied the little lady; "but it is very
+hot."
+
+"Well, say warmish," said the doctor, chuckling; "but I did not deceive
+you about that.  You'll soon get used to it, and you won't be so ready
+to bustle about; you must take it coolly."
+
+"As you do?" said Mrs Doctor, smiling.
+
+"As I do?  Oh, I'm the doctor, and here is every one getting his or her
+liver out of order during my absence!  My hands are terribly full just
+now; but we shall soon settle down.  How is the church getting on,
+Arthur?"
+
+"Slowly, my dear Harry," said the Reverend Arthur, in his quiet way.
+"They are making the improvements I suggested.  Mr Perowne subscribed
+handsomely, and Mr Harley is supplying more labour; but I'm afraid I
+was rather negligent this morning, for I strolled away towards the
+woods."
+
+"Jungle, my dear fellow, jungle! but don't go again without me; I'm more
+at home here than you."
+
+"But the woods--I mean jungle--looked so beautiful; surely there is
+nothing to fear."
+
+"Not much--with care," replied the doctor, "but still there are
+dangers--fever, sunstroke, tigers, crocodiles, poisonous serpents,
+venomous insects and leeches."
+
+"Goodness gracious!" ejaculated Mrs Doctor.  "Arthur, you are on no
+account to go again!"
+
+"But, my dear Mary--" said the chaplain, meekly.
+
+"Now, don't argue, Arthur.  I say you are on no account to go again!"
+
+"But really, my dear Mary--"
+
+"I will listen to no excuse, Arthur.  Unless Henry, who understands the
+place, accompanies you, I forbid your going again.  I hope you have not
+been into any other dangerous place."
+
+"Oh, no, my dear Mary; I only went and called upon Mr Perowne."  Mrs
+Bolter started, and the doctor burst into a roar of laughter.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" he cried.  "Why, my dear boy, that's a far more dangerous
+place than the jungle."
+
+"I--I do not understand you, Henry," said the chaplain, with a faint
+flush in his cheek.
+
+"Not understand me, my dear fellow!  Why, Perowne keeps a most ferocious
+creature there, and it's loose too."
+
+"Loose?" cried Mrs Doctor, excitedly.
+
+"Oh, yes: I've seen it about the grounds, parading up and down on the
+lawn by the river, and in the house as well."
+
+"Gracious me, Henry, the man must be mad!  What is it?" cried Mrs
+Bolter.
+
+"Regular tigress--man-eater," said the doctor.
+
+"And you allowed your brother-in-law to go there without warning, Henry?
+Really, I am surprised at you!"
+
+"Oh! pooh, pooh!" ejaculated the doctor.  "Arthur can take care of
+himself."
+
+"And here have I accepted an invitation for all of us to go there the
+week after next to dinner!  I won't go.  I certainly will not go."
+
+"Nonsense, my dear Mary--nonsense!" said the doctor, with his eyes
+twinkling.  "We must go.  Perowne would be horribly put out if we did
+not."
+
+"Now look here, Henry, when I was a maiden lady I never even kept a cat
+or a dog, because I said to myself that live animals about a house might
+be unpleasant to one's friends.  So how do you suppose that when I have
+become a married lady I am going to sanction the presence of dangerous
+monsters in a house?"
+
+"Oh, but it won't hurt you," said the doctor.  "I tell you it's a
+man-eater.  We must go, Mary."
+
+"I certainly must beg of you not to ask me," said the little lady.  "My
+dear Harry, it gives me great pain to go against your wishes, but I
+could not--I really could not go."
+
+"Not if I assured you it was perfectly safe?"
+
+"If you gave me that assurance, Henry, I--I think I would go; for I
+believe you would not deceive me."
+
+"Never," said the doctor, emphatically.  "Well, I assure you that you
+need not be under the slightest apprehension."
+
+"But is it chained up, Harry?"
+
+"Well, no, my dear," replied the little doctor; "they could not very
+well chain her up.  But I was there yesterday though, and I saw that
+Perowne had given her a very handsome chain."
+
+"Then why doesn't he chain her up?  I shall certainly tell Mr Perowne
+that he ought.  This comes of the poor man having no wife and living out
+in these savage parts.  Really, Henry, I don't think we ought to go."
+
+"Oh! pooh, pooh--nonsense, my dear!  You've nothing to mind.  I'm not
+afraid of her.  I'll take care of you."
+
+"I know you are very good, and brave, and strong, Harry," said the
+little lady, smiling, "and if you say it is safe I will go, for I do
+trust in your knowledge, and--there, now, I declare I am quite angry!
+You are laughing, sir!  I'm sure there is some trick!"
+
+"Trick?  What trick?" cried the doctor, chuckling.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me, sir, that Mr Perowne has a wild tigress
+running about his place?"
+
+"Oh, no; I never said a wild tigress--did I, Arthur?"
+
+"I--I did not quite hear what you said, Henry," replied the chaplain.
+
+"You said a dangerous creature--a sort of tigress, sir."
+
+"Right, so I did; and so he has."
+
+"What is it then?" said Mrs Doctor, very sharply.
+
+"A handsome young woman," chuckled the doctor--"his daughter Helen."
+
+"Now, Henry, I do declare that you are insufferable!" cried Mrs Doctor,
+angrily, as her brother rose softly, walked to the window of the pretty
+palm-thatched bungalow, and stood gazing out at the bright flowers with
+which the doctor had surrounded his place.
+
+"Well, it's true enough," chuckled the doctor.  "I never saw such a girl
+in my life.  She has had that great fellow Chumbley hanging after her
+for weeks, and now--"
+
+"And now what, sir?"
+
+Perhaps it was the wind, but certainly just then there was a sound as of
+a faint sigh from somewhere by the window, and it seemed as if the
+chaplain was recalling the past days of repose at his little home near
+Mayleyfield, and wondering whether he had done right to come; but no one
+heeded him, and the doctor went on:
+
+"Now she seems to have lassoed young Hilton."
+
+"What, Captain Hilton?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, with a silken lasso; and he is all devotion."
+
+"Henry, you astound me!" cried Mrs Doctor.  "Why, I thought that Mr
+Harley meant something there."
+
+"So did I," said the doctor, "but it seems all off.  Harley and Chumbley
+cashiered, _vice_ Hilton--the reigning hero of the day."
+
+"Of the day indeed!" exclaimed Mrs Doctor.  "I never did see such a
+girl.  It is dreadful."
+
+"And yet you scolded me for calling her a dangerous creature."
+
+"Well, I must own that she is, Henry," said Mrs Doctor; and once more
+there was a faint sigh by the window.
+
+"She's a regular man-trap, my dear, and practises with her eyes upon
+everyone she sees.  I don't think even her great-grandfather would be
+safe.  She actually smiled at me yesterday."
+
+"What?" cried the little lady.
+
+"Perowne sent for me, you know."
+
+"Yes, of course, I remember.  Go on, Henry."
+
+"They'd been out together--she wanted to see the Residency island--and
+then nothing would do but she must have a walk in the jungle; and then,
+I don't know whether she began making eyes at the leeches, but half a
+dozen fastened upon her, of course."
+
+"Why, of course, sir?"
+
+"Because she went out walking in ridiculous high-heeled low shoes, with
+fancy stockings."
+
+"Well, Henry, how tiresomely prolix you are!"
+
+"Well, that's all, my dear, only that the leeches fastened on her feet
+and ankles."
+
+"And did Mr Perowne send for you to take them off?"
+
+"Well, not exactly, my dear, they pulled them off themselves; but one
+bite would not stop bleeding, and I had to apply a little pad on the
+instep--wonderfully pretty little ankles and insteps, my dear, when the
+stockings are off."
+
+"Doctor Bolter!" exclaimed the little lady in so severe a tone of voice
+that the subject of Helen Perowne was dismissed, and the culprit allowed
+to go to his little surgery to see to the compounding of some medicines
+necessary for his sick.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+DOCTOR BOLTER'S THEORY.
+
+In a little Eastern settlement, in spite of feelings of caste, the
+Europeans are so few that rules of society are to a certain extent set
+aside, so that people mix to a greater degree than in larger towns.  In
+spite of her rather particular, and, to be truthful, rather sharp,
+old-maidish ways, Mrs Bolter soon found herself heartily welcomed by
+all, and readily accorded, as the doctor's wife, almost a leading
+position in the place.
+
+This position would by rights have been given to the lady of the
+principal merchant, but Mr Perowne had lost his wife when Helen was
+very young; and Isaac Stuart--"Old Stuart," as he was generally called--
+was no better off, his daughter Grey having been left motherless at a
+very early age.
+
+The idea of Mr Perowne was that upon his daughter joining him she
+should take the lead and give receptions; and to this end the first
+party was arranged, to which Mr and Mrs Doctor Bolter and the chaplain
+had been invited, the time rapidly coming round, and the guests
+assembling at Mr Perowne's handsome house, where the luxurious dinner,
+served in the most admirable manner by the soft-footed, quiet Chinese
+servants, passed off without a hitch; and at last, with a smile that
+seemed to have the effect of being directed at every gentleman at table,
+Helen Perowne rose, and the ladies left the room.
+
+The conversation soon became general, and then the doctor's voice rose
+in opposition to a laugh raised against something he had said.
+
+"Oh, yes," he cried, "laugh and turn everything I say into ridicule: I
+can bear it.  I have not been out all these years in the jungle for
+nothing."
+
+"Does Mrs Bolter approve of your theory, doctor?" said the Resident.
+
+"I have not mentioned it to her, sir," replied the doctor, glancing at
+the curtains looped over the open doorway; "and if you have no
+objection, I will make the communication myself.  My journey home and my
+marriage have put it a good deal out of my head.  But what I want to
+tell all here is, that the thing is as plain as the nose on your face."
+
+Mr Harley, to whom this was principally addressed, gently stroked the
+bridge of his aquiline nose, half closed his eyes, and smiled in a
+good-humoured way.
+
+"That's right," said the doctor.  "Go on unbelieving.  Some day I'll
+give you the most convincing proofs that what I say is right."
+
+"But will Mrs Bolter approve of your running wild in the jungle now you
+are married?" said the Resident, quietly.
+
+"Pooh, sir--pooh, sir!  My wife is a very sensible little woman, isn't
+she, Arthur?" he cried; and the chaplain smiled and bowed before lapsing
+into a dreamy state, and sitting back in his chair, gazing at the
+curtains hanging softly across the open door.
+
+"Oh, we're ready enough to believe, doctor," said the Resident; "don't
+be offended."
+
+"Pooh!  I'm not offended," exclaimed the doctor.  "All discoveries get
+laughed at till the people are forced to believe.  Here, young man,
+you've had enough fruit," he cried sharply, as one of the party
+stretched forth his hand to help himself to the luscious tropic fruits
+with which the table was spread.
+
+"What a tyrant you are, doctor," said the young officer.
+
+"Here, boy," cried the doctor, to one of the silent Chinese servants
+gliding about the table, "more ice.--You're as unbelieving as John
+Chinaman here."
+
+"We'll believe fast enough, doctor," said the last speaker; "but it is
+only fair that we should ask for facts."
+
+"Facts, Captain Hilton," said the doctor, turning sharply upon the
+sun-tanned young officer, who, like the rest of the party, was attired
+in white, for the heat of the large, lightly-furnished room was very
+great, "facts, sir?  What do you want?  Haven't you your Bible, and does
+it not tell you that Solomon's ships went to Ophir, and brought back
+gold, and apes, and peacocks?"
+
+"Yes," said Captain Hilton, "certainly;" and the Reverend Arthur bowed
+his head.
+
+"Oh, you'll grant that," said the little doctor, with a smile of triumph
+and a glance round the table.
+
+"Of course," said the young officer, taking a cigarette.
+
+"I say, Doctor," said the Resident--"or no; I'll ask your
+brother-in-law.  Mr Rosebury, did the doctor ventilate his astounding
+theory over in England?"
+
+"No," replied the chaplain, smiling, "I have never heard him propound
+any theory."
+
+"I thought not," said the Resident.  "Go on, doctor."
+
+"I don't mind your banter," said the little doctor, good-humouredly.
+"Now look here, Captain Hilton, I want to know what more you wish for.
+There's Malacca due south of where you are sitting, and there lies Mount
+Ophir to the east."
+
+"But there is a Mount Ophir in Sumatra," said Lieutenant Chumbley, the
+big, heavy dragoon-looking fellow, who had not yet spoken.
+
+"In Sumatra?" cried the doctor.  "Bah, sir, bah!  That isn't Solomon's
+place at all.  I tell you I've investigated the whole thing.  Here's
+Ophir east of Malacca, with its old gold workings all about the foot of
+the mountain; there are the apes in the trees--Boy, more ice."
+
+"And where are the peacocks?" drawled Chumbley.
+
+"Hark at him!" cried the doctor; "he says where are the peacocks?  Look
+here, Mr Chumbley, if you would take a gun, or a geologist's hammer,
+and exercise your limbs and your understanding, instead of dangling
+about after young ladies--"
+
+"Shouldn't have brought them out, doctor," drawled the young fellow,
+coolly.
+
+"Or say a collecting-box and a cyanide bottle," continued the doctor,
+"instead of getting your liver into a torpid state by sitting and lying
+under trees and verandas smoking and learning to chew betel like the
+degraded natives, you would not ask me where are the peacocks?"
+
+"I don't know where they are, doctor," said the young man, slowly.
+
+"In the jungle, sir, in the jungle, which swarms with the lovely
+creatures, and with pheasants too.  Pff! 'tis hot--Boy, more ice."
+
+"Don't be so hard on a fellow, doctor," drawled the lieutenant.  "I'm
+new to the country, and I've twice as much body to carry about as you
+have.  You're seasoned and tough; I'm young and tender.  So the jungle
+swarms with peacocks, does it?"
+
+"Yes, sir, swarms," said the doctor, with asperity.  "Well," said
+Chumbley, languidly, "let it swarm!  I knew it swarmed with mosquitoes."
+
+"Sir," said the doctor, contemptuously, as he glanced at the great frame
+of the young officer, "you never exert yourself, and I don't believe,
+sir, that you know what is going on within a mile of the Residency."
+
+"I really don't believe I do," said the young man, with a sleepy yawn.
+"I say, Mr Perowne, can't you give us a little more air?"
+
+"My dear Mr Chumbley," said the host, a thin, slightly grey, rather
+_distingue_ man, "every door and window is wide open.  Take a little
+more iced cup."
+
+"It makes a fellow wish he were a frog," drawled the lieutenant.  "I
+should like to go and lie right in the water with only my nose in the
+air."
+
+As he spoke he gazed sleepily through his half-closed eyes at the broad,
+moonlit river gliding on like so much molten silver, while on the
+farther bank the palms stood up in columns, spreading their great fronds
+like lace against the spangled purple sky.
+
+Below them, playing amidst the bushes and undergrowth that fringed the
+river, it seemed as if nature had sent the surplus of her starry
+millions from sky to earth, for the leaves were dotted with fire-flies
+scintillating and flashing in every direction.  A dense patch of
+darkness would suddenly blaze out with hundreds of soft, lambent sparks,
+then darken again for another patch to be illumined, as the wondrous
+insects played about like magnified productions of the points of light
+that run through well-burned tinder.
+
+From time to time there would be a faint plash rise from the river, and
+the water rippled in the moonbeams, sounds then well understood by the
+occupants of Mr Perowne's dining-room, for as the languid lieutenant
+made another allusion to the pleasure of being a frog, the doctor said,
+laughing: "Try it Chumbley; you are young and tolerably plump, and it
+would make a vacancy for another sub.  The crocodiles would bless you."
+
+"Two natives were carried off last week while bathing on the bank," said
+a sharp, harsh voice, and a little, thin, dry man who had been lying
+back in an easy-chair with a handkerchief over his head raised himself
+and passed his glass to be filled with claret and iced water.  "Hah!
+Harley," he continued, with a broad Scotch accent, "you ought to put
+down crocodiles.  What's the use of our having a Resident if he is not
+to suppress every nuisance in the place?"
+
+"Put down crocodiles, Mr Stuart, eh?  Rather a task!"
+
+"Make these idle young officers shoot them then, instead of dangling
+after our daughters.  Set Chumbley to work."
+
+"The crocodiles never hurt me," drawled the young man.  "Rather ugly,
+certainly, but they've a nice open style of countenance.  I like hunting
+and shooting, but I don't see any fun in making yourself a nuisance to
+everything that runs or flies, as the doctor there does, shooting, and
+skinning and sticking pins through 'em, and putting them in glass cases
+with camphor.  I hope you don't do much of that sort of thing, Mr
+Rosebury?"
+
+"I?  Oh, no," said the Reverend Arthur, raising his eyes from a dreamy
+contemplation of the doorway, through which a pleasant murmur of female
+voices came.  "I--I am afraid I am guilty as to insects."
+
+"But you draw the line at crocodiles, I suppose?  Poor brutes!  They
+never had any education, and if you put temptation in their way, of
+course they'll tumble in."
+
+"And then repent and shed crocodile's tears," said Captain Hilton,
+smiling.
+
+"A vulgar error, sir!" said the doctor, sharply.  "Crocodiles have no
+tear-secreting glands."
+
+"They could not wipe their eyes in the water if they had, doctor," said
+Captain Hilton, merrily.
+
+"Of course not, sir," said the doctor; "but as I was saying, gentlemen,
+when Solomon's ships--"
+
+"I say, Perowne," interrupted the little Scotch merchant, in his harsh
+voice, "hadn't we better join the ladies?  If Bolter is going to
+ventilate his theory I shall go to sleep."
+
+"I've done," said the doctor, leaning back and thrusting his hands into
+his pockets; "but I must say, Stuart, that as an old resident in these
+parts I think you might give a little attention to a fact of great
+historical interest, and one that might lead to a valuable discovery of
+gold.  What do you say, Perowne?"
+
+"I leave such matters to you scientific gentlemen," said the host,
+carefully flicking a scrap of cigar-ash from his shirt-front.
+
+"You can't tempt Perowne," laughed the little Scot.  "He is a regular
+Mount Ophir in himself, and," he added to himself, "has a flaunting
+peacock--I mean peahen--of his own."
+
+"Nay, nay, Stuart," said the host, smiling meaningly; "I am not a rich
+man."
+
+"Oh, no," chuckled his brother merchant; "he's as poor as a Jew."
+
+Mr Perowne shook his head at his harsh-voiced guest, glanced round
+suavely, as if asking permission of his guests, and then rose from the
+handsomely-furnished table.
+
+"Then we will join the ladies," he said, blandly; and the Chinese
+servants drew aside the light muslin curtains which hung in graceful
+folds over the arched door.
+
+It was but a few steps across a conservatory, the bright tints of whose
+rich tropical flowers and lustrous sheen of whose leaves were softened
+and subdued by the light of some half-dozen large Chinese lanterns,
+cleverly arranged so as to give the finest effect to the gorgeous
+plants.
+
+Here several of the party paused for a few moments to gaze through
+another muslin-draped portal into the drawing-room, whose shaded lamps
+with their heavy silken fringes cast a subdued light upon a group, the
+sight of which had a strange effect upon several of the men.
+
+There, in the darker part of the beautifully-furnished room, where the
+taste of Paris was mingled with the highest and airiest ornamentation of
+the East, sat little Mrs Doctor very far back in a cane chair--wide
+awake, as she would have declared had anyone spoken, but with her mouth
+open, and a general vacancy of expression upon her countenance
+suggestive of some wonder visible in the land of dreams.
+
+Close by her, upon a low seat, was Grey Stuart, looking very simple and
+innocent in her diaphanous white dress; but there was trouble in her
+gentle eyes, and her lips seemed pinched as if with pain, as now and
+then one of her hands left the work upon which she was engaged to push
+back a wave of her thick soft hair.
+
+She too was partly in shadow, but as she pushed back the thick fair
+hair, it was possible to see that there were faint lines of care in her
+white forehead, for she too was gazing at the group that had taken the
+attention of the gentlemen leaving their dessert.
+
+For in the centre of the room, just where the soft glow of one of the
+shaded lamps formed quite a halo round her glistening dark hair, and
+seemed to add lustre to her large, well-shaped eyes, reclined Helen
+Perowne.  Her attitude was graceful, and evidently studied for effect.
+One hand rested on the back of the well-stuffed ottoman, so as to
+display the rounded softness of her shapely arm; while her head was
+thrown back to place at the same advantage her creamy-hued well-formed
+throat, and at the same time to allow its owner to turn her gaze from
+time to time upon the companion standing beside her, grave, statuesque,
+and calm, but with all the fire of his Eastern nature glowing in his
+large dark eyes, which needed no interpreter to tell the tale they told.
+
+"A nigger now!" said Lieutenant Chumbley to himself, with a look of
+contempt at the handsome young hostess.  "Well, there's no knowing what
+that girl would do."
+
+"The rajah--the sultan!" muttered Captain Hilton, with a
+furiously-jealous look.  "How dare he!  The insolent, dark-skinned cad!"
+
+"Flying at a seat upon an ivory throne in a palm-tree palace, eh,
+Helen?" mused the Resident, with a quiet smile.  "Well, you will exhaust
+them all in time?"
+
+These thoughts ran through the brains of each of the spectators of the
+little scene within the drawing-room in turn, but only one of the
+dinner-party spoke aloud, and that was in a low voice in another's ear.
+
+It was the little Scotchman, Grey Stuart's father, who spoke, as he laid
+his hand upon his host's shoulder.
+
+"Perowne, mahn," he whispered, "ye'll have a care there, and speak to
+your lass, for there'll be the deil's own mischief, and murder too, if
+she leads that fellow on."
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+HELEN PEROWNE AT HOME.
+
+Sultan Murad, who, from the aspect of affairs in Mr Perowne's
+drawing-room, seemed to be the last captive to the bow of Helen's lips
+and the arrows of her eyes, was one of the rajahs of the Malay
+peninsula, living upon friendly terms with the English, paying
+allegiance to the government, and accepting the friendly services of a
+Political Resident, in the shape of Mr Harley, whose duties were to
+advise him in his rule, to help him in any plans for civilising and
+opening out his country; and in exchange for his alliance and friendly
+offices with neighbouring chiefs, who viewed the coming of the English
+with jealous eyes, the rajah was promised the help of the English arms
+in time of need.  As an earnest of this promise, a couple of companies
+of an English foot regiment were permanently stationed upon a little
+island in the river, just opposite to Sindang, the principal native town
+of Jullah, over which territory Sultan Murad reigned.
+
+But the Prince only adopted such of the English customs as suited his
+tastes.  He had no objection, though a follower of Mahomet, to the wines
+that were introduced, showing a great preference for champagne.  Our
+dress he took to at once, making a point of always appearing in
+indigo-blue silk stockings and patent-leather shoes.  The widest-fronted
+shirts were spread over his broad breast, and the tail-coat found so
+much favour that he had to exercise a good deal of self-denial to keep
+himself from appearing all day long in full evening-dress.
+
+But he had good advisers to help his natural shrewdness, and finding
+that his adoption of our costume found favour with his English allies,
+he adhered to it rigorously, as far as his position as sultan or rajah
+would allow.  For there was and is one part of the native dress that no
+Malay will set aside, and that is the sarong, a tartan scarf sewn
+together at the ends and worn in folds around the body, so as to form a
+kilt.
+
+This article of dress, always a check or plaid of some showy-coloured
+pattern, is worn by every Malay, in silk or cotton, according to his
+station, and in the sash-like folds he always carries his kris, a
+dangerous-looking dagger, that falsely bears the reputation of being
+smeared along its wavy blade with poison.
+
+A silken kilt and a dagger are rather _outre_ objects for an English
+drawing-room, and looked barbaric and strange as worn by the young
+rajah, whose evening-dress was otherwise in faultless English style,
+being in fact the production of a certain tailor, of Savile Row, an
+artist who had been largely patronised by Murad for shooting and morning
+gear, and also for his especial pride, a couple of gorgeous uniforms,
+something between that of a hussar and a field-marshal bound to a
+review.
+
+The bad name given to a dog dies hard, and in spite of steam and
+electricity, the idea still lingers in our midst that the Malay is as
+evil as his kris, and that he is a brutal savage, accustomed to put
+forth from his campong in a long row-boat, or prahu, to make a piratical
+attack upon some becalmed vessel.  After this it is supposed to be his
+custom to put the crew to death, plunder the ship, and set it on fire as
+a finish to his task.
+
+Such deeds have been done, for there are roughs amongst the Malays, even
+as there are in civilised England.  In bygone days, too, such acts were
+doubtless as common as among our border chieftains; but, as a rule, the
+Malays are an educated body of eastern people, professing the Mahommedan
+religion, with an excellent code of laws, punctilious in etiquette, and
+though exceedingly simple in their habits, far from wanting in
+refinement.
+
+Sultan Murad was unmistakably a prince, handsome in person, and
+naturally of a grave and dignified mien, while since his alliance with
+the English he had become so thoroughly imbued with our habits and the
+ordinary ways of a gentleman as to make him a visitor well worthy of
+Helen's attention for the time.
+
+There was something delightful to her vanity in the eastern term
+"sultan," a title associated in her mind with barbaric splendour,
+showers of diamonds and pearls, cloth of gold, elephants with silver
+howdahs, attended by troops of slaves bearing peacock fans, chowries,
+and palm-leaf punkahs.  She saw herself in imagination mounted upon some
+monstrous beast, with a veil of gossamer texture covering her face; a
+troop of beautiful slaves in attendance, and guards with flashing
+weapons jealously watching on every side the approach of those who would
+dare to sun themselves in her beauty.
+
+Her thoughts were so pleasant, that in place of the languid air of
+repose in her dark, shaded eyes, they would flash out as she listened
+with a gratified smile to Murad's eastern compliments and the soft
+deference in his voice.
+
+He was a real sultan, who, when with the English, adopted their customs;
+while with his people no doubt he would assume his barbaric splendour;
+and to Helen, fresh as it were from school, and, revelling in the joys
+of her new-born power, there was something delicious in finding that she
+had a real eastern potentate among her slaves.
+
+The Rajah had been talking to her in his soft, pleasant English for some
+time before the gentlemen left the dining-room.  Now Neil Harley
+separated himself from the rest, sauntered across, nodded to the Rajah,
+who drew back, and made a flash dart from the young Malay's eyes as he
+saw the Resident seat himself in a careless, quite-at-home fashion
+beside the young hostess.
+
+"Well, Mad'moiselle Helen," he whispered in a half-contemptuous tone,
+"how many more conquests this week?"
+
+"I do not understand you, Mr Harley," she said, coldly; but he noticed
+that she could hardly manage to contain the annoyance she felt at his
+cavalier manner.
+
+"Don't you?" he said, smiling and half closing his eyes.  "As you
+please, most chilling and proud of beauties.  What lucky men those are
+who find themselves allowed to bask in the sunshine of your smiles!
+There, that is the proper, youthful way of expressing it poetically, is
+it not?"
+
+"If you wish to insult me, pray say so, Mr Harley, and I will at once
+leave the room," said Helen, in a low voice, as if wishful that the
+Rajah should not hear her words, but making the Malay's countenance
+lower as he saw the familiar way in which she was addressed.
+
+"Insult you?  All the saints and good people past and to come forbid!
+It is you who, after making me your slave, turn from me, the elderly
+beau, to listen to the voice of our dusky charmer.  I don't mind.  I am
+going to chat and listen to little Grey Stuart.  I shall be patient,
+because I know that some day you will return to me cloyed with
+conquests, and say, `Neil Harley, I am yours!'"
+
+"I do not understand you," she cried, quickly.
+
+"Let me be explicit then," he said, mockingly.  "Some day the fair Helen
+will come to me and say, with her pretty hands joined together, `Neil
+Harley, I am tired of slaying men.  I have been very wicked, and cruel,
+and coquettish.  I have wounded our chaplain; I have slain red-coated
+officers; I have trampled a Malayan sultan beneath my feet; but I know
+that you have loved me through it all.  Forgive me and take me; I am
+humble now--I am yours!'"
+
+"Mr Harley!" she exclaimed, indignantly.  "How dare you speak to me
+like this in my father's house."
+
+As she spoke her eyes seemed to flash with anger, and he ought to have
+quailed before her; but he met her gaze with a calm, mastering look, and
+said slowly:
+
+"Yes, you are very beautiful, and I do not wonder at your triumph in
+your power; but it is not love, Helen, and some day you will, as I tell
+you, be weary of all this adulation, and think of what I have said.  I
+am in no hurry; and of course all this will be when you have had your
+reign as the most beautiful coquette in the East."
+
+"Mr Harley, if you were not my father's old friend--"
+
+"Exactly, my dear child; old friend, who has your father's wishes for my
+success with his daughter--old friend, who has known you by report since
+a child.  I have been waiting for you, my dear, and you see I behave
+with all the familiarity accorded to a man of middle age."
+
+"Mr Harley, your words are insufferable!" said Helen, still in a low
+voice.
+
+"You think so now, my dear child.  But there: I have done.  Don't look
+so cross and indignant, or our friend the Rajah will be using his kris
+upon me as I go home.  I can see his hand playing with it now, although
+he has it enveloped in the folds of his silken sarong in token of
+peace."
+
+"I beg you will go," said Helen, contemptuously; "you are keeping the
+Rajah away."
+
+"Which would be a pity," said the Resident, smiling.  "He is a very
+handsome fellow, our friend Murad."
+
+"I have hardly heeded his looks," said Helen, weakly; and then she
+flushed crimson as she saw Mr Harley's mocking smile.
+
+"Doosid strange, those fellows can't come into a gentleman's
+drawing-room without their skewers," said Chumbley, coming up and
+overhearing the last words.  "I say, Miss Perowne, you ought to have
+stayed and heard the doctor give us a lecture on Ophir and Solomon's
+ships.  Capital, wasn't it, Hilton?"
+
+"Really I hardly heard it," replied the young officer, approaching Helen
+with a smile; and the Resident met the lady's eye, and gave her a
+mocking look, as he rose and made place for the new-comer, who was
+welcomed warmly.  "I was thinking about our hostess, and wondering how
+long it would be before we were to be emancipated from old customs and
+allowed to enter the drawing-room."
+
+"Yes, it is strange how we English cling to our customs, and bring them
+out even to such places as this," said the lady, letting her eyes rest
+softly upon those of the young officer, and there allowing them to stop;
+but giving a quick glance the next moment at the Rajah, who, with a
+fixed smile upon his face, was sending lowering looks from one to the
+other of those who seemed to have ousted him and monopolised the lady's
+attention.
+
+"I never felt our customs so tedious as they were to-night," said
+Captain Hilton, earnestly; and bending down, he began to talk in a
+subdued voice, while the gentlemen proceeded to discuss mercantile
+matters, the probability of the neighbouring Malay princess--the Inche
+Maida--taking to herself a lord; the latest move made by the governor;
+and other matters more or less interesting to the younger men.
+
+At last Chumbley, seeing that Harley was chatting with Grey Stuart,
+crossed over to the doctor's little lady, who had rather a troubled,
+uneasy look in her pleasant face as she watched her brother, the
+chaplain, hanging about as if to catch a word let drop by Helen now and
+then.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
+
+"Well, Mrs Bolter," drawled Chumbley, "who's going to carry off the
+prize?"
+
+"What prize?" cried the little lady, sharply.
+
+"The fair Helen," said the young man, with a smile.
+
+"You, I should say," said Mrs Bolter, with more asperity in her tone.
+
+"Chaff!" said Chumbley; and he went on, slowly, "Won't do, Mrs Doctor;
+I'm too slow for her.  She had me in silken strings for a week like a
+pet poodle; but I soon got tired and jealous of seeing her pet other
+puppies instead of me, and I was not allowed to bite them, so--"
+
+"Well?" said the doctor's wife, for he had stopped.
+
+"I snapped the string and ran away, and she has never forgiven me."
+
+"Harry Chumbley," said the doctor's wife, shaking her finger at him,
+"don't you ever try to make me believe again that you are stupid,
+because, sir, it will not do."
+
+"I never pretend to be," said the young man, with a sluggish laugh, "I'm
+just as I was made--good, bad and indifferent.  I don't think I'm more
+stupid than most men.  I'm awfully lazy though--too lazy to play the
+idiot or the lover, or to put up with a flirting young lady's whims; but
+I say, Mrs Doctor."
+
+"Well?" said the lady.
+
+"I don't want to be meddlesome, but really if I were you, being the
+regular methodical lady of the station, I should speak seriously to
+Helen Perowne about flirting with that nigger."
+
+"Has she been flirting with him to-night?" said the lady eagerly.
+
+"Awfully," said Chumbley--"hot and strong.  We fellows can stand it, you
+know, and if we get led on and then snubbed, why it makes us a bit sore,
+and we growl and try to lick the place, and--there's an end of it."
+
+"Yes--yes--exactly," said the lady, thoughtfully.
+
+"But it's my belief," continued Chumbley, spreading his words out so as
+to cover a good deal of space, while he made himself comfortable by
+stretching out his long legs, lowering himself back, and placing his
+hands under his head--a very ungraceful position, which displayed a gap
+between his vest and the top of his trousers--"it's my belief, I say,
+that if Beauty there goes on playing with the Beast in his plaid sarong,
+and making his opal eyeballs roll into the idea that she cares for him,
+which she doesn't a single pip--"
+
+"Go on, I'm listening," said the doctor's lady.
+
+"All right--give me time, Mrs Bolter; but that's about all I was going
+to say, only that I think if she leads him on as she is doing now there
+will not be an end of it.  That's all."
+
+"Well, busy little Grey," said the Resident, merrily, as he seated
+himself beside the earnest-eyed Scottish maiden, "what is the new piece
+of needlework now?"
+
+"Only a bit of embroidery, Mr Harley," she replied, giving him a quick,
+animated glance, and the look of trouble upon her face passing away.
+
+"Ha!" he said, taking up the piece of work and examining it intently,
+"what a strange thing it is that out in these hot places, while we men
+grow lazier, you ladies become more industrious.  Look at Chumbley for
+instance, he's growing fatter and slower every day."
+
+"Oh, but he's very nice, and frank, and natural," said Grey with
+animation.
+
+"Yes," said the Resident, "he's a good fellow.  I like Chumbley.  But
+look at the work in that embroidery now--thousands and thousands of
+stitches.  Why what idiots our young fellows are!"
+
+"Why, Mr Harley?" said the girl, wonderingly.
+
+"Why, my child?  Because one or the other of them does not make a swoop
+down and persuade you to let him carry you off."
+
+"Are you all so tired of me already?" said Grey, smiling.
+
+"Tired of you?  Oh, no, little one, but it seems to me that you are such
+a quiet little mouse that they all forget your very existence."
+
+"I am happy enough with my father, and very glad to join him once more,
+Mr Harley."
+
+"Happy?  Of course you are; that seems to be your nature.  I never saw a
+girl so sweet, and happy, and contented."
+
+"Indeed!" said Grey, blushing.  "How can I help being happy when
+everyone is so kind?"
+
+"Kind?  Why, of course.  Why, let me see," said the Resident, "how time
+goes; what a number of years it seems since I took you to England and
+played papa to you?"
+
+"Yes, it does seem a long time ago," said Grey, musingly.
+
+"I never thought that the little girl I petted would ever grow into such
+a beautiful young lady.  Perhaps that is why papa Stuart did not ask me
+to bring you back."
+
+"Mr Harley!" exclaimed Grey, and a look of pain crossed her face.
+
+"Why, what have I done?" he said.
+
+"Hurt me," she said, simply.  "I like so to talk to you that it troubles
+me when you adopt that complimentary style."
+
+"Then I won't do it again," he said, earnestly.  "We won't spoil our old
+friendship with folly."
+
+"How well you remember, Mr Harley," said the girl, smiling again.
+
+"Remember?  Of course I do, my dear.  Don't you recollect what jolly
+feeds of preserved ginger and mango you and I used to have?  Ah, it was
+too bad of you to grow up into a little woman!"
+
+"I don't think we are any the less good friends, Mr Harley," said the
+girl, looking trustingly up in his face.
+
+"Not a bit," he said.  "Do you know, my dear, I think more and more
+every day that I am going to grow into a staid old bachelor; and if I do
+I shall have to adopt you as daughter or niece."
+
+"Indeed, Mr Harley."
+
+"Yes, indeed, my dear.  Nineteen, eh? and I am forty-four.  Heigho! how
+time goes!"
+
+"I had begun to think, Mr Harley--" said Grey, softly.  "May I go on?"
+
+"Go on?  Of course, my dear.  What had you begun to think?"
+
+"That you would marry Helen."
+
+"Ye-es, several people thought so on shipboard," he said, dreamily.
+"Nineteen--twenty-one--forty-four.  I'm getting quite an old man now, my
+dear.  Hah!" he said, starting, "I daresay Mademoiselle Helen will have
+plenty of offers."
+
+"Yes," said Grey; "but she should meet with someone firm and strong as
+well as kind."
+
+"Like your humble servant?" he said, smiling.
+
+"Yes," said Grey, looking ingenuously in his face.  "Helen is very sweet
+and affectionate at heart, only she is so fond of being admired."
+
+"A weakness she will outgrow," said the Resident, calmly.  "I like to
+hear you talk like that, Grey.  You are not jealous, then, of the court
+that is paid to her?"
+
+"I, jealous?" said Grey, smiling.  "Do I look so?"
+
+"Not at all," said the Resident; "not at all.  Beauty and fortune, they
+are great attractions for men, my dear, and Helen has both.  But, my
+clever little woman, you ought to teach papa to make a fortune."
+
+Grey shook her head.
+
+"That's the thing to do nowadays, like our host has done.  Perowne is
+very rich, and if papa Stuart had done as well, we should be having
+plenty of offers for that busy little hand.  Yes, a score at your feet."
+
+"Where they would not be wanted," said the girl, quietly.
+
+"Eh?  Not wanted?" said the Resident.  "What, would you not like to be
+worshipped, and hold a court like our fair Helen yonder?"
+
+The girl's eyes flashed as she glanced in the direction of the ottoman,
+where Captain Hilton was talking in a low, earnest voice to Helen
+Perowne; and then, with a slightly-heightened colour, she went on with
+her work, shaking her head the while.
+
+"I don't think I shall believe that," said the Resident, banteringly;
+but as he spoke she looked up at him so searchingly that even he, the
+middle-aged man of the world, felt disconcerted, and rather welcomed the
+coming of the little rosy-faced doctor, who advanced on tiptoe, and with
+a look of mock horror in his face, as he said, softly:
+
+"Let me come here, my dear.  Spread one of your dove-wings over me to
+ensure peace.  Madam is wroth with her slave, and I dare not go near
+her."
+
+"Why, what have you been doing now, doctor?" said Grey, with mock
+severity.
+
+"Heaven knows, my dear.  My name is Nor--I mean Henry--but it ought to
+have been Benjamin, for I have always got a mess on hand, lots of times
+as big as anyone else's mess.  I'm a miserable man."
+
+Meanwhile the conversation had been continued between the doctor's lady
+and Chumbley, till the former began to fidget about, to the great
+amusement of the latter, who, knowing the lady's weakness, lay back with
+half-closed eyes, watching her uneasy glances as they followed the
+doctor, till after a chat here and a chat there, he made his way to the
+couch by Grey Stuart, and began to speak to her, evidently in a most
+earnest way.
+
+"She's as jealous as a Turk," said Chumbley to himself; and he tightened
+his lips to keep from indulging in a smile.
+
+"I'm sorry to trouble you, Mr Chumbley," said Mrs Bolter at last.
+
+"No trouble, Mrs Bolter," he replied, slowly, though his tone indicated
+that it would be a trouble for him to move.
+
+"Thank you.  I'll bear in mind what you said about Helen Perowne."
+
+"And that nigger fellow?  Ah, do!" said Chumbley, suppressing a yawn.
+
+"Would you mind telling Dr Bolter I want to speak to him for a moment--
+just a moment?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Chumbley; and he rose slowly, as if a good deal of
+caution was required in getting his big body perpendicular; after which
+he crossed to where the doctor was chatting to Grey Stuart.
+
+"Here, doctor, get up," he said.  "Your colonel says you are to go to
+her directly.  There's such a row brewing!"
+
+"No, no!  Gammon!" said the little man, uneasily.  "Mrs Bolter didn't
+send you, did she?"
+
+"Yes.  Honour bright! and if I were you I'd go at once and throw myself
+on her mercy.  You'll get off more easily."
+
+"No, but Chumbley, what is it?  'Pon my word I don't think I've done
+anything to upset her to-day."
+
+"I don't know.  There; she's looking this way!  'Pon my honour, doctor,
+you'd better go!"
+
+Dr Bolter rose with a sigh, and crossed to his lady, while Chumbley
+took his place, and threw himself back, laughing softly the while.
+
+"If that was a trick, Mr Chumbley," said Grey, gazing at him keenly,
+"it is very cruel of you!"
+
+"But it wasn't a trick, Miss Stuart.  She sent me to fetch him.  The
+poor little woman was getting miserable because the doctor was so
+attentive to you."
+
+"Oh, Mr Chumbley, what nonsense," said Grey, colouring.  "It is too
+absurd!"
+
+"So it is," he replied; "but that isn't."  She followed the direction of
+his eyes as he fixed them on Captain Hilton and Helen Perowne, and then,
+with the flush dying out of her cheeks, she looked at him inquiringly.
+
+"I say, Miss Stuart," he drawled, "don't call me a mischief-maker,
+please."
+
+"Certainly not.  Why should I?"
+
+"Because I get chattering to people about Miss Perowne.  I wish she'd
+marry somebody.  I say, hasn't she hooked Bertie Hilton?"
+
+There was no reply, and Chumbley went on: "I mean to tell him he's an
+idiot when he gets back to quarters to-night.  I don't believe Helen
+Perowne cares a _sou_ for him.  She keeps leading him on till the poor
+fellow doesn't know whether he stands on his head or his heels, and
+by-and-by she'll pitch him over."
+
+Grey bent her head a little lower, for there seemed to be a knot in the
+work upon which she was engaged, but she did not speak.
+
+"I say, Miss Stuart, look at our coffee-coloured friend.  Just you watch
+his eyes.  I'll be hanged if I don't think there'll be a row between him
+and Hilton.  He looks quite dangerous!"
+
+"Oh, Mr Chumbley!" cried Grey, gazing at him as if horrified at his
+words.
+
+"Well, I shouldn't wonder," he continued.  "Helen Perowne has been
+leading him on, and now he has been cut to make room for Hilton.  These
+Malay chaps don't understand this sort of thing, especially as they all
+seem born with the idea that we are a set of common white people, and
+that one Malay is worth a dozen of us."
+
+"Do--do you think there is danger?" said Grey hoarsely.
+
+"Well, no, perhaps not danger," replied Chumbley, coolly; "but things
+might turn ugly if they went on.  And it's my belief that, if my lady
+there does not take care, she'll find herself in a mess."
+
+A more general mingling of the occupants of the drawing-room put an end
+to the various _tete-a-tetes_, and Grey Stuart's present anxiety was
+somewhat abated; but she did not feel any the more at rest upon seeing
+that the young rajah had softly approached Hilton, and was smiling at
+him in an innocently bland way, bending towards him as he spoke, and
+keeping very close to his side for the rest of the evening.
+
+At last "good-byes" were said, and the party separated, the two young
+officers walking slowly down towards the landing-stage, to enter a
+native boat and be rowed to their quarters on the Residency island.
+
+The heat was very great, and but little was said for some minutes,
+during which Hilton was rapturously thinking of the beauty of Helen's
+eyes.
+
+"I say, Chum," he said suddenly.  "Murad has invited me to go on a
+hunting-trip with him in the interior.  Would you go?"
+
+"Certainly--if--" drawled Chumbley, yawning.
+
+"If?  If what!"
+
+"I wanted a kris in my back, and to supply food to the crocodiles."
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+A PROPOSAL.
+
+Mr Perowne's home at Sindang was kept up in almost princely style, and
+he was regarded as the principal inhabitant of the place.  Both English
+and Chinese merchants consulted him, and the native dealers and rajahs
+made him the first offers of tin slabs, rice, gambier, gutta-percha, and
+other products of the country, while a large proportion of the English
+and French imports that found favour with the Malays were consigned to
+the house of Perowne and Company.
+
+People said that he must be immensely rich, and he never denied the
+impeachment, but went on in a quiet, bland way, accepting their hints,
+polite to all, whether trading or non-trading, while his table was
+magnificently kept up, and to it the occupants of the station were
+always made welcome.
+
+When fate places people in the tropics, they make a point of rising
+early.  Helen Perowne was up with the sun, and dressed in a charming
+French muslin costume, had a delightful drive, which she called upon
+Grey Stuart to share, before she met her father at breakfast--a meal
+discussed almost in silence, for Mr Perowne would give a good deal of
+his attention to business matters over his meals, a habit against which
+Dr Bolter warned him, but without avail.
+
+The repast was nearly finished, when a servant entered and announced
+that the Sultan Murad was coming down the river in his dragon-boat, and
+evidently meant to land at the stage at the bottom of the garden.
+
+"What does he want?" said the merchant, absently.  "Been collecting
+tribute, I suppose, and wants to sell.  Go and see if he lands," he said
+aloud, "and then come back."
+
+"This is the way we have to make our money, my dear," said Perowne,
+smiling, but without seeing the increased colour in his child's face.
+
+"The Sultan is here, sir," said the man, returning.
+
+"Where?" asked Mr Perowne.
+
+"In the drawing-room, sir.  Shall I bring in fresh breakfast?"
+
+"I don't know.  I'll ring.  I've done, Helen.  I say, young lady, what a
+colour you have got!  You stopped out too long in the sun this morning."
+
+"Oh, no, papa, I think not," she replied; "but it is hot."
+
+"You'll soon get used to that, my dear.  I don't mind the heat at all.
+Party went off very well last night, I think."
+
+The merchant was by this time at the door, wondering what proposal the
+Rajah had to make to him, for all these petty princes stoop to doing a
+little trading upon their own account, raising rice in large quantities
+by means of their slaves; but, man of the world as the merchant was, he
+did not find himself prepared for the proposition that ensued.
+
+In this case Helen was more prepared than her father, though even she
+was taken by surprise.  She had had her suspicions that the Rajah might
+take her soft glances and gently-spoken words as sufficient permission
+for him to speak to her father; and though she trembled at the possible
+result, there was something so deliciously gratifying to her vanity that
+she could not help enjoying the position.
+
+To be asked in marriage by a real sultan!  What would the Miss
+Twettenhams say? and if she accepted him she would be sultana.  The idea
+was dazzling at a distance, but even to her romance-loving brain there
+was something theatrical when it was looked at with the eyes of common
+sense.
+
+She could not accept him.  It was absurd; and after all, perhaps he had
+no such idea as that in coming.  It was, as her father thought, some
+matter of business, such as he had been in the habit of visiting her
+father about over and over again, and such as had resulted in the
+intimacy which made him a welcome guest at the house.
+
+She thought differently, however; and though she assumed surprise, she
+was in nowise startled when her father returned.
+
+"I say, Nelly!" he exclaimed, looking annoyed, and completely off his
+balance, "what the dickens have you been about?"
+
+"About, papa?" said the girl, raising her eyebrows, "I don't understand
+you!"
+
+"Then the sooner you do the better!  I've quite enough to worry me
+without your foolery!  Here's the Rajah come to see me on business."
+
+"Very well, papa, I don't understand business," she said, quietly.
+
+"But you'll have to understand it!" he cried, angrily.  "Here, he says
+that you have been giving him permission to speak to me; and as far as I
+can understand him, he proposes for your hand!"
+
+"The Rajah, papa!  Oh! absurd!"
+
+"Oh, yes, it's absurd enough, confound his copper-coloured insolence!
+But it puts me in a fix with him.  If I offend him, I shall offend his
+people, or he'll make them offended, and I shall be a heavy loser.  Did
+you tell him to speak to me?"
+
+"Certainly not, papa!"
+
+"Perhaps I misunderstood him, for he speaks horrible English.  But
+whether or no, he proposes that you shall be his wife."
+
+"His wife, papa!  Why, he has a dozen!"
+
+"Yes, my dear, of course; but then these fellows don't take that into
+consideration.  What the deuce am I to do?"
+
+"Tell him it is an insult to an English lady to propose such a thing!"
+said Helen, haughtily.
+
+"Yes, that's easily said; but you must have been leading the fellow on."
+
+"He was your guest, papa, and I was civil to him," said Helen, coldly.
+
+"A deal too civil, I'll be bound!  I'm sick of your civilities, Nell,
+and their consequences!  Why can't you get engaged like any other girl?
+I wish to goodness you were married and settled!"
+
+"Thank you, papa," she replied in the same cold, indifferent manner.
+
+"Yes, but this fellow's waiting to see you.  What am I to say."
+
+"What are you to say, papa?  Really you ought to know!"
+
+"But it's impossible for you to accept him, though he is very rich."
+
+"Quite impossible, papa!"
+
+"Then he'll be offended."
+
+"Well, papa, that is not of much consequence."
+
+"But it is of consequence--of great consequence!  Don't I tell you it
+will cause me serious loss; and besides that, it is dangerous to affront
+a fellow like this.  He is only a nigger, of course, but he is a
+reigning prince, and has great power.  He's as proud as Lucifer; and if
+he considers that he is affronted, there's no knowing what may be the
+consequences."
+
+"He may carry me off perhaps, papa," said Helen, showing her white
+teeth.
+
+"Well, I wouldn't say that he might not attempt it!"
+
+"Like a baron of old," said the girl scornfully.  "Papa, I am not a
+child!  How can you be so absurd?"
+
+"You can call it what you like," he said angrily; "but your folly has
+got us into a pretty mess.  Well, you must go in and see him."
+
+"I?  Go in and see him?" cried Helen, flushing.  "Impossible, papa!"
+
+"But it is not impossible.  I told him I didn't know what to say till I
+had seen you, and, what was the perfect truth, that I was quite taken by
+surprise.  Now the best thing will be for you to go in and see him and
+temporise with him.  Don't refuse him out and out, but try and ease him
+off, as one may say.  Gain time, and the fellow will forget all about it
+in a month or two."
+
+"Papa!"
+
+"Ah, you may say--_papa_; but you have got me into a terrible muddle,
+and now you must help to get me out of it.  I must not have this fellow
+offended.  Confound the insolent scoundrel!  Just like the savage.  He
+learns to wear English clothes, and then thinks he is a gentleman, and
+insults us with this proposal."
+
+"Yes; insults us papa: that is the word!" cried Helen, with spirit.
+
+"Well, time's flying, and he is waiting, so go and see him at once, and
+get it over."
+
+"But I tell you, papa, I cannot.  It is impossible!"
+
+"Why, you were talking to him for long enough last night in the
+drawing-room.  Now, come, Helen, don't be ridiculous, but go and do as I
+tell you; and the sooner it is done the better."
+
+Helen Perowne pressed her lips tightly together, and a look came into
+her face that betokened obstinate determination of the straightest kind.
+
+"Papa, you make matters worse," she cried, "by proposing such a
+degrading task to me.  This man is, as you say, little better than a
+savage.  His proposal is an insult, and yet you wish me to go and see
+him.  It is impossible!"
+
+"Don't I tell you that I have business arrangements with the fellow, and
+that I can't afford to lose his custom?  And don't I tell you that,
+situated as we are here amongst these people, it is not wise to make
+them our enemies.  I don't want you to snub him.  It is only for
+prudential reasons.  Now, come; get it over."
+
+"I cannot see him!  I will not see him!" cried Helen, passionately; and
+she turned pale now at the idea of encountering the passionate young
+Malay.  For the moment she bitterly regretted her folly, though the
+chances are that if circumstances tended in that direction she would
+have behaved again in precisely the same way.
+
+"Now look here, Nelly," said Mr Perowne, "you must see him!"
+
+For answer she paused for a moment, and then walked straight to the
+door.
+
+"That's right," he said.  "Temporise with him a bit, my dear, and let
+him down gently."
+
+Helen stood with the door in her hand, and darted at him an imperious
+look; then she passed through, and the door swung to behind her.
+
+"Confound him!  What insolence!" muttered Mr Perowne, as he stood
+listening.  "Eh?  No; she wouldn't dare!  Why, confound the girl, she
+has gone up to her room and locked herself in!  What a temper she has
+got to be sure!"
+
+He gave his head a vicious rub, and then, evidently under the impression
+that it was in vain to appeal again to his child, he snapped his teeth
+together sharply, and walked firmly into the drawing-room, where the
+Rajah stood impatiently waiting his return.
+
+The young eastern prince was most carefully dressed; his morning coat
+and trousers being from a West-end tailor, and his hands were covered
+with the tightest of lemon-coloured gloves.  In one hand was a grey tall
+hat, in the other the thinnest of umbrellas.  Altogether his appearance
+was unexceptionable, if he had dispensed with the gaudy silken sarong
+ablaze with a plaid of green, yellow, and scarlet.
+
+His thick lips were wreathed in a pleasant smile, and his dark, full
+eyes were half closed; but they opened widely for an instant, and seemed
+to emit anger in one flash, as he saw that Mr Perowne came back alone.
+
+"Where--is--miss?" he said, in a slow, thick tone.
+
+"Well, the fact is, Rajah," said Mr Perowne, giving a laugh to clear
+his throat, "I have seen my daughter, and she asked me to tell you that
+she is suffering from a bad headache.  You understand me?"
+
+The young Rajah nodded, his eyes seeming to contract the while.
+
+"She is of course very much flattered by your proposal--one which she
+says she will think over most carefully; but she is so surprised, that
+she can only ask you to give her time.  I see you understand me?"
+
+The Rajah nodded again in a quick, eager way.
+
+"English girls do not say _yea_ all at once to a proposal like yours;
+and if you will wait a few months--of course being good friends all the
+time--we shall be able to speak more about the subject."
+
+Mr Perowne, merchant, and man of the world, meant to say all this in a
+quick, matter-of-fact, frank way, but he stumbled, and spoke in a
+halting, lame fashion, growing more and more unsatisfactory as the young
+Malay prince came closer to him.
+
+"I--I think you understand me," he said, feeling called upon to say
+something, as the Malay glared at him as if about to spring.
+
+"Yes--yes!" hissed the Malay.  "Lies--all lies!  I came for friend.  You
+mock--you laugh in my face--but you do not know.  I say I came for
+friend--I go away--enemy!"
+
+He went on speaking rapidly in the Malay tongue, his rage seeming to be
+the more concentrated from the cold, cutting tone he adopted.  Then,
+nearly closing his eyes, and giving his peculiar type of features a
+crafty, cat-like aspect, he gazed furiously at the merchant for a few
+minutes, and then turned, and seemed to creep from the house in a way
+that was as feline as his looks.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+TAKING ALARM.
+
+Mr Perowne drew his handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the dew
+from his forehead.
+
+"Good Heavens!" he ejaculated, "they assassinated poor Rodrick, and here
+is that girl only home for a few weeks, and a shock like this to come
+upon me!  Surely I've troubles enough on hand without a worry like
+this!"
+
+He walked to the window and saw the Malay prince entering his boat by
+the landing-place, where it was pushed off and pulled into mid-stream by
+a dozen stout rowers.
+
+"The man's mad with passion," muttered Mr Perowne.  "I would not have
+had it happen for all I possess.  Women always were at the bottom of
+every bit of mischief, but I did not expect Helen would begin so soon."
+
+He had another look at the Rajah's handsome boat, which took the place
+of a carriage in that roadless place, and saw that the Malay prince had
+turned and was gazing back.
+
+"I don't know what's to be the end of all this, and--Oh, Harley! is that
+you?  Come in."
+
+The Resident, looking rather troubled and anxious, came in through the
+veranda, gazing sharply at Mr Perowne.
+
+"What has the Rajah been here for this morning?"
+
+"What has he been here for?" cried Mr Perowne, angrily, and glad of
+someone upon whom he could let off a little of his rage.  "Why, to do
+what you ought to have done in a downright way.  I gave you leave, and
+you have done nothing but play with her."
+
+"He has not been to propose for Helen's hand?"
+
+"Indeed, but he has."
+
+"How unfortunate!  I did not know that matters had gone so far as that?"
+
+"Nor I neither.  I knew she was flirting a bit, confound her.  Did you
+meet him?"
+
+"Yes, and he would not speak.  I saw something was wrong from his savage
+manner."
+
+"Perhaps he thought you had come up to propose, eh?  Had you?"
+
+"Not exactly," said the Resident, looking very serious.
+
+"Because if you had, you ought to have come before," said Mr Perowne,
+biting his nails.
+
+"I came to remonstrate with Helen, after seeing Mrs Bolter this
+morning."
+
+"Hang Mrs Bolter for a meddling little fool," cried the merchant.
+
+"She drew my attention to the serious dangers that might ensue if Helen
+led this man on.  I ought to have foreseen it, but I did not, and that's
+the most troublous part of it.  I ought to have known better," cried the
+Resident, biting his lips.
+
+"Oh, it's very easy to talk," said Mr Perowne, whose previous night's
+blandness seemed to be quite gone, to leave a weak, querulous
+childishness in its place.
+
+"Knowing what I do of the Malay character, Perowne, I ought to have
+watched her, but I confess I was so wrapped up in my own feelings that I
+did not think."
+
+"I thought you wanted to marry her, I gave you my consent at once.  I
+told you nothing would please me better," continued the father,
+querulously; "but ever since you both landed you seem to have done
+nothing but shilly-shally."
+
+"Don't talk like that, Perowne," said the Resident, impatiently.  "A man
+does not take a wife like you make a bargain.  I want to win her love as
+well as have her hand."
+
+"And you hang back--I've seen you--and let these other fellows cut you
+out.  Hilton and Chumbley, and then this Rajah.  I say--I must say,
+Harley, it is much too bad."
+
+"Yes, yes, I have done as you say; but I had a reason for it, Perowne, I
+had indeed; but I find I can manage natives better than a beautiful
+girl.  If I had foreseen--"
+
+"If I had foreseen it," cried Perowne, interrupting, "I'd have had her
+kept in England.  Confound the girl!"
+
+"It never occurred to me," said the Resident, "though it ought, that
+danger might arise from her flirtations."
+
+"Danger!  Why I shall lose thousands!" cried Perowne.  "The fellow will
+never forgive me, and throw endless obstacles in my way with his
+people."
+
+"Helen refused him, of course?" said the Resident.
+
+"Of course--of course," said the merchant, pettishly.
+
+"I blame myself deeply for not being more observant," said the Resident.
+"Others have seen what I failed to see, and it was always so.
+Lookers-on see most of the game; but I am awake to the danger now."
+
+"Danger? danger?" said Perowne, looking up now in a startled way.  "Do
+you think there is danger?  I hope not; but we ought to be prepared.
+What do you think it will be best to do?"
+
+"See Hilton, and tell him to double all guards; fill your revolver with
+cartridges; and be always on the alert.  We must make no show of begin
+in danger, but go on as usual, while reinforcements are quietly sent for
+from Singapore."
+
+"Do--do you think it will be as bad as that?"
+
+"Worse, for aught I know," said the Resident, bitterly.  "That fellow,
+with all his smoothness and French polish, may turn out, now he is
+thwarted, a perfect demon.  Perowne, we have contrived to make him our
+bitterest foe."
+
+"But--but it couldn't be helped, Harley," said Perowne, in an apologetic
+tone.  "Helen could not--"
+
+"Suppose you leave Miss Perowne's name out of the question, Mr
+Perowne," said the Resident, sternly.  "I'll go on and see Hilton now,
+and we must do the best we can."
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+MRS BOLTER AT HOME.
+
+It cannot be denied that Mrs Bolter's mature little heart had
+developed, with an intense love and admiration of her lord, a good deal
+of acidity, such as made her jealous, exacting, and tyrannical to a
+degree.
+
+Let it not be supposed, however, that the doctor was unhappy.  Quite the
+contrary; he seemed to enjoy his tyrant's rule, and to go on peaceably
+enough, letting her dictate, order, and check him at her own sweet will.
+
+"There's no doubt about it," chuckled the little doctor to himself,
+"she's as jealous as Othello, and watches me like an--an--an--well--say
+eagle," he said, quite at a loss for a simile.  "I don't mind, bless
+her!  Shows how fond she has grown; and I suppose it must be worrying to
+the dear little woman to have first one and then another lady sending
+for me.  I don't wonder at her asking me what they wanted.  I shouldn't
+like it if gentlemen were always sending for her."
+
+Dr Bolter had been indulging in a similar strain to this, when, after
+making up a few quinine powders in his tiny surgery, he went into the
+room where his little wife was in conversation with her brother.
+
+"Ah, Arthur!" said the doctor, "how are you getting on with folks?"
+
+"Very pleasantly," said the chaplain, smiling.  "I find everybody kind
+and genial."
+
+"That's right," said the doctor, rubbing his hands and smiling at his
+wife, who frowned at him severely, and then let her pleasant face break
+up in dimples.  "I want you both to enjoy the place.  Don't be afraid of
+visiting.  They like it.  Stir them up well, and make yourself quite at
+home with everybody.  This isn't England."
+
+"No," said the Reverend Arthur, smiling; "I find the difference."
+
+"I say, old boy," continued the doctor, "I was in the fort yesterday,
+talking to some of the men.  They say they like your preaching."
+
+"I am very glad, Harry," said the chaplain, simply.  "I was afraid that
+I was rather wandering sometimes in my discourse."
+
+"No, no; just what they like, old fellow!  Simple and matter of fact.
+What they can understand.  Going?"
+
+"Yes; I am going across to see Mr Harley."
+
+"Ah! do.  Good fellow, Harley!  Don't make any mistakes though, and step
+into the river instead of the sampan."
+
+"Is there any danger, Henry?" exclaimed Mrs Doctor, sharply.
+
+"Not the least, my dear; only Arthur here is a little dreamy sometimes."
+
+"I'd go with him," said Mrs Bolter decidedly, "only I want to talk to
+you, Henry."
+
+"Phee-ew!" whistled the doctor, softly, "here's a breeze coming;" and he
+looked furtively at his wife to see what she meant.
+
+She walked with her brother to the door, bade him be careful, and then
+returned.
+
+"Now look here, Dr Bolter," she said severely, "I am the last woman in
+the world to find fault, but I am your wife."
+
+"You are, my dear Mary, and the very, very best of wives!"
+
+"That's base flattery, sir," said the little lady, who, however, looked
+pleased.
+
+"Flattery?  No!  One never flatters one's wife."
+
+"How do you know, sir?" cried Mrs Bolter, sharply.
+
+"From what one reads, Mary.  I never had a wife before; and I never
+flatter you."
+
+"No, sir, but you try something else; and I tell you I will not submit
+to be imposed upon!"
+
+"I'm sure, my dear, I never impose upon you."
+
+"Indeed, sir; then what is this you propose doing?  Why do you want to
+go away for three days?"
+
+"Collecting, my dear."
+
+"Without Arthur?  Now look here, Bolter, the very fact of your wanting
+to go collecting without Arthur, whom you always talk about as being a
+brother naturalist, looks suspicious."
+
+"Indeed, my dear, I do want to go collecting."
+
+"Collecting?  Rubbish!"
+
+"No, my dear, it is not.  I'm afraid you will never realise the value of
+my specimens."
+
+"You are going collecting, then?" said Mrs Doctor.
+
+"Yes, my dear."
+
+"Without Arthur?"
+
+"Yes; he does not get on very well in the jungle; and he is rather
+awkward in a boat."
+
+"Then I shall go with you myself," said the little lady, decidedly.
+
+"You--you go with me, Mary," he said, staring.
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+"But the thorns, and mud, and heat, and mosquitoes, my dear?"
+
+"If they will not hurt you, Henry, they will not hurt me," said the
+little lady.
+
+"But they would hurt you, my dear.  Of course I should like to have you,
+but it would be impossible!  I shall only be away three days."
+
+"But the place is full of old stones and skins that smell atrociously,
+and wretched flies and beetles with pins stuck through their bodies, and
+I'm sure I can't think why you want more."
+
+"For the learned societies in London, my dear.  You forget that I am a
+corresponding member to several."
+
+"Oh, no, I don't," said Mrs Bolter.  "I don't forget that you make it
+an excuse for sitting up all night smoking and drinking cold whiskey and
+water, sir, because you have writing to do instead of coming to bed."
+
+The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"My dear," he said, "you would be a perfect woman if you only cared for
+science."
+
+"You never said a word to me, sir, about caring for science when I
+consented to come out with you to this dreadful, hot, damp place, where
+everything that does not turn mouldy is eaten by ants."
+
+"The damp and the ants are great nuisances, my dear," said the doctor.
+"They have destroyed numbers of my best specimens."
+
+"They have destroyed my beautiful piano that I was foolish enough to
+bring out," said Mrs Bolter.  "Grey Stuart opened it yesterday, and the
+damp has melted the glue, and the ants have eaten up all the leather of
+the hammers.  The wires are rusty, and the instrument is totally
+spoiled."
+
+"Never mind, my dear, so long as the climate does not affect your
+constitution," said the doctor, cheerfully.
+
+"Oh, by the way," said Mrs Bolter, "that reminds me of two things.
+First of all, Bolter, I will not have you so fond of talking to the
+young ladies at the dinner parties to which we go.  You remember what I
+said to you about your conduct with Miss Morrison?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, perfectly," said the doctor, with a sigh.
+
+"Secondly, about medicine.  Now, it is of no use for you to deny it, for
+I feel as sure as can be that you have been giving me some medicine on
+the sly these last few days."
+
+"Why, my darling!" cried the doctor.
+
+"It is of no use for you to put on that injured expression, Henry,
+because I know; and mind this, I don't accuse you of trying to poison
+me, but of trying experiments with new-fangled drugs, and I tell you I
+won't have it."
+
+The doctor protested his innocence, but the lady was not convinced; and
+apparently under the impression that it would be as well to submit, he
+allowed her to go on till she reached the top of her bent, when she
+suddenly changed the topic.
+
+"Ah, there was something else I wanted to say to you," she said sharply.
+"How about Helen Perowne?"
+
+This was too much for the doctor's equanimity, and he gave the table a
+bang with his fist.
+
+"I declare it's too bad," he exclaimed, wrathfully now.  He had
+submitted to all that had been said before with a few protestations and
+shrugs of the shoulders, but now he fired up.  "I have never hardly said
+a civil word to the girl in my life, for I protest that I utterly detest
+the handsome, heartless, coquettish creature.  Of all the unjust women I
+ever met, Mary, you are about the worst."
+
+A casual observer would have set Mrs Doctor Bolter down as an extremely
+prejudiced, suspicious woman of a highly-jealous temperament; but then a
+casual observer would not have known her real nature.
+
+If he had seen her now, as she sank back in her chair, and the pleasant
+dimples and puckers came into her face, he would have understood much
+better how it was that the doctor had persuaded her to leave her maiden
+state to come and share his lot.
+
+For as the doctor turned redder in the face and then purple, she smiled
+and shook a little round white finger at him.
+
+"A guilty conscience needs no accuser," she said.  "I never accused you,
+sir, of flirting with Helen Perowne; but as soon as I mentioned her name
+you began to defend yourself."
+
+"I don't care," cried the doctor, "I confess I have said complimentary
+and pleasant things to all the ladies of the station, both old and
+young; not that they think anything of it, for I'm only the doctor;
+while as to Helen Perowne, last time her father asked me to see and
+prescribe for her, and she began to make eyes at me, and put forth her
+blandishments--"
+
+"Oh, you confess that, sir?"
+
+"Confess it?" cried the doctor, stoutly.  "Why she does that to every
+man she sees!  I believe if her father took her to Madame Tussaud's--You
+remember my taking you to Madame Tussaud's, my dear?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember," said Mrs Bolter.
+
+"Well, I honestly believe that if she were taken there she'd begin
+making eyes at the wax figures."
+
+"Indeed!" said Mrs Bolter, stiffly.  "And so she began to make eyes at
+you!"
+
+"That she did, the jade," said the doctor, chuckling, "and--and--ha, ha,
+ha--ho, ho, ho! don't--ha, ha, ha!--say a word about it, my dear--there
+was nothing the matter with her but young girl's whimsical fancies; and
+she made me so cross with her fads and languishing airs, and then by
+making such a dead set at me, that I--ha, ha, ha--ho, ho, ho--"
+
+"Bolter," exclaimed Mrs B, "if you confess to me that you kissed her
+I'll have a divorce--I'll go straight back to England?"
+
+"Kiss her?  Not I!--ho, ho, ho!--I gave her such a dose; and I kept her
+extremely poorly for about a week.  She--she hates me like she does
+physic.  Oh, dear me!"
+
+The doctor wiped his eyes, burst into another fit of laughing, and then,
+after another wipe at his eyes, his face smoothed down and he grew
+composed.
+
+"Then it's a pity you don't give her another dose of medicine," said his
+lady, "and prevent her doing so much mischief as she is doing here."
+
+"But really, my dear, you have no right to accuse me of being extra
+polite to Helen Perowne."
+
+"I did not, and I was not about to accuse you of being extra polite to
+Helen Perowne--_extra polite_, as you call it, sir; but I was about to
+connect her name with that of other gentlemen, and not with that of my
+husband."
+
+"Oh! come, that's a comfort," said the doctor.  "What is it then about
+Helen Perowne?"
+
+"I don't like the way in which she is going on," said Mrs Doctor, "and
+I am quite sure that no good will come of it.  I don't think there is
+any real harm in the girl."
+
+"Harm?  No, I don't think there is," said Dr Bolter.  "She's very
+handsome, and she has been spoiled by flattery."
+
+"Administered by foolish men like someone we know," said the lady.
+
+"H'm! yes--well, perhaps so; but really she is too bad.  The fellows
+seem to run mad after her."
+
+"Did you see her talking to the Rajah last night?"
+
+"Yes, I saw her; and then poor Hilton began to singe his wings in the
+candle, and next week she will have somebody else.  I know what I'd do
+if I had to prescribe for her."
+
+"And what might that be, sir?"
+
+"I'd prescribe a husband, such a one as Harley--a firm, strong-minded,
+middle-aged man, who would keep a tight hand at the rein and bring her
+to her senses.  I daresay she'd make a man a good wife, after all."
+
+"Perhaps so," said Mrs Doctor, pursing up her lips; "but meantime, as
+you are not called upon to prescribe, what is to be done?"
+
+"To be done?  Why, nothing."
+
+"Oh! but something must be done, Bolter.  You ought to speak to Mr
+Perowne."
+
+"And be called an idiot for my pains.  No, thank you, my dear.  In all
+such delicate matters as these a lady's hand--I should say, tongue--is
+the instrument to set matters right.  Now, I should say the proper thing
+would be for a quiet, sensible, clever, middle-aged lady--may I speak of
+you as a middle-aged lady, my dear--"
+
+"Don't be stupid, Henry.  I'm forty-four, as you well know, and I never
+pretended to be younger."
+
+"No, of course not.  You fired forty years at me in a platoon when I
+proposed, like the dear, sensible old darling you are."
+
+"Tut!  Hush!  Silence, sir!  No more of that, please."
+
+"All right, my dear.  Well, as I was saying, suppose you have a quiet
+talk to the girl yourself."
+
+Mrs Bolter knitted her brows and looked very thoughtful.
+
+"I don't know," she said.  "It might do good, or it might not.  I will
+think about it."
+
+"And about my going away for three days, my dear."
+
+"Oh, one moment, Henry," said Mrs Doctor.  "There was something else I
+wished to ascertain."
+
+"What, another something else?" groaned the doctor.
+
+"Yes, another something else, sir.  You promised me, that if you could
+not quite check that terrible habit of yours of talking about Ophir and
+King Solomon, that you would modify it."
+
+"Yes, my dear," said the doctor, giving his ear a rub, and accompanying
+it by a submissive look.
+
+"I heard you last night exciting the ridicule of all the gentlemen by
+your pertinacious declarations regarding that mythical idea."
+
+"Don't say ridicule, my dear."
+
+"But I do say ridicule, Henry, and I object to having my husband laughed
+at by ignorant people--he being a very clever man.  So be careful in the
+future.  Now you may go."
+
+"For three days, my dear?"
+
+"Yes; and pray take care of yourself."
+
+"I will, my darling," he cried, in delight; and he was about to embrace
+the lady warmly, when a step was heard in the veranda, and a voice
+exclaiming:
+
+"May I come in?"
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
+
+A LITTLE CLOUD.
+
+"Yes; come in Mr Harley," and the tall, stern-looking Resident entered
+the room with the free at-home-ness of people living out at a station
+where circumstances force the Europeans into the closet intimacy.
+
+"Is anything the matter?" exclaimed the doctor's wife, as she saw his
+anxious face.
+
+"Well, not yet," he said; "but I must confess to being a little nervous
+about something that has happened.  Don't go away, Bolter."
+
+"Only going to make a few preparations for a run out.  Back directly."
+
+"No, no," said the Resident; "you would oblige me by staying.  I think,
+Bolter, you will have to give up all thought of going out at present."
+
+"Then something is the matter!" said the doctor.
+
+"Oh, it isn't doctor's work--at present," said the Resident, smiling.
+"The fact is, the Rajah has been hanging about Perowne's place a good
+deal lately."
+
+"Yes, we had observed it," said Mrs Bolter, severely.
+
+"And the foolish fellow seems to think he has had a little encouragement
+from Miss Perowne."
+
+Mrs Doctor nodded and tightened her lips as the Resident went on:
+
+"The result is, that he has been to Perowne's this morning and proposed
+in due form for her hand."
+
+"Why, the scoundrel has got about a dozen wives," cried the doctor.
+
+"Yes, and of course Perowne tried to smooth him down and to soften the
+disappointment; but he has gone away furious.  I have just come from
+Perowne's, and I called to put you on your guard."
+
+"Think there's any danger?" said the doctor, sharply.
+
+"Can't say.  You know what these people are if they do not have their
+own way."
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, thoughtfully.  "They can be crafty and cruel
+enough I know; and they don't love us any better than they did ten years
+ago, when I was all through the old troubles."
+
+"Of course," said the Resident, "if there should be any threatening of
+trouble you will come across to the island till it is over.  I would not
+show that we are at all uneasy, doctor; only be upon one's guard."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs Doctor, who had been listening attentively, "that will
+be best.  There may be no trouble over the matter, Mr Harley, and I
+think we should, as you say, be doing wrong by seeming to be alarmed."
+
+"Then my expedition is quashed for the present," said the doctor,
+dolefully.
+
+"It can wait, I am sure," said his lady, quietly; and her lord resigned
+himself to his fate as the Resident repeated his advice about not
+spreading the alarm and exciting the natives by whom they were
+surrounded, and then left them to go to the fort on the Residency
+island--a picturesque little clump of rocky earth that divided the river
+into two parts.  On mounting upon the bamboo landing-stage the first
+person he encountered was Captain Hilton.
+
+Knowing as he did that the young officer had been very attentive to
+Helen Perowne of late, he hesitated for a few moments, naturally feeling
+a repugnance to speak upon such matters to one whom other men would have
+considered a rival; but after a little thought he laughed to himself.
+
+"I am a fatalist," he muttered, "and I am not afraid.  Here, Hilton," he
+said, aloud, "I want to speak to you.  Ah, there's Chumbley, too.  Don't
+take any particular notice," he continued, as he noted that several of
+the natives were about.  "Have a cigar?"
+
+He drew out his case as he spoke, and Lieutenant Chumbley coming
+sauntering up in his cool, idle way, the case was offered to him, and
+the three gentlemen went slowly along the well-kept military path
+towards the little mess-room.
+
+"Anything wrong?" said Captain Hilton, eagerly; and as he spoke the
+Resident saw his eyes turn in the direction of Mr Perowne's house on
+the east bank of the river.
+
+"Not at present; but the fact is, I am afraid Mr Perowne has seriously
+affronted the Rajah this morning, and I think it would be as well to be
+upon our guard."
+
+"Got any more of these cigars, Harley?" said Chumbley, quietly.  "I like
+'em."
+
+"For Heaven's sake do hold your tongue, Chumbley!" cried the captain.
+"I never did see a fellow so cool and indifferent."
+
+"Why not?" replied Chumbley, in his slow drawl.  "There's nothing wrong,
+only that the Rajah has been to Perowne's this morning to propose for
+the fair Helen, and he has come away with a flea in his ear."
+
+"What?" cried Captain Hilton.
+
+"How did you know?" exclaimed the Resident, turning upon Chumbley,
+sharply.
+
+"Guessed it--knew it would come from what I saw last night.  That's it,
+isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, that is it," replied the Resident, frowning slightly.
+
+"The insolence--the consummate ignorant audacity!" cried the captain,
+his face flushing with anger.  "The dog!  I'll horsewhip him till he
+begs for mercy!"
+
+"You will do nothing of the kind, Hilton," said the Resident quietly.
+
+"But it is insufferable," cried Hilton.  "An ignorant, brown-skinned
+savage to pretend to place himself on a level with gentlemen, and then
+to dare to propose for an English lady's hand!"
+
+"Don't be excited, Hilton," said the Resident, looking fixedly in the
+young officer's handsome, angry countenance.  "You forget that the Rajah
+may look down upon us as his inferiors.  He is a prince in his own
+right, and rules over a very large extent of country here."
+
+"Oh, yes, I know all that," cried Hilton, angrily; "but of course
+Perowne sent him about his business?"
+
+"Yes, and that is why I have come to you.  There may be nothing more
+heard of the matter; but I think it is quite possible that the Rajah may
+have taken such dire offence that he will force all his people to join
+in his quarrel, and the result be a serious trouble."
+
+"I hope not," drawled Chumbley.  "I hate fighting."
+
+"Pooh!" ejaculated Hilton.  "If the scoundrel gives us any of his
+insolence, we'll send him handcuffed to Singapore!"
+
+"I should be greatly obliged, Hilton," said the Resident stiffly, "if
+you would modify your tone a little.  For my part, I am not surprised at
+the Rajah's conduct, and I think that it would be better to let our
+behaviour towards him be conciliating."
+
+"What! to a fellow like that?" cried the captain.
+
+"To a man like that," said the Resident, gravely.  "If he behaves badly
+we are strong enough to resent it; but if, on the other hand, he cools
+down and acts as a gentleman would under the circumstances, it is our
+duty to meet him in the most friendly spirit we can."
+
+"I don't think so," cried Hilton, hotly, "and if the scoundrel comes to
+me I shall treat him as he deserves."
+
+"Captain Hilton," said the Resident, and his voice was now very grave
+and stern, "I must ask you to bear in mind that we occupy a very
+delicate position here--I as her Majesty's representative; and you, with
+your handful of troops, as my supporters.  We are few, living in the
+midst of many, and we hold our own here, please to recollect, by
+_prestige_."
+
+"Of course--yes, I know that," said Hilton.
+
+"That _prestige_ we shall lose if we let our judgment be biased by
+personal feeling.  Kindly set self on one side, as I am striving to do,
+and help me to the best of your ability by your manly, unselfish
+advice."
+
+Hilton frowned as the Resident went on; but the next instant he had held
+out his hand, which the other grasped.
+
+"I am afraid I am very hot-headed, Mr Harley," he exclaimed.  "There,
+it is all over, and I'll help you to the best of my power.  Now then,
+what's to be done?"
+
+"First accept my thanks," cried the Resident.  "I knew that I could
+count upon you, Hilton."
+
+"I'll do my best, Harley."
+
+"Then stroll quietly back to the barracks, and in a matter-of-fact way
+see that all is in such order that you could bring up your men at a
+moment's notice."
+
+"Reinforcements?" suggested Captain Hilton.
+
+"I did think of asking for them," said the Resident, "but on second
+thoughts it seems hardly necessary.  I would do everything without
+exciting suspicion, and as if you were only inspecting the fort.  Now
+go."
+
+"Right," said the captain; and he walked away, saying to himself:
+
+"He's a good fellow, Harley, that he is, and he does not bear a bit of
+malice against me for cutting him out.  Poor fellow! he must have felt
+it bitterly.  Hang it all!  I could not have borne it.  The very fact of
+this fellow proposing for Helen nearly drove me wild.  I think if I were
+to lose her I should die."
+
+Chumbley was about to follow Hilton, but the Resident laid a hand upon
+his shoulder.
+
+"Of course I can count upon your discretion, Chumbley?" he said.
+
+"Oh, yes, I suppose so," said the young man, "so long as you don't want
+anything done in a hurry.  Nature seems to forbid a man to be scurried
+in this climate; but I say, Mr Harley, don't let's have a row if you
+can help it, I'm a soldier, but if there is anything I do abhor, it is
+fighting.  I hate blood.  The very idea of having to make our lads use
+their bayonets gives me a cold chill all down the back."
+
+"Depend upon it we will not have a quarrel with the natives if we can
+help it, Chumbley.  If diplomacy can keep it off, there shall be none;"
+and nodding his head in a friendly manner to the young officer, he
+strolled away.
+
+"But diplomacy won't keep it off, my dear sir," said Chumbley.  "If
+Mother Nature turns loose such a girl as Helen Perowne, to play fast and
+loose with men like Murad, a row must come.
+
+"Let me see," he said, after a pause, "what shall I do with myself
+to-day?  Best way to avoid scrapes is to keep up friendly relations with
+the natives.
+
+"Oh, what a worry this love-making is!  We all go in for it at some time
+or another, but hang me if I think it pays.
+
+"Little Helen quite hates me now, since I've broken the string and will
+not be cajoled into coming back.  By Jove! what a wise little girl
+little Stuart is.  One might get up a flirtation there without any
+heart-breaking.  No: won't do, she's too sweet, and wise, and sensible.
+Hang it all, can't a fellow talk sensibly to a pretty girl without
+thinking he's flirting!  I like little Stuart.  You can talk to her
+about anything, and she never giggles and blushes, and looks silly.
+She's an uncommonly nice young girl, and twenty years hence, when
+beautiful Helen has grown old, and yellow, and scraggy, Stuart will be a
+pleasant, soft, amiable little woman, like Mrs Bolter.  There's a woman
+for you!  'Pon my word I believe she likes me; she talks to me just as
+if I were a big son.
+
+"Well, now, what's to be done?  I'll go and see if Hilton wants me, and
+if he doesn't I shall have a few hours ashore.
+
+"By the way, I wonder who'll marry little Stuart?" he said, as he went
+slowly on with his hands behind him, his broad chest thrown out, and a
+bluff, manly bearing about him that would have made an onlooker think
+that he would not make a bad match for the lady himself.
+
+"I shan't," he added, after a pause.  "Hilton's a precious idiot not to
+go for her himself, instead of wasting his time upon a woman who will
+throw him over.  As for me, I'm beginning to think I am not a lady's
+man.  I'm too big, and clumsy, and stupid.  They tolerate me when they
+don't laugh at me.  Bah! what does it matter?  Sport's my line--and
+dogs."
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
+
+THE PAINS OF A PRINCESS.
+
+Captain Hilton saw no reason for detaining his subaltern, only bade him
+be ready to return to the island at the slightest sign of danger, which
+Chumbley promised to do; and he was about to walk down to the
+landing-stage, when, happening to gaze across the swift river towards
+Mr Perowne's beautiful garden, which sloped down to the water's edge,
+with as good a semblance of a lawn as could be obtained in that part of
+the world, he caught sight of a couple of figures in white, walking
+slowly up and down in the shade of the trees.
+
+He was too far distant to make out their faces, but he had no doubt that
+the two were Helen and Grey Stuart.
+
+"Now, I would not mind laying a whole shilling that Master Hilton has
+his binocular focussed exactly upon one of your faces, and is watching
+every turn of expression.  If you smile he thinks it is with thoughts of
+him; and take it altogether, the poor fellow imagines you are always
+dreaming of him, when you are wondering what is worn now in Paris or
+London, and whether any of the new fashions will reach you by the next
+steamer.
+
+"Yes, that's Helen--fair Helen," he said, leaning upon a rail, and
+gazing across the water.  "Chumbley, old fellow, I'm beginning to think
+you are not such a fool as I used to imagine you to be.  It was a good
+brave stroke to get away from the toils of that syren; for there's no
+mistake about it, old man, you were just like a big fly in the pretty
+spider's web.
+
+"By George! she is a very lovely girl though!  She seems to fascinate
+everyone she comes near.  Thank goodness, she only got me by one leg,
+and I broke out, I hope, without much damaging the net.  Certainly she
+soon seemed to repair it.  I wish I were a good prophet," he went on,
+lighting a cigarette.  "I should like to be able to say what is to take
+place here, who'll marry whom, and who'll remain single.  Hullo! what's
+coming now?"
+
+The splash of oars roused him from his reverie, and turning towards the
+landing-stage, he made out a dragon-boat, or naga, as the larger
+row-galleys used by the Malay nobles are called, rapidly approaching the
+little isle.
+
+It was propelled by a dozen rowers, all dressed uniformly in yellow silk
+bajus or jackets, their coarse black hair being topped by a natty little
+cap similar to that worn by a cavalry soldier in undress, and they kept
+stroke with wonderful accuracy as they forced the boat along.
+
+A large shed-like awning of bamboo and palm leaves covered the latter
+part of the vessel; and Chumbley forgot his customary inertia, and
+scanned the boat eagerly, to see if it contained armed men.  To his
+surprise, however, he saw that the whole space beneath the broad awning
+was filled with women, whose brightly-coloured silken sarongs were hung
+from their heads after the manner of veils; and though the rowers each
+wore his kris, the hilt was covered, and it was evidently a friendly
+visit.
+
+"I don't know though," thought Chumbley.  "Perhaps it is a ruse, and
+instead of women, those are smart youths, well armed, ready to give our
+fellows a dig with the kris, and take the place by surprise.
+
+"No," he said, after a few moments' pause, for there was no mistaking
+the object of the visit, the Malays being a particularly religious
+people, and great sticklers for form and ceremony, to which they adhere
+with scrupulous exactness, so that any one pretty well versed in their
+customs would know at a glance at their dress whether their object was
+friendly or the reverse.
+
+"Why, it must be the Inche Maida," muttered Chumbley, giving the native
+name to a princess residing some distance higher up the stream.  "I
+ought to have been in full fig.  I suppose I must go and receive her as
+I am."
+
+He threw away his cigarette, turned out the guard, sent a messenger up
+to the Residency with the news of the Princess's arrival, bidding the
+man leave word at the officers' quarters as he passed, and then walked
+down to the landing-stage, just as the dragon-boat, with its carved and
+gilded prow, was run abreast.
+
+Chumbley courteously raised his muslin-covered pith helmet, tucked it
+beneath his arm, and helped the Princess to step ashore.
+
+She was a remarkably handsome woman of about thirty, with features of
+the Malay type, but softened into a nearer approach to beauty than is
+common amongst the women of this nation, whose prominent lips and
+dilated nostrils are not compensated by the rich long black hair, and
+large lustrous dark eyes.
+
+In the case of the Princess there was almost a European cast of feature,
+and she possessed an imposing yet graceful carriage, which with her
+picturesque costume and flower-decked hair, made her far from
+unattractive, in spite of her warm brown skin.
+
+She accepted Chumbley's assistance with a smile that checked the thought
+in his mind that she was a fine-looking woman; for that smile revealed a
+set of remarkably even teeth, but they were filed to a particular
+pattern and stained black.
+
+Chumbley removed his eyes at once from this disfigurement, and let them
+rest on the magnificent knot of jetty hair, in which were stuck, in
+company with large gold pins, clusters of a white and odorous jasmine.
+
+He could not help noting, too, the gracefully-worn scarf of gossamer
+texture, passing from her right shoulder beneath her left arm, and
+secured by a richly-chased gold brooch of native workmanship.  This she
+removed to set the scarf at liberty, so as to throw over her head to
+screen it from the sun.
+
+Accustomed to command, she made no scruple in exposing her face to the
+gaze of men; but as the women who formed her train alighted, each raised
+her hands to a level with her temples, and spread the silken sarong she
+wore over her head, so that it formed an elongated slit, covering every
+portion of the face but the eyes, and following the Princess in this
+uncomfortable guise, they took their places ashore.
+
+"I have come to see the Resident," said the Princess, looking very
+fixedly at Chumbley, and speaking in excellent English.  "Will you take
+me to his presence?"
+
+Chumbley bowed, and he forgot his slow drawl as he said that he would be
+happy to lead her to the Residency; but felt rather disconcerted as the
+visitor exclaimed, in a very pointed way:
+
+"I have not seen you before.  Are you the lieutenant?"
+
+"I have not had the pleasure of meeting you either," he replied, rather
+liking the visitor's dignified way as he recovered himself; "but I have
+heard Mr and Miss Perowne talk of the Inche Maida."
+
+"What did they say about me?" she said, sharply.
+
+"That you were a noble lady, and quite a princess."
+
+"Ah!" she replied, looking at him fixedly.  "How big and strong you
+are."
+
+Chumbley stared and tried to find something suitable to reply, but
+nothing came, and the situation seemed to him so comical that he smiled,
+and then, as the Princess smiled too, he laughed outright.
+
+"Forgive my laughing," he said, good-humouredly.  "I can't help being
+big; and I suppose I am strong."
+
+"There is the Resident!" said the lady then; and she drew her hand from
+Chumbley's arm.  "Ah! and the captain."
+
+For just then Harley stepped out from the Residency veranda to meet his
+visitors; and Hilton, who had found time to put on the regimental
+scarlet and buckle on his sword, came up to make the reception more
+imposing.
+
+The Princess shook hands in the European fashion, and accepted the
+Resident's arm, smiling and bowing as if excusing herself to Hilton.
+Then, declining to enter the house, she took a seat in the broad veranda
+amongst the Resident's flowers, while her women grouped themselves
+behind her, letting fall the sarongs they held over their faces now
+that, with the exception of a single sentry, none of the common soldiers
+were about to gaze upon their charms.
+
+But for her costume, the Inche Maida would have passed very well for a
+dark Englishwoman, and she chatted on for a time about the Resident's
+flowers and her own; about her visits to the English ladies at the
+station; and the various European luxuries that she kept adding to her
+home some twenty miles up the river, where she had quite a palm-tree
+palace and a goodly retinue of slaves.
+
+Both Mr Harley and Hilton knew that there was some special object in
+the lady's visit; but that was scrupulously kept in the background,
+while coffee and liqueurs were handed round, the visitors partaking
+freely of these and the sweetmeats and cakes kept by the Resident for
+the gratification of his native friends.
+
+"It is nearly a year since you have been to see me Mr Harley," said the
+lady at last.  "When will you come again?"
+
+"I shall be only too glad to come and see you," said the Resident, "I
+have not forgotten the pleasure of my last journey to your home."
+
+"And you will come too?" said the Princess quickly; and she turned her
+great dark eyes upon Hilton, gazing at him fixedly the while.
+
+"I--er--really I hardly think I can leave."
+
+"You will not come?" she cried, with an impetuous jerk of the head.
+"You think I am a savage, and you despise my ways.  Mr Harley will tell
+you I have tried for years to learn your English customs and to speak
+your language.  It is not fair."
+
+"Indeed," cried Hilton, eager to make up for what the visitor evidently
+considered a slight, "I only hesitated on the score of duty."
+
+"You would not care to come," she said, with the injured look of a
+spoiled child.
+
+"Indeed I should," exclaimed Hilton, "and I will come."
+
+"You will come?" she cried, with her dark eyes flashing.
+
+"Yes, indeed I will."
+
+She leaned towards him, speaking eagerly:
+
+"I am glad.  I like you English.  You shall hunt and shoot.  There are
+tigers, and I have elephants.  My slaves shall find game, and you shall
+have my boat to fetch you."
+
+Dark as her skin was, the Resident noticed the red blood mantling
+beneath it in her cheeks as she spoke eagerly, fixing her eyes upon
+Hilton as she spoke, and then lowering the lids in a dreamy, thoughtful
+way.
+
+"Then you will both come?" she said.
+
+"Yes, I promise for both; but we cannot leave the station together,"
+said Mr Harley.
+
+"It is well," she said, smiling; "and you too, lieutenant--you will come
+and see me?  You like to shoot.  All Englishmen like to shoot."
+
+"Oh, yes, I'll come," said Chumbley, with his slow, heavy drawl.  "I
+think it would be rather jolly.  Yes, I'll come."
+
+She nodded and smiled at him once more, as if he amused her; and Harley
+noticed that she glanced at Chumbley again and again as the conversation
+went on, looking at him as if he were some fine kind of animal she
+thought it would be well to buy at the first opportunity.
+
+All at once, though, she turned sharply upon the Resident, and the
+object of her visit came out.
+
+"I want you to help me," she said, with an angry flash in her eye.  "I
+am a woman, and I cannot fight, or I would not come to you for help.
+But you English are just.  You have settled in our country, and your
+Princess says, `Let there be no cruelty and ill-treatment of the people
+where you are.'  I have seen you for ten years, ever since I became a
+woman who could think and act; but because I am a woman I am oppressed.
+Because I will not be his wife Rajah Hamet stops my people's boats, and
+takes away tin and rice.  His people beat my slaves and steal their
+fruit and fowls.  Our lives become suffering, for my people are me.  I
+am not a mother, but they call me mother, and they say, `See, your
+children are robbed and beaten; they moisten the dust of the earth with
+their tears.'"
+
+"Ah! ah! ah! ay! ayo!"
+
+The three Englishmen started, for at these words of their Princess the
+women burst into a piteous wail, and beat their breasts.
+
+"We suffer; I weep with my children," continued the Princess, rising and
+holding out her hands, as she went on speaking with a natural grace and
+fiery eloquence.  "I grow hot with anger, and I am ready to take my
+father's kris and limbing and to go out against this coward who
+oppresses me; but I am a woman, and I should lead my people to death.  I
+cannot do this, but I think and think till the rage grows cold, and my
+reason comes back, and I say, `The great Queen loves her people, and she
+will not have them hurt.  Her rulers, and counsellors, and warriors are
+in our country, and I will go to them and say, See, I am a woman--a
+princess.  I pay you the tribute you ask of me, and I give you love and
+all I have that you ask.  Save me, then, from this man.  Teach him that
+he cannot rob and injure my people, and so beat and injure me--a
+helpless woman.'  Will you do this, or shall I go back to my own place
+and say, `The English are brave, but they will not help me?  I am a
+woman, and you and your children must bear your lot.'"
+
+She ceased speaking and crossed her hands humbly upon her breast; but
+her eyes lit up as she saw that Chumbley--upon whom her words had had a
+remarkable effect--was watching the Resident keenly, and was evidently
+eager to speak.
+
+"Princess," said Mr Harley, "I am deeply grieved that you should have
+to make this appeal.  I do not act in a matter of such grave importance
+as this without asking advice; but that I will do at once, and believe
+me, if I could help it, you should not wait an hour for redress."
+
+"Not half an hour if I could have my way," cried Chumbley, excitedly.
+"Princess, I hope we shall soon visit you for some purpose."
+
+She smiled at him again, and nodded her satisfaction; but there was
+something very grave and earnest in her look as she almost timidly
+turned to Hilton.
+
+He saw the look, which was one of appeal, and seemed to ask for a reply.
+
+"I, too," he said, "should gladly come to your assistance."
+
+"Then my task is done," she said.  "Mr Harley, pray give me your help,
+and my people shall be ready should evil days come, as they did when I
+was a mere girl, and the English were in peril of their lives."
+
+"Princess, I will do my best," he replied; and at a sign from their lady
+the women rose and stood ready to follow her back to her boat.
+
+"Good-bye," she said, simply, and she held out her hand, placing it
+afterwards upon Captain Hilton's arm, as if she wished him to escort her
+down to the landing-stage.
+
+This he did, followed by Chumbley, and on reaching the boat the rowers
+leaped to their places with the alacrity of well-drilled and disciplined
+men.
+
+The Princess stood aside till the last of her attendants was in her
+place, and then she turned to Hilton.
+
+"Good-bye," she said.
+
+"Good-bye, Princess," he replied, shaking her hand.  "I hope we shall
+have orders to come to your help."
+
+"So do I," cried Chumbley, as he took the Princess's hand in turn; and
+as he uttered his earnest words he involuntarily raised her hand to his
+lips and kissed it with profound respect.
+
+The Inche Maida's eyes flashed as she glanced at him, but they turned
+directly after with rather a regretful look at Hilton, as she seated
+herself beneath the awning.  Then giving a signal with her hand, the
+rowers' paddles dipped, the swift boat darted out into the stream, was
+deftly turned, and began to ascend rapidly; the two young men standing
+upon the stage where the guard had presented arms, both of them a good
+deal impressed.
+
+"I say, old fellow," cried Chumbley, speaking with animation, "that's an
+uncommonly fine woman, in spite of her coffee skin."
+
+"Yea; you seemed to think so," replied Hilton, laughing.
+
+"Did I?" said Chumbley, with his eyes fixed on the retreating boat.
+
+"Yes; I never saw you so polite to a woman before."
+
+"Didn't you?  Well, but she is in trouble, poor thing; and I say, hang
+it all, old man, how well she spoke out about her people--her children,
+and her wrongs."
+
+"Yes, it seems very hard, especially as I don't think Harley will get
+instructions to interfere on her behalf."
+
+"Not interfere!" cried Chumbley.  "Then it will be a damned shame.  My
+dear old man, if we don't get orders to dress that fellow down, I'll go
+up and see her myself, and instead of tiger-hunting I'll try if I can't
+punch the blackguard's head."
+
+"Why, Chumbley, old boy, what's the matter with you!" cried Hilton,
+laughing.
+
+"Matter?  With me?  Nothing at all."
+
+"But you seem all on fire to go and help the Princess."
+
+"Well, of course," said the lieutenant, warmly; "and so I would any
+woman who was in distress.  Why, hang it all, a fellow isn't worth much
+who wouldn't run some risks to protect a woman."
+
+"Hear! hear!  Bravo! bravo!  Why Chumbley, you improve."
+
+"Stuff! nonsense!" cried the latter, ashamed of his warmth.
+
+"Stuff if you like, and prime stuff," rejoined Hilton.  "It's the sort
+of stuff of which I like to see men made.  I have hopes of you yet,
+Chumbley.  You will turn ladies' man--grow smooth and refined."
+
+"And use a pouncet-box, eh?"
+
+"No; I draw the line at the pouncet-box and silk," laughed Hilton.
+
+"Never mind!  Chaff as much as you like, I'd go and help that Inche
+Maida.  By Jove! what a name for a woman?"
+
+"Yes, it is a name for such a fine Cleopatra of a princess.  I say,
+Chum, she seems to have taken quite a fancy to you."
+
+"To me, eh?  Well, I like that!  Oh, come!" laughed Chumbley.  "Why, I
+saw her lay her hand upon your arm as if she wanted it to stay there.
+I'll swear I saw her squeeze your hand.  No, my boy, it was your
+Hyperion curls that attracted her ladyship."
+
+"But I'll vow I saw her take a lot of notice of you, Chum."
+
+"Yes, but it was because I looked so big; that was all, lad.  She's a
+sort of hen Frederick William of Prussia, who would adore a regiment of
+six-feet-six grenadiers.  But never mind that; I think she ought to be
+helped."
+
+"Yes," said Hilton, quietly; "but I wish it was Murad who had done the
+wrong, for then I think that I should feel as warm as you--Well, what is
+it?"
+
+"Mr Harley wishes to see you directly, sir," said an orderly.
+
+"Come along, Chumbley; there's news, it seems.  What is it, Harley?" he
+continued, as they joined the Resident in the veranda.
+
+"I have just had news from a man I can trust.  Murad is getting his
+people together, and I fear it means trouble."
+
+"Let it come, then," said Hilton, firmly.  "I'm rather glad."
+
+"Glad!" said the Resident, sternly; "and with all these women and
+children under our charge!"
+
+"I was not thinking of them," said Hilton, warmly, "but of chastising a
+scoundrel who seems determined to be thrashed."
+
+"I hope he'll bring the other fellow too," said Chumbley.
+
+"Hilton--Chumbley!" said the Resident, sternly.  "You think upon the
+surface.  You do not realise what all this trouble means!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
+
+LIEUTENANT CHUMBLEY'S THOUGHTS.
+
+The news received by Mr Harley had no following.  Sultan Murad had
+undoubtedly gathered his people together, but as events proved, it was
+not to make a descent upon the station.
+
+But all the same, the conduct of the young Malay prince augmented the
+scare amongst the Europeans.  Grey Stuart grew pale, and thought with
+feelings of horror of what might be the consequences of her
+schoolfellow's folly.  Helen, too, was in no slight degree alarmed, and
+the effect of the incident was to sober her somewhat for the time; but
+as the days glided on and nothing happened, the dread faded away like
+one of the opalescent mists that hung above the silver river at early
+morn.
