Volume Three—Chapter Eleven.

Volume Three—Chapter Eleven.Through the Wilds.Helen woke with a start just as the boat disappeared round the curve at the end of the reach, and her first movement was towards where her companion had lain down.At first she could not believe that she was alone, but sat waiting for the girl’s return, believing that she had awakened first, and had gone for a short distance to try for a better path; but as the minutes sped, and the darkness would, as she well knew, soon return, a strange sensation of horror began to trouble her, and she started to her feet, and began to search around in various directions, even going so far as to call in a low voice.She dare not go far for fear that her companion should return and find her absent, so she kept making little excursions here and there where the denseness of the jungle was not so great, and then returned to where she had slept.Parting the boughs on either side, she then crept as near to the river as she could, so as to look up and down stream, for what purpose she could not tell, though it seemed as if an instinct led her to gaze at the highway by which her companion had departed.It was now rapidly growing dark, and the feeling of depression and alarm rapidly increased. So thoroughly frightened did she become at last that she would gladly have called for help, but her common-sense warned her that such a proceeding would only bring down her enemies upon her if they were in hearing; and at last, with her horror of her loneliness increasing fast, and a feeling of dread that some savage beast of prey had seized upon the Malay girl gradually overmastering her, she sank upon the earth, weeping bitterly, helpless as a child, and asking herself if she dared face all those she knew again, and whether she had not better die.How that night passed Helen never knew. Sometimes she sank into a weary kind of stupor, full of troublous dreams, from which she started awake with a sense of horror, and a full belief that some terrible creature was about to spring upon her. At times too, as if to carry out this illusion, she listened with beating heart to the distant howl of some wandering beast, or to one or other of the mysterious noises heard during the night in the primeval wilds.The darkness seemed as if it would never end, and the rushing river, as it sped on like a stream of ink full of stars’ reflections, hissed and writhed, and at times lapped the bank upon which she sat as if it were a huge serpent seeking to make her its prey.This idea suggested the loathsome monsters that she knew would haunt the hot, steamy jungle close to the river side; and with starting eyes, when some low rustle was heard amongst the leaves, she tried to pierce the darkness, believing over and over again that she saw some lithe, undulating reptile gradually approaching her; and at such times it required all her strength of mind to determine that it was but a mere fancy, and as unreal as the images of fierce creatures that she more than once believed that she saw coming out of the jungle.Then her busy brain reminded her of other and more real perils of her position—the more dangerous from their insidious nature and approach. Depressed in spirit as she was, she could not help recalling the accounts she had heard of the deadly fevers, and the certainty of their attacking anyone who passed the night upon the bare earth.Still, it would only mean death at the worst, she thought, in a weary, despondent way; and her misery was so great now that she felt ready to give up her very life sooner than fall again into Murad’s hands.Then her thoughts flew to Harley, with whom she seemed to associate any hope that she might have of the future; and for a time she would brighten up, and contrast her present position with that of some few hours back. She was a prisoner then, and in terrible peril; now she was free, and the chances were, she hopefully told herself, that she might fall in with some party sent in search of her, for she would not believe Murad’s version of her disappearance to be true.It seemed to her as if the morning would never come, and the first herald of its approach was a dank, chilling breath that came to her laden with the mist of the river; and as she sat and shivered she felt that her clothes were saturated with the heavy dew, and longed now for the coming of the sun with its warm, inspiring beams and hopeful light.Her teeth chattered, and her limbs ached as the day broke. She had been awake for quite a couple of hours; and the weariness and oppression that troubled her was now supplemented by a throbbing headache, which was at times almost more than she could bear.As the sun sent his beams glancing through the jungle, Helen rose painfully to her feet, gladly seizing the bough of a tree to cling to and support herself till the giddy sensation that oppressed her wore off.And now, in place of the chill from which she had suffered, she began to burn; hands, cheeks, temples seemed as if they were on fire; there was a misty unreality in the waving branches of the tree as it overhung the river; and as she stood there, trying to master the giddiness that oppressed her, she felt as if this were only the continuance of one of the disturbed dreams that had haunted her during the darkness.Then the fit passed away almost as suddenly as it had come; and trying to shake off the wearisome lassitude that oppressed her, she began to move forward along the slightly-beaten track that ran onward a few yards from the edge of the river, one evidently made by the wild creatures that from time to time came down to drink, or made the banks of the river their home.It was an arduous journey, for she had constantly to stoop down to enable her to pass beneath the interlacing boughs and parasites that crossed the path in all directions; but still she progressed, sometimes strong, and hopeful, more often wearied by lassitude, and at times compelled to cling to the branches as she struggled on, her head reeling, her eyes blinded by pain, and the feeling of unreality coming on more strongly with each attack; till at last she went on, forcing her way through the jungle in a state of wild delirium, muttering incoherently as she staggered on.A blind kind of instinct seemed to keep her to the savage track near the bank of the river, and the same strange instinct led her from time to time to lie down in some convenient place to lap the cool, fresh water from her hand, and bathe her burning cheeks and brow.As the day wore on and the heat increased, Helen’s journey became to her a blind kind of dream. She had a sort of instinct as guide that she must get farther away—struggle on at any cost, in spite of heat, weariness, and the delirium that robbed her of her reason; and staggering forward with the hands bleeding that beat back the thorns and parasites enlacing her path, sunset still found her at the task.How long this lasted Helen could not tell. She had a sort of memory of always hearing the rushing liver, and of sometimes lying down to bathe her face and drink. She knew, too, that she was in pain, and that the thorns cut her feet and tore her clothes; but pain and suffering were as nothing so long as she could struggle on.Then a feeling of anger came over her at the Malay girl’s desertion, for this was a new light in which she viewed her absence; and at last she toiled on till the trees seemed to come to an end, and it was only her weary torn feet now that were hindered by low, thorny, interlacing bushes. These, too, at last almost came to an end; and she seemed to be climbing, slipping, and falling over rocks that sloped rapidly down to the river. Sometimes she had to clamber right away, because the rocks towered up above her head and became impassable.Then once more she would be slipping and falling lower and lower towards where the river foamed, and flashed, and gurgled, plashing over stones, rushing over masses of rock, but ever singing a pleasant kind of music to her ear, for it seemed to be her friend and guide.It never seemed to occur to her confused brain that in place of going down the river towards civilisation, she was painfully climbing up towards the mountains, where the river had its rise in the wildest parts, in a district only inhabited by the Sakais—the aborigines of the country—or as they were generally called, the hill-men.This was nothing to her, for her blind instinct led her to struggle on till, as in a dream, she saw the help that she had believed would come.Her brain was more beclouded than ever, but she had some instinct of what she ought to do, and that was to make signals.Then she blindly struggled on towards that help, grew faint, and her power left her. She fell, and lay moaning on the rocky earth; struggled up once more to continue her efforts to reach friends, but in vain; her power seemed to leave her now for good, and she sank down unable to rise again, her next recollection being that she was lying back upon a rough couch, with a familiar face bending over her, and then all was mist.Then she was back at the old school, and in trouble with her instructresses for insisting upon going out upon a hot day with insufficient protection to her head. She was feverish and slightly delirious, and the doctor had been sent for. How familiar his voice sounded and how cool and pleasant his hands were to her heated brow; and she lay back there wondering why Grey Stuart did not come; why it was so long before a letter came from her father in the Malay peninsula; and then her head began to throb, for she had had, she felt, a terrible dream about having joined him there and been seized and carried off, as she had read in books of hapless maidens being abducted from their homes. It seemed so real that terrible dream, that she could picture the face of the man who had dragged her away.Then mist once more, and a sort of awakening, as if sunlight had come through the mist, and she was in the garden with the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, who looked strange in his long coat, as he stooped to pick her flowers, and handed one to her that had a shape like a cup; and he said to her “Drink—drink!” and in her dream she seemed to drink, expecting to find that out of that flower-cup she would drink honey, while this was intensely bitter; and it was not a flower-cup, but metal, and it was not the Reverend Arthur Rosebury who offered the cup to her, but someone else; and while she was trying to listen who it was, for she could not see, all became silent once again, and blank, and she knew no more.

Helen woke with a start just as the boat disappeared round the curve at the end of the reach, and her first movement was towards where her companion had lain down.

At first she could not believe that she was alone, but sat waiting for the girl’s return, believing that she had awakened first, and had gone for a short distance to try for a better path; but as the minutes sped, and the darkness would, as she well knew, soon return, a strange sensation of horror began to trouble her, and she started to her feet, and began to search around in various directions, even going so far as to call in a low voice.

She dare not go far for fear that her companion should return and find her absent, so she kept making little excursions here and there where the denseness of the jungle was not so great, and then returned to where she had slept.

Parting the boughs on either side, she then crept as near to the river as she could, so as to look up and down stream, for what purpose she could not tell, though it seemed as if an instinct led her to gaze at the highway by which her companion had departed.

It was now rapidly growing dark, and the feeling of depression and alarm rapidly increased. So thoroughly frightened did she become at last that she would gladly have called for help, but her common-sense warned her that such a proceeding would only bring down her enemies upon her if they were in hearing; and at last, with her horror of her loneliness increasing fast, and a feeling of dread that some savage beast of prey had seized upon the Malay girl gradually overmastering her, she sank upon the earth, weeping bitterly, helpless as a child, and asking herself if she dared face all those she knew again, and whether she had not better die.

How that night passed Helen never knew. Sometimes she sank into a weary kind of stupor, full of troublous dreams, from which she started awake with a sense of horror, and a full belief that some terrible creature was about to spring upon her. At times too, as if to carry out this illusion, she listened with beating heart to the distant howl of some wandering beast, or to one or other of the mysterious noises heard during the night in the primeval wilds.

