“Gugg!” said the lad, out of the darkness. “Can you get at your knife, Mr Archie? Mine’s turned into a screw-driver, and I want to help this nig— Malay gentleman to cut sticks.”
“Here you are, Pete,” said Archie, after a hard struggle to get his hand into the pocket of his overall, and a harder struggle still to get it back with the knife.
“Thankye—gugg—sir! Blest if I don’t believe I’m going to have a cold!” And the cutting and rustling of thick, leafy branches went on.
“Now, Minnie, tell me, what do they mean to do?”
“Yes,” said the girl quickly. “Dula told me—she can say a few words in English, and I know a few Malay sentences as well, so that we managed to understand one another—she said her husband thought he could get the boat down to the foot of our garden in the darkness, and then we could all carry baskets of fruit, and so pass through the Malays to a spot where we could make a dash for the Residency, where we should be safe, if some of the soldiers didn’t shoot us down.”
“Ah,” said Archie slowly, “you needn’t be afraid of that, Minnie.”
“What’s the matter?” cried the girl sharply.
“Oh, nothing. I am only very wet.”
“You are trying to hide something, Archie,” said Minnie earnestly. “You called me sister a few minutes ago.”
“Well,” he said sharply, “that’s what you are to me.”