One Maid's Mischief

“Miss Stuart!” he exclaimed.

She made an effort to control herself, but her strength was not superhuman; and coming forward, she took Hilton’s extended hand, looked at him with her lips quivering, and then burst into a loud fit of sobbing.

“We thought you dead,” she said, in an excited manner. “Pray forgive me. It is so weak. But Helen?”

“We have great hopes of rescuing her,” said Hilton, whose heart was beating fast, as he asked himself what this emotion really meant. Then he cooled down and felt hurt, for he told himself that her last words explained it. Helen Perowne and she had been schoolfellows, and he had disappeared at the same time; now he had returned, but without Helen, and his appearance was a shock to her.

“There, there, there, my dear child,” said Mrs Bolter, who felt scandalised at this weakness on the part of her favourite; “don’t cry – pray don’t cry. You’re very glad to see Captain Hilton back of course, but you must save a few tears for poor Mr Chumbley as well. When is he coming to see us, Captain Hilton?”

“Not on this side of our expedition,” said the young officer, quietly. “We start as soon as possible, and have hopes of bringing back Miss Perowne and your brother.”

“Then you do think he was taken as well, Captain Hilton?” cried Mrs Bolter, eagerly.

“I feel sure he was, now,” replied Hilton. “He was no doubt in attendance upon Miss Perowne, and they were taken together.”

“Then if he was,” said little Mrs Bolter, brightening, “I am very glad, for Helen Perowne’s sake for some things,” she added, giving her head a sharp shake.

This short colloquy gave Grey Stuart an opportunity of recovering herself; and she blessed the brisk, talkative little woman for drawing attention from her, so that when next she spoke, she was able to command herself thoroughly, and continue the conversation in her ordinary calm, self-possessed way.

“I began to despair at one time of getting back to the station,” Hilton said, lightly; “and I was very tired of being a prisoner, I assure you.”

He looked intently at Grey as he spoke, and the pleasant warmth of her manner as she replied touched and pleased him but he was fain to confess that it was only the lively interest that any girl in her position would take in one who had been lost in the same way as he, and was now found.

“I am very glad to see you back, Mr Hilton,” she said. “We were in great trouble about you. But when shall we see Mr Chumbley?”

“Soon, I hope,” he replied, quietly, and there was a curious sinking feeling at his heart as she spoke.

“She would have shown just as much emotion at seeing him for the first time,” he thought. “What a sweet, innocent, gracious little woman it is, and how much happier I might have been, if I had made her the object of my pursuit.”

“Tell me about Mr Chumbley,” said Grey, taking up her work; “did he suffer much when you were prisoners?”

“Suffer? No!” said Hilton, smiling. “If he did, he never showed it. He’s a splendid fellow, and takes things so coolly.”

“Oh, yes, he is, indeed!” cried Grey. “I do like Mr Chumbley.”

Hilton’s heart sank a little lower, and there was almost a ring of sadness in his voice as he went on:

“He kept my spirits up wonderfully by his nonchalant, easy way. He was a capital companion and never once showed that he was low-spirited or suffered in the least.”

“He is very strong and brave, is he not?” said Grey.

“Why, the little body loves him,” thought Hilton; “and I had hoped – Bah! let me be a man, and not a manger-loving cur. What right have I to think she could have cared for me?”

“Strong and brave!” he said, aloud. “Why, Chumbley professes to be a coward – ”

“A coward! Oh, no!” cried Grey, flushing. “I cannot believe – ”

“While he is as brave as a lion,” said Hilton. “That he is, I am sure,” cried Grey, warmly; and her cheeks flushed, and her eyes sparkled as she spoke.

“Chum, old fellow,” said Hilton, sadly to himself; “I used to laugh at you because you were bested by me, as I thought, but now I envy you your luck. Well, never mind, I can bear it, I daresay, and you deserve it all. I think I shall go back and marry the Inche Maida after all.”

“Why, how serious you have turned, Captain Hilton,” said Mrs Bolter.

“Captain Hilton is going away directly on what may prove a dangerous expedition.”

“Of course; I had forgotten,” said Mrs Bolter. “Dear me, that woman is there still, talking to Mr Harley. Will she never go?”

“She will give Chumbley a warmer welcome than she gave me,” said Hilton to himself, and he looked reproachfully at the fair, sweet face before him.

“You will be glad to see Chumbley, will you not?” he said aloud.

