It was a lovely starlit night, and after Mr Greig had gone, the doctor and Mr Braine rose from the table to go and walk up and down in the veranda, and wait for the coming of the next messengers from the rajah, for that there would soon be another both felt perfectly convinced.
They had not long to wait before the Tumongong appeared with a small retinue of men, spear-armed as usual, who were halted by their officer at the foot of the steps, while the Malay chief ascended to the veranda to announce briefly that the rajah would honour the ladies with a visit that evening; after which he turned and left the place as he came, the dark figures of his escort filing out through the bamboo gate, looking like shadows in the starlight.
“There is only one thing left,” said Mr Braine, as the doctor sat too much stunned by the intelligence, now it had come, to be able to go in and communicate it to his wife and child.
Chapter Twenty One.
Frank’s Errand.
“What’ll I do? What’ll I do?” muttered Tim Driscol to himself as he walked up and down one of the garden paths hidden from his master and his friends, and unheeded by the Malay guard, who contented themselves with seeing that he did not pass out of the gate.
“That pretty colleen! Ow, the covetous owld rip, and him wid a dozen wives at laste, to want our darlin’. What’ll I do?—what’ll I do? Faix, I’ll have me poipe.”
He filled the rough bamboo affair with the coarse native tobacco he used, and went on smoking, the bowl glowing as if a ruddy firefly were gliding up and down the garden walk. “Ow, sorrow to uz all!” he muttered. “An’ what are all his wives about? Why, they can’t have a taste o’ sperrit in ’em, or they wouldn’t shtand it. Why, if they were ladies from the ould country, and he even thought of taking another, there wouldn’t be a bit of hair left on his wicked head. Oh dear! sorrow to me, what’ll I do at all, at all?—Who’s this. To see wan of the women, I suppose.”