The darkness seemed as if it would never end, and the rushing river, as it sped on like a stream of ink full of stars’ reflections, hissed and writhed, and at times lapped the bank upon which she sat as if it were a huge serpent seeking to make her its prey.

This idea suggested the loathsome monsters that she knew would haunt the hot, steamy jungle close to the river side; and with starting eyes, when some low rustle was heard amongst the leaves, she tried to pierce the darkness, believing over and over again that she saw some lithe, undulating reptile gradually approaching her; and at such times it required all her strength of mind to determine that it was but a mere fancy, and as unreal as the images of fierce creatures that she more than once believed that she saw coming out of the jungle.

Then her busy brain reminded her of other and more real perils of her position—the more dangerous from their insidious nature and approach. Depressed in spirit as she was, she could not help recalling the accounts she had heard of the deadly fevers, and the certainty of their attacking anyone who passed the night upon the bare earth.

Still, it would only mean death at the worst, she thought, in a weary, despondent way; and her misery was so great now that she felt ready to give up her very life sooner than fall again into Murad’s hands.

Then her thoughts flew to Harley, with whom she seemed to associate any hope that she might have of the future; and for a time she would brighten up, and contrast her present position with that of some few hours back. She was a prisoner then, and in terrible peril; now she was free, and the chances were, she hopefully told herself, that she might fall in with some party sent in search of her, for she would not believe Murad’s version of her disappearance to be true.

It seemed to her as if the morning would never come, and the first herald of its approach was a dank, chilling breath that came to her laden with the mist of the river; and as she sat and shivered she felt that her clothes were saturated with the heavy dew, and longed now for the coming of the sun with its warm, inspiring beams and hopeful light.

Her teeth chattered, and her limbs ached as the day broke. She had been awake for quite a couple of hours; and the weariness and oppression that troubled her was now supplemented by a throbbing headache, which was at times almost more than she could bear.

As the sun sent his beams glancing through the jungle, Helen rose painfully to her feet, gladly seizing the bough of a tree to cling to and support herself till the giddy sensation that oppressed her wore off.

And now, in place of the chill from which she had suffered, she began to burn; hands, cheeks, temples seemed as if they were on fire; there was a misty unreality in the waving branches of the tree as it overhung the river; and as she stood there, trying to master the giddiness that oppressed her, she felt as if this were only the continuance of one of the disturbed dreams that had haunted her during the darkness.

Then the fit passed away almost as suddenly as it had come; and trying to shake off the wearisome lassitude that oppressed her, she began to move forward along the slightly-beaten track that ran onward a few yards from the edge of the river, one evidently made by the wild creatures that from time to time came down to drink, or made the banks of the river their home.

It was an arduous journey, for she had constantly to stoop down to enable her to pass beneath the interlacing boughs and parasites that crossed the path in all directions; but still she progressed, sometimes strong, and hopeful, more often wearied by lassitude, and at times compelled to cling to the branches as she struggled on, her head reeling, her eyes blinded by pain, and the feeling of unreality coming on more strongly with each attack; till at last she went on, forcing her way through the jungle in a state of wild delirium, muttering incoherently as she staggered on.

A blind kind of instinct seemed to keep her to the savage track near the bank of the river, and the same strange instinct led her from time to time to lie down in some convenient place to lap the cool, fresh water from her hand, and bathe her burning cheeks and brow.

As the day wore on and the heat increased, Helen’s journey became to her a blind kind of dream. She had a sort of instinct as guide that she must get farther away—struggle on at any cost, in spite of heat, weariness, and the delirium that robbed her of her reason; and staggering forward with the hands bleeding that beat back the thorns and parasites enlacing her path, sunset still found her at the task.

How long this lasted Helen could not tell. She had a sort of memory of always hearing the rushing liver, and of sometimes lying down to bathe her face and drink. She knew, too, that she was in pain, and that the thorns cut her feet and tore her clothes; but pain and suffering were as nothing so long as she could struggle on.

Then a feeling of anger came over her at the Malay girl’s desertion, for this was a new light in which she viewed her absence; and at last she toiled on till the trees seemed to come to an end, and it was only her weary torn feet now that were hindered by low, thorny, interlacing bushes. These, too, at last almost came to an end; and she seemed to be climbing, slipping, and falling over rocks that sloped rapidly down to the river. Sometimes she had to clamber right away, because the rocks towered up above her head and became impassable.

Then once more she would be slipping and falling lower and lower towards where the river foamed, and flashed, and gurgled, plashing over stones, rushing over masses of rock, but ever singing a pleasant kind of music to her ear, for it seemed to be her friend and guide.

It never seemed to occur to her confused brain that in place of going down the river towards civilisation, she was painfully climbing up towards the mountains, where the river had its rise in the wildest parts, in a district only inhabited by the Sakais—the aborigines of the country—or as they were generally called, the hill-men.

This was nothing to her, for her blind instinct led her to struggle on till, as in a dream, she saw the help that she had believed would come.

Her brain was more beclouded than ever, but she had some instinct of what she ought to do, and that was to make signals.

Then she blindly struggled on towards that help, grew faint, and her power left her. She fell, and lay moaning on the rocky earth; struggled up once more to continue her efforts to reach friends, but in vain; her power seemed to leave her now for good, and she sank down unable to rise again, her next recollection being that she was lying back upon a rough couch, with a familiar face bending over her, and then all was mist.

Then she was back at the old school, and in trouble with her instructresses for insisting upon going out upon a hot day with insufficient protection to her head. She was feverish and slightly delirious, and the doctor had been sent for. How familiar his voice sounded and how cool and pleasant his hands were to her heated brow; and she lay back there wondering why Grey Stuart did not come; why it was so long before a letter came from her father in the Malay peninsula; and then her head began to throb, for she had had, she felt, a terrible dream about having joined him there and been seized and carried off, as she had read in books of hapless maidens being abducted from their homes. It seemed so real that terrible dream, that she could picture the face of the man who had dragged her away.

Then mist once more, and a sort of awakening, as if sunlight had come through the mist, and she was in the garden with the Reverend Arthur Rosebury, who looked strange in his long coat, as he stooped to pick her flowers, and handed one to her that had a shape like a cup; and he said to her “Drink—drink!” and in her dream she seemed to drink, expecting to find that out of that flower-cup she would drink honey, while this was intensely bitter; and it was not a flower-cup, but metal, and it was not the Reverend Arthur Rosebury who offered the cup to her, but someone else; and while she was trying to listen who it was, for she could not see, all became silent once again, and blank, and she knew no more.