“Oh, yes, very glad!” she exclaimed, warmly; and then, as she met his eyes fixed inquiringly, she blushed vividly.

“She colours when his name is mentioned,” said Hilton to himself. “I wonder whether he cares as much for her. He must – he couldn’t help it. There, Heaven bless her! Other people are more fortunate than I.”

“That dreadful woman seems as if she would not go,” whispered Mrs Bolter. “Pray forgive me for leaving you, Captain Hilton, but I must not let her tease Mr Harley to death as she teases me.”

As she spoke little Mrs Bolter left the room, the strident sound of Mrs Barlow’s voice coming loudly as the door was opened, while when it was closed all was perfectly silent.

Grey Stuart’s hand involuntarily went out as if to stay Mrs Bolter; then it fell to her side, and she sat there painfully conscious and suffering acute mental pain.

“Poor little maiden!” thought Hilton, as he saw her trouble. “She is afraid of me;” and he let his eyes rest upon the open window before he spoke. The intense heat seemed to float into the room, bearing with it the scent of the creepers outside, and of a tall tropic tree covered with white blossoms, whose spreading branches sheltered the doctor’s cottage from the blazing sun.

From that hour the warm air, scented with the rich perfume of flowers and those white blossoms clustering without, seemed somehow to be associated in Hilton’s mind with Grey Stuart, who sat back there pale now as her white dress, wanting to speak, to break the painful silence, but not daring for some few minutes, lest he should detect the tremble in her voice.

“You start very soon, do you not, Captain Hilton?” she said.

“Yes; I hoped to have been on the river ere this,” he said, with a bitter intonation that he could not check.

“And you will discover poor Helen, and bring her back?” she said, forcing herself to speak of a subject that she felt would be welcome to him.

“If men can do it, we will succeed!” he replied, earnestly.

“Poor Helen!” sighed Grey. “Tell her, Mr Hilton – from me – ”

“Yes,” he said, eagerly, for she hesitated and stopped.

“That her old schoolfellow’s arms long to embrace her once again, and that the hours have seemed very bitter since she has been gone.”

“Yes,” he said. “I will tell her, Miss Stuart. Poor girl! she will need all the consolation that can be given her, and it will be welcome news to her that she is sure of yours.”

“Sure of mine, Captain Hilton? Oh, yes. For many years past I have felt like the sister of Helen Perowne.”

“Who is happy in possessing so dear a friend,” he said, gravely. “May she ever retain your friendship – nay, I should call it sisterly love.”

“She shall,” said Grey, in a voice that sounded hard and firm. “I am not one to change lightly in my friendships.”

“No,” he said, quietly; “you cannot be.”

“How quiet and unimpulsive he is,” thought Grey. “How wanting in eagerness to go to Helen’s help. Surely now that she needs all his sympathy and love – now that she must be in a terrible state of suffering – he could not be so base as to forsake her! He could not, he would not do that! I should hate him if he did.”

There was a pause then, and they both seemed to be listening to the hum of voices in the next room; and then Grey Stuart said to herself, softly:

“Should I hate him if he did?”

The answer came directly.

“Yes, for the man I could love must be too chivalrous to wrong a woman by neglect in her time of trial.”

“Yes,” said Hilton, rousing himself from a state of abstraction, “we must soon be upon the river; I expected that we should have been there before now.”

“I pray Heaven for your safety and success, Captain Hilton,” said Grey Stuart, gravely.

“And for Chumbley’s too?” he said.

“And for Lieutenant Chumbley’s and Mr Harley’s too,” she said, in a low voice.

As she spoke the door opened, and Mrs Bolter entered, followed by the Resident; and as soon as the former was seated, Grey rose, crossed the room, and went and stood with her hands resting upon her chair, the act seeming to give her strength to bear what was becoming painful.

Volume Three – Chapter Seventeen.

A Question of Escape

Bang! Crash!

The report of the brass lelah and the stroke of the iron ball as it shivered the branches of the trees or buried itself in the trunk of some palm-tree growing near the bank, but without injuring the occupants of the sampan in the slightest degree.

The faces of Ismael and his companion were now of a curious muddy hue, and they shivered with dread, but they held the doctor even more in awe, and obeyed his orders to keep on paddling with such strength as was in them left, and seemed ready enough to persevere as long as the boat would float beneath them, hopeless as the case might be.

