The two boys stood staring thoughtfully at each other that bright, sunny
morning, for some minutes before Ned spoke again.
"They will not kill us, will they?" he said.
"Kill us? No. I should just like to catch them at it. The brutes! To
take away my kris too. There's going to be a row about this as soon as
my father knows."
"Then you think it's all a mistake?"
"Of course it is. I shouldn't have wondered if they'd shut you up like
this, but you see they've shut up me."
"Well, you're of no more consequence than I am," said Ned, laughing in
spite of his trouble and a throbbing head.
"No more consequence than you? Why, I've done as much as I liked about
here for ever so long, and the people have treated me just as if I were
the rajah's son. It's all your fault."
"I suppose so," said Ned, dismally.
"But if they think they're going to do just as they like, they're
mistaken. Here!" he cried in Malay, "water."
There was a bit of a bustle out on the veranda, and two men came in with
brass basins and cotton cloths, which they held while, without
hesitation, Frank began to bathe his face.
It was a good example, and Ned followed suit, the cool, fresh water
feeling delightful to his heated brow.
"Done?" said Frank, as he wiped his hands.
"Yes."
"Take away, and bring breakfast," cried Frank, haughtily, to the men,
who bowed and went off with the water and towels.
"I'll let them see whether they're going to treat me like a prisoner,"
cried Frank.
"I wish I could be as bumptious as you are with them," said Ned, with a
faint smile.
"You don't try."
"I'm so anxious."
"Oh, it's of no use to be anxious," said Frank, gazing out of the door,
and then through the window with its bamboo lattice-work.
"Which house are we in?"
"I don't know. I was trying to make out, but you can only see trees. I
do believe they've taken us up the river somewhere. I don't know,
though. These houses are all alike. It isn't the Tumongong's, nor the
Muntrie's, nor the Maharajah Lela's. Yes, I believe they've taken us up
the river. The old chap has houses in all sorts of places out in the
jungle, where he likes to go and hide himself sometimes, but I don't see
any fun in his hiding us."
"Then they brought us up here. But how?"
"In a naga, of course."
"But in our sleep, or while we were insensible?"
"Insensible, if you like to call it so. They must have given us some
stuff. They've all kinds of dodges of that sort, bless 'em! You should
hear Doctor Barnes talk about the poisons they use."
"I should like to--now," said Ned, drily.
"And so you shall--before long. I'll soon get you out of this. Yes,"
he continued, "this is one of the old boy's places. See how fine the
mats are, and how the walls are covered. But never mind now, my head's
better, and here's our breakfast."
For the two men entered as the boys came back into the main room opening
on to the veranda from an inspection of two side-places beautifully hung
and covered with mats. Then a third man entered, and as Frank
nonchalantly seated himself on the matting floor, Ned followed his
example, and an excellent breakfast was placed before them.
"Not bad for being prisoners," said Frank, as he ate away; while, after
the first few mouthfuls, Ned's appetite increased, and he began to enjoy
the meal.
"That's right. Ruminate away, old chap. There's nothing to pay. It's
the rajah's orders, sure enough, or we shouldn't be fed like this. He
isn't going to kill us."
"Think not?"
"Sure of it, unless he's going to fatten us up, and then try whether
we're good to eat."
"I wish I had such good spirits as you have."
"Oh, I'm getting better now. Here you, send in the head-man," cried
Frank to one of their attendants.
The man bowed respectfully, and withdrew to the veranda, where they
heard him speak, and directly after one of the party, evidently a man of
some consequence from his silken sarong, came in.
"I want my kris," said Frank.
The man smiled, and shook his head.
"You give it me directly. It was the rajah's present."
"You will run amok," said the man.
"No. I promise. An English gentleman's promise," said Frank.
The man thrust his hand under his silken robe, and produced the handsome
weapon.
"An English gentleman does not break his word," he said, giving the kris
to the boy.
"Of course he doesn't. Thank you," said Frank, replacing the dagger at
his waist, and covering up the hilt with a significant look at the man,
who smiled and withdrew, while the boy interpreted the words which his
companion had failed to grasp.
