His eyes fell upon the basket again, and the slight draught of water having turned his faintness into a strong desire for food, he could hardly restrain himself from taking one of the remaining bananas. In fact, after resisting the temptation for some minutes, he darted his hand down, caught up one of the soft, gold-tinted fruits, raised it towards his mouth, and dashed it down again.
“Hanged if I do!” he cried angrily; and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, he had another look at Archie, and then raised himself up so as to peer through the opening the elephant had made, and try to get some better idea of his position.
“Trees, trees, trees,” he said; “trees everywhere; but there’s a path off to the left, and one goes off to the right, and there’s another goes straight away. Let’s see: off to the right must be down to the river, because that’s where the helephants went; and those other paths must go to where somebody lives; but there’s no sign of a house—nothing but trees. Not a sound! Oh, what a lonely place it is! And here’s all the long, dark night coming. The sun’s going down fast. I sha’n’t sleep a wink to-night after snoozing as I did. And here I’m going to lie thinking about that upset with poor Mister Archie’s boat, and—yes, I shall be thinking more about what’s become of Miss Minnie. Here, I say, what a row there’s going to be when the Major and Sir Charles know of it all! And me shut up here instead of being with the lads when the governor lets them slip at these Malay jockeys, for I am a bigger fool than I thought for if one of these Rajahs isn’t at the bottom of this job. I don’t know but what it might be that there smooth young ’un who dosses hisself up to look like an English gent. If it ain’t him, it’s that queer-eyed, big, fat fellow; only I suppose it can’t be him, because old Tipsy Job says he’s friends. How comes it, then,” he continued, speaking with energy, “that the Frenchman has had to do with our being prisoners? Here, I can’t think. It’s making my head ache and things get mixed again. What’s that?” he half-whispered excitedly. “It’s somebody coming;” and pressing his face closer to the opening, he strained his eyes round so as to gaze to the left, and then dropped lightly down before throwing himself upon the dried palm-leaves close to where Archie lay, and listening to the coming steps. “That chap can speak English ’most as well as I can,” he thought to himself, “and I am going to ask him plump and plain what’s become of Miss Minnie.”
A gruff voice uttered what was evidently a command to halt, the wooden bars were lowered and the door thrown open to admit the deep sunset glow, and the stern-looking Malay with his following marched in, their steps rustling amidst the leaves that covered the floor; and the leader bent down curiously over Archie, scowling at him fiercely, before turning his lurid eyes searchingly upon the young private, who now lay back with his lids half-lowered, apparently gazing down into his chest.
The Malay rose again, then turned and gave an order to his followers, two of whom stepped outside, one of them first standing up the spear he carried in the dark corner behind the door, while their chief growled out something as he pointed at the freshly torn opening in the side. One of the men grunted—it sounded like a grunt to Peter Pegg—and raising his spear, he passed it through the opening, rattled it to and fro, and then stepped outside to pick up two or three torn-out pieces of palm-fibre, brought them in, showed them to his chief, and uttered a half-laugh.
Just then the two men who had passed outside returned, one bearing a fresh jar brim-full of water, the other a basket of fruit and another of the big, roughly made cakes, which were set down.
Then the leader stepped forward, stooped down suddenly over Pegg, his right hand resting upon the fold of the sarong which covered the hilt of his kris, and with his left thumb he roughly raised the young private’s eyelids one after the other.
Peter Pegg did not so much as wince.
“Let him think I’m asleep if he likes—an ugly Eastern beast!”
The Malay turned now to Archie to look fixedly at the poor fellow’s head, before touching the injured scalp with one brown finger, with the effect of eliciting a deep-drawn sigh of pain.