One Maid's Mischief Part 87

Chumbley looked across the little s.p.a.ce between them towards his friend; but it was quite dark now, and the voices seemed to come out of a black void.

"No, old fellow, no," he replied. "It was a pa.s.sing fancy.

Good-night."

"Good-night."

Then there was silence in the room, though neither of the men slept; Hilton lying in a state of feverish excitement, and Chumbley thinking over his words.

"What made me say that, I wonder?" he muttered. "Suppose it should be true, and that all this while the ruffian has been playing dark. By Jove! it is very likely; much more likely than for a couple of fellows to be carried off. Poor girl! No, it is impossible. I will not believe it. Let's think of something else. Now then, how are we to get away from here?"

"Sleep, Chumbley?" said Hilton.

"If I answer and say _no_" thought Chumbley, "he will lie talking for hours. I'll hold my tongue."

"Fast asleep," muttered Hilton to himself; "that fellow has no more soul than an ox," and turning his head on the cushion that formed his pillow, he lay there in the feverish hot night, thinking of Helen Perowne, while the distant roar of some prowling tiger kept reaching his ear; and it was not until the thought of Grey Stuart's soft eyes, looking truthfully at his, came like something soft and gentle to cool his heated imagination, that he finally dropped asleep, forgetting his troubles for the time.

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER TWO.

A SEARCH FOR GOLD.

If anyone else on the station had even talked of making an expedition up the river beneath the beams of that ardent sun Dr Bolter would have exclaimed:

"Ah, of course. Here am I, toiling from morn to night with hand and brain, to keep you people in decent health, and yet you propose such a piece of insanity as that! Why, sir, you must be mad!"

But then the doctor was mad upon his own particular subject, and neither heat nor storm would would have kept him back. The sun now had tremendous power, and even his Malay boatmen looked hot; but the doctor's face only shone, and he sat back in the stern, gun in hand, carefully scanning the sh.o.r.e, ready to bring down the first attractive specimen he saw to add to his collection.

The boat was well supplied with necessaries, including a waterproof sheet, and a handy tent if he should camp ash.o.r.e; but the boat was to be for the most part his camping-place; and, according to his preconceived plan, the doctor meant to force his way right up a branch or tributary of the main river--a stream that had never yet been, as far as he knew, explored; and here he was hopeful of making his way close up to the mountains, continuing the journey on foot when the river became too narrow and swift for navigation.

In this intent the boat was steadily propelled up-stream, and at the end of the second day the Inche Maida's campong and home had been pa.s.sed, and unseen they had placed some miles between them and the Princess's people.

The Inche Maida was very friendly, but the knowledge that she would perhaps be down before many hours were over at the station, made the doctor fix his time for pa.s.sing in the dusk of the evening, for he did not wish his movements to reach his wife's ears sooner than he could help, nor yet to be canva.s.sed by his friends.

Hence, then, he slept that night with his boat secured to the trunk of a large cocoa-palm, well covered in from the night dew, and with a bit of quinine on the tip of his tongue when he lay down to keep off the fever.

Neither he nor his men troubled themselves about the weird noises of the jungle, nor the rushings and splashings that disturbed the river. There were dangerous reptiles and other creatures around, but they did not disturb them; and when the loud roar of a tiger was heard not many yards away, amidst the dense bushes of the sh.o.r.e, the doctor merely turned over and uttered a low grunt, muttering in his sleep about Mrs Bolter breathing so hard.

The next morning before the white mist had risen from the river, the Malays were busy with their paddles, and they had gone on about five or six miles when one of the men ceased rowing, and held up his hand to command silence.

"A big boat coming down the river pulled by many oars, master," said the man, "a fighting prahu, I think. Shall we hide?"

"Hide? no," exclaimed the doctor. "Why?"

"It may be an enemy who will make us prisoners, perhaps kill us," said the Malay, softly. "We are thy servants, and we will go on if you say go."

"Perhaps I had better not," said the doctor, thoughtfully. "It would spoil the expedition. Hah! yes, I can hear the oars now. But where could we hide?"

"If the master bids us, we will place the boat so that no one pa.s.sing shall see, and we can see all," replied the Malay.

Doctor Bolter did not like hiding, but thinking that in this case discretion might be the better part of valour, he replaced his shot cartridge with ball, as he gave the signal to the man, who turned the sampan in sh.o.r.e; and cleverly guiding it in amongst the overhanging vegetation, this dropped behind them and they were in a verdant tunnel, the branches and leaves just touching their heads, and though themselves completely concealed, able to see everything that pa.s.sed or repa.s.sed upon the river.

