The first words which saluted the boys were from Sir James:
"Why don't you start your sun helmets?"
"Not unpacked, father. You said--"
"Oh, never mind what I said, boy, but get them out as soon as you can; a
straw hat, as the doctor has just been saying, is no protection here; is
it, doctor?"
"Certainly not, sir; but we shall not feel the heat so much as soon as
we leave here, for the country rises."
"Pretty country!" said Sir James sarcastically. "But you boys, who was
that rough looking sailor you picked up with?"
"We didn't pick up with him, father," said Mark sourly.
"What, sir! Don't tell me that! I distinctly saw you with him out of
the window."
"He picked up with us, father--" began Mark; and then he caught the
doctor's eye and changed his lone, saying hastily, "He was a poor fellow
in distress, father."
Here Mark stopped short, for he had returned to the hotel with the full
intention of pleading the poor invalid's cause, and he felt that he had
commenced by speaking in a way that must increase his father's
irritation, for Sir James had been quite upset by the heat of the place
and the discomforts of the miserable hotel to which he had been directed
when on board the liner as being the best in the port.
He literally glared at his son, and Mark shrank and turned to look at
the doctor.
Sir James waited till he saw his son lower his eyes, when he too turned
to the doctor and looked at him fiercely, the two men exchanging a long
questioning glance.
It was a painful silence, but there was virtue in it, for when it was
broken it was by Sir James, who said after drawing a deep breath, "See
if you can open that window a little farther, Mark. This place feels
like an oven."
Mark sprang to his feet and drew the window a little forward, and then
pushed it outward again, but only back in its former place.
"Hah! That's better, my boy," said his father, quite cheerfully. "Why,
doctor, what a blessing a bucketful of ice would be here--if it wasn't
lukewarm, Dean, eh?"
The boy addressed tried to laugh at his uncle's joke, but the production
sounded hollow, and the silence recommenced, the doctor cudgelling his
brains the while for something to say that should thoroughly change the
conversation; but he cudgelled in vain.
At last, though, to his great relief, feeling as he did at the time that
all the responsibility of the unpleasant voyage rested on his shoulders,
Sir James cleared his throat as he sat back in a wicker chair mopping
his forehead, and said quietly, "A beggar, Mark?"
"No, father," cried Mark eagerly jumping at the chance of saying
something to divert his father's smouldering anger; "a poor English
sailor."
"Well, the same thing, my boy, and I hope you relieved him--that is, if
he was genuine."
"Oh, he was genuine enough, father," cried Mark, and his words almost
tumbled over one another as he related something of the poor fellow's
plight.
"Tut, tut, tut, tut!" ejaculated Sir James. "Very sad. Very hard for a
man to be ill away from home. It would be a charity, doctor, if you saw
the poor fellow in the morning to see if you could do anything for him."
"My dear Sir James, you forget that I am not a professional medico. Of
course I am willing enough, and will see the poor fellow, but I gather
from what Mark here says that he has passed through all the stages of a
jungle fever caught in some part of the Malay Peninsula, that he has
been left here by the captain of his ship, and as far as my knowledge
goes, the only thing I could recommend would be a sea voyage--say home."
"He said he didn't believe he'd live to reach home," cried Dean quickly.
"Or," continued the doctor, "a journey inland right up into the cool
country away from this tropic malarial port."
"Ah!" cried Mark excitedly. "That's what he said, father, and he came
to us to--"
Mark stopped short, gazing hard at his father, for a sudden shrinking as
to how Sir James would take his words made him for the time being mute.
"Well, my boy, what did he say? Why don't you go on?"
"I didn't like to, father," faltered the boy.
"Why not, sir?"
"Because--because--"
"Well, because--because?"
"Because, father, I was afraid that you would think it so unreasonable."
"Humph! How much do you want, then, eh? I am afraid your distressed
sailor is a bit of a beggar after all."
"Oh, no, father," cried Mark excitedly, and he had quite recovered his
confidence now. "The poor fellow spoke as if he were appealing for his
life."
"Was all this genuine, Mark, or the cunning of a practised mendicant--
stop--what do you say, Dean?"
