Sultan Hamet was sincere enough in his demonstrations of pleasure, sending presents five or six times a day to the resident, the various officers, and, above all, fruit for the wounded men.
The presents were but of little value, but they showed the Malay’s gratitude, and the officers were very pleased with what they looked upon as curiosities. Even Bob Roberts and Tom Long were not forgotten, each receiving an ivory-mounted kris, the young chief Ali being the bearer.
The resident, however, felt that the sultan was not meeting him in quite a proper spirit, and he was rather suspicious, till a fresh embassy of the principal chiefs arrived, and brought a formal invitation for the resident and the officers to visit him upon a fixed day.
As before, an imposing force was got ready, and once more the march to what Bob had nick-named Palm Tree Palace, took place, the middy coming afterwards to Tom Long’s room, and telling him how the affair had gone off.
“It was no end of a game,” he said to the young ensign, who was rapidly gaining strength, the fancy that his wound was poisoned having passed away. “We started just as we did last time, and marched through the jungle till we came to the sultan’s barns, where the men were drawn up, and no end of the niggers came to wait on them, bringing them a kind of drink made of rice, and plenty of fruit and things, while we officers had to go into the sultan’s dining-room—a place hung round with cotton print—and there we all sat down, cross-legged, like a lot of jolly tailors, with the sultan up at the top, the major on one side, and our skipper on the other.”
“But they didn’t sit down cross-legged?” said Tom Long.
“Didn’t they, my boy? But they just did; and it was a game to see our skipper letting himself down gently for fear of cracking his best white uniform sit-in-ems. Your major split some stitches somewhere, for I heard them go. Then there was the doctor; you should have seen him! He came to an anchor right enough, but when he tried to square his yards—I mean his legs—he nearly went over backwards, and looked savage enough to eat me, because I laughed.”
“Poor old doctor!” said Tom Long, smiling.
“Oh, we were all in difficulties, being cast upon our beam-ends as it were; but we got settled down in our berths at last, and then the dinner began.”
“Was it good?” said Tom Long, whose appetite was growing as he began to get better.