They had occupied their place of hiding so long, that, had he not still heard the regular beat-beat of the large boat's oars, the doctor would have concluded that it had pa.s.sed. Still it seemed wonderful how the water bore the sound, for it was what seemed to be a considerable time before they saw the prow of a long prahu come round a bend of the river with its long banks of oars making the calm surface of the rapid river foam, as the long vessel glided on, coming in very close to them, so as to cut off a good deal of the next bend.

They were so close that Doctor Bolter could note the expression upon the countenances of the men, and it seemed almost impossible that the little boat and its crew could remain unseen; but the prahu pa.s.sed on, and round the next bend, the doctor waiting till the beat of the paddles was growing faint before he gave the word for them to proceed.

"Are those friends or enemies?" he said to one of the boatmen.

The Malay smiled.

"Who knows?" he said. "To-day they may be friends, to-morrow enemies.

The prahu is Rajah Murad's, and the crew his men."

The doctor did not pay much heed to the rather oracular words of the Malay, though he recalled it all afterwards, his attention now being taken up by some choice specimens of the sunbird family, hovering about the blossoms on the banks.

Ten miles or so farther up, and the boatmen pointed to the overgrown mouth of the little river of which they were in search.

Anyone unacquainted with the place would have pa.s.sed it unseen, but it had been noted down by the doctor during one of his expeditions, as a place to be explored at some future time.

The men turned the head of the sampan towards the tangled ma.s.s of bushes and overhanging trees, and then, as they drew near, one of them rose in the prow, and drew the long heavy parang he wore, a sword-like knife much used by the poorer Malays for cutting back the thorns and canes that a few days' rapid growth led across their path; but the next moment he had lowered the weapon, and rested the point upon the edge of the boat.

"Someone has been here, master," he said; "a big boat has broken its way through."

"All the better for us," said the doctor, and instead of having to cut and hack right and left, the sampan pa.s.sed easily along the tangled channel, the ma.s.ses of huge water-lilies giving way before the boat, while, as they got farther on past the grown-up mouth, the river seemed to widen, and the route of the vessel that had pa.s.sed before could be plainly seen in a narrow channel of leaf-sprinkled water.

"That prahu must have been along here, master," said the elder of the two Malays, thoughtfully. "No small sampan could have broken a way like this."

"So much the better," said the doctor again; but he grew more thoughtful, for the fact of a boat having been along this little river so lately seemed to rob it of a good deal of its mystery. He had hoped to find it completely unexplored, and here only that day someone had pa.s.sed along.

It was, however, in its upper portion that the doctor hoped to find something to interest him; and after all it was not probable that the occupants of the prahu would be searching for gold.

Under these circ.u.mstances he set himself to examine the banks on either side, and his men steadily paddled on hour after hour, till a halt was made at an open part where they landed, and made a fire to cook the birds that had been shot on the way up. Then a fresh start was made, and all through the long hot afternoon the doctor sat back scrutinising most diligently the sides of the little river.

But it was always the same--one dense bank of verdure on either side, with the trees hanging over the river, and encroaching so that at last the stream was only a few yards wide; but by pulling the branches aside the boat could have been thrust in, to glide along under a natural arcade--the home of thousands of crocodiles, from monsters fifteen and twenty feet long to their sp.a.w.n not many more inches.

It was a perfect paradise for a naturalist, and the doctor grew so much interested that he forgot the prime object of his visit, seeing nothing but birds and insects, to the exclusion of old gold-workings, though had there been anything of the kind it would have been completely hidden amongst the tangled, luxuriant growth.

It was growing fast towards sunset when the doctor was suddenly brought back to the matter-of-fact every-day life from a kind of dream about the wondrous beauties of some peculiar beetles he had captured and held beneath his magnifying gla.s.s, by a sudden exclamation from the elder Malay.

"What is it?" exclaimed the doctor, sharply.

"The prahu came no farther than this. See, master, we shall have to cut the branches now to get along."

He pointed with his paddle, and it was plain enough to see that the water-weeds and lilies were unbroken higher up, and that some large vessel must have been turned here, for the aqueous growth was crushed to a much greater extent.

"There is a path there," said the Malay, and he showed his employer the bank beaten down by footsteps, and that the bushes and trees had been cut away.

"Yes," replied the doctor, "someone has landed there, but it does not matter. We have come to the fresh ground. Let's get a few miles farther, and then we'll rest."