Volume Two—Chapter Ten.
Plus.
As Hilton cried for help his voice sounded stifled and dull, while he vainly tried to cast off a great woollen cloth that had been deftly thrown over his head. It took hardly an instant before it was wound tightly round him. Then a rope was twisted so rapidly round arms and legs, that he was turned, as it were, into a complete mummy; and when his assailants threw him upon the grass he was so helpless that they literally rolled him over and over down the slope of closely shaven herbage into a large row-boat, into whose bottom he fell without pain, and almost without a sound.
“I thought it was the crocodiles,” he said to himself, as his heart beat painfully; and then he began to writhe in spirit at his want of caution, for he felt sure that this, the capture of an officer, was one of the first steps towards an attack upon the Residency island.
Just then he heard a voice, and what seemed to be a whispered order in Malay; and the boat might have been seen to glide away like a shadow over the starry water, breaking it up into spangles as it went on and on towards the middle of the stream without so much as a sound.
Then a pang shot through the young officer’s heart, to tell him that he was not, in spite of his word, quite cured, for his first thought now was: “What will become of Helen!” A few minutes later Chumbley strolled up to the pagoda, where old Stuart was comfortably enjoying his glass.
“Well, old fellow,” he drawled: “not melted away yet.”
“No; nor you neither,” retorted the old merchant. “Want some whuskie?”
“No; I want a cigar,” said Chumbley; and he helped himself from the box. “Seen anything of Hilton?” he asked, as he lit the roll of tobacco.
“Yes! here a bit ago, and then went off to smoke in the cool air. Leave my little girl all right?”
“Yes; she was sitting talking to the Princess and the Rajah in front of the house. What a lovely night!”
“Humph, yes. Pretty well; but you should see the night, laddie, over one o’ the Scottish lochs, wi’ the ootline o’ a mountain stannin oot i’ front o’ the northern sky. Ay, but that’s a sight.”
“Yes, s’pose so,” said Chumbley; “but as we can’t have the night over the Scottish loch, isn’t it as well to make the best of this?”
“Humph! yes,” said the old man; “but I’m getting tired of sitting here. I want to go back home. How much longer is this tomfoolery going to last?”
“Can’t say, sir. Why don’t you go on to the lawn and have a chat?”
“Pah! Do I look like a man who could do that sort of thing?”
“Can’t say you do,” replied Chumbley, cheerfully. “Well, I’m going to look for Hilton!” and, stepping out of the pagoda, he went across the lawn, with his hands deep down in his pockets.
“Now, let’s see,” he said to himself, as he strolled lazily on, “where would that chap be likely to have stuck himself up for a quiet smoke?
“Seems to have had a tiff with beauty to-night. P’r’aps she has pitched him as she has other people before, present company not excepted. All the more likely for him to have gone off for a quiet smoke—Now where would he go?”
There was a pause here, as if for someone else to answer, but as no one did—
“Down by the river,” he said—“safe.” Chumbley thrust his hands lower down into his pockets, and as if led by fate, he followed slowly almost the very track taken by Hilton so short a time before.
Finding that portion of the extensive grounds quite solitary, Chumbley began to hum what was meant for an air, in a peculiar voice more remarkable for noise than tune—due, no doubt, to his having his cigar in his lips, at which he gravely sucked away as if keeping time to the melody he emitted with the smoke.
“Grass too damp to lie down,” he said to himself, “else it would be rather jolly, and I’m precious tired. Not safe though. Old Bolter would vow there was rheumatism and fever in every blade. Why the dickens don’t they put garden seats down here?”
He strolled on, casting his eyes about in every direction in search of his friend.
“Precious dark!” he said. “Now where has old Hilton hidden himself? Hallo! Why there he is! What a jolly old lunatic he must be. I wonder what old Bolter would say?”
For not very far from the bank of the stream, he could dimly make out a figure lying apparently asleep.
Chumbley immediately began to think of the risks to be incurred from crocodiles, and walking quickly up he bent down over the sleeping figure.
“Here—hi! Hallo! Hilton, is that you? Hang it, man, don’t lie there!”
There was no reply, and Chumbley hesitated as to whether he should touch the figure.
“’Tisn’t Hilton!” he said to himself. “One of the servants, perhaps, keeping up his Mohammedan rules on the question of wine upon the wrong side.”
“Hallo! you sir!” he cried aloud. “’Tisn’t safe to lie there; do you hear?” and going down on one knee, he turned the figure completely over. “Here wake up or the crocs will have you! Is anything the matter?”
“Help me up,” came in reply, spoken in good English.
Chumbley was too earnest a man to resist that appeal; and bending lower, he tried to pass one hand beneath the prostrate figure, the man feebly laying his hands upon the lieutenant the while.
Then, in an instant, the feeble clasp became one of iron; and before Chumbley could more than realise that he was being held, a second figure bounded from behind a bush on to his back, dexterously throwing a sort of bag over his head and drawing it tight about his neck.
The young officer was taken by surprise; but he was not so easy a prey as Hilton. As a rule, Chumbley resembled the elephant in his slow, ponderous movement. Now, there was something almost leonine in his activity, the latent almost herculean strength he possessed being brought into play.
