One Maid's Mischief

by George Manville Fenn

Then all was very still. The heat seemed to grow more intense, and the faint ripple of the river, as it glided by the island, could be distinctly heard. Now and then from the distant jungle some wild, uneasy cry rose upon the still air, riding as it were across the river like a warning to tell the slumbering Europeans that the savagery of the primeval forest lay close beside their civilisation; while the wakeful might have pondered on the fact that their safety rested solely upon the British prestige, and that a spark might ignite a train that would result in a terrible conflagration sufficient to sweep them all away.

Some such thoughts crossed the sleeping brain of Neil Harley that night, and his sleep grew more and more troubled as he thought how love-blinded he had been, and the risks they had run from Helen’s treatment of the young Rajah.

The trouble had passed away now, but such another affair might result in ruin to them all; and yet he had allowed her to go on and trifle, looking on with assumed indifference, though his heart was stung the while.

Neil Harley’s sleep again grew restful and calm; for in a pleasant dream he fancied that Helen, more beautiful than ever, had bidden him to her side, telling him that all her weak and wilful coquetry was but to try him. That she had loved him from the first, for he was the only man who had really touched her heart; and that, though she had fought against the restraint he had placed upon her, and told herself that she hated him and the way in which he had mocked at her trifling, she was his—his alone—that she resigned herself to his keeping—his keeping—that of the only man who could ever sway her heart.

The night grew hotter still, and the faint breath that was wafted between the open laths that covered the window seemed to have passed from the mouth of some furnace. A harsh roar came from the jungle, and then a loud plash or two echoed over the surface of the stream, as some great reptile plunged in from the muddy bank.

Then all was very still once more for a time, till suddenly the faint plash-plash of oars was heard, seeming now to be coming nearer, now to be fading away, drowned by the shrill insect hum. Again it sounded nearer, and all doubt of its proceeding from a boat bound for the Residency island was ended by the loud challenge of the sentry at the landing-place.

Then came voices in reply, and once more the hum of the mosquitoes was all that could be heard: now low and deep, now shrill and angry.

The faint lapping of the river and the plash of oars had died away, and the silence and heat were painful enough to draw a low sigh from the sleeper, just as the bedroom door was softly opened, and a dark figure glided in, crept over the matting floor without making a sound, and bent over the bed.

For the moment it seemed as though he was there upon some errand of ill; and one who watched would have been ready to raise an alarm, the insecurity of the station life being sufficient to warrant such a supposition; but the idea of the dark figure being bent on an evil errand was at once destroyed, for after waiting for a moment, he cried, softly:

“Master—master!”