Volume Three—Chapter Eight.
A Faithful Ally.
The alarm was not of long duration, for it soon became evident that Murad was still under the influence of the powerful narcotic. He did not see either of the other occupants of the room, but staggered here and there for a few moments, and then sank heavily once more upon the mats, placing his head in an easy position, and falling into a heavy sleep, his breathing sounding deep and regular to the trembling girls.
“We need not mind,” said the Malay girl at last. “He cannot hear me. I will climb up.”
The bars of the window formed a ladder for her ascent, and she clambered slowly up till her feet were resting upon the topmost bar. Then there was a rustling and cutting noise, and every now and then a dull pat, as of something falling into the bushes below.
It was a terrible position for Helen, who, unable to assist, could only listen and keep her eyes fixed on Murad, whom she momentarily expected to see arise wrathfully and call for help to seize the brave girl working so hard without to obtain freedom for both.
Then, as the Rajah still remained breathing heavily, another form of dread attacked her; she felt sure that some of the guards or people must hear this loud rustling noise, so that it was with an intense feeling of relief that Helen heard the sounds cease. Then there was a louder rustling as of someone drawing herself up, and directly after the Malay girl climbed down into the room, Helen clasping her tightly in her arms.
The girl freed herself hastily and went across to where Murad lay sleeping, bent down over him, gazing steadily in his face, and then turned with a bitter laugh.
“I have said good-bye to him, so now let us go. If I look at him again I shall never be able to leave. Let us escape.”
“But how?” exclaimed Helen, helplessly.
“How?” said the girl. “Why, as I came in. I have opened the way,” and she pointed to the ragged hole in the palm thatch.
“I could not climb up there,” exclaimed Helen, with a look of helplessness and despair in her countenance; “it is impossible!”
“You white people!” cried the girl—“you are poor, and weak, and helpless! But come, you must go. Murad will soon waken, and what will you do then?”
The mention of that name and the prospect of the awaking seemed to nerve Helen to the effort she was called upon to make; and in answer to a fresh demand made upon her by her companion, she declared her readiness.
“I will go first,” said the girl, and with the nimbleness of a cat she seized the bars of the window, went up them like a ladder, and with an agility that made Helen, as she watched her in the dim light shed up there by the lamp, look upon her movements as almost miraculous.
Drawing herself quickly up, she passed through the hole in the attap roof, crawling right out; and directly after, having turned, Helen saw her leaning through.
“Now, come—quick!” whispered the girl. “Step up the window-bars as I did, and then give me your hands. You shall not fall; I will hold you.”
Helen made a couple of weak, ineffective trials to climb up and reach her friend, but sank back, and was ready to burst into feeble tears and give up in despair; but Murad uttered some angry words and threw out one arm, which fell heavily back upon the floor.
The noise electrified Helen, who darted to the window-bars, and how she managed she hardly knew, but she climbed up, caught spasmodically at the Malay girl’s hand, at the bamboo rafters, and partly by her own effort, partly by the girl’s exertion, was dragged up through the palm-leaf roof, and sat with her companion holding on tightly to the steep slope.
Here she rested, panting and trembling, so that the girl did not make any further effort for a few minutes, and even then it was Helen who proposed that they should move, placing her lips close to the other’s ear, and asking wildly what they should do next.
For answer the girl climbed over her, made Helen move slightly, and then, seating herself with the legs through the hole, she took off the sarong worn veil-fashion over her shoulders, and twisting it tightly, tied it to the one Helen wore, making of the two a strong silken rope, one end of which she secured to the trembling prisoner’s left wrist.
“Now,” she whispered, “I will hold you by this. Let yourself slide softly till you touch the bars with your feet, and then climb down. Afterwards hang from the sarongs, and I will lower you as far as I can.”
Helen drew a long, deep breath, trembling the while, for the height and position in which they were seemed to her to be awful!
But she did not shrink now; she felt committed to the desperate enterprise; and holding on by the tough palm-leaves, she lowered herself down the steep roof, and then clung to the woodwork with all her strength, as her feet were suspended now over the darkness, and she sought foothold for them with desperate haste.
But for the steady strain upon her wrist she would have fallen; but this encouraged her to renewed effort, and after a few trials, and just as she began to feel that her task was hopeless, her right foot touched and rested upon one of the bars, and taking a fresh hold, she stepped down, slipped, was held by the tight tension of the silken rope, saved herself, and the next minute stood panting, with hands and feet sustained by the stout bamboo trellis of the window.
Here she paused for a few moments, when once more it was Murad who startled her into action, and she lowered herself down till she was hanging by the sill of the window, seeking for some support for her feet, her companion jerking the sarong sharply to urge her on.
But Helen had exhausted herself by her efforts, and could do no more. She tried once feebly, but there was no result; and to make matters worse, the Malay girl was now straining the sarong, as if afraid that she would fall.
There was a faint cry, a slip, the sarong was held tightly, and Helen fell with a jerk that seemed to drag her left arm from the socket. She swung for a moment, and the silken rope was lowered so rapidly that she seemed to be falling. Then she did fall with a crash amongst the bushes, what seemed to her to be an immense distance, though it was only some half-dozen feet, and she lay perfectly still, feeling that she was terribly hurt.
She was half stunned by the fall and the excitement; but her companion climbed down lightly, and bent over her in the darkness.
“Quick!” she whispered. “Someone must have heard you fall? Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know. Not much,” faltered Helen, as she struggled to her feet, the girl meanwhile hastily rolling the sarong round Helen’s arm, catching then at her hand, and half dragging her through the tangled bushes, whose thorns checked them, tearing their garb, while every now and then they had to stoop and creep beneath the trees.
In this way they had made some fifty yards towards safety, when a fierce snarling growl, which they both knew well enough to be that of a tiger, sounded away in front; and almost simultaneously there was the report of a gun, then of another, and lights could be seen in the direction from which they had come.
“Which is it to be,” said the girl, hoarsely, “Murad or the tiger? Say which you will choose, for they will either of them kill us without mercy?”