Dimples came into either tear-stained cheek. He smoothed out the rents in his small sarong, and without deigning to notice his late captor, said in a soft sing-song voice:—
“Tuan Consul, Baboo want to go with the Heaven-Born to Pahang. Baboo six years old,—can fight pirates like Aboo Din, the father. May Mohammed make Tuan as odorous as musk!”
“You are a boaster before Allah, Baboo,” I said, smiling.
Baboo dropped his head in perfectly simulated contrition.
“I have thought much, Tuan.”
News had come to me that an American merchant ship had been wrecked near the mouth of the Pahang River, and that the Malays, who were at the time in revolt against the English Resident, had taken possession of its cargo of petroleum and made prisoners of the crew.
I had asked the colonial governor for a guard of five Sikhs and a launch, that I might steam up the coast and investigate the alleged outrage before appealing officially to the British government.
Of course Baboo went, much to the disgust of Aboo Din, the syce.
I never was able to refuse the little fellow anything, and I knew if I left him behind he would be revenged by running away.
I had vowed again and again that Baboo should stay lost the next time he indulged in his periodical vanishing act, but each time when night came and Aboo Din, the syce, and Fatima, the mother, crept pathetically along the veranda to where I was smoking and steeling my heart against the little rascal, I would snatch up my cork helmet and spring into my cart, which Aboo Din had kept waiting inside the stables for the moment when I should relent.