+
+"It is all nonsense," said Mr Perowne; "the _prestige_ of the English
+is too great for this petty rajah to dare to attempt any savage
+revenge."
+
+"Hah, you think so, do you?" said old Stuart, in his most Scottish
+tones.  "I never knew a tiger hesitate to bite or a serpent to sting
+because the pairson near him was an Englishman.  Ye'll hae to tak' care
+o' yon lassie o' yours, Perowne, or she'll get us into sad meeschief."
+
+"If Mr Stuart would kindly direct his attention to the instruction of
+his own daughter, papa, I am sure he would find his hands full," said
+Helen, in a haughty, half-contemptuous tone, as she crossed the soft
+carpet unheard.
+
+"Oh, ye're there are ye, lassie?" said the old Scot.  "Weel, I'll tell
+ye that my Grey kens how to behave, and don't go throwing herself at the
+head of every gentleman she meets; and for your own sake, lassie, I wish
+your poor mither was alive."
+
+Helen raised her eyes and looked at him for some moments with an angry,
+disdainful stare of resentment.
+
+"Eh, ye've got bonnie een, lassie, verra bonnie een; but I'd a deal
+rather see my Grey's little wax tapers burning softly than those dark
+brimstone matches of yours ready to set every puir laddie's heart
+ablaze."
+
+"Is this your friend, papa?" cried Helen; and she swept from the room.
+
+"Yes, lassie," said the old Scot, wiping his eyes after laughing at his
+own conceit.  "Yes, I'm ye'r father's best friend, lassie; am I not,
+Perowne?"
+
+"Yes, yes, of course," said the merchant; "but you should not talk to
+her like that, Stuart."
+
+"And why not?" said the old man.  "Are we to let her go on setting fire
+to trains all over the place, and trying to get us blown in the air?"
+
+"Nonsense, nonsense!  These fellows have sense enough to know what they
+may do and what they may not."
+
+"Oh, yes, they've plenty of sense," agreed the old Scotch merchant.
+
+"And they won't forget in a hurry how we punished the other rajahs for
+their treacherous rising against the British power."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know all about that," said the old man; "but Murad will not
+forget this insult to his pride, and I insist, Perowne, upon your
+keeping a tighter rein over that lassie."
+
+Mr Perowne seemed disposed to resist, but he ended by promising that he
+would; and after a certain number of discussions in various houses, the
+cessation of all further proceedings, and a certain amount of worry
+consequent upon the apprehended danger, the old state of affairs began
+once more to prevail.
+
+The last to hold out was Mrs Doctor Bolter, who exercised a great deal
+of watchfulness over her husband and brother, sending one after the
+other at the most incongruous times.
+
+So peace was once more settling down over Sindang, which rapidly began
+to resume its dreamy state, the only busy thing about the place being
+the river, which rapidly flowed onward towards the sea.
+
+The three ladies had grown somewhat accustomed to the sleepy life that
+nature compelled them to live in a land where, saving at early morn and
+at evening, any employment was only to be carried out by an extreme
+effort of will that very few there cared to exercise.
+
+A delicious, drowsy, lotus-eating life it seemed; and as Helen Perowne
+and Grey Stuart sat beneath the shade of one of the delicious
+flower-bearing trees inhaling the cloying scents, and watching the
+eternal sparkle of the beautiful river, they could not help comparing it
+with their existence at the Miss Twettenhams' school.
+
+Tropic flowers, luscious fruits were there in profusion.  Every day
+seemed to bring those of richer and rarer kinds.  The garden was lush
+with a profusion of choice plants such as could only be produced in the
+hottest houses at home; and Grey was fain to confess that in spite of
+the heat it was a lovely land.
+
+Just as everyone had concluded, there had not been the slightest cause
+for alarm, so they said.
+
+Still the alarm had been excusable, living as they were, a mere handful
+of strangers, amongst a people well known for their volcanic nature and
+quickness at taking offence, this latter being acknowledged by the Rajah
+himself, who completed the calm by coming in semi-state to the Residency
+island to ask Mr Harley to make intercession for him with the Perownes.
+
+"I am wiser now," he said, with a smile, "and I want to make amends."
+
+This was said so frankly that, however suspicious he may have felt at
+heart, the Resident at once accepted the task of intercessor.
+
+"I try so hard to be English in my ways," said the young man, "but it
+takes a long time to forget one's old customs.  As I used to be, I had
+everything I asked for directly; I had only to say that I wanted this,
+or that I would have that, and I had it at once.  But it is so different
+with you English.  You always seem to be denying yourselves things you
+wish for, and think it great and good."
+
+"Well, we do think it a virtue," said the Resident, smiling.
+
+"I was very angry when Mr Perowne spoke to me as he did, and all my
+English education went away like a flash of a firefly in the night, and
+I was a savage once more; but when I got back and thought, then I saw
+that I had been mad, and I was grieved, for the English are my friends."
+
+"Ah, well," said Mr Harley, "that is all over now.  I undertake to put
+matters right with Mr Perowne; but to be frank with you, Rajah--"
+
+"Yes, that is right, be frank.  That is what I like in an Englishman, he
+is frank and open.  A Malay lets his secret thoughts be known--never."
+
+"I say, my friend," exclaimed the Resident, laughing, "I hope that is
+not the case here."
+
+"Oh, no, no, no!" exclaimed Murad.  "Do I not tell you I am English, and
+that I try to be like you."
+
+"To be sure, yes," said Mr Harley.  "Well, then, look here, I do not
+undertake to make you such friends as you wish to be with Miss Perowne."
+
+"You know all then?" said the Rajah, quickly.
+
+"Her father told me."
+
+"Yes; you are his friend and counsellor; he would tell you of course.
+No; I do not expect that.  I was mad and foolish just then.  I know, of
+course, that you whites would not ally yourselves with us.  We are a
+dreaming nation, and I had dreamed of her love and being happy with her
+amongst my people, making our alliance greater with you, but it was a
+dream.  I am awake now, and it is past."
+
+"I don't trust you, Master Murad," said the Resident to himself; "but it
+is the best policy to seem to believe, and to try and make you friends
+with us again, so I will undertake your commission."
+
+"Look here," he said aloud, "suppose you come across with me to Mr
+Perowne's house?"
+
+"Oh, no," said the young Malay, shrinking back, "I should see her."
+
+"Very well; and if you do, what then?  Come: you say you want to be
+English.  Behave, then, now like an Englishman, taking your
+disappointment bravely, and let the lady see that you bear it with the
+calmness and consideration of a man."
+
+"I will come," said the Rajah, eagerly; and he accompanied the Resident
+across the branch of the river to Mr Perowne's handsome house, where
+the little explanation took place, and all parted the best of friends.
+
+The Rajah was evidently extremely eager to make amends for the burst of
+temper he had displayed, and presents of fruit, flowers, and the other
+productions of the country were constantly arriving by his servants.  In
+some instances, so as to check any excuse that there might be for
+refusing or looking upon the presents as being pressed upon the English
+residents, the gifts were accompanied by requests for some little
+European luxury or for the loan of some article; so that if the Rajah
+had it in his mind to allay suspicion, he was pretty successful, and
+matters went on as they were before.  Dr Bolter went upon a three days'
+expedition, which, on account of the difficulties of the country,
+extended to six days, and he was forgiven.
+
+The Resident sent a despatch to the Governor respecting the Inche
+Maida's case, and the Governor sent back a despatch to say that he had
+referred the matter to the Colonial Office; and the end of the piece of
+red tape was handed to the Malay Princess, who replied that she was
+willing to wait patiently for redress.
+
+Then there was a pause, and life at the little station seemed to flow on
+as calmly as the river; but like the river, with its terrible reptiles
+lurking beneath the treacherously-smooth surface, so were there dangers
+beneath the calmly-flowing life of the British residents at the station,
+though they, prone as they were to take alarm, knew nothing, suspected
+nothing of what was in store.
+
+A month had passed since the little explosion of the Malay volcano, as
+Chumbley called it.  There had been dinners and evening meetings, and
+the Rajah had been invited to several; then Mr Harley invited nearly
+everyone to a picnic down the river in his dragon-boat--a party that was
+pronounced delightful.
+
+This inspired the Rajah to imitate the Resident's little party, and he
+sought out Chumbley and proposed to get up one on a more extensive
+scale, and take the party up the beautiful river as far as the rapids.
+
+"I don't mind helping you," said Chumbley, "but it will be an awful lot
+of trouble, and precious hot."
+
+He finished, however, by saying he would help, and being once roused,
+threw himself heart and soul into the matter, especially as the Rajah
+came the next morning to say that he had had a visit from the Inche
+Maida, who, on being told of the projected party, had proposed that the
+boats should pass up the river as far as her home, where she would have
+a Malay banquet prepared.
+
+This was agreed to, and the arrangements went on, it being considered
+advisable to do all that was possible to conciliate the native chiefs;
+and on the appointed day the Rajah's two largest dragon-boats, with the
+rowers all in yellow satin jackets--the royal colour--were at the
+landing-place of the station, and the Residency island.
+
+The embarkation was soon effected, and the merry party were being
+rapidly pulled along the light reaches of the winding river, whose clear
+waters flashed in the bright sunshine, while the verdure-covered banks
+were rich with a profusion of the gayest blossoms, some of which emitted
+a delicious scent, plainly observable upon the boats.
+
+Helen Perowne looked handsomer than ever in a dress of the palest yellow
+silk, half hidden by artistic drapings of lace.
+
+Captain Hilton was always at her side; while Chumbley, when he did rouse
+himself, tried to be a little attentive to Grey Stuart, who was in
+company with Mrs Bolter.
+
+The latter lady was a good deal exercised in mind, consequent upon the
+Reverend Arthur insisting upon bringing his collecting-box, and the
+doctor his gun; and also because, when the latter was not chatting with
+the ladies of the party, he was constantly finding out that such and
+such a woody point would be a splendid place for being set ashore, as
+the forest abounded with birds and insects rich in nature's brightest
+dyes.
+
+The Rajah was the perfection of gallantry and politeness, treating Helen
+Perowne with a grave courtesy whenever he approached her; and all was
+going on in a most satisfactory style, when Chumbley, who had made his
+way to the back of the palm-leaf awning that sheltered the party in the
+boat from the torrid sun, waited his opportunity, and then beckoned to
+the doctor.
+
+The latter stopped until Mrs Bolter's eyes were in another direction,
+and then stole behind the awning to where Chumbley was seating himself,
+with his back against the side of the boat, the steersman looking at his
+great proportions with admiration the while.
+
+"What is it, Chumbley?" said the doctor.  "Not poorly, eh?"
+
+"Never better in my life, doctor!  Come and have a cigar."
+
+The doctor glanced forward, but they were completely hidden from sight;
+and with a sigh of satisfaction, he took a cigar from Chumbley's case,
+lit it, and choosing a comfortable place, seated himself.  Then like the
+lieutenant, he half closed his eyes, and enjoyed the delicious motion of
+the rippling water with the glorious panorama of foliage they passed.
+
+"I say, steersman, have a cigar?" said Chumbley, to the tall, swarthy
+Malay, in his picturesque yellow satin dress.
+
+The man did not understand his words, but he quite comprehended the act;
+and he showed his betel-stained teeth as he took the proffered cigar,
+and lit it from the one the lieutenant placed in his hands.
+
+Then they went on and on, up glorious reach after reach of the river,
+startling reptiles on the banks, and bright-hued birds from the trees
+that overhung the stream.
+
+"I say, doctor," said Chumbley at last, in his lazy drawl, "what are you
+thinking about?"
+
+"I was thinking that it can't be long before my wife comes and finds me
+out."
+
+There was a pause, during which Chumbley laughed to himself.
+
+"What are you thinking about, Chumbley?" said the doctor, suddenly.
+
+Chumbley looked up suddenly at the steersman.
+
+"Do you understand any English at all, old fellow?" he said; and the man
+shook his head.
+
+"I was thinking, doctor," said Chumbley, in a low voice, "what a go it
+would be if the Rajah has got us all in this boat here, and is taking us
+up the river never to come back any more."
+
+"What, on account of that upset a month ago?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Murder!" ejaculated the doctor.
+
+"Yes," said Chumbley, "for us men; but I think I should be more sorry
+for the other sex."
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
+
+UP THE RIVER.
+
+Doctor Bolter nearly let fall the cigar he was smoking, for his jaw
+suddenly dropped; but by a clever snatch of the hand he caught it, and
+replaced it in his lips, as he glanced at the showily-dressed steersman
+to see if he had noticed the display of agitation.
+
+"I say, Chumbley, don't be a stupid," he said, in a low voice, as he
+brushed some of the cigar-ash from his white linen tunic.
+
+"Certainly not," replied the lieutenant, coolly.  "I only said what I
+thought."
+
+"But you don't think such a thing as that possible, do you?"
+
+"Don't know.  Can't say.  It's rather awkward out here, though, to be in
+a place where you can't call in the police if you want them."
+
+"Dear me!  Bless my soul!" ejaculated the doctor, taking his cigar in
+his hand, and looking at the burning end.  "But, oh, no! it's all
+nonsense.  He wouldn't dare to do such a thing."
+
+"No," drawled Chumbley; "I don't suppose he would."
+
+"Then why the dickens did you put forth such an idea?" cried the doctor,
+angrily.  "Bah! that's the worst cigar I ever smoked."
+
+He threw it over the side, and it gave an angry hiss as it fell into the
+water.
+
+"Try another, doctor," said Chumbley, offering his case.  "It's of no
+use to make yourself miserable about it if it is as I say."
+
+"But the ladies!" cried the doctor.  "My poor little wife," he added,
+softly.
+
+"Well, they would be no better off if we make ourselves wretched," said
+Chumbley, coolly.
+
+"Bight away from all help!  Not so much as a bottle of quinine at hand!"
+exclaimed the doctor.
+
+"Ah, that's a pity," said Chumbley.  "Here, light a fresh cigar, man,
+and don't look like that amiable person who pulled Priam's curtains in
+the dead of the night.  Come, doctor, I thought you fellows were always
+calm."
+
+"So we are," cried the doctor, feeling his own pulse.  "Ninety-four!
+That's pretty good for this climate.  Yes, I'll take another cigar.  But
+I say, Chumbley, this is very awkward."
+
+"Would be very awkward, you mean."
+
+"Yes, of course.  And we are all unarmed."
+
+"Well, not quite all," said Chumbley.  "Being a sort of man-at-arms--a
+kind of wasp amongst the human insects--I always carry my sting."
+
+"What! have you anything with you?"
+
+"Pistol and a few cartridges," replied Chumbley, coolly.
+
+"And I should have had my gun.  You know my little double-barrelled
+Adams, don't you?"
+
+"Yes; the one with the dent in the stock."
+
+"That's the one, my lad!  Well, I should have had that with me if it had
+not been for Mrs Bolter.  I wanted to bring it, so as to collect a
+little, and she said it was folly, so I had to put it away.  Have the
+others any arms?"
+
+"Two apiece," said Chumbley.  "Fleshy."
+
+"And you can joke at a time like this?" exclaimed the doctor excitedly,
+while the swarthy steersman looked down at him wonderingly.
+
+"Well, where's the use of doing anything else about what was only a
+passing fancy on my part.  Come, doctor, smoke your cigar in peace.
+Perhaps, after all, Murad means to be as amiable as host can be, and we
+shall all get back to the station, having found no worse enemies than
+the sun and the champagne."
+
+"Champagne?  Nonsense, man.  We shall have to drink palm wine."
+
+"Perhaps so; but I'll make an affidavit, as the lawyers call it, that
+there are half a dozen cases on board with the brand _Pfungst, Epernay_
+upon them, and--"
+
+"Look--look!" exclaimed the doctor, laying his hand upon his companion's
+arm.
+
+"What--what at?" said Chumbley, coolly.  "I don't see anything
+dangerous."
+
+"Dangerous--no!  Look at that tree laden with blossoms to the water's
+edge."
+
+"Yes, I see it.  Very pretty.  Can you see a tiger's nose poking
+through?"
+
+"No, no, man; but look at the magnificent butterflies--four of them.
+Why, they must be nine inches across the wings.  Where's Rosebury?"
+
+"Oh! come, doctor: you are better," exclaimed Chumbley, smiling.
+"That's right; don't think any more about my scare."
+
+"This trip is completely spoiled," exclaimed the doctor, excitedly.  "No
+shooting--no collecting!  Oh! for goodness' sake, look at that bird,
+Chumbley!"
+
+"What, that little humpbacked chap on the dry twig?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Hah! he looks as if he has got the pip."
+
+"My dear fellow, that's one of the lovely cinnamon-backed trogons.  Look
+at his crimson breast and pencilled wings."
+
+"Yes, very pretty," said Chumbley; "but I often think, doctor, that I'd
+give something to see half a dozen sooty London sparrows in a genuine
+old English fog."
+
+"Nonsense, man.  There, too--look!" he cried, pointing, as like a streak
+of white light a great bird flew across the river.  "That's a white
+eagle.  I never have such chances as this when I'm out collecting."
+
+"S'pose not," said Chumbley, drily.  "It's always the case when a fellow
+has no gun.  Precious good job for the birds."
+
+"Oh! this is maddening!" cried the doctor.  "Look--look at that,
+Chumbley," and he pointed to the dead branch of a tree, upon which a
+bird sat motionless, with the sun's rays seeming to flash from its
+feathers.
+
+"Yes, that is rather a pretty chap," said Chumbley.  "Plays lawn tennis
+evidently.  Look at his tail."
+
+"Yes, that is one of the lovely racket-tailed kingfishers, Chumbley.
+Ah!  I wish, my dear boy, you had a little more taste for natural
+history.  That is a very, very rare specimen, and I'd give almost
+anything to possess it."
+
+"Aren't those long feathers in his way when he dives after fish?" said
+Chumbley.
+
+"There it is, you see," cried the doctor.  "You unobservant men display
+your ignorance the moment you open your lips.  These Malay kingfishers
+do not dive after fish, but chase the beetles and butterflies."
+
+"Poor beetles! and poor butterflies!" said Chumbley, with his eyes half
+closed.  "I say, doctor, this is very delightful and dreamy.  I begin to
+wish I was a rajah somewhere up the river here, with plenty of slaves
+and a boat, and no harassing drills, and tight uniform, and no one to
+bully me--not even a wife.  I say, old fellow, if I am missing some day,
+don't let them look for me, because I shall have taken to the jungle.
+I'm sick of civilisation and all its shams."
+
+"Hallo! you two," cried a voice.  "Come, I say, this isn't fair.  Here
+they are, Hilton."
+
+It was the Resident who spoke, and Captain Hilton also appeared the next
+moment, the four gentlemen so completely filling up the space that the
+steersman hardly had room to work his oar.
+
+"It's all right," said Chumbley, coolly.  "The doctor was giving me a
+lesson in natural history."
+
+"With the help of a cigar," said Hilton.  "Shall we join them, Harley?"
+
+"Yes--no.  We had better get back.  The Rajah might think himself
+slighted if we stayed away."
+
+"Yes, you're right," exclaimed Chumbley; and getting up slowly, they all
+made their way back to the covered-in portion of the boat, where the
+beauties of the river were being discussed, and where Hilton found a
+seat beside Helen Perowne.
+
+"How nice little Stuart looks in her white dress!" thought Chumbley to
+himself.  "A fellow might do worse than marry her.  Humph!  Is Mr Rajah
+Murad going to try it on there, as he has been disappointed in Helen
+Perowne?  No; it is only civility.  'Pon my word the fellow is quite the
+natural gentleman, and can't have such ideas in his head as those for
+which I gave him credit."
+
+Chumbley chatted first with one and then with another; while in his
+soft, quiet way, looking handsome and full of desire to please his
+guests, the Rajah threw off his Eastern lethargy of manner, and seemed
+to be constantly on the watch for some fresh way of adding to the
+pleasures of the trip.
+
+Not that it wanted additions, for to sit there in the shade, listening
+to the plash of oars and the musical ripple of the clear water against
+the sides of the boat, while the ever-changing panorama of green trees
+waving, rich bright blossoms, with now and then a glimpse of purple
+mountain and pale blue hazy hill, was sufficiently interesting to
+gratify the most exacting mind.
+
+Now and then they passed a native village or campong, with its bamboo
+houses raised on platforms, the gable-ended roofs thatched with
+palm-leaves, and the walls frequently ingeniously woven in checkered
+patterns with strips of cane.  The boats attached to posts or palm-tree
+trunks told of the aquatic lives of the people, this being a roadless
+country, and the rivers forming the highway from village to village or
+town to town.
+
+The easy motion of the boat, the musical ripple of the water, the
+rhythmical sweep of the oars, and the ever-changing scenery in that pure
+atmosphere, redolent with the almost cloying scent of the flowers,
+seemed to produce its effect on all, and the conversation soon gave
+place to a dreamy silence, in which the beauty of the river was watched
+with half-closed eyes, till after some hours' rowing against stream, a
+loud drumming and beating of gongs was heard, making the doctor and
+Chumbley exchange glances, and the former whispered to the lieutenant:
+
+"Does that mean mischief?"
+
+"Don't know: can't say," was the reply.  "It may mean welcome.  All we
+can do is to keep quiet and our eyes open, then we shall see."
+
+"Very philosophical, but precious unsatisfactory," muttered the doctor,
+as the boats went on towards where a cluster of houses showed their
+pointed roofs amidst the cocoa-palm, and here a couple of flags were
+flying, one yellow, the other the familiar union-jack; while under the
+trees could be seen a party of gaily-dressed women, among whom, by the
+aid of a lorgnette, Hilton could make out the tall, commanding figure of
+the Malay Princess.
+
+"Looks more like peace than war," thought Chumbley, as the boats neared
+the landing-place--a roughly-constructed platform of bamboo, alongside
+of which the steersman cleverly laid the first naga, the second boat
+being steered beside the first and there made fast.  The Inche Maida,
+with her female attendants, then came slowly up between two lines of her
+slaves to welcome with floral offerings the party of guests.
+
+"Oh, it's all nonsense, Chumbley," whispered the doctor to the
+lieutenant.
+
+"Yes.  I think it is," was the reply, "unless," he added, with a laugh,
+"they come one of the Borgia tricks and poison the cups.  I mean to
+drink with the Princess so as to be safe."
+
+"I don't mean to think any more about it," said the doctor.
+
+As there was a good deal of ceremony observed by the Princess in coming
+to meet them, something in the form of a procession was made, the Rajah
+with great courtesy and good taste offering his arm to the oldest lady
+of the party--Mrs Doctor Bolter; and the pleasant little lady flushed
+slightly as she was led up to the Princess, who took her by the hands,
+kissed her on both cheeks, bidding her welcome and thanking her for
+coming; and then taking a magnificent bouquet of sweet-scented flowers
+from one of her attendants, she presented it to her guest.
+
+Chumbley was one of the next to approach with the lady of a merchant
+settled at the station; and the Princess's eyes flashed as the bright
+look of welcome to the great manly young fellow changed into one of
+anger.
+
+It was but a flash though, and the next moment she was smiling as if in
+contempt of her suspicions, for the lady Chumbley escorted was sallow
+and grey, and the greeting to her was made as warm and affectionate as
+that to the doctor's lady.
+
+Then the Princess held out her plump, brown, well-shaped hand to
+Chumbley.
+
+"I am glad to see you," she said, with a smile, and her eyes seemed to
+rest with satisfaction upon his goodly proportions.  "Take that," she
+added, as she removed a great yellow jasmine sprig from her rich black
+hair; and Chumbley bowed, and placed it in his buttonhole.
+
+They passed on, and other guests approached to be presented to the
+Princess in this sylvan drawing-room, held in the pale green light of
+the shade beneath the palms and lacing ferns, through which an arrowy
+rain of silver threads of sunlight seemed to be ever falling, flashing
+and scintillating the while.
+
+The Resident was greeted with the most friendly warmth; and Grey, who
+held his arm, was folded in quite a warm embrace.  The choicest bouquet
+of sweetly-scented flowers being placed in her hands, the fair English
+girl flushed with pleasure as her tawny hostess said, softly:
+
+"Don't go away, Miss Stuart.  You will stay and sit near me."
+
+"You seem to have thoroughly won the Inche Maida's heart, Miss Stuart,"
+said the Resident, looking smilingly into his companion's face.
+
+"I like her very much," replied Grey.  "She seems to be very natural and
+feminine.  I hope she means it all."
+
+"Yes; it would be unpleasant to find out that it was all glaze," said
+the Resident, thoughtfully.  "But do you know," he continued, speaking
+very slowly, and watching the continuation of the reception the while,
+"I think she is a very jolly, good-hearted sort of woman, and--I--
+should--think--she--is--very genuine.  Yes," he added, after a pause and
+speaking now quickly, "I am sure now that she has no more dissimulation
+in her than a fly.  What do you say?"
+
+"Oh, Mr Harley, what does that mean?"
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
+
+THE FOREST BANQUET.
+
+Grey Stuart's exclamatory question was drawn from her as she, like the
+Resident, watched the way in which the Princess continued to receive her
+guests.
+
+Grey, in obedience to the Inche Maida's request, and remained with the
+Resident close by, where they had an excellent view of what was taking
+place, and as, rather flattered by her reception, Grey looked on, a pang
+shot through her breast, as she saw that almost the next couple to
+advance were Captain Hilton and Helen Perowne, the former looking
+flushed and happy as he walked proudly forward with his handsome
+companion upon his arm; the latter with her red lip slightly curled and
+her eyelashes half shading her large eyes, as she seemed to be
+superciliously, and with a contemptuous air, smiling at the people she
+looked upon as far beneath her and hardly worthy of her consideration.
+
+As the Princess saw them approach--the most goodly couple of the
+company--her eyes seemed to dart a furious flash at Hilton, and then to
+become fixed and hard as her features, as she encountered the
+supercilious gaze of Helen Perowne.
+
+For a brief space she paused, as if too angry to continue her task.  The
+pause was but momentary: for, apparently making an effort over herself,
+she received Helen Perowne with a grave, almost majestic courtesy,
+taking a bouquet from an attendant and handing it to her with a slight
+inclination of the head; while Helen Perowne made her the deportment
+curtsey that she had been taught at the Miss Twettenhams', throwing into
+it the dignity of a queen.
+
+"Enemies!" said the Resident to himself.  "Strange how women read each
+other's thoughts!"  The Princess darted a quick, reproachful glance at
+Hilton, and then the couple passed to the other side of the hostess as
+others advanced, and the Resident made his comment upon the Princess,
+while Grey Stuart exclaimed, in an eager whisper: "Oh!  Mr Harley, what
+does all this mean?"
+
+"Another diplomatic complication apparently, my dear child," he said.
+"Why, you and I ought to be very happy and contented to feel that we are
+not of an inflammable nature and are heart-whole."
+
+"But, Mr Harley," said Grey Stuart, colouring slightly, "I do not
+understand it."
+
+"And you will not give me time to explain," he said laughingly.
+"Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me that just as we have comfortably
+got over the little piece of incendiarism done upon the Rajah Murad's
+heart by the lightning of Helen Perowne's eyes, the Inche Maida has
+singed her tawny wings in the light of the handsome brown optics of
+Master Hilton."
+
+"Oh! but, Mr Harley," said the girl, hoarsely, "you don't think that--"
+
+"She has taken a fancy to him?" said the Resident, quickly.  "Indeed, my
+dear, but I do."
+
+"I--I did not mean that," faltered Grey.  "I meant, do you think--he had
+trifled with the Princess?"
+
+"No, certainly not," said the Resident, sternly, and his voice was very
+cold and grave as he spoke; "but I do see one thing, and that is, that
+it is an utter mistake to have a pack of handsome young officers and
+good-looking girls about the station.  It makes my duties twice as
+hard," he continued firmly, "for we have no secret instructions, no
+Colonial Office despatches that deal with the unions of the sexes; and
+if this sort of thing is going on, I shall have to ask the Government to
+send me out an assistant-resident well schooled in affairs of the
+heart."
+
+He smiled grimly now, and there was a faint reflection of his smile in
+Grey Stuart's face as she looked up at him rather piteously, as if to
+see whether he was in earnest or in jest.
+
+Further private remark was stopped by the Princess greeting her last
+guests, and then turning to lead the way towards what was literally her
+palm-tree palace in the jungle.
+
+"You will stay with me, will you not?" she said, laying her hand
+affectionately upon Grey Stuart's arm; and she smiled down at the fair
+Scottish girl, who looked up at her in a half-doubting fashion; but
+dreading to show her feelings she took the offered hand, and the
+Princess led the way, the Rajah following with Mrs Bolter, and the
+others bringing up the rear.  They passed through quite an arcade cut in
+the wood, whose rich growth of wondrous canes and creepers was rapidly
+encroaching upon the narrow space, and sending out long waving strands
+as if in greeting to others upon the opposite side.
+
+At interval were openings where the green twilight was brightened by
+patches of sunshine; and here amidst the rich green mosses sprang up
+patches of many-tinted pitcher plants, while on the trunks of the huge
+forest trees clustered orchids of wondrous shape and hue.  Bight and
+left was the jungle, dense and utterly impenetrable, except by cutting a
+way through; and as they passed along this shady tunnel, the greens of
+some of the lower shrubs seemed to be of a velvety blackness that had a
+charming effect.
+
+At last a patch of bright sunshine could be seen, showing the end of the
+woodland arcade, and beyond this, framed, as it were, the Inche Maida's
+home, with its high-pitched gabled roofs, chequered walls, woven
+windows, and palm-tree thatch, stood out bright and clear.
+
+As they drew nearer they found that the house was placed on the farther
+side of a large lake that was literally ablaze with the crimson and
+golden blossoms of a kind of lotus, while its shores were fringed with
+an arrowy, gorgeously-spotted calladium, the surface of whose leaves
+seemed burnished and silvered in the sun.
+
+"I say, doctor," said Chumbley, suddenly, "it doesn't seem such a very
+bad place for a picnic; and if they do mean mischief I hope it will not
+be till after we have had a good feed."
+
+"Hungry?" said the doctor.
+
+"Atrociously!  I could eat the Inche Maida herself."
+
+"She looked to me as if she could eat you," said the doctor.  "I say,
+though, Chumbley, that was all nonsense of yours; the Rajah's as square
+as a cube.  Not half a bad fellow; says he's coming to consult me about
+some of his symptoms, and is going to get me to put him right.  Precious
+stupid of you to put such an idea in a fellow's head."
+
+"Pitch it out, then," said the lieutenant, coolly.
+
+"I've done it, my boy.  I say, Chumbley, I'm like you, precious hungry,
+too.  Look out for the sambals, my boy, and the curry.  You'll get them
+all in delicious trim, I'll be bound.  They say the Inche Maida keeps a
+capital cook, and I think it was a splendid idea to bring us here.  The
+dinner will be ten times better than in a boat or on the shore.  I say,
+my dear boy, what a tip-top place!  Why, if I were a bachelor, I
+wouldn't mind marrying the Inche Maida myself, and succeeding to all her
+estates."
+
+"It really is a charming place," said Chumbley, thoughtfully.  "A man
+might make himself very jolly here.  There's plenty of fishing, and
+shooting, and--"
+
+"He could learn to chew betel, and smoke opium, and settle down into an
+Eastern dreamer."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Chumbley, quietly.  "He might make himself a
+sort of example to the people, and do a deal of good."
+
+"Yes," said the doctor drily, "or let them do him a lot of harm.  Hallo!
+where are the ladies going?"
+
+"Oh, up to the rooms, I suppose," said Chumbley.  "I expect the Princess
+does things in style.  I wouldn't bet a sovereign that she has not got a
+regular dining-room and drawing-room with a Broadwood piano."
+
+"I don't care a dump what she has got so long as she has a good cellar
+and a good kitchen," replied the doctor, "for I'm ravenous."
+
+"Gentlemen," said the Rajah, coming forward, "the Princess begs me to
+act as host.  Will you come indoors until the dinner is ready to be
+served?"
+
+"There, doctor," whispered Chumbley, "I told you so;" and they followed
+the smiling Rajah into the drawing-room of the Inche Maida's house--a
+large roomy apartment, kept cool by mat-covered windows, and whose
+polished bamboo floor would have delighted a modern aesthete.
+
+The place was a strange compound of Malay and European customs, showy
+articles of French furniture being mixed up with the mats and hangings
+made by the natives; but everywhere there were traces of the Princess
+possessing an ample income to enable her to indulge in any little whims
+or fancies in the way of decorative art.
+
+But the group of gentlemen had hardly had time to look round before the
+Inche Maida appeared with her lady guests, and not being accustomed to
+the etiquette of modern society, led the way to a lofty room, in the
+middle of which, upon English table linen, was spread such a repast as
+would have satisfied the most exacting; and about this the party took
+their seats upon the soft mats in the best way they could, for there was
+neither chair nor table.
+
+Still it was a picnic party, so everyone was, or professed to be,
+satisfied.
+
+The Princess made a place beside her for Grey Stuart, and Captain Hilton
+had paused with Helen Perowne right at the other end of the room.  For a
+moment or two, with rather lowering looks, the hostess seemed disposed
+to acquiesce in this, but a sudden flush animated her face, and she sent
+one of her slaves to request that the couple would come up higher,
+making room for Hilton by her side on the right--Helen being again on
+Hilton's right.
+
+For a few minutes the repast was eaten in silence, but the doctor, who
+was in excellent spirits, started the conversation, and the next moment
+there was a regular buzz mingled with laughter; for the Princess threw
+off all appearance of annoyance, and with the Rajah, devoted herself
+eagerly to the comforts of her guests.
+
+It was a novel and piquant affair; the pale, dim light of the
+palm-thatched room, with its waving cocoa-trees seen through the open
+windows; the comparative coolness after the walk through the jungle, and
+above all the quaint mingling of culture and half-savage life made the
+visitors delighted with the scene.
+
+Then, too, the repast was unexceptionable.  The very poorest Malays are
+clever cooks, and have excellent ideas upon the best ways of preparing a
+chicken; while the slaves of the Princess had placed such delicious
+curries and other Eastern dishes before the hungry visitors, that one
+and all fell to without giving further thought as to the strange kitchen
+in which everything had been prepared.
+
+Delicious sweets and confections, cool acid drinks, evidently prepared
+from fresh fruits, with an abundance of palm and European wines were
+there; and the fruits alone would have been a sufficient attraction for
+the guests.
+
+Durians, those strange productions of the fruit-world, that on being
+opened reveal to the eater so many chestnut-like seeds lying in a
+cream-like pulp--the said pulp tasting of sweet almonds, well-made
+custard, sherry, cheese, old shoes, sugar and garlic formed into one
+delicious whole.
+
+Mangosteens, with their glorious nectarine aroma, and plantains or
+bananas of the choicest flavoured kinds; these, mingled with other
+fruits luscious and sweet to a degree, but whose names were unknown to
+the guests, formed a dessert beyond compare.
+
+Chumbley, seeing that a good deal of the Resident's attention was taken
+up elsewhere, divided his time between talking to Grey Stuart and
+watching the Malay Princess, upon whose countenance not a shade of her
+former annoyance remained.
+
+Every now and then, as her eyes wandered about, she caught Chumbley's
+glance as he watched her, and she always met it with a frank, open
+smile, and begged his acceptance of fruit or wine.
+
+At the same time, she was constant in her attentions to Hilton and Helen
+Perowne, selecting choice fruits for them with her own hands, and
+pressing them to eat.
+
+"Well, Miss Stuart, is not this a novelty?" said Chumbley at last.
+"What do you think of it all?"
+
+Grey Stuart, who had been making a brave effort to appear bright and
+free from care, replied that it was all very delightful and strange.
+
+"It seems so different from anything I have ever seen before!" she said,
+with animation.
+
+"Beats a lawn party and tennis in the old country hollow!" said
+Chumbley.  "What a capital hostess the Princess is!"
+
+"She seems to take so much kindly interest in--in--" said Grey.
+
+"In you, you mean," said the great fellow, smiling.
+
+"Oh, no," said Grey, naively, "I think it was in you."
+
+"Well, I don't know," replied Chumbley, thoughtfully; "she has been very
+attentive and kind certainly, but then she has been far more so to
+Hilton and Miss Perowne.  Why I saw her peel an orange for old Hilton
+with her own fair--I mean dark--fingers."
+
+"I suppose it is the Malayan way of showing courtesy to a guest," said
+Grey, in an absent tone of voice, as her eyes were wandering from
+Captain Hilton to Helen Perowne and back; and then, in spite of herself,
+she sighed gently, a fact that did not pass unnoticed by Chumbley, who
+made of it a mental note.
+
+Meanwhile, the half-savage banquet went on with fresh surprises from
+time to time for the guests, who were astonished at the extent to which
+the Malay Princess had adopted the best of our English customs.
+
+Perhaps the most critical of all was Mrs Bolter, who did not scruple
+about making whispered remarks to her brother about the various
+delicacies spread around.
+
+"If Henry does not come soon, Arthur," she whispered, "I shall send you
+to fetch him.  By the way, those sweets are very nicely made.  Taste
+them."
+
+"Thank you, dear Mary, no," he said, quietly, as he turned an untasted
+fruit round and round in his long, thin fingers.
+
+"Arthur, how can you be so absurd?" whispered his sister.  "The people
+will be noticing you directly."
+
+"What have I done, my dear Mary?" he replied, looking quite aghast.
+
+"Nothing but stare at Helen Perowne," she said, in a low angry voice.
+"Surely you don't want her to flirt with you!"
+
+"Hush, Mary!" he said gravely.  "Your words give me pain."
+
+"And your glances at that proud, handsome, heartless creature give me
+pain, Arthur," she replied, in the same tone.  "I cannot bear it."
+
+The Reverend Arthur sighed, let his eyes rest upon his fruit, raised
+them again, and found himself in time to arrest an arrow-like glance
+from Helen's eyes sent the whole length of the table, and he closed his
+own and shuddered as if the look had given him a pang.
+
+"I cannot get Henry to look at me," whispered Mrs Bolter after a time.
+"He seems quite guilty about something, and ashamed to meet my eye.
+Arthur, I am sure he is drinking more wine than is good for his health."
+
+"Oh, no, my dear Mary," replied her brother.  "Surely Henry Bolter knows
+how to take care of his constitution."
+
+"I don't know that," said the little lady, with asperity, "and he keeps
+talking to the Princess more than I like."
+
+She telegraphed to the little doctor with her eyes, but in vain; he
+evaded summons after summons, and Mrs Bolter began to grow wroth.
+
+Suddenly she saw him give a bit of a start, and he seemed to be watching
+the slaves, who were carrying round trays of little china cups full of
+some native wine.
+
+Chumbley saw it too, and for a moment he felt excited, but directly
+after he laughed it off.
+
+"The doctor thinks that the Borgia dose is going round," he said to
+himself, but half aloud, and Grey caught a portion of his words and
+turned pale.
+
+"Borgia?" she faltered, turning to him.  "Do you mean poison?"
+
+"Did you hear my words?" he said, quickly.  "Oh, it was only nonsense."
+
+"But you think there is poison in those little cups, Mr Chumbley?
+Quick! stop him!" she gasped, with an agonised look.  "Mr Hilton is
+going to drink.  Too late! too late!"
+
+"Hush, Miss Stuart, be calm," whispered Chumbley; "you will draw
+attention to yourself.  I tell you it is all nonsense: a foolish fancy.
+Here is a tray," he continued, as a slave came up.  "Now see, I will
+drink one of these cupfuls to convince you."
+
+"And I will drink too!" she cried, excitedly; and Chumbley stared to see
+so much fire in one whom he had looked upon as being tame and quiet to a
+degree.
+
+"No; don't you drink," he said, in a low voice.
+
+"Then you do believe there is danger?" she said, excitedly.
+
+"I do and I do not," he replied, in the same low tone.  "There," he
+said, tossing off the contents of the cup, which was filled with a
+delicious liqueur, "I don't think so now; but I would not drink if I
+were you."
+
+As the words left his lips, Grey Stuart raised the little cup to her
+mouth, slowly drained it, and set it down.
+
+Chumbley's brow contracted, but he could not help admiring the girl's
+firmness.
+
+"Do you like my wine?" said a voice then, and the lieutenant started on
+finding that the Princess had been narrowly watching them.
+
+"Yes, it is delicious," he said, smiling.
+
+"I drink to you, as you English do," she said, taking a cup from the
+same tray as that which had borne those of Chumbley and Grey Stuart.  "I
+drink to your health--you two," she said again, and she seemed to drain
+the cup.  "Do you not think it good?" she said, in a low voice, and with
+a singularly impressive smile.  "Surely you do not think I would give
+poison to my friends."
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
+
+AFTER THE FEAST.
+
+The Inche Maida turned her head just then in reply to some remark made
+by Captain Hilton, and Chumbley took advantage thereof to whisper to his
+companion:
+
+"The Princess must have understood what we said.  How provoking that I
+should have uttered such a foolish remark!  Why, I quite frightened
+you!"
+
+"I was a little alarmed," faltered Grey, who seemed agitated.  "It
+sounded so very dreadful, Mr Chumbley," she added, after a pause.  "You
+have always been so kind and gentlemanly to me, may I ask a favour?"
+
+"To be sure," he replied.
+
+She paused again, and he saw that she was growing more agitated, and
+that she could hardly speak.
+
+"I want you to promise me--"
+
+Here she stopped again, and looked piteously in his face, her lips
+refusing to frame the words she wished to say.
+
+"You wish me to promise never to take notice of the secret you betrayed
+just now, Miss Stuart?"
+
+She nodded quickly, and her eyes sought his in a pleading way that set
+him thinking of what her feelings must be for Hilton.
+
+"Give me the credit of being a gentleman, Miss Stuart," he said, at
+last, quietly.
+
+"I do--I do!" she said, eagerly.  "Indeed I do, Mr Chumbley!"
+
+"I am an old friend of Captain Hilton.  We knew one another when we were
+quite lads, and I exchanged into this regiment so that we might be
+together.  He's a very good fellow, is Hilton, although he has grown so
+hot-headed and liable to make mistakes.  I like him for many reasons,
+and I can't tell you how glad I am to have learned what I have to-day."
+
+"Pray say no more, Mr Chumbley," said Grey, with a troubled look.
+
+"But I shall say more, even at the risk of being considered rude,"
+continued Chumbley.  "He is making a great mistake, just as a great many
+more men have made the same blunder."
+
+Grey tried to speak, but the words would not come.
+
+"He'll wake up some day," continued Chumbley.  "At present his eyes are
+dazzled."
+
+"Mr Chumbley!" said Grey, in a low, earnest, appealing tone.
+
+She only uttered the young officer's name, but the way in which it was
+spoken sufficed, and he bowed his head in answer, and for the next few
+minutes neither spoke.
+
+"Miss Stuart, you may trust me," he said, at last.
+
+"I do, Mr Chumbley," she replied, and a conscious feeling of pride and
+satisfaction thrilled the young soldier, as he looked in the frank grey
+eyes.
+
+The conversation went buzzing on all around, nobody seeming to notice
+him; and Chumbley began to commune with himself as he gazed straight
+before him now.
+
+"She's taken with Hilton," he said.  "There's no mistake about it.  Now,
+why didn't the little maid take a fancy to me?  She's very nice--very
+nice indeed; and I think she would be as earnest and truthful as a woman
+could be.  Isn't my luck, though--no, not my luck.
+
+"By Jove, what an idiot that Hilton is," he continued, as he glanced at
+the young officer, who did not seem to be aware of the fact that anyone
+was present but Helen, whose every look and gesture were watched with
+rapt attention; while from time to time she seemed to rouse herself from
+her languid indifferent way, and repay him with a smile.
+
+It was rather a curious scene, and as she recovered from the agitation
+consequent upon her little encounter with Chumbley, Grey Stuart read a
+good deal of what was going on around.
+
+It seemed to her that Helen Perowne, whom she had promised their old
+instructresses to befriend and aid, was the principal object of
+attraction to all.  She felt no jealousy on this account, only a curious
+sense of trouble.  Her affection for Helen was as great as ever, but
+always there seemed to be a gathering cloud of trouble right ahead, and
+in an undefined way this seemed to gather and threaten them both.
+
+Sometimes her eyes fell upon little Mrs Bolter, who appeared far from
+enjoying the day, but to be ready at any moment to go in quest of the
+doctor, who kept leaving his seat to chat with someone at another part.
+
+There was always a smile for Grey though, whenever Mrs Bolter caught
+her eye, and the exchange of glances seemed to comfort the little lady
+for the time.
+
+The next minute Grey would see that the Rajah was looking in Helen's
+direction, and she trembled at the idea of further trouble arising; but
+the Malay's thoughts were hidden beneath a set smile, which did duty on
+all occasions now, and was bestowed upon Helen, upon the Princess, Mrs
+Bolter, even upon the watcher in turn.
+
+Then, as she saw how impressive were Captain Hilton's attentions, Grey
+sighed softly, and in remembrance of what had been said at Mayleyfield,
+she told herself that perhaps the best thing that could happen to Helen
+would be for her to become the young officer's wife.
+
+Just then Chumbley turned to her, and as if their conversation had had
+no pause--
+
+"Let me add this," he continued, "Hilton is one of the best fellows that
+ever breathed, only he has gone a little wild over this affair."
+
+"Pray say no more, Mr Chumbley," pleaded Grey.
+
+"Why not?" said the other, quietly.  "I thought we were to be friends,
+Miss Stuart.  Do you know I'm going to risk your displeasure by saying a
+word on my friend's behalf?"
+
+Grey tried to speak--to recover her usual calm self-possession, but her
+words would not come.
+
+"This is all nonsense, you know," continued Chumbley, "and I don't know
+that I blame Hilton much.  It's only natural, you know, and the poor
+fellow's only like everyone else.  They all get caught by the beauty
+just the same as I was.  You're not a man, you know, so you can't
+understand it.  Now, for instance, take me.  I'm a great big fellow--a
+sort of a small giant in my way--strong as a horse.  I could take that
+Rajah up by his neck and one leg, and pitch him out of window; but when
+Helen Perowne came here, and gave me one of her looks, I was done, and
+she led me about just as she pleased.  Ah! there's a very comic side to
+it all."
+
+"But you soon broke your silken string, Mr Chumbley," said Grey, trying
+to speak in his own bantering tone.
+
+"Not really," he said confidentially.  "The fact is, she broke it.  I
+couldn't have got away if I had not seen that she was only playing with
+me.  It was she who broke it by beginning to lead others on.  I say,
+Miss Stuart, what awful old women your schoolmistresses must have been!"
+
+"Awful old women?" exclaimed Grey.  "Yes, to bring up Miss Perowne as
+such--a man-killer."
+
+"Oh!  Mr Chumbley," cried Grey, "the Miss Twettenhams were the
+sweetest, most amiable of ladies, and Helen Perowne made them really
+very anxious--"
+
+She checked herself suddenly, as if annoyed at having spoken against her
+friend, at whom she glanced now, to see that she seemed to be really the
+queen of the feast.
+
+"Yes," said Chumbley, drily, "you're right.  They must have been nice
+old ladies; but about Hilton," he continued.  "You see it's like this; a
+fellow gets caught before he knows where he is, and then he thinks he
+has arrived at the happiest time of his life; then, a few days later, he
+sees some other fellow coming to the happiest point of _his_ life; and
+then, after a flush or two of fever, the first fellow begins to feel
+much better.  I say, Miss Stuart, I was awfully in love with Helen
+Perowne."
+
+"Yes, I think you were," she replied, with a sad little smile.
+
+"Awfully," he said again.  "It was all over with me.  I fell in love in
+five minutes, and I thought her quite a goddess; while now--"
+
+"Yes," said Grey, smiling; and her face looked very bright and
+ingenuous.  "While now?"
+
+"Well now--I don't," he said, slowly.  "Master Hilton won't by-and-by.
+I say, Miss Grey," he whispered, laughing merrily, "do you feel as if
+you were going to die?"
+
+"To die?" she said, opening her eyes very widely in her surprise; and as
+they met those of Chumbley he could not help thinking what sweet,
+earnest eyes they were.
+
+"Just like those of that girl tying the handkerchief round the fellow's
+arm in Millais' picture of _The Huguenot_," he said to himself.  "Hah!
+he'll be a lucky fellow who wins her for his own!"
+
+"Yes," he said aloud, after a pause, during which he had looked so
+earnestly at her that she had cast down her eyes and blushed; "yes, of
+the poisoned cup.  No; out here in this land of romance, and living as
+we are amongst sultans, and princes, and slaves, just as if the Arabian
+nights had been brought into private life--I ought to say poisoned
+chalice or envenomed goblet, but I won't; I'll say cup, with a dose in
+it.  I say, Miss Stuart," he drawled, "it was too bad of you to be so
+suspicious."
+
+"Are you two lovers?" said a deep, rich voice, close by them; and they
+both turned suddenly, to see that the Princess was watching them with a
+peculiar smile upon her lip.
+
+"Why do you ask that?" said Chumbley, laughing.
+
+"Because you look like it," said the Princess.  "I am glad: I like you
+both.  You are a very wise man," she added, tapping Chumbley on the
+shoulder with her fan.
+
+"As you are wrong about the engagement, my dear Princess," said
+Chumbley, laughing, "so it is natural that you should be wrong about my
+wisdom, for Miss Stuart and I are only the best of friends."
+
+The Princess looked at him very sharply, and then turned her eyes upon
+Grey Stuart, who, though her colour was slightly heightened, felt amused
+at their host's frank, bold questioning, and met the Princess's eyes
+with so ingenuous a look that the latter's suspicions were half
+disarmed.
+
+"Well," said the Inche Maida, smiling, "what do you say?"
+
+"That Mr Chumbley is my very good friend; that is all."
+
+"Well, I don't know," said the Princess, smiling.  "I don't see why you
+two should not be more than friends; and sometimes I feel half glad,
+sometimes half sorry.  What strange people you English are!"
+
+She took Grey's hand and held it, patting it affectionately as she
+spoke.
+
+"Why are we so strange?" said Grey, smiling.
+
+"Because it is your nature; you seem so cold and hard to touch, while a
+spark will set us on fire.  I thought when I went to your head chief,
+Mr Harley, and told him and his officers of my troubles--how I, a weak
+woman, was oppressed by cruel neighbours--that it would have been enough
+to make him send fighting men to drive my enemies away.  But no; it is
+talk, talk, talk.  You are cold and distant, and you love your friends!"
+
+"But when we make friends we are very faithful and sincere," said Grey,
+earnestly.
+
+"Some of you, my child--some of you," said the Princess, nodding her
+head, and looking intently at the fair, sweet face before her.  "Some of
+you can be very true and sincere as you call it; some of you I would not
+trust.  And you think," with a quick look of her dark eyes, "that you
+could not trust some of us.  Well, perhaps you are right; but we shall
+see--we shall see."
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
+
+LATER ON.
+
+Seeing how earnestly the Princess was talking to Grey Stuart, Chumbley
+looked around for another companion amongst the busy, chatting throng,
+and found him in the person of Doctor Bolter, who was coming that way.
+
+"Well?" said the latter.
+
+"Well?" replied Chumbley.
+
+"It's all right."
+
+"Right?  Oh, yes, I think so; but, I say, doctor, the next time you are
+lunching with a native, and you think the cups are poisoned, don't show
+it quite so plainly."
+
+"Did I show it, my dear boy?"
+
+"Horribly," said Chumbley, coolly.  "Here are you, a man who passes his
+time in giving other people numbers of poisonous doses, and yet you make
+so much fuss about taking one yourself!"
+
+"Tut--tut, man!  Tut--tut!" ejaculated the doctor.  "Hold your whisht,
+as old Stuart says.  I couldn't help the thought; but it was a very
+unjust one I must say."
+
+"So purposeless," said Chumbley.  "Why should the Princess want to
+poison us?"
+
+"Out of spite perhaps," said the doctor.  "I don't think we have behaved
+very generously to her in reply to her appeal."
+
+"On the head of the Colonial Secretary be it," said Chumbley, relapsing
+into his slow drawl.
+
+"But unfortunately it does not fall upon his head," retorted the doctor,
+grimly.  "The Princess, disappointed in her appeal, could not reach the
+Colonial Secretary in London, but she could reach us."
+
+"And she won't do anything of the kind, doctor," said Chumbley, warmly.
+"She's a very good sort of woman, in spite of her skin, and her party is
+a great success.  It will be our turn to do something next."
+
+"What, in the shape of a feed?"
+
+"Yes, I think so; only this hot climate seems to take all the energy out
+of a fellow."
+
+For the Princess's party was undoubtedly a grand success, the fairy-like
+aspect of the scene adding immensely to the effect.  The conduct of the
+Sultan was simply perfect; and his efforts to supplement the hostess in
+her endeavour to give pleasure won the encomiums of all.
+
+As evening approached there was a little nervousness displayed by the
+ladies at the idea of staying late; and one and all appealed to Mrs
+Bolter, who immediately began metaphorically to play the part of hen,
+and displayed a desire to gather the whole of the ladies beneath her
+wings.
+
+"I promise you there is no occasion for fear," said the Princess,
+earnestly; "and besides, if you depart so soon, the preparations my
+people have made to illuminate the jungle will be all in vain."
+
+"What do you say, Mr Harley?" said little Mrs Bolter, rather
+petulantly, for she was growing tired.  "Dr Bolter is not near for me
+to appeal to him.  Don't you think we ought to go?"
+
+"You will miss the moonlight ride down the river if you go so soon,"
+said the Princess, "and that will be far more beautiful than anything
+here."
+
+"I think," said the Resident, quietly, "that when our friend and ally--"
+
+"Ally, Mr Harley?" said the Princess, in a low voice.
+
+"Has taken so much pains for our gratification, we should be behaving
+coldly if we hurried away.  Ladies, I think I may promise you a safe
+return."
+
+"Safe return?" said the Princess.
+
+"Yes," said the Resident; "the river is deep, but perfectly clear of
+obstructions, and we have good rowers and good boats."
+
+The Princess was on the whole so pressing, and seemed so likely to be
+offended if her proposals were slighted, that after a little
+consultation it was finally determined to stay, and the time passed
+rapidly on.
+
+The Rajah had provided music and Malay dancers, while the Inche Maida's
+women proved to be possessed of pleasant voices, singing in chorus in a
+mournful minor way.  Then, as the evening closed in, and the
+ingeniously-arranged lamps kept starting into life amidst the lustrous
+green of the forest trees, the scene became more and more fairy-like,
+and beautiful in the extreme.
+
+"Talk about the Arabian nights," said Chumbley in the interval of a
+dance, during which he had Helen Perowne for partner, "I think they
+would have had to be very fine nights indeed to come up to this.  It is
+about the best thing I ever saw."
+
+"Yes," said Helen, dreamily, "it is very charming;" and she glanced
+carelessly round from beneath her long fringed lids, as if she were
+quite accustomed to displays made in her honour and they quite palled
+upon her.
+
+"Yes, it is charming," said Chumbley, in an amused way.  "Get much of
+this sort of thing at school?"
+
+Helen's eyes opened wide, and she darted an angry look at the speaker.
+
+"How she would like to bring me to my knees," thought Chumbley to
+himself.
+
+"The insolent!  How dare he treat me as if I were a schoolgirl? but I'll
+punish him yet."
+
+The quadrille went on, and at the end Chumbley led his partner round the
+open space set apart for the dancers; Helen languidly using her fan, and
+lowering her eyes or talking to the lieutenant whenever they passed the
+Rajah.
+
+"I say, Miss Perowne," said Chumbley, lightly, just as they were near
+the Princess, who was talking quietly to Grey Stuart and the Resident,
+"how would you like to give up civilisation, and live out here?"
+
+"What an absurd question, Mr Chumbley!" she replied, haughtily, and
+with the knowledge that question and answer were heard by the group they
+passed.  "Not at all; I detest the barbarity of the country, and the
+Malay customs!"
+
+"Well, I don't know," said Chumbley; "I don't see much barbarity.  The
+people are simple in their habits, but decidedly refined."
+
+"Absurd!" said Helen, contemptuously.
+
+"I think Miss Perowne promised me her hand for the next dance," said the
+Rajah, approaching with a soft, cat-like step, smiling and bowing the
+while.
+
+Helen looked annoyed, but she was mistress of her emotions; and quietly
+relinquishing Chumbley's arm, she laid her gloved hand upon the Rajah's
+sleeve as coolly as if there had never been between them the slightest
+cause for uneasiness.
+
+"She's a clever one and no mistake," said Chumbley to himself.  "I hope
+she won't be stupid enough to begin flirting again.  Matters seem to;
+have settled down now, and it will be a pity for them to become
+troublesome once more.  Wonder where the doctor is?  I think I'll lure
+him behind the trees, and we'll have a cigar together.  It's too hot to
+dance."
+
+He turned to go, after a final glance at Helen and the Rajah, but found
+himself face to face with the Inche Maida.
+
+"Ah, giant?" she said, in excellent English, laying her hand upon his
+arm, and, as it were, taking him into custody.  "I heard what you said a
+little while ago to beautiful Helen Perowne, and I am going to ask you
+the same question."
+
+"I say," thought Chumbley, "this isn't leap-year, is it?"
+
+"How would you like to give up civilisation and live out here in the
+wilds?"
+
+Chumbley strolled on with the Princess in the soft light shed by the
+paper lanterns beneath the spreading palms, between whose mighty pinnate
+leaves an occasional glimpse of the lustrous starlit sky could be
+obtained.  All around was very beautiful, and through the soft,
+scent-laden summer air came the strains of music sounding soft and
+subdued.  There was a delicious languor in the breeze that seemed to
+prison the spirits in a gentle calm; and as Chumbley strolled softly on,
+he said, slowly:
+
+"Well, I don't know, Princess; but just now I seem to fancy that it
+would be just the sort of life that would suit me."
+
+"And Captain Hilton?" said the Princess, smiling.
+
+"I don't know about Hilton," replied Chumbley.  "I fancy he's more
+ambitious than I am.  For my part I should want an elephant, plenty of
+fishing, plenty of shooting--"
+
+"Anything else?" said the Princess, who seemed amused at the young man's
+cool, easy-going way.
+
+"Well, it's a regular paradise out here.  Very beautiful."
+
+"Yes, my country is beautiful," said the Princess.
+
+"Well, if I were to come out to such a place to play Adam, I should want
+an Eve.  You don't understand that."
+
+"What savages you think us," said the Princess, warmly.  "I challenge
+you!  I know more of your religion and history than you do about mine."
+
+"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Chumbley heartily; and the Princess looked angry,
+but afterwards seemed to enjoy the young man's genuine mirth.
+
+"Do you English think it good manners to laugh at a Malay lady?" she
+said reproachfully.
+
+"Laugh?  At you?" he said frankly.  "My dear Princess, I was laughing at
+myself.  Why, I'm one of the most ignorant fellows under the sun.  I
+know my drill, and how to handle a gun; that's about all."
+
+"You depreciate yourself," said the Princess, in an admonitory tone;
+"but I do know who were Adam and Eve.  You mean that if you lived out
+here you would want a wife."
+
+Chumbley nodded.
+
+"Marry Helen Perowne and settle down out here.  I would build you a
+house."
+
+"Heaven forbid!" said Chumbley, laughing.  "No, Princess, I am not one
+of her slaves.  I look at her now as I should at a beautiful picture."
+
+"You look at a beautiful picture?" replied the Princess, wonderingly.
+"Oh, yes, I understand now.  What? so soon!  Well, well, I daresay you
+are right, Mr Harley," she said, in reply to a remark made by the
+Resident.
+
+"Yes, he's quite right, madam," said Dr Bolter, who also bustled up.
+"Dew's falling fast.  We must not have any of my folks down with fever
+after so pleasant a trip."
+
+"I always take your advice, doctor," said the Princess, smiling; "and
+say it is good."
+
+"It is a long way back," said the Resident, smiling.
+
+"Yes, but you have the stream with you," said the Princess.  "Where is
+the Sultan?  There: you shall go.  I will not keep you longer than is
+right, for I want you to come again."
+
+"After so pleasant a welcome, I'm sure all will be too happy," said the
+Resident.
+
+"I shall only be too glad to entertain you," replied the Princess, "if I
+am in a position to do so.  Who knows?  You English refuse to help me;
+and perhaps by another month I may be poor, and little better than a
+slave."
+
+"But with plenty of friends in Sindang," said the little doctor, warmly.
+"Here is one."
+
+"I know it doctor," she replied, taking his outstretched hand.
+
+"Grey, my child," whispered Mrs Doctor, who was some distance away,
+"I'm sure that is a very dreadful woman!  It does not take so long as
+that to shake hands!"
+
+"I think it is only the Princess's manner," replied Grey, smiling.
+
+"And very bad manners too," said the little lady.  "Now, where is
+Arthur?"
+
+"That is he," said Grey, "following Helen with her cloak."
+
+"Now, there!" cried the little lady, angrily, "now is my brother Arthur
+the man to be carrying Helen Perowne's cloak?  Oh, dear me!  I do wish
+we were safe back at home!  I don't like these picnics in savage lands
+at all!"
+
+"Good-bye, if I don't have a chance to speak to you again, Mr
+Chumbley," said the Princess.  "Is not your friend coming to say
+good-bye?  Ah, I see! he is in attendance with your Mr Chaplain upon
+the beauty."
+
+"I'd go and say good-night to Madame Inche Maida, Hilton," whispered
+Chumbley, the next minute to his friend, and the latter went up and
+shook hands, thanking the Princess for the pleasant evening they had
+had, and hoping soon to see her again.
+
+"I thank you," said the Princess, coldly.  "I hope you have enjoyed
+yourself; but, you are keeping Mr Perowne's little girl waiting.
+Good-night."
+
+That was imagination on the Princess's part, for Helen was talking to
+the chaplain, and had her back to them.
+
+"She's a curious woman," said Hilton; "and I don't like her a bit!"
+
+And then, taking advantage of his dismissal, he bowed, and went to where
+Grey Stuart was talking to Mrs Bolter, as a half-way house to Helen, at
+whose side he was soon after.
+
+Half an hour later the whole party were safely embarked.  The boats were
+hung with lanterns, the full moon was above the black jungle-trees, and
+the river looked like molten silver as the oars dipped in regular
+cadence to the rowers' song.  Then on and on floated the two great
+nagas; the whole scene, as they glided between the two black banks of
+trees, being so weirdly beautiful, so novel, and so strange, that it
+affected all present, though in different ways.
+
+Helen was hot and peevish; Mrs Bolter was petulant and fretting about
+the doctor stopping so long away; while Grey Stuart felt as if at the
+smallest provocation she would burst into tears.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"I say, Chum, old fellow," said Hilton, as they stood outside their
+quarters in the brilliant moonlight smoking a cigar before turning in
+for the night, and after a chat about their pleasant passage down to the
+landing-stage--"I say, Chum, old fellow."
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"She doesn't seem to like me, but not a bad sort of woman that
+Princess."
+
+"Not at all.  Pity she's so brown."
+
+"Yes, rather; but I say, Chum."
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"I'll bet a dollar she squeezed your hand when you were coming away,
+eh?"
+
+"Never tell tales out of school," said Chumbley, slowly.  "Squeezes of
+hands leave no impression, so they don't count.  I didn't ask you if you
+squeezed Helen Perowne's hand."
+
+"I shouldn't mind if you did, old lad.  Perhaps so; but don't bother,
+and pass me a match."
+
+Chumbley chuckled softly to himself; and after a time they finished
+their cigars and turned in, the lieutenant sleeping soundly, while the
+rest of the principal personages in this narrative were wakeful and
+tossing from side to side, perhaps the most restless being the
+successful beauty, Helen Perowne.
+
+
+
+VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THIRTY.
+
+THE RETURN PARTY.
+
+Mr Perowne's was acknowledged to be by far the best garden at the
+station; its favourable position--sloping, as it did, down to the
+river--prevented any approach to aridity, and as he had gone to the
+expense of getting three Chinese gardeners--men who were ready enough,
+if not to originate, to take up any suggested idea--the result was a
+charmingly-picturesque succession of smooth lawns and shady walks,
+sheltered by the choicest flowering trees the country produced.
+
+He spared no expense to make the garden attractive, and on the night of
+Helen's twenty-first birthday, when they gave a garden-party, the place,
+with its Chinese lanterns and illuminated summer-houses, had an effect
+that seemed to Grey Stuart the most lovely she had ever seen.
+
+"I quite envy you sometimes," she said, as Helen, in her calm assurance,
+kissed her and welcomed her in a patronising way; "surrounded as you are
+with luxuries, you ought to be very happy."
+
+"And yet I am not," said Helen, bitterly, and she turned to meet some
+fresh arrivals.
+
+"You've a deal to grumble about," said old Stuart, who had heard his
+daughter's words.  "What's all this but show and tinsel?  What's it
+worth?  Bah!"
+
+Her father's words did not comfort her, for she felt very sore; and as
+she strolled with him down one of the paths she thought to herself that
+there was an old fable about a dog in a manger, and in her quiet, homely
+fashion, it seemed to her that Helen was playing that part.
+
+For she had, in her unselfish sorrow, seen that for some little time
+past Hilton was not happy in his love.  Helen was playing with him, and
+he seemed to feel it bitterly, though he was too proud to show it; and
+she thought to herself, what would she not give to be able to whisper
+comfort to the young officer, and pour out for him the riches of her
+love--an impossibility, for in her way she was as proud as Helen
+herself.
+
+"Ah, Mr Stuart!  How do, Miss Stuart?" drawled a voice just behind
+them.  "Glad to see you both.  I say, Miss Stuart, do you want a fellow
+to play cavalier?  I'm quite at liberty.  Mr Stuart, there's plenty of
+claret-cup, champagne, and cigars in the little pagoda, and it's nice
+and cool."
+
+"It's like an oven out here," growled the merchant.  "I say, Grey, you
+don't want me, do you?  Chumbley will take care of you.  Come to me when
+you want to go."
+
+For answer she placed her hand on the lieutenant's arm, and he took her
+round the grounds.
+
+"Looks nice, doesn't it?" he said.  "Seen all the grandees?"
+
+"I have only seen Helen and Mr Perowne," she replied.
+
+"Looks well to-night, 'pon my word.  I saw Murad's eyes light up like a
+firefly as he shook hands with her, but he pulled himself to directly.
+Perowne does these things well.  Old boy must be pretty rich."
+
+"They say he is, very," replied Grey.  "Here is the Rajah coming up.
+Mr Chumbley, I always feel afraid of that man."
+
+"Hold tight by my arm, then, and I'll punch his head if he looks at you.
+He shan't run away with you while I am by."
+
+Grey laughed merrily, and in the midst of her mirth the Rajah came up.
+
+"You English people always seem so bright and merry," he said, smiling,
+and looking very handsome as he stood by the side of a lantern.  "We
+people always feel dull and sad."
+
+"Have a glass of champagne then, Rajah.  It is a fine cure for sadness.
+I say," continued Chumbley, "you'll have to imitate this, and give an
+evening _fete_."
+
+"Yes," he said, eagerly; "I was thinking so.  But I would have more
+lanterns in the trees, and more flowers."
+
+"To be sure," said Chumbley.  "You'll invite me?"
+
+"Will you promise me to come?" said the Rajah, holding out his hand.
+
+"I will indeed," replied Chumbley, grasping it in return.
+
+"And you too, Miss Stuart?"
+
+"You must ask papa," she said, quietly.
+
+"I will," said the Rajah, earnestly.  "Where is he?"
+
+"Having a cigar in the little pagoda, Rajah," replied Chumbley; and the
+Malay Prince nodded and smiled, and went away.
+
+"Here, I say," said Chumbley, as soon as they were alone.  "I'm going to
+have a quarrel, Miss Stuart.  I thought there would have been a chance
+for me, and that my rejected addresses would be accepted, and now you
+have behaved like this."
+
+"What do you mean, Mr Chumbley?  If it is an enigma, I cannot guess it;
+if it is a joke, you must explain it; for I am only a Scottish maiden."
+
+"Joke?--no," he said; "I call it no joke.  Here you and the Rajah have
+the effrontery to make up matters before me."
+
+"I and the Rajah!" cried Grey.
+
+"Yes; you told him to go and ask papa.  I heard you."
+
+"Oh, Mr Chumbley, what a poor joke," she cried; and then she stopped
+short, for the handsome face and stately form of the Inche Maida,
+followed by one attendant, suddenly came upon them from out of a dark
+side-walk.
+
+"Then I was right," she said, holding up her finger at both in turn.
+"You two are lovers."
+
+"And we always talk about other people," said Chumbley, as the Princess
+kissed Grey rather coldly upon the forehead.  "Come along with us, and
+you shall hear."
+
+His frank, easy manner seemed to chase away the Inche Maida's coldness,
+and laying her gloved hand upon the young man's arm, she pressed it
+rather more warmly than English etiquette requires, and together they
+promenaded the grounds, coming twice over upon Hilton, who seemed dull
+and out of sorts; while Helen was full of vivacity, her eyes sparkling,
+her words full of bright repartee; and even the Resident, with his
+rather sardonic humour, seemed to look at her more kindly than usual.
+
+This look seemed to spoil her, for she immediately after began to flirt
+merrily, first with one and then with another, sending poisoned stabs
+through Hilton's breast, and making him gnaw his lip as he darted
+reproachful glances at her from time to time.
+
+Grey saw a good deal of this as the party gradually drew together to
+where an _al fresco_ supper was spread upon the lawn, and her sufferings
+were as acute as those of Hilton.
+
+"She does not care for him in the least," she said to herself, as she
+noted Helen's conduct with a young officer present.
+
+"Miss Stuart, may I take you to a seat?  They are going to have supper
+now."
+
+Grey started and turned pale.  Why had Captain Hilton asked her? she
+thought.  Then her heart answered,--Because Helen was trifling with him.
+
+"I am engaged to Mr Chumbley, I think," she said, coldly, torturing
+herself by her words; for she felt as if she would have given worlds to
+have been seated at his side.
+
+"Perhaps the Princess will allow me to be her escort?" said Hilton,
+stiffly.
+
+"Yes, I will," said the Princess, quickly, and she went with him towards
+the supper-table.
+
+"Well," said Chumbley, "suppose we go and find places, Miss Stuart; only
+if I bore you don't be above telling me."
+
+She turned her soft grey eyes upon him laughingly--
+
+"I am very much obliged to you," she said with a smile; "but I fear you
+will find me very dull company."
+
+"Well, as I'm dull too, it will be all right."
+
+The supper was all that could be desired, and very beautiful everything
+seemed beneath the bright suspended lamps.  Flowers, fruit, all that
+money could provide, were there; and the mingling of English and Eastern
+customs added to the charm of the banquet beneath the great mellow
+stars.
+
+The wine sparkled, merry voices chatted; and the doctor's speech
+proposing their young hostess's good health, and many happy returns of
+the day, was so great a triumph, that Mrs Bolter, who had been looking
+very cross, and trying in vain to get her husband to her side, began to
+seem a little better satisfied, especially as, a few minutes after, he
+came behind her chair and whispered:
+
+"I hope I did not say anything to displease you, my dear."
+
+Then, as the little band, composed of half a dozen soldiers of the
+force, began a waltz, the company strolled once more in couples about
+the grounds; but only to return before long to the front of the house
+and form one huge group composed of smaller groups, with the
+conversation in full swing.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+End of Volume One.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER ONE.
+
+STRANGE BEHAVIOUR.
+
+In a tropical climate, where the days are too often one long punishment
+of heat and weariness, people believe in the dim early mornings and in
+the comparative coolness of the dark star-spangled nights.  The day
+seems there a time for shelter, rest, and often for siestas of a
+protracted kind.  Hence it follows that an evening-party is often drawn
+out long into the night, and guests who are comfortably seated upon a
+cool, dimly-lit lawn feel in no hurry to leave the open air for the
+mosquito-haunted heat of a sleeping-chamber.
+
+But all pleasant things come to an end, and guests began to leave Mr
+Perowne's.  The absence of the two young officers passed unnoticed, and
+several friends took their departure after a glance round, not seeing
+Helen, and concluding that she was engaged.
+
+Mrs Doctor Bolter had been, to use her own expression, "on pins and
+needles" for quite two hours, trying to get the doctor home; but to
+every fresh appeal he had something to say by way of excuse.  This one
+had to be seen--that one had said he wished to have a few words with
+him--it was impossible to go at present.
+
+"Helen Perowne will think it rude of you, my dear," he said,
+reproachfully.  "Go and have a chat with her again."
+
+Mrs Bolter tightened her lips, and made up her mind, as she subsided,
+to talk to the doctor next day; but at last she was driven to extremity,
+and captured her husband after a long hunt--in every minute of which she
+had made more and more sure that he was flirting with some lady in one
+or other of the shady walks.  She found him at last under a tree, seated
+upon one bamboo chair with his legs on another, in company with Grey
+Stuart's father, who was in a precisely similar attitude.  A bamboo
+table was between them, upon which was a homely looking bottle and a
+great glass jug of cold water to help them in the mixings that took
+place occasionally as they sat and smoked.
+
+"Oh, here you are, Dr Bolter," said the lady, with some asperity.
+
+"Yes, my dear, here I am," he replied: "arn't you nearly ready to go?"
+
+Mrs Doctor Bolter gasped, for the effrontery of this remark was
+staggering after she had been spending the last two hours in trying to
+get him away.
+
+"Ready to go!" she exclaimed, angrily.  "I think it is disgracefully
+late; and I can't think how Mr Stuart can sit there so patiently,
+knowing all the while, as he does, that his child ought to be taken
+home."
+
+Mr Stuart chuckled.
+
+"Bolter, old fellow," he said, "you'd better go.  That's just how my
+wife used to talk to me."
+
+"Mr Stuart, I'm surprised at you," said Mrs Doctor, in her most
+impressive manner.
+
+"Yes, it was very rude," he said drily.  "Perhaps you wouldn't mind
+taking Grey home with you?  I don't think I shall come just yet."
+
+"Certainly, I will take the dear child home," replied Mrs Bolter.  "I
+don't think it is proper for her to be here so late."
+
+"Humph!  Who's she with?" said the old merchant.
+
+"The Princess," was the reply.
+
+"Oh, she's all right then.  Good-night, Bolter, if you must go.  Won't
+you have just one wee drappie mair?"
+
+The doctor shook his head with Spartan fortitude, and buttoned up his
+coat, but only to unbutton it directly.
+
+"Good-night, Stuart; we'll take your little lass home."
+
+"Thankye; do," was the reply, and the dry old Scot sat back in his chair
+chuckling, as he saw the doctor marched off.
+
+"Seen Helen about, Stuart?" said Mr Perowne, coming up five minutes
+later.
+
+"No; not for an hour."
+
+"If you see her, tell her I'm up by the drawing-room window.  People
+keep going, and she's not here."
+
+"All right."
+
+"By the way, when can I see you to-morrow?" said Mr Perowne, eagerly.
+"I want to chat over that matter with you."
+
+"I shall be in my office all day if you like to call."
+
+"Yes; to be sure--of course.  I'll call in," said the merchant, hastily,
+as if the business was unpleasant to him; and he went away muttering.
+
+"Hah!" grunted the old merchant, "pride must have a fall, they say; and
+when pride does fall, it always bumps itself pretty hard upon the
+stones."
+
+The remarks made by Mrs Bolter to her husband, as they left the old
+Scotch merchant, were of rather a forcible nature; but there was this
+excuse for her: that she was very hot and extremely tired after the long
+evening in the enervating climate; and this had no doubt acidified her
+temper.  But no matter what she said, the amiable little doctor took it
+all in good part.
+
+He was a naturalist and student of the human frame, and it was quite
+natural, he told himself, that his wife should be cross now that she was
+weary.
+
+"Babies are always fretful when they are tired," he said to himself;
+"and a woman is only a grownup baby.  Poor little soul! she will be all
+right in the morning."
+
+"Why are we going in this direction, Dr Bolter?" said the little lady.
+"This is not the nearest way to the gate."
+
+"Must go and say good-night to Perowne and Madam Helen," he replied.
+
+"They would not miss us," said Mrs Doctor, tartly.  "I daresay we
+should only be interrupting some pleasant flirtation."
+
+"Oh--oh--oh!  I say," said the doctor, jocularly.  "For shame, my dear,
+for shame!  I'll tell Perowne what you say about his flirtations."
+
+"Don't be foolish, Bolter," said his wife, sharply.  "You know what I
+mean."
+
+"What, about Perowne flirting with the ladies?" he said, with a
+smothered chuckle.
+
+"About Helen Perowne," she said, shortly.  "Well, here we are upon the
+lawn, and of course there's no host here and no hostess."
+
+"But there's little Grey," said the doctor.  "By jingo, I'd about
+forgotten her."
+
+"No wonder, sir, when you have been drinking with her father to such an
+extent."
+
+"Fine thing in this climate, my dear," said the doctor.  "Where's
+Arthur?"
+
+"Tired of all this frivolity, I suppose, and gone home like a sensible
+man.  He does not drink whiskey."
+
+"Oh, dear," said the doctor, "I'll never take another drop if you talk
+to me like this, but poison myself with liquor-ammoniae instead."
+
+"Liquor what, sir?"
+
+"Ammonias, my dear, sal-volatile as you call it when you require a
+stimulus.  Well, Grey, my child, we are to take you home."
+
+"So soon, Dr Bolter?" said the Inche Maida, by whose side Grey was
+seated.
+
+"I think it quite late enough, Princess," said Mrs Bolter, austerely.
+"Have you seen my brother?"
+
+"Yes, I saw him following Miss Perowne down the walk," said the
+Princess, quietly enjoying Mrs Bolter's start.  "I suppose it is
+pleasanter and cooler in the dark parts of the garden."
+
+"My brother is fond of meditation," said Mrs Bolter, quietly; and she
+looked very fixedly in the Princess's eyes.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so; and night is so pleasant a time for thought,"
+retorted the Princess.  "You must come with your brother and the doctor,
+and stay with me, Mrs Bolter."
+
+"Thank you, madam," replied the little lady.  "Never, if I know it," she
+said to herself.
+
+"I suppose it is late to English views?" said the Princess, smiling.
+"Good-bye, then, dear Miss Stuart.  I will try and persuade papa to
+bring you to stay with me in my savage home.  You really would come if
+he consented?"
+
+"Indeed I should like it," said Grey, quickly, as she looked frankly in
+the Princess's handsome face, the latter kissing her affectionately at
+parting.
+
+"Now we must say good-night to Perowne and our hostess," said the
+doctor, merrily.  "Come along, my dear, and we'll soon be home.  But I
+say, where are these people?"
+
+Neither Helen nor Mr Perowne was visible; and the replies they received
+to inquiries were of the most contradictory character.
+
+"There, do let us go, Dr Bolter," exclaimed the lady, with great
+asperity now.  "No one will miss us; but if the Perownes do, we can
+apologise to-morrow or next day, when we see them."
+
+"But I should have liked to say good-night," said the doctor.  "Let's
+have one more look.  I daresay Helen is down here."
+
+"I daresay Captain Hilton knows where she is," said Mrs Doctor,
+sharply, and Grey gave quite a start.
+
+"But I can't find Hilton, and I haven't seen Chumbley lately."
+
+"Perhaps they have been sensible enough to go home to bed," said Mrs
+Doctor, after she had been dragged up and down several walks.
+
+"Almost seems as if everybody had gone home to bed," said the doctor,
+rubbing his ear in a vexed manner.  "Surely Perowne and Helen would not
+have gone to bed before the guests had left."
+
+"Well, I'm going to take Grey Stuart home, Doctor," said the lady,
+decisively.  "You can do as you like, but if the hostess cannot
+condescend to give up her own pleasure for her guests', I don't see why
+we should study her."
+
+"Ah, here's Perowne," cried the doctor.  "Good-night, old fellow.  Thank
+you for a pleasant evening.  We are just off.  Where is Madam Helen?"
+
+"Don't know; but don't wait for her," said Mr Perowne; and after a
+friendly leave-taking the party of three moved towards the gates, Mrs
+Doctor heaving a satisfied sigh as they went along.
+
+They had to cross the lawn again, where a goodly group of guests yet
+remained; and as they passed, the Inche Maida smiled and kissed her hand
+to Grey, while the Rajah rose to see them to the gates.
+
+"Not gone yet, Rajah?" said the doctor.  "I say, how are you going to
+get home?"
+
+"My boat is waiting.  We like the night for a journey, and my rowers
+will soon take me back."
+
+"And the Inche Maida, will she go back home to-night?"
+
+"No; I think she is to stay here.  Shall I go and ask her?"
+
+"Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Mrs Doctor, "he does not want to know.
+Good-night, Rajah."
+
+"Good-night--good-night."
+
+They parted at the gate, and the Rajah returned to the lawn, staying
+with the remaining guests till they departed; he and the Inche Maida
+being about the last to leave--the latter being handed by Mr Perowne
+into her boat, for the Rajah was wrong--the Princess had not been
+invited to stay, and her strong crew of boatmen were very soon sending
+the long light naga swiftly up stream, the smoothly-flowing water
+breaking up into myriads of liquid stars, as it seemed to rush
+glittering along on either side while they progressed between the two
+black walls of foliage that ran up from the surface high in air, one
+mass of leafage, from which the lowermost branches kissed the stream.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO.
+
+MISSING.
+
+The hum of a mosquito was about the only sound to be heard in the
+Residency house, as, clad in silken pyjamas, Mr Harley lay sleeping
+easily upon his light bamboo bedstead, dimly seen through the thin gauzy
+curtains by the light of a well-subdued lamp.
+
+The bedroom was furnished in the lightest and coolest way, with matting
+floor and sides, while jalousie shutters admitted the cool night air.
+
+The Resident had been smoking, partly in obedience to a bad bachelor
+habit, partly to keep at bay that Macbeth of insects that haunts all
+eastern rooms, and tries so diligently to murder the sleep of the
+inoffensive and just.
+
+The faint pungent odour of a good cigar still pervaded the room, and the
+extinct end was yet between Neil Harley's white teeth, as he lay there
+dreaming about Helen Perowne, seeing her admired and followed by all the
+single men at the station, while he was the only one who made no sign.
+
+He sighed in his sleep, and then uttered a low moan, as if in spite of
+his placid face and show of indifference he suffered deeply on Helen's
+account; but a calm smile, well resembling indifference, rested upon his
+features, and seemed to say that, come what might, he was patiently
+waiting his time.
+
+Then came a change, for the calmness seemed to be swept away by a gust
+of passion, and the strong man's hands clenched, his brow grew rugged,
+and as if suffering from some acute agony, the white teeth of the
+sleeper closed tightly with a sharp click, and a portion of the
+bitten-through cigar rolled from his lips on to the floor.
+
+Then all was very still.  The heat seemed to grow more intense, and the
+faint ripple of the river, as it glided by the island, could be
+distinctly heard.  Now and then from the distant jungle some wild,
+uneasy cry rose upon the still air, riding as it were across the river
+like a warning to tell the slumbering Europeans that the savagery of the
+primeval forest lay close beside their civilisation; while the wakeful
+might have pondered on the fact that their safety rested solely upon the
+British _prestige_, and that a spark might ignite a train that would
+result in a terrible conflagration sufficient to sweep them all away.
+
+Some such thoughts crossed the sleeping brain of Neil Harley that night,
+and his sleep grew more and more troubled as he thought how love-blinded
+he had been, and the risks they had run from Helen's treatment of the
+young Rajah.
+
+The trouble had passed away now, but such another affair might result in
+ruin to them all; and yet he had allowed her to go on and trifle,
+looking on with assumed indifference, though his heart was stung the
+while.
+
+Neil Harley's sleep again grew restful and calm; for in a pleasant dream
+he fancied that Helen, more beautiful than ever, had bidden him to her
+side, telling him that all her weak and wilful coquetry was but to try
+him.  That she had loved him from the first, for he was the only man who
+had really touched her heart; and that, though she had fought against
+the restraint he had placed upon her, and told herself that she hated
+him and the way in which he had mocked at her trifling, she was his--his
+alone--that she resigned herself to his keeping--his keeping--that of
+the only man who could ever sway her heart.
+
+The night grew hotter still, and the faint breath that was wafted
+between the open laths that covered the window seemed to have passed
+from the mouth of some furnace.  A harsh roar came from the jungle, and
+then a loud plash or two echoed over the surface of the stream, as some
+great reptile plunged in from the muddy bank.
+
+Then all was very still once more for a time, till suddenly the faint
+plash-plash of oars was heard, seeming now to be coming nearer, now to
+be fading away, drowned by the shrill insect hum.  Again it sounded
+nearer, and all doubt of its proceeding from a boat bound for the
+Residency island was ended by the loud challenge of the sentry at the
+landing-place.
+
+Then came voices in reply, and once more the hum of the mosquitoes was
+all that could be heard: now low and deep, now shrill and angry.
+
+The faint lapping of the river and the plash of oars had died away, and
+the silence and heat were painful enough to draw a low sigh from the
+sleeper, just as the bedroom door was softly opened, and a dark figure
+glided in, crept over the matting floor without making a sound, and bent
+over the bed.
+
+For the moment it seemed as though he was there upon some errand of ill;
+and one who watched would have been ready to raise an alarm, the
+insecurity of the station life being sufficient to warrant such a
+supposition; but the idea of the dark figure being bent on an evil
+errand was at once destroyed, for after waiting for a moment, he cried,
+softly:
+
+"Master--master!"
+
+The Resident started lip with the sudden awakening of a man accustomed
+to suspect peril at every turn, and his hand darted beneath his pillow
+even as he raised himself, to be withdrawn grasping the butt of a loaded
+revolver.
+
+"Ah, you Ling," he said, with a sigh of relief, as he lowered his hand.
+"What is it?  Someone ill?"
+
+"Mr Perowne has come across in his boat, sir."
+
+"Mr Perowne? at this time! what does he want?"
+
+"To see you, sir."
+
+"Tell him I'll be there directly."  The Chinese servant glided away as
+silently as he had come, and the Resident hastily dashed some water in
+his face to clear away the sleepy feeling.
+
+"I hope nothing serious!" he muttered.  "Has Helen been taken ill?"
+
+A pang shot through him at the thought, and the reckless behaviour of
+the night, that had stung him again and again during the course of the
+evening, was forgiven.
+
+"Poor child!" he muttered.  "I believe she loves me, and bird-like, is
+fluttering and timorously striving to escape from the string that holds
+her."  He glanced at his watch as it hung upon a stand.  "Two o'clock.
+I have not been in bed above an hour.  What can be wrong?"
+
+The next minute he was in the dining-room, where he found Mr Perowne
+agitatedly walking up and down; but as soon as the Resident entered he
+advanced and caught him fiercely by the arm.  "Harley, do you know
+anything of this?" he cried.
+
+"Of this?  Of what?"
+
+"Helen!  Where is she?"
+
+"Helen?  In bed and asleep I hope.  What do you mean?"
+
+"I missed her somewhere about eleven.  I have not seen her since."
+
+The Resident looked curiously at Mr Perowne, whose flushed face and
+excited manner seemed to suggest that he had been playing the host too
+freely during the evening, and to his own deterioration in balance.
+
+"Tired, and gone to bed.  A bit peevish with weariness," suggested the
+Resident, who drove back a curious sense of uneasiness that troubled
+him.
+
+"No," said Mr Perowne, hoarsely; "she has not gone to bed, and the
+house and the gardens have been searched again and again.  Do you know
+anything of this?"
+
+"I?  Absurd!  I left in good time.  I bade her good-night when she was
+talking to the chaplain; he was trying to persuade her to let him cover
+her shoulders with the shawl he carried."
+
+The Resident ceased speaking to dwell for a moment upon the luminous
+look he had seen Helen bestow upon the chaplain--a look meant, he told
+himself, to annoy him, while he knew that it would give poor Rosebury
+food for sweet reflection during weeks to come.
+
+"It is very strange," said Mr Perowne excitedly; and his haggard gaze
+was directed about the place, as if he half expected to find that Helen
+was there.  "Where did you see her last, do you say?"
+
+"Talking to Rosebury, and before then she was with Hilton.  I fancy they
+were having words.  Well, perhaps I ought hardly to say that; but Hilton
+was certainly remonstrating angrily."
+
+"When was that?"
+
+"Half-past ten or eleven; I cannot say for certain."
+
+"Let us go and see Hilton," said Mr Perowne; "but stay.  Am I to
+believe you, Harley?"
+
+"As you please, Mr Perowne," said the Resident, with dignity.  "Why
+should you doubt my word?"
+
+"I do not doubt it!" cried Mr Perowne, catching his hand.  "Pity me,
+Harley.  I seem cold and strange; but I love that girl, and she is
+gone."
+
+He gasped painfully as he spoke, but smiled sadly directly after as the
+Resident warmly grasped his hand.
+
+"One minute," said the Resident; and hastily adding something to his
+clothing, he joined his visitor again, and the two sallied forth into
+the still, hot night, to make their way to the little fort, which was
+stronghold and barracks in one.
+
+Here they were challenged by another sentry, for, peaceful times as they
+were, the military arrangements were always kept upon the sternest war
+footing.
+
+"We want to see Captain Hilton," said Mr Harley, in his quick,
+commanding way.
+
+"Captain's ashore, sir.  He went to Mr Perowne's party."
+
+"Yes, yes," said that gentleman; "we know: but he has come back."
+
+"No, sir; not while I've been on guard--three hours, sir."
+
+"Call the sergeant," said Mr Harley, sharply.
+
+He needed no calling, for, hearing voices, he had come out to see who
+came so late.
+
+"Where is Captain Hilton?"
+
+"I thought he was stopping to sleep at Mr Perowne's, sir," said the
+sergeant, saluting.  "Hasn't been back.  Beg pardon, sir; didn't see it
+was Mr Perowne."
+
+"But he left my house hours ago," said that gentleman.
+
+"Gone to stay at Dr Bolter's, perhaps, sir," suggested the sergeant.
+
+"Are you sure he did not return while your back was turned?" said Mr
+Harley.
+
+"Quite sure, sir.  Still, he might, sir; it's no use to be too sure.
+Like to go to his quarters, sir?"
+
+"Yes, we'll go in," said the Resident, quickly; and following the
+sergeant, after exchanging glances, the two gentlemen entered Hilton's
+room.
+
+The bed had not been pressed, and everything was in order, just as the
+regimental servant had placed it after his master had dressed to attend
+the evening _fete_.
+
+"Mr Chumbley hasn't come back neither," said the sergeant.
+
+"Not come back!" said the Resident, wondering.  "This is strange.  I
+don't know, though.  They have gone to smoke a cigar with someone, and
+then decided to stay all night."
+
+Mr Perowne shook his head, and the Resident felt that his explanation
+was not good, and both were silent as they walked back towards the
+entrance of the fort.
+
+"What does this mean?" said Mr Perowne, at last.
+
+"Can't say yet," replied the Resident, sharply.  "Sergeant, have a look
+round, and make sure that Captain Hilton and Mr Chumbley have not come
+back."
+
+"Yes, sir, I'll look round," said the sergeant; "but they couldn't have
+landed without the sentries knowing."
+
+"Go and see," said the Resident, sternly; and the sergeant saluted and
+walked away.
+
+"They must be staying somewhere," said the Resident, who suffered from
+the desire to keep back the question that so agitated his breast.
+"Depend upon it, they have gone to the doctor's to smoke a cigar."
+
+He felt as he spoke that this was impossible; for he was sure that the
+hours kept at the doctor's were too regular for such a relapse.
+
+"And my daughter?" said Mr Perowne, in a cold, stern voice.
+
+"I'll have the men out to search if it is necessary," said the Resident,
+eagerly; "but before we proceed to such an extreme measure, had we not
+better make more inquiries?  Yours is a large house and grounds.  She
+may be back by now."
+
+Neil Harley felt a strange choking sensation as he spoke, and he knew
+that his words were weak; but he clung to the hope that there was some
+mistake, and that Helen was by now safely at home.
+
+"She may," said Mr Perowne, bitterly.  "But it seems to me that there
+is some trick here.  I gave you the credit of it at first."
+
+"Am I a man so wanting in respect for Helen that I should insult her and
+you?"
+
+"I--I can't help it, Harley!" groaned the father.  "There seems to be no
+end to my troubles!"
+
+The Resident looked at him sharply, for that evening he had seemed all
+life and gaiety.
+
+"Yes, you may look!" groaned the unhappy man; "but everything goes wrong
+with me.  There is, I am sure, some planned affair here; and I believe
+that Hilton is at the bottom of it."
+
+"Do not be so ready to condemn, Perowne," said the Resident, quickly.
+"I feel sure that Hilton would be guilty of no rash, foolish escapade
+like this.  It is absurd!  Good heavens, man! do you think that Helen
+would degrade herself by eloping?  I will not believe it!"
+
+"I wish I could feel you were right," groaned the unhappy father.
+
+"Why Chumbley is away too.  It is like saying that he is implicated."
+
+"He is Hilton's chosen companion," said Mr Perowne, sadly.
+
+"Tut, man; we shall have to look farther afield than that."
+
+"Then why are they not here to speak for themselves?" cried Mr Perowne,
+in a querulous, excited way.  "Hilton has been constantly hanging about
+my place a great deal more than Helen liked, and she showed it to-night
+by completely turning her back upon him."
+
+"But surely you do not think that Hilton--" began the Resident.
+
+"I do not think anything," said Mr Perowne, angrily.  "But here is the
+fact before us: my daughter is missing, and Captain Hilton has not
+returned to his quarters."
+
+"Neither has Chumbley," said the Resident, uneasily.
+
+"Neither has Chumbley," assented Mr Perowne.
+
+"A man who, beneath his languid indifference, is the soul of honour,"
+said the Resident; and he led the way to the boat by which Mr Perowne
+had come across.
+
+The men were lying in the bottom asleep; but they roused up directly as
+the two gentlemen entered and were rowed to the landing-stage at the
+foot of Mr Perowne's garden, where the swift stream was lapping the
+stones placed to keep it from washing the lawn away.
+
+As they were rowed across Neil Harley found himself looking thoughtfully
+down into the water time after time, and a curious shuddering sensation
+came upon him, one which he strove hard to cast off.
+
+He could not, he would not believe it possible, he told himself; but in
+spite of his efforts, and the mastery he generally had over self, the
+thought would come.
+
+They found the servants ready with the answer that nothing had been seen
+of their young mistress, though they had continued searching ever since
+their master had gone away.
+
+"Shall we look round ourselves?" said Mr Perowne.
+
+"No, if you say the house has been searched."
+
+"I have been in every room myself."
+
+"Then let us go on to the doctor's.  We may find Hilton and Chumbley
+there, and they perhaps can throw some light upon the matter."
+
+Mr Perowne bowed, and they hurried off to the doctor's pretty bungalow,
+a short distance away.
+
+"They are not here, unless they are stopping to sleep."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"There is no light."
+
+All the same the Resident tapped sharply at the door, and his summons
+was followed by a thump on the floor, as if someone had leaped out of
+bed.
+
+The next moment a window was thrown open, and the doctor's voice was
+heard.
+
+"Now then: who's ill?"
+
+"Don't be alarmed, doctor," said the Resident.
+
+"Oh, it's you, Harley.  Had too much supper?"
+
+"No, no.  Tell me quickly.  Did Hilton and Chumbley come home with you?"
+
+"No; they went away ever so long before."
+
+"Did you see them go?"
+
+"No.  Can't say I did."
+
+"They have not been back to their quarters."
+
+"Stopped to have a cigar somewhere."
+
+"Perhaps so; but tell me, when did you see Hilton last?"
+
+"I don't know.  Oh, yes, I do.  He went down towards the river, with a
+cigar in his mouth."
+
+"When did you see my daughter?" said Mr Perowne.
+
+"Oh! are you there, Perowne?  Well, I don't know.  Not for an hour
+before we came away."
+
+"An hour and a half," said Mrs Bolter's voice.  "We didn't see her when
+we came away."
+
+"Did she go away with anyone, Mrs Bolter?" exclaimed Perowne, eagerly.
+
+"No; I saw her walk towards the house by herself.  I'll get up and dress
+directly.  Perhaps I can do some good.  The poor girl has been overcome
+by the heat, Bolter, and fainted away somewhere in the grounds.  We'll
+both dress and come on directly, Mr Perowne.  Have the shrubberies
+searched again.  Henry, go and rouse up Arthur; he may be useful."
+
+"Yes, call him," said the Resident; "he was seen with her last, and may
+know where she went."
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THREE.
+
+IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.
+
+All Mrs Bolter's dislike to Helen vanished now that there was trouble
+on the way; and dressing hastily, she ran across the little bamboo
+landing to knock at her brother's door, but without receiving any
+answer, and knocking again sharply, she ran back to her own room to
+continue dressing.
+
+She threw open the window to admit a few breaths of fresher air, and in
+the silence of the night she could hear the receding steps of their late
+visitors.  Then turning sharply she found Dr Bolter yawning fearfully.
+
+"Don't be so unfeeling, Henry!" she cried; "who knows what may have
+happened?"
+
+"Unfeeling be hanged!" he said, tetchily.  "I only yawned."
+
+"And very rudely, Henry.  You did not place your hand before your
+mouth."
+
+"A yawn, Mrs Bolter," he said didactically, "is the natural effort made
+for ridding the system--"
+
+"Of the effects of too much smoking and drinking," said Mrs Doctor,
+quickly.  "There, do make haste and dress, and then call Arthur again.
+He does not seem to be moving.  How soundly he sleeps.  He did not hear
+us when we came home or he would have spoken."
+
+"Oh, dear!" yawned the doctor.  "I was just in my beauty sleep, and this
+calling me up is the heigh--hey--ho--ha--hum!  Oh! dear me!  I beg your
+pardon, my dear."
+
+"Are you nearly ready, Henry?" said the lady, who would not notice the
+last most portentous yawn.
+
+"Where the--"
+
+"Henry!"
+
+"I mean where are my studs?  Oh! all right."
+
+"Go and see if Arthur is awake, and tell him to get up directly."
+
+The doctor went slowly and sleepily out of the door, fumbling with his
+studs the while; and without pausing to knock, walked straight into his
+brother-in-law's room.
+
+"Here, Arthur, old man, rouse up!" he cried.  "We're going on to--hullo!
+Here, Mary, he hasn't been to bed!" he shouted.
+
+"Not been to bed!" cried the little lady.  "Why, Arthur, you foolish--"
+
+"He isn't here, my dear," said the doctor.
+
+"But--but he was here when we came back, was he not?" said Mrs Bolter.
+
+"I don't know; I only knocked at his door.  I was too sleepy to speak,
+my dear."
+
+"Oh!  Henry," exclaimed Mrs Bolter, excitedly, "something must have
+happened, or dear Arthur would not have stopped away like this."
+
+"I--I hope not," said the doctor.  "There, be calm, my dear; we know
+nothing yet."
+
+"Yes--yes, I will be calm," said the little lady, fighting hard to
+master her excitement; "but, Henry, if we have brought my poor brother
+over here to be the victim of some terrible accident, I shall never
+forgive myself."
+
+"Oh, stuff--stuff!" cried the doctor, as they looked round the room to
+find that the bed had not been touched.  "Don't jump at conclusions.
+What did Harley say?"
+
+"That Arthur was seen last with Helen Perowne--in the garden, I
+suppose."
+
+"What?  Our Arthur was seen with her last?  She missing--he missing--
+why, by jingo, Mary, that handsome puss has run away with him!"
+
+The doctor burst into a hearty, chuckling laugh.
+
+"Is this a time for jesting, Henry?" said Mrs Bolter, angrily.
+
+"Not at all, my dear," replied the doctor, "only it looks as if Arthur
+had made up his mind to do something startling."
+
+"Arthur--something startling!  What do you mean?"
+
+"That he seems to have bolted with Helen Perowne!"
+
+"Henry!"
+
+"Well, my dear, they were seen together last, and they are now missing.
+What is one to say?"
+
+"If you cannot say words of greater wisdom than that, Henry, pray be
+silent."
+
+"All right, my dear--come along."
+
+But if the doctor was disposed to be silent, so was not his lady, who
+began to find out cause after cause for her brother's absence.
+
+"Someone is ill, I'm sure, Henry, and Arthur has been summoned to the
+bedside."
+
+"Nonsense!  If anyone were ill," said the doctor, testily, "I should be
+sent for; and there is no one ill now, though we shall have half a dozen
+poorly to-morrow after that supper of Perowne's."
