Francis Worcester Doughty

“ Meanwhile the Doctor, seized by some sudden notion had started off on the run toward the huts.
Maurice’s face was a study as he tried to free himself from the old man’s grasp.
“Great heavens! Has everybody run mad but me!” he shouted. “Take him off, George! Take him off, will you? I don’t want to kick the old fellow, but I can’t stand this.”
I interfered and in a moment had rescued him.
“Ye gods! but that’s a relief!” cried Maurice, as the old man returned to the girl again. “What a row we’ve all got into, to be sure! Is she dead, George? Where’s the Doctor? ”

“ We had rounded a turn in the path now and saw directly ahead a large elephant, standing beneath a cocoa palm which formed one of a grove of similar trees surrounding a little collection of grass-thatched huts.
“A village!” I exclaimed. “This settles it. We are on the wrong road.”
“And it puts a finish to De Veber’s elephant hunt!” laughed the Doctor. “Why that beast is half blind and looks as though he might be crowding a hundred. But where are all the people?” ”

“ Suddenly the old fellow made a dart off among the palms and vanished.
“Great heavens! is he going to leave the girl on our hands?” cried Maurice, in evident alarm. But before we had time to discuss it there he was back again, carrying in his arms a rawhide pack which he flung upon the ground at Maurice’s feet. Still chattering, he loosened the straps and opening the pack drew out a loose, cotton garment, blue in color and fashioned something like the native pajama, which he proceeded to throw over the shoulders of the girl who, with downcast eyes, stood quietly by his side. ”

“ The Doctor had no suggestion to offer.
“More of your mysterious people, Wylde,” he said in his usual half-sneering way. “We shall have to hold you responsible for the whole business. Gad, boys, but she was a little beauty! If I had dreamed that our acquaintance would be so brief, I should certainly have stayed by her. Now De Veber gets all the glory, and——”
“And the shawl!” broke in Maurice. “Take it if you want it. I acknowledge you as the rescuer of the fair one. Why, even George was more active than I, and yet I have reaped the reward.” ”

“ It is a straight trail through the forest. We couldn’t miss it if we were to try.”
“Which only goes to show how little you comprehend the dangers of a Siamese forest,” he replied. “I tell you, my dear fellow, we are very likely to miss our way, and that means wandering in the jungle indefinitely, living on all sorts of unpleasant things, with the beautiful prospect of starving to death in the end.” ”

“ I suppose, I said as coolly as possible.
“As sure as we are lost in the jungle,” whispered the Doctor. “Even those wood-cutters are preferable. Come! There is no time to be lost.”
Again he started ahead, for the path was so narrow that single file was a necessity.
“I don’t believe it’s a tiger,” said Maurice incredulously.
“Don’t deceive yourself, De Veber,” said the Doctor, “it is nothing else. “Not,” he added, “that there is any great danger of the beast attacking us. ”

“ It don’t matter about me. The world will never miss Miles Philpot. I’m going to open this bag.”
“No, no! Don’t do it!” I said. “Suppose he returns and claims it?”
“Let him! What do I care? Throw all the blame on me—here goes.”
Before I could prevent, he thrust the big knife he always carried, between the metal edges of the bag, and pried the two halves apart.
“Confound you! What did you do that for?” I exclaimed, now seriously vexed at the persistency he displayed.
But Maurice sided against me.
“Bother, George! Why do you make so much fuss about nothing?” he said. “The Doctor is right. ”

“ Have you tried all your powers of persuasion?”
“Aye, and of Maurice’s brandy flask and tobacco bag into the bargain. It’s no go. The old fanatic has got some crotchet into his head, and the devil himself couldn’t knock it out.”
I found Maurice less excited than the Doctor, but still anxious, and of the opinion that we ought to start back at once.
“Mr. Philpot is right, George, he said. “There is danger. We are without a compass and the jungle is full of wild beasts. It would be no joke to get lost in these woods.” ”

