One Maid's Mischief

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty Three.

Why Chumbley was Brought

As the Inche Maida uttered her angry threat she swept out of the room, leaving the two young officers staring at the heavy curtain that closed the door.

“The fury! – the tigress!” exclaimed Hilton.

“Well, I don’t know!” drawled Chumbley. “She seems to me very much like what woman is all the world round.”

“Why, she is a blood-thirsty savage!” cried Hilton.

“No: only a woman who has lived all her life where every man carries a sharp-pointed weapon. Englishwomen are much the same at heart.”

“Why, you blasphemer against the honour of our fair English maids and dames!” cried Hilton, laughing.

“Not I!” said Chumbley. “They don’t live amongst people who carry daggers and spears. We go unarmed – I mean Europeans – and pay soldiers to do our fighting for us; but you baffle a woman of spirit – you cross her and behave badly to her, and you see if she wouldn’t fight.”

“Fight, man?”

“Yea, but not with a dagger; she would fight with her tongue – perhaps with her pen – and sting and wound, and perhaps pretty well slay her foe.”

“But this woman is outrageous!” cried Hilton. “Our English ladies are all that is soft and gentle.”

“Sometimes,” said Chumbley; “some of us get an ugly stab or two now and then.”

“Out upon you, slanderer!” cried Hilton, laughingly, as he paced up and down once more.

“If you don’t stop that irritating, wild beast’s cage-walk,” said Chumbley, “I’ll petition the Inche Maida to have you chained to a bamboo.”

“Pish!” cried Hilton, imitating his friend, and throwing himself down upon one of the divans.

“I thought the other day that I was stabbed to the heart by a pair of glittering eyes,” said Chumbley; “but being a regular pachyderm, the wound only just went through my skin, and I soon healed up.”

“How allegorical we are getting!” said Hilton, laughing.

“Yes,” replied Chumbley, coolly, “very. Then there was my friend Hilton: he did get a stab that pretty well touched his heart, and the wound smarts still.”

Hilton sat up, and glared at his friend.

“And yet he calls a woman a tigress and a savage because she utters threats that an Englishwoman would hide out of sight.”

“You are improving, Chumbley.”

“Yes, I am,” said the other.

“Now, are you ready to try and escape before we are krissed?”

“Bah! – stuff! She wouldn’t kris us! She’d threaten, but she wouldn’t hurt a hair of your head, unless scissoring off one of your Hyperion curls injured it when she took it for a keepsake. I’m going to prophesy now.”

“Going to what?”

“Prophesy – set up as a prophet. Are you ready?”

“Ready?”

“Yes. Can you bear it?”

“If you are going to chatter away like this,” said Hilton, contemptuously, “I shall pray her Malay majesty to find me another cell. There, go on. What is your prophecy?”

“That as soon as the bit of temper has burned out, madam will come back smiling and be as civil as can be.”

“Not she,” said Hilton. “Hang the woman!”

“Where?” said Chumbley. “Round your neck?”

“No, round yours. I’m sorry I was so rough to her; but it is, ’pon my honour, Chum, such a contemptible, degrading set-out, that I can’t keep my temper over it.”

“You’ll cool down after a bit,” said Chumbley, yawning. “I say, though, I’m hungry. I shall protest when she comes in again. She pretended that she was sending those girls for drinks and cigars. I say,” he cried, excitedly, “I shall protest or break the bars of the cage, or do something fierce, if that is her game.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, if she is going to starve you into submission, I’ll give in directly if it’s to be that. There, what did I say?” he whispered, as the folds of the heavy curtains were drawn aside, and the Inche Maida entered, looking quite calm and almost sad now as she approached.

“I am sorry,” she said, holding out her hand to Hilton, who rose and bowed, but did not attempt to take the hand she offered.

“I was very angry,” continued the Princess, in a low, penitent voice. “Malay women let their feelings get the mastery when they are angry. I suppose English ladies never do?”

Chumbley coughed slightly and made a grimace.

“Mr Chumbley,” she said, turning to him, “you will shake hands? I am not angry now. You need not be afraid.”

“I wasn’t afraid,” said Chumbley, taking the hand and pressing it warmly.

