One Maid's Mischief

“Suffer? No!” said Hilton, smiling. “If he did, he never showed it. He’s a splendid fellow, and takes things so coolly.”

“Oh, yes, he is, indeed!” cried Grey. “I do like Mr Chumbley.”

Hilton’s heart sank a little lower, and there was almost a ring of sadness in his voice as he went on:

“He kept my spirits up wonderfully by his nonchalant, easy way. He was a capital companion and never once showed that he was low-spirited or suffered in the least.”

“He is very strong and brave, is he not?” said Grey.

“Why, the little body loves him,” thought Hilton; “and I had hoped – Bah! let me be a man, and not a manger-loving cur. What right have I to think she could have cared for me?”

“Strong and brave!” he said, aloud. “Why, Chumbley professes to be a coward – ”

“A coward! Oh, no!” cried Grey, flushing. “I cannot believe – ”

“While he is as brave as a lion,” said Hilton. “That he is, I am sure,” cried Grey, warmly; and her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sparkled as she spoke.

“Chum, old fellow,” said Hilton, sadly to himself; “I used to laugh at you because you were bested by me, as I thought, but now I envy you your luck. Well, never mind, I can bear it, I daresay, and you deserve it all. I think I shall go back and marry the Inche Maida after all.”

“Why, how serious you have turned, Captain Hilton,” said Mrs Bolter.

“Captain Hilton is going away directly on what may prove a dangerous expedition.”

“Of course; I had forgotten,” said Mrs Bolter. “Dear me, that woman is there still, talking to Mr Harley. Will she never go?”

“She will give Chumbley a warmer welcome than she gave me,” said Hilton to himself, and he looked reproachfully at the fair, sweet face before him.

“You will be glad to see Chumbley, will you not?” he said aloud.

“Oh, yes, very glad!” she exclaimed, warmly; and then, as she met his eyes fixed inquiringly, she blushed vividly.

“She colours when his name is mentioned,” said Hilton to himself. “I wonder whether he cares as much for her. He must – he couldn’t help it. There, Heaven bless her! Other people are more fortunate than I.”

“That dreadful woman seems as if she would not go,” whispered Mrs Bolter. “Pray forgive me for leaving you, Captain Hilton, but I must not let her tease Mr Harley to death as she teases me.”

As she spoke little Mrs Bolter left the room, the strident sound of Mrs Barlow’s voice coming loudly as the door was opened, while when it was closed all was perfectly silent.

Grey Stuart’s hand involuntarily went out as if to stay Mrs Bolter; then it fell to her side, and she sat there painfully conscious and suffering acute mental pain.

“Poor little maiden!” thought Hilton, as he saw her trouble. “She is afraid of me;” and he let his eyes rest upon the open window before he spoke. The intense heat seemed to float into the room, bearing with it the scent of the creepers outside, and of a tall tropic tree covered with white blossoms, whose spreading branches sheltered the doctor’s cottage from the blazing sun.

From that hour the warm air, scented with the rich perfume of flowers and those white blossoms clustering without, seemed somehow to be associated in Hilton’s mind with Grey Stuart, who sat back there pale now as her white dress, wanting to speak, to break the painful silence, but not daring for some few minutes, lest he should detect the tremble in her voice.

“You start very soon, do you not, Captain Hilton?” she said.

“Yes; I hoped to have been on the river ere this,” he said, with a bitter intonation that he could not check.

“And you will discover poor Helen, and bring her back?” she said, forcing herself to speak of a subject that she felt would be welcome to him.

“If men can do it, we will succeed!” he replied, earnestly.

“Poor Helen!” sighed Grey. “Tell her, Mr Hilton – from me – ”

“Yes,” he said, eagerly, for she hesitated and stopped.

“That her old schoolfellow’s arms long to embrace her once again, and that the hours have seemed very bitter since she has been gone.”

“Yes,” he said. “I will tell her, Miss Stuart. Poor girl! she will need all the consolation that can be given her, and it will be welcome news to her that she is sure of yours.”

“Sure of mine, Captain Hilton? Oh, yes. For many years past I have felt like the sister of Helen Perowne.”

“Who is happy in possessing so dear a friend,” he said, gravely. “May she ever retain your friendship – nay, I should call it sisterly love.”

“She shall,” said Grey, in a voice that sounded hard and firm. “I am not one to change lightly in my friendships.”

“No,” he said, quietly; “you cannot be.”

“How quiet and unimpulsive he is,” thought Grey. “How wanting in eagerness to go to Helen’s help. Surely now that she needs all his sympathy and love – now that she must be in a terrible state of suffering – he could not be so base as to forsake her! He could not, he would not do that! I should hate him if he did.”

There was a pause then, and they both seemed to be listening to the hum of voices in the next room; and then Grey Stuart said to herself, softly:

“Should I hate him if he did?”

The answer came directly.

“Yes, for the man I could love must be too chivalrous to wrong a woman by neglect in her time of trial.”

“Yes,” said Hilton, rousing himself from a state of abstraction, “we must soon be upon the river; I expected that we should have been there before now.”

“I pray Heaven for your safety and success, Captain Hilton,” said Grey Stuart, gravely.

“And for Chumbley’s too?” he said.

“And for Lieutenant Chumbley’s and Mr Harley’s too,” she said, in a low voice.

As she spoke the door opened, and Mrs Bolter entered, followed by the Resident; and as soon as the former was seated, Grey rose, crossed the room, and went and stood with her hands resting upon her chair, the act seeming to give her strength to bear what was becoming painful.

Volume Three – Chapter Seventeen.

A Question of Escape

Bang! Crash!

The report of the brass lelah and the stroke of the iron ball as it shivered the branches of the trees or buried itself in the trunk of some palm-tree growing near the bank, but without injuring the occupants of the sampan in the slightest degree.

The faces of Ismael and his companion were now of a curious muddy hue, and they shivered with dread, but they held the doctor even more in awe, and obeyed his orders to keep on paddling with such strength as was in them left, and seemed ready enough to persevere as long as the boat would float beneath them, hopeless as the case might be.

As the doctor very well knew, it was only a question of time, and had he been alone he would not have hesitated about surrendering; but with Helen in his charge, there was too much at stake. So he determined, with all the stubbornness of an Englishman, to hold out to the very last extremity.