The Rajah of Dah Part 16

"Get out! I like it."

"But tell me: would that thing have dragged me in?"

"To be sure he would. Why, it's only two days since he pulled a girl into the water. She'd only gone down to wash a sarong."

"Is it a big one?" asked Ned, after gazing in a horrified way at his companion.

"Oh yes! a whacker--fifty or sixty feet long."

"Nonsense!"

"Well then, fifteen or twenty. I know it's a big one. One of our men-- Dilloo, I think it was--saw him one day ash.o.r.e. Look here, old chap, tell you what. We'll get some of the fellows to lend us a rope with a loose end, and a hook, and we'll set a night-line for the beggar, and catch him. What do you say?"

"I should like to, if we stay here."

"Oh, you'll stay here," said the lad, laughing. "Like fis.h.i.+ng?"

"Pa.s.sionately."

"So do I. Caught two dozen yesterday after I met you. I say, you and your uncle are bird and b.u.t.terfly c.o.c.ks, aren't you?"

"My uncle is a naturalist, and I help him," said Ned, rather stiffly, for this easy-going address from a young Malay, who had evidently pa.s.sed all his life among English people, annoyed him. "But I say, what a knowledge you have of English."

"Oh yes, I know some English," said the lad, laughing.

"And Malay?"

"Oh, pretty tidy. I don't jabber, but I can make the beggars understand me right enough. What's your name? Murray, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"But the other? Tom--d.i.c.k--Harry?"

"Edward."

"Oh, where are you going to, Edward Gray? What is it? That's wrong.

What does old Tennyson say? Hullo! what's the matter?"

"I--that is--" stammered Ned--"some mistake. You speak English so well."

"Of course I do."

"But what is your name?"

"Frank Braine."

"Then you are not the Tumongong's son?"

"Tumon grandmother's--ha! ha! What a game! Oh, I see now! I forgot that I was in n.i.g.g.e.r togs. You took me for one of them."

"Of course I did."

"Well, it's a rum one. Won't father laugh! That's why you were so c.o.c.ky at first?"

"Yes, I didn't know you were Mr Braine's son. You are, aren't you?"

"Course I am. Been out here two years now. I was at Marlborough-- school you know--and I'd got the whiffles or something so bad, the doctor said I should die if I wasn't sent to a warm climate. They sent a letter to the dad, and it was nine months getting to him. Ma says he was in a taking till he'd got a despatch sent down to Singapore, to be dillygraphed home to England for me to come here directly. He couldn't fetch me, you know. The ould one, as Tim calls him, wouldn't let him go. You know him?"

"Yes."

"Well, they sent me out, and after they'd carried me on board, the captain of the steamer told one of the pa.s.sengers that it was a shame to have sent me, for I should die before I was half-way out. It made me so wild, that I squeaked out that he didn't know what he was talking about, and he'd better mind his own business. And he didn't either, for I began to get better directly, and the old skipper shook hands with me, and was as pleased as could be, one day just before we got to Singapore; for I had climbed up into the foretop and laughed at him, I'd got so much stronger. Then I had to go up to Malacca, and there old Bang-gong met me."

"Who?"

"Tumongong, and brought me up here, and now I'm as strong as you are."

"Yes, you look wonderfully brown and well."

"And you took me for a n.i.g.g.e.r! What a game!"

"Of course it was very stupid of me."

"Oh, I don't know. But, I say, I am glad you've come. You won't be able to go away again, but that don't matter. It's a jolly place, and you and I and old Tim will go shooting and fis.h.i.+ng, and--I say--I shall come with you and your uncle collecting specimens."

"I hope so," said Ned, who began to like his new acquaintance. "But don't you feel as if you are a prisoner here?"

"No; not a bit. I go where I like. Old Jamjah knows I shan't run away from my people."

"Jamjar?"

"That's only my fun. I call him the Rajah of Jamjah sometimes, because he's such a beggar to eat sweets. He asks me sometimes to go and see him, and then we have a jam feed. I'm pretty tidy that way, but he beats me hollow. Perhaps he'll ask you some day, and if he takes to you and likes you, he gives you all sorts of things, for he's tremendously rich, and always getting more. He wants to find gold and emeralds and rubies if he can, to make him richer, but none of his people have the gumption to look in the right place."

"That's why he wants my uncle to go on expeditions then."

"To be sure it is; and if he finds a mine or two for the old boy, he'll make Mr Murray a rich man."

Ned looked at him thoughtfully, while the boy chattered on.

"He gave me these silk things I've got on, and lots more. It pleases him to wear 'em. Make some of my old form chaps laugh if they saw me, I know; but they're very comfortable when you're used to them, and its safer to wear 'em when you go amongst strangers, too. He gave me this kris," continued the lad, uncovering the hilt, which was wrapped in the waist-folds of his showy plaid sarong. "That's the way to wear it.

That means peace if its covered up. If you see a fellow with his kris in his waist uncovered, that means war, so c.o.c.k your pistol and look out."

As he spoke he drew out the weapon from his waistband and handed it to Ned.

"That handle's ivory, and they do all that metal-work fine."

"Why, all that working and ornament is gold."

"To be sure it is. Pull it out: there's more gold on the blade."