+
+"Then some terrible accident has happened," said Mrs Bolter.  "Arthur
+would never have stopped away like this without some special reason."
+
+"Well, we shall see," said the doctor.
+
+"Henry," said the lady, suddenly; and she came to a full stop.
+
+"Yes, my dear."
+
+"Do you think it likely that Helen Perowne--poor foolish girl--would do
+such a thing?"
+
+"What, as to run off with Arthur?" chuckled the little doctor.
+
+"For shame, Henry!  I say do you think she is likely to have walked down
+to the river-side because it is cool and slipped in?  There is not the
+slightest protection."
+
+"No, my dear, I do not think anything of the sort," replied the doctor,
+angrily.  "She is a deal more likely to be courting some coxcomb or
+another in a shady walk, and they have forgotten all about the time."
+
+"Absurd!" exclaimed Mrs Bolter.  "Absurd, eh?  Why, that's what she is
+always thinking about.  How many fellows has she been flirting with
+since we knew her?"
+
+"I am waiting for you, Dr Bolter," said the lady, austerely, "and I
+must say that I think your words are very unfeeling indeed."
+
+"I'll bleed her if she has fainted!" said the doctor, grimly.  "I should
+like to bleed that girl, old-fashioned as the notion is!  If I don't,
+I'll give her such a dosing as she shan't forget in a hurry--calling a
+fellow up like this!"
+
+They hurried out into the star-lit night, with everything seeming hushed
+and strange.  The trees whispered low from time to time; then came a
+sullen splash from the river, as if some huge creature had just plunged
+in.  Once or twice came a peculiar, weird-sounding cry from the jungle--
+one which made Mrs Doctor forget her annoyance with her husband and
+creep close to his side.  Just then they heard hurried footsteps.  "Did
+you bring your pistols with you, dear?" whispered Mrs Bolter.
+
+"No," he said, sharply; "I've got a rhubarb draught, a bottle of
+chlorodyne, the sal-volatile, and a lancet.  That will be enough.  Think
+I meant to shoot the girl?"
+
+"Don't be absurd, dear!  Take care, there is someone coming."
+
+"Another call for me!" grumbled the doctor, sleepily.  "That's the
+effect of giving parties in a hot climate.  Hullo!"
+
+"Yes, doctor," said a familiar voice.
+
+"Oh! it's you two.  Well have you found her all right?"
+
+"We've been to Stuart's," said the Resident, sharply.
+
+"Well, what news?"
+
+"They have not seen or heard of either of them," replied the Resident.
+
+"Do you know that my--"
+
+"Oh, hush!" whispered Mrs Doctor, excitedly, "you had better not--"
+
+"Why, they must know it, my dear," he whispered back.  "It is of no use
+to hide anything."
+
+"I did not understand you, doctor," said the Resident.
+
+"I say that my brother-in-law, Rosebury, has not been home."
+
+"The chaplain!" cried Mr Harley, and he stopped short upon the path.
+
+"Hasn't been home," continued the doctor.  "They've all gone in
+somewhere.  Who else is away?"
+
+"Hilton and Chumbley."
+
+"Oh, it's all right.  They're somewhere; but it's very foolish of them
+to frighten some people and rouse others up like this," said the doctor.
+
+"I hope we shall find a pleasant solution of what is at present a
+mystery," said the Resident.  "Mrs Bolter, it is very kind of you to
+come," he added, warmly.
+
+"Yes; I thank you too," said Perowne, in a dreamy, absent way.  "It is
+very strange; but where is Miss Stuart?"
+
+"Stuart said she was asleep," said the Resident.
+
+"Oh, to be sure.  Yes; I remember," said Mr Perowne.
+
+"We took her safely home," said Mrs Bolter, quickly.
+
+They had not far to go to the gates of the merchant's grounds, but it
+seemed to all to be a long and dreary walk past the various dark houses
+of the European and native merchants, not one of which gave any token of
+the life within.
+
+The gates were open, and they walked over the gritting gravel to where
+the door stood, like the windows of the bungalow, still open, and a lamp
+or two were yet burning in the grounds, one of which paper lanterns, as
+they approached, caught fire, and blazed up for a moment and then hung,
+a few shreds of tinder, from a verdant arch.
+
+It was a mere trifle, but it seemed like a presage of some trouble to
+the house, seen as it was by those who approached, three of the party
+being in that unreal, uncomfortable state suffered by all who are roused
+from their sleep to hear that there is "something wrong."
+
+The servants looked soared as they entered, and announced that they had
+been looking, as they expressed it, "everywhere" without success.
+
+Lanterns were lit and a thorough exploration of the grounds followed,
+the only result being that a glove was found--plainly enough one that
+had been dropped by someone walking near the river.
+
+That was all, and the night passed with the searchers awaking everyone
+they knew in turn, but to obtain not the slightest information; and
+daybreak found the father looking older and greyer by ten years as he
+stood in his office facing the Resident, the doctor, and Mrs Bolter,
+and asking what they should do next.
+
+"We must have a thorough daylight search," said Mr Harley.  "Then the
+boatmen must all be examined.  It hardly appears probable, but Hilton
+and Chumbley may have proposed a water trip.  It seems to us now, cool
+and thoughtful, a mad proposal, but still it is possible."
+
+"Yes, and Helen would not go without my brother to take care of her,"
+said Mrs Bolter, triumphantly, for she had been longing for some
+explanation of her brother's absence, and this was the first that
+offered.
+
+"Oh, no, Mary," said the doctor, crushing her hopes as he shook his
+head.
+
+"No, Mrs Bolter," said the Resident, slowly; and he seemed to be
+speaking and thinking deeply the while.  "I am sure Miss Perowne could
+not be guilty of so imprudent an act."
+
+"No," said her father, speaking now more boldly and without reserve.
+"You are right, Harley.  Helen loves admiration, but she would not have
+compromised herself in such a way, neither would Mr Rosebury have given
+such an act his countenance."
+
+The Resident raised his head as if to speak, and then remained silent.
+
+"What are you thinking, Harley," said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, pray speak out," cried Mrs Bolter.  "I am sure we are all only
+too anxious to find some comfort."
+
+"I was thinking of what could have happened to them, for depend upon it
+they are all together."
+
+"Yes," said Mr Perowne; "but you were thinking more than that."
+
+"I must think," said the Resident.  "I cannot say anything definite
+now."
+
+"Then I know what it is," cried Mrs Bolter.
+
+"Will you kindly speak out, madam?" said the old merchant, harshly.
+
+"I should be sorry to accuse falsely," said Mrs Bolter, excitedly; "but
+I was warned of this, and I can't help thinking that someone else is at
+the bottom of this night's work."
+
+"And who's that?" said the doctor, quickly.
+
+Mrs Bolter was silent.
+
+"Rajah Murad, you mean," said the doctor, quickly; "and he has been
+waiting his time."
+
+"And now strikes at us like a serpent in the dark!" cried Mr Perowne,
+angrily.  "It is the Malay character all over.  Heaven help me!  My poor
+girl!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+MRS BARLOW.
+
+Mr Perowne's house was literally besieged the next morning, for the
+news of the disappearance ran through the little community like
+wildfire.  British and native communities were equally excited; and
+after snatching an hour's rest at the imperative command of his wife,
+the doctor was hastily swallowing some breakfast previous to going back
+to Mr Perowne's, but could hardly get on for interruptions.
+
+"I am not alarmed, Henry," said the little lady, in a quiet, decided
+way; "and I insist upon your being properly fortified before unduly
+exerting yourself.  I could not bear for you to be ill."
+
+The words were said very quietly, but in such a tone that Dr Bolter set
+down his cup, and rising, left his place, and tenderly embraced the
+earnest little woman he had made his wife.
+
+"I will take all the care I can, my dear Mary," he said.
+
+"I know you will, Henry," said the little lady, whose lip quivered
+slightly as she spoke; "but now go and finish your breakfast, and then
+start.  Don't be uneasy about me, dear, but go and do what you think
+best under the circumstances."
+
+"I will, my love--I will," said Dr Bolter, with his mouth full of
+toast.
+
+"It all sounds very alarming, dear, but I cannot help thinking that it
+will be explained in a very simple manner."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"You see there are four of them; and as Arthur is one, I think we may
+feel assured."
+
+"Well, my dear these are business times," said the doctor, "and we must
+speak in business ways.  Arthur is the best old fellow in the world; but
+I am sorry to say that he is a terrible old woman."
+
+"Henry!" said the lady, reproachfully.
+
+"Well, my dear, he is.  Now, would you have much confidence in him if it
+were a case of emergency?"
+
+"I--I think I would sooner trust to you, Henry," said the little lady,
+softly; "but do make haste and get a good breakfast.  If you want me,
+send a message, and I will come directly."
+
+"All right," said the doctor, rising once more.  "Now I'm off."
+
+"But one moment, Henry," said the little lady, whose feelings now got
+the upper hand.  "Tell me, dear--do you think anything dreadful has
+happened?"
+
+"What do you call dreadful, my dear?" said the doctor, cheerily.
+
+"That the crocodiles--"
+
+She did not finish, but looked imploringly at her lord.
+
+"Bah!--stuff!--nonsense!  No, Mary, I don't."
+
+"Then that this dreadful Rajah has carried them off?"
+
+"If it had only been Madam Helen, I should have felt suspicious; but
+what could he want with Hilton and Chumbley, or with our Arthur?"
+
+"To marry them," suggested Mrs Bolter.
+
+"Stuff! my dear, not he.  If Murad had carried her off, he would not
+have bothered about a parson."
+
+"But Arthur was waiting about her all the evening."
+
+"So he was, my dear."
+
+"And he may have killed Hilton and poor Mr Chumbley, while they were
+defending her."
+
+"Yes, he might, certainly," said the doctor, drily; "but how the--"
+
+"Henry!"
+
+"I only meant dickens.  I say how the dickens he was going to carry her
+off when he was at the party all the time I can't see."
+
+"But was he?"
+
+"To the very last.  Oh! it will all settle itself into nothing, unless
+Arthur has taken Helen off into the jungle and married her himself, with
+Hilton and Chumbley for witnesses."
+
+"Is this a time for joking, Henry?" said the little lady, reproachfully.
+
+"Really, my dear, it would be no joke if Arthur had his own way."
+
+"I'm afraid," sighed little Mrs Bolter, "that Helen Perowne had a good
+deal to with my brother accepting the chaplaincy."
+
+"I'm sure she had," chuckled the doctor.
+
+"If I had thought so I would never have consented to come," said the
+lady with asperity.
+
+"Wouldn't you, Mary?  Wouldn't you?" said the little doctor, taking her
+in his arms; and the lady withdrew her words just as a step was heard
+outside.
+
+"Here's another stoppage," cried the doctor, impatiently.  "Why, it's
+Mrs Barlow.  What does she want?"
+
+Mrs Barlow was a widow lady of about forty, the relict of a well-to-do
+merchant of the station, who, after her widowhood, preferred to stay and
+keep her brother's house to going back to England; at any rate, as she
+expressed it, for a few years.
+
+She was one of the set who visited at Mr Perowne's, and had also been
+at the trip up the river to the Inche Maida's home; but being a
+decidedly neutral-tinted lady, in spite of her black attire, she was so
+little prominent that mention of her has not been necessary until now.
+
+"Stop a minute;" she exclaimed, excitedly, as she arrested the doctor on
+his step.
+
+"Not ill, are you, Mrs Barlow?" queried the doctor.
+
+"Not bodily, doctor," she began, "but--"
+
+"My wife is inside, my dear madam," cried the doctor, "and I must be
+off."
+
+"Stop!" exclaimed Mrs Barlow, authoritatively; and she took the little
+doctor's arm, and led him back into the breakfast-room.  "You are his
+brother, Dr Bolter.  Mrs Bolter, you are his sister, ma'am.  I can
+speak freely to you both."
+
+"Of course, madam, of course," said the doctor; and then to himself,
+"Has the woman been taking _very_ strong tea?"
+
+"I have only just learned the terrible news, Dr Bolter--Mrs Bolter,"
+cried the lady, "and I came on to you."
+
+"Very kind of you I am sure, ma'am."
+
+"What do you think, doctor?  You have some idea."
+
+"Not the least at present, ma'am.  I was just off to see."
+
+"That is good of you; but tell me first," cried the widow, half
+hysterically.  "You do not--you cannot think--that that dreadful
+woman--"
+
+"What, the Inche Maida, ma'am?"
+
+"No, no!  I mean Helen Perowne--has deluded him into following her away
+to some other settlement."
+
+"Whom, ma'am, Hilton or Chumbley?"
+
+"Oh, dear me, no, doctor; I mean dear Mr Rosebury."
+
+"Oh, you mean dear Mr Rosebury, do you?" said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, Dr Bolter; oh, yes.  Tell me; do you think that dreadful girl has
+deluded him away?"
+
+"No, ma'am, I don't," cried the doctor, stoutly.  "Hang it all, no!  I'd
+give her the credit of a good deal, but not of that.  Hang it, no."
+
+"Thank you, doctor," said the lady hysterically.  "Of course I should
+have forgiven it, and set it all down to her; but you do me good,
+doctor, by assuring me that my surmise is impossible.  What do you think
+then?"
+
+"That it's all a mystery for us to find out, and I was going to hunt it
+up when you stopped me, ma'am."
+
+"Excuse me, Mrs Barlow," said little Mrs Bolter, who had been
+fidgeting about, and waiting for an opportunity to speak, "but will you
+kindly explain what you mean by your very particular allusions to my
+brother?"
+
+"Must I?" said the lady, with a martyred look.
+
+"If you please, ma'am," said Mrs Bolter, sternly; and the little lady
+looked as if she were ready to apply the moral thumbscrews and the rack
+itself to the visitor if she did not make a clean breast.
+
+"Do you not know?" whispered Mrs Barlow, with a pathetic look, and a
+timidly bashful casting down of the eyes.
+
+"No, ma'am, I do not," said little Mrs Bolter, haughtily.
+
+"I thought you must have known," sighed the lady.  "But under these
+circumstances, when he may be in terrible peril, perhaps crying aloud,
+`Rosina, come to my aid,' why should I shrink from this avowal?  I am
+_not_ ashamed to own it.  Ah, Dr Bolter--oh, Mrs Bolter--I have loved
+him from his first sermon, when he looked down at me and seemed to
+address me with that soft, impressive voice which thrilled the very
+fibres of my heart, and now he is gone--he is gone!  What does it mean!
+What shall we do?"
+
+"Mary, you'd better administer a little sal-volatile, my dear," said the
+doctor.  "You know the strength; I'm off."
+
+The doctor backed out of the room, leaving Mrs Barlow sobbing on the
+sofa, and hurried off in the direction of the Residency, talking to
+himself on the way.
+
+"This is something fresh!" he muttered; "and it isn't leap-year either.
+Rum creatures women!  I wonder what Mary is saying to her now!  Here,
+paddle me across," he said to one of the natives who was cleaning out
+his sampan ready for any passengers who might want to be put across to
+the island.
+
+As he neared the landing-stage, he found Mr Harley anxiously busy
+despatching boat after boat up and down stream, each boat being paddled
+by a couple of friendly natives, and containing a noncommissioned
+officer and private selected for their intelligence.
+
+"Ah! that's right, Harley!" said the doctor, rubbing his hands after a
+friendly salute, and the information given and taken that there was not
+the slightest news of the missing people.  "But don't you think we ought
+to take some steps ashore?"
+
+"Wait a moment; let me ease my mind by getting these fellows off," said
+the Resident hoarsely; and he gave the men the strictest injunctions to
+carefully search the banks of the river, and also to closely question
+every Malay they met as to whether anything of the missing party had
+been seen.  Eight boats had been sent off upon this mission, the men
+accepting the task readily enough, irrespective of the promise of
+reward; and hardly had the last been despatched, when the Resident
+proposed that they should go across to Mr Perowne's.
+
+"It is only fair to consult him as to our next proceedings," said the
+Resident, gloomily; and almost in silence they were paddled across to
+the mainland, and went up to the scene of last night's festivities,
+where everything looked dismal and in confusion.  Half-burnt lanterns
+hung amidst the trees, tables and chairs were piled up anyhow in the
+grounds, and the lawn was strewn with the _debris_ of the feast yet
+uncleared away, the attention of the servants having been so much
+occupied with their search.
+
+The two new-comers found Mr Perowne quite prostrate with this terrible
+anxiety, and Mr Stuart trying, with his daughter, to administer some
+little consolation in the way of hope.
+
+"Cheer up, mon!" the old Scot was saying.  "I daresay she'll turn up all
+right yet."
+
+Mr Perowne looked at him so reproachfully that the old Scot paused and
+then turned uneasily away.
+
+"Poor wretch!" he muttered; "he has trouble eneuch--enough I mean."
+
+"Ah!  Harley, what news?" cried Mr Perowne.
+
+"None as yet," was the reply.
+
+"Have you sent out boats?"
+
+"Yes, eight; and let us hope that they will discover something."
+
+"But you do not think they will?"
+
+The Resident was silent.
+
+"Harley here thinks that the Rajah is at the bottom of it all," said the
+doctor.
+
+"Impossible!" cried the unhappy father.  "He was here when she was
+missed, or I might have suspected him.  I fear it is something worse
+than even that."
+
+"I cannot help my suspicions," said the Resident, quietly.  "Perhaps I
+wrong him."
+
+"I think ye do, Harley," said the old Scot.  "I saw him here long after
+Miss Helen must have been gone.  I'm thinking she and the young officers
+have taken a boat and gone down the river for a wee bit of game, seeing
+the night was fine."
+
+"Oh! papa," cried Grey, "I am sure Helen would not have been so
+imprudent."
+
+"I'm sure it's very kind of ye to think so well o' your schoolfellow,
+but I'm no' so sure.  Trust me, the Rajah had no hand in the matter."
+
+"He has plenty of servants who would work his will," said the Resident,
+thoughtfully; "but this charge of mine must not go forth to Murad's
+ears.  If I am wronging an innocent man, we shall have made a fresh
+enemy; and Heaven knows we have enough without that!"
+
+"You may be right," said the doctor, "but I have my doubts."
+
+"He's wrong," said old Stuart.  "He's not the man with the spirit in him
+to do so stirring a thing."
+
+"And he would never take off those two young fellows and my
+brother-in-law."
+
+"I begin to think he has," said Perowne, snatching at the solution once
+more, after holding the opinion and casting it off a dozen times.  "He
+has never forgiven her for her refusal.  Are we to sit still under his
+insult, Harley?  You have plenty of men under your command."
+
+"True," said the Resident; "but should I be justified in calling them
+out and making a descent on Murad's town upon the barest suspicion?"
+
+Suggestion after suggestion was offered, as the reason of the Resident's
+remark was fully realised; but as time went on the little knot of
+English people more fully than ever realised how helpless they were in
+the midst of the Malays, whose good offices they were compelled to
+enlist.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+A NEW PHASE.
+
+The meeting was soon after strengthened by the arrival of Mrs Bolter
+and the principal ladies of the little community, when before long it
+became evident that Helen Perowne's behaviour had made the ladies of one
+mind.
+
+Their sole idea was that which found vent at last from the lips of Mrs
+Bolter, who, after a good deal of pressing as to her belief, gave it:
+
+"I am very sorry to express my feelings upon the subject," she said,
+"and perhaps I am prejudiced; but I cannot help thinking that Miss
+Perowne has eloped with Captain Hilton, and Lieutenant Chumbley has gone
+with them to save appearances."
+
+"That doesn't account for Rosebury's disappearance, my dear," said the
+doctor, rather tartly, for he was annoyed at his wife's decided tone.
+
+"I am sorry to say that Miss Perowne," continued the lady, "had gained a
+great deal of influence over my brother, and I daresay he would have
+acquiesced in anything she wished him to do."
+
+"I am quite sure you are wronging Helen, and Mr Rosebury as well!"
+cried Grey Stuart, suddenly.  "Mrs Bolter, these words of yours are
+cruel in the extreme!"
+
+"Maybe, my dear," said Mrs Bolter, tightening her lips.
+
+"And I am sure," cried Grey, "that Captain Hilton would never have taken
+such a step; while Lieutenant Chumbley would have been the first to call
+it madness!"
+
+"And who made you their champion, miss?" cried old Stuart, sharply.
+
+"I only said what I thought was right, papa," said Grey, with no little
+dignity.  "I could not stand by and hear Helen accused of so great a
+lapse of duty without a word in her defence."
+
+"And I am sure, from her father to the humblest here," said the
+Resident, taking Grey's hand and kissing it, "we all honour you for your
+sentiments, Miss Stuart.  And now, Mrs Bolter," he continued, turning
+to the doctor's wife, "as we have heard your belief, let me ask you, as
+a sensible woman, whether you think such an assertion can be true."
+
+"I don't see why you should take up the cudgels so fiercely on Miss
+Perowne's behalf, Mr Harley," said the little lady, quietly.
+
+"That is beside the question," he retorted, "and I ask you again, do you
+think this true?"
+
+"I told you beforehand, Mr Harley," replied the lady, "that I was no
+doubt very much prejudiced, and I believe I am; but I am at least frank
+and plain, and repeat, that after due consideration it does wear that
+aspect to me."
+
+"Speak out, Mrs Bolter, please," said the father.  "I will have no
+reservations."
+
+"It is a time, Mr Perowne, when I feel bound to speak out, and without
+reservation.  I grieve to say that Miss Perowne's whole conduct has been
+such as to lead any thoughtful woman to believe that what I say is
+true."
+
+There was a murmur of assent here from the ladies present.
+
+"You are in the minority, Miss Stuart," said the Resident, gravely, as
+he turned to Grey, who, pale of face and red-eyed, was now and again
+casting reproachful glances at the severe-looking little lady, "and I
+thank you for what you have said."
+
+"I'm beginning to think myself that the wife is right," said Dr Bolter.
+"She tells me she has been making inquiries amongst the Malay women--
+many of whom we know from their coming up to our house for help.  They
+are very friendly towards us; and if there was anything in the Murad
+theory they would have known, and let it out.  You are wrong, my dear.
+I'm afraid you are wrong."
+
+Grey raised her eyes to the doctor's with quite a fierce look, and she
+turned red and pale by turns ere she answered, loyally:
+
+"No, I am not wrong.  Helen would not have been guilty of such an act.
+I know her too well.  Neither," she added, in a lower voice, "would
+Captain Hilton."
+
+"Brave little partisan," said the Resident, sadly.  "You and I will
+fight all Helen Perowne's detractors.  As you say," he cried, raising
+his voice, and a warm flush showing through his embrowned skin, "it is
+impossible!"
+
+Mr Perowne had been called from the room before the discussion assumed
+quite so personal a nature, and now he returned, gazing piteously from
+one to the other as he was asked whether there was any news.
+
+"This suspense is terrible!" he moaned.  "Harley, Bolter, pray do
+something!  My poor child!--my poor child!"
+
+There was a sympathetic silence in the now crowded room, as the
+occupants waited for one of the gentlemen to speak, Dr Bolter looking
+at his wife, as if to ask, "What shall I say?" and receiving for
+response a shake of the head.
+
+"The Rajah must, I am sure," cried Mr Perowne, "be at the bottom of
+this terrible affair.  Mr Harley!" he cried, passionately, "I can bear
+this no longer, and I insist--I demand of you, as one of her Majesty's
+representatives--that you send troops up to the village at once!"
+
+"I have thought of all this, Mr Perowne," said the Resident, "but that
+would be a declaration of war, and I should not feel justified in taking
+such a step without authority from the Governor."
+
+"I do not care!" cried the father, frantically.  "War or no war, I
+demand that, instead of waiting in this cold-blooded way, you have the
+place searched!  This outrage must be due to the Rajah!"
+
+There was a low hum of excitement in the room, as all eagerly watched
+for the Resident's reply to what seemed to be, but was not--a just
+demand.
+
+"I would gladly do as you wish, Mr Perowne," he replied, "the more
+readily because it is what my heart prompts; but I must have some good
+grounds--stronger than mere suspicion--before I can do more than ask the
+aid of Murad, who is, as you know, a friendly Prince.  Again, I must ask
+you to consider my position here, and my stringent instructions to keep
+on good terms with this Rajah.  Recollect, sir, once again, to do what
+you propose would be interpreted by the Malays as an act of war.  I have
+the whole community to study as well as your feelings, sir--as well," he
+added, in a low voice, only heard by Grey Stuart, "as my own."
+
+"But my child--my child!" groaned Mr Perowne.
+
+"I have done what I could, sir; sent messengers at once to Murad asking
+his aid, and whether any of his people can give us help."
+
+"You did not accuse him then?" said Mr Stuart.
+
+"How could I, sir, on suspicion?  No, I have done what is best."
+
+"But it is horrible!" cried Mr Perowne.  "The thought of her being in
+the power of this unprincipled man is more than I can bear."
+
+"But we do not know, sir, that this is the case, whatever our suspicions
+may be."
+
+"I think they are wrong," cried Mrs Bolter, quickly, "for here comes
+someone to tell us who is right."
+
+She pointed through the window as she spoke, and every head was turned
+to see the Rajah come hurrying up the pathway leading to the house, his
+steps seeming to partake of the excitement of the whole group, as he
+dashed up to the door; and as soon as he was admitted he half ran into
+the midst of the silent assembly, gazing wildly from face to face, till
+his eyes rested upon Mr Perowne, to whom he ran, threw his arms over
+his shoulders, and exclaimed with a passionate, half-sobbing cry:
+
+"Tell me--quick!  Tell me it is not true!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SIX.
+
+A PRINCE'S ANGER.
+
+The merchant stared in the young Rajah's convulsed face without
+speaking, and Murad exclaimed:
+
+"I had heard news, and was coming down.  Then came the messengers; but
+tell me," he cried, "I cannot bear it!  This is not true?"
+
+Mr Perowne gazed fixedly in the dark, lurid eyes before him, as if
+fascinated by their power, and then said sternly:
+
+"It is quite true, sir; quite true."
+
+"No, no!" cried the Malay Rajah, excitedly, "not true that she is gone;
+not true that she cannot be found?"
+
+"Yes, sir," repeated the merchant again, in a low, troubled voice.  "She
+was taken from us last night."
+
+The Rajah uttered some words in his own tongue that sounded like a
+passionate wail, as he staggered back, as if struck heavily, reeled,
+clutched at the nearest person to save himself, and then fell with a
+crash upon the floor.
+
+The little party assembled crowded round the prostrate man; but at a
+word from Dr Bolter they drew back, and he went down on one knee beside
+the young man to loosen his collar.
+
+"A little more air.  Keep back, please!" said the doctor, sharply.
+"Mary, a glass of water."
+
+As Mrs Bolter filled a glass from a carafe upon the sideboard, the
+doctor took a bottle of strong salts offered by one of the ladies
+present, and held it beneath the young man's nostrils, but without the
+slightest effect.
+
+Then the water was handed to the doctor, who liberally used it about the
+young Prince's face, as the Resident drew near and gazed upon the
+prostrate figure, keenly noting the clayey hue of the face and the great
+drops of dank perspiration that stood upon the brow.
+
+"What is it, doctor?" he whispered.
+
+"Fainting--over-excitement," replied Dr Bolter.  "He's coming round."
+
+The fact was beginning to be patent to all, for a change was coming over
+the young man's aspect, and he began to mutter impatiently as the drops
+of water were sprinkled upon his face, opening his eyes at last and
+gazing about him in a puzzled way, as if he could not comprehend his
+position.
+
+Then his memory seemed to come back with a flash, and he started up into
+a sitting position, muttered a few Malay words in a quick, angry manner,
+sprang to his feet, and then, with his eyes flashing, he snatched his
+kris from the band of his sarong, showing his teeth and standing
+defiant, ready to attack some enemy with the flame-shaped blade that was
+dully gleaming in his hand.
+
+"Come, Rajah," said the doctor, soothingly, "be calm, my dear sir.  You
+are among friends."
+
+"Friends!" he cried, hoarsely.  "_No_: enemies!  You have let him take
+her away, I know," he hissed between his teeth; "but you shall tell me.
+Who else has gone?"
+
+"Captain Hilton," said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, I was sure," hissed the Malay.  "He was always there at her side.
+I was ref--fused; but I cannot sit still and see her stolen away by
+another, and I will have revenge--I will have revenge!"
+
+The Malay Prince's aspect told plainly enough that he would have sprung
+like a wild beast at his enemy's throat had he been present; and saving
+Mrs Bolter and Grey, who stood holding her hand, the ladies crowded
+together, one or two shrieking with alarm as the Resident quietly
+advanced to the young Malay.
+
+"Put up your weapon, sir," he said firmly.  "We are not savages.
+Recollect that you are amongst civilised people now."
+
+The Rajah turned upon him with so fierce and feline a look that Grey
+Stuart turned paler than she already was, and pressed Mrs Bolter's hand
+spasmodically; but Harley did not shrink, he merely fixed the young man
+as it were with his eyes, before whose steady gaze the sullen, angry
+glare of the young Prince sank, and he stood as if turned to stone.
+
+"Yes," he said, in a guttural voice; "you are right;" and slowly
+replacing his kris in its sheath, he covered the hilt with his silken
+plaid before standing there with his brows knit, and the veins in his
+temples standing out as if he were engaged in a heavy struggle to master
+the savage spirit that had gained the ascendant.
+
+"That is better," said the Resident, quietly.  "Now we can talk like
+sensible men."
+
+"Yes," replied the Rajah; "but it is hard--very hard.  It masters me,
+and I feel that I cannot bear it.  You know what I have suffered, and
+how I fought it down.  Mr Harley, Mr Perowne, did I not act like an
+English gentleman would have done?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Mr Perowne, hastily.
+
+"I tried so hard that I might," he whispered.  "I was born a Malay; but
+I am trying to become more like you.  I thought I had mastered
+everything; but when I hear this news it is too much for me, and--Mr
+Harley--doctor--give me something to make me calm, or I shall go mad."
+
+He turned away and stood for a few moments with his back to them, while
+the party assembled whispered their thoughts till the young man turned
+once more, and they saw that his face was calm and impassive, as if no
+furious storm of rage had just been agitating its surface.
+
+"What are you going to do?" he said, in a low, deep voice, gazing from
+Mr Perowne to the Resident and back again.
+
+"Search, sir, until we have found the lady," said the latter, quietly.
+
+"I will help," said the Rajah; whose eyes emitted a flash that told of
+the rage in his heart.
+
+"Thank you," said the Resident, quietly.
+
+"You will pursue them?" continued the Rajah.  "Tell me, by your laws do
+you kill this man for what he has done?"
+
+"We do not think there is any need of pursuit, sir," replied Mr Harley,
+quietly; "we fear that there has been an accident."
+
+"I have brought down two nagas, and two smaller boats," cried the Rajah,
+eagerly.  "There are a hundred of my people waiting.  Shall I send them
+to follow, or will you give them your commands?  They are your slaves
+until this is done."
+
+The Resident stood thinking for a minute or two, and the Rajah turned
+from him impatiently.
+
+"We lose time!" he cried, angrily.  "Mr Perowne, you do not speak.
+Tell me--you are her father--what shall I do?"
+
+Mr Perowne held out his hand, which the Rajah seized.
+
+"Thank you, Rajah," he said simply; "but we must be guided by wisdom in
+what we do.  Mr Harley will speak directly.  He is trying to help us.
+I cannot say more," he faltered.  "I am crushed and helpless under this
+blow."
+
+"Tut, mon! don't give way!" whispered old Stuart, going to his side.
+"Keep a stout hairt and all will be well."
+
+A couple of hours of indecision passed away, for the coming of the Rajah
+had thrown them off the track.  They had had one scent to follow, and,
+however blindly, they were about to attempt it, but were now thrown back
+upon two other lines--the one being the suggestion of an accident; the
+other of elopement.
+
+The hot day was wearing on, and the boatmen were returning boat by boat,
+but without the slightest information, not even a vague suggestion upon
+which hope could be hung.  Still, nothing more had been done--nothing
+seemed possible under the circumstances; and a general feeling of
+despondency was gathering over the little community, when a new
+suspicion dawned in the Resident's mind, and he blamed himself for not
+having thought of it before.
+
+The suspicion had but a slight basis, still it was enough; and eager as
+he was to find something to which he could cling, Neil Harley felt for
+the moment glad of the mental suggestion, and felt that all idea of some
+terrible boat accident might be set aside, for at last he had found the
+clue.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+NO FALSE SCENT.
+
+Neil Harley's new suspicion, one which he was cautious not to mention as
+yet, was that, in accordance with the Malay character, this revengeful
+blow had come from one who owed the English community or Government a
+grudge.
+
+The Rajah had been the first to suffer from suspicion, but his coming
+had cleared him somewhat in the eyes of his friends; still there was one
+who might well feel enmity against the English for the part they had
+played, and this was one who had not been to clear herself from
+suspicion.
+
+The Inche Maida had come to the Residency island humbly with her
+petition--a reasonable suppliant for help against her enemies.  She had
+had her request, if not refused, at all events treated with official
+neglect.  It was no wonder, then, that she should feel aggrieved, and,
+while wearing the mask of friendship, take some steps to obtain mental
+satisfaction for the slight.
+
+The Resident pondered upon all this, and felt that she must naturally be
+deeply wounded.  She had borne her disappointment with the patience and
+stoicism of one of her religion; but all the same she might have been
+waiting for an opportunity to strike.
+
+"Allah's will be done!" she had said at their last interview, when the
+Resident had made a further communication from Government; and she had
+bent her head and sighed deeply as she turned to go away, but only to
+return, shake hands with Mr Harley, and thank him.
+
+"You are a good man, Mr Harley," she had said, "and I know you would
+have helped me if you could."
+
+"Yes, she has been most friendly ever since," he mused, "and her
+behaviour last night at the party was all that could have been desired."
+
+Still, he argued, she was a Malay, and all this might have been to serve
+as a blind to her future acts.  She must feel very bitter, and, with all
+an Eastern's cunning, she must have been nursing up her wrath till an
+opportunity occurred for revenge.
+
+This, perhaps, would be that revenge.
+
+"No," he said, "it was childish;" and he felt directly after that he was
+maligning a really amiable woman.
+
+He ended by thinking that he could judge her by her acts.  If she were
+innocent of all complicity in the abduction of Helen--if abduction it
+was--she would come and display her sympathy to her English friends in
+this time of trouble.
+
+"What do you think, Miss Stuart?" he said, leading her into the opening
+of a window.  "The Inche Maida has cause of complaint against us.  Do
+you think she has had anything to do with getting Helen away?"
+
+"No, I'm certain she has not," cried Grey, flushing warmly.  "She is too
+good and true a woman."
+
+"Do you think she likes Helen?" asked the Resident.
+
+"No, I think she dislikes her," replied Grey; "but she could not be
+guilty of such a crime as you suggest."
+
+"I am suspicious," said the Resident.  "Why does she stay away?  She
+must have heard something by this time.  Did you see her very late last
+night?"
+
+"Yes, till very late--till after the disappearance.  She was wondering
+where Helen had gone."
+
+"Yes," said the Resident, "that is all in her favour, my dear child; but
+still she stops away."
+
+"No," said Grey, quietly, "she is not staying away.  See: here she
+comes, with her servants.  I think she has arrived to offer her services
+in this time of trouble."
+
+Grey Stuart was right, for directly after the Malay princess entered the
+large drawing-room, eager with her offers of help, as her English friend
+had said.
+
+"I did not know till a messenger came in," she exclaimed, excitedly.  "I
+was home late, and I was asleep.  When I heard of the trouble at the
+station, I came and brought my servants.  What shall I do?"
+
+She was most affectionate and full of pity for Mr Perowne.  To the
+Resident she was friendly in the extreme, and in a frank, genial way,
+utterly free from effusiveness; while to Grey Stuart she was tenderness
+itself, kissing her and talking to her in a low voice of the trouble,
+and keeping her all the time at her side.
+
+"Henry," said little Mrs Bolter, suddenly.
+
+"Yes, my dear."
+
+"I don't trust these black people a bit.  They are very friendly and
+full of offers of service, but I cannot help thinking that they are at
+the bottom of all this trouble.  Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, my dear, I hear," said the doctor; "but I cannot say that you are
+right.  It's as puzzling as the real site of Ophir; but I hope it will
+all come right in the end."
+
+Suspicious as Mrs Bolter felt, she did not show her feelings, but
+joined in the conversation; and she was obliged to own that the conduct
+of the Inche Maida seemed to be quite that of an English lady eager to
+help her friends in a terrible time of trial.
+
+In the midst of the conversation that ensued there was the sound of
+voices outside, and the Resident, closely followed by Mr Perowne and
+the Rajah, hurried out to see if there was any news.
+
+One of the sergeants, with a private of Hilton's company, had just
+arrived on the lawn, these being two of the men who had gone down the
+river in a sampan.
+
+"Ah!  Harris," exclaimed the Resident, eagerly, on seeing something in
+the sergeant's face which told of tidings, "what news?"
+
+The sergeant glanced at Mr Perowne in rather a troubled manner, and
+hesitated.
+
+"Speak out, my man, for Heaven's sake!" exclaimed the latter, "and let
+me know the worst."
+
+"It mayn't be the worst, sir," replied the sergeant, with rough
+sympathy.  "I hope it isn't, sir; but we found a boat, sir--one of our
+own boats--left by the `Penguin' for our use at the island."
+
+"Yes--yes, I know!" exclaimed Mr Perowne.
+
+"Quick! speak out, Harris.  What of her?" cried the Resident.
+
+"She was lying bottom up, sir, on a bit of sandbank, a dozen miles down
+the river, sir; and this was twisted round one of the thwarts--the
+sleeve just tied round, sir, to keep it in its place."
+
+As he spoke he held up a light coat, saturated with water, and muddy and
+crumpled, where it had dried on the way back.
+
+Neil Harley took the coat and examined it carefully.  Then laying it
+down, he said, slowly:
+
+"It looks like Chumbley's; but I cannot feel sure."
+
+"I made sure it was one of the lieutenant's coats, sir," said the
+sergeant, respectfully.
+
+"Let us see the boat," said Mr Perowne.  "Where is it?"
+
+"Down at your landing-stage, sir, and--"
+
+He stopped short, as if afraid he should say too much.
+
+"What is it, Harris?  Speak out," said the Resident, sternly.
+
+"She seems to have been laid hold of, sir, by one of them great river
+beasts.  There's a lot of teeth marks, and a bit ripped out of her
+side."
+
+Mr Perowne shuddered, and Neil Harley recalled the various stories he
+had heard of crocodiles attacking small boats--stories that he had
+heretofore looked upon as mythical, though he knew that the reptiles
+often seized the natives when bathing by the river bank.
+
+"As far as I could judge, sir," said the sergeant, who, seeing that he
+gave no offence in speaking out, was most eager to tell all he knew, "it
+seems as if the officers, sir, had taken the ladies for a row upon the
+river, when the boat perhaps touched one of the great beasts, and that
+made it turn and seize it in its teeth.  Then it was overset, and--"
+
+The men started and stopped short, for there was a faint cry of horror,
+and they all turned to see Grey Stuart standing there pale, with her
+lips apart, and a look of horror in her fixed eyes, as she saw in
+imagination the overturned boat, and the vain struggles of those who
+were being swept away by the rapid stream.
+
+The whole scene rose before her eyes with horrible substantiality--all
+that she had heard or been told of the habits of the great reptiles that
+swarmed in the river helping to complete the picture.  For as she seemed
+to realise the scene, and saw the struggling figures in the water, there
+would be a rush and a swirl, with a momentary sight of a dark horny back
+or side, and then first one and then another of the hapless party would
+be snatched beneath the surface.
+
+But even then her horror seemed to be veined with a curious sensation of
+jealous pain, for she pictured to herself Helen floating down the stream
+with her white hands extended for help, and Hilton fighting his way
+through the water to her side.  Then he seemed to seize her, and to make
+a brave struggle to keep her up.  It was a hard fight, and he did not
+spare himself, but appeared to be ready to drown that she might live.
+The water looked blacker and darker where they were, and there was no
+help at hand, so that it was but a question of moments before they must
+sink.  And as, with dilated, horror-charged eyes, Grey stared before her
+to where the river really ran sparkling in the sunshine, the imaginary
+blackness deepened, and all looked so smooth and terrible that she
+watched for where that dreadful glassiness would be broken by some
+reptile rising to make a rush at the struggling pair; and--yes, there at
+last it was!  And with the name of Hilton half-formed upon her lips, she
+uttered another cry, and fell fainting in the Inche's Maida's arms.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+DANGER AHEAD.
+
+Grey Stuart lost her cavalier Chumbley soon after supper, for the
+Princess pointed to a chair beside her, Hilton being very quiet and
+distant, and in spite of several reproachful glances from his
+companion's eyes, proving to be very poor company indeed.
+
+In fact, as soon as he could with decency give up what was to him a
+tiresome duty, Hilton left the Malay Princess's side, making the vacancy
+that was filled up by Grey, while soon after the Rajah came and took a
+chair upon the other side of the Scottish maiden, chatting to her with a
+slight hesitancy of speech, but pleasantly and well.
+
+"Do you enjoy--this party?" he said.
+
+"Oh! so much!" replied Grey.  "It is so different from anything at
+home."
+
+"At home?" queried the Prince, who knew the simplicity of old Stuart's
+household.
+
+"I mean at home in England."
+
+"Oh! yes, I see.  At home in England," said the Prince musingly.  "I
+must go and see at home in England.  I should like to go."
+
+"You would be much pleased, I am sure," said Grey, smiling; "but it is a
+very bad climate."
+
+"That is why you English come to our beautiful land.  I see!" exclaimed
+the Prince.  "But you enjoy yourself--this party?"
+
+"Oh! very much!" cried Grey; but a shadow crossed her countenance as she
+spoke.
+
+"I have said I will try and pass you all," said the Prince, laughing.
+"I mean mine to be the greatest of the _fetes_.  It must be; for if I do
+not make mine a grander party than all, my people will look down upon
+me, and say, `See how weak and poor he is compared to the English!'  I
+must make mine very brave and good."
+
+"I hear what you are saying," exclaimed the Inche Maida; "but I will
+excel you; for I will give another party, greater, and brighter, and
+more beautiful still.  Miss Stuart will help me with good advice, and
+mine shall be more English than yours.  We will not be beaten."
+
+"No, no!" said the Rajah, laughing; "do not help her, Miss Stuart; help
+me, and I will be so grateful.  It is so easy to say I will give a grand
+party, but it is hard to make it so that it will please these English
+gentlemen and ladies."
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, Prince," said the Inche Maida.
+
+"Of course--yes," he replied.  "That is where I make things wrong.  You
+English place the ladies first, and I always make mistakes like that."
+
+"You will soon acquire our habits," said Grey, who could not help her
+eyes wandering in search of Hilton.
+
+"Thank you," said the Prince.  "I shall try; but as I say, it is so hard
+to make a feast quite right.  If I want to make a banquet for my people
+with flowers, and fireworks, and elephants, and gongs, and tom-toms, it
+is all so easy; but an English party, to satisfy all you--ah! it is too
+much."
+
+Meanwhile, heart-sick and disgusted with everything and everybody
+present, Hilton wandered away to the pagoda, where Mr Stuart had taken
+up hi quarters directly after supper.
+
+"Hullo! young fellow," said the old merchant, gruffly, "come to your
+senses again?"
+
+"Senses?  Haven't been out of them that I know of," retorted Hilton.
+
+"Well, ye've been running wild after Perowne's lassie."
+
+"Mr Stuart!"
+
+"And one never sees her without Captain Hilton ahint her."
+
+"Mr Stuart, I was not aware that I was answerable to you for my
+conduct," exclaimed the young officer, hotly.
+
+"Nay--nay--nay--dinna--don't be fashed, laddie, I was vexed to see ye
+rinning after a lassie who will throw ye over for the next man she
+sees--that's a'--"
+
+"Mr Stuart, I will not listen to anything in Miss Perowne's
+disparagement!" cried the young man hotly.  "How dare you speak to me
+like this!"
+
+"Have a cigar, laddie?" said the old Scot, drily.  "They're verra good,
+and they'll soothe ye down better than anything I ken."
+
+Hilton glared at him angrily.  "There, there, there, let me have my say,
+laddie.  I rather like ye, Hilton, though ye are only a soldier; so
+don't fly in a passion with an old man.  Tak' a cigar."
+
+Hilton hesitated, but finally took the cigar, lit it, and began to
+smoke.
+
+"I ken weel what's wrong," said the old man; "but never heed it, mon.
+It mak's ye sore to-day, but ye'll soon get over it.  I've seen ivery
+thing that's gone on sin the lassies have been here.  Try a drappie o'
+that whuskie, laddie; that and yon cigar will mak' ye forget all about
+the trouble wi' the girl."
+
+"Mr Stuart, I must request you to be silent upon this question, unless
+you wish to quarrel."
+
+"Quarrel?  Not I, lad!  I'm as peaceable a body as ever lived; but tak'
+my advice--don't wherret yoursel' about Helen Perowne.  She's not made
+for ye."
+
+"Sir!"
+
+"Hoot, laddie, in a passion again!  I tell ye you're much too good for
+such a body as she.  I ken she's handsome enough for an angel; but
+what's all that if she don't care a twistle o' the finger for ye?"
+Bertie Hilton frowned heavily and smoked furiously; while, when the old
+merchant thrust the whiskey decanter towards him, he snatched it up,
+poured out half a tumbler full, and had stretched out his hand to take
+it and gulp it down, when, to his surprise and anger, old Stuart
+snatched the tumbler away, poured half of the spirit back into the
+decanter, and then filled up the tumbler with water.
+
+"Not while I'm sitting by ye, Bertie Hilton," said the old man.  "I like
+my whuskie and I like to see a fren' enjoy his drappie wi' me; but it
+must be a drappie.  When I see a man making a fool o' himsel' by taking
+more than is good, I just stop him if I can, as I stopped you."
+
+The young man's face flushed, and an angry remark was about to issue
+from his lips, when the ridiculous and friendly sides of the question
+presented themselves to him, and instead of going into a fit of temper
+consequent upon his irritable state, he burst into a hearty fit of
+laughter.
+
+"Hah!  That's better, my lad," said the old merchant, smiling in his
+dry, grim fashion.  "I like that.  Ye're an officer and ye know how to
+command yourself as well as your men.  Now then, sit down and sup your
+whuskie and smoke like a man."
+
+"You shall be obeyed, sir," said Hilton, good-humouredly.
+
+"That's right, laddie.  Tak' your misfortunes like a man.  I know it's
+hard to bear, and nothing wherrets a man more than seeing a lassie play
+wi' others before his very een, when a' the time she has been leading
+him to believe she cares for him alone?"
+
+"Would it be a very difficult task to you, Mr Stuart, to leave my
+private affairs alone?" said Hilton, quietly.
+
+"Oh, ay, I'll leave them alone if ye'll only be sensible and act like a
+mon.  Bertie Hilton, ye're a big mon, and a captain in Her Majesty's
+service, and ye're been acting like a weak boy."
+
+Hilton's eyes flashed again as he turned angrily upon the old man, who
+seemed to become more Scottish in his language as he slowly imbibed his
+native drink.
+
+"I see ya glowering at me, my lad; but I dinna mind it, for I'm one of
+your best frens, and when I thrash ye with words about your lassie it's
+a' for your good.  There, haud yer whisht.  I ken what ye'd say, that
+ye're a mon and not a boy to be dictated to by an old Scotchman like
+this."
+
+"Well, I was thinking something of the kind, Mr Stuart, and so I tell
+you frankly," cried Hilton, who could not help feeling amused at the old
+man's dry ways.  The reproofs, too, came at a time when the younger was
+very much open to conviction, for his experiences of the last few days
+had all been towards showing him that Helen Perowne was trifling with
+him, and if she were now, he felt that she had been from the first.
+
+Still, it was very painful to have to be taken to task like this upon so
+tender a subject; and after sitting awhile with the old man, he suddenly
+jumped up, relit his cigar, which he had allowed to go out, and nodding
+shortly, he strolled out of the pagoda into the grounds.
+
+"Coming to his senses," said old Stuart, in a thoughtful way.  "Hah!  I
+should go rather cross it my lassie were to carry on like Perowne's
+Helen.  Why, she drives nearly all the young fellows wild.  The young
+hussy! she ought to be shut up in a convent till she comes to her
+senses.  I'd have none of it at home with me."
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER NINE.
+
+A SUPPLEMENT TO A STRANGE EVENING.
+
+It was very beautiful in the gardens, and in spite of the number of
+people present, the place was so large that Hilton had no difficulty in
+finding a shady path in whose gloom he could walk up and down, finding
+the silence and darkness congenial in his present state of mind.
+
+Every here and there there were lanterns, and flashes of light came from
+the illuminated lawn in company with the strains of music; but for the
+greater part the light was that from the great soft stars in the
+begemmed arch overhead, and the music that of the swift river rippling
+against the bank.
+
+What should he do? he asked himself.  Would he not be acting a wiser and
+a more manly part if he at once gave up his pursuit of Helen, and
+treated her with the contempt she deserved?
+
+For she did deserve contempt.  He felt this, and he knew the state of
+the warm affection he had had for her.  He knew she had flirted a little
+before, but he looked upon that as mere maiden trifling before she had
+been ready to bestow upon him all the riches of her fresh young love.
+He was ready to condone anything that had taken place before; but when,
+after some long experience, he found that he was only being made the
+plaything of the hour, and that she was ready to throw him over in
+favour of the newest comer, his heart rebelled.
+
+The fact was that Hilton was coming back to his normal senses very fast,
+and the idol that he had been worshipping and accrediting with all the
+perfections under the sun, was beginning to assume a very
+matter-of-fact, worldly aspect in his eyes.
+
+The chaplain, officer after officer on board ship, Chumbley, Mr Harley,
+himself--they had all been favoured lovers in turn, and then thrown over
+after a certain amount of trifling.
+
+"I cannot think how I could have been so foolish!" he exclaimed,
+suddenly; "and yet she is very beautiful--most beautiful; and when she
+gives a fellow one of those tender, beseeching looks, he need be made of
+iron to resist her."
+
+He walked up and down a little longer, finished his cigar, lit another,
+and went on, evidently feeling in better spirits.
+
+"I shall get over it in a few days," he said, with a half laugh, "unless
+I turn disappointed swain, and go and jump into the river.  The
+crocodiles would soon make short work of me.  By jove! how beautiful
+those fire-flies are!" he exclaimed.
+
+Then he sighed, and went backward mentally.
+
+"They put one in mind of Helen's beautiful eyes," he muttered.
+Beautiful Helen!  Bah!  Stuff!  I'll be fooled by no woman living!
+
+  "`Shall I, wasting in despair.
+  Die because a woman's fair?
+  Shall I pale
+  my cheeks with care
+  Because another's rosy are?'"
+
+He sang softly, enjoying more and more the delicious coolness of the
+breeze off the river.
+
+"I'm nearly cured," he said, bitterly.
+
+  "`I know a maiden fair to see,
+              Take care!
+  She can both false and friendly be,
+          Beware! beware!
+          Trust her not,
+  She is fooling thee!'"
+
+He sang again in a low voice.
+
+"My case exactly.  Oh! my dear madam.  I'm afraid you will come to grief
+one of these days, for it is not every fellow who will give you up as I
+do, and hide his wound under a smiling face.
+
+"And do I give her up?" he said, softly; and there was a tender, dreamy
+look in his eyes as he spoke.
+
+"Bah! what a madman I am!" he cried, with a mocking laugh; "she throws
+me over as she has thrown over others.  What an idiot I was not to see
+all this sooner!
+
+"The old story--the old story," he muttered.  "Man's vanity and woman's
+pride.  I was conceited enough to think that, though she might trifle
+with others, I was her one special choice.  There was no such other man
+upon the earth as I, Captain Hilton, the Apollo among his fellows.
+Serve me right!" he cried passionately, "for a weak fool, and I deserve
+it all, if only to be a lesson to bring me to my senses?"
+
+Growing excited with his thoughts, he strolled down another path,
+leading to the lower lawn which sloped to the river.
+
+"I wonder who is with her now!" he muttered, as he gazed with lowering
+brow at the smooth, star-spangled stream.
+
+"What does it matter!  I'll get a lesson in _nonchalance_ from old Chum!
+I've been fooled like the rest.  I might have known that I should be,
+but I was conceited enough to think that I had thoroughly won her
+heart."
+
+He told himself that it was all over now, and smoked away viciously,
+sending forth great puffs of vapour, still thinking of his position.
+
+"What the dickens did that woman, the Inche Maida, mean!" he said,
+suddenly, as he strolled now close beside the river in complete
+forgetfulness of all the dangers with which it was invested by his
+friends.  "Why, if I were a conceited fellow--well, so I am, horribly,"
+he said, bitterly--"I should have fancied that she was making love to
+me.  It is too ridiculous!" he exclaimed, stopping short, and seeing
+nothing but introspectively, hearing nothing but the echoes of his own
+thoughts.  "This place is growing hateful to me.  I shall get leave or
+exchange.  I feel as if I could not stay here any longer, and--Hah!
+Help!  What!  Good Heav--"
+
+The rest of Hilton's words did not reach the soft midnight air, for,
+deep in thought, he had not seen the shadow even of the coming danger
+which had fallen in an instant, and his mad struggles were proving all
+in vain.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TEN.
+
+PLUS.
+
+As Hilton cried for help his voice sounded stifled and dull, while he
+vainly tried to cast off a great woollen cloth that had been deftly
+thrown over his head.  It took hardly an instant before it was wound
+tightly round him.  Then a rope was twisted so rapidly round arms and
+legs, that he was turned, as it were, into a complete mummy; and when
+his assailants threw him upon the grass he was so helpless that they
+literally rolled him over and over down the slope of closely shaven
+herbage into a large row-boat, into whose bottom he fell without pain,
+and almost without a sound.
+
+"I thought it was the crocodiles," he said to himself, as his heart beat
+painfully; and then he began to writhe in spirit at his want of caution,
+for he felt sure that this, the capture of an officer, was one of the
+first steps towards an attack upon the Residency island.
+
+Just then he heard a voice, and what seemed to be a whispered order in
+Malay; and the boat might have been seen to glide away like a shadow
+over the starry water, breaking it up into spangles as it went on and on
+towards the middle of the stream without so much as a sound.
+
+Then a pang shot through the young officer's heart, to tell him that he
+was not, in spite of his word, quite cured, for his first thought now
+was: "What will become of Helen!"  A few minutes later Chumbley strolled
+up to the pagoda, where old Stuart was comfortably enjoying his glass.
+
+"Well, old fellow," he drawled: "not melted away yet."
+
+"No; nor you neither," retorted the old merchant.  "Want some whuskie?"
+
+"No; I want a cigar," said Chumbley; and he helped himself from the box.
+"Seen anything of Hilton?" he asked, as he lit the roll of tobacco.
+
+"Yes! here a bit ago, and then went off to smoke in the cool air.  Leave
+my little girl all right?"
+
+"Yes; she was sitting talking to the Princess and the Rajah in front of
+the house.  What a lovely night!"
+
+"Humph, yes.  Pretty well; but you should see the night, laddie, over
+one o' the Scottish lochs, wi' the ootline o' a mountain stannin oot i'
+front o' the northern sky.  Ay, but that's a sight."
+
+"Yes, s'pose so," said Chumbley; "but as we can't have the night over
+the Scottish loch, isn't it as well to make the best of this?"
+
+"Humph! yes," said the old man; "but I'm getting tired of sitting here.
+I want to go back home.  How much longer is this tomfoolery going to
+last?"
+
+"Can't say, sir.  Why don't you go on to the lawn and have a chat?"
+
+"Pah!  Do I look like a man who could do that sort of thing?"
+
+"Can't say you do," replied Chumbley, cheerfully.  "Well, I'm going to
+look for Hilton!" and, stepping out of the pagoda, he went across the
+lawn, with his hands deep down in his pockets.
+
+"_Now_, let's see," he said to himself, as he strolled lazily on, "where
+would that chap be likely to have stuck himself up for a quiet smoke?
+
+"Seems to have had a tiff with beauty to-night.  P'r'aps she has pitched
+him as she has other people before, present company not excepted.  All
+the more likely for him to have gone off for a quiet smoke--Now where
+would he go?"
+
+There was a pause here, as if for someone else to answer, but as no one
+did--
+
+"Down by the river," he said--"safe."  Chumbley thrust his hands lower
+down into his pockets, and as if led by fate, he followed slowly almost
+the very track taken by Hilton so short a time before.
+
+Finding that portion of the extensive grounds quite solitary, Chumbley
+began to hum what was meant for an air, in a peculiar voice more
+remarkable for noise than tune--due, no doubt, to his having his cigar
+in his lips, at which he gravely sucked away as if keeping time to the
+melody he emitted with the smoke.
+
+"Grass too damp to lie down," he said to himself, "else it would be
+rather jolly, and I'm precious tired.  Not safe though.  Old Bolter
+would vow there was rheumatism and fever in every blade.  Why the
+dickens don't they put garden seats down here?"
+
+He strolled on, casting his eyes about in every direction in search of
+his friend.
+
+"Precious dark!" he said.  "Now where has old Hilton hidden himself?
+Hallo!  Why there he is!  What a jolly old lunatic he must be.  I wonder
+what old Bolter would say?"
+
+For not very far from the bank of the stream, he could dimly make out a
+figure lying apparently asleep.
+
+Chumbley immediately began to think of the risks to be incurred from
+crocodiles, and walking quickly up he bent down over the sleeping
+figure.
+
+"Here--hi!  Hallo!  Hilton, is that you?  Hang it, man, don't lie
+there!"
+
+There was no reply, and Chumbley hesitated as to whether he should touch
+the figure.
+
+"'Tisn't Hilton!" he said to himself.  "One of the servants, perhaps,
+keeping up his Mohammedan rules on the question of wine upon the wrong
+side."
+
+"Hallo! you sir!" he cried aloud.  "'Tisn't safe to lie there; do you
+hear?" and going down on one knee, he turned the figure completely over.
+"Here wake up or the crocs will have you!  Is anything the matter?"
+
+"Help me up," came in reply, spoken in good English.
+
+Chumbley was too earnest a man to resist that appeal; and bending lower,
+he tried to pass one hand beneath the prostrate figure, the man feebly
+laying his hands upon the lieutenant the while.
+
+Then, in an instant, the feeble clasp became one of iron; and before
+Chumbley could more than realise that he was being held, a second figure
+bounded from behind a bush on to his back, dexterously throwing a sort
+of bag over his head and drawing it tight about his neck.
+
+The young officer was taken by surprise; but he was not so easy a prey
+as Hilton.  As a rule, Chumbley resembled the elephant in his slow,
+ponderous movement.  Now, there was something almost leonine in his
+activity, the latent almost herculean strength he possessed being
+brought into play.
+
+Uttering a smothered roar, he tried to shake off his assailants as they
+clung to his back and neck, pinioning his arms, and holding on so
+closely, that in the dark the figures of the three men seemed like one
+huge monstrous creature writhing savagely upon the grass.
+
+Four more dark figures had suddenly appeared upon the scene, looking
+weird and strange in the starlight; and while the distant sound of
+voices, with an occasional burst of laughter, came to where the struggle
+was going on, all here was so quiet--save for the oppressed breathing--
+that no attention was drawn towards them from the visitor-dotted lawn.
+
+The fresh-comers leaped at Chumbley like dogs at their hunted quarry;
+but so fierce was the resistance that one of them was dashed to the
+earth, the others shaken off, and the young man followed up the display
+of his tremendous strength by making a blindfold effort to ran.
+
+The probabilities are that, as he had instinctively taken the direction
+leading to the house, he would have got so far that his assailants would
+not have cared to follow, had not one of them thrust out a foot as
+Chumbley was passing, and tripped him up, when he fell with a heavy thud
+to the ground.
+
+Before he could make a fresh effort to rise, half a dozen Malays were
+upon him; and while some sat and knelt upon, others bound him hand and
+foot.
+
+Then they paused to listen whether the struggle had been overheard; but
+finding it had excited no attention either at the house or the Residency
+island, they leisurely rolled their prisoner over and over down the
+grassy slope into a waiting boat close up to the bank.  A few vessels of
+water were dipped, and quickly poured over the grass where the struggle
+had taken place, and then once more the star-spangled surface of the
+river was broken up as a shadowy boat softly glided out to the middle of
+the river, and then seemed to die away.
+
+But the incidents of the night were not yet at an end, Fate seemed to
+lend her aid to bring them to one peculiar bent.
+
+For, hot and weary of the insipid attentions of her new conquest, and
+fagged out with her task of entertaining so many guests, Helen Perowne
+began to think of how she should escape, wishing the while that everyone
+would go, and far from satisfied with her last encounter with Hilton.
+
+She looked round the lit-up space for someone on whom to inflict
+herself, but Hilton was not there; she could see neither Chumbley nor
+the Resident, only several of the younger men, merchants and civil
+officers--no one at all worth talking to save the chaplain, who had been
+watching her wistfully all the evening, and who now stood with one hand
+resting upon a chair, looking as if he would have given his life for one
+kind word from her lips.
+
+"Poor Arthur!" she said, in a half amused, half troubled way, "I wish he
+would not be so weak?"
+
+She gave another impatient look round, but there was no victim worthy of
+her arrows; and with an imperious glance at Arthur Rosebury, she let her
+eyes once more pass over the various groups of guests, for the most part
+carrying on an animated conversation, and turned to enter the house.
+
+Just as she reached one of the open French windows, a Malay servant
+approached, and saluted her respectfully.
+
+"The master says will the mistress come down the garden a minute to
+speak to him?"
+
+"How tiresome!" she exclaimed petulantly.  "Where is my father?"
+
+"By the river, mistress, where it is cool to smoke," replied the man,
+softly.  "He says he will not keep you, but you must come at once."
+
+This was all in broken English, but sufficiently plain to be understood.
+
+"He might have come to me," said Helen, impatiently.  "I am so hot and
+tired.  There, go on.  No, not that way.  Let us go by the side path."
+
+The man bowed and went on, with Helen following, when the chaplain
+seized the opportunity to join her.
+
+"It is getting cold and damp, Miss Perowne," he said, softly.  "Will you
+let me put this over your shoulders?"
+
+"What!" she said; "have you been carrying that ever since I gave it to
+you hours ago?"
+
+The chaplain bowed, and held the light, filmy shawl, that he had felt it
+a joy to bear, ready to throw over her shoulders.
+
+"No," she cried, petulantly, "I am too hot as it is.  There," she cried,
+relenting, as she saw his fallen countenance, and for want of another
+victim, "you may come with me and carry the shawl till I want to put it
+on."
+
+The chaplain's heart gave a bound, and, too pleased to speak, he
+followed Helen closely, as the man led her towards the bottom of the
+lawn, where, as they drew nearer, a dark figure could be dimly seen
+slowly pacing up and down.
+
+"How angry dear Mary would be if she knew," thought the Reverend Arthur;
+"but I cannot help it.  I suppose I am very weak, and it is my fate?"
+
+"What is wrong now?" thought Helen, whose conscience was quick to take
+alarm.  "Is he going to speak to me about Hilton?  No; he would not
+have--he could not have been so cowardly as to speak to my father about
+our quarrel."
+
+They were very near now, and Helen could see that her father had one
+hand up to his face, resting the elbow in his other hand.
+
+"It cannot be about Murad.  That must be over," mused Helen.  Then
+aloud, "Is anything the matter, papa?  Are you unwell?"
+
+At that moment she realised the fact that the figure in evening dress
+was not her father, the chaplain noticing her start, and trying to go
+forward to her aid; but, as he took a step, a hand was clapped over his
+lips, an arm tightly embraced him, and as he dimly saw a white
+handkerchief tied across Helen's face, he was lifted from the ground and
+borne away, too much surprised to do more than struggle weakly at such a
+disadvantage that even a strong man would have been as helpless as a
+child.
+
+Helen made an effort to shriek for aid, but a black cloud seemed
+suddenly to envelop her in the shape of a great cloth, wrapping her
+round and round.  Then she felt herself lifted from her feet, and
+half-stifled, half-fainting with the horror of her situation, she was
+just conscious of being carried for a few minutes, and then of being
+placed in a boat; while in the midst of her horror and excitement there
+seemed to come up before her the faces of her three old mistresses at
+the calm, quiet school, then that of Grey Stuart looking reproachfully,
+and then all faded away into one complete void.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+A FLOATING CAPTIVITY.
+
+What seemed to be an endless ride by water, during which the captives
+felt over and over again as if they would be suffocated by the folds of
+the cloths in which they were enveloped.
+
+Several times had the two first prisoners made such desperate efforts to
+free themselves that the boats in which they were rocked dangerously,
+that in which Chumbley had been thrown shipping a little water more than
+once; but finding by degrees that it was only a waste of strength, and
+contenting themselves with the idea that though an Englishman may never
+know when he is beaten, they had done everything possible to vindicate
+their character, they lay quite still, dripping with perspiration and
+gasping for air.
+
+An hour must have gone by when, in each boat, as the prisoner lay
+perfectly quiescent, it seemed to strike the captors almost
+simultaneously that if something were not done suffocation might ensue.
+Under these circumstances efforts were made to give them a little of
+that bounteous provision of air that was waiting to revive their
+exhausted frames.
+
+Chumbley was lying upon his face in the bottom of the boat, the
+exhaustion having produced a semi-delirious sensation, in which he
+fancied that he was in evening dress, of a very thick texture, dancing
+in a crowded ballroom, and so giddy that he was in a constant state of
+alarm lest he should hurl his partner, the Malay princess, headlong upon
+the floor.
+
+This sensation kept coming and going with saner thoughts of having done
+his best, and its being useless to struggle, in the midst of one of
+which intervals he awoke to the fact that his hands were being held
+tightly behind him, and back to back.  Then someone, with a deftness of
+habit that told of long custom, tied his thumbs together, and then his
+little fingers.
+
+Next he felt a stout cord passed round his ankles and another about his
+legs just above the knees, after which the thick cloth was drawn from
+his head, and he gasped and panted as he filled his lungs again and
+again with the pure night air, which cleared his brain and sent the
+crowded ballroom, the thick costume, and the giddiness of the waltz far
+back into the unreal region from which they came.
+
+For a moment he revelled in the sight of the brilliant star-lit heavens,
+and then, almost before he knew it, a cloth was bound tightly round his
+eyes.
+
+"A seizure by banditti," muttered Chumbley, "quite in the romantic
+style, and I shall be held to ransom, when, seeing that I have nothing
+but my pay--and that is hardly enough for my expenses--I may say, in the
+words of the monkey who held out his tail to the chained-up dog, `Don't
+you wish you may get it!'  Oh, I say, though, I'm as sore as if I'd been
+thrashed.  Whatever game is this?"
+
+"If you will promise to be silent," said a deep voice at his ear in the
+Malayan tongue, "we will not thrust a cloth into your mouth."
+
+"I wish they'd pour a glass of Bass into it instead," thought Chumbley.
+"I say, you sir," he replied, in as good Malayan as he could command,
+"what does this mean?"
+
+"Wait and see."
+
+"Are you going to kris me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, that's a comfort," muttered Chumbley.  "I might have known it by
+their taking so much trouble, though five minutes ago it would have been
+a charity to put me out of my misery."
+
+"Will you be silent if I leave your mouth free?" was asked again.
+
+"I don't see that it's of much use to halloo," said Chumbley, sullenly,
+"but look here, old chap, what does this mean?  Tell me, and I'll be as
+quiet as a lamb."
+
+"Wait and see," was the reply.
+
+Chumbley was silent for a few minutes, drawing in long breaths of air.
+Then, addressing his captors, who seemed to him to be steadily rowing
+on:
+
+"I say," he exclaimed, "can I have this rag off my eyes?"
+
+"No."
+
+Another pause, during which the prisoner listened to the pleasant ripple
+of the water against the boat.
+
+"I say," from Chumbley.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I can't fight now or else I would."
+
+There was a low laugh, which seemed to come from a dozen throats, and
+the same deep voice replied:
+
+"My lord is a giant in strength, but we have him fast."
+
+"Then set me up, so that I can sit comfortably, or I shan't be worth a
+Chinese dragon dollar if you want me for sale."
+
+There was another low laugh, as if the Malay captors were amused; and
+then, in obedience to a whispered order, the prisoner was lifted and
+placed in a more comfortable position, but not without some effort and
+grunting on the part of the men who essayed to move him, the boat
+rocking about ominously the while.
+
+"That's better," said the prisoner.  "Hah, I can get on now!  Here I
+say, old chap, whoever you are, put your hand in my breast."
+
+"Does my lord wish me to promise that we will not slay him?" said the
+deep-voiced Malay.
+
+"Bosh!  No!" cried Chumbley.  "In my breast-pocket.  That's right.  Now
+take out the cigar-case.  Not the pocket-book.  The cigar-case.  That's
+it!  Now open it and take out a cigar.  Put it in my mouth.  Have one?"
+
+"My lord's servant does not smoke when he has work to do," replied the
+Malay.
+
+"All right, then, I have none," said Chumbley, coolly.  "Put the end in
+my mouth, and give me a light.  There's a match-box in my vest."
+
+There was a low laugh once more in the fore-part of the boat; but the
+prisoner was too intent upon feeling the hand thrust into his breast,
+his cigar-case opened and snapped again, the case returned, the roll of
+tobacco placed in his lips, and then the light struck and held
+convenient for him to draw.
+
+"Hah!" he said to himself, "it's wonderful what comfort there is in a
+cigar at a time like this!  How I do pity the poor little women who are
+not allowed to smoke!"
+
+He said a few words to the Malays, but they were very quiet and
+reticent; and feeling that it was of no further use to talk to them in
+their own tongue, which was a trouble to him, he began to think in
+English, which, if not of much comfort, was at all events an occupation
+for the time being.
+
+"This is a rum set-out," he thought, as he settled himself as
+comfortably as he could, and smoked away.  "An hour or so ago I was at
+an English evening-party, held for coolness upon a lawn.  Now I am here
+in a boat; but where the dickens here is I don't know.
+
+"But what does it mean?  I'm not of the slightest use to anybody; and
+they are not doing it for revenge, because I haven't made any enemies.
+Let me see, though--have I?"
+
+He paused thoughtfully for a few minutes.  "No--no, I can't think of
+anybody except Miss Helen, for rejecting her tender glances.  Let's see,
+what did Byron or some other chap say about there being no
+what-you-may-call-it so dangerous as a woman scorned?  Can't recollect
+quotations--never could.  But that's all nonsense.  Helen Perowne
+wouldn't want to have me carried off like this.
+
+"That's it," he said, half aloud this time, and after a thoughtful
+pause.  "It's ransom, that's what it is.  The noodles think because I am
+an English officer, and flash about in scarlet and gold, that I must be
+very rich.  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!"
+
+Chumbley indulged himself with a long and rumbling chuckle.
+
+"They'll be preciously disappointed on finding out I've none, and if
+they expect to get it out of the British Government they'll find that
+the payment will be made in rifle balls, unless some very urgent appeals
+are made in Parliament respecting the risk, when the question will
+arise, what will the noble, the British Government, as represented by
+its Secretary for the time being, think that my great carcass is worth."
+
+Chumbley had sat there for a considerable time smoking and listening,
+for he had suddenly awakened to the fact that there was another boat
+hard by, with whose occupants his captors conversed in a low voice.
+
+Then suddenly he heard a familiar voice speaking fiercely in the Malayan
+tongue.
+
+Chumbley hesitated for a moment to make sure, and then shouted:
+
+"Why, Hilton, old man, are you there?"
+
+"Chumbley!  Here!  Help!" cried Hilton.  "Help, man, help!"
+
+"Bring it here, then," said Chumbley, coolly.
+
+"I cannot.  I'm a prisoner: seized by Malay scoundrels."
+
+"Same here, old man," said Chumbley, puffing away at his cigar, the
+incandescent part of which was getting dangerously near his nose.
+"Pleasant finish to the Perowne _fete_, isn't it?"
+
+Here there was a fierce adjuration from the Malays in the other boat,
+which Hilton obeyed to the extent of speaking in a lower tone.
+
+"What is to be done?" he said, "I'd come and help you, but I'm bound
+hand and foot."
+
+"So am I, old man," replied Chumbley, coolly.  "Tighter than you are,
+I'll swear."
+
+"But what is to be done?" said Hilton again.
+
+"Goodness knows.  Nothing, I should say.  Have a cigar?"
+
+"Chumbley!" cried Hilton, passionately, "is this a time for joking, when
+at any moment our lives may be taken!  Be sensible if you can."
+
+"I thought that was being sensible or philosophical if you like it
+better, old man.  I don't see that it's of any use to fret so long as
+they don't kill us.  It will be a change from pipe-clay and parade; and
+judging from what I saw between you and someone else in a certain
+quarter to-day, I should have thought that you would have been glad of a
+holiday."
+
+"Holiday, with a kris at our throats," cried Hilton, passionately.
+
+"Bah! they won't kill us!" said Chumbley.
+
+"I tell you that is what the scoundrels mean!" replied Hilton.  "Not
+that it matters much," he added gloomily.
+
+"Oh, doesn't it!" said Chumbley, "but it does, a good deal.  I don't
+know that we should make much fuss--soldiers can't; but I know of plenty
+of people who would cry their eyes out about me."
+
+"If the English rajahs," said a voice, that seemed to the two young men
+in their bandaged condition to come out of the darkness, and to speak
+haltingly, as if the utterer were not quite sure of the language in
+which he spoke--"If the English rajahs will be patient, and not try to
+escape, no harm shall be done to them."
+
+"There," said Chumbley, "do you hear that, old man!  Better have a
+cigar."
+
+"Rubbish!" cried Hilton, angrily.
+
+"Not a bit of it, old man," said Chumbley; "they are some of old
+Perowne's best, and I have just finished one, and am going to have
+another.  Here! hi! my lord the Malay chief, Maharajah, Muntri,
+Tumongong, or whatever you are, stop the boat, and give my friend a
+cigar.  Load us both and fire us old chap, and then we can go off
+comfortably."
+
+There was no cessation in the rowing; but as Chumbley sat back there he
+felt his request attended to, the smoked-out cigar being taken from his
+lips and thrown into the water, where it fell with a loud hiss, the case
+taken from his breast, opened, and then it seemed that the boats were
+drawn together, and a cigar was passed to Hilton.
+
+"Got it, old man?" said Chumbley, sucking at his own, and biting off the
+end.
+
+"Yes," said Hilton gruffly, as if he were resenting the attentions of
+his captors.
+
+Then came the sharp sound of a striking match; and though Chumbley tried
+hard, he found that his eyes were too well bandaged for him to catch
+even a gleam of the light, so he contented himself with drawing at his
+cigar, after which there was the loud hiss of the match thrown into the
+water, and the boats were once more urged onward at a goodly speed.
+
+A little conversation was kept up; but over their cigars the two
+prisoners seemed to grow thoughtful, and at last there was a pause,
+which Chumbley broke at last with the question:
+
+"I say, old chap, don't you think this means ransom?"
+
+There was no reply, and the deep-voiced Malay said, in his own tongue:
+
+"The other boat is far behind."
+
+It must have been towards morning that a few words were uttered in
+Chumbley's boat; there seemed to him, as he immediately became on the
+_qui vive_, to be a quickening of the rower's strokes, the rustling of
+bushes, some twigs of one of which brushed his arm, and then they
+ascended, as far as he could judge, a narrow stream for a short
+distance, for the oars kept striking bushes or reeds on either side; and
+now the boat that held Hilton had evidently come up close behind.
+
+"They mean to hide us away well, at all events," thought Chumbley.  "Now
+I wonder whether we have come up the stream or down."
+
+He had hardly given life to that query, when a gentle check, as if the
+bows of the boat had run into mud, told that the shore was reached.
+
+A few rapid orders succeeded, and it seemed to Chumbley that now they
+were about to land he would have his cramped legs unbound; but no.  The
+next minute he was seized by four men, lifted out, and laid upon the
+soft, mossy ground.
+
+"You there, Hilton?" he said, as he lay upon his side as helpless as a
+newly-landed fish.
+
+"Yes, I am here," was the reply.
+
+"The English rajahs can talk as they like," said the deep-voiced Malay.
+"No one can hear them now."
+
+"Humph!  Thanks for the great concession," growled Chumbley; and he was
+about to take advantage of the permission, when he felt himself again
+lifted, and laid this time in a kind of hammock that seemed to be slung
+upon poles, and then for a couple of hours at least, he and Hilton, who
+was in a similar conveyance behind, were borne along some narrow pathway
+of the jungle, the leaves, and strands, and thin verdant canes brushing
+against them constantly, and sweeping their faces at times when they
+were halted for the bearers to be changed.
+
+"Well," said Chumbley, chuckling softly, "I hope they are enjoying
+themselves with their job over me.  They'll declare that they have had
+the honour of carrying a very great man."
+
+A final halt at last, when fresh voices were heard.  The hammocks were
+set down upon what seemed to be a framework; then they were lifted,
+tilted very much at one end, as if a flight of steps were being
+ascended, and at last the prisoners felt themselves to be landed upon
+what felt like a bamboo floor.
+
+Next they were lifted out, carried a few steps, and laid upon soft
+matting; there was the _pad, pad--pad, pad_ of shoeless feet over the
+floor, and all was perfectly still.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+A BIRD IN A CAGE.
+
+Helen Perowne's horror upon finding herself borne helplessly away was so
+great that she swooned, remaining insensible for some very considerable
+time, and when she did recover herself it was only to faint again and
+again, becoming afterwards so thoroughly prostrate that she took no note
+of either time or the direction in which she was being taken.
+
+Hours must have elapsed before, in the total darkness caused by the
+stifling veil thrown over her head, she found that she was being carried
+in some kind of litter along a forest path, whose leaves and vines
+brushed her as she passed.
+
+This seemed to last a long time, and to be very unreal and dreamy.  In
+fact, more than once she felt that she must be in some terribly troubled
+dream, out of which she kept awaking to the reality of her position and
+calling for help.
+
+It was in vain she knew, for her voice seemed to return upon her; and at
+last, wearied out and exhausted, she lay there passive, thinking of the
+past, and wondering what her future was to be.
+
+She was too much prostrated to be able to think with clearness; but her
+thoughts kept turning to her career since she left England, and the
+dark, threatening face of Murad was constantly before her eyes.  That he
+was connected with this outrage she felt no doubt, and as she thought of
+her weak vanity and the strait to which it had brought her, the tears
+filled her eyes and trickled slowly down her cheeks.
+
+Then other faces rose before her in the darkness, as if upbraiding her
+for what she had done.  She saw the Rev Arthur Rosebury, calm,
+patient, and uncomplaining, satisfied if she only gave him a look or
+word; Chumbley, her very slave at first, but then a rebel, ready to look
+at her mockingly, as if laughing at his broken chain; Hilton, devoted
+and tender but exacting, as if he doubted her truth; Murad, again fierce
+and lurid in his love, so that she shuddered as she saw his dark eyes
+and white teeth; a dozen others with whom she had trifled; and lastly,
+the quiet, firm face of Neil Harley, half laughing, half angry with her,
+but full of determination, as if he were constantly telling her that he
+was but waiting till she had grown wiser, for she would yet be his.
+
+As these faces seemed to rise before her out of the thick darkness, it
+was as though she were haunted, and it was in a wild, passionate way
+that she seemed in her dreamy state to be defying them, bidding them
+go--all but one, whose power was too great even for her angry words to
+repel.  No; Neil Harley merely mocked and laughed, and seemed to say: "I
+can wait; I shall appeal no more, for some day I know, as I have often
+said, I shall have you humbled, a suppliant at my feet, begging me to
+take you, to protect you, to make you mine.  Till then I can wait!"
+
+It was all darkness again, and these words but a fancy of her brain; but
+how real it all seemed--so real that Helen shuddered as she wept.
+
+"I hate him--I detest him!" she panted.  "I would sooner die than humble
+myself as he has said--sooner become the wife of this Indian prince, of
+Hilton, or of anyone who pleaded for my love.  Supplicate!  And to him!
+What madness!  Why do I think such things?  Is my brain reeling?  Are my
+senses leaving me?  Heaven help me?  What shall I do?"
+
+The heat was intense, and the prisoner could hardly breathe, so closely
+was she veiled; and once more she sank into a dreamy swoon, in which the
+realities of her condition were so commingled with fancy that she could
+not separate them, and her efforts to master her reason were growing
+vain, when she was roused by what she doubted to be real at first, but
+which proved to be the gruff voices of men speaking by her litter-side.
+
+Soon after she, too, found that she was being carried up a ladder, and
+rousing herself, she made a feeble effort to get free; but so weak was
+her straggle, that she was lifted by one man, carried up the steps, and
+laid upon a couch.
+
+There was a few moments' pause then, and she heard her late companions
+depart.  Then she felt busy hands about her, their touch making her
+shriek with horror; but as the stifling veil was removed she found it
+was nearly daylight, and her relief was great as she saw that she was
+surrounded by women.
+
+She was too much exhausted to speak; but she found strength enough to
+join her hands together in a mute appeal for help; and one of the women
+bent over her, and proceeded to smooth back her dark and tangled hair.
+
+"Give me water!" she panted, hoarsely.  "Water!" but her words were not
+understood, and it was not until she had made signs, pointing to her
+mouth, that those in attendance brought her a cup of the refreshing
+fluid.
+
+Whether it was drugged or not she never knew, but directly after she
+sank into a sleep that was deep enough to resemble a stupor, though most
+probably this was the effect of her utter weakness and prostration, her
+mental agony and excitement having been extreme.  From this sleep she
+did not awaken for many hours, when, upon unclosing her eyes, she found
+that a couple of young Malay girls were watching her, evidently waiting
+for her to awaken, for no sooner had Helen unclosed her eyes than they
+proceeded to attend to her toilet, bringing water, brushes, and other
+necessaries, bathing her face, and then laughingly dressing her hair,
+chattering away to each other the while.
+
+Helen plied them well with questions, but they only shook their heads;
+and feeling that it would be of no avail to resist, she submitted
+quietly to their attentions, letting them arrange her hair, which they
+did according to their own national tastes, and afterwards began to
+solicit her to partake of food.
+
+As this last was placed before her Helen shook her head again and again;
+but the girls became so urgent with their pressure that she at last
+essayed to partake of the breakfast; but after a few mouthfuls, each of
+which seemed as if it would choke her, she broke down and crouched
+there, humbled and worn out with anxiety, sobbing aloud as if her very
+heart would break.
+
+She felt that in a few short hours all had been changed.  The last night
+she was Helen Perowne, whose lightest word seemed at the station to be
+obeyed as if it were law, and at whose look a score of people were ready
+to exert themselves to obey her wishes would she but indicate them to
+those who acted as if they were her slaves.  To-day she was filled with
+a shrinking horror, for the terrible suspicion was ever gaining ground,
+and she shuddered in her misery as she thought of what her fate might
+be.
+
+The hours went slowly on, but her thoughts were rapid.  Her suspicions
+gathered strength, but her mental and bodily forces appeared to be
+slumbering, and it was only by a strong effort of will that she was able
+to keep up some semblance of pride, for she felt that her first display
+of weakness had lowered her terribly in her attendants' eyes.
+
+By degrees she grew more composed, and in these calmer moments she began
+thinking of Grey Stuart, and wished for the protection of her company,
+as she thought more and more of the calm, self-assured manner of her
+school companion, and wondered what she was doing now.
+
+Helen could see that she was in a handsomely-decorated room, whose
+bamboo-barred window looked out upon waving palms and flowering trees.
+The door was hung with a rich silk curtain, and on two sides were low
+couches or divans, spread with Indian rugs, several of which were lying
+on the smooth bamboo floor.
+
+There was little of ornament in the room, but the hangings and rugs
+looked rich, and Helen's suspicion grew rapidly stronger as her eyes
+wandered here and there, and she thought of whose all these things must
+be.
+
+Suddenly a slight rustle of the silken hangings caught her ear, and
+turning her eyes in the direction, she drew a breath of relief as she
+saw that it was caused by a little knot of Malay women, who were eagerly
+scanning her with their great dark eyes, and evidently regarding her as
+a curiosity.
+
+These departed and others came--dark-faced, scowling women, in their gay
+sarongs--whispering to each other, and passing comments on the stranger;
+while Helen sat there, trying hard to keep up her stately air and to let
+these insolent gazers know that though a prisoner she was an English
+lady, and their superior still.
+
+Twice over a couple of these visitors addressed some remark to the girls
+who seemed to have been placed there as attendants.  What these remarks
+were Helen could not tell, but they drew forth angry expostulations from
+the girls, who at once went and drew the great curtain, and seemed to
+forbid further intrusion.
+
+This was evidently the case, for saving that her two attendants remained
+in the room, Helen was undisturbed; and feeling somewhat recovered, she
+made an effort to win her companions to her side, beginning by
+questioning them in as friendly a manner as she could assume, but
+without effect; for though it was evident that one of them understood
+English words mingled with such Malay as the prisoner could recollect,
+the girl made no reply, only looked at her with indifferent eyes, and
+kept on shaking her head to _every_ question as to why the speaker had
+been seized and was forcibly detained.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+HELEN'S TIREWOMEN.
+
+Helen Perowne's great horror in her situation of captive was the coming
+night.  The day had been more bearable, as in the comparative coolness
+of the shaded room with its open windows she had felt the influence of
+the quietude and calm of the forest at which she gazed.  Her mind was
+tortured by surmises and wonder as to whether her friends would not soon
+arrive to rescue her, while at every sound she started in fear of seeing
+her suspicion fully verified; but still she had bravely grown more
+composed and rested.  She was among women, watched by women, and sooner
+or later she felt sure that someone from the station would arrive in
+pursuit.
+
+For it was monstrous to suppose that such a crime as the seizure of an
+English lady would be allowed to pass without swift retribution.
+
+This idea comforted her, and in her more hopeful moments she wondered
+who would first come to her aid--whether it would be Mr Harley, Hilton,
+or her father.  One of them, well backed by the soldiers, she told
+herself, would certainly be there ere long; but darkness began to fall.
+Nobody had been to her help, and shivering with dread, she watched the
+darkening of the shadows amongst the broad palm leaves, and alternated
+this with shuddering glances at the door, whose curtain now began to
+look black and funereal, and added to her dread.
+
+Just at dark a couple of women entered, bearing various dishes for her
+evening meal; but the sight of food was repugnant to her, and the wine
+she dared not taste.
+
+Her two attendants were, however, less scrupulous, and they ate and
+drank heartily, even to finishing the luscious fruit, of which there was
+a large dish, and whose juice would have been most welcome to Helen's
+parched and fevered lips.
+
+At last, though, the remains of the meal were taken away; and after
+chatting together for some time by the open window, through which the
+moon shone, and from where Helen sat, turning the two girls into
+weird-looking silhouettes, they yawned, spoke sleepily, and ended by
+pointing to the couch the prisoner was to occupy, throwing themselves
+upon another, and apparently soon falling into a heavy sleep.
+
+Helen lay resting upon her elbow, watching the darkened portion of the
+great room where her companions lay, and then letting her eyes rest upon
+the dimly-seen draped door, whose curtain seemed more than once to move,
+as if being drawn aside.
+
+Watching this till her eyes felt strained, and seeing nothing more, she
+turned her gaze to the barred window, through which the last rays of the
+moon were streaming previous to its disappearing behind the dense belt
+of forest trees.  Lower it sank and lower, till the room was in total
+darkness; and at last, moved by the desire to try and escape from her
+captivity, Helen rose with her heart throbbing violently, to try in a
+fearsome hopeless way whether she could not get out of the room, having
+afterwards some ill-defined idea in her mind that she might, if once
+clear of the prison where she then was, find her way to some native
+campong, whose inhabitants would give her shelter, and perhaps take her
+down the river in their boat to where more certain help might be
+secured.
+
+It took some time to make up her mind to move, but when she had shaken
+off her dread and risen softly to her feet, hardly had she gone a yard,
+when one of the bamboos forming the floor gave a loud creak, and almost
+before she could realise the fact, the two girls had sprung up, seized
+her arms, and tenderly but firmly forced her back to her couch.
+
+Helen lay there panting with indignation at the treatment she was
+receiving, but trying to contain herself, for she felt that any attempt
+at force would only be to her own injury, and that if she were to escape
+it must be by some subtle turn.  So she lay there perfectly still for
+quite an hour before making any further attempt to reach the door, this
+time with as light a step as she could assume.
+
+But though the moment before her companions seemed to be sleeping
+heavily, her slightest movement made them start up; and after several
+attempts to escape their watchfulness, one of them took her hand,
+grasped it firmly, and lay down to sleep by her side.
+
+How that long, stifling night passed Helen Perowne could never
+afterwards tell; but towards morning she fell into a broken, troubled
+sleep, from which she awoke to find that the sun was very high, and that
+the two Malay girls were waiting to act as her tirewomen once again.
+
+She still felt too weak to offer resistance to their acts, and she sat
+up and allowed them to bathe her face with a delicately-tinted,
+sweet-scented water, which, with a good deal of merry laughter, they
+liberally applied.  It was cool and refreshing to her fevered cheeks and
+hands; and seeing that she liked it they kept up the bathing for some
+little time, chattering to her the while in their own language, which
+they supplemented now and then with a few words of English.
+
+When this was over at last, and she had dried herself with the perfumed
+towels they brought, Helen started on finding that a portion of her own
+clothing had been removed, and that the Malay girls had substituted a
+couple of gay silken sarongs and a filmy scarf.
+
+She appealed to them to return her own dress, but they only laughed and
+began to praise the gay colour of the sarongs, playfully throwing them
+round her to show how well they looked, and then clapping their hands
+and uttering cries indicative of their admiration of the effect.
+
+Still Helen refused to accept the change, and after trying angry
+remonstrance, one of the girls ran out, to return directly with a couple
+of stern-looking, richly-dressed Malay women, who frowningly threatened
+the miserable girl with the indignity of force.
+
+Still she refused; and clapping her hands, the elder of the two women
+opened the door for the admission of half a dozen slaves, when, feeling
+that resistance was vain, Helen signed that she would submit, and with
+drooping head and throbbing brow allowed her two attendants to drape her
+as they wished.
+
+This over, breakfast was placed before her, and exhausted nature forced
+her to partake of the food with a better appetite.
+
+"I shall need my strength," she said to herself; and she ate and drank,
+but started at every movement outside the room as she waited the coming
+of those who would set her free.
+
+"Hilton, in spite of what has passed, will not rest until he has found
+me--poor fellow!"
+
+She said these last two words with a mingling of contempt and pity in
+her voice; though had he presented himself then, she would have thrown
+herself gladly in his arms.
+
+But there was no token of approaching relief.  The voices of many women
+could be heard coming and going about what was apparently a large native
+house; and the prisoner could not avoid a shudder as from time to time
+she thought of who must be the owner of the place.
+
+The morning was giving way to the heats of noon, and languid and
+heart-sick Helen was lying back upon one of the couches, thinking of the
+happy days of the past, and trying to piece together the broken,
+incoherent facts connected with her seizure, and wondering whether Murad
+were the real cause, when the two Malay girls who had left her for a few
+moments returned, bearing a handful of wreaths of a beautiful fresh
+white jasmine, which they insisted upon placing in her thick, dark hair.
+
+Helen resisted this trifling for a time, but despair had tamed her
+spirit; and after a few feeble attempts to stay her persecutors, she sat
+like a statue, asking herself, with her eyes fixed upon the gay sarong
+she wore, whether this was the Helen of the past--and what was to be the
+end.
+
+The two girls placed the lovely white flowers in her hair, laughing with
+delight, and clapping their hands as they drew back to gaze at their
+work; after which one of them went off to fetch a common hand-glass of
+European make, and held it before her face that she might, as they said,
+"see how beautiful they had made her now."
+
+Helen was too sick of heart and weary to do more than cast a cursory
+glance at the glass; but this was followed by another, and then she
+uttered an anguished cry, shrinking back and cowering down as if with
+dread as she covered her face with her hands.
+
+Fair Helen was fair no longer.  Her face was as swarthy as that of the
+darkest Malay.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+ANOTHER PRISONER.
+
+The awakening of the Reverend Arthur Rosebury was not very much unlike
+that of the other prisoners.  He, too, seemed to have been carried a
+long distance blindfolded, both in boat and litter; and it all appeared
+like a continuation of the dream in which he had been plunged since he
+first met Helen Perowne.
+
+The hours he had spent in her company; the giving up of his little
+English home; his journey abroad; and his wild Eastern life, had all
+seemed dreamlike and strange; and it was quite, to his mind, in keeping
+therewith, that he should have been seized, blindfolded, and carried off
+by slaves for some reason or another; probably, he argued, because a
+rival was jealous of the favour in which he stood with Helen, who had
+only that night appointed him her special personal attendant.
+
+It was all quite consistent with Eastern life and romance, and did not
+strike him as being at all peculiar, for the fact remains that, while
+the Reverend Arthur Rosebury was exceedingly clever as a student, and
+quite a master in his own particular subjects, he was weak as water in
+worldly matters; and, as his sister too well knew, in many things little
+better than a child.  Add to this that the Reverend Arthur was, for the
+first time in his life, and at middle age, hopelessly infatuated with
+Helen, and it is not surprising that his weakness was extreme.
+
+It was all, then, to him a matter of no wonderment, and he would have
+taken his position coolly enough had he been satisfied that Helen was
+not in danger.  But of this he could not feel assured; and he was
+troubled in his dull, mild way accordingly.  For love blinded him
+effectually to all Helen's failings.  She was beautiful, and she had
+looked kindly, almost lovingly upon him, more than once, and those
+tender looks redeemed all else.  She flirted, she coquetted with others;
+she treated him with marked indifference and contempt; but she had made
+him love her, and he was one of those who, without reward, would go on
+patiently loving until the end.
+
+He was a good deal troubled, then, in his own mind about Helen's fate,
+for he had seen that she was, like him, seized; but in the confusion
+that followed, what afterwards took place he could not tell.
+
+When he was able to think a little more clearly, he began to ask himself
+what he should do to help his companion in distress; and of course,
+ignorant of the fact that he might prove in his humble way a greater
+safeguard than either of her other admirers, there he stuck fast.  What
+was he to do to help Helen?
+
+No answer came to this question, so there he paused, meditating hour
+after hour, until he found himself unbound, and free to gaze about him
+in a pleasant-looking room, whose window opened upon a fairly-kept
+garden, full of such a profusion of strange and beautiful plants,
+shining in the heavy morning dew, that, as the Rev Arthur Rosebury
+rested his forehead against the bamboo bars, and looked out, he forgot
+his present troubles in the glories of a rich botanic feast.
+
+He was interrupted by a hand touching him on the shoulder; and turning,
+he found a couple of tall, well-armed Malays standing at his side, one
+of whom pointed to a breakfast arranged upon a clean mat upon the floor,
+and signed to him that he should eat.
+
+The Reverend Arthur sighed, paused, and asked where was Miss Perowne;
+receiving for answer a shake of the head, and a fresh intimation that he
+should eat.
+
+This, after a moment's hesitation, he sat down and began to do,
+evidently in a very abstracted mood.
+
+At the end of a minute he rose, beckoned to one of his guards, led him
+to the window, and pointing out through the open bars to a very
+beautiful form of convolvulus he took out his penknife, opened it, and
+placed it in the Malay's hand, signing to him that he should go out and
+cut one of the long twining strands.
+
+The man looked at him in a puzzled manner for a few moments, but ended
+by comprehending; and after saying a few words to his companion, he went
+out and came round to the window where the Reverend Arthur was watching,
+and ready to point to the plant, a portion of which the Malay cut, and
+also a spray of a large jasmine, and brought in.
+
+The prisoner took the plants and his knife, and sat down crosslegged to
+his breakfast, which became a prolonged meal, full of enjoyment; for
+between every two mouthfuls there was a long pause, and sections had to
+be made of the flowers and seed vessels, while notes were made in the
+notebook the chaplain always carried in his breast-pocket.
+
+Altogether that was a very pleasant meal; and the two Malay guards
+stared to see how calm and contented their prisoner seemed to be.
+
+Then came a period of depression, during which the chaplain questioned
+the Malays, making use of all the words that he had studied up during
+the voyage and since his stay; but they either could not or would not
+give him any information respecting the object of his inquiry; and he
+walked dreamily to the window, and stood gazing out once more.
+
+Whatever might be his troubles or perplexities, it was impossible for
+the Reverend Arthur Rosebury to gaze at the beauties of nature in a
+botanical form without forgetting the perturbations of his spirit; and
+consequently he had not been looking out at the wonderful collection of
+plants, for the most part strange to him, many minutes, before he was
+signing to the Malay guard to cut him a fresh specimen.
+
+This the man readily did; and with intervals for meals and fits of
+despondency at not being able to help Helen Perowne, the Reverend Arthur
+Rosebury passed his first day in prison.
+
+The next was very similar, for he was treated with the greatest of
+kindness and consideration, except that he could obtain no information
+whatever respecting his detention or his fellow-captive.
+
+On the third day, upon signifying a desire to have another specimen of
+the plants in the garden, the guard handed to him one of the little
+woven caps worn by the Malays, signed to him to put it on as he had not
+his own hat, led him out through a doorway into the garden, and then
+said, in fair English:
+
+"You may walk and pick flowers.  If you run away you will be killed."
+
+The chaplain stared at the man, and asked him some other questions, but
+the Malay guard pointed to the flowers, waved his hand over the garden
+as if to say, "You are free to walk here;" and seating himself upon a
+stump, he took out his betel-box, extracted a sirih leaf, smeared it
+with coral-lime mixed into a cream, rolled a piece of nut therein, and
+placing the preparation in his mouth, he began to chew it calmly without
+seeming to heed his prisoner, though he was watchfully observant of him
+the whole time.
+
+Helen Perowne was entirely forgotten for the space of three hours,
+during which the chaplain dreamily revelled in the beauties of the
+wonderful flowers of that Eastern land.  He had no thought outside the
+present, and in a kind of ecstasy he wandered here and there till, truth
+to tell, he began to feel hungry, and hunger made him look up at the
+long, low, palm-thatched building that was his prison.
+
+Hunger made him also, for some occult reason, begin to think of Helen,
+and he found himself wondering whether she was confined anywhere near
+him, and if so, could he make known his presence by any means.
+
+Just then, seeing him gazing hard at the house, the Malay rose from his
+seat, where he had remained patiently the whole time, and pointing to
+the open door, the chaplain went in laden with flowers sufficient to
+occupy him in making scientific notes for the rest of the day.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+CHUMBLEY'S COOLNESS.
+
+"I say, this is a rum set-out, Bertie," drawled Chumbley.  "I suppose
+you are there?"
+
+"Yes, I am here, or there, as you choose to call it," replied Hilton,
+rather bitterly, for his bonds gave him no little pain.
+
+"I will loosen the rajahs now," said the voice that Chumbley had heard
+all through his unpleasant adventure.
+
+Busy hands were now about them, and a knife was used to cut them free;
+but their limbs were so cramped by the long confinement, and so tightly
+bound, that they could hardly move.
+
+Then the handkerchiefs were removed from their eyes, and they lay back
+on the soft matting gazing about them, the subdued light of the large
+room in which they found themselves being very grateful to their dazzled
+eyes.
+
+The man who had set them free from the cords was a stern-looking,
+muscular Malay in plain cotton jacket and sarong, in whose folds were
+stuck a couple of formidable-looking krisses; and the place in which the
+prisoners' eyes struggled with the light was a tolerably large room
+floored with split bamboo, the walls being for the most part a kind of
+basket-work of cane, partially covered with native woven hangings, while
+the floor was pretty well hidden by Persian and Turkish rugs.
+
+Everything looked cool and comfortable; and, in spite of the absence of
+tables and chairs, there was a good deal of elegance in the way in which
+various ornaments of bronze and china were arranged about the apartment.
+Here and there, too, were objects of European manufacture, principally
+in glass, Italian imitations of old Venice being principally chosen.
+
+Naturally enough the first glances of the prisoners were aimed at the
+windows, of which there were two, and at the door; but they were
+evidently strongly made, and though the bars of the windows were but
+wood, they were stout bamboos externally almost as hard to cut as flint.
+
+The Malay saw their looks; and making a sign to them, he crossed to the
+door and threw it open, admitting with the rays of the morning sun the
+glinting of the spear-heads of half a dozen stout Malay guards.