“You were not?” she cried, with a flash from her dark eyes.

“Not a bit,” he said, laughing.

“Suppose I said I would kill you?” she cried.

“Well, it would be quite time enough to feel afraid when the operation was about to be performed,” said Chumbley, coolly. “I never meet troubles half way.”

“I cannot understand you,” said the Princess. “You are a very strange man. It is because you are so big, I think, that you are not afraid.”

Chumbley bowed.

“Perhaps so,” he said.

“I came back,” said the Princess, “to tell you that I was sorry I spoke so angrily; but you must both know that I will be obeyed. If I were not firm, my people would treat me like you do your servants. I wish to speak to you both now.”

“Say a civil word to her, Hilton,” whispered Chumbley.

“Tell her to put an end to this absurd piece of folly,” said Hilton, in the same tone. “We shall be the laughing-stocks and butts of the whole service.”

The slight twitch at the corner of the Inche Maida’s mouth betrayed the fact that she had heard their words, but she took no notice, and went on addressing Chumbley now.

“I ask you both to share my home,” she said. “You are his friend, Mr Chumbley, and I know he likes you, so I felt that it would be too much to expect him to be quite happy here without an English friend. Besides, I know how great and good a soldier you are.”

“I modestly accept your praise, madam,” said Chumbley, “but I haven’t seen yet the record of my noble deeds.”

“You puzzle me when you speak like that,” said the Princess. “You are laughing at me; but I will not be angry with his friend, whom I brought to be companion, counsellor, and guide.”

“So you had me kidnapped to amuse Captain Hilton – eh?” said Chumbley. “Well, really, madam, I am honoured!”

“Not only for that!” said the Princess, eagerly. “Do I not make you understand? You are a soldier and a brave man!”

“How do you know that?” said Chumbley, with a good-humoured twinkle in his eye.

“How do I know?” cried the Princess. “Would the English Queen have chosen you to guard Mr Harley with your men if you were not? My people know already that you are brave. You beat them so that they could hardly master you; and they talk about you proudly now, and call you the great, strong brave rajah.”

“Well, it’s very kind of them,” said Chumbley, drily; “for I laid about me as heartily as I could.”

“Yes, they told me how you fought, and I was glad; for they would have despised you if you had only been big, and had let them tie you like a beaten elephant.”

“That comes of being big, Bertie,” said Chumbley. “You see, they compare me to an elephant.”

“I have commanded that you shall be chief captain for your friend, and lead our fighting men, as well as being Tumongong, my lord’s adviser. A chief is trebly strong who has a brave and trusty friend.”

“I say, old man, do you hear all this?” said Chumbley.

“Yes, I hear,” said the other, quietly.

“This is promotion with a vengeance! Yesterday lieutenant of foot, to-day commander-in-chief of her highness the Inche Maida’s troops.”

“Yes, you shall be commander,” said the Princess, seriously. “It will save my country, for my people will follow you to the death.”

“Well, ’pon my word, Princess,” said Chumbley, merrily, “you are a precious clever, sensible woman, and I like you after all.”

“And I like you,” she said, innocently. “I do not love you, but I like you very much, you seem so brave and true, and what you people call frank. You will help me, will you not, both of you? Think how I appealed to Mr Harley for help – how that almost my life depends upon it – and what did I get but empty words?”

“You did not get much, certainly,” said Chumbley.

“Then talk to your friend, and advise him. He will do what you say.”

“No,” said Chumbley, laughing, “that is just what he will not do. If ever there was a man who would not take my advice, it is Hilton.”

“Try him now that he is here – now that he knows how useless it is to fight against his fate. Speak to him, and speak kindly!” she whispered. “I am going to my women now.”

She took one step towards Hilton, holding out her hand to him in a gentle, appealing manner; but he only bowed distantly, and turned away.

The soft, appealing look passed from the Inche Maida’s face, giving place to an angry frown; but this died out as she turned to Chumbley.

“We two are friends, I hope?” she said, holding out her hand. “You are not angry with me?”

“Well, not very,” he replied, smiling; “one can’t be angry with a woman long for such a trick as this.”

