One Maid's Mischief Part 60

The door was hung with a rich silk curtain, and on two sides were low couches or divans, spread with Indian rugs, several of which were lying on the smooth bamboo floor.

There was little of ornament in the room, but the hangings and rugs looked rich, and Helen's suspicion grew rapidly stronger as her eyes wandered here and there, and she thought of whose all these things must be.

Suddenly a slight rustle of the silken hangings caught her ear, and turning her eyes in the direction, she drew a breath of relief as she saw that it was caused by a little knot of Malay women, who were eagerly scanning her with their great dark eyes, and evidently regarding her as a curiosity.

These departed and others came--dark-faced, scowling women, in their gay sarongs--whispering to each other, and pa.s.sing comments on the stranger; while Helen sat there, trying hard to keep up her stately air and to let these insolent gazers know that though a prisoner she was an English lady, and their superior still.

Twice over a couple of these visitors addressed some remark to the girls who seemed to have been placed there as attendants. What these remarks were Helen could not tell, but they drew forth angry expostulations from the girls, who at once went and drew the great curtain, and seemed to forbid further intrusion.

This was evidently the case, for saving that her two attendants remained in the room, Helen was undisturbed; and feeling somewhat recovered, she made an effort to win her companions to her side, beginning by questioning them in as friendly a manner as she could a.s.sume, but without effect; for though it was evident that one of them understood English words mingled with such Malay as the prisoner could recollect, the girl made no reply, only looked at her with indifferent eyes, and kept on shaking her head to _every_ question as to why the speaker had been seized and was forcibly detained.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

HELEN'S TIREWOMEN.

Helen Perowne's great horror in her situation of captive was the coming night. The day had been more bearable, as in the comparative coolness of the shaded room with its open windows she had felt the influence of the quietude and calm of the forest at which she gazed. Her mind was tortured by surmises and wonder as to whether her friends would not soon arrive to rescue her, while at every sound she started in fear of seeing her suspicion fully verified; but still she had bravely grown more composed and rested. She was among women, watched by women, and sooner or later she felt sure that someone from the station would arrive in pursuit.

For it was monstrous to suppose that such a crime as the seizure of an English lady would be allowed to pa.s.s without swift retribution.

This idea comforted her, and in her more hopeful moments she wondered who would first come to her aid--whether it would be Mr Harley, Hilton, or her father. One of them, well backed by the soldiers, she told herself, would certainly be there ere long; but darkness began to fall.

n.o.body had been to her help, and shivering with dread, she watched the darkening of the shadows amongst the broad palm leaves, and alternated this with shuddering glances at the door, whose curtain now began to look black and funereal, and added to her dread.

Just at dark a couple of women entered, bearing various dishes for her evening meal; but the sight of food was repugnant to her, and the wine she dared not taste.

Her two attendants were, however, less scrupulous, and they ate and drank heartily, even to finishing the luscious fruit, of which there was a large dish, and whose juice would have been most welcome to Helen's parched and fevered lips.

At last, though, the remains of the meal were taken away; and after chatting together for some time by the open window, through which the moon shone, and from where Helen sat, turning the two girls into weird-looking silhouettes, they yawned, spoke sleepily, and ended by pointing to the couch the prisoner was to occupy, throwing themselves upon another, and apparently soon falling into a heavy sleep.

Helen lay resting upon her elbow, watching the darkened portion of the great room where her companions lay, and then letting her eyes rest upon the dimly-seen draped door, whose curtain seemed more than once to move, as if being drawn aside.

Watching this till her eyes felt strained, and seeing nothing more, she turned her gaze to the barred window, through which the last rays of the moon were streaming previous to its disappearing behind the dense belt of forest trees. Lower it sank and lower, till the room was in total darkness; and at last, moved by the desire to try and escape from her captivity, Helen rose with her heart throbbing violently, to try in a fearsome hopeless way whether she could not get out of the room, having afterwards some ill-defined idea in her mind that she might, if once clear of the prison where she then was, find her way to some native campong, whose inhabitants would give her shelter, and perhaps take her down the river in their boat to where more certain help might be secured.

It took some time to make up her mind to move, but when she had shaken off her dread and risen softly to her feet, hardly had she gone a yard, when one of the bamboos forming the floor gave a loud creak, and almost before she could realise the fact, the two girls had sprung up, seized her arms, and tenderly but firmly forced her back to her couch.

Helen lay there panting with indignation at the treatment she was receiving, but trying to contain herself, for she felt that any attempt at force would only be to her own injury, and that if she were to escape it must be by some subtle turn. So she lay there perfectly still for quite an hour before making any further attempt to reach the door, this time with as light a step as she could a.s.sume.

But though the moment before her companions seemed to be sleeping heavily, her slightest movement made them start up; and after several attempts to escape their watchfulness, one of them took her hand, grasped it firmly, and lay down to sleep by her side.

How that long, stifling night pa.s.sed Helen Perowne could never afterwards tell; but towards morning she fell into a broken, troubled sleep, from which she awoke to find that the sun was very high, and that the two Malay girls were waiting to act as her tirewomen once again.

She still felt too weak to offer resistance to their acts, and she sat up and allowed them to bathe her face with a delicately-tinted, sweet-scented water, which, with a good deal of merry laughter, they liberally applied. It was cool and refreshing to her fevered cheeks and hands; and seeing that she liked it they kept up the bathing for some little time, chattering to her the while in their own language, which they supplemented now and then with a few words of English.

When this was over at last, and she had dried herself with the perfumed towels they brought, Helen started on finding that a portion of her own clothing had been removed, and that the Malay girls had subst.i.tuted a couple of gay silken sarongs and a filmy scarf.

