course – yes, I know that,” said Hilton.
“That prestige we shall lose if we let our judgment be biased by personal feeling. Kindly set self on one side, as I am striving to do, and help me to the best of your ability by your manly, unselfish advice.”
Hilton frowned as the Resident went on; but the next instant he had held out his hand, which the other grasped.
“I am afraid I am very hot-headed, Mr Harley,” he exclaimed. “There, it is all over, and I’ll help you to the best of my power. Now then, what’s to be done?”
“First accept my thanks,” cried the Resident. “I knew that I could count upon you, Hilton.”
“I’ll do my best, Harley.”
“Then stroll quietly back to the barracks, and in a matter-of-fact way see that all is in such order that you could bring up your men at a moment’s notice.”
“Reinforcements?” suggested Captain Hilton.
“I did think of asking for them,” said the Resident, “but on second thoughts it seems hardly necessary. I would do everything without exciting suspicion, and as if you were only inspecting the fort. Now go.”
“Right,” said the captain; and he walked away, saying to himself:
“He’s a good fellow, Harley, that he is, and he does not bear a bit of malice against me for cutting him out. Poor fellow! he must have felt it bitterly. Hang it all! I could not have borne it. The very fact of this fellow proposing for Helen nearly drove me wild. I think if I were to lose her I should die.”
Chumbley was about to follow Hilton, but the Resident laid a hand upon his shoulder.
“Of course I can count upon your discretion, Chumbley?” he said.
“Oh, yes, I suppose so,” said the young man, “so long as you don’t want anything done in a hurry. Nature seems to forbid a man to be scurried in this climate; but I say, Mr Harley, don’t let’s have a row if you can help it, I’m a soldier, but if there is anything I do abhor, it is fighting. I hate blood. The very idea of having to make our lads use their bayonets gives me a cold chill all down the back.”
“Depend upon it we will not have a quarrel with the natives if we can help it, Chumbley. If diplomacy can keep it off, there shall be none;” and nodding his head in a friendly manner to the young officer, he strolled away.
“But diplomacy won’t keep it off, my dear sir,” said Chumbley. “If Mother Nature turns loose such a girl as Helen Perowne, to play fast and loose with men like Murad, a row must come.
“Let me see,” he said, after a pause, “what shall I do with myself to-day? Best way to avoid scrapes is to keep up friendly relations with the natives.
“Oh, what a worry this love-making is! We all go in for it at some time or another, but hang me if I think it pays.
“Little Helen quite hates me now, since I’ve broken the string and will not be cajoled into coming back. By Jove! what a wise little girl little Stuart is. One might get up a flirtation there without any heart-breaking. No: won’t do, she’s too sweet, and wise, and sensible. Hang it all, can’t a fellow talk sensibly to a pretty girl without thinking he’s flirting! I like little Stuart. You can talk to her about anything, and she never giggles and blushes, and looks silly. She’s an uncommonly nice young girl, and twenty years hence, when beautiful Helen has grown old, and yellow, and scraggy, Stuart will be a pleasant, soft, amiable little woman, like Mrs Bolter. There’s a woman for you! ’Pon my word I believe she likes me; she talks to me just as if I were a big son.
“Well, now, what’s to be done? I’ll go and see if Hilton wants me, and if he doesn’t I shall have a few hours ashore.
“By the way, I wonder who’ll marry little Stuart?” he said, as he went slowly on with his hands behind him, his broad chest thrown out, and a bluff, manly bearing about him that would have made an onlooker think that he would not make a bad match for the lady himself.
“I shan’t,” he added, after a pause. “Hilton’s a precious idiot not to go for her himself, instead of wasting his time upon a woman who will throw him over. As for me, I’m beginning to think I am not a lady’s man. I’m too big, and clumsy, and stupid. They tolerate me when they don’t laugh at me. Bah! what does it matter? Sport’s my line – and dogs.”
Volume One – Chapter Twenty Four.
The Pains of a Princess
Captain Hilton saw no reason for detaining his subaltern, only bade him be ready to return to the island at the slightest sign of danger, which Chumbley promised to do; and he was about to walk down to the landing-stage, when, happening to gaze across the swift river towards Mr Perowne’s beautiful garden, which sloped down to the water’s edge, with as good a semblance of a lawn as could be obtained in that part of the world, he caught sight of a couple of figures in white, walking slowly up and down in the shade of the trees.
He was too far distant to make out their faces, but he had no doubt that the two were Helen and Grey Stuart.
“Now, I would not mind laying a whole shilling that Master Hilton has his binocular focussed exactly upon one of your faces, and is watching every turn of expression. If you smile he thinks it is with thoughts of him; and take it altogether, the poor fellow imagines you are always dreaming of him, when you are wondering what is worn now in Paris or London, and whether any of the new fashions will reach you by the next steamer.
“Yes, that’s Helen – fair Helen,” he said, leaning upon a rail, and gazing across the water. “Chumbley, old fellow, I’m beginning to think you are not such a fool as I used to imagine you to be. It was a good brave stroke to get away from the toils of that syren; for there’s no mistake about it, old man, you were just like a big fly in the pretty spider’s web.
“By George! she is a very lovely girl though! She seems to fascinate everyone she comes near. Thank goodness, she only got me by one leg, and I broke out, I hope, without much damaging the net. Certainly she soon seemed to repair it. I wish I were a good prophet,” he went on, lighting a cigarette. “I should like to be able to say what is to take place here, who’ll marry whom, and who’ll remain single. Hullo! what’s coming now?”
The splash of oars roused him from his reverie, and turning towards the landing-stage, he made out a dragon-boat, or naga, as the larger row-galleys used by the Malay nobles are called, rapidly approaching the little isle.
It was propelled by a dozen rowers, all dressed uniformly in yellow silk bajus or jackets, their coarse black hair being topped by a natty little cap similar to that worn by a cavalry soldier in undress, and they kept stroke with wonderful accuracy as they forced the boat along.
A large shed-like awning of bamboo and palm leaves covered the latter part of the vessel; and Chumbley forgot his customary inertia, and scanned the boat eagerly, to see if it contained armed men. To his surprise, however, he saw that the whole space beneath the broad awning was filled with women, whose brightly-coloured silken sarongs were hung from their heads after the manner of veils; and though the rowers each wore his kris, the hilt was covered, and it was evidently a friendly visit.
“I don’t know though,” thought Chumbley. “Perhaps it is a ruse, and instead of women, those are smart youths, well armed, ready to give our fellows a dig with the kris, and take the place by surprise.
“No,” he said,
