Then after a long silence:
"It's help come. P'r'aps it's old Hamet. Bah! you were dreaming."
"No; I am sure."
"Then," said Frank, with his lips close to his companion's ear; "if you
were awake, there must be a hole for the hand to come through."
And as Ned listened, he heard the faint rustling of his companion's hand
moving here and there, and then there was a heavy catching breath, and
Frank's fingers were placed over his lips.
"Big hole under the mat. Behind your head. Hist! some one coming."
For there was a gleam of light, and then, hardly heard, save for a faint
creak of the floor, some one approached, and Ned lay with his arm over
his eyes, just making out that the lantern was thrust in, and that a
head was visible between the mats and the door, while Frank lay as
naturally as if in a heavy sleep, his head half off its resting-place.
The mats fell within again. There was another faint creak, the last
gleam of light again disappeared, and the boys lay for a full half-hour
without moving, while the silence was now broken by the heavy beating of
their hearts.
All at once, after an interval which seemed terrible, the cry of the
argus pheasant was repeated, and it sounded terribly near, while at the
same moment Ned was conscious of a faint rustling, and the steamy dank
scent of the jungle came to his nostrils.
The next moment fingers touched his cheek, were pressed upon his lips,
touched his breast, and were gone directly; a slight start from Frank
suggesting that he was now being touched. Then followed a faint
rustling, and Frank leaned over, put his lips to Ned's ear, and said:
"The hand touched me, then went down to my waist, and it has taken my
kris. It's a thief. Shall I call for help?"
At that moment he felt his hand seized and tugged. Then again, and it
was drawn under the mat to the opening above their heads.
"It's all right," whispered Frank. "I'm to go first. Snore."
For a few moments the boy did not grasp his friend's meaning, but the
idea came, and he commenced breathing hard, and uttered a faint sigh in
his agony; for just in the midst of the rustling sound close by him,
caused as he knew from a touch by Frank gliding slowly through the
opening as if being drawn, he saw a gleam of light beneath the matting
at the doorway, and felt that some one was coming again with the
lantern.
The difficulty now was to make a noise that should sound natural. If he
snored loudly it might seem forced, and if he did not, he felt sure that
the rustling, scraping sound would be heard. But fortune favoured him.
Just as he was in despair, there was the sharp _ping_-_wing_ of a
mosquito, and he babbled out something incoherently, made a restless
movement, and slapped his face quickly twice, as he had often done
before in an attempt to slay one of the noxious little insects.
The light disappeared directly, for the listening Malay was satisfied;
and as Ned stretched out his hand again, he found that he was alone.
There was a terrible pause now, and in these brief moments the boy began
to think that he had been forsaken, when all at once the hand touched
him, glided down to his waist, and drew at it firmly.
He yielded and tried to force himself along, but did little, and that
little seemed unnecessary, for strong muscles were at work, and he was
almost entirely drawn through the opening till he was quite out; his
legs sank down gently, and he was lowered till he felt his feet touch
the ground, and a hand which he knew directly for Frank's, lay on his
lips.
As he was puzzling himself as to how it had been managed, he grasped the
fact that some one was gliding down the smooth trunk of a palm-tree
which grew close to the house, and to which one of the bamboo rafters
had been secured, but whether it was Hamet or some other friend he could
not tell.
He had no more time for thinking, for two hands were placed on his
shoulders, and a voice he now recognised whispered: "Down--creep--
follow."
He grasped the idea at once, and went down on hands and knees, to begin
crawling slowly and softly after two bare feet, which he had to touch
from time to time to make sure that he was right, while he felt that
Frank was behind him, and that he too was touching his boots in the same
way.
They were evidently crawling through a tunnel-like track below the
undergrowth, a path probably made by a wild beast--unless it was a
contrivance to escape from the back of the house in case of emergency--
and along this they crawled painfully, with the bushes on either side
and overhead. Now a thorn entered hand or knee, now some kind of
vegetable hook caught in their clothes, and then they had to creep round
some rugged stump of a tree stem to get forward.
The distance was really not great, but it seemed painfully long, and
every moment the fugitives were in expectation of having an alarm
raised, and seeing the lights of the men in pursuit. But at last, just
as Ned had crawled under a bush which scraped and pricked severely, he
heard a rustling noise and a peculiar rippling, and was aware of the
fact that their guide had risen upright, and that he too could stand.
"Ah," sighed Frank, directly after, "what a--"
"Hist!" came in a low whisper. "Stop here--don't move. Quiet;" and it
seemed to Ned that the man lowered himself down till his head was on a
level with his companion's knees, and a faint splashing told him where.
They were at the edge of the river, and their rescuer was slowly wading
against the stream, holding on by the overhanging boughs.
Then the faint splashing ceased, and the boys joined hands, to stand
awe-struck and listening in the thick darkness, and with the knowledge
that the water, gliding swiftly by their feet, swarmed with monstrous
reptiles, which for aught they knew might seize their guide, or be
marking them down for their prey.