“I don’t know. Why did he give you that kris?”
“Oh, that was for a present. I don’t understand such things, but I believe when a gentleman gives a lady a ring, it’s because he means to marry her.”
“But he can’t; he has a wife.”
“A wife!” cried Frank. “Lots. But that doesn’t matter out here.”
Chapter Fifteen.
A Troubled Night.
As soon as Amy entered her home, she let the pent-up agony and fear which she had hidden for hours have vent in a burst of passionate weeping, and hurried away to her own room, closely followed by her mother and Mrs Braine, leaving the gentlemen standing in the half-darkened room, silent, agitated, and each waiting for the other to speak. But for some minutes no word was spoken, and the silence was only broken by the creaking sound of the bamboo flooring, as in a violent state of agitation, Murray walked the room from end to end. Just then a low cat-like cry came from the jungle, repeated and answered from different directions, and influencing Murray, so that he went and stood at the opening, gazing across the veranda at the fireflies gliding here and there like tiny wandering stars, and listening to the cries which told him that on the jungle side they were surrounded by enemies.
As he stood there motionless, strange hoarse barking sounds came from the river, with an occasional faint splash, and then a loud beating noise, as if some monster were thrashing the surface of the river with its tail. Then, again, from the forest arose other strange cries, croakings, whinings, and sounds to which it would have been hard to give a name, but all suggestive of the black darkness around being full of danger, and after his experience that day of the forest track, he found himself thinking of how impossible it would be for any one seeking to leave the village to escape in that direction.