A NIGHT ALARM
Sleep comes and sleep goes, and always seems beyond our control.
Sometimes the weary one drops off soundly the moment his head has been
comfortably settled upon the pillow; at other times, however tired he
may have been before going to bed, the very fact of having undressed
has so thoroughly wakened him up that the object for which he has come
to bed has been completely banished.
It was so with Harry Kenyon in some respects that night. He had not
undressed, and he had not gone to bed, only made himself as
comfortable as he could on a mat pillow two thwarts of the boat, using
his hand as a pillow.
As comfortable as he could! but it was not very comfortable, for the
bottom of the boat was as hard as the one quill which the Irishman put
beneath him to try what sleeping on a feather-bed was like. There was
too much light in the open cabin, and he could hear the _ping-wing_ of
mosquitoes above him in the roof.
He shut his eyes tightly, but every now and then he could see that his
eyelids looked translucent. The water was making quite a loud, rushing
noise against the sides of the boat, and the barkings, croakings, and
indescribable noises from jungle and river-bank seemed to be
increasing minute by minute.
Harry shifted his position a little, and then felt annoyed, for close
at hand he could hear a steady, deep breathing which he knew was his
father's, and from just beyond, another deep respiration with a faint
buzz in it, which was evidently the doctor's breath coming and going
through his big, thick, ruddy-brown moustache.
"Why can't I go to sleep like that?" muttered the lad. "I'm just as
tired as they are, and yet I feel as if I were going to lie awake all
night."
Harry uttered a sound very strongly resembling the grunt of one of the
lower animals, and then resettled himself.
"Now I will go to sleep," he muttered.
But a quarter of an hour must have passed, and he was as wakeful as
ever, while he was quite sure that he had heard the low, mournful cry
of the tiger very near.
"Asleep, Phra?"
No answer.
"Phra! the tiger's coming quite near."
This in a whisper, but there was no response, for Phra was sleeping
soundly.
"Oh, how hot it is! I can't hardly breathe," muttered Harry; "and
there are those wretched old Siamese snoring under the mat forward as
if they were doing it on purpose to keep me awake.--Wish I could get
up and go for a walk.--How stupid! It's mad enough to go for a walk
when it's broad daylight. I know it's impossible, and yet I get
wishing such an idiotic thing as that.--Might sit up and open the mat,
though, and watch the fire-flies.
"What stuff," he said to himself the next moment; "who's going to sit
up all night watching fire-flies dancing about like sparks in tinder?
Besides, if I opened the matting it might give some of us cold and
fever, and it would be all my fault. Oh, why can't I go to sleep!
There never was such an unlucky fellow as I am."
He tried turning, but he could not get into a more comfortable
position, and he turned back and listened to the splashings in the
river coming nearer and going farther away. Once more he began to
think of a huge serpent up in the tree swinging itself down, and a
faint rustling in the thatch he was sure must be the great reptile's
head as it kept on touching the palm leaf matting; and in imagination
he saw the forked tongue flicking in and out of the nick in the upper
jaw, till a loud tap told him that it was only a beetle inside instead
of outside, and it had lost its hold and fallen to the bottom of the
boat.
"That was all fancy," he said to himself; "but that rustling noise
ashore is not. I believe it's some big animal searching about the
camp."
_Crack!_
"There, I knew it. A buffalo, I believe, and it put its hoof on a dead
stick."
_Crack, crick, crick, crackle, crackle._
Harry sighed with relief and opened his eyes widely to see how much
lighter the interior of the matting and bamboo cabin had become
through the fire ashore falling in, and some of the piled-up wood
catching and burning briskly.
"Now then," the listener said to himself, "what am I going to fancy
next?--I dunno," he added, after a pause. "I'm so wakeful, I could
fancy anything. I know what I'll do. I'll go and wake old Sree, and
get him to sit and talk to me."
Harry paused to think again. The old hunter was lying just outside the
cabin, and the nearest to it of the men. Then Mike with his
currant-dumpling-like face was beside him, and he would not want to
wake him too. How was he to manage? If Sree had been sleeping in the
side of the boat, he could have stretched out his hand and touched
him, as there was no awning there, nothing but some baskets.
But the great difficulty was how to get past Phra and his father and
the doctor before he could reach the matting, pull it aside, and touch
Sree. It seemed impossible. It was very dark now, and there would be
three pairs of legs to get over, and he felt sure that he would
stumble over them and wake everybody up.
How to manage--how to do it--how to get by--how to get by?
How to get by?
It was so easy. Sree woke up at a touch, and they sat on the top of
the cabin and watched the fire-flies--and the blazing fire. They
listened to croakings and cries and the low howl of the tiger, which
did not seem to be successful in finding his mate, and it was very
calm and restful and pleasant out there in the night, only they dared
not move for fear the thatch should give way, and let them both
through on the top of those sleeping below.
