Archie Maine had been round visiting posts in the faint hope of picking
up some fresh news from the men, after the hurried mess dinner, glad to
get out into the comparatively cool, soft night air; for the Major had
sat in his place, hardly speaking a word to any one present, and for the
most part with lowered brows, deep in thought.
The night was as beautiful as ever; the brilliant stars that spangled
the sky looked twice as large as those at home, and the reflections,
blurred by the motion of the river, seemed larger still. The fire-flies
sparkled in every bush, and the distant cries of the jungle floated
softly on the night air. But everything seemed to bring up thoughts of
trouble and misfortune. The native messengers sent in from the
search-parties brought no good tidings, and to the lad, still suffering
to some extent from his injury, everything seemed to suggest despair.
"I can't help it," he said to himself. "I'm sure I'm strong enough.
I'll go round by the Doctor's and beg and pray him to tell the Major
that I might very well go to the front, if it's only to join old Ripsy.
I might be of some help to him. Yes, Pete ought to go with me. We know
more about the part there by the elephant-stables, and with him and his
men we could follow up some of the paths where poor Pete dared not go."
On the impulse of the moment he turned back and made for the mess-room,
to try there first, though half in doubt as to whether he might find
that his chief had gone back to his own quarters, where he was now prone
to shut himself in.
The lad had been sauntering very slowly and doubtfully before. Now he
quickened his pace as he thought over his adventures when a prisoner in
the elephant-stable; and as he recalled watching the going to and fro of
the elephants, he felt more than ever that he ought to be there helping
the surly old Sergeant.
"Not gone," he said, as he came into sight of the open window of the
mess-room, where the shaded lamp was casting down its light upon the
stern-looking, grey head of the old officer, who had a paper lying
before him, which he was scanning, while just at the other side of the
table the lad could see the swarthy countenance of a native, whom he
recognised at once as one of the followers of the regiment.
Archie's heart began to beat fast, for he grasped the fact at once.
This was evidently the bearer of a despatch from one of the detachments,
for a private was standing in the shade resting his piece on the floor,
after bringing in the man handed over to him by a sentry.
As Archie passed into the veranda the Major heard his step and looked
up.
"Who's that?" he said.
"Maine, sir."
"Oh, just right. Come here. You may as well know. This is a rough
scribble from Sergeant Ripsy."
"Good news, sir?" burst out Archie sharply.
"Not likely, my lad--no. He writes of his safe arrival at what he calls
the elephant-pens, and as a matter of course too late. The place is
quite deserted--not a man there--and the elephants have all been driven
off. But he adds that he is following up the trail as well as he can,
and that it is very hard to trace, because the great animals always step
into the old tracks, and you can't tell which are the new; but that he
means to follow them until he comes up to where they have been driven.
There, I have no more to say."
Archie, seeing that his presence was not needed, stepped out into the
darkness again, walking some minutes without any definite aim, till,
finding himself near the Doctor's bungalow, he thought he would call in
there and give him the news, such as it was.
But as he neared the gateway and saw through one of the open windows a
bent figure just shown up by the lighted lamp, his heart failed him, for
thoughts full of memories of the past came to him with a rush; and he
stepped on, when, just as he was at the end of the creeper-burdened
bamboo fence, a gruff voice exclaimed:
"Who's that? You, Maine?"
"Yes, sir."
"What is it? Want me?"
"No, sir. I was only just going by."
"Humph! That's a sign you're better. Why didn't you call in?"
"I hadn't the heart, sir. I could see Mrs Morley sitting there with
her head resting in her hand, and it set me thinking, sir."
"Good lad! Yes, of course. But she'd have taken it kindly, my lad, if
you had dropped in to see her now that she is in such trouble."
"But I was afraid she would think I had brought some news, sir, and then
she would have been disappointed."
"No, boy. She and I are both getting hardened to trouble now. We have
pretty well given up hoping for anything good. There, come in, my lad."
He laid his hand on Archie's shoulder, and they walked into the house
together, Mrs Morley startling the visitor as he noted how thin and
old-looking she had grown.
"Ah, Archie," she said, as he saw by the lamp that the tears had started
into her eyes, "I am so glad to see you--so much better, too. But--"
She turned quickly away, tearing her handkerchief from her pocket, and
the next minute she would have thrown herself sobbing in a chair but for
the entrance of one of the native maids, who in her broken English
announced that there were two people wanting to see the Doctor.
"Not the proper time for them to come," said that gentleman. "Who are
they? People who have been here before?"
"Yes, sahib," said the girl. "It is Dula, with her husband."
"Child bad again!" muttered the Doctor. "Where are they? In my room?"
"Yes, sahib."
"Don't go away, Archie. Stop and talk to the wife till I come back."
The Doctor passed out of the room, and Mrs Morley turned to Archie, to
say imploringly:
"Have you brought any news?"
He shook his head.
"Nothing--nothing?" she cried, in a tone of voice which made the lad
feel almost ready to reproach himself for being alive and well when his
companion whom he had taken light-hearted and merry from that very room,
so short a time before, was--where?
"Here, Maria--Archie!" came in a sharp tone of voice which made them
both start. "Here--quick!"
There was only a little lamp, which gave forth a faint light, upon the
table of the Doctor's surgery and consulting-room, but it threw up the
figure of a slight, graceful-looking native woman and a tall, fierce
Malay; and, jumping at conclusions, Archie judged by the man's bandaged
head that he had been wounded, and that his companion had brought him to
the Doctor for help.