The meal being ended, they rose; the men came and cleared away, and as
soon as they were alone again, Ned looked at Frank.
"What next!" he said.
"Ah, that's the puzzle! Here we are, like two dicky-birds in a cage,
and they won't let us go out. If they keep us shut up long like this,
it will be horrid. I wish I could send father word."
"Could we escape?"
"I don't know. We might try. What a muddle, to be sure. They think we
were going to run away with Hamet, and we may talk for ever and they
wouldn't believe us."
"But we can't sit here and do nothing."
"No; it will be horribly dull. Those Malay fellows like it. They can
sit in the sun all day and chew betel. We can't. All we can do is to
sit and eat fruit, and you can't keep up doing that always."
Sure enough the party of Malays, ten strong, who acted as their guard in
the palm-thatched house, and attended to every want instantly, did sit
in and below the veranda in the sun chewing betel, with their eyes
half-closed, till, to use Ned's words, it nearly drove him mad.
Frank tried persuasion, bribery, threats, and then force, to get out if
only for a walk; but in a patient good-humoured way the chief and his
followers refused to let them pass even out on to the veranda; and all
the boys knew at last of their position, as the sun went down, was that
which they had learned at sunrise: they were in a house somewhere deep
in the jungle, shut in by trees.
"Can't we get away when it's dark?" said Ned.
"Get away where?" cried Frank, ill-humouredly. "You ought to know by
this time that you can't get through the jungle without men to chop for
you."
"But there must be a path by which they brought us."
"Yes; one leading down to the river, where you could get no farther for
want of a boat, and trust 'em, they'll watch that night and day.
Fellows who know they'll have a kris stuck into them, and be pitched
into the river if they let a prisoner escape, look out pretty sharp."
It was rapidly growing dark when Frank, who had tried lying down,
sitting cross-legged, standing up, walking about, and lying on his
chest, with his elbows on the bamboo flooring and his chin in his hands,
suddenly exclaimed: "Have some more durian?"
"No, thank you."
"Some mangosteens?"
"No, I've had enough."
"Try some of those little bananas."
"No--no--no, I couldn't eat any more fruit."
"No more can I. Shall we tell them to bring us some curry to finish off
with?"
"Oh, I say, don't talk any more about eating," cried Ned; "we seem to
have done nothing else all day."
"Well, there wasn't anything else to do.--I know."
"What?"
"Let's catch the jungle fever. Then they'll be obliged to take us back
to the doctor."
"Nonsense! But I say, Frank, if it's so miserable and wearisome to be
shut up like this for a day, what will it be by-and-by?"
"I don't know. Never mind by-and-by," said Frank. "'Nough to do to
think of just now. What shall we do?"
"Go to sleep and forget it till to-morrow morning," said Ned
philosophically.
"Come," cried Frank; "that's the best thing you've said to-day. All
right."
It was now so dark that they had to feel their way into the inner room,
where they lay down on the mats with their heads close to the side, and
they had hardly settled themselves comfortably when the chief entered
the main room followed by two men, one of whom bore a lamp.
The principal Malay looked sharply round, and then said to Frank, who
lay on his back with his hands under his head:
"Does my lord want anything else?"
"Yes. You to go and not bother," replied the boy ungraciously.
"Can we bring him anything?"
"Yes; a boat to take us home."
"Shall I leave the light?"
"No; take it away. I'm sleepy."
The man bowed, backed out with his followers, the matting was dropped
between the two rooms and then over the doorway as they passed into the
veranda.
"That's the way to talk to them," said Frank, peevishly.
"You weren't very civil."
"Well, who's going to be to people who shut you up. It's no use to be
`my lord' without you behave like one. Now let's go to sleep."
Easier said than done. First in the hot darkness came the _ping_-_wing_
of a mosquito, then the restless sound made by the boys fidgeting about,
and the low dull murmur of the men talking in the veranda.
"What's that?" said Ned, suddenly.
"Bother! Go to sleep. Only our chaps walking underneath to see if
all's safe below. I say," he added, after a pause, "I know what I shall
do if they don't let us out soon."
