The desire was strong in the doctor to devote himself a good deal to the pursuit of his hobby, but he sternly put it down.
“No, Chumbley,” he said, “not this time. I’m a weak man, and I talked to you about Sol—ahem!—about my hobby, eh? Didn’t say it that time—and if we come across anything relating to Oph—I mean my hobby—why, well and good, we’ll investigate it; but I mean business; and Yusuf here has given me good hopes of being successful, for of course it is absurd to imagine that they have killed poor old Arthur!”
“What do you propose doing first, then?” said Chumbley, rousing himself from a drowsy contemplation of the banks, and thinking how pleasantly life would glide on in a place like this.
“I think I shall leave Yusuf to follow his own bent,” replied the doctor. “He is a close, dry fellow, but he seems to know a great deal, and he will not speak till he is sure. That is it, is it not, Yusuf?”
“Yes, master,” said the Malay, who was toiling hard with the doctor’s old boatman Ismael. “If I said to the chiefs I know where the Christian priest is, and took them to the place and he was not there, they would be angry. So I will take them to the place I think of. If the Christian priest is there, it is good. If he is not, the misfortune is not so bad, and the chiefs will not be so hard upon their guide.”
“Well, Ismael, what have you to say?” said the doctor, as he caught his old boatman looking at him very intently.
“I was thinking of the lives of all here, master,” said Ismael. “We do not wish to die, we people of the country; but when the time comes we say ‘Yes, it is our fate, and we close our eyes;’ but you English chiefs, it is not right that you should die. We love the doctor, for he is good to us, our wives and children.”
“Oh, all right,” said the doctor, heartily. “What do you mean? You are afraid there is risk?”
“Great danger, master!” said Yusuf. “Murad will surely have us hunted out and slain for showing you his secret house in the jungle!”
“Another secret house, eh?” said Chumbley, rousing himself a little more. “Well, look here, old Cockolorum.”