Trapped by Malays Part 3

"Never, Archie, my lad," said the Major energetically. "It was bad form of me, but I was angry with your father's son. My words were ill-chosen, and there--there--I apologise."

"Oh no, sir!" cried the lad, warming up and speaking excitedly; "there is no need for that. I suppose I have been in the wrong, but I did not really know what I had been doing when you sent your letter."

"Of course you did not, my boy; but--er--I was not thinking of that. It was about your conduct generally, and I had made up my mind to have you here and give you what you would call a wigging, Archie--eh?--wigging, sir! Dreadfully boyish expression!--and then, on second thoughts, I said to myself, 'Much better to have the lad in quietly, break the ice and that sort of thing, tell him what I wanted to talk about, and then make him sit by me at the mess, and put it to him quietly over a gla.s.s of wine.' Understand, my lad?"

Archie's lips parted to speak, but the recollection of many old kindnesses began to crowd up so that he could not trust his voice, and he only nodded.

"That's right. You see, my lad, your father and I were boys together-- not perfect either. We used to quarrel frightfully. Well, sir, something inside me began to remind me of old times, and make apologies for you, and I was going to talk to you about being an officer and a gentleman--and dignity of manner, and impressing yourself upon your men--just point out that an officer can be kind to his lads and slacken the discipline a little sensibly without losing tone or touch, but there must be a proper feeling between officer and man. An officer need not be a bully and a tyrant, but he must be firm. His men must respect him, and see that the man who leads them knows his duty and is brave almost to a fault; and knowing this, every man who is worth his salt will follow him even to the death if duty calls. It is a grand position, Archie, my lad--that of being a leader of men--and it is shared with the General by the youngest subaltern who wears the Queen's scarlet. See what I mean?"

"Yes, sir," said the lad in a deep, low voice.

"Well, sir," almost shouted the Major, "that's what I was going to say to you, sir, over a gla.s.s of wine to-night, and put it to you that it was quite time that you, a young man grown, should put away boyish things and come to an end of tricks and pranks and youthful follies, and take upon you and show that you are worthy of the great birthright-- manhood, when--confound it all! I was nearly breaking out swearing!--in comes to me that--hang him!--that overbearing bully--Yah! Tut, tut, tut, tut, tut!--it put me out dreadfully, and I am speaking in haste, for Ripsy is a fine, trustworthy man--my best non-com--to complain to me about you making a chum, a regular companion, of that confounded, low-bred c.o.c.kney rascal, Pegg. Hang him! I'll have his peg sharpened and make him spin in a more upright manner before I have done with him!

Ripsy told me that the fellow was on fatigue-work--takes advantage of the freedom of his position to sneak off to your quarters to hatch some prank or mischief or another; and I had to listen to his complaint and-- confound him!--to answer his question, 'Is it right for a subaltern to encourage a low-bred rascal like that to come to his quarters?' What do you say?"

"It was my fault, sir, entirely."

"Yes; and that's your fault too, Archibald Maine. You take a fancy to and make a companion of a private who bears the worst character in this detachment. You see even now, sir, you have made so much of a companion of him that you are ready to take the blame for his fault."

"In this case rightly, sir," said Archie, speaking with firmness. "I had jerked your note out of the window, and as the poor fellow pa.s.sed--"

"Poor fellow!" cried the Major irritably. "There, again!"

"I told him to pick it up and bring it in," continued Archie firmly; and the Major grunted, for he was evidently cooling down.

"There! Humph! Dinner," grunted the Major again. "Now, quick! What have you got to say?"

Archie was silent for a few moments, for the simple reason that he could not speak, only stand trying to gaze steadily in the eyes of the fine old officer, who was watching him intently with a look that forced him to speak at last; but even then his voice shook a little, in spite of his efforts to make it firm and loud. Then the word that had struggled for utterance came, and it was in Latin:

"Peccavi."

It was only that word, but it was enough to make the old Major lean forward, clap one hand on the lad's shoulder, and half-whisper:

"Spoken like your father's son!" and then, as the door behind him opened, he half-shouted, "Coming!" Then to his companion, "Now, my lad--dinner!"

CHAPTER THREE.

A MALAY FRIEND.

Archie Maine's sensations as he marched beside his chief into the mess-room were such that he would far rather have escaped to his own quarters; but he began to pull himself together as he caught sight of a friend, and the next minute he was being in turn introduced by the quiet, gentlemanly Resident to the Rajah Suleiman, a heavy-looking, typical Malay with peculiar, hard, dark eyes and thick, smiling lips, who greeted him in fair English and murmured something about "visit" and the "elephants and tigers." And then, as the Eastern chief, who did not look at home in the English evening-dress he had adopted, turned away to smile upon another of the officers, Archie joined hands at once with a slight, youthful-looking visitor also in evening-dress, who as the youths chatted together showed his mastery of the English language sufficiently to address the subaltern as "old chap," following it up with:

"When are you going to get your boss to give you a day or two's leave?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Archie. "Not for some time; I'm in disgrace."

"Disgrace! What do you mean?" was the inquiry.

"Oh, not sticking enough to my duties."

"Duties?"

"Yes; drill and practice."

"Oh, nonsense! You don't want to be always drilling and drilling and drilling. Your men could kill us all off without any more of that. I shall ask the Major to let you come and stay with me a month."

"No, no, no," said Archie, though his eyes were flas.h.i.+ng with eagerness.

"And I say yes, yes, yes. I haven't got such a troop of elephants as Rajah Suleiman, but I have got two beauties who would face any tiger in the jungle, and my people could show you more stripes than his could.

But perhaps I am so simple at home that you would rather go and stay with His Highness."

"Look here, Hamet," whispered Archie quickly; "you said that to me last time, just as if I had slighted you."

"Beg pardon, old chap. I didn't mean it; but your people--I don't know how it is--don't seem to take to me. I always feel as if they didn't trust me, and I don't think that I shall care about coming here any more."

"What!" cried Archie excitedly, as he found that he had to take his seat at the table beside the young Rajah, whose face was beginning to a.s.sume a lowering aspect, as he saw that the Major's original intentions had been hurriedly set aside and the chair on the latter's right was occupied by the Rajah Suleiman, that on his left by a keen, sharp-looking gentleman who might have been met in one of the Parisian _cafes_, so thoroughly out of place did he seem in a military mess-room rather roughly erected in a station on the banks of a Malay jungle river.

"What!" said Archie again, in a low tone; and he noted how his companion was furtively watching the attention paid to his brother Rajah.

"I'll tell you presently," said the young Malay. "But who is that gentleman?"

"That? Oh, he's a traveller. He's a French count."

"French count?" said his companion. "A great friend of Suleiman's, isn't he?"

"Not that I know of."

"Yes, he is. So one of my people says."

"Oh?" said Archie.

"Yes; Suleiman met him when he went to Paris."

"You seem to know all about it," said Archie laughingly.

"Oh no; I _want_ to know everything, but there is so much--so much to learn. I wish I had gone to Paris too."

"What! so as to get to know the French count?"

"Pis.h.!.+--No, thank you; I don't take wine," he added quickly, as one of the officers' servants was filling gla.s.ses.

"Won't you have a gla.s.s of hock?"

"No," was the quiet reply. "And I don't want to know the French count.

I don't like him."

"Why?"