Trapped by Malays | Page 6

even then his voice shook a little, in spite of
his efforts to make it firm and loud. Then the word that had struggled
for utterance came, and it was in Latin:
"Peccavi."
It was only that word, but it was enough to make the old Major lean
forward, clap one hand on the lad's shoulder, and half-whisper:
"Spoken like your father's son!" and then, as the door behind him
opened, he half-shouted, "Coming!" Then to his companion, "Now, my
lad--dinner!"
CHAPTER THREE.
A MALAY FRIEND.
Archie Maine's sensations as he marched beside his chief into the
mess-room were such that he would far rather have escaped to his own
quarters; but he began to pull himself together as he caught sight of a
friend, and the next minute he was being in turn introduced by the quiet,
gentlemanly Resident to the Rajah Suleiman, a heavy-looking, typical
Malay with peculiar, hard, dark eyes and thick, smiling lips, who
greeted him in fair English and murmured something about "visit" and
the "elephants and tigers." And then, as the Eastern chief, who did not
look at home in the English evening-dress he had adopted, turned away
to smile upon another of the officers, Archie joined hands at once with

a slight, youthful-looking visitor also in evening-dress, who as the
youths chatted together showed his mastery of the English language
sufficiently to address the subaltern as "old chap," following it up with:
"When are you going to get your boss to give you a day or two's
leave?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied Archie. "Not for some time; I'm in
disgrace."
"Disgrace! What do you mean?" was the inquiry.
"Oh, not sticking enough to my duties."
"Duties?"
"Yes; drill and practice."
"Oh, nonsense! You don't want to be always drilling and drilling and
drilling. Your men could kill us all off without any more of that. I shall
ask the Major to let you come and stay with me a month."
"No, no, no," said Archie, though his eyes were flashing with
eagerness.
"And I say yes, yes, yes. I haven't got such a troop of elephants as
Rajah Suleiman, but I have got two beauties who would face any tiger
in the jungle, and my people could show you more stripes than his
could. But perhaps I am so simple at home that you would rather go
and stay with His Highness."
"Look here, Hamet," whispered Archie quickly; "you said that to me
last time, just as if I had slighted you."
"Beg pardon, old chap. I didn't mean it; but your people--I don't know
how it is--don't seem to take to me. I always feel as if they didn't trust
me, and I don't think that I shall care about coming here any more."
"What!" cried Archie excitedly, as he found that he had to take his seat

at the table beside the young Rajah, whose face was beginning to
assume a lowering aspect, as he saw that the Major's original intentions
had been hurriedly set aside and the chair on the latter's right was
occupied by the Rajah Suleiman, that on his left by a keen,
sharp-looking gentleman who might have been met in one of the
Parisian cafes, so thoroughly out of place did he seem in a military
mess-room rather roughly erected in a station on the banks of a Malay
jungle river.
"What!" said Archie again, in a low tone; and he noted how his
companion was furtively watching the attention paid to his brother
Rajah.
"I'll tell you presently," said the young Malay. "But who is that
gentleman?"
"That? Oh, he's a traveller. He's a French count."
"French count?" said his companion. "A great friend of Suleiman's,
isn't he?"
"Not that I know of."
"Yes, he is. So one of my people says."
"Oh?" said Archie.
"Yes; Suleiman met him when he went to Paris."
"You seem to know all about it," said Archie laughingly.
"Oh no; I want to know everything, but there is so much--so much to
learn. I wish I had gone to Paris too."
"What! so as to get to know the French count?"
"Pish!--No, thank you; I don't take wine," he added quickly, as one of
the officers' servants was filling glasses.

"Won't you have a glass of hock?"
"No," was the quiet reply. "And I don't want to know the French count.
I don't like him."
"Why?"
"Because he is Suleiman's friend."
"That's saying you don't like Suleiman."
"No. But I don't like him, and he hates me."
"Why?"
"Because he likes my country."
"And I suppose you like his?"
"I? No. I have got plenty of land that my father left me. He sent me--you
know; I told you--to England."
"Yes, I know; to be educated and made an English gentleman."
"Yes,"