“Quite right—quite right, Linton,” said Captain Horton. “You had no business to be a civilian. You ought to have been in the service.”
The resident smiled, and they separated, as Mr Linton said, to wait for the enemy’s next move.
Chapter Twenty Eight.
How Sultan Hamet visited his Friends.
The enemy, as the resident termed the sultan’s party, made no move for a couple of days, during which all went on as usual. There was the usual morning parade in the fort, and the soldiers gardened, idled, smoked, and told one another it was “jolly hot”—a fact that needed no telling. On board the “Startler” the men were beat to quarters, and went through their drill in the cool of the morning, before hammock rails, the sentries’ rifles, and the breeches of the glistening guns grew too hot to be touched with impunity. So hot was it, that, like the burnt child who fears the fire, Bob Roberts was exceedingly cautious about placing his hands in any spot where they were likely to be defiled by the pitch that cannot be touched without those consequences; for from between seams, and the strands of well-laid cables, it oozed, and even bubbled out, beneath the ardent wooing of the tropic sun.
It was a listless life, but a pleasant one, for such strict discipline was observed, and stringent rules laid down by the medical officer of the corvette and the detachment, that the men kept in excellent health. They had plenty of amusements; fruit was abundant, and they had taken quite a taste for the coarse country tobacco, which many of the soldiers smoked after the Malay fashion, rolled up à la cigarette in the roko, or outer sheath of the palm leaf or the plantain. Some, too, adopted the Malay’s plan of rapidly cutting a pipe from a short joint of bamboo, which, with a hole bored in the side for the insertion of a thin reed or quill, formed a pipe much affected by the Jacks when they took their tobacco in smoke, instead of by the unpleasantly moist masticating process.
At the residency all went on as usual; sometimes the ladies received, and there was the sound of music and singing in the pleasantly lit-up verandah; sometimes Captain Horton sent his gig, and the agreeable little reunions were held on board the “Startler,” in an improvised tent, draped with the ship’s colours, while the lights were reflected on the smooth surface of the hurrying stream, and the Malays on shore watched the figures that passed to and fro till the party was over.
Captain Horton and Major Sandars both thought the rajah’s party had forgotten the affair; but the resident held to his opinion, which was strengthened by the imploring manner in which the two girls, who had attached themselves as attendants on Rachel Linton and her cousin, begged him not to let them be fetched away.