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 petition the Inche Maida to have you chained to a bamboo.”
“Pish!” 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?”
Chumbley coughed slightly and made a grimace.
“Mr Chumbley,” she said, turning to him, “you will shake hands? I am not angry now. You need not be afraid.”
“I wasn’t afraid,” said Chumbley, taking the hand and pressing it warmly.
“You were not?” she cried, with a flash from her dark eyes.
“Not a bit,” he said, laughing.
“Suppose I said I would kill you?” she cried.
“Well, it would be quite time enough to feel afraid when the operation was about to be performed,” said Chumbley, coolly. “I never meet troubles half way.”
“I cannot understand you,” said the Princess. “You are a very strange man. It is because you are so big, I think, that you are not afraid.”
Chumbley bowed.
“Perhaps so,” he said.
“I came back,” said the Princess, “to tell you that I was sorry I spoke so angrily; but you must both know that I will be obeyed. If I were not firm, my people would treat me like you do your servants. I wish to speak to you both now.”
“Say a civil word to her, Hilton,” whispered Chumbley.
“Tell her to put an end to this absurd piece of folly,” said Hilton, in the same tone. “We shall be the laughing-stocks and butts of the whole service.”
The slight twitch at the corner of the Inche Maida’s mouth betrayed the fact that she had heard their words, but she took no notice, and went on addressing Chumbley now.
“I ask you both to share my home,” she said. “You are his friend, Mr Chumbley, and I know he likes you, so I felt that it would be too much to expect him to be quite happy here without an English friend. Besides, I know how great and good a soldier you are.”
“I modestly accept your praise, madam,” said Chumbley, “but I haven’t seen yet the record of my noble deeds.”
“You puzzle me when you speak like that,” said the Princess. “You are laughing at me; but I will not be angry with his friend, whom I brought to be companion, counsellor, and guide.”
“So you had me kidnapped to amuse Captain Hilton—eh?” said Chumbley. “Well, really, madam, I am honoured!”
“Not only for that!” said the Princess, eagerly. “Do I not make you understand? You are a soldier and a brave man!”
“How do you know that?” said Chumbley, with a good-humoured twinkle in his eye.
“How do I know?” cried the Princess. “Would the English Queen have chosen you to guard Mr Harley with your men if you were not? My people know already that you are brave. You beat them so that they could hardly master you; and they talk about you proudly now, and call you the great, strong brave rajah.”
“Well, it’s very kind of them,” said Chumbley, drily; “for I laid about me as heartily as I could.”
“Yes, they told me how you fought, and I was glad; for they would have despised you if you had only been big, and had let them tie you like a beaten elephant.”
“That comes of being big, Bertie,” said Chumbley. “You see, they compare me to an elephant.”
“I have commanded that you shall be chief captain for your friend, and lead our fighting men, as well as being Tumongong, my lord’s adviser. A chief is trebly strong who has a brave and trusty friend.”
“I say, old man, do you hear all this?” said Chumbley.
“Yes, I hear,” said the other, quietly.
“This is promotion with a vengeance! Yesterday lieutenant of foot, to-day commander-in-chief of her highness the Inche Maida’s troops.”
“Yes, you shall be commander,” said the Princess, seriously. “It will save my country, for my people will follow you to the death.”
“Well, ’pon my word, Princess,” said Chumbley, merrily, “you are a precious clever, sensible woman, and I like you after all.”
“And I like you,” she said, innocently. “I do not love you, but I like you very much, you seem so brave and true, and what you people call frank. You will help me, will you not, both of you? Think how I appealed to Mr Harley for help—how that almost my life depends upon it—and what did I get but empty words?”
“You did not get much, certainly,” said Chumbley.
“Then talk to your friend, and advise him. He will do what you say.”
“No,” said Chumbley, laughing, “that is just what he will not do. If ever there was a man who would not take my advice, it is Hilton.”
“Try him now that he is here—now that he knows how useless it is to fight against his fate. Speak to him, and speak kindly!” she whispered. “I am going to my women now.”
She took one step towards Hilton, holding out her hand to him in a gentle, appealing manner; but he only bowed distantly, and turned away.
The soft, appealing look passed from the Inche Maida’s face, giving place to an angry frown; but this died out as she turned to Chumbley.
“We two are friends, I hope?” she said, holding out her hand. “You are not angry with me?”
“Well, not very,” he replied, smiling; “one can’t be angry with a woman long for such a trick as this.”
“Yes,” she said, quickly, “it is a trick, as you English call it. I have won the trick.”
“Yes, you have won the trick,” assented Chumbley; “but you don’t hold the honours,” he added to himself.
“I am glad that you are wise,” she said, smiling now. “I will go, and my people shall bring you dinner.”
“Thanks,” said Chumbley; “that is the kindest act you can do to us now; only please forget the poison.”
“Poison!” she cried, indignantly. “How dare you say that to me! You are prisoners here, but you are quite safe while you do not try to escape. Have I done so little to make myself an Englishwoman that you talk of poison?”
“Yes,” said Chumbley to himself, “so little to make yourself an Englishwoman that you play upon us such a trick as this!”
The door opened, the Inche Maida passed through; and as the curtain fell down again and covered the opening, Hilton turned angrily upon his friend.