One Maid's Mischief

Volume Three – Chapter Four.

More Treachery

Murad took a step towards the girl, and whispered something which Helen could not catch.

Then, turning sharply round, he dashed the curtain aside, swung open the door, and passing through, they heard the heavy bang as the curtain waved to and fro, when Helen’s defender sank trembling to her knees, her eyes closed, and the little weapon with which, but a minute before, she was ready to menace the Rajah’s life, fell with a musical tinkle upon the floor.

The noise startled her, and she opened her eyes to gaze piteously at the fallen curtain, and ended by bursting into a passionate fit of weeping.

Helen let her hands fall upon the Malay girl’s shoulder, eager to speak her thanks, but hesitating, as she felt that it would be better to let the outbreak have its course.

In this spirit she waited quite patiently, listening eagerly though for the slightest sound without that should betoken the Rajah’s return; but all remained silent till suddenly the girl rose and turned upon her angrily.

“Why did you come?” she cried; “he loved me before he saw you. Go: you make me hate you, and I shall kill you for it if you stay.”

For the moment Helen felt angry. At such a time the girl’s want of reason was irritating; but seeing that she was almost beside herself with jealous grief, she advanced and laid a hand upon the weeping girl’s arm.

“You know I hate him,” she said gently, “and that I would give the world to get away.”

“Yes, yes, yes, I know,” sobbed the girl; and her anger gave place to a most effusive display of affection. “Yes, I know, but it is so hard to bear. He used at one time to love me so well, and now he is quite changed for the sake of you. Why do you not go?”

“Will you show me the way?” cried Helen, eagerly.

“The way?” said the girl.

“Yes; how to escape – to get back to my own people.”

“Do you really want to go back?” said the girl, looking at her searchingly.

“Yes, yes; oh yes,” was the reply. “I’ll give you anything to help me away. You shall be made rich, and I will care for you and love you like a sister, only save me from this man.”

The girl fixed her great dark eyes upon Helen’s, and seemed to be trying to read her thoughts.

“It is very strange!” she said at last.

“What is strange? That I should ask you to save me?”

“No,” said the girl, dreamily; “that anyone should be able to hate Murad. He has been cruel to me, but I could never hate him, even though others have talked to me and tried to get my love. Hamet has loved me, he tells me, and that he is unhappy because I am cold; but I could never hate Murad, and the more cruel he is to me, the more he seems to have my love.”

“But it troubles you that he should make love to me?”

“Yes,” hissed the girl, fiercely. “It makes me mad.”

“Then help me to escape; help me to get away,” cried Helen, clinging to her passionately.

“And if I do he will kill me,” sighed the girl.

“Then do not stay here,” whispered Helen, glancing suspiciously at the great curtain, which seemed to wave to and fro, and moved as though some one were listening close behind.

“Do not stay?” said the girl, wonderingly.

“No. Let us escape together.”

“But to leave Murad?”

“He does not love you now.”

“But Hamet does; he would grieve. They would follow and kill me.”

“No, no. You shall not be harmed,” said Helen, excitedly. “I will protect you. You shall live with me.”

“No,” said the girl, sadly, “I could not go away and leave Murad. He is cruel to me, but I cannot be cruel to him. He would want me if I was gone.”

“But you say he would kill you if you stayed?”

“Yes,” sighed the girl. “He would kill me for helping you to escape if he found me out.”

“Then come with me and let my people protect you,” whispered Helen, excitedly. “Why should you stay here when I can give you a happier and better home?”

“Happier! better!” said the girl. “No; there is no life for me that could be happier when he is kind. There can be no better place than this.”

Helen passed her arm round her, for there was something beautiful in the girl’s faith and love for the tyrant who abused her affection at every turn; and the girl, feeling the unusual caress, turned to her lovingly.

“Tell me once again,” she said, “that you really mean it – that you would be glad to go,” and she looked searchingly in Helen’s eyes.

“I would sooner die than stay,” cried Helen, who had to repeat her words twice before she could make herself understood.

“Then let me think,” said the girl, quietly; “let me think how it can be done, for we should like to live and be happy once again.”

“As we shall be, if you help me to escape and come with me and share my home. Let us steal down to a boat as soon as it is dark, and then we can soon reach the great river by floating with the stream.”

The girl smiled sadly.

“You forget,” she said, “Murad’s people will watch us, for we are prisoners now.”

There was no doubt about this being the case, for door and window were securely fastened, as the girl showed with a smile, becoming very thoughtful directly after, and making impatient gestures every time Helen tried to draw her into conversation.