Volume Three—Chapter Twelve.Doctor Bolter’s Spirit.Gold! What ideas that one word opens out—what magic it contains! But credit must be given to Doctor Bolter for the fact that it was no sordid love of the yellow metal that prompted him to search for gold.He wanted it for no luxury; he had no wealthy man’s desires to quell; all he wished was to make that grand discovery that would prove the Malay Peninsula to have been the Ophir to which King Solomon’s ships came in search of treasure; and of this he wanted ample proof, such as he could lay before a committee of learned men. How was it to be obtained?Doctor Bolter asked himself this question a dozen times over, but no answer came. He asked the question as he stood there up to his knees in water, examining his pannikins full of sand and gravel, which he took from the bottom of the little river, where it now displayed all the characteristics of a mountain stream.He tried several pannikins full, scooping up the sand and gravel from likely places, and after picking out the larger stones, washing carefully till nothing remained after the water had been drained off but pure sand.This he would examine in the full light of the sun, seeking in vain for little water-worn nuggets or specks and scales of gold; but for some time his efforts were unsuccessful; and they went on higher and higher, the shallowness, and the difficulties of the journey increasing at every stride, till, trying at a spot where the rapid stream swirled round the end of a great mass of stone, the doctor washed a pannikin of sand, and then uttered a grunt of satisfaction, for there at the bottom, glittering in the sunshine, were dozens of tiny specks of gold mingled with the grit.“Plenty like that, master, the farther up the stream we go,” said the chief boatman. “It comes out of the mountains where the wicked spirits live.”“Indeed,” said the doctor, sarcastically; “then we must go up and see the wicked spirits. Do you think they will be at home?”“It is very dreadful, master, and we shall all be killed! They send down little specks of gold like that in the water; but if we went up to try and get the great pieces stuck in the mountain side, they would smite us, and our people would see us no more.”“Well, we will risk that,” said the doctor. “Go on.”The Malays sighed, and looked piteously at the doctor, whom they considered as dangerous as a spirit if not obeyed; for they knew he had strange medicines, and a lightning apparatus that sent sparks through them, and made their hands hold tightly by a couple of handles. Yes, he was a wonderful and dangerous man that doctor, whom nothing seemed to hurt, and they felt compelled to obey him.They plied the paddles, then, sending the sampan through the sparkling water, till a few minutes after, when there was a loud grating noise, for they were aground.The Malays sprang out, and wading and lifting the boat, they dragged it on into deeper water, jumped in and paddled on again, but only to get once more aground; and this occurred for a few times, after which the paddles had to be set aside, and the men waded and dragged the boat to a standstill.The doctor had found gold in small quantities, and that proved gold to be there, but nothing more, and he rubbed his ear with a vexatious movement.He knew that there was gold in the little streams that came down from the mountains, and probably there was a great deal more there in the mass. But that did not prove this to have been the place visited by Solomon’s ships, and he was as far off the goal as ever.“One thing is very evident,” muttered the doctor, ill-humouredly, as he made a vicious blow at and missed a teasing fly, “Solomon’s ships never came up this river, and we can get no farther without walking. Here, drag the boat under the shelter of that rock, and let’s have a feed and a rest. The sun is unbearable!”The men eagerly drew the boat over the stones, amidst which the pellucid water trickled and sparkled, placed it well in the shadow of a towering mass of rock, and then, in the comparative coolness, a good meal was made, after which first one and then the other dropped off to sleep.The sun was setting when the doctor awoke from a dream of being somewhere undergoing a punishment for his sins by being buzzed at by flies that he could not knock off his face and ears.He felt annoyed on seeing how the day was spent; but a little consideration told him that the men were almost knocked up by their exertions, and that they would be the better for the rest.“Well,” said the doctor, “how are we to manage now? Will the stream grow deeper higher up?”“No, master,” replied the Malay; “the boat can go no farther. We must walk.”“Humph! and carry the provisions?” said the doctor.“Yes, if the master wishes to go up to the mountains.”“Why, you are afraid, Ismael!” said the doctor.“Yes, master, we are both afraid; but if he says we must go, his servants will follow him right up where the spirits dwell. Look—see,” he whispered. “There is one waving its hands to us to tempt us. Don’t—no, don’t look, master, or you may die.”The second Malay threw himself flat in the bottom of the boat, and covered his face with his hands.“Well, I’ve seen worse things than that,” said the doctor, grimly. “Why, it’s a woman; and she’s coming this way.”“The spirits come in all shapes from the mountains to tempt people,” said the trembling Malay. “Now, they are tigers, now they are crocodiles, and sometimes women and men.”“Ah, the women are the worst kind of spirits,” said the doctor—“especially,” he added to himself, “if they are middle-aged and jealous of their husbands. Here, get up, sir; don’t lie there; you’re crushing my specimens. That’s only a Malay woman.”The figure was struggling slowly along, the rugged, rock-strewn bank of the stream making her passage very arduous, for the little river was running now in the bottom of a ravine like a huge rift in the mountain side. The rocks towered up at a swift angle, and a traveller would have found the best road to be decidedly in the bed of the stream.The woman ashore, however, evidently preferred the dry land, and kept on picking her way toilsomely from rock to rock, now descending into some rift, and anon climbing forth once more into sight, and more than once she seemed to fall.She was quite a couple of hundred yards away still, and the doctor watched her approach with growing interest, feeling no little compassion for her, as he saw that she was evidently footsore, and struggled towards them in a weary, halting manner, that grew pitiable as she advanced.At last the piled-up rocks grew evidently so difficult that the woman toiled slowly down to the bed of the stream, where the doctor saw her stoop and scoop up the sweet, cool water with her hand, evidently to drink with avidity. After this she made an effort to continue her course, but she seemed to totter and sink down upon a stone at the side of the stream, waving her brown hand once more as if for help.“Poor thing!” said the doctor, stepping out of the boat into the shallow water, but only to be seized by the two Malays.“No, no, master,” they cried together; “you must not go. It is a spirit, and it will kill you!”“Let go, you silly, superstitious fellows!” cried the doctor, wrenching himself free. “Women are very dangerous creatures, but I think I shall get back safe.”Then, to the horror of his two men, he waded up the stream to where the native woman sat back, half reclining against the rock, with her feet washed by the running water.As it is well known, when once the sun is below the horizon, the twilight is extremely short in the tropics; and the fast-coming darkness was deepened by the depth of the rocky ravine, so that as the doctor waded carefully on to avoid a nasty fall, the figure of the woman in her gay plaid sarong was beginning to look filmy and indistinct enough to make anyone of superstitious tendencies doubtful of the reality of that upon which he gazed.But the doctor was made of too stern stuff to be troubled in this way, even after the promptings of his companions; and wading on, with the water feeling deliciously cool as it plashed musically about his feet, he noted that the brown face looked fixed and strange, the lips parted, revealing the black, filed teeth, and such an air of exhaustion displayed in the eyes, that he hurried his steps.“What is the matter?” he said, in the Malay tongue; but the woman did not reply, only raised one hand feebly and let it drop.Black, brown, or white, it was the same to Dr Bolter. Here was a patient asking help in her mute way; and taking her hand, he quickly felt her pulse.“No fever. Exhaustion,” he muttered, softly, laying her farther back, so that after dipping some of the cold water in the cup of his spirit-flask, and adding a few drops of some essence, he could trickle it gently between the sufferer’s lips.She made an effort to swallow, and did so, uttering a low moan the next minute, followed by a piteous sigh.“Drink a little more,” he said, in the Malay tongue; and she obeyed mechanically, as he held the silver cup to her lips. “Poor girl,” he continued, to himself, “her feet are cut and bleeding, and she has hurt herself with falling—Here! hoi! Ismael! Ali!”The rocks echoed his cry, and the two men approached tremblingly.“Come along, you stupid fellows!” he cried. “It is nothing to be afraid of;” and after a few more angry admonitions the two boatmen came up and helped to carry the insensible girl down to the boat, when, a snug place close by in the rocks having been picked out, the sufferer was placed upon a roughly-prepared couch formed of the doctor’s overcoat and his waterproof sheet; then a macintosh was laid over her, and she seemed to fall off into a heavy sleep.“That keeps us here for the night,” said the doctor; and being hungry, a fire was lit, and a capital little dinner of preserved game and fish prepared, of which all partook, and then made preparations for passing the night.

Gold! What ideas that one word opens out—what magic it contains! But credit must be given to Doctor Bolter for the fact that it was no sordid love of the yellow metal that prompted him to search for gold.

He wanted it for no luxury; he had no wealthy man’s desires to quell; all he wished was to make that grand discovery that would prove the Malay Peninsula to have been the Ophir to which King Solomon’s ships came in search of treasure; and of this he wanted ample proof, such as he could lay before a committee of learned men. How was it to be obtained?

Doctor Bolter asked himself this question a dozen times over, but no answer came. He asked the question as he stood there up to his knees in water, examining his pannikins full of sand and gravel, which he took from the bottom of the little river, where it now displayed all the characteristics of a mountain stream.

He tried several pannikins full, scooping up the sand and gravel from likely places, and after picking out the larger stones, washing carefully till nothing remained after the water had been drained off but pure sand.

This he would examine in the full light of the sun, seeking in vain for little water-worn nuggets or specks and scales of gold; but for some time his efforts were unsuccessful; and they went on higher and higher, the shallowness, and the difficulties of the journey increasing at every stride, till, trying at a spot where the rapid stream swirled round the end of a great mass of stone, the doctor washed a pannikin of sand, and then uttered a grunt of satisfaction, for there at the bottom, glittering in the sunshine, were dozens of tiny specks of gold mingled with the grit.

“Plenty like that, master, the farther up the stream we go,” said the chief boatman. “It comes out of the mountains where the wicked spirits live.”

“Indeed,” said the doctor, sarcastically; “then we must go up and see the wicked spirits. Do you think they will be at home?”

“It is very dreadful, master, and we shall all be killed! They send down little specks of gold like that in the water; but if we went up to try and get the great pieces stuck in the mountain side, they would smite us, and our people would see us no more.”

“Well, we will risk that,” said the doctor. “Go on.”

The Malays sighed, and looked piteously at the doctor, whom they considered as dangerous as a spirit if not obeyed; for they knew he had strange medicines, and a lightning apparatus that sent sparks through them, and made their hands hold tightly by a couple of handles. Yes, he was a wonderful and dangerous man that doctor, whom nothing seemed to hurt, and they felt compelled to obey him.

They plied the paddles, then, sending the sampan through the sparkling water, till a few minutes after, when there was a loud grating noise, for they were aground.

The Malays sprang out, and wading and lifting the boat, they dragged it on into deeper water, jumped in and paddled on again, but only to get once more aground; and this occurred for a few times, after which the paddles had to be set aside, and the men waded and dragged the boat to a standstill.

The doctor had found gold in small quantities, and that proved gold to be there, but nothing more, and he rubbed his ear with a vexatious movement.

He knew that there was gold in the little streams that came down from the mountains, and probably there was a great deal more there in the mass. But that did not prove this to have been the place visited by Solomon’s ships, and he was as far off the goal as ever.

“One thing is very evident,” muttered the doctor, ill-humouredly, as he made a vicious blow at and missed a teasing fly, “Solomon’s ships never came up this river, and we can get no farther without walking. Here, drag the boat under the shelter of that rock, and let’s have a feed and a rest. The sun is unbearable!”

The men eagerly drew the boat over the stones, amidst which the pellucid water trickled and sparkled, placed it well in the shadow of a towering mass of rock, and then, in the comparative coolness, a good meal was made, after which first one and then the other dropped off to sleep.

The sun was setting when the doctor awoke from a dream of being somewhere undergoing a punishment for his sins by being buzzed at by flies that he could not knock off his face and ears.

He felt annoyed on seeing how the day was spent; but a little consideration told him that the men were almost knocked up by their exertions, and that they would be the better for the rest.

“Well,” said the doctor, “how are we to manage now? Will the stream grow deeper higher up?”

“No, master,” replied the Malay; “the boat can go no farther. We must walk.”

“Humph! and carry the provisions?” said the doctor.

“Yes, if the master wishes to go up to the mountains.”

“Why, you are afraid, Ismael!” said the doctor.

“Yes, master, we are both afraid; but if he says we must go, his servants will follow him right up where the spirits dwell. Look—see,” he whispered. “There is one waving its hands to us to tempt us. Don’t—no, don’t look, master, or you may die.”

The second Malay threw himself flat in the bottom of the boat, and covered his face with his hands.

“Well, I’ve seen worse things than that,” said the doctor, grimly. “Why, it’s a woman; and she’s coming this way.”

“The spirits come in all shapes from the mountains to tempt people,” said the trembling Malay. “Now, they are tigers, now they are crocodiles, and sometimes women and men.”

