At last they reached the place, and the young man’s searching eye at once saw that some attempts had been made at cutting down the tangled trees.
But very little time was afforded him to gratify his curiosity. He was rudely thrust forward, and then half dragged, half carried up the rough steps, some of which were broken away, and then pushed into the great centre room of what had been a large Malay house.
It was very dark, for the holes in the roof had become choked with creepers, which had formed a new thatch in place of the old attap top. The bamboos that formed the floor were slippery here and there with damp moss and fungus, and in several places they were rotted away; but there was plenty to afford a fair space of flooring, and in a momentary glance Ali saw that the inner or women’s room of the house was dry, and not so much ruined as the place where he stood.
“Did they kris the poor prisoners here?” he asked himself; and then his thoughts flew to the bright river upon which his boat had so often skimmed; to the clean, trim corvette, with its bright paint, smart sailors, and Bob Roberts, the merry, cheery young English lad. Then he thought of the residency, with the sweet graceful ladies, the pleasant officers, always so frank and hospitable; of Tom Long, whom he liked in spite of the ensign’s pride and stand-offishness; and lastly he asked himself what they would think of him for not keeping faith with them about the hunt, and whether they would ever know that he had been treacherously krissed in that out-of-the-way place.
A grim smile crossed his lip as he wished that he might be thrown afterwards in the river, and his body float down to be seen by the English people, so that they might know why he had stopped away.
And then a thrill ran through him, for a couple of his captors seized him, and in the dim green light of the place, with a few thin pencils of sunshine striking straight through like silver threads from roof to floor, he saw a third man draw his deadly kris.