Trapped by Malays Part 28

"I am acting, and for the best," whispered Sir Charles. "I would give my life to save Minnie if she is in danger, but I feel it my duty to try to comfort you."

The next minute he was busy with the officers and the men, hurrying along the river-bank and sending off boats up the stream, in one of which--his own, manned by a dozen men--he was standing with Captain Down and the Major, watching the sides of the river, sometimes plunged in black darkness, at others glistening in the light of the moon, which had now risen far above the trees. But they had not been gone above half-an-hour before news came, to run through the ranks of the searchers left behind, some of whom, on the possibility that those sought might have had an accident with the boat and been compelled to land and fight their way through the jungle, had penetrated some distance along the path nearest to the river-side, and been recalled by one of the officers' whistles.

On hurrying back they had encountered the Sergeant going the rounds, who had to announce that the sentry stationed at the hut above the chief landing-place was missing, and no answer could be obtained to the calls that should have reached his ears had he been anywhere near.

It was a night of excitement, misery, and despair, and the short dawn, when it broke, brought not hope but horror and dismay, for all at once, when the morning mist was lying heavily upon the lower reach of the river, the sound of oars was heard approaching the campong, and as it neared the lower landing-place, to which several of the party hurried, it seemed quite a long s.p.a.ce of time before the heads of the rowers began to come gradually out of the grey fog; and soon after it was made out to be Rajah Hamet's naga, or dragon-boat, towing behind it a second boat that had been overturned.

The news was pa.s.sed inward, and this brought the Major to the landing-place, where the Rajah was waiting.

"Ah!" cried the old officer, "you have brought news?"

The young Rajah bent his head.

"Yes," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Is this your boat?"

"Yes, yes--the Resident's--Sir Charles's. Been overturned?"

"We found it amongst the trees far down the river. One of my men caught sight of this hanging in a bush;" and he held up a large, thin, gauzy-looking white scarf, torn almost in two.

"Ah!" gasped the Major, as he caught at the flimsy wrapper, now partially dry. "And--and--you were going to say something else, sir?"

"Yes," said the young Rajah, with something like a groan. "But tell me, do you know whose was this?"

He brought forward from behind him an officer's forage-cap, about which a torn puggaree clung like a wisp.

"Great heavens!" panted the Major. "Oh, my poor, dear boy!--Where did you find this, sir?"

"Part of the boat's bows were crushed in as if by a blow. This cap was held down by one of the splinters."

Just then voices came floating down the river, indicating that some of the party were returning from their search to the upper landing-place; and soon after the Resident's naga had reached the stage, and the princ.i.p.al occupants sprang out to hear about the missing sentry, and to give no news. The last discovery was whispered to them in broken tones, and as what seemed to be the terrible fate of the small boat's occupants was told by the Major to Sir Charles, he literally reeled away from where he had been standing, and staggered onwards with extended hands, as if making for the bungalow. But before he had gone many steps he stopped short, to whisper hoa.r.s.ely, "Who is that?"

"I, Sir Charles," said Captain Down.

"Thank you. Take my hand, please. I am giddy, and half-blind.

Something seems to have gone wrong. I cannot think. Please help me, and lead me home.--No; stop," he added. "That poor woman! Some one must tell her. She must know; and I can't--I can't be the bearer. Oh, it is too horrible! My fault, too.--Ah! Who is that? You, Down? I thought you had gone. Don't let me fall. This giddiness again. Yes, I remember now. The Doctor! He was called away to go to the Rajah's help. Has he returned? Has he--"

His lips parted to say more, but his words were inaudible, and at a signal from the Captain four of the men hurried up, to lace their hands into a bearing, and, keeping step, they bore the insensible man to the Residency.

It was late in the burning afternoon, after the overturned and much-damaged boat had been lying to dry in the hot sun for hours, and the terrible mishap had been canva.s.sed in every detail, when a sentry pa.s.sed the word that an elephant was approaching with strangers.

The strangers proved to be the Doctor, one of Suleiman's officials, and the mahout; while as soon as the news reached headquarters, Major Knowle hurried out, bareheaded, to meet his friend, and stood in the shade of one of the great palm-trees, signalling to the mahout to stop.

"Morning!" shouted the Doctor cheerily as he drew near. "Patient's all right, Knowle, and the Frenchman only frightened into a fit. Phew! It is hot, eh? What are you holding up your hand for? Nothing wrong?"