“Ah, the women are the worst kind of spirits,” said the doctor—“especially,” he added to himself, “if they are middle-aged and jealous of their husbands. Here, get up, sir; don’t lie there; you’re crushing my specimens. That’s only a Malay woman.”

The figure was struggling slowly along, the rugged, rock-strewn bank of the stream making her passage very arduous, for the little river was running now in the bottom of a ravine like a huge rift in the mountain side. The rocks towered up at a swift angle, and a traveller would have found the best road to be decidedly in the bed of the stream.

The woman ashore, however, evidently preferred the dry land, and kept on picking her way toilsomely from rock to rock, now descending into some rift, and anon climbing forth once more into sight, and more than once she seemed to fall.

She was quite a couple of hundred yards away still, and the doctor watched her approach with growing interest, feeling no little compassion for her, as he saw that she was evidently footsore, and struggled towards them in a weary, halting manner, that grew pitiable as she advanced.

At last the piled-up rocks grew evidently so difficult that the woman toiled slowly down to the bed of the stream, where the doctor saw her stoop and scoop up the sweet, cool water with her hand, evidently to drink with avidity. After this she made an effort to continue her course, but she seemed to totter and sink down upon a stone at the side of the stream, waving her brown hand once more as if for help.

“Poor thing!” said the doctor, stepping out of the boat into the shallow water, but only to be seized by the two Malays.

“No, no, master,” they cried together; “you must not go. It is a spirit, and it will kill you!”

“Let go, you silly, superstitious fellows!” cried the doctor, wrenching himself free. “Women are very dangerous creatures, but I think I shall get back safe.”

Then, to the horror of his two men, he waded up the stream to where the native woman sat back, half reclining against the rock, with her feet washed by the running water.

As it is well known, when once the sun is below the horizon, the twilight is extremely short in the tropics; and the fast-coming darkness was deepened by the depth of the rocky ravine, so that as the doctor waded carefully on to avoid a nasty fall, the figure of the woman in her gay plaid sarong was beginning to look filmy and indistinct enough to make anyone of superstitious tendencies doubtful of the reality of that upon which he gazed.

But the doctor was made of too stern stuff to be troubled in this way, even after the promptings of his companions; and wading on, with the water feeling deliciously cool as it plashed musically about his feet, he noted that the brown face looked fixed and strange, the lips parted, revealing the black, filed teeth, and such an air of exhaustion displayed in the eyes, that he hurried his steps.

“What is the matter?” he said, in the Malay tongue; but the woman did not reply, only raised one hand feebly and let it drop.

Black, brown, or white, it was the same to Dr Bolter. Here was a patient asking help in her mute way; and taking her hand, he quickly felt her pulse.

“No fever. Exhaustion,” he muttered, softly, laying her farther back, so that after dipping some of the cold water in the cup of his spirit-flask, and adding a few drops of some essence, he could trickle it gently between the sufferer’s lips.

She made an effort to swallow, and did so, uttering a low moan the next minute, followed by a piteous sigh.

“Drink a little more,” he said, in the Malay tongue; and she obeyed mechanically, as he held the silver cup to her lips. “Poor girl,” he continued, to himself, “her feet are cut and bleeding, and she has hurt herself with falling—Here! hoi! Ismael! Ali!”

The rocks echoed his cry, and the two men approached tremblingly.

“Come along, you stupid fellows!” he cried. “It is nothing to be afraid of;” and after a few more angry admonitions the two boatmen came up and helped to carry the insensible girl down to the boat, when, a snug place close by in the rocks having been picked out, the sufferer was placed upon a roughly-prepared couch formed of the doctor’s overcoat and his waterproof sheet; then a macintosh was laid over her, and she seemed to fall off into a heavy sleep.

“That keeps us here for the night,” said the doctor; and being hungry, a fire was lit, and a capital little dinner of preserved game and fish prepared, of which all partook, and then made preparations for passing the night.