As the doctor very well knew, it was only a question of time, and had he been alone he would not have hesitated about surrendering; but with Helen in his charge, there was too much at stake. So he determined, with all the stubbornness of an Englishman, to hold out to the very last extremity.

“I’m a man of peace,” he muttered, “but I’ve had to fight in my time, and if I am driven to it, they shall buy Helen Perowne at the cost of three or four lives at least; and if I can manage it, the chiefs shall be one.”

He glanced at Helen, who lay back with her eyes closed, and her swarthy face seemed to rouse a bitter feeling of anger in the doctor’s breast.

“The blackguards!” he growled. “To serve an English lady like that. I’ll make some of them pay for it, and dearly too.”

“I say, Bolter,” he muttered, “I’d no idea that you were such a brave fellow. I don’t feel half so nervous as I expected I should, and hang me if I’ll give up till I have fairly fought it out. I wonder whether I could hit master Rajah Murad at this distance? Well, let him put his head over the side of the boat, and I’ll try – What, my dear,” he cried, as Helen spoke feebly.

“Is our position hopeless, Doctor?” she said.

“Hopeless? Not a bit of it, my dear. I’m going to exhibit another medicine directly. You lie quite still and don’t raise your head. Trust to your medical man, my dear. Always have confidence in your medical man.”

For answer she turned her great dark eyes upon him with a look of such hopeless misery that the doctor set his teeth hard.

“By Jove!” he cried, starting in spite of himself, as there was a sharp report and a bullet whistled close by him. “Hi! you scoundrels! How dare you fire upon a boat containing a Queen’s officer.”

He let the butt of his gun rest in the bottom of the vessel, and turned and shook his fist threateningly at the advancing prahu; but the only answer elicited was another shot, not by any means so well aimed as the last, the sound of which seemed to ring in his ear as it whizzed by.

“The scoundrels shall smart for this!” he cried, furiously. “They’ve fired – bear witness of this, Ismael – they’ve fired upon a boat containing a British officer and an English lady, and – hang ’em! there they go again!”

And this shot and another came whizzing by, but the rapid motion of the sampan, the want of practice on the part of the Malays, and their bad management of their clumsy gun, kept them from doing any mischief to the fugitives.

“At last!” cried the doctor, as the dense mass of vegetation that screened the mouth of the little river came in sight. “Now then, my lads, keep up. You shall be rewarded handsomely for this. Make a good dash for it, and we shall soon be clear.”

Doctor Bolter’s words were big, and his face was cheerful, but his hopes were small, and his heart felt very sad, for he knew well enough that unless as soon as they cleared the canes and bushes before them, and got out into the open river, they found help or concealment, which was extremely doubtful, they would be at a terrible disadvantage. For out in the wide river the prahu would have plenty of room to manoeuvre; it could be driven at full speed, turned easily, and would either run them down or come alongside and grapple them without the slightest difficulty.

“But I’ll fight for it to the last,” muttered the doctor, as he caught a fresh glance from Helen’s sorrowful eyes. “Poor little woman! what a fidget she would be in if she only knew! Never mind, she would pat me on the back for what I am doing; and whatever she might say against it on my account, she’d want me to fight.”

He looked back at the prahu, which was still advancing, and raised his gun to fire, but only lowered it again.

“No,” he muttered; “a waste of shot. I couldn’t hit the steersman.”

He stood thinking for a moment, and then, laying down his gun, he took up a spare paddle and began working with all his might, striving to urge the boat forward.

The help came when it was most needed, for the floating reeds and bushes were no light obstacles to so small a boat, and they began to lose ground now as they struggled through. But after a fierce interval of effort, and just as the doctor was growing giddy with excitement, and half blind with exertion, the last mass of bushes was passed, and they floated clear into the swift stream of the main river.

“Now for it, my lads!” cried the doctor, manfully, the perspiration streaming down his red-brown face, as he made the water flash from his paddle; “we shall do it now.”

But before they had gone fifty yards down the stream, at a far higher rate than before, they heard the rustle and crashing of the big prahu forcing its way through the bushes, and in another minute it, too, would have been clear.

Fortune does, however, sometimes favour the brave; for just then there was a sharp crack, and one of the prahu’s sweeps broke short off, the man who pulled it fell back heavily against his neighbour, who in turn was thrown out, and like skittles, half a dozen of the rowers were in confusion.