+
+Closing the door, he beckoned to the prisoners to come to the windows.
+
+Hilton essayed to rise, but sank back upon his mats with an ejaculation
+indicative of pain, for the attempt was full of suffering to his swollen
+limbs.
+
+Chumbley, though in pain, was more successful, or more fall of
+fortitude, for he struggled to his feet, and heavily tottered across the
+bamboos and mats to the window, which was covered with a
+beautifully-scented creeper, and through which a pleasant prospect was
+visible of undulating woodland and dense jungle.
+
+"Quite fresh to me," muttered Chumbley; "I wonder where we are?"
+
+Not till he had had this glance round did he pay any heed to the Malay,
+who was pointing to a group below each window of three well-armed men.
+
+"They are to kill you if you try to go," he said, quietly; and then,
+with a meaning smile, he left the room, fastening the door with some
+kind of bar.
+
+"This is atrocious!" cried Hilton, as he bit his lip, and pressed his
+swollen wrists; while Chumbley dropped at full length upon the mats,
+turned upon his back, and began to rub his legs.
+
+"A--bom--i--na--ble," he drawled.
+
+"That scoundrel Murad is at the bottom of it, I'll swear," cried Hilton.
+"Hang the fellow!  I could shoot him like a dog."
+
+"You should have hung him or shot him before he carried out this game,"
+said Chumbley, rubbing away very softly, and evidently feeling a good
+deal of satisfaction as his reward.
+
+"It is to get me out of the way while he resumes his attentions to--you
+know," he cried, peevishly; "but he might have saved himself the
+trouble, for I've done."
+
+"He seems to have had an idea of going it wholesale," drawled Chumbley,
+"or else he wouldn't have brought me."
+
+"What shall we do now?" said Hilton, altering his position, for the
+numbing sensation was passing off.
+
+"As soon as ever I've done rubbing my legs," said Chumbley, "I'm going
+to have another cigar; and then if they don't bring us breakfast I shall
+have a nap, for I feel as if it would do Mr Chumbley good."
+
+"Chumbley, I haven't patience with you!" cried Hilton.
+
+"Not when you have pins and needles in your legs, dear boy; but have a
+weed to soothe you, and then you can philosophise over our trouble.
+Say, old chap."
+
+"What?"
+
+"No parade this morning--no drill.  No anything to do at all but lie
+here and smoke.  Hah! this is a nice one.  Look out, old man.  Catch!"
+
+To Hilton's annoyance his friend coolly took a cigar from his case,
+struck a light, and having ignited the end of his roll of tobacco-leaf,
+he pitched case and match-box to his friend, then lay back and smoked.
+
+For a few minutes Hilton gazed at him in an angry, disgusted manner; but
+the process of smoking looked so calming in its effects upon his friend,
+that he submitted to the desire to imitate him, and proceeded to light a
+cigar himself; but before he had been smoking many minutes, a regular
+hard breathing told him that Chumbley was dozing, and sure enough he was
+lying there, heedless of present trouble and that to come, his cigar
+tightly held between his teeth, and his breath coming and going, as he
+slept placidly and well.
+
+"I always thought Chumbley cool," muttered Hilton in an annoyed way;
+"but he really is the coolest fellow I ever met.  Why, that villain may
+kill us to-morrow--to-day for what I know.  Oh, it's monstrous! and all
+through that wretched, coquettish girl."
+
+"I hate myself!" he said, after a few minutes' pause.  Why, he did not
+say, but he, too, lay back and indulged in his friend's bad habit,
+feeling gradually calmer and more at rest, especially as the furtive rub
+he gave from time to time at one or other of the places where the bonds
+had been was mollifying in its effect.
+
+Chumbley was fast asleep; of that there could be no doubt, so Hilton
+determined that it was his duty to watch for both.  He could not go to
+sleep at a time like this, so he began thinking about Helen, muttering
+angrily the while; but by degrees his countenance softened, his eyes
+closed, his cigar fell from his lips, the infection of Chumbley's
+despised readiness to sleep came over him, and, quite exhausted, he,
+too, lay breathing heavily, and perfectly unconscious of the lapse of
+time.  Naturally enough he dreamed of Helen and her careless coquettish
+treatment of his love, which was rapidly cooling down, like the lava
+after some violent eruption, and giving place to a hard and bitter anger
+at her heartless ways.
+
+As for Chumbley he was too weary to dream, but slept on as calmly as if
+he were in his own cot at the fort; perhaps more calmly, for the
+well-ventilated room was shaded by waving cocoa-palms and the branches
+of a great durian-tree, while the large leaves of banana kept the
+sun-rays from the glassless window.
+
+At intervals of about an hour the Malay came in, and stepping softly
+towards them, seemed to assure himself that they were both asleep, going
+out directly with a satisfied smile as he saw how calmly they were
+resting.
+
+"They are brave men, these English," he muttered.  "They will do.  It is
+right.  They do not know but that this may be their last day on earth,
+and yet they sleep."
+
+Mid-day had long passed before Chumbley awoke suddenly, as if influenced
+by the presence of the tall Malay, who was standing by him.
+
+"Hallo, old chap!" he drawled, "have I been asleep?  I say, have I been
+asleep?" he added, in the Malay tongue.
+
+"Since morning, rajah, and it is now past mid-day," replied the Malay,
+respectfully.
+
+"Here, hi!  Hilton!  Wake up, old man!" cried Chumbley; and his
+fellow-prisoner leaped up, looking vacantly before him for a moment or
+two, and then growing angry as he realised where they were.
+
+The Malay retired at once, and a couple of fresh men entered, bringing
+brass basins with water, cloths, and English-made hair brushes, and
+soap.  These the two officers gladly used, Chumbley uttering grunts of
+satisfaction as he indulged in a good wash, and ended by carefully
+adjusting his short crisp hair.
+
+"That's better, lad," he said.  "One feels more like a human being now."
+
+"Yes," replied Hilton, smiling.  "It is surprising what a degraded
+creature a man feels when he has not made acquaintance for some hours
+with soap and water."
+
+"Come, that's more cheery, my noble.  Why, I believe, old fellow, that
+this affair is doing you good!"
+
+"I suppose I am a little rested," said Hilton, quietly.  "Take away
+those things," he said to the Malays, who both bowed respectfully and
+withdrew.
+
+"I say, Hilton," said Chumbley, "I suppose this really is Murad's game,
+isn't it?"
+
+"No doubt.  Of course it is!"
+
+"Well, he is doing the thing civilly.  I wonder whether he treats all
+his prisoners like this?  Hallo! what's this mean--an execution sheet or
+a tablecloth?"
+
+"The latter," said Hilton, quickly.
+
+"And quite right too," exclaimed Chumbley.  "I say, how hungry I do
+feel!"
+
+These last remarks were elicited by the fact that the tall Malay had
+returned, ushering in half a dozen more, who quickly spread a white
+tablecloth in the English fashion; and to the surprise of the prisoners
+they were served with a capital breakfast, which included, among native
+luxuries, coffee, very good claret, roast and curried chickens, and
+fairly-made bread.
+
+"Look here," said Chumbley, who was staring ravenously at the
+preparations, "if you have any suspicions about the food being poisoned,
+don't say a word about it, old man, until I have fed."
+
+"Oh, absurd!" replied Hilton.  "Why should it be poisoned?"
+
+"I don't know, and I don't want to know!" exclaimed Chumbley.  "Only let
+us leave all other discussion till we have discussed our breakfast;" and
+seating himself in the Malay fashion upon the floor, he at once set an
+example to his companion, that Hilton was fain to follow.
+
+"As that fellow said somewhere, `a child might play with me now,'"
+sighed Chumbley, and wiping his lips, in token of having finished, he
+leaned back against the divan.  "Done?"
+
+"Yes," said Hilton, gloomily, "I have done."
+
+"I wish you had done being glumpy," said Chumbley.  "Why, this is quite
+a pleasant change.  I say, executioner," he cried, in the Malay tongue,
+"I have emptied my case.  Can we have some cigars?"
+
+The tall Malay, who had been standing with folded arms, looking like a
+swarthy statue, bowed respectfully, and left the room, the men coming in
+directly to remove the remains of the breakfast; while their leader
+returned at the end of a few minutes with a box of cigars, a jar of
+tobacco, and a couple of large pipes, one of which, a kind of hookah,
+Chumbley at once appropriated, filled, and began to smoke.
+
+"I say, Hilton, old man, failing the costume--which wants brushing, by
+the way--I feel quite the Rajah.  Take it easy, lad.  'Tisn't half bad
+for a change."
+
+"Hang it, Chumbley, you would make yourself contented anywhere!" cried
+Hilton, who, now that his hunger was appeased, began to grow angry once
+more.  "Put down that pipe, and let's see if we cannot contrive some
+means of getting away from here."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"I say put away that pipe, and let's plan how to get away."
+
+"Not if I know it," replied Chumbley.  "The tobacco is delicious, and
+I'm not going to spoil my digestion by putting myself in a fever
+directly after a meal."
+
+"But we must make some plans!" cried Hilton.
+
+"Must we?  Well, by-and-by will do.  I'm very comfortable; and as long
+as a fellow is comfortable, what more can he want?  There, light up and
+do as I do.  I don't know that I want to escape at all if the _cuisine_
+is to be kept up to this mark."
+
+"But we are prisoners!"
+
+"So we are at the island, man alive.  We couldn't help being brought
+here; but now we are here, we may as well make the best of it.  What
+splendid tobacco!  Real Latakie!"
+
+Hilton fretted and fumed; and finding that he could not move his friend,
+he went to door and window, examined the walls, and looked up at the
+open roof; but Chumbley did not move, he merely seemed to be studying
+their position in the coolest way.
+
+"Look here, sit down, old fellow," he exclaimed at last, just as Hilton
+had worked himself into a heat, "it doesn't seem to me to be of any use
+to fret and fume.  Have a little patience, and let's see whether this
+has been done by our dark friend, or else what it does mean."
+
+"How can a man have patience," cried Hilton, "seized in this ruffianly
+way!"
+
+"'Twas rough certainly," said Chumbley, slowly.
+
+"Torn from his quarters--"
+
+"To better ones, my dear old man.  Let's play fair.  One doesn't get
+such a breakfast as this at the fort."
+
+"Dragged from his love!" cried Hilton, who did not seem to heed his
+companion's remarks.
+
+"Well, that last's all sentiment, old man," drawled Chumbley.  "For my
+part I think it will do you good.  I say--happy thought, Hilton--Helen
+Perowne's at the bottom of this, and wanting to get rid of you, has had
+you carried away.  Me too, for fear I should make the running in your
+absence."
+
+"Do you wish to quarrel, Chumbley?" cried Hilton.
+
+"Not I.  You couldn't quarrel with me.  But joking apart, old man, I saw
+enough yesterday to know that you had got to the end of your tether, and
+that--"
+
+"And that what?" cried Hilton, fiercely; for Chumbley had halted in his
+speech.
+
+"That she had pitched you over, same as she had a score of others before
+you."
+
+"Silence!  It is a falsehood--a calumny--a damned lie!  How dare you say
+that?"
+
+"Oh, easy enough!" said Chumbley, without moving a muscle.  "It's just
+waggling one's tongue a bit.  Bully away, old man, I don't mind; and
+you'll feel better when you've rid yourself of all that spleen."
+
+"As to Miss Perowne knowing of this--"
+
+"Oh, that's absurd, of course!" cried Chumbley; "but she has pitched you
+over, old man, and you now belong to the ranks of the unblessed."
+
+"I cannot quarrel with you, Chumbley," said Hilton, cooling down,
+"because I know you to be too good a fellow to slight; but will you talk
+sense?"
+
+"Yes, dear boy, of course I will; but I wish you'd try this tobacco.
+This is sense that I am going to say now.  I feel sure that we have been
+kidnapped so that our new friends may get a nice little sum for us out
+of the British Government."
+
+"Well, it is likely," said Hilton, whose anger had been of a fleeting
+nature.  "But if they do not get the ransom--what then?"
+
+"That's an unpleasant emergency that it is not worth while to consider
+until we know that negotiations have failed.  It is unpleasant, dear
+boy, because I suppose we should then get a taste of kris, applied in a
+dexterous manner peculiar to the Malays, through the hollow of the left
+shoulder.  But that would only be a _dernier ressort_, and a thousand
+things might happen in the meantime.  It will all come right in the
+end."
+
+Seeing that Chumbley was determined to make the best of their position,
+Hilton gradually began to take somewhat of the same tone; and agreeing
+with his friend that at present any attempt at escape would be folly, he
+partook heartily of the excellent second meal provided for them,
+questioned their guard, but obtained no information whatever as to where
+they were and why they had been brought, and ended by seating himself by
+the open window and listening to the weird noises of the jungle as
+darkness fell.
+
+Feeling weary at last, Hilton sought his couch, and lay thinking once
+more of Helen, wondering where she was, but with less excitement than of
+old; and somehow the sweet, earnest face of Grey Stuart rose like a
+pleasant picture before him, as he fell asleep, thinking that if Helen,
+with her beauteous face, had only had the sweet disposition of her
+schoolfellow and companion, what a lovable woman she would have been.
+
+Chumbley was dropping off to sleep at the same time, and he too was
+thinking of Helen Perowne, and that nature was guilty of making a great
+mistake in sending such girls abroad upon the earth.
+
+"In fact," said Chumbley, who was in a drowsy state of content with the
+rest, good meals, wine and coffee--"in fact, old fellow, I begin to
+think that women are a great mistake altogether, and I for one am
+perfectly cured."
+
+Sleep spread her drowsy wings over his eyes at this point, and his
+heretical notions had no farther play, for his slumber was dreamless,
+and he like his friend passed a calm and pleasant night.
+
+They awoke early, and breakfasted in keeping with their time of rising;
+after which, finding themselves quite alone, and seeing that they were
+not watched, they had a good quiet investigation of the place, doing
+what Chumbley called, "a bit of engineering."
+
+"Don't seem feasible at present," said Chumbley at the end of the look
+round.
+
+"Unless we could bribe the guards," replied Hilton.
+
+"Yes, it would only be throwing away energy just at present.  Let's bide
+a wee, as old Stuart would say.  I say, old chap, talk about old Stuart,
+why don't you marry his pretty little lassie?"
+
+"Why don't you keep that Solomon-like intellect of yours to bear on the
+subject in hand?" retorted Hilton.  "I've done with women."
+
+"So have I," said Chumbley.  "I'd turn monk if I were offered a nice
+cell with good shooting and fishing."
+
+"You're a queer fish yourself, Chum," said Hilton, laughing; "but
+seriously, we must get away from here.  It is perfectly absurd!
+Kidnapped, and nothing else!"
+
+"Quite a romance," replied Chumbley; "but never mind.  We shall know
+what our ransom is to be to-night."
+
+"I wonder whether Harley is taking steps to find us?"
+
+"Sure to be, unless he thinks we are drowned," replied Chumbley.
+"There's no knowing.  I believe my hat went floating down the river."
+
+"I hope not," said Hilton.  "If he thought that he would not search for
+us."
+
+"Not till he heard about the ransom.  I say, old fellow, I'm tired of
+smoking, I wonder whether they have a billiard table, or chess?"
+
+"Pshaw."
+
+"Well, then, a pea-rifle to pot the birds."
+
+"Very likely," said Hilton, drily, as they sat by the open window,
+looking out at the soft shadows of the coming night.
+
+"I'd give something to know really why we are boxed up here," said
+Chumbley, after a long silence.  "It can't be anything connected with
+the station, or I should be in a terrible fidget.  It must be something
+to do with us alone."
+
+"Yes," replied Hilton; "but it is all darkness at present."
+
+For the moment it was; but the light came all at once as they sat there
+having a similar conversation on the evening of the third day, after
+vainly trying to get some information from their guard, for just before
+sunset the door was thrown open, and looking very handsome and
+picturesque, and evidently as if she had paid great attention to her
+toilet, the Inche Maida entered; and as the two officers started up, she
+walked straight towards Hilton with extended hand.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+AT FAULT AGAIN.
+
+"They'll find out the value of that woman now," said Dr Bolter to
+himself; "and if I haven't done wisely in marrying her, I'm a Dutchman!
+Why, it's the very thing!  Here am I, Henry Bolter, a duly qualified
+medical man, physician and surgeon in one, ready to afford bodily
+relief; and here is Mary Bolter, my wife--fine sound about that," he
+said, smiling with satisfaction--"my wife--my little wife--no, my wife
+is best; it sounds more dignified--my wife, ready to afford mental
+relief wherever it is needed; and here she is."
+
+For just then the quick, pattering step of the little lady was heard,
+and, reticule on arm, she came in bustling, hot, and red-faced.
+
+"Well, my little woman, how are you getting on?" he said cheerily, as he
+placed his arm round the buxom little waist, and led her to an
+easy-chair, proceeding afterwards, with all a youth's tenderness, to
+take off her broad hat and light scarf, which he carefully laid down for
+fear of being called to account.
+
+"Oh, don't ask me, Henry," she sighed.  "My heart is nearly broken with
+trouble, and I am doing no good at all."
+
+"Ahem!" ejaculated the doctor, taking her hand and feeling the pulse.
+
+"Don't be foolish, Henry, dear," she exclaimed.
+
+"Foolish?  No, my dear, certainly not.  Hum!  Hah!  Much fever and
+exhaustion.  Recipe vin Xeres, cochleare magnum.  Brisk osculation after
+the medicine."
+
+"What?" exclaimed Mrs Bolter.
+
+"You are suffering from weariness and exhaustion, my dear," said the
+little doctor; "and I have prescribed for you a drop of sherry, and
+something to take after it."
+
+"Not sugar, Henry? and really I would rather not have the wine."
+
+"Doctor's orders, my dear.  There," he said, pouring the sherry into a
+tumbler, and filling it up with cold water, "I have made it as
+refreshing as I could."
+
+Mrs Bolter drank off the draught, and made a wry face, holding out her
+hand.
+
+"Where is the stuff for me to take afterwards?"
+
+"There, my dear," said the doctor, kissing her very tenderly.
+
+"For shame, Henry!" she cried, blushing like a girl.  "Suppose anyone
+had seen you?"
+
+"Well, it would have been like his or her impudence to look; and if it
+had been talked about afterwards, really, Mary, my dear, I have grown to
+be such a hardened sinner over that sort of thing that I shouldn't care
+a bit."
+
+"Really, Henry," said the little lady, "anyone would think you were a
+boy, instead of being a middle-aged man."
+
+"I feel quite a boy," he said, merrily.  "At least, I should if we were
+not in such trouble."
+
+"And we are, Henry, indeed," said the little lady, sadly.  "I'm afraid
+I'm neglecting you terribly, my dear; but I am obliged to try and help
+that poor man, who is completely prostrate; and if it was not for the
+help Grey Stuart gives me, I'm sure I should break down.  Have you any
+news?"
+
+"Not a scrap, my dear.  Have you?"
+
+"None whatever.  But now really, Henry, what do you think of the
+matter?"
+
+"'Pon my word, my dear, I don't know what to think."
+
+"Don't say you believe they have had a boat accident, dear.  I cannot
+bear to think it possible."
+
+"No, my dear, I don't, and I cannot believe it," he replied.  "Here is
+the case: For there to have been a boat accident, Helen, Arthur, Hilton,
+and Chumbley must have taken a boat, and they must have all gone in
+together."
+
+"Or Hilton may have been trying to carry Helen away, and Chumbley and
+Arthur, who is as brave as a lion in such matters, may have been trying
+to stop them, or pursued them in a second boat."
+
+"And a struggle ensued, and the boats upset, eh?"
+
+"Yes, dear," said Mrs Bolter, with a shudder.  "Oh, why did you bring
+us out here, Henry, for such horrors to happen?"
+
+"I did not know that these horrors had happened, my dear," said the
+doctor, drily.  "Let's see first if the boat theory holds water.  I
+don't believe it does."
+
+"Then you think Murad is at the bottom of it?" she said, sharply.
+
+"I'm for and against," he replied.  "Let's wait and see.  I don't
+believe, however, that they are dead."
+
+"Oh, no--oh, no!" said Mrs Bolter, shuddering.  "I cannot believe that.
+I'm afraid it's all due, in some way, to Helen's folly."
+
+"Yes, my dear," said the doctor, "and it has quite upset my intended
+journey in search of the true Ophir."
+
+"And that's your folly.  Oh, Henry, how much happier I should be if you
+would give up that weakness of yours."
+
+"Sorry I can't, Mary.  It's an old weakness that increases with age.
+Don't be angry with me, my dear."
+
+"I am not angry, Henry; only you do worry me when you will keep talking
+about Solomon's ships coming here for gold."
+
+"If they'd come here for gold, and you had been living at the time, they
+would have carried you off, for you are richer than refined--"
+
+"Now, Henry, I will not sit here and listen to such outrageous flattery
+of a very ordinary little woman," said the lady, looking angry, but
+feeling pleased.  "You must be a very weak man to have taken a fancy to
+me."
+
+"Let me be weak then, my dear," said the little doctor.
+
+"Hush!" exclaimed the lady.  "Here is Grey Stuart at the gate;" and they
+listened to the click of the Chinese-made bamboo latch, and directly
+after, looking thin and pale, Helen's schoolfellow was admitted.
+
+She did not speak, but looked at Mrs Bolter in a weary, dejected
+manner, that made the little lady take her in her arms, kiss her
+tenderly, and then place her beside her upon the couch.
+
+"Never despair, my dear," she said, cheerily.  "There's always room for
+hope."
+
+"That is what I have been trying to think for days past," sighed Grey;
+"but the trouble only seems to grow darker."
+
+"Don't say that, my dear," exclaimed Mrs Bolter.  "For my part, I will
+not believe the story of the boat accident; and I have always this
+consolation--that wherever that foolish girl may be, she has my brother
+by her side."
+
+Mrs Bolter felt her cheeks burn a little as she said this; for in her
+heart of hearts she had not the faith in her brother's prudence and
+ability to protect a lady that she professed.
+
+She glanced at the doctor, and her face became a little hotter, for he
+too was watching her, and she felt that he was reading her thoughts.
+
+"I will try and be as hopeful as you are, dear Mrs Bolter; but it is
+very hard!"
+
+"Bless the child!  I did not think she felt so warm an affection for
+Helen Perowne," thought Mrs Bolter; "but it shows how good a heart she
+has."
+
+Then aloud:
+
+"Oh, how tiresome!  Here is that dreadful Mrs Barlow coming!"
+
+"Say I'm out, my dear," whispered the doctor, hurriedly.  "I'll slip
+round through the surgery."
+
+"I cannot say you are out, Henry," said the little lady, reprovingly;
+"but I will say that you are particularly engaged."
+
+"Yes, my dear--an operation," whispered the doctor.
+
+"I shall say nothing of the kind, Harry!" exclaimed Mrs Bolter,
+sternly.
+
+"But she will want to see me, and describe her symptoms."
+
+"Then she cannot see you," replied the little lady, with dignity.  "I
+will take care of that."
+
+Dr Bolter stepped out by one door, and he had hardly closed it after
+him, when Mrs Barlow entered by the other.
+
+"Ah, my dear Mrs Bolter," she sobbed, kissing her in spite of a strong
+objection evinced by the little lady.  "Ah, my dear Miss Stuart, these
+are terrible times."
+
+She paused, as if expecting one of those she addressed to speak; but
+save for acknowledging her salutation, they remained silent.  "Have you
+heard the last news?"
+
+"No," replied Mrs Bolter, quickly.  "Quick! what is it?"
+
+"A couple of boatmen have come in just now with some more relics of our
+missing party."
+
+"What relics?" cried Mrs Bolter, as Grey turned deadly pale.
+
+"They have found some scraps of clothing, I believe, and a hat," said
+the lady.
+
+"Where?  Where are they?" cried Dr Bolter, coming in hurriedly, for he
+had been waiting by the door in the not very creditable position of an
+eavesdropper.
+
+"Oh, doctor, how you startled me!  I wanted to see you?" exclaimed Mrs
+Barlow.  "I fear I am going to have a bad attack of illness!"
+
+Dr Bolter was saved from a bad attack of Mrs Barlow's symptoms,
+described to him at full length, by the opportune arrival of Harley.
+
+"Here, Bolter, I want you," he said, hastily; and making his excuses for
+having to leave, the doctor hurried out and joined Mr Harley in the
+garden.
+
+"You have had something brought in," said the doctor, hastily.  "Where
+is it?"
+
+"Down by the landing-stage.  Perowne has got up from his bed to come and
+see, and Stuart, Murad, and others are down there inspecting them."
+
+The doctor accompanied the Resident to the landing-stage, where, in the
+midst of a little group, lay some wet and torn rags and a sodden hat,
+muddied and out of shape; while, squatting hard by the foul garments,
+were a couple of Malay fishermen, who had found the scraps and other
+articles amongst the mangrove-roots miles away.
+
+Dr Bolter threw off his coat and rolled up his sleeves to go down on
+one knee by the muddy bank, while with contracted eyes and puckered brow
+the young Rajah looked on.
+
+"What do you make of them, doctor?" said the Resident, hoarsely.
+
+"Lady's silk dress that has not been taken off, but dragged from its
+hooks, and ripped and torn away.  It seems to have been rolled over and
+over in the tide till it became fastened on to some snag."
+
+A shudder ran through the little party, and the doctor continued his
+examination.
+
+"Hat," he said, turning it over.  "Dreadfully battered and soaked; but
+it is Chumbley's, I think."
+
+"What is that?" said Mr Harley, in a low voice.
+
+"Coat," said the doctor.  "Gentleman's; and this is a small white tie."
+
+"Here is a handkerchief," said old Stuart, picking up what looked to be
+a mere wisp.
+
+This the doctor took and rinsed in the clear river, starting back on the
+instant, and only just in time for, attracted by the motion of the white
+handkerchief in the water, a small crocodile of some six feet long
+partially threw itself out of the stream; but falling short of its prey,
+the reptile shuffled back and was gone.
+
+No one spoke; but the presence of these creatures in such abundance,
+combined with their daring, whispered plainly enough to the party
+assembled what must be the fate of one who was thrown out into the
+stream.
+
+The doctor took a step or two back, and then, as coolly as if nothing
+had occurred, he shook out the folds of the handkerchief--one of a very
+delicate texture and edged with lace, while in one corner were the two
+letters, "H.P.," embroidered by a woman's hand.
+
+There was a deep groan here, and as the gentlemen turned, it was to see
+that Murad was resting his face upon a bamboo fence, his hands to his
+brow, and, turned from them as he was, the lookers-on could see that his
+breast was heaving, and that the young man was suffering great agony of
+mind.
+
+"Collect all these together," said the doctor in a whisper; and one of
+the soldiers proceeded to obey his orders, when the young Malay leaped
+upon him fiercely, and tore the handkerchief from his grasp, thrust it
+into his bosom, and strode away.
+
+The Resident did not move, but stood gazing after the Sultan, his brows
+contracted, and a peculiar look of dislike gathering in his eyes; but he
+did not speak, and without a word the various relics were gathered into
+a basket and carried across to the Residency island, where Dr Bolter
+announced that he would make a further and more searching examination.
+
+Then the party separated, save that the doctor and Neil Harley had a
+long conversation together, in which the latter related how thoroughly
+the river banks had now been searched by the boats enlisted to carry the
+soldiers, who were most energetically aided by the people belonging to
+Rajah Murad and the Inche Maida, both of whom continued to almost live
+at the station, only going away for a few hours at a time to see to
+their own affairs, journeys from which they came back, with the rowers
+of the small boats they used looking terribly distressed.
+
+"You can trust me, Harley," said the doctor.  "I will not chatter, even
+to my wife, though she is to be trusted, too.  How do you feel about the
+matter now?"
+
+"Feel!" said Neil Harley, quietly.  "I feel that little Miss Stuart was
+right in what she said to me."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"That this is a contest between the wits of the Eastern and the
+European; that we are being deceived; and that Sultan Murad is playing a
+part."
+
+"What, after the miserable relics we have just seen?"
+
+"After the miserable relics we have just seen.  He has slaves who would
+die in his service, and who would consider it a merit to deceive the
+heathen English."
+
+"Then he is playing his part marvellously well," said the doctor.
+
+"Magnificently; and if Miss Stuart is right, as I believe she is, for
+the simple reason that her ideas accord with mine, he is a born actor.
+That show of grief, and that seizure of the pocket-handkerchief were
+admirably done."
+
+"If you believe all this, then," said the doctor, "why not boldly charge
+him with the crime!"
+
+"To create a little war, with no better reason than my suspicions?  A
+charge made in face of the most earnest work--while he is striving might
+and main to serve us."
+
+"Apparently," said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, apparently.  But you see my position.  Here are our two friendly
+natives both offended, but professing forgiveness, and working for us.
+I cannot charge them on bare suspicion.  I must have some proof."
+
+"Then why not search land as well as river?"
+
+"How?" said the Resident.  "Be reasonable, Bolter.  You know as well as
+I do that the rivers and streams are almost the only roads here.  To
+penetrate elsewhere is to cut your way through the dense jungle.  Say I
+determine to offend the Prince and Princess, and take soldiers, saying I
+mean to search their little towns, what good would that do?"
+
+"None, certainly," said the doctor.  "They would not leave their
+prisoners there if they are prisoners."
+
+"You doubt, then?"
+
+"I doubt, and I don't doubt.  I am not a diplomat, Harley.  This is out
+of my line.  If you have a pain, and give me your symptoms, I'll tell
+you what causes that pain.  I can cut you anywhere without injuring an
+important artery, nerve, or vein; and I can extract bullets, cure
+fevers, mend broken bones.  I can also classify most of the natural
+history objects of our district; but over a job like this we have in
+hand I am at sea.  Try Mrs Bolter or Grey Stuart--they will counsel you
+better than I.  Tell me, though, are you going to do anything?"
+
+"Yes.  In confidence, I do not trust either Murad or the Inche Maida.
+This may all be some deeply-laid plot of both to obtain revenge; perhaps
+to begin ousting us from this place, where we are looked upon with
+jealousy."
+
+"Yes, very likely; but what are you going to do?"
+
+"Meet Eastern cunning with Eastern cunning.  I am about to employ some
+people from lower down the river who are now seeking alliance with us,
+seeing how well it pays."
+
+"What, as spies?"
+
+"Yes," said the Resident, quietly.  "I do not believe in the present
+theory of the disappearance, so I shall try these people.  If Murad is
+playing us false, why then--"
+
+"Well, why don't you finish?"
+
+"I fear," said the Resident, fiercely, "that I shall go farther than to
+exact stern justice for this act; for when a man's feelings are touched
+as mine are now--"
+
+He did not finish, but turned sharply away, as if all this was more than
+he could bear.
+
+That night the doctor whispered to his wife to keep her counsel, and not
+to fret about those who were lost, for Neil Harley was deeply moved; and
+if something startling did not come out of it before many days were
+past, he, Dr Bolter, was no man.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+BECOMING HUMBLED.
+
+The secret of the peculiarly-scented water was explained: it was a
+stain, prepared for the purpose, and face, neck, hands, arms were no
+longer those of Helen Perowne--whose complexion was acknowledged even by
+her detractors to be perfect--for as she again gazed within the limits
+of that little badly-reflecting glass, it was to see that her
+countenance now was as swarthy as that of the darkest of the Malays by
+whom she was attended.
+
+It was a great shock; but there was a trouble even worse to come.
+
+The two Malay girls burst into fits of laughter as they saw her horror,
+their eyes glittering with malicious pleasure; and catching Helen's arms
+in their hands, they laid them side by side with their own, to show her
+that they were as nearly as could be of about the same hue.
+
+Then they mockingly pointed to her face, and to their own, holding the
+glass before her again and again, while from the smattering she knew of
+the language, Helen made out that they were telling her how beautiful
+she looked now, and that she ought to be grateful for that which they
+had done.
+
+By degrees, though, the anguish she was suffering seemed to be realised,
+and to wake an echo in their coarser minds, and they began to soften
+towards her, speaking tenderly, and patting her hands and cheeks, and at
+last going so far as to kiss her, as they whispered what were evidently
+meant to be words of comfort.
+
+"You foolish thing," cried the elder of the two; "what is there so
+dreadful in it all?  He loves you, and you will be his chief wife.  It
+is we who ought to weep, not you."
+
+"Yes," cried the other, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that only
+about one word in ten was comprehended by the prisoner; "we are jealous
+of you, for you take away his love from us.  The Rajah has talked about
+you for a long time, saying how lovely you were, only that you were so
+fair."
+
+"I hate you," cried the first; "but I will not be cruel, for you are in
+trouble.  You have been brought away from your father.  I remember so
+well how I was ready to beat my head against the trees, and to drown
+myself in the river, when they brought me from my home.  But Murad was
+very angry when I wept, and after a time I learned how to bear my
+sorrow, and I wept no more."
+
+"I wept, too," said the other, "for I loved a handsome young fisherman,
+and when they dragged me away from my home I fought, and bit, and tore
+people, and Murad said I was to be krissed and thrown into the river.
+Then I thought about the crocodiles, and I felt that it would be too
+dreadful, and I left off crying, and so will you.  There, try and bear
+it, for it is of no avail to weep.  Murad is prince, and what he will
+have he has."
+
+Hardly one word in ten, but the recurrence of the name "Murad" and
+"love" were sufficient to make her suspicions certainties; and as she
+fully realised the extent of her trouble, she shuddered, and sat with
+her hands tightly clasped, gazing into vacancy, and asking herself what
+madness had been hers that she should have allowed her folly to bring
+her to so sad a pass.
+
+She was soon after left to herself, and leaving the matting divan upon
+which she had been seated, she paced the room, frantically trying door
+and windows in turn, but only to find all fast.  Again and again she
+found her follies recurring to her mind, and she blamed herself bitterly
+for her coquetry, and the thoughtless love of admiration which had
+tempted her to attract the Rajah's notice.
+
+So terribly agitating were her thoughts now, that in her excitement her
+hands shook, her legs trembled beneath her weight, and her busy
+imagination coursed on so swiftly that she saw herself the injured,
+helpless wife of the insulted Malay, the occupant of a zenana, and the
+slave of the man whom she had maddened by her weakness and folly.
+
+It was terrible; and so black did the future outlook become to her
+excited imagination, that the only gleam of hope through the darkness
+was represented by a shuddering belief that it would be better now to
+die.
+
+Carried off as she had been, unknown to any but the Rajah's followers,
+and now hidden away in this place, that seemed to be far in the depths
+of the jungle, there seemed no chance of her whereabouts being
+discovered; while were it known to any European who should see her, upon
+what would he gaze but one who was in his eyes an ordinary Malay woman!
+
+This, then, was the goal to which her ambition had carried her.  It was
+for this that she had laughed at the protestations of her many admirers,
+the humblest of whom she would gladly have accepted now sooner than
+become the wife, or rather slave, of this petty, half-savage Rajah.
+
+"Poor Hilton!" she thought sadly to herself, as she stood by the window,
+gazing out at the great green leaves of the jungle.  Would he suffer
+much at her loss? or, feeling too indignant on account of her late
+treatment, be too angry to care?
+
+Then she began thinking of Chumbley, and wished that he, with his strong
+arm, were by her side to protect her in this hour of need; and it was a
+bitter humiliation to her to feel that this man, towards whom she had
+always felt a kind of good-humoured contempt, should be one to whom she
+was ready to cling in the time of adversity.
+
+Then the calm, pensive features of Arthur Rosebury seemed to rise before
+her like an upbraiding spectre, and she, for the first time, seemed to
+see her cruelty in trifling with the best feelings of a man who was
+gentle, tender, and true of heart as a woman; she knew now how she must
+have wounded him, and yet he had borne it all in a patient,
+uncomplaining way, bearing with her follies, displaying no jealousy, but
+condoning everything, and seeming only too happy if she paid him with a
+smile.
+
+There was something very nearly akin to pity and regret in her thoughts
+at this time; and like some punished child, there came to her mind weak,
+repentant vows of amendment and simple promises never to do so again.
+
+Lastly, the face of Neil Harley seemed to rise before her, not pitying
+or pleading like the rest, but with a quiet smile of triumph that made
+her think upon his words, and what is more, set her longing for him to
+be by her side to help and protect her.
+
+She passed her hands across her eyes angrily, and seemed to disclaim the
+wish, but directly after came the recollection of her state, and she
+uttered a weary cry of misery.  She had despised him before--he would
+despise her now; and if he could see her as she had seen herself in that
+mirror, he would turn from her in disgust.
+
+She pondered again, as she grew calmer, upon his words to her, uttered
+as they had been in his quiet, bantering way--that he would wait his
+time till she was weary of trifling with others, when she would turn to
+him and gladly become his wife.
+
+Never until now had Helen felt how true these words might prove, for as
+she rested her burning forehead against the bamboo trellis of her
+window, asking the outer air to cool her fevered face--that face that he
+would never look upon again with the eyes of love--his calm, grave
+manner of dealing with others seemed so representative of power and
+readiness to help, that her heart went out to him as to her natural
+protector, and in a low, passionate voice, she murmured:
+
+"Neil--Neil--come to me before it is too late!"
+
+Then came once more as it were a wave of despair to sweep over her and
+overwhelm her in misery and despair.
+
+"It is too late--too late," she moaned.  "I might have been happy and at
+peace, but it is too late--too late."
+
+As she stood there wringing her hands, she found herself thinking more
+and more of Neil Harley, and she saw now what she had been too
+indifferent to appreciate before; that beneath his calm, half-mocking
+mien there was a depth of affection that she now began to realise to its
+fullest extent.
+
+And yet he had borne with her follies patiently, merely laughing at acts
+that she knew now must have given him great pain, doubtless feeling that
+some day she would sorrow for what she had done, and seek by her
+affection to recompense him for all that had gone before.
+
+Her heart told her, now that she did turn to him--that she was feeling
+the strength of his love in the echo it met with in her own heart.  She
+had not known that it was there--this love for him--but it surely was;
+and now her punishment was to be a terrible one--that of one torn by
+regret for the love that might have been hers, but which she had cast
+away.
+
+For it was too late now--too late, and those words seemed to be ever
+repeating themselves in her ears.
+
+She had never cared for either of those who had been her slaves in turn.
+Their attentions and service had been pleasant, and they had been in
+favour for the time; but she soon wearied of them, and but for the fact
+that Captain Hilton was cast in a firmer mould than either of the
+others, the days of his love-slavery would have been shorter far.  Would
+he come and try to save her? her heart asked--would Neil Harley come?
+
+She asked this again and again, but each time, with crushing violence,
+the answer seemed to come that if they did, it would be too late--too
+late.
+
+It was wonderful how, in the few hours she was left alone, her thoughts
+seemed now to centre upon the Resident.  She remembered her father, and
+thought of how he would be troubled at her absence; and she recalled
+Hilton, Chumbley, the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, but only as subsidiary
+portraits in her mental picture.  Neil Harley's was the principal
+figure, and his face seemed to smile now encouragement to her as she
+mentally appealed to him for help, looking to him as the one whose duty
+it was to afford her protection, and save her from the perils which
+hemmed her in.
+
+"It will he--it is--a bitter lesson to me," she thought, as she grew
+more calm.  "He will find out where I am--he will never rest until he
+does; and when he sees me will he cast me off?  No," she cried,
+hysterically; "he will have pity on me--have pity--for, oh, Heaven help
+me!  I need it now sorely."
+
+These thoughts brought calmness to the prisoner, and uttering a sigh of
+relief, she left the window, and threw herself wearily upon the soft
+mats spread for her use--neither chair nor table being in the
+apartment--and there she reclined, wondering how long a time would
+elapse before Neil Harley could come to her help; for minute by minute
+her belief strengthened that, well supported by her friends, he would
+soon be there.
+
+Helen's increasing calmness gave her a return of appetite, and she
+gained strength for trials to come by partaking heartily of the food
+placed before her; and, as the evening advanced into night, she lay down
+and rested, giving her companions no trouble by fresh attempts to
+escape.
+
+The bright morning sunshine gave her fresh hope and a sense of
+cheerfulness which she assumed with beating heart was due to the fact
+that Neil Harley was drawing nearer, and in this elated spirit she
+partook of breakfast, the two Malay girls laughing merrily and pausing
+to place some sweet-scented flowers in her tresses.  Then she had to
+submit while they made some alteration in the way in which they had
+bound up her hair, showing their teeth more than seemed necessary, and
+drawing her attention to the fact that they were not only dyed, but
+filed in a particular way.
+
+They were very attentive, bringing her flowers and fruit in large
+quantities.  Then they brought brighter and gayer sarongs, asking her if
+she would change, telling her that her darkened face was becoming,
+pointing to her teeth at the same time, and tapping their own.
+
+She was puzzled for the time, but the explanation was not long in
+coming.
+
+In the course of the morning, while she sat listening to the babble of
+the two attendants, but with her ears strained to catch every external
+sound, she suddenly heard voices outside talking earnestly, and her
+heart gave a hopeful throb as she turned her head, her fond imagination
+suggesting, at once, the thought that the excitement outside was due to
+the knowledge of strangers being at hand.
+
+Helen's hope died out like the flickering flame of an exhausted lamp, as
+the thick woven curtain hanging over the door was held aside, and a
+tall, muscular, repulsive-looking Malay woman entered with three others,
+whom, by their rich dresses, Helen supposed to be the Rajah's wives.
+
+They looked at her once or twice, and then stood talking together in
+their own tongue.  Then they left the room quickly, and returned to
+speak eagerly, glancing the while at where Helen sat watchfully scanning
+them, till the tall, repulsive woman, having apparently received her
+instructions, they all approached the soft matting couch.
+
+It was a strange experience for an English lady, and Helen's heart beat
+fast as she asked herself what all this meant.
+
+"It is some native form of marriage-service," she thought, to which she
+was about to be compelled to submit.  She had heard of marriage by
+proxy, and this might be one; for in her state of alarm she was ready to
+accept any idea, preposterous though it might seem.
+
+"I will not submit!" she said to herself, and setting her teeth fast,
+she prepared to resist them as long as she had life.  This she felt was
+the meaning of her being attired in the Malay fashion; and gazing from
+one to the other in an excited way, she drew herself up and awaited the
+attack, if attack there was to be.
+
+The tall Malay woman came up to her slowly, till she stood smiling
+beside the couch, while the others seemed to carelessly group themselves
+together, as if what was to occur was not of the slightest consequence;
+but Helen saw they were watching her with eager interest all the same.
+
+A fresh regret assailed the prisoner now, and that was her want of
+knowledge of the Malay tongue, as she sat wondering what was the meaning
+of the conversation that had taken place.
+
+The tall woman spoke to her then slowly, and trying to make her
+comprehend, but it was some moments before Helen understood her demand.
+
+"Let me look at your teeth."
+
+Helen shrank back, but the woman's hand was upon her lips, and she
+forced one aside, laying bare the pure white ivory, and then snatched
+her hand away with a contemptuous ejaculation full of disgust.
+
+"Bad! bad!" she cried in Malay; and then all laughed, as Helen rose up
+and drew away from them, her eyes flashing with indignation.
+
+"I will make them well," said the woman, taking a little woven grass bag
+from her sarong, and drawing therefrom a small brass phial and a steel
+implement, whose use Helen did not then comprehend.
+
+The woman spoke to her then in an imperative tone, stepped forward, and,
+taking her arm, tried to force her into a sitting posture; but with a
+cry of anger Helen thrust her back and ran to the door, dragging aside
+the curtain, and trying to pass through.
+
+The effort was vain, and uttering some sharp angry commands, the woman
+advanced to her once more, speaking rapidly in her own tongue, and
+before Helen could avoid her rapid action, she found herself pinioned by
+the wrists.
+
+What followed was, as Helen afterwards recalled it, one frantic struggle
+against superior power.  She remembered crying loudly for help, being
+held back upon the matting, and suffering intense pain, as her
+tormentors held her lips apart, some of them scolding virulently, others
+laughing and ridiculing her; and then a feeling of exhaustion came on,
+and nature could do no more than beneficently bring upon her complete
+ignorance of the indignity to which she, an English lady, was forced to
+submit, by steeping her senses in a profound swoon, leaving her at the
+mercy of Murad's slaves.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+DOCTOR BOLTER MAKES PLANS.
+
+"I don't think I can do any good if I stay here," said Doctor Bolter to
+himself.  "I've done everything I could think of, and I am ready to own
+that it is very terrible; but a month has gone by now, and a doctor who
+is so used to facing death and seeing people die does not--cannot feel
+it as others do.
+
+"That is, of course, when a man--his brother-in-law--is dead; but I
+don't even know that poor Arthur Rosebury is dead, and as we say, while
+there's life there's hope.
+
+"Humph!  How stupid of me!  I don't know that there is life, so how can
+there be hope?"
+
+Doctor Bolter was on his way back home after a professional round
+amongst his patients.  His eyes were fixed upon the ground, and every
+now and then, as he walked slowly on in the heat, he paused to examine
+some fly or ant that crossed his path, or settled upon the bamboo
+railings of a garden.
+
+"Good morning, doctor," said a pleasant voice, that made him start from
+the contemplation of a spider to a far more agreeable sight--that of the
+face of Grey Stuart, who looked up at him in a weary, appealing way.
+
+"Ah, my little rosebud," he said, smiling.  "Tut!  I had forgotten.  Why
+Grey, my child, you don't look well.  Hah! this won't do," he continued,
+letting his fingers slip from her hand to her wrist.  "Bit feverish, my
+dear.  Grey, my child, you're fretting about Helen Perowne."
+
+"It is so terrible, this suspense, doctor," she said, pleadingly.
+
+"Yes, my dear, it is very terrible; but keep that sunshade up; the sun
+is very powerful this morning."
+
+Grey raised her creamy-white sunshade that she had allowed to hang by
+her side, and as the doctor finished counting the throbs of her pulse,
+he drew her hand through his arm, patted it into position and then
+walked slowly on by her side.
+
+"Nature says, my dear, that we must not fret and worry ourselves,
+because if we do we shall be ill."
+
+"Oh, yes, doctor," sighed Grey, with a pitiful look in her soft eyes,
+"but this passing away of day after day is dreadful.  What are we to
+do?"
+
+"Wait, my dear, wait."
+
+"Wait!" cried Grey, whose eyes flashed for a moment.  "Oh, if I were a
+man, I think I would find some means of discovering what has become of
+our friends."
+
+"Well, my little maiden, you are not a man, and are not likely to be,"
+said the doctor, smiling; "but no doubt your advice may be good, though
+your action might be weak.  Now, then, tell me--what would you do if you
+were a man?"
+
+"I would send out parties to search," cried Grey, indignantly.  "Who
+knows where our poor friends may be!"
+
+"Ah, who knows, my dear inconsiderate little friend?" said the doctor,
+quietly.  "Now, don't you know that for nearly a month past Harley has
+had, not parties, but single men--natives--out in search of information
+about our friends?"
+
+"No," said Grey, "I did not know that."
+
+"No, you did not know that, my dear, but he has, and without the
+slightest success, although he has promised a heavy reward for any
+valuable information."
+
+"It is very good of Mr Harley, and I beg his pardon," sighed Grey.
+
+"And I take upon myself to say that the pardon is granted," said the
+doctor.  "And now, my dear, I suppose you think that this is not enough,
+but that we--I mean Harley--ought to send out soldiers?"
+
+"Yes, I have thought so," said Grey, hesitatingly.
+
+"Hah! yes, I suppose so; but it has never occurred to you, my dear, I
+daresay, that in this jungle-covered country, where the rivers are the
+only roads, the passage of soldiers, with the stores they require, is a
+terribly difficult affair."
+
+"I fear it would be," said Grey; "but the case is so urgent, doctor."
+
+"Terribly urgent, my dear; but like some of the urgent cases with which
+I have to deal, I have to do all I can, and then leave the rest to
+nature.  Let us hope, my dear, that nature will work a cure for us here,
+and that one of these days they will all turn up again alive and well."
+
+"Oh, doctor, do you think so?" cried Grey, who was ready to cling to the
+slightest straw of promise.
+
+"I don't say that I think so," he replied, "I say I hope so."
+
+Grey sighed.
+
+"There, there, there, I forbid it," said the doctor, with assumed anger.
+"We cannot have you fretting yourself ill, my dear, for we want your
+help.  My little wife could not get on at all without you to cheer and
+comfort her; and I believe if it were not for you poor Perowne would go
+distraught.  Then there's your father, who looks upon you as the one
+object of his life; and lastly, there's your doctor."
+
+"You, dear Doctor Bolter," said Grey, smiling in his face.
+
+"Yes; that is the person I mean, my dear.  Do you want to disgrace him?"
+
+"Disgrace you, doctor?" said Grey, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes, by turning weak and delicate and ill after all I have done to keep
+you sound and well.  No, Grey Stuart, my dear; there are some people in
+this busy world of ours who must never break down, never want rest, and
+never be ill in any shape; those people are doctors like me--and clever,
+useful little women like you.  Depend upon it, my dear, if you were to
+turn poorly there would be a regular outcry upon the station, and
+everyone would be finding out your value."
+
+"But they used to do without me, doctor," said Grey, smiling.
+
+"Exactly, my dear; but now that they have become used to the luxury of
+your presence they will not do without it again.  No, my dear; you must
+not turn ill.  Ergo, as Shakspere's clown says, you must not fret.
+Let's hope, my dear, that all will come right yet."
+
+"I will try and hope, doctor," said Grey, quietly, "and I will not
+fret."
+
+"That's right, little woman.  Depend upon it, two such dashing fellows
+as Chumbley and friend Hilton will not drop out of sight like stones
+thrown down a well.  They'll turn up again some day.  Good-bye.  Take
+care of my little wifie: she's the only one I've got, you know," he
+added, laughingly.  "Going to see her now?"
+
+"Yes, doctor."
+
+"When is she going to leave Perowne?"
+
+"He is not fit to leave at present," said Grey, shaking her head.
+
+"Then I suppose we must stay," said the doctor, parting from Grey with
+quite a parent's solicitude; and then he stood watching her as she went
+beneath the shady trees.
+
+"That little lassie is fretting about one of those chaps," said the
+doctor; "I'll be bound she is.  She wouldn't turn pale and red, and grow
+thin and weak, because Helen Perowne has disappeared.  I wonder whether
+it's big Chumbley.  Well, we shall see.  Now about my projects."
+
+He walked slowly homeward and entered the snug cottage-like place, which
+was the very pattern of primness, and day by day grew more like to the
+place where he had first set eyes upon his wife.
+
+"Seems precious dull without the little woman," he muttered; "but I
+suppose I mustn't grumble as she's away to do good to others."
+
+He thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the room.
+
+"Dear, dear me," he said, impatiently; "a man, especially a doctor,
+can't go on bemoaning people for ever.  Where would science be if he
+did?  Of course I'm very sorry about poor old Arthur, though after all
+perhaps he'll turn up all right, with his vasculum full of new orchids.
+Here's time galloping away, weeks and months and years, and I never get
+a bit nearer to the solution of my problem.  Here am I, as I may say,
+right upon the very spot, and yet I do nothing whatever to prove that
+this is the place to which King Solomon sent to find his gold, and apes,
+and peacocks."
+
+Dr Bolter took off his sun-hat, and rubbed his bald head in a
+peculiarly vicious way, and then went on debating the question so as to
+work himself up to the carrying out of the project which he had in view.
+
+"Here's the case," he said.  "My wife's out; there's nobody ill, for
+I've polished off all that needs doing this morning, so when could there
+be a better chance?  I'll go, that I will."
+
+But there came up, as if to oppose him, the recollection of the morning
+after Mr Perowne's party, and he was obliged to ask himself how could
+he go now?
+
+"I don't care," he cried, angrily.  "I have done all I could, and
+thought of all I could, and I can do no more.  Here's my wife out nearly
+always now, so that she would not miss me, so I ought to go.  I might
+discover that this is the real site of Solomon's gold mines, and if so--
+Phew, what a paper to read at the Royal Geographical!
+
+"I'll go!  My mind's made up.  I'll go, that I will," he exclaimed; "and
+somehow I seem to fancy that this time I shall make my great discovery.
+Hah! yes; what a discovery!  And that paper read before the Royal
+Society--a paper on the discovery of the Ancient Ophir, by Dr Bolter,
+F.R.S.  Why, my name--our name I should say, for Mary's sake--would be
+handed down to posterity."
+
+Here the doctor gave his head another rub, as if to get rid of a
+tiresome fly.
+
+"I don't know about posterity," he muttered.  "It wouldn't matter to me,
+as I've no youngsters.  Still it would be a fine discovery to make.
+But--"
+
+Here he had another vicious rub.
+
+"Suppose in the meantime Helen Perowne and the rest of the party come
+back!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+DR BOLTER TAKES A HOLIDAY.
+
+That question of the possibility of Helen Perowne coming back interfered
+a good deal with Doctor Bolter's project--one which he had been longing
+to put in force for months and months--a project which his journey to
+England and his marriage had set aside, though it was never forgotten.
+
+"Suppose Helen comes back?" he asked himself often.
+
+"Well, I ought to be here," he said; "but if she were to return in my
+absence she couldn't help being pleased, for I might have discovered the
+gold mines.  But ought I to tell Mary where I am going?"
+
+"No," he said, decidedly; "she would object.  She might agree to my
+going upon a collecting expedition; but she would say as she said
+before, that the Ophir question was a myth."
+
+Somehow the more Dr Bolter tried to make up his mind to go, the more
+undecided he grew.  He wanted to make an expedition into the interior
+very badly, but the hidden influence of that very decided little woman
+his wife was there still, making him feel guilty and like a child who
+tries to conceal some fault; and somehow, the more he tried to shake off
+the sensation, the worse he felt.--"There, it's no use," he cried at
+last, angrily.  "No sooner does a man marry than farewell to
+independence.  They say a man and his wife become one flesh, and really
+I think it's a fact, for the man is completely absorbed and it's all
+wife.  The man becomes nobody at all."
+
+The doctor went into his own room, half museum, half surgery, and in a
+listless, pettish way he began to pull out drawer after drawer of
+specimens, some of which required examination badly, for the ants were
+beginning an attack, and this necessitated the introduction of a pungent
+acid which these busy little insects did not like.
+
+"I might find gold in abundance," said the doctor, as he busied himself
+over his specimens.  "I might make such discoveries as would cause my
+name to be famous for ever, and here am I tied as it were by one
+unfortunate step to my wife's apron.  Hah!  I was a great idiot to
+sacrifice my liberty.
+
+"Not I," he added, sharply.  "Not I.  She is a bit of a tyrant with me,
+and she's as jealous as Othello, but she is an uncommonly nice little
+woman, and bless her, she thinks I'm about the cleverest fellow under
+the sun.
+
+"Well, there's not much to grumble at there," he said, decidedly, as he
+smiled and settled his chin in his collar.  "I don't see that I need
+mind her being a bit jealous of me.  It shows how fond she is, and she
+must be very proud of me if she thinks like that."
+
+This idea gave the little doctor so much satisfaction that for the
+moment he determined to go up to Perowne's and ask his wife for leave of
+absence for a few days.
+
+"N-no!  It wouldn't do," he muttered, shaking his head dolefully.  "She
+would not let me go.  I shall have to make a bold dash for it if I do
+mean to have a run, and face the consequences afterwards.
+
+"Look here, you know," he cried gazing round at his specimens; "it's
+about pitiful, that's what it is, and I might just as well give up
+collecting altogether.  Such an invitation from the Inche Maida as I
+had, to make her place my home, and start from there upon my
+investigations, only that stupid jealous idea on the part of my wife
+stopped it!  Bah!  It is intolerable."
+
+He thrust in a drawer in a most vicious manner; but Doctor Bolter's
+annoyance with his wife came and went like an April shower.  On
+re-opening the drawer he proceeded to arrange the specimens that his
+petulant fit had disturbed.
+
+"I shall have to give it up," he said, sadly.  "So I may as well make
+the best of it, and--Hooray!"
+
+Doctor Bolter slapped one of his legs vigorously, as if he were killing
+a fly, and a sunshiny look of pleasure spread all over his face.
+
+"To be sure!  The very idea!  I'll carry it out too--just a little--so
+as to be quite square with her; and who knows but what I might pick up
+some news of them after all.  Why didn't I think of this before?
+
+"Let me see," he continued, thoughtfully, "how shall I manage it?  What
+shall I do?  I know.  I'll run right up the river--ten miles or so
+beyond the Inche Maida's--and then strike into one of the supplementary
+streams, and make straight for the mountains.
+
+"That will be capital!" he cried, rubbing his hands.  "Who knows but
+what I may hit upon some one or other of the old gold-workings; find
+ancient implements--proofs perhaps that Solomon's ships sailed up this
+very river.  The idea is grand, sir, and I'll be off at once!"
+
+The idea was so "grand, sir," that in that hot climate it put the little
+doctor in a profuse perspiration, and he walked up and down the room,
+handkerchief in hand, dabbing his face and head.
+
+"Yes," he cried eagerly, "I may find out something about Helen Perowne
+and our other friends.  I've got a good excuse for going now, and go I
+will!"
+
+He stood thinking for a few minutes; and then, adjusting his puggree so
+as to give plenty of shelter to the back of his head, he walked down to
+the river-side, and one of the Malay boatmen paddled him in his sampan
+across to the Residency island, where he stepped out and walked up to
+Mr Harley's official room, to find that gentleman looking older and
+more careworn than was his wont.
+
+"Well, doctor, what news?" he said, anxiously.  "Anything wrong?"
+
+"No; nothing fresh."
+
+"No fever or cholera to add to one's trouble, eh?"
+
+"Nothing at all," was the reply.  "No, sir, I can present you with a
+clean bill of health."
+
+"Then why have you come?  Not for nothing, doctor," said the Resident
+sharply.
+
+"Here, I say," cried the little doctor, "don't be so horribly
+inhospitable when a man comes to see you?"
+
+"Inhospitable?  Nonsense!  You have not come across here to find
+hospitality.  Now, doctor, speak out.  What is it?  Do you know
+anything?"
+
+"Plainly, no.  But the fact is," said the visitor, clearing his throat,
+"I am not busy now; Mrs Bolter is a good deal away from home, so I
+thought this would be a favourable opportunity for taking a boat and a
+man or two, and going up the river to explore a few of the side streams
+so as to try and find Helen Perowne."
+
+"Rubbish!" said the Resident, sharply.
+
+"Eh?" ejaculated the doctor, who was taken aback by the Resident's
+quick, unceremonious way of speaking.
+
+"I said Rubbish, Bolter, and I now say Humbug, man!  Do you think I do
+not know better than that?"
+
+"My dear Harley!" exclaimed the little doctor, indignantly.
+
+"Look here, Bolter, you want an excuse for one of your gold hunts--your
+Ophir explorations.  Why don't you go, then, without all this childish
+excuse?  You are your own master."
+
+The doctor was so taken aback by his friend's onslaught that he shook
+his head vigorously.
+
+"Well, suppose we say Now that Mrs Bolter is away?" said the Resident,
+smiling.
+
+"Hadn't we better drop that line of argument?" said the doctor,
+uneasily.  "Really, Harley, you know, it's too bad--'pon my honour it
+is.  It isn't gentlemanly!"
+
+"My dear Bolter," began the Resident.
+
+"There are private matters!" cried the doctor, fuming, "upon which no
+man ought to touch, and my domestic relations are of that kind!"
+
+"I should not have spoken," said the Resident, "only you--a man who can
+do as he likes about going out collecting--came to me with such a weak
+piece of sham by way of excuse for your actions, Doctor, I blush for
+you!"
+
+"Well, come, I will be honest with you; I am going out collecting and
+exploring."
+
+"Of course you are.  I knew."
+
+"Stop a moment," exclaimed the doctor, "let me finish.  I should not go,
+only the idea occurred to me that I might perhaps get upon the track of
+that poor girl!  If I do, I shall follow it to the end."
+
+The Resident said something in a hasty, indistinct tone, and the doctor
+stared at him, quite startled by his manner.
+
+"Why, Harley!" he exclaimed, "one would think that you were hard touched
+in that direction!"
+
+"Touched!" cried the Resident, recovering his equanimity, and putting on
+his official mask.  "Why man, of what stuff do you suppose I am made?
+Am I not answerable to Government as well as to my own conscience for
+the welfare of all who are here; and do you suppose that I can bear this
+terrible visitation, even after this length of time, with equanimity?"
+
+"No, no, of course not--of course not," cried the doctor, hastily.
+
+"Well, there, go, and good speed to you.  I sincerely hope that you may
+discover something.  Would you like Sergeant Harris with you?"
+
+"No, no, certainly not!  I believe in going quietly and almost alone.
+Look here, Harley, you would trust me entirely if you were unwell.  Now
+suppose you do the same over this matter."
+
+The Resident nodded.
+
+"Now, to tap this subject once again--repetition though it may seem--
+tell me, after due thought, what is your opinion now?  Do you still
+suspect Murad?"
+
+"I cannot say," replied the Resident.  "I did suspect him, but he has
+been so earnest in his offers of help, and his men have joined so
+thoroughly with ours in searching the river and scouring the
+jungle-paths, that there are times when I cannot believe him guilty."
+
+"Have you heard any more from your fresh allies?"
+
+"Nothing," replied the Resident.  "They confess themselves at fault;
+while Murad has been here this morning to tell me that he was put upon a
+new scent yesterday, but that it turned out to be a false one.  This man
+puzzles me, clever as I thought myself, for I have not found out yet
+whether or no he has been throwing dust in my eyes.  Probably I never
+shall."
+
+"I am afraid he is deep," said the doctor, thoughtfully.
+
+"Very deep or very shallow," said the Resident.  "Some day, perhaps, we
+shall know.  You are going up the river, then?  When do you start?"
+
+"As soon as I have had a little chat upon the subject with you know.  I
+will not be very long away, Harley, and you will take care of my people
+like the rest--I mean have an eye on home."
+
+"Go, and good luck go with you," said the Resident warmly.  "Trust me,
+Bolter, I will do my best."
+
+"You don't think, then, I ought to stay?"
+
+"No; we have done all we can.  Who knows but what you may hit upon some
+clue in your wanderings."
+
+"Ah! who knows!" said the doctor.  "More wonderful things have happened,
+eh?"
+
+"Chance sometimes solves problems that hard work has not mastered,
+Bolter," said the Resident, smiling.  "There, good-bye!"
+
+"Good-bye," said the doctor, shaking hands heartily; and leaving Neil
+Harley's room, he began to wipe his face.
+
+"I'm afraid I've been acting like a terrible humbug," he muttered, "for
+I have not the remotest hope of finding Helen Perowne.  I wish I were
+not such a moral coward over such things as this.  Poor old Harley! he's
+terribly cut up about matters, and I must seem strangely unfeeling.
+What a girl that was!
+
+"Tut--tut--tut!" he exclaimed.  "Why do I speak of her as gone?  What a
+girl she is!  Well, so far so good.  Harley makes no objection to my
+going away.  Now let us see what the general will say."
+
+Doctor Bolter felt that he had his most terrible task to perform in
+getting leave of his wife, and he returned home with a peculiar
+sensation of dread.
+
+"It is very strange," he said; "but I am getting nervous I think.  I
+never feel it at any other time but when I am going to make some
+proposal to Mrs Bolter."
+
+To his great discomposure he found the lady within.  This might have
+been looked upon as an advantage but he was not, he said, quite
+prepared; and he sat listening to her accounts of Mr Perowne's state,
+and Grey Stuart's kindly help.  She suddenly turned upon him:
+
+"Henry," she exclaimed, "You were not thinking, of what I said."
+
+"I--I beg your pardon, my dear," he replied.  "Of what were you
+thinking, then?"  The doctor hesitated a moment, and then he felt that
+the time had come for speaking.
+
+"I was thinking, my dear, that no better opportunity is likely to offer
+for one of my expeditions."
+
+Mrs Bolter looked at him rather wistfully for a few moments, and then
+said, with a sigh: "Perhaps not, Henry.  You had better go."
+
+"Do you mean it, Mary?" he said, eagerly.  "If you think the station can
+be left in safety, perhaps you had better go," she said, quietly.  "I
+will have Grey Stuart to stay with me.  I will not stand in your way,
+Henry, if you wish to leave."
+
+"It almost seems too bad," he said, "but I should really like to go for
+a day or two, Mary.  Harley says he can spare me, and no better chance
+is likely to come than now."
+
+"Then by all means go," said Mrs Doctor, "only pray take care, and
+remember, Henry," she whispered affectionately, "I am alone now."
+
+Vowing that those last words would make him come home far more quickly
+than he had intended, the doctor prepared the few necessaries he always
+took upon such occasions, and was about to start, when there was a fresh
+impediment in the person of Mrs Barlow, who came in, looking the
+picture of woe, and ready to shake hands effusively, and to kiss Mrs
+Bolter against her will.
+
+"Going out, doctor?" she said.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, for some days."
+
+"But you will come to my house first? there is an injured man there.  He
+came and begged me to fetch you to him, for he could not come himself."
+
+"A Malay?"
+
+"Yes; a native.  And he begged so hard that I was compelled to come."
+
+"Just as I was going out, too," muttered the doctor, pettishly; but he
+never refused a call to duty, and hurrying out, he left the widow with
+his wife, while he went down to the well-appointed little house sleeping
+in the sunshine close to the river.
+
+As he drew near he saw, at a little distance, a scuffle going on amongst
+a party of Malays, one of whom seemed for a moment to be struggling
+against five or six others; but no outcry was made, and deeming it to be
+some rough play upon the part of the fishermen, he paid little heed to
+what followed, merely noting that the men hustled their companion into a
+boat and paddled away.
+
+The next minute he was at Mrs Barlow's house, where a swarthy-looking
+Malay presented himself and told his symptoms, which were of so simple a
+character that the doctor was able to prescribe, and then hurry back to
+send the medicine required.
+
+This last was received by the sick man from the doctor's messenger; and
+no sooner was he gone than it was observable that the invalid rose from
+the mat upon which he had lain.  He laughingly stole off to the
+river-side, where he entered a sampan, and paddled away after his
+companions, one of whom had left him to personate the only messenger who
+had been able to reach the station, though only then to fail in eluding
+the keenness of those who watched every house, and who kept their eyes
+upon the doctor, when half an hour later, totally regardless of the heat
+of the sun, he embarked in a boat and was paddled up the river by a
+couple of men, the companions of former excursions, old friends, whom he
+knew he could trust.
+
+There were several boats lying lazily upon the water, with
+sleepy-looking Malays in each, and as the doctor's swift little vessel
+pushed off, eyes that had looked sleepy before opened widely and watched
+his departure.
+
+"Shall we follow?" said one man, in a low voice.
+
+"No; he goes to shoot birds.  Let him be."
+
+The sun poured down his rays like silver flames through the leaves of
+the cocoa-palms; and while the doctor's boat grew smaller and smaller
+till it turned a bend in the stream, the occupants of the sampans lying
+so idly about the landing-stage exchanged glances from time to time, but
+seemed asleep whenever the owner of a white face drew near.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+MURAD'S SLAVE.
+
+It was with a feeling that something dreadful had happened that Helen
+opened her eyes and stared wildly about her.  How long she had been
+insensible she could not tell, but her impression was that very few
+minutes had elapsed since she was struggling with her assailants.
+
+She had been roughly used she knew, for her arms felt wrenched and
+bruised, her head throbbed painfully, there was an acute smarting about
+her lips, and a peculiar acrid, pungent, bitter taste in her mouth,
+while when she placed her hand to her lips she withdrew it stained with
+blood.
+
+She shuddered and looked round at the Malay women, some of whom were
+standing, some squatted about on the bamboo floor, watching her with a
+gratified smile in their faces, and one and all evidently without the
+slightest sympathy for her state.
+
+"What--what have you done?" she panted, with anger now taking the place
+of fear.  "You shall be punished--bitterly punished for this!"
+
+For answer there was a merry laugh, and the women chatted to each other;
+but one of the girls who had been Helen's attendant rose and left the
+room, to return in a few minutes with a large braes basin of clear cold
+water and a cotton cloth.
+
+Helen tried hard to check her sobs, and gladly availed herself of the
+opportunity to bathe her eyes, finding as she did so that one of her
+lips smarted and bled quite profusely; there was a wretched sensation
+too about the lower part of her face, and her teeth ached violently.
+
+"They shall be bitterly punished for this!" she cried, furiously.  "What
+have they done?"
+
+Then, like a flash, as she saw the girl who held the basin smile
+mockingly, she knew what had taken place, and with a piteous cry she
+placed her hands to her mouth, to find that her surmise was correct; the
+second girl laughing heartily, and fetching the hand-glass to hold upon
+a level with the prisoner's face.
+
+The cold wet dew gathered upon Helen's brow as she gazed at the strange
+countenance before her.  It was not that which she knew so well, and
+upon whose handsome features she had been wont to gaze with half-closed
+eyes and with a smile of satisfaction at its beauty; for there before
+her was the face of a noble-looking Malay woman, between whose swollen
+lips she could see the filed and blackened teeth considered so great a
+perfection to her toilet; and with a piteous cry Helen covered her eyes
+with her hands, shrank back upon her couch, and sobbed forth:
+
+"What would he think of me now?"  Humbled as she was by the treatment
+she had received, and agitated by her position, Helen Perowne had enough
+of the old nature left to suffer terribly upon every question relating
+to her personal appearance.  It was a dreadful shock to find that she
+had been completely transformed, as it were, into a woman of the
+country--one of those upon whom she had been accustomed to look with
+such disdain; but the shock was surpassed by the sensation of misery to
+find that her self-worshipped beauty was gone, as it were, for ever.
+Her greatest enemy could not have inflicted upon her a more cruel pang;
+and one constantly-recurring question kept repeating itself:
+
+"What would he say to me now?"--_he_; and it was not of Captain Hilton,
+her father, or any of her rejected lovers that she thought, but always
+of the Resident.  What would Neil Harley think of her if he could see
+her distorted features?  He could not recognise her, of that she felt
+sure, and in her agony of mind a complete change took place in her
+feelings.  But an hour ago she had watched window and door, listened to
+every sound, however slight, and interpreted it to mean the coming of
+help--of Neil Harley and her father to fetch her away.  But how could
+she wish for them to come now?  Why should she be taken away?  Instead
+of Helen Perowne, the beauty of the station, they would find, and would
+not recognise, a swarthy native woman, whose aspect would repel them,
+and they would be ready to doubt her word should she assert who she was.
+
+She was ready to pray now that no help might come--even that she might
+die.
+
+The women stole softly away, whispering to each other that she would
+soon come round; and as the suffering girl crouched there in her
+abasement her anguish did not grow less poignant, and she found herself,
+in spite of the repugnance she felt at the idea of being seen, somehow
+looking once more to Neil Harley for help.  She recalled how she had
+laughed at his pretensions, even to treating them with indignity, and
+turning upon him a resentful stare; how, too, tried to pique him by
+laughing and flirting directly with some favoured lover.  But what had
+followed?  He had only smilingly told her that he was in nowise jealous,
+and that she would come to him with open arms at last.
+
+She recalled, as she sat thinking there, how she had turned from him
+with a haughty feeling of annoyance; while now that she was so cruelly
+abased he seemed to be her only hope, the one to whose strong arm she
+was forced to look for aid; and with a bitter wail of misery, as she
+thought of him once more, in spite of her efforts to drive away the
+fancy, she kept on asking herself those ever-recurring questions, what
+would he think of her--what would he say?
+
+"I am too cruelly punished," she moaned to herself, and for the next
+hour or so she was completely prostrated both in body and mind.  For her
+position was one that must have daunted the stoutest-hearted woman.  She
+could not hope that, now she had been so degraded, if seen, any
+Englishman would recognise her and so give notice of her whereabouts;
+while the insolent Rajah might arrive at any moment to triumph over the
+downfall of the proud beauty of the station.
+
+But somehow, in spite of her peril, her thoughts wandered from the
+Rajah, and kept centring themselves upon that question of what Neil
+Harley would think and say, if ever he should look again upon her
+terribly-disfigured face.
+
+By degrees her sobs grew less painful, and she lay back with her face
+still hidden in her hands, thinking of the harsh file that had been used
+to her beautiful teeth, and the powerful stain that had been applied,
+and wondering why she had not foreseen, after the dyeing of her face,
+that a further attempt would be made to liken her to the native women.
+She realised, too, now how strong was the Malay nature in cunning, for
+their proceedings would more effectually secure her from being found
+than concealment in the deepest recesses of the jungle.  In fact, though
+she kept her eyes closed, ever staring, as it were, straight out of the
+darkness, was the swarthy distorted countenance she had seen in the
+glass, with its filed and blackened teeth; and as this was burned into
+her brain, she felt that so long as speech was denied her she might be
+kept even in the native town close to her friends, none of whom would
+recognise in her the Helen Perowne they sought.
+
+She knew that it was a cunningly-devised and clever plan for destroying
+her identity, and by it she felt, as she shuddered, she had become as it
+were one of the Rajah's slaves--one of the wretched, hopeless women
+branded as his like so many cattle, and in her anguish the hot blinding
+tears gathered once more as she realised the degradation of her
+position, and her spirits sank lower and lower as she once more lay back
+and wept.
+
+At length, after how long a time she could not tell, she was aroused by
+one of her Malay attendants who seemed to be somewhat moved by her
+distress.  This, the gentler of the two, brought a little vessel of
+perfumed water, and bending over the sobbing prisoner, she gently
+removed her hands, and after a little resistance succeeded in bathing
+her burning eyes and stinging lips, talking to her soothingly the while
+in Malay, a good portion of which Helen, whose senses were sharpened by
+her position, contrived to understand.
+
+"Why do you cry, dear?" said the girl tenderly.  "I ought not to like
+you, but you are so handsome, and in such trouble, that I feel sorry.
+But why do you cry?  You cannot tell how you are improved.  You were
+dreadful before with your English look--your sickly pale face, your
+white teeth and poor thin lips.  Now you are lovely and our people would
+worship you with your soft brown skin and shining dark teeth.  The
+filing has made your poor thin lips grow large and fresh as they should
+be.  Look; they are nearly as big and full as mine.  He will love you
+more and more now, and though I laughed when I saw you first, and
+thought you a poor weak white thing, now I begin to feel afraid and
+jealous and to hate you for coming here."
+
+As Helen caught the meaning of these words, fully realising what was
+meant, and heard her companion speak of someone who would be gratified
+by her changed appearance, a shiver of dread ran through her, and she
+lay back staring wildly at the speaker.
+
+"Jealousy--hate me," thought Helen.  "Yes; she talked of hating me."
+
+A ray of hope shot through the darkness here.
+
+"She cannot like to have me here, and she would be glad to see me gone.
+What am I," she cried, mentally, "to crouch here in this pitiful way,
+weeping and bewailing my misfortunes, asking myself what those who love
+me will think and say?  Have I been such a wretched handsome doll all my
+life, that now I am cast upon myself for protection my actions are those
+of a child?"
+
+A change was coming over Helen Perowne, forced by the terrible position
+in which she was placed, and roused now in spirit, she thought more and
+more deeply of all this, till it seemed to her that the Malay girl had
+struck the keynote of her future action, and that after feeling her way
+cautiously she had but to appeal to this attendant for her aid, and she
+would win her goodwill in an attempt to escape.
+
+The day wore on, and in spite of herself the weariness produced by
+exhaustion brought on a sensation of drowsiness that Helen could not
+overcome.  One minute she had determined that she would not yield to
+sleep, the next she was starting with a cry of fear from a deep slumber
+which had surprised her almost as she thought.
+
+The Malay girl smiled, laid her cool hand upon her forehead, and kissed
+her very tenderly--so tenderly that, with a sob, proud disdainful Helen
+Perowne caught the brown hand in hers, and laid it upon her throbbing
+breast.
+
+Again the drowsy sensation began to master her, and she started up with
+a face distorted, fleeing as she believed from some terrible danger.
+The girl spoke a few soothing words, and gazed so kindly in the
+prisoner's eyes, that Helen sank back once more, yielding to the
+powerful influence that came upon her, and almost the next moment she
+was sleeping deeply, quite exhausted by what she had suffered.
+
+The Malay girl bent over her for a few minutes, and then softly withdrew
+her hand from between Helen's, to follow her companion to the window,
+where she was sitting droning over some native ditty about meeting her
+love beneath the moonbeams among the waving rice, and then they sat
+chatting and laughing together in a low tone.  Now they discussed
+Helen's features, then her want of courage, and lastly, in a dull
+indifferent way, they began to wonder whether their lord would be
+satisfied with what they had done, and when he was likely to come.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+THE INCHE MAIDA AT HOME.
+
+"Ah, Princess," cried Hilton, flushing with pleasure as he saw help and
+liberty shining as it were in the face of a friend, whose extended hand
+he took, "this is kind of you indeed.  You had heard, then, of the
+outrage of these Malay people, and have come to have us freed."
+
+"Outrage!" cried the Princess indignantly.  "Who has dared to hurt you?"
+
+"That we do not know," cried Hilton, eagerly.  "You must discover that.
+I am glad to see you indeed."
+
+"And I you," she replied, smiling in the young officer's face, as he
+retained her hand.  "Ah, Mr Chumbley," she continued, extending her
+left.  "I am very pleased to meet you once again."
+
+Chumbley shook the hand stretched out to him, and smiled as he looked
+curiously at their visitor, for slow of movement as he was, he was quick
+of apprehension, and he did not place his companion's interpretation
+upon the meeting.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"I hope you were not hurt, Mr Chumbley," she said.
+
+"Oh, but we were," cried Hilton, quickly, and before his friend could
+speak.  "We were seized and dragged here by a pack of scoundrels who did
+not spare us much."
+
+"Ah, yes, I have just come," she said.  "I heard that you both fought
+very hard, like the brave, strong Englishmen you are, and some of the
+men were hurt, and badly too."
+
+"Chumbley there did his best," said Hilton, "of course; but by whose
+orders was this done?  You can tell me, I hope."
+
+"Yes," drawled Chumbley, drily, "the Princess can tell you, I should
+say."
+
+"Yes," said the Princess, smiling from one to the other.  "You were
+brought here to this my hunting-home in the jungle by my orders, but no
+violence was to be used."
+
+"By your orders!" cried Hilton, dropping her hand as if it had burned
+him, and falling back a step, with the anger flashing from his eyes.
+
+"The Princess tells you it is her hunting-box," drawled Chumbley, drily;
+"she evidently meant to give us a surprise."
+
+"Be silent, Chumbley," said Hilton, indignantly.
+
+"Her highness was afraid that we might not get leave of absence, or that
+we should decline to come," continued Chumbley.
+
+"Oh, this is too much!" cried Hilton.
+
+"Do not be angry," said the Princess, speaking in a low, sweet tone,
+full of pleading tenderness.  "I know it seems strange to you English
+people, but our ways are different to yours."
+
+"Well, yes: a little," said Chumbley, who was laughing in a quiet
+internal way.  "You have studied some of our etiquette, but you did not
+find this sort of thing."
+
+"Will you be silent, Chumbley?" thundered Hilton, indignantly.
+
+"Did you not hear me?" said the Princess; and Chumbley noted that there
+was a very tender look in her eyes as she advanced and laid her hand
+upon Hilton's arm.  "I asked you not to be angry with me."
+
+"Angry?" cried Hilton, fiercely.  "Angry?  Why, madam, this is the act
+of some mad savage, and you professed to be a civilised friend!"
+
+"It is the act, sir, of a princess!" said the Inche Maida with dignity.
+"One who is as a queen among her people!"
+
+"And do you profess, madam, to be a friend of the English?"
+
+"Yes, Captain Hilton, I have sought to be as far as I could."
+
+"Will you not sit down?" said Chumbley, pointing to the heap of cushions
+close at hand.
+
+"Not while my guests are standing," she said, with dignity.  "Are you
+going to scold me and be angry too, Mr Chumbley?" she said, with a
+smile.
+
+"Englishmen boast of being fair," he replied.  "If I scold it shall be
+when my friend has done."
+
+"Oh!  I have done for the present!" said Hilton, with a mocking laugh.
+"Pray go on."
+
+"I have not much to say," said Chumbley slowly; "only that it seems
+rather a determined way of inviting a couple of fellows to your country
+home, Princess.  It has its good points, though, for you can always make
+sure of the number you want to have."
+
+The Princess inclined her head as if in acquiescence, and then looked
+pleadingly at Hilton, whose brow displayed an angry frown, and who had
+begun to pace the room, making the bamboo laths bend and creak beneath
+his weight.
+
+"I knew she had taken a fancy to him," said Chumbley to himself, as in
+his quiet dry way he noted what was going on; "but I never could have
+believed in this.  I suppose I was caught and brought to play propriety,
+and to act as witness to the native ceremony, for she'll marry Hilton as
+sure as he's alive."
+
+"Of course you will give orders at once for a boat to be in readiness to
+take us back?" said Hilton haughtily.
+
+"No," said the Princess, smiling, "I shall not.  Surely you are not
+tired of my hospitality quite so soon?"
+
+"You are trifling, madam," said Hilton, "and it is time this childish
+farce was brought to an end.  I insist upon your ordering a boat to be
+in readiness at once."
+
+"I am sorry I cannot oblige you, Captain Hilton," said the lady
+gloomily.
+
+"Why have you done this?" he cried.  "Why are we brought here?"
+
+"Why have I had you brought here?" said the Princess in a low, musical
+voice.  "Shall I tell you?"
+
+"If you wish to," said Hilton carelessly.
+
+The Inche Maida's eyes flashed at his indifferent manner.
+
+"If I were one of my women," she said, "I could not tell you.  If I were
+only my own simple woman-self I could not tell you for the shame that I
+should feel.  But I am a chief, and as a chief I can speak.  I have the
+right to choose whom I would have for partner of my life, and I have
+chosen you."
+
+"Chosen me?" cried Hilton, with a look of disgust at the tall, handsome
+woman before him.
+
+"Yes; because I love you," she replied.  "He knows that I love you.  I
+read it weeks ago in his eyes."
+
+"Have you been a partner to this accursed outrage, Chumbley?" cried
+Hilton fiercely.
+
+"No, dear boy; not _to_, I'm a partner _in_ it," said Chumbley, coolly.
+"Wise question that of yours.  Was it likely?"
+
+"No," said the Princess, "he did not know; but you were great friends
+and companions, and I brought you both.  I love you."
+
+He looked at her indignantly.
+
+"I like your friend," she continued, turning and smiling at Chumbley,
+"he is so good-natured and big, and manly, and strong.  I always feel as
+if he would be a man whom I could trust."
+
+She held out her soft, shapely hand to him, and, acting on the impulse
+of the moment, Chumbley took it in his, pressed it warmly, and then
+raised it to his lips before it was withdrawn.
+
+Hilton stamped his foot upon the bamboo floor, and then burst into a
+derisive laugh.
+
+"Is this real, Chumbley?" he cried, "or is it part of a play?"
+
+"I know what you mean by part of a play," cried the Princess, whose eyes
+began to flash as she felt the sting of Hilton's words.  "It is no false
+make-believe, but real.  I told you without shame, as a chief, that I
+love you, and that is why I brought you here."
+
+"I am greatly honoured by your attention, madam," said Hilton,
+mockingly.
+
+"Listen to me," cried the Princess, "while I remind you that I am a poor
+oppressed woman.  I have been trampled upon by my enemies, because I am
+a woman.  I am constantly plundered; my people are cruelly treated; and
+soon I shall be a princess no longer, for my people will say that I am
+no mother and protector to them, and they will leave me."
+
+"And pray, madam, what is this to me?" said Hilton, coldly.  "Do you
+forget that I have heard all this before?"
+
+"What is it to you?" said the Inche Maida, drawing herself up, and
+speaking fiercely now.  "Did I not tell you that I loved you?  From the
+first day I saw you I loved you, and said you should be my lord."
+
+"'Pon my honour, Chumbley," cried Hilton, "this is too ridiculous!" and
+he looked his indignation.  "Why, what a handsome fellow I must be.  Are
+we going back into the regions of romance?"
+
+"Mind what you are saying," said Chumbley, quietly, as he saw a fierce
+look of anger in the Inche Maida's eyes, lit by the mocking,
+contemptuous manner in which Hilton listened to her words.
+
+"Mind what I am saying?  I have no patience," he cried.  "Pray," he
+continued, turning to the Princess with a sneering laugh, "does your
+ladyship intend to marry me now you have carried me off?"  The Princess
+did not speak.  "By Jupiter!  Chumbley," cried Hilton, bursting into a
+forced laugh, "it must be leap-year.  I had forgotten it, and the ladies
+are having it all their own way.  May I ask again," he cried, "does your
+ladyship intend to marry me?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, quietly, and in a slow decided way, "I do.  Why do
+you mock at me?  Is it such a hard fate to be my husband--my prince--
+when I say to you--see how I and my people suffer?  You are a warrior--a
+captain--who can fight, and lead, and train men to defend themselves, a
+few against crowds.  Here is my home--here are my lands; take all--take
+me and my people.  Be rajah, and rule over us all.  You shall have my
+wealth, and the rich things my people will bring you; but train them to
+fight so that they can protect our lands and make our enemies hold us in
+respect and fear.  They will shrink away then like the cowards they are,
+as soon as they know that it is a prince who rules, and no longer a weak
+woman."
+
+"Why don't you join me in laughing at all this, Chum, old fellow?" cried
+Hilton, who seemed bitter and soured by the treatment he had received
+from Helen.
+
+"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Chumbley, sturdily, as he
+watched his companions intently.
+
+"No; why does he laugh?" cried the Inche Maida, whose fierce dark eyes
+now grew soft with tears.
+
+"I laugh," cried Hilton, angrily, "because your proposals are absurd.
+There must be an end to all this.  Let me and my friend go away at
+once."
+
+"And my people--what of them--what of mine enemies?" said the Inche
+Maida, almost imploringly.
+
+"You appealed to our Government, madam, and they regretted that they
+could not interfere," said Hilton.  "I am honoured by your proposals,
+but I must say the same."
+
+"I do not understand quite everything you say," she replied; "but do not
+mock me.  I can bear everything but that.  Think of what I have said,
+and forgive me if I have been too rough with you, for remember, if I had
+said `come to me,'--you would not have come."
+
+"No," said Hilton, smiling, "I should not."
+
+"You see you drove me to do this thing," said the Princess, eagerly,
+"and it has made your wrath hot against me; but I ask you to pardon me,
+my lord.  See, I kneel to you for forgiveness.  Can I be more humble?"
+
+"Will you be good enough to rise, madam," said Hilton, who was beginning
+to regret his former mocking way, now he saw the Inche Maida's
+earnestness and trust in him; and he raised her by her hands, which
+clung to his entreatingly.
+
+"Shall I retire somewhere else?" said Chumbley, in a manner that might
+have been taken for either serious or mocking.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, no, man!" cried Hilton; "stay where you are.  Madam,
+will you be good enough to take a seat!  There, that is better," he
+said, seating himself near her, as, in obedience to his request, she
+sank upon the cushions.
+
+"I will do whatever you wish," she said, humbly.
+
+"Then please remember, madam," continued Hilton, "that you are almost an
+English lady, and surely you know enough of our ways to realise that you
+have been guilty of a most foolish act."
+
+"I was driven to act as I did," she said, softly.  "You know how I
+implored for help."
+
+"Yes, I know that," said Hilton, speaking now in a tone of gentlemanly
+consideration for one whom he looked upon as weak and ignorant.  "I am
+sorry you were not assisted; but now that you have had time to realise
+our positions, I must tell you that what you propose is impossible."
+
+The Princess, who had been seated in a humble, supplicating attitude, no
+sooner heard this last word than she sprang to her feet.
+
+"It is not impossible!" she cried fiercely; and her eyes flashed with
+anger as she drew herself up to her full height.
+
+"I am compelled to contradict you, madam," said Hilton, also rising;
+"and to tell you that, even were I disposed to accept your strange
+offer, I could not, for I am an officer in the service of her Majesty
+the Queen, and I could not leave my duties, even at your command."
+
+"But you would have more and greater duties here," cried the Princess.
+"Your people wish to improve ours.  Come, then, and be chief and rajah
+over my children."
+
+"I tell you, madam, it is impossible," said Hilton, coldly.
+
+"I say it is not impossible," she retorted, proudly.  "Did not a brave
+Englishman become a rajah in Borneo, where they are people similar to
+ours? and is not the name of Rajah Brooke, of Sarawak, held in
+veneration to this day?"
+
+Hilton uttered an impatient ejaculation, and glanced at Chumbley for
+help; but that gentleman was balancing himself upon his toes and gazing
+at the Princess.
+
+"I was angry a minute since," she said, smiling a very sweet smile, and
+she looked a very Cleopatra of the jungle.  "You will not say no," she
+continued, appealing to her prisoner.  "I am a Princess, and once more I
+say boldly, what none of my people dare confess for very shame, I love
+you, Captain Hilton, and once again I ask you to make me your wife.
+Listen; you do not know how great and happy your life shall be, for your
+wishes shall be all obeyed, and--"
+
+"Pray listen to me, madam!" cried Hilton, sternly, "you must know that
+this cannot be.  But let us part friends, and no punishment shall follow
+this foolish escapade.  So at once pray order your people to prepare a
+boat, that I and my friend may go."
+
+He turned now to Chumbley, who had thrust his hands down as far as
+possible into his pockets, and stood looking very stern and cold, but
+evidently pondering deeply upon all that had been said.
+
+The Princess clenched her hands, and stood there with flashing eyes,
+gazing from one to the other, and for some moments it seemed as if she
+could not speak.
+
+"No," she cried at last, in a short, angry voice, "no boat shall take
+you back!"
+
+"Then we must go back without," said Hilton, firmly.  "Now, Chumbley,
+this folly has gone too far.  Come quickly, and use force if we are
+driven to it by this foolish woman's acts!"
+
+As he spoke he moved towards the door, and laying his hand upon the
+latch, he threw it open so that it struck loudly against the bamboo
+wall.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+"OUR POSITION IS ABSURD."
+
+As the door flew open, Hilton found himself confronted by a dozen
+spearmen; and he would have still advanced had not Chumbley held him
+back.
+
+"You forgot that you were a prisoner," said the Princess, quietly, but
+with a triumphant look in her eyes.  "There are fifty more brave men
+beyond those, and they would kill you at a word from me."
+
+"And that word you would not speak," said Hilton, smiling in her face.
+
+"Why not?" she cried defiantly.
+
+"For several reasons," he said, quietly.  "First, because I am an
+officer of the Queen of England, madam."
+
+"I am queen here," she retorted.  "What is your queen to me?"
+
+"Another reason is--that you would not have me killed," he said,
+lightly; and he evaded Chumbley's touch and stepped through the door;
+but six razor-keen spear-points were presented so suddenly at his
+breast, that, brave as he was, Hilton involuntarily started back, and to
+his great annoyance the Princess smiled mockingly in turn.
+
+Captain Hilton was a soldier, and ready to risk his life when need
+should be; but he felt that there were limits even to the valour a man
+should show, and this was evidently a time to make a movement towards
+the rear.
+
+He turned to Chumbley, to find that he had not moved, but was leaning,
+with his arms folded across his broad chest, against the wooden
+framework of the cane-woven wall, and he looked his companion steadily
+in the face.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed Hilton, angrily, as he sought some object upon which
+to vent the spleen rising within his breast; and his friend being the
+nearest object, he received the verbal blows.  "Why don't you come and
+face these scoundrels with me?  Are you afraid?"
+
+"Eh?  Afraid?" said Chumbley, rousing himself from his dreamy state.
+"No, I don't think I was, old fellow.  I was wondering whether we were
+British officers in a Malay jungle facing realities, or the same two
+fellows fresh from dining at the club, turned into a couple of stalls at
+a theatre and watching the progress of some drama of a certain type."
+
+"Then wake up to the fact that it is reality!" cried Hilton, sharply,
+"and help me to act, unless you want to stay here for life."
+
+"All right, dear boy," said Chumbley, resuming his drawling style.
+"Only, what are we to do?  I'm ready for anything almost, but I'm not
+going to run my noble chest against those fellows' spears.  Where's the
+good?"
+
+"Good?" cried Hilton, angrily; "are we to stop here and be a pair of
+slaves?"
+
+"No; only it's as well to wait.  There are times to fight, and there are
+times when it's as well to draw off your forces, even if the London
+papers do revile and talk of want of pluck.  You see a fellow can't
+fight in a case of this sort.  It's ridiculous."
+
+"Ridiculous indeed!" cried Hilton; as, with the petulance of a boy, he
+seized the door, and slammed it in the face of the Malays.
+
+"Exactly," drawled Chumbley, glancing at the Princess, who was watching
+them from the other end of the room.  "You see, Warner or Terriss on the
+Adelphi stage would have knocked all those fellows over like skittles,
+or skewered them all upon one spear like a row of larks; but that's only
+done upon the boards; a fellow can't play like that in common life."
+
+"Is there much more of this, Chumbley?" said Hilton, with mock
+deference.
+
+"Not a great deal, old man," said the big fellow, coolly ignoring his
+friend's sarcastic manner.  "I was only going to say--and I hope her
+majesty Queen Cleopatra can't hear me--that the only course open to us
+seems to be to wait our chance and bolt; and I'll be blest if I run, or
+try to run, through this sweltering jungle to save myself or anybody
+else.  If you'll have me carried down to the river and pitched in, I
+don't mind trying to swim."
+
+"Ha--ha--ha--ha--ha!  Ha--ha--ha--ha--ha--ha--ha!"
+
+A merry, almost girlish laugh rang out; and as the two officers turned
+sharply, it was to see that the Inche Maida's countenance had lost its
+look of annoyance, and was full of mirth, for she had heard every word
+that Chumbley had spoken.
+
+"Tchah!" ejaculated Hilton; "our position is growing more and more
+absurd?"
+
+"You are a very droll man," said the Princess, turning to Chumbley.
+"You make me laugh by your way of speaking; but you are very wise and
+clever all the same.  You know that you could not get away; so you are
+ready to wait patiently to see what comes.  You are quite right, Mr
+Chumbley, and I like you more and more, and will treat you well."
+
+"That's very kind of you, Princess," said Chumbley, slowly; "and I must
+say that I heard what you said before about me; but speaking like a
+persecuted maiden in the ancient castle of some baron bold, will you
+excuse me if I say your previous remarks are insufficient, and I should
+be glad to know why the dickens you brought me here when you wanted
+him?"
+
+"You make such long speeches," cried the Inche Maida, "and you speak so
+slowly, that you puzzle me.  I never know whether you are serious or
+laughing at me."
+
+"Oh, I am not laughing," said Chumbley, slowly.
+
+"Then do not ask," said the Princess, shortly.  "You are my prisoners,
+and must submit."
+
+"For the present, madam," said Hilton, with a return of his anger; "but
+if you will take my advice, you will end this sorry farce at once.  You
+will regret it if you stop too long, and find your palm-tree palace--"
+
+"It is no palace," said the Princess, quietly, "only a simple house."
+
+"Surrounded by a company of our troops, and burned to the ground."
+
+The Princess laughed.
+
+"I understand you," she said, nodding her head; "but that will not be.
+You English are strong and have great weapons that would destroy us at a
+touch.  We have but our spears and krisses, so we trust to our wisdom to
+help us out, do you see."
+
+"I think I know what you mean," said Chumbley, quietly.
+
+"Yes," continued the Princess, "you are right; your soldiers would soon
+burn down my place and kill my people to get you back; but they would
+have first to find us out.  Do you know where you are?"
+
+Hilton glanced at the open window, to see through the lattice-work of
+bamboo the deep green of the impenetrable jungle.
+
+"Yes," she continued, smiling at the look which came upon the young
+officer's face, "we bring cunning to fight upon our side.  You see that
+you are in the jungle; and I tell you there is but one narrow path to
+this place, and my people guard it night and day."
+
+"When they are not asleep," muttered Chumbley.
+
+"I made this place," she said, "to flee to when my enemies should come.
+Here I am safe, and here, too, you are safe, for none but my most
+trusted people know the way."
+
+"Pleasant news this, old fellow," said Chumbley.
+
+"Pleasant!" cried Hilton; "but she shall smart for it.  She does not
+think of what will be the result."
+
+The Inche Maida frowned as she saw his angry looks and heard his words.
+
+"Well, old fellow," said Chumbley; "it seems to me that we are wasting
+time."
+
+"What! are you prepared to make a dash for it?" cried Hilton.
+
+"Not I.  I mean wasting time in talking like this.  I'm sorry for you,
+old fellow--very sorry for you; but it's very hot and tiring this
+standing about.  Hadn't we better make the best of it?"
+
+"Best of it!" cried Hilton, who now obstinately refused to glance at the
+author of their trouble, and kept pacing up and down like a caged beast.
+"Are you mad?"
+
+"Very," whispered Chumbley; "but one can't pitch into a woman.  She
+fights with cunning, so must we, and wait for our chance to escape.
+There, it is of no use to chafe.  Let's be thankful that matters are no
+worse."
+
+"Worse!" cried Hilton, passionately, "they could not be worse;" and he
+spoke loudly enough for the Princess to hear his words.
+
+"There--there, old fellow, calm down," drawled Chumbley.  "Make the best
+of it till her ladyship here has grown tired of her two caged birds, and
+has let us out.  We are prisoners, I suppose, Princess?" he said, aloud.
+
+"Prisoners or visitors, which you please, Mr Chumbley," she said,
+smiling.  "Let it be visitors, for though Captain Hilton has said such
+cruel things--see, I am not angered, but quite calm.  You are my
+visitors, then; but you cannot get away until I give the word."
+
+"Or our people fetch us," said Chumbley, throwing himself upon one of
+the divans with a sigh of relief, for the Inche Maida had pointed to the
+seat.
+
+"They will not come to fetch you," said the Princess, smiling.
+
+"Why not?" said Hilton, sharply.  "I tell you they will search till we
+are found, and then you destroy yourself by having us here."
+
+"Yes," said the Princess, with her eyes half-closed; "they will search.
+They have searched, and have given it up.  They found a small boat
+overset upon a bank of sand; part of your clothes were in it, and they
+think you were both drowned."
+
+"Confusion!" cried Hilton, fiercely.
+
+"You have a woman to fight with," said the Princess, smiling, "and I
+have taken my steps so well that no one will seek you here.  I told my
+people to bring you both, and they obeyed.  They would have sooner died
+than failed."
+
+"Tell me more," said Chumbley, quickly.  "Have you seen Mr Harley?"
+
+"I will tell you nothing," said the Princess, "till you are both my
+friends.  There, I must leave you now.  Promise me you will be patient,
+and not so foolish as to try to escape and fight.  It would be horrible
+to me if you or any of my people should be hurt in some mad attempt.
+Promise me you will be patient and not try."
+
+"Not I," said Chumbley, laughing.  "I shall try to escape, and so will
+he."
+
+"Then you are wicked and foolish!" cried the Inche Maida, angrily.
+
+"Both, I am afraid," said Chumbley.  "I always was; but may I make a
+request as a prisoner?"
+
+"As a visitor, yes," said the Princess, smiling.  "May I ask, then, if
+you propose to gild the bars of our cage?"
+
+"I do not understand," she replied, gazing at him earnestly.
+
+"I mean that it is very hot.  May I have a cold drink of some kind; and
+do you allow smoking in the drawing-room?"
+
+The Princess smiled, and in what Chumbley afterwards called the Arabian
+Nights style, clapped her hands, when a couple of Malay slave-girls ran
+in, received their orders, and hurried out again, while their mistress
+walked to the window, as she had done more than once before, apparently
+with the idea of giving her prisoners an opportunity to converse and
+debate their position.
+
+"Well, Hilton, old man, what do you think of this?" said Chumbley,
+smiling.  "We Europeans have gone ahead, and got steam and electricity,
+and all the luxuries of civilisation, as the fine writers call it, while
+the East has stopped just where it was, and we might be Ali Baba's
+Brothers, or the One-eyed Calender, or some other of those Arabian Night
+cock-o'-waxes here amongst all these slaves and spearmen.  I say, I
+think I shall write a book about it--`The adventures of two officers
+taken prisoners by a wicked queen.'"
+
+"Chumbley," retorted Hilton, "you used to have one good quality."
+
+"Had I?  What was that, old man?"
+
+"You were a fellow who didn't talk much," said Hilton; "but now your
+tongue goes like a woman's, and you are a positive nuisance."
+
+"Thankye, old fellow.  But you ought not to grumble, seeing how
+impressionable you have of late proved to the prattling of a woman's
+tongue."
