Middy and Ensign Part 44

"Speaking as the son of the Tumongong, I say yes," replied Ali; "but as one who has imbibed English notions and ideas, I am bound to say that what you did only makes me feel more thoroughly how it is time we had a complete revolution in Parang."

"I say," said Bob, "you'll get stuck-up for high treason, young fellow, if you talk about revolution."

"No fear," said Ali, laughing quietly. "My ideas are pretty well-known; but I am too insignificant a fellow for what I say to be noticed. Now if it was my father--"

"Yes--if it was your father," said Bob, "I suppose they would kris him?"

Ali nodded, and after a quiet cigar under the trees, during which he complained more than once of the wrench the seizure by the crocodile had given to his muscles, he bade them good-bye, promising to have everything ready for the tiger-hunt, and, leaping into his boat, was rowed away.

Ali had about a mile to walk along one of the jungle-paths to reach his father's house, and he was going along very thoughtfully under the trees, quite alone--for he had left his men behind, to look after and secure the boat. It was comparatively cool in the shade, and he began thinking about the two young men he had left, and contrasting their civilised life with his. The savagery and barbarism by which he was surrounded disgusted him; and knowing well as he did, how the sultan and the various rajahs of the little states lived by oppressing and grinding down the wretched people around, he longed for the time when a complete change should come about, bringing with it just laws, and a salutary rule for his country. His own life troubled him in no small degree, for he saw nothing in the future but the career of a Malay chief, a ruler over slaves, living a life of voluptuous idleness, and such an existence he looked upon with horror.

Could he not enter the British service in some way? he asked himself, and rise to a life of usefulness, in which he might do some good for the helpless, ground-down people amongst whom he was born?

Such a life, he told himself, would be worth living, and--What was that?

His hand involuntarily flew to his kris, as he heard a rustle amidst the tangled cane just ahead, and he advanced cautiously lest it should be some beast of prey, or one of the great serpents that had their existence amidst the dense undergrowth.

There it was again; a quick sharp rustle amidst the trees, as of something hastily escaping, and his hand fell to his side, and he watched eagerly in advance, not hearing a cat-like step behind him, as a swarthy Malay came in his tracks, sprang upon the young man's back, and pinioned his arms in an instant.

Ali uttered a hoa.r.s.e cry, and strove to draw his kris, but the effort was vain. Three more Malays darted from their hiding-places, and in a few minutes he was securely bound, with a portion of his sarong thrust into his mouth to keep him from crying for help; another Malay, who had been pulling a long rattan on ahead to imitate the sound of an escaping animal, coming from his hiding-place and smiling at the success of the ruse.

"What does it mean?" Ali asked himself; but he was puzzled and confused, and his captors gave him no opportunity for further thought, but hurried him right away into the depths of the jungle through a long narrow winding track that was little used.

"Why, this leads to the sultan's old house, where the inchees were killed!" thought Ali. "Surely they are not going to kill me?"

A shudder ran through him, and a strange sense of horror seemed to freeze his limbs as he was half thrust half earned along through the jungle, his captors having at times to use their heavy parangs to cut back the canes and various creepers that had made a tangle across the unfrequented track.

It was as the young chief had surmised. They were taking him to the deserted house that had been formerly occupied by former inchees or princesses of the Malay people, who, for some political reason, had been cruelly a.s.sa.s.sinated by order of the present sultan, they having been krissed, and their bodies thrown into the river.

Was this to be his fate? he asked himself; and if it was, in what way had he offended?

The answer came to him at once. It was evident that the intercourse he had held with the English was not liked, and now in his own mind he began to have misgivings about the resident and his party. Sultan Hamet was, he knew, both cruel and treacherous. Was the position of the English people safe?

Yes, he felt they were safe. He was the offender; and once more a shudder of fear ran through him at the thought of his young life being crushed out so soon; just, too, when he was so full of hopeful prospects and aspirations.

His manhood a.s.serted itself, though, directly. He was the son of a chief, he told himself; and these treacherous wretches who had seized him should see that he was no coward.

Then he began to think of his father, and wondered whether it would be possible to communicate with him before he was killed.

Then he felt a little more hopeful, for perhaps, after all, the instructions to his captors might not be to slay him. If it was, and he could only get his hands free, their task should not be so easy as they thought for.

For two long hours was he forced through the tangled jungle, and every minute he became more convinced that his captors were bound for the place, of whose existence he knew, having once come upon it during a shooting expedition, and, in spite of his followers' horror, persisted in examining the ruins nearly choked even then with the rapid jungle growth.

At last they reached the place, and the young man's searching eye at once saw that some attempts had been made at cutting down the tangled trees.

But very little time was afforded him to gratify his curiosity. He was rudely thrust forward, and then half dragged, half carried up the rough steps, some of which were broken away, and then pushed into the great centre room of what had been a large Malay house.

It was very dark, for the holes in the roof had become choked with creepers, which had formed a new thatch in place of the old attap top.

The bamboos that formed the floor were slippery here and there with damp moss and fungus, and in several places they were rotted away; but there was plenty to afford a fair s.p.a.ce of flooring, and in a momentary glance Ali saw that the inner or women's room of the house was dry, and not so much ruined as the place where he stood.

