The Rajah of Dah Part 57

"Oh, but I didn't know. I thought perhaps the masther's rat poison was still on me strong."

"Go along; it was the wine!"

Tim's eyes twinkled, and just then he heard himself called, and hurried in.

"It is a bit of a puzzle, Ned, isn't it?" said Frank. "I could hardly believe it at first. Hallo! What now?"

A party of the rajah's officers were at the gate to summon the doctor and Resident, with Murray and the boys, to an audience, both these gentlemen being at the doctor's house.

His highness received them with a great display of genuine, manly dignity, and with a showy retinue about him. He then spoke to his visitors in the Malay tongue, the Resident translating as of old, and bade them welcome to his court, a.s.suring them of his friends.h.i.+p and of that of his people as long as they would stay.

He was thanked, but there was considerable hesitation in the way in which his offers were received. Then refreshments were handed round, and finally the court was dismissed, only the guards remaining outside, while the rajah led his visitors into an inner room, where coffee, sweets, and fruit stood on one mat, pipes on another.

"Now, gentlemen," said the rajah, "pray seat yourselves, and we will smoke. My dear boys, there are sweets and fruit for you till you wish to go."

The boys did not wish to go, and as soon as they saw their elders settled down to their pipes, they began, as Frank expressed it, "just to try the fruit," and that fruit was tried, and obtained most favourable verdicts in every case.

At the end of a short conversation, the Resident said respectfully:

"May I ask your highness--?"

"Stop," said the rajah, laying his hand upon the Resident's arm, while the boys looked on and listened, "we have known each other for some years now, and I hoped that I had merited your friends.h.i.+p."

"Indeed, yes," said Mr Braine; "but you never trusted me even to speaking English, though I always felt that you could."

"My dear Mr Braine," said the rajah, "if I had spoken English to you alone some day, I should have betrayed myself, and--believe me, I wished to live. My predecessor was suspicious in the extreme, and you know how those fared whom he disliked."

"Yes," said the Resident with a shudder.

"I could speak English easily ten years ago. And, now henceforth, when we are alone, let there be no formality. You are an English gentleman.

I have always tried to be a gentleman too."

"You always have been one," said Mr Braine, warmly.

"Thank you," said the rajah, holding out his hand. "Then, now listen, I want the help of my friends. By your guidance this land has grown powerful, but unfortunately it has been for evil. I want it to be powerful now for good. Stay with me as my friend and counsellor.--You, too, doctor, and Mr Greig; and as for you, Mr Murray, I am not quite the barbarian you think. Let all those past troubles be as an ugly vision of the night. Forget them and stay. I can admire your pursuits, and it will give me great gratification if you will make this place your home. My elephants and boats and men are at your service, and, of course, you are free to come and go as you please. You hesitate! Come, come; I implore you. Doctor, you will not forsake me?"

"Hang it, Tumongong--I beg pardon, I mean rajah, no."

"There," said the rajah, laughing; "I have you too. Murray, you will not go. I am not blind."

Murray held out his hand.

"In the cause of science," he said, smiling, "I stay."

"I ask for no more," said the rajah. "Here boys," he cried, "you've had enough fruit; you are going to stop. Frank, my lad, at any time you want anything, ask me for it as your old friend."

"Thank you," cried Frank, eagerly; "then I want something now."

"What is it?"

"Give me a new kris."

"Why? A handsome one was given to you."

"Yes," said Frank, with a slight twitching of the brows, "but I'm not going to wear that again."

The rajah took one of two that he was wearing and gave it to the boy.

"Keep it as my present," he said; "and I hope, boy, you will live to see the day when the kris has given place to good honest laws which protect people so that they can go unarmed."

There needs no telling how, as soon as the rajah's ally had gone, the campong settled down to its everyday life, but that life grew more and more new. The Resident and the doctor stayed; Mr Greig began to make trade flourish; and Murray went on with his collecting, working energetically for six months, when he was obliged to return to England with Ned.

But they were both back again within six months more, and a friend of Murray's accompanied him. He was a clergyman, but a great naturalist, and he joined his friend in collecting, till one day there was a great festival, for an English gentleman was married to an English lady, a certain Mr Wilson coming up from Dindong to be best-man. Afterwards the happy pair went down the river and along the coast to Malacca to spend their honeymoon; while Ned Murray stayed at the campong to look after the specimens and enjoy himself to his heart's content.

Then the happy pair came back, and there was constant talk of going back to England when the collecting was done; but the collecting never was done, and Murray set to work to write a book on the natural history of the place, that meant years of delightful work, so they stayed on to see the land improving month by month, and find the rajah their firmest friend.

A couple of years had pa.s.sed, when one day Frank, who had developed a great love for mineralogy, and Ned, who promised to be a great authority on botany, came upon Tim Driscol busily improving the Murrays' garden.

"What are you doing, Tim?" said Ned.

"Jist putting in a few of Miss Amy's--"

"_Mrs_," said Frank, sharply, and Tim slapped his own mouth.

"Av coorse," he said. "A few c.r.a.pers and a bit of chumpadah, and some scinted things she likes. Oh, it's a baste of a place, but one must make the best of it."

"Why don't you go back to the old country, then?" said Ned.

Tim gave him a droll look.

"Bekase I'm a Driscol, sor."

"And what's that got to do with it?"

"Sure, Masther Ned, there nivver was a Driscol yet who didn't know when he was well off."

"Why, Ned," cried Frank, laughing, "he's a philosopher."

"Yis, sor," said Tim, "and I get more so every day. But, by your lave, when are you young gentlemen going back?" They answered together: "I don't know."

THE END.