+
+"The Inche Maida's?" said Hilton, in a low voice.  "Well no: not exactly
+hers, dear boy.  But I say, Hilton, she is a woman and a lady; don't say
+hard things to her."
+
+"Hard things?" cried Hilton, angrily.  "Come, I like that!  Hang it,
+man, after this outrage she ought to be shut up in a lunatic asylum!"
+
+"Humph!" said Chumbley, slowly.  "I don't know.  They say love is a sort
+of lunacy, and people do strange things who get the disease badly.
+You're been an awful idiot lately!"
+
+"Chumbley, do you want me to strike you?" cried Hilton, fiercely.
+
+"No, dear boy," drawled his friend; "but you can give me a punch if it
+will do you good.  I shan't hit you again."
+
+"Bah;" ejaculated Hilton.  "There's no quarrelling with you!"
+
+"Not a bit of it dear boy; but as I was saying, seeing what stupid
+things you did about--"
+
+"Chumbley!"
+
+"All right: I wasn't going to mention her name.  I say, seeing what
+stupid things you did, it was not surprising that a lady in love with
+your noble features and Apollo-like form--"
+
+"I declare I shall forget myself directly!" cried Hilton, between his
+teeth.
+
+"No: don't, old fellow; but you might let me finish my speech.  It isn't
+often I'm flush of words, and when I am you check me.  I say once more
+it was not so very surprising that her ladyship here should set a trap
+for you, catch you, and want to persuade you to accept her very eligible
+offers.  There, sit down, man, and make the best of it!  Stop that
+irritating walk of yours!  You are like a human pendulum!"
+
+"Idiot!" muttered Hilton, between his teeth, glancing at the Princess's
+back, though, as she leaned in a graceful attitude against the window,
+with her arm through the bamboo bars.
+
+"Calling names!" said Chumbley, coolly.  "Imitation's the sincerest form
+of flattery.  Will you stop that wolf-in-a-cage walk?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Then you're a Zoological Gardens beast!  I say, why don't you utter a
+short howl every time you turn?"
+
+"If you cannot talk sensibly, Chumbley, pray be silent!" said Hilton, in
+a low, angry whisper.  "You are like a big boy more than a man!"
+
+"Go on, old fellow!" said Chumbley, coolly.  "If ever I marry, which
+isn't likely, I daresay I shall have a woman with a tongue like an
+arrow.  What a chance she will have to shoot sharp words at my thick
+hide!"
+
+"Will you talk sense for a few moments before this woman goes?"
+
+"Lady."
+
+"Well, lady, then!  I want to try and devise some plan for getting
+away."
+
+"What's the hurry?" said Chumbley.  "We're caught and caged, and I have
+always noticed that the birds that are trapped and caged are of two
+kinds."
+
+"Is there much of this moral sermon to come?"
+
+"No," said Chumbley, good-humouredly, "not much.  It seems tiresome to
+you because you are standing.  Sit down, man, and listen.  I feel quite
+like an Eastern speaker of parables.  It is the atmosphere, I suppose.
+I was saying that the birds that are caught are of two kinds--those that
+take it coolly and those that don't.  Those that don't keep on beating
+their breasts against the bars, and knocking their feathers off in the
+most insane way, till they die, looking exceedingly bare and
+uncomfortable; while those that take it coolly sit upon the perches, set
+up their feathers till they look nice and plump, and keep on saying
+`_chiswick_' except when they stop to eat their seed."
+
+"And, most profound moralist, the restless, brave-hearted birds that
+breast the bars are the truest," cried Hilton.  "I would not be so
+spiritless and craven for worlds."
+
+"Stuff!" said Chumbley.  "Nobody's going to wring your neck and put you
+in a pie; then it would be uncomfortable.  The Princess only wants you
+to sing.  I say, I think I shall ask her if she means to give us the
+seed that is becoming necessary in the shape of dinner."
+
+The Inche Maida turned round.
+
+"I could not help being a listener, Mr Chumbley," she said, quietly;
+"and surely you did not suppose that you could both talk like that
+unheard.  Now let me speak before I go."
+
+Chumbley bowed, and Hilton folded his arms, leaning against the wall,
+while his friend slowly rose, and once more offered the Princess a seat.
+
+"No!" she cried, angrily.  "I can only sit with my friends, and you
+persist in treating me as an enemy.  As Captain Hilton's friend, I ask
+pardon for the roughness of my people.  Can I do more?"
+
+"Well, yes," said Chumbley; "after we have granted your pardon, you can
+set us free!"
+
+"That I shall not do!" she cried, with her eyes flashing.
+
+"Not now, Princess," said Chumbley, speaking calmly, seriously and well;
+"but after a little reflection.  You do not realise the power of
+England, madam.  You do not know what our Government will always do to
+maintain the honour and prestige of our nation."
+
+"No," she said, scornfully, "I do not."
+
+"Let me tell you then," said Chumbley, with a return of his dry,
+sarcastic manner; "I am of no consequence whatever as compared to our
+handsome young captain there."
+
+"I think you a ten times better man, and one hundred times as much a
+gentleman," cried the Princess, hotly; and her eyes flashed indignation
+at them both.
+
+"Oh, no," said Chumbley; "you are angry and indignant, and you forget
+that we are, too.  How can we be pleased that you have so roughly
+brought us here?"
+
+"But you ought to be, and very proud," she cried sharply.
+
+"Well, we will not argue that," said Chumbley; "but I wish to tell you
+that you must think this over carefully and well.  Insignificant as we
+two men may be, it touches England's honour that a Malay ruler should
+seize us and make us prisoners."
+
+"I care not," she retorted.  "I have thought it over well."
+
+"I suppose so, madam," said Chumbley; "but let me tell you that England
+will not let us stay here your prisoners; sooner than let you triumph
+she would send an army to search for and take us back."
+
+"And I tell you," cried the Princess, fiercely, "that I have thought
+well over all this, and have made such plans, that even if your people
+did not think you dead, they would not find you.  I am queen with my
+people, and I will not be beaten when I undertake a task.  If they
+should learn that you were here, and come to shoot and burn, we would
+flee into the jungle."
+
+"Where they would hunt you out, Princess, cost what it might," said
+Chumbley.
+
+"Let them," said the Inche Maida, with her eyes flashing, and looking
+very queenly as she spoke.  "They are big and strong, and they have many
+men.  They would surround us then, and think to take us and drag you
+away; but they do not know our people yet--they do not know what a Malay
+Princess would do.  Mr Chumbley," she said, speaking to him, but gazing
+at Hilton as she spoke, "we Malays are gentle and calm, but we have
+angry passions.  If you rouse the hot blood within us, it becomes fierce
+and hotter still.  Don't think that I shall not have my way; for I tell
+you that at the last, sooner than be conquered by those your people
+sent, I would kill you both, and then--then," she cried excitedly, "I
+should kill myself!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
+
+WHY CHUMBLEY WAS BROUGHT.
+
+As the Inche Maida uttered her angry threat she swept out of the room,
+leaving the two young officers staring at the heavy curtain that closed
+the door.
+
+"The fury!--the tigress!" exclaimed Hilton.
+
+"Well, I don't know!" drawled Chumbley.  "She seems to me very much like
+what woman is all the world round."
+
+"Why, she is a blood-thirsty savage!" cried Hilton.
+
+"No: only a woman who has lived all her life where every man carries a
+sharp-pointed weapon.  Englishwomen are much the same at heart."
+
+"Why, you blasphemer against the honour of our fair English maids and
+dames!" cried Hilton, laughing.
+
+"Not I!" said Chumbley.  "They don't live amongst people who carry
+daggers and spears.  We go unarmed--I mean Europeans--and pay soldiers
+to do our fighting for us; but you baffle a woman of spirit--you cross
+her and behave badly to her, and you see if she wouldn't fight."
+
+"Fight, man?"
+
+"Yea, but not with a dagger; she would fight with her tongue--perhaps
+with her pen--and sting and wound, and perhaps pretty well slay her
+foe."
+
+"But this woman is outrageous!" cried Hilton.  "Our English ladies are
+all that is soft and gentle."
+
+"Sometimes," said Chumbley; "some of us get an ugly stab or two now and
+then."
+
+"Out upon you, slanderer!" cried Hilton, laughingly, as he paced up and
+down once more.
+
+"If you don't stop that irritating, wild beast's cage-walk," said
+Chumbley, "I'll petition the Inche Maida to have you chained to a
+bamboo."
+
+"Pish!" cried Hilton, imitating his friend, and throwing himself down
+upon one of the divans.
+
+"I thought the other day that I was stabbed to the heart by a pair of
+glittering eyes," said Chumbley; "but being a regular pachyderm, the
+wound only just went through my skin, and I soon healed up."
+
+"How allegorical we are getting!" said Hilton, laughing.
+
+"Yes," replied Chumbley, coolly, "very.  Then there was my friend
+Hilton: he did get a stab that pretty well touched his heart, and the
+wound smarts still."
+
+Hilton sat up, and glared at his friend.
+
+"And yet he calls a woman a tigress and a savage because she utters
+threats that an Englishwoman would hide out of sight."
+
+"You are improving, Chumbley."
+
+"Yes, I am," said the other.
+
+"Now, are you ready to try and escape before we are krissed?"
+
+"Bah!--stuff!  She wouldn't kris us!  She'd threaten, but she wouldn't
+hurt a hair of your head, unless scissoring off one of your Hyperion
+curls injured it when she took it for a keepsake.  I'm going to prophesy
+now."
+
+"Going to what?"
+
+"Prophesy--set up as a prophet.  Are you ready?"
+
+"Ready?"
+
+"Yes.  Can you bear it?"
+
+"If you are going to chatter away like this," said Hilton,
+contemptuously, "I shall pray her Malay majesty to find me another cell.
+There, go on.  What is your prophecy?"
+
+"That as soon as the bit of temper has burned out, madam will come back
+smiling and be as civil as can be."
+
+"Not she," said Hilton.  "Hang the woman!"
+
+"Where?" said Chumbley.  "Round your neck?"
+
+"No, round yours.  I'm sorry I was so rough to her; but it is, 'pon my
+honour, Chum, such a contemptible, degrading set-out, that I can't keep
+my temper over it."
+
+"You'll cool down after a bit," said Chumbley, yawning.  "I say, though,
+I'm hungry.  I shall protest when she comes in again.  She pretended
+that she was sending those girls for drinks and cigars.  I say," he
+cried, excitedly, "I shall protest or break the bars of the cage, or do
+something fierce, if that is her game."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, if she is going to starve you into submission, I'll give in
+directly if it's to be that.  There, what did I say?" he whispered, as
+the folds of the heavy curtains were drawn aside, and the Inche Maida
+entered, looking quite calm and almost sad now as she approached.
+
+"I am sorry," she said, holding out her hand to Hilton, who rose and
+bowed, but did not attempt to take the hand she offered.
+
+"I was very angry," continued the Princess, in a low, penitent voice.
+"Malay women let their feelings get the mastery when they are angry.  I
+suppose English ladies never do?"
+
+Chumbley coughed slightly and made a grimace.
+
+"Mr Chumbley," she said, turning to him, "you will shake hands?  I am
+not angry now.  _You_ need not be afraid."
+
+"I wasn't afraid," said Chumbley, taking the hand and pressing it
+warmly.
+
+"You were not?" she cried, with a flash from her dark eyes.
+
+"Not a bit," he said, laughing.
+
+"Suppose I said I would kill you?" she cried.
+
+"Well, it would be quite time enough to feel afraid when the operation
+was about to be performed," said Chumbley, coolly.  "I never meet
+troubles half way."
+
+"I cannot understand you," said the Princess.  "You are a very strange
+man.  It is because you are so big, I think, that you are not afraid."
+
+Chumbley bowed.
+
+"Perhaps so," he said.
+
+"I came back," said the Princess, "to tell you that I was sorry I spoke
+so angrily; but you must both know that I will be obeyed.  If I were not
+firm, my people would treat me like you do your servants.  I wish to
+speak to you both now."
+
+"Say a civil word to her, Hilton," whispered Chumbley.
+
+"Tell her to put an end to this absurd piece of folly," said Hilton, in
+the same tone.  "We shall be the laughing-stocks and butts of the whole
+service."
+
+The slight twitch at the corner of the Inche Maida's mouth betrayed the
+fact that she had heard their words, but she took no notice, and went on
+addressing Chumbley now.
+
+"I ask you both to share my home," she said.  "You are his friend, Mr
+Chumbley, and I know he likes you, so I felt that it would be too much
+to expect him to be quite happy here without an English friend.
+Besides, I know how great and good a soldier you are."
+
+"I modestly accept your praise, madam," said Chumbley, "but I haven't
+seen yet the record of my noble deeds."
+
+"You puzzle me when you speak like that," said the Princess.  "You are
+laughing at me; but I will not be angry with his friend, whom I brought
+to be companion, counsellor, and guide."
+
+"So you had me kidnapped to amuse Captain Hilton--eh?" said Chumbley.
+"Well, really, madam, I am honoured!"
+
+"Not only for that!" said the Princess, eagerly.  "Do I not make you
+understand?  You are a soldier and a brave man!"
+
+"How do you know that?" said Chumbley, with a good-humoured twinkle in
+his eye.
+
+"How do I know?" cried the Princess.  "Would the English Queen have
+chosen you to guard Mr Harley with your men if you were not?  My people
+know already that you are brave.  You beat them so that they could
+hardly master you; and they talk about you proudly now, and call you the
+great, strong brave rajah."
+
+"Well, it's very kind of them," said Chumbley, drily; "for I laid about
+me as heartily as I could."
+
+"Yes, they told me how you fought, and I was glad; for they would have
+despised you if you had only been big, and had let them tie you like a
+beaten elephant."
+
+"That comes of being big, Bertie," said Chumbley.  "You see, they
+compare me to an elephant."
+
+"I have commanded that you shall be chief captain for your friend, and
+lead our fighting men, as well as being Tumongong, my lord's adviser.  A
+chief is trebly strong who has a brave and trusty friend."
+
+"I say, old man, do you hear all this?" said Chumbley.
+
+"Yes, I hear," said the other, quietly.
+
+"This is promotion with a vengeance!  Yesterday lieutenant of foot,
+to-day commander-in-chief of her highness the Inche Maida's troops."
+
+"Yes, you shall be commander," said the Princess, seriously.  "It will
+save my country, for my people will follow you to the death."
+
+"Well, 'pon my word, Princess," said Chumbley, merrily, "you are a
+precious clever, sensible woman, and I like you after all."
+
+"And I like you," she said, innocently.  "I do not love you, but I like
+you very much, you seem so brave and true, and what you people call
+frank.  You will help me, will you not, both of you?  Think how I
+appealed to Mr Harley for help--how that almost my life depends upon
+it--and what did I get but empty words?"
+
+"You did not get much, certainly," said Chumbley.
+
+"Then talk to your friend, and advise him.  He will do what you say."
+
+"No," said Chumbley, laughing, "that is just what he will not do.  If
+ever there was a man who would not take my advice, it is Hilton."
+
+"Try him now that he is here--now that he knows how useless it is to
+fight against his fate.  Speak to him, and speak kindly!" she whispered.
+"I am going to my women now."
+
+She took one step towards Hilton, holding out her hand to him in a
+gentle, appealing manner; but he only bowed distantly, and turned away.
+
+The soft, appealing look passed from the Inche Maida's face, giving
+place to an angry frown; but this died out as she turned to Chumbley.
+
+"We two are friends, I hope?" she said, holding out her hand.  "You are
+not angry with me?"
+
+"Well, not very," he replied, smiling; "one can't be angry with a woman
+long for such a trick as this."
+
+"Yes," she said, quickly, "it is a trick, as you English call it.  I
+have won the trick."
+
+"Yes, you have won the trick," assented Chumbley; "but you don't hold
+the honours," he added to himself.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"I am glad that you are wise," she said, smiling now.  "I will go, and
+my people shall bring you dinner."
+
+"Thanks," said Chumbley; "that is the kindest act you can do to us now;
+only please forget the poison."
+
+"Poison!" she cried, indignantly.  "How dare you say that to me!  You
+are prisoners here, but you are quite safe while you do not try to
+escape.  Have I done so little to make myself an Englishwoman that you
+talk of poison?"
+
+"Yes," said Chumbley to himself, "so little to make yourself an
+Englishwoman that you play upon us such a trick as this!"
+
+The door opened, the Inche Maida passed through; and as the curtain fell
+down again and covered the opening, Hilton turned angrily upon his
+friend.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
+
+A NIGHT OF TERROR.
+
+It was night before Helen again woke, and her first thought was of
+escape; but as she softly rose to a sitting posture, she felt that one
+of the girls was by her side, and as she listened to her regular
+breathing, and tried in the darkness to collect her thoughts and to
+recall exactly where the door and window lay, the black night seemed a
+little less black just in one particular part of the room, and she
+realised that the window must lie there.
+
+"If I could get past that window!" thought Helen, with throbbing brain.
+"I know it would be hard, but still I might make my way to the river and
+find someone who would be my friend.  There must be paths through the
+jungle."
+
+Then with a strange aching sense of misery she thought of how little she
+had done since she had been out there.  No one could be more ignorant of
+the nature of the jungle than she.  She remembered that someone had
+called it impenetrable; but she knew that Dr Bolter went on expeditions
+to discover gold, and that the Reverend Arthur Rosebury sometimes
+wandered there.
+
+"Poor Mr Rosebury?" she said, half aloud.  "What he could do sorely I
+could," and then the blood in her veins seemed to freeze, and a shudder
+ran through her, for from out of the darkness came a deep, hoarse,
+snarling roar that she recognised at once as that of some tiger on the
+prowl.
+
+She was very ignorant of the jungle and its dangers, but she knew that
+if she should attempt to leave the building where she was imprisoned
+now, the result would be that she would encounter a foe of whose savage
+nature the station was full of tales.
+
+The stories of her childhood came back to her then, and she laughed
+bitterly as she recalled the faith she had once had in the legend of Una
+and the lion, and familiar histories of how the helpless had been
+befriended by the savage creatures of the forest.  Then, as she thought
+of her defenceless state, she once more shuddered, and asked herself
+whether it would not be better to trust herself to the jungle than stay
+where she was, to encounter one whom she dreaded far more than the
+creature whose cry she had just heard.
+
+In a fit of desperate energy as her thoughts were fixed upon Murad and
+the possibility that he might at any time now present himself, Helen
+softly glided from her couch and began to cross the uneven floor,
+stepping cautiously from bamboo lath to lath, and shivering as one gave
+a crack from time to time.
+
+It seemed darker now, and for guide towards the window there was nothing
+but the faintly-felt sensation of the dank jungle air coming cool
+against her cheek; but she kept on, thinking nothing of the way she
+should turn or how she should escape; all that animated her now was the
+one great idea that she must steal away beyond the power of these two
+Malay women to recall her.  If she could now do that, the rest might
+prove easy.  Something would no doubt offer itself.
+
+"I must, I will escape," she half wailed, in a whisper that startled her
+as it fell upon her ear, so full was it of helpless misery and despair.
+
+She paused to listen, for one of the girls had moved, and then, as she
+stood in the darkness, there was a very faint rustling noise, and Helen
+felt that her gaoler had risen and was cautiously stealing towards her.
+So sure was she of this, that she held up one hand to keep her enemy at
+a distance; but though the sound continued, no one touched her, and the
+soft rustling came no nearer to where she stood.
+
+She uttered a sigh of misery at her own dread and overwrought
+imagination, as she now realised the fact that the soft rustling was
+that of leaves as the night wind stirred them when it passed, for the
+soft, heavy breathing of the sleepers came regularly to her ear.
+
+It was very strange and confusing, though, for now in that intense
+darkness she seemed to have lost herself, and she could not tell exactly
+from which side the heavy breathing came.
+
+Once, as she listened intently, it seemed to grow so loud that it struck
+her it was the breathing of some monster of the jungle that had stopped
+by the open window; but soon she recovered herself sufficiently to feel
+that she was wrong; it was but the regular sleep of her companions, and
+laying her hand upon her breast to stay the throbbings of her heart, she
+gathered up the loose sarong that interfered with her progress, and
+stepped on cautiously towards where she believed the door to be.
+
+Once more the yielding bamboos bent beneath her weight, creaking loudly,
+and as they cracked at every step the more loudly now that she was
+walking beyond the rugs, the sounds were so plain in the still night
+that she tremblingly wondered why her companions did not wake.
+
+At last one gave so loud a crack that she stood perfectly still, afraid
+to either advance or recede; but to her great comfort the regular
+breathing of the two Malay girls rose and fell, as it were, like the
+pulses of the intensely hot night.
+
+With the feeling that any attempt at haste must result in failure, Helen
+stood there listening as the low hum of the night-flying insects reached
+her ear; and somehow, in spite of the peril in which she stood, thoughts
+of the past came back, and the hot-breathed gloom seemed to suggest
+those summer nights at the Miss Twettenham's when the sun-scorched air
+lingered in the dormitories, and they used to sit by the open windows,
+enjoying the sweetness of the soft night, reluctant to go to bed.  Those
+were the times when, filled with romantic thoughts, they listened to the
+nightingales answering each challenge from copse to copse, and making
+the listeners think of subjects the Misses Twettenham never taught--
+subjects relating to love, with serenades, cavaliers, elopements, and
+other horrors, such as would have made the thin hair of those amiable
+elderly ladies stand on end.  For there was something _very_ witching in
+those soft summer nights, an atmosphere that set young hearts dream of
+romantic futures.  Helen Perowne had perhaps had the wildest imagination
+of any dreamer there, but in her most exalted times she had never
+dreamed so wild a life-romance as that of which she had become the
+heroine; and as she stood there with her throat parched, listening to
+the hum of mosquitoes and the breathing of her companions, everything
+seemed so unreal that she was ready to ask herself whether she slept--
+whether she did not dream still--and would awake to find herself back in
+the conventual seclusion of the old school.
+
+Then once more came the shudder-engendering roar of the prowling tiger,
+apparently close at hand, and in its deep, strange tones seeming to make
+the building vibrate.
+
+Helen shivered, and the cold, damp perspiration gathered on her face, as
+she felt now the propinquity of the tiger to such an extent that she was
+ready to sink down helpless upon the floor.
+
+There it was again--that low, deep, muttering roar, ending in a growling
+snarl, and so close below the window that she trembled, knowing as she
+did that there were only a few frail bamboo laths between her and the
+most savage creature that roamed the jungle.
+
+Was it real, she asked herself once more, that she, Helen Perowne, was
+here in this wild forest, surrounded by beasts of prey, and none of her
+friends at hand; or had she lost her senses, and would she awaken some
+day calm and cool at home, with a faint, misty recollection of having
+suffered from some fever that had attacked her brain.
+
+Yes, it was real; she was alone and helpless in that terrible place, and
+there, in the pulsating furnace-like heat of the dark night, was the cry
+of the tiger once again.
+
+There was no doubt of its being one of these huge catlike creatures, for
+she had heard it frequently by night in the neighbourhood of the
+settlement, where during the past few years more than one unfortunate
+Chinese servant had been carried off.  But when she had listened to the
+low, muttered, guttural roar, ending in an angry snarl, she had been at
+the window of her own home, surrounded by protectors; and awesome as the
+sound had seemed, it had never inspired her with such dread as now when
+she had determined to risk everything in her attempt to escape, and
+expose herself to the tender mercies of such creatures as this now
+wandering about the place.
+
+Again and again came the cry, now seemingly distant, now close at hand,
+till at last Helen's knees refused to support her, and she sank down
+trembling, for the creature's breathing could be plainly heard beneath
+where she stood, the lightly-built house being, like all in the Malay
+jungle, raised upon stout bamboo or palm posts for protection from wild
+beasts and flood.
+
+Singularly enough, as the first horror passed away, Helen felt her
+courage return.
+
+"It will not hurt me," she said, hysterically; but she crouched there
+trembling as she listened to the snuffling noise beneath her, and then
+there was a dull thud as of a heavy leap.
+
+Helen shuddered as she listened, and by some strange mental process
+began to compare the feline monster, excited by the scent of human
+beings close at hand, to Murad; and after listening till all seemed
+still once more--till the muffled cry of the tiger arose now some
+distance away, she rose cautiously, and made her way towards the door.
+
+A kind of nervous energy had seized upon her now, and she stepped
+forward lightly to touch the woven walls.
+
+Sweeping her hand over them, she recognised her position now by the
+hangings, and the darkness-engendered confusion to some extent passed
+away.  She found the door, and the great curtain rustled as she drew it
+aside to get at the fastening, her hands feeling wet and cold, while her
+face was burning, and her heart kept up a heavy, dull beat.
+
+There was a faint sound apparently from behind her now, and she stood
+listening, but it was not repeated.  The low hum of the nocturnal
+insects rose and fell, and once more the soft rustling of the leaves
+stirred by the night wind came through the window close at hand, and
+from very far off now, and so faint as to be hardly perceptible, there
+was the tiger's growl.  There was nothing more but the heat, which
+seemed in its intensity to throb and beat upon her brain.
+
+But still Helen dared not move for a time, trembling the while lest the
+first touch she gave the door should awaken her gaolers.  At last,
+though, she nerved herself once more, and tried to find out how the door
+was fastened.  There was no lock, no bolt, such as those to which she
+was accustomed, and though she passed her hands over it in every
+direction it was without result.
+
+The time was gliding on, and in her ignorance of how long she might have
+slept, she felt that morning would at any time be there; so with a weary
+sigh of misery she left her futile task and crept cautiously to the
+window.
+
+It did not seem so dark now, or else her eyes were more accustomed to
+the want of light, for she found the window directly; and as she took
+hold of the bamboo bars, the hot night air came in a heavy puff against
+her face, fierce and glowing, as if it were some watching monster's
+breath.
+
+She listened as she stood there, and the breathing of the two girls
+seemed to have ceased.  There was the tiger's cry once more, but
+sounding now like a distant wail, and her spirits rose as she felt that
+one of the perils likely to assail her was passing away.
+
+Again she listened, and once more the breathing of her companions
+reached her ear, the Malay girls seeming to be sleeping heavily, as with
+nervous fingers Helen now strove to move one of the bars, or to loosen
+it so that it could be thrust up or down, but without avail; then she
+strove to draw one of them sufficiently aside to allow her to pass
+through, but her efforts were entirely in vain, although she kept on
+striving, in total ignorance of the fact that it would have taken a
+strong man armed with an axe to have done the work she adventured with
+her tender fingers alone.
+
+Just as she let her aching arms fall to her side and a weary sigh of
+disappointment escaped her breast, she felt herself caught tightly by
+the wrist, and with a sensation of horror so great as to threaten the
+overthrow of her reason, she snatched herself away, and clung to the
+bars of the window with all her remaining strength.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
+
+A DESPERATE APPEAL.
+
+It was some few moments after she had been seized again, and this time
+held by two hands stronger than her own, that Helen Perowne realised the
+fact that it was the Malay girl that had shown her the most compassion
+who had taken her by the arm.
+
+"What are you doing here?" was whispered in a low, angry voice.
+
+Helen made no reply, and as she clung to the window, the girl went on:
+
+"You were trying to get away, but it is of no use.  Murad knew that when
+they brought you here.  If you could get out of this place you could not
+go far through the jungle before the tigers would tear you down.  No one
+kills them here.  He has them kept that he may hunt them; but when the
+time for hunting them comes, Murad is away with the English people, or
+he is not well, or he has no elephants, so the tigers are never touched.
+They would tear you down, I say, and when Murad's men searched for you,
+they would only find your bones.  I remember two girls escaping to the
+jungle, but they were both killed."
+
+"Better that than stay here," said Helen, in a low, excited voice.
+"Listen to me," she continued, striving hard to make herself understood;
+"you do not like me--you do not want me here."
+
+"No!" said the girl, fiercely.  "I wish you had not come--that you would
+go and be killed; but if you were to escape, Murad would kill us all;
+and I do not want to die--no--not yet."
+
+"No, no; he would not be so cruel," whispered Helen, who trembled with
+hope and excitement, as she felt that a chance for escape had at last
+come.  "Help me to get away--to get back to my friends!" she cried,
+appealingly.  "Let me escape, and I will reward you--I will give you
+what you like.  Do you understand me?"
+
+"Yes, I know what you say," replied the girl, "but I do not believe it.
+You are the English lady who made the Rajah love you because he was so
+handsome.  We know all here; and now that he has brought you, what is
+this you tell me--that you want to go away?  Oh, no! it is like a little
+child.  I do not believe one word!"
+
+"But it is true!" whispered Helen.  "Speak lower, or you will waken
+her," said the girl; "and she hates you more than I!"
+
+"I will obey you in anything," whispered Helen, restraining her voice,
+and sinking down and clutching the girl's knees, "only help me to
+escape, and my father will fill your hands with gold."
+
+"What use would it be to me?" said the girl with a quiet little laugh.
+
+"I will give you anything you ask!" panted Helen excitedly, as she
+seemed to see a faint chance of the girl yielding.
+
+"Do you not understand what would happen if I helped you to go?" said
+the girl, quietly.
+
+"No; I cannot tell," replied Helen, "but I will not mind the danger."
+
+"There is more danger for me than for you," was the answer, with a
+little laugh.  "I will tell you: Murad would be angry and fierce; he
+would forget that he loved me once, and brought me here to be one of his
+wives.  He would make his men take me to the river, and force me to
+kneel down, when I should be krissed and thrown into the water for the
+crocodiles to eat."
+
+"Oh, no; it is too horrible!" whispered Helen, as her excited
+imagination conjured up the dreadful scene.
+
+"It is true," said the girl, simply.  "He had one wife krissed like that
+because she ran away twice--because she ran away to the boy she loved
+before she was taken from her home.  Murad is Sultan, and he will be
+obeyed.  He is very cruel sometimes!"
+
+Helen shuddered as she thought that if this were true, she could not ask
+for help at such a price.
+
+"I should have gone away before now," said the girl, thoughtfully, as
+her hands played with Helen's hair; "for I have someone else who
+followed me here that he might be near me; but I dare not go!  Murad
+would kill me.  It would not hurt much, and I don't think I should mind;
+but he would kill someone else, and I could not bear that!"
+
+"Go, then," said Helen quickly.  "Leave me to myself.  Let me escape
+without your help!"
+
+"He would kill me and her all the same," said the girl, sadly; "and if I
+let you get out, what could you do?  You would wander in the jungle till
+the beasts seized you, or you died.  You must have a boat to escape from
+here; and if you could get a boat you could not row."
+
+"I would escape along the jungle-paths," whispered Helen, excitedly.
+
+"No," said the girl, "you could not do that.  There is only one path
+through the jungle, and that goes from this house to the river.  That is
+all.  You cannot escape; why do you try?"
+
+Helen rose from her knees, and clutched the girl's arms fiercely.
+
+"I can escape, and I will!" she panted excitedly.  "How dare he seize an
+English lady and insult her like this!"
+
+"Because he is Sultan here, and he is stronger and greater than we are,"
+said the girl.  "Murad is a mighty prince, and all the people here are
+his slaves and have to obey.  You must obey him too."
+
+"I!" cried Helen.
+
+"Yes, you; and you will be happy, for he loves you more than all.  He
+used to come from Sindang here, and talk to us, and praise you, and tell
+us that you would come and be our mistress here.  He loves you very
+much, and you will be quite happy soon."
+
+"Happy?  With him?" cried Helen, in horror.
+
+"Yes, happy.  You have won his love from us, and we here are only like
+your slaves.  It is you who take away our happiness, and I ought to hate
+you; but I do not, for you are so young.  Do you love someone else?"
+
+"Yes--no, no!" panted Helen, excitedly.
+
+"But you love Murad?"
+
+"Oh, no, no!" cried Helen.
+
+"I am sorry--I am sorry," said the girl, thoughtfully.
+
+"Then help me--pray help me!" whispered Helen, prayerfully, and she
+flung her arms round the swarthy girl, and held her to her breast.
+"Help me to get away, for I do not love Murad, and you do!"
+
+The girl started and thrust Helen away, but only to cling to her in turn
+after a moment's pause.
+
+"Yes, I think I love him," she said, softly, "though he is very cruel to
+me now."
+
+"And you hate me--very much--because--because Murad loves me?" whispered
+Helen, with a shudder.
+
+"I don't think I hate you very much," said the girl, softly.
+
+"You need not hate me--indeed you need not!" whispered Helen, and her
+voice, her very ways were changed now.  The old pride was entirely gone,
+and she spoke with winning, womanly sweetness, full of tenderness and
+caress, as she nestled closer and closer to the girl.  "You need not
+hate me," she repeated, "for I detest this Murad--I loathe him!  I love
+some one else!  Help me, then, to get back to my own people--to escape
+from Murad.  Help me, or I shall die!"
+
+The girl was silent.
+
+"Oh," moaned Helen, "she does not understand anything I say!"
+
+"Yes," said the girl, softly, "I understand."
+
+"Then you pretended you could not!" cried Helen, wrathfully.
+
+"Murad ordered me to pretend that I only knew my own tongue," said the
+girl.  "But no, I cannot help you, and you will not die.  I thought so
+once; but we do not die because we are taken from our homes and people.
+Murad makes us love him, and then we forget the past, for we know that
+it is our fate."
+
+Helen's heart sank as she listened to the girl's words, so full of
+patient resignation, and she wondered whether she would ever be like
+this.  There was not a ray of hope now in her utterances, and for the
+moment, in the horror of the despair that came upon her, she felt
+frantic.
+
+Thrusting her companion from her, she made a dash for the entrance,
+beating and tearing at it in her madness, as she uttered a series of
+loud hysteric cries.  She shook the door fiercely, but her efforts were
+in vain; and as she strove to reach the window her fit of excitement
+seemed to pass, leaving her weak and despairing, heart-sick too, as she
+felt how lowering her acts must be in the sight of her companions; for
+the second girl had now sprung up, and she felt herself dragged back to
+her couch, and there compelled to stay.
+
+They both joined in scolding her angrily; and feeling her helplessness,
+a strange feeling of weakness came over the prisoner, and she lay there
+at last a prey to despair, as she realised now more fully how slight was
+her prospect of escape--how much slighter was the chance of Neil Harley
+coming to her help, however earnestly he might have searched.
+
+Before morning, when her companions had once more sunk to sleep, in
+spite of the hope that she felt of perhaps after all winning one of them
+to her side, so terribly had her misery of feeling increased, that as
+she pondered on her state, she found herself praying that Neil Harley
+might never look upon her face again.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
+
+ESCAPED BY ACCIDENT.
+
+The Rev Arthur Rosebury passed many miserable hours when the sun was
+down, for then he began to think of Helen Perowne, and wondered where
+she was.  It was a terrible thought that she was in the power of the
+Malays; and in a dreamy, despairing manner, he wondered how matters were
+at the station, and whether any steps would be taken to set him at
+liberty.
+
+But as soon as the daylight came there was solace for the solitary
+prisoner, for he was amongst wonderful plants, such as he had never
+before seen, and his guards or attendants, whichever they might be
+called, were always ready to help him, and to supply him with any
+specimens he required.
+
+He had lost count of time by devoting himself so earnestly to the
+botanical treasures of the garden; and one morning, after asking himself
+whether he ought not to make some effort to escape, he was out in the
+grounds of his prison-house once more, when, having pretty well
+exhausted its treasures, he walked straight to the gate.
+
+His guard, who had been seated beneath the veranda calmly chewing his
+betel-nut, snatched out his kris, and darted fiercely after the
+chaplain, who was evidently about to escape; but on coming in sight of
+the prisoner, and finding him stooping over a cluster of orchids in a
+damp place in the jungle, the man stopped short, a contemptuous smile
+crossed his face, and he slowly replaced his kris, folded his arms and
+leaned against a tree.
+
+In his eyes the botanist was a simple maniac, and so long as he made no
+vigorous effort to escape, it did not seem to matter if he went a little
+way into the jungle to collect his plants.
+
+Stepping back quietly a few yards, the man held up his hands in a
+peculiar way, and a couple of dark figures armed with spears, glided
+from the house to his side, the little party crouching down amongst the
+dense growth, and holding a consultation for a few minutes, the result
+of which was that the two last arrivals glided back a short distance,
+while the principal guard slowly followed the chaplain some twenty or
+thirty yards behind, and always unseen by him he watched.  The foliage
+was so dense that there was never the slightest difficulty in this, and
+hence it was that as the Reverend Arthur, forgetful now of everything
+but his favourite pursuit, went slowly on into the more easily
+penetrated parts of the jungle, his guards were always close at hand,
+forming as it were the links of a chain between his prison and himself.
+
+At intervals he would perhaps stop and think of Helen, wondering where
+she was, and whether he ought not to make some strenuous effort to find
+her; but as often as not, in the midst of these thoughts, he would catch
+sight of some fresh flower or woodland moss, objects that he had
+worshipped long before Helen Perowne had disturbed the tranquillity of
+his peaceful life, and then he would eagerly stoop down to pick it, most
+likely ending by kneeling in some wet place, while he fixed a powerful
+lens in his eye, examined the plant carefully, and stopped to think.
+Then most likely he would pick some huge leaf to lay upon the ground,
+and with that as tray to hold the various portions of his specimen, he
+would take out a penknife, and proceed to dissect the plant, examining
+its various parts with the greatest care before making the most rigid
+notes, and then consigning his treasure to the basket he had brought
+with him.
+
+This went on day after day, till he got into the habit of going off
+directly after his morning meal, and penetrating some distance along
+some narrow jungle path, generally losing himself completely at last,
+and pausing to stare about him, hungry, faint, and bewildered.
+
+It was always the same; after staring about him for a few minutes,
+wondering what he should do, and feeling oppressed by the vastness and
+silence of the jungle, he would catch sight of a tall dark figure,
+standing some little distance off, leaning upon a spear, and go to it
+for help.
+
+The quiet helplessness of the prisoner seemed to win his guards over to
+him; and as day after day glided slowly by, and he showed not the
+slightest disposition to make an attempt at escape, he was allowed more
+latitude by the Malays and travelled farther and farther from the place
+that had been made his prison.
+
+It was only natural under the circumstances, that, with the cord that
+metaphorically held him so much relaxed, it would grow weaker and
+weaker, and so it proved.  In fact, had the chaplain been as other men
+were, he would have had but little difficulty in making his escape.  But
+after thinking deeply of the possibilities of getting away, the Reverend
+Arthur concluded that not only was it next to impossible, but that,
+situated as he was, it was his duty to stay where he was, especially as
+he believed himself to be near Helen, who was also a captive, and whom,
+sooner or later, he would be called upon to help and protect.  He had,
+too, a half-formed, nebulous idea that it would be better to leave
+matters to fate, for in his helpless state he could do nothing; and then
+one day he began to think that his wanderings about the jungle might
+prove beneficial in giving him a knowledge of the country, and on the
+day in question this idea had come upon him strongly.
+
+He actually reproached himself for being so supine, and went off
+uninterrupted for some distance, growing more and more animated as he
+went, and telling himself that he felt sure Helen Perowne was somewhere
+near, and that he must strive to find her.
+
+The result was that he walked laboriously on for miles, till he was hot,
+weary, and exhausted; and then seating himself upon the trunk of a huge
+palm, which being situated in a more open place than usual, had been
+blown down by some furious gale, he began to wipe the drenching
+perspiration from his face, sighed deeply, and then saw clustering close
+by his feet a magnificent group of orchids of a species that was quite
+new.
+
+The Reverend Arthur Rosebury had gone on well into middle life without
+so much as dreaming of love, and then he had seen Helen Perowne, and his
+love for her had not prospered.  Still it had burned on steadily and
+brightly month after month, and only wanting a little fostering care
+upon the lady's part to make it burst forth into a brilliant flame; but
+somehow his old pursuits retained an enormous power over his spirit, and
+although upon this particular day he had come out determined to make
+some effort--what he hardly knew, but still to make some effort--he was
+turned at once from his project by the flowers at his feet; and that day
+Helen's face troubled him no more.
+
+Heat, hunger, and weariness were all forgotten, and he did not even look
+round to see if either of his guards was there, though all the same the
+principal of them had for the last hour been following him with lowering
+looks.  Quite out of patience, and hot and exhausted in his turn, he was
+about to close up, take the chaplain by the arm, and lead him back, when
+he saw him seat himself, and soon after stoop down and begin to pick the
+plants, digging some of them up completely by the roots, and spreading
+them before him for a long investigation.
+
+The Malay smiled with satisfaction, and the lowering, angry look left
+his face.  He, too, found a resting-place, took out his eternal
+betel-box, and prepared his piece of nut, chewing away contentedly, like
+some ruminating animal, and keeping his eyes fixed upon the Reverend
+Arthur as he busied himself with his plants, cutting, laying open, and
+making notes.  As in the distance the Malay saw the chaplain's pencil
+going, he slowly sank back into a more comfortable position; then his
+eyes began to open and shut, and open and shut, and then forget to open,
+so that by the time the prisoner had begun to gather up his specimens, a
+happy smile of content upon his lip, the guard was lying right back,
+hidden amongst the dense growth, sleeping heavily, and half-covered by
+different kinds of insects which were investigating the nature of the
+strange being that had taken possession of their domain.
+
+The time passed, and then the chaplain rose refreshed by his long rest,
+looked round to see which way he had come, and after satisfying himself
+that he was quite right, went off in a direction that, for taking him
+back to whence he came, was quite wrong.
+
+It did not trouble him though in the least, for his mind was intent upon
+the plants he passed; and so accustomed was he to giving up his thoughts
+entirely to such pursuits as this, that he was quite lost to everything
+else, and he went slowly on, finding himself in a more open portion of
+the jungle, and surrounded on all sides by new plants.
+
+It was a perfect paradise to him, and he did not feel the want of an
+Eve, but culled the specimens here and there, careless of the fact that
+there was no path where he was, no trace of human beings having been
+there before, but there were choice specimens in abundance, and that was
+enough for him.
+
+Once only did his thoughts go back to his friends, and that was when
+with much difficulty he had forced his way through some dense thorns
+with unfortunate results to his clothes.
+
+"I am afraid that Mary would be rather angry," he muttered, "if she saw
+me now.  Poor Mary! how happy she seems with the doctor; but she is just
+a little too strict sometimes."
+
+Thinking about his sister, he went on in the most abstracted manner, the
+thoughts of his sister bringing up Helen Perowne, and he went on talking
+to himself half aloud, while a flock of parroquets in the trees above
+his head kept travelling on with him, flitting from branch to branch,
+climbing by foot and beak, hanging by one leg, heads up and heads down,
+and always seeming to watch him, and be mocking and gibing at him like a
+set of green and scarlet feathered implings who made derisive gestures,
+while they were astounded at the sight of an English clergyman
+journeying through that savage place.
+
+"I'm afraid dear Mary would not like it," he said, simply, "even if
+finally Helen were to give me her consent.  And yet dear Mary would
+never be able to resist so much beauty as Helen possesses.  I wonder
+where she is now?"
+
+He sighed deeply, and then paused to consider the beauty of a lovely
+acacia with its graceful pinnate leaves.  Then came a hard struggle
+through a dense cane-break which left him hot and panting.
+
+"It's much pleasanter travelling through the English woods," he said.
+"The heat here is very trying, and I'm getting faint and hungry.  I'm
+afraid I've lost my way."
+
+He looked about for some little time, but saw nothing till he had
+dragged his weary legs on for about another half-mile, when the
+appearance of the ground told him that people had not long since passed
+that way.
+
+"Then I shall find a village," he said, "and the people will give or
+sell me something, and--Bless me, how strange!"
+
+He stopped short and listened, but all was still but the chattering and
+whistling of the birds.
+
+"It must have been one of the parrots," he said, "but it sounded
+remarkably like a woman's voice.  It is an unaccountable thing to me how
+it is that nature should have given the parrot family so remarkable a
+power of imitating the human voice.  Now, as I walked along there I
+could have been sure that a woman had called to me aloud for help.  It
+sounded very peculiar in this wild jungle, echoing and strange, and it
+seemed to startle me."
+
+There was a regular chorus of whistling and chattering just now, and the
+chaplain started, for there came directly after a loud whirring of
+wings; the air seemed full of flashes of green, and blue, and scarlet,
+and then the stillness was almost painful.
+
+"How easily one may be deceived!" he said, quietly.  "One notices such
+things more when one is tired and hungry; and it is very dull work to be
+alone out here.  I wish Bolter could be my companion and--there it was
+again."
+
+The chaplain stopped short and listened, for a wild cry certainly rang
+out now; and, willing as he was to attribute the strange noise to a
+bird, it seemed impossible that it could have proceeded from one of
+them.
+
+"If it is a cry," the chaplain said, hastily, "I must be very near to a
+village, and someone is in trouble."
+
+The idea of help being needed roused him so that he hurried on, and kept
+thrusting back the hanging and running canes which impeded his way, till
+at the end of a few minutes he came suddenly upon an open space
+surrounded by trees, with evidently a broad track, leading away towards
+what, from the difference in the growth of the foliage, must be a
+stream.
+
+Away to the right he could see the gable-end of what was apparently a
+large palm-thatched house, and over it there was a group of magnificent
+cocoa-palms, such as at another time would have secured his attention;
+but now different feelings were awakened, for from out of a low clump of
+trees he suddenly saw a Malay woman come running, her gay silken sarong
+and scarf fluttering in the breeze.
+
+She saw him evidently, and made signs to him, which, instead of
+attracting him to her side, made him shrink away.
+
+"It is some quarrel among themselves," he muttered, for he recalled the
+advice he had heard given him as to his behaviour to the people, and the
+danger of interfering with their home lives.
+
+As he thought this, he stopped, and was about to turn away, when a fresh
+cry smote his ear, and the woman ran a few paces towards him, tottered
+as she caught her foot in a trailing cane, and fell heavily to the
+ground.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
+
+A DESPERATE ATTEMPT.
+
+More long weary days of stifling heat, without a breath of air to
+relieve the oppression, and more hot suffocating nights, during which,
+half wild with terror and despair, Helen, like some newly-captured bird,
+had beaten the bars of her prison in vain.
+
+She had appealed to the Malay girl, but only for her to turn away and
+seem at last weary and troubled by the importunity she had received.
+Then she had appealed to the second girl, who was of a morose jealous
+aspect, and who evidently detested her.  But all appeal here was vain,
+for the girl evidently did not understand her words, and turned sullenly
+away.  It was so, too, with the rest of the women, who came to the door
+and just entered the room in obedience to some call.
+
+But Helen might as well have appealed to the trees that stood tall and
+columnar just outside the prison window.  Those who did not understand
+her words looked at her with a heavy scowl; while those who could
+comprehend laughed, or made her keep away from them, for they disliked
+her coming, and their eyes plainly told the hatred that there was in
+their hearts.  Beside which, they knew the punishment that would fall to
+their lot should they go in opposition to their lord's orders, and the
+danger was too great to tempt the most willing of them to run any risks.
+
+The girl who had been most gentle to her, and who had not scrupled to
+talk freely about her own affairs, now seemed to keep aloof; and feeling
+more and more her helplessness, Helen awoke to the fact that if she were
+to escape from her present durance it must be by her own effort.
+
+In this spirit she tried to restrain herself, and waited patiently for
+some opportunity for communicating with her friends; though when this
+opportunity would come she was obliged to confess was doubtful in the
+extreme.
+
+Naturally enough her thoughts turned to writing, and feeling the folly
+of applying in a place like her prison for pens and paper, she set
+herself to contrive some means upon which she could describe her
+position, finding it at last in the form of a book, one of whose
+fly-leaves she covered with a pitiful appeal to any Englishman who would
+read it, and imploring help.  This she kept by her, ready to send should
+opportunity occur, and still the dreary days glided by.
+
+There was one redeeming point, though, in her captivity, and that was
+the fact that so far she had not been troubled by a visit from Murad;
+but at last one morning, when the fresh beauty of the scene outside her
+window and the elasticity of the brisk air made her feel more cheerful
+than of old, she awoke to the fact that there was a little stir about
+the place; the women calling to each other and seeming busier than was
+their wont.  The two girls who acted as Helen's gaolers ran to the glass
+as soon as they entered, and with all the coquetry of some London belle
+in her first season, placed wreaths of white flowers in their braids,
+twisted their sarongs into more graceful folds, and then turned their
+attention to Helen.
+
+She refused to allow them to approach her at first, but her resistance
+was useless, and finding that without violence there were no means of
+overcoming their tolerably good-humoured pertinacity, she submitted,
+wearily telling them to do what they pleased, when one, the most
+friendly, insisted upon taking down her magnificent hair.
+
+"Only to make it more beautiful," she said.
+
+At this moment the other woman left the room.
+
+"Will you help me to escape?" said Helen, quickly, as soon as they were
+alone.
+
+"No; I dare not.  Murad would have me killed."
+
+"Then will you send this paper by a messenger down to the station?"
+
+"Paper?" said the girl, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes, paper.  I have written for help; send it by a messenger.  Here are
+my rings and watch to pay him for going.  Take them, and if you have any
+womanly feeling, help me now."
+
+"I cannot; I dare not," whispered the woman; but Helen forced paper and
+trinkets into her hand, just as the second attendant was heard coming,
+when her companion burst out into one of the minor songs of the country,
+and busied herself with her task.
+
+Helen's heart gave one great throb of hope, and raising her eyes to
+those of her attendant, she read there that her message would be sent.
+
+The second woman brought in a bunch of what seemed to be a kind of waxy
+yellow jasmine of an extremely powerful odour.  These she proceeded to
+twine in and amongst Helen's magnificent dark hair; and when the
+prisoner shudderingly attempted to resist, feeling as she did that she
+was being decked out for, as it were, a sacrifice, the flower-bearer
+stormed at her angrily in the Malay tongue, and seemed to threaten her
+with some severe punishment if she persisted in tearing them out.
+
+"It would be childish to keep on opposing them," thought Helen, whose
+spirits were lighter now that she had found some means, as she hoped, of
+communicating with the station; and she resigned herself to her
+attendant's clever hands.
+
+As she sat back, listening languidly to the whistling, chattering noise
+of the parroquets that swarmed in the jungle, she felt a pang shoot
+through her, for very faintly heard there was a sound familiar to her
+ear--a sound that she had frequently listened to at her open window at
+the station.  It was the plashing of oars coming from a distance, and
+she felt that at last the Rajah was approaching the place, to see his
+prisoner.
+
+Helen's teeth gritted together as she set them hard, calling upon
+herself for all her fortitude and strength of mind for what she knew
+must be a terrible ordeal.
+
+The scene at home on that morning when Murad had come to propose for her
+hand came back most vividly, and for the moment she trembled as she
+realised the evil she had done.
+
+She recovered herself though somewhat, and striving hard to be prepared
+for what was to come, sat listening and wondering whether Murad really
+was close at hand.
+
+She had not long to wait in indecision, and she knew that her hearing
+had not played her false, for the two girls had heard the same sound,
+and running to the window, stood listening as the plash of oars now came
+nearer and nearer.
+
+Then the sounds ceased, and there was to Helen a painful silence.  The
+heat grew oppressive, and the leaves hung motionless in the glowing air.
+For the moment it seemed like one of the oppressive July days in her
+old school; but the fancy was gone directly after, and the horrors of
+her position came back so strongly that she could hardly refrain from
+running wildly about the room and crying for help.
+
+Just then the two girls left the window, and crossed to where Helen was
+seated, darting at her, as it seemed in her then excited condition,
+furious and angrily envious looks before turning now to the doorway,
+passing through, and letting the great curtain fall behind.
+
+As Helen waited her heart began to beat violently, for there was no
+mistaking the import of the sounds she heard.  So far they had been
+women's voices, now unmistakably they were men's; and growing more and
+more agitated, and ready to start at every sound, she sat waiting for
+the interview that she knew must come.
+
+To her surprise the day glided on till the afternoon was well advanced,
+and still, beyond the occasional sound of male voices, there was nothing
+to distinguish between this day and any other, save that once, when left
+alone together, the Malay girl whispered to her:
+
+"I have sent a messenger with your paper, but he may never take it where
+you wish."
+
+Before Helen could declare her thankfulness the girl was gone, giving
+place to the other, who looked at her morosely, and then stood leaning
+by the door till a loud voice called her, and she answered, going out
+quickly, while Helen sat trembling and pressing her hand upon her
+palpitating heart.
+
+Could it be true? and if true, were there not attendants waiting to
+guard the entrance, for unmistakably it seemed that the Malay girl had
+hurried to obey the call and left the door open.
+
+Helen rose, and walked with tottering step to the door, to find that not
+only was it open, but that there was no one in the room beyond--a room
+whose door opened straight upon a kind of bamboo veranda, with a flight
+of steps down to the ground; while beyond that was a clearing, and then
+the jungle.
+
+She paused for a minute listening.  There was not a sound but the loud
+whistling and chattering of the birds in the trees.  The place might
+have been deserted, everything was so still; and it did not occur to her
+that this was a time when many of the people would be asleep till the
+heat of the day was past.
+
+It was enough for her that the way to freedom was there; and hesitating
+no longer, she passed out into the farther room, reached the door
+unseen, and was in the act of descending the flight of steps, when one
+of the Malay women of the place saw and ran at her, catching her by the
+dress and arm, and holding her so tenaciously, that Helen, in her
+anguish at being thus checked, uttered a cry for help, escaped her
+retainer, and then leaped down and ran.
+
+The Malay woman was joined by another now; and in her excitement and
+ignorance of which way to go, she was driven into a corner, but only to
+make a brave dash for liberty as the girls caught and held her again.
+
+In her excitement Helen cried again and again for help, forgetful of the
+fact that she was more likely to summon enemies than friends.
+
+The cries of a woman had little effect there, for beyond bringing out a
+couple more of the Malay women, Helen's appeals for help seemed to
+create no excitement; and she was beginning to feel that her efforts
+would prove in vain, when she saw a figure come from amongst the trees,
+and stretching out her hands towards it, she made one last effort to
+reach what she had looked upon as safety.
+
+For there could be no mistaking that figure.  It was the chaplain.  At
+the moment it seemed to her that Arthur Rosebury had been sent there
+expressly to save her from her terrible position; and half-fainting,
+panting, and thoroughly exhausted, she tottered on, tripped, and fell.
+
+The effort to escape was vain, for a couple of Malay women seized
+Helen's arms and dragged her off, followed by the chaplain, but not for
+many yards.  Before he had gone far he too was seized, and hurried back
+in the way by which he had come.  It was vain to struggle, and he had to
+resign himself, but it was with feelings mingled with indignation and
+disgust.
+
+The Malay lady was evidently of superior station by her dress; and that
+she was ill-used there could be no doubt.  His English blood glowed at
+the thought, and clergyman though he was, and man of peace, he still
+felt enough spirit to be ready to have undertaken her defence.
+
+He cooled down, though, as he was hurried back through the jungle--
+cooled in temper, but heated in body; while the faintness and hunger
+soon increased to such an extent that his adventure with the Malay lady
+was forgotten.
+
+But not by Helen Perowne, who, once more shut up in her room, rejoiced
+to think that, though surrounded by enemies, there was one friend near--
+a true friend whom she could trust--one who would be ready to do
+anything for her sake, badly as she had behaved to him.
+
+"He cannot be far away," she said, half aloud, and with the hysterical
+sobs in her throat.  "He is near, and there must be friends with him.
+He saw me, and he will not lose a minute without bringing help; and
+then--"
+
+And then she stopped as if paralysed, for the thought came upon her with
+a flash that, though the Reverend Arthur Rosebury had seen her, he had
+only gazed upon a tall, swarthy Malay woman, in whom he could not
+possibly have recognised Helen Perowne.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
+
+MURAD AT HOME.
+
+The place was very still once more as Helen sat thinking, with her two
+attendants idling by the window.  She had heard the sound of oars, and
+there had been men's voices, but nothing more.
+
+She was angry with herself for the ill success of her attempt to escape;
+but by degrees she calmed down, and her excitement passed off, for there
+was something inexpressibly comforting in the knowledge that the
+chaplain was not far away.  She succeeded so well at last in recovering
+her equanimity that she told herself she was ready to crush Murad with
+the outburst of righteous indignation that would flow from her lips.
+
+There was a calm, dreamy feeling about the place now, and her attendants
+seemed half asleep.  It was intensely hot, and the birds and insects had
+ceased their whistlings and busy hum.  So quiet did it seem in the late
+afternoon that everything might have been supposed asleep, when once
+more the sound of voices sent a thrill through Helen, and she began to
+tremble and feel weak once more, till suddenly there was one voice heard
+above the others, giving orders, and this voice sent a thrill through
+her--not of dread, but of anger.
+
+She drew herself up, for the time had come, and, like one who has been
+for weeks dreading some painful scene, shrinking within herself, but
+grows brave and ready at the last moment when she is face to face with
+the difficulty, so Helen Perowne suddenly felt herself firm and ready
+for the encounter she had to endure.
+
+It was Murad's voice undoubtedly, giving orders in a sharp, commanding
+way; and though he spoke in the Malay tongue, she readily recognised the
+tones that had been used at the station, when he had hung over her
+ottoman, softened his words to the occasion, and then gazed at her with
+love-softened eyes.
+
+"Idiot! idiot! weak coquette that I was!" she cried to herself.  "Had I
+no more sense than to lead this savage on for the sake of gaining a
+little more adoration.  Oh! father, it was a curse you gave me, and not
+a blessing, in those handsome features that all people praised."
+
+The weak tears rose to her eyes, and it was only by an effort that she
+kept them back, clenching her teeth and fingers, and striving to be
+firm.
+
+"It is too late now," she muttered then.  "Oh!  Grey Stuart, would to
+Heaven that you were here!"
+
+Then, with forced composure upon her face and her heart palpitating
+wildly, she took up one of the Chinese fans that lay by her ottoman, and
+sat listening as she plainly heard steps ascending the broad ladder to
+the platform.  Then, with her heart beating in unison to the footsteps
+that came across the adjoining room, she waited till the door was thrown
+open; the great curtain was hastily drawn aside by the two Malay
+attendants, who both stood with head reverently bowed and eyes cast
+down, as if they dared not gaze upon their lord, while Murad entered
+with a quick imperious step, and stood there, in his semi-European
+costume.
+
+He gazed sharply from one to the other for a moment or two, and then
+made an imperious gesture, signing to the two girls to leave the room.
+
+Helen did not move, but sat with her head raised, her eyelids drooped,
+but watchfully noting everything that went on.  She forced down her
+terrible emotion, and moment by moment gained greater command over
+herself.
+
+The two girls looked up at their lord appealingly for a moment, but
+there was so fierce a look directed at them that they crossed their
+hands deprecatingly upon their breasts, bent their heads, and with their
+eyes upon the bamboo flooring, passed slowly out.
+
+The time had come.  Helen had determined to be brave and to resume her
+mastery over this savage prince; but in spite of her efforts to be calm,
+her timid woman's nature prevailed, and found vent in a quick, short
+command to the girls.
+
+"No, no," she cried.  "Stay!"
+
+But as she uttered her order they were passing through, the door shut
+heavily behind them, and the Rajah let the heavy curtain fall back in
+its place.
+
+Then she felt that she was alone indeed, and for a moment her head swam
+as she gazed through her long dark lashes at the daring Malay who was
+the author of this outrage and its cruel sequence.
+
+He was still by the door, standing erect and proud, his head drawn back,
+one hand resting upon the hilt of his kris, and a mocking smile of
+triumph upon his face, as if he were rejoicing at the success of his
+plans.
+
+"You do not rise to welcome me," he whispered softly.  "Are you angry
+because I have been so long away?"
+
+She did not answer, but nerved herself more and more, and to her great
+joy she felt that it was anger rather than fear that now filled her
+breast, though she told herself that perhaps diplomacy might be more
+successful than threats.
+
+"It is because I have stayed so long," he said, half mockingly; and
+then, speaking once more in his low, passionate tones--the tones Helen
+had thought so musical in the drawing-room of their home at the
+station--he whispered:
+
+"I could not have hoped for so great a change.  You are a thousand times
+more beautiful than you were before."
+
+Helen essayed to speak, but her emotion choked her utterance; and always
+watchful of his slightest movement, she still sat with her eyelids
+drooping, and he went on in excellent English, but with the metaphorical
+imagery so loved of Eastern people:
+
+"Always beautiful; but now, robed as a princess of my nation, decked
+with Malayan flowers, your white skin softened to the sun-kissed nature
+of a beauty of our land, you shine before me like some star."
+
+Still she remained silent, and he went on: "They have done their work
+well, and could you but see your beauty with these eyes of mine, you
+would not wonder that I should have thought the hours weary that kept me
+from your side.  Helen--beautiful Helen, you used not to hide those eyes
+from mine.  Look up; let me see them once again.  We are alone here now.
+No prying creatures of your English people can see us.  I have prayed
+to Allah that this hour might come, and now that I am here, humble--thy
+very slave--where is thy look of welcome--where is the tender look?  For
+in thy maiden coyness say what thou wilt; but let thine eyes speak to me
+of love as they used so often at thy English home."
+
+"How dare you!" she cried, finding words at last; "how dare you insult
+me by such a speech!" and she rose imperiously from her seat.  "How dare
+you have me dragged from my home like this, and submitted by your orders
+to this disgraceful treatment, to make me look like one of your degraded
+race?"
+
+"If my race be degraded," he said, quietly, "I try to elevate it by
+choosing you."
+
+"I desire--I insist, sir, that you have me taken to my father now--at
+once."
+
+The Rajah smiled, and crossed his arms over his breast.
+
+"Let me think," he said.  "Take you back?  No; I could not take you back
+save as my wife.  Your English people would have me shot."
+
+"You were my father's guest, sir," continued Helen.  "You were admitted
+to his house as friend, and you have behaved to him with the basest
+treachery.  See!  Look at me!  It was by your orders I was disfigured
+thus!"
+
+"Treachery!" he said, quietly.  "No, there was no treachery, when I came
+as a prince and rajah, and said to the English merchant, `I love your
+daughter: I will stoop and make her my wife.'"
+
+"Stoop!" cried Helen, with a flash of her beautiful eyes.
+
+"Yes," he said, "stoop!  She has confessed her love!"
+
+"It is false!" cried Helen.
+
+"Not with words, but with her fierce dark eyes," he continued.  "`I
+shall offend my people, but what of that?  Love is all-powerful.  I will
+dismiss all my wives, and she shall reign alone.'  I went and said all
+that, as an English gentleman would have asked your hand, and what
+followed?"
+
+Helen's eyes were fixed upon him sternly, and her heart condemned her,
+but she did not speak.
+
+"I was treated with contempt and insult!  I--I, Prince and Rajah here,
+was shown that I, who had stooped to love a woman of an infidel race,
+had been mocked and played with by the beautiful English maiden; and at
+that moment, Helen, had I seen you, I should have killed you with my
+kris, and then, in my mad rage, I would have done as my people do--run
+headlong here and there, killing and slaying as I went, my bare kris
+dripping with the blood I spilt--running _amok_, my people call it--and
+killing till they slew me where I ran.  I, as a Malay, should have done
+all this.  It is the custom among my people; but your English ways
+prevailed.  I had learned English, and I, as a Prince, after my first
+wild rage was past, said that I must wait--be patient--and that the time
+would come when my revenge could be had.  I waited patiently--and waited
+longer, to see if the lady would be kind and gentle to me once again;
+but she would not while she was among her people; so I said I would
+bring her amongst mine, where she would soon learn to be gentle and as
+kind as she was of old."
+
+"Coward!" she cried, fiercely.
+
+"I knew you would say that," he replied, mockingly.  "I knew that you
+would assume to be very angry.  You coquettes, as you English people
+call them, always do; and then, when all your angry, cruel things are
+said, you become tender, and gentle, and sweet.  I do not mind."
+
+Helen stamped her foot with impotent rage, as she felt how justly she
+had been appraised by this half-savage prince; but she could find no
+words in reply.
+
+"Your people thought me contented, and that peace was made," he said,
+laughing.  "I know all.  There was a terrible state of fright at first,
+when you refused my hand.  I know all, you see.  Your people armed
+themselves and kept watch.  `The people of Murad will attack us, and
+take revenge,' you said, `and we shall be all crushed;' and so you armed
+yourselves.  Then you all feared to go to the _fete_ lest there should
+be treachery, and I was watched; but they did not know my ways.  I meant
+to have revenge; but what good would the blood of all your people be to
+me?  That was not the revenge I wanted.  I could wait, and I have waited
+with the result you see.  There, is that good English?  Do you
+understand these my words well?"
+
+Helen did not answer, but stood there proud and defiant, though her
+heart quailed as she listened, and thought of the patient way in which
+this man had waited his time.
+
+"I have had patience," he said, with a calm smile of superiority, which
+changed, to her horror, to one of earnestness, almost of appeal.
+
+"You do not speak," he continued.  "Must I say more--must I tell you how
+I loved you with all my soul!  You made me love you, and were not
+content until I did.  You led me on; you smiled at me, and lured me to
+your side.  Your eyes told me you delighted in the passion you had
+roused, and you seemed to triumph in making me your slave.  Then I asked
+you to be my wife, and I was cast aside, thrown off to make room for
+another, and I awoke from my dream to find that I had only been a
+plaything of your mocking hour.  I was only a Malay--a black as your
+people call me in their contempt--and your father and all your people
+laughed at my pretensions to an English lady's hand.  You all told me by
+your looks and treatment that I was presuming on the kindness I had
+received; but do you think that, though I bent to it then, as if you and
+yours were right, that I, an Eastern Prince, would bear this treatment
+at your hands?  No; I planted my revenge at once, like some tiny seed,
+and since have watched it grow hour by hour till it was time to cut it
+down ripe and ready to my hand."
+
+"Do you hear my words, sir?" said Helen, contemptuously.  "I order you
+to take me back."
+
+"The slave orders her master to take her back," said Murad, quietly.
+"You English think you have power over all."
+
+"How dare you call me slave!" she cried.
+
+"I call you what you are," he said, calmly; "my wife if you will; if
+not, one of my lowest slaves.  I was your slave once, and would have
+been to the end.  Now you are mine."
+
+Helen shivered, but she mastered her fear, and exclaimed:
+
+"Have you reckoned what your punishment will be for this?  Do you
+suppose my people will let this pass?"
+
+"I have weighed all," he said, coolly.  "But let me talk, for I have
+much to say yet; I find relief in speaking of it all.  Did you think
+that I was going to submit without resentment to the insult you had put
+upon me?  Oh, no!  You did not know what we Malays could do.  We take a
+blow, and perhaps bear it then.  It may be wise; but we never forgive
+the hand that gives that blow.  We hide our suffering for a time, but at
+last we turn and strike.  Do you understand me now?  The time came at
+last, and I have turned and struck."
+
+Helen remained silent, listening to his words, which sounded like a
+sentence of death; but she still fought hard not to show her terror, and
+kept up her defiant, half-contemptuous gaze as he went on:
+
+"I hid all my sufferings, and patiently bore with all your cruelty,
+seeing without a word how you lavished your smiles upon this one and
+that, and all without making a sign; but all the time I was waiting, and
+telling myself that some day you should pay me for all this suffering;
+and when the good time came I said to my people: `Take her and carry her
+to the house in the jungle; let her people think she is dead,' and it
+was done."
+
+"And now that it has been done," cried Helen, "your plans are known.
+You have been followed, and you will have to suffer as you deserve--
+death is the punishment to the cowardly native hand that is raised
+against an English lady."
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, laughing.  "I have taken my steps better than
+that;" and his words which followed chilled Helen, as they robbed her of
+a hope.  "No one saw you taken but that dreamy priest of your people,
+and he has been taken too.  He wanders through our jungle finding
+flowers and plants, forgetting you half his time."
+
+"It is false!" cried Helen.  "He was here to-day."
+
+"Yes, he was here to-day," said Murad, coolly, "and he has been taken
+back.  He did not follow you.  Do you suppose me so weak that I should
+let your people know where you had gone?"
+
+"They must--they will know--that it is you who have done this cruel
+wrong," she cried, indignantly.
+
+"No," he said, with a contemptuous laugh.  "It it very easy to throw
+dust in English eyes.  I will tell you for your comfort, and to make you
+settle to your fate, the people at the station think I am their friend,
+and that I have been helping them with my people to find you.  And now
+you are only living in their hearts."
+
+"In their hearts?" cried Helen, starting; and her thoughts involuntarily
+turned to Neil Harley.
+
+"Yes," he said, quietly; "they think you dead."
+
+"Dead!" she cried, in spite of her efforts to be calm.
+
+"Yes; they believe you dead, and so you are to them.  Helen the
+Englishwoman is dead, and this a beautiful Malay--my wife."
+
+"Dead?" she cried again, for his announcement came like a terrible
+shock.
+
+"Yes; they found a boat down the river far below the station.  They
+think you went with two of your lovers on the water, and that the boat
+filled and sank, to be washed up on a bank.  It was well managed, and
+Helen and three of her friends or lovers are mourned as dead."
+
+"Mr Harley is not imprisoned too?" cried Helen.
+
+"No; he is not a lover," said the Sultan, smiling.
+
+"Oh, Heaven help me!" muttered Helen.
+
+"So you are dead to them," he said, quietly.  "Helen Perowne, the
+beautiful English girl, is no more, and in her place lives the Malay
+princess I see before me now.  Ah, Helen, no one would know you.  It is
+only I who have the knowledge of the change.  What is it to be--my
+honoured wife or slave?"
+
+"It is horrible!" thought Helen, as now she realised more fully the
+extent of the iniquitous plot of which she had been made the victim.  By
+Murad's words the hopes of succour she had nurtured had been swept one
+by one away, for she did not doubt him in the least, but felt her heart
+sink as she realised how helpless her position was, for his words seemed
+to carry truth with them, and she knew that she alone was to blame.
+
+Then she started violently, and shrank back towards the wall, for he had
+taken a step or two towards her and stretched out his hands.
+
+
+
+VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
+
+AT BAY.
+
+The Rajah stopped when Helen shrank away, as if he did not wish to alarm
+her unduly.
+
+"Why do you shrink from me?" he said, with a laugh.  "You were not so
+timid when I talked with you after dinner, and you invited me with
+smiles to stay by your side.  Did you think when you began to play with
+my love that it was of the same cold stuff as that of your poor, weak
+English wooers?"
+
+Helen made no reply, but gazed at him watchfully, meaning to elude his
+grasp and run to the door should he approach her again.
+
+"Your English wooers' hearts are like ice, and their love is cold; while
+that of a Malay, under his calm, quiet demeanour, glows like fire, and
+once kindled, is never more extinct.  Do you hear me, Helen?  Once you
+set it burning with the light of love, his heart flames until it ceases
+to beat.  There, why be angry with me, and try to wither me with those
+cruel looks?  I took you because you made me love you; and as you did
+make me love you, I shall never believe that you are anything but glad
+that I forced you to be my wife."
+
+"Be your wife?" she cried, passionately, in spite of her determination
+not to speak.  "I would sooner die!"
+
+"Yes," he replied with a contemptuous laugh, "that is what all women
+say.  The girls who waited upon you said just the same.  They told me
+they hated me, and ended by hanging upon my neck and calling me husband
+and their own.  Tell me you hate me!" he cried, with his dark eyes
+seeming to flash; "tell me you will have me killed for what I have
+done--tell me you will never look upon my face again, and make those
+beautiful eyes dart anger at me.  It makes me happier than I can tell
+you, for I know that the storm will pass away; and when the lightning of
+your eyes and their rain of tears have gone, the sunshine of your love
+will gladden my heart.  Helen, I have waited for you--oh, so long!"
+
+He took another step or two forward, and was about to catch her hand in
+his, but she avoided his touch and fled to the window.
+
+"Come a step nearer to me," she panted, her face convulsed with dread,
+"and I will call for help."
+
+"Nonsense!" he said, with a smile.  "Why should you call?  Is it for the
+birds to hear?  The tigers will not awaken till 'tis night.  Why should
+you weary yourself and hurt that sweet-tuned throat?  Call for help?
+Who would hear you call?"
+
+"Your people!" she panted, as her dread increased.  "They are here
+below!"
+
+"Yes," he said, "they are here below and about the place, but they are
+deaf.  You forget that I am not the poor Malay, looked down upon with
+disdain by your proud English friends, but Prince and Rajah.  You would
+make my servants and my slaves hear, but not one would stir.  You do not
+understand my power, Helen--the power of the man you scorned!  Should
+one of my people dare to come here ere I summoned him, he would die!"
+
+"It is not true!" cried Helen, with spirit.  "Knowing who I am, they
+would come, and if I appealed to them, protect me."
+
+Murad laughed a contemptuous, cynical laugh.
+
+"You forget where you are," he said.  "This is one of my homes, and this
+is my land.  I am poor Rajah Murad whom you look upon with contempt at
+Sindang station; but here I am the people's Lord.  Who dare contradict
+me or disobey commands?  No one.  For the life or death of my people
+rests with me.  So you may leave that window and accept your lot."
+
+Helen did not move.
+
+"There, put away all that silly woman's play!" he cried.  "I tell you it
+is like my foolish native girls behave.  You are an English lady, and
+should be wiser.  Come, let us be friends at once, and I will become
+more English for your sake.  You will forgive me for bringing you away;
+it was the love I bore you made me act as I did.  You will forgive me,
+will you not?  Have I not had you made ten times more beautiful than you
+were before?"
+
+He made a feint, and then a couple of quick strides towards her, and
+this time caught her by the wrist; but in her dread and horror she
+wrenched it away, and struck him sharply across the face as she would
+have struck at some noxious beast; and as he started back in surprise,
+she bounded to the door, and tried to wrench it open.
+
+Murad's love appeared to turn in a moment to furious hate; his eyes
+darkened and seemed to emit a lurid light; his teeth appeared between
+his lips, which were drawn apart like those of some wild beast, and the
+man's savage nature blazed out in a moment under the affront.  In an
+instant his hand sought the hilt of his kris, and tearing the weapon
+from its sheath, he pursued his prisoner as she fled from him shrieking
+round the room.
+
+Helen fled from him but for a few moments, and then she stopped short
+and faced him, offering herself to his blow.
+
+This brave act disarmed him, checking his rage, which seemed to have
+flashed out, and his English education began to tell.  Muttering
+impatiently, he thrust the kris back into its sheath, and uttered a
+forced laugh.
+
+"Foolish girl!" he cried, "why did you strike me?  It is folly!  It
+makes me angry.  A Malay never forgives a blow; but you have made me
+English, and I forgive you because--because you make me fond.  But it
+was wild and foolish.  I give you my love, you play with me and strike
+me a blow.  A woman should not strike the man she loves."
+
+Helen did not reply, but rushed to and tore furiously at the door.
+
+"Why do you tire yourself?" he cried, with a contemptuous laugh.  "What
+good can you do?  I tell you once again my people dare not stir to help
+you, even if you wished; and I know enough of woman's nature to tell
+that, from such a finished coquette as you have always been, this is but
+a false show of dread."
+
+Helen's despair grew deeper as she listened to the Rajah's words, and
+reading her thoughts aright, he went on calmly enough:
+
+"I do not mind.  You know I love you, and at heart I believe you love
+me.  But what matter if you do not?  You will when you are my wife.  You
+will be quite contented here, and very soon forget your own people and
+their ways.  It will be a change for an English beauty to become a Malay
+princess, and you shall even have a new name.  Still angry?  There, pray
+calm down.  It is because I had you fetched so suddenly away; for I know
+you, Helen.  You are not weeping for any other lover.  Out of so many
+you could care for none more than for me."
+
+Still Helen did not reply, but stood at bay, her eyes dilated, and
+backing from him whenever he made as if to approach her, till, with a
+scornful laugh, he gave up the pursuit and threw himself carelessly upon
+one of the divans.
+
+"Why should I weary myself by running after you?" he said, with a
+mocking laugh.  "That is all past, and you must plead to me.  Foolish
+girl, how could you return even if you wished!  They think you dead, and
+who would know Helen Perowne in you?"
+
+She started a little here, and he noted it and smiled.
+
+"I have waited and can wait still, for I know that as soon as this fit
+is over you will creep to my feet like any other slave I have.  I know
+what you are thinking--that you will escape."
+
+"And mark my words, I shall!" cried Helen, impetuously.
+
+"Don't try it," he said, smiling.  "Don't try it, for your own sake as
+well as mine.  It sounds cruel, but it is a custom of this country to
+spear a slave who is seen to run away; and if my people fail to take
+you, and I do not think they would, the tigers would prove less
+merciful.  You must have heard them when the night has come; they roam
+about this place, and the more I kill them the more they seem to come.
+
+"What!" he said, laughing, "you would rather trust to the tender mercies
+of the beasts than trust to me!  I read it in your scornful eyes, but
+that is not true, or a time back you would not have looked tenderly in
+mine and sighed and pressed my hand at parting."
+
+He laughed aloud as he saw her shrink and cower away in her abasement
+for very shame.  She was reaping now the fruits of her career of folly;
+and if ever woman bitterly repented her weakness and the trifling of
+which she had been guilty in her love of admiration, that woman was
+Helen Perowne, as she stood there shamefaced and crushed as it were by
+the thoughts of the past.
+
+"That is right," he said, quietly.  "You are thinking of the past.  But
+never mind; that is all gone now.  It was English Helen who was so weak;
+it is Malay Helen who will become strong.  My people have done well, and
+how it becomes you!  Your friends would never know you now."
+
+What should she do?
+
+Helen's hands closed, and her fingers were tightly enlaced as she tried
+to find a way out of her difficulties.  She knew that threats would be
+in vain, and supplication to him to set her free like so many wasted
+words.  There was no way out but by gaining the mastery over her enemy
+once more.  Her enemy!  But he must be treated like a friend.  Only a
+few brief months back, and this man, at whose mercy she now was, seemed
+the veriest slave.  Well, why not once again? she asked herself.  She
+was as young and beautiful as ever they said.  He loved her--he must
+love her--and why should she not sway him by this love?  It was her only
+hope, and she grasped at it to try.
+
+"Well," he said, smiling mockingly, "will you not find a place here by
+my side?"
+
+She was silent for a few moments, and then, making an effort:
+
+"You have done me a cruel injury, Rajah," she exclaimed, her voice
+trembling, but becoming firmer with each word she spoke.
+
+"Injury!" he said, smiling; and his eyes glittered at the success that
+promised to attend his plans.  "Oh, no; not injury.  It can be no injury
+to a beautiful woman to make her the wife of a rich Malay prince--one
+who loves her with all his heart--a rajah who loves your English ways,
+and who will surround you with everything you wish."
+
+"You will give me my liberty?" said Helen.
+
+"Yes," he said; "whatever my beautiful princess can desire."
+
+She made a gesture full of impatience, and remained silent for a few
+moments to gather calmness before she spoke again.
+
+"You have spoken of the past, Rajah Murad," she said at last, in a low
+musical voice.
+
+"Yes," he said, smiling; "that happy past."
+
+"I was very weak and foolish then, Rajah," she said.  "I was but a girl,
+and I fear I loved admiration.  It was that which made me act so
+foolishly and ill.  But when I tell you my sorrow for my acts--when I
+tell you how bitterly I repent it all--you will forgive me, and will
+take me back."
+
+"For your people to seize and shoot me like a dog?" he said, quietly.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" she cried, "they would not do you harm.  You will have
+taken me back, and for this they shall not do you ill."
+
+"Speak again like that," he cried with his eyes lighting up.  "That
+makes you look more beautiful than you were before."
+
+She started and shuddered, but she went on:
+
+"I ask your forgiveness for the wrong I, in my foolish, girlish
+wilfulness, did you; and now that you have punished me so severely as
+you have, you will pardon me, Rajah--the weak, helpless woman who prays
+you to send her back."
+
+"I punish you!" he cried, with an affectation of surprise.  "I would not
+punish you.  To keep you with me it was necessary that you should look
+like these my people, and I was sorry to give orders that it should be
+done.  I half feared the result; but I do not repent it now that I have
+seen how it makes you more beautiful than ever."
+
+"But you will take me back to my father?" she pleaded.  "I will forgive
+everything.  I will not breathe a word about this outrage.  No one shall
+know that it was Rajah Murad who took me from my home.  Only send me
+back safely, and I will bless you."
+
+He laughed softly.
+
+"There are steps some men take," he said, "that can never be retraced,
+and this I have done is one of those steps.  You are a woman of sense,
+and know your people.  I staked all upon this cast, and I have won.  If
+I give way now, what will the English people, who are so proud of their
+honour, say to the beauty of their station, who comes back to them
+darkened like one of us?  What will they say to the lady who comes back
+to them after so many days in Rajah Murad's harem?"
+
+Helen started as if she had been stung, and her eyes flashed their
+indignation at this cowardly speech.
+
+But she felt directly after that anger would be useless--that she must
+gain time; and once more trembling in every limb, she forced herself to
+plead.
+
+"I have some mastery over him," she thought, and determining to retain,
+and if possible strengthen it, she forced back every semblance of anger,
+and placed her hands together in supplication.
+
+"You told me once that you loved me," she said softly.
+
+"I told you once?  I have told myself I loved you a thousand times," he
+cried passionately.
+
+"Then you would not disgrace me in the eyes of my people?" she pleaded.
+
+"No," he cried.  "I would not; I love you far too well."
+
+"Then set me free--send me back to my home."
+
+"That would be to disgrace you, foolish girl," he cried.  "Do you not
+see why I took this step?  You made me love you, and when you cast me
+off, I tell you I made a tow that you should still be mine.  I had you
+brought here.  Well, I am as jealous of your honour as you are yourself.
+You cannot leave here but as my wife."
+
+A sob of rage and indignation choked Helen's utterance for the moment,
+but she mastered it once more and turned upon him.
+
+"Is this your love for me," she cried, "to cause me this dreadful pain."
+
+"Pain perhaps now," he said quietly; "but happiness will come for both.
+You proud and foolish girl, you do not know what it is to be the wife of
+a prince such as I am.  Let your people go.  Mine will do far more
+honour to their new princess; they will worship you.  They must and
+shall.  There, I see you are listening to what I say.  You are growing
+sensible; let this strange feeling wear away.  Be gentle to me Helen--
+love--and be content to stay!"
+
+Helen's brow grew wrinkled, and her eyes were half-closed as she stood
+there with clasped hands, asking herself how she should act.  She was
+checked at every double, and the hopelessness of her position had never
+appeared more strongly to her than it did now.  Her eyes wandered to the
+door, to the window, and then to the Rajah, as he half reclined upon the
+mats, gazing at her with a smiling, satisfied look, as if watching the
+feeble efforts made by his captive to escape from his toils.
+
+"Well," he said, laughing, "has the fit of anger passed away?  If not I
+can wait."
+
+She did not answer, but stood gazing at him with a piteous look in her
+eyes--gazing so pleadingly that he sprang to his feet, a change coming
+over his countenance as he approached her.
+
+Helen's heart gave one great throb of joy, for she read now in his face
+the power she had over him still.  He really loved her, and it was he
+who was the slave, not she, and she would yet be able to mould him to
+her will.
+
+But not by anger and reproach: they would only weaken her position.  She
+had found that he was one who might be moved by her woman's grief and
+tears, and acting upon the impulse of the moment, she waited until he
+was close at hand, and then, before he could stay her, she sank upon her
+knees, to clasp his hands in hers, and gazing in his face, burst into a
+passionate flood of tears.
+
+End of Volume Two.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER ONE.
+
+CHUMBLEY'S IDEA.
+
+"Chumbley," said Bertie Hilton, "your behaviour towards that woman was
+sickening--almost disgusting!  How you could be even civil to her is
+more than I can understand!"
+
+"Oh, I'm always civil to a woman," drawled Chumbley.  "See how affable I
+always was to Helen Perowne, who--"
+
+"Will you have the goodness to leave Miss Perowne's name out of the
+conversation?" said Hilton, with asperity.
+
+"Certainly, if you wish it, and substitute little Stuart's name.  See
+how civil I always was to her."
+
+"A merit certainly," said Hilton, contemptuously.  "Who could help being
+civil to so amiable and good a little body!"
+
+"Here, hang it, Bertie, old man!" cried Chumbley, in mock alarm, "don't
+monopolise all the nice women.  It was Helen Perowne the other day.  Now
+you seem dead on little Stuart!"
+
+"Confound Helen Perowne!" muttered Hilton, bitterly.
+
+"Just as you like; and confound the Inche Maida too--I shan't!  Sort of
+sympathetic pity for woman--weaker vessels, you know."
+
+"Weaker vessel?" laughed Hilton, scornfully; "what, our captor?"
+
+"Well, she isn't a bad sort of woman," replied Chumbley.
+
+"Not a bad sort of woman?  Why, she's a modern Jezebel--a Cleopatra--a
+Semiramis!"
+
+"Think so?" said Chumbley, quietly.
+
+"Think so?  Of course!  I'm getting terribly tired of this captivity!  I
+must get away somehow.  How many days have we been here?"
+
+"Week," said Chumbley, laconically.
+
+"A week of weeks it seems to me," said Hilton.  "Horrible woman!"
+
+"Well, I don't know," said Chumbley, "she seems to possess very great
+taste."
+
+"Taste?  The savage!"
+
+"Well, great taste in taking a fancy to you.  I think you ought to be
+very proud."
+
+"Proud?  I sicken with disgust!  Pah!  Don't let's talk about her, but
+try and make some plan to escape."
+
+"Well, yes, I suppose we must do that; but 'pon my word, old fellow, I
+don't see how.  I wish old Bolter were here."
+
+"I wish Mrs Bolter were here to tackle this dreadful woman!" laughed
+Hilton.  "We men can't manage her; but that clever, sharp little body
+would bring her to her senses.  What do you want Bolter for?"
+
+"Oh, he'd mix up a dose for the guards, and give it to them in their
+tea, or whatever they drink; then they'd go to sleep, and we could
+calmly walk back to the fort."
+
+"I wonder what Harley thinks of our absence?"
+
+"Thinks we're dead, probably, and reposing happily each of us in a
+crocodile sarcophagus.  Well, Bertie, old man, what's to be done?  The
+Inche Maida has quite cut us it seems, and we're all alone, I suppose.
+Come, what's to be done to get us out of this plight?  You're quite
+right, old fellow; it is most absurd!"
+
+"Absurd?  It is disgraceful!  I feel as if we were not men, but a couple
+of silly girls!"
+
+"With beards," said Chumbley.
+
+"And now give me your advice."
+
+"Well, that's soon done," replied Chumbley.  "I've quite made up my mind
+what advice I shall give."
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"Do you mean what shall we do?"
+
+"Yes; of course."
+
+"Nothing."
+
+Hilton uttered an ejaculation that was far from pious, and began to fume
+and fret, till Chumbley rose in his slow, cumbrous fashion, placed a
+cigar in his friend's hand, and bade him smoke it.
+
+"Look here, old fellow," he said, quietly, "if we are to escape, it can
+only be when a chance offers itself; and if you will bring your profound
+wisdom to bear upon the matter, you will see that all we can do is to
+wait for that chance."
+
+"And until that chance comes we must put up with this wretched woman's
+insults!"
+
+"Yes, if you like to call them so; and I'd do it, old fellow, without
+getting into a bad temper and calling names, seeing--"
+
+"Seeing what?"
+
+"That she tries to make up for her rather unladylike conduct by being
+very civil; while her cooking is good, the dinners excellent, and the
+breakfasts, the wines well chosen, and the cigars--there, did you ever
+smoke a better than that?"
+
+"Oh, pish!  Everyone can't take things as quietly as you do, Chumb."
+
+"Poor fellows, no," said the latter, with a satisfied air.  "It's the
+only quality I possess of which I am really proud.  You see it makes me
+perfectly well suited for this climate, for no troubles or worries ever
+put me in a perspiration.  I wish, though, we had a chess-board and
+men."
+
+"Chess-board! men!" retorted Hilton, laughing, in a half-amused,
+half-vexed tone; "who in the world could ever think of playing chess!
+Really, Chumbley, I believe you are quite happy and contented."
+
+"Well, not so bad, dear boy--not so bad now the novelty and the
+unpleasantly of the affair have worn off.  You see, a fellow has only so
+long to live.  Well, isn't it a pity to spoil any of that time by making
+yourself miserable if you can help it?  Take my advice and behave as
+young Jacob Faithful suggested, `Take it coolly;' and as the sailor in
+another story I once read said, `if you can't take it coolly, soldier,
+take it as coolly as you can.'"
+
+Hilton bit the end of his cigar and then bit his lips; lay back thinking
+of Helen and then of Grey Stuart, the latter obtaining the larger
+portion of his thoughts.
+
+As for Chumbley, he lay back on his divan and smoked, and thought it was
+very tiresome to be detained there, but granted that it was better than
+being detained in hospital from wounds or sickness; and as time wore on,
+Hilton, removed from the cares and anxieties of being one of Helen's
+lovers, settled down more and more into an imitation of his friend's
+coolness, his common-sense teaching him that Chumbley was right, and
+that his best chance of escaping was by waiting for his opportunity--
+whenever that opportunity should come.
+
+They had not seen anything of the Princess for some days, for she had
+evidently left them to cool down; but they had been admirably treated,
+and had grown a little less impatient of their prison, when one day a
+Malay servant entered their room, and with the most profound respect
+announced that the Inche Maida awaited the English chiefs in another
+room.
+
+"Well, that's not such bad treatment of prisoners, if it don't mean a
+polite summons to execution.  You first, old fellow; I'm only here as
+your confidential man."
+
+As he spoke, Chumbley rose slowly, left his hookah, and prepared to
+follow the servant; while Hilton frowned, declared that it was all very
+ridiculous, but smoothing his countenance, he followed the Malay, and
+was ushered by him into a similar room to that which they had left, to
+find dinner laid out in a by no means untempting style, the Malay
+fashion being largely supplemented by additions that the Princess had
+not been slow to copy from her English friends.
+
+The Inche Maida was elegantly dressed, as Chumbley said, like her table,
+for her costume was as much European as Malayan, her long sweeping robe,
+and the delicate lace cap that rested upon her magnificent black hair,
+having a decidedly Parisian look, while her scarf was the simple sarong
+of her country, glowing with bright colours.
+
+She smiled as they entered, but her demeanour was full of dignity, as
+she offered Hilton her hand, that he might lead her to the table.
+
+Hilton drew himself up and was evidently about to refuse.  The next
+moment he relented, and took a step forward, but he was too late to pay
+his hostess the compliment she asked, for she had turned to Chumbley,
+who held out his arm and led her to the head of the table, retiring
+afterwards to the foot, and facing her, while Hilton took the place upon
+the Princess's right.
+
+Perfectly unaware of Helen Perowne's position, the two prisoners, under
+the genial influences of a good dinner and unexceptionable wine, while
+granting that their situation was perfectly absurd, were ready to
+acknowledge that after all it would be nonsense to do otherwise than
+accept it, make the best of it, and refuse to be angry about a foolish
+woman's freak.
+
+"I won't be disagreeable any more," thought Hilton, "but take things as
+they come, and be off at the first opportunity."
+
+"'Pon my word," thought Chumbley, "this is better than that hot room at
+the fort.  One always seems to be swallowing hot sunshine like melted
+butter with everything there one eats."
+
+The result was that Hilton forgot all about Helen Perowne for the time,
+and found himself comparing Grey Stuart with the Inche Maida as the two
+opposite poles of womanly beauty--the acme of the dark, and the acme of
+the fair.  But his thoughts were to a great extent turned from the
+ladies to the dinner, and following Chumbley's example, he ate heartily,
+drank pretty liberally of the wine--to drown care, he said--and by the
+time that the dessert was commenced he had concluded that life would
+after all be bearable without the society of Helen Perowne, who was, he
+told himself, a contemptible coquette.
+
+He recanted from that declaration soon afterwards, the terms being, he
+thought, too hard; and then he fell into a state of wonderment at his
+contented frame of mind.
+
+"I shall begin to think soon that the wound is after all not very deep."
+
+"Your friend seems to be getting resigned to his lot," said the
+Princess, in a low voice to Chumbley, as, after dinner, they sat by the
+open window with a little table covered with fruit by their side, Hilton
+having kept his place.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," said Chumbley, thoughtfully; and then, to turn the
+conversation into another channel, "How do you manage to get such good
+claret here?"
+
+"Oh," she said, laughing, "I am able to get most things here to help out
+the wants of our country.  It is easy to have such things from
+Singapore.  You like it?"
+
+"It is delicious."
+
+"I am glad," she said, with a satisfied smile.  "I reserve it for my
+best friends."
+
+"Then why give it to us, your prisoners--and enemies?" said Chumbley,
+sharply.
+
+"I was trying to show you that you were my friends, and not my enemies,"
+said the Princess, quietly.
+
+"But you treat us like prisoners, Princess."
+
+"Only for your good.  You shall both be free and lords of the place
+whenever you will."
+
+"But, my dear madam," said Hilton, from his place by the larger table,
+"this is the nineteenth century--Chumbley, a little more claret?  You
+seize us as a baron might have seized people three or four hundred years
+ago, and yet you treat us as an English lady would her guests."
+
+"It is what I have tried to do--this treatment," she said, simply.  Then
+with spirit, "What is it to me what people did a long while back?  I
+hope, Mr Chumbley, you are satisfied."
+
+"With my dinner?" said the latter.  "Yes, perfectly, for my part.  It
+only wants a cup of coffee."
+
+"Not poisoned?" said the Princess, with a laughing, malicious look at
+her guest, as she thus recalled to him his suspicions at the _fete_.
+
+As she spoke she clapped her hands, and coffee was brought in little
+silver cups upon a silver tray.
+
+"Hilton, old man," said Chumbley, as he took and liberally sugared a cup
+of coffee, smiling at the Inche Maida as he spoke.
+
+"Well?" said his companion in misfortune.
+
+"I have quite made up my mind, as I before hinted, not to knock the
+feathers off my noble breast against the bars of my cage."
+
+The Princess looked puzzled.
+
+"Pshaw!" ejaculated Hilton; "don't be absurd."
+
+"Why not?  If to be patient in our present awkward position is being
+absurd.  Won't you take coffee, Princess?"
+
+She shook her head, but altered her mind directly.
+
+"Yes," she said; and she took the cup Chumbley offered with a smile,
+while as he provided himself with a second, he nodded and said to
+himself:
+
+"That's very ladylike; so that we should not feel suspicious, I
+presume."
+
+"Ask her how long she means to keep on with this theatrical folly," said
+Hilton, in a low voice to his friend--in French.
+
+"What does he say?" cried the Princess, quickly.  "He asks if you are
+still in earnest about keeping us prisoners," said Chumbley.  "If you
+are serious."
+
+"Earnest?  Serious?" she replied, with her eyes flashing.  "Should I
+have taken such a step as this, and risked offending your people, if I
+were not serious?  Suppose I let you go--what then?"
+
+"If Hilton has his own way," said Chumbley, laughing, "there will be an
+expedition to come and burn your place about your ears for abducting two
+of her Majesty's subjects."
+
+"No, no--no, no!" cried the Inche Maida, with a negative motion of her
+hand.  "You would not be so cowardly as to come and attack a weak woman;
+that is for the Malays to do.  You English are too brave and strong.  I
+am not afraid."
+
+"Well, I don't know," said Chumbley; "we might, you know."
+
+"Oh, no, I won't believe it."
+
+"Well, perhaps not," said Chumbley, drily; "but history has a few ugly
+little records of English doings here and there.  Do you know, madam,
+that you have given us an excellent excuse to pay you a peculiar visit?"
+
+"What! to come and attack and destroy my home--to kill my people?" cried
+the Princess, excitedly.  "You could not--you dare not.  But I am safe.
+I shall not let you go; and as to my other enemies, in a short time you
+will both be reconciled to your lot, and you will say, `Let me stop and
+defend you.'"
+
+"Hope told a flattering tale," muttered Chumbley, as he saw the Princess
+watching Hilton as she spoke; but his distant mien and contemptuous
+looks so annoyed her that she turned from him angrily and addressed
+herself to his friend, as if for him to speak.
+
+"Well," said the latter, coolly, "I am an Englishman, and I like fair
+play, so I shall speak out.  Look here; you know, Princess, it won't
+do."
+
+"What do I know that will not do?" she said, in a puzzled way.
+
+"Why, this foolish kidnapping business of yours; and I frankly tell you
+that, much as we shall regret leaving such charming quarters, if you
+only leave the birds' cage door open for a moment we shall pop out and
+fly away."
+
+"I do not quite know what you mean about your birds in cages and your
+kidnapping," said the Princess, haughtily; "but I suppose you mean that
+you will go."
+
+"Exactly," said Chumbley, coolly.
+
+"Then," said the Princess, "I should have thought, for the favours I
+offer you--the great position and brilliant prospects--you would be
+grateful now you have had time to reflect, instead of treating me with
+disdain."
+
+"Well," replied Chumbley, in his dry way, "that's the nature of the
+English animal."
+
+"Talk sensibly," said Hilton, in French; "why do you go on in that
+flippant way--why do you keep on arguing with her?"
+
+"Because you will not," retorted Chumbley, in the same language; "so
+hold your tongue.  You see, Princess," he continued, "you don't
+understand the British nature, and this is how it is.  If we fellows
+could not get those positions you offer, we might make a struggle for
+them; but as you offer them, and tell us we must have them, you set all
+our bristles erect, and we vow we will not have them at any price.  No:
+my dear madam, you have gone the wrong way to work, and it will not do."
+
+The Inche Maida recoiled, as if the obstacles she was encountering stung
+her to the quick.  She had evidently been under the impression that her
+patience and the treatment to which she had subjected her prisoners
+would have had a different effect, whereas they were as disdainful and
+obstinate as ever.
+
+"You will think better of this," she cried, impatiently.
+
+Hilton made a sign as if to negative her words.
+
+"Then if you reject kindness I shall try harshness," she cried, her dark
+eyes flashing as she spoke.  "I am Princess here, and my slaves obey me.
+I will have you starved into submission."
+
+Hilton smiled.
+
+"Tell her she doesn't know what an Englishman is, Chumbley," he said,
+scornfully; "or no--be silent.  Do not insult her, but treat her words
+with contempt."
+
+"He need not tell me," said the Inche Maida, starting up and looking
+furious, as her eyes literally glittered in her rage.  "I know, sir,
+what some Englishmen are--cold, proud, and haughty; men who think
+themselves almost gods in their conceit; while all who are not
+pale-faced like themselves they treat as dogs.  Go to your prison, sir,
+and you shall learn that, proud and contemptuous as you are, there are
+others who can be as proud and cold."
+
+Chumbley was about to speak, but she waved him back.
+
+"I brought you to my place that I might make you lord, master, and
+defender of my people.  You thrust my favours from you.  Let it be so.
+You shall not enjoy them.  Stay as my prisoner till I please to free
+you, and then go back to your people, and beg, and fawn, and ask Helen
+Perowne to give you one of the smiles and sweet looks that she shares
+among so many."
+
+"I cannot bear this!" muttered Hilton, turning purple with rage.
+
+"Hold your tongue!  Don't be an idiot," growled Chumbley.  "It is only a
+woman speaking."
+
+"Idiot!" exclaimed the Inche Maida, who just, caught the word.  "She
+will not have you when you do go back, for by this time she is someone's
+wife."
+
+"I do not believe you!" cried Hilton, angrily.
+
+"You may," she replied, with an angry gesture.  "Now listen; I can be
+generous, but I can be hard as well, and I shall keep you my prisoner.
+I have brought you here, and I have done with you; I reject you, I would
+not listen to you now if you went upon your knees to me.  I could not
+bear it, for I should know then it was only false.  I say I shall keep
+you here for my own safety now; but though I have cast you off, I would
+not have your blood upon my hands.  Remember, my people are charged to
+watch you, and they are Malays--faithful to the death.  They would have
+been faithful to you, my lord, but you have refused.  Now listen.  My
+orders will be obeyed, as they were when I said I wish those two English
+chiefs brought here unhurt.  Mind this, then; any attempt at escape will
+end in your falling by either kris or spear.  Now go."
+
+She stood there looking very handsome and disdainful, pointing to the
+door, and the two officers had no alternative but to get up and walk
+towards the entry.  Here, however, Chumbley paused, and turned back to
+where his imperious captor was standing with flashing eyes.
+
+"We are too old friends to quarrel," he said, good-humouredly.  "Of
+course we shall try to escape, and we should do so if you had twice as
+many people to guard us.  You have done a very foolish thing."