The Doctor sprang from his seat as his wife entered, drew his chair on
one side, and thrust her in.
"Now, be calm, my dear. Be a woman! You know these people?"
"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Mrs Morley in agitated tones, as the woman
stepped forward, to go down on one knee and kiss her hand, while the man
muttered something and then drew himself up rigidly.
"And you think we can trust--depend upon what they say?" continued the
Doctor, with his voice quivering.
"Yes. Speak! Tell me, what is it?" cried Mrs Morley excitedly.
"Well, be calm, then. Be quite calm and firm, as I am. Minnie is alive
and safe."
"Ah!" ejaculated Mrs Morley, as she sank back and buried her face in
her hands; while the woman now fell upon her knees, catching up Mrs
Morley's dress and holding it to her lips as if to choke back her sobs.
"And I told you to be firm," said the Doctor pettishly. "This man has
escaped from up-country somewhere--I don't know the confounded place's
name. He was overtaken and wounded by some of Rajah Suleiman's people,
so that he shouldn't tell tales, I suppose. But he says he can show us
where the young English lady has been kept a prisoner, and that she is
quite safe.--Isn't that so?" he added, turning to the man.
The Malay stared, muttered something, and then turned to look
appealingly at his wife.
"Oh, of course! You didn't tell me; it was she. Let's see. You are
the man that came to me months ago for--" The Doctor finished in
pantomime by making believe to take hold of his own jaw, apply a key,
and wrench out a tooth.
The man smiled and nodded, and the Doctor added a few words in the Malay
tongue; while the woman now sprang up and began to talk volubly in her
own language, uttering short, sharp sentences, which the Doctor
punctuated with nods and:
"Yes--yes--I see--I see--exactly. But, hang it all, my good woman!" he
exclaimed in English, "don't talk so fast. I only know a smattering of
your tongue.--She puzzles me, my dear. It's all tongue.--Who the
British Dickens wants to know that your little one is quite well again
and strong, at a time like this?"
He spoke again in Malay, and the woman nodded and began to gesticulate
again, in company with a fresh flow of words.
"Yes, yes, yes," said the Doctor; "I am very glad, of course.--Now, my
dear, this is not like you," he continued. "Remember you are a doctor's
wife.--Did you ever see such a woman, Archie?"
"Never, Doctor," replied the lad, coming forward out of the darkness to
take Mrs Morley's hand and kiss it.
"There, I am quite firm now, Henry," said Mrs Morley; and drawing the
native woman towards her, she kissed Dula on both cheeks.
"Now let's have a few quiet words together," said the Doctor.--"No, no,
Archie; what are you going to do?"
"I thought I ought to go and tell the Major, sir, at once."
"Not yet. Wait a bit, my lad. We must have a consultation here. I
feel as you do, my dear boy; I want to rush back with these people at
once. But this is a ticklish affair, and we must do nothing rashly.
You see, we have learned this. It's been a bad case, and we must run no
risks. We have learned this--for certain now. It was Suleiman's men
who carried Minnie off and nearly killed you, and, with all the native
cunning, he sent his people here to fetch me to doctor him for his
so-called tiger scratch. By Abernethy! if I'd known, I'd have poisoned
it so that it wouldn't have got well for a year.--No, I wouldn't," he
grunted. "I am getting a tongue as bad as that woman's. But steady,
steady! We know for certain that he carried her off; and this man,
being a fisherman, has been living at a spot up the river where our poor
darling has been taken and kept hidden. And just think of it, Archie:
how clever a blackguard needs to be when he's going to do anything
wrong! Talk about Fate! See how busy the old girl has been here! The
blackguard, with all his crafty cunning, hides her somewhere close to
the place where two of my best patients live, and they have had an eye
upon her ever since, and just when we were in our most despairing time
come and tell us of her fate."
"Yes, sir; and now--"
"Stop a minute, my boy. I just wanted to say to you, I am ready to draw
the teeth of all the Malays in the district without fee, and I am
prepared to say that some of them are as grateful as we can be
ourselves."
"Yes," cried Archie; "but business is business."
"Thank you, boy; thank you for pulling me up. I can't help it just now.
Poor Minnie is to me just as dear as if she were my own child, and I am
quite overturned--hysterical as a woman, more shame for me! Here, it
was only the other day you came whining to me about being all wrong
because you are such a boy. You said you thought you were not as you
should be--that you wanted to be a man. Didn't I tell you, sir, to
wait--that all you wanted was a little real trouble, and that it would
come fast enough and make a man of you? Well, do you feel like a man
now?"
"No, sir, not quite; but I feel man enough to start to-night as one of a
strong party to go and rescue Minnie Heath, even if we die in doing the
good work."
"Well said, my lad; and I'll go with you, and you sha'n't die, any of
you, if I know anything of wounds. There, I'm pulled up now, and ready
for anything.--Maria, my dear, see to these people--rest and
refreshment, anything they want--while I'm gone; and you can set the
girl to work talking to this Dula here. Make her your interpreter.--As
for you--here, I know what you'll like."
The Doctor took a cigar-box from the shelf, snatched out three or four,
pressed them into the fisherman's hand, and then almost dragged him out
into the veranda, where he thrust him into a cane chair and gave him a
light. "One moment, Archie;" and he spoke to the man, who was smiling
up at him. "That's right, Archie; they came in a boat. Come along up
to the Residency.--No; I'll go there. You run on to the Major and ask
for orders. He'll find us a little detachment to take with us in the
Resident's boat. This means good business, my lad, for we have found
out the real seat of the disease."