Mirrikh, or, A Woman from Mars/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
JUNGLE ADVENTURES.
It seems to me that I have now rendered tolerably clear the perplexed frame of mind in which Maurice De Veber and I found ourselves at the beginning of our fourth day at Angkor.
Day succeeded day and our perplexity was in no way diminished—rather increased.
Not that the mysterious Mr. Mirrikh manifested himself again.
Quite the contrary. We saw nothing of him, and just there the mystery lay.
Immediately upon our descent from the central tower of the ruined temple, the Reverend Miles Philpot set himself the task of finding “that man.”
Briefly, he did not succeed; and that with every opportunity for success; for Philpot among his other accomplishments—and they were certainly many—numbered a very tolerable acquaintance with the Siamese language, and he at once proceeded to question the old priests who guard the Nagkon Wat.
It was a useless effort. From the priests—intelligent men of their class—we received the most positive assurances that no stranger was present at the ruins but ourselves, nor had been for months past. Of a man with a partially concealed face they had never heard.
But had no one seen Mr. Mirrikh but ourselves?
Yes; Maurice’s Chinese cook, Ah Schow, had seen him crossing the courtyard while on the way to fetch water for our breakfast from a spring behind the temple. Seen him for a moment only, for then his attention was attracted by something else. When Ah Schow looked back, wondering at the concealed face, the man was gone.
And this was all.
Be very certain that we all three made haste to ascend the winding staircase of the right hand tower, having our labor for our pains.
As the days glided by, the Rev. Miles Philpot remained our guest, and it struck me that it was a very fortunate thing for His Reverence that he had fallen in with us as he did.
So far as I could learn he was almost without money, and he certainly had come into the depths of this Siamese forest wholly unprovided with such creature comforts as were absolutely necessary for existence, and unattended as well.
He made no concealment of this. On the contrary, he boasted of his luck.
“If I hadn’t met you boys,” he said, “likely as not I would have starved. It was a crazy undertaking, but I had grown tired of Bangkok and was determined to see these ruins. I shall go back with you to Panompin, and if nothing turns up there I’ll jog on to Singapore, where I have been promised a charge at a mission station. If I fail there I think I shall go home to England.”
Never have I been thrown in with a man so well informed and yet so light and trivial in all his methods of thought.
Maurice seemed to like him; I endured him—he amused me with his sarcasm and his dry sayings. So long as he kept me from thinking it was enough.
One of the few things of which his luggage boasted beyond a change of clothing was a small camera, and with this he entertained himself and us by taking negatives, which he had no means of developing, of those beautiful bas-reliefs which adorn the walls of the Nagkon Wat.
One morning—I believe it was the tenth, for I remember we had about exhausted the subject of Mr. Mirrikh and his mysterious disappearances—just as I was emerging from the chamber opening off the broad veranda which extends the full length of the old temple in front, I encountered Philpot and Maurice hurrying up the steps.
“Glorious news, old fellow!” exclaimed my friend. “The boat is up from the lake at last and with it all our traps. Now we can pay our long projected visit to Ballambong. Wong is following with the things he brought up; and see, the fellow, bound to make a clean sweep, brought this along with the rest.”
It was Mr. Mirrikh’s little hand bag which Maurice extended toward me, with an odd twinkle in his eye.
“Heavens! That bag!” I exclaimed. “What a pity we did not have it, when—”
“When he last materialized,” broke in Philpot. “I say no. Spirits have no use for hand bags. I believe you are still an advocate for the ghostly theory, Mr. Wylde?”
It was one of his jokes, for it was Maurice, not I, who in our repeated discussions had shown an inclination to connect those strange appearances and vanishings with the materialization phenomena of modern Spiritualism; while I, on the contrary, had stoutly maintained that I never could by any possibility be brought to admit that my Panompin acquaintance was other than a creature of flesh and blood like ourselves.
“Hold on there, Doctor!” I cried—it was Maurice who had given him the title—“remember there is a fine for the first person mentioning the name of that individual argumentatively. I believe we shall see him again, and I am glad Wong made the blunder and brought the bag.”
I extended my hand to take it from Maurice, but Philpot with that impetuosity which characterized all his movements, snatched it away.
“Look out!” he exclaimed. “Dynamite! Infernal machine! Hold on, boys! It don’t matter about me. The world will never miss Miles Philpot. I’m going to open this bag.”
“No, no! Don’t do it!” I said. “Suppose he returns and claims it?”
“Let him! What do I care? Throw all the blame on me—here goes.”
Before I could prevent, he thrust the big knife he always carried, between the metal edges of the bag, and pried the two halves apart.
“Confound you! What did you do that for?” I exclaimed, now seriously vexed at the persistency he displayed.