+
+"No!" she cried.  "It was my will."
+
+"All the same a very foolish thing in bringing us here.  Now, take my
+advice, as a friend; send us back at once."
+
+"No!" she said, fiercely.
+
+"Yes; for your own sake."
+
+"No," she cried, "leave me."
+
+"I promise you," he continued, "that I will do all I can to hush the
+matter up.  You will be reasonable.  I should not like to see so brave
+and good a woman come to grief."
+
+"Go!  Leave me!" she cried, fiercely.  "I will not listen.  I am a Malay
+Princess, and he has insulted and wronged me."
+
+"Well: there," said Chumbley.  "I'm going.  Good-night."
+
+He held out his broad white hand, but the Inche Maida raised hers and
+struck at it angrily, her palm descending in Chumbley's with a loud pat.
+
+The young officer only smiled, bent his head, and turned to join Hilton
+in the other room.
+
+As he reached the door, however, he heard a step, a hand was laid upon
+his arm, and a hoarse voice whispered:
+
+"I am sorry--I was angry--forgive."
+
+Hilton had strode to the end of his prison, and thrown himself in a
+dissatisfied frame of mind upon the mats; the door had swung to, and
+there was a heavy curtain between, so that he did not hear what was
+said, nor see the hearty pressure of the hand that succeeded before
+Chumbley left the dining-room and joined his friend; while the Malay
+princess stood alone, with her hands clasped and her bosom heaving.
+
+"I have been an idiot, and mad," she muttered to herself.  "He is right;
+I have done wrong, but I cannot go back now; I should lose all.  I do
+not know these Englishmen.  I thought he would have been proud and glad,
+and now he looks down upon me, and I feel so low--so crushed--that I
+could kill myself with rage.  Ah! why do I not know more of their ways?
+I am but a poor, weak savage still, and I show my temper like a child."
+
+She walked wearily to the window, and stood with her broad forehead
+leaning against the bars, and for quite an hour neither of her women
+dared to approach her.
+
+"Well, old fellow, feel any better for your dinner?" said Chumbley,
+heartily, as he strode up to the divan.
+
+"Dinner?  No.  Hang the woman; how dare she insult us like that?" chafed
+Hilton.  "As if there were anything between Helen Perowne now and me."
+
+"It was rather warm upon you, certainly," said Chumbley; "but she was
+wild, and you were not above a few bitter repartees."
+
+"Bitter?  Why, you are taking the Jezebel's part!"
+
+"Come, come, come, don't call ugly names," said Chumbley, sturdily.
+
+"No name is too bad for such a woman!" cried Hilton.
+
+"Drop it, I say," cried Chumbley.  "We've eaten her dinner and drunk her
+wine.  Don't let's abuse her now."
+
+"Why hang it, Chum, have you fallen in love with the black goddess?"
+cried Hilton.  "There, go and beg pardon, then; woo her, and wed her.
+Ha, ha, ha!" he laughed, mockingly, without seeing the hot angry spots
+in his companion's cheeks.  "I resign in your favour.  The life would
+just suit you.  Come: here's a chance for you to prove a good friend to
+me, most miserable fellow under the sun.  Go and tell her you will be my
+hostage.  You are big enough."
+
+"And ugly enough," growled Chumbley.
+
+"You'll soon get sunburned out here in the jungle.  Hail, Rajah
+Chumbley!  Thy servant bends the knee."
+
+"You be blowed!" said the young officer, speaking like a schoolboy; and
+the tone of his voice showed so much vexation that Hilton checked his
+banter.  "I'm going to have one pipe," said Chumbley, "and then I shall
+have a nap."
+
+"Stop a minute," said Hilton.  "What did she mean about Helen being
+another's wife?" he continued, biting at his moustache--"not that I
+care."
+
+"Goodness knows, unless Murad has carried her off at the same time."
+
+"_What_!"
+
+"I say unless Murad has been playing the same game."
+
+"Don't talk like that," panted Hilton.  "I don't care a _sou_ for the
+girl now; I wouldn't marry her to save my life; I couldn't after her
+base treatment.  But Chum, old fellow, that idea of yours is like a
+lance thrust through me, for I did love her, and to come to that--Oh,
+Heaven help her!  I could not bear that."
+
+"Oh, tush! tush!" said Chumbley, sitting up once more.  "Don't take any
+notice.  An angry woman will say anything.  It was only a fancy of mine.
+It can't be true."
+
+"Chum," said Hilton, in a low whisper, and his voice sounded very
+strange in the gathering darkness, "I beg your pardon for what I said.
+I was bitter and angry."
+
+"All right, old fellow.  It's all gone."
+
+"Then listen.  Can we get away to-night?"
+
+"No.  Why?"
+
+"I feel as if I couldn't stop here after what you said.  I tell you I
+hate Helen Perowne now devoutly, but I'd go through fire and water to
+save her from that black scoundrel.  Why did you think such a thing?"
+
+"I don't know; it came into my head.  It appeared possible.  We were
+spirited off, and it seemed so easy for Murad to carry her off in the
+same way.  I suppose what the Princess said set me thinking."
+
+"If she is in his power," began Hilton--"Oh, it is not possible!  She
+led him on so, too.  That foolish love of admiration!"
+
+"That's the right term, Bertie.  She never cared for you any more than
+she did for me."
+
+"No," said Hilton, bitterly, "I believe you are right; but I was such a
+vain, conceited idiot, I thought myself far above you all.  Chumbley, do
+you believe what you said?"
+
+Chumbley looked across the little space between them towards his friend;
+but it was quite dark now, and the voices seemed to come out of a black
+void.
+
+"No, old fellow, no," he replied.  "It was a passing fancy.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+Then there was silence in the room, though neither of the men slept;
+Hilton lying in a state of feverish excitement, and Chumbley thinking
+over his words.
+
+"What made me say that, I wonder?" he muttered.  "Suppose it should be
+true, and that all this while the ruffian has been playing dark.  By
+Jove! it is very likely; much more likely than for a couple of fellows
+to be carried off.  Poor girl!  No, it is impossible.  I will not
+believe it.  Let's think of something else.  Now then, how are we to get
+away from here?"
+
+"Sleep, Chumbley?" said Hilton.
+
+"If I answer and say _no_" thought Chumbley, "he will lie talking for
+hours.  I'll hold my tongue."
+
+"Fast asleep," muttered Hilton to himself; "that fellow has no more soul
+than an ox," and turning his head on the cushion that formed his pillow,
+he lay there in the feverish hot night, thinking of Helen Perowne, while
+the distant roar of some prowling tiger kept reaching his ear; and it
+was not until the thought of Grey Stuart's soft eyes, looking truthfully
+at his, came like something soft and gentle to cool his heated
+imagination, that he finally dropped asleep, forgetting his troubles for
+the time.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWO.
+
+A SEARCH FOR GOLD.
+
+If anyone else on the station had even talked of making an expedition up
+the river beneath the beams of that ardent sun Dr Bolter would have
+exclaimed:
+
+"Ah, of course.  Here am I, toiling from morn to night with hand and
+brain, to keep you people in decent health, and yet you propose such a
+piece of insanity as that!  Why, sir, you must be mad!"
+
+But then the doctor was mad upon his own particular subject, and neither
+heat nor storm would would have kept him back.  The sun now had
+tremendous power, and even his Malay boatmen looked hot; but the
+doctor's face only shone, and he sat back in the stern, gun in hand,
+carefully scanning the shore, ready to bring down the first attractive
+specimen he saw to add to his collection.
+
+The boat was well supplied with necessaries, including a waterproof
+sheet, and a handy tent if he should camp ashore; but the boat was to be
+for the most part his camping-place; and, according to his preconceived
+plan, the doctor meant to force his way right up a branch or tributary
+of the main river--a stream that had never yet been, as far as he knew,
+explored; and here he was hopeful of making his way close up to the
+mountains, continuing the journey on foot when the river became too
+narrow and swift for navigation.
+
+In this intent the boat was steadily propelled up-stream, and at the end
+of the second day the Inche Maida's campong and home had been passed,
+and unseen they had placed some miles between them and the Princess's
+people.
+
+The Inche Maida was very friendly, but the knowledge that she would
+perhaps be down before many hours were over at the station, made the
+doctor fix his time for passing in the dusk of the evening, for he did
+not wish his movements to reach his wife's ears sooner than he could
+help, nor yet to be canvassed by his friends.
+
+Hence, then, he slept that night with his boat secured to the trunk of a
+large cocoa-palm, well covered in from the night dew, and with a bit of
+quinine on the tip of his tongue when he lay down to keep off the fever.
+
+Neither he nor his men troubled themselves about the weird noises of the
+jungle, nor the rushings and splashings that disturbed the river.  There
+were dangerous reptiles and other creatures around, but they did not
+disturb them; and when the loud roar of a tiger was heard not many yards
+away, amidst the dense bushes of the shore, the doctor merely turned
+over and uttered a low grunt, muttering in his sleep about Mrs Bolter
+breathing so hard.
+
+The next morning before the white mist had risen from the river, the
+Malays were busy with their paddles, and they had gone on about five or
+six miles when one of the men ceased rowing, and held up his hand to
+command silence.
+
+"A big boat coming down the river pulled by many oars, master," said the
+man, "a fighting prahu, I think.  Shall we hide?"
+
+"Hide? no," exclaimed the doctor.  "Why?"
+
+"It may be an enemy who will make us prisoners, perhaps kill us," said
+the Malay, softly.  "We are thy servants, and we will go on if you say
+go."
+
+"Perhaps I had better not," said the doctor, thoughtfully.  "It would
+spoil the expedition.  Hah! yes, I can hear the oars now.  But where
+could we hide?"
+
+"If the master bids us, we will place the boat so that no one passing
+shall see, and we can see all," replied the Malay.
+
+Doctor Bolter did not like hiding, but thinking that in this case
+discretion might be the better part of valour, he replaced his shot
+cartridge with ball, as he gave the signal to the man, who turned the
+sampan in shore; and cleverly guiding it in amongst the overhanging
+vegetation, this dropped behind them and they were in a verdant tunnel,
+the branches and leaves just touching their heads, and though themselves
+completely concealed, able to see everything that passed or repassed
+upon the river.
+
+They had occupied their place of hiding so long, that, had he not still
+heard the regular beat-beat of the large boat's oars, the doctor would
+have concluded that it had passed.  Still it seemed wonderful how the
+water bore the sound, for it was what seemed to be a considerable time
+before they saw the prow of a long prahu come round a bend of the river
+with its long banks of oars making the calm surface of the rapid river
+foam, as the long vessel glided on, coming in very close to them, so as
+to cut off a good deal of the next bend.
+
+They were so close that Doctor Bolter could note the expression upon the
+countenances of the men, and it seemed almost impossible that the little
+boat and its crew could remain unseen; but the prahu passed on, and
+round the next bend, the doctor waiting till the beat of the paddles was
+growing faint before he gave the word for them to proceed.
+
+"Are those friends or enemies?" he said to one of the boatmen.
+
+The Malay smiled.
+
+"Who knows?" he said.  "To-day they may be friends, to-morrow enemies.
+The prahu is Rajah Murad's, and the crew his men."
+
+The doctor did not pay much heed to the rather oracular words of the
+Malay, though he recalled it all afterwards, his attention now being
+taken up by some choice specimens of the sunbird family, hovering about
+the blossoms on the banks.
+
+Ten miles or so farther up, and the boatmen pointed to the overgrown
+mouth of the little river of which they were in search.
+
+Anyone unacquainted with the place would have passed it unseen, but it
+had been noted down by the doctor during one of his expeditions, as a
+place to be explored at some future time.
+
+The men turned the head of the sampan towards the tangled mass of bushes
+and overhanging trees, and then, as they drew near, one of them rose in
+the prow, and drew the long heavy parang he wore, a sword-like knife
+much used by the poorer Malays for cutting back the thorns and canes
+that a few days' rapid growth led across their path; but the next moment
+he had lowered the weapon, and rested the point upon the edge of the
+boat.
+
+"Someone has been here, master," he said; "a big boat has broken its way
+through."
+
+"All the better for us," said the doctor, and instead of having to cut
+and hack right and left, the sampan passed easily along the tangled
+channel, the masses of huge water-lilies giving way before the boat,
+while, as they got farther on past the grown-up mouth, the river seemed
+to widen, and the route of the vessel that had passed before could be
+plainly seen in a narrow channel of leaf-sprinkled water.
+
+"That prahu must have been along here, master," said the elder of the
+two Malays, thoughtfully.  "No small sampan could have broken a way like
+this."
+
+"So much the better," said the doctor again; but he grew more
+thoughtful, for the fact of a boat having been along this little river
+so lately seemed to rob it of a good deal of its mystery.  He had hoped
+to find it completely unexplored, and here only that day someone had
+passed along.
+
+It was, however, in its upper portion that the doctor hoped to find
+something to interest him; and after all it was not probable that the
+occupants of the prahu would be searching for gold.
+
+Under these circumstances he set himself to examine the banks on either
+side, and his men steadily paddled on hour after hour, till a halt was
+made at an open part where they landed, and made a fire to cook the
+birds that had been shot on the way up.  Then a fresh start was made,
+and all through the long hot afternoon the doctor sat back scrutinising
+most diligently the sides of the little river.
+
+But it was always the same--one dense bank of verdure on either side,
+with the trees hanging over the river, and encroaching so that at last
+the stream was only a few yards wide; but by pulling the branches aside
+the boat could have been thrust in, to glide along under a natural
+arcade--the home of thousands of crocodiles, from monsters fifteen and
+twenty feet long to their spawn not many more inches.
+
+It was a perfect paradise for a naturalist, and the doctor grew so much
+interested that he forgot the prime object of his visit, seeing nothing
+but birds and insects, to the exclusion of old gold-workings, though had
+there been anything of the kind it would have been completely hidden
+amongst the tangled, luxuriant growth.
+
+It was growing fast towards sunset when the doctor was suddenly brought
+back to the matter-of-fact every-day life from a kind of dream about the
+wondrous beauties of some peculiar beetles he had captured and held
+beneath his magnifying glass, by a sudden exclamation from the elder
+Malay.
+
+"What is it?" exclaimed the doctor, sharply.
+
+"The prahu came no farther than this.  See, master, we shall have to cut
+the branches now to get along."
+
+He pointed with his paddle, and it was plain enough to see that the
+water-weeds and lilies were unbroken higher up, and that some large
+vessel must have been turned here, for the aqueous growth was crushed to
+a much greater extent.
+
+"There is a path there," said the Malay, and he showed his employer the
+bank beaten down by footsteps, and that the bushes and trees had been
+cut away.
+
+"Yes," replied the doctor, "someone has landed there, but it does not
+matter.  We have come to the fresh ground.  Let's get a few miles
+farther, and then we'll rest."
+
+The doctor was so anxious to get on that no further notice of the marks
+of other travellers was taken, and with his spirits growing more elate
+as he went on, he watched the dense jungle on either side, and peered
+down into the black water as night came rapidly on, so swiftly indeed
+that they had not progressed more than a couple of miles before the
+darkness made a halt absolutely necessary.
+
+The waterproof sheet made a good covering, and the night passed
+undisturbed, the rising sun being the signal for a fresh start; but the
+difficulties of the journey began rapidly to increase.
+
+The stream that had been deep as well as swift seemed to have suddenly
+grown shallow, indicating by its noisy brawling, and sparkling over
+masses of rock, that the country was rising fast.
+
+In fact, the course of the river was now between high escarpments of
+rock, the jungle and its dense masses of trees seeming to be left
+behind, the grasses that grew in patches amongst the chinks of the rocks
+being different in kind from that which tangled the jungle where it
+touched the water.
+
+But in spite of the difficulties of the journey, the doctor was in
+ecstasies, and, regardless of getting his feet wet, he was constantly
+out of the boat to examine the shallow sands for signs of gold.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER THREE.
+
+A TIME OF TRIAL.
+
+Murad was startled for the moment, Helen's act was so unexpected.  Then
+a calm look of satisfaction crossed his face, and he smiled as he stood
+there, gazing down at the swarthy beauty, and folding his arms, he
+waited for her to speak.
+
+"Do you wish to abase me more than this?" she said at last, in a choking
+voice.
+
+"No," he replied, calmly, "that will do.  I meant to bring the proud
+English beauty to my feet.  See, I have done so, and very much sooner
+than I expected."
+
+Helen felt that she had made a false move, and the blood ran back to her
+heart, as she crouched there, trembling.
+
+"You have brought me to your feet," she said softly.  "Be satisfied, and
+spare me further degradation."
+
+"What do you wish me to do?" he said in a low, deep voice.
+
+"Send me back home!" she cried excitedly.
+
+"And what then--what of your father and the Resident?  What of my
+position at the settlement?"
+
+"No one shall know.  I will keep it all a secret."
+
+"And you would risk all the remarks that your appearance would excite by
+going back?"
+
+"Yes!" she cried passionately, as she thought of Mr Harley, and felt
+that he would take her to his heart even then.
+
+"And you honestly believe that no trouble would follow?" said Murad
+quietly.
+
+"I am certain of it!" she cried.  "I tell you I would keep it secret."
+
+"And I know better," he said contemptuously.  "My good girl, do you
+think I am a child?  If I let them at the settlement know of the step I
+have taken, your people would send for help, and my country would be
+invaded, my campongs burned, and after they had driven me out, they
+would take possession of my land."
+
+"But I would not betray you."
+
+"Pish!  They would discover it for themselves.  They think you dead now.
+Let them think that you had been carried off, and my days would be but
+few in my land."
+
+"Oh, no, no!" she cried; "the English are not cruel."
+
+"Oh, no," he echoed, with a derisive smile, "not cruel, only just.  Look
+here, Helen, I have been gambling: I staked all I had, even to my life,
+to win you, and I have won.  Now you ask me to resign my gains.  It is
+ridiculous.  How would it be--how does the matter stand?  On the one
+hand, here is ruin to my place and people and death to myself; on the
+other hand, happiness and joy--the happiness of a gratified love, as I
+rejoice in my triumph over the woman who first made my pulses throb, and
+then trifled with my love."
+
+Helen started to her feet and shrank away, feeling instinctively that
+she had as much prospect of finding pity from the tigers of the jungle
+as from Murad.
+
+As she retreated from him he smiled with all the consciousness of his
+power, and rested upon one elbow, as he reclined upon the mats, watching
+her movements, a very idealisation of some glistening serpent, gazing
+languidly at the trembling victim that has been placed within its cage,
+ready to be stricken down at his good pleasure.
+
+"There," he said, at last, "it is foolish to weary yourself and try to
+escape.  I tell you it is impossible.  You have now the skin and the
+dress of a Malay lady; why do you not adopt our ways as well?  We are
+fatalists, as your people call us.  When we see that a thing is to be,
+we take it as it comes, and do not murmur and strive against fate.  You
+see now that it is your fate to be my favourite wife.  Why should you
+strive against it like some dove that beats its breast against the close
+bars of its cage.  Come," he continued, making a place for her by his
+side, "let us be friends at once, Helen.  You do not wish to make me
+angry with you, I am dangerous then."
+
+"Angry?  With me?" she cried, her indignation asserting itself now, and
+her eyes flashed as they met his.  "I do not fear your anger."
+
+"And yet it is to be feared," he said quietly.  "Ask one of the women
+here about my rage, and you will find that it may mean death.  They fear
+it, and shrink from me when I frown."
+
+For answer, Helen strove once more to tear open the door, and then she
+uttered a wild and piercing shriek, for, as silently as one of the
+tigers of his own jungle, Murad had gathered himself up and sprung
+forward, catching her by the arms, and the next moment he held her
+strained to his breast.
+
+Helen's wild shriek was answered on the instant by one without; and
+Murad's face became less swarthy in his rage, as he loosed his prisoner
+and threw open the door, admitting the younger of the two Malay girls
+who had been Helen's gaolers, and who ran to the Rajah and flung herself
+upon his breast.
+
+In an access of rage the Malay chief struck her across the face, and
+sent her staggering back, as he cursed her brutally for coming at such a
+time; and Helen saw how thin a veneer was the English upon the man's
+nature, which now asserted itself in all its native savagery as he bade
+the girl go.
+
+"No," she cried, turning upon him in a patient, suffering way,
+displaying the strength of her weakness as she once more clung to his
+arm.  "I do not mind your beating me," she said patiently.  "I am used
+to that: but you said you would love me always; and I will not have this
+strange girl come between us."
+
+"If you do not go--" he said hoarsely, and he bent down and whispered to
+her with a menacing look, and a touch at the hilt of his kris.
+
+"I am not afraid," she said in the same low tone, as she clung to his
+arm.  "You would not kill me; and you may beat me.  I am used to that.
+I say I will not have anyone come between us and stand quietly by."
+
+Murad's hand sought his kris, and his lips parted from his teeth, when
+he half drew the weapon from its sheath; but he mastered his savage rage
+as he thought of Helen, and spoke quietly and in slow, measured tones,
+evidently meaning her to hear and comprehend every word.
+
+"Go," he said, "and you can tell the others this--I have no wife now but
+this lady.  If either of you speak evil to her or annoy her in any way
+you die.  I shall not touch you, but you will be taken to the river.
+Now leave me at once."
+
+The girl shrank from him, and trembling in every limb, she tottered
+towards the door; but her attachment and jealous feelings still refused
+to be mastered, and turning back once more, she burst into a wild
+passion of weeping, and flung herself upon his breast.
+
+"Go?" he cried angrily, and he repulsed her roughly.  "You hear my
+words."
+
+He flung her away, and Helen saw her opportunity.  Here was one who
+hated her, but might be made her friend; and as the girl staggered back
+from the violent thrust she had received, Helen caught her in her arms
+and clung to her.
+
+For a moment the girl shrank away; but directly after she gazed wildly
+in her eyes, and then with an hysterical cry clasped her tightly.
+
+"Stay with me," whispered Helen.  "I hate him!  Pray stay and save me
+from him!"
+
+The trembling girl seemed to grow strong as she found out more fully
+what her rival's real feelings were; and as Murad angrily advanced she
+retreated with Helen to one corner of the room, uttering so wild and
+piercing a shriek that the Rajah stamped his foot with rage, and going
+to the door, threw it open and uttered a fierce command.
+
+The result was, that four of the women with whose faces Helen was
+already familiar came running in, and Murad pointed peremptorily to the
+pair.
+
+"Take her away!" he cried sharply, and the women seized Helen's
+defender; but with a quick movement she snatched a little kris from
+within her sarong, and they fell back in alarm; while with flashing eyes
+she placed one arm round Helen, and gazed menacingly from one to the
+other, as if ready to strike at the first who should advance.
+
+The women uttered loud cries and fled to Murad, who fiercely ordered
+them once more to separate the pair.  No one, however, advanced, and he
+threw open the door and bade them go.
+
+The women hurried out, glad to escape, and then the Rajah pointed to the
+open door.
+
+"Go!" he said fiercely, and he glared wrathfully at the girl, who
+pressed her arm more tightly round Helen, and looked her defiance.
+"Will you go?" he said hoarsely; "or am I to have you torn away?"
+
+"No one dare tear me away!" retorted the girl.  "I shall stay with her,
+and no one shall hurt her while I'm alive."
+
+They spoke so quickly now that Helen could only gather a few words here
+and there; but she could make out how fiercely the girl was threatening
+to resist any attempt to separate them, even going so far as to present
+the point of her weapon at Murad, who shrank angrily away, and stood at
+last biting his lips.
+
+"Will you go?" he cried at last, in a furious tone; and as he spoke he
+gazed from the girl to Helen and back again.
+
+"No!" she cried fiercely.  "I will stay with her.  She shall not be your
+wife!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+MORE TREACHERY.
+
+Murad took a step towards the girl, and whispered something which Helen
+could not catch.
+
+Then, turning sharply round, he dashed the curtain aside, swung open the
+door, and passing through, they heard the heavy bang as the curtain
+waved to and fro, when Helen's defender sank trembling to her knees, her
+eyes closed, and the little weapon with which, but a minute before, she
+was ready to menace the Rajah's life, fell with a musical tinkle upon
+the floor.
+
+The noise startled her, and she opened her eyes to gaze piteously at the
+fallen curtain, and ended by bursting into a passionate fit of weeping.
+
+Helen let her hands fall upon the Malay girl's shoulder, eager to speak
+her thanks, but hesitating, as she felt that it would be better to let
+the outbreak have its course.
+
+In this spirit she waited quite patiently, listening eagerly though for
+the slightest sound without that should betoken the Rajah's return; but
+all remained silent till suddenly the girl rose and turned upon her
+angrily.
+
+"Why did you come?" she cried; "he loved me before he saw you.  Go: you
+make me hate you, and I shall kill you for it if you stay."
+
+For the moment Helen felt angry.  At such a time the girl's want of
+reason was irritating; but seeing that she was almost beside herself
+with jealous grief, she advanced and laid a hand upon the weeping girl's
+arm.
+
+"You know I hate him," she said gently, "and that I would give the world
+to get away."
+
+"Yes, yes, yes, I know," sobbed the girl; and her anger gave place to a
+most effusive display of affection.  "Yes, I know, but it is so hard to
+bear.  He used at one time to love me so well, and now he is quite
+changed for the sake of you.  Why do you not go?"
+
+"Will you show me the way?" cried Helen, eagerly.
+
+"The way?" said the girl.
+
+"Yes; how to escape--to get back to my own people."
+
+"Do you really want to go back?" said the girl, looking at her
+searchingly.
+
+"Yes, yes; oh yes," was the reply.  "I'll give you anything to help me
+away.  You shall be made rich, and I will care for you and love you like
+a sister, only save me from this man."
+
+The girl fixed her great dark eyes upon Helen's, and seemed to be trying
+to read her thoughts.
+
+"It is very strange!" she said at last.
+
+"What is strange?  That I should ask you to save me?"
+
+"No," said the girl, dreamily; "that anyone should be able to hate
+Murad.  He has been cruel to me, but I could never hate him, even though
+others have talked to me and tried to get my love.  Hamet has loved me,
+he tells me, and that he is unhappy because I am cold; but I could never
+hate Murad, and the more cruel he is to me, the more he seems to have my
+love."
+
+"But it troubles you that he should make love to me?"
+
+"Yes," hissed the girl, fiercely.  "It makes me mad."
+
+"Then help me to escape; help me to get away," cried Helen, clinging to
+her passionately.
+
+"And if I do he will kill me," sighed the girl.
+
+"Then do not stay here," whispered Helen, glancing suspiciously at the
+great curtain, which seemed to wave to and fro, and moved as though some
+one were listening close behind.
+
+"Do not stay?" said the girl, wonderingly.
+
+"No.  Let us escape together."
+
+"But to leave Murad?"
+
+"He does not love you now."
+
+"But Hamet does; he would grieve.  They would follow and kill me."
+
+"No, no.  You shall not be harmed," said Helen, excitedly.  "I will
+protect you.  You shall live with me."
+
+"No," said the girl, sadly, "I could not go away and leave Murad.  He is
+cruel to me, but I cannot be cruel to him.  He would want me if I was
+gone."
+
+"But you say he would kill you if you stayed?"
+
+"Yes," sighed the girl.  "He would kill me for helping you to escape if
+he found me out."
+
+"Then come with me and let my people protect you," whispered Helen,
+excitedly.  "Why should you stay here when I can give you a happier and
+better home?"
+
+"Happier! better!" said the girl.  "No; there is no life for me that
+could be happier when he is kind.  There can be no better place than
+this."
+
+Helen passed her arm round her, for there was something beautiful in the
+girl's faith and love for the tyrant who abused her affection at every
+turn; and the girl, feeling the unusual caress, turned to her lovingly.
+
+"Tell me once again," she said, "that you really mean it--that you would
+be glad to go," and she looked searchingly in Helen's eyes.
+
+"I would sooner die than stay," cried Helen, who had to repeat her words
+twice before she could make herself understood.
+
+"Then let me think," said the girl, quietly; "let me think how it can be
+done, for we should like to live and be happy once again."
+
+"As we shall be, if you help me to escape and come with me and share my
+home.  Let us steal down to a boat as soon as it is dark, and then we
+can soon reach the great river by floating with the stream."
+
+The girl smiled sadly.
+
+"You forget," she said, "Murad's people will watch us, for we are
+prisoners now."
+
+There was no doubt about this being the case, for door and window were
+securely fastened, as the girl showed with a smile, becoming very
+thoughtful directly after, and making impatient gestures every time
+Helen tried to draw her into conversation.
+
+And so the day wore on, with the prisoner's heart sinking as she saw the
+approach of night.
+
+It was just at the time when her spirits were at their lowest ebb that
+the girl turned to her suddenly and caught her by the arm.
+
+"I have been thinking," she said, "and you shall go free."
+
+She spoke in her own tongue, and Helen had great difficulty in
+comprehending her, but the peril sharpened her understanding; and by
+making the girl repeat her words, she arrived at a pretty correct
+interpretation.
+
+"And you will go with me?" whispered Helen, eagerly.
+
+"A little while ago I felt that I could never leave Murad; but he is
+cruel, and he loves me no longer now.  I will go."
+
+Helen's heart throbbed with joy, as she caught the girl to her breast
+and kissed her passionately, loosing her though directly, for the door
+was suddenly opened, and they saw a group of four women standing there,
+evidently bearing food.
+
+"Come and fetch it," said one of them to Helen's companion, for they did
+not attempt to enter the room.
+
+The girl left Helen and went to the door, to return, bringing the
+materials for a respectable meal, returning again for water and palm
+wine, with vessels for drinking, and once more returning for the fruit
+that the women produced.
+
+Helen was watching their movements intently and suspiciously, she hardly
+knew why, when suddenly, as the girl was taking a bunch of plantains
+from one of the women, another threw her arms round her neck and clasped
+her tightly, with the result that the others seized her as well; there
+was a slight struggle, the door was slammed to, and as Helen ran to it
+with throbbing heart, she heard the noise of renewed struggling, the
+excited angry cries of her poor companion, and these seemed to be dying
+away for a time, and then to suddenly end as if they had been stifled.
+
+Helen Perowne was brave enough in her way; but the sounds of this
+struggle, the cries, and their sudden ending, coupled with the threats
+lately uttered by Murad, made her shudder as she turned, wet with the
+cold perspiration that gathered upon her face.
+
+What did it mean--that sudden silence?  Had they suffocated the poor
+girl, or had they slain her by some more sudden and deadly stroke?
+
+Helen tried hard to maintain her composure; but her dread increased, and
+she tottered back to the mats that served her for a couch, to sink down,
+trembling in every limb.
+
+It was a terrible ordeal, and the more she realised the horrors of her
+position the more deeply she regretted her conduct to Murad.
+
+For evidently beneath his thin veneer of European manners the Rajah was
+a remorseless Eastern tyrant, ready to do anything--to sacrifice
+anything to obtain his wishes.
+
+Unknowingly, or rather carelessly, and with her customary indifference,
+she had made this man her determined pursuer; and as she thought this,
+she turned faint, feeling that her position was hopeless in the extreme;
+and for the moment she felt as if she would go mad.
+
+A violent flood of tears relieved her overburdened brain, and at last
+she sat up, thinking of her chances of escape, and wondering whether she
+had let her imagination run riot, and the girl was after all only in a
+fresh place of confinement.
+
+She decided to take this hopeful view of the case; and feeling better,
+her eyes lit upon the food that had been brought in, and of which she
+partook, not so much from choice as from a belief in its being necessary
+for her strength, which she feared might fail her at any time, perhaps
+in the direst moment of her need.
+
+Seating herself, then, beside the food, she was trying to eat, when the
+door was again opened, and one of the women entered quietly, bearing a
+lighted English lamp.
+
+Helen eagerly questioned her respecting her late companion; but the
+woman either did not or professed not to understand, merely placing the
+tall lamp upon a mat on the floor, and hurrying away, seeming as it were
+to disappear in the gloom on the other side of the lamp, and directly
+after she heard the door close.
+
+She sat listening, but all was very still.  The sun had sunk, and the
+darkness was coming on so rapidly that she felt thankful for the lamp;
+and then she turned longingly towards the water and wine that had been
+brought to her, but which she shrank from touching lest they should
+happen to contain some drug.
+
+Her thirst seemed to increase at the very sight of the drinking-vessels;
+and the more she tried wrench away her eyes, the more they sought the
+large native bottles and cups.
+
+"I cannot bear it!" she panted at last, and bending down, she took the
+vessel containing the water, poured some out, and after tasting it
+suspiciously, with her throat growing parched with intense longing, she
+felt satisfied that the water was pure, and drank a long and hearty
+draught.
+
+She set the cup down with a sigh of pleasure; and then her blood ran
+cold, for her sigh seemed to be echoed from out of the gloom near the
+door.
+
+Murad was standing there, leaning against the doorpost, and it was
+evident to her now that he had entered when the woman brought in the
+lamp, and that he had been watching her ever since.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+TRYING FOR A CHANGE.
+
+The days glided rapidly by, and still Hilton and Chumbley remained
+prisoners.  They were well attended to; their diet, though Eastern in
+character, was admirably prepared: they had wine and cigars, capital
+coffee, and an abundance of fruit, but no liberty.
+
+The Inche Maida was either away, or else she had taken such deadly
+offence that she was determined to see her prisoners no more for the
+present, until they were in a better frame of mind as regarded her
+wishes.
+
+The slaves who attended upon them were ready to obey their slightest
+wishes, running eagerly to fetch coffee or fruit, or a kind of sherbet
+which was _very_ pleasant to drink during the heat of the day.
+
+But there was, with all the attention, a strict watch kept, Chumbley
+noticing that there was always an ostentatious display of force as if to
+show the prisoners that it was hopeless to attempt to escape.
+
+Armed men sat about outside the door, and from the window the prisoners
+could see other armed men sitting about chewing betel, or practising
+throwing the limbing--the javelin with a blade of razor keenness--which
+they hurled with such unerring aim that the least skilful would have
+been certain to strike a man at thirty yards.
+
+But all the same, the hearts of the prisoners were set upon scheming
+their escape; and they sat and smoked, and made their calculations as to
+how it was to be compassed.
+
+"I'm sorry I was so rough with the poor woman," said Hilton one evening,
+as they sat by the open window sipping their coffee, and gazing at the
+rich orange glow in the sky above the dark green foliage of the trees.
+
+"Well, you were pretty rough upon her for displaying a remarkable
+feminine weakness in your favour," replied Chumbley.
+
+"Well, rough or no, I'm tired of this," said Hilton.  "It is evident
+that Harley is making no effort to find us out."
+
+"Perhaps he is, but can't find the place.  I've been trying hard to make
+out where we are."
+
+"So have I, but I'm puzzled.  One thing is evident; we are a long way
+from the river."
+
+"So we cannot be at the Inche Maida's seat."
+
+"No; I suppose this is a sort of private, lodge or hunting-box somewhere
+away in the jungle."
+
+"Yes; a place of retreat in case of danger."
+
+Then there was a pause, during which the prisoners sat gazing through
+the bars of the window at the glories of the sky, Chumbley disgusting
+his friend by continuously spitting.
+
+"The Princess's home is on the right bank of the river," said Hilton, at
+last.
+
+"Granted, oh!  Solomon the wise!"
+
+"_Ergo_" continued Hilton, "we are upon the right bank of the river."
+
+"Unless her ladyship's dominions extend to the other side."
+
+"Take it for granted that they do not," said Hilton.
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Why, we can pretty well tell where the river is."
+
+"Where is it then?"
+
+"Due north from where we sit."
+
+"Humph!" said Chumbley.  "Sun sets in the west.  I'm looking at the sun,
+and the river, then, is straight away from my right shoulder?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"Then if we got out of this window, and walked straight through the
+jungle--which we could not do--we should come right upon the river?"
+
+"Sooner or later," said Hilton.  "Then all would be plain sailing."
+
+"Don't see it.  No boat," said Chumbley, spitting again.
+
+"Why, my dear boy, we should journey along with the stream till we came
+to some campong, and then cut adrift a boat and escape in that."
+
+"But suppose the owner objected?"
+
+"Knock him down with one of his own cocoa-nuts, or your fist.  You're
+big enough, Chumbley."
+
+"All right, I'll try," was the reply; "but that isn't the difficulty."
+
+"No, of course not.  You mean how are we to get away from here?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Well, I have a plan at last."
+
+"A good one?" said Chumbley, spitting through the window again.
+
+"No, for all my good plans that I have invented turn out to have a bad
+flaw in them.  This is the poorest of the lot, but it seems the most
+likely."
+
+"Well, let's have it," said Chumbley coolly; "not that I feel in any
+hurry to get back to duty, for I am very comfortable here."
+
+"Hang it all, Chum, I believe you would settle down as soon as not."
+
+"I don't know.  Perhaps I would.  But how about this plan?"
+
+"It is simply to wait till about one or two in the morning, when
+everyone will most likely be asleep, and then to climb up the side of
+the room here, and force our way through the thatch."
+
+"Go on," said Chumbley, spitting again, and making his friend wince.
+
+"Then we could climb along the ridge of the roof till we get to the
+farther end, where there is a big tree resting its boughs over the
+place.  Once there.  I think we could get down."
+
+"And if we could not?"
+
+"We'd get down some other way."
+
+"Why didn't we try that before?" said Chumbley; "it is quite easy."
+
+"Because it was so easy that we did not think it worth trying."
+
+"Humph!" ejaculated Chumbley.  "I've been thinking out a plan too, which
+perhaps might do as well.  I was going to tell you about it to-night,
+only oddly enough, you proposed this."
+
+"What is your plan?" said Hilton, yawning.
+
+"Well, you see, I thought of getting out by the roof, breaking through
+the walls, and cutting the bars of the window; but they neither of them
+seemed to fit, so I tried another plan."
+
+"And what was that?"
+
+"It seemed so much better to go through the bottom, so I have been at
+work at the bamboos."
+
+"Where--where?" cried Hilton, excitedly.
+
+"Take it quietly, old fellow, or you may excite attention," said
+Chumbley, spitting through the window.  "Well, the fact is, I've been at
+work night after night, when you were asleep, upon the bamboos under my
+bed."
+
+"And you have cut through them?"
+
+"Yes; through two of them, so that one has only to pull my bed aside,
+lift the two pieces of wood--"
+
+"Chumbley!" ejaculated Hilton, joyously.
+
+"Hullo!"
+
+"Why, I've been giving you the credit of being ready to settle down here
+in the most _nonchalant_ way."
+
+"Yes, I saw you did.  That's why I chiselled away so, to get through
+those bamboos."
+
+"While I was asleep?"
+
+"While you were asleep," said Chumbley, spitting vigorously.
+
+"Ah, my dear fellow, I shall--"
+
+"Hold your row.  Light a cigar, or they'll be suspicious."
+
+Hilton obeyed without a word, and Chumbley went on:
+
+"So when you are ready we'll pocket a table-knife apiece, fill our
+pockets with portable meat of some kind, and then be off."
+
+"Why not to-night?"
+
+"I don't see why not," replied Chumbley, coolly; "I'm ready.  It will do
+you good--a bit of a scamper through the jungle, even if we get caught."
+
+"No scoundrel shall catch me alive."
+
+"I say, old man, don't talk as if the Malays were fly-papers and you
+were a pretty insect."
+
+"Don't be absurd," said Hilton excitedly.  "Shall we try to-night?"
+
+"Well, no; let's leave it till to-morrow, when we can devote the day to
+storing up cigars and food; and then if they don't find out the hole I
+have made, we can slip through and make for the river."
+
+"But suppose they find out the hole you have made."
+
+"Well, then we must try another plan: your way through the thatch."
+
+"Yes, of course.  But, by the way, old fellow, I wish you would drop
+that habit you have just taken up of spitting through the window."
+
+"Certainly I will," said Chumbley, coolly; "but don't you see, old
+fellow, I've had to get rid of a lot of bamboo chips, and that was the
+only way I could destroy them.  They're awfully harsh chewing, by the
+way."
+
+Hilton looked at him with a kind of admiration.
+
+"And to think that I've been abusing you for your indolence!" he cried.
+
+"Didn't hurt me a bit," said Chumbley.  "Go it.  I don't mind."
+
+That night and the next day seemed as if they would never pass.  Every
+time a native servant entered Hilton felt sure that he had some
+suspicion about the loosened bamboos, and it seemed as if his eyes were
+directed towards the pile of mats upon which Chumbley slept.
+
+But at last, after a false alarm of the Princess coming, the night fell,
+and with a beating heart Hilton set about filling his pockets and a
+handkerchief with provisions for the journey, Chumbley seeming all the
+while to be plunged into a state of lethargy.
+
+"Come, Chum," whispered Hilton, at last, "be stirring, man."
+
+"Heaps of time yet, my boy," replied the other.  "Lie down and have a
+nap."
+
+"Will nothing stir you?" whispered Hilton, wrathfully.  "Good Heavens,
+man, rouse yourself!"
+
+"Shan't.  I'm resting.  There's heaps to do when we start, and I want to
+be fresh.  Lie down."
+
+"Hang it, don't speak as if I were a dog," cried Hilton, sharply.
+
+"Have the goodness to lie down and rest yourself, my dear boy," said
+Chumbley in a polite drawl.  "It is of no use for us to attempt to stir
+till the fellows are all asleep, so save yourself up."
+
+Hilton obeyed, lying down upon the matting, and in spite of his
+excitement, he felt a strangely-delicious drowsy sensation stealing over
+him, to which he yielded, and the next moment--so it seemed to him--
+Chumbley laid a great hand over his lips, and whispered:
+
+"Time's up!"
+
+He rose to his knees, to find that it was intensely dark, and saving an
+occasional howl from the forest, all was perfectly still.
+
+"I've got the bamboos up," whispered Chumbley, "and you are going first,
+because I can then hold your hands and lower you softly down.  Don't
+speak, but do as I bid you."
+
+Hilton felt ready to resist his companion's autocratic ways, but he
+obeyed him in silence, Chumbley lowering him through the hole to the
+open space below the house, the building being raised some eight feet
+above the ground upon huge bamboo piles, as a protection from floods and
+the prowling tiger.
+
+The next minute there was a faint rustle, a heavy breathing, a slight
+crack or two, and Hilton received a heavy kick.
+
+Then Chumbley dropped to his feet.
+
+"I got stuck," he whispered, as he took his friend's hand; "thought I
+should not have got through.  Now then, the river lies straight before
+us, under that great star.  'Ware guards and tigers, and we shall be
+safe."
+
+It was intensely dark beneath the house, and but little better as they
+emerged from the piles upon which it was built, to stand with the dense
+jungle before them, impenetrable save where there was a path; and they
+were about to step boldly forth, when something bright seemed to twinkle
+for a moment between them and the stars, and by straining their eyes
+they made out that straight before them were the misty-looking forms of
+a couple of their Malay guards.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SIX.
+
+IN TIME OF PERIL.
+
+With eyes wild and hair dishevelled Helen Perowne sat crouched together
+as far from the Rajah as her means would allow.
+
+"Why, Helen," he said mockingly, and with a gleam of triumph in his
+eyes, as he half reclined against the bamboo wall, "how beautiful you
+look!"  He made a movement as if to clasp her in his arms, but she
+sprang up with a cry of horror.
+
+"What folly!" he said, laughing as he slowly changed his feet.  "And you
+will not drink--you are afraid that I shall try to poison you.  Don't be
+afraid.  Why should I now?  I love you too well.  When first you began
+to woo me--"
+
+She burst into a piteous fit of sobbing, and then turned upon him her
+eyes full of misery and despair.
+
+"That makes you more handsome!" he cried, excitedly.  "Be angry with me;
+I love it!  I will say that again.  When you first began to woo me--"
+
+It had not the intended effect, for Helen remained silent, watching him
+with dilated eyes, as if he were some tiger about to make a spring.
+
+"I say when you first began to woo me," he continued, "I resisted for a
+time, for you are only a white woman, and not of our blood or our
+religion; but I felt at last that you had made me your slave, and once
+my love had turned to you, fate told me that you would be mine, and I
+gave way to my passion.  Then you led me on till I declared my love,
+when you professed to cast me off, and I accepted the words; but they
+were words only.  Fate said that I was to take to myself a wife from the
+invaders of my country, and do you think I was going to let the
+opposition of your friends, as you did, stand in the way?"
+
+He waited for her to reply, but she remained watchful and silent.
+
+"I knew all along," he went on, evidently to provoke her to speak, "that
+you only professed to reject me, and that you were waiting, as I was,
+the time when you would be mine; and though I grew daily more impatient,
+I was ready to wait for my reward.  At last the time has come.  Look at
+me well, my wife, for such you are; even the priests have studied, and
+found that a prince of my race was to marry a woman fair as the morning
+light."
+
+He took a step forward, and as she shrank back with a cry of horror, he
+stopped and laughed.
+
+"Why do you shrink away, little wife?" he said.  "The time has passed
+now for that, and you should cling to me, and pay me for my patient
+waiting and my brave deed.  But you were afraid of the water and wine,
+as if I should poison or drug you.  Why should I?  You are here--my
+wife--in my home amongst my slaves.  It is foolishness to think that I
+should give you poison to drink--to you who love me so well.  See here!"
+
+He walked quickly forward to where the wine was placed, and Helen
+watched him keenly as he poured out a cupful, smiled at her, and drank
+it slowly to the last drop.
+
+"Now," he said, smiling, "will you drink without fear?  I will pour you
+out a cup.  No; I will use this from which I drank.  It is only your
+husband's, and you need not mind."
+
+He poured out a fresh cup of the palm wine; but as if from clumsiness
+shook the native bottle that contained the liquid.  Helen did not
+perceive it; but the wine as he partook of it himself was clear; now it
+was thick and discoloured, a fact that would have been seen at once in a
+glass.
+
+She still kept aloof from him, with her mind actively at work, seeking
+some means of escaping from her enemy's hands, for she could not conceal
+from herself that appeals and violence would be equally in vain.
+
+She came to the full endorsement, then, of previous thoughts--that her
+sole hope of escape depended upon artifice: her womanly cunning must be
+brought to bear.  She felt that she had mastered Murad before; why
+should she not now--by seeming to accept her fate?  He would, she
+argued, doubtless submit to her wishes if she showed a semblance of
+accepting his suit, and in this spirit, as he pressed her once more to
+partake of the wine, she began to parley with him.
+
+"I do not drink wine," she said.
+
+"But you must be faint," he urged.  "You have only drunk water; you have
+not eaten."
+
+"Then I will eat," she said.
+
+"May I seat myself, and eat with you?"
+
+She paused for a moment, for her nature fought against the subterfuge
+she was about to practise; but he was keenly watching her, and she
+motioned to him to take his seat upon the mats.
+
+"When you are seated," he said, with a smile of triumph playing about
+his lips.
+
+She hesitated for a moment or two, and then sat down, Murad following
+her example, and contenting himself, as she seemed ready to start away,
+with placing the wine-cup at her side, and seating himself opposite.
+
+"That is better," he said, smiling.  "Now make me happy by letting me
+see you eat."
+
+Every mouthful seemed as if it would choke her, and her heart beat
+wildly as she thought of her unprotected state; but she battled bravely
+with her feelings, and spoke quietly, answering the Rajah's questions,
+and striving all the while for strength and courage to carry out her
+designs.
+
+As for Murad, he was perfectly triumphant in his way.  The victory was
+his; and with all the pride of a weak man at his success in bringing the
+handsome English beauty to her knees, he laughed merrily, making Helen
+shiver as she saw the wild excitement in his eyes, and listened to the
+compliments he paid to her beauty.
+
+"I like you the more for your brave resistance," he said; "and most of
+all for your cleverness and wisdom.  You see that it is of no use to
+fight, so like a wise captain you surrender."
+
+He laughed again, and kept his flaming eyes fixed upon her.
+
+"You shall be my queen, Helen," he said, talking in a quick, excited
+way.  "You shall help me to fight all my enemies, and drive them out,
+till all the country round is mine, for you are Malayan now, and your
+people will have to go.  I shall not slay them.  No: they will find they
+have no position here, and they will go as they came; but you will stay.
+You will not wish to leave me, my queen.  You will not wish to be white
+again.  But you have not drunk your wine.  Come: you must drink, Helen;
+it is my cup, and I wish to drink again."
+
+She took up the cup and held it to him, Murad taking it with a bow and
+smile, holding her fingers within his pressed against the side of the
+vessel, and keeping them prisoned there.
+
+She did not shrink, but sat motionless, her hand becoming deathly cold,
+and the dank perspiration gathering upon her brow.
+
+"No," he said at last, with a smile; "it is not fair.  You must drink to
+me.  See!" he continued, raising the cup to his lips, and holding it
+there for some moments.  "I drink to your happiness--a toast you English
+people call it."
+
+She watched him narrowly, and saw that he did not drink, merely held the
+cup to his lips, and then slowly let it down to the level of his breast,
+carefully wiping his lips before holding out the cup to her.
+
+"Stay," he cried, "I must fill it up again;" and taking the native
+bottle, his hand shook a good deal as he refilled the cup.  "Your
+presence agitates me," he said.  "See how my hand trembles.  It is all
+for love--the love you taught me to feel."
+
+Helen trembled with horror; and never had her heart reproached her in
+all her past more bitterly than at this moment.  It was retribution, and
+she felt it cruelly.
+
+"There," he cried, touching the edge of the cup again with his lips,
+"drink from that, Helen, my love, my wife, as an earnest of the kisses
+you press upon these lips, for I will not force them from you; they
+shall come full and freely as your gifts.  Forced kisses are from
+slaves, and I can command them when I will!  I want your warm, true,
+freely-given English love, and in return I will worship you, and make
+you a queen as great as your own, far over the seas.  There, take the
+cup and drink.  Yes, you must--you shall drink.  No, no," he cried,
+laughing in a harsh, strange way, "I do not command, I beg and pray."
+
+He had risen now, and was bending down over her with the wine, and in
+her horror and fear of his presence she was ready to shriek aloud.  His
+hand grasped her arm as he pressed the cup towards her.  It was with no
+lustful caress, but with a spasmodic, furious grasp to save himself from
+falling as the cup dropped from his hand, making a great patch upon the
+soft brown matting that was spread with sweets and fruit.
+
+He recovered himself though directly, and stood upright, but kept on
+muttering angrily and gazing about him in a wild, excited way.  His eyes
+looked fixed and dilated, while his hands were extended as if feeling
+about for something to grasp.
+
+Helen gazed at him in horror, and she shrank more and more away as Murad
+kept on muttering in the Malay tongue before sinking down heavily and
+then letting his head drop as if it were much too heavy to bear.
+
+She stared, believing it to be some _ruse_, but a heavy, stertorous
+breathing set in, and the Rajah sank lower and lower, evidently in a
+heavy stupor, while now all became confused and misty before Helen's
+eyes; and as, like a flash, the thought passed through her brain that
+after all the water that she had tasted had been drugged, a deathly
+sickness overcame her, and she sank back insensible upon the mats.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+LIGHT IN DARKNESS.
+
+When Helen Perowne came to her senses it was some minutes before she
+could realise what had taken place, and she lay there motionless,
+staring up at the bamboo and palm-leaf roof that looked dim, and weird,
+and strange, as she saw it softly illumined by the rays of the lamp;
+while there above her was one soft round patch of light glowing amidst
+the darkness, and reminding her of the nights when she had been ill at
+Miss Twettenhams', and a night-light had been set to burn in a shade.
+
+"Where am I?" she asked herself: for the past seemed gone.
+
+Then all at once she seemed to hear, coming, as it were, out of the
+mental mist wherein she wandered, a dull, low, long-drawn breathing, and
+she rose to her elbow, to see there, lying with his face turned to the
+lamp, and not two yards away, Murad, apparently watching her, for his
+eyes were widely opened and staring in her direction.
+
+Her heart began to throb violently, and, cautiously watchful, she rose
+slowly to her knees, supporting herself with her hands, as she felt how
+horror-stricken and weak she was; and it was only by a great effort that
+she found herself able to stand.
+
+She was glad, however, to sit down again, to allow the sensation of
+giddiness that oppressed her to pass away.  And now she fully realised
+the fact that the staring eyes before her, in which the light of the
+lamp was strangely reflected, were fixed and blind to what passed
+around, their owner being plunged in a deep stupor-like sleep.
+
+It was some time before she could really believe this to be a fact; but
+when she did realise her position it gave her courage; while, as she
+tried to recall what had passed, she wondered how it had all come about.
+
+Her common-sense soon told her that she had fainted entirely from
+fright, and that her suspicion concerning the water being drugged was
+ill-founded; while, on the other hand, as she gazed at Murad, her ideas
+gathered force, and she fully believed that her enemy had fallen into
+the trap that he had laid for his victim, and she wondered how long it
+would be before he awoke.
+
+Helen's suspicions were correct.  Murad had had some little experience
+in the management and usage of the vegetable narcotics of the jungle,
+and believing from old experiments he had made that he could drink with
+impunity the clear wine from the top of the prepared vessel, he had, to
+disarm her suspicions partaken thereof, leaving the strong, thick
+portion for his victim, taking care to agitate it at the time of pouring
+out.
+
+He was, however, wrong, for the narcotic he had used was a particularly
+strong preparation, and the clear portion at the top of the bottle
+contained ample quantity of the poison to overcome him in the fancied
+moment of his triumph, leaving him prone at his prisoner's feet.
+
+The dizziness passed off; but for a few minutes the girl felt that she
+dared not stir for fear that at the least motion on her part her
+persecutor might awaken; and in this spirit she remained for some time,
+listening to the heavy breathing, and watching intently, as if
+fascinated by the dark eyes that at times seemed gazing into hers.
+
+At last, however, she gained a little more courage, and cautiously made
+a step or two towards the door.
+
+Then she paused and listened, and gazed at the prostrate figure,
+fancying that she had detected some slight movement; but satisfying
+herself at last that Murad still slept, she went once more, step by
+step, her heart palpitating wildly, till she reached the door, when a
+louder inspiration than usual made her turn sick with dread, and she had
+to cling to the framework to keep from falling.
+
+Finding, however, that Murad did not stir, she once more gained courage;
+and rousing herself for the effort, she drew aside the heavy matting
+curtain with cautious hand, tried the fastening of the door--growing
+more bold moment by moment as she strove to get it open--but all in
+vain.  The handle would not stir, and it seemed to her that there must
+be a great bar across on the outside, making prisoners of both her and
+her captor.
+
+It was not until the utter hopelessness of her effort dawned upon her
+that she gave up her task and turned to the window.
+
+Here her efforts were equally vain, for the grill was formed of stout
+bamboos secured with ratan cane, bound at the intersections, and so
+strong, that without a powerful edge-tool even a stout-hearted man might
+well have given up the task in despair.
+
+Helen's delicate fingers, then, failed even to shake the bars; and at
+last, thrusting her arms through, she clasped her hands on the other
+side, and pressed her fevered brow to one of the openings that the soft
+night air might breathe upon it, and there she remained, alternately
+praying for help and listening to the Rajah's heavy, stertorous breath.
+
+A couple of hours must have passed like this, and the silence was
+terrible.  There was at times the hoarse roar of a tiger in the jungle,
+and the Rajah now and then muttered some words in his own tongue;
+otherwise there was the regular breathing of the sleeper, and the dull
+thud--thud, thud--thud of the prisoner's palpitating heart.
+
+All at once there was a sharp exclamation and an uneasy movement which
+sent Helen's blood bounding through her veins.
+
+The time of peril had arrived then; and she thrust her arms more fully
+through the bamboo trellis, meaning to enlace her fingers firmly, and
+cling there to the last.
+
+It was a strong position which she had accidentally taken, and it now
+dawned upon her that it would need a tremendous effort to dislodge her
+from her hold.
+
+Here, then, she clung as the uneasy movement continued, and it was not
+for some time that she dared turn her head to look where, to her great
+relief, she found that Murad had only slightly changed his position, and
+was still sleeping heavily.
+
+How long would this last, she asked herself, with a shiver of fear; and
+then, in the reaction after the horror of a few minutes before, when she
+fancied her enemy was waking, she became weak--so weak that she sobbed
+hysterically, and almost hung from the bars of the window, for her legs
+refused to bear her up.
+
+But she recovered after awhile, and feeling stronger, satisfied herself
+that Murad was still sleeping heavily, and then stood gazing out at the
+darkness of the night.
+
+The dense foliage made it seem blacker; but here and there the rays of a
+star penetrated to where she was, and seemed like a promise of hope.
+The faint perfume of flower and leaf made the soft, moist air odorous
+and sweet, and there was a delicious coolness that seemed to give
+strength to her enervated frame.
+
+Every now and then came the ominous cry of some wandering tiger
+following the narrow jungle paths, and at times there were strange,
+mysterious sounds, evidently arising from the forest depths, and to
+which she could give no name, but which sent a shudder through her
+frame, as she thought that ere long she might be wandering there in the
+darkness, running the risk of an attack from one or other of the fierce
+beasts that haunted these shades.
+
+But as these thoughts crossed her mind, she glanced back at where the
+sleeping figure of Murad lay full in the light of the lamp, and she felt
+that she would sooner risk the danger to be incurred by wandering
+through the jungle than remain another hour beneath that roof.
+
+It must, from the time that seemed to have elapsed, have been near
+morning when, as she stood there with her weary head pressed against the
+bamboo barn, the cry of a tiger sounded very close at hand, followed a
+few minutes later by a low, rustling noise, as if the creature were
+forcing its way through the dense undergrowth towards the house.
+
+This ceased, and then went on again and again, till, forgetting the
+peril that threatened her in the room, Helen strained her eyes to try
+and make out the long, lithe, striped form of the advancing tiger, which
+appeared to be approaching with the greatest caution the window where
+she stood.
+
+It was so unmistakably making for where she stood that Helen felt a
+chill of horror run through her, thinking that sooner or later the
+fierce beast would make a tremendous spring, and perhaps force its paws
+through between the bars and seize her as its prey.
+
+So horrible was the impression that once more she felt fascinated, and
+gazed down with starting eyes, her enlaced fingers clutching more
+tightly, and her whole being as if under the influence of a nightmare.
+
+Then, all at once, the rustling noise ceased, and she stood listening
+intently for the next approach or for the final spring.
+
+But even if she had known that the next moment the approaching tiger
+would launch itself through the air and seize her with its claws, she
+could not have stirred, for it seemed to be her fate.
+
+The silence was awful: so perfectly still seemed everything that the
+breathing of Murad grew painfully loud, and the throbbing of her own
+heart more pronounced.
+
+"Is he asleep?" said a low voice just then from out of the darkness
+where she stood, and Helen's heart gave a great bound; for in the voice
+she recognised the tones of the Malay girl, who had that evening been
+dragged from her side.
+
+For a few moments the reaction was so great that Helen could hardly
+speak; and when at last she could master her emotion, her dread was
+still so great that the words would hardly come.
+
+"Speak low!" whispered the girl; and cautiously and beneath her breath,
+lest their common enemy should awake, each proceeded to make known her
+position to the other.
+
+By degrees Helen learned from the girl, who spoke in a bitter,
+half-distant way, that she had been shut up in a room by herself, and
+threatened with death, but that she had immediately set to work to
+escape, and had succeeded by climbing up, and tearing a hole through the
+palm thatch, forcing her way out, and sliding afterwards down the steep
+slope, and falling pretty heavily amongst the bushes below.
+
+She was not much hurt, however; and after lying still for a long time to
+make sure that she was not heard, she had slowly forced her way through
+the dense undergrowth, making a long circuit so as to approach the
+window of the room where Helen was a prisoner without exciting
+attention.
+
+"You must speak lower," she said, "or he will wake;" and then Helen told
+her of the drugged wine--or, rather, of her suspicions that the wine was
+drugged.
+
+"And he drank it!" cried the girl, excitedly.  "Ah, then, that is
+right," and her whole manner changed.  "He will not wake up till long
+after sunrise.  I know what that poison will do.  I drank of it when I
+was first brought here, and I slept for one whole day.  We need not be
+afraid of him then, but we must mind not to waken the other people
+near."
+
+She ceased speaking, and Helen heard a loud rustling and panting noise,
+and a few minutes later a dark face rose to a level with hers, and she
+clasped the Malay girl towards her and began to sob.
+
+The girl kissed her through the bars, there being just space enough for
+their faces to approach, and then, with an eager look at the sleeping
+figure, she whispered that it was time to act.
+
+"But what shall we do--what can we do?" whispered Helen.
+
+"You said you wanted to leave him, and that you would take me back with
+you to your own people.  Will you do so now?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes," whispered Helen, excitedly; "make haste and let us go!"
+
+"But are you sure that you wish to leave him?" said the girl, dubiously.
+
+"Oh, yes--yes--yes!" cried Helen, so eagerly that the girl uttered a
+warning "hush," and then apparently satisfied, bade her be still while
+she tried to make a way to her.
+
+For answer Helen stood listening, while the girl seemed to climb upwards
+and sidewise, standing with her feet resting upon the bars of the open
+window; and for some time there was a low tearing and rustling noise, as
+if an effort was being made to cut through the bamboo and cane-woven
+wall.
+
+This went on for some time and then ceased, to Helen's great relief, for
+Murad had several times moved uneasily, and it seemed to her that the
+noise had awakened him.
+
+There was a slight rustling then, and the Malay girl came back to her
+former position.
+
+"I cannot do it," she whispered.  "It would take strong men with
+parangs, and I am only a weak girl with a kris."
+
+"Can we not escape, then?" panted Helen, whose heart sank.
+
+"Yes; but not that way.  It must be through the roof, for the attap is
+only soft and the strings thin.  I think I can manage to cut through
+there."
+
+As her words left her lips they both clung there as if paralysed, for,
+uttering a hoarse gasp, Murad struggled to his feet and staggered
+towards them with an angry cry.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+A FAITHFUL ALLY.
+
+The alarm was not of long duration, for it soon became evident that
+Murad was still under the influence of the powerful narcotic.  He did
+not see either of the other occupants of the room, but staggered here
+and there for a few moments, and then sank heavily once more upon the
+mats, placing his head in an easy position, and falling into a heavy
+sleep, his breathing sounding deep and regular to the trembling girls.
+
+"We need not mind," said the Malay girl at last.  "He cannot hear me.  I
+will climb up."
+
+The bars of the window formed a ladder for her ascent, and she clambered
+slowly up till her feet were resting upon the topmost bar.  Then there
+was a rustling and cutting noise, and every now and then a dull pat, as
+of something falling into the bushes below.
+
+It was a terrible position for Helen, who, unable to assist, could only
+listen and keep her eyes fixed on Murad, whom she momentarily expected
+to see arise wrathfully and call for help to seize the brave girl
+working so hard without to obtain freedom for both.
+
+Then, as the Rajah still remained breathing heavily, another form of
+dread attacked her; she felt sure that some of the guards or people must
+hear this loud rustling noise, so that it was with an intense feeling of
+relief that Helen heard the sounds cease.  Then there was a louder
+rustling as of someone drawing herself up, and directly after the Malay
+girl climbed down into the room, Helen clasping her tightly in her arms.
+
+The girl freed herself hastily and went across to where Murad lay
+sleeping, bent down over him, gazing steadily in his face, and then
+turned with a bitter laugh.
+
+"I have said good-bye to him, so now let us go.  If I look at him again
+I shall never be able to leave.  Let us escape."
+
+"But how?" exclaimed Helen, helplessly.
+
+"How?" said the girl.  "Why, as I came in.  I have opened the way," and
+she pointed to the ragged hole in the palm thatch.
+
+"I could not climb up there," exclaimed Helen, with a look of
+helplessness and despair in her countenance; "it is impossible!"
+
+"You white people!" cried the girl--"you are poor, and weak, and
+helpless!  But come, you must go.  Murad will soon waken, and what will
+you do then?"
+
+The mention of that name and the prospect of the awaking seemed to nerve
+Helen to the effort she was called upon to make; and in answer to a
+fresh demand made upon her by her companion, she declared her readiness.
+
+"I will go first," said the girl, and with the nimbleness of a cat she
+seized the bars of the window, went up them like a ladder, and with an
+agility that made Helen, as she watched her in the dim light shed up
+there by the lamp, look upon her movements as almost miraculous.
+
+Drawing herself quickly up, she passed through the hole in the attap
+roof, crawling right out; and directly after, having turned, Helen saw
+her leaning through.
+
+"Now, come--quick!" whispered the girl.  "Step up the window-bars as I
+did, and then give me your hands.  You shall not fall; I will hold you."
+
+Helen made a couple of weak, ineffective trials to climb up and reach
+her friend, but sank back, and was ready to burst into feeble tears and
+give up in despair; but Murad uttered some angry words and threw out one
+arm, which fell heavily back upon the floor.
+
+The noise electrified Helen, who darted to the window-bars, and how she
+managed she hardly knew, but she climbed up, caught spasmodically at the
+Malay girl's hand, at the bamboo rafters, and partly by her own effort,
+partly by the girl's exertion, was dragged up through the palm-leaf
+roof, and sat with her companion holding on tightly to the steep slope.
+
+Here she rested, panting and trembling, so that the girl did not make
+any further effort for a few minutes, and even then it was Helen who
+proposed that they should move, placing her lips close to the other's
+ear, and asking wildly what they should do next.
+
+For answer the girl climbed over her, made Helen move slightly, and
+then, seating herself with the legs through the hole, she took off the
+sarong worn veil-fashion over her shoulders, and twisting it tightly,
+tied it to the one Helen wore, making of the two a strong silken rope,
+one end of which she secured to the trembling prisoner's left wrist.
+
+"Now," she whispered, "I will hold you by this.  Let yourself slide
+softly till you touch the bars with your feet, and then climb down.
+Afterwards hang from the sarongs, and I will lower you as far as I can."
+
+Helen drew a long, deep breath, trembling the while, for the height and
+position in which they were seemed to her to be awful!
+
+But she did not shrink now; she felt committed to the desperate
+enterprise; and holding on by the tough palm-leaves, she lowered herself
+down the steep roof, and then clung to the woodwork with all her
+strength, as her feet were suspended now over the darkness, and she
+sought foothold for them with desperate haste.
+
+But for the steady strain upon her wrist she would have fallen; but this
+encouraged her to renewed effort, and after a few trials, and just as
+she began to feel that her task was hopeless, her right foot touched and
+rested upon one of the bars, and taking a fresh hold, she stepped down,
+slipped, was held by the tight tension of the silken rope, saved
+herself, and the next minute stood panting, with hands and feet
+sustained by the stout bamboo trellis of the window.
+
+Here she paused for a few moments, when once more it was Murad who
+startled her into action, and she lowered herself down till she was
+hanging by the sill of the window, seeking for some support for her
+feet, her companion jerking the sarong sharply to urge her on.
+
+But Helen had exhausted herself by her efforts, and could do no more.
+She tried once feebly, but there was no result; and to make matters
+worse, the Malay girl was now straining the sarong, as if afraid that
+she would fall.
+
+There was a faint cry, a slip, the sarong was held tightly, and Helen
+fell with a jerk that seemed to drag her left arm from the socket.  She
+swung for a moment, and the silken rope was lowered so rapidly that she
+seemed to be falling.  Then she did fall with a crash amongst the
+bushes, what seemed to her to be an immense distance, though it was only
+some half-dozen feet, and she lay perfectly still, feeling that she was
+terribly hurt.
+
+She was half stunned by the fall and the excitement; but her companion
+climbed down lightly, and bent over her in the darkness.
+
+"Quick!" she whispered.  "Someone must have heard you fall?  Are you
+hurt?"
+
+"I don't know.  Not much," faltered Helen, as she struggled to her feet,
+the girl meanwhile hastily rolling the sarong round Helen's arm,
+catching then at her hand, and half dragging her through the tangled
+bushes, whose thorns checked them, tearing their garb, while every now
+and then they had to stoop and creep beneath the trees.
+
+In this way they had made some fifty yards towards safety, when a fierce
+snarling growl, which they both knew well enough to be that of a tiger,
+sounded away in front; and almost simultaneously there was the report of
+a gun, then of another, and lights could be seen in the direction from
+which they had come.
+
+"Which is it to be," said the girl, hoarsely, "Murad or the tiger?  Say
+which you will choose, for they will either of them kill us without
+mercy?"
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER NINE.
+
+ANOTHER ESCAPE.
+
+"The Inche Maida need have someone to drill and discipline her men,"
+whispered Chumbley to his companion, as, after walking up and down for a
+few minutes, they saw the two Malays, whose duty it evidently was to
+guard their prison, light their pipes and then stroll away, their course
+being for a time indistinctly made out by the faint glow of one of the
+bowls.
+
+Mutually regretting that they had not made an attempt to escape sooner,
+since they were finding the task so easy, Hilton led the way, going
+cautiously step by step upon their blind quest of a path which should
+lead them to the river.
+
+That such a path would exist they felt pretty sure, the river being the
+great highway of the land; and paths were so few, that they were pretty
+certain of its being the right one if they should hit upon a track.
+
+In spite of their efforts, though, first one and then the other leading,
+no path was found; and at last, in utter despair, after being driven
+back again and again by the density of the jungle, they were compelled
+to sit down amongst the bushes edging the forest to wait for day.
+
+It was a grievous disappointment after escaping from the house and
+evading the guards.  They had hoped to be miles away towards the river
+before daybreak, whereas now the chances were that they would hardly
+place to their credit a hundred paces even if they avoided the guards.
+
+Day seemed as if it would never come, and yet so persevering had been
+their efforts that the first streaks of dawn began to appear in less
+than an hour after they had seated themselves in what proved to be a
+very fair hiding-place; and almost as they made their first step to
+reconnoitre, there was a flash of orange and gold in the sky.
+
+Chumbley pressed his companion's hand, pointing as he did so to what was
+evidently the pathway they had sought for; and after a glance round they
+were about to step out into the open, and then run as quickly as they
+could into the shelter, pushing rapidly on to make the best of their way
+into the depths of the jungle.
+
+Hilton gave his companion a glance, and they were about to start off
+when a couple of spear-armed Malays took up their position on one side
+of the Inche Maida's house, a couple more starting up from beneath a
+tree where they had been sleeping, and so near that the officers must
+have nearly trodden upon them as they passed.
+
+Had the two young men not sunk down in their hiding-place they must have
+been seen, and it was evident now that the Inche Maida's followers
+watched a part of the night, after which they lay down to sleep, and
+rose again at daybreak to continue their guard.
+
+Regrets were unavailing, and it was as useless to wish themselves back
+in their comfortable prison, there to rest till night, when they could
+have easily got away with the knowledge they possessed.
+
+Hilton uttered a weary sigh as he lay there trying to devise some means
+of escape; and meanwhile the sun rose higher, lighting up the dark
+places beyond where they lay, and showing them more and more that the
+slightest movement meant being seen and offering themselves as marks to
+the Malays' spears.
+
+They exchanged glances and lay perfectly still, with one of the Malays
+coming to and fro past them as he kept guard, and so near, that had he
+looked in their direction at the right moment, he must have seen them.
+
+A couple of hours had passed away when the outcry that the fugitives had
+been expecting arose, the Inche Maida herself giving the alarm and
+furiously bidding her people to join pursuit.
+
+Quite twenty well-armed men darted off through the opening into the
+jungle, the Princess following them at the end of a few minutes with
+half a dozen more of her followers, leaving the palm and bamboo edifice
+apparently deserted, and the way free.
+
+"Now is our time, Chum!" whispered Hilton, and cautiously rising, they
+began to look for another path--one that would lead them to the water by
+a different route.
+
+They ran round the house twice, and then gazed at each other in despair.
+
+There was but one path, which led right to the opening in which the
+house was built.  All around was impassable jungle; and the only way to
+escape was to follow the Inche Maida and her men.
+
+The place was a regular trap, and could have been defended by a few
+resolute fellows against hundreds if there was an attack.
+
+"What's to be done, Chum?" said Hilton.
+
+"Go in and hide somewhere, and wait till night."
+
+"With those women to tell the Princess where we have hidden ourselves!"
+said Hilton, angrily, pointing to a group of half a dozen women standing
+in the doorway and watching their movements.
+
+Chumbley made a few steps as if to go to them, when they scuttled off
+like so many rabbits in an English warren; and there were but two
+courses open to them--either to follow their would-be pursuers, or to
+calmly go back and wait for the Inche Maida's return.
+
+"It will be taking trouble for nothing to go after them," said Chumbley,
+wearily.  "Let's go back to our room and order the women to bring us
+some breakfast."
+
+"What?  And give up without making an effort?" cried Hilton.  "I'd
+sooner die!"
+
+"I wouldn't.  But all right," said Chumbley.  "I'm with you; but we may
+as well be armed."
+
+He ran into the house, and as he expected, had no difficulty in finding
+a couple of krisses and spears, one of each of which he handed to his
+friend; and then they struck boldly into the jungle, following the path
+taken by their enemies hour after hour; and, though momentarily
+expecting to hear them returning, continuing their course in the most
+uninterrupted way.
+
+It was always the same; a dense wall of verdure to right and left; tall
+trees shutting out the sunshine, and the greatest care necessary to keep
+from falling into one or other of the great elephant holes.
+
+At last they came upon a place where the pathway forked; and after a
+moment's hesitation they chose the path to the right, that to the left
+being the one most likely to bring them nearer to their friends, and,
+therefore, probably the one their pursuers had taken.
+
+In fact, hardly had they gone a hundred yards down the way they had
+chosen, before they heard voices across the jungle, evidently those of
+their returning pursuers.
+
+This lent fresh wings to their feet, and they hurried on, finding to
+their dismay that the enemy had turned into this path, and were now
+following them fast.
+
+It was a race for liberty, perhaps for life; and whither the path led
+they could not tell.  Whenever they paused for a moment to listen, they
+could hear the voices of their pursuers; and at last, panting, streaming
+with perspiration, their faces bleeding from contact with thorns, they
+glanced at each other, when, by mutual consent, they made another
+effort.  The path took a turn, and Hilton uttered a cry of joy, for at
+the end of a long green tunnel there was the brilliant sunshine upon the
+river.
+
+This put new life into them; and racing onward, they reached the water's
+edge just as a couple of Malay fishermen were securing their sampan to a
+post.
+
+The sight of the weapons, and the threatening words used by the
+desperate fugitives, silenced any opposition the fishermen might have
+made; and as the two officers sprang aboard, the men loosened the rope,
+took their paddles, and the boat was round the bend of the river and out
+of sight before the Inche Maida's followers reached the water's edge.
+
+Before night the Residency island was in sight.
+
+Hilton had been very silent for some time, but at last he spoke:
+
+"Chum, old fellow," he said, "I've been thinking about what we are to
+say."
+
+"Hilton, old fellow, I've been thinking the very same thing."
+
+"It would be too ridiculous to say that we had been carried off by a
+woman."
+
+"We should be roasted to death!" said Chumbley.
+
+"But she ought to be punished."
+
+"Can't go and carry sword and fire into the woman's home because she
+took a fancy to you."
+
+"What are we to say, then?  I dare not own to this affair!"
+
+"I swear I won't!" said Chumbley.
+
+"Then what is to be done?"
+
+"The only thing seems to me to be that we had better say we were carried
+off by the Malays."
+
+"Which is a fact," said Hilton.
+
+"And we were taken to a place that we had never seen before."
+
+"Another fact," said Hilton.
+
+"And kept prisoners."
+
+"Which is another fact."
+
+"I think that's best," said Chumbley.  "It would be horrible to go and
+take revenge upon this woman."
+
+"But she deserves to be well punished."
+
+"Well, we are punishing her," said Chumbley, "by coming away, and
+leaving her in a horrible stew, for she is safe to imagine that we shall
+go back with a company, and destroy her place.  Besides, she will never
+dare to show her face at the settlement again."
+
+"Well, let the matter rest for the present," said Hilton.  "Only let us
+thank our stars that we have escaped."
+
+"To be sure!" said Chumbley, with a sigh of relief.  "Poor woman, I
+should not like her to be hurt, she behaved so well; and--Hurrah!
+there's Harley!  Row, you ruffians--row!  There--to that landing-stage!"
+
+Then, as the men, who were in a great state of dread as to whether they
+should be allowed to depart, tremblingly placed the boat alongside the
+bamboo landing-stage, Hilton sprang out, Chumbley following, after
+placing some silver coin in the men's hands, and sending them rejoicing
+away.
+
+"What's that?" cried Chumbley, as he caught part of a sentence and the
+Resident's hand at the same moment.  "Miss Perowne missing?"
+
+"Yes; carried off, I suppose now," said the Resident, between his teeth.
+"The same brain must have contrived your absence, though for what I
+don't know, unless it was for ransom."
+
+Hilton and Chumbley exchanged glances.  "Only one brain here could have
+plotted this," cried the Resident, as he mastered the fact of his
+friends having been made prisoners in some out-of-the-way place; "and
+the brain was that of the doubly-dyed, treacherous scoundrel who has all
+along professed to be our friend.  I always suspected it: Helen Perowne
+is a prisoner in Rajah Murad's hands."
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TEN.
+
+HAMET.
+
+The disposition on the part of Helen Perowne and her companion seemed to
+be to trust the beasts of the jungle sooner than the Rajah; and after a
+few moments' pause to listen, they went cautiously on, with the cries of
+the great cat-like creature that they knew to be in their neighbourhood
+seeming to grow more distant, as if it had been driven off by the noise
+and firing at the house.
+
+It was terrible work that flight; and had she been alone Helen would
+have given up in sheer despair, for every atom of growth in the jungle
+seemed to be enlisted in the Rajah's service, and strove to check the
+fugitives as they fled.  Great thorns hooked and clung to their clothes;
+ratan canes wound across and across their way, tripping them up, so that
+again and again they fell heavily; while the dense undergrowth rose up
+constantly like a wall of verdure, as impenetrable as some monstrous
+hedge.
+
+Streaming with perspiration, panting with exhaustion, and ready to give
+up in despair, Helen struggled on, nerved to making fresh attempts by
+the courage of her companion; but at last the jungle was so dense that
+any further effort seemed like so much madness, and they paused to rest,
+Helen sinking down amidst the thorns and leaves, too much exhausted to
+move.
+
+The Malay girl did not speak, but stood leaning against a tree-trunk,
+listening for tokens of pursuit, but there was not a sound; and by
+degrees it dawned upon them that the Rajah's people had taken alarm at
+the noise, and then, seeing nothing, hearing nothing more, they had
+quietly returned to their rest; for the probabilities were that they
+would not venture to disturb the Rajah, who would sleep on in his stupor
+perhaps till mid-day.
+
+After a time the girl laid her hand upon Helen's shoulder.
+
+"We must try again," she said; and with a weary sigh the fugitive rose
+and staggered on, following her companion as she tore aside the canes,
+pushed back thorny growth, and utterly regardless of self, kept on
+making a way for Helen to follow.
+
+There was a strong display of kindness in her manner, but it was not
+unmingled with contempt for the helplessness of the English girl, who
+had to trust entirely to her for every step of their progress.
+
+Just at the very worst time, when they had again become entangled in the
+wild jungly maze, the Malay girl stopped once more to take breath; and
+then making an angry effort to free herself from a bramble-like growth
+that was tearing her sarong into shreds, she uttered a cry of joy, for
+she found that she had broken through quite a thorny hedge of growth,
+and was now standing in a narrow pathway, evidently the track made by
+elephant, buffalo, or other large creatures of the jungle.
+
+Her cheery words aroused Helen to fresh exertion; and following the
+track, painful as it was, and full of crossing strands and canes, they
+got on for the next two or three hours pretty well, when they seemed to
+have descended into marshy ground through which the track led.
+
+Here they found a fresh difficulty, for if the Malay girl had had any
+doubt before that they were in an elephant path, it was made evident now
+by the series of great footprints, every one of which was a pitfall of
+mud and water, the custom of these huge beasts being to step invariably
+in the tracks left by those that have passed before, believing them to
+be indications of safety; and the result is that in a short time the
+path becomes in a wet soil one long series of muddy holes.
+
+It was along such a way as this that Helen and her companion struggled
+on till the sun had risen and the rich shafts of orange and gold came
+pouring through the dense foliage above their heads.
+
+With the sunrise came light and hope.  The sombre forest seemed to be
+less depressing, and when they had struggled on for another hour, until
+the heat began to be steamy, a brighter light shone through the trees
+ahead, and they awakened to the fact that they were near the little
+river, whose banks they at last reached, to lie down beneath the
+spreading branches of a huge tree.  The boughs formed a screen from
+everyone who might be passing in a boat; and here the Malay girl
+produced some food which she had had the foresight to bring; and this
+they ate, watching the rapid, sparkling stream, whose path through the
+jungle was all sunshine and light, while that of the fugitives had been
+one of gloom.
+
+As they sat there resting, they now and then directed their attention to
+the stream, gazing up and down as far as their eyes would reach in
+search of danger; but sparkling water, blossom-burdened trees, and the
+occasional glint of some brightly-plumaged bird darting from side to
+side, was all that met their sight.
+
+They both meant to be watchful, and as soon as they were rested to once
+more continue their flight, but the exhaustion produced by their
+unwonted exertions proved to be too much for them, and as the heat
+increased they both fell into a deep sleep.
+
+Helen and her companion had been slumbering heavily for several hours,
+ignorant of the flight of time, and in these brief restful moments
+thoughts of peaceful days had come back to both; while in the sunshine
+beyond the tree that formed their shelter birds flitted here and there,
+the brilliant armour-clad beetles winged their reckless flight, making a
+whirring hum as they dashed over the stream.  The surface of the river
+was flecked with the rising of the bright scaled fish, and what with the
+varied greens and the beauty of the blossoms that made the sides of the
+little river quite a garden, all looked peaceful, and as if trouble
+could not exist upon earth.  But danger was near, for two of the Rajah's
+boats came slowly up-stream with their occupants parting the leaves with
+bamboo poles, and peering beneath on either side in search of the
+fugitives; while, in utter ignorance of their proximity, the wearied
+girls slept on.
+
+A tall, fierce-looking Malay, in a brilliantly-tinted sarong, stood in
+the prow of the boat nearest to the fugitives, and he was so
+indefatigable in his efforts to examine every foot of the way, that it
+seemed impossible for the girls to escape his search.
+
+Nearer came his boat, and still those the crew sought lay insensible to
+danger, and with Helen's thoughts far back in the past of her pleasant
+days with her friends at the little settlement.  The tall Malay used the
+light pole he held with the utmost skill, and parted bough after bough,
+raising this one, depressing that, until it was down in the swift, pure
+water.
+
+Every now and then he gave some short, sharp order to the men who
+paddled the boat, so that they sent it in closer or forced it back,
+giving him abundant opportunity for seeing anyone upon the bank; and in
+this way they approached the great tree beneath whose umbrageous foliage
+the two girls slept.
+
+The boat was sent close in, and the swarthy face of the Malay peered
+between the branches, which he moved with the pole, so that over and
+over again they helped to shelter those who were sought, and at last the
+sharp order was given to back out from among the branches; but the
+moment after the leader rescinded his order and seemed to be desirous of
+searching more, for he raised a broad-leaved bough, held on by it, and
+looked in once more beneath the shade, shot with brilliant rays, and
+with flies dancing up and down in one broad band of sunshine.
+
+That broad band of sunshine shone right athwart the Malay girl's face,
+and as the searcher saw it a grim smile of satisfaction played for a
+moment about his lip, and then left him stern-looking and calm.
+
+"Go on," he exclaimed, in his own tongue, as he loosed the branch whose
+leaves hid the sleeping girl from sight, and the boat went forward, the
+Malay peering back for a moment with his great opalescent eyeballs
+rolling as he looked up and down the great tree, as if fixing it in his
+mind with the surroundings on either side of the stream.  After this he
+went on in the same matter-of-fact way, pressing the branches aside and
+examining his bank of the river for quite an hour longer, when the
+leader of the other boat, which was well in advance, hailed him, and
+proposed that they should give up the search as of no avail.
+
+The other searcher made a little demur, when the other became more
+pressing.
+
+"They could not have wandered up so far as this," he said; and the tall
+Malay reluctantly acquiescing, the two boats were turned, a man placed a
+paddle over the stern for steering purposes, the other paddles were laid
+in by the weary rowers, who, leaving the boats to descend the swift
+stream, settled themselves in easy attitudes, pulled out their betel
+boxes and leaves, and each man, after smearing a sirih leaf with a
+little paste of lime, rolled up in it a fragment of the popular
+betel-nut, and sat back with half-closed eyes, chewing, as if that were
+the be-all and end-all of existence.
+
+The boats sped rapidly down-stream, past the glorious panorama of tropic
+vegetation spread on either side: but it was not noticed once save by
+the tall Malay, who sat back in the prow with his bamboo pole balanced
+in his hands, lazily peering out of his half-closed eyes.
+
+As they approached the huge tree, beneath whose shade the two weary
+girls lay resting, the Malay's dark eyes opened slightly, as if he were
+again carefully observant of the place.  Then they half-closed once
+more, then quite closed, and he seemed to go fast asleep.
+
+Then the two boats rapidly glided down with the current and disappeared.
+
+The sun, which had before been shining straight down upon the river, had
+gone westward, and had begun to cast shadows across the foaming stream,
+when once more a boat appeared, but only propelled by one man, who,
+armed with a long pole, stood in the stern, as he kept close in under
+the trees, and thrusting the pole down in the bubbling water, forced the
+little vessel along at a rapid rate.
+
+He did not look either to right or left, but aimed straight for the
+great tree, and even then passed it, but only to alter the course of the
+boat a little, and let it glide back right beneath the branches and
+close in shore, where he silently secured it, and then stepped out to
+where the Malay girl still lay sleeping.
+
+He stood looking at her for a few moments before kneeling softly down at
+her side, when, with a light, firm touch, he placed one hand upon her
+right wrist and the other upon her lips.
+
+The girl started into wakefulness, and would have shrieked, but the hand
+across her lips stayed her.  She would have seized the kris with which
+she was armed, but her wrist was pinioned.
+
+She gazed with fierce and angry eyes straight into her captor's face,
+and thus for some moments they remained till he raised his hand.
+
+"Well," she said, "you have taken me."
+
+"Yes; at last," he replied, in the same low voice as that in which the
+captured girl had spoken.
+
+Involuntarily the Malay girl's eyes turned towards her companion, but
+she closed them directly, believing that Helen had not been seen.
+
+"Yes, she is there," he said, in a low whisper.  "I saw her before I saw
+you."
+
+"And now you are going to drag us back to Murad?" said the girl,
+adopting his tone.  "How proud Hamet must feel now that he has become a
+slave-catcher!"
+
+"I did not say I was going to take you back to Murad," he said,
+laughing.  "Do you wish me to take you back to have the kris?"
+
+The girl shuddered, for she knew that this would be her fate; but with
+true Eastern spirit she recovered herself.
+
+"What matter?" she said, indifferently.  "I do not mind."
+
+"You do mind," he said; "and you want to live."
+
+"Yes: then let me go," she replied.
+
+"No; I was sent to take you, and I have found you."
+
+"But you do not mean to take me back to Murad?" she cried, angrily.
+
+He laughed again.
+
+"It is for you to decide," he continued, in a low voice.  "I, Hamet,
+have loved you long now--ever since Murad grew tired of you and cast you
+off.  You know it."
+
+"Yes," she said, sullenly, "I know it.  You have told me before; and if
+I had told the Sultan he would have had you slain."
+
+"Both of us," said the tall Malay, coolly.  "But now we are away from
+him and free.  Will you listen to me?"
+
+"I must," she said, scornfully.  "I cannot help it."
+
+"Yes; you could help it," he said; "but you will not.  I am obliged to
+take this opportunity, and I do, for I could not bear to see you hurt."
+
+"And yet you came to seek me?"
+
+"Yes, and to save you.  Two boats have been searching for you this
+afternoon, but only my eyes saw you.  Had it been any others, you would
+have been in Murad's power by now."
+
+"Did you come and see us sleeping?" she said, eagerly.
+
+"Yes.  How else could I have known that you were here waiting to be
+caught?"
+
+"And now that you have caught me," she said, indifferently, "what does
+Hamet mean to do?"
+
+"Is it Hamet, Murad's officer--or Hamet your friend?"
+
+"How can I tell?" she said, indifferently.  "You are a catcher of
+slaves, and you have taken two.  Are you happy?"
+
+"No," he said, earnestly.  "Make me happy."
+
+"How?  Tell me what are your plans?"
+
+"To save you if I can; but either you become my wife, or you go back to
+Murad.  My orders are to take you."
+
+The girl remained perfectly silent for a few minutes, during which the
+tall Malay watched her intently.
+
+"If I say I will be your wife, and go with you now back to your place,
+will you let her go free--where she will?" said the girl.
+
+"Yes," he said, eagerly.  "I will not see her; she may go where she
+will."
+
+The girl hesitated for a few moments, and then tried to rise, but the
+Malay held her tightly by the wrist.
+
+"I shall not try to run," she said, scornfully.  "Loose my arm."
+
+The Malay hesitated, gazing full in her eyes.  He then tossed the girl's
+arm lightly from him.
+
+"I will trust you," he said; and then he looked on curiously, as the
+Malay girl stooped softly over Helen, and just brushed her hair with her
+lips so gently that the sleeping girl did not stir.  Then, turning to
+the Malay:
+
+"Are you alone?" she asked.
+
+"Yes: quite.  I saw you before; but I did not want to capture you for
+Murad.  Now, is it to be as I say?  Will you come?"
+
+The girl glanced once more at Helen; then placing her hand in that of
+the Malay, she let him lead her a few paces along the bank, and assist
+her into a seat, where, taking his place in the prow, he silently
+loosened the boat, guided it softly past the boughs, so that there was
+not even the rustle of a leaf; then, letting the pole dip into the
+water, he gave one powerful thrust, and the sampan darted out into
+mid-stream, and then rapidly glided out of sight, just as the shadows
+were deepening across the river and an orange glow began to tinge the
+surface of the leaves.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+THROUGH THE WILDS.
+
+Helen woke with a start just as the boat disappeared round the curve at
+the end of the reach, and her first movement was towards where her
+companion had lain down.
+
+At first she could not believe that she was alone, but sat waiting for
+the girl's return, believing that she had awakened first, and had gone
+for a short distance to try for a better path; but as the minutes sped,
+and the darkness would, as she well knew, soon return, a strange
+sensation of horror began to trouble her, and she started to her feet,
+and began to search around in various directions, even going so far as
+to call in a low voice.
+
+She dare not go far for fear that her companion should return and find
+her absent, so she kept making little excursions here and there where
+the denseness of the jungle was not so great, and then returned to where
+she had slept.
+
+Parting the boughs on either side, she then crept as near to the river
+as she could, so as to look up and down stream, for what purpose she
+could not tell, though it seemed as if an instinct led her to gaze at
+the highway by which her companion had departed.
+
+It was now rapidly growing dark, and the feeling of depression and alarm
+rapidly increased.  So thoroughly frightened did she become at last that
+she would gladly have called for help, but her common-sense warned her
+that such a proceeding would only bring down her enemies upon her if
+they were in hearing; and at last, with her horror of her loneliness
+increasing fast, and a feeling of dread that some savage beast of prey
+had seized upon the Malay girl gradually overmastering her, she sank
+upon the earth, weeping bitterly, helpless as a child, and asking
+herself if she dared face all those she knew again, and whether she had
+not better die.
+
+How that night passed Helen never knew.  Sometimes she sank into a weary
+kind of stupor, full of troublous dreams, from which she started awake
+with a sense of horror, and a full belief that some terrible creature
+was about to spring upon her.  At times too, as if to carry out this
+illusion, she listened with beating heart to the distant howl of some
+wandering beast, or to one or other of the mysterious noises heard
+during the night in the primeval wilds.
+
+The darkness seemed as if it would never end, and the rushing river, as
+it sped on like a stream of ink full of stars' reflections, hissed and
+writhed, and at times lapped the bank upon which she sat as if it were a
+huge serpent seeking to make her its prey.
+
+This idea suggested the loathsome monsters that she knew would haunt the
+hot, steamy jungle close to the river side; and with starting eyes, when
+some low rustle was heard amongst the leaves, she tried to pierce the
+darkness, believing over and over again that she saw some lithe,
+undulating reptile gradually approaching her; and at such times it
+required all her strength of mind to determine that it was but a mere
+fancy, and as unreal as the images of fierce creatures that she more
+than once believed that she saw coming out of the jungle.
+
+Then her busy brain reminded her of other and more real perils of her
+position--the more dangerous from their insidious nature and approach.
+Depressed in spirit as she was, she could not help recalling the
+accounts she had heard of the deadly fevers, and the certainty of their
+attacking anyone who passed the night upon the bare earth.
+
+Still, it would only mean death at the worst, she thought, in a weary,
+despondent way; and her misery was so great now that she felt ready to
+give up her very life sooner than fall again into Murad's hands.
+
+Then her thoughts flew to Harley, with whom she seemed to associate any
+hope that she might have of the future; and for a time she would
+brighten up, and contrast her present position with that of some few
+hours back.  She was a prisoner then, and in terrible peril; now she was
+free, and the chances were, she hopefully told herself, that she might
+fall in with some party sent in search of her, for she would not believe
+Murad's version of her disappearance to be true.
+
+It seemed to her as if the morning would never come, and the first
+herald of its approach was a dank, chilling breath that came to her
+laden with the mist of the river; and as she sat and shivered she felt
+that her clothes were saturated with the heavy dew, and longed now for
+the coming of the sun with its warm, inspiring beams and hopeful light.
+
+Her teeth chattered, and her limbs ached as the day broke.  She had been
+awake for quite a couple of hours; and the weariness and oppression that
+troubled her was now supplemented by a throbbing headache, which was at
+times almost more than she could bear.
+
+As the sun sent his beams glancing through the jungle, Helen rose
+painfully to her feet, gladly seizing the bough of a tree to cling to
+and support herself till the giddy sensation that oppressed her wore
+off.
+
+And now, in place of the chill from which she had suffered, she began to
+burn; hands, cheeks, temples seemed as if they were on fire; there was a
+misty unreality in the waving branches of the tree as it overhung the
+river; and as she stood there, trying to master the giddiness that
+oppressed her, she felt as if this were only the continuance of one of
+the disturbed dreams that had haunted her during the darkness.
+
+Then the fit passed away almost as suddenly as it had come; and trying
+to shake off the wearisome lassitude that oppressed her, she began to
+move forward along the slightly-beaten track that ran onward a few yards
+from the edge of the river, one evidently made by the wild creatures
+that from time to time came down to drink, or made the banks of the
+river their home.
+
+It was an arduous journey, for she had constantly to stoop down to
+enable her to pass beneath the interlacing boughs and parasites that
+crossed the path in all directions; but still she progressed, sometimes
+strong, and hopeful, more often wearied by lassitude, and at times
+compelled to cling to the branches as she struggled on, her head
+reeling, her eyes blinded by pain, and the feeling of unreality coming
+on more strongly with each attack; till at last she went on, forcing her
+way through the jungle in a state of wild delirium, muttering
+incoherently as she staggered on.
+
+A blind kind of instinct seemed to keep her to the savage track near the
+bank of the river, and the same strange instinct led her from time to
+time to lie down in some convenient place to lap the cool, fresh water
+from her hand, and bathe her burning cheeks and brow.
+
+As the day wore on and the heat increased, Helen's journey became to her
+a blind kind of dream.  She had a sort of instinct as guide that she
+must get farther away--struggle on at any cost, in spite of heat,
+weariness, and the delirium that robbed her of her reason; and
+staggering forward with the hands bleeding that beat back the thorns and
+parasites enlacing her path, sunset still found her at the task.
+
+How long this lasted Helen could not tell.  She had a sort of memory of
+always hearing the rushing liver, and of sometimes lying down to bathe
+her face and drink.  She knew, too, that she was in pain, and that the
+thorns cut her feet and tore her clothes; but pain and suffering were as
+nothing so long as she could struggle on.
+
+Then a feeling of anger came over her at the Malay girl's desertion, for
+this was a new light in which she viewed her absence; and at last she
+toiled on till the trees seemed to come to an end, and it was only her
+weary torn feet now that were hindered by low, thorny, interlacing
+bushes.  These, too, at last almost came to an end; and she seemed to be
+climbing, slipping, and falling over rocks that sloped rapidly down to
+the river.  Sometimes she had to clamber right away, because the rocks
+towered up above her head and became impassable.
+
+Then once more she would be slipping and falling lower and lower towards
+where the river foamed, and flashed, and gurgled, plashing over stones,
+rushing over masses of rock, but ever singing a pleasant kind of music
+to her ear, for it seemed to be her friend and guide.
+
+It never seemed to occur to her confused brain that in place of going
+down the river towards civilisation, she was painfully climbing up
+towards the mountains, where the river had its rise in the wildest
+parts, in a district only inhabited by the Sakais--the aborigines of the
+country--or as they were generally called, the hill-men.
+
+This was nothing to her, for her blind instinct led her to struggle on
+till, as in a dream, she saw the help that she had believed would come.
+
+Her brain was more beclouded than ever, but she had some instinct of
+what she ought to do, and that was to make signals.
+
+Then she blindly struggled on towards that help, grew faint, and her
+power left her.  She fell, and lay moaning on the rocky earth; struggled
+up once more to continue her efforts to reach friends, but in vain; her
+power seemed to leave her now for good, and she sank down unable to rise
+again, her next recollection being that she was lying back upon a rough
+couch, with a familiar face bending over her, and then all was mist.
+
+Then she was back at the old school, and in trouble with her
+instructresses for insisting upon going out upon a hot day with
+insufficient protection to her head.  She was feverish and slightly
+delirious, and the doctor had been sent for.  How familiar his voice
+sounded and how cool and pleasant his hands were to her heated brow; and
+she lay back there wondering why Grey Stuart did not come; why it was so
+long before a letter came from her father in the Malay peninsula; and
+then her head began to throb, for she had had, she felt, a terrible
+dream about having joined him there and been seized and carried off, as
+she had read in books of hapless maidens being abducted from their
+homes.  It seemed so real that terrible dream, that she could picture
+the face of the man who had dragged her away.
+
+Then mist once more, and a sort of awakening, as if sunlight had come
+through the mist, and she was in the garden with the Reverend Arthur
+Rosebury, who looked strange in his long coat, as he stooped to pick her
+flowers, and handed one to her that had a shape like a cup; and he said
+to her "Drink--drink!" and in her dream she seemed to drink, expecting
+to find that out of that flower-cup she would drink honey, while this
+was intensely bitter; and it was not a flower-cup, but metal, and it was
+not the Reverend Arthur Rosebury who offered the cup to her, but someone
+else; and while she was trying to listen who it was, for she could not
+see, all became silent once again, and blank, and she knew no more.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+DOCTOR BOLTER'S SPIRIT.
+
+Gold!  What ideas that one word opens out--what magic it contains!  But
+credit must be given to Doctor Bolter for the fact that it was no sordid
+love of the yellow metal that prompted him to search for gold.
+
+He wanted it for no luxury; he had no wealthy man's desires to quell;
+all he wished was to make that grand discovery that would prove the
+Malay Peninsula to have been the Ophir to which King Solomon's ships
+came in search of treasure; and of this he wanted ample proof, such as
+he could lay before a committee of learned men.  How was it to be
+obtained?
+
+Doctor Bolter asked himself this question a dozen times over, but no
+answer came.  He asked the question as he stood there up to his knees in
+water, examining his pannikins full of sand and gravel, which he took
+from the bottom of the little river, where it now displayed all the
+characteristics of a mountain stream.
+
+He tried several pannikins full, scooping up the sand and gravel from
+likely places, and after picking out the larger stones, washing
+carefully till nothing remained after the water had been drained off but
+pure sand.
+
+This he would examine in the full light of the sun, seeking in vain for
+little water-worn nuggets or specks and scales of gold; but for some
+time his efforts were unsuccessful; and they went on higher and higher,
+the shallowness, and the difficulties of the journey increasing at every
+stride, till, trying at a spot where the rapid stream swirled round the
+end of a great mass of stone, the doctor washed a pannikin of sand, and
+then uttered a grunt of satisfaction, for there at the bottom,
+glittering in the sunshine, were dozens of tiny specks of gold mingled
+with the grit.
+
+"Plenty like that, master, the farther up the stream we go," said the
+chief boatman.  "It comes out of the mountains where the wicked spirits
+live."
+
+"Indeed," said the doctor, sarcastically; "then we must go up and see
+the wicked spirits.  Do you think they will be at home?"