Uttering a smothered roar, he tried to shake off his assailants as they clung to his back and neck, pinioning his arms, and holding on so closely, that in the dark the figures of the three men seemed like one huge monstrous creature writhing savagely upon the grass.
Four more dark figures had suddenly appeared upon the scene, looking weird and strange in the starlight; and while the distant sound of voices, with an occasional burst of laughter, came to where the struggle was going on, all here was so quiet—save for the oppressed breathing—that no attention was drawn towards them from the visitor-dotted lawn.
The fresh-comers leaped at Chumbley like dogs at their hunted quarry; but so fierce was the resistance that one of them was dashed to the earth, the others shaken off, and the young man followed up the display of his tremendous strength by making a blindfold effort to ran.
The probabilities are that, as he had instinctively taken the direction leading to the house, he would have got so far that his assailants would not have cared to follow, had not one of them thrust out a foot as Chumbley was passing, and tripped him up, when he fell with a heavy thud to the ground.
Before he could make a fresh effort to rise, half a dozen Malays were upon him; and while some sat and knelt upon, others bound him hand and foot.
Then they paused to listen whether the struggle had been overheard; but finding it had excited no attention either at the house or the Residency island, they leisurely rolled their prisoner over and over down the grassy slope into a waiting boat close up to the bank. A few vessels of water were dipped, and quickly poured over the grass where the struggle had taken place, and then once more the star-spangled surface of the river was broken up as a shadowy boat softly glided out to the middle of the river, and then seemed to die away.
But the incidents of the night were not yet at an end, Fate seemed to lend her aid to bring them to one peculiar bent.
For, hot and weary of the insipid attentions of her new conquest, and fagged out with her task of entertaining so many guests, Helen Perowne began to think of how she should escape, wishing the while that everyone would go, and far from satisfied with her last encounter with Hilton.
She looked round the lit-up space for someone on whom to inflict herself, but Hilton was not there; she could see neither Chumbley nor the Resident, only several of the younger men, merchants and civil officers—no one at all worth talking to save the chaplain, who had been watching her wistfully all the evening, and who now stood with one hand resting upon a chair, looking as if he would have given his life for one kind word from her lips.
“Poor Arthur!” she said, in a half amused, half troubled way, “I wish he would not be so weak?”
She gave another impatient look round, but there was no victim worthy of her arrows; and with an imperious glance at Arthur Rosebury, she let her eyes once more pass over the various groups of guests, for the most part carrying on an animated conversation, and turned to enter the house.
Just as she reached one of the open French windows, a Malay servant approached, and saluted her respectfully.
“The master says will the mistress come down the garden a minute to speak to him?”
“How tiresome!” she exclaimed petulantly. “Where is my father?”
“By the river, mistress, where it is cool to smoke,” replied the man, softly. “He says he will not keep you, but you must come at once.”
This was all in broken English, but sufficiently plain to be understood.
“He might have come to me,” said Helen, impatiently. “I am so hot and tired. There, go on. No, not that way. Let us go by the side path.”
The man bowed and went on, with Helen following, when the chaplain seized the opportunity to join her.
“It is getting cold and damp, Miss Perowne,” he said, softly. “Will you let me put this over your shoulders?”
“What!” she said; “have you been carrying that ever since I gave it to you hours ago?”
The chaplain bowed, and held the light, filmy shawl, that he had felt it a joy to bear, ready to throw over her shoulders.
“No,” she cried, petulantly, “I am too hot as it is. There,” she cried, relenting, as she saw his fallen countenance, and for want of another victim, “you may come with me and carry the shawl till I want to put it on.”
The chaplain’s heart gave a bound, and, too pleased to speak, he followed Helen closely, as the man led her towards the bottom of the lawn, where, as they drew nearer, a dark figure could be dimly seen slowly pacing up and down.
“How angry dear Mary would be if she knew,” thought the Reverend Arthur; “but I cannot help it. I suppose I am very weak, and it is my fate?”
“What is wrong now?” thought Helen, whose conscience was quick to take alarm. “Is he going to speak to me about Hilton? No; he would not have—he could not have been so cowardly as to speak to my father about our quarrel.”
They were very near now, and Helen could see that her father had one hand up to his face, resting the elbow in his other hand.
“It cannot be about Murad. That must be over,” mused Helen. Then aloud, “Is anything the matter, papa? Are you unwell?”
At that moment she realised the fact that the figure in evening dress was not her father, the chaplain noticing her start, and trying to go forward to her aid; but, as he took a step, a hand was clapped over his lips, an arm tightly embraced him, and as he dimly saw a white handkerchief tied across Helen’s face, he was lifted from the ground and borne away, too much surprised to do more than struggle weakly at such a disadvantage that even a strong man would have been as helpless as a child.
Helen made an effort to shriek for aid, but a black cloud seemed suddenly to envelop her in the shape of a great cloth, wrapping her round and round. Then she felt herself lifted from her feet, and half-stifled, half-fainting with the horror of her situation, she was just conscious of being carried for a few minutes, and then of being placed in a boat; while in the midst of her horror and excitement there seemed to come up before her the faces of her three old mistresses at the calm, quiet school, then that of Grey Stuart looking reproachfully, and then all faded away into one complete void.