One Maid's Mischief

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.

“Not much 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