“Chumbley!” cried Hilton, passionately, “is this a time for joking, when at any moment our lives may be taken! Be sensible if you can.”
“I thought that was being sensible or philosophical if you like it better, old man. I don’t see that it’s of any use to fret so long as they don’t kill us. It will be a change from pipe-clay and parade; and judging from what I saw between you and someone else in a certain quarter to-day, I should have thought that you would have been glad of a holiday.”
“Holiday, with a kris at our throats,” cried Hilton, passionately.
“Bah! they won’t kill us!” said Chumbley.
“I tell you that is what the scoundrels mean!” replied Hilton. “Not that it matters much,” he added gloomily.
“Oh, doesn’t it!” said Chumbley, “but it does, a good deal. I don’t know that we should make much fuss—soldiers can’t; but I know of plenty of people who would cry their eyes out about me.”
“If the English rajahs,” said a voice, that seemed to the two young men in their bandaged condition to come out of the darkness, and to speak haltingly, as if the utterer were not quite sure of the language in which he spoke—“If the English rajahs will be patient, and not try to escape, no harm shall be done to them.”
“There,” said Chumbley, “do you hear that, old man! Better have a cigar.”
“Rubbish!” cried Hilton, angrily.
“Not a bit of it, old man,” said Chumbley; “they are some of old Perowne’s best, and I have just finished one, and am going to have another. Here! hi! my lord the Malay chief, Maharajah, Muntri, Tumongong, or whatever you are, stop the boat, and give my friend a cigar. Load us both and fire us old chap, and then we can go off comfortably.”