One Maid's Mischief Part 81

But as she uttered her order they were pa.s.sing through, the door shut heavily behind them, and the Rajah let the heavy curtain fall back in its place.

Then she felt that she was alone indeed, and for a moment her head swam as she gazed through her long dark lashes at the daring Malay who was the author of this outrage and its cruel sequence.

He was still by the door, standing erect and proud, his head drawn back, one hand resting upon the hilt of his kris, and a mocking smile of triumph upon his face, as if he were rejoicing at the success of his plans.

"You do not rise to welcome me," he whispered softly. "Are you angry because I have been so long away?"

She did not answer, but nerved herself more and more, and to her great joy she felt that it was anger rather than fear that now filled her breast, though she told herself that perhaps diplomacy might be more successful than threats.

"It is because I have stayed so long," he said, half mockingly; and then, speaking once more in his low, pa.s.sionate tones--the tones Helen had thought so musical in the drawing-room of their home at the station--he whispered:

"I could not have hoped for so great a change. You are a thousand times more beautiful than you were before."

Helen essayed to speak, but her emotion choked her utterance; and always watchful of his slightest movement, she still sat with her eyelids drooping, and he went on in excellent English, but with the metaphorical imagery so loved of Eastern people:

"Always beautiful; but now, robed as a princess of my nation, decked with Malayan flowers, your white skin softened to the sun-kissed nature of a beauty of our land, you s.h.i.+ne before me like some star."

Still she remained silent, and he went on: "They have done their work well, and could you but see your beauty with these eyes of mine, you would not wonder that I should have thought the hours weary that kept me from your side. Helen--beautiful Helen, you used not to hide those eyes from mine. Look up; let me see them once again. We are alone here now.

No prying creatures of your English people can see us. I have prayed to Allah that this hour might come, and now that I am here, humble--thy very slave--where is thy look of welcome--where is the tender look? For in thy maiden coyness say what thou wilt; but let thine eyes speak to me of love as they used so often at thy English home."

"How dare you!" she cried, finding words at last; "how dare you insult me by such a speech!" and she rose imperiously from her seat. "How dare you have me dragged from my home like this, and submitted by your orders to this disgraceful treatment, to make me look like one of your degraded race?"

"If my race be degraded," he said, quietly, "I try to elevate it by choosing you."

"I desire--I insist, sir, that you have me taken to my father now--at once."

The Rajah smiled, and crossed his arms over his breast.

"Let me think," he said. "Take you back? No; I could not take you back save as my wife. Your English people would have me shot."

"You were my father's guest, sir," continued Helen. "You were admitted to his house as friend, and you have behaved to him with the basest treachery. See! Look at me! It was by your orders I was disfigured thus!"

"Treachery!" he said, quietly. "No, there was no treachery, when I came as a prince and rajah, and said to the English merchant, 'I love your daughter: I will stoop and make her my wife.'"

"Stoop!" cried Helen, with a flash of her beautiful eyes.

"Yes," he said, "stoop! She has confessed her love!"

"It is false!" cried Helen.

"Not with words, but with her fierce dark eyes," he continued. "'I shall offend my people, but what of that? Love is all-powerful. I will dismiss all my wives, and she shall reign alone.' I went and said all that, as an English gentleman would have asked your hand, and what followed?"

Helen's eyes were fixed upon him sternly, and her heart condemned her, but she did not speak.

"I was treated with contempt and insult! I--I, Prince and Rajah here, was shown that I, who had stooped to love a woman of an infidel race, had been mocked and played with by the beautiful English maiden; and at that moment, Helen, had I seen you, I should have killed you with my kris, and then, in my mad rage, I would have done as my people do--run headlong here and there, killing and slaying as I went, my bare kris dripping with the blood I spilt--running _amok_, my people call it--and killing till they slew me where I ran. I, as a Malay, should have done all this. It is the custom among my people; but your English ways prevailed. I had learned English, and I, as a Prince, after my first wild rage was past, said that I must wait--be patient--and that the time would come when my revenge could be had. I waited patiently--and waited longer, to see if the lady would be kind and gentle to me once again; but she would not while she was among her people; so I said I would bring her amongst mine, where she would soon learn to be gentle and as kind as she was of old."

"Coward!" she cried, fiercely.

"I knew you would say that," he replied, mockingly. "I knew that you would a.s.sume to be very angry. You coquettes, as you English people call them, always do; and then, when all your angry, cruel things are said, you become tender, and gentle, and sweet. I do not mind."

