“He knows it’s death, and a complete finish of his Rajahship,” muttered the doctor; “and sooner than be found out the reptile would shoot me down like a dog—if I don’t get the chance to shoot him first; and hang me if I don’t feel just now as if I could send a charge of shot through him with the greatest pleasure in life!”
He felt that if the followers of Murad were to find out the direction taken by the fugitive they would soon be on her track, and he would be almost helpless—one against a strongly-manned boat, whose crew would know their lives depended upon the success of their efforts.
Under these circumstances he determined to draw the boat well up among the rocks, and then to lie in concealment until the evening, when they might float down under cover of the darkness.
But no sooner had he determined upon this than the thought of the difficulties of the navigation came uppermost in his mind. It was hard enough to get safely up the little river by daylight. In the darkness he was compelled to own that it would be impossible.
“I must run all risks,” he said; “there is nothing else for it. We must get down to the mouth of the river and out into the main stream as soon as possible,” and having fully made up his mind what he would do, he turned to Helen Perowne.
“I am going to start at once,” he said; “but before we set off—I say this so as to help me, perhaps, in our effort to get away—”
“Effort to get away?” she said, piteously. “No, no; I don’t quite mean that,” he said; “but before we set off would you not like to make yourself look a little more like an English lady?”
She looked up at him with an imploring look, and the tears began to trickle down her cheeks.
“Only too gladly, doctor; but you do not understand. They managed their cruel task only too well! Do you not see?—this is a stain, and it cannot be removed!”
The doctor frowned as he thought of his store of drugs and chemicals at home in his little palm-thatched cottage, where he wished they were themselves; and then he wondered whether there was anything amongst them that would remove the brown tint from his companion’s face.