Middy and Ensign Part 35

"Good! There it is; so now be off; and to-morrow night I shall expect a nice lot of specimens to skin."

So Tom Long went off with the gun, and the doctor helped to turn the residency into an abode where danger usurped the place of safety, and peace was to be succeeded by the horrors of war.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A JAUNT IN THE JUNGLE, WITH AN AWKWARD END.

Tom Long rather overslept himself, but it was pretty early when he started from his quarters, to encounter Captain Smithers soon after, looking anxious and annoyed. He nodded shortly, and the young ensign went on through what was quite a wilderness of beauty, to meet, next, Rachel Linton and Mary Sinclair, who had been flower-gathering, and who stopped for a few minutes' conversation with him, the former nearly spoiling the expedition, by turning the foolish youth's thoughts in quite a contrary direction from collecting or shooting.

But Rachel Linton quietly wished him success, and Tom went off telling himself that it would look foolish if he did not go.

He had not far to go to the landing-place now; but in the little s.p.a.ce close by the resident's garden he encountered Private Gray, who saluted him, and sent Tom on thinking that he wished he was as old, and good-looking, and as manly, as the young soldier he had just pa.s.sed.

And then he felt very miserable and dejected, and wished he was anything but what he was, until he saw Bob Roberts, sitting in the "Startler's"

dinghy by the landing-place, and forgot all about everything but the shooting excursion.

"Come along! You are a chap," shouted Bob. "I've been waiting over half an hour."

"Met the ladies," said Tom, "and was obliged to speak."

"Oh, you met the ladies, did you?" said Bob, looking at him suspiciously. "Well, never mind; jump aboard. Got plenty of cartridges?"

"Yes, heaps; and some food too."

"So have I," cried Bob. "Now, then, pull away, d.i.c.k. Set us ash.o.r.e under those trees. Hooray, Tom; look! There's young Bang-gong there, waiting with a couple of n.i.g.g.e.rs."

d.i.c.k pulled steadily at the sculls, and the little dinghy breasted the water like a duck, soon crossing the intervening s.p.a.ce, when the two lads landed with their ammunition and stores, shook hands with the handsome dark young chief who confronted them, and at once started off for the jungle, while d.i.c.k stood refilling his right cheek with tobacco, before rowing the dinghy back to the steamer.

"Ah!" he said, as he once more took the sculls, "they never asked me to go, too. Now you see if by the time they get back to-night they hain't been in about as pretty a bit o' mischief, as was ever hatched."

Old d.i.c.k had no intention of setting himself up as a prophet of evil, for his remark was made more out of spite than anything else, it having struck the old fellow that a good idle ash.o.r.e would be very pleasant, especially with plenty to eat and drink, and a fair supply of tobacco.

"It wouldn't be very hard work to carry all the game they shoot," he said, chuckling; "and one might get a good nap under a shady tree."

But d.i.c.k's hopes were blighted, and instead of shade under trees, he had to row back to where the "Startler" was blistering in the hot sunshine, and take his part in the regular duties of the day.

Meanwhile the two lads with their companion were striding along beneath the shade of the trees, with the naval and military services of her most gracious Majesty completely forgotten, and their elastic young minds bent entirely upon the expedition. They looked flushed and eager, and the Tumongong's son, Ali, was just as full of excitement.

The latter was about the age of the young English officers, and their coming was to him delightful. For his father was wise enough to foresee the course of events--how the old barbarism of the Malay was dying out, to give place to the busy civilisation taught by the white men from the west; and he felt sure that the most civilised and advanced of the young chieftains would occupy the best positions in the future. Hence then he had sent his son for long spells at a time to Singapore and Penang, to mingle with the English, and pick up such education as he could obtain.

Ali, being a clever boy, had exceeded his father's expectations, having arrived at the age of eighteen, with a good knowledge of English, in which tongue he could write and converse; and in addition he had imbibed a sufficiency of our manners and customs to make him pa.s.s muster very well amongst a party of gentlemen.

Bob Roberts and he were sworn friends directly, for there was something in their dispositions which made them a.s.similate, Ali being full of life and fun, which, since his return to Parang, he had been obliged to suppress, and take up the stiff stately formality of the Malays about him, of whom many of the chiefs looked unfavourably at the youth who had so quickly taken up and made friends with the people they looked upon as so many usurpers.

No sooner were the three lads out of sight of the attap-thatched roofs and the island, the fort and steamer, than all formality was thrown to the winds, and they tramped on chattering away like children. Tom, however, walked on rather stiffly for a few minutes, but the sight of a good broad rivulet was too much for him; drill, discipline, the strict deportment of an officer and a gentleman, whose scarlet and undress uniforms had cost a great deal of money, and in which, to tell the truth, he had been very fond of attiring himself when alone with his looking-gla.s.s, all were forgotten, and the bottled-up schoolboy vitality that was in his breast, seethed up like so much old-fashioned ginger beer.

