One Maid's Mischief Part 70

"Just as I was going out, too," muttered the doctor, pettishly; but he never refused a call to duty, and hurrying out, he left the widow with his wife, while he went down to the well-appointed little house sleeping in the sunshine close to the river.

As he drew near he saw, at a little distance, a scuffle going on amongst a party of Malays, one of whom seemed for a moment to be struggling against five or six others; but no outcry was made, and deeming it to be some rough play upon the part of the fishermen, he paid little heed to what followed, merely noting that the men hustled their companion into a boat and paddled away.

The next minute he was at Mrs Barlow's house, where a swarthy-looking Malay presented himself and told his symptoms, which were of so simple a character that the doctor was able to prescribe, and then hurry back to send the medicine required.

This last was received by the sick man from the doctor's messenger; and no sooner was he gone than it was observable that the invalid rose from the mat upon which he had lain. He laughingly stole off to the river-side, where he entered a sampan, and paddled away after his companions, one of whom had left him to personate the only messenger who had been able to reach the station, though only then to fail in eluding the keenness of those who watched every house, and who kept their eyes upon the doctor, when half an hour later, totally regardless of the heat of the sun, he embarked in a boat and was paddled up the river by a couple of men, the companions of former excursions, old friends, whom he knew he could trust.

There were several boats lying lazily upon the water, with sleepy-looking Malays in each, and as the doctor's swift little vessel pushed off, eyes that had looked sleepy before opened widely and watched his departure.

"Shall we follow?" said one man, in a low voice.

"No; he goes to shoot birds. Let him be."

The sun poured down his rays like silver flames through the leaves of the cocoa-palms; and while the doctor's boat grew smaller and smaller till it turned a bend in the stream, the occupants of the sampans lying so idly about the landing-stage exchanged glances from time to time, but seemed asleep whenever the owner of a white face drew near.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY.

MURAD'S SLAVE.

It was with a feeling that something dreadful had happened that Helen opened her eyes and stared wildly about her. How long she had been insensible she could not tell, but her impression was that very few minutes had elapsed since she was struggling with her a.s.sailants.

She had been roughly used she knew, for her arms felt wrenched and bruised, her head throbbed painfully, there was an acute smarting about her lips, and a peculiar acrid, pungent, bitter taste in her mouth, while when she placed her hand to her lips she withdrew it stained with blood.

She shuddered and looked round at the Malay women, some of whom were standing, some squatted about on the bamboo floor, watching her with a gratified smile in their faces, and one and all evidently without the slightest sympathy for her state.

"What--what have you done?" she panted, with anger now taking the place of fear. "You shall be punished--bitterly punished for this!"

For answer there was a merry laugh, and the women chatted to each other; but one of the girls who had been Helen's attendant rose and left the room, to return in a few minutes with a large braes basin of clear cold water and a cotton cloth.

Helen tried hard to check her sobs, and gladly availed herself of the opportunity to bathe her eyes, finding as she did so that one of her lips smarted and bled quite profusely; there was a wretched sensation too about the lower part of her face, and her teeth ached violently.

"They shall be bitterly punished for this!" she cried, furiously. "What have they done?"

Then, like a flash, as she saw the girl who held the basin smile mockingly, she knew what had taken place, and with a piteous cry she placed her hands to her mouth, to find that her surmise was correct; the second girl laughing heartily, and fetching the hand-gla.s.s to hold upon a level with the prisoner's face.

The cold wet dew gathered upon Helen's brow as she gazed at the strange countenance before her. It was not that which she knew so well, and upon whose handsome features she had been wont to gaze with half-closed eyes and with a smile of satisfaction at its beauty; for there before her was the face of a n.o.ble-looking Malay woman, between whose swollen lips she could see the filed and blackened teeth considered so great a perfection to her toilet; and with a piteous cry Helen covered her eyes with her hands, shrank back upon her couch, and sobbed forth:

"What would he think of me now?" Humbled as she was by the treatment she had received, and agitated by her position, Helen Perowne had enough of the old nature left to suffer terribly upon every question relating to her personal appearance. It was a dreadful shock to find that she had been completely transformed, as it were, into a woman of the country--one of those upon whom she had been accustomed to look with such disdain; but the shock was surpa.s.sed by the sensation of misery to find that her self-worshipped beauty was gone, as it were, for ever.

Her greatest enemy could not have inflicted upon her a more cruel pang; and one constantly-recurring question kept repeating itself:

"What would he say to me now?"--_he_; and it was not of Captain Hilton, her father, or any of her rejected lovers that she thought, but always of the Resident. What would Neil Harley think of her if he could see her distorted features? He could not recognise her, of that she felt sure, and in her agony of mind a complete change took place in her feelings. But an hour ago she had watched window and door, listened to every sound, however slight, and interpreted it to mean the coming of help--of Neil Harley and her father to fetch her away. But how could she wish for them to come now? Why should she be taken away? Instead of Helen Perowne, the beauty of the station, they would find, and would not recognise, a swarthy native woman, whose aspect would repel them, and they would be ready to doubt her word should she a.s.sert who she was.

She was ready to pray now that no help might come--even that she might die.

The women stole softly away, whispering to each other that she would soon come round; and as the suffering girl crouched there in her abas.e.m.e.nt her anguish did not grow less poignant, and she found herself, in spite of the repugnance she felt at the idea of being seen, somehow looking once more to Neil Harley for help. She recalled how she had laughed at his pretensions, even to treating them with indignity, and turning upon him a resentful stare; how, too, tried to pique him by laughing and flirting directly with some favoured lover. But what had followed? He had only smilingly told her that he was in nowise jealous, and that she would come to him with open arms at last.

