Volume Two—Chapter Eleven.
A Floating Captivity.
What seemed to be an endless ride by water, during which the captives felt over and over again as if they would be suffocated by the folds of the cloths in which they were enveloped.
Several times had the two first prisoners made such desperate efforts to free themselves that the boats in which they were rocked dangerously, that in which Chumbley had been thrown shipping a little water more than once; but finding by degrees that it was only a waste of strength, and contenting themselves with the idea that though an Englishman may never know when he is beaten, they had done everything possible to vindicate their character, they lay quite still, dripping with perspiration and gasping for air.
An hour must have gone by when, in each boat, as the prisoner lay perfectly quiescent, it seemed to strike the captors almost simultaneously that if something were not done suffocation might ensue. Under these circumstances efforts were made to give them a little of that bounteous provision of air that was waiting to revive their exhausted frames.
Chumbley was lying upon his face in the bottom of the boat, the exhaustion having produced a semi-delirious sensation, in which he fancied that he was in evening dress, of a very thick texture, dancing in a crowded ballroom, and so giddy that he was in a constant state of alarm lest he should hurl his partner, the Malay princess, headlong upon the floor.
This sensation kept coming and going with saner thoughts of having done his best, and its being useless to struggle, in the midst of one of which intervals he awoke to the fact that his hands were being held tightly behind him, and back to back. Then someone, with a deftness of habit that told of long custom, tied his thumbs together, and then his little fingers.
Next he felt a stout cord passed round his ankles and another about his legs just above the knees, after which the thick cloth was drawn from his head, and he gasped and panted as he filled his lungs again and again with the pure night air, which cleared his brain and sent the crowded ballroom, the thick costume, and the giddiness of the waltz far back into the unreal region from which they came.
For a moment he revelled in the sight of the brilliant star-lit heavens, and then, almost before he knew it, a cloth was bound tightly round his eyes.
“A seizure by banditti,” muttered Chumbley, “quite in the romantic style, and I shall be held to ransom, when, seeing that I have nothing but my pay—and that is hardly enough for my expenses—I may say, in the words of the monkey who held out his tail to the chained-up dog, ‘Don’t you wish you may get it!’ Oh, I say, though, I’m as sore as if I’d been thrashed. Whatever game is this?”
“If you will promise to be silent,” said a deep voice at his ear in the Malayan tongue, “we will not thrust a cloth into your mouth.”
“I wish they’d pour a glass of Bass into it instead,” thought Chumbley. “I say, you sir,” he replied, in as good Malayan as he could command, “what does this mean?”
“Wait and see.”
“Are you going to kris me?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s a comfort,” muttered Chumbley. “I might have known it by their taking so much trouble, though five minutes ago it would have been a charity to put me out of my misery.”
“Will you be silent if I leave your mouth free?” was asked again.
“I don’t see that it’s of much use to halloo,” said Chumbley, sullenly, “but look here, old chap, what does this mean? Tell me, and I’ll be as quiet as a lamb.”
“Wait and see,” was the reply.
Chumbley was silent for a few minutes, drawing in long breaths of air. Then, addressing his captors, who seemed to him to be steadily rowing on:
“I say,” he exclaimed, “can I have this rag off my eyes?”
“No.”
Another pause, during which the prisoner listened to the pleasant ripple of the water against the boat.
“I say,” from Chumbley.
“Yes.”
“I can’t fight now or else I would.”
There was a low laugh, which seemed to come from a dozen throats, and the same deep voice replied:
“My lord is a giant in strength, but we have him fast.”
“Then set me up, so that I can sit comfortably, or I shan’t be worth a Chinese dragon dollar if you want me for sale.”
There was another low laugh, as if the Malay captors were amused; and then, in obedience to a whispered order, the prisoner was lifted and placed in a more comfortable position, but not without some effort and grunting on the part of the men who essayed to move him, the boat rocking about ominously the while.
“That’s better,” said the prisoner. “Hah, I can get on now! Here I say, old chap, whoever you are, put your hand in my breast.”
“Does my lord wish me to promise that we will not slay him?” said the deep-voiced Malay.
