Middy and Ensign Part 9

"No eat seeds, sahib; eat other part," said the Kling.

"Come along, soldier," said Bob; "I'll eat one bit, if you will?"

Tom Long looked too much disgusted to speak, but in a half-offended manner he picked up another quarter of the durian, and examined it attentively.

"Phew!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bob, looking round. "What a horrible smell. There must be something floating down the river."

They both glanced at the flowing silvery waters of the river, but nothing was in sight.

"It's getting worse," said Tom Long. "Why, it's perfectly dreadful!"

"It's this precious fruit," exclaimed Bob suddenly; and raising his portion to his nose, "Murder!" he cried; "how horrid!" and he pitched his piece overboard.

"Why, it's a bad one," said Tom Long, sharply: and he followed the middy's suit.

The Kling raised his hands in dismay; but leaning over the side, he secured the two pieces of durian before they were out of reach, and turned to his customers.

"Good durian--buteful durian," he exclaimed. "Alway smell so fashion."

"What!" cried Bob, "do you mean to tell me that stuff's fit to eat?"

The Kling took up the fruit; and smelt it with his eyes half-closed, and then drawing in a long breath, he sighed gently, as if with regret that he might not indulge in such delicacies.

"Bess durian," he said, in an exaggerated ecstatic manner. "Quite bess ripe."

Bob stooped down and retook a portion of the strange fruit, smelt it cautiously, and then, taking out a knife, prepared to taste it.

"You are never going to eat any of that disgusting thing, are you, sailor?" cried Tom Long.

"I'm going to try it, soldier," said Bob coolly. "Come and have a taste, lad."

In the most matter-of-fact way, though quite out of bravado on account of Tom Long's disgusted looks, Bob took a long sniff at the durian.

"Well, it is a little high," he said, quietly. "Not unlike bad brick-kiln burning, with a dash of turpentine."

"Carrion, you mean," said Tom Long.

"No, not carrion," said Bob, picking out a good-sized fragment of the fruit upon his knife; "it's what the captain calls _sui generis_."

"All burra sahib like durian," said the Kling, showing his white teeth.

"Then the burra sahibs have got precious bad taste," said Tom Long, just as Bob put the first piece of the fruit into his mouth, rolled his eyes, and looked as if he were about to eject it into the stream, but did not; gave it a twist round, tasted it; looked less serious; began to masticate; and swallowing the piece, proceeded to take a little more.

"There, it won't do, Bob Roberts," said Tom Long; "say it's horrible, like a man. You can't deceive me. What does it taste like?"

"Don't know yet," said Bob trying the second piece.

"What a jacka.s.s you are to torture yourself like that, to try and take me in, middy!"

Bob helped himself to a little more.

"Well, what does it taste like?"

"Custard," said Bob, working away hard, and speaking between every dig of his knife; "candles, cream cheese, onion sauce, tipsy cake, bad b.u.t.ter, almonds, sherry and bitters, banana, old shoes, turpentine, honey, peach and beeswax. Here, I say; give us a bit more, old c.o.c.k."

Tom Long was astounded, for after finishing the first piece of the evil-smelling dainty, Bob had begun the second, and was toiling at it with a patient industry that showed thorough appreciation of the most peculiar fruit in the world.

"Tipsy cake, bad b.u.t.ter, old shoes, peach and beeswax," and the other incongruities, rang in Long's ear; and to prove that he was not deceiving him, there was Bob eating away as if his soul were in the endeavour to prove how much he could dispose of at one go.

It was too much for Tom Long; his curiosity was roused to the highest point, and as the Kling was smilingly watching Bob, Tom signed to the Malay to give him a piece.

The solemn-looking Asiatic picked up another fruit, and while Tom looked impatiently on, it was opened, and a piece handed to him, which he took, and with Bob's example before his eyes took a greedy bite--uttered a cry of disgust--and flung the piece in hand at the giver.

The Malayan character has been aptly described as volcanic. The pent-up fire of his nature slumbers long sometimes, beneath his calm, imperturbable, dignified exterior; but the fire lies smouldering within, and upon occasions it bursts out, carrying destruction before it.

In this case Tom Long's folly--worse, his insult to the master of the sampan--roused the fiery Malay on the instant to fury, as he realised the fact that the youth he looked upon as an infidel and an intruder had dared to offer to him, a son of the faithful, such an offence; then with a cry of rage, he sprang at the ensign, bore him backwards to the bottom of the boat; and as the midshipman started up, it was to see the Malay's deadly, flame-shaped kris waving in the air.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

HOW d.i.c.k RELATED THE VISIT.

With a cry of horror Bob Roberts leaped forward, and caught the Malay's wrist in time to avert the blow, the Kling starting forward the next instant, and helping to hold the infuriate Asiatic; while Tom Long struggled up and leaped ash.o.r.e, where a knot of soldiers and sailors were gathering.

"Don't say anything, Tom," cried Bob. "Here you--tell him he did not mean to offend him," he continued to the Kling, who repeated the words; and the Malay, who had been ready to turn on the midshipman, seemed to calm down and sheathed his kris; while the Kling spoke to him again with the result that the offended man sat himself down in the boat, gazing vindictively at the young ensign ash.o.r.e.

"Here, no more durian to-day, thank you," said Bob, handing the Kling a dollar. "And look here, you sir; don't let that fellow get whipping out his kris on any of our men, or he'll be hung to the yard-arm as sure as he's alive."

"He much angry, sahib," said the Kling, whose swarthy visage had turned of a dirty clay colour. "Soldier sahib hurt him much."

"Yes, but if we hadn't stopped him he'd have hurt my friend much more."

As he spoke Bob nodded shortly to the Kling, and leaped ash.o.r.e. "Sahib not take his flowers," said the latter, and dipping them in the river, and giving them a shake, he left the boat and handed the beautiful blossoms to the young sailor, who directly after joined Tom Long, who looked, in spite of his sunburnt visage, rather "white about the gills,"

to use Bob's expression.

"That fellow ought to be shot. I shall report this case," cried the ensign angrily.

"I don't think I should," said Bob quietly. "You see you did upset the poor fellow, and they are an awfully touchy lot."

"It was all your fault for playing me that confounded trick," cried Tom Long, pa.s.sionately.

"Trick? I played no trick," said Bob, indignant to a degree at the accusation.

"You did," cried Tom Long, "humbugging me into eating that filthy fruit."

"Why, it was delicious," cried Bob. "I should have gone on and finished mine if you hadn't made that upset."