Volume Three—Chapter Thirteen.Medical Aid.Doctor Bolter visited his patient two or three times, waking up with the greatest of regularity every two hours for the purpose, and administering a few drops of a cordial that he always carried wherever he went, it having wonderful qualities of its own, so the doctor said, and being competent to cure almost every disease, but smelling very strongly of brandy.His patient slept heavily, and she was still sleeping as the doctor’s coffee was ready just before sunrise.“Humph!” he muttered; “it’s a precious good job my wife isn’t here, or she’d be as cross as two sticks, for the poor thing is a wonderfully handsome girl in spite of her black, filed teeth, and dark skin. Poor lassie! how she has scratched herself. Why, her feet are cut and swollen and full of thorns. I’ll bet ten pounds to twopence she’s a runaway slave.”There was no one to take the bet, and the doctor went on:“Poor lass! she has put me in a fix. I can’t take her back with me, because nothing upsets Harley more than having to deal with the domestic institutions of the Malays; and if they get under the protection of the British flag a slave is a slave no longer. Then, too, there is Mrs Bolter. Bless that woman! what a pity it is that she is of such a jealous disposition.“Tut, tut, tut! Hang the girl! why didn’t she run to someone else? It’s a pity she doesn’t wake, though, for a cup of coffee would do her good.“Humph! Yes, she’s a very handsome girl,” muttered the doctor, thoughtfully. “What a pity it is that they can’t leave their pretty white teeth alone, instead of disfiguring them like that, and—Bless me—how strange! Where have I seen this girl before?”He stood gazing down at her very thoughtfully, but his memory did not serve him.“It must have been at the Inche Maida’s, and that makes it worse, for we don’t want to offend her—Ah! that’s right,” he said aloud in Malayan.“How do you feel?”For answer the girl, who had just opened a pair of large lustrous eyes, gazed at the doctor at first in a frightened way, and then caught his hand in hers, kissed it passionately, and held it to her breast.“Oh, come, I say, my dear, this won’t do!” cried the doctor. “What the dickens do you think Mrs Bolter would say if she saw it? There’d be the prettiest row under the sun. Now, then, be calm, and lie still. You shall have a cup of coffee, and then I’ll extract some of the thorns from your feet, or you’ll be regularly crippled.”There was a fresh burst of sobbing here, the girl striving to speak, but her sobs choked her utterance.“There, there, there,” said the doctor, kindly, “don’t cry, my poor child; you are safe now, and I’ll take you back to the station in spite of Harley and Mrs Bolter herself. Hang the slave customs and all who practise them, I say! Now, my dear,” he added, in Malayan, “loose my hand and I will get you some coffee.”He tried to withdraw his hand, but the girl clung to it the more tightly.“No, no, Doctor,” she cried; “don’t leave me, pray!”“What? The deuce!” exclaimed the little man, starting. “How the dickens did you know I was a doctor? I say; I know your voice; who—”“Don’t you know me again, Doctor?” she cried, passionately, and cutting short his speech.“Know you? What—why?—It is? No. Yes: Helen Perowne!”The poor girl burst into a frantic hysterical fit of crying.“Why, my poor darling! my dear child! my poor little woman!” cried the doctor, raising her head to his breast, and holding her there, kissing her again and again as the tears ran down his ruddy face. “My poor little bairnie! This is dreadful! There, there, there, my dear, you are quite safe now,” he continued, patting her and caressing her as a father would a favourite child. “But there; what a milksop I am; crying like a great girl, I declare, when I ought to shouthooray! to think I have found you safe, if not quite sound. Why, my dear child, Perowne will hug me for this. Poor old boy, he has been half frantic.”“But, Doctor,” she sobbed, “they will catch me again, and drag me back to that dreadful place. Look here,” she cried, with a mingling of pitiful appeal and angry indignation, and she held out her scratched and torn brown hands, and then turned her face and showed her teeth to him. “I have been cruelly used. They made me look like one of his wretched wives, so that I should not be known.”“But who—who did all this?”“Murad, and I have been kept a prisoner here at a dreadful place, deep in the jungle, where I saw no one but his wretched creatures. Oh, Doctor, Doctor, kill me, or I shall go mad!”“Kill you? of course I won’t, my dear. The dog! the scoundrel! the smooth-faced hypocrite! I’ll blow his brains out! I’ll skin him and make a specimen of him to take him back to England and exhibit him as a demon. Hang him! I don’t know what I won’t do!” cried the doctor, stamping with passion. “Here, you two,” he cried, “don’t stand staring like that, but bring the young lady some coffee.”The two Malay boatmen, who had been terribly puzzled at their master’s behaviour with one they took to be an escaped slave, obeyed his orders at once, looking very peculiar the while.“Don’t you see who it is, you scoundrels?” cried the doctor, storming. “What are you thinking about?”“Nothing, master,” said the elder boatman, submissively, for what so great a man as the doctor—one who could bring people back to life, as he had the reputation of having done before now—chose to do must be good and right.“That’s better,” exclaimed the doctor, energetically. “Now some biscuits. Come, my dear, try and eat and drink. I wish to goodness my little woman were here! Come, eat; it will give you strength.”Helen made a lame effort or two, but the food seemed to choke her.“And I’d come out to find Solomon’s gold,” muttered the doctor. “Solomon’s Ophir; I seem instead to have found Solomon’s wives, or rather one of them. Bless my heart! bless my soul! Well, really I never did!”He looked at Helen wonderingly, and then ran mentally over the trouble at the station as he longed to question his “new specimen,” as he called her, but felt some delicacy in speaking.“Come, come,” he said at last, “you do not eat.”“Oh, no, no, Doctor!” she cried, in hysterical tones. “I cannot eat: what shall I do?”“One moment,” said the doctor; “tell me, do I apprehend rightly, that you have escaped from that scoundrel?”“Yes,” she whispered, hoarsely; and she shuddered as she spoke. “He came yesterday—no, it must have been days ago. I don’t know: my head is troubled. He came, and I said I would escape and die in the jungle if I could not get to the station.”“Yes, yes,” said the doctor, feeling her pulse, for she seemed to grow more composed.“And I did escape: one of the Rajah’s women helped me, and we fled together through the jungle, toiling on amongst thorns and canes, and always ready to drop, till we sank down wearily to sleep.”“Yes, my poor child,” said the doctor; “but where is your companion?”“I—I don’t know,” said Helen, in a strange, dazed way. “She must be somewhere. I went to sleep, and she was with me, and I awoke and she was gone. But, Doctor, dear Doctor Bolter, I am not what I was. Pray do not let me fall into that wretch’s hands again!”“Never fear,” exclaimed the doctor, to give her confidence, and he assumed a matter-of-fact, confident air as he spoke. “Look here, my dear child, eat and drink to gain strength, and I will then take you back in my boat. Don’t be alarmed. You will be quite safe.”Helen made an effort to partake of the coffee, and as the doctor drank his own, it suddenly struck him that he used to have a great dislike to Helen Perowne, while now he had been treating her with the most affectionate solicitude.“And quite right, too,” he muttered. “Her position enlists sympathy. Why, I should be a brute if I did not behave kindly and well.”The difficulties of his position became more apparent to him as he thought the matter over.Murad had carried off Helen no doubt in accordance with a deeply-laid scheme; and knowing what his position would be if the latter were discovered, of course he would spare no pains to recapture his prisoner.“He knows it’s death, and a complete finish of his Rajahship,” muttered the doctor; “and sooner than be found out the reptile would shoot me down like a dog—if I don’t get the chance to shoot him first; and hang me if I don’t feel just now as if I could send a charge of shot through him with the greatest pleasure in life!”He felt that if the followers of Murad were to find out the direction taken by the fugitive they would soon be on her track, and he would be almost helpless—one against a strongly-manned boat, whose crew would know their lives depended upon the success of their efforts.Under these circumstances he determined to draw the boat well up among the rocks, and then to lie in concealment until the evening, when they might float down under cover of the darkness.But no sooner had he determined upon this than the thought of the difficulties of the navigation came uppermost in his mind. It was hard enough to get safely up the little river by daylight. In the darkness he was compelled to own that it would be impossible.“I must run all risks,” he said; “there is nothing else for it. We must get down to the mouth of the river and out into the main stream as soon as possible,” and having fully made up his mind what he would do, he turned to Helen Perowne.“I am going to start at once,” he said; “but before we set off—I say this so as to help me, perhaps, in our effort to get away—”“Effort to get away?” she said, piteously. “No, no; I don’t quite mean that,” he said; “but before we set off would you not like to make yourself look a little more like an English lady?”She looked up at him with an imploring look, and the tears began to trickle down her cheeks.“Only too gladly, doctor; but you do not understand. They managed their cruel task only too well! Do you not see?—this is a stain, and it cannot be removed!”The doctor frowned as he thought of his store of drugs and chemicals at home in his little palm-thatched cottage, where he wished they were themselves; and then he wondered whether there was anything amongst them that would remove the brown tint from his companion’s face.She rose as he held out his hand, but trembled so much, and seemed so agitated, that when he led her to the boat she would have tottered and fallen had not the doctor caught her in his arms, and lifted her in; while directly after the two stout Malays thrust the boat over the shallow sands and gravel till deeper water was reached, the current helping them in their task, which was a long and arduous one, for there were long stretches of shallow and rapid, over which the bottom of the sampan grated before the paddles could be used.And all this time the doctor noted that his companion’s wild eyes were constantly searching the shore for danger, such as he was fain to confess might be encountered at any moment, and in view of which he carefully charged his revolver, and altered the cartridges in both barrels of his gun.At last, though, the boatmen were able to give up wading, and seizing their paddles, they leaped into the boat, making it glide down the stream, whose course here was very swift.The doctor talked to his companion, but she was very silent, and they were soon both of them occupied in watching the shores, the doctor growing more uneasy moment by moment; while Helen, in her ignorance, felt that every paddle-stroke took her farther and farther from pursuit—made her safer from being recaptured by him who caused a shudder—when literally she was now every hour being taken nearer to the house that had been her prison all through those weary days.As the time wore on the doctor asked her a few questions about her adventures, but he noted that she trembled so, and became so painfully agitated, that from sheer kindness he soon refrained; and leaving her to make what confidences she chose, he sat with his gun across his knee, watching the shore for enemies, and they journeyed on almost in silence.The Malay boatmen saw that there was danger. They had not recognised Helen at first; but now that they knew her they coupled the meeting in their own minds with the troubles at the station, and from time to time they cast uneasy glances at the doctor’s revolver as it lay upon the seat, and from that began watchfully to scan such portions of the shore as might be deemed dangerous from affording opportunities for an ambush from which spears would come whizzing with unerring aim.In the ardour of his pursuit after the favourite myth of his imagination the doctor had not noticed the distance he had ascended this narrow, winding stream; but now that he was all anxiety to reach the great river, it seemed as if it would never end.The sun poured down his ardent rays, and but for the awning of boughs that the Malays had cut and spread over her head, the heat to the rescued girl would have been unbearable. Everything, however, that could alleviate her position was done, and more than once she gave the doctor a grateful look, as in a weary, broken-spirited way, she faltered her thanks.“Notmuch like the Helen Perowne of the past,” he muttered, as he resumed his seat, after supplying his patient with water, and once more scanning the sides of the river for danger.There was nothing to be seen, though, for they had descended now to where rocks had given place to jungle, and the banks were one impenetrable mass of creeper-enlaced trees, the monotony being hardly enlivened now by the sight of a bird.“Look!—look!” whispered Helen, suddenly. “That is where they took me from the boat!” and she pointed to an opening in the jungle, the doctor recognising the spot which he had noticed as they came up the river, and here was where the prahu had turned.“There is a house inland from here, then?” said the doctor.Helen shuddered.“Yes,” she said, faintly; “my prison. I cannot bear to talk about it now.”The doctor nodded: and feeling that this was the critical part of the journey, he bade the Malays eat and drink as they paddled on, so as to gain strength for any energetic push they might have to make. For his own part he was decided enough as to the course he would pursue, meaning to trust to flight if possible, but if pursued he vowed to himself that he would fire upon his pursuers.“And I am an Englishman!” he said to himself, proudly. “They dare not fire upon me!”“Double pay if you get us safely back to the station,” he said, “and in quicker time.”The boatmen nodded and smiled, toiled harder with their paddles, and they were half-way back to the great river at least, when plainly heard upon the still afternoon air, came the loud beat of the many oars of a great prahu.

Doctor Bolter visited his patient two or three times, waking up with the greatest of regularity every two hours for the purpose, and administering a few drops of a cordial that he always carried wherever he went, it having wonderful qualities of its own, so the doctor said, and being competent to cure almost every disease, but smelling very strongly of brandy.

His patient slept heavily, and she was still sleeping as the doctor’s coffee was ready just before sunrise.

“Humph!” he muttered; “it’s a precious good job my wife isn’t here, or she’d be as cross as two sticks, for the poor thing is a wonderfully handsome girl in spite of her black, filed teeth, and dark skin. Poor lassie! how she has scratched herself. Why, her feet are cut and swollen and full of thorns. I’ll bet ten pounds to twopence she’s a runaway slave.”

There was no one to take the bet, and the doctor went on:

“Poor lass! she has put me in a fix. I can’t take her back with me, because nothing upsets Harley more than having to deal with the domestic institutions of the Malays; and if they get under the protection of the British flag a slave is a slave no longer. Then, too, there is Mrs Bolter. Bless that woman! what a pity it is that she is of such a jealous disposition.

“Tut, tut, tut! Hang the girl! why didn’t she run to someone else? It’s a pity she doesn’t wake, though, for a cup of coffee would do her good.

“Humph! Yes, she’s a very handsome girl,” muttered the doctor, thoughtfully. “What a pity it is that they can’t leave their pretty white teeth alone, instead of disfiguring them like that, and—Bless me—how strange! Where have I seen this girl before?”

He stood gazing down at her very thoughtfully, but his memory did not serve him.

“It must have been at the Inche Maida’s, and that makes it worse, for we don’t want to offend her—Ah! that’s right,” he said aloud in Malayan.

“How do you feel?”

For answer the girl, who had just opened a pair of large lustrous eyes, gazed at the doctor at first in a frightened way, and then caught his hand in hers, kissed it passionately, and held it to her breast.

“Oh, come, I say, my dear, this won’t do!” cried the doctor. “What the dickens do you think Mrs Bolter would say if she saw it? There’d be the prettiest row under the sun. Now, then, be calm, and lie still. You shall have a cup of coffee, and then I’ll extract some of the thorns from your feet, or you’ll be regularly crippled.”

There was a fresh burst of sobbing here, the girl striving to speak, but her sobs choked her utterance.

“There, there, there,” said the doctor, kindly, “don’t cry, my poor child; you are safe now, and I’ll take you back to the station in spite of Harley and Mrs Bolter herself. Hang the slave customs and all who practise them, I say! Now, my dear,” he added, in Malayan, “loose my hand and I will get you some coffee.”

He tried to withdraw his hand, but the girl clung to it the more tightly.

“No, no, Doctor,” she cried; “don’t leave me, pray!”

“What? The deuce!” exclaimed the little man, starting. “How the dickens did you know I was a doctor? I say; I know your voice; who—”

“Don’t you know me again, Doctor?” she cried, passionately, and cutting short his speech.

“Know you? What—why?—It is? No. Yes: Helen Perowne!”