But Maurice sided against me.
“Bother, George! Why do you make so much fuss about nothing?” he said. “The Doctor is right. By all means let us see what is inside the bag.”
I maintained a sulky silence. It was quite impossible for me to quarrel with Maurice. I loved him too well for that.
“Thunder!” remarked the Doctor, tumbling over the contents of the bag, “nothing very theosophic here. On the contrary, everything seems quite material. Two shirts, a pair of muslin drawers, six collars, four pair of cuffs, a tooth brush, comb, hair brush and a bottle of Brigg’s patent liver pills.”
“Try the other side,” suggested Maurice.
“Well, here we have one or two Calcutta papers, not more than six months old,” continued the Doctor, “a packet of court plaster, a pair of shoes, six pair stockings, pocket ink stand and this book—perhaps that will throw some ray of light upon the dark mystery surrounding our levitating friend.”
“Stop!” I exclaimed. “Stop! I won’t have it. Let Mr. Mirrikh be what he may, I gave him my word that this bag should be forwarded to Radma Gungeet, of Benares. Doctor, I appeal to you as a gentleman”
“What! Radma Gungeet—did you say, Radma Gungeet?” cried the Doctor. He paused with the book unopened in his hand.
“Certainly. That was the address he gave me.”
“That fixes Mirrikh as a Hindoo, at all events. Do you happen to know who and what this Radma Gungeet is?”
“I neither know nor care. He shall have that bag unless Mirrikh comes after it, and I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself to think that it is now impossible for him to receive it with its contents undisturbed.”
“Radma Gungeet is one of the most noted adepts in India,” said the Doctor, slowly. “Wylde, this goes far to show that Mirrikh is one of those singular beings himself.”
“No matter. I want that bag, Doctor, and I insist upon that book remaining unopened.”
“Too late!” replied Philpot, and before I could interfere he had opened the volume and was running over its pages.
I sprang forward and would have snatched it from him, but Maurice caught my arm and restrained me.
“Come, come, George! No quarrelling!” he said. “What’s done can’t be undone. Everything shall be carefully returned to the bag. Doctor, what do you make of the book?”
For the Doctor had stopped turning over the leaves and was staring at a page with a deeply puzzled expression.
“Upon my word I can’t make anything of it,” he replied, slowly. “It is a mystery, a veritable mystery. Look here.” He held up the book, open as it was, looking more serious than I had ever seen him look before.
Now there was nothing peculiar about the book so far as outward appearance was concerned. It was simply an ordinary blank book, leather bound, with limp covers, closely written perhaps half through. It was the peculiarity of the writing which had puzzled the Doctor, and possibly had I been better informed on such matters it might have puzzled me.
“Well, what is odd about it?” I demanded, sulkily.
“Look and see,” repeated Philpot. “De Veber, you surely are able to comprehend.”
“I confess I don’t see what you are driving at!” answered Maurice. “Of course the language is as incomprehensible to me as it is to Wylde. Hindoo, I take it, Sanscrit or possibly Bengalee.”
“Neither one nor the other,” replied the Doctor. “No such characters as those were ever used in India.”
“What then?” I asked.
“There lies the mystery,” he answered slowly. “Those characters belong to no nation on earth.”
“Bosh! As though you were competent to decide that.”
I saw his eyes flash, and I knew that I had come near to rousing a temper which I fancy seldom showed itself.
“You are angry Wylde,” he said cooly. “It happens that I am competent to decide in this matter. I can read Sanscrit, Hindoostanee, Bengalee, Talenga, Siamese and Persian. Beside that I was for ten years linguist of the British Bible Society and have assisted in the translation of the Bible into nearly every language of the East.”
I was amazed. Were the claims of this man true? In the days which followed I came to know that they were.
“And do you mean to say that this book is written in an unknown language?” demanded Maurice, incredulously.
“By no means,” replied the Doctor. “All I assert is that the characters are unknown—the language may be English, for all I can tell.”
“May it not be written in cipher?”
“Certainly; and such I am inclined to think is actually the case. But there, examine it for yourselves, gentlemen. Wylde, I owe you an apology. I am sorry I opened the bag against your wishes, but having opened it, I was determined to see what it contained.”
I made no reply, for I was still angry. Taking the book from his hand almost rudely, I proceeded to make a more critical examination, half expecting, I am free to confess, to see Mr. Mirrikh suddenly appear among us and reproach me for what had been done.
But I could make nothing of it, nor could Maurice. The characters were most peculiar and seemed to be made up of simple strokes, dots and curves, arranged at different angles. They neither extended across the page, nor yet up and down in columns, as the Chinese write, but were arranged in little squares, or tablets, after the manner of those mysterious hieroglyphics found sculptured on the monuments of Palenque, Copan, Uxmal, and other ruined cities of Mexico and Central America, which, as is well known, have thus far defied the skill of the most noted antiquarians of the world.
