“My specimens!—my specimens! We must not leave them behind!”
The doctor took off his hat and rubbed his head, for his feelings were quite with the chaplain; but to go back and land, and search the house in the jungle, meant over a day’s work, and he said, decidedly:
“No: it is impossible to go now!”
“But they are the work of weeks and months of labour!” protested the chaplain. “If you had only seen them!”
“My dear Arthur, I have seen them,” said the doctor. “They will not hurt, and as soon as you are well again we will fetch them.”
The chaplain sank back in his place with a sigh; and as the journey was continued he told his friends of his long imprisonment, and of how, as a resource, he had settled down to botanising.
This had gone on steadily, till about a fortnight back, when he noticed that his guards were whispering together a good deal, and that evening he missed them, and no meal was prepared.
The next day no one was visible, and he found what provision there was, and did the best he could, and so on the next day, when, finding that he was regularly deserted, he made up his mind to escape, and started off, following the track that led from the house, to find that it ended by a little river.
There was no possibility of getting to right or left, to follow the stream, on account of the jungle, and after a weary day he was glad to go back to his prison and sleep.
The following days were taken up in efforts to find a path that would lead to some inhabited place, but the efforts were in vain; and though he sought constantly, he could not retrace his steps to the house where he had seen the Malay lady trying to get away. Everywhere it was jungle—a wilderness of jungle—and the only possibility of escape was by one of the streams, or by way of the lagoon, which he had discovered in his botanical wanderings.