“All right. Then now you know where your own boat is, Ned, and when you are tired of us all, you can jump in and say ‘Good-bye.’”
“Or take you with us,” said Ned. “I don’t want to go away from you. Not so ungrateful as you think. Oh, don’t! You needn’t hug me like that. I say: don’t act like a great girl. Ah, Ham—”
Then silence. For Ned felt, as he believed, his companion fling his arms affectionately about him, and so roughly that he bore him back. He felt the silken baju and sarong and the hilt of the kris against him, and then he went down heavily. Frank was evidently playing him some foolish trick, and he had clapped a hand now over his mouth to keep him from making a noise, and betraying their whereabouts.
Then a horrible pang of fear ran through him, for there were smothered sounds and scuffling going on close by, leaves cracked and stalks and twigs snapped, and directly after the hand was removed, and he opened his mouth to cry out, but something soft was thrust in, then a cloth was dragged over his head, his arms were bound to his body, and he felt himself lifted up, and carried by a couple of men.
“A piece of treachery,” he thought. “And we trusted Hamet so. Poor Frank! Is he being served the same?”
He got as far as that point, and then the heat and the oppression caused by the gag so nearly stifled him that his brain grew confused; there was a sensation of giddiness and a singing in his ears.
“They are choking me,” he thought; and he made a desperate struggle to get his hands to his lips, and then he remembered no more till he felt a sensation of something cool being trickled between his lips. It tasted bitter but pleasant, and in his half-insensible state he swallowed the grateful beverage, and swallowed again and again.
Then forgetfulness stole over him once, and he knew no more, till he opened his eyes and saw the level rays of the sun shining through the open doorway on to the mats that formed the side of the room.
“Going to get up, uncle?” he said, and then he stared, for a couple of dark faces were thrust in to stare at him, and as he looked quickly round, he could not see the guns on the walls, nor his uncle’s specimens hanging out of reach of the ants, nor yet his uncle; but close beside him, lying on a mat, the figure of Frank, evidently fast asleep.
The two swarthy-looking faces were withdrawn slowly, and Ned turned, seized Frank by the shoulder, and shook him violently.