The Major was holding on by the ordinary trappings of the howdah, and reaching up as he raised himself on tiptoe, he almost whispered his terrible news, while the florid, erst happy-looking Doctor looked blankly down.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

PETER'S SENTRY-GO.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, up and down on the regular beat, sometimes in the full silvery moonlight, sometimes in the shade cast by the hut; one minute only the footsteps to break the silence, or the wallowing plash of one of the great reptiles that haunted the river-deeps.

"That's cheerful!" muttered the sentry. "Ain't so bad, though, as old Joe made it out when he was doing his sentry-go below there, close to the water. My word, how clear it is to-night! I should just like to have a regular old-fas.h.i.+oned sentry-box down there, close to the landing-place, with a good, strong door to it as one could fasten tight, and loopholes in the sides, and plenty of cartridges ready for a night's shooting. I'd let some of 'em have it! Wouldn't it make 'em savage, though! They'd come out and turn the box over if it was not well pegged down. Wouldn't do much good, though, if I hit every time, for lots more of the ugly beggars would come. Mister Archie says they lay eggs.

Pretty chickens they must be when they are hatched. Hullo! what boat's that?"

For the plas.h.i.+ng of poles reached his ears, and the dark form of a good-sized sampan came round a curve, with its attap awning glistening softly like dead silver in the moonlight.

The sentry waited in the shade of the hut till the boat came nearer, and then challenged, when a familiar voice responded:

"That you, Peter Pegg?"

"Mister Archie, sir! Yes, sir."

"It's all right. We are going up the river a little way in the moonlight. Beautiful night!"

"Yes, sir; lovely, sir. I'd be on the lookout, sir, though."

"What for?"

"Them alligator things, sir. I have heard a good many of them knocking about there."

"Oh, they won't come near us with the men splas.h.i.+ng as they pole us along."

The boat pa.s.sed on, and as the sentry had a glimpse of a white face and the folds of a veil he stood musing and watching till the boat had pa.s.sed and disappeared.

"No," he thought, "I don't suppose the brutes will go near them. They soon scuttle off when they hear a splash. Nice to be him, enj'ying hisself with his lady. Wonder who it is. Miss Doctor, perhaps. Nice girl. But he's only a boy. Wish I was a officer. I used to think it would be all the same for us when I 'listed. My word, how the Sergeant did lay on the b.u.t.ter and jam! And talked about the scarlet, and being like a gentleman out here abroad with the n.i.g.g.e.rs to wait on us--and then it comes to this! Sentry-go for hours in a lonely place like this here, with crocklygaters hanging about to see if you go to sleep to give them a chance to make a grab. Yes, they make a fellow feel sleepy!

Just likely, ain't it?"

Peter Pegg's thoughts seemed to animate him, and for a turn or two he changed his pace from a slow march to double.

"Steady, my lad!" he muttered. "There ain't no hurry;" and he dropped back into the regular pace, and began thinking about the boat and its occupants.

"Nice young lady she is; and I suppose that there Sir Charles is going to make a match with her, for she and Mister Archie always seem just like brother and sister. I suppose he ain't been well. Been precious quiet lately. Can't have offended him, for he was as jolly as could be last time I saw him. He's getting more solid-like and growed up. But my word, what fun we have had together sometimes! And what a row there would have been if we had been found out! It wouldn't have done. But it has cheered me up many a time when I have had the miserables and felt as if I'd like to cut sojering and make for home. It was nice to have a young officer somewheres about your own age ready for a lark. Poor old Mother Smithers, and that brown juice--what do they call it--cutch and gambia?--as dyes things brown. The officers' clean s.h.i.+rts as was washed in that water--haw, haw, haw!--What's that?"

The listener brought his piece to the ready, and the _click, click_ of the lock followed instantly upon a shrill cry which seemed to thrill the sentry along every nerve.

"Is it the crocs?" he thought; and then close upon the distant sound of blows and a splash or two came in Archie's well-known but now excited tones:

"Sentry Pegg! Help!"

The young private obeyed his first instinct, and that was, instead of firing, to give the alarm, to run down as fast as he could to the water's edge and plunge in amongst the scattered, overhanging trees, making as well as he could judge for the direction from which the cries had arisen.

"Here! Coming! Coming!" he panted, as he rushed in where the trees were thickest, to become, directly after, conscious of a figure starting up from behind a bush that he had just pa.s.sed, and from which, glittering and flas.h.i.+ng, came the sparkle of quite a little cloud of fire-flies.

The lad swung himself round as he scented danger, and struck back with the b.u.t.t of his rifle; but it was only to miss his a.s.sailant and expose his head to a blow from the other side--so heavy a stroke from a formidable, club-like weapon that he dropped, with a faint groan, while from the direction of the boat right out towards the middle of the river there was a resumption of the plas.h.i.+ng of poles.