Adam Gray left the men in the mess-room that night, chatting about the
coming tiger-hunt, and wondering who would be selected to accompany the
expedition. He could not help thinking, as he shouldered his rifle, and
was marched off by a sergeant with half-a-dozen more, to relieve guard,
that he should like to be one of the party himself. In happy bygone
days he had been fond of sport, and in a trip to North America were
well-remembered perils and pleasant adventures. And now this talk of
the tiger-hunt had roused in him a strong interest, and set him
recalling days, when he was very different to what he was now.
"It's no good to sigh," he said to himself, and the measured tramp,
tramp of the marching men sounded solemn and strange in the darkness,
rousing him once more to a sense of his position.
"If I'm to go, I go," he said bitterly. "That will be as my superiors
please; and if I do go, it will not be as a hunter."
In spite of himself; however, as soon as guard had been relieved, and he
was left in charge of a post not far from Dullah's hut, his thoughts
went back to his early career, and he grew at times quite excited as he
compared it with the life he was living now.
Then his thoughts wandered to the residency, and from thence back to the
day when he was bitten by the sea snake, and lay there upon the deck
tended by Miss Linton.
These thoughts agitated him, so that he set off pacing briskly up and
down for a couple of hours, and then, his brain calmed by the exercise,
he stood still under the shadow of a great palm, with whose trunk, as he
stood back close to it, his form so assimilated in the darkness that, at
a couple of yards distance, he was invisible.
His post was close to the river, so close that he walked upon the very
edge of the bank, which was in places undermined by the swift current.
This post had been cleared from the thick jungle. It was but a narrow
piece, some two yards wide, and forty long, and this it was his duty to
pace during his long watch, to guard that side of the island from a
landing foe.
Midnight had passed, and all was very still. There was a splash from
time to time in the stream, telling of the movement of some reptile or
great fish, and now and then, from the far-distant parts of the jungle
across the water, he could hear the cry of some wild beast. Now and
then he watched the fire-flies scintillating amidst the leaves, and
thought of how different life was out in this far-off tropic land to
that in dear old England.
He had been thinking quite an hour without stirring; but though his
memory strayed here and there, his eyes were watchful, and he scanned
from time to time the broad smooth surface of the stream in search of
passing boats.
At last he fancied he detected something dark moving along, but it went
by so smoothly that it might have been the trunk of some tree, or even
the back of a great crocodile, for there was no splash of oars.
He had almost forgotten the incident, when he started slightly and
listened, thinking he could hear a whispering, and this was repeated.
He listened intently, but though he felt sure that he could hear voices,
still that need not mean danger, for sound passes so easily across the
water, that the noise might have come from down lower in the island, or
even from the shore across the river.
The whispering ceased, and then he listened in vain for a time, and at
last he was just thinking of pacing up and down once more, when
certainly there was a faint splash, and on looking in the direction he
could see on the dark water what seemed like a dim shadow gliding along.
It might have been a boat or the shadow of a boat, he could not be sure.
In fact, there were moments when he doubted whether it was not some
ocular illusion, brought about by too intently gazing through the gloom.
And there he stood, hesitating as to whether he should fire and give the
alarm.
But the next moment he reasonably enough asked himself why he should do
so, for there was nothing alarming in the fact of a tiny sampan gliding
over the river. It might be only a fisherman on his way to some
favourite spot, or perhaps one of the Malays bound up the river, or
possibly after all a mere deception.
There seemed to be nothing to merit the alarm being raised, and he stood
watching once more the spot where the boat had disappeared. Still he
did not resume his march up and down, but recalled the night of the
attack, and began to consider how easy it would be for a crafty enemy to
land and take them by surprise some gloomy night. Dark-skinned, and
lithe of action as cats, they could easily surprise and kris the
sentries. In his own case, for instance, what would be easier than for
an enemy to lurk on the edge of the thick jungly patch, by which the
path ran, and there stab him as he passed?
"It would be very easy," he thought. "Yes; and if I stand here much
longer, I shall begin to think that I am doing so because I dare not
walk beside that dark piece of wood. Still I dare do it, and I will."
As if out of bravado, he immediately began to pace his allotted post
once more, and he had hardly gone half-way when a sharp sound upon his
left made him bring his piece down to the present, and wait with bayonet
fixed what he looked upon as a certain attack.
Again he hesitated about firing and giving the alarm, for fear of
incurring ridicule and perhaps reprimand. He knew in his heart that he
was nervous and excitable, being troubled lest any ill should befall the
occupants of the residency, and being in such an excited state made him
ready to imagine everything he saw, to mean danger.
So he stood there, ready to repel any attack made upon him, and as he
remained upon his guard the rustling noise increased, and he momentarily
expected to see the leaves parted and some dark figure rush out; but
still he was kept in suspense, for nothing appeared.
At last he came to the conclusion that it was some restless bird or
animal disturbed by his presence, and told himself that the noise made
was magnified by his own fancies; and, rather glad that he had not given
the alarm, he continued to march up and down, passing to and fro in
close proximity to a dark Malay, whose hand clasped a wavy, dull-bladed
kris, that the holder seemed waiting to thrust into his chest the moment
an opportunity occurred, or so soon as the sentry should have given the
alarm.
At last the weary watch came to an end, for the tramp of the relief was
heard, and Sergeant Lund marched up his little party of men, heard
Gray's report of the rustling noise, and the dark shadow on the river;
said "Humph!" in a gruff way; a fresh man was placed on sentry, and Adam
Gray was marched back with the other tired men who were picked up on the
round into the little fort.