"Follow my leader!" he cried, handing his gun to one of the Malays, whose eyes rolled with pleasure as he saw sentimental Tom Long take a sharp run, leap well from the near bank, and land on the other side of the stream, but he had to catch at some bamboos to save himself from falling back into the water.

"With a cheerly hi ho," shouted Bob Roberts, dropping his gun on a bush.

"Look out, soldier."

The words were on his lips as he ran, and in his leap alighted on the other side, in so bad a place that he had to catch at Tom, to save himself from falling, and for a few seconds there was a sharp scuffle amongst the bamboos before they were safe.

"Look out, Ali," shouted Bob, on seeing their companion coming; "it's bad landing."

But Ali was already in full career; as light and active of foot as a deer, he made a quick rush and a leap, and landed in safety quite a yard beyond the young officers.

"Well done! Hooray!" cried Bob, who had not the slightest objection to seeing himself surpa.s.sed; while the two Malays in charge of the guns and impediments on the other side stared at each other in astonishment, and in a whisper asked if the young chief had gone out of his mind.

"Now then, Sambo-Jumbo," cried Bob, "over with those guns. Come along, they are not loaded."

The two Malays stared, and Ali said a few words to them in their native tongue, when they immediately gathered up the guns, and, being bare-legged, waded across the stream, which was about four yards wide.

The last man came over with a rush as he neared the bank, for suddenly from a reed-bed above them there was a wallow and a flounder, with a tremendous disturbance in the water, as something shot down towards the main stream.

"A crocodile," said Ali, as the young Englishmen directed at him a wondering gaze.

"Crocodile!" cried Bob, s.n.a.t.c.hing his gun from the attendant, and hastily thrusting in cartridges, after which he ran along the stream till checked by the tangled growth.

"No good," said Ali, laughing at his eagerness. "Gone."

The reptile was gone, sure enough, and it was doubtful which was the more frightened, it or the Malays; so they went on along a narrow jungle-path, that was walled up on either side by dense vegetation, which seemed to have been kept hacked back by the heavy knives of the working Malays. To have gone off to right or left would have been impossible, so tangled and matted with canes and creepers was the undergrowth, Bob waking up to the fact that here was the natural home of the cane so familiar to schoolboys; the unfamiliar part being, that, keeping to nearly the same diameter, these canes ran one, two, and even three hundred feet in length, creeping, climbing, undulating, now running up the side of some pillar-like tree to a convenient branch, over which it pa.s.sed to hang down again in a loop till it reached some other tree, in and out of whose branches it would wind.

As they went on farther they were in a soft green twilight with at rare intervals the sharp bright rays of the sun, like golden arrows, darting through the dense shade, and a patch of luxuriantly growing pitcher-plants or orchids, more beautiful than any that had previously met their eyes.

"Mind the elephant-holes!" cried Ali, who was behind.

"All right," said Tom Long, who was leading the way. "Oh, my gracious!"

There was a loud _splash_ and a wallowing noise, followed by a loud suck as of some one pulling a leg out of thick mud; and this proved to be the case, for on Bob running forward, and turning a corner of the winding path, there was Tom, just extricating himself from an elephant-hole.

For they were in a land where wheeled carriages were almost unknown, all portage being done either by boats on the many streams, or on the backs of elephants and buffaloes, by the former of whom the few jungle-paths were terribly cut up, partly by the creatures' weight, but more particularly from the fact that, no matter how many pa.s.sed along a track, or how wet and swampy it might be, the sagacious creatures believed in the way being safe where any of their kind had been before, and invariably placed their great round feet in the same holes; the effect being that these elephant-holes were often three or four feet deep, and half full of mud and water.

The two Malays were called into requisition, and by means of green leaves removed a good deal of the mud, but the mishap did not add much to the lad's comfort. However, he took it in very good part, and they went on for some distance, to where a side track, that was apparently but little used, turned off to the left, and the Malays, drawing their heavy knives, went first to clear away some of the twining creepers that hung from side to side.

So beautiful was the jungle that for a time the two English lads forgot all about their guns, as they stopped hard by some watercourse to admire the graceful lace-fronded fern, or the wonderful displays of moss hanging from the more ancient trees.

But at last the weight of their guns reminded them that they had come to shoot, and they drew Ali's attention to the fact.

"Wait a little," he said, smiling. "We shall soon be in a clearer part.

You can't shoot here."

As he said--so it proved, for after another half-hour's walking, during which they had become bathed in perspiration from the moist heat, there was less tangled growth, and the magnificent trees grew more distant one from the other. They were of kinds quite unknown to the little party, who, though seeking birds, could not help admiring the vast monarchs of the primeval forest.

"This looks more hopeful," cried Bob, who so far had only heard the occasional note of a bird which was invisible. Now he saw one or two flit across the sunny glade in advance.

"Yes, there are birds here; but take care, there are serpents too."