The poor girl burst into a frantic hysterical fit of crying.

“Why, my poor darling! my dear child! my poor little woman!” cried the doctor, raising her head to his breast, and holding her there, kissing her again and again as the tears ran down his ruddy face. “My poor little bairnie! This is dreadful! There, there, there, my dear, you are quite safe now,” he continued, patting her and caressing her as a father would a favourite child. “But there; what a milksop I am; crying like a great girl, I declare, when I ought to shouthooray! to think I have found you safe, if not quite sound. Why, my dear child, Perowne will hug me for this. Poor old boy, he has been half frantic.”

“But, Doctor,” she sobbed, “they will catch me again, and drag me back to that dreadful place. Look here,” she cried, with a mingling of pitiful appeal and angry indignation, and she held out her scratched and torn brown hands, and then turned her face and showed her teeth to him. “I have been cruelly used. They made me look like one of his wretched wives, so that I should not be known.”

“But who—who did all this?”

“Murad, and I have been kept a prisoner here at a dreadful place, deep in the jungle, where I saw no one but his wretched creatures. Oh, Doctor, Doctor, kill me, or I shall go mad!”

“Kill you? of course I won’t, my dear. The dog! the scoundrel! the smooth-faced hypocrite! I’ll blow his brains out! I’ll skin him and make a specimen of him to take him back to England and exhibit him as a demon. Hang him! I don’t know what I won’t do!” cried the doctor, stamping with passion. “Here, you two,” he cried, “don’t stand staring like that, but bring the young lady some coffee.”

The two Malay boatmen, who had been terribly puzzled at their master’s behaviour with one they took to be an escaped slave, obeyed his orders at once, looking very peculiar the while.

“Don’t you see who it is, you scoundrels?” cried the doctor, storming. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing, master,” said the elder boatman, submissively, for what so great a man as the doctor—one who could bring people back to life, as he had the reputation of having done before now—chose to do must be good and right.

“That’s better,” exclaimed the doctor, energetically. “Now some biscuits. Come, my dear, try and eat and drink. I wish to goodness my little woman were here! Come, eat; it will give you strength.”

Helen made a lame effort or two, but the food seemed to choke her.

“And I’d come out to find Solomon’s gold,” muttered the doctor. “Solomon’s Ophir; I seem instead to have found Solomon’s wives, or rather one of them. Bless my heart! bless my soul! Well, really I never did!”

He looked at Helen wonderingly, and then ran mentally over the trouble at the station as he longed to question his “new specimen,” as he called her, but felt some delicacy in speaking.

“Come, come,” he said at last, “you do not eat.”

“Oh, no, no, Doctor!” she cried, in hysterical tones. “I cannot eat: what shall I do?”

“One moment,” said the doctor; “tell me, do I apprehend rightly, that you have escaped from that scoundrel?”

“Yes,” she whispered, hoarsely; and she shuddered as she spoke. “He came yesterday—no, it must have been days ago. I don’t know: my head is troubled. He came, and I said I would escape and die in the jungle if I could not get to the station.”

“Yes, yes,” said the doctor, feeling her pulse, for she seemed to grow more composed.

“And I did escape: one of the Rajah’s women helped me, and we fled together through the jungle, toiling on amongst thorns and canes, and always ready to drop, till we sank down wearily to sleep.”

“Yes, my poor child,” said the doctor; “but where is your companion?”

“I—I don’t know,” said Helen, in a strange, dazed way. “She must be somewhere. I went to sleep, and she was with me, and I awoke and she was gone. But, Doctor, dear Doctor Bolter, I am not what I was. Pray do not let me fall into that wretch’s hands again!”

“Never fear,” exclaimed the doctor, to give her confidence, and he assumed a matter-of-fact, confident air as he spoke. “Look here, my dear child, eat and drink to gain strength, and I will then take you back in my boat. Don’t be alarmed. You will be quite safe.”

Helen made an effort to partake of the coffee, and as the doctor drank his own, it suddenly struck him that he used to have a great dislike to Helen Perowne, while now he had been treating her with the most affectionate solicitude.

“And quite right, too,” he muttered. “Her position enlists sympathy. Why, I should be a brute if I did not behave kindly and well.”

The difficulties of his position became more apparent to him as he thought the matter over.

Murad had carried off Helen no doubt in accordance with a deeply-laid scheme; and knowing what his position would be if the latter were discovered, of course he would spare no pains to recapture his prisoner.

“He knows it’s death, and a complete finish of his Rajahship,” muttered the doctor; “and sooner than be found out the reptile would shoot me down like a dog—if I don’t get the chance to shoot him first; and hang me if I don’t feel just now as if I could send a charge of shot through him with the greatest pleasure in life!”

He felt that if the followers of Murad were to find out the direction taken by the fugitive they would soon be on her track, and he would be almost helpless—one against a strongly-manned boat, whose crew would know their lives depended upon the success of their efforts.

Under these circumstances he determined to draw the boat well up among the rocks, and then to lie in concealment until the evening, when they might float down under cover of the darkness.

But no sooner had he determined upon this than the thought of the difficulties of the navigation came uppermost in his mind. It was hard enough to get safely up the little river by daylight. In the darkness he was compelled to own that it would be impossible.

“I must run all risks,” he said; “there is nothing else for it. We must get down to the mouth of the river and out into the main stream as soon as possible,” and having fully made up his mind what he would do, he turned to Helen Perowne.

“I am going to start at once,” he said; “but before we set off—I say this so as to help me, perhaps, in our effort to get away—”

“Effort to get away?” she said, piteously. “No, no; I don’t quite mean that,” he said; “but before we set off would you not like to make yourself look a little more like an English lady?”

She looked up at him with an imploring look, and the tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

“Only too gladly, doctor; but you do not understand. They managed their cruel task only too well! Do you not see?—this is a stain, and it cannot be removed!”

The doctor frowned as he thought of his store of drugs and chemicals at home in his little palm-thatched cottage, where he wished they were themselves; and then he wondered whether there was anything amongst them that would remove the brown tint from his companion’s face.

She rose as he held out his hand, but trembled so much, and seemed so agitated, that when he led her to the boat she would have tottered and fallen had not the doctor caught her in his arms, and lifted her in; while directly after the two stout Malays thrust the boat over the shallow sands and gravel till deeper water was reached, the current helping them in their task, which was a long and arduous one, for there were long stretches of shallow and rapid, over which the bottom of the sampan grated before the paddles could be used.

And all this time the doctor noted that his companion’s wild eyes were constantly searching the shore for danger, such as he was fain to confess might be encountered at any moment, and in view of which he carefully charged his revolver, and altered the cartridges in both barrels of his gun.

At last, though, the boatmen were able to give up wading, and seizing their paddles, they leaped into the boat, making it glide down the stream, whose course here was very swift.

The doctor talked to his companion, but she was very silent, and they were soon both of them occupied in watching the shores, the doctor growing more uneasy moment by moment; while Helen, in her ignorance, felt that every paddle-stroke took her farther and farther from pursuit—made her safer from being recaptured by him who caused a shudder—when literally she was now every hour being taken nearer to the house that had been her prison all through those weary days.

As the time wore on the doctor asked her a few questions about her adventures, but he noted that she trembled so, and became so painfully agitated, that from sheer kindness he soon refrained; and leaving her to make what confidences she chose, he sat with his gun across his knee, watching the shore for enemies, and they journeyed on almost in silence.

The Malay boatmen saw that there was danger. They had not recognised Helen at first; but now that they knew her they coupled the meeting in their own minds with the troubles at the station, and from time to time they cast uneasy glances at the doctor’s revolver as it lay upon the seat, and from that began watchfully to scan such portions of the shore as might be deemed dangerous from affording opportunities for an ambush from which spears would come whizzing with unerring aim.

In the ardour of his pursuit after the favourite myth of his imagination the doctor had not noticed the distance he had ascended this narrow, winding stream; but now that he was all anxiety to reach the great river, it seemed as if it would never end.

The sun poured down his ardent rays, and but for the awning of boughs that the Malays had cut and spread over her head, the heat to the rescued girl would have been unbearable. Everything, however, that could alleviate her position was done, and more than once she gave the doctor a grateful look, as in a weary, broken-spirited way, she faltered her thanks.

“Notmuch like the Helen Perowne of the past,” he muttered, as he resumed his seat, after supplying his patient with water, and once more scanning the sides of the river for danger.

There was nothing to be seen, though, for they had descended now to where rocks had given place to jungle, and the banks were one impenetrable mass of creeper-enlaced trees, the monotony being hardly enlivened now by the sight of a bird.

“Look!—look!” whispered Helen, suddenly. “That is where they took me from the boat!” and she pointed to an opening in the jungle, the doctor recognising the spot which he had noticed as they came up the river, and here was where the prahu had turned.

“There is a house inland from here, then?” said the doctor.

Helen shuddered.

“Yes,” she said, faintly; “my prison. I cannot bear to talk about it now.”

The doctor nodded: and feeling that this was the critical part of the journey, he bade the Malays eat and drink as they paddled on, so as to gain strength for any energetic push they might have to make. For his own part he was decided enough as to the course he would pursue, meaning to trust to flight if possible, but if pursued he vowed to himself that he would fire upon his pursuers.

“And I am an Englishman!” he said to himself, proudly. “They dare not fire upon me!”

“Double pay if you get us safely back to the station,” he said, “and in quicker time.”

The boatmen nodded and smiled, toiled harder with their paddles, and they were half-way back to the great river at least, when plainly heard upon the still afternoon air, came the loud beat of the many oars of a great prahu.