+
+"It is very dreadful, master, and we shall all be killed!  They send
+down little specks of gold like that in the water; but if we went up to
+try and get the great pieces stuck in the mountain side, they would
+smite us, and our people would see us no more."
+
+"Well, we will risk that," said the doctor.  "Go on."
+
+The Malays sighed, and looked piteously at the doctor, whom they
+considered as dangerous as a spirit if not obeyed; for they knew he had
+strange medicines, and a lightning apparatus that sent sparks through
+them, and made their hands hold tightly by a couple of handles.  Yes, he
+was a wonderful and dangerous man that doctor, whom nothing seemed to
+hurt, and they felt compelled to obey him.
+
+They plied the paddles, then, sending the sampan through the sparkling
+water, till a few minutes after, when there was a loud grating noise,
+for they were aground.
+
+The Malays sprang out, and wading and lifting the boat, they dragged it
+on into deeper water, jumped in and paddled on again, but only to get
+once more aground; and this occurred for a few times, after which the
+paddles had to be set aside, and the men waded and dragged the boat to a
+standstill.
+
+The doctor had found gold in small quantities, and that proved gold to
+be there, but nothing more, and he rubbed his ear with a vexatious
+movement.
+
+He knew that there was gold in the little streams that came down from
+the mountains, and probably there was a great deal more there in the
+mass.  But that did not prove this to have been the place visited by
+Solomon's ships, and he was as far off the goal as ever.
+
+"One thing is very evident," muttered the doctor, ill-humouredly, as he
+made a vicious blow at and missed a teasing fly, "Solomon's ships never
+came up this river, and we can get no farther without walking.  Here,
+drag the boat under the shelter of that rock, and let's have a feed and
+a rest.  The sun is unbearable!"
+
+The men eagerly drew the boat over the stones, amidst which the pellucid
+water trickled and sparkled, placed it well in the shadow of a towering
+mass of rock, and then, in the comparative coolness, a good meal was
+made, after which first one and then the other dropped off to sleep.
+
+The sun was setting when the doctor awoke from a dream of being
+somewhere undergoing a punishment for his sins by being buzzed at by
+flies that he could not knock off his face and ears.
+
+He felt annoyed on seeing how the day was spent; but a little
+consideration told him that the men were almost knocked up by their
+exertions, and that they would be the better for the rest.
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "how are we to manage now?  Will the stream
+grow deeper higher up?"
+
+"No, master," replied the Malay; "the boat can go no farther.  We must
+walk."
+
+"Humph! and carry the provisions?" said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, if the master wishes to go up to the mountains."
+
+"Why, you are afraid, Ismael!" said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, master, we are both afraid; but if he says we must go, his
+servants will follow him right up where the spirits dwell.  Look--see,"
+he whispered.  "There is one waving its hands to us to tempt us.
+Don't--no, don't look, master, or you may die."
+
+The second Malay threw himself flat in the bottom of the boat, and
+covered his face with his hands.
+
+"Well, I've seen worse things than that," said the doctor, grimly.
+"Why, it's a woman; and she's coming this way."
+
+"The spirits come in all shapes from the mountains to tempt people,"
+said the trembling Malay.  "Now, they are tigers, now they are
+crocodiles, and sometimes women and men."
+
+"Ah, the women are the worst kind of spirits," said the
+doctor--"especially," he added to himself, "if they are middle-aged and
+jealous of their husbands.  Here, get up, sir; don't lie there; you're
+crushing my specimens.  That's only a Malay woman."
+
+The figure was struggling slowly along, the rugged, rock-strewn bank of
+the stream making her passage very arduous, for the little river was
+running now in the bottom of a ravine like a huge rift in the mountain
+side.  The rocks towered up at a swift angle, and a traveller would have
+found the best road to be decidedly in the bed of the stream.
+
+The woman ashore, however, evidently preferred the dry land, and kept on
+picking her way toilsomely from rock to rock, now descending into some
+rift, and anon climbing forth once more into sight, and more than once
+she seemed to fall.
+
+She was quite a couple of hundred yards away still, and the doctor
+watched her approach with growing interest, feeling no little compassion
+for her, as he saw that she was evidently footsore, and struggled
+towards them in a weary, halting manner, that grew pitiable as she
+advanced.
+
+At last the piled-up rocks grew evidently so difficult that the woman
+toiled slowly down to the bed of the stream, where the doctor saw her
+stoop and scoop up the sweet, cool water with her hand, evidently to
+drink with avidity.  After this she made an effort to continue her
+course, but she seemed to totter and sink down upon a stone at the side
+of the stream, waving her brown hand once more as if for help.
+
+"Poor thing!" said the doctor, stepping out of the boat into the shallow
+water, but only to be seized by the two Malays.
+
+"No, no, master," they cried together; "you must not go.  It is a
+spirit, and it will kill you!"
+
+"Let go, you silly, superstitious fellows!" cried the doctor, wrenching
+himself free.  "Women are very dangerous creatures, but I think I shall
+get back safe."
+
+Then, to the horror of his two men, he waded up the stream to where the
+native woman sat back, half reclining against the rock, with her feet
+washed by the running water.
+
+As it is well known, when once the sun is below the horizon, the
+twilight is extremely short in the tropics; and the fast-coming darkness
+was deepened by the depth of the rocky ravine, so that as the doctor
+waded carefully on to avoid a nasty fall, the figure of the woman in her
+gay plaid sarong was beginning to look filmy and indistinct enough to
+make anyone of superstitious tendencies doubtful of the reality of that
+upon which he gazed.
+
+But the doctor was made of too stern stuff to be troubled in this way,
+even after the promptings of his companions; and wading on, with the
+water feeling deliciously cool as it plashed musically about his feet,
+he noted that the brown face looked fixed and strange, the lips parted,
+revealing the black, filed teeth, and such an air of exhaustion
+displayed in the eyes, that he hurried his steps.
+
+"What is the matter?" he said, in the Malay tongue; but the woman did
+not reply, only raised one hand feebly and let it drop.
+
+Black, brown, or white, it was the same to Dr Bolter.  Here was a
+patient asking help in her mute way; and taking her hand, he quickly
+felt her pulse.
+
+"No fever.  Exhaustion," he muttered, softly, laying her farther back,
+so that after dipping some of the cold water in the cup of his
+spirit-flask, and adding a few drops of some essence, he could trickle
+it gently between the sufferer's lips.
+
+She made an effort to swallow, and did so, uttering a low moan the next
+minute, followed by a piteous sigh.
+
+"Drink a little more," he said, in the Malay tongue; and she obeyed
+mechanically, as he held the silver cup to her lips.  "Poor girl," he
+continued, to himself, "her feet are cut and bleeding, and she has hurt
+herself with falling--Here! hoi!  Ismael!  Ali!"
+
+The rocks echoed his cry, and the two men approached tremblingly.
+
+"Come along, you stupid fellows!" he cried.  "It is nothing to be afraid
+of;" and after a few more angry admonitions the two boatmen came up and
+helped to carry the insensible girl down to the boat, when, a snug place
+close by in the rocks having been picked out, the sufferer was placed
+upon a roughly-prepared couch formed of the doctor's overcoat and his
+waterproof sheet; then a macintosh was laid over her, and she seemed to
+fall off into a heavy sleep.
+
+"That keeps us here for the night," said the doctor; and being hungry, a
+fire was lit, and a capital little dinner of preserved game and fish
+prepared, of which all partook, and then made preparations for passing
+the night.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+MEDICAL AID.
+
+Doctor Bolter visited his patient two or three times, waking up with the
+greatest of regularity every two hours for the purpose, and
+administering a few drops of a cordial that he always carried wherever
+he went, it having wonderful qualities of its own, so the doctor said,
+and being competent to cure almost every disease, but smelling very
+strongly of brandy.
+
+His patient slept heavily, and she was still sleeping as the doctor's
+coffee was ready just before sunrise.
+
+"Humph!" he muttered; "it's a precious good job my wife isn't here, or
+she'd be as cross as two sticks, for the poor thing is a wonderfully
+handsome girl in spite of her black, filed teeth, and dark skin.  Poor
+lassie! how she has scratched herself.  Why, her feet are cut and
+swollen and full of thorns.  I'll bet ten pounds to twopence she's a
+runaway slave."
+
+There was no one to take the bet, and the doctor went on:
+
+"Poor lass! she has put me in a fix.  I can't take her back with me,
+because nothing upsets Harley more than having to deal with the domestic
+institutions of the Malays; and if they get under the protection of the
+British flag a slave is a slave no longer.  Then, too, there is Mrs
+Bolter.  Bless that woman! what a pity it is that she is of such a
+jealous disposition.
+
+"Tut, tut, tut!  Hang the girl! why didn't she run to someone else?
+It's a pity she doesn't wake, though, for a cup of coffee would do her
+good.
+
+"Humph!  Yes, she's a very handsome girl," muttered the doctor,
+thoughtfully.  "What a pity it is that they can't leave their pretty
+white teeth alone, instead of disfiguring them like that, and--Bless
+me--how strange!  Where have I seen this girl before?"
+
+He stood gazing down at her very thoughtfully, but his memory did not
+serve him.
+
+"It must have been at the Inche Maida's, and that makes it worse, for we
+don't want to offend her--Ah! that's right," he said aloud in Malayan.
+
+"How do you feel?"
+
+For answer the girl, who had just opened a pair of large lustrous eyes,
+gazed at the doctor at first in a frightened way, and then caught his
+hand in hers, kissed it passionately, and held it to her breast.
+
+"Oh, come, I say, my dear, this won't do!" cried the doctor.  "What the
+dickens do you think Mrs Bolter would say if she saw it?  There'd be
+the prettiest row under the sun.  Now, then, be calm, and lie still.
+You shall have a cup of coffee, and then I'll extract some of the thorns
+from your feet, or you'll be regularly crippled."
+
+There was a fresh burst of sobbing here, the girl striving to speak, but
+her sobs choked her utterance.
+
+"There, there, there," said the doctor, kindly, "don't cry, my poor
+child; you are safe now, and I'll take you back to the station in spite
+of Harley and Mrs Bolter herself.  Hang the slave customs and all who
+practise them, I say!  Now, my dear," he added, in Malayan, "loose my
+hand and I will get you some coffee."
+
+He tried to withdraw his hand, but the girl clung to it the more
+tightly.
+
+"No, no, Doctor," she cried; "don't leave me, pray!"
+
+"What?  The deuce!" exclaimed the little man, starting.  "How the
+dickens did you know I was a doctor?  I say; I know your voice; who--"
+
+"Don't you know me again, Doctor?" she cried, passionately, and cutting
+short his speech.
+
+"Know you?  What--why?--It is?  No.  Yes: Helen Perowne!"
+
+The poor girl burst into a frantic hysterical fit of crying.
+
+"Why, my poor darling! my dear child! my poor little woman!" cried the
+doctor, raising her head to his breast, and holding her there, kissing
+her again and again as the tears ran down his ruddy face.  "My poor
+little bairnie!  This is dreadful!  There, there, there, my dear, you
+are quite safe now," he continued, patting her and caressing her as a
+father would a favourite child.  "But there; what a milksop I am; crying
+like a great girl, I declare, when I ought to shout _hooray_! to think I
+have found you safe, if not quite sound.  Why, my dear child, Perowne
+will hug me for this.  Poor old boy, he has been half frantic."
+
+"But, Doctor," she sobbed, "they will catch me again, and drag me back
+to that dreadful place.  Look here," she cried, with a mingling of
+pitiful appeal and angry indignation, and she held out her scratched and
+torn brown hands, and then turned her face and showed her teeth to him.
+"I have been cruelly used.  They made me look like one of his wretched
+wives, so that I should not be known."
+
+"But who--who did all this?"
+
+"Murad, and I have been kept a prisoner here at a dreadful place, deep
+in the jungle, where I saw no one but his wretched creatures.  Oh,
+Doctor, Doctor, kill me, or I shall go mad!"
+
+"Kill you? of course I won't, my dear.  The dog! the scoundrel! the
+smooth-faced hypocrite!  I'll blow his brains out!  I'll skin him and
+make a specimen of him to take him back to England and exhibit him as a
+demon.  Hang him!  I don't know what I won't do!" cried the doctor,
+stamping with passion.  "Here, you two," he cried, "don't stand staring
+like that, but bring the young lady some coffee."
+
+The two Malay boatmen, who had been terribly puzzled at their master's
+behaviour with one they took to be an escaped slave, obeyed his orders
+at once, looking very peculiar the while.
+
+"Don't you see who it is, you scoundrels?" cried the doctor, storming.
+"What are you thinking about?"
+
+"Nothing, master," said the elder boatman, submissively, for what so
+great a man as the doctor--one who could bring people back to life, as
+he had the reputation of having done before now--chose to do must be
+good and right.
+
+"That's better," exclaimed the doctor, energetically.  "Now some
+biscuits.  Come, my dear, try and eat and drink.  I wish to goodness my
+little woman were here!  Come, eat; it will give you strength."
+
+Helen made a lame effort or two, but the food seemed to choke her.
+
+"And I'd come out to find Solomon's gold," muttered the doctor.
+"Solomon's Ophir; I seem instead to have found Solomon's wives, or
+rather one of them.  Bless my heart! bless my soul!  Well, really I
+never did!"
+
+He looked at Helen wonderingly, and then ran mentally over the trouble
+at the station as he longed to question his "new specimen," as he called
+her, but felt some delicacy in speaking.
+
+"Come, come," he said at last, "you do not eat."
+
+"Oh, no, no, Doctor!" she cried, in hysterical tones.  "I cannot eat:
+what shall I do?"
+
+"One moment," said the doctor; "tell me, do I apprehend rightly, that
+you have escaped from that scoundrel?"
+
+"Yes," she whispered, hoarsely; and she shuddered as she spoke.  "He
+came yesterday--no, it must have been days ago.  I don't know: my head
+is troubled.  He came, and I said I would escape and die in the jungle
+if I could not get to the station."
+
+"Yes, yes," said the doctor, feeling her pulse, for she seemed to grow
+more composed.
+
+"And I did escape: one of the Rajah's women helped me, and we fled
+together through the jungle, toiling on amongst thorns and canes, and
+always ready to drop, till we sank down wearily to sleep."
+
+"Yes, my poor child," said the doctor; "but where is your companion?"
+
+"I--I don't know," said Helen, in a strange, dazed way.  "She must be
+somewhere.  I went to sleep, and she was with me, and I awoke and she
+was gone.  But, Doctor, dear Doctor Bolter, I am not what I was.  Pray
+do not let me fall into that wretch's hands again!"
+
+"Never fear," exclaimed the doctor, to give her confidence, and he
+assumed a matter-of-fact, confident air as he spoke.  "Look here, my
+dear child, eat and drink to gain strength, and I will then take you
+back in my boat.  Don't be alarmed.  You will be quite safe."
+
+Helen made an effort to partake of the coffee, and as the doctor drank
+his own, it suddenly struck him that he used to have a great dislike to
+Helen Perowne, while now he had been treating her with the most
+affectionate solicitude.
+
+"And quite right, too," he muttered.  "Her position enlists sympathy.
+Why, I should be a brute if I did not behave kindly and well."
+
+The difficulties of his position became more apparent to him as he
+thought the matter over.
+
+Murad had carried off Helen no doubt in accordance with a deeply-laid
+scheme; and knowing what his position would be if the latter were
+discovered, of course he would spare no pains to recapture his prisoner.
+
+"He knows it's death, and a complete finish of his Rajahship," muttered
+the doctor; "and sooner than be found out the reptile would shoot me
+down like a dog--if I don't get the chance to shoot him first; and hang
+me if I don't feel just now as if I could send a charge of shot through
+him with the greatest pleasure in life!"
+
+He felt that if the followers of Murad were to find out the direction
+taken by the fugitive they would soon be on her track, and he would be
+almost helpless--one against a strongly-manned boat, whose crew would
+know their lives depended upon the success of their efforts.
+
+Under these circumstances he determined to draw the boat well up among
+the rocks, and then to lie in concealment until the evening, when they
+might float down under cover of the darkness.
+
+But no sooner had he determined upon this than the thought of the
+difficulties of the navigation came uppermost in his mind.  It was hard
+enough to get safely up the little river by daylight.  In the darkness
+he was compelled to own that it would be impossible.
+
+"I must run all risks," he said; "there is nothing else for it.  We must
+get down to the mouth of the river and out into the main stream as soon
+as possible," and having fully made up his mind what he would do, he
+turned to Helen Perowne.
+
+"I am going to start at once," he said; "but before we set off--I say
+this so as to help me, perhaps, in our effort to get away--"
+
+"Effort to get away?" she said, piteously.  "No, no; I don't quite mean
+that," he said; "but before we set off would you not like to make
+yourself look a little more like an English lady?"
+
+She looked up at him with an imploring look, and the tears began to
+trickle down her cheeks.
+
+"Only too gladly, doctor; but you do not understand.  They managed their
+cruel task only too well!  Do you not see?--this is a stain, and it
+cannot be removed!"
+
+The doctor frowned as he thought of his store of drugs and chemicals at
+home in his little palm-thatched cottage, where he wished they were
+themselves; and then he wondered whether there was anything amongst them
+that would remove the brown tint from his companion's face.
+
+She rose as he held out his hand, but trembled so much, and seemed so
+agitated, that when he led her to the boat she would have tottered and
+fallen had not the doctor caught her in his arms, and lifted her in;
+while directly after the two stout Malays thrust the boat over the
+shallow sands and gravel till deeper water was reached, the current
+helping them in their task, which was a long and arduous one, for there
+were long stretches of shallow and rapid, over which the bottom of the
+sampan grated before the paddles could be used.
+
+And all this time the doctor noted that his companion's wild eyes were
+constantly searching the shore for danger, such as he was fain to
+confess might be encountered at any moment, and in view of which he
+carefully charged his revolver, and altered the cartridges in both
+barrels of his gun.
+
+At last, though, the boatmen were able to give up wading, and seizing
+their paddles, they leaped into the boat, making it glide down the
+stream, whose course here was very swift.
+
+The doctor talked to his companion, but she was very silent, and they
+were soon both of them occupied in watching the shores, the doctor
+growing more uneasy moment by moment; while Helen, in her ignorance,
+felt that every paddle-stroke took her farther and farther from
+pursuit--made her safer from being recaptured by him who caused a
+shudder--when literally she was now every hour being taken nearer to the
+house that had been her prison all through those weary days.
+
+As the time wore on the doctor asked her a few questions about her
+adventures, but he noted that she trembled so, and became so painfully
+agitated, that from sheer kindness he soon refrained; and leaving her to
+make what confidences she chose, he sat with his gun across his knee,
+watching the shore for enemies, and they journeyed on almost in silence.
+
+The Malay boatmen saw that there was danger.  They had not recognised
+Helen at first; but now that they knew her they coupled the meeting in
+their own minds with the troubles at the station, and from time to time
+they cast uneasy glances at the doctor's revolver as it lay upon the
+seat, and from that began watchfully to scan such portions of the shore
+as might be deemed dangerous from affording opportunities for an ambush
+from which spears would come whizzing with unerring aim.
+
+In the ardour of his pursuit after the favourite myth of his imagination
+the doctor had not noticed the distance he had ascended this narrow,
+winding stream; but now that he was all anxiety to reach the great
+river, it seemed as if it would never end.
+
+The sun poured down his ardent rays, and but for the awning of boughs
+that the Malays had cut and spread over her head, the heat to the
+rescued girl would have been unbearable.  Everything, however, that
+could alleviate her position was done, and more than once she gave the
+doctor a grateful look, as in a weary, broken-spirited way, she faltered
+her thanks.
+
+"_Not_ much like the Helen Perowne of the past," he muttered, as he
+resumed his seat, after supplying his patient with water, and once more
+scanning the sides of the river for danger.
+
+There was nothing to be seen, though, for they had descended now to
+where rocks had given place to jungle, and the banks were one
+impenetrable mass of creeper-enlaced trees, the monotony being hardly
+enlivened now by the sight of a bird.
+
+"Look!--look!" whispered Helen, suddenly.  "That is where they took me
+from the boat!" and she pointed to an opening in the jungle, the doctor
+recognising the spot which he had noticed as they came up the river, and
+here was where the prahu had turned.
+
+"There is a house inland from here, then?" said the doctor.
+
+Helen shuddered.
+
+"Yes," she said, faintly; "my prison.  I cannot bear to talk about it
+now."
+
+The doctor nodded: and feeling that this was the critical part of the
+journey, he bade the Malays eat and drink as they paddled on, so as to
+gain strength for any energetic push they might have to make.  For his
+own part he was decided enough as to the course he would pursue, meaning
+to trust to flight if possible, but if pursued he vowed to himself that
+he would fire upon his pursuers.
+
+"And I am an Englishman!" he said to himself, proudly.  "They dare not
+fire upon me!"
+
+"Double pay if you get us safely back to the station," he said, "and in
+quicker time."
+
+The boatmen nodded and smiled, toiled harder with their paddles, and
+they were half-way back to the great river at least, when plainly heard
+upon the still afternoon air, came the loud beat of the many oars of a
+great prahu.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+PREPARING FOR A START.
+
+"Now look here, boy," said Chumbley.  "I grant the possibility of the
+Inche Maida having assisted in carrying off Helen, but we do not know
+that she did.  What we do know is--"
+
+"That she confessed--"
+
+"Not to helping, or anything of the kind.  She told us that she was
+another man's wife by now."
+
+"Well, that shows that she was cognisant of the matter; and I say that
+we ought to make a clean breast of the affair."
+
+"Well, I'm such a pusillanimous coward, that I can't screw myself up to
+doing anything of the kind.  One can't help feeling foolish over the
+matter.  Hang it all, no, keep it quiet!  We are in an out-of-the-way
+place certainly; but this is an awfully small marble of a world, and if
+we tell our story, it would get into the _Straits Times_, and from that
+into the Calcutta papers; and once there, the tit-bit of two officers
+being carried off by a wicked Eastern princess will soon run over to
+England, and go the round of the press.  Why, hang it, man, we had
+better retire from the service!"
+
+Hilton stood leaning half out of the window of their quarters listening
+to his friend.
+
+"It would be awkward," he said.
+
+"Awkward's nothing to it, my dear boy.  And besides, you know what comes
+about if we make all known.  Harley will consider that he is in duty
+bound to arrest the Inche Maida, or something of the kind, and then look
+at the consequences!"
+
+"But the woman ought to be punished."
+
+"Yes, of course; but the punishment is coming.  You see by her act she
+has shut herself out from all connection with the station, and I daresay
+if the truth is known she has collected her valuables and fled."
+
+"I hope she has," replied Hilton, "for if steps are taken to arrest her,
+I should be, I confess, sorry for her to be caught."
+
+"Let it slide then," cried Chumbley; "we can't war against a woman.
+Come, you'll oblige me, old fellow, greatly, by giving way."
+
+"What do you want me to do then?"
+
+"A little ill that good may come: keep to our story of having been
+seized and not knowing where we were taken."
+
+Hilton nodded and looked thoughtful.
+
+"You give way then?"
+
+"Yes, I give way."
+
+"Hilton, old fellow, I'm much obliged.  I know we shall have, perhaps,
+to do a little bit of invention, but it is invention to save a woman,
+and there is a lot of truth in it.  Then, too, see how it saves us."
+
+"Still, I can't help thinking that, if she had anything to do with
+carrying off Helen Perowne, she ought to be punished; and mind this,
+though I care nothing for Helen now, if it proves afterwards that she
+helped in that cruel affair, I'll have no mercy upon her."
+
+"She had nothing to do with it, take my word," said Chumbley, who had
+grown so excited that he forgot to drawl.  "Here's the case, depend upon
+it.  She got to know that Murad meant to carry off Helen, and she
+thought that she would do the same by you."
+
+"Wretched creature!"
+
+"Say silly child," said Chumbley.  "These people have half of them the
+cleverness and weak, petty ways of children combined."
+
+"Then you feel certain that Murad alone carried off Helen?"
+
+"I lay a hundred to one he has.  Harley's right.  When do we start?"
+
+"In an hour's time.  The scoundrel has not been seen by any of his
+people in Sindang, so they say."
+
+"We shall have some warm work up there in the jungle."
+
+"No doubt of it; but we'll rout the serpent out--Oh, here is Harley!"
+
+The Resident was coming up hastily from the landing-stage, followed by a
+couple of soldiers leading a Malay between them.
+
+"A prisoner, eh?" said Chumbley.  "Well, his evidence will have to be
+taken with a pinch of salt.  Now, Harley, what's the news?"
+
+"This fellow has come, saying that he bears an important message.  I
+would not hear him till I had you two present."
+
+They went out into the veranda, took seats, and the man salaamed, and
+was asked his business.
+
+He said that he had been charged with a message to the Resident by one
+of the Rajah's women.  It was to tell him that the lady Helen had been
+taken up the river to the Rajah's shooting-house, and was kept there
+against her will.
+
+"Are you sure of this," said the Resident, hoarsely.  "I have said,"
+replied the man, with dignity.  "Have you seen her there?"
+
+"Once only, master.  She is kept shut closely up."
+
+"And when did you get this message?"
+
+"It is nearly thirty days ago, master."
+
+"Then why did you not bring it sooner?"
+
+"I came down the river by night in my little boat, master, and reached
+the town here; but found that I could not get near the Resident."
+
+"Why not?" said Mr Harley, sharply.  "I am always to be seen."
+
+"You were watched, master; and I was watched."
+
+"Watched!  Who watched me?"
+
+"Murad's men.  They were everywhere."
+
+"Murad's men?  Watching?"
+
+"Yes, master, it is true.  They lay about in boats or idled, chewing
+their betel on the shore and landing-stage.  They would seem to you like
+common people who had nothing to do, but they were all watching
+carefully the while."
+
+"And would they have stopped you?"
+
+"Yes, master; they did."
+
+"Then you have kept this message all the time in spite of this?"
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"Without trying to deliver it?"
+
+"No; I tried.  I could not get to you or any I could trust unseen; but I
+know that you Englishmen are all friends, and that if I told one he
+would tell you, so I thought of the doctor."
+
+"And told him?" said the Resident.  "No; I could not approach an
+Englishman at all.  I waited my chance: two days had gone, and then,
+after much thinking, I made my plan."
+
+"Yes, be quick," said the Resident, impatiently.  "I pretended to be
+hurt."
+
+"Yes; and went to the doctor," said Hilton.  "Did you tell him?"
+
+"If my masters will let me tell my story," said the man, with dignity,
+"it will be best."
+
+Mr Harley made a sign to his companions to be silent, and the man went
+on:
+
+"I looked about for a house where I fancied I should not be watched, and
+went to a lady, saying I was badly hurt, and asking that she would fetch
+the doctor to me."
+
+"Why did you not tell her your message?"
+
+"She talked too much--I was afraid," said the man, quietly.  "But she
+took compassion on me and went to fetch the doctor.  `Now,' I said, `my
+task is done.'  But my enemies were too watchful, and soon after my
+messenger to the doctor had gone, six men entered the house; I was
+seized, gagged, and carried off to a boat, and rowed away.  They
+questioned me, but I was dumb; and then they kept me prisoner till two
+days back, when I escaped and came down here."
+
+"Then why were you not kept back from approaching me this time?" said
+the Resident, sternly.
+
+"I know not, master, only that those who watched are gone.  The place
+was full of Murad's men before.  Now they are not."
+
+"He is right," said Hilton.  "Murad has taken the alarm.  He knows by
+his spies that the game is up."
+
+"Could you take us to this place?" said the Resident.
+
+"I could; but I wish to live," said the Malay.  "I have a wife."
+
+"You mean that Murad's people would slay you if you led us there?"
+
+The Malay bowed.
+
+"You may trust to the English power," said the Resident, sternly.  "If
+what you say be correct, Murad's reign is at an end, and you may depend
+upon us for protection.  Will you lead us to the place where this lady
+is shut up?"
+
+"If the English chief will promise me protection."
+
+"You shall be protected," said the Resident, quietly; "and you shall be
+well rewarded."
+
+The Malay bowed again.
+
+"What do you think?" said the Resident, turning to Hilton, and speaking
+in French, to make sure that the Malay did not understand.
+
+"I think the man is right, and I would take him for guide; but all the
+same, we know what these people are: it may only be a treacherous,
+misleading plan."
+
+"We must be well on the alert as to that," replied the Resident.  "I
+think the man is honest."
+
+"So do I," said Chumbley, "for there is no temptation for him to have
+been otherwise."
+
+"Stay with those two men," said the Resident, addressing the Malay; "we
+are going with an armed expedition directly, and you shall be our
+guide."
+
+The man was led away, and the Resident watched him intently as he went
+out.
+
+"Yes, I think the Malay is honest," he said quickly.  "Are you fellows
+ready?"
+
+"Yes; we only wait your orders," replied Hilton.  "I am fidgeting to be
+off."
+
+"There is much to be done first.  Let us go now and see Perowne, I
+promised to communicate with him before we left.  You have not seen him
+yet?"
+
+"No."
+
+They walked down to the landing-place, where the Resident's large boat
+was being well manned, and ammunition and rations for three or four days
+were being stored.  There a small boat was waiting, and they were
+paddled across, to walk up to Mr Perowne's, both Hilton and Chumbley
+starting, as they saluted the merchant, to see what a change his late
+troubles had wrought upon his personal appearance.
+
+He shook hands with the officers in a quiet, grave way, and then stood
+looking in a vacant manner out of the window and across the lawn towards
+the river.
+
+"We must not start without Bolter," said the Resident, sharply, as if
+the idea had just crossed his mind.  "Any news of him?"
+
+"No," said Hilton; "we have heard nothing; but are you sure that he has
+not returned?"
+
+"He would not have returned without reporting himself," replied the
+Resident, who, like Mr Perowne, seemed to have grown older and more
+hollow of cheek.
+
+"I am quite ready to start," said Mr Perowne, in an absent manner.
+"They tell me, Mr Hilton, you were seized that same night, and carried
+up the river.  Are you sure that my Helen was not taken to the same
+place?"
+
+"I am certain, Mr Perowne," said Hilton, gravely.  "The best answer to
+that is the presence of Mr Chumbley and myself.  We should not have
+come away and left an English lady in such a situation."
+
+The Resident cast a keen, inquiring look at Hilton, and Mr Perowne went
+on feebly:
+
+"No, no, of course not; but I thought I'd ask, Mr Hilton.  I've had a
+deal of trouble lately; and my head is very bad."
+
+"Let us go across to the doctor's," said Mr Harley.  "There is the
+chance of his being back.  I really feel that, urgent as our necessities
+are, we must not start without him."
+
+"We ought to have him," replied Hilton.  "We are sure to have some
+wounded."
+
+"And wounds are awful in this climate, if not attended to at once."
+
+"Yes," assented the Resident.  "Will you come with us, Perowne?"
+
+"No," said that gentleman, dreamily.  "I shall stay until the expedition
+starts."
+
+Mr Perowne seated himself upon a low stool, and buried his face in his
+hands, looking so utterly prostrate, that the Resident crossed to his
+side, bent down over him and whispered:
+
+"For heaven's sake, be hopeful!  I am straining every nerve to get the
+expedition off!"
+
+"But you are so long--so long!" moaned the wretched man.
+
+"Do not you reproach me," said Mr Harley.  "Have some pity for my
+position.  I am even now going beyond my tether in what I am doing; and
+I hardly dare take a party of men up in this jungle without a doctor
+with us!  Perowne, on my honour, I am burning to go to Helen's help; but
+I am tied down by red tape at every turn.  You don't know what such a
+position as mine really is!"
+
+"Go and see if Bolter has come back," said Mr Perowne, coldly.
+
+"Yes," said the Resident, to himself, "if not, we must go without him."
+
+The Resident turned away, beckoning Hilton to follow; and leaving
+Chumbley sitting with the stricken father, they went towards the
+doctor's cottage.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+JEOPARDY.
+
+Helen caught the sound of the oars at the same moment as the doctor, and
+he heard her draw a spasmodic breath as she started up in her dread and
+seized his arm, clinging to it convulsively.
+
+The doctor rose, and shading his eyes, gazed down the stream, but there
+was no prahu as yet in sight; and he then glanced to left and right for
+a hiding-place beneath the overhanging trees.
+
+A glance, however, showed him that there was not shelter enough here to
+cover a boat of half the size; and in despair as to what he should do,
+he turned to the Malays, who evidently read his perplexity, and shook
+their heads.
+
+They might have turned the boat and tried to get beyond where they knew
+the prahu would stop and turn, but that would have taken hours, and they
+must have been either overtaken or seen long before they had reached the
+spot.
+
+"Nothing but impudence will do it," thought the doctor, and he turned
+sharply to Helen.  "Lie down in the boat my dear, and trust to me," he
+whispered.
+
+"Doctor," she moaned passionately, "kill me, but don't let me fall again
+into that wretch's hands!"
+
+"Is this Helen Perowne?" thought the doctor, as with patient trust she
+submitted to him as he laid her back in the bottom of the boat, threw
+the great green branches overboard, and covered her loosely with the
+waterproof sheet, upon which he tossed his macintosh; and then quickly
+changing the cartridges once more, he coolly sat up, watched his
+opportunity, after telling the Malays to paddle smoothly, and brought
+down a handsome green parrot from a bough overhanging the river.
+
+The beat of the prahu's oars ceased on the instant, and coolly telling
+the Malays to make for the fallen bird, the doctor retrieved it, and
+threw it carelessly upon the waterproof sheet, full in view for anyone
+passing to see.
+
+"Let the boat drift down," he said to the Malays; and then to Helen:
+"Don't be alarmed: I am shooting birds."
+
+He had hardly reloaded before another opportunity presented itself, and
+he shot a brilliantly-plumaged trogon, which he was in the act of
+picking from the water where it had fallen as the stream bore them full
+in view of the same large prahu that had passed them when making his way
+up the main river.
+
+The doctor took hardly any notice of the prahu but carefully shook the
+water from his specimen and smoothed its plumage, giving just a casual
+glance at the long row-boat, whose swarthy crew were watching his acts;
+and then, as the stream swept them by, he reloaded, and sat with the
+butt of his gun upon his knee, apparently looking out for another
+specimen.
+
+All the same, though, he had an eye for the prahu, whose crew were
+evidently canvassing his presence there; but he seemed to be so occupied
+with his old practice of collecting brightly-plumaged birds--a habit for
+which he was well known--that no one thought of stopping him, and a bend
+in the river soon separated them from the enemy.
+
+The doctor laid down his gun, and after satisfying himself by a glance
+that the trees completely shut out all view, he raised the covering from
+the half-suffocated girl, who lay pale and panting there.
+
+"The danger has passed," he whispered; then, turning to the boatmen:
+"Now," he cried, "row for your lives!"
+
+They needed no further incentive, but bent to their work, sending the
+sampan surging through the water; and the stream being rapid here, they
+made good way, the prahu having, fortunately for them, thoroughly
+loosened the tangled water-weeds that otherwise would have hindered
+their flight.
+
+The doctor listened to the beat of the prahu's oars, which seemed to
+grow more distant.  Then the noise stopped, and recommenced in a
+different way, the beat sounding short and choppy.
+
+"What does that mean?" he muttered, thoughtfully; but he smoothed his
+brow as he saw that Helen was watching him intently.
+
+Suddenly he started, for he read the meaning of the sounds, which did
+not grow more distant.
+
+"They are not satisfied," he said to himself, "and are coming after us.
+The prahu cannot turn; the river is too narrow here, and they are
+backing water."
+
+He tried to doubt his own words; but as they entered upon a long
+straight portion of the river, down which they glided rapidly, he gazed
+back, and just as they neared the end of the reach he saw the prahu in
+full pursuit.
+
+"Paddle hard," he cried; "they must not overtake us.  Quick! get round
+out of sight: we shall get on better in the sharp windings, and leave
+her more behind."
+
+He was not sure of this, but hoped it would be the case; and he was in
+the act of hoping this when--_bang_!--there was a sharp report from a
+lelah on board the prahu, and a pound ball came skipping along the
+surface of the stream, splashed up the water a few yards away, and then
+crashed in amongst the dense jungle-growth to the left.
+
+"Paddle, my lads, paddle away!" shouted the doctor; and the men toiled
+on, every muscle seeming to stand out of their bronze arms, and the
+veins starting in neck and brow as they obeyed his words, till the boat
+seemed as if it were skimming like a bird over the surface of the
+stream.
+
+"That's right!  Good! good!" he cried, in the Malay tongue.  "I never
+saw boat worked so well before."
+
+His words seemed to give the men fresh strength, and they forced the
+sampan on with renewed force.  The water rattled and surged beneath her
+bows, and so good was the speed they now made, that in another minute
+they would have been out of sight, when a second shot from the prahu's
+gun came skipping along, and this time aimed so well, or so cleverly
+winged by fate, that it struck the flying boat, cutting a great piece
+out of her gunwale.
+
+"Pooh! that's nothing.  Never mind the shot!" cried the doctor, coolly.
+"I'll wager a new silk sarong, to be fought for by gamecocks, that they
+could not do that again.  Dip your paddles deep, my lads; paddle away,
+and we'll soon leave them far enough behind."
+
+The bend of the river that they had turned gave them some slight chance
+of escape, and the men worked better and with less display of nervous
+hesitation.  Bank and trees shut them now from the sight of the marksmen
+on board the prahu, and there is less difficulty in toiling at the
+paddle when you know that no one is taking careful aim at your back.
+
+The moment they were out of sight of the prahu's crew the doctor stood
+up in the boat, one moment urging on the men, the next searching the
+shores for some satisfactory hiding-place--some inlet or opening among
+the trees into which the sampan might be thrust with some little chance
+of its escaping the keen eyes of their pursuers, who would be pretty
+well on the alert for such a trick as this.  There were trees
+overhanging the stream in plenty, but as far as he could see the foliage
+was not sufficiently dense to be trusted at a time like this; and
+feeling at last that their only chance of safety was by making for and
+reaching the main river, he kept on encouraging the men, and in the
+pauses speaking words of comfort to Helen Perowne.
+
+She lay back utterly prostrate, but turned her eyes to the doctor with
+an imploring gaze that he read easily enough, interpreting it to
+mean--"Save me from these wretches, or shoot me sooner than I shall fall
+into their hands!"
+
+"I mean to save you, my dear," he said to himself; but all the same, he
+examined the cartridges in his gun, and his fingers played with the
+trigger, as he listened intently to the sounds of pursuit.
+
+"I'd give something for this to be the cutter of a frigate, well manned
+with jacks and with half a dozen of our red-coats in the stern sheets.
+I don't think we should be showing them how fast we could run away at a
+time like this.  But one must show them a little strategy sometimes."
+
+He looked back, but they were still well out of sight of the prahu, the
+heavy beat of whose oars seemed to come from close behind the trees,
+though it was still some distance away.
+
+He scanned this bank--the other bank--but now the trees seemed thinner,
+and the chances of hiding successfully to grow less; and for a moment
+something like despair crept into the doctor's heart.
+
+But he was too well used to emergencies to fail at critical moments;
+and, bracing himself up, the momentary despairing feeling was gone.
+
+"Is there no end to this wretched river?" he cried, half aloud; and he
+gave his foot an impatient stamp, which started the men afresh just as
+they had slackened their efforts, and once more they went on toiling
+along the narrow, winding stream, the tortuous way seeming to grow more
+intricate minute by minute, and fortunately for them, as their little
+boat skimmed round the turns, while the prahu's passage was ponderous
+and slow.
+
+But every now and then some straight piece of the river would give the
+enemy his chance, and the rowers forced the prahu along, so that she
+gained ground.
+
+There was no mistaking it, and the doctor's fingers tightened upon his
+gun, as he saw how rapidly his pursuers were gaining; while his own men
+were becoming terribly jaded by their tremendous efforts, and moment by
+moment their strokes were losing force.
+
+Worse still, as he gazed back, he could see that something was going on
+in the bows of the prahu, and he needed no telling what it was--they
+were again loading and training their heavy gun; and "if," the doctor
+thought, "they wing us now, our chances are gone!"
+
+It was not a pleasant thing to do, to stand there offering himself as it
+were for a target to the next shot; but this did not occur to the
+doctor, who kept his ground, and the next moment there was a puff of
+white smoke from the prahu's side.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+BLIND AS A MOLE--IS SAID TO BE.
+
+"Poor Perowne seems nearly heartbroken," said the Resident, as they went
+down the path; and then bitterly, the words slipping out, incidental
+upon one or two remarks of Hilton's--"He seems to suffer more than you."
+
+"I feel as much hurt at Miss Perowne's abduction as does any man at the
+station," said Hilton, hotly; "but if you mean, Mr Harley, that I am
+not grieving like a suitor of this lady should, you are quite right."
+
+"Quite right?" said the Resident, quickly.
+
+"I said quite right," replied Hilton, sternly; "every pretension on my
+part was at an end before the night of that unfortunate party."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Hilton," cried the Resident, warmly.  "I am not
+myself.  I ought not to have spoken in so contemptibly mean a way.  Bear
+with me; for what with my public duties, and the suspense and agony of
+this affair, my feelings have at times been maddening."
+
+"Bear with you, yes!" said Hilton, warmly.  "Harley, I sympathise with
+you.  I do indeed, and believe me, I will be your right hand in this
+matter; but we have had so little chance of talking together.  Tell me
+what has been done."
+
+"Comparatively nothing," replied the Resident.  "I have been helpless.
+I have had my suspicions; but, situated as I was, I could not act upon
+suspicion only; and when, to satisfy myself, I have tried diplomatic--as
+we call mean, but really underhanded--means by spies to find out if
+there was anything wrong, every attempt has failed."
+
+"You have sent out people to search then?"
+
+"Scores!" cried the Resident; "but in the majority of cases I feel
+certain that I have only been paying Murad's creatures; and when I have
+not, but obtained people from down the river, the cunning Malays have
+blinded them to the facts."
+
+"I see."
+
+"Then Murad himself, he has been indefatigable with his help."
+
+"To throw you off the scent," said Hilton.
+
+"Exactly.  Then there was the finding of the stove-in boat, and portions
+of the dresses of those who apparently occupied her--everything pointing
+to some terrible accident.  What would the authorities have said had I,
+on the barest suspicion, seized upon Murad and charged him with this
+crime?  A public official cannot do that which a private individual
+might attempt."
+
+Hilton walked on by his side, very moody and thoughtful.
+
+"I have felt suspicious of this cunning villain all along; and I do not
+feel quite satisfied that the Inche Maida has not been playing into his
+hands.  But what could I do--on suspicion merely!  Even now, had he not
+absented himself from Sindang, we could hardly venture upon this
+expedition.  In spite of what we have heard, he may be innocent."
+
+"My head upon it he is guilty!" cried Hilton, fiercely: "and if we do
+bring him to book--"
+
+The Resident looked at his companion curiously, for the young officer
+ceased speaking, and he saw that there was a fixed, strange look in his
+eye, and that his lips were drawn slightly from his teeth.
+
+"If we do bring him to book," said the Resident, quietly, "he shall
+suffer for it."
+
+"Suffer!" cried Hilton, excitedly.  "Look here, Harley, I vow to you now
+that if Helen Perowne offered me her hand to-morrow, and asked me to
+marry her, I should refuse; but all the same, I'd strike down the man
+who offered her the slightest insult; and as for this Murad, if we run
+him to earth, and he is guilty, I'll shoot him like a dog."
+
+"Leave that revolver alone," said the Resident, quietly, as
+unconsciously Hilton took the weapon from its pouch at his belt and
+began turning the chambers round and round.
+
+The young officer hastily thrust the weapon back and tightened his belt.
+By that time they had reached the doctor's house, where, upon entering,
+they found little Mrs Bolter looking flushed and annoyed, and opposite
+to her Mrs Barlow, the picture of woe.
+
+"Has he come back?" said the Resident, hastily, after the customary
+salutations.
+
+"No, he has not come back," said Mrs Bolter, rather excitedly.
+
+"Alas! no, he has not returned," said Mrs Barlow, in tragic tones.  "I
+fear we shall never see him more."
+
+"Are you speaking of Dr Bolter, madam?" said the Resident, wonderingly.
+
+"Of the doctor, sir?  No!" cried Mrs Barlow, indignantly, "but of the
+chaplain."
+
+"Oh!" said the Resident, and a feeling of compunction entered his breast
+to think how small a part Mr Rosebury had seemed to play in this
+life-drama, and how little he had been missed.
+
+"Captain Hilton," said little Mrs Bolter, taking the young officer
+aside to the window, while her visitor was talking to Mr Harley, "it's
+a shame to trouble you with my affairs directly you have come out of
+trouble yourself, and just as you are very busy, but if someone does not
+take that woman away I shall go mad!"
+
+"Go mad, Mrs Bolter?"
+
+"Yes; go mad--I can't help it.  I'm worried enough about the
+disappearance of my poor brother Arthur; then I am forsaken in the most
+cruel way by my husband; and as if that was not enough, and just when I
+am imagining him to be suffering from fever, or crocodiles, or Malay
+people, or being drowned, that dreadful woman comes and torments me
+almost to death."
+
+"What, Mrs Barlow?  Well, but surely, if you give her a hint--"
+
+"Give her a hint, Captain Hilton!  I've asked her to go over and over
+again; I've ordered her to go--but it's of no use.  She comes back and
+cries all over me in the most dreadful way."
+
+"But why?--what about?"
+
+"She has got a preposterous notion in her head that she is in love with
+my poor brother, and that he was very much attached to her because he
+called upon her once or twice.  It's really dreadful, for I don't
+believe my brother ever gave her a thought."
+
+"You must reason with her, Mrs Bolter," said Hilton, who could not help
+feeling amused.
+
+"It is of no use: I've tried, and all I get for my pains is the
+declaration that she must give me the love that she meant for my
+brother.  She says she shall make her will and leave all to me, for she
+shall die soon; and the way in which she goes on is horrible."
+
+"Well, it must be a nuisance where you don't care for a person," said
+Hilton.
+
+"Nuisance: it's unbearable!  And now I'm talking to you about it, and
+very absurd you must think me; but if I didn't relieve my mind to
+somebody I'm sure I should go mad.  But won't you come into the
+drawing-room?"
+
+"Certainly," said Hilton.
+
+"I came out here to speak to her," continued little Mrs Bolter;
+"because if she gets into my little drawing-room, she takes a seat, and
+I can never get her out again.  Perhaps," she whispered, "she'll go as
+soon as she has said all she wants to Mr Harley."
+
+Hilton followed the little troubled body into the drawing-room, and then
+started and turned hot as he saw Grey Stuart rise to her feet, and stand
+there, looking deadly pale.
+
+"Miss Stuart!" he exclaimed.
+
+She made an effort to control herself, but her strength was not
+superhuman; and coming forward, she took Hilton's extended hand, looked
+at him with her lips quivering, and then burst into a loud fit of
+sobbing.
+
+"We thought you dead," she said, in an excited manner.  "Pray forgive
+me.  It is so weak.  But Helen?"
+
+"We have great hopes of rescuing her," said Hilton, whose heart was
+beating fast, as he asked himself what this emotion really meant.  Then
+he cooled down and felt hurt, for he told himself that her last words
+explained it.  Helen Perowne and she had been schoolfellows, and he had
+disappeared at the same time; now he had returned, but without Helen,
+and his appearance was a shock to her.
+
+"There, there, there, my dear child," said Mrs Bolter, who felt
+scandalised at this weakness on the part of her favourite; "don't cry--
+pray don't cry.  You're very glad to see Captain Hilton back of course,
+but you must save a few tears for poor Mr Chumbley as well.  When is he
+coming to see us, Captain Hilton?"
+
+"Not on this side of our expedition," said the young officer, quietly.
+"We start as soon as possible, and have hopes of bringing back Miss
+Perowne and your brother."
+
+"Then you do think he was taken as well, Captain Hilton?" cried Mrs
+Bolter, eagerly.
+
+"I feel sure he was, now," replied Hilton.  "He was no doubt in
+attendance upon Miss Perowne, and they were taken together."
+
+"Then if he was," said little Mrs Bolter, brightening, "I am very glad,
+for Helen Perowne's sake for some things," she added, giving her head a
+sharp shake.
+
+This short colloquy gave Grey Stuart an opportunity of recovering
+herself; and she blessed the brisk, talkative little woman for drawing
+attention from her, so that when next she spoke, she was able to command
+herself thoroughly, and continue the conversation in her ordinary calm,
+self-possessed way.
+
+"I began to despair at one time of getting back to the station," Hilton
+said, lightly; "and I was very tired of being a prisoner, I assure you."
+
+He looked intently at Grey as he spoke, and the pleasant warmth of her
+manner as she replied touched and pleased him but he was fain to confess
+that it was only the lively interest that any girl in her position would
+take in one who had been lost in the same way as he, and was now found.
+
+"I am very glad to see you back, Mr Hilton," she said.  "We were in
+great trouble about you.  But when shall we see Mr Chumbley?"
+
+"Soon, I hope," he replied, quietly, and there was a curious sinking
+feeling at his heart as she spoke.
+
+"She would have shown just as much emotion at seeing him for the first
+time," he thought.  "What a sweet, innocent, gracious little woman it
+is, and how much happier I might have been, if I had made her the object
+of my pursuit."
+
+"Tell me about Mr Chumbley," said Grey, taking up her work; "did he
+suffer much when you were prisoners?"
+
+"Suffer?  No!" said Hilton, smiling.  "If he did, he never showed it.
+He's a splendid fellow, and takes things so coolly."
+
+"Oh, yes, he is, indeed!" cried Grey.  "I do like Mr Chumbley."
+
+Hilton's heart sank a little lower, and there was almost a ring of
+sadness in his voice as he went on:
+
+"He kept my spirits up wonderfully by his _nonchalant_, easy way.  He
+was a capital companion and never once showed that he was low-spirited
+or suffered in the least."
+
+"He is very strong and brave, is he not?" said Grey.
+
+"Why, the little body loves him," thought Hilton; "and I had hoped--Bah!
+let me be a man, and not a manger-loving cur.  What right have I to
+think she could have cared for me?"
+
+"Strong and brave!" he said, aloud.  "Why, Chumbley professes to be a
+coward--"
+
+"A coward!  Oh, no!" cried Grey, flushing.  "I cannot believe--"
+
+"While he is as brave as a lion," said Hilton.  "That he is, I am sure,"
+cried Grey, warmly; and her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sparkled as she
+spoke.
+
+"Chum, old fellow," said Hilton, sadly to himself; "I used to laugh at
+you because you were bested by me, as I thought, but now I envy you your
+luck.  Well, never mind, I can bear it, I daresay, and you deserve it
+all.  I think I shall go back and marry the Inche Maida after all."
+
+"Why, how serious you have turned, Captain Hilton," said Mrs Bolter.
+
+"Captain Hilton is going away directly on what may prove a dangerous
+expedition."
+
+"Of course; I had forgotten," said Mrs Bolter.  "Dear me, that woman is
+there still, talking to Mr Harley.  Will she never go?"
+
+"She will give Chumbley a warmer welcome than she gave me," said Hilton
+to himself, and he looked reproachfully at the fair, sweet face before
+him.
+
+"You will be glad to see Chumbley, will you not?" he said aloud.
+
+"Oh, yes, very glad!" she exclaimed, warmly; and then, as she met his
+eyes fixed inquiringly, she blushed vividly.
+
+"She colours when his name is mentioned," said Hilton to himself.  "I
+wonder whether he cares as much for her.  He must--he couldn't help it.
+There, Heaven bless her!  Other people are more fortunate than I."
+
+"That dreadful woman seems as if she would not go," whispered Mrs
+Bolter.  "Pray forgive me for leaving you, Captain Hilton, but I must
+not let her tease Mr Harley to death as she teases me."
+
+As she spoke little Mrs Bolter left the room, the strident sound of
+Mrs Barlow's voice coming loudly as the door was opened, while when it
+was closed all was perfectly silent.
+
+Grey Stuart's hand involuntarily went out as if to stay Mrs Bolter;
+then it fell to her side, and she sat there painfully conscious and
+suffering acute mental pain.
+
+"Poor little maiden!" thought Hilton, as he saw her trouble.  "She is
+afraid of me;" and he let his eyes rest upon the open window before he
+spoke.  The intense heat seemed to float into the room, bearing with it
+the scent of the creepers outside, and of a tall tropic tree covered
+with white blossoms, whose spreading branches sheltered the doctor's
+cottage from the blazing sun.
+
+From that hour the warm air, scented with the rich perfume of flowers
+and those white blossoms clustering without, seemed somehow to be
+associated in Hilton's mind with Grey Stuart, who sat back there pale
+now as her white dress, wanting to speak, to break the painful silence,
+but not daring for some few minutes, lest he should detect the tremble
+in her voice.
+
+"You start very soon, do you not, Captain Hilton?" she said.
+
+"Yes; I hoped to have been on the river ere this," he said, with a
+bitter intonation that he could not check.
+
+"And you will discover poor Helen, and bring her back?" she said,
+forcing herself to speak of a subject that she felt would be welcome to
+him.
+
+"If men can do it, we will succeed!" he replied, earnestly.
+
+"Poor Helen!" sighed Grey.  "Tell her, Mr Hilton--from me--"
+
+"Yes," he said, eagerly, for she hesitated and stopped.
+
+"That her old schoolfellow's arms long to embrace her once again, and
+that the hours have seemed very bitter since she has been gone."
+
+"Yes," he said.  "I will tell her, Miss Stuart.  Poor girl! she will
+need all the consolation that can be given her, and it will be welcome
+news to her that she is sure of yours."
+
+"Sure of mine, Captain Hilton?  Oh, yes.  For many years past I have
+felt like the sister of Helen Perowne."
+
+"Who is happy in possessing so dear a friend," he said, gravely.  "May
+she ever retain your friendship--nay, I should call it sisterly love."
+
+"She shall," said Grey, in a voice that sounded hard and firm.  "I am
+not one to change lightly in my friendships."
+
+"No," he said, quietly; "you cannot be."
+
+"How quiet and unimpulsive he is," thought Grey.  "How wanting in
+eagerness to go to Helen's help.  Surely now that she needs all his
+sympathy and love--now that she must be in a terrible state of
+suffering--he could not be so base as to forsake her!  He could not, he
+would not do that!  I should hate him if he did."
+
+There was a pause then, and they both seemed to be listening to the hum
+of voices in the next room; and then Grey Stuart said to herself,
+softly:
+
+"Should I hate him if he did?"
+
+The answer came directly.
+
+"Yes, for the man I could love must be too chivalrous to wrong a woman
+by neglect in her time of trial."
+
+"Yes," said Hilton, rousing himself from a state of abstraction, "we
+must soon be upon the river; I expected that we should have been there
+before now."
+
+"I pray Heaven for your safety and success, Captain Hilton," said Grey
+Stuart, gravely.
+
+"And for Chumbley's too?" he said.
+
+"And for Lieutenant Chumbley's and Mr Harley's too," she said, in a low
+voice.
+
+As she spoke the door opened, and Mrs Bolter entered, followed by the
+Resident; and as soon as the former was seated, Grey rose, crossed the
+room, and went and stood with her hands resting upon her chair, the act
+seeming to give her strength to bear what was becoming painful.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+A QUESTION OF ESCAPE.
+
+Bang!  _Crash_!
+
+The report of the brass lelah and the stroke of the iron ball as it
+shivered the branches of the trees or buried itself in the trunk of some
+palm-tree growing near the bank, but without injuring the occupants of
+the sampan in the slightest degree.
+
+The faces of Ismael and his companion were now of a curious muddy hue,
+and they shivered with dread, but they held the doctor even more in awe,
+and obeyed his orders to keep on paddling with such strength as was in
+them left, and seemed ready enough to persevere as long as the boat
+would float beneath them, hopeless as the case might be.
+
+As the doctor very well knew, it was only a question of time, and had he
+been alone he would not have hesitated about surrendering; but with
+Helen in his charge, there was too much at stake.  So he determined,
+with all the stubbornness of an Englishman, to hold out to the very last
+extremity.
+
+"I'm a man of peace," he muttered, "but I've had to fight in my time,
+and if I am driven to it, they shall buy Helen Perowne at the cost of
+three or four lives at least; and if I can manage it, the chiefs shall
+be one."
+
+He glanced at Helen, who lay back with her eyes closed, and her swarthy
+face seemed to rouse a bitter feeling of anger in the doctor's breast.
+
+"The blackguards!" he growled.  "To serve an English lady like that.
+I'll make some of them pay for it, and dearly too."
+
+"I say, Bolter," he muttered, "I'd no idea that you were such a brave
+fellow.  I don't feel half so nervous as I expected I should, and hang
+me if I'll give up till I have fairly fought it out.  I wonder whether I
+could hit master Rajah Murad at this distance?  Well, let him put his
+head over the side of the boat, and I'll try--What, my dear," he cried,
+as Helen spoke feebly.
+
+"Is our position hopeless, Doctor?" she said.
+
+"Hopeless?  Not a bit of it, my dear.  I'm going to exhibit another
+medicine directly.  You lie quite still and don't raise your head.
+Trust to your medical man, my dear.  Always have confidence in your
+medical man."
+
+For answer she turned her great dark eyes upon him with a look of such
+hopeless misery that the doctor set his teeth hard.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried, starting in spite of himself, as there was a sharp
+report and a bullet whistled close by him.  "Hi! you scoundrels!  How
+dare you fire upon a boat containing a Queen's officer."
+
+He let the butt of his gun rest in the bottom of the vessel, and turned
+and shook his fist threateningly at the advancing prahu; but the only
+answer elicited was another shot, not by any means so well aimed as the
+last, the sound of which seemed to ring in his ear as it whizzed by.
+
+"The scoundrels shall smart for this!" he cried, furiously.  "They've
+fired--bear witness of this, Ismael--they've fired upon a boat
+containing a British officer and an English lady, and--hang 'em! there
+they go again!"
+
+And this shot and another came whizzing by, but the rapid motion of the
+sampan, the want of practice on the part of the Malays, and their bad
+management of their clumsy gun, kept them from doing any mischief to the
+fugitives.
+
+"At last!" cried the doctor, as the dense mass of vegetation that
+screened the mouth of the little river came in sight.  "Now then, my
+lads, keep up.  You shall be rewarded handsomely for this.  Make a good
+dash for it, and we shall soon be clear."
+
+Doctor Bolter's words were big, and his face was cheerful, but his hopes
+were small, and his heart felt very sad, for he knew well enough that
+unless as soon as they cleared the canes and bushes before them, and got
+out into the open river, they found help or concealment, which was
+extremely doubtful, they would be at a terrible disadvantage.  For out
+in the wide river the prahu would have plenty of room to manoeuvre; it
+could be driven at full speed, turned easily, and would either run them
+down or come alongside and grapple them without the slightest
+difficulty.
+
+"But I'll fight for it to the last," muttered the doctor, as he caught a
+fresh glance from Helen's sorrowful eyes.  "Poor little woman! what a
+fidget she would be in if she only knew!  Never mind, she would pat me
+on the back for what I am doing; and whatever she might say against it
+on my account, she'd want me to fight."
+
+He looked back at the prahu, which was still advancing, and raised his
+gun to fire, but only lowered it again.
+
+"No," he muttered; "a waste of shot.  I couldn't hit the steersman."
+
+He stood thinking for a moment, and then, laying down his gun, he took
+up a spare paddle and began working with all his might, striving to urge
+the boat forward.
+
+The help came when it was most needed, for the floating reeds and bushes
+were no light obstacles to so small a boat, and they began to lose
+ground now as they struggled through.  But after a fierce interval of
+effort, and just as the doctor was growing giddy with excitement, and
+half blind with exertion, the last mass of bushes was passed, and they
+floated clear into the swift stream of the main river.
+
+"Now for it, my lads!" cried the doctor, manfully, the perspiration
+streaming down his red-brown face, as he made the water flash from his
+paddle; "we shall do it now."
+
+But before they had gone fifty yards down the stream, at a far higher
+rate than before, they heard the rustle and crashing of the big prahu
+forcing its way through the bushes, and in another minute it, too, would
+have been clear.
+
+Fortune does, however, sometimes favour the brave; for just then there
+was a sharp crack, and one of the prahu's sweeps broke short off, the
+man who pulled it fell back heavily against his neighbour, who in turn
+was thrown out, and like skittles, half a dozen of the rowers were in
+confusion.
+
+This happened at a critical moment, just as the men were rowing their
+hardest, and the result of the check on one side was that the head of
+the prahu was pulled sharply round, and the stem crashed in amongst the
+bushes to the left of the steersman, ran right into the soft, muddy
+bank, and the vessel lay across the stream.
+
+Doctor Bolter could not tell what was wrong; but he could hear the noise
+of shouting and the confusion that followed, enough to explain to him
+that there was something very much amiss, and in the satisfaction that
+it gave him he mentally exclaimed:
+
+"I don't wish harm to any man upon the face of this little earth, but if
+that prahu and all on board are going to the bottom, it will be a
+blessing indeed."
+
+This respite gave the Malay boatmen heart, and bending once more to
+their task, they strove hard to send the sampan onward so as to get
+round a curve of the stream where the trees of the jungle grew high upon
+the bank and spread far out over the river.  This bend once passed, they
+would be out of sight when the prahu cleared the bushes.
+
+It was a long way ahead, and the shouting and confusion seemed so
+terribly close at hand that the doctor fully expected another shot; but
+he paddled bravely on, and at last this part of their task was achieved,
+giving them a fresh sensation of relief as they saw the wide, open
+stretch of river before them, with its verdant, tree-shaded banks.
+
+But they looked in vain for help: the stream was clear of boats, and the
+doctor knew that concealment was now their only chance.  The Malay--
+Ismael--knew it too, for, raising his paddle from the water, he pointed
+to a dense spot that seemed admirably adapted for a hiding-place; the
+doctor nodded assent, and with a sweep of the paddle the course of the
+boat was altered, her head being set across the stream.  Then, as the
+doctor looked back to see that they were not followed, a warning cry
+from the boatmen made him lower his head, just as the sampan glided in
+beneath the overhanging boughs, and they floated on in a pleasant arcade
+of leafy boughs, the grateful shadows shutting them entirely from the
+sight of passers-by upon the river, whose glittering surface they
+surveyed through a thick screen of leaves.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+"I WISH YOU SUCCESS."
+
+"Gone at last, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs Bolter.  "I'm sure that woman
+will drive me mad."  Then, turning to the Resident--"I feel now, Mr
+Harley, as if I ought to have opposed it much more strenuously.  I don't
+like his running up and down the country like this, and I'm very much
+troubled about it.  Of course I don't put any faith in what such a woman
+as that Mrs Barlow would say, but she would keep hinting that there is
+more in these journeys than we know of.  I feel, of course, that I ought
+not to stoop to notice such remarks, but when one is left like this they
+will make an impression.  I don't think the doctor ought to have gone
+away and left me alone."
+
+"I sincerely wish that he had not gone," said the Resident; "but Doctor
+Bolter's ardent love of natural history and his belief in discovery must
+be his excuses for a great deal."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know!" cried the little woman excitedly; and a severe
+mental struggle was evidently going on to keep back something upon her
+mind.  But it was all in vain.  The passionate feeling of jealousy that
+had been lit by the foolish tongue of the woman who had been constantly
+coming in and harping upon the theme, now began to glow, and in spite of
+her efforts the anger fanned the flame, till, in a gust of passion that
+made her cheeks burn with shame for her question, she turned suddenly
+upon the Resident.
+
+"I know it is a shame and a sin to say such a thing, but I can't help it
+now.  I think it's your hot climate here has changed me, and made me
+what I am--but you are going up the river on this expedition Mr
+Harley?"
+
+"Yes, of course."
+
+"Will you wait for him?"
+
+"For the doctor?  I'm afraid we must not wait much longer."
+
+"Then will you go to that woman's as you pass up the river, and make a
+thorough search?  I'm ashamed to say it, but I feel perfectly sure that
+Doctor Bolter is there."
+
+"Where?  At the Inche Maida's?" said the Resident, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes.  I am sure he is there."
+
+"And I am certain that he is not!" cried Hilton, so warmly that the
+Resident glanced at him.
+
+"But I--I'm greatly afraid he is," panted Mrs Bolter.  "Mrs Barlow
+said that she felt sure it must be so, and I've made a very, very great
+mistake in leaving my quiet little home in England, and letting my
+brother accept this chaplaincy."
+
+"Dear Mrs Bolter--pray hush!" whispered Grey, as her cheeks burned with
+shame.  "It cannot be as you say."
+
+"My dear Mrs Bolter!" cried the Resident.
+
+"He would not of course of his own ideas," sobbed Mrs Bolter, who was
+now thoroughly unhinged; "but he must have called there when looking for
+gold, or insects, or birds, and been deluded into staying at that
+dreadful woman's house."
+
+"I'll swear it is not so," said Hilton, warmly.  "There, there, my dear
+Mrs Bolter, you may make yourself easy on that score!  I'll answer for
+our old friend the doctor."
+
+"Bless you, Mr Hilton!" sobbed the little woman, catching at his hands;
+"it is very, very good of you to say this.  I never liked you one-half
+so well before."
+
+"You are upset," said Hilton, warmly, "and no wonder.  Your anxiety must
+be terrible, and I can understand that you feel ready to snatch at any
+explanation of his long absence; but my dear Mrs Bolter, give us men
+the credit of being a little too strong to be so easily led away."
+
+He spoke in so frank and manly a tone, as he stood holding Mrs Bolter's
+hands, that Grey's eyes lit up, and she darted a look at him full of
+pride and thanks.  But it was not seen, for Hilton was looking down at
+poor, troubled little Mrs Bolter, whose secret, one of which she felt
+bitterly ashamed, was now out.
+
+She was burning with jealousy, for she idolised her husband; and the
+love that had so long lain latent seemed to be all the stronger for its
+long quiescence.  She disowned the idea of being jealous to herself, and
+was about to burst into a furious speech; but her effort to govern
+herself succeeded.
+
+Shame and vexation covered her as with a garment; and hiding her face in
+her hands, she sank back in her chair, sobbing as if her heart would
+break!
+
+Grey knelt down at her side as Hilton drew back, wrinkling his brow,
+half with vexation, half with contempt, as he looked now at the
+Resident.
+
+Mr Harley returned the glance, and they both stood looking on, wanting
+to leave but hardly liking to stir, as poor little Mrs Bolter sobbed
+forth her trouble, with her head buried now in Grey Stuart's breast.
+
+"We cannot wait longer," said the Resident at last; "we must go and risk
+it.  If we have any casualties, we must trust to our own surgical
+knowledge, and do the best we can."
+
+"Yes," said Hilton; "every minute is precious; but I am afraid that we
+are going to a war of words, and not to a war of weapons.  Let us go.
+Perhaps Mrs Bolter will beg of the doctor to come after us in one of
+the small boats if we miss him on our way up."
+
+"Stop a minute," said Mrs Bolter, recovering herself by an effort, and
+standing up, red of eye and cheek.  "He will not come back here while
+you are gone, and I will hesitate no longer.  I shall go with you!"
+
+"Go with us?" cried the Resident and Hilton in a breath.
+
+"Yes," said the little woman, decidedly.  "I shall go!"
+
+"But it is impossible!" cried the Resident.  "There may be fighting!"
+
+"Then you would want help.  I do know a little surgery, and more
+nursing; so I could be of great service."
+
+"But, my dear Mrs Bolter!" cried Hilton.
+
+"Now, it is of no use for you to talk!" cried the little lady.  "I feel
+it is a duty that I am called upon to fulfil.  There is my brother
+somewhere up in those dreadful jungles, as thoughtless and as helpless
+as a child.  He is all strength in goodness and spiritual matters; but
+as to taking care of himself, he is like a baby.  I know he is lost!"
+
+"It is very good of you," said the Resident, warmly; "but, my dear Mrs
+Bolter, pray trust to us to find all our missing people.  You know what
+Doctor Bolter is."
+
+"Yes--no--yes--no!" she cried, passionately.  "I don't quite know him
+yet; but I know my duty as his--his--wife.  I shall go: for if he has,
+through his weakness, been led into any entanglement with that wretched,
+wicked black creature, I know and I feel, that at any suffering to
+myself, I ought to go and fetch him back--and I will!"
+
+As she said this in a fierce determined way, the two officers gazed
+again in each other's faces, amused, vexed, troubled, puzzled; for what,
+they silently asked each other, were they to do?
+
+"Mrs Bolter--dear Mrs Bolter!" said Grey Stuart, solving the problem
+for them, as, in a tender, womanly way, she passed her arm round the
+determined little lady, and drew her to her breast, "you are angry and
+upset by your trouble; but you will--no--you cannot do this thing!  You
+love dear Doctor Bolter too well to misjudge him.  Pray, pray think of
+the pain it would give him, did he know that you had thought and spoken
+like this!"
+
+"And--and as I never did before--before--he came and--and disturbed my
+quiet life at home!" cried the little woman.  "You--you are right, my
+darling!  I--I couldn't do such a thing; and I wouldn't have said it
+only--only--I am half mad!  Don't--don't recollect all this, Harley--
+Captain Hilton!  It is of course impossible!  Go at once--and--bring him
+back to me, for this suspense is more than I can bear!"
+
+"We'll do our best," said the Resident.  "There, cheer up.  We'll forget
+all this, and so will you when our dear old friend is back.  Tell him we
+wanted his help and counsel badly, but we could not wait.  Tell him,
+too, that I share his suspicions."
+
+"Suspicions?" cried little Mrs Bolter, firing up once more.
+
+"Yes, on the subject we discussed," said the Resident, gravely, as he
+shook hands.  "There, good-bye.  Wish us success."
+
+"Yes, wish us success," said Hilton, taking her hand.  "I pledge you my
+word that you are right in what you now think about the doctor, who is
+as true a little gentleman as ever breathed!"
+
+Poor little Mrs Bolter uttered a sob, and raised Hilton's hand to her
+lips and kissed it for the words he had uttered, for she dared not trust
+herself to speak!
+
+"Good-bye," said the Resident again.  "All this is as good as dead, and
+quite forgotten!"
+
+"Yes, yes," said little Mrs Bolter.  "You will keep a sharp look-out
+for dear Arthur.  I feel sure he is wandering about somewhere,
+half-starved, but loaded with specimens that he has found."
+
+"Good-bye, Miss Stuart," said Hilton, in a low, grave voice, for he felt
+deeply moved, and his heart had seemed to swell within his breast as he
+looked on while she had seemed to lead and control her excited,
+passion-swayed friend.  "Wish me success, for I shall try, while I have
+life, to restore to you your unfortunate friend."
+
+"Yes," she said, softly; and the sad tears stood in her eyes.  "I wish
+you success."
+
+"Helen Perowne will need all your love and sympathy when we bring her
+back."
+
+"As I pray Heaven you will," she said, quietly.  "You will have our
+constant prayers for your safety.  Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+Their hands touched for a moment, and a thrill of misery flew to each
+heart.
+
+"How he must love her!" thought Grey.  "Oh!  Helen, how can you trifle
+with him as you do?"
+
+"I remember," thought Hilton, as he turned away, feeling as wretched as
+he had ever felt in his life, "that I used to read a little fable, when
+I was a child, about a dog and his shadow.  I've been running after the
+shadow all this time, and I have lost the substance.  Unlucky dog!"
+
+"What are you thinking about, Hilton?" said the Resident, as they
+stepped out of the cool, shady veranda into the blazing sunshine, and
+began walking towards the landing-place to embark for the Residency
+island.
+
+"Thinking?" said Hilton.  "Oh!  I don't know; only that it would not be
+of much consequence if a fellow got a Malay spear through his lungs."
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+LABOUR IN VAIN.
+
+The fugitives had not been lying in their shady place of concealment
+many minutes before the loud buzz of voices and shouting ceased.  Then
+came the whishing and brushing noise of twigs and bushes, and in the
+midst of the silence that followed they made out the beating of oars
+once more, and soon after the prahu came into sight, gliding swiftly
+down the stream.
+
+As it came nearer, those in the sampan hardly dared to breathe, but
+crouched there, waiting patiently till the great vessel had passed.
+
+So plainly could everything be seen in the broad sunlight that, as the
+crew were evidently keeping a sharp look-out on both sides, it seemed
+impossible, in spite of the hanging boughs, for the fugitives to remain
+unseen.
+
+Nearer came the prahu, the steersman sending it well in towards them; a
+dozen eyes were fixed upon the leafy screen, and feeling that the time
+for desperate action had come, the doctor took up his gun and held it
+ready for use, if, after a parley, the occupants of the prahu sought to
+rob him of what he reasonably called his prize.
+
+They were anxious moments, and more than once, when the prahu was close
+abreast, the doctor made sure, from the expression of the men's faces,
+that they could see through the screen.
+
+But no; the water was ablaze, in its ripple, as it were, with silver
+fire; the leaves glistened in the sun's rays, and beyond them all seemed
+to be in impenetrable darkness, the result being that the prahu passed
+on its way, going faster and faster, till, as the doctor parted the
+leaves to gaze out, the stern of the long row-boat disappeared round a
+bend some five hundred yards away, and the question now was, what was
+the best thing to do?
+
+Helen was nearly fainting with heat and excitement; and gently lifting
+her, so that her head was by the side, the doctor spent the next few
+minutes in bathing her face with the clear cold water that glided
+swiftly in amongst the overhanging boughs.
+
+"Well, Ismael, what next?" said the doctor.  "Do you think we might
+venture to follow them slowly down?"
+
+"No, master!" was the emphatic reply.  "The prahu will not go far
+without finding that we are not in front; then she will leave a small
+boat with men to see that we do not pass, while the prahu comes back to
+search the river sides.  Sampans and small prahus always hide under the
+branches like this."
+
+"Then why propose such a blind trick?" cried the doctor.
+
+"If the master could have shown a better way his servants would have
+been content," said the Malay, humbly.
+
+"But I could not propose a better way!" cried the doctor, angrily.  "We
+could not escape from a swift boat like that.  Well, what shall we do?"
+
+"I should land, master, and try to escape through the jungle."
+
+"Impossible!" cried the doctor, glancing at Helen's swollen feet.  "She
+could not walk a mile, and we could not carry her."
+
+"It would not be wise to try and go up-stream, master," said the Malay.
+
+"I don't know that," replied the doctor.  "We must get away somewhere.
+To stay here is to be hunted out and taken."
+
+He paused to listen, and as he did so the beat of the great oars came
+loudly; and directly after he sank back in the boat with a look of
+misery upon his face, for the prahu could be seen once more returning
+up-stream, and to have attempted to leave their concealment now meant
+certain capture.
+
+It soon became very evident that the officer in command of the prahu
+felt sure that they were in hiding somewhere close at hand, for he had
+his boat steered close in to the opposite shore; and as they glided
+slowly by, men with poles thrust aside the branches, and keen eyes were
+evidently peering scrutinisingly amongst the leaves.
+
+The doctor turned angrily in his place, thinking of what he should do;
+but all thought seemed in vain, and the conclusion was forced upon him
+that their only chance was to lie quiet and trust to their not being
+seen.
+
+He was a man, however, of no little activity of mind; and as soon as
+this was forced upon him he immediately set to work to try and improve
+their position.
+
+Giving his instructions, then, in a whisper, the sampan was dragged in
+closer to the shore, and leaves and boughs being reached were dragged
+over them, the doctor cutting several branches to lay over the boat
+where it was fixed in its place; and this being done, he made the Malays
+lie down, he remaining in a kneeling position as he enlaced the boughs
+above his head till all was to his satisfaction, after which he crouched
+down and waited.
+
+Poor Doctor Bolter had worked at his task till the perspiration streamed
+from his face, little thinking that he had closed up every aperture
+through which danger might enter but one, and that one was plain to
+anyone in search of the fugitives.
+
+It was very unfortunate, but it never occurred to him.  He had broken
+the branches with the greatest care, turning huge leaves over the broken
+ends to keep them from looking strange, and he had carefully picked up
+and laid in the boat every leaf that had been broken off, but still
+there was a sign visible by which the searchers might detect the hidden
+party should they use any diligence as they came that way.
+
+The fugitives were not long kept in suspense, for very soon the plash of
+the prahu's oars was heard, and then the shadow of the great boat shut
+out some of the light as she brushed against the branches.  Oars and
+poles beat aside the boughs, and the excitement grew intense as the
+searchers came nearer and nearer.  The two boatmen laid their heads upon
+their knees, and Dr Bolter placed the gun in the bottom of the boat,
+gave Helen's hand a reassuring pressure, and then took up his revolver
+as being a better weapon for such close quarters.
+
+"They're in here somewhere," cried a voice in Malayan; "beat the
+branches aside; they must be found."
+
+The crew of the prahu encouraged each other with shouts as they bent
+aside the boughs; and the boat, after being rowed some little distance
+past them, was allowed to drift slowly down, some of the men holding on
+by the branches to keep her from going down-stream too fast.
+
+The fugitives lay quite still, hardly daring to breathe as this went on,
+the search at one time being so near that they felt that they must be
+seen.  But in spite of the keen searchings of a score or so of piercing
+eyes, the prahu slowly passed them lower and lower down the stream, till
+the voices began to grow faint.
+
+"Saved, my dear," said the doctor, in a whisper.  "They will not come
+back now.  Hold up a bit longer, and I will see you safe in your
+father's arms."
+
+In spite of her efforts, Helen could not keep back a passionate burst of
+tears, her sobs, stifled though they were, becoming so hysterical that
+the doctor grew alarmed, and tried hard to comfort her.
+
+"Thank goodness!" he muttered at last, as she calmed down; and he was in
+the act of raising his handkerchief to wipe his streaming face, when he
+turned cold, for the prahu was being rowed up-stream once more.
+
+There was nothing for it but to lie still and wait, for there was a
+possibility of the search being ended; but to their agony and despair,
+the vessel was allowed to come slowly floating back, the search being
+continued till, as they came nearly opposite, one of the crew uttered a
+loud shout, and pointed to where, like a silvery patch in the darkness,
+the sun was shining in upon the doctor's glistening bald head.
+
+The next minute the prahu's stem was forced in amongst the bushes and
+overhanging boughs, and half a dozen Malays dropped from her side right
+into the boat.
+
+Doctor Bolter made a desperate attempt at defending his charge, but one
+of the prahu's crew leaped right down upon his back, jerking his arm so
+that the first shot from his revolver went into the jungle, the second
+through the bottom of the sampan, and the third remained in the
+pistol-chamber, for the trigger was not drawn, the pistol being wrenched
+from his hand.
+
+The next few minutes were occupied in binding roughly him and his men,
+and then, in spite of his angry denunciations and threats of the British
+vengeance, they were hauled into the prahu.  Helen was slung up--she
+being quite prostrate now--and amidst the laughter and chattering of the
+swarthy Malays, the prahu's head was turned towards the little river,
+with the sampan towing behind, and the boats soon after went rushing
+through the water on their upward way.
+
+"Horrible!" muttered the doctor, as he realised his position.  "They
+will take us up the little river to that scoundrel's place in the
+jungle, and I never told a soul where we were going.  Was ever anything
+so unlucky?  As for that Murad, once let me get the opportunity, and he
+shall smart for this--a vile, treacherous scoundrel!  Poor Helen, what
+can I do!"
+
+He drew his breath painfully through his teeth as he uttered these
+words, for just then a showily-dressed Malay went to where Helen was
+seated, and going down upon one knee, he raised her head.
+
+"Poor girl, she is fainting!" muttered the doctor.  Then his heart
+seemed to stand still, for Helen uttered a piteous cry for help, and for
+the first time the doctor saw that the showily-dressed Malay supporting
+Helen's head was the Rajah himself!
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+RICHES TAKE TO THEMSELVES WINGS.
+
+"Ah, Grey, my child," said little Mrs Bolter, with a loud burst of
+sobbing, as soon as they were alone, "if ever you marry, don't marry a
+medical man!  I try so hard--Heaven knows how hard--not to let such
+thoughts come into my mind; but I've altered terribly, my dear, since I
+was married.  The doctor has made me love him very much; and it's being
+so fond of him that has caused this dreadful jealous feeling to spring
+up; and it finds vent in my being snappish to him, and complaining about
+all sorts of trifles that are of no consequence at all!"
+
+"But you ought not to let such thoughts come into your mind," said Grey,
+reproachfully.
+
+"I know I ought not, my dear," said the unhappy little body, clinging to
+her young friend's hand; "but they will come.  It's just as if I were
+being tempted by mocking spirits, which keep on pretending to open my
+eyes when the doctor is out."
+
+"Open your eyes, dear Mrs Bolter?" said Grey, who found relief for her
+own sore heart in trying to soothe another's.
+
+"Yes, my dear.  I'm confessing quite openly to you now, my dear; but I
+know that you will never betray me.  They seem to open my eyes to all
+sorts of things, and make me see the doctor, when he is called in to
+ladies, taking their bands and feeling their pulses; and oh, my dear, it
+is very dreadful to sit at home and think that your husband is holding
+some handsome woman's hand and wrist, and feeling the beatings of her
+pulses, and perhaps all the time forgetting that he has a poor, anxious
+little wife at home thinking he is so long away!"
+
+"When that same husband loves you very dearly, and is most likely
+longing to be back by your side," said Grey, reproachfully.
+
+"If one could only feel that," said Mrs Bolter, "instead of being in
+such torture and misery, and wishing a hundred times a day that I had
+never listened to the doctor, and given up our quiet little home!"
+
+"When you have come out to make his life so happy?" said Grey, smiling.
+
+"I try to, my dear; but I can't help thinking sometimes," said the poor
+little woman, pathetically, "that his heart is more devoted to Solomon's
+gold--"
+
+"Oh, Mrs Bolter!"
+
+"And apes."
+
+"My dear Mrs Bolter!"
+
+"And peacocks," sobbed the little woman, "than it is to me.  Ah, my
+dear, when you marry--"
+
+"I shall never marry, Mrs Bolter," said Grey, with a sad ring in her
+voice.
+
+"Oh, you don't know, my child.  I used to say so, and think that I was
+as firm as a rock, and as hard as iron; but, oh, these men--these men--
+when once you listen to their dreadful, insinuating talk, they seem to
+get the better of your proper judgment, and end by completely turning
+you round their finger."
+
+Grey smiled in her face and kissed her.
+
+"There, there!" cried Mrs Bolter, changing her tone, "I am afraid I
+have lowered myself terribly in your eyes this morning, my dear.  I'm
+growing into a very, very strange creature, and dreadfully weak!  Those
+torturing thoughts keep suggesting to my foolish heart that the doctor
+has gone up the river on purpose to see the Inche Maida!"
+
+"Oh, no; he cannot!" said Grey, smiling.
+
+"Well, perhaps not, my dear; but whether or no, if he was to come back
+now, and confess that he had done so, I feel perfectly certain that,
+after scolding him well, I should forgive him.  I've grown to be a very
+different body to the one you knew when you used to come to us from the
+Miss Twettenhams'."
+
+"Now, look here, dear Mrs Bolter," said Grey, who, in her friend's
+trouble, seemed to have changed places with her, and become the elder of
+the two, "I believe Dr Bolter to be a really good, true man, to whom I
+should go in trouble and speak to as if he were my father, sure that he
+would be kind and wise, and help and protect me, whether my trouble were
+mental or bodily."
+
+"My dear," cried Mrs Bolter, gazing at her with admiration, "you talk
+like a little Solomon!  Ah!" she cried impatiently, "I wish there had
+never been a Solomon at all!"
+
+"Why?" said Grey, wonderingly.
+
+"Because then Harry would never have been always dreaming about gold,
+and Tarshish and Ophir, and all that stuff!"
+
+"My dear Mrs Bolter," continued Grey, affectionately, "I feel that I am
+perfectly right about Doctor Bolter, and I hope you will not be hurt
+when I tell you that I think you are very hard and unjust to him!"
+
+"Hurt, my darling!" sobbed the little woman, "no, indeed I am very
+grateful, my dear, and I wish you would scold me well.  It would do me
+good!"
+
+"I am sure, then, without scolding you," said Grey, smiling, "that the
+doctor is one of the best of men!"
+
+"He is--he is, indeed, my dear!" cried Mrs Bolter; "and I'm sure I'd
+forgive him anything!"
+
+"And you have nothing to forgive," said Grey.  "I am sure of it; and I
+hope and pray that you will not be so unjust!"
+
+"Do you think I am unjust, my dear?" said the little lady.
+
+"Unintentionally, yes," replied Grey; "and it is such, a pity that there
+should be clouds in such a happy home!"
+
+"You--you are--a dear little angel of goodness, Grey!" sobbed Mrs
+Bolter; "and you seem to come like sunshine into my poor, weak, foolish
+heart; and I'll never be suspicious or unkind to him again!  He's only
+studying a little up the river of course; and I'm--as you've shown me--a
+weak, foolish, cruel--"
+
+"Affectionate, loving wife," interrupted Grey, who felt herself crushed
+the next moment in little Mrs Bolter's arms.
+
+"Bless you, my dear!" she cried.  "I'll--"
+
+"Hush!" whispered Grey.  "Here is my father!"  The little lady hastily
+wiped her eyes as she glanced through the veranda, and saw the bent,
+thin, dried-up figure of the old merchant coming through the burning
+sunshine past the window, and then he stopped and tapped at the door.
+
+"May I come in?" he said.  "I'm not a patient."
+
+"Yes, yes, come in!" cried Mrs Bolter, cheerfully.
+
+"How do--how do?" he cried, on entering.  "Weel, Grey bairnie, how is it
+with ye?"
+
+He kissed her in his dry fashion, smiling slightly as he smoothed his
+child's fair hair, and bending down to kiss her.
+
+"I'm verra hot, and verra dry and parched up like, so I thought I'd
+joost step in and ask for a glass of watter, and joost a soospeeshun of
+the doctor's bad whuskee to kill the insects."
+
+"Which I'm sure you shall have, Mr Stuart," cried little Mrs Bolter,
+eagerly.
+
+"Weel, Grey, my bairnie, ye look red in your een and pale, when you
+ought to be verra happy to think things are all so pleasant and smooth
+for you."
+
+"Indeed, I try to be very happy and contented, father," she said, with a
+slight catching of the breath.
+
+"Try," he cried, "try?  Why, it ought to want no trying; you ought to be
+as happy as the day is long."
+
+"For shame, Mr Stuart," cried Mrs Bolter, handing him the large cool
+tumbler of water with the whiskey already in.  "Would you have her show
+no sympathy for people who are all in trouble?  It's a weary, miserable
+world, and I wonder you can look as happy as you do."
+
+"Hoot--toot, Madam! weary miserable world!  Here are you with the best
+of husbands.  You ought to be ready to jump for joy."
+
+"But I'm not," said the little woman, passionately.  "But I'm not so
+miserable as I was."
+
+"That's a comfort," said the little merchant, drily; and he took a sip
+from his tumbler--a goodly sip--as if he intended to finish all that was
+there.  "Hech! madam, ye didna forget the whuskee."
+
+"Is it too strong, Mr Stuart?  Let me put in a little more water."
+
+"Mair watter! nay; ye'd spoil a verra decent drink for a hot day."
+
+"I'm glad you like it."
+
+"Hah! ye ought to be verra happy indeed, wumman, for the doctor's a good
+man, and a trusty fren'.  Hah! that's good whuskee," he added, with a
+sigh of satisfaction after a deep draught.  "Life would be but a sore
+lookout in these parts wi'-out joost a soop o' whuskee to take the taste
+o' the crocodiles out o' the watter."
+
+"It is very hot out of doors, is it not, father?" said Grey, who was
+wondering what he meant to say.
+
+"Ay, it's hot enough," he replied.  "An' so ye're not verra happy, Mrs
+Bolter?  Ay, but ye ought to be, and so ought my child Grey here, wi'
+every comfort in life except extravagances, which I don't hold with at
+all.  She lives well, and dresses quietly, as a young lady should, and
+her father has not set up a grand house to flash and show in, and then
+have to give it up, and go and live in one that's wee."
+
+"I don't quite understand you," said Mrs Bolter, colouring slightly,
+and looking indignant.  "But if you are hinting at the doctor being
+extravagant, I cannot sit here without resenting it, for a more careful
+man never lived."
+
+"Ay, but he is a sad dog, the doctor," said old Stuart, with a twinkle
+full of malice in his eye.
+
+"How dare you say such a thing to me--his wife!" cried Mrs Bolter,
+indignantly.
+
+"Hoot! wumman; dinna be fashed!" exclaimed old Stuart, who seemed
+delighted to have roused a spirit of opposition in his friend's wife.
+"But I'll say this o' him," he continued, gradually growing more
+Scottish of accent; "he does keep gude whuskee.  Ay, I was na' speaking
+o' him when I talked aboot lairge and sma' houses, but o' poor Perowne.
+Ay, but it's a bad job."
+
+"What, about poor Helen?" said Mrs Bolter.  "Ay, and his affairs.  I
+suppose ye ken a'?"
+
+"His affairs?" exclaimed Mrs Doctor.  "What do you mean?"
+
+"Oh!  I thought a' Sindang knew he'd failed.  Sax hundred pounds o' my
+money goes with the rest.  But there, puir mon, he's in trouble enough
+wi' the loss o' his daughter, and I'll never say a word about it more."
+
+"Is Mr Perowne in fresh trouble then, father?" said Grey, eagerly.
+
+"Weel, my lassie there's naught fresh about it, for he must have
+expected it for a year or two.  He's been going down-hill a lang time,
+and noo he's recht at the bottom."
+
+"Has he failed, father?"
+
+"Joost ruined and bankrupt, my lassie, and Helen won't have a penny to
+call her own--a proud, stuck-up--"
+
+"Hush, father!  I cannot bear it," cried Grey, with spirit.  "Helen
+Perowne is my friend and schoolfellow, and surely she is in trouble
+enough to ask our sympathy and not our blame!"
+
+"Why, how now, lassie!" cried the old man angrily.  "Ay, but ye're quite
+right," he said, checking himself.  "We ought to pity them, and not jump
+upon 'em when they're down.  Ye're quite recht, Grey, my bairnie--quite
+recht."
+
+"Oh, Mr Stuart, how shocking; and just when he is so ill and cast down!
+Grey, my child, I must go and see if I can be of help to him.  Will you
+stay with your father?"
+
+"Ay, she'll stay, and you may too, Mrs Bolter, for Perowne has gone
+across to the Residency, and before now they're awa' up the river to try
+and find his poor lassie.  Ye're quite recht, Grey, my child; and if
+they find her and bring her back, stop wi' her and comfort her, and do
+the best ye can.  I'm sorry for them, for we're none o' us pairfect.
+But this is verra gude whuskee, Mrs Bolter.  When do ye expect the
+Doctor home?"
+
+"I don't know, Mr Stuart," she said, sadly.  "Soon, I hope; but when he
+does come back he'll have to go after the expedition.  It's very sad to
+be a doctor's wife."
+
+"To be wife to some doctors," said old Stuart, laughing; "but not to our
+Bolter.  Eh, but ye're a lucky wumman to get him.  If ye hadn't taken
+him, I believe I should have made him marry my lassie here.  There, I
+must be for going though, for my hands are full.  I'm trying to save a
+few hundreds for poor Perowne out of the wreck."
+
+"When shall I see you again, father?" said Grey, clinging to him
+affectionately.
+
+"Oh, heaps o' times, my bairnie, when ye don't expect it.  I'm always
+looking out after ye, but I know ye're all recht wi' Mrs Bolter here,
+so do all ye can."
+
+He nodded and smiled as he went out of the room, but looked in again
+directly.
+
+"Ye needna be uneasy you two," he said, "for I'm having a watch kept
+over ye both, though ye don't ken it; so go on joost as usual.  If I
+hear of the doctor coming, Mrs Bolter, I'll let ye know."
+
+They heard his steps in the veranda, and directly after saw his bent,
+thin figure out in the scorching sun, with no further protection than a
+bit of muslin round his old straw hat, and looking as if he were not
+worth fifty pounds in the world, and the last man to be the father of
+the graceful little maiden sitting holding Mrs Bolter's hand.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+THE FIRE BURNS AGAIN.
+
+Days of anxiety and watching, with no news of the expedition which had
+started directly after Grey Stuart's father had crossed over to the
+island.  The English community at Sindang were extremely uneasy, for it
+struck them that the Malays were keeping aloof, and that their servants
+looked ill-conditioned and sulky.
+
+A strange silence seemed to reign in the place, with an almost utter
+absence of trade.  No boats came down with flowers and fruit, and no
+cheerful intercourse was carried on as heretofore.  Nothing had been
+seen of the Inche Maida, and Murad was quite an absentee; while not a
+word had been brought down the river relating to the doings of the
+expedition.
+
+In accordance with the Resident's secretly-issued orders, every European
+left stood in readiness to flee to the Residency island, where the
+little garrison, under the care of a subaltern, kept strict watch and
+ward, and held themselves prepared to go to the aid of the merchants and
+their families, should there be need.
+
+But day after day glided by, and still no doctor--no news.
+
+"Poor Mr Perowne!" said Mrs Bolter one afternoon, as she sat talking
+to Grey Stuart, and discussing the terrible state of his affairs, of
+which the merchant made no secret; "it will be a sad downfall for them;
+but there, there, merchants fall and rise again very quickly, and let's
+hope all will come right in the end--Wasn't that the doctor's step, my
+dear?"
+
+"No," said Grey, quietly, as she tried to look free from uneasiness.
+
+"I wish we could get some news, my dear," sighed Mrs Bolter.
+
+"All in good time," said Grey, looking happier than she felt.  "We shall
+hear soon."
+
+"I--I hope so, my dear," sighed Mrs Bolter; "but it is very sad to be a
+wife, waiting as I wait."
+
+"But with patience now," said Grey, smiling.  "You are happy now in your
+mind?"
+
+"Ye-s!  Oh! yes I am now, my dear; and I will never let such thoughts
+gain an entrance again."
+
+"I know you will not," said Grey, leaning towards her to lay her hand
+upon the little lady's arm, in token of gentle sympathy, for the tears
+were in Mrs Bolter's eyes, and she showed in pallor how deeply she was
+feeling the absence of husband and brother.
+
+That day the little station appeared as it were asleep in the hot
+sunshine, and the silence was oppressive in the extreme.  One of the
+Malays, who seemed to take an interest in Mrs Bolter, consequent upon
+his having been cured by the doctor of a very dangerous complaint, had
+been started up the river in his boat, to see if he could learn any news
+of the party, and this messenger was anxiously expected back.
+
+"I can't help it, my dear," said Mrs Bolter, turning to Grey, after
+some hours' silence, "I can't help thinking that something serious is
+wrong.  Oh! how shocking it would be to be deprived of our protectors!"
+
+"But Dr Bolter has been away for longer at a time than this, has he
+not?" said Grey, as she sat there, wondering whether the officers of the
+expedition were safe--above all, Captain Hilton.
+
+"Yes, my dear," said the little lady, with a sigh; "he has been away
+longer before now; but no news of my brother--no news of him--it is very
+hard to bear."
+
+"No, no, no," whispered Grey, passing a soft arm round her neck; "try
+and be patient--try and think hopefully of everything.  We must be
+patient at a time like this."
+
+"But you cannot feel as I do, my dear," cried Mrs Bolter.  "You have
+friends away, but not one whom you dwell upon as I do."
+
+Grey's eyes wore a very piteous aspect, but she said nothing, only did
+battle with a sigh, which conquered and fought its way from her
+labouring breast.
+
+"But I am trying, Grey, my darling," said the little woman, drying her
+eyes; "you know how patient I have been, and how I have taken your
+advice.  Not one allusion have I made to the Inche Maida since you
+talked to me as you did.  Now, have I not been patient?"
+
+"You have indeed," said Grey, smiling at her sadly.
+
+"And I'm going to take your advice thoroughly, for I'm beginning to
+think that the little girl I began by patronising has grown wiser than
+I.  There, you see, I have dried my eyes, and--Bless my heart, here is
+Mr Stuart, and he will see that I have been crying."
+
+She jumped up and ran out of the room as the little merchant came to the
+door, and entered without ceremony.
+
+"Well, Grey, my bairnie," he said, as she kissed him affectionately,
+while, as soon as he had drawn back, he took out his broad kerchief to
+dab his brow, and seemed to wipe the kiss carefully away.
+
+"You have news, father?" cried Grey, eagerly.  "Pray speak!"
+
+"Well, don't hurry me, child," he replied.  "I've just come from the
+landing-stage--and I've seen that Malay fellow, Syed--and he says the
+expedition is coming back."
+
+"Coming back, father?  Oh! why did you not speak before?"
+
+"Syed has just come down with the stream.  The water's low and they've
+got aground a few miles up, but they expected to be afloat soon."
+
+"But is anyone hurt, father?  Have they found Helen?  Pray--pray speak!"
+
+"Only a few of the men a bit hurt, it seems.  Officers all right," said
+the old man, speaking very coolly, and consequently in excellent
+English.
+
+"But Helen?  Have they found Helen?"
+
+"It seems not, from what the fellow knew," said the merchant, coolly.
+"Where's Mrs Bolter?" he said, in a low voice.
+
+Grey's heart seemed to stand still.  "Oh! father!" she sighed, "is he
+hurt?"
+
+"No; he's aboard," replied the merchant.  "But where is she?"
+
+"She left the room as you came in; but why do you not speak out?"
+
+"I was thinking o' Mrs Bolter, my dear.  Isn't she a bit--you know--
+jealous, lassie?"
+
+"Don't ask me such questions, father," cried Grey, in a low voice.
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I'm thinking she'll be a bit put out if it is as I hear."
+
+"Why, father?" cried Grey, as her mind filled with strange imaginations.
+"But tell me quickly," she whispered, "is Mr Chumbley safe?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said old Stuart; "he's safe enough, lassie."
+
+"And--and--"
+
+"The Resident?  Yes; he's well."
+
+"But father, you--you have not told me about Captain Hilton."
+
+"Hilton?  Oh, ay, he's all well!  Hang it if here isn't that Barlow
+woman!  I left her at the landing-place pumping Syed."
+
+As he finished speaking, Mrs Barlow, panting, hot, and excited, half
+ran into the room.
+
+"No news--no news of poor Mr Rosebury!" she cried; "but oh, my dear
+Mrs Bolter--my dear Mrs Bolter!"
+
+"What is it--what is it?" cried that lady, opening the door, and
+entering the room, trembling visibly.  "You've brought me some terrible
+news!  I know you have!  Speak to me--speak directly!"
+
+"Yes, yes, my dear: but try and bear it with fortitude."
+
+"Yes, I will," she panted.  "My brother--is dead!"
+
+"No, no," sobbed Mrs Barlow; "there is no news of him; but the Malay
+has told me all!"
+
+"All?  All what?" cried Mrs Bolter.
+
+"They found Doctor Bolter at the Inche Maida's."
+
+"I knew it!" cried Mrs Bolter, excitedly.
+
+"And he and the Inche Maida have been up one of the little rivers in his
+boat, and the officers caught them, and brought them back."
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+HELP IN NEED.
+
+If little Mrs Bolter had seen her lord--the quiet, suave medical man,
+who by his genuine admiration had so late in life won her heart--she
+would have trembled with the idea that he was about to fall down in a
+fit of apoplexy.  For as he realised who was the showily-dressed Malay
+who had taken Helen Perowne in his arms, he first turned sallow with the
+heart-sinking sensation consequent upon seeing his helpless charge in
+the hands of one who, spite of his assumption of English manners and
+customs, remained at heart a fierce and unscrupulous savage.
+
+But the next moment the pallor passed away, his face flushed with rage,
+and as his indignation increased, he became absolutely purple.
+
+He made a furious struggle to escape from those who held him and get to
+Helen's side; for in those angry moments his English blood was on fire,
+and little, stout, short-winded, and pretty well exhausted by previous
+efforts as he was, he forgot everything but the fact that there was a
+helpless girl--an English lady--in deadly peril, and asking his aid.
+Numbers--personal danger--his own want of weapons--all were forgotten;
+and the little doctor would have attempted anything then that the
+bravest hero could have ventured to save Helen Perowne from her captors.
+
+But it was not to be: one man, however, brave, when left to his natural
+strength of arm, is as nothing against a score; and literally foaming
+now with rage, Doctor Bolter, as he was mastered by the Sultan's men,
+had nothing left but his tongue for weapon, and this--let him receive
+justice--he used to the best of his power while Murad remained on deck.
