There was no cessation in the rowing; but as Chumbley sat back there he felt his request attended to, the smoked-out cigar being taken from his lips and thrown into the water, where it fell with a loud hiss, the case taken from his breast, opened, and then it seemed that the boats were drawn together, and a cigar was passed to Hilton.
“Got it, old man?” said Chumbley, sucking at his own, and biting off the end.
“Yes,” said Hilton gruffly, as if he were resenting the attentions of his captors.
Then came the sharp sound of a striking match; and though Chumbley tried hard, he found that his eyes were too well bandaged for him to catch even a gleam of the light, so he contented himself with drawing at his cigar, after which there was the loud hiss of the match thrown into the water, and the boats were once more urged onward at a goodly speed.
A little conversation was kept up; but over their cigars the two prisoners seemed to grow thoughtful, and at last there was a pause, which Chumbley broke at last with the question:
“I say, old chap, don’t you think this means ransom?”
There was no reply, and the deep-voiced Malay said, in his own tongue:
“The other boat is far behind.”
It must have been towards morning that a few words were uttered in Chumbley’s boat; there seemed to him, as he immediately became on the qui vive, to be a quickening of the rower’s strokes, the rustling of bushes, some twigs of one of which brushed his arm, and then they ascended, as far as he could judge, a narrow stream for a short distance, for the oars kept striking bushes or reeds on either side; and now the boat that held Hilton had evidently come up close behind.
“They mean to hide us away well, at all events,” thought Chumbley. “Now I wonder whether we have come up the stream or down.”