But in a matter of this kind, description goes for nothing. I reproduce, above, three sample squares for the inspection of the reader. Let him judge of their peculiarity for himself.
Now this happened at the beginning of a day destined to become most notable among those spent at Angkor.
By noon we were at Ballambong, where lies concealed in the very heart of the forest a minature Nagkon Wat, not lacking interest to the professed antiquarian, but to us it seemed decidedly tame.
We had gone into the jungle accompanied only by one old priest whom we had taken pains to propitiate by frequent gifts of brandy and tobacco. Although only three miles distant from Angkor, the journey had been a hard one, since every step of the way took us through a dense tropical tangle, keeping me in momentary dread of dangling pythons, prowling tigers and other pleasing diversions.
Nevertheless the trip was not without enjoyment. The day was perfect, and as the rainy season was now close upon us, such days were not to be despised. Maurice was full of life and spirits, and Philpot certainly at his best. Jovial always, he seemed to surpass himself in joviality on that particular morning. Witty upon all occasions, he kept us in a constant roar of laughter by his quaint remarks and comical sayings. More than all this, it was a pleasure to listen as he unfolded his vast stores of knowledge. Not a plant, not a tree nor shrub, but he had the name, botanical and vulgar, at his tongue’s end, and as he rattled on, discoursing learnedly at one moment, telling a witty and often broad anecdote the next, I could not but wonder where and when the man had found time to learn all these things, and how it happened that one whose manners and acquirements certainly seemed to fit him for many elevated positions, had become so complete a nomad—a wanderer on the face of the earth.
We remained at the ruins three hours, during which time Philpot took a series of views of the temple and the most notable of the bas-reliefs.
I remember how he sang over his work, stopping only to light his pipe—the tobacco had been begged from Maurice—and to quiz the old priest, who followed us about like a dog, watching our operations with awe.
Meanwhile I kept myself busy studying inscriptions and dreaming over the lost glories of this wonderful land. I pondered upon the problems which Angkor and its environs offer to the antiquarian. I fancied these old temples in their glory, with a mighty city surrounding them.
“This very building may have been included within the limits,” I was reflecting, when all at once Philpot came bursting into the apartment where I stood before an inscribed tablet bearing a long history of the doings of some forgotten dignitary of the ancient Cambodian race.
“Look here, Wylde, we are in a precious pickle now!” he broke out.
“What is the trouble?” I inquired, turning with a start, for I had not been conscious of his approach.
“Why that wretched fraud of a priest refuses to go back with us. Says he is obliged to stay here to perform some heathen ceremony or another, and has just informed me that we can stay until morning or return to the Nagkon Wat as best we can.”
“Well, I don’t see anything so very terrible about that,” I answered. “It is scarcely past four o’clock, and the distance is only three miles. For my part I’d as soon be rid of the fellow—he’s only in the way.”
“Precisely, but suppose we miss the path?”
“No danger. It is a straight trail through the forest. We couldn’t miss it if we were to try.”
“Which only goes to show how little you comprehend the dangers of a Siamese forest,” he replied. “I tell you, my dear fellow, we are very likely to miss our way, and that means wandering in the jungle indefinitely, living on all sorts of unpleasant things, with the beautiful prospect of starving to death in the end.”
“Pshaw! You exaggerate. Have you tried all your powers of persuasion?”
“Aye, and of Maurice’s brandy flask and tobacco bag into the bargain. It’s no go. The old fanatic has got some crotchet into his head, and the devil himself couldn’t knock it out.”
I found Maurice less excited than the Doctor, but still anxious, and of the opinion that we ought to start back at once.
“Mr. Philpot is right, George, he said. “There is danger. We are without a compass and the jungle is full of wild beasts. It would be no joke to get lost in these woods.”
Meanwhile the priest had taken himself off and could not be found. Probably he was concealed somewhere among the ruins, but we made no attempt to look for him, simply bundling our traps together and starting off along the narrow trail in single file.
“Upon my word I'm sorry we ever ventured into this beastly hole,” grumbled Philpot, after we had advanced about a mile or so. “A night spent here would bring us all down with jungle fever—heavens! look there!”
He pointed toward a huge atap palm just in advance of us, from which a thick, brown tendril, as I supposed it to be, for I had seen it before, hung dangling. But, now, as I looked again, I saw the supposed tendril suddenly elevate itself; saw a well defined head, a pair of wicked beady eyes flash fire, and a forked tongue shoot out like lightning. It was a huge serpent, which in a moment more might have been twining its folds about the Doctor’s neck.