“Bosh! No!” cried Chumbley. “In my breast-pocket. That’s right. Now take out the cigar-case. Not the pocket-book. The cigar-case. That’s it! Now open it and take out a cigar. Put it in my mouth. Have one?”
“My lord’s servant does not smoke when he has work to do,” replied the Malay.
“All right, then, I have none,” said Chumbley, coolly. “Put the end in my mouth, and give me a light. There’s a match-box in my vest.”
There was a low laugh once more in the fore-part of the boat; but the prisoner was too intent upon feeling the hand thrust into his breast, his cigar-case opened and snapped again, the case returned, the roll of tobacco placed in his lips, and then the light struck and held convenient for him to draw.
“Hah!” he said to himself, “it’s wonderful what comfort there is in a cigar at a time like this! How I do pity the poor little women who are not allowed to smoke!”
He said a few words to the Malays, but they were very quiet and reticent; and feeling that it was of no further use to talk to them in their own tongue, which was a trouble to him, he began to think in English, which, if not of much comfort, was at all events an occupation for the time being.
“This is a rum set-out,” he thought, as he settled himself as comfortably as he could, and smoked away. “An hour or so ago I was at an English evening-party, held for coolness upon a lawn. Now I am here in a boat; but where the dickens here is I don’t know.
“But what does it mean? I’m not of the slightest use to anybody; and they are not doing it for revenge, because I haven’t made any enemies. Let me see, though—have I?”
He paused thoughtfully for a few minutes. “No—no, I can’t think of anybody except Miss Helen, for rejecting her tender glances. Let’s see, what did Byron or some other chap say about there being no what-you-may-call-it so dangerous as a woman scorned? Can’t recollect quotations—never could. But that’s all nonsense. Helen Perowne wouldn’t want to have me carried off like this.
“That’s it,” he said, half aloud this time, and after a thoughtful pause. “It’s ransom, that’s what it is. The noodles think because I am an English officer, and flash about in scarlet and gold, that I must be very rich. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!”
Chumbley indulged himself with a long and rumbling chuckle.
“They’ll be preciously disappointed on finding out I’ve none, and if they expect to get it out of the British Government they’ll find that the payment will be made in rifle balls, unless some very urgent appeals are made in Parliament respecting the risk, when the question will arise, what will the noble, the British Government, as represented by its Secretary for the time being, think that my great carcass is worth.”
Chumbley had sat there for a considerable time smoking and listening, for he had suddenly awakened to the fact that there was another boat hard by, with whose occupants his captors conversed in a low voice.
Then suddenly he heard a familiar voice speaking fiercely in the Malayan tongue.
Chumbley hesitated for a moment to make sure, and then shouted:
“Why, Hilton, old man, are you there?”
“Chumbley! Here! Help!” cried Hilton. “Help, man, help!”
“Bring it here, then,” said Chumbley, coolly.
“I cannot. I’m a prisoner: seized by Malay scoundrels.”
“Same here, old man,” said Chumbley, puffing away at his cigar, the incandescent part of which was getting dangerously near his nose. “Pleasant finish to the Perowne fête, isn’t it?”
Here there was a fierce adjuration from the Malays in the other boat, which Hilton obeyed to the extent of speaking in a lower tone.
“What is to be done?” he said, “I’d come and help you, but I’m bound hand and foot.”
“So am I, old man,” replied Chumbley, coolly. “Tighter than you are, I’ll swear.”
“But what is to be done?” said Hilton again.
“Goodness knows. Nothing, I should say. Have a cigar?”
“Chumbley!” cried Hilton, passionately, “is this a time for joking, when at any moment our lives may be taken! Be sensible if you can.”
“I thought that was being sensible or philosophical if you like it better, old man. I don’t see that it’s of any use to fret so long as they don’t kill us. It will be a change from pipe-clay and parade; and judging from what I saw between you and someone else in a certain quarter to-day, I should have thought that you would have been glad of a holiday.”
“Holiday, with a kris at our throats,” cried Hilton, passionately.
“Bah! they won’t kill us!” said Chumbley.