“Yes,” she said, quickly, “it is a trick, as you English call it. I have won the trick.”

“Yes, you have won the trick,” assented Chumbley; “but you don’t hold the honours,” he added to himself.

“I am glad that you are wise,” she said, smiling now. “I will go, and my people shall bring you dinner.”

“Thanks,” said Chumbley; “that is the kindest act you can do to us now; only please forget the poison.”

“Poison!” she cried, indignantly. “How dare you say that to me! You are prisoners here, but you are quite safe while you do not try to escape. Have I done so little to make myself an Englishwoman that you talk of poison?”

“Yes,” said Chumbley to himself, “so little to make yourself an Englishwoman that you play upon us such a trick as this!”

The door opened, the Inche Maida passed through; and as the curtain fell down again and covered the opening, Hilton turned angrily upon his friend.

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty Four.

A Night of Terror

It was night before Helen again woke, and her first thought was of escape; but as she softly rose to a sitting posture, she felt that one of the girls was by her side, and as she listened to her regular breathing, and tried in the darkness to collect her thoughts and to recall exactly where the door and window lay, the black night seemed a little less black just in one particular part of the room, and she realised that the window must lie there.

“If I could get past that window!” thought Helen, with throbbing brain. “I know it would be hard, but still I might make my way to the river and find someone who would be my friend. There must be paths through the jungle.”

Then with a strange aching sense of misery she thought of how little she had done since she had been out there. No one could be more ignorant of the nature of the jungle than she. She remembered that someone had called it impenetrable; but she knew that Dr Bolter went on expeditions to discover gold, and that the Reverend Arthur Rosebury sometimes wandered there.

“Poor Mr Rosebury?” she said, half aloud. “What he could do sorely I could,” and then the blood in her veins seemed to freeze, and a shudder ran through her, for from out of the darkness came a deep, hoarse, snarling roar that she recognised at once as that of some tiger on the prowl.

She was very ignorant of the jungle and its dangers, but she knew that if she should attempt to leave the building where she was imprisoned now, the result would be that she would encounter a foe of whose savage nature the station was full of tales.

The stories of her childhood came back to her then, and she laughed bitterly as she recalled the faith she had once had in the legend of Una and the lion, and familiar histories of how the helpless had been befriended by the savage creatures of the forest. Then, as she thought of her defenceless state, she once more shuddered, and asked herself whether it would not be better to trust herself to the jungle than stay where she was, to encounter one whom she dreaded far more than the creature whose cry she had just heard.

In a fit of desperate energy as her thoughts were fixed upon Murad and the possibility that he might at any time now present himself, Helen softly glided from her couch and began to cross the uneven floor, stepping cautiously from bamboo lath to lath, and shivering as one gave a crack from time to time.

It seemed darker now, and for guide towards the window there was nothing but the faintly-felt sensation of the dank jungle air coming cool against her cheek; but she kept on, thinking nothing of the way she should turn or how she should escape; all that animated her now was the one great idea that she must steal away beyond the power of these two Malay women to recall her. If she could now do that, the rest might prove easy. Something would no doubt offer itself.

“I must, I will escape,” she half wailed, in a whisper that startled her as it fell upon her ear, so full was it of helpless misery and despair.

She paused to listen, for one of the girls had moved, and then, as she stood in the darkness, there was a very faint rustling noise, and Helen felt that her gaoler had risen and was cautiously stealing towards her. So sure was she of this, that she held up one hand to keep her enemy at a distance; but though the sound continued, no one touched her, and the soft rustling came no nearer to where she stood.

She uttered a sigh of misery at her own dread and overwrought imagination, as she now realised the fact that the soft rustling was that of leaves as the night wind stirred them when it passed, for the soft, heavy breathing of the sleepers came regularly to her ear.

It was very strange and confusing, though, for now in that intense darkness she seemed to have lost herself, and she could not tell exactly from which side the heavy breathing came.

Once, as she listened intently, it seemed to grow so loud that it struck her it was the breathing of some monster of the jungle that had stopped by the open window; but soon she recovered herself sufficiently to feel that she was wrong; it was but the regular sleep of her companions, and laying her hand upon her breast to stay the throbbings of her heart, she gathered up the loose sarong that interfered with her progress, and stepped on cautiously towards where she believed the door to be.

