George Manville Fenn

“ Pretty chickens they must be when they are hatched. Hullo! what boat’s that?”
For the plashing of poles reached his ears, and the dark form of a good-sized sampan came round a curve, with its attap awning glistening softly like dead silver in the moonlight.
The sentry waited in the shade of the hut till the boat came nearer, and then challenged, when a familiar voice responded:
“That you, Peter Pegg?”
“Mister Archie, sir! Yes, sir.”
“It’s all right. We are going up the river a little way in the moonlight. Beautiful night!”
“Yes, sir; lovely, sir. I’d be on the lookout, sir, though.” ”

“ And then, as the band marched by, Rajah Suleiman’s group collected in front of the great clump of trees left standing when a portion of the jungle had been cleared, and the huge elephants, now gorgeous with trappings, and each bearing its showy howdah, in which were seated the Rajah himself and his principal chiefs, responded to a final blast of the highly polished brass instruments and the thunderous roll of the drums by a simultaneous uneasy trumpeting of their own, with which were mingled the cries of the mahouts, who had to ply their sharp-pointed goads to keep their charges in subjection. ”

“ The elephant uttered what sounded to be a sigh and raised one huge leg as if about to step out, but only planted it down again in the same deep hole, went through the same evolution with another leg, subsided again, and went on crunching the abundant succulent herbage.
“It’s no good, Pete,” said Archie bitterly. “They are in full chase. The elephant recognises the cry, and you will never get him to stir.”
“An obstinate beggar!” grumbled Peter. ”

“ After this the lad sat peering through a dense, green curtain of the beautiful tropic leafage, till by degrees all the mist had floated away with the stream, leaving the water glittering and sparkling in the bright sunshine, and giving the watchers a clear view of the flowing river and the jungle that bowed its pendent branches so that they kissed the water, while farther on tall, rigid palms shot up and displayed their feathery tufts of great leaves, to sway gently in the hot sunshine.
“Let’s see, Mister Archie; don’t seem to be many paths where helephants and things come down to drink. ”

“ Getting up actively enough, for he fancied he heard a sound, he climbed to the hole once more, and found he was right, for the Malay sentry was returning, shouldering a fresh spear.
“Now, where did he get that?” thought the lad. “It’s wonderful to me how quiet everything is here. There must be houses, or huts, or something, and a fairish lot of men; and, of course, there’s helephant-sheds. Only where are they? Jungle, jungle, jungle, without so much as a squint of anything else. Wonder what Mister Archie thinks about it.” ”

“ Lie down. No one can see us here, shut in behind these trees. You are afraid they will shoot? Bah! Let them! They could not aim at us in this darkness. Be brave, as I am. Recollect what I told you before we started to creep here: if we fire, it will destroy all their ammunition. They will be defenceless, and it will be easy for your prince to slay and capture all these wretched British usurpers of your prince’s country. And I shall be the Rajah’s great friend and counsellor, and make him great, so that he will become a glorious prince and reign over a happy, contented people. ”

“ My dear boy, all you have got to do is not to try to be a man. Nature will do that. Your full manhood will come quite soon enough. Only try to drop a little of the boy, for you are a bit too young. Well, what are you staring at?”
Archie’s face was more wrinkled than ever.
“Ah, I see,” continued the Doctor. “You are doubting whether you shall believe me. Here’s a pretty fellow! Comes to a medical man for advice, and begins to doubt him as soon as the advice is given.—Here, Maria—Minnie!”
“No, for goodness’ sake, Doctor! And Sir Charles is there!” ”

“ Archie felt that he would not have cared upon the present occasion if Peter Pegg had been by his side, and in imagination, as he stood with the lowered spear, he saw himself taking turns with the young private in stabbing at the savage beast as it was snarling, tearing, and trying to force its way through the tangled side of the big stable. ”

“ Archie did not seem to hear the remark, and he went on thoughtfully:
“I think as Major Knowle does, sir, that, out of sheer ignorance, they don’t believe how powerful we are. You see, they are all armed; every man has a kris; and they are going about with those nasty razor-bladed spears that they can throw so accurately. Most of them carry the point in a sheath, but it is a sheath that they slip off in a moment, and then it is a most horrible, deadly weapon.” ”

“ Archie Maine drew a deep breath as if to pull himself together, and then as he met the Doctor’s searching eyes they seemed to draw out of him that which he wished to say.
“I am afraid, Doctor,” he said excitedly, “that I have got something wrong with my head.”
“Why? Pain you? Feeling of confusion?”
The lad shook the part of his person mentioned.
“Dizziness?”
“Oh no, sir; nothing of that sort.”
“Well, go on. A doctor isn’t a magician. Have you got a bad tooth? You must tell him which one to attack with his key preliminary to the scraunch.” ”

