The Rajah of Dah Part 22

"And I with mine."

"Oh, don't hurry away. Stop and smoke a cigar. How's that boy of yours?"

"Quite well, thank you, Mr Murray."

They looked up sharply, and there was Frank standing in the veranda looking in.

"Hullo! busy, Ned?"

"Yes. Two more birds to do."

"Oh, what a bother! I want you particularly. I say, Mr Murray, why don't you let Amy Barnes skin these little tiny sun-birds? It wants some one with pretty little fingers like hers."

"Because, sir, it is not fit work for a lady," replied Murray, shortly.

"Ha, ha! what a game! Why, she asked me to get her a few, and I set that one-eyed chap to knock some down with a sumpitan--you know, Ned, a blowpipe, and she has had six these last three days, and skinned them all beautifully. She gave me one to show me how well she could do it.

Here, where did I stick the thing?"

He began searching his pockets, and ended by dragging out a rough tuft of glistening metallic feathers, at which he looked down with a comical expression of countenance.

"A delightful specimen," said Murray, grimly.

"Yes, now. But it was beautiful when she showed it to me. I oughtn't to have put it in my pocket, I suppose. But, I say, Mr Murray, can't you spare Ned?"

"What do you want him for, Frank?" said his father.

"To try for that big croc that hangs about the river half-way between here and the stockade. He has just taken another poor girl, father."

"What!" cried Mr Braine, with a look of horror.

"I only just heard of it. She was reaching over to pick lotus-leaves close by, where you were so nearly caught, Ned."

"Eh?" cried Murray, looking up sharply. "Oh yes, I remember, and you are thinking of trying to shoot this monster?"

"No; going to catch him," said Frank.

"You two boys?"

"They will have some of the men to help them," said Mr Braine. "The brute ought to be destroyed."

"Why don't your rajah do it?"

"Because he does nothing that does not tend toward his pleasure or prosperity," replied Mr Braine, bitterly. "Have you made any preparations, Frank?"

"Yes, father; we're all ready. Only waiting for Ned."

He gave the latter a merry look as he spoke.

"Like to go?" said Murray.

"I don't like to leave you so busy, uncle, and seem to neglect preparing the specimens."

"But that would be getting another specimen," said Frank, merrily. "Mr Murray may have it when it's caught, mayn't he, father?"

"You go along with you, sir," cried Murray, with mock sternness. "You are spoiling my boy here. Be off with you, and mind and don't get into any danger. Here, you Ned, go and wash your fingers well first. Don't neglect that after using the paste."

Five minutes after, the two lads were off toward the bank of the river near where the rajah's stockade was situated--a strongly-palisaded place commanding the river, and within which four of the light bra.s.s guns known as lelahs were mounted. Mere popguns in the eyes of a naval officer, but big enough, to awe people who traded up and down the river in boats, and whose one or two pound b.a.l.l.s or handfuls of rough shot and rugged sc.r.a.ps of iron and nails were awkward enemies for the slight timbers of a good-sized prahu.

"There will not be any danger for the boys, eh?" said Murray, looking up at where Mr Braine stood thoughtfully smoking his cigar.

"Oh no; they will have quite a little party of active men with them, ready to despatch the brute with their spears if they are lucky enough to catch him; but that is very doubtful."

He relapsed into silence, and Murray went on busily with his work, for he had had a successful shooting trip on the previous afternoon, and was trying to make up for it before his specimens decayed, as they did rapidly in that hot climate. He was so intent upon his task as he sat at the rough bamboo work-table he had rigged up, that for a time he forgot the presence of his silent visitor, till, looking up suddenly he saw that Mr Braine was gazing thoughtfully before him in a rapt and dreamy way.

"Anything the matter?" he said.

Mr Braine started, looked at his cigar, which was out, and proceeded to relight it.

"No--yes," he said slowly; "I was thinking."

"What about? No, no. I beg pardon. Like my impudence to ask you."

"No. It is quite right," said Mr Braine, slowly, and with his brow knit. "You are one of us now, and in a little knot of English people situated as we are, there ought to be full confidence and good-fellowship so that we could help each other in distress."

"Yes, of course," said Murray, laying down his work. "But, my dear fellow, don't be so mysterious. You are in trouble. What is wrong?"

Mr Braine walked to the door to see that Hamet was out of hearing, and then returning, he said in a low voice: "Look here, Murray; it is of no use to mince matters; we are all prisoners here, at the mercy of as scoundrelly a tyrant as ever had power to make himself a scourge to the district round."

"Well, it is as well to call a spade a spade," said Murray.

"Both Barnes and I were doing badly, and we were tempted by the offers we received from the rajah, and certainly I must own that, from a worldly point of view, we have both prospered far better here than we could have done in an English settlement. But we are not free agents.

We never know what mine may be sprung upon us, nor how the chief people among the rajah's followers may be affected toward us through petty jealousies."

"I see--I see," said Murray.

"So far we have got on well. For years and years Barnes, who is very clever in his profession, has made himself indispensable to the rajah, and has also gained some very good friends by the way in which he has treated different chiefs and their families in serious illnesses, and for accidents and wounds. While on my part, though mine is a less satisfactory position, I have by firmness and strict justice gained the respect of the rajah's fighting men, whom I have drilled to a fair state of perfection, and the friendship of the various chiefs by acting like an honourable Englishman, and regardless of my own safety, interceding for them when they have offended their master, so that now they always come to me as their counsellor and friend, and I am the only man here who dares to tell the tyrant he is unjust."

"I see your position exactly," said Murray; "but what is behind all this. What is wrong?"

"Perhaps nothing--imagination, may be, and I don't know that I should have spoken to you yet, if it had not been for an admission--I should say a remark, made by my son just now."

"I do not understand you. What did he say?"

"That Miss Barnes--Amy--had been devoting herself to the preparation of some of the tiny gems of our forests."

"Yes, yes, and very strange behaviour on the part of a young lady too."

"I do not see it," said the Resident, gravely. "She is a very sweet, true-hearted, handsome womanly girl. Let me see: she is past one and twenty now, and has always displayed a great liking for natural history."