“Stop a minute, my boy. I just wanted to say to you, I am ready to draw the teeth of all the Malays in the district without fee, and I am prepared to say that some of them are as grateful as we can be ourselves.”
“Yes,” cried Archie; “but business is business.”
“Thank you, boy; thank you for pulling me up. I can’t help it just now. Poor Minnie is to me just as dear as if she were my own child, and I am quite overturned—hysterical as a woman, more shame for me! Here, it was only the other day you came whining to me about being all wrong because you are such a boy. You said you thought you were not as you should be—that you wanted to be a man. Didn’t I tell you, sir, to wait—that all you wanted was a little real trouble, and that it would come fast enough and make a man of you? Well, do you feel like a man now?”
“No, sir, not quite; but I feel man enough to start to-night as one of a strong party to go and rescue Minnie Heath, even if we die in doing the good work.”
“Well said, my lad; and I’ll go with you, and you sha’n’t die, any of you, if I know anything of wounds. There, I’m pulled up now, and ready for anything.—Maria, my dear, see to these people—rest and refreshment, anything they want—while I’m gone; and you can set the girl to work talking to this Dula here. Make her your interpreter.—As for you—here, I know what you’ll like.”
The Doctor took a cigar-box from the shelf, snatched out three or four, pressed them into the fisherman’s hand, and then almost dragged him out into the veranda, where he thrust him into a cane chair and gave him a light. “One moment, Archie;” and he spoke to the man, who was smiling up at him. “That’s right, Archie; they came in a boat. Come along up to the Residency.—No; I’ll go there. You run on to the Major and ask for orders. He’ll find us a little detachment to take with us in the Resident’s boat. This means good business, my lad, for we have found out the real seat of the disease.”