"Did they kris the poor prisoners here?" he asked himself; and then his thoughts flew to the bright river upon which his boat had so often skimmed; to the clean, trim corvette, with its bright paint, smart sailors, and Bob Roberts, the merry, cheery young English lad. Then he thought of the residency, with the sweet graceful ladies, the pleasant officers, always so frank and hospitable; of Tom Long, whom he liked in spite of the ensign's pride and stand-offishness; and lastly he asked himself what they would think of him for not keeping faith with them about the hunt, and whether they would ever know that he had been treacherously krissed in that out-of-the-way place.

A grim smile crossed his lip as he wished that he might be thrown afterwards in the river, and his body float down to be seen by the English people, so that they might know why he had stopped away.

And then a thrill ran through him, for a couple of his captors seized him, and in the dim green light of the place, with a few thin pencils of suns.h.i.+ne striking straight through like silver threads from roof to floor, he saw a third man draw his deadly kris.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

HOW PRIVATE GRAY PROVED SUSPICIOUS.

Adam Gray left the men in the mess-room that night, chatting about the coming tiger-hunt, and wondering who would be selected to accompany the expedition. He could not help thinking, as he shouldered his rifle, and was marched off by a sergeant with half-a-dozen more, to relieve guard, that he should like to be one of the party himself. In happy bygone days he had been fond of sport, and in a trip to North America were well-remembered perils and pleasant adventures. And now this talk of the tiger-hunt had roused in him a strong interest, and set him recalling days, when he was very different to what he was now.

"It's no good to sigh," he said to himself, and the measured tramp, tramp of the marching men sounded solemn and strange in the darkness, rousing him once more to a sense of his position.

"If I'm to go, I go," he said bitterly. "That will be as my superiors please; and if I do go, it will not be as a hunter."

In spite of himself; however, as soon as guard had been relieved, and he was left in charge of a post not far from Dullah's hut, his thoughts went back to his early career, and he grew at times quite excited as he compared it with the life he was living now.

Then his thoughts wandered to the residency, and from thence back to the day when he was bitten by the sea snake, and lay there upon the deck tended by Miss Linton.

These thoughts agitated him, so that he set off pacing briskly up and down for a couple of hours, and then, his brain calmed by the exercise, he stood still under the shadow of a great palm, with whose trunk, as he stood back close to it, his form so a.s.similated in the darkness that, at a couple of yards distance, he was invisible.

His post was close to the river, so close that he walked upon the very edge of the bank, which was in places undermined by the swift current.

This post had been cleared from the thick jungle. It was but a narrow piece, some two yards wide, and forty long, and this it was his duty to pace during his long watch, to guard that side of the island from a landing foe.

Midnight had pa.s.sed, and all was very still. There was a splash from time to time in the stream, telling of the movement of some reptile or great fish, and now and then, from the far-distant parts of the jungle across the water, he could hear the cry of some wild beast. Now and then he watched the fire-flies scintillating amidst the leaves, and thought of how different life was out in this far-off tropic land to that in dear old England.

He had been thinking quite an hour without stirring; but though his memory strayed here and there, his eyes were watchful, and he scanned from time to time the broad smooth surface of the stream in search of pa.s.sing boats.

At last he fancied he detected something dark moving along, but it went by so smoothly that it might have been the trunk of some tree, or even the back of a great crocodile, for there was no splash of oars.

He had almost forgotten the incident, when he started slightly and listened, thinking he could hear a whispering, and this was repeated.

He listened intently, but though he felt sure that he could hear voices, still that need not mean danger, for sound pa.s.ses so easily across the water, that the noise might have come from down lower in the island, or even from the sh.o.r.e across the river.

The whispering ceased, and then he listened in vain for a time, and at last he was just thinking of pacing up and down once more, when certainly there was a faint splash, and on looking in the direction he could see on the dark water what seemed like a dim shadow gliding along.

It might have been a boat or the shadow of a boat, he could not be sure.

In fact, there were moments when he doubted whether it was not some ocular illusion, brought about by too intently gazing through the gloom.

And there he stood, hesitating as to whether he should fire and give the alarm.

But the next moment he reasonably enough asked himself why he should do so, for there was nothing alarming in the fact of a tiny sampan gliding over the river. It might be only a fisherman on his way to some favourite spot, or perhaps one of the Malays bound up the river, or possibly after all a mere deception.

There seemed to be nothing to merit the alarm being raised, and he stood watching once more the spot where the boat had disappeared. Still he did not resume his march up and down, but recalled the night of the attack, and began to consider how easy it would be for a crafty enemy to land and take them by surprise some gloomy night. Dark-skinned, and lithe of action as cats, they could easily surprise and kris the sentries. In his own case, for instance, what would be easier than for an enemy to lurk on the edge of the thick jungly patch, by which the path ran, and there stab him as he pa.s.sed?

"It would be very easy," he thought. "Yes; and if I stand here much longer, I shall begin to think that I am doing so because I dare not walk beside that dark piece of wood. Still I dare do it, and I will."