I started back in terror, but Maurice, always cool, raised his rifle and fired.
The snake drew back and disappeared among the palm leaves. Whether the shot took effect or not, I cannot say, for we did not pause to investigate.
“Now you see!” said the Doctor. “Pleasant prospect for the night if we should happen to miss our way. Once in India I spent three nights in the jungle. I tell you those nights will live in my memory until my dying day.”
“But we are not going to stay here all night,” answered Maurice.
Suddenly he paused. A puzzled expression passed over his face, for we had come to a division in the path.
“By Jove!” cried the Doctor. “What did I tell you?”
“We want to keep to the right,” I said emphatically, for I felt certain that I remembered the place.
“Are you sure?” asked Maurice.
“As certain as I can be.”
“We passed three such divisions coming down,” interposed the Doctor; “what do you go by? Is there any landmark that you particularly observed?”
I was obliged to confess that there was not, and yet I felt so positive of my position that I repeated my assertion with some warmth.
“What do you say, Doctor?” asked Maurice. “Shall we venture?”
“Faith, my dear boy, we might as well try one road as the other,” he replied lightly, “but with all due deference to Brother Wylde, I doubt if he knows any more about it than we do.”
“Very well; I am quite willing to yield my opinion,” said I. But they would not have it so. Since I had an opinion and they had none, it was decided to take the right hand path.
As we hurried on the jungle seemed to grow denser, yet the path remained clearly defined.
“I am becoming more and more convinced that we are going wrong,” said the Doctor, at length. “Look at that fan palm—I am certain we did not pass it. A beautiful specimen. I should have been sure to notice it particularly, but as it is I am ready to swear I never saw it before.”
“Shall we retrace our steps then?” I asked, for I had become less confident myself.
“Suppose we push on a little further,” said Maurice. “It seems to me I can distinguish an opening on ahead.”
“Which would go to prove that we are astray,” added the Doctor, “for we passed no clearing of any sort coming down.”
“True; but it may be a native village where we could find a guide,” said I.
“Hark!” cried Maurice. “What was that? An elephant, surely!”
For an instant a shrill trumpeting resounded through the forest and then all grew still.
“Come on!” shouted Maurice, unslinging his rifle. “It has always been my ambition to bag an elephant and the chance has come at last!”
We pushed on, advancing with as much caution as possible. Again the trumpeting was heard, and still again.
“An elephant it is beyond all question,” said Philpot, “but I'm afraid you can’t kill it, after all, Maurice.”
“Why not, I’d like to know! Do you mean to intimate that my shooting is so poor that I couldn’t hit a beast as big as the side of a house? ”
“Not at all,” laughed the Doctor. “I only mean to intimate that your elephant is a tame one. Look there!”
We had rounded a turn in the path now and saw directly ahead a large elephant, standing beneath a cocoa palm which formed one of a grove of similar trees surrounding a little collection of grass-thatched huts.
“A village!” I exclaimed. “This settles it. We are on the wrong road.”
“And it puts a finish to De Veber’s elephant hunt!” laughed the Doctor. “Why that beast is half blind and looks as though he might be crowding a hundred. But where are all the people?”
There was no one to be seen; at least no one but the aged elephant, who stood there leisurely waving his trunk back and forth and peering at us out of his little eyes in a fashion which disproved the Doctor’s theory of blindness. There were at least a dozen of the huts; the doors all stood wide open, with fowls running in and out, and stretched directly across the threshold of one lay an old sow with her litter of pigs who blinked at us lazily, and then, apparently assured that we were harmless, closed her eyes with a satisfied grunt.
“Good!” cried the Doctor. “This is precisely what we want. We shall be sure to find a guide here who will take us over to Angkor for a few ticals. Hello there! Hello!”
There was no direct answer, but at the same instant the echoes of the forest were awakened by a piercing scream, which seemed to proceed from behind the huts among the palms.
“By Jove!” exclaimed the Doctor. “A female in distress? It is, as I live! Shades of my ancestors! This won’t do! No true born Briton can turn away from that appeal.”
Now the cry came again. It was surely that of a woman in agony, just as the Doctor said.
We hurried behind the huts, coming upon a group of half-naked natives, who were clustering about two giant cocoa palms in the middle of a little clearing.
“Thunder and Mars! What barbarity!” burst from the Doctor, as we looked ahead.
Between the palms was a young girl, her only dress the panoung, or Siamese breech cloth, worn by men, which dropped from the waist below the knees. She was bound by the wrists and ankles to the two trees writhing under the blows of a strip of rawhide wielded by a wicked looking fellow behind her. Each time it descended a shout of satisfaction went up from those who crowded around.
