“Says how can he come if he goes shooting and gold-hunting with his uncle?” said Frank, in English.
The Tumongong smiled sadly, and replied in Malay.
“Tells me you’re not to go with your uncle to-morrow, but to come here,” said Frank, interpreting. “Never mind; I’ll go with him.”
The Tumongong said a few words.
“Oh, I’m to stop too. Very well. I don’t mind. I’ll stay, and we’ll make the old boy give us plenty of fruit and sweets. He will, I know. Go and tell him,” he continued, “that we kiss his feet.”
The Tumongong smiled, patted Frank on the arm, as if he were a favourite, and returned to stand behind where his master was seated, smoking, and gazing amiably from one to the other, favouring Murray several times, and each time their eyes met, the rajah raised his golden cup to his lips, and sipped a little coffee.
At last, when the patience of every one of the English party was thoroughly exhausted, the rajah rose, which was taken as a signal for their dismissal; but the potentate reversed the etiquette of an English parting by shaking hands with the gentlemen first, and smiling almost affectionately upon Murray, whose hand he grasped warmly, while the Englishman’s grip was cold and limp. Then turning to the ladies, he bade Mrs Braine, Mrs Greig, and Mrs Barnes good-night, after the custom of his country, and lastly, held out his hand to Amy, who could hardly master herself sufficiently to place hers within it.
As he grasped it firmly, he bent down and said a few words in a low tone, which made the girl shrink away with a horrified look, while Murray would have started forward, but for Mr Braine’s restraining hand.
But the rajah retained the hand he held, and slipping a ring from his little finger, he placed it on one of Amy’s, accompanying it with a meaning look, and then drawing back to march slowly toward the hanging mats which, divided the room from the next, and passing through followed by the chiefs and attendants; while the visitors lost no time in making for the veranda, below which an armed guard bearing lanterns was waiting, ready to escort them as far as the doctor’s house, and here they salaamed and retired.
“Come in, Braine—come in, Mr Murray,” said the doctor, excitedly. “I should like a few words with you both. Go in, my dears. Mrs Braine, please, don’t leave them yet.”