One Maid's Mischief

“The master says will the mistress come down the garden a minute to speak to him?”

“How tiresome!” she exclaimed petulantly. “Where is my father?”

“By the river, mistress, where it is cool to smoke,” replied the man, softly. “He says he will not keep you, but you must come at once.”

This was all in broken English, but sufficiently plain to be understood.

“He might have come to me,” said Helen, impatiently. “I am so hot and tired. There, go on. No, not that way. Let us go by the side path.”

The man bowed and went on, with Helen following, when the chaplain seized the opportunity to join her.

“It is getting cold and damp, Miss Perowne,” he said, softly. “Will you let me put this over your shoulders?”

“What!” she said; “have you been carrying that ever since I gave it to you hours ago?”

The chaplain bowed, and held the light, filmy shawl, that he had felt it a joy to bear, ready to throw over her shoulders.

“No,” she cried, petulantly, “I am too hot as it is. There,” she cried, relenting, as she saw his fallen countenance, and for want of another victim, “you may come with me and carry the shawl till I want to put it on.”

The chaplain’s heart gave a bound, and, too pleased to speak, he followed Helen closely, as the man led her towards the bottom of the lawn, where, as they drew nearer, a dark figure could be dimly seen slowly pacing up and down.

“How angry dear Mary would be if she knew,” thought the Reverend Arthur; “but I cannot help it. I suppose I am very weak, and it is my fate?”

“What is wrong now?” thought Helen, whose conscience was quick to take alarm. “Is he going to speak to me about Hilton? No; he would not have – he could not have been so cowardly as to speak to my father about our quarrel.”

They were very near now, and Helen could see that her father had one hand up to his face, resting the elbow in his other hand.

“It cannot be about Murad. That must be over,” mused Helen. Then aloud, “Is anything the matter, papa? Are you unwell?”

At that moment she realised the fact that the figure in evening dress was not her father, the chaplain noticing her start, and trying to go forward to her aid; but, as he took a step, a hand was clapped over his lips, an arm tightly embraced him, and as he dimly saw a white handkerchief tied across Helen’s face, he was lifted from the ground and borne away, too much surprised to do more than struggle weakly at such a disadvantage that even a strong man would have been as helpless as a child.

Helen made an effort to shriek for aid, but a black cloud seemed suddenly to envelop her in the shape of a great cloth, wrapping her round and round. Then she felt herself lifted from her feet, and half-stifled, half-fainting with the horror of her situation, she was just conscious of being carried for a few minutes, and then of being placed in a boat; while in the midst of her horror and excitement there seemed to come up before her the faces of her three old mistresses at the calm, quiet school, then that of Grey Stuart looking reproachfully, and then all faded away into one complete void.

Volume Two – Chapter Eleven.

A Floating Captivity

What seemed to be an endless ride by water, during which the captives felt over and over again as if they would be suffocated by the folds of the cloths in which they were enveloped.

Several times had the two first prisoners made such desperate efforts to free themselves that the boats in which they were rocked dangerously, that in which Chumbley had been thrown shipping a little water more than once; but finding by degrees that it was only a waste of strength, and contenting themselves with the idea that though an Englishman may never know when he is beaten, they had done everything possible to vindicate their character, they lay quite still, dripping with perspiration and gasping for air.

An hour must have gone by when, in each boat, as the prisoner lay perfectly quiescent, it seemed to strike the captors almost simultaneously that if something were not done suffocation might ensue. Under these circumstances efforts were made to give them a little of that bounteous provision of air that was waiting to revive their exhausted frames.

Chumbley was lying upon his face in the bottom of the boat, the exhaustion having produced a semi-delirious sensation, in which he fancied that he was in evening dress, of a very thick texture, dancing in a crowded ballroom, and so giddy that he was in a constant state of alarm lest he should hurl his partner, the Malay princess, headlong upon the floor.

This sensation kept coming and going with saner thoughts of having done his best, and its being useless to struggle, in the midst of one of which intervals he awoke to the fact that his hands were being held tightly behind him, and back to back. Then someone, with a deftness of habit that told of long custom, tied his thumbs together, and then his little fingers.

Next he felt a stout cord passed round his ankles and another about his legs just above the knees, after which the thick cloth was drawn from his head, and he gasped and panted as he filled his lungs again and again with the pure night air, which cleared his brain and sent the crowded ballroom, the thick costume, and the giddiness of the waltz far back into the unreal region from which they came.

For a moment he revelled in the sight of the brilliant star-lit heavens, and then, almost before he knew it, a cloth was bound tightly round his eyes.

“A seizure by banditti,” muttered Chumbley, “quite in the romantic style, and I shall be held to ransom, when, seeing that I have nothing but my pay – and that is hardly enough for my expenses – I may say, in the words of the monkey who held out his tail to the chained-up dog, ‘Don’t you wish you may get it!’ Oh, I say, though, I’m as sore as if I’d been thrashed. Whatever game is this?”

“If you will promise to be silent,” said a deep voice at his ear in the Malayan tongue, “we will not thrust a cloth into your mouth.”

“I wish they’d pour a glass of Bass into it instead,” thought Chumbley. “I say, you sir,” he replied, in as good Malayan as he could command, “what does this mean?”

“Wait and see.”

“Are you going to kris me?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s a comfort,” muttered Chumbley. “I might have known it by their taking so much trouble, though five minutes ago it would have been a charity to put me out of my misery.”

“Will you be silent if I leave your mouth free?” was asked again.

“I don’t see that it’s of much use to halloo,” said Chumbley, sullenly, “but look here, old chap, what does this mean? Tell me, and I’ll be as quiet as a lamb.”

“Wait and see,” was the reply.

Chumbley was silent for a few minutes, drawing in long breaths of air. Then, addressing his captors, who seemed to him to be steadily rowing on:

“I say,” he exclaimed, “can I have this rag off my eyes?”

“No.”

Another pause, during which the prisoner listened to the pleasant ripple of the water against the boat.

“I say,” from Chumbley.

“Yes.”

“I can’t fight now or else I would.”

There was a low laugh, which seemed to come from a dozen throats, and the same deep voice replied:

“My lord is a giant in strength, but we have him fast.”

“Then set me up, so that I can sit comfortably, or I shan’t be worth a Chinese dragon dollar if you want me for sale.”

There was another low laugh, as if the Malay captors were amused; and then, in obedience to a whispered order, the prisoner was lifted and placed in a more comfortable position, but not without some effort and grunting on the part of the men who essayed to move him, the boat rocking about ominously the while.

“That’s better,” said the prisoner. “Hah, I can get on now! Here I say, old chap, whoever you are, put your hand in my breast.”

“Does my lord wish me to promise that we will not slay him?” said the deep-voiced Malay.

“Bosh! No!” cried Chumbley. “In my breast-pocket. That’s right. Now take out the cigar-case. Not the pocket-book. The cigar-case. That’s it! Now open it and take out a cigar. Put it in my mouth. Have one?”