“I’ll soon put a stop to this!” shouted the Doctor. “Nothing of the sort can be allowed with your uncle about.”
Never had I respected the man as I did at that moment when he sprang away from us and dashed fearlessly among the group.
Not that Maurice and I were backward. Cocking our rifles we followed the Doctor, shouting as we went.
But there was nothing to fear. The instant the crowd saw us they fell back, the half-naked cowards scampering off in every direction, not, however, before the Doctor had caught the flogger and dashed him to the earth. The fellow made no resistence, but went crawling off on his hands and knees like some animal, disappearing among the palms.
Meanwhile Maurice had whipped out his knife and cut the cords which bound the girl, who seemed to have fallen into a state of unconsciousness. I would have helped him had I not been prevented by my legs being suddenly seized by an aged, white haired man, who crouched upon the ground weeping and muttering. With some little difficulty I managed to free myself, and extending a hand raised him to his feet.
“What does all this mean?” I exclaimed. “Look, Doctor! These people are white!”
I had used the word when perhaps I should not, for certainly the girl was not white, her skin having rather the yellowish tinge of the Spaniard or Portuguese. And yet she was beautiful. As my eyes turned toward her I saw it and wondered that I had not seen it at the first. Never was there a form of more correct proportions! Never such hair as those long black tresses, hanging loosely in a thick mass over her shoulders; as for the face every feature was perfection itself, a study for a sculptor; involuntarily my mind pictured the Venus di Milo, and then
Why then, as my eyes rested upon her while she stood supported by Maurice, a most singular thing happened to me.
Suddenly all my surroundings seemed blotted out and I could see only the girl, and the sight seemed to move my heart as it had never been moved before.
What did it mean?
Was it a case of love?
Love! Had I ever known it? Never, certainly, as I knew it then!
As I gazed upon that still, tear-stained face, a strange tingling shot through me down to my very toes, and I was seized with an instant of jealousy of Maurice; a longing to tear her from him and fly with her to the forest, to bury myself in its most remote recesses where I could live for her alone!
Was I mad? Was this the man who had cursed the fair sex with that bitterness which can be had only by sad experience? What was the meaning of this sudden freak?
Certainly I was not master of my own actions when I leaped forward and seizing her bleeding form pressed it to my heart!
Yes, in that moment I must have been mad; though in the days that followed, when memory recalled my ridiculous action, I came to believe that the man Mirrikh was in a measure responsible; that the mere touch of his hand had brought to life some force within me the nature of which I do not pretend to explain. But this is anticipating the outcome of our strange meeting at Panompin. I must return.
The instant I found my arms about the girl I was myself again, and amazed at what I had done.
Love! Why, to me love meant misery—misery pure and unadulterated. I had drank my fill of the fatal cup before this and the draught had sickened me. Almost roughly I pushed the girl back upon Maurice who was regarding me in mild surprise.
“Take her! Take her!” I exclaimed. “She is too heavy for me—I shall let her fall.”
“Take the devil!” he cried half angrily. “Have you lost your senses? What do you mean? You were so anxious to get her, now keep her. I don’t know anything about women and don’t want to.” Angrily he drew away.
But Maurice was not quick enough. Before he could prevent it I had again transferred the burden to his arms, a strange shudder passing over me as I let her go.
“I beg your pardon, old fellow, I—I’m a little upset by all this,” I stammered. “If you can’t hold her why lay her down on the grass.”
“Now that’s more like it,” muttered Maurice. “Here, let the old fellow take care of her—he’s the proper person. Hello there, Doctor! Tell him to look after the girl, will you? I don’t want the responsibility of this.”
“It’s all right. She’s only fainted. I saw that at the start,” replied the Doctor, who had been talking to the old man in Siamese. “She’s his daughter, he says. He’ll look after her, boys.”
The man was at her side in an instant, for be very sure Maurice lost no time in laying the girl down. Hastily bending over her he pressed his hand upon her heart, and then turning suddenly, flung himself at Maurice’s feet, kissing them again and again, at the same time clutching his ankles so that the boy could not move. Meanwhile the Doctor, seized by some sudden notion had started off on the run toward the huts.
Maurice’s face was a study as he tried to free himself from the old man’s grasp.
“Great heavens! Has everybody run mad but me!” he shouted. “Take him off, George! Take him off, will you? I don’t want to kick the old fellow, but I can’t stand this.”
I interfered and in a moment had rescued him.
“Ye gods! but that’s a relief!” cried Maurice, as the old man returned to the girl again. “What a row we’ve all got into, to be sure! Is she dead, George? Where’s the Doctor? He knows everything and ought to be here now. One would think you’d both been bitten by the tarantula. Confound him! Why did he run away?”
