One Maid's Mischief

by George Manville Fenn

It was a great shock; but there was a trouble even worse to come.

The two Malay girls burst into fits of laughter as they saw her horror, their eyes glittering with malicious pleasure; and catching Helen’s arms in their hands, they laid them side by side with their own, to show her that they were as nearly as could be of about the same hue.

Then they mockingly pointed to her face, and to their own, holding the glass before her again and again, while from the smattering she knew of the language, Helen made out that they were telling her how beautiful she looked now, and that she ought to be grateful for that which they had done.

By degrees, though, the anguish she was suffering seemed to be realised, and to wake an echo in their coarser minds, and they began to soften towards her, speaking tenderly, and patting her hands and cheeks, and at last going so far as to kiss her, as they whispered what were evidently meant to be words of comfort.

“You foolish thing,” cried the elder of the two; “what is there so dreadful in it all? He loves you, and you will be his chief wife. It is we who ought to weep, not you.”

“Yes,” cried the other, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that only about one word in ten was comprehended by the prisoner; “we are jealous of you, for you take away his love from us. The Rajah has talked about you for a long time, saying how lovely you were, only that you were so fair.”

“I hate you,” cried the first; “but I will not be cruel, for you are in trouble. You have been brought away from your father. I remember so well how I was ready to beat my head against the trees, and to drown myself in the river, when they brought me from my home. But Murad was very angry when I wept, and after a time I learned how to bear my sorrow, and I wept no more.”

“I wept, too,” said the other, “for I loved a handsome young fisherman, and when they dragged me away from my home I fought, and bit, and tore people, and Murad said I was to be krissed and thrown into the river. Then I thought about the crocodiles, and I felt that it would be too dreadful, and I left off crying, and so will you. There, try and bear it, for it is of no avail to weep. Murad is prince, and what he will have he has.”

Hardly one word in ten, but the recurrence of the name “Murad” and “love” were sufficient to make her suspicions certainties; and as she fully realised the extent of her trouble, she shuddered, and sat with her hands tightly clasped, gazing into vacancy, and asking herself what madness had been hers that she should have allowed her folly to bring her to so sad a pass.

She was soon after left to herself, and leaving the matting divan upon which she had been seated, she paced the room, frantically trying door and windows in turn, but only to find all fast. Again and again she found her follies recurring to her mind, and she blamed herself bitterly for her coquetry, and the thoughtless love of admiration which had tempted her to attract the Rajah’s notice.