One Maid's Mischief Part 75

"I think you a ten times better man, and one hundred times as much a gentleman," cried the Princess, hotly; and her eyes flashed indignation at them both.

"Oh, no," said Chumbley; "you are angry and indignant, and you forget that we are, too. How can we be pleased that you have so roughly brought us here?"

"But you ought to be, and very proud," she cried sharply.

"Well, we will not argue that," said Chumbley; "but I wish to tell you that you must think this over carefully and well. Insignificant as we two men may be, it touches England's honour that a Malay ruler should seize us and make us prisoners."

"I care not," she retorted. "I have thought it over well."

"I suppose so, madam," said Chumbley; "but let me tell you that England will not let us stay here your prisoners; sooner than let you triumph she would send an army to search for and take us back."

"And I tell you," cried the Princess, fiercely, "that I have thought well over all this, and have made such plans, that even if your people did not think you dead, they would not find you. I am queen with my people, and I will not be beaten when I undertake a task. If they should learn that you were here, and come to shoot and burn, we would flee into the jungle."

"Where they would hunt you out, Princess, cost what it might," said Chumbley.

"Let them," said the Inche Maida, with her eyes flas.h.i.+ng, and looking very queenly as she spoke. "They are big and strong, and they have many men. They would surround us then, and think to take us and drag you away; but they do not know our people yet--they do not know what a Malay Princess would do. Mr Chumbley," she said, speaking to him, but gazing at Hilton as she spoke, "we Malays are gentle and calm, but we have angry pa.s.sions. If you rouse the hot blood within us, it becomes fierce and hotter still. Don't think that I shall not have my way; for I tell you that at the last, sooner than be conquered by those your people sent, I would kill you both, and then--then," she cried excitedly, "I should kill myself!"

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

WHY CHUMBLEY WAS BROUGHT.

As the Inche Maida uttered her angry threat she swept out of the room, leaving the two young officers staring at the heavy curtain that closed the door.

"The fury!--the tigress!" exclaimed Hilton.

"Well, I don't know!" drawled Chumbley. "She seems to me very much like what woman is all the world round."

"Why, she is a blood-thirsty savage!" cried Hilton.

"No: only a woman who has lived all her life where every man carries a sharp-pointed weapon. Englishwomen are much the same at heart."

"Why, you blasphemer against the honour of our fair English maids and dames!" cried Hilton, laughing.

"Not I!" said Chumbley. "They don't live amongst people who carry daggers and spears. We go unarmed--I mean Europeans--and pay soldiers to do our fighting for us; but you baffle a woman of spirit--you cross her and behave badly to her, and you see if she wouldn't fight."

"Fight, man?"

"Yea, but not with a dagger; she would fight with her tongue--perhaps with her pen--and sting and wound, and perhaps pretty well slay her foe."

"But this woman is outrageous!" cried Hilton. "Our English ladies are all that is soft and gentle."

"Sometimes," said Chumbley; "some of us get an ugly stab or two now and then."

"Out upon you, slanderer!" cried Hilton, laughingly, as he paced up and down once more.

"If you don't stop that irritating, wild beast's cage-walk," said Chumbley, "I'll pet.i.tion the Inche Maida to have you chained to a bamboo."

"Pis.h.!.+" cried Hilton, imitating his friend, and throwing himself down upon one of the divans.

"I thought the other day that I was stabbed to the heart by a pair of glittering eyes," said Chumbley; "but being a regular pachyderm, the wound only just went through my skin, and I soon healed up."

"How allegorical we are getting!" said Hilton, laughing.

"Yes," replied Chumbley, coolly, "very. Then there was my friend Hilton: he did get a stab that pretty well touched his heart, and the wound smarts still."

Hilton sat up, and glared at his friend.

"And yet he calls a woman a tigress and a savage because she utters threats that an Englishwoman would hide out of sight."

"You are improving, Chumbley."

"Yes, I am," said the other.

"Now, are you ready to try and escape before we are krissed?"

"Bah!--stuff! She wouldn't kris us! She'd threaten, but she wouldn't hurt a hair of your head, unless scissoring off one of your Hyperion curls injured it when she took it for a keepsake. I'm going to prophesy now."

"Going to what?"

"Prophesy--set up as a prophet. Are you ready?"

"Ready?"

"Yes. Can you bear it?"

"If you are going to chatter away like this," said Hilton, contemptuously, "I shall pray her Malay majesty to find me another cell.

There, go on. What is your prophecy?"

"That as soon as the bit of temper has burned out, madam will come back smiling and be as civil as can be."

"Not she," said Hilton. "Hang the woman!"

"Where?" said Chumbley. "Round your neck?"

"No, round yours. I'm sorry I was so rough to her; but it is, 'pon my honour, Chum, such a contemptible, degrading set-out, that I can't keep my temper over it."

"You'll cool down after a bit," said Chumbley, yawning. "I say, though, I'm hungry. I shall protest when she comes in again. She pretended that she was sending those girls for drinks and cigars. I say," he cried, excitedly, "I shall protest or break the bars of the cage, or do something fierce, if that is her game."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, if she is going to starve you into submission, I'll give in directly if it's to be that. There, what did I say?" he whispered, as the folds of the heavy curtains were drawn aside, and the Inche Maida entered, looking quite calm and almost sad now as she approached.

"I am sorry," she said, holding out her hand to Hilton, who rose and bowed, but did not attempt to take the hand she offered.

"I was very angry," continued the Princess, in a low, penitent voice.

"Malay women let their feelings get the mastery when they are angry. I suppose English ladies never do?"