And so they sat and whispered and talked about the elephants bathing,
and the big one scenting them at last and giving the alarm, and the
whole herd disappearing after crossing that green marsh place which
let them through when they were walking. There was that strange rush
that they heard too, that which Sree said was a wild boar, and
then--_bump!_
What was that?
It was to Harry Kenyon just as if a boat had thumped up against
theirs, and some one with a voice like his own had asked that
question.
But there was no answer. All was perfectly still in the cabin, while
the noises in the jungle and on the river banks were not so loud.
It was all dark too, for the fire had burned down, and there was no
glimmering light through the interstices of the mats.
But he felt that he ought to see that fire, even if it were merely the
glowing embers, seated as he was up there on the top of the cabin
roof.
Absurd! How could he be sitting up there, and with Sree too!
They could not have got up there, and he was in his place in the
cabin. All that was dreaming.
"Then I have been asleep," he said to himself. "I must have dropped
off hours ago, and lain here till that woke me. Some one said, 'What
was that?' No; I said it to myself, and seemed to hear it."
Harry ceased his musings, feeling that he was certainly wide awake
now, and as certain that he had been awakened by a bump on the side of
the boat, for there was a faint grinding sound as of another boat
rubbing up against the side.
The boy turned hotter then in the darkness, for there was a low
whispering plainly heard, and the first thought which came to him now
was that some boat had come to attack them in the night, a boatload of
the wild, piratical people who lived by robbing and bloodshed. He had
from time to time heard of junks and trading boats being attacked and
plundered, but only rarely in their neighbourhood. Certainly, though,
this was one, and his hand stole to his gun, which he grasped tightly
as with a quick movement he rose to a sitting position so that he
might alarm his father.
Just then there was a quick, rustling sound as the matting curtain
which separated them from the men forward was drawn aside, and with a
strange sensation of palpitation in his breast, instead of calling to
his sleeping companions, the lad involuntarily cocked both barrels of
his gun.
The loud _click, click--click, click_ gave the alarm.
"Who's that?" cried Mr. Kenyon, springing up.
"It is I, Sahib--Sree," came in the familiar voice.
"Yes! What is it?" said Mr. Kenyon, and as he spoke the clicking of
gun-cocks, in company with a quick movement, told plainly enough that
the other two occupants of the cabin were awake, and well on the alert
for whatever danger there might be.
"Adong has come, Sahib," said Sree, whose voice trembled.
"Adong? What does this mean--is it some treachery?"
"I fear so, Sahib," said Sree huskily.
"And you have come to warn us?"
"Yes, Sahib."
"Come in here, then. Harry, hand this man a gun and ammunition. You,
Sree--there is a boat out there?"
"Yes, Sahib; the one Adong came in."
"With a party of men?"
"No, no, Sahib; he came alone."
"Ah, and the men all side against us?"
"Yes, Sahib; I suppose all."
"Very well; then we must fight. But who is Adong?"
"The Sahib knows him: the young one of the two boys who help me hunt
for wild things in the jungle."
"Oh, that young fellow!"
"Yes, Sahib; he looks to me as to a father."
"And yet goes against you?"
"He go against me, Sahib?" cried the man. "Why, he would lay down his
life for me. As soon as he knew, he seized the first boat he could
swim to and followed us up the river."
"But you said the men were all against us."
"Yes, Sahib; as far as I can make out, all the fighting men have
risen, and they are killing and burning; and when Adong came after me,
they were going in a great crowd with spear and kris against the
King's house."
"What!" cried Phra wildly, and Harry caught his arm.
"Hush!" he whispered; "it may not be so bad. That man may have taken
fright."
"You hear all this, Cameron?" said Mr. Kenyon hoarsely.
"Hear it!" groaned the doctor. "It is what we have always dreaded. And
I am here! Oh, Kenyon, my wife--my wife!"
Mr. Kenyon drew a deep breath.
"Thanks, Sree," he said calmly; "I thought you meant there was danger
here. Wake up the men at once."
"They are all awake and listening to Adong, Sahib. He had to run for
his life. What will the Sahib do?"
"Go back at once."
"No, no, Sahib," cried the hunter wildly; "it would mean death to you
all. They would seize the Prince, and kill him. You must wait till
day, and then we will go on right up into the jungle, where you must
hide till there is peace again, and you can go back home. We can get
food for you, and a hiding-place where the people who come to find and
kill the young Prince shall never find where you are."
"Mr. Kenyon, you will not listen to this man?" cried Phra wildly; but
he received no answer, for just then the doctor gripped his friend
tightly by the arm in the darkness which seemed to add to the horror
of the terrible situation.
