Mr Perowne's house was literally besieged the next morning, for the
news of the disappearance ran through the little community like
wildfire. British and native communities were equally excited; and
after snatching an hour's rest at the imperative command of his wife,
the doctor was hastily swallowing some breakfast previous to going back
to Mr Perowne's, but could hardly get on for interruptions.
"I am not alarmed, Henry," said the little lady, in a quiet, decided
way; "and I insist upon your being properly fortified before unduly
exerting yourself. I could not bear for you to be ill."
The words were said very quietly, but in such a tone that Dr Bolter set
down his cup, and rising, left his place, and tenderly embraced the
earnest little woman he had made his wife.
"I will take all the care I can, my dear Mary," he said.
"I know you will, Henry," said the little lady, whose lip quivered
slightly as she spoke; "but now go and finish your breakfast, and then
start. Don't be uneasy about me, dear, but go and do what you think
best under the circumstances."
"I will, my love--I will," said Dr Bolter, with his mouth full of
toast.
"It all sounds very alarming, dear, but I cannot help thinking that it
will be explained in a very simple manner."
"I hope so."
"You see there are four of them; and as Arthur is one, I think we may
feel assured."
"Well, my dear these are business times," said the doctor, "and we must
speak in business ways. Arthur is the best old fellow in the world; but
I am sorry to say that he is a terrible old woman."
"Henry!" said the lady, reproachfully.
"Well, my dear, he is. Now, would you have much confidence in him if it
were a case of emergency?"
"I--I think I would sooner trust to you, Henry," said the little lady,
softly; "but do make haste and get a good breakfast. If you want me,
send a message, and I will come directly."
"All right," said the doctor, rising once more. "Now I'm off."
"But one moment, Henry," said the little lady, whose feelings now got
the upper hand. "Tell me, dear--do you think anything dreadful has
happened?"
"What do you call dreadful, my dear?" said the doctor, cheerily.
"That the crocodiles--"
She did not finish, but looked imploringly at her lord.
"Bah!--stuff!--nonsense! No, Mary, I don't."
"Then that this dreadful Rajah has carried them off?"
"If it had only been Madam Helen, I should have felt suspicious; but
what could he want with Hilton and Chumbley, or with our Arthur?"
"To marry them," suggested Mrs Bolter.
"Stuff! my dear, not he. If Murad had carried her off, he would not
have bothered about a parson."
"But Arthur was waiting about her all the evening."
"So he was, my dear."
"And he may have killed Hilton and poor Mr Chumbley, while they were
defending her."
"Yes, he might, certainly," said the doctor, drily; "but how the--"
"Henry!"
"I only meant dickens. I say how the dickens he was going to carry her
off when he was at the party all the time I can't see."
"But was he?"
"To the very last. Oh! it will all settle itself into nothing, unless
Arthur has taken Helen off into the jungle and married her himself, with
Hilton and Chumbley for witnesses."
"Is this a time for joking, Henry?" said the little lady, reproachfully.
"Really, my dear, it would be no joke if Arthur had his own way."
"I'm afraid," sighed little Mrs Bolter, "that Helen Perowne had a good
deal to with my brother accepting the chaplaincy."
"I'm sure she had," chuckled the doctor.
"If I had thought so I would never have consented to come," said the
lady with asperity.
"Wouldn't you, Mary? Wouldn't you?" said the little doctor, taking her
in his arms; and the lady withdrew her words just as a step was heard
outside.
"Here's another stoppage," cried the doctor, impatiently. "Why, it's
Mrs Barlow. What does she want?"
Mrs Barlow was a widow lady of about forty, the relict of a well-to-do
merchant of the station, who, after her widowhood, preferred to stay and
keep her brother's house to going back to England; at any rate, as she
expressed it, for a few years.
She was one of the set who visited at Mr Perowne's, and had also been
at the trip up the river to the Inche Maida's home; but being a
decidedly neutral-tinted lady, in spite of her black attire, she was so
little prominent that mention of her has not been necessary until now.
"Stop a minute;" she exclaimed, excitedly, as she arrested the doctor on
his step.
"Not ill, are you, Mrs Barlow?" queried the doctor.
"Not bodily, doctor," she began, "but--"
"My wife is inside, my dear madam," cried the doctor, "and I must be
off."
"Stop!" exclaimed Mrs Barlow, authoritatively; and she took the little
doctor's arm, and led him back into the breakfast-room. "You are his
brother, Dr Bolter. Mrs Bolter, you are his sister, ma'am. I can
speak freely to you both."
"Of course, madam, of course," said the doctor; and then to himself,
"Has the woman been taking _very_ strong tea?"
"I have only just learned the terrible news, Dr Bolter--Mrs Bolter,"
cried the lady, "and I came on to you."
"Very kind of you I am sure, ma'am."
"What do you think, doctor? You have some idea."
"Not the least at present, ma'am. I was just off to see."
"That is good of you; but tell me first," cried the widow, half
hysterically. "You do not--you cannot think--that that dreadful
woman--"
"What, the Inche Maida, ma'am?"
"No, no! I mean Helen Perowne--has deluded him into following her away
to some other settlement."
"Whom, ma'am, Hilton or Chumbley?"
"Oh, dear me, no, doctor; I mean dear Mr Rosebury."
"Oh, you mean dear Mr Rosebury, do you?" said the doctor.
"Yes, Dr Bolter; oh, yes. Tell me; do you think that dreadful girl has
deluded him away?"
"No, ma'am, I don't," cried the doctor, stoutly. "Hang it all, no! I'd
give her the credit of a good deal, but not of that. Hang it, no."