And so the day wore on, with the prisoner’s heart sinking as she saw the approach of night.

It was just at the time when her spirits were at their lowest ebb that the girl turned to her suddenly and caught her by the arm.

“I have been thinking,” she said, “and you shall go free.”

She spoke in her own tongue, and Helen had great difficulty in comprehending her, but the peril sharpened her understanding; and by making the girl repeat her words, she arrived at a pretty correct interpretation.

“And you will go with me?” whispered Helen, eagerly.

“A little while ago I felt that I could never leave Murad; but he is cruel, and he loves me no longer now. I will go.”

Helen’s heart throbbed with joy, as she caught the girl to her breast and kissed her passionately, loosing her though directly, for the door was suddenly opened, and they saw a group of four women standing there, evidently bearing food.

“Come and fetch it,” said one of them to Helen’s companion, for they did not attempt to enter the room.

The girl left Helen and went to the door, to return, bringing the materials for a respectable meal, returning again for water and palm wine, with vessels for drinking, and once more returning for the fruit that the women produced.

Helen was watching their movements intently and suspiciously, she hardly knew why, when suddenly, as the girl was taking a bunch of plantains from one of the women, another threw her arms round her neck and clasped her tightly, with the result that the others seized her as well; there was a slight struggle, the door was slammed to, and as Helen ran to it with throbbing heart, she heard the noise of renewed struggling, the excited angry cries of her poor companion, and these seemed to be dying away for a time, and then to suddenly end as if they had been stifled.

Helen Perowne was brave enough in her way; but the sounds of this struggle, the cries, and their sudden ending, coupled with the threats lately uttered by Murad, made her shudder as she turned, wet with the cold perspiration that gathered upon her face.

What did it mean – that sudden silence? Had they suffocated the poor girl, or had they slain her by some more sudden and deadly stroke?

Helen tried hard to maintain her composure; but her dread increased, and she tottered back to the mats that served her for a couch, to sink down, trembling in every limb.

It was a terrible ordeal, and the more she realised the horrors of her position the more deeply she regretted her conduct to Murad.

For evidently beneath his thin veneer of European manners the Rajah was a remorseless Eastern tyrant, ready to do anything – to sacrifice anything to obtain his wishes.

Unknowingly, or rather carelessly, and with her customary indifference, she had made this man her determined pursuer; and as she thought this, she turned faint, feeling that her position was hopeless in the extreme; and for the moment she felt as if she would go mad.

A violent flood of tears relieved her overburdened brain, and at last she sat up, thinking of her chances of escape, and wondering whether she had let her imagination run riot, and the girl was after all only in a fresh place of confinement.

She decided to take this hopeful view of the case; and feeling better, her eyes lit upon the food that had been brought in, and of which she partook, not so much from choice as from a belief in its being necessary for her strength, which she feared might fail her at any time, perhaps in the direst moment of her need.

Seating herself, then, beside the food, she was trying to eat, when the door was again opened, and one of the women entered quietly, bearing a lighted English lamp.

Helen eagerly questioned her respecting her late companion; but the woman either did not or professed not to understand, merely placing the tall lamp upon a mat on the floor, and hurrying away, seeming as it were to disappear in the gloom on the other side of the lamp, and directly after she heard the door close.

She sat listening, but all was very still. The sun had sunk, and the darkness was coming on so rapidly that she felt thankful for the lamp; and then she turned longingly towards the water and wine that had been brought to her, but which she shrank from touching lest they should happen to contain some drug.

Her thirst seemed to increase at the very sight of the drinking-vessels; and the more she tried wrench away her eyes, the more they sought the large native bottles and cups.

“I cannot bear it!” she panted at last, and bending down, she took the vessel containing the water, poured some out, and after tasting it suspiciously, with her throat growing parched with intense longing, she felt satisfied that the water was pure, and drank a long and hearty draught.

She set the cup down with a sigh of pleasure; and then her blood ran cold, for her sigh seemed to be echoed from out of the gloom near the door.

Murad was standing there, leaning against the doorpost, and it was evident to her now that he had entered when the woman brought in the lamp, and that he had been watching her ever since.

Volume Three – Chapter Five.

Trying for a Change

The days glided rapidly by, and still Hilton and Chumbley remained prisoners. They were well attended to; their diet, though Eastern in character, was admirably prepared: they had wine and cigars, capital coffee, and an abundance of fruit, but no liberty.

The Inche Maida was either away, or else she had taken such deadly offence that she was determined to see her prisoners no more for the present, until they were in a better frame of mind as regarded her wishes.

