One Maid's Mischief

by George Manville Fenn

“Who knows?” he said. “To-day they may be friends, to-morrow enemies. The prahu is Rajah Murad’s, and the crew his men.”

The doctor did not pay much heed to the rather oracular words of the Malay, though he recalled it all afterwards, his attention now being taken up by some choice specimens of the sunbird family, hovering about the blossoms on the banks.

Ten miles or so farther up, and the boatmen pointed to the overgrown mouth of the little river of which they were in search.

Anyone unacquainted with the place would have passed it unseen, but it had been noted down by the doctor during one of his expeditions, as a place to be explored at some future time.

The men turned the head of the sampan towards the tangled mass of bushes and overhanging trees, and then, as they drew near, one of them rose in the prow, and drew the long heavy parang he wore, a sword-like knife much used by the poorer Malays for cutting back the thorns and canes that a few days’ rapid growth led across their path; but the next moment he had lowered the weapon, and rested the point upon the edge of the boat.

“Someone has been here, master,” he said; “a big boat has broken its way through.”

“All the better for us,” said the doctor, and instead of having to cut and hack right and left, the sampan passed easily along the tangled channel, the masses of huge water-lilies giving way before the boat, while, as they got farther on past the grown-up mouth, the river seemed to widen, and the route of the vessel that had passed before could be plainly seen in a narrow channel of leaf-sprinkled water.

“That prahu must have been along here, master,” said the elder of the two Malays, thoughtfully. “No small sampan could have broken a way like this.”

“So much the better,” said the doctor again; but he grew more thoughtful, for the fact of a boat having been along this little river so lately seemed to rob it of a good deal of its mystery. He had hoped to find it completely unexplored, and here only that day someone had passed along.

It was, however, in its upper portion that the doctor hoped to find something to interest him; and after all it was not probable that the occupants of the prahu would be searching for gold.