"Kenyon," he whispered, "I am weak and ill. I cannot think. This
stroke has driven me mad. Act for me, old friend--think for me. Help
me to save my wife."
Mr. Kenyon's reply was a firm pressure of the hand, but some moments
elapsed before he spoke.
"Sree," he said at last, "you are a brave, true servant, and your
advice is good; but neither the doctor nor I can do as you say. What
boat is this that has joined us? A small one, of course?"
"Yes, Sahib; it is for two rowers, but it was the only one Adong could
get."
"It will do. Now listen, for I trust you."
"Yes, the Sahib always trusted his servant," replied Sree proudly.
"You will take command of this boat that we are in, and I trust to you
and your men to fight for and protect your young Prince and my son."
"As long as we can fight, Sahib," said the man proudly. "We all love
them, and would die for them."
"I know it, Sree. Then I trust you to find some hiding-place where
they will be safe till this rising is at an end."
"Yes, Sahib; but what will the master and the doctor Sahib do?" said
Sree excitedly, and without heeding the eager whispering going on
close by.
"We take the small boat now directly, and go down the river."
"But it would be to meet boats coming up, Sahib," said the man
excitedly. "You would be running upon bad men's spears."
"We have our guns, and shall be prepared," said Mr. Kenyon coldly.
"But the little sampan--in the darkness, Sahib. You would overset, and
that means a horrible death too."
"Then you will ask two men to volunteer to take us."
"Adong and I would row you safely back, Sahib," said the man
earnestly.
"No; I cannot spare you from watching over my son. You and your man,
who know him so well, must stay."
"Sahib, we cannot spare you and the good doctor Sahib. Pray, pray do
not try to go back. It would be only to lose your lives."
"Silence, man! We go to save the doctor Sahib's wife."
"Ah, yes! the sweet, good lady," sighed Sree.
"And the King is our friend; we cannot leave him like this. No more
words; obey my orders."
"No!" shouted Harry, out of the darkness. "Stop where you are."
"Harry!" cried Mr. Kenyon.
"Yes, father, I hear; but if the King has been attacked, and--and--you
know what I mean," said the boy, choking for a moment, "Phra says he
is King and master now, and that this shall not be. We say we won't be
treated like children and be sent away to be taken care of while you
go down the river to fight."
"That is right," said Phra firmly. "Let me speak now, Hal. You are
going to save dear Mrs. Cameron from these wretches--these fools, who
have risen against my father; we must go too. You are going to try and
save your friend, my father, who has never done anything but good for
his people."
"Yes, and--"
"I have not spoken all, Mr. Kenyon," said the boy proudly. "You are
going to try and save him. Well, I am his son. Not a man yet, but I
can fight; and where should I be but helping to save him? What! Do you
want him, if he lives, to be ashamed of the boy who ran away to hide
in the woods? Do you want Hal to let his father go alone? Do you think
we two could ever look dear Mrs. Cameron in the eyes again if we had
been such a pair of cowards as that? No: Hal and I are coming with
you, but there are not enough of us to attack and fight with all those
wretches. We must try cunning against them, and go to the doctor's
bungalow and to the palace by night, and bring those who are waiting
for us to the boat. Then we can come back into the jungle to wait till
my father goes back again to take his place. Now, Sree, clear away the
mats and unfasten the boat; we must start back at once. Cast off the
other, it will be in the way."
A heavy sigh rose from one occupant of the cabin, a deep groan from
another, but not a word of opposition came from either of the elders;
and the next minute the men forward were busy rolling up the mats and
unmooring the boat, while two crept along outside the cabin to take
their oars.
It was still intensely dark, for the matting at the cabin sides had
not been rolled up, and Mr. Kenyon sat trying to whisper a few words
of comfort to the doctor, who seemed completely prostrated by the
news, when the former felt a hand laid upon his arm, and he started
slightly, for in the black darkness he had not noticed that some one
had drawn near.
"You are not very angry with me, father?" was whispered.
"Angry with you, my boy? No."
"Nor with me, Mr. Kenyon?"
"Nor yet with you, Phra, my dear lad. No. You made me feel very, very
proud; but I think that I ought not to let you run such risks."
"God bless you both, boys, for what you have said," groaned the
doctor. "Boys? No; you spoke like men, while I sit here feeling weak
and helpless as a child. But I shall be better soon--in a few minutes
I shall be a man once more, and we must all talk, and plan, and
scheme. For Phra is right; it must be done with cunning, as we are so
weak. Now please leave me to myself for a few minutes. First tell me,
though, are we going back?"
"Yes," said Harry, after looking out between the mats; "the boat is
steadily going with the stream. The other is floating yonder."
The doctor drew a deep breath.
"Hah!" he said; "that has taken a weight from my breast. Going
back--going to the rescue. Heaven help us! Shall we be too late?"