“ JUNGLE ADVENTURES.
It seems to me that I have now rendered tolerably clear the perplexed frame of mind in which Maurice De Veber and I found ourselves at the beginning of our fourth day at Angkor.
Day succeeded day and our perplexity was in no way diminished—rather increased.
Not that the mysterious Mr. Mirrikh manifested himself again.
Quite the contrary. We saw nothing of him, and just there the mystery lay.
Immediately upon our descent from the central tower of the ruined temple, the Reverend Miles Philpot set himself the task of finding “that man.” ”

“ Not a plant, not a tree nor shrub, but he had the name, botanical and vulgar, at his tongue’s end, and as he rattled on, discoursing learnedly at one moment, telling a witty and often broad anecdote the next, I could not but wonder where and when the man had found time to learn all these things, and how it happened that one whose manners and acquirements certainly seemed to fit him for many elevated positions, had become so complete a nomad—a wanderer on the face of the earth. ”

“ I had abjured the man’s creed, I despised his profession, I had laughed when he made light of it, and yet now I seemed to demand of him a greater delicacy of thought, a purity of sentiment than possessed by the average man, although I had put him down for an average man and nothing more. ”

“ I may as well mention that the shawl was finally sold for £70. Perhaps it was the last part of Philpot’s remark that made Maurice so anxious to get rid of it. I remember well how he laughed when he answered:
“I shall hold it till it rots then before I put it to the use you suggest. Mrs. De Veber is a long way in future. I’m afraid she will never find any use for her shawl.”
“What? Opposed to the divine institution,” cried the Doctor. “Give me your hand young man? You are a fellow after my own heart. I wouldn’t marry the best woman in the world, no, not if she were hung with diamonds. ”

“ Miles Philpot had failed to name.
“Don’t drink it dry, Doctor, said Maurice. “George and I may need a dose before we get out of this scrape.”
“Yours truly! I leave you the flask,” he replied, with that good humor which nothing seemed to ruffle. “Now boys, we’re in a hole. How are we to get out of it! Decision must be had at once Hark! Was that thunder? The plot thickens, the darkness deepens! My inventive Yankee friends, what’s to be did?”
“In my opinion, the sooner we get back to the woodcutters’ huts the better,” I said decidedly. ”

“ I want that bag, Doctor, and I insist upon that book remaining unopened.”
“Too late!” replied Philpot, and before I could interfere he had opened the volume and was running over its pages.
I sprang forward and would have snatched it from him, but Maurice caught my arm and restrained me.
“Come, come, George! No quarrelling!” he said. “What’s done can’t be undone. Everything shall be carefully returned to the bag. Doctor, what do you make of the book?” ”

“ Mirrikh’s little hand bag which Maurice extended toward me, with an odd twinkle in his eye.
“Heavens! That bag!” I exclaimed. “What a pity we did not have it, when—”
“When he last materialized,” broke in Philpot. “I say no. Spirits have no use for hand bags. I believe you are still an advocate for the ghostly theory, Mr. Wylde?” ”

“ Meanwhile the priest had taken himself off and could not be found. Probably he was concealed somewhere among the ruins, but we made no attempt to look for him, simply bundling our traps together and starting off along the narrow trail in single file.
“Upon my word I'm sorry we ever ventured into this beastly hole,” grumbled Philpot, after we had advanced about a mile or so. “A night spent here would bring us all down with jungle fever—heavens! look there!” ”

“ Philpot was approaching from the direction of the huts. When my gaze reverted toward the forest again it was only to get a last glimpse of that singular pair disappearing among the palms, hand in hand.
“Hello! Where are those people?” exclaimed the Doctor, as he came hurrying up a few minutes later on.
“Gone,” replied Maurice, “and it’s time we were going too. What in thunder made you run off the way you did?”
“Why, the old man said they had robbed him of all his money,” cried the Doctor. “Told me it was in a little canvas bag ”

“ I shall go back with you to Panompin, and if nothing turns up there I’ll jog on to Singapore, where I have been promised a charge at a mission station. If I fail there I think I shall go home to England.”
Never have I been thrown in with a man so well informed and yet so light and trivial in all his methods of thought.
Maurice seemed to like him ”

“ One of the few things of which his luggage boasted beyond a change of clothing was a small camera, and with this he entertained himself and us by taking negatives, which he had no means of developing, of those beautiful bas-reliefs which adorn the walls of the Nagkon Wat. ”