“I am ready now,” he said, in a low harsh voice. “Come on.”
The bamboos creaked, and the house shook with the heavy steps of the two men, as they went down, and conscious all the time that they were watched, and fully expecting to have their way barred at any moment, they retraced their steps, to halt for a minute and listen, as they came opposite the entrance to the doctor’s garden. But all was silent there, and the lamps were burning just inside the door.
“Come on,” whispered Mr Braine, with his voice trembling with the intense strain from which he suffered.
The distance was very short, not many yards on in the direction of the rajah’s place, and here they crossed a carefully-tended garden toward the veranda, about whose creepers the fireflies were gleaming.
But there a low fierce voice challenged them from the darkness, and Murray’s hand flew to his breast.
“I, Yussuf,” said Mr Braine, quietly; and then, in Malay, he asked if the boys had come, and received his answer.
“Not here, and they have not been,” he whispered to Murray.
“No. There is some other meaning to it,” said Murray, sternly. “The rajah has had them seized. To-morrow I was to have been sent out of the way, but this is a fresh plan. Is it in consequence of what was overheard at Doctor Barnes’s?”
“It is impossible to say,” replied Mr Braine. “I am beginning to feel bewildered. But we must be calm. No great harm can have befallen them. It is part of some plan to force Barnes to consent to this hateful marriage.”
“Then we must take time by the forelock, and go.”