"Oh, uncle, I am sure it was genuine."
"Humph! Yes," said Sir James. "You are like what your mother was,
boy--easily moved. Sounds bad, doctor. What do you say?"
"Let us first hear the whole of Mark's story, sir," replied the doctor.
"Right. Phew! I don't think it's quite so hot as it was. Now, Mark,
what more have you to say?"
The boy addressed was strung up now, and he spoke out firmly and
quickly.
"He said, father, that he had heard we were going up the country and to
the mountains to where it would be life to him; that he was a sailor, a
handy man; that he should get better quickly, and would work and put his
hand to anything, if we--if we--you, I mean, father--would take him with
you--us, I mean--and--those are not quite the words he said, but that's
what he meant, and I--I--"
The boy glanced in his father's lowering face and stopped short.
"And you--" began Sir James, and Mark's heart sank, for he felt that his
appeal was vain.
In fact, his words sank almost to a whisper as he went on, "I said I'd
ask you, father, if you would take him."
"Bah!" burst out Sir James angrily. "Unreasonable! Absurd!
Impossible! Do you mean to tell me that you wish me to saddle myself
upon this disastrous journey with a sick man, perhaps a dying man? Why,
boy, have you lost your senses? Do you mean to tell me that you would
like to take him with us when we are already provided--even supposing
that he was going to get better--provided, I say, with two excellent
servants, strong, healthy, and ready to help us through our troubles?
Answer me, sir. Don't sit staring at me in that idiotic way. Now then,
tell me--you first, Dean; you were in this hobble with your cousin.
Would you like to take him?"
"Yes, uncle," said Dean quietly.
"Pooh! That's your mother speaking, boy. Now you, Mark, if you are not
afraid to speak, as you said just now. Would you really like to take
him?"
"Yes, father; and I am sure if you saw the poor fellow you would feel
the same."
"Well," cried Sir James excitedly, "of all the--the--Here, doctor, I
have come, and I suppose I am to submit to--pooh!--there--it's this hot
weather--let's get away as soon as we can, doctor, and--here, I feel
sure that the boys have encountered some cunning impostor," and Sir
James stopped short, and wiped his forehead before continuing, "Here, I
say, Robertson, what about charity and one's fellow-creatures? And
don't we read somewhere about helping a lame dog over a stile?"
"Yes, Sir James," said the doctor, very quietly.
"To be sure, and I am quite certain that this heat makes me feel
horribly irritable. These boys take it all as coolly as--what do they
say?--as cucumbers. Nothing affects them."
The two lads stared at each other as they recalled their walk, and burst
into a half hysterical laugh.
"Why, uncle," cried Dean, "Mark's been horrid all day, and I haven't
been a bit better."
"I am glad to hear it, boy. Then there's some excuse for me. Well,
doctor, I suppose you had better go and see this fellow. I will trust
to your common sense. Here, stop. You boys, has this fellow anybody
here who will give him a character?"
"Yes," they exclaimed together; "the British Consul."
"Humph! Come, that sounds respectable. Well, I don't mean to stir out
till we start up country. I'd go to-night if I could. And I leave it
to you to see into this matter. It wouldn't be Christian-like, would
it, not to lend the poor fellow a hand. There, as I said before, I
trust to you, _carte blanche_, in that sort of thing to do what you
think best."
"Thank you, Sir James," said the doctor gravely.
"Oh, you thoroughly approve of what I have said, then?"
"Thoroughly, sir, and I feel very proud of our boys."
And so it came to pass that Daniel Mann--after the doctor had seen him
and had had an interview with the British Consul--was prescribed for
with the news that he would be taken upon the expedition. Thanks to
this intelligence, he looked at the end of two days quite a different
man, even after hearing from the two keepers the anything but cheering
words that they thought the governor must be mad.
Two days later the party, bag and baggage, were on their way up country
to the extreme point, the rail head, so to speak, of civilisation--the
spot where the advance guard of British troops kept back the black wave
of savagedom, and where waggons and bullocks were to be purchased and
the career of wild adventure was to begin.