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,viceHilton—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.
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,viceHilton—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, ratherdistinguéman, “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.”
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, ratherdistinguéman, “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 ratheroutréobjects 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.
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 ratheroutréobjects 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 asoufor 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 varioustête-à-têtes, 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.”
“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 asoufor 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 varioustête-à-têtes, 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.”