Once more the yielding bamboos bent beneath her weight, creaking loudly, and as they cracked at every step the more loudly now that she was walking beyond the rugs, the sounds were so plain in the still night that she tremblingly wondered why her companions did not wake.

At last one gave so loud a crack that she stood perfectly still, afraid to either advance or recede; but to her great comfort the regular breathing of the two Malay girls rose and fell, as it were, like the pulses of the intensely hot night.

With the feeling that any attempt at haste must result in failure, Helen stood there listening as the low hum of the night-flying insects reached her ear; and somehow, in spite of the peril in which she stood, thoughts of the past came back, and the hot-breathed gloom seemed to suggest those summer nights at the Miss Twettenham’s when the sun-scorched air lingered in the dormitories, and they used to sit by the open windows, enjoying the sweetness of the soft night, reluctant to go to bed. Those were the times when, filled with romantic thoughts, they listened to the nightingales answering each challenge from copse to copse, and making the listeners think of subjects the Misses Twettenham never taught – subjects relating to love, with serenades, cavaliers, elopements, and other horrors, such as would have made the thin hair of those amiable elderly ladies stand on end. For there was something very witching in those soft summer nights, an atmosphere that set young hearts dream of romantic futures. Helen Perowne had perhaps had the wildest imagination of any dreamer there, but in her most exalted times she had never dreamed so wild a life-romance as that of which she had become the heroine; and as she stood there with her throat parched, listening to the hum of mosquitoes and the breathing of her companions, everything seemed so unreal that she was ready to ask herself whether she slept – whether she did not dream still – and would awake to find herself back in the conventual seclusion of the old school.

Then once more came the shudder-engendering roar of the prowling tiger, apparently close at hand, and in its deep, strange tones seeming to make the building vibrate.

Helen shivered, and the cold, damp perspiration gathered on her face, as she felt now the propinquity of the tiger to such an extent that she was ready to sink down helpless upon the floor.

There it was again – that low, deep, muttering roar, ending in a growling snarl, and so close below the window that she trembled, knowing as she did that there were only a few frail bamboo laths between her and the most savage creature that roamed the jungle.

Was it real, she asked herself once more, that she, Helen Perowne, was here in this wild forest, surrounded by beasts of prey, and none of her friends at hand; or had she lost her senses, and would she awaken some day calm and cool at home, with a faint, misty recollection of having suffered from some fever that had attacked her brain.

Yes, it was real; she was alone and helpless in that terrible place, and there, in the pulsating furnace-like heat of the dark night, was the cry of the tiger once again.

There was no doubt of its being one of these huge catlike creatures, for she had heard it frequently by night in the neighbourhood of the settlement, where during the past few years more than one unfortunate Chinese servant had been carried off. But when she had listened to the low, muttered, guttural roar, ending in an angry snarl, she had been at the window of her own home, surrounded by protectors; and awesome as the sound had seemed, it had never inspired her with such dread as now when she had determined to risk everything in her attempt to escape, and expose herself to the tender mercies of such creatures as this now wandering about the place.

Again and again came the cry, now seemingly distant, now close at hand, till at last Helen’s knees refused to support her, and she sank down trembling, for the creature’s breathing could be plainly heard beneath where she stood, the lightly-built house being, like all in the Malay jungle, raised upon stout bamboo or palm posts for protection from wild beasts and flood.

Singularly enough, as the first horror passed away, Helen felt her courage return.

“It will not hurt me,” she said, hysterically; but she crouched there trembling as she listened to the snuffling noise beneath her, and then there was a dull thud as of a heavy leap.

Helen shuddered as she listened, and by some strange mental process began to compare the feline monster, excited by the scent of human beings close at hand, to Murad; and after listening till all seemed still once more – till the muffled cry of the tiger arose now some distance away, she rose cautiously, and made her way towards the door.

A kind of nervous energy had seized upon her now, and she stepped forward lightly to touch the woven walls.