“ This long, narrow Malay Peninsula is cut up into countries each ruled over by a petty Rajah, and these half-savage potentates are all as jealous of one another as can be. Each Rajah is spoiling for a fight so as to get possession of his neighbour’s territory, and if we were not here one or the other of them would swallow up Suleiman’s patch, and he, knowing this, submits as pleasantly as he can to the rule and protection of England, which keeps them safe. ”

“ Can’t call one’s self a prisoner. Yes, I can, because I am regularly chained by the leg; for who’s going to leave his comrade? Poor old chap!”
At that moment there was a deep sigh, followed by a loud rustling amongst the leaves, as Archie made an effort to change his position, slightly raising his head, but letting it fall back with a low groan, while the young private stepped softly to his side, knelt down, and bent over him.
“Hurt you much, Mister Archie, sir?” the lad whispered quietly, and one hand played over the injured head, hesitated, and was then withdrawn. ”

“ You’ll wake the poor governor,” whispered Peter, who began to tremble now with alarm.—“Oh, don’t I wish I could remember what the mahout said to him!—Here, I say, don’t!—I believe he’s gone mad, and if he gets at us— Here, I say, what shall I do?” And he backed away from where the light was beginning to show more brightly through the woven wall, and took up his position as if to protect his wounded officer. “If I had only got my rifle and bayonet, I could keep him off, perhaps, with a good dig. ”

“ I often envy you, for what with my health and every one’s health to think about, doctoring one man for fever, putting all you fellows straight, and patching up squabbling savages, my appetite often feels as if it wants a fillip. A doctor’s is an anxious life, my boy—more especially out here in a country like this, amongst a very uncertain people, when a man feels that he has a stake in the country.”
“But you have no stake in the country, sir?” ”

“ It seemed as if one of the Malays in the front of the far boat stood up and threw a spear.”
“Right you are, sir, and no mistake. There goes another. Can you see how many there are in the first boat?”
“Three, I think; and one’s a woman.”
“I thought two of them,” said Peter; “and there’s eight or ten or a dozen in the other. Well, sir, the far-off one must be enemies, and the little boat must be friends. I know which side we ought to take, and we can now.” ”

“ The utterer of the yell seemed to have been successful, for the trunk was drawn back quickly, the elephant trumpeted, there were the footsteps of a man, and the shuffling sound of the gait of the great beast, as, springing up, Peter Pegg ran to the door and climbed up to place his eye where the trunk had been, so that he could see what was taking place. ”

“ Archie dropped down, after seeing that the sentry was quietly rolling up a fresh betel-quid, and Peter stood aside for his companion to take his place by the basket.
“Never mind me, sir. Let him stroke you over as much as he likes; and you mustn’t mind if he smells you too much with the wet end of his trunk. I want you to be as good friends as me and him is.” ”

“ So do I like it. I often think it would be just lovely if old Ripsy would get down with the fever. My word! what would he be like when Dr Morley had done with him, and he began to crawl about and use his cane to help him hobble, instead of being so jolly handy with it in his fashion?”
“Peter Pegg, that’s a nasty, revengeful way of talking.”
“Is it, sir?” said the young private, giving himself a twist, as if in recollection of a tap with the cane.
“Yes. You don’t mean to tell me that you wish Sergeant Ripsy would catch this nasty jungle fever?” ”

“ What have you done?”
“Got a spear to begin with, sir.”
“Ah, well, that’s something.”
“Yes, sir—something for you to handle like a bay’net if they won’t let us go quietly.”
“Right—right!”
“And the next thing, sir, is for you to get strong to handle it.”
“Ah, and I am so weak!”
“Of course you are, sir, when you have had nothing but a drop of water for days.”
“For days!”
“Yes, sir; and now your breakfast’s waiting. It’s only bread and fruit and water, but it’s wonderful stuff to put strength in a man, and you have got to begin getting it into you at once.”
“No, no; not yet,” pleaded Archie. ”

“ The great elephant went patiently trudging on, mile after mile, with the heat so intense that Archie Maine had to fight hard to keep off a growing drowsiness, and he now welcomed the fact that the portion of the jungle through which they were being carried kept on sending down trailing strands of the rotan cane and other creepers which threatened to lasso him and drag him from his seat. ”

“ I say that these people, bloodthirsty as they are, quarrelsome, and generally spoiling for a fight, are such children at heart that they would be delighted, and believe more than ever in the followers of her they call the Great White Queen. Now, Sir Charles, are you with me? ”

