o' them big, speckled peacocks with no colour in 'em, Master Harry?" said Mike respectfully. "No, it isn't one o' them; the basket's too small."
"What is it, then?"
"Don't know, sir; but I think it's one o' those funny little bears, like fat monkeys."
"May I send on for Phra, father?"
"Yes, if you like; but perhaps they will not let him come."
"Oh, I think they will; and I promised always to send on to him when anything good was brought in."
"Very well," said his father quietly; "send."
"Run, Mike," said the boy excitedly, and the man made a grimace at him. "Well, then, walk fast, and ask to see him. They'll let you pass. Then tell him we've got a big specimen brought in, and ask him, with my compliments, if he'd like to come on and see it."
"Yes, sir;" and the man hurried out, while Mr. Kenyon, who had just helped himself to a fresh cup of coffee, leaned back in his chair and smiled.
"What are you laughing at, father?" said the boy, with his bronzed face reddening again. "Did I make some stupid blunder?"
"Well, I hardly like to call it a blunder, Hal, because it was done knowingly. I was smiling at the impudence of you, an ordinary British merchant's son, coolly sending a message to a palace and telling a king's son to come on here."
"Palace! Why, it's only a palm-tree house, not much better than this, father; not a bit like a palace we see in books. And as to his being a king's son, and a prince, well, he's only a boy like myself."
"Of the royal blood, Hal."
"He can't help that, father, and I'm sure he likes to come here and read English and Latin with me, and then go out collecting. He said the King liked it too."
"Oh yes, he likes it, or he would not let his son come."
"Phra said his father wanted him to talk English as well as we do."
"And very wise of him too, my boy. This country will have more and more dealing with England as the time goes on."
Harry sat watching his father impatiently, longing the while to get out into the verandah, where he expected that the old hunter would be.
"You are not eating, my boy," said Mr. Kenyon; "go on with your breakfast."
"I've done, thank you, father."
"Nonsense. You always have two cups of coffee. Get on with the meal. It is better to make a good breakfast than to wait till the middle of the day, when it is so hot."
Harry began again unwillingly, and his father remarked upon it.
"You want to get out there, but you told me you did not wish to see what the man has brought till your friend came."
"Yes, I said so, father; but I should like Sree to tell me."
"Finish your breakfast, and you will have plenty of time."
Harry went on, and after the first few mouthfuls his healthy young appetite prevailed, and he concluded a hearty meal.
"There, you can go now," said his father. "Call me when the Prince comes."
Harry Kenyon hurried out into the broad verandah, and then along two sides of the square bungalow so as to reach the back, where sat a little, wrinkled-faced, square-shaped, yellow-skinned man, with his face and head shaved along the sides as high as the tips of his ears, leaving a short, stubbly tuft of grizzled hair extended backward from the man's low forehead to the nape of his neck, looking for all the world like the hair out of a blacking-brush stretched over the top of his head.
His dress was as scanty as that of his two muscular young companions, consisting as it did of a cotton plaid sarong or scarf of once bright colours, but now dull in hue from long usage, and a good deal torn and tattered by forcing a way through the jungle. This was doubled lengthwise and drawn round the loins, and then tightened at the waist by giving the edge of the sarong a peculiar twist and tuck in, thus forming a waist-belt in which in each case was stuck a dagger-like kris, with pistol-shaped handle and wooden sheath to hold the wavy blade, and a parang or heavy sword used in travelling to hack a way through the jungle and form a path by chopping through tangled rotan or tufts of bamboo, or lawyer cane.
The three men were squatted on their heels, with their mouths distended and lips scarlet, chewing away at pieces of betel-nut previously rolled in a pepper-leaf, which had first been smeared with what looked like so much white paste, but which was in fact lime, made by burning the white coral, abundant along some portion of the shores, and rising inland to quite mountainous height.
As soon as Harry came in sight, all rose up, smiling, and the elder man wanted to exhibit the prize contained within the great square basket standing on the bamboo flooring, while two stout bamboos, each about eight feet long, were stood up against the house, a couple of loops on either side of the basket showing where the bamboo poles had been thrust through so that the basket could hang dependent from the two men's shoulders.
"What have you got, Sree?" asked Harry, in English, which from long service with Mr. Kenyon, and mixing with other colonists, Sree spoke plainly enough to make himself understood.
"Big thing, Sahib. Very heavy."
"Bear?"
The man made a sign, and his two followers grinned with enjoyment, and seated themselves on the basket, which squeaked loudly.
"What did you do that for?" cried Harry.
"The young Sahib must wait till the old Sahib comes, and then he see."
"Old Sahib, indeed!" cried Harry; "why, my father isn't half so old as you."
"The young Sahib wait."
"Of course I can wait," said Harry pettishly, "and I was going to wait. I only asked you what it was."
The man smiled, and shook his head mysteriously, and just then Mike thrust his head out of the door.
"Ah, got back, Mike!" cried Harry. "What did the Prince say?"
"Come on almost directly, sir; but I had no end of a job to get to see him."
"How was that?"
"Oh, those guard chaps; soldiers, I s'pose they call themselves. They're a deal too handy with those spears of theirs. They ought to be told that they mustn't point them at an Englishman's breast."
"Oh, it's only because they're on duty, Mike," replied Harry.
"Wouldn't make any difference to me, sir, whether it was on dooty or off dooty if one of them was to go inside my chest."
"Oh, you needn't be afraid of that."
"Afraid! Oh, come, I like that, Master Harry – afraid! Not likely to be afraid of any number of the squatty, yellow-skinned chaps, but they oughtn't to be allowed to carry such things. Fancy Englishmen at home all going about carrying area railings in their hands."
Harry shook his head, for his recollections of spear-pointed area railings were very vague.
"Don't matter, sir," said Mike, "they don't know any better; but I know I shall get in a row one of these