Sweeping her hand over them, she recognised her position now by the hangings, and the darkness-engendered confusion to some extent passed away. She found the door, and the great curtain rustled as she drew it aside to get at the fastening, her hands feeling wet and cold, while her face was burning, and her heart kept up a heavy, dull beat.

There was a faint sound apparently from behind her now, and she stood listening, but it was not repeated. The low hum of the nocturnal insects rose and fell, and once more the soft rustling of the leaves stirred by the night wind came through the window close at hand, and from very far off now, and so faint as to be hardly perceptible, there was the tiger’s growl. There was nothing more but the heat, which seemed in its intensity to throb and beat upon her brain.

But still Helen dared not move for a time, trembling the while lest the first touch she gave the door should awaken her gaolers. At last, though, she nerved herself once more, and tried to find out how the door was fastened. There was no lock, no bolt, such as those to which she was accustomed, and though she passed her hands over it in every direction it was without result.

The time was gliding on, and in her ignorance of how long she might have slept, she felt that morning would at any time be there; so with a weary sigh of misery she left her futile task and crept cautiously to the window.

It did not seem so dark now, or else her eyes were more accustomed to the want of light, for she found the window directly; and as she took hold of the bamboo bars, the hot night air came in a heavy puff against her face, fierce and glowing, as if it were some watching monster’s breath.

She listened as she stood there, and the breathing of the two girls seemed to have ceased. There was the tiger’s cry once more, but sounding now like a distant wail, and her spirits rose as she felt that one of the perils likely to assail her was passing away.

Again she listened, and once more the breathing of her companions reached her ear, the Malay girls seeming to be sleeping heavily, as with nervous fingers Helen now strove to move one of the bars, or to loosen it so that it could be thrust up or down, but without avail; then she strove to draw one of them sufficiently aside to allow her to pass through, but her efforts were entirely in vain, although she kept on striving, in total ignorance of the fact that it would have taken a strong man armed with an axe to have done the work she adventured with her tender fingers alone.

Just as she let her aching arms fall to her side and a weary sigh of disappointment escaped her breast, she felt herself caught tightly by the wrist, and with a sensation of horror so great as to threaten the overthrow of her reason, she snatched herself away, and clung to the bars of the window with all her remaining strength.

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty Five.

A Desperate Appeal

It was some few moments after she had been seized again, and this time held by two hands stronger than her own, that Helen Perowne realised the fact that it was the Malay girl that had shown her the most compassion who had taken her by the arm.

“What are you doing here?” was whispered in a low, angry voice.

Helen made no reply, and as she clung to the window, the girl went on:

“You were trying to get away, but it is of no use. Murad knew that when they brought you here. If you could get out of this place you could not go far through the jungle before the tigers would tear you down. No one kills them here. He has them kept that he may hunt them; but when the time for hunting them comes, Murad is away with the English people, or he is not well, or he has no elephants, so the tigers are never touched. They would tear you down, I say, and when Murad’s men searched for you, they would only find your bones. I remember two girls escaping to the jungle, but they were both killed.”

“Better that than stay here,” said Helen, in a low, excited voice. “Listen to me,” she continued, striving hard to make herself understood; “you do not like me – you do not want me here.”

“No!” said the girl, fiercely. “I wish you had not come – that you would go and be killed; but if you were to escape, Murad would kill us all; and I do not want to die – no – not yet.”

“No, no; he would not be so cruel,” whispered Helen, who trembled with hope and excitement, as she felt that a chance for escape had at last come. “Help me to get away – to get back to my friends!” she cried, appealingly. “Let me escape, and I will reward you – I will give you what you like. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I know what you say,” replied the girl, “but I do not believe it. You are the English lady who made the Rajah love you because he was so handsome. We know all here; and now that he has brought you, what is this you tell me – that you want to go away? Oh, no! it is like a little child. I do not believe one word!”

“But it is true!” whispered Helen. “Speak lower, or you will waken her,” said the girl; “and she hates you more than I!”

“I will obey you in anything,” whispered Helen, restraining her voice, and sinking down and clutching the girl’s knees, “only help me to escape, and my father will fill your hands with gold.”