+
+Dog, coward, reptile, contemptible villain, disgrace to humanity, fiend
+in human form, scoundrel whom he would kick--these and scores of similar
+opprobrious terms the doctor applied to the Rajah, making the crew of
+the prahu scowl and mutter, and draw their krisses in a threatening
+manner, as they looked at Murad for orders to slay the infidel dog who
+dared revile their chief.
+
+But in his calm triumph Murad stood gazing in a sneering irritating way
+at the doctor, speaking no word, but seeming to say--so the doctor
+interpreted it:
+
+"Curse and rail as you will, I have won, and no words of yours can hurt
+me."
+
+"Will nothing move you, dog that you are?" cried the doctor.  "Oh, if I
+had but my liberty!" and his rage increased to such a pitch that his
+anger approached the ridiculous, for, failing English terms, he turned
+round and swore at the Rajah in Latin, in French, and finally rolled out
+a series of ponderous German oaths garnished with many-syllabled
+adjectives.
+
+Murad seemed moved at last, and after calmly walking to and fro the
+bamboo deck, he suddenly turned upon the doctor.
+
+"Silence, English dog!" he hissed; "or my men shall kris you, and throw
+you out!"
+
+"Dog yourself!" roared the doctor.  "Oh! if I had you sick in bed for
+twenty-four hours!  I'd--"
+
+"Silence!" roared Murad, fiercely, for he noted the ominous looks of his
+men, and felt that if he did not resent these insults he would be losing
+caste amongst them; and as he spoke he struck the doctor--bound and
+helpless as he was as to his hands, and held by a couple of the prahu's
+crew--a violent blow across the mouth.
+
+The doctor's lip was cut, and the blood trickled down his chin as the
+Rajah turned contemptuously from him, and then staggered head first, and
+finally fell prone upon his face.  For it was the only retaliation in
+Doctor Bolter's power, and he took it: as the Rajah turned, the doctor
+threw all the strength he had left into one tremendous kick, as a
+scoundrel should be kicked, and the above was the result.
+
+Furious with rage the Rajah struggled to his feet, whipped out his kris
+and dashed at the prisoner; but just then there was a warning shout, and
+a small sampan that had been coming rapidly down-stream hitched on to
+the prahu, and one of the occupants climbed on board.
+
+He ran to the Rajah, and said something in a low voice which made Murad
+turn colour; and hastily thrusting his kris back in its sheath, he began
+to issue orders to his crew.
+
+"I'm glad he didn't kill me," muttered the doctor; "I'm glad for Mary's
+sake; but I'm not sorry I kicked the villain all the same.  What are
+they about to do now?"
+
+He soon learned, for the Sultan's orders resulted in the prahu's crew
+imitating his boatmen's manoeuvre, running her close into the bank and
+under the shelter of the broad, overhanging boughs, the place being so
+well suited that even the large naga was entirely concealed.
+
+As soon as these plans were being carried out, the doctor had been
+hurried--in spite of some resistance--into the after-part of the boat,
+where he was roughly thrown down upon the deck; but he knew from what
+was being done that help must be close at hand--and help of a
+substantial nature, or else the occupants of this large and well-armed
+craft would not have hidden and left the river clear.
+
+"Perhaps," he thought, "it may be meant as an ambush, and some of our
+friends are running the risk of capture."
+
+He felt lightened though at heart, and lay perfectly still--not in
+obedience to his captors, but to listen as he gazed straight up at the
+leaves and boughs above his head.
+
+The time went on, and from being red hot with passion the doctor began
+to cool down; his heart had ceased to bound, and the burning sensation
+in his temples became less painful.  He wondered where they had placed
+Helen, then whether there was any boat coming down the river; and at
+last, so still was everybody, so silent the leafy arcade, that the
+doctor's natural history proclivities began to be even then aroused.
+
+For as he lay there upon his back, first one and then another brilliant
+fly came and darted about through the network of sunrays; while soon
+after there was a beautiful bird perched upon a twig not ten feet from
+his face, where he could see the varied tinting of its feathers.  Then,
+as it flew off, he saw what had alarmed it, and that it was not the crew
+of the boat, but first one and then another, till there were quite half
+a dozen monkeys of an extremely rare kind climbing and playing about in
+the branches of one of the biggest trees.  Then came close to him a
+wonderfully-tinted parroquet, and then a lustrous sunbird began to dart
+about in an open space.
+
+"If I only had my gun," muttered the enthusiast; and then he was
+listening intently to the beat of oars.
+
+The doctor's thoughts were interrupted the next moment by some one
+kneeling down beside him, and he saw the gleaming eyes and white teeth
+of Murad, who drew the doctor's attention to a bare kris which he held
+in his hand, and then pointed at his prisoner.
+
+"Look!" he whispered; "if you make a sound while that boat goes by, I
+shall kill you as I would a dog!"
+
+"Thankye," said the doctor, quietly; and he lay still thinking.
+
+There was help coming--help for him and for the poor girl whom he had
+sworn to protect.  If he let that help go by he would be resigning Helen
+Perowne to a fate worse than death; and growing enthusiastic as he
+thought, he mused on, telling himself that he was an Englishman and very
+brave, and that he'd die sooner than not make an effort to save the poor
+girl in his charge.
+
+Then he shuddered as he thought of death, and felt that he would like to
+live longer at any cost, and that he dare not risk his life; but
+directly after he began comforting himself with the idea that if matters
+came to the worst, and he did call for help, the chances were great
+against Murad striking him in a vital place.
+
+"And I can cure a wound," he muttered; "and as to poison on those
+krisses, it's an old woman's tale."
+
+All this time the sound of the oars had come nearer and nearer, till to
+the doctor they seemed to be just abreast.
+
+But no; they were still coming nearer, and his heart began to beat
+furiously, as, taking advantage of Murad's head being turned, the doctor
+freed his hands from their bonds and then lay thinking.
+
+Should he risk it?  Should he give it up?
+
+Life was very sweet.  So was honour; and that poor girl had claimed his
+protection.
+
+"And how could I look her father in the face if I did not try my best to
+save her?" he thought.
+
+Still the sound of oars came nearer--_beat, beat--beat, beat_; and now
+he knew that the boat must be nearly abreast--so plainly did the
+plashing sound.
+
+He looked up at Murad, who, kris in hand, was listening and watching
+together.  He glanced at the dull-hued wavy blade, and saw its keen
+point and edge, thinking with a kind of curiosity how wide a wound it
+would make in him as he recollected how many he had cured for the men
+who had been in engagements; and then he asked the question again:
+
+"Should he risk his life for Helen's sake?"
+
+The sound of the oars was louder than ever; and now he knew that the
+boat must be really abreast--and an English one too--otherwise why this
+hiding and the Rajah's anxious look?
+
+"Not only for Helen's sake, but as an Englishman's duty," he said to
+himself; and he drew a long breath.
+
+"_Help_!" he roared, "_help! boat ah_!"
+
+He would have said "_Ahoy_!" but with a snarl like that of a wild cat,
+Murad threw himself upon his prisoner, striking savagely at his breast
+with the keen weapon, to pin him to the naga's bamboo deck.
+
+But with the effort of a man striving to save his life, the doctor
+managed to wrench himself a little on one side, and the keen kris passed
+between his breast and arm as he seized the Rajah by the throat.
+
+The struggle that followed was almost a matter of moments, before Doctor
+Bolter went over the side, plunging down into deep water, and rising
+outside the screen of leaves, to swim vigorously towards the English
+boat, which was coming rapidly towards where the Rajah's naga lay.
+
+A spear splashed into the water by the doctor's head, but the boughs
+prevented the thrower from taking a good aim; and almost directly after
+the swimmer was hauled on board, and the Rajah's naga was seen to be
+trying to steal out some fifty yards ahead.
+
+A call to surrender was answered by a shout of defiance, and the Malays
+began to manfully ply their oars; but a volley from the soldiers' pieces
+seemed to quell their ardour and to cause confusion, in the midst of
+which the English boat dashed alongside, and Hilton, Chumbley, the
+Resident, and a score of the soldiers poured over the side, driving the
+spear-armed crew below, the Rajah going down from a cut over the
+forehead from the Resident's sword.
+
+The naga was mastered; and the doctor, hunting out where Helen had been
+placed, she was soon afterwards sobbing in her father's arms.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
+
+THE RETURN TO SINDANG.
+
+For a time no one spoke in the doctor's cottage; but old Stuart took a
+very large and a very loud pinch of snuff, which seemed as if he had
+been loading his nose with powder, for it went off directly after with a
+report-like sneeze that made the jalousies rattle.
+
+"Is--is this--these words--are they true?" said Mrs Bolter, at last,
+with unnatural calmness.
+
+"Yes, yes, my dear, quite true!" cried Mrs Barlow, excitedly.
+
+"Did--did you hear anything of this, Mr Stuart?" said Mrs Bolter, in a
+low, constrained voice.
+
+"Well, I did hear--am I to tell you?"
+
+"Yes--everything," replied Mrs Bolter, now perfectly cool and calm.
+
+"I heard that the doctor had been found up the river somewhere with a
+black lady in his boat; but I didn't hear it was the Inche Maida."
+
+"But my heart told me it was," muttered poor little Mrs Bolter, whose
+good resolutions were all swept away by her agonising feeling of
+jealousy.  Then aloud, with a fierce look of anger, but speaking in
+quite a hoarse whisper, "Go!" she said, pointing to the door.  "You
+wicked woman, go!  You have taken delight in coming to tell me this!"
+
+"No, no!" cried Mrs Barlow, bursting into tears; "it was from
+friendship--from the sisterly love I have for you!  It was for your
+brother's sake!"
+
+"If--if ever my brother returns, he shall never speak to you--bad, weak,
+wicked woman that you are!  Leave my house!"
+
+"But, Mrs Bolter--dear Mrs Bolter--"
+
+"Leave my house!" continued the little woman in the same low, excited
+whisper; and she seemed to advance so menacingly upon the merchant's
+widow, that she backed to the door in alarm, and regularly fled.
+
+"Dear Mrs Bolter--" began Grey.
+
+"Don't speak to me, my dear," said the little lady.  "I'm not at all
+angry.  I'm perfectly calm.  There, you see how quiet I am.  Not the
+least bit in a passion."
+
+Certainly she was speaking in a low, passionless voice, but there was a
+peculiar whiteness in the generally rather florid face.
+
+"But the news may not be true," pleaded Grey; "and even if it is, what
+then?  Oh, Mrs Bolter, pray think!"
+
+"Yes, my dear," said the little lady, "I have thought, and I'm quite
+calm.  I shall suffer it, though, no more.  I shall wait till my dear
+brother is found, and then I shall go straight back to England.  I shall
+go by the first boat.  I will pack up my things at once, and get ready.
+You see I am quite calm.  Mr Stuart, you have always been very kind to
+me."
+
+"Well, I don't know, not verra," said the old Scot; "but ye've been
+verra good to Grey here."
+
+"I'm going to ask a favour of you, Mr Stuart."
+
+"Annything I can do for ye, Mrs Bolter, I will."
+
+"Then will you give me shelter with Grey here for a few weeks?"
+
+"Or a few months or years if ye like," said the old man, taking a
+liberal pinch of snuff; "but ye needn't fash yourself.  You won't leave
+Harry Bolter."
+
+"Not leave him?" said the little lady, with forced calmness.
+
+"Not you, for I don't believe there's aught wrong.  It's a bit patient
+he's found up the river, and if it isn't, it's somebody else; and even
+if it wasn't, ye'd just give him a bit o' your mind, and then you'd
+forgive him."
+
+"Forgive him?" said Mrs Bolter; "I was always suspicious of these
+expeditions."
+
+"Always," assented old Stuart.  "He has told me so a score of times."
+
+"Then more shame for him!" cried Mrs Bolter; "How dare he!  No, Mr
+Stuart, I am not angry, and I shall not say a word; but I shall wait
+till my poor brother is found, and then go back to England."
+
+She sat down very quietly, and sat gazing through the window; while old
+Stuart went on taking snuff in a very liberal manner, glancing from time
+to time at the irate little lady, to whom Grey kept whispering and
+striving to bring her to reason.
+
+This went on for a good hour, till Grey was in despair; when suddenly
+Mrs Bolter sprang to her feet, red now with excitement, as she pointed
+through the window.
+
+"Am I to bear this?" she said, in the same whisper.  "Look, Grey!  Look,
+Mr Stuart!  You see!  He is coming home, and he is bringing this woman
+with him!"
+
+Grey started, for there indeed was the doctor, leading a closely-veiled
+Malay lady, apparently walking slowly and leaning heavily upon his arm.
+
+Old Stuart took another pinch of snuff, and made a good deal of noise
+over it, as a cynical smile began to dawn upon his face; and he watched
+little Mrs Bolter, who drew herself up and stood with one hand resting
+upon the back of a chair.
+
+"What can I say to her?" murmured Grey to herself.  Then softly to Mrs
+Bolter:
+
+"Pray listen to him: it is only some mistake."
+
+"Yes, my dear, I will listen," said Mrs Bolter, calmly; and then she
+drew a long catching breath, and her eyes half-closed.
+
+Just then the doctor threw open the door, and carefully led in his
+companion.
+
+"Ah, Grey, you here!" he cried.  "Back again.  Mary, my love!  I've
+brought you a surprise."
+
+He dropped his companion's hand, and she stood there veiled and swaying
+slightly, while he made as if to embrace his wife.
+
+"Hallo!" he exclaimed, as she shrank away.
+
+"Don't--don't touch me," she cried, in a low, angry voice, "never again,
+Bolter; I could not bear it!"
+
+"Why, what the--Oh, I see!  Of course!  Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+Mrs Bolter stared at him fiercely, then at his companion, as in a
+curious, hasty way, she tore away her veil with trembling hands,
+revealing the swarthy skin and blackened and filed teeth, seen between
+her parted lips; her hair dark as that of the Inche Maida, and fastened
+up roughly in the Malay style.  She was trying to speak, for her bosom
+was heaving, her hands working; and at last she darted an agonising
+glance at Grey Stuart, who was trembling in wonderment and fear.
+
+The next moment the stranger had thrown herself at Mrs Bolter's feet,
+and was clinging to her dress, as she cried hysterically:
+
+"Mrs Bolter--Grey--have pity on me!  You do not know?"
+
+"Helen!" cried Grey; and she filing her arms round her schoolfellow, as
+Mrs Bolter uttered that most commonplace of common expressions--
+
+"Oh! my goodness, gracious me!"
+
+"Yes, Helen Perowne it is, my dears," said the little doctor, rubbing
+his hands with satisfaction.  "I think I found Solomon's Ophir this
+time, eh?"
+
+"Henry!--Henry!" panted Mrs Bolter; "what does this mean?"
+
+"Mean?  That you haven't given me a kiss, my dear!  Never mind the
+company.  That's better," he cried, as he took the kiss--audibly.
+
+"But you don't explain, Henry."
+
+"Explain, my dear," said the doctor, softly, as he pointed to where
+Helen lay with her face buried in Grey Stuart's breast.  "Nothing to
+explain; only that I was up one of the rivers and found the lost one
+here before the expedition came.  But didn't I say so, Stuart, old
+fellow?  It was Murad, after all."
+
+A low moan from Helen made Mrs Bolter dart towards her.
+
+"Oh! my child, my child! and to come back to us like this!" cried Mrs
+Bolter, helping Grey to place Helen upon the couch, the tears running
+down her cheeks the while; and all dislike to the station beauty seeming
+to have passed away as she took the swarthy head to her bosom, and knelt
+there, rocking herself softly to and fro.
+
+"Can we do anything to help, doctor?" said old Stuart, in a whisper.
+
+"No: let 'em all have a good cry together.  Nature's safety valve, old
+fellow," said the doctor, coolly.
+
+"Then I propose that we just go and leave 'em.  What do you say to a
+pipe in the surgery?"
+
+"And a cool draught of my own dispensing, eh?" said the doctor, with his
+eyes twinkling.  "One moment, and we will."
+
+"But where's Perowne?"
+
+"Upset!  Lying down on board the naga, and too ill to come.  I brought
+her on to the women as soon as I could."
+
+He trotted across to his wife.  "That's right, little woman!" he said,
+squeezing Mrs Bolter's arm.  "You'll be a better doctor now than I.
+She's very weak and low and--" He whispered something in her ear.
+
+Poor little Mrs Bolter turned up her face towards him with a look full
+of such horror, misery and contrition that he was startled; but setting
+it down to anxiety on Helen's behalf he whispered to her that all would
+soon be well.
+
+"Take her up to the spare room, dear," he said, in a whisper.  "You must
+not think of sending her home.  You'll do your best, eh?"
+
+"Oh! yes, Henry," she said, as she looked at him again so piteously that
+he forgot Grey's presence, and bent down and kissed her.
+
+"That's my own little woman, I knew you would," he said.  "I don't think
+you'll want me; but if you do, I'm in the surgery.  Well, little Grey,
+what do you want--news?"
+
+Grey's lips said "yes" without a sound.
+
+"Well, everybody's all right except a few scratches, and I'm choked with
+thirst."
+
+Five minutes after he was compounding draughts for himself and the old
+merchant from a large stone bottle and _aqua distil_., as the druggists
+call it; while soon after, over what he called a quiet pipe, he told his
+adventures to his friend.
+
+It was just about the time when, as Helen's swarthy head lay upon the
+cool white pillow in the bungalow spare room, Mrs Bolter poured some
+cool clear water into a basin, and then dropped in it a goodly portion
+of aromatic vinegar, which with a sponge she softly applied to Helen's
+fevered brow.
+
+Grey held the basin and a white towel, while Mrs Bolter applied the
+sponge once--twice--thrice--and the weary, half-fainting girl uttered a
+low moan.
+
+Again Mrs Bolter applied the cool soft sponge to the aching temples,
+and then, as there was no result but another restful sigh, interrupted
+this time by a sob, she applied the sponge again after a careful
+wringing out, still with no effect but to bring forth a sigh.
+
+This time poor Mrs Bolter, who had learned nothing from her lord, took
+the towel, for she could not resist the temptation, and softly drew it
+across Helen's brow, as the poor girl lay there with closed eyes.
+
+The towel was raised from the swarthy forehead, and Mrs Bolter looked
+at it, to see that it was white as it was before.
+
+This time she exchanged a look of horror with Grey, down whose cheeks
+the tears flowed fast, as she leant forward and kissed Helen's lips.
+
+"No, no, don't touch me," she moaned, but Grey held her more tightly.
+
+The sobs came fast now as two dark arms were flung round Grey's white
+neck, and Mrs Bolter's eyes grew wet as well, as she drew a long
+breath, and then sat down by the bedside, saying, softly:
+
+"Oh! my poor girl!--my poor girl!"
+
+Helen heard it as she felt Grey's kisses on her lips; and as she
+realised that there was no longer cause for dread as to the reception
+she would receive, her tears and sobs increased for a time, but
+gradually to subside, till at last she lay there sleeping peacefully--
+the first sleep of full repose that she had slept since the eventful
+night of the _fete_.
+
+It was not to last, though, for when, an hour later the doctor came
+softly up, and laid a finger upon one throbbing wrist, his brow
+contracted, and he shook his head.
+
+"Is there danger, doctor?" whispered Grey, softly, startled as she was
+by his manner.
+
+"I fear so," he whispered; "she has gone through terrible trials; fever
+is developing fast, and in her condition I tremble for what may be the
+end."
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
+
+NEIL HARLEY'S PROPHECY.
+
+The circumstances were so grave, that directly after the return of the
+Resident's boat with the prisoners and the captured naga, special
+communication was sent to the seat of the Straits Government, and
+pending a reply to the despatch, the Residency island was placed
+thoroughly in a state of defence.
+
+The Europeans in Sindang held themselves in perfect readiness to flee to
+the island for safety at a moment's notice; and every man went armed,
+and every lady went about as a walking magazine of cartridges, ready for
+the use of husband or friend.
+
+They were troublous times, full of anxieties, without taking into
+consideration the cares of the sick in body and mind.
+
+The prisoners were secured in the little fort on the island, where Murad
+preserved a sulky dignity, remaining perfectly silent; and whenever an
+attempt was made to question him about the chaplain, he either closed
+his eyes, stared scornfully at his questioners, or turned his back.
+
+Rigid watch and ward was kept, the men's pouches were filled with
+ball-cartridges, and every one fully expected an attack from the people
+of Sindang, to rescue their Sultan, and avenge the insult of his being
+placed in captivity.
+
+Among other preparations, the doctor set Mrs Bolter to work to scrape
+linen for lint in case of the demand exceeding the official supply; but
+somehow the days glided on, and there was no need for it, not a shot
+being fired, not a kris or spear used.  The people ashore looked gloomy
+and taciturn, but offered no violence.
+
+On the contrary, they seemed disposed to make advances to the daring,
+conquering people, who had not scrupled to seize their chief and keep
+him confined--they, a mere handful of people amongst thousands.
+
+The fact was, they were completely cowed, knowing, as they did, how
+easily help could be procured, and how formidable that help would be.
+
+But the English at the station could not realise this.  They only knew
+that they were dwelling upon a volcano which might at any time burst
+forth and involve them in destruction; the military portion feeling
+certain that sooner or later an attempt would be made to rescue the
+Rajah.
+
+The days glided by, and the topics of conversation remained the same--
+another week had passed and there had been no attack.
+
+How was Miss Perowne--had anyone seen her?
+
+Was she never to be "Fair Helen" again?
+
+Was it true that the Rajah had made a daring attempt to escape?
+
+Had the Inche Maida sworn to rescue him, and was she coming down the
+river like a new Boadicea, with a hundred water war-chariots to sweep
+the British invader from the land?
+
+Was Helen Perowne dying, and had Mr Perowne died in the night?
+
+These are specimens of the questions that were asked, for the little
+community was in a perfect ferment.  The loveliness of the weather, the
+brilliant days and delicious nights passed unnoticed, for everyone was
+intent on danger alone.
+
+It was, then, a matter of intense relief to hear, time after time, that
+the manufactured dangers were merely the fictions of some of the most
+timid; and though the rumour was again and again repeated that the Inche
+Maida was coming, she did not come, but remained quiescent at her home,
+truth to say, though, with boats manned and armed, not for attack, but
+ready to take her and her chief people to a place of safety, should the
+English visit her with inimical intent.  She had sinned against them,
+and could not know how chivalrously Chumbley had kept the matter secret
+and prevailed upon his friend.
+
+Meanwhile, in the midst of these anxieties, when rumour ran riot through
+the place, and the more nervous shivered and started at every sound, and
+took no step without feeling that a kris was ready to strike, Helen--the
+main cause of all the station troubles--lay happily unconscious of what
+was passing.
+
+For Doctor Bolter was right; the excitement had borne its seeds, and
+after her system had bravely battled with disease for a time, fighting
+it back during all the most trying of her adventures--no sooner was she
+in safety at the station, than it claimed its own, and she lay now at
+the doctor's cottage sick unto death.
+
+Never had sufferer more devoted attention than that which Helen received
+from her old schoolfellow and Mrs Bolter; while the doctor himself was
+in almost constant attendance, watching each change, and denying himself
+rest in his efforts to save the life that seemed to be trembling in the
+balance.
+
+"This is a pleasant place to have brought you to, Mary," he said, more
+than once.  "It was a shame! but I never could foresee such troubles as
+this; and after all, I am not so very sorry."
+
+"Not sorry?" she replied.
+
+"Well, of course, my dear, I am awfully sorry about the way in which
+Arthur is missing; but as to myself, one does get very selfish in
+middle-age."
+
+"Selfish?  Is this a time to talk of being selfish?" said the little
+lady, reproachfully.
+
+"Well, perhaps not," the doctor replied; "but really I'm glad I've got
+you here, Mary, for I don't know what I should have done without you.
+You're a perfect treasure."
+
+Mrs Doctor looked pacified, and worked harder than ever.
+
+"Here, I generally bring you bad news," said old, Stuart, coming in one
+day to see his nurse, as he called Grey, who had become a permanent
+dweller at the cottage, "but I've got some good for you this time."
+
+"What is it?" said the doctor.  "Have they found Rosebury?"
+
+"No; but you need not be so nervous any more, for here is a gun-boat
+coming up the river."
+
+_Boom_!
+
+"There it is announcing itself," said old Stuart, with a chuckle.
+"That's the sort of thing to keep the natives in awe, a great gun like
+that."
+
+The coming of the powerful war-steamer with reinforcements, and a tender
+in the shape of a swift despatch-boat, did act as a repressing power,
+and silenced for good any latent ideas of rising against the English;
+and in obedience to the despatch received by the Resident, Murad and a
+couple of his officers were at once placed on board under a strong
+guard; and, within an hour of the arrival of the steamer and the
+despatch-boat, he was on his way to Singapore to take his trial.
+
+There was no attempt at resistance, the prisoners meeting their fate in
+a stolid, indifferent way, while after a short consultation at the
+Residency, the crew of the Sultan's boat were brought out from the fort
+and questioned.
+
+To a man they denied all knowledge of the whereabouts of the chaplain;
+and when offered their liberty on condition of his being found, they
+calmly accepted their position, and expressed their readiness to go back
+to prison.
+
+Harley was the president of the little court; and at last he addressed
+them, and offered them their liberty on another condition.
+
+"Murad will never return here," he said, "and you are clear of all
+allegiance to him.  I am empowered to offer you your freedom if you will
+all swear henceforth to serve the English Government."
+
+They all brightened up at once, and expressed themselves ready to obey.
+
+"Then you are free," said the Resident; "you can return to your homes."
+
+The men stared.  They could not believe in such clemency; but no sooner
+had they realised the fact, than their stolid, sulky look was exchanged
+for one of extravagant joy, and their delight after having resigned
+themselves to death knew no bounds.
+
+"Now," exclaimed the Resident, "tell me at once--where is the chaplain?"
+
+Only one man spoke:
+
+"We do not know, my lord."
+
+"Is--is he dead?"
+
+"Why should he be dead, my lord?" said the man.  "Why should Murad kill
+him?  No; he had reasons, and we know that he had him taken away with
+the lady--that is all."
+
+"But where did he imprison him?"
+
+"Allah and our lord the Sultan only know," said the man, impressively.
+"Murad was wise.  When he made plans it was in his own mind, and he told
+them to none but the slaves who were to do his bidding.  Let us free,
+and we may perhaps find the Christian priest.  If we do, we will bring
+him back."
+
+There was nothing more to be done, and the station was relieved of the
+presence of a danger that seemed imminent so long as Murad was there.
+
+The time glided on, and still there was no news of the chaplain.  The
+Inche Maida's home had been visited again and again, but she either did
+not know or would confess nothing, preserving a studied dignity, and
+seeming to be neither friend nor enemy now; while, this being the case,
+the chaplain's absence began to be accepted as a necessity, and there
+were days when Mrs Barlow was the only one who mourned his loss.
+
+"It's mind--mind--mind," said the doctor, as he came out of Helen's
+room, over and over again; and the questioner he addressed was Neil
+Harley.  "It's mind, sir, mind; and until that is at rest, I see no
+chance of her recovery.  Medicine?  Bah! it's throwing good drugs away."
+
+The constant attention went on, and as almost hourly the Resident or one
+of the officers came to inquire, there seemed to be times when Doctor
+Bolter did not know whether Helen or her father would be the first to
+pass away.  He was constantly going to and fro; and after many days of
+suffering, when Sindang had pretty well sunk into its normal state of
+quietude, and Helen's fever began to subside, it left her so weak that
+the doctor threw up his hands almost in despair.
+
+"It lies with you two now, more than with me," he said to Grey and Mrs
+Bolter; and with tears in their eyes, they were compelled to own their
+helplessness as well.
+
+It was on one of the hottest and most breathless days of the tropic
+summer, that, with her eyes red, and weary with long watching, Grey
+Stuart sat in her old school-companion's chamber, thinking of the
+changes that had taken place since that morning when Helen and she were
+summoned to the Miss Twettenhams' room regarding the levity displayed,
+as the ladies called it, towards Helen's first admirer.
+
+Fair Helen then--now she looked more like a native woman than ever, with
+her piteous great eyes gazing wildly at her friend, as if asking her for
+help.
+
+But that she had wept till the fount of her tears seemed dry, Grey could
+have thrown herself sobbing at Helen's side; now she could only take her
+wasted hand and try to whisper some few comforting words.
+
+"Has Mr Rosebury been found?" she exclaimed, suddenly; and on being
+answered in the negative, as she had been fifty times before, she wrung
+her hands and sobbed wildly.
+
+"My fault--my cruel fault!" she cried, in a weak, high-pitched voice;
+"you will all curse me when I am dead."
+
+"My child--my dear child," sobbed Mrs Bolter; and then, unable to
+contain herself, she hurried from the room, and Grey strove to calm the
+excited girl.  She had tended her constantly, telling herself that it
+was a duty; but the task had been a bitter one, for ever, in the hours
+of Helen's delirium, she had listened to her wild words as she spoke
+constantly of him and his love, reproaching him for not coming to save
+her from Murad, and neglecting her when she was praying for him to come.
+
+Grey felt a pang at every word; and as Helen spoke in this way, she
+recalled the tender scenes she had witnessed, and the young officer's
+infatuation with her beauty.
+
+And now on this particular day her trial seemed to be harder than ever,
+for suddenly Helen turned her weary head towards her, and clasping her
+hands with spasmodic energy, she whispered:
+
+"Grey, I have been cruel and hard to you, I know.  I stood between you
+and your love--but you forgive me now?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, that is all past and gone!" cried Grey, excitedly.
+
+"Yes, yes, that is all past and gone, and now you will do this for me.
+I think I am going--I cannot live long like this--tell him, then,
+quickly--tell him I must see him--tell him that he must come."
+
+Grey's heart sank within her, and she rose slowly from her seat, and
+loosed the two thin hands she had held.  It was like signing her own
+death-warrant to send this message, for if Captain Hilton did not know
+of her wanderings, and this, Helen's last wish, he--who was, perhaps,
+forgetting more and more his love--would hardly dwell upon it again.  To
+do this was to revive it, for she told herself that Hilton would be too
+generous not to respond.
+
+But Grey Stuart was a heroine--one of those women ready at any sacrifice
+of self to do a duty; and she turned to go just as Mrs Bolter entered
+the room.
+
+"What is it--what does she want?" whispered the little lady eagerly.
+
+"Helen wishes to see--" began Grey, in a choking voice.
+
+"Yes, yes, I must--I will see him, to humble myself before I die!"
+moaned Helen.
+
+"Will you--send at once," panted Grey, with her hand pressed upon her
+side, for she could hardly speak the words--"send for Captain Hilton to
+come?"
+
+She forced the words from her lips, and then sank back in her chair with
+a blank feeling of misery upon her, to gather force to enable her to
+flee from a house where she told herself that she could no longer stay.
+
+It was but momentary this sensation, and then she uttered a sob, and the
+tears began silently to flow, for she heard Helen say, in a quick,
+harsh, peevish voice:
+
+"No, no, you mistake me!  I want Mr Harley quick, or--too late!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
+
+THE SUMMONS.
+
+Neil Harley's troubles had of late been great.  He had gone on striving
+to be matter-of-fact and business-like, telling himself that he must be
+calm and cool; but all the same he suffered bitterly.
+
+It had been a great shock to him, the disappearance of Helen; and though
+her recovery had followed, it was in such a guise that at times he felt
+half maddened, and as if his troubles were greater than he could bear.
+
+He had loved her from the first; and though he had laughed at and
+bantered her, treating her numerous flirtations as trifles unworthy of
+his notice, at the same time he had suffered a terrible gnawing at the
+heart, and every glance sent at Hilton--every whispered compliment paid
+to her by the handsome young captain--caused him acute pain.
+
+Time after time he had striven to tear himself from what he felt was a
+hopeless, foolish attachment; and when he made the effort, Helen's
+beautiful face rose before him with a sly, half-mocking,
+half-reproachful look, and he knew that he was more her slave than ever.
+
+The mishaps that had befallen the various prisoners seemed to recoil
+upon him, to increase his troubles.  He felt, as it were, to blame, and
+often asked himself if it was not due to his want of clever management
+that the chaplain had not also been recovered; but for his comfort there
+were times when he was fain to confess that it would have puzzled the
+cleverest diplomat to have dealt differently with so wily a Malay as
+Murad, or with his people, who were ready to hide everything from the
+English intruders upon their land.
+
+"I ought to be in better heart," he said to himself, as he sat thinking
+in his cool room at the Residency; "three out of my four lost sheep are
+back, and I have hopes of the fourth.  But Helen?"  His face grew
+contracted and wrinkled as he sat thinking of the swarthy face and
+disfigured mouth of the belle of the station, and wondered whether, in
+spite of his declarations to the contrary, there was any attachment left
+between Hilton and the suffering girl.
+
+"No," he said; "none.  Hilton is quite honest.  His was but a changing
+love for the bright, handsome face and deep, dreamy eyes.  He does not
+care for her now.  What man would?"
+
+There was a pause here, and he sat dreamily gazing through the open
+window at the silver shimmering of the river.
+
+"What man would love Helen Perowne now?" he said, softly; "now that she
+comes back with such a social stigma upon her, just rescued from the
+hands of this Eastern sensualist--changed! ah! how changed!  Poor girl--
+poor girl!  What English gentleman would hold out his hand to her now,
+and say to her, `Helen, love! my own!  Will you not be my wife?'"
+
+Another pause, broken only by the loud insect-hum from the blossom-laden
+trees outside the window.
+
+What man would say this to her now?
+
+"I would!" he cried aloud; "for is mine so mean and paltry a love that
+it is to be checked and turned aside by her misfortune?  No; let her but
+ask me--as I said she some day would ask me--with look or lip, to come,
+and I should be at her side--for I so love her, in spite of all, and
+with my whole heart!"
+
+For a moment the abject, frightened face that he had for a few moments
+seen shrinking from him before its owner concealed it with her trembling
+brown fingers, when she was transferred from the Sultan's to his own
+boat, was there before him; when Helen had uttered a loud, piteous cry
+as she recognised one of her deliverers.  The next moment that scene
+upon the river, vividly as it was impressed upon his mind, with the
+swarthy Malays, the prostrate prince, the brilliant sunshine flashing
+from the river, even as he could see it now, and the dark shadows of the
+drooping trees, all had passed away, and in place he saw only Helen--the
+Helen of his love--prostrate upon her bed of sickness, dull of eye,
+shrunken and thin with fever, suffering and helpless.  And as he asked
+himself, "Did he love her still?" he rested his elbows upon his table,
+his face went down upon his hands, and with a low moan he felt that he
+was cruel and wanting in his love for being away from her at a time like
+this, when he ought to be showing her how true and fervent was his
+feeling--that it was no light fancy of the young and thoughtless youth,
+but a strong man's true and lasting love.
+
+He did not hear the matting-screen drawn aside, nor heed the light step
+of his Chinese servant, as he softly entered the room, and then stopped
+short, as if afraid to interrupt his master as he slept.
+
+It was an important message, though, that he had to give, and he went up
+to the table.
+
+"Master," he said, softly; but the Resident did not move.
+
+"Master!" said the man again; but the Resident heard him not, for he was
+dwelling upon the tidings that he had received an hour before, that
+Helen's case was utterly hopeless, and that though she might live for
+days or weeks, her recovery was impossible.
+
+It was on good authority that he received those sad tidings, for they
+were from Dr Bolter's lips; and he had to listen, with a composed and
+placid mien, when all the time he had felt as if he could have thrown
+himself upon the floor, and torn himself in the bitterness of his
+anguish.
+
+If he could have been allowed to sit at her pillow, holding one poor
+wasted hand, he told himself that he could have borne it better, and
+watched her with patient hope.  But he was shut out from her
+resting-place--from her heart!  She had never cared for him, and his
+words to her had been but an empty vaunt.  And yet he loved her so well,
+that as he thought of all the past and the bitter present, he felt that
+when Helen died he dared not face the empty present, and something
+seemed to whisper to him, would it not be better to seek in oblivion for
+the rest that his heart told him he should never know.
+
+"Master!"
+
+Louder now, and a hand was laid upon his arm.
+
+The Resident started up, and gazed angrily at the intruder upon his
+sacred sorrow--so fiercely that the servant shrank away.
+
+"What is it?" cried the haggard man, harshly.  "Is--is she--dead?"
+
+"A messenger, master, from Miss Stuart," said the man, shivering still
+from the wild face and mien.
+
+"I knew it--" moaned the Resident.
+
+"To say, will you go directly to the doctor's house."
+
+Neil Harley started from his chair; and then he staggered, and caught at
+the table for support.
+
+"The heat!" he said, huskily--"giddy!--a glass--water!"
+
+The servant went to a great cooler standing in the draught of the
+window, and filled and brought a glass of the clear, cold fluid.
+
+"Thanks!" said the Resident, drinking feverishly, and recovering
+himself.  "Who brought the message?"
+
+"Yusuf, the Malay.  His boat waits," replied the man; and making an
+effort to be calm, the Resident took up his sun-hat, and walked firmly
+down to the landing-stage, where he was ferried across and then walked
+up to the doctor's cottage, overtaking Hilton on the way.
+
+"You going there?" he said.
+
+"Yes," replied Hilton.  "I was going up to ask how Miss Perowne was now.
+Were you going there?"
+
+"Yes," said the Resident, bitterly; "I was going there.  Were you sent
+for too?"
+
+"I?  No; it was not likely.  Pray disabuse your mind, Harley, of all
+such thoughts as that!  There is nothing between Miss Perowne and me."
+
+"Not now that she is in misery and distress!" retorted the Resident, and
+his voice sounded almost savage in its reproach.
+
+Hilton flushed angrily.
+
+"Your reproaches are unjust," he said.  "You know that Miss Perowne
+never cared for me, and that I was too weak and vain not to see it
+earlier than I did.  Harley, I will not quarrel, for I esteem you too
+well.  We ought to be good friends."
+
+"And we are," said the Resident.  "Forgive me for what I have said!"
+
+He held out his hand, which the other pressed warmly.
+
+"I'm an outsider!" said Hilton, bitterly, in turn.  "I'm going to set up
+for my friend's friend.  I shall be best man to Chumbley when he marries
+Miss Stuart; and so I shall to you, for I believe you will marry Helen
+Perowne after all."
+
+"Silence, man!" cried the Resident, harshly.  "I have been sent for by
+Miss Stuart.  Her friend is dying, I am sure.  Perhaps it is best!"
+
+"Dying!" cried Hilton.
+
+"Yes!  Are you surprised after what the doctor has said?"
+
+"I am," said Hilton; "for I had hopes after all.  Let us make haste."
+
+The Resident glanced at him quickly, for Hilton's words even then caused
+him a jealous pang; but there was nothing but honest commiseration
+there; and they walked on hastily to the doctor's door.
+
+Dr Bolter himself met them, looking very grave, and the faint hope that
+had been struggling in Neil Harley's breast died out.
+
+The doctor saw the question in each of his visitors' eyes, and answered,
+hastily:
+
+"No; I don't think there is immediate danger, but--She expressed a wish
+to see you, Harley."
+
+That _but_, and the way in which he finished his sentence, spoke
+volumes.  An invalid in a dangerous state expressing a wish to see some
+one in particular!  It was like the cold chill of death itself seeming
+near.
+
+"You may go in, Harley," said the doctor.  "My wife and Miss Stuart are
+there."
+
+The Resident hesitated for a moment.  Then drawing a long breath, he
+walked through the drawing-room, and into Helen's bedroom, seeing
+nothing but the thin swarthy face upon the white pillow, about which was
+tossed her abundant hair.
+
+Mrs Bolter rose as he entered, and taking Grey Stuart's hand, they
+softly moved towards the door, and left the room without a word.
+
+For a few moments Neil Harley stood there, gazing down at the wasted
+face before him, his very soul looking out, as it were, from his eyes,
+in the intensity of his misery and despair; while Helen gazed up at him
+now with a saddened and resigned expression of countenance, the vanity
+all passed away and the dread that he should see her, disfigured as she
+was, a something of the past.
+
+"I sent for you to ask you to forgive me," she said, in a low, faint
+voice; but he did not speak.
+
+"I know now how weak--how vain I was--how cruel to you; but--you know--
+my folly, you will forgive?"
+
+He was down upon his knees by her bedside now, and the words seemed to
+be literally torn from his heart as he groaned:
+
+"Helen!--Helen! my poor girl! has it come to this?"
+
+"Yes!" she said, softly, "it seems like rest!  I am happier now; but I
+thought--I should like to see you again--to say Good-bye!"
+
+"No, no, no!" he cried, passionately.  "You shall not leave me, Helen!
+My love--my darling--you shall not die!"  She smiled faintly.
+
+"I knew you loved me differently from the rest!" she said, softly, as he
+clasped her thin hand and held it to his lips; "that is why I sent.  You
+said I should send for you--some day."
+
+"To ask me to take you for my wife," he panted; "and, Helen, the time
+has come!"
+
+"Yes," she said, softly, "but it was the Helen of the past; not this
+wreck--this--this--Oh, Heaven!" she moaned, passionately, "did I sin so
+vilely that you should punish me like this?"
+
+"Hush! hush!" he whispered, passing his arm beneath her light, too
+fragile form, and raising her till her head rested upon his breast.
+"That is all past now, and it is not the Helen of the past I love, but
+she who has sent for me at last.  Helen, darling, speak to me again!"
+
+"Speak?" she said, faintly; "what should I say, but ask you to forgive
+me, and say good-bye?"
+
+"Good-bye?" he cried, frantically.  "What, now that I have, as it were,
+begun to live?"
+
+"One kind, forgiving word," she said, faintly.  "One?  A thousand!" he
+panted; "my own--my love!  Leave me?  No, you shall not go!  Is my love
+for you so weak and poor that I should let you go--that I should turn
+from you in this hour of trial?  Helen!" he cried; "I tell you it is not
+the Helen of the past I love, but you--you, my own!  Tell me that you
+have turned to me--truly turned to me at last, and live to bless me with
+your love!"
+
+Her lips parted, and she tried to speak, but no words came.  Her eyes
+closed, and as he clasped her more firmly to his breast a faint
+shuddering sigh seemed to fan his cheek.
+
+"You shall not die," he whispered, as he raised her thin arm and laid it
+tenderly round his neck, while his heart throbbed heavily against hers;
+"I am strong, and my strength shall give you strength, my breath should
+be yours, Helen, love, were it my last.  Take it, darling, and breathe
+and live, my own--my wife--my all!"
+
+As he whispered frantically these words he seemed endued with the idea
+that she would draw life from his strong manliness, and breathe it in
+his breath, as he bent down lower and laid his lips upon hers.
+
+Then the shuddering sigh came again, and feeble as she was before, he
+felt her relax and sink away; her arm fell from where it rested on his
+shoulder, and in an agony of dread he stamped upon the floor.
+
+There was a hurried rush of feet, the door was flung open, and the
+doctor entered the room.
+
+"Quick!" he cried.  "Lay her down, man!--That's well."
+
+"Is--is she dead?" groaned the Resident; and in an agony of remorse and
+despair he sank back in the chair by the bedside, as he saw the doctor
+take one hand in his and lay his other upon his patient's throat.
+
+"No," said Dr Bolter, shortly.  "Fainting.  Go away."
+
+"But, Bolter--" protested the Resident.
+
+"Be off, man, I tell you!" cried the little doctor, angrily, showing how
+thoroughly he was autocrat of the sick room.  "Go, and send in my wife,
+and Miss Stuart.  Or no: my wife will do."
+
+The Resident bent down once over the thin, dark face, and then stole
+softly out of the room, to find Mrs Bolter waiting; and nodding
+quickly, she went in and closed the door.
+
+"What news?" asked Hilton, eagerly, as he rose from a chair near the
+window.
+
+"I don't know--I dare not say," replied Harley, sinking hopelessly into
+a chair; and for a time no one spoke.
+
+It was the doctor who broke the silence by coming back from the sick
+room, and this time sending a thrill of hope into the breast of all as
+he began to rub his hands in an apparently satisfied manner, and gazed
+from one to the other.
+
+"Is--is she better, doctor?"
+
+"Don't know! won't prognosticate!" he said, sharply.  "I'll say that
+she's no worse.  Prostrated by mental emotion, but other symptoms at a
+standstill.  If she lives--well, if she lives--"
+
+"Yes, yes, doctor!" cried the Resident, imploringly.
+
+"Well, if she lives, I think it will be from some sudden turn in her
+mental state, for I have done all I know, and of course a man--even a
+medical man--can do no more."
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
+
+MORE MATING.
+
+Slow work--terribly slow work; but at the end of three days--during
+which at any moment it had seemed as if the light of life would become
+extinct--Helen Perowne still lived, and in place of Grey Stuart or Mrs
+Bolter, Neil Harley was mostly by her side.
+
+She suffered still from wild attacks of delirium, and in her wanderings,
+if the firm, strong hand of the Resident was not there to hold her, she
+grew plaintive and fretful, and a look of horror appeared upon her
+wasted face; but no sooner did she feel Neil Harley's firm clasp and
+hear his whispered words, than she uttered a sigh of content, and
+dropped always into a placid sleep.
+
+To his surprise and delight, these words seemed to pacify her; a
+long-drawn sigh came from her breast, and she fell into a restful
+slumber.
+
+During the rest of the critical time of her illness a few whispered
+words always had the desired effect, and from that hour Helen began
+rapidly to mend.
+
+"Yes, she is improving fast now," said the doctor, as he sat beside her
+bed talking, as if he believed his patient to be asleep.  "I shan't take
+any of the credit, Harley.  I should have lost her, I am sure, for it
+was not in physic to do more than I had done.  There, I am going down
+now to my specimens, to have a look at them, and talk to my wife, for I
+have hardly seen her of late."
+
+He rose and left the room, and the Resident took his place, seeing that
+the great dark eyes were fixed upon him, full of a strange, pathetic
+light, that the warm evening glow seemed to give an almost supernatural
+effect.
+
+"You are awake, then?" he said, softly.
+
+"Yes; I heard all that he said, and it is true."
+
+"Thank heaven!" said the Resident, fervently, as he took one of the thin
+brown hands from the white coverlet and held it in both of his.
+
+"I believe it was your tender words that gave me hope," said Helen,
+softly.  "Now it is time to take them back."
+
+"Take them back?" he exclaimed, wonderingly.
+
+"Yes; take them back.  Do you think I could be so weak and cruel as to
+let you be burdened for life with such a degraded thing as I?" she
+cried; and she burst into so violent a fit of sobbing that the Resident
+grew alarmed; but he must have possessed wonderful soothing power, for
+when Mrs Bolter came in a short time after, it was to find Helen
+Perowne's weary head resting upon Neil Harley's arm, and there was a
+restful, peaceful look in her eyes that the little lady had never seen
+there before.
+
+Helen did not move, and the Resident seemed as if it was quite a matter
+of course for him to remain there, so little Mrs Bolter went softly
+forward and bent down to kiss her invalid as she called her, when she
+was prisoned by two trembling weak arms, and for a few minutes nothing
+was heard but Helen's sobs.
+
+When Mrs Bolter went down soon afterwards to sit with the doctor, she
+said, softly:
+
+"I never thought I could like that girl, Henry, and now I believe I
+almost love her."
+
+"That's because she has changed her colour," said the doctor, with a
+hearty chuckle.
+
+"Oh! that reminds me," cried Mrs Bolter; "I wanted to ask you about
+that."
+
+"About what?" said the doctor, looking up.
+
+"About the black stain.  Will she always be like that?"
+
+"Pooh, nonsense! my dear.  It is only a stain, which has thoroughly
+permeated, if I may so term it, the outer skin.  Soon wear off, my
+dear--soon wear off."
+
+"But her teeth, Henry?"
+
+"Come right in time, my dear, with plenty of tooth-powder; all but the
+filing."
+
+"But that is a terrible disfigurement."
+
+"Oh, that will go off in time.  The teeth are always growing and being
+worn down at the edges; but what does it matter? she is ten times as
+nice a girl as she was before."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs Bolter, thoughtfully; "and now, Henry, if I could only
+have my mind set at rest about Arthur, I believe I should be a happy
+woman."
+
+"Then we'll soon set your mind at rest about him," said the doctor.  "I
+never felt that I could leave you till Helen was safe from a relapse."
+
+"Leave me, Henry!" cried the little lady.
+
+"Only for a time, till I have found Arthur."
+
+"Then you do think he will be found?"
+
+"I am sure of it.  Why, who would hurt him, the best and most
+inoffensive of men?"
+
+"Surely no one," said Mrs Bolter, with a sigh.
+
+"Of course not.  I've tried to get something out of Murad, but my
+messengers have failed; but all the same, I feel sure he knows all about
+it, and burked Arthur for a reason of his own."
+
+"But what reason could he have?" cried Mrs Bolter.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you my theory, my dear, and it is this: he meant to
+silence all Helen's scruples by marrying her according to our rites."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"I do; and that is why he secured Arthur.  If it was not so, it was
+because he was in the way.  Anyhow, we can get nothing from the rascal,
+so I mean to go up the river again.  I have my plans working."
+
+"But, Henry!"
+
+"Only to try and find him; for Harley's and Hilton's men have made a
+miserable failure of it all."
+
+Mrs Bolter sighed, but she made no opposition; and then further
+conversation was ended by the arrival of Grey Stuart with Hilton, both
+looking so satisfied and happy that Mrs Bolter exclaimed: "Why,
+whatever now!"  The doctor chuckled, and cried: "Oh! that's it, is it!
+Oh!  Grey!  I thought you meant to be a female old bachelor all your
+life!"
+
+"I have persuaded her that it is folly," said Hilton.  "But I always
+thought it was to be Chumbley!" cried the doctor.  "Here, I say, this is
+a horrible take-in."
+
+"I thought the same, doctor," said Hilton, smiling; "and have been
+making myself very miserable about what is a misconception, though Grey
+here owns to thinking Chum the best and truest of men."
+
+"And I'm sure he is!" cried Mrs Doctor, enthusiastically.
+
+"Here, I say!" cried the doctor, banging his hand down on the table,
+"this won't do!  Am I to sit and hear a man praised to my very face?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs Bolter, quickly; "if it is Chumbley; and if Grey had
+chosen with my eyes, she would have taken him instead."
+
+"But she did not choose with your eyes, my dear," said the doctor,
+smiling; "and she was wise?"
+
+"And why so?" cried Mrs Bolter, tartly.
+
+"Because she saw what a bad one you were at making a choice, my dear.
+Look at me for a husband, Miss Stuart; this was the best she could do."
+
+"Oh, Henry! for shame!" cried Mrs Doctor.  "There!  I'll say no more,
+only that I hardly forgive you, Hilton; and I tell you frankly that you
+have won a far better wife than you deserve!"
+
+"Then I'm sure we shall be the best of friends over it, Mrs Bolter!"
+said Hilton, merrily, "for I have been repeating that sentiment almost
+word for word."
+
+"There, there, there--the young people know best," said the doctor.  "I
+congratulate you both; and I must be off now to see Perowne.  But here
+is somebody coming.  Mrs Barlow, I believe."
+
+"Henry, pray say I'm out!" cried Mrs Bolter, starting up.  "I really
+cannot meet that woman to-day!" and she made for the door.
+
+"It's all right.  Don't go, my dear; it's only Stuart," said the doctor,
+chuckling.
+
+"And you said it was that horrible Mrs Barlow on purpose to frighten
+me!  It's a very great shame--it is indeed!"
+
+"Ye're right, Mrs Bolter," said the little dry Scotch merchant,
+appearing in the doorway; "it is a great shame!  After all my care and
+devotion, and the money I have spent in her education, here's this
+foolish girl takes a fancy to a red coat, and says she shan't be happy
+without she marries it!"
+
+"Pray, pray, papa!  No, dear father, don't talk like that!" said Grey,
+crossing to him, as he took a chair, and resting her hand upon his
+shoulder.
+
+"Oh, but it's enough to make any man speak!" he cried.  "I suppose it's
+natural though, Mrs Bolter?"
+
+"Of course it is, Mr Stuart; and if Captain Hilton undertakes to make
+her a good husband, why you must be very thankful."
+
+"Humph!  I suppose so; but mind this; you can't be wed till the
+chaplain's found!  Ha! ha! ha!  I say, doctor, that will stir up Hilton
+here!"
+
+"We are making earnest efforts to find him without that," said Hilton,
+warmly.
+
+"Oh, are you?" said the old merchant.  "Well, look here, just a few
+business words in the presence of witnesses before I go up to Perowne,
+for I promised to go and smoke a pipe with the poor fellow, who's as
+sick in body as he is in pocket and mind."
+
+"I'm going there, and we'll trot over together," said the doctor.
+
+"Verra good," said old Stuart.  "So now look here, Master Hilton,
+commonly called Captain Hilton, you came to me to-day saying that you
+had my child's consent to ask me to give her to you for a wife."
+
+"Yes, sir, and I repeat it."
+
+"Well, I sort of consented, didn't I?"
+
+"You did, sir."
+
+"Good; but once more--you know I'm a verra poor man?"
+
+"I know you are not a rich one, sir."
+
+"That's right, Hilton.  And you ken," he continued, getting excited and
+a little more Scottish of accent--"ye ken that when puir Perowne failed,
+he owed me nearly sax hundred pounds?"
+
+"I did hear so, sir."
+
+"Well, I meant to give little Grey here that for a wedding-portion, and
+now it's all gone."
+
+"I'm glad of it, sir," cried Hilton, warmly, "for I am only a poor
+fellow with my pay and a couple of hundred a year besides; but in a very
+few years' time I shall be in the receipt of another two hundred and
+fifty a year, so that we shall not hurt."
+
+Grey crossed to him, and put her arm through his, as she nodded and
+smiled in his face.
+
+"Ye're a pair o' feckless babies!" cried old Stuart.  "So ye mean to say
+ye'll be content to begin life on nothing but what ye've got, Hilton?"
+
+"To be sure, sir!  Why not?"
+
+"To be sure!  Why not?" said Mrs Bolter.  "I don't approve of people
+marrying for money, Mr Stuart; and I'm glad they act in so honest a
+spirit!  Do you know, Mr Hilton, I began my life out here hating Helen
+Perowne, and thoroughly disliking you; and now, do you know, she has
+made me love her; and as for you, I never liked you half so well before,
+and I wish you both every joy, and as happy a life as I live myself when
+Henry stays at home, and does not glory in teasing me in every way he
+can!"
+
+"Thank you, Mrs Bolter!" cried Hilton, warmly.  "I don't wonder,
+though, that you should dislike me, for I did not show you a very
+pleasant side of my character."
+
+"Well," said old Stuart, rising, "you and I may as well be off, doctor.
+Poor Perowne will be glad to hear you chat a bit about Helen; and as for
+you two young and foolish people, why--ha! ha! ha! you had better make
+friends with the doctor.  He has always been petting my little girl;
+now's the time for him to do something a little more solid."
+
+"I'm sure," said Mrs Doctor, warmly, "Grey shall not go to the altar
+without a little dowry of her own--eh, Henry?"
+
+"To be sure, my dear!" said the doctor--"to be sure!"
+
+"Nay, nay, nay!" cried old Stuart, showing his teeth; "hang your little
+dowries!  I want something handsome down!"
+
+"Oh, father!" cried Grey, turning scarlet with shame.
+
+"You hold your tongue, child!  I want the doctor to do something
+handsome for you out of his findings at Ophir--Solomon's gold, Bolter.
+Ha, ha, ha!"
+
+"Laugh away!" cried the doctor; "but I shall astonish you yet!"
+
+"Gad, Bolter, ye will when ye mak' anything out o' that!" cried the
+little merchant.  "Don't let him run after shadows any more, Mrs
+Bolter.  Well, Hilton, my boy, I won't play with you," he said, holding
+out his hand, as he spoke now, with Grey held tightly to his side, and
+the tears in his pale blue eyes.  "I'm a pawkie, queer old Scot, but I
+believe my heart's in the right place."
+
+"I'm sure--" began Hilton.
+
+"Let me speak, my lad!" cried the old man.  "I always said to myself
+that I should like the lad who wooed my little lassie here to love her
+for herself alone, and I believe you do.  Hold your tongue a bit my lad!
+I've always been a careful, plodding fellow, and such a screw, that
+people always looked upon me as poor; but I'm not, Hilton: and thank
+Heaven, I can laugh at such a loss as that I have had!  Heaven bless
+you, my lad!  You've won a sweet, true woman for your wife; and let me
+tell you that you've won a rich one.  My lassie's marriage portion is
+twenty thousand pounds on the day she becomes your wife, and she'll have
+more than double that when the doctor kills me some day, as I am sure he
+will."
+
+"Mr Stuart!" cried Hilton.
+
+"Hold your tongue, lad--not a word!  Good-night, Mrs Bolter.  Doctor,
+old friend, if you don't take me up to Perowne's, and prescribe pipes
+and a glass o' whuskee, I shall sit down and cry like a child."
+
+He was already at the door, and the doctor followed him out, leaving
+Hilton, as he afterwards told his old companion, not knowing whether he
+was awake or in a dream.
+
+But he was awake decidedly, as Mrs Bolter could have told, for
+dream-kisses never sound so loud as those which he printed on the lips
+of his future wife.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+"Oh, it's all right!" said Chumbley; "and I wish you joy!  I knew the
+little lassie loved you months ago!"
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
+
+FOR ANOTHER SEARCH.
+
+"By Jove, we've forgotten all about the parson!" exclaimed Chumbley.
+"What's become of him?"
+
+"I say, Chumbley, old fellow, we must be getting into a terrible state
+of mind to go on like this without troubling ourselves about our
+chaplain--Here comes the doctor."
+
+"And Harley not far behind."
+
+"Doctor ahoy!" shouted Chumbley.
+
+"Well, lads--well, lads," cried the little doctor, bustling up.  "What
+news?"
+
+"That's what we were going to ask you, doctor.  What next?"
+
+"Why, now, my dear boys, that the troubles are about over, my principal
+patient quite safe, and people seem settling down, with no enemies to
+fear, it seems to me just the time for making a fresh start up the
+river."
+
+"To--"
+
+"Exactly, my dear Chumbley; to take up the clue where I left off when I
+found Helen Perowne, and go on and discover the gold-workings."
+
+"The gold-workings, doctor?" cried Hilton, wonderingly.
+
+"To be sure, my dear fellow.  Mind, I don't say that Solomon's ships
+ever came right up this river; but they certainly came here and traded
+with the Sakais or Jacoons, the aboriginals of the country, who worked
+the gold from surface-mines and brought it down to the coast."
+
+"Cut and dried, eh, doctor?" said Chumbley.  "Dried, of course, my dear
+fellow.  I don't know about the cut.  I feel more and more convinced
+that here we have the true Ophir of Solomon; and it only wants a little
+enterprise, such as I am bringing to bear--"
+
+"But you don't mean to say," cried Hilton, "that you are going off on
+another expedition of this sort, doctor?"
+
+"Indeed but I do, sir!"
+
+"And what does Mrs Doctor say?" asked Chumbley.  "Does she approve?"
+
+"Of course, my dear boy.  Don't you see that I am combining the journey
+with one in search of my brother-in-law?"
+
+"Oh," said Hilton, drily, "I see.
+
+"Harley's people are back without any news, and my little wife is
+distracted about it; vows she'll go herself if I don't find him.  And
+then there's that Mrs Barlow.  I was up all night with her.
+Hysterical, and shrieking `_Arthur_!' at intervals like minute-guns."
+
+"She has started a devoted attachment to the chaplain, hasn't she?"
+asked Chumbley.
+
+"Dreadful!" replied the doctor.  "It makes me think that the poor fellow
+is best away, for she certainly means to marry him when he comes back.
+I say Chumbley, you're a big fellow!"
+
+"Granted, oh, wise man of the east."
+
+"You have no income?"
+
+"The munificent pay awarded by Her Majesty's Government to a lieutenant
+of foot, my dear doctor, as you perfectly well know."
+
+"Exactly," continued the doctor.  "And you would not be afraid of a
+widow?"
+
+"No, I don't think I should."
+
+"Then marry Mrs Barlow.  She is to be had for the asking, I am sure;
+and she has a nice bit of money.  It would be a catch for you, and
+relieve poor Arthur Rosebury from further trouble."
+
+"Hilton, old man," said Chumbley, solemnly, "do you think there is a
+crocodile in the river big enough to receive this huge carcase of mine?"
+
+"Doubtful," said Hilton, laughing.  "I agree with you, Hilton! it is
+doubtful.  But sooner would I plunge in and be entombed there than in
+the affections of Barlow.  No, doctor, if you have my health at heart,
+you must prescribe differently from that.  I say, though, don't you take
+it rather coolly about the chaplain?"
+
+"Coolly?  Not I, my dear fellow; but how can a man like me sit down and
+snivel?  Here am I watching Helen Perowne one day, her father the next;
+then up all night with Billy--I mean Mrs--Barlow; without taking into
+consideration the calls to Private Thomas Atkins, who has eaten too much
+plaintain and mangosteen, and thinks he has the cholera; Mrs Ali Musto
+Rafoo, who is in a fidget about her offspring; and all the livers of the
+European residents to keep in gear.  I say I have no time to think of
+anything."
+
+"But Solomon's gold mines," said Chumbley.
+
+"Get out with your chaff!" cried the doctor.  "But seriously, I have got
+hold of that fellow Yusuf, and he tells me he thinks he can find the
+chaplain, and I am just off.  I couldn't help the allusion to the gold."
+
+"But you think it lies somewhere up-country?" said Chumbley, seriously.
+
+"Sure of it, my dear boy!" cried the doctor, eagerly; "and I shall of
+course use every effort to find Rosebury: but to be honest, it would be
+unnatural if I did not look out for the great object of my thoughts at
+times."
+
+"What, the chaplain?" said Hilton.
+
+"No, the Ophir gold mines," said the doctor, seriously; "but really it
+is a great trouble to me, this disappearance of my brother-in-law.  You
+couldn't go with me, could you, Hilton?"
+
+"I go?  No, I'm afraid not, doctor."
+
+Chumbley gave a curious start at this, but was immovable of aspect the
+next moment.
+
+"It's my belief," he said quietly, "that when you come to the point and
+find the chaplain, it will be where the doctor wants to get to so
+earnestly."
+
+"What do you mean?" cried Dr Bolter.
+
+"Depend upon it he has discovered Ophir, and is sitting upon the gold.
+That's why he does not come back?"
+
+"You don't think so, do you?" cried the doctor, earnestly.
+
+"Well it is possible," replied Chumbley.  "What do you say, Harley?" he
+continued, as the Resident strolled up.
+
+"Say about what?"
+
+"I tell the doctor that I think Rosebury has discovered Ophir, and that
+is why he does not come back."
+
+The Resident smiled.
+
+"My dear doctor," he said, "when do you start?"
+
+"To-morrow morning at daybreak."
+
+"And you will take three or four men with you--say a sergeant and three
+privates?"
+
+"Thanks, no," said the doctor; "but I should like one soldier with me if
+I can take my pick."
+
+"I will answer for it that you may."
+
+"Then I want Chumbley."
+
+"Oh, I'll go with you!" cried the latter.  "Where do you mean to go
+first--to the Inche Maida's district?"
+
+"No," cried the doctor; "what is the good of going there?  You know she
+has had the place well searched, and turned sulky, and holds aloof from
+us now."
+
+"Yes," said Chumbley, exchanging glances with Hilton, "I know that.  Of
+course she is annoyed about Murad."
+
+"Of course," said Hilton frankly, "she does not like being suspected of
+connivance with the Rajah for one thing, and feels as well that at such
+a time as this her presence would be out of place and awkward."
+
+"It is a pity too," said the Resident, "for I would rather be on good
+terms with so enlightened a woman."
+
+"Sore place," said the doctor, in his quick, offhand way; "give it time
+and keep it healthy, and it will soon heal up.  The Inche Maida fancies
+we are suspicious of her.  Wait a bit, and send her a little present,
+and then an invitation.  I would not be in too great a hurry.  Wait till
+the Murad business has all settled down, and she has seen that we are
+not going to usurp her land."
+
+"Yes," said Hilton; "I think the doctor is right."
+
+"Sure I am," said the doctor.  "Diagnosed the case.  Bless your hearts,
+before long her serene highness will have the vapours, or cut her
+finger, or chew too much betel, or something or another, and then she
+will send for yours truly, Henry Bolter, and all will be plain sailing
+again.  Well, Chumbley, will you come with me?"
+
+"Yes, doctor, on two conditions," replied Chumbley.
+
+"Firstly?" said the doctor.
+
+"That I get leave.  It's too much trouble and worry to desert."
+
+"Granted," said the doctor.  "Eh, Harley.  Eh, Hilton?"
+
+"Granted," said the Resident.
+
+"Granted," said Hilton.
+
+"That disposes of firstly," said the doctor.  "Now then secondly?"
+
+"That you swear not to mention Ophir more than once; and Solomon's ships
+seeking gold, and apes, and peacocks more than once in each twenty-four
+hours," said Chumbley.
+
+"Come, that's fair," said the Resident, laughing.
+
+"Quite fair," cried Hilton, roaring with laughter.
+
+"Oh, hang it, I say!  Come, that is too hard a condition," said the
+doctor, tilting his sun-hat on one side so as to get a good scrub at his
+head.
+
+"Shan't go without," drawled Chumbley.
+
+"Say twelve hours--once in each twelve hours," protested the doctor.  "I
+couldn't promise more."
+
+"Would you stick out for the twenty-four?" said Chumbley, very
+seriously.  "I hate being bored."
+
+"Oh, I think I'd meet him," said Hilton, laughing.  "Poor fellow, he
+can't help it."
+
+"Well, I'll give in," said Chumbley; "only mind this, you are to take
+your best cigar-box, doctor--not those confounded manillas, but the
+havanas--and you are to pay a fine of a cigar every time you break out."
+
+"Agreed," said the doctor, holding out his hand, and the expedition was
+settled, the doctor going off with the Resident, leaving the two young
+officers together.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
+
+A FIND--NOT GOLD.
+
+"I say, Hilton, old fellow, I liked that," drawled Chumbley.
+
+"Liked what?"
+
+"Why the way in which you smothered up all your old resentment against
+that poor woman.  You know you were breathing out fire and slaughter
+against her when we got away."
+
+"Well, I was angry then, and mortified, and troubled."
+
+"And now it's all balm, and oil-olive, and honey, eh, old fellow?  The
+beating, bounding heart at rest."
+
+"Don't be an idiot!"
+
+"Why not?  The ways of wisdom are hard, and cold, and thorny.  Folly is
+pleasant sometimes."
+
+"You don't think so."
+
+"Indeed I do.  You heard what an idiot I was in throwing up that
+Barlowesque chance?"
+
+"Was that meant for a pun on burlesque?"
+
+"I didn't mean it," said Chumbley.  "Take it so if you like.  But I say,
+old fellow, I am glad that you have smoothed down about the Inche
+Maida."
+
+"Weak, silly woman!" cried Hilton.  "Oh, I don't know.  It was her
+foreign way of looking at her chances.  These people are regular
+gamblers.  Look at those two fellows there fighting those gamecocks.
+I'll be bound to say they are staking their all upon the event!"
+
+"Likely enough.  That scoundrel Murad staked his all and lost!"
+
+"Heavily," said the lieutenant.  "The Princess staked heavily too, and
+lost; but thanks to you, she comes off pretty easily except in the
+disappointment.  You bury that affair, of course?"
+
+"Yes, of course!  It is impossible to avoid it!"
+
+"Agreed," said Chumbley.  "Well, I'm glad you kept it down; it would
+have made us so very ridiculous.  I'm off now to have a nap, and then to
+get ready my gun and things for the journey to-morrow."
+
+"I don't know that I should care to go with you," said Hilton.
+
+"Won't be bad.  I shall sit back in the boat, and rest a good deal I
+daresay.  Old Bolter will talk me to sleep, safe.  Ta-ta."
+
+"Good-bye, old fellow;" and the young men separated, Chumbley for his
+quarters, Hilton to go and seek out Grey.
+
+The next morning at daybreak, after infinite cautions from Mrs Bolter,
+the doctor prepared to start.
+
+"Is there anyone who ought to be seen--anyone you remember?" said the
+little lady.
+
+"No one but the Barlow woman.  You might drop in there," replied the
+doctor.
+
+"Oh, no, Henry; really I could not," said Mrs Bolter, wringing her
+hands.
+
+"Never mind, then.  She won't hurt.  She said, as soon as she knew I was
+going, that she should die if I did not bring Arthur back.  I say, my
+dear, it's almost enough to make one say one wishes he may never come."
+
+"Oh, Henry!" cried Mrs Bolter.  "I'd sooner suffer a dozen Mrs Barlows
+than Arthur should not be found!"
+
+"Very well, then, I don't come back without him," said the doctor.
+
+"Henry!"
+
+"If I can help it," he replied; and for the next few moments any one
+might have taken them for a gushing young couple of eighteen and
+twenty-three before they tore themselves apart, and the doctor hurried
+away.
+
+Love is an evergreen.  Only give it fair treatment, and the leaves will
+never fall.
+
+"Come, doctor," roared Chumbley, as the little man approached the boat.
+"Do you call this daybreak?"
+
+"Yes, broad daybreak!" said the doctor, chuckling; and the next minute
+the boat was under weigh, with Yusuf and a crew to use the poles for
+punting over the shallows.
+
+The desire was strong in the doctor to devote himself a good deal to the
+pursuit of his hobby, but he sternly put it down.
+
+"No, Chumbley," he said, "not this time.  I'm a weak man, and I talked
+to you about Sol--ahem!--about my hobby, eh?  Didn't say it that time--
+and if we come across anything relating to Oph--I mean my hobby--why,
+well and good, we'll investigate it; but I mean business; and Yusuf here
+has given me good hopes of being successful, for of course it is absurd
+to imagine that they have killed poor old Arthur!"
+
+"What do you propose doing first, then?" said Chumbley, rousing himself
+from a drowsy contemplation of the banks, and thinking how pleasantly
+life would glide on in a place like this.
+
+"I think I shall leave Yusuf to follow his own bent," replied the
+doctor.  "He is a close, dry fellow, but he seems to know a great deal,
+and he will not speak till he is sure.  That is it, is it not, Yusuf?"
+
+"Yes, master," said the Malay, who was toiling hard with the doctor's
+old boatman Ismael.  "If I said to the chiefs I know where the Christian
+priest is, and took them to the place and he was not there, they would
+be angry.  So I will take them to the place I think of.  If the
+Christian priest is there, it is good.  If he is not, the misfortune is
+not so bad, and the chiefs will not be so hard upon their guide."
+
+"Well, Ismael, what have you to say?" said the doctor, as he caught his
+old boatman looking at him very intently.
+
+"I was thinking of the lives of all here, master," said Ismael.  "We do
+not wish to die, we people of the country; but when the time comes we
+say `Yes, it is our fate, and we close our eyes;' but you English
+chiefs, it is not right that you should die.  We love the doctor, for he
+is good to us, our wives and children."
+
+"Oh, all right," said the doctor, heartily.  "What do you mean?  You are
+afraid there is risk?"
+
+"Great danger, master!" said Yusuf.  "Murad will surely have us hunted
+out and slain for showing you his secret house in the jungle!"
+
+"Another secret house, eh?" said Chumbley, rousing himself a little
+more.  "Well, look here, old Cockolorum."
+
+Yusuf seemed to consider this a title conferring a dignity, for he
+smiled gravely and bowed.
+
+"And you too, old Beeswax," continued Chumbley, addressing Ismael, who
+seemed disappointed at Yusuf getting all the honours, but who now smiled
+and bowed as well.  "You think that Murad will come down on you both for
+betraying his secrets?"
+
+"It is not betraying, master," said Yusuf.  "We have found the place,
+and we show it to you.  Murad did not trust us."
+
+"All right," continued Chumbley.  "Well, let me tell you this, that by
+this time Rajah Murad, or the Sultan as you call him, is safe under lock
+and key."
+
+"Thy servant does not understand," said Yusuf.
+
+"The chief means he is shut up in a little box with the key in his
+pocket," interpreted Ismael, gravely.
+
+"That will do," said Chumbley, smothering a laugh.  "He is safe in
+prison, and you will never see him here again."
+
+"It is enough," said Yusuf.  "The English are my masters, and I trust to
+them that their servant shall not have the kris."
+
+"Now then, how long have you known of this place?"
+
+"Two days, master: a friend told me that his brother was there as guard,
+but he knew no more."
+
+"And you will take us there?" said Chumbley.
+
+"Straight if the chief commands," said Yusuf; and the boat was urged
+forward.
+
+It was on the second day that the little boat was turned into the stream
+that had become familiar to the doctor, and he exclaimed at once:
+
+"This won't do.  I know of that place.  The chaplain is not there."
+
+"No, not there," said Yusuf.  "We shall see."
+
+The doctor gave a grunt of satisfaction, half an hour later, when,
+instead of following the windings of this minor stream, the sampan's
+head was suddenly turned towards a dense mass of tall reeds, and the men
+paddled with all their might, driving the boat through the water-growth,
+and after a hundred yards of rough progression, they passed into a large
+lagoon, dotted with patches of a kind of lotus, and with other
+water-plants sufficiently beautiful to drive the doctor into raptures.
+
+"But no," he exclaimed; "I will not be tempted to botanise any more than
+I will be to look upon the spots where Sol--I mean--that is--"
+
+"I say, doctor, we've been out over twelve hours," drawled Chumbley,
+"and you haven't yet said it once.  Let it go."
+
+"Solomon's ships came in search of gold!" cried the doctor, as if
+relieved.
+
+"Well, they didn't come here, doctor, or they would soon have been
+aground."
+
+"No: of course not," said the doctor; "but what I mean is, that I will
+not yield to my hobby this time until poor Arthur Rosebury is found.  I
+promised his sister, and I'll keep my word."
+
+That lagoon, or rather chain of marshy lakelets, extended for quite
+fifty miles, sometimes spreading wide, more often dwindling into little
+openings and ponds united by narrow passages with hardly a perceptible
+stream.  Along this chain the boatmen dexterously sent the little
+vessel, sometimes forcing it aground, and often having hard work to get
+it through the dense vegetation that rose from the swampy soil.
+
+Two days were spent in getting to the end of the lagoon; and landing
+upon an elevated place, they encamped for the night, the doctor chatting
+for long enough about the beautiful specimens that they had passed, and
+which he had refrained from touching.
+
+"There is a remarkable flora in this region, Chumbley," he said,
+enthusiastically.
+
+"I daresay there is," said Chumbley, sleepily; "but your wife doesn't
+want us to be taking back a remarkable flora, but a matter-of-fact
+Arthur.  Go to sleep, man, and let's rest."
+
+The doctor told him he had no soul for science.
+
+"Not a bit, doctor.  Good-night;" and the great fellow was asleep in an
+instant.
+
+"We are very near the place now," said the guide, as they partook of a
+hearty breakfast, Yusuf having speared some of the fish that abounded in
+the waters near.
+
+"But we've got to the end of the lake," said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, master; and now we must walk."
+
+The way proved to be a long and toilsome journey, through the stifling
+heat of the jungle, which was here tolerably open, and so full of
+specimens attractive to the doctor that he fidgeted with disappointment
+at having to pass them by.  He, however, resolutely refrained from
+attempting to collect, and only forfeited one cigar by the time that,
+after their weary tramp, gun in hand, the guide pointed to a low
+palm-thatched house, within a strong bamboo palisade, which protected a
+garden.
+
+"Who'd have thought of finding a house here?" said Chumbley, who began
+to think of the Inche Maida's hiding-place, to which this was very
+similar.  "But where is the pathway?"
+
+"On the other side, master.  I brought you all round this way so as not
+to alarm the guards.  They might have taken their prisoner farther into
+the jungle where he could not be found."
+
+A short consultation was held, and then Chumbley's proposal was carried
+in opposition to the more timid one of the guide's.
+
+Chumbley's was the very soldier-like one of draw and advance.
+
+This they did, the men with their spears, and Chumbley and the doctor
+double gun in hand; and after a little struggle with nothing more
+dangerous than canes, they forced their way round to the front of the
+place and entered, to find everything just as if it had been inhabited
+an hour before, but neither prisoner nor guards were there.
+
+"The birds are flown," said Chumbley, after they had searched the
+half-dozen airy rooms that formed the place.
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, "but he has been here.  Look!"
+
+He pointed to a couple of long shelves made by placing bamboos together,
+and upon them, carefully dried, were hundreds of botanical specimens,
+laid as only a botanist would have placed them.
+
+There was the chance of the prisoner returning, but it hardly seemed
+probable; and after some hours waiting, it was decided to return to the
+boat, to pass the night there, and return the next day.
+
+The tramp back seemed harder than the advance; but they persevered, and
+at last, soaked with perspiration and utterly wearied out, they came in
+sight of the lagoon head, where Chumbley uttered a sigh of satisfaction.
+
+"I wonder what's for dinner," he said.  "Eh?"
+
+He turned sharply, for Yusuf uttered an ejaculation, and stood pointing
+to where, seated in an opening and leaning against a tree, was the
+figure of a man, ragged, unshorn, and looking the picture of misery.
+
+"Hurrah?" shouted Chumbley, dashing forward, the doctor panting after
+him; but the figure did not move, seeming to be asleep with its head
+drooped forward upon its breast.
+
+"Rosebury!" cried Chumbley--"Rosebury!" but there was no reply.
+
+"Arthur!" cried the doctor, sinking on one knee beside the haggard,
+hollow-cheeked figure, and changing the position so that its head rested
+upon his arm.
+
+"Dead?" whispered Chumbley, in awe-stricken tones.
+
+"He would have been in an hour!" cried the doctor.  "Quick! your flask.
+There, that will do--a few drops with water.  That's right.  Now soak a
+biscuit well.  Crumble it up, man--quick, in the cup."
+
+A few drops at a time were poured between the parched lips, and as
+Arthur Rosebury showed signs of revival, a little of the soaked biscuit
+was administered; while Yusuf and Ismael rapidly cut down grass and
+contrived a rough bed, upon which the suffering man was laid.
+
+"Is it fever?" said Chumbley, gazing down at the hollow cheeks and wild,
+staring eyes that had not a spark of recognition therein.
+
+"The fever that men have who are starving," cried the doctor.  "Poor
+fellow! he has not had food for a week."
+
+It was after three days' camping out beside the boat in a rough shanty
+which the Malays built up, that the Reverend Arthur Rosebury came round
+sufficiently to be able to recognise and talk to his friends.
+
+"It's fortunate for you, old fellow, that you had a doctor to find you,"
+said Bolter.  "For--I say it without boasting--if I had not been with
+Chumbley, you would never have seen Sindang again."
+
+"And shall I now?" was said in a feeble voice.
+
+"To be sure you will, and the sooner the better," said the doctor.  "I
+want more nourishing food for you, so we'll make up a couch in the stern
+of the boat, and then get on towards home."
+
+"I'll try and bear being moved," he said feebly, "but--but--but--"
+
+"But what?" said the doctor, quietly.  "There, don't worry.  I see.  You
+have forgotten what you wanted to say.  It will come again.  Shut your
+eyes and go to sleep."
+
+Arthur Rosebury was so pitifully weak that he was ready to obey anybody;
+and he sank back and seemed to go to sleep at once with the doctor and
+Chumbley seated by his side.
+
+"I want some explanation of all this," said Chumbley, in his drawling
+way.
+
+"So do I," said the doctor; "but we must wait, my dear boy.  He's as
+weak as water, and I can't trouble him with questions.  You see, his
+brain is affected by his bodily want of tone; but it will soon come
+right if we are patient."
+
+It seemed to the chaplain as if he had not been asleep when he awoke
+five hours later, and looking at the doctor he went on where he ceased
+before dozing off; but this time he did not forget.
+
+"Where is Helen Perowne?" he asked.
+
+"Safe at home," replied the doctor.
+
+"That is well," said the chaplain.  "I have been troubled by a dreamy
+idea that she was carried off when I was by the Malays, and that I was
+kept to marry Helen to someone else."
+
+"What someone else?" said the doctor.
+
+"I fancied it was Murad," said the chaplain, feebly; "but my head _is_
+confused and strange.  What of Mary?"
+
+"Quite well, and anxious to see you again.  There, lie back, and we will
+lift you in this waterproof sheet so gently that you will hardly know
+you have been moved."
+
+The chaplain lay back, and seemed to drop asleep again as he was lifted
+into the boat, which put off at once; and in high spirits with the
+successful termination of their quest, the Malays worked well, and sent
+the sampan skimming over the still waters of the lagoon.
+
+They did not cease poling and paddling all night, and halted at last to
+land, after catching some fish, which, when broiled, made a good
+addition to the biscuits and coffee.
+
+The chaplain ate heartily, and seemed to enjoy the warm sunshine as they
+went on again over the sparkling waters of the lake.  He talked, too,
+and asked Chumbley to sit by him, but seemed to have very little memory,
+till all at once he cried, in a piteous tone:
+
+"My specimens!--my specimens!  We must not leave them behind!"
+
+The doctor took off his hat and rubbed his head, for his feelings were
+quite with the chaplain; but to go back and land, and search the house
+in the jungle, meant over a day's work, and he said, decidedly:
+
+"No: it is impossible to go now!"
+
+"But they are the work of weeks and months of labour!" protested the
+chaplain.  "If you had only seen them!"
+
+"My dear Arthur, I have seen them," said the doctor.  "They will not
+hurt, and as soon as you are well again we will fetch them."
+
+The chaplain sank back in his place with a sigh; and as the journey was
+continued he told his friends of his long imprisonment, and of how, as a
+resource, he had settled down to botanising.
+
+This had gone on steadily, till about a fortnight back, when he noticed
+that his guards were whispering together a good deal, and that evening
+he missed them, and no meal was prepared.
+
+The next day no one was visible, and he found what provision there was,
+and did the best he could, and so on the next day, when, finding that he
+was regularly deserted, he made up his mind to escape, and started off,
+following the track that led from the house, to find that it ended by a
+little river.
+
+There was no possibility of getting to right or left, to follow the
+stream, on account of the jungle, and after a weary day he was glad to
+go back to his prison and sleep.
+
+The following days were taken up in efforts to find a path that would
+lead to some inhabited place, but the efforts were in vain; and though
+he sought constantly, he could not retrace his steps to the house where
+he had seen the Malay lady trying to get away.  Everywhere it was
+jungle--a wilderness of jungle--and the only possibility of escape was
+by one of the streams, or by way of the lagoon, which he had discovered
+in his botanical wanderings.
+
+He had no boat, nor the ingenuity to contrive one.  To have attempted to
+wade down a stream meant courting death by the reptiles; so the
+chaplain's many wanderings in the wilderness took him over the same
+ground day after day, and always back to his prison.
+
+Then the scant supply of provision was exhausted; there was no fruit to
+be found; he had no gun, and could contrive no means of capturing fish;
+and the result was that, growing weaker day by day, and more helpless,
+he realised how safe was the prison in the jungle in which he had been
+shut up; and at last sat down, to gradually sink into a stupor, from
+which, but for the coming of his friends, he would never have recovered.
+
+Even when he was taken in safety to the landing-stage, he was too feeble
+to walk, and fainted as he was carried to his brother-in-law's house.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
+
+AMOK!
+
+Singapore on a sunny day, looking bright, attractive, even wonderful to
+stranger eyes.  Ships of all nations in the harbour, with sailors from
+Europe, from America, from the ports about the Red Sea, from India,
+China, and Japan.
+
+A wonderful polyglot assembly rubbing shoulders in the street: Jack in
+his white duck frock, straw, and loose trousers, staring at John
+Chinaman, with his blue cotton garments, pith-soled shoes, and pigtail
+reaching almost to the ground.  Swarthy Dyaks, Papuans, Bugis, and
+Malays pure and Malays mongrel from the many islands of the Eastern
+seas, every opalescent-eyed, swarthy savage wearing his kris.  British
+soldiers mingled with the native police in their puggrees; and busy
+English merchants, and many Scotch, hurried with the varied races on
+their way to and from their places of business.
+
+Above all, the Chinese seemed to muster strongly--those busy, patient,
+plodding people, who are ready to squeeze themselves into any vacant
+hole, round or square, and to make themselves fit therein.  Barbers,
+carriers, purveyors of fruit, washers of clothes, shampooers, tailors,
+cooks, waiters, domestic servants, always ready, patient and willing,
+childlike and bland--John Chinaman swarms in Singapore, and can be found
+there as the meanest workman or artisan, up to the wealthiest merchant
+or banker, like the late Mr Whampoa, whose gardens were one of the
+lions of the place.
+
+Everything looked at its best in the pure air and under the brilliant
+sky; and Hilton and Chumbley were on their way to meet Mr Harley, who,
+now that Helen Perowne had been pronounced quite out of danger, had come
+down with a lighter heart to be present at the trial of the Malay chief
+Murad, who was to be tried by a jury of his fellow-countrymen for his
+treachery to an English lady, and for firing upon a vessel bearing the
+English flag.
+
+"Not a bad place this, Chum, old fellow," said Hilton.  "I could stay a
+month with comfort."
+
+"Yes, so could I," said Chumbley, lazily; "but I want to get back."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," was the reply.  "I say, look at that Malay lady; she
+isn't unlike the Inche Maida, is she?"
+
+"H'm, no: something like.  I say, though, old fellow, I don't feel very
+easy about that affair.  It hardly seems just that that woman should get
+off scot-free!"
+
+"Nonsense: stuff, man.  Let the poor body rest.  Why, how ungallant you
+are!  She fell in love with you, and wanted to marry you!"
+
+"Very condescending of her, I'm sure," said Hilton.  "But really, I
+think I shall tell Harley that she captured us.  He believes Murad was
+at the bottom of it all."
+
+"I beg you will do nothing of the kind!" said Chumbley, firing up.  "I
+shall take it as a personal affront if you do.  You promised me you
+would not."
+
+"Why, hallo!  Is that you, Chum?  You haven't taken a fancy to the
+woman, have you?"
+
+"Never you mind, if--I say, draw your sword, man!  Look out!" cried
+Chumbley, excitedly, as he drew his weapon from its sheath.  "There's
+one of those mad Malay demons running a-muck!"
+
+As he spoke there was a shouting and shrieking heard in the street
+between the Chinese bazaars; right in front people were running
+frantically, as if for their lives, while from the direction of the
+prison they could see a nearly nude Malay with a red handkerchief tied
+round his head, and a flaming yellow sarong about his waist, in strong
+contrast to the white and blue clothed crowd who were skurrying here and
+there.
+
+Hilton's first instinct was to follow the example of the rest, and turn
+down some sideway or into a store; but as he saw first one and then
+another unfortunate stagger and fall where the fierce Malay dashed on,
+striking right and left, a feeling of rage took possession of him, and
+he felt ready to assist in the capture of the fanatic, who was racing
+out followed now by a mixed crowd of armed men, shouting with all their
+might, "_Amok! amok_!"
+
+The Malay, with rolling eyes, foaming lips, and teeth gnashing like some
+wild beast, rushed toward the young officers.  He was striking right and
+left with his kris, and two more men who had tried to intercept him fell
+from the deadly thrusts.  Then a native woman was stabbed in the throat,
+and the savage enthusiast was making straight for where a couple of
+Indian nurses with some European children were cowering against a wall,
+too much alarmed to do anything but shriek.
+
+This roused Hilton and Chumbley to action; and they interposed between
+the shrieking women and the Malay.
+
+They were both good swordsmen as far as military teaching goes; but the
+Malay paid no more heed to their blunt regulation weapons than if they
+had been made of lath.
+
+Hilton was first, and as he tried to guard himself from a thrust, the
+Malay leaped upon him and drove his kris through the fleshy part of his
+arm, and Chumbley stumbled over him.
+
+With a shrill yell the Malay dashed on, struck at one of the women, who
+fell, and would have stabbed the children; but the fierce crowd was
+after him--a crowd gradually augmented, and among whom were three or
+four armed soldiers and a couple of the native police, each bearing what
+seemed to be a large pitchfork.
+
+The Malay rushed on headlong, stabbing right and left, and marking his
+way with the bodies of the victims as he continued his fearful course,
+devoting himself to death, but with the furious thirst for blood
+displayed in such cases, where the _Amok_ runner kills all he can, and
+goes on till he is either shot down or brought to bay.
+
+Every now and then a Malay would make a stab at the savage as he passed,
+some of which blows took effect; but for the most part the runner
+escaped unhurt--the frightened people in the streets fleeing for life,
+with the consequence that here and there quite a little knot would be
+driven into a corner, crowding, shrieking together, unable to escape,
+and the outside unfortunates would receive lightning-like stabs before
+the wretch who delivered them raced on.
+
+Chumbley rose to his feet and hastily tied a handkerchief round Hilton's
+bleeding arm, the latter turning faint, and having to be helped into a
+Chinaman's shop close at hand, the owner creeping from beneath his
+counter as the officers came in.
+
+"Don't stop for me," said Hilton.  "I'm all right."
+
+Chumbley hesitated for a moment, and then ran out to see that the _Amok_
+runner had been turned and was coming back at full speed, apparently
+full of vigour as ever, though he was streaming with blood and striking
+savagely at any one who came in his way.
+
+The young officer saw two more victims fall, and then the Malay dashed
+down a sideway, making for the harbour now, affording an opportunity for
+a couple of shots to be sent after him, neither of which, however seemed
+to take effect.
+
+On came the shouting crowd of pursuers, thirsting for the Malay's blood,
+their object being to destroy him with as little compunction as they
+would a mad dog; but they did not gain upon him, and it was not until he
+had left several more inoffensive people weltering in their blood, that
+he turned at bay with his back to a blank wall, yelling, gnashing his
+teeth, and striking fiercely at his assailants with his dripping kris.
+
+Suddenly, with a quick motion, one of the native policemen made a dart
+with the huge pitchfork he carried, his object being to strike the tines
+on either side of the madman and hold him pinned against the wall; but
+he was too quick, for he darted aside, and striking fiercely with his
+kris, started off afresh, but running more slowly now, for he was
+growing weak.
+
+Still his thirst for blood was not assuaged, and running on he struck
+down a couple of Chinamen before he was again brought to bay in a kind
+of pool, where he stood glaring and displaying his teeth--a savage beast
+apparently, more than man--and ready to fight for his life to the very
+last.
+
+For mad or no, the _Amok_ runner knew that his fate was to be destroyed
+like some tiger.  The native policemen's instructions were to take him
+prisoner, so as to bring such offender to trial; but the majority of
+these fanatics are hunted to their death.
+
+And it was so here, for as the police advanced cautiously, one of them
+falling back directly with a slight stab in his breast, a
+cleverly-thrown spear passed right through the savage's neck, and he
+fell in the muddy pool.
+
+It was a horrible sight to see the wild face rise again above the
+surface as its owner tried to struggle to his feet; but it was a vain
+effort.  He was thrust under, pinned into the mud by half a dozen spears
+and bayonets, and a few bubbles rising to the surface, showed that the
+wretch's career was at an end.
+
+Chumbley, big, strong man as he was, felt sick as he stood there leaning
+on his sword, while with shouts of triumph the mob of mingled
+nationality dragged the corpse from the muddy pool.
+
+"You here, Chumbley?" said a familiar voice, and he turned to see Mr
+Harley.
+
+"Yes: what a horrid affair!"
+
+"Horrible!  We don't often have them now.  It is a native custom that is
+dying out.  You know, I suppose, when a Malay has committed some crime
+that makes his pardon hopeless, or when some strong desire for revenge
+seizes him, he runs _Amok--a-muck_, as people call it--and then the
+innocent suffer till he is put out of the way."
+
+"Then you think they are not mad?" said Chumbley, who could not withdraw
+his eyes from the ghastly corpse, round which the slayers stood in
+triumph.
+
+"Mad with frenzy or enthusiasm," said Harley, "some of them think it an
+heroic death to die and--Good Heavens!--it is Murad!"
+
+"No!" cried Chumbley.
+
+It was.  The Rajah had escaped from prison, had run _Amok_ through the
+streets of Singapore, and the disfigured clay that lay there in the mud
+and blood, was all that remained of the abductor of Helen Perowne.
+
+The two English spectators turned away with a shudder, and hurried to
+where poor Hilton lay back, rather faint from his wound, which was too
+slight, however, to be of a lasting nature.
+
+Four poor creatures died from Murad's kris, and sixteen were wounded
+more or less severely before he was slain.
+
+
+
+VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER THIRTY.
+
+THE RAJAH AT HOME.
+
+Five years had passed away before, after a long stay on the China
+station, Major Hilton found an opportunity, on the regiment being
+ordered home, to land at Singapore, and take his young wife with him
+up-country, to pay a long-promised visit to her old schoolfellow at the
+Residency at Sindang.
+
+The doctor and Mrs Bolter had gone home the year before, in company
+with the chaplain, who longed for the peace of his own country once
+more; and letters said that the doctor was going to take a quiet country
+practice, where his brother-in-law, still a bachelor, had settled down.
+
+For though Mrs Barlow, in addition to her wealth, had proffered that
+style of love-offering known to keepsake-writers as blandishments, the
+Reverend Arthur had a sore heart that never healed, and he refused to
+listen to the voice of the charmer, but contented himself with a true
+friendship for Helen, her husband, old Stuart, and Mr Perowne.
+
+Otherwise there had been but little change at Sindang; the new Rajah
+being a quiet, gentlemanly man, growing more European in his ways year
+by year.
+
+The Residency looked very bright and charming as the Major and his wife
+caught sight of the island from the deck of the steamer; and in spite of
+the heat, it was a delightful home, where Helen seemed to lead a life of
+calm repose, looking handsomer than ever with her large eyes, dark hair
+and delicate creamy complexion; but there was a change visible: she
+seemed softened and dreamy, and whenever her husband spoke, there was a
+bright, eager look of joy, that lit up her features and told well of her
+married life.
+
+The meeting between Helen and Grey was almost pathetic in its warmth;
+and for a long time there was no chance for the gentlemen to speak.
+
+Their meeting, too, was wonderfully warm; and while the Resident saw how
+broad-chested and sunbrowned the Major had become, Hilton had been
+noting how fair Helen's skin remained, in spite of her long stay in a
+tropic land; but when she smiled, there was still a faint trace left of
+disfigurement at the lower part of her teeth.
+
+As for the Resident, he looked the _beau ideal_ of a middle-aged English
+gentleman, and brighter and happier than Hilton had ever seen him
+before; while as to the old sore, it was quite healed up; and the
+meeting between Hilton and Helen was just that of old friends; nothing
+more.
+
+"And now about Chumbley?" said Hilton, as they sat after dinner sipping
+their claret in the veranda, watching the fire-flies, and listening to
+the plashing of boat or reptile in the placid, rapid-flowing, starlit
+stream.
+
+There had been inquiries before, but the time had been so taken up, that
+Chumbley's career had been pretty well left out till now; when, as the
+two gentlemen sat smoking, an open door showed them the drawing-room
+with its shaded lamp, and the faces of the two graceful women--their
+wives--as they sat and chatted of old school troubles, and the other
+incidents of their career.
+
+"About old Chum?" said the Resident; "oh, I often see him.  He should
+have been here if I had known you were so close at hand.  You know he
+came back six months after the company was changed, went straight up to
+the Inche Maida's place, brought her back, and they went down to
+Singapore, got married, and returned directly."
+
+"And has he repented?" said Hilton.
+
+"Go and see him, and judge for yourself."
+
+The result was, that one fine morning Hilton had himself rowed up to the
+Inche Maida's home, at Campong Selah, where, on landing, he found that
+he was received with the most profound respect, and conducted to the
+palm-tree house, which was now surrounded by a most carefully-cultivated
+garden.
+
+On entering the place, he found himself in what might have been a
+country gentleman's home, the hall being full of sporting trophies,
+arms, and the paraphernalia of an occupant of sporting tastes.
+
+"What.  Hilton! never!" cried a bluff voice, and Chumbley, in a
+semi-sporting and native costume--wearing puggree, shooting jacket,
+sarong, and kris--and looking brown as a native, seized him by the
+hands, and nearly shook his arms out of their sockets.  "Why, I am glad
+to see you, old man!"
+
+"How well you look, Chumbley!"
+
+"Ay! and you too!  Why, you dog, you're putting on flesh!  But, how's
+the little wife?  How are you getting on?"
+
+"Capitally!  And you: do you like this savage life?"
+
+"Savage, be hanged!" he cried.  "Like it, my boy?  I should think I do.
+By George, sir, she's a splendid woman!  Ah, here are the chicks."
+
+As he spoke, a Malay nurse brought in two little dark-eyed,
+creamy-complexioned children, who made a rush and a dash as soon as they
+were set free, and began to scale Chumbley's knees, not ceasing till
+they were standing in his lap, and holding on by his beard.
+
+"Gently! gently!  You'll break me!  There never was such a pair of vital
+sparks on earth before!  Now look here, you young limbs, turn round and
+talk to this gentleman.  Tell him your names."
+
+"Bertie Hilton Chumbley, Rajah of Campong Selah," said the elder--a
+handsome little boy in a brilliant silken sarong.
+
+"Grey Stuart Chumbley, pa's own darling pet," lisped the other--a bright
+little doll of a girl, whom her father stood up afterwards and proudly
+balanced on one of his great hands.
+
+"Like it," continued Chumbley, stretching himself; "I never knew what
+life was till I came out here and married the Inche Maida.  Ah, here she
+is."
+
+Hilton, as he recalled the past, felt a little conscious; but the
+Princess, who, in spite of her dark skin, looked quite the European
+lady, advanced, holding out her hand so frankly that they were laughing
+and chatting the next minute as if they were the oldest of friends,
+Hilton quite winning her heart by the way in which he took to her
+children.
+
+"You remember what a mistake I made," she said, "and how disappointed I
+was when you refused me?  I did not know then what fate had in store."
+
+"You are still a fatalist then?" said Hilton, smiling.
+
+"Why not?" she replied, proudly, as she went behind her great lord's
+chair, and placed her arm affectionately upon his shoulder.  "Has not
+fate given me the best and noblest of husbands--a just and true man, who
+has become the father of my people, my protector, and my lord?"
+
+"Then you are both very happy?" said Hilton.
+
+"Happy, old boy!" cried Chumbley, glancing affectionately at his wife,
+"happy isn't the word for it; we're thoroughly jolly, and in my way I'm
+a king."
+
+"But don't you miss European society?"
+
+"Not I, lad.  I hunt, and shoot, and drill my subjects, and sit as
+judge, and look after the revenues, and my own little parliament.  I've
+no time to be dull; and do you know, old chap, I don't think I'm quite
+so slow as I was.  I tell you what it is: if I had known how jolly it is
+to be a chief, I should have tried it on years before.  But you're going
+to stop, of course?"
+
+"I'm going to beg some dinner, and then I'm off back to the Residency,
+where my wife is staying with the Harleys."
+
+"Then go back and fetch her--eh, my dear, what do you say?"
+
+"Let us all go together and fetch her," said the Inche Maida, smiling;
+and Grey Hilton was fetched to spend a month at Chumbley's home, finding
+her old friend affectionate to a degree, while endless were the hunting
+and shooting excursions got up by the English Rajah in honour of his
+friend.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The Hiltons have not paid another visit to the palm-tree palace on the
+river where Chumbley has his home, but they hear from him occasionally
+as well as from the Harleys, and the reports always tell of perfect
+happiness in their far-off land.
+
+"I tell you what it is, Grey," says Hilton to his wife, the day after
+they had reached England, and she had held up her last little offering
+for him to kiss its tiny wet mouth, "I'll bet a five-pound note that old
+Chumbley would give something if his youngsters were as fair as that;"
+and Grey says that for her part she does not think the colour of the
+skin matters so long as the heart is in its right place, to which her
+father, who has just come in, says:
+
+"That's a verra good remairk, my dear.  Do you know I'm glad to my heart
+I've managed to scrape five thousand together out of Perowne's estate,
+and the old man has settled it upon his children!"
+
+"Five thousand! a nice little _bonne bouche_ for Harley!" says Hilton.
+
+"A man who thoroughly deserves it," says his wife; "for I'm sure a
+truer-hearted gentleman never existed.  But I have had a letter from
+Helen, and she tells me that Mr Harley is coming to England for a
+year's leave.  I am to answer to the hotel in Paris.  What am I to say?"
+
+"Say?" cried Hilton; "tell her and her husband that we are comfortably
+settled here, and as long as there is a roof and a bed, with something
+in the way of rations, there will always be a welcome for them both."
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's One Maid's Mischief, by George Manville Fenn
+
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