Volume Three—Chapter Fourteen.Preparing for a Start.“Now look here, boy,” said Chumbley. “I grant the possibility of the Inche Maida having assisted in carrying off Helen, but we do not know that she did. What we do know is—”“That she confessed—”“Not to helping, or anything of the kind. She told us that she was another man’s wife by now.”“Well, that shows that she was cognisant of the matter; and I say that we ought to make a clean breast of the affair.”“Well, I’m such a pusillanimous coward, that I can’t screw myself up to doing anything of the kind. One can’t help feeling foolish over the matter. Hang it all, no, keep it quiet! We are in an out-of-the-way place certainly; but this is an awfully small marble of a world, and if we tell our story, it would get into theStraits Times, and from that into the Calcutta papers; and once there, the tit-bit of two officers being carried off by a wicked Eastern princess will soon run over to England, and go the round of the press. Why, hang it, man, we had better retire from the service!”Hilton stood leaning half out of the window of their quarters listening to his friend.“It would be awkward,” he said.“Awkward’s nothing to it, my dear boy. And besides, you know what comes about if we make all known. Harley will consider that he is in duty bound to arrest the Inche Maida, or something of the kind, and then look at the consequences!”“But the woman ought to be punished.”“Yes, of course; but the punishment is coming. You see by her act she has shut herself out from all connection with the station, and I daresay if the truth is known she has collected her valuables and fled.”“I hope she has,” replied Hilton, “for if steps are taken to arrest her, I should be, I confess, sorry for her to be caught.”“Let it slide then,” cried Chumbley; “we can’t war against a woman. Come, you’ll oblige me, old fellow, greatly, by giving way.”“What do you want me to do then?”“A little ill that good may come: keep to our story of having been seized and not knowing where we were taken.”Hilton nodded and looked thoughtful.“You give way then?”“Yes, I give way.”“Hilton, old fellow, I’m much obliged. I know we shall have, perhaps, to do a little bit of invention, but it is invention to save a woman, and there is a lot of truth in it. Then, too, see how it saves us.”“Still, I can’t help thinking that, if she had anything to do with carrying off Helen Perowne, she ought to be punished; and mind this, though I care nothing for Helen now, if it proves afterwards that she helped in that cruel affair, I’ll have no mercy upon her.”“She had nothing to do with it, take my word,” said Chumbley, who had grown so excited that he forgot to drawl. “Here’s the case, depend upon it. She got to know that Murad meant to carry off Helen, and she thought that she would do the same by you.”“Wretched creature!”“Say silly child,” said Chumbley. “These people have half of them the cleverness and weak, petty ways of children combined.”“Then you feel certain that Murad alone carried off Helen?”“I lay a hundred to one he has. Harley’s right. When do we start?”“In an hour’s time. The scoundrel has not been seen by any of his people in Sindang, so they say.”“We shall have some warm work up there in the jungle.”“No doubt of it; but we’ll rout the serpent out—Oh, here is Harley!”The Resident was coming up hastily from the landing-stage, followed by a couple of soldiers leading a Malay between them.“A prisoner, eh?” said Chumbley. “Well, his evidence will have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Now, Harley, what’s the news?”“This fellow has come, saying that he bears an important message. I would not hear him till I had you two present.”They went out into the veranda, took seats, and the man salaamed, and was asked his business.He said that he had been charged with a message to the Resident by one of the Rajah’s women. It was to tell him that the lady Helen had been taken up the river to the Rajah’s shooting-house, and was kept there against her will.“Are you sure of this,” said the Resident, hoarsely. “I have said,” replied the man, with dignity. “Have you seen her there?”“Once only, master. She is kept shut closely up.”“And when did you get this message?”“It is nearly thirty days ago, master.”“Then why did you not bring it sooner?”“I came down the river by night in my little boat, master, and reached the town here; but found that I could not get near the Resident.”“Why not?” said Mr Harley, sharply. “I am always to be seen.”“You were watched, master; and I was watched.”“Watched! Who watched me?”“Murad’s men. They were everywhere.”“Murad’s men? Watching?”“Yes, master, it is true. They lay about in boats or idled, chewing their betel on the shore and landing-stage. They would seem to you like common people who had nothing to do, but they were all watching carefully the while.”“And would they have stopped you?”“Yes, master; they did.”“Then you have kept this message all the time in spite of this?”“Yes, master.”“Without trying to deliver it?”“No; I tried. I could not get to you or any I could trust unseen; but I know that you Englishmen are all friends, and that if I told one he would tell you, so I thought of the doctor.”“And told him?” said the Resident. “No; I could not approach an Englishman at all. I waited my chance: two days had gone, and then, after much thinking, I made my plan.”“Yes, be quick,” said the Resident, impatiently. “I pretended to be hurt.”“Yes; and went to the doctor,” said Hilton. “Did you tell him?”“If my masters will let me tell my story,” said the man, with dignity, “it will be best.”Mr Harley made a sign to his companions to be silent, and the man went on:“I looked about for a house where I fancied I should not be watched, and went to a lady, saying I was badly hurt, and asking that she would fetch the doctor to me.”“Why did you not tell her your message?”“She talked too much—I was afraid,” said the man, quietly. “But she took compassion on me and went to fetch the doctor. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘my task is done.’ But my enemies were too watchful, and soon after my messenger to the doctor had gone, six men entered the house; I was seized, gagged, and carried off to a boat, and rowed away. They questioned me, but I was dumb; and then they kept me prisoner till two days back, when I escaped and came down here.”“Then why were you not kept back from approaching me this time?” said the Resident, sternly.“I know not, master, only that those who watched are gone. The place was full of Murad’s men before. Now they are not.”“He is right,” said Hilton. “Murad has taken the alarm. He knows by his spies that the game is up.”“Could you take us to this place?” said the Resident.“I could; but I wish to live,” said the Malay. “I have a wife.”“You mean that Murad’s people would slay you if you led us there?”The Malay bowed.“You may trust to the English power,” said the Resident, sternly. “If what you say be correct, Murad’s reign is at an end, and you may depend upon us for protection. Will you lead us to the place where this lady is shut up?”“If the English chief will promise me protection.”“You shall be protected,” said the Resident, quietly; “and you shall be well rewarded.”The Malay bowed again.“What do you think?” said the Resident, turning to Hilton, and speaking in French, to make sure that the Malay did not understand.“I think the man is right, and I would take him for guide; but all the same, we know what these people are: it may only be a treacherous, misleading plan.”“We must be well on the alert as to that,” replied the Resident. “I think the man is honest.”“So do I,” said Chumbley, “for there is no temptation for him to have been otherwise.”“Stay with those two men,” said the Resident, addressing the Malay; “we are going with an armed expedition directly, and you shall be our guide.”The man was led away, and the Resident watched him intently as he went out.“Yes, I think the Malay is honest,” he said quickly. “Are you fellows ready?”“Yes; we only wait your orders,” replied Hilton. “I am fidgeting to be off.”“There is much to be done first. Let us go now and see Perowne, I promised to communicate with him before we left. You have not seen him yet?”“No.”They walked down to the landing-place, where the Resident’s large boat was being well manned, and ammunition and rations for three or four days were being stored. There a small boat was waiting, and they were paddled across, to walk up to Mr Perowne’s, both Hilton and Chumbley starting, as they saluted the merchant, to see what a change his late troubles had wrought upon his personal appearance.He shook hands with the officers in a quiet, grave way, and then stood looking in a vacant manner out of the window and across the lawn towards the river.“We must not start without Bolter,” said the Resident, sharply, as if the idea had just crossed his mind. “Any news of him?”“No,” said Hilton; “we have heard nothing; but are you sure that he has not returned?”“He would not have returned without reporting himself,” replied the Resident, who, like Mr Perowne, seemed to have grown older and more hollow of cheek.“I am quite ready to start,” said Mr Perowne, in an absent manner. “They tell me, Mr Hilton, you were seized that same night, and carried up the river. Are you sure that my Helen was not taken to the same place?”“I am certain, Mr Perowne,” said Hilton, gravely. “The best answer to that is the presence of Mr Chumbley and myself. We should not have come away and left an English lady in such a situation.”The Resident cast a keen, inquiring look at Hilton, and Mr Perowne went on feebly:“No, no, of course not; but I thought I’d ask, Mr Hilton. I’ve had a deal of trouble lately; and my head is very bad.”“Let us go across to the doctor’s,” said Mr Harley. “There is the chance of his being back. I really feel that, urgent as our necessities are, we must not start without him.”“We ought to have him,” replied Hilton. “We are sure to have some wounded.”“And wounds are awful in this climate, if not attended to at once.”“Yes,” assented the Resident. “Will you come with us, Perowne?”“No,” said that gentleman, dreamily. “I shall stay until the expedition starts.”Mr Perowne seated himself upon a low stool, and buried his face in his hands, looking so utterly prostrate, that the Resident crossed to his side, bent down over him and whispered:“For heaven’s sake, be hopeful! I am straining every nerve to get the expedition off!”“But you are so long—so long!” moaned the wretched man.“Do not you reproach me,” said Mr Harley. “Have some pity for my position. I am even now going beyond my tether in what I am doing; and I hardly dare take a party of men up in this jungle without a doctor with us! Perowne, on my honour, I am burning to go to Helen’s help; but I am tied down by red tape at every turn. You don’t know what such a position as mine really is!”“Go and see if Bolter has come back,” said Mr Perowne, coldly.“Yes,” said the Resident, to himself, “if not, we must go without him.”The Resident turned away, beckoning Hilton to follow; and leaving Chumbley sitting with the stricken father, they went towards the doctor’s cottage.

“Now look here, boy,” said Chumbley. “I grant the possibility of the Inche Maida having assisted in carrying off Helen, but we do not know that she did. What we do know is—”

“That she confessed—”

“Not to helping, or anything of the kind. She told us that she was another man’s wife by now.”