She recalled, as she sat thinking there, how she had turned from him with a haughty feeling of annoyance; while now that she was so cruelly abased he seemed to be her only hope, the one to whose strong arm she was forced to look for aid; and with a bitter wail of misery, as she thought of him once more, in spite of her efforts to drive away the fancy, she kept on asking herself those ever-recurring questions, what would he think of her--what would he say?

"I am too cruelly punished," she moaned to herself, and for the next hour or so she was completely prostrated both in body and mind. For her position was one that must have daunted the stoutest-hearted woman. She could not hope that, now she had been so degraded, if seen, any Englishman would recognise her and so give notice of her whereabouts; while the insolent Rajah might arrive at any moment to triumph over the downfall of the proud beauty of the station.

But somehow, in spite of her peril, her thoughts wandered from the Rajah, and kept centring themselves upon that question of what Neil Harley would think and say, if ever he should look again upon her terribly-disfigured face.

By degrees her sobs grew less painful, and she lay back with her face still hidden in her hands, thinking of the harsh file that had been used to her beautiful teeth, and the powerful stain that had been applied, and wondering why she had not foreseen, after the dyeing of her face, that a further attempt would be made to liken her to the native women.

She realised, too, now how strong was the Malay nature in cunning, for their proceedings would more effectually secure her from being found than concealment in the deepest recesses of the jungle. In fact, though she kept her eyes closed, ever staring, as it were, straight out of the darkness, was the swarthy distorted countenance she had seen in the gla.s.s, with its filed and blackened teeth; and as this was burned into her brain, she felt that so long as speech was denied her she might be kept even in the native town close to her friends, none of whom would recognise in her the Helen Perowne they sought.

She knew that it was a cunningly-devised and clever plan for destroying her ident.i.ty, and by it she felt, as she shuddered, she had become as it were one of the Rajah's slaves--one of the wretched, hopeless women branded as his like so many cattle, and in her anguish the hot blinding tears gathered once more as she realised the degradation of her position, and her spirits sank lower and lower as she once more lay back and wept.

At length, after how long a time she could not tell, she was aroused by one of her Malay attendants who seemed to be somewhat moved by her distress. This, the gentler of the two, brought a little vessel of perfumed water, and bending over the sobbing prisoner, she gently removed her hands, and after a little resistance succeeded in bathing her burning eyes and stinging lips, talking to her soothingly the while in Malay, a good portion of which Helen, whose senses were sharpened by her position, contrived to understand.

"Why do you cry, dear?" said the girl tenderly. "I ought not to like you, but you are so handsome, and in such trouble, that I feel sorry.

But why do you cry? You cannot tell how you are improved. You were dreadful before with your English look--your sickly pale face, your white teeth and poor thin lips. Now you are lovely and our people would worship you with your soft brown skin and shining dark teeth. The filing has made your poor thin lips grow large and fresh as they should be. Look; they are nearly as big and full as mine. He will love you more and more now, and though I laughed when I saw you first, and thought you a poor weak white thing, now I begin to feel afraid and jealous and to hate you for coming here."

As Helen caught the meaning of these words, fully realising what was meant, and heard her companion speak of someone who would be gratified by her changed appearance, a shiver of dread ran through her, and she lay back staring wildly at the speaker.

"Jealousy--hate me," thought Helen. "Yes; she talked of hating me."

A ray of hope shot through the darkness here.

"She cannot like to have me here, and she would be glad to see me gone.

What am I," she cried, mentally, "to crouch here in this pitiful way, weeping and bewailing my misfortunes, asking myself what those who love me will think and say? Have I been such a wretched handsome doll all my life, that now I am cast upon myself for protection my actions are those of a child?"

A change was coming over Helen Perowne, forced by the terrible position in which she was placed, and roused now in spirit, she thought more and more deeply of all this, till it seemed to her that the Malay girl had struck the keynote of her future action, and that after feeling her way cautiously she had but to appeal to this attendant for her aid, and she would win her goodwill in an attempt to escape.

The day wore on, and in spite of herself the weariness produced by exhaustion brought on a sensation of drowsiness that Helen could not overcome. One minute she had determined that she would not yield to sleep, the next she was starting with a cry of fear from a deep slumber which had surprised her almost as she thought.

The Malay girl smiled, laid her cool hand upon her forehead, and kissed her very tenderly--so tenderly that, with a sob, proud disdainful Helen Perowne caught the brown hand in hers, and laid it upon her throbbing breast.

Again the drowsy sensation began to master her, and she started up with a face distorted, fleeing as she believed from some terrible danger.

The girl spoke a few soothing words, and gazed so kindly in the prisoner's eyes, that Helen sank back once more, yielding to the powerful influence that came upon her, and almost the next moment she was sleeping deeply, quite exhausted by what she had suffered.

The Malay girl bent over her for a few minutes, and then softly withdrew her hand from between Helen's, to follow her companion to the window, where she was sitting droning over some native ditty about meeting her love beneath the moonbeams among the waving rice, and then they sat chatting and laughing together in a low tone. Now they discussed Helen's features, then her want of courage, and lastly, in a dull indifferent way, they began to wonder whether their lord would be satisfied with what they had done, and when he was likely to come.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

THE INCHE MAIDA AT HOME.

"Ah, Princess," cried Hilton, flushing with pleasure as he saw help and liberty shining as it were in the face of a friend, whose extended hand he took, "this is kind of you indeed. You had heard, then, of the outrage of these Malay people, and have come to have us freed."

"Outrage!" cried the Princess indignantly. "Who has dared to hurt you?"

"That we do not know," cried Hilton, eagerly. "You must discover that.

I am glad to see you indeed."

"And I you," she replied, smiling in the young officer's face, as he retained her hand. "Ah, Mr Chumbley," she continued, extending her left. "I am very pleased to meet you once again."