Helen stamped her foot with impotent rage, as she felt how justly she had been appraised by this half-savage prince; but she could find no words in reply.

"Your people thought me contented, and that peace was made," he said, laughing. "I know all. There was a terrible state of fright at first, when you refused my hand. I know all, you see. Your people armed themselves and kept watch. 'The people of Murad will attack us, and take revenge,' you said, 'and we shall be all crushed;' and so you armed yourselves. Then you all feared to go to the _fete_ lest there should be treachery, and I was watched; but they did not know my ways. I meant to have revenge; but what good would the blood of all your people be to me? That was not the revenge I wanted. I could wait, and I have waited with the result you see. There, is that good English? Do you understand these my words well?"

Helen did not answer, but stood there proud and defiant, though her heart quailed as she listened, and thought of the patient way in which this man had waited his time.

"I have had patience," he said, with a calm smile of superiority, which changed, to her horror, to one of earnestness, almost of appeal.

"You do not speak," he continued. "Must I say more--must I tell you how I loved you with all my soul! You made me love you, and were not content until I did. You led me on; you smiled at me, and lured me to your side. Your eyes told me you delighted in the pa.s.sion you had roused, and you seemed to triumph in making me your slave. Then I asked you to be my wife, and I was cast aside, thrown off to make room for another, and I awoke from my dream to find that I had only been a plaything of your mocking hour. I was only a Malay--a black as your people call me in their contempt--and your father and all your people laughed at my pretensions to an English lady's hand. You all told me by your looks and treatment that I was presuming on the kindness I had received; but do you think that, though I bent to it then, as if you and yours were right, that I, an Eastern Prince, would bear this treatment at your hands? No; I planted my revenge at once, like some tiny seed, and since have watched it grow hour by hour till it was time to cut it down ripe and ready to my hand."

"Do you hear my words, sir?" said Helen, contemptuously. "I order you to take me back."

"The slave orders her master to take her back," said Murad, quietly.

"You English think you have power over all."

"How dare you call me slave!" she cried.

"I call you what you are," he said, calmly; "my wife if you will; if not, one of my lowest slaves. I was your slave once, and would have been to the end. Now you are mine."

Helen s.h.i.+vered, but she mastered her fear, and exclaimed:

"Have you reckoned what your punishment will be for this? Do you suppose my people will let this pa.s.s?"

"I have weighed all," he said, coolly. "But let me talk, for I have much to say yet; I find relief in speaking of it all. Did you think that I was going to submit without resentment to the insult you had put upon me? Oh, no! You did not know what we Malays could do. We take a blow, and perhaps bear it then. It may be wise; but we never forgive the hand that gives that blow. We hide our suffering for a time, but at last we turn and strike. Do you understand me now? The time came at last, and I have turned and struck."

Helen remained silent, listening to his words, which sounded like a sentence of death; but she still fought hard not to show her terror, and kept up her defiant, half-contemptuous gaze as he went on:

"I hid all my sufferings, and patiently bore with all your cruelty, seeing without a word how you lavished your smiles upon this one and that, and all without making a sign; but all the time I was waiting, and telling myself that some day you should pay me for all this suffering; and when the good time came I said to my people: 'Take her and carry her to the house in the jungle; let her people think she is dead,' and it was done."

"And now that it has been done," cried Helen, "your plans are known.

You have been followed, and you will have to suffer as you deserve-- death is the punishment to the cowardly native hand that is raised against an English lady."

"Nonsense!" he said, laughing. "I have taken my steps better than that;" and his words which followed chilled Helen, as they robbed her of a hope. "No one saw you taken but that dreamy priest of your people, and he has been taken too. He wanders through our jungle finding flowers and plants, forgetting you half his time."

"It is false!" cried Helen. "He was here to-day."

"Yes, he was here to-day," said Murad, coolly, "and he has been taken back. He did not follow you. Do you suppose me so weak that I should let your people know where you had gone?"

"They must--they will know--that it is you who have done this cruel wrong," she cried, indignantly.

"No," he said, with a contemptuous laugh. "It it very easy to throw dust in English eyes. I will tell you for your comfort, and to make you settle to your fate, the people at the station think I am their friend, and that I have been helping them with my people to find you. And now you are only living in their hearts."

"In their hearts?" cried Helen, starting; and her thoughts involuntarily turned to Neil Harley.

"Yes," he said, quietly; "they think you dead."

"Dead!" she cried, in spite of her efforts to be calm.