"Thank you, doctor," said the lady hysterically. "Of course I should
have forgiven it, and set it all down to her; but you do me good,
doctor, by assuring me that my surmise is impossible. What do you think
then?"
"That it's all a mystery for us to find out, and I was going to hunt it
up when you stopped me, ma'am."
"Excuse me, Mrs Barlow," said little Mrs Bolter, who had been
fidgeting about, and waiting for an opportunity to speak, "but will you
kindly explain what you mean by your very particular allusions to my
brother?"
"Must I?" said the lady, with a martyred look.
"If you please, ma'am," said Mrs Bolter, sternly; and the little lady
looked as if she were ready to apply the moral thumbscrews and the rack
itself to the visitor if she did not make a clean breast.
"Do you not know?" whispered Mrs Barlow, with a pathetic look, and a
timidly bashful casting down of the eyes.
"No, ma'am, I do not," said little Mrs Bolter, haughtily.
"I thought you must have known," sighed the lady. "But under these
circumstances, when he may be in terrible peril, perhaps crying aloud,
`Rosina, come to my aid,' why should I shrink from this avowal? I am
_not_ ashamed to own it. Ah, Dr Bolter--oh, Mrs Bolter--I have loved
him from his first sermon, when he looked down at me and seemed to
address me with that soft, impressive voice which thrilled the very
fibres of my heart, and now he is gone--he is gone! What does it mean!
What shall we do?"
"Mary, you'd better administer a little sal-volatile, my dear," said the
doctor. "You know the strength; I'm off."
The doctor backed out of the room, leaving Mrs Barlow sobbing on the
sofa, and hurried off in the direction of the Residency, talking to
himself on the way.
"This is something fresh!" he muttered; "and it isn't leap-year either.
Rum creatures women! I wonder what Mary is saying to her now! Here,
paddle me across," he said to one of the natives who was cleaning out
his sampan ready for any passengers who might want to be put across to
the island.
As he neared the landing-stage, he found Mr Harley anxiously busy
despatching boat after boat up and down stream, each boat being paddled
by a couple of friendly natives, and containing a noncommissioned
officer and private selected for their intelligence.
"Ah! that's right, Harley!" said the doctor, rubbing his hands after a
friendly salute, and the information given and taken that there was not
the slightest news of the missing people. "But don't you think we ought
to take some steps ashore?"
"Wait a moment; let me ease my mind by getting these fellows off," said
the Resident hoarsely; and he gave the men the strictest injunctions to
carefully search the banks of the river, and also to closely question
every Malay they met as to whether anything of the missing party had
been seen. Eight boats had been sent off upon this mission, the men
accepting the task readily enough, irrespective of the promise of
reward; and hardly had the last been despatched, when the Resident
proposed that they should go across to Mr Perowne's.
"It is only fair to consult him as to our next proceedings," said the
Resident, gloomily; and almost in silence they were paddled across to
the mainland, and went up to the scene of last night's festivities,
where everything looked dismal and in confusion. Half-burnt lanterns
hung amidst the trees, tables and chairs were piled up anyhow in the
grounds, and the lawn was strewn with the _debris_ of the feast yet
uncleared away, the attention of the servants having been so much
occupied with their search.
The two new-comers found Mr Perowne quite prostrate with this terrible
anxiety, and Mr Stuart trying, with his daughter, to administer some
little consolation in the way of hope.
"Cheer up, mon!" the old Scot was saying. "I daresay she'll turn up all
right yet."
Mr Perowne looked at him so reproachfully that the old Scot paused and
then turned uneasily away.
"Poor wretch!" he muttered; "he has trouble eneuch--enough I mean."
"Ah! Harley, what news?" cried Mr Perowne.
"None as yet," was the reply.
"Have you sent out boats?"
"Yes, eight; and let us hope that they will discover something."
"But you do not think they will?"
The Resident was silent.
"Harley here thinks that the Rajah is at the bottom of it all," said the
doctor.
"Impossible!" cried the unhappy father. "He was here when she was
missed, or I might have suspected him. I fear it is something worse
than even that."
"I cannot help my suspicions," said the Resident, quietly. "Perhaps I
wrong him."
"I think ye do, Harley," said the old Scot. "I saw him here long after
Miss Helen must have been gone. I'm thinking she and the young officers
have taken a boat and gone down the river for a wee bit of game, seeing
the night was fine."
"Oh! papa," cried Grey, "I am sure Helen would not have been so
imprudent."
"I'm sure it's very kind of ye to think so well o' your schoolfellow,
but I'm no' so sure. Trust me, the Rajah had no hand in the matter."
"He has plenty of servants who would work his will," said the Resident,
thoughtfully; "but this charge of mine must not go forth to Murad's
ears. If I am wronging an innocent man, we shall have made a fresh
enemy; and Heaven knows we have enough without that!"
"You may be right," said the doctor, "but I have my doubts."
"He's wrong," said old Stuart. "He's not the man with the spirit in him
to do so stirring a thing."
"And he would never take off those two young fellows and my
brother-in-law."
"I begin to think he has," said Perowne, snatching at the solution once
more, after holding the opinion and casting it off a dozen times. "He
has never forgiven her for her refusal. Are we to sit still under his
insult, Harley? You have plenty of men under your command."
"True," said the Resident; "but should I be justified in calling them
out and making a descent on Murad's town upon the barest suspicion?"
Suggestion after suggestion was offered, as the reason of the Resident's
remark was fully realised; but as time went on the little knot of
English people more fully than ever realised how helpless they were in
the midst of the Malays, whose good offices they were compelled to
enlist.