She appealed to them to return her own dress, but they only laughed and began to praise the gay colour of the sarongs, playfully throwing them round her to show how well they looked, and then clapping their hands and uttering cries indicative of their admiration of the effect.

Still Helen refused to accept the change, and after trying angry remonstrance, one of the girls ran out, to return directly with a couple of stern-looking, richly-dressed Malay women, who frowningly threatened the miserable girl with the indignity of force.

Still she refused; and clapping her hands, the elder of the two women opened the door for the admission of half a dozen slaves, when, feeling that resistance was vain, Helen signed that she would submit, and with drooping head and throbbing brow allowed her two attendants to drape her as they wished.

This over, breakfast was placed before her, and exhausted nature forced her to partake of the food with a better appet.i.te.

"I shall need my strength," she said to herself; and she ate and drank, but started at every movement outside the room as she waited the coming of those who would set her free.

"Hilton, in spite of what has pa.s.sed, will not rest until he has found me--poor fellow!"

She said these last two words with a mingling of contempt and pity in her voice; though had he presented himself then, she would have thrown herself gladly in his arms.

But there was no token of approaching relief. The voices of many women could be heard coming and going about what was apparently a large native house; and the prisoner could not avoid a shudder as from time to time she thought of who must be the owner of the place.

The morning was giving way to the heats of noon, and languid and heart-sick Helen was lying back upon one of the couches, thinking of the happy days of the past, and trying to piece together the broken, incoherent facts connected with her seizure, and wondering whether Murad were the real cause, when the two Malay girls who had left her for a few moments returned, bearing a handful of wreaths of a beautiful fresh white jasmine, which they insisted upon placing in her thick, dark hair.

Helen resisted this trifling for a time, but despair had tamed her spirit; and after a few feeble attempts to stay her persecutors, she sat like a statue, asking herself, with her eyes fixed upon the gay sarong she wore, whether this was the Helen of the past--and what was to be the end.

The two girls placed the lovely white flowers in her hair, laughing with delight, and clapping their hands as they drew back to gaze at their work; after which one of them went off to fetch a common hand-gla.s.s of European make, and held it before her face that she might, as they said, "see how beautiful they had made her now."

Helen was too sick of heart and weary to do more than cast a cursory glance at the gla.s.s; but this was followed by another, and then she uttered an anguished cry, shrinking back and cowering down as if with dread as she covered her face with her hands.

Fair Helen was fair no longer. Her face was as swarthy as that of the darkest Malay.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

ANOTHER PRISONER.

The awakening of the Reverend Arthur Rosebury was not very much unlike that of the other prisoners. He, too, seemed to have been carried a long distance blindfolded, both in boat and litter; and it all appeared like a continuation of the dream in which he had been plunged since he first met Helen Perowne.

The hours he had spent in her company; the giving up of his little English home; his journey abroad; and his wild Eastern life, had all seemed dreamlike and strange; and it was quite, to his mind, in keeping therewith, that he should have been seized, blindfolded, and carried off by slaves for some reason or another; probably, he argued, because a rival was jealous of the favour in which he stood with Helen, who had only that night appointed him her special personal attendant.

It was all quite consistent with Eastern life and romance, and did not strike him as being at all peculiar, for the fact remains that, while the Reverend Arthur Rosebury was exceedingly clever as a student, and quite a master in his own particular subjects, he was weak as water in worldly matters; and, as his sister too well knew, in many things little better than a child. Add to this that the Reverend Arthur was, for the first time in his life, and at middle age, hopelessly infatuated with Helen, and it is not surprising that his weakness was extreme.

It was all, then, to him a matter of no wonderment, and he would have taken his position coolly enough had he been satisfied that Helen was not in danger. But of this he could not feel a.s.sured; and he was troubled in his dull, mild way accordingly. For love blinded him effectually to all Helen's failings. She was beautiful, and she had looked kindly, almost lovingly upon him, more than once, and those tender looks redeemed all else. She flirted, she coquetted with others; she treated him with marked indifference and contempt; but she had made him love her, and he was one of those who, without reward, would go on patiently loving until the end.

He was a good deal troubled, then, in his own mind about Helen's fate, for he had seen that she was, like him, seized; but in the confusion that followed, what afterwards took place he could not tell.

When he was able to think a little more clearly, he began to ask himself what he should do to help his companion in distress; and of course, ignorant of the fact that he might prove in his humble way a greater safeguard than either of her other admirers, there he stuck fast. What was he to do to help Helen?

No answer came to this question, so there he paused, meditating hour after hour, until he found himself unbound, and free to gaze about him in a pleasant-looking room, whose window opened upon a fairly-kept garden, full of such a profusion of strange and beautiful plants, shining in the heavy morning dew, that, as the Rev Arthur Rosebury rested his forehead against the bamboo bars, and looked out, he forgot his present troubles in the glories of a rich botanic feast.

He was interrupted by a hand touching him on the shoulder; and turning, he found a couple of tall, well-armed Malays standing at his side, one of whom pointed to a breakfast arranged upon a clean mat upon the floor, and signed to him that he should eat.

The Reverend Arthur sighed, paused, and asked where was Miss Perowne; receiving for answer a shake of the head, and a fresh intimation that he should eat.

This, after a moment's hesitation, he sat down and began to do, evidently in a very abstracted mood.

At the end of a minute he rose, beckoned to one of his guards, led him to the window, and pointing out through the open bars to a very beautiful form of convolvulus he took out his penknife, opened it, and placed it in the Malay's hand, signing to him that he should go out and cut one of the long twining strands.