Volume Three—Chapter Fourteen.
Preparing for a Start.
“Now look here, boy,” said Chumbley. “I grant the possibility of the Inche Maida having assisted in carrying off Helen, but we do not know that she did. What we do know is—”
“That she confessed—”
“Not to helping, or anything of the kind. She told us that she was another man’s wife by now.”
“Well, that shows that she was cognisant of the matter; and I say that we ought to make a clean breast of the affair.”
“Well, I’m such a pusillanimous coward, that I can’t screw myself up to doing anything of the kind. One can’t help feeling foolish over the matter. Hang it all, no, keep it quiet! We are in an out-of-the-way place certainly; but this is an awfully small marble of a world, and if we tell our story, it would get into the Straits Times, and from that into the Calcutta papers; and once there, the tit-bit of two officers being carried off by a wicked Eastern princess will soon run over to England, and go the round of the press. Why, hang it, man, we had better retire from the service!”
Hilton stood leaning half out of the window of their quarters listening to his friend.
“It would be awkward,” he said.
“Awkward’s nothing to it, my dear boy. And besides, you know what comes about if we make all known. Harley will consider that he is in duty bound to arrest the Inche Maida, or something of the kind, and then look at the consequences!”