"What!"
"Say I want to learn to smoke--late some evening."
"And make yourself sick."
"No; I'll make them sick. They'll bring a pipe and some burning
charcoal."
"To light the pipe?"
"No; it will be to light this jolly old bamboo house. It will blaze up
like fun."
"And roast us to death!"
"Not it. We won't be inside. Perhaps we can run away in the
scrimmage."
Silence again, and hot, weary, and miserable, the boys lay there in the
darkness, till a peculiar sound struck Ned's ear.
"Asleep?" he said.
"No; who's going to sleep if you talk so. Yes, there it is again.
Hurrah!"
"Then you did hear that sound?"
"Hear it? Yes. Know what it is?"
"I thought it was a crocodile in the river."
"So it is, and it shows that the river isn't far off. I wish there were
none, and then we'd cut down some bamboos and float away to the village.
But not to-night. Let's go to sleep."
There was again silence, with the hot air growing unbearable, and Ned
had just made up his mind to undress, when from out of the jungle,
plainly heard through the thin plaited bamboo and palm walls, came a
peculiar cry--_Coo-ow_, _coo-ow_--to be answered from farther away.
"What's that?" said Ned, half aloud, speaking to himself.
"Argus pheasant," said Frank, drowsily. "Oh, I do wish you wouldn't
bother. Wonder whether they've got any of that stuff."
"What stuff?"
"To send us to sleep again."
"I wouldn't take a drop," thought Ned; and then in the hot silence he
lay thinking about Frank's father, wondering what was going on at the
rajah's village, and what his uncle thought of his absence, till weary
nature closed his eyes, and even the loud cry of the argus pheasant and
the melancholy howl of a tiger prowling about had no effect upon his
slumbers.
But a touch effected that which sound had not produced.
For, mingled with his dreams, he had one of a great rat gnawing very
softly somewhere by his head, and this kept on for what seemed in his
dream like a tremendous length of time before it ceased, and the rat
came in through the hole and began walking over his face and sat up on
his lips.
That woke him, and he felt the perspiration standing on his brow, for it
was no dream: the rat was seated on his lips, and as he lay motionless
like one in a nightmare, he felt the little animal glide from his lips
to his shoulder, then down his arm to where his hand lay upon his chest,
play with the fingers for a few moments, and then grasp them firmly.
It was not a rat: it was a warm soft hand.
A sob escaped from Ned's breast, and he was about to speak, but his hand
was pressed firmly, and he returned the grasp, for it felt like the hand
of a friend, and if it were, it meant help and perhaps escape.
Turning quickly on his side, he leaned over and touched Frank, who
started awake.
"Yes," he said loudly. "What is it?"
The hand was snatched away.
"I told you. Argus pheas--fez--fuz--" snore.
Ned shook him again sharply.
"What's the matter?" he said, thoroughly waking up now.
"Hush! pray. Hist!" whispered Ned; and he pressed his companion's arm,
for steps were heard on the creaking bamboo floor, a light shone through
between the mat hangings, a dark face appeared and a lantern was held
up, so that its dim light fell upon them.
Just then a bright thought occurred to Ned.
"Tell them to bring some water," he said, querulously; and Frank, who
grasped the idea that there was something particular in the way, gave
the order sharply to the man, who retired directly, and returned in a
few minutes with another bearing a vessel of some pleasant, cool drink,
of which Ned partook with avidity.
"Leave a fellow a drop," said Frank; and the half-full vessel was handed
to him. "Ah, it ain't bad," he continued, as he too drank heartily.
"There, be off. Thank you," he added, in Malay; "the light hurts my
eyes."
The man smiled as he took the vessel, and as Ned watched through his
half-closed eyes, he saw that there was the gleam of spears in the outer
room. Then the matting dropped behind their jailers, the bamboo floor
creaked, the last rays of the light disappeared, and Frank rose softly,
crept to the doorway, and peered under the matting.
"They're all out on the veranda," he whispered, as he returned. "What
was the matter?"