This happened at a critical moment, just as the men were rowing their hardest, and the result of the check on one side was that the head of the prahu was pulled sharply round, and the stem crashed in amongst the bushes to the left of the steersman, ran right into the soft, muddy bank, and the vessel lay across the stream.

Doctor Bolter could not tell what was wrong; but he could hear the noise of shouting and the confusion that followed, enough to explain to him that there was something very much amiss, and in the satisfaction that it gave him he mentally exclaimed:

“I don’t wish harm to any man upon the face of this little earth, but if that prahu and all on board are going to the bottom, it will be a blessing indeed.”

This respite gave the Malay boatmen heart, and bending once more to their task, they strove hard to send the sampan onward so as to get round a curve of the stream where the trees of the jungle grew high upon the bank and spread far out over the river. This bend once passed, they would be out of sight when the prahu cleared the bushes.

It was a long way ahead, and the shouting and confusion seemed so terribly close at hand that the doctor fully expected another shot; but he paddled bravely on, and at last this part of their task was achieved, giving them a fresh sensation of relief as they saw the wide, open stretch of river before them, with its verdant, tree-shaded banks.

But they looked in vain for help: the stream was clear of boats, and the doctor knew that concealment was now their only chance. The Malay – Ismael – knew it too, for, raising his paddle from the water, he pointed to a dense spot that seemed admirably adapted for a hiding-place; the doctor nodded assent, and with a sweep of the paddle the course of the boat was altered, her head being set across the stream. Then, as the doctor looked back to see that they were not followed, a warning cry from the boatmen made him lower his head, just as the sampan glided in beneath the overhanging boughs, and they floated on in a pleasant arcade of leafy boughs, the grateful shadows shutting them entirely from the sight of passers-by upon the river, whose glittering surface they surveyed through a thick screen of leaves.

Volume Three – Chapter Eighteen.

“I Wish you Success.”

“Gone at last, my dear!” exclaimed Mrs Bolter. “I’m sure that woman will drive me mad.” Then, turning to the Resident – “I feel now, Mr Harley, as if I ought to have opposed it much more strenuously. I don’t like his running up and down the country like this, and I’m very much troubled about it. Of course I don’t put any faith in what such a woman as that Mrs Barlow would say, but she would keep hinting that there is more in these journeys than we know of. I feel, of course, that I ought not to stoop to notice such remarks, but when one is left like this they will make an impression. I don’t think the doctor ought to have gone away and left me alone.”

“I sincerely wish that he had not gone,” said the Resident; “but Doctor Bolter’s ardent love of natural history and his belief in discovery must be his excuses for a great deal.”

“Yes, yes, I know!” cried the little woman excitedly; and a severe mental struggle was evidently going on to keep back something upon her mind. But it was all in vain. The passionate feeling of jealousy that had been lit by the foolish tongue of the woman who had been constantly coming in and harping upon the theme, now began to glow, and in spite of her efforts the anger fanned the flame, till, in a gust of passion that made her cheeks burn with shame for her question, she turned suddenly upon the Resident.

“I know it is a shame and a sin to say such a thing, but I can’t help it now. I think it’s your hot climate here has changed me, and made me what I am – but you are going up the river on this expedition Mr Harley?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Will you wait for him?”

“For the doctor? I’m afraid we must not wait much longer.”

“Then will you go to that woman’s as you pass up the river, and make a thorough search? I’m ashamed to say it, but I feel perfectly sure that Doctor Bolter is there.”

“Where? At the Inche Maida’s?” said the Resident, wonderingly.

“Yes. I am sure he is there.”

“And I am certain that he is not!” cried Hilton, so warmly that the Resident glanced at him.

“But I – I’m greatly afraid he is,” panted Mrs Bolter. “Mrs Barlow said that she felt sure it must be so, and I’ve made a very, very great mistake in leaving my quiet little home in England, and letting my brother accept this chaplaincy.”

“Dear Mrs Bolter – pray hush!” whispered Grey, as her cheeks burned with shame. “It cannot be as you say.”

“My dear Mrs Bolter!” cried the Resident.

“He would not of course of his own ideas,” sobbed Mrs Bolter, who was now thoroughly unhinged; “but he must have called there when looking for gold, or insects, or birds, and been deluded into staying at that dreadful woman’s house.”

“I’ll swear it is not so,” said Hilton, warmly. “There, there, my dear Mrs Bolter, you may make yourself easy on that score! I’ll answer for our old friend the doctor.”