“ What do you mean—a forest on fire?”
“No, no; at home, when you are burning logs of wood and the little sparks keep running here and there all over the back of the stove, just like fireworks at a distance.”
“Ah, yes, they do look something like that, just as if the leaves of the overhanging bushes all burst out into light.”
“Yes,” said Archie; “and when the soft breeze blows over them it seems to sweep them all out.”
“Good job, too,” said Captain Down. “We get heat enough in the sunshine without having the bushes and the water made hot by fire-flies.” ”

“ Oh, my poor nut! How it do ache! I know what would do it good—lie down and try to go to sleep. But I can’t; for so sure as I did, Mister Archie would wake up and want some water, and begin to talk about Miss Minnie. Oh dear! It’s far worse than mutiny—to go to sleep when you are on sentry; and it would be ten times worse to begin to snooze now, with that poor, half-cranky chap in such a state. So I’ll have one or two of them finger-stall fruit things and a good drink of water, and then lean back against the side and see how many Malay words I can remember ”

“ Dr Pegg muses.
“Poor chap!” said Pegg, with a long-drawn sigh, as, utterly exhausted, Archie sank back upon his rough resting-place amongst the palm-leaves, and fell off at once into a deep, swoon-like sleep. “Oh! if he only won’t wake again for hours and hours, for all this worrying and talking must be dreadful for him. Poor girl! She must be here somewhere, a prisoner too. ”

“ The trumpeting that greeted the charge was not defiant, for the elephants turned simultaneously as upon a pivot and set the example of making for the nearest points of the jungle; and to the charging men it seemed as if they formed part of some immensely extended human hay-making machine, whose glittering spikes were about to sweep off a living crowd which, excited and yelling wildly, had turned and fled for safety. ”

“ Would it be wise to invite these two Eastern princes to come here in force and well-armed, so that they could combine and try to sweep us out of existence?”
“What! when our men are hot with excitement and ready to smell mischief in a good sham-fight? I should just like to see them try—eh, Maine?”
“Yes, sir,” said Archie, with his eyes twinkling. “I think they would make a mistake.”
“Yes,” said the Major, leaning forward to give the boy a slap on the knee that made him wince. “And what about your despised British bayonets then—eh, sir? Eh?” ”

“ I know when the row comes off with that there Rajah Solomon—and there’s a pretty bit of cheek, sir: him, a reg’lar heathen, going and getting himself called by a Christian name! I should like to give him Solomon—you’ll fight with the best of them, sir. I often think about it. You’ll fight with the best of them, sir. And ’tain’t brag, Mr Archie Maine, sir—you let me see one of them beggars coming at you with his pisoned kris or his chuck-spear, do you mean to tell me I wouldn’t let him have the bayonet? And bad soldier or no, I can do the bayonet practice with the best of them. ”

“ The small erection that it had been the Major’s pride to erect by means of the men a short distance back and just inside the jungle, and to which he had brought to bear all the ingenuity he possessed, so as to ensure safety—sinking it deep in the earth, protecting it by a chevaux de frise, and then thickly planting the outside with a dense belt of the closest and most rapid-growing of the jungle shrubs—had been levelled with the earth, and its framework was now blazing furiously. ”

“ A Malay and his wife who have been patients of the Doctor bringing in such news as that! Why, it’s grand! Poor, dear girl! Tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, tut, what she must have suffered! Well, Mr Rajah Suleiman will have to pay for it. Morley says he believes in these people. Not some trap, is it?”
“He feels sure not, sir. The people are grateful to him for all he has done for them. Oh, I am certain it is genuine, sir.”
“Don’t be too sure, my lad. These people can’t help looking upon us as their enemies, and they are as treacherous as they are high. Look at this Suleiman. I have been trusting him. ”

“ To the lads’ great satisfaction, it seemed that they were hugging the farther shore, and they passed by travelling slowly, without even looking in their direction, and glided out of sight.
“Lucky for some of them, Mister Archie,” said Peter, as he stretched out his hand for the gun and crept forward. “There you are, sir. I feel like a new man. Have a good sleep, sir. It helps the time along beautifully. How did you guess an hour, sir?” ”

“ Phoonk! came in a hollow-sounding grunt.
“Oh, why didn’t you speak plain? Want water, do you? Can’t spare any. My young governor wants a good wash. Go on down to the river. There’s plenty there. Good old chap,” he continued, softly stroking the trunk; and after a low, muttering sound the elephant submitted to the caresses, and then began to respond.
“Take care, Pete!” said Archie in a low whisper.
“All right, sir. He knows me.”
“But he may turn spiteful. A blow from an elephant’s trunk would dash you across the place.” ”