“No, no! She’s not dead. It’s only a faint,” I exclaimed. “She’ll come out of it all right.”
Something of a physician myself, I bent down hastily and feeling heart and pulse saw that there was really nothing to be feared. I was right, too. A few drops of brandy from Maurice’s flask speedily brought a return of consciousness. Perceiving a spring among the palms near by, I fetched some water in an earthen pot, which I happily discovered, and with this the old man tenderly bathed her head and the bleeding welts upon her back, talking incessantly in an unknown tongue. I could not fail to notice that his conversation was directed toward Maurice, whom he evidently regarded as responsible for the whole affair.
Meanwhile the Doctor continued absent and Maurice kept right on growling; he had not got over my moment of folly it seemed. Nor had I recovered from it either, and I was furious with myself about it. As I could not look toward the girl without starting into life the same absurd sensations, I bravely looked the other way.
“Confound it all! it will be dark in a few moments!” exclaimed Maurice. “Why don’t he come? We want to be getting out of this.”
It was quite evident that he was right. Not only was night approaching, but the sky, hitherto perpetually serene, had now begun to cloud over, and the faint sighing of the wind through the palms seemed to indicate an approaching storm.
Meanwhile the girl had arisen and stood leaning against her father, who kept “firing words at us,” as Maurice expressed it, which of course were wholly unintelligible.
“Yes, yes, it’s all right!” said Maurice, nodding good naturedly. “Much obliged—never forget us, and all that sort of thing. We understand.”
Suddenly the old fellow made a dart off among the palms and vanished.
“Great heavens! is he going to leave the girl on our hands?” cried Maurice, in evident alarm. But before we had time to discuss it there he was back again, carrying in his arms a rawhide pack which he flung upon the ground at Maurice’s feet. Still chattering, he loosened the straps and opening the pack drew out a loose, cotton garment, blue in color and fashioned something like the native pajama, which he proceeded to throw over the shoulders of the girl who, with downcast eyes, stood quietly by his side.
Now he bent over the pack again and took out a large camel’s hair shawl of exquisite pattern and laid it over Maurice’s arm with a profound salaam.
“That’s for you!” said I. “See what you get for your share in this business.”
“But I don’t want it! I’m no more entitled to it than you are, George! What in the world am I to do with the thing?”
Indeed, he would have returned the gift, but the old man either could not or would not comprehend.
Salaaming again, this time including both of us, he hastily closed the pack, slung it upon his shoulders, and taking the girl by the hand tottered off among the palms.
Was she actually going? Again those ridiculous sensations seemed to seize me. I longed to rush forward to drag her back, but I restrained myself, disgusted at my own thoughts which not for worlds would I have had Maurice know. “We ought to stop them—we ought to know more of this matter;” was all I could trust myself to say.
“Why?” asked Maurice, indifferently. “We’ve done all that could be expected of us, George. Let them go their way. Hello! Here’s the Doctor back at last, and its about time, I must say.”
I turned to look. Philpot was approaching from the direction of the huts. When my gaze reverted toward the forest again it was only to get a last glimpse of that singular pair disappearing among the palms, hand in hand.
“Hello! Where are those people?” exclaimed the Doctor, as he came hurrying up a few minutes later on.
“Gone,” replied Maurice, “and it’s time we were going too. What in thunder made you run off the way you did?”
“Why, the old man said they had robbed him of all his money,” cried the Doctor. “Told me it was in a little canvas bag; the reason they were beating the girl was to make her confess where he had hidden the rest.”
“And you went to get it back?”
“Yes. I pitied them. Unfortunate wretches! Said he was a peddler from a country to the north of this. Why, he begged me, with tears in his eyes, to get back the money, saying that he was ruined, and all that sort of thing, and now he has gone and lit out without even waiting to see what success I met with. I say it begins to look as though I’d been played for a fool.”
“Did you get the money?” asked Maurice.
“Got nothing,” was the angry response. “Couldn’t come up with one of those fellows. The whole village is deserted now, except for the elephant and the pigs. Confound the luck! I wanted to see the head-man, as they call him, and make him tell us our way. There never were such precious cowards as these Siamese. I say, De Veber, where did you get the shawl?”
Explanations were evidently in order now all around, and the next five minutes were spent in making them.
I expected to learn something about the old man and his daughter, but was disappointed, for the Doctor had already told all he knew.
“What were those people, anyhow?” asked Maurice. “They looked too white to be Siamese, or Cambodians either, for that matter.”
“Certainly they were neither, though the old chap spoke Siamese well enough,” replied the Doctor. “I wish to goodness you fellows hadn’t let them off so easily. I’m puzzled to know why the man should have humbugged me about the money the way he did.”
