One Maid's Mischief

“But we must make some plans!” cried Hilton.

“Must we? Well, by-and-by will do. I’m very comfortable; and as long as a fellow is comfortable, what more can he want? There, light up and do as I do. I don’t know that I want to escape at all if the cuisine is to be kept up to this mark.”

“But we are prisoners!”

“So we are at the island, man alive. We couldn’t help being brought here; but now we are here, we may as well make the best of it. What splendid tobacco! Real Latakie!”

Hilton fretted and fumed; and finding that he could not move his friend, he went to door and window, examined the walls, and looked up at the open roof; but Chumbley did not move, he merely seemed to be studying their position in the coolest way.

“Look here, sit down, old fellow,” he exclaimed at last, just as Hilton had worked himself into a heat, “it doesn’t seem to me to be of any use to fret and fume. Have a little patience, and let’s see whether this has been done by our dark friend, or else what it does mean.”

“How can a man have patience,” cried Hilton, “seized in this ruffianly way!”

“’Twas rough certainly,” said Chumbley, slowly.

“Torn from his quarters – ”

“To better ones, my dear old man. Let’s play fair. One doesn’t get such a breakfast as this at the fort.”

“Dragged from his love!” cried Hilton, who did not seem to heed his companion’s remarks.

“Well, that last’s all sentiment, old man,” drawled Chumbley. “For my part I think it will do you good. I say – happy thought, Hilton – Helen Perowne’s at the bottom of this, and wanting to get rid of you, has had you carried away. Me too, for fear I should make the running in your absence.”

“Do you wish to quarrel, Chumbley?” cried Hilton.

“Not I. You couldn’t quarrel with me. But joking apart, old man, I saw enough yesterday to know that you had got to the end of your tether, and that – ”

“And that what?” cried Hilton, fiercely; for Chumbley had halted in his speech.

“That she had pitched you over, same as she had a score of others before you.”

“Silence! It is a falsehood – a calumny – a damned lie! How dare you say that?”

“Oh, easy enough!” said Chumbley, without moving a muscle. “It’s just waggling one’s tongue a bit. Bully away, old man, I don’t mind; and you’ll feel better when you’ve rid yourself of all that spleen.”

“As to Miss Perowne knowing of this – ”

“Oh, that’s absurd, of course!” cried Chumbley; “but she has pitched you over, old man, and you now belong to the ranks of the unblessed.”

“I cannot quarrel with you, Chumbley,” said Hilton, cooling down, “because I know you to be too good a fellow to slight; but will you talk sense?”

“Yes, dear boy, of course I will; but I wish you’d try this tobacco. This is sense that I am going to say now. I feel sure that we have been kidnapped so that our new friends may get a nice little sum for us out of the British Government.”

“Well, it is likely,” said Hilton, whose anger had been of a fleeting nature. “But if they do not get the ransom – what then?”

“That’s an unpleasant emergency that it is not worth while to consider until we know that negotiations have failed. It is unpleasant, dear boy, because I suppose we should then get a taste of kris, applied in a dexterous manner peculiar to the Malays, through the hollow of the left shoulder. But that would only be a dernier ressort, and a thousand things might happen in the meantime. It will all come right in the end.”

Seeing that Chumbley was determined to make the best of their position, Hilton gradually began to take somewhat of the same tone; and agreeing with his friend that at present any attempt at escape would be folly, he partook heartily of the excellent second meal provided for them, questioned their guard, but obtained no information whatever as to where they were and why they had been brought, and ended by seating himself by the open window and listening to the weird noises of the jungle as darkness fell.

Feeling weary at last, Hilton sought his couch, and lay thinking once more of Helen, wondering where she was, but with less excitement than of old; and somehow the sweet, earnest face of Grey Stuart rose like a pleasant picture before him, as he fell asleep, thinking that if Helen, with her beauteous face, had only had the sweet disposition of her schoolfellow and companion, what a lovable woman she would have been.

Chumbley was dropping off to sleep at the same time, and he too was thinking of Helen Perowne, and that nature was guilty of making a great mistake in sending such girls abroad upon the earth.

“In fact,” said Chumbley, who was in a drowsy state of content with the rest, good meals, wine and coffee – “in fact, old fellow, I begin to think that women are a great mistake altogether, and I for one am perfectly cured.”

Sleep spread her drowsy wings over his eyes at this point, and his heretical notions had no farther play, for his slumber was dreamless, and he like his friend passed a calm and pleasant night.

They awoke early, and breakfasted in keeping with their time of rising; after which, finding themselves quite alone, and seeing that they were not watched, they had a good quiet investigation of the place, doing what Chumbley called, “a bit of engineering.”

“Don’t seem feasible at present,” said Chumbley at the end of the look round.

“Unless we could bribe the guards,” replied Hilton.

“Yes, it would only be throwing away energy just at present. Let’s bide a wee, as old Stuart would say. I say, old chap, talk about old Stuart, why don’t you marry his pretty little lassie?”

“Why don’t you keep that Solomon-like intellect of yours to bear on the subject in hand?” retorted Hilton. “I’ve done with women.”

“So have I,” said Chumbley. “I’d turn monk if I were offered a nice cell with good shooting and fishing.”

“You’re a queer fish yourself, Chum,” said Hilton, laughing; “but seriously, we must get away from here. It is perfectly absurd! Kidnapped, and nothing else!”

“Quite a romance,” replied Chumbley; “but never mind. We shall know what our ransom is to be to-night.”

“I wonder whether Harley is taking steps to find us?”

“Sure to be, unless he thinks we are drowned,” replied Chumbley. “There’s no knowing. I believe my hat went floating down the river.”

“I hope not,” said Hilton. “If he thought that he would not search for us.”

“Not till he heard about the ransom. I say, old fellow, I’m tired of smoking, I wonder whether they have a billiard table, or chess?”

“Pshaw.”

“Well, then, a pea-rifle to pot the birds.”

“Very likely,” said Hilton, drily, as they sat by the open window, looking out at the soft shadows of the coming night.

“I’d give something to know really why we are boxed up here,” said Chumbley, after a long silence. “It can’t be anything connected with the station, or I should be in a terrible fidget. It must be something to do with us alone.”

“Yes,” replied Hilton; “but it is all darkness at present.”

For the moment it was; but the light came all at once as they sat there having a similar conversation on the evening of the third day, after vainly trying to get some information from their guard, for just before sunset the door was thrown open, and looking very handsome and picturesque, and evidently as if she had paid great attention to her toilet, the Inche Maida entered; and as the two officers started up, she walked straight towards Hilton with extended hand.

Volume Two – Chapter Sixteen.

At Fault Again

“They’ll find out the value of that woman now,” said Dr Bolter to himself; “and if I haven’t done wisely in marrying her, I’m a Dutchman! Why, it’s the very thing! Here am I, Henry Bolter, a duly qualified medical man, physician and surgeon in one, ready to afford bodily relief; and here is Mary Bolter, my wife – fine sound about that,” he said, smiling with satisfaction – “my wife – my little wife – no, my wife is best; it sounds more dignified – my wife, ready to afford mental relief wherever it is needed; and here she is.”