Helen shivered, but she mastered her fear, and exclaimed:
“Have you reckoned what your punishment will be for this? Do you suppose my people will let this pass?”
“I have weighed all,” he said, coolly. “But let me talk, for I have much to say yet; I find relief in speaking of it all. Did you think that I was going to submit without resentment to the insult you had put upon me? Oh, no! You did not know what we Malays could do. We take a blow, and perhaps bear it then. It may be wise; but we never forgive the hand that gives that blow. We hide our suffering for a time, but at last we turn and strike. Do you understand me now? The time came at last, and I have turned and struck.”
Helen remained silent, listening to his words, which sounded like a sentence of death; but she still fought hard not to show her terror, and kept up her defiant, half-contemptuous gaze as he went on:
“I hid all my sufferings, and patiently bore with all your cruelty, seeing without a word how you lavished your smiles upon this one and that, and all without making a sign; but all the time I was waiting, and telling myself that some day you should pay me for all this suffering; and when the good time came I said to my people: ‘Take her and carry her to the house in the jungle; let her people think she is dead,’ and it was done.”
“And now that it has been done,” cried Helen, “your plans are known. You have been followed, and you will have to suffer as you deserve—death is the punishment to the cowardly native hand that is raised against an English lady.”
“Nonsense!” he said, laughing. “I have taken my steps better than that;” and his words which followed chilled Helen, as they robbed her of a hope. “No one saw you taken but that dreamy priest of your people, and he has been taken too. He wanders through our jungle finding flowers and plants, forgetting you half his time.”
“It is false!” cried Helen. “He was here to-day.”
“Yes, he was here to-day,” said Murad, coolly, “and he has been taken back. He did not follow you. Do you suppose me so weak that I should let your people know where you had gone?”
“They must—they will know—that it is you who have done this cruel wrong,” she cried, indignantly.