“Well, that shows that she was cognisant of the matter; and I say that we ought to make a clean breast of the affair.”

“Well, I’m such a pusillanimous coward, that I can’t screw myself up to doing anything of the kind. One can’t help feeling foolish over the matter. Hang it all, no, keep it quiet! We are in an out-of-the-way place certainly; but this is an awfully small marble of a world, and if we tell our story, it would get into theStraits Times, and from that into the Calcutta papers; and once there, the tit-bit of two officers being carried off by a wicked Eastern princess will soon run over to England, and go the round of the press. Why, hang it, man, we had better retire from the service!”

Hilton stood leaning half out of the window of their quarters listening to his friend.

“It would be awkward,” he said.

“Awkward’s nothing to it, my dear boy. And besides, you know what comes about if we make all known. Harley will consider that he is in duty bound to arrest the Inche Maida, or something of the kind, and then look at the consequences!”

“But the woman ought to be punished.”

“Yes, of course; but the punishment is coming. You see by her act she has shut herself out from all connection with the station, and I daresay if the truth is known she has collected her valuables and fled.”

“I hope she has,” replied Hilton, “for if steps are taken to arrest her, I should be, I confess, sorry for her to be caught.”

“Let it slide then,” cried Chumbley; “we can’t war against a woman. Come, you’ll oblige me, old fellow, greatly, by giving way.”

“What do you want me to do then?”

“A little ill that good may come: keep to our story of having been seized and not knowing where we were taken.”

Hilton nodded and looked thoughtful.

“You give way then?”

“Yes, I give way.”

“Hilton, old fellow, I’m much obliged. I know we shall have, perhaps, to do a little bit of invention, but it is invention to save a woman, and there is a lot of truth in it. Then, too, see how it saves us.”

“Still, I can’t help thinking that, if she had anything to do with carrying off Helen Perowne, she ought to be punished; and mind this, though I care nothing for Helen now, if it proves afterwards that she helped in that cruel affair, I’ll have no mercy upon her.”

“She had nothing to do with it, take my word,” said Chumbley, who had grown so excited that he forgot to drawl. “Here’s the case, depend upon it. She got to know that Murad meant to carry off Helen, and she thought that she would do the same by you.”

“Wretched creature!”

“Say silly child,” said Chumbley. “These people have half of them the cleverness and weak, petty ways of children combined.”

“Then you feel certain that Murad alone carried off Helen?”

“I lay a hundred to one he has. Harley’s right. When do we start?”

“In an hour’s time. The scoundrel has not been seen by any of his people in Sindang, so they say.”

“We shall have some warm work up there in the jungle.”

“No doubt of it; but we’ll rout the serpent out—Oh, here is Harley!”

The Resident was coming up hastily from the landing-stage, followed by a couple of soldiers leading a Malay between them.

“A prisoner, eh?” said Chumbley. “Well, his evidence will have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Now, Harley, what’s the news?”

“This fellow has come, saying that he bears an important message. I would not hear him till I had you two present.”

They went out into the veranda, took seats, and the man salaamed, and was asked his business.

He said that he had been charged with a message to the Resident by one of the Rajah’s women. It was to tell him that the lady Helen had been taken up the river to the Rajah’s shooting-house, and was kept there against her will.

“Are you sure of this,” said the Resident, hoarsely. “I have said,” replied the man, with dignity. “Have you seen her there?”

“Once only, master. She is kept shut closely up.”

“And when did you get this message?”

“It is nearly thirty days ago, master.”

“Then why did you not bring it sooner?”

“I came down the river by night in my little boat, master, and reached the town here; but found that I could not get near the Resident.”

“Why not?” said Mr Harley, sharply. “I am always to be seen.”

“You were watched, master; and I was watched.”

“Watched! Who watched me?”

“Murad’s men. They were everywhere.”

“Murad’s men? Watching?”

“Yes, master, it is true. They lay about in boats or idled, chewing their betel on the shore and landing-stage. They would seem to you like common people who had nothing to do, but they were all watching carefully the while.”

“And would they have stopped you?”

“Yes, master; they did.”

“Then you have kept this message all the time in spite of this?”

“Yes, master.”

“Without trying to deliver it?”

“No; I tried. I could not get to you or any I could trust unseen; but I know that you Englishmen are all friends, and that if I told one he would tell you, so I thought of the doctor.”

“And told him?” said the Resident. “No; I could not approach an Englishman at all. I waited my chance: two days had gone, and then, after much thinking, I made my plan.”

“Yes, be quick,” said the Resident, impatiently. “I pretended to be hurt.”

“Yes; and went to the doctor,” said Hilton. “Did you tell him?”

“If my masters will let me tell my story,” said the man, with dignity, “it will be best.”

Mr Harley made a sign to his companions to be silent, and the man went on:

“I looked about for a house where I fancied I should not be watched, and went to a lady, saying I was badly hurt, and asking that she would fetch the doctor to me.”

“Why did you not tell her your message?”

“She talked too much—I was afraid,” said the man, quietly. “But she took compassion on me and went to fetch the doctor. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘my task is done.’ But my enemies were too watchful, and soon after my messenger to the doctor had gone, six men entered the house; I was seized, gagged, and carried off to a boat, and rowed away. They questioned me, but I was dumb; and then they kept me prisoner till two days back, when I escaped and came down here.”

“Then why were you not kept back from approaching me this time?” said the Resident, sternly.

“I know not, master, only that those who watched are gone. The place was full of Murad’s men before. Now they are not.”

“He is right,” said Hilton. “Murad has taken the alarm. He knows by his spies that the game is up.”

“Could you take us to this place?” said the Resident.

“I could; but I wish to live,” said the Malay. “I have a wife.”

“You mean that Murad’s people would slay you if you led us there?”

The Malay bowed.

“You may trust to the English power,” said the Resident, sternly. “If what you say be correct, Murad’s reign is at an end, and you may depend upon us for protection. Will you lead us to the place where this lady is shut up?”

“If the English chief will promise me protection.”

“You shall be protected,” said the Resident, quietly; “and you shall be well rewarded.”

The Malay bowed again.

“What do you think?” said the Resident, turning to Hilton, and speaking in French, to make sure that the Malay did not understand.

“I think the man is right, and I would take him for guide; but all the same, we know what these people are: it may only be a treacherous, misleading plan.”

“We must be well on the alert as to that,” replied the Resident. “I think the man is honest.”

“So do I,” said Chumbley, “for there is no temptation for him to have been otherwise.”

“Stay with those two men,” said the Resident, addressing the Malay; “we are going with an armed expedition directly, and you shall be our guide.”

The man was led away, and the Resident watched him intently as he went out.

“Yes, I think the Malay is honest,” he said quickly. “Are you fellows ready?”

“Yes; we only wait your orders,” replied Hilton. “I am fidgeting to be off.”

“There is much to be done first. Let us go now and see Perowne, I promised to communicate with him before we left. You have not seen him yet?”

“No.”

They walked down to the landing-place, where the Resident’s large boat was being well manned, and ammunition and rations for three or four days were being stored. There a small boat was waiting, and they were paddled across, to walk up to Mr Perowne’s, both Hilton and Chumbley starting, as they saluted the merchant, to see what a change his late troubles had wrought upon his personal appearance.

He shook hands with the officers in a quiet, grave way, and then stood looking in a vacant manner out of the window and across the lawn towards the river.

“We must not start without Bolter,” said the Resident, sharply, as if the idea had just crossed his mind. “Any news of him?”

“No,” said Hilton; “we have heard nothing; but are you sure that he has not returned?”

“He would not have returned without reporting himself,” replied the Resident, who, like Mr Perowne, seemed to have grown older and more hollow of cheek.

“I am quite ready to start,” said Mr Perowne, in an absent manner. “They tell me, Mr Hilton, you were seized that same night, and carried up the river. Are you sure that my Helen was not taken to the same place?”

“I am certain, Mr Perowne,” said Hilton, gravely. “The best answer to that is the presence of Mr Chumbley and myself. We should not have come away and left an English lady in such a situation.”

The Resident cast a keen, inquiring look at Hilton, and Mr Perowne went on feebly:

“No, no, of course not; but I thought I’d ask, Mr Hilton. I’ve had a deal of trouble lately; and my head is very bad.”

“Let us go across to the doctor’s,” said Mr Harley. “There is the chance of his being back. I really feel that, urgent as our necessities are, we must not start without him.”

“We ought to have him,” replied Hilton. “We are sure to have some wounded.”

“And wounds are awful in this climate, if not attended to at once.”

“Yes,” assented the Resident. “Will you come with us, Perowne?”

“No,” said that gentleman, dreamily. “I shall stay until the expedition starts.”

Mr Perowne seated himself upon a low stool, and buried his face in his hands, looking so utterly prostrate, that the Resident crossed to his side, bent down over him and whispered:

“For heaven’s sake, be hopeful! I am straining every nerve to get the expedition off!”

“But you are so long—so long!” moaned the wretched man.

“Do not you reproach me,” said Mr Harley. “Have some pity for my position. I am even now going beyond my tether in what I am doing; and I hardly dare take a party of men up in this jungle without a doctor with us! Perowne, on my honour, I am burning to go to Helen’s help; but I am tied down by red tape at every turn. You don’t know what such a position as mine really is!”

“Go and see if Bolter has come back,” said Mr Perowne, coldly.

“Yes,” said the Resident, to himself, “if not, we must go without him.”

The Resident turned away, beckoning Hilton to follow; and leaving Chumbley sitting with the stricken father, they went towards the doctor’s cottage.

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