“You don’t think he had lost any money then?” I asked.
“Why of course not. Do you suppose he would have trotted off if he had?”
“Probably not. Yet I can’t see his motive.”
“I rather suspect he thought we were French officers and might detain them both until the outrage could be investigated, though why he should have picked me out for the leader and tried that clever dodge to get me out of the way, I can’t understand.”
“Come, come!” cried Maurice, “time enough has been wasted over this adventure. Night is right on top of us, and a storm along with it, if I am any judge of Siamese meteorology. Let us get back to the place we turned off as soon as possible, and try the left hand trail.”
There was sound common sense in this, yet, in spite of myself, my thoughts would wander toward the forest. “What do you think of the shawl, Doctor?” I asked abruptly, in the effort to shake them off.
“Why, it’s a genuine camel’s hair. Did the old man give it to you, De Veber?”
“Yes; I had to accept it.”
“Had to accept it! I only wish it had been me then. Why man, that shawl would bring a good hundred pounds in London..”
“No!”
“Fact, I assure you. I didn’t notice what it was till Wylde called my attention to it. A famous present for the future Mrs. De Veber. You will do well to hold on to it.”
He was right, too. I may as well mention that the shawl was finally sold for £70. Perhaps it was the last part of Philpot’s remark that made Maurice so anxious to get rid of it. I remember well how he laughed when he answered:
“I shall hold it till it rots then before I put it to the use you suggest. Mrs. De Veber is a long way in future. I’m afraid she will never find any use for her shawl.”
“What? Opposed to the divine institution,” cried the Doctor. “Give me your hand young man? You are a fellow after my own heart. I wouldn’t marry the best woman in the world, no, not if she were hung with diamonds. But a young chap like you can scarcely be expected to feel that way.”
“I think I am one of the select few who are willing to profit by the experience of others,” laughed Maurice.
“Wise man! And have the matrimonial experiences of your friends then been so disastrous?”
“Ask Wylde,” Maurice was beginning, when I checked him with a frown. The Doctor saw it, and, with that perfect politeness of which he was certainly master when he chose to exert himself, immediately changed the subject.
“Come! Let us get on,” he exclaimed. “There’s mischief in yonder clouds. We have no time to waste.”
We now hurried through the village, pausing for a moment to see if we could catch a glimpse of some of the cowardly inhabitants, and gain a word of information about the path back to Angkor.
“No go,” said the Doctor. “We shan’t find ’em. Anyhow, this is nothing but a wood-cutters’ camp, probably belonging to some of the people in Siamrap.”
None of the villagers were to be seen, and, still discussing our adventure, we now retraced our steps through the jungle. Darkness was rapidly approaching, and there was no time to be lost.
But our discussion left us where we started—nowhere.
Maurice and I had depended upon the Doctor to enlighten us. The dependence proved futile. The Doctor had no suggestion to offer.
“More of your mysterious people, Wylde,” he said in his usual half-sneering way. “We shall have to hold you responsible for the whole business. Gad, boys, but she was a little beauty! If I had dreamed that our acquaintance would be so brief, I should certainly have stayed by her. Now De Veber gets all the glory, and”
“And the shawl!” broke in Maurice. “Take it if you want it. I acknowledge you as the rescuer of the fair one. Why, even George was more active than I, and yet I have reaped the reward.”
“Nonsense! What do I want of your shawl, but I will be tolerably obliged to you for a cheroot. I understand the whole business. It was your good looks that did it, De Veber. Alongside of a Yankee Apollo, what chance could two old birds like Wylde and myself hope to stand?”
Coming from one of his cloth, there was something intolerably repulsive to me in these flippant remarks. Yet why should that have influenced me? I had abjured the man’s creed, I despised his profession, I had laughed when he made light of it, and yet now I seemed to demand of him a greater delicacy of thought, a purity of sentiment than possessed by the average man, although I had put him down for an average man and nothing more.
It grew darker, and darker, and yet the sun must have still been there behind the clouds, for twilight is a thing unknown in Siam. Now the whole heavens were obscured, and the hot south wind swept our faces, passing among the tree-tops with a sighing which foretold the approaching storm.
“It is certainly going to rain,” said Maurice anxiously, “and it will be dark in next to no time. I wish we were at the place where we turned off.”
“It is dark now,” I answered, as even the trifle of light remaining grew suddenly less, and the deepening shadows told me that the sun was down at last.
Philpot peered about anxiously.
“Plague take the fork in the path—where is it?” he exclaimed. “Do you know what I begin to fear?”
“That we have been going wrong again?” I asked.
“That’s about the size of it.”