The slaves who attended upon them were ready to obey their slightest wishes, running eagerly to fetch coffee or fruit, or a kind of sherbet which was very pleasant to drink during the heat of the day.

But there was, with all the attention, a strict watch kept, Chumbley noticing that there was always an ostentatious display of force as if to show the prisoners that it was hopeless to attempt to escape.

Armed men sat about outside the door, and from the window the prisoners could see other armed men sitting about chewing betel, or practising throwing the limbing – the javelin with a blade of razor keenness – which they hurled with such unerring aim that the least skilful would have been certain to strike a man at thirty yards.

But all the same, the hearts of the prisoners were set upon scheming their escape; and they sat and smoked, and made their calculations as to how it was to be compassed.

“I’m sorry I was so rough with the poor woman,” said Hilton one evening, as they sat by the open window sipping their coffee, and gazing at the rich orange glow in the sky above the dark green foliage of the trees.

“Well, you were pretty rough upon her for displaying a remarkable feminine weakness in your favour,” replied Chumbley.

“Well, rough or no, I’m tired of this,” said Hilton. “It is evident that Harley is making no effort to find us out.”

“Perhaps he is, but can’t find the place. I’ve been trying hard to make out where we are.”

“So have I, but I’m puzzled. One thing is evident; we are a long way from the river.”

“So we cannot be at the Inche Maida’s seat.”

“No; I suppose this is a sort of private, lodge or hunting-box somewhere away in the jungle.”

“Yes; a place of retreat in case of danger.”

Then there was a pause, during which the prisoners sat gazing through the bars of the window at the glories of the sky, Chumbley disgusting his friend by continuously spitting.

“The Princess’s home is on the right bank of the river,” said Hilton, at last.

“Granted, oh! Solomon the wise!”

“Ergo” continued Hilton, “we are upon the right bank of the river.”

“Unless her ladyship’s dominions extend to the other side.”

“Take it for granted that they do not,” said Hilton.

“What then?”

“Why, we can pretty well tell where the river is.”

“Where is it then?”

“Due north from where we sit.”

“Humph!” said Chumbley. “Sun sets in the west. I’m looking at the sun, and the river, then, is straight away from my right shoulder?”

“Of course!”

“Then if we got out of this window, and walked straight through the jungle – which we could not do – we should come right upon the river?”

“Sooner or later,” said Hilton. “Then all would be plain sailing.”

“Don’t see it. No boat,” said Chumbley, spitting again.

“Why, my dear boy, we should journey along with the stream till we came to some campong, and then cut adrift a boat and escape in that.”

“But suppose the owner objected?”

“Knock him down with one of his own cocoa-nuts, or your fist. You’re big enough, Chumbley.”

“All right, I’ll try,” was the reply; “but that isn’t the difficulty.”

“No, of course not. You mean how are we to get away from here?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, I have a plan at last.”

“A good one?” said Chumbley, spitting through the window again.

“No, for all my good plans that I have invented turn out to have a bad flaw in them. This is the poorest of the lot, but it seems the most likely.”

“Well, let’s have it,” said Chumbley coolly; “not that I feel in any hurry to get back to duty, for I am very comfortable here.”

“Hang it all, Chum, I believe you would settle down as soon as not.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps I would. But how about this plan?”

“It is simply to wait till about one or two in the morning, when everyone will most likely be asleep, and then to climb up the side of the room here, and force our way through the thatch.”

“Go on,” said Chumbley, spitting again, and making his friend wince.

“Then we could climb along the ridge of the roof till we get to the farther end, where there is a big tree resting its boughs over the place. Once there. I think we could get down.”

“And if we could not?”

“We’d get down some other way.”

“Why didn’t we try that before?” said Chumbley; “it is quite easy.”

“Because it was so easy that we did not think it worth trying.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Chumbley. “I’ve been thinking out a plan too, which perhaps might do as well. I was going to tell you about it to-night, only oddly enough, you proposed this.”

“What is your plan?” said Hilton, yawning.

“Well, you see, I thought of getting out by the roof, breaking through the walls, and cutting the bars of the window; but they neither of them seemed to fit, so I tried another plan.”

“And what was that?”

“It seemed so much better to go through the bottom, so I have been at work at the bamboos.”

“Where – where?” cried Hilton, excitedly.

“Take it quietly, old fellow, or you may excite attention,” said Chumbley, spitting through the window. “Well, the fact is, I’ve been at work night after night, when you were asleep, upon the bamboos under my bed.”