Accordingly they examined their weapons, prepared and laid them to hand, ate their suppers, and stretched themselves on their mats. Kirke was asleep in five minutes, but Ralph's wound began to throb and ache, and the distress from it kept him awake. He was feverish too, and twisted and turned on his bed, unable to find ease in any posture. Now he thought he heard stealthy movements around him; then he lost consciousness for a few moments, and awoke with a start, fancying that a snake was crawling over him, or that he was once again confronted by a leopard's glaring eyes.
He told himself over and over again that the sounds were but the soft rustling of bats' wings, the scramble of rats along the rafters of the hut, or the whirr of mosquitoes in the damp night air.
It was of no use, sleep forsook his eyes, although he was so tired that he longed for its balminess. Instead of finding its refreshment, he was haunted by all the stories of dacoits which he had heard at Moulmein and elsewhere.
He thought of one young lady who was said to have been gently lifted from her bed, the mattress removed from beneath her and appropriated, while she was replaced upon the framework without being awakened.
He remembered how a gentleman, fancying he heard sounds in the house, got up, and entangled his feet in garments belonging to his wife lying about on the floor.
"What is that untidy ayah of yours about, to leave your things scattered on the ground like this?" scolded he.
"She did not throw them down," said the lady; "I saw her lay that habit on the chest of drawers, ready for me to put on in the morning."
Her husband by this time had struck a light, and found the whole chest of drawers gone. The servants were called up, a search instituted, and the piece of furniture discovered in the compound, rifled of all its contents.
He laughed to himself, for the fiftieth time, over the remembrance of the doctor's wife, who awoke in the night to see a dusky figure stooping over a nice, carefully-locked mahogany box, in the act of lifting it to carry it away.
Being a brave woman, she sprang up into a sitting posture, clapping her hands with a sudden sharp sound. The robber dropped his booty, leapt over the verandah, swarmed down one of the posts which supported it, and vanished in a moment. By this act of presence of mind, she saved her husband's stomach-pump.