“Bless you, Mr Hilton!” sobbed the little woman, catching at his hands; “it is very, very good of you to say this. I never liked you one-half so well before.”

“You are upset,” said Hilton, warmly, “and no wonder. Your anxiety must be terrible, and I can understand that you feel ready to snatch at any explanation of his long absence; but my dear Mrs Bolter, give us men the credit of being a little too strong to be so easily led away.”

He spoke in so frank and manly a tone, as he stood holding Mrs Bolter’s hands, that Grey’s eyes lit up, and she darted a look at him full of pride and thanks. But it was not seen, for Hilton was looking down at poor, troubled little Mrs Bolter, whose secret, one of which she felt bitterly ashamed, was now out.

She was burning with jealousy, for she idolised her husband; and the love that had so long lain latent seemed to be all the stronger for its long quiescence. She disowned the idea of being jealous to herself, and was about to burst into a furious speech; but her effort to govern herself succeeded.

Shame and vexation covered her as with a garment; and hiding her face in her hands, she sank back in her chair, sobbing as if her heart would break!

Grey knelt down at her side as Hilton drew back, wrinkling his brow, half with vexation, half with contempt, as he looked now at the Resident.

Mr Harley returned the glance, and they both stood looking on, wanting to leave but hardly liking to stir, as poor little Mrs Bolter sobbed forth her trouble, with her head buried now in Grey Stuart’s breast.

“We cannot wait longer,” said the Resident at last; “we must go and risk it. If we have any casualties, we must trust to our own surgical knowledge, and do the best we can.”

“Yes,” said Hilton; “every minute is precious; but I am afraid that we are going to a war of words, and not to a war of weapons. Let us go. Perhaps Mrs Bolter will beg of the doctor to come after us in one of the small boats if we miss him on our way up.”

“Stop a minute,” said Mrs Bolter, recovering herself by an effort, and standing up, red of eye and cheek. “He will not come back here while you are gone, and I will hesitate no longer. I shall go with you!”

“Go with us?” cried the Resident and Hilton in a breath.

“Yes,” said the little woman, decidedly. “I shall go!”

“But it is impossible!” cried the Resident. “There may be fighting!”

“Then you would want help. I do know a little surgery, and more nursing; so I could be of great service.”

“But, my dear Mrs Bolter!” cried Hilton.

“Now, it is of no use for you to talk!” cried the little lady. “I feel it is a duty that I am called upon to fulfil. There is my brother somewhere up in those dreadful jungles, as thoughtless and as helpless as a child. He is all strength in goodness and spiritual matters; but as to taking care of himself, he is like a baby. I know he is lost!”

“It is very good of you,” said the Resident, warmly; “but, my dear Mrs Bolter, pray trust to us to find all our missing people. You know what Doctor Bolter is.”

“Yes – no – yes – no!” she cried, passionately. “I don’t quite know him yet; but I know my duty as his – his – wife. I shall go: for if he has, through his weakness, been led into any entanglement with that wretched, wicked black creature, I know and I feel, that at any suffering to myself, I ought to go and fetch him back – and I will!”

As she said this in a fierce determined way, the two officers gazed again in each other’s faces, amused, vexed, troubled, puzzled; for what, they silently asked each other, were they to do?

“Mrs Bolter – dear Mrs Bolter!” said Grey Stuart, solving the problem for them, as, in a tender, womanly way, she passed her arm round the determined little lady, and drew her to her breast, “you are angry and upset by your trouble; but you will – no – you cannot do this thing! You love dear Doctor Bolter too well to misjudge him. Pray, pray think of the pain it would give him, did he know that you had thought and spoken like this!”

“And – and as I never did before – before – he came and – and disturbed my quiet life at home!” cried the little woman. “You – you are right, my darling! I – I couldn’t do such a thing; and I wouldn’t have said it only – only – I am half mad! Don’t – don’t recollect all this, Harley – Captain Hilton! It is of course impossible! Go at once – and – bring him back to me, for this suspense is more than I can bear!”

“We’ll do our best,” said the Resident. “There, cheer up. We’ll forget all this, and so will you when our dear old friend is back. Tell him we wanted his help and counsel badly, but we could not wait. Tell him, too, that I share his suspicions.”

“Suspicions?” cried little Mrs Bolter, firing up once more.