It would not surprise me. Who said this was the same trail? I declare I saw the path and just followed it—that is about all.”
“What? Do you mean to tell me that! By Jove, man! I’ve been following you!”
“And I,” added Maurice “have been tamely following both of you.”
“Blind, leading the blind,” cried the Doctor. “Look here, if we don’t strike the junction soon, we’re in for a night of it, and had better return to the wood-cutters’ camp before it’s too dark to find the way.”
“And have our throats cut before morning?” retorted Maurice. “No, thank you. I don’t pretend to the knowledge of the Siamese character that you claim, but catch me running my neck into any such noose as that.”
That the situation was becoming serious there was no denying. We plunged on, the ground growing low and marshy as we advanced. A bad indication. We had passed through nothing of the sort on our way to the woodcutters’ camp.
Now the wind began to moan more ominously, and the darkness increased to that extent that we could no longer see our way.
“Delightful, ain’t it?” sneered Philpot. “Heavens! I’m in water up to my knees.”
He was only a few yards ahead of us, but we could no longer see him.
“Give me a hand boys, or I’m stuck! ” he called. “I’m slowly sinking, Lord knows where!”
We pulled him out with considerable difficulty, all retreating a few steps to more solid ground.
“Are you all right now?” questioned Maurice.
“All right for a fever!” was the reply. “Your flask, like a good fellow, De Veber. Nothing like a little brandy as a preventive.”
His “little” would have set my brain reeling, but it appeared to have but slight effect. I thought then that I could comprehend reasons for his want of success in the pulpit which the Rev. Miles Philpot had failed to name.
“Don’t drink it dry, Doctor, said Maurice. “George and I may need a dose before we get out of this scrape.”
“Yours truly! I leave you the flask,” he replied, with that good humor which nothing seemed to ruffle. “Now boys, we’re in a hole. How are we to get out of it! Decision must be had at once Hark! Was that thunder? The plot thickens, the darkness deepens! My inventive Yankee friends, what’s to be did?”
“In my opinion, the sooner we get back to the woodcutters’ huts the better,” I said decidedly.
At that instant the low, ominous growling heard a moment before was repeated. It seemed to me that I could hear also rustling sounds among the tangled thicket which had now taken the place of the atap palms and other trees of respectable growth on either side of our path.
I trembled. Thoughts of the dangers of the jungle would suggest themselves. I instinctively unslung my rifle and held it ready in my hand.
“More thunder? ” said Maurice. “Come, come, we must decide quick. Plague take these mosquitoes! They are as thick as bees around a hive.”
“Hark!” exclaimed Philpot, suddenly. “I’m not so sure it is thunder.”
Nor was I. Presently it came again—a low, sullen growl, beginning in the deepest bass—rising slightly, then sinking into the bass again.
I was glad of the darkness then, for I knew my face must have been livid.
“A tiger,” I suppose, I said as coolly as possible.
“As sure as we are lost in the jungle,” whispered the Doctor. “Even those wood-cutters are preferable. Come! There is no time to be lost.”
Again he started ahead, for the path was so narrow that single file was a necessity.
“I don’t believe it’s a tiger,” said Maurice incredulously.
“Don’t deceive yourself, De Veber,” said the Doctor, “it is nothing else. “Not,” he added, “that there is any great danger of the beast attacking us. But”
The sentence remained uncompleted; or rather it was completed in a way which, to my dying day, I am not likely to forget.
A quick rush, a violent stirring of the thicket, followed by a yell which set us all trembling, and a huge, dark form leaped out upon the path before us, pausing not three yards from the spot where Philpot stood.
“Great God!” I heard Maurice exclaim, and I knew, rather than saw, that he grasped his rifle.
But I was as one paralyzed, I could see the flash of those awful eyes, could see the beast crouch for a spring, could hear its tail lash the ground and yet I never made a move.
Though wholly unarmed, poor Philpot stood his ground like a Trojan. A second of awful suspense followed.
I could hear the click of Maurice’s rifle. I wondered why he did not fire, when suddenly a light broke upon the scene, and to my utter amazement I saw a man leap from the thicket directly in front of the Doctor, and dash a flaming torch into the tiger’s face.
It was the work of an instant. The next and all danger had passed.
Bushes, the path, my companions, everything seemed swimming about me. I saw the great cat retreating into the jungle. I heard the Doctor shout, but until the man who had burst so unceremoniously into our midst, stooped and recovered the torch, I did not realize the full significance of the scene.
Then as the light struck upon his face I knew him. Seen in that weird glare the sight was even more marvellous now. It was a face black below, yellowish white above.
It was the mysterious Mr. Mirrikh to whom we were indebted. Calm and dignified he stood there as though nothing unusual had occurred. 