George Manville Fenn (continued 10)

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.