“We are,” replied Martin, firmly, “and you are the man, then, who stole away our cousin; but you have said that you could refuse us nothing; give us, then, at once our cousin, and we will forgive you all the past.”
“The young Sahib is hasty, let him bridle his impatience till we return to the palace.”
“No, not I, you are evading my request; I will not budge an inch till you have promised that we may take her from this place when we choose,” and the foolish fellow held his naked creese in his hand, as if ready to defy the Pangeran and all his retainers. To my astonishment, the Prince, although he at first bit his nether lip with vexation, only smiled at this Captain Bobadil style of proceeding. Many of the natives, however, who had by this time flocked around, placed their hands upon their creeses, and their eyes upon those of their master; a single glance from the latter, and there would have been a speedy termination to the Quixotic Martin’s career. But that glance was not given, the Prince mildly begged that he would be patient, and that as soon as he had communicated with Mynheer Ebberfeld, Marie’s guardian, she should be delivered to us. But this reply added fuel to the fire: it nearly drove my brother frantic.
“Mynheer Ebberfeld,” he exclaimed, “is a rogue; he it was who caused her to be stolen away. No, Prince,” he added, “you may kill me, if you will; it will be a grateful return for the preservation of your daughter’s life, but I will not budge from here, nor permit my cousin, either, until the envoy comes up; he is a Dutchman, and powerful, and although he may seize upon me as an associate of the enemies of his Government, I will demand my cousin at his hands.”
“Then, if the young Sahib will not be patient, I must,” replied the Pangeran good-humoredly; “we will await here the coming of the envoy; but the Hollander, with haste and impatience like unto your own young man, quitted his elephant, and proceeded into the jungle on foot with the spearmen. But what means this—what has happened?” he exclaimed, as with a strange yelling noise a party of spearmen, headed by Prabu, came through the thicket, bearing what appeared to be the body of a man upon an improvised litter formed by their spears.
As they approached, the Prince and his party became silent—silent as death in breathless suspense, but when the litter was set upon the earth his Highness exclaimed,—
“God is great, it is the envoy, dead or sadly wounded.”
“Not dead,” murmured the wounded man, “thanks to the brave Prabu, who saved me from the tiger’s jaws, and so insured me at least Christian burial—yet dying.” But as he fixed his fast-closing eyes first upon the howdah, and then upon Martin and me, he exclaimed,—
“But yon girl, what does she here at this moment?—those young men, what demon hath brought them to witness my punishment?” He swooned from pain and loss of blood, which was gushing from the wounds in his neck and chest, made by the tiger’s claws. Need my reader be told that in the Dutch envoy we saw
MYNHEER EBBERFELD.