“I tell you that is what the scoundrels mean!” replied Hilton. “Not that it matters much,” he added gloomily.
“Oh, doesn’t it!” said Chumbley, “but it does, a good deal. I don’t know that we should make much fuss—soldiers can’t; but I know of plenty of people who would cry their eyes out about me.”
“If the English rajahs,” said a voice, that seemed to the two young men in their bandaged condition to come out of the darkness, and to speak haltingly, as if the utterer were not quite sure of the language in which he spoke—“If the English rajahs will be patient, and not try to escape, no harm shall be done to them.”
“There,” said Chumbley, “do you hear that, old man! Better have a cigar.”
“Rubbish!” cried Hilton, angrily.
“Not a bit of it, old man,” said Chumbley; “they are some of old Perowne’s best, and I have just finished one, and am going to have another. Here! hi! my lord the Malay chief, Maharajah, Muntri, Tumongong, or whatever you are, stop the boat, and give my friend a cigar. Load us both and fire us old chap, and then we can go off comfortably.”
There was no cessation in the rowing; but as Chumbley sat back there he felt his request attended to, the smoked-out cigar being taken from his lips and thrown into the water, where it fell with a loud hiss, the case taken from his breast, opened, and then it seemed that the boats were drawn together, and a cigar was passed to Hilton.
“Got it, old man?” said Chumbley, sucking at his own, and biting off the end.
“Yes,” said Hilton gruffly, as if he were resenting the attentions of his captors.
Then came the sharp sound of a striking match; and though Chumbley tried hard, he found that his eyes were too well bandaged for him to catch even a gleam of the light, so he contented himself with drawing at his cigar, after which there was the loud hiss of the match thrown into the water, and the boats were once more urged onward at a goodly speed.
A little conversation was kept up; but over their cigars the two prisoners seemed to grow thoughtful, and at last there was a pause, which Chumbley broke at last with the question:
“I say, old chap, don’t you think this means ransom?”
There was no reply, and the deep-voiced Malay said, in his own tongue:
“The other boat is far behind.”
It must have been towards morning that a few words were uttered in Chumbley’s boat; there seemed to him, as he immediately became on the qui vive, to be a quickening of the rower’s strokes, the rustling of bushes, some twigs of one of which brushed his arm, and then they ascended, as far as he could judge, a narrow stream for a short distance, for the oars kept striking bushes or reeds on either side; and now the boat that held Hilton had evidently come up close behind.
“They mean to hide us away well, at all events,” thought Chumbley. “Now I wonder whether we have come up the stream or down.”
He had hardly given life to that query, when a gentle check, as if the bows of the boat had run into mud, told that the shore was reached.
A few rapid orders succeeded, and it seemed to Chumbley that now they were about to land he would have his cramped legs unbound; but no. The next minute he was seized by four men, lifted out, and laid upon the soft, mossy ground.
“You there, Hilton?” he said, as he lay upon his side as helpless as a newly-landed fish.
“Yes, I am here,” was the reply.
“The English rajahs can talk as they like,” said the deep-voiced Malay. “No one can hear them now.”
“Humph! Thanks for the great concession,” growled Chumbley; and he was about to take advantage of the permission, when he felt himself again lifted, and laid this time in a kind of hammock that seemed to be slung upon poles, and then for a couple of hours at least, he and Hilton, who was in a similar conveyance behind, were borne along some narrow pathway of the jungle, the leaves, and strands, and thin verdant canes brushing against them constantly, and sweeping their faces at times when they were halted for the bearers to be changed.
“Well,” said Chumbley, chuckling softly, “I hope they are enjoying themselves with their job over me. They’ll declare that they have had the honour of carrying a very great man.”
A final halt at last, when fresh voices were heard. The hammocks were set down upon what seemed to be a framework; then they were lifted, tilted very much at one end, as if a flight of steps were being ascended, and at last the prisoners felt themselves to be landed upon what felt like a bamboo floor.
Next they were lifted out, carried a few steps, and laid upon soft matting; there was the pad, pad—pad, pad of shoeless feet over the floor, and all was perfectly still.