Trapped by Malays Part 30

"Nor me telling you to mind the crocs didn't try to come aboard your boat?"

"No. What are you talking about?"

"Oh, my word!" sighed Peter. "Here's a pretty go! Talk about a poor fellow being off his chump!" Then aloud, as he felt the lad's hand feebly feeling for his, "It was like this 'ere, sir. You must have got into some row with a boatful of the n.i.g.g.e.rs, and they knocked you over the head."

"Knocked me over the head?" said Archie dreamily. "No, I don't remember. Here, give me some more water."

Peter Pegg hurriedly filled the cup--half a cocoa-nut sh.e.l.l--and Archie drank a mouthful and pushed it away.

"Let me lie down again," he said.--"Now go on. Knocked me over the head?" he said very slowly and thoughtfully, as if weighing his words.

"Did you know that?"

"Yes, sir."

"You said you were on sentry?"

"That's right, sir."

"Then why didn't you come and help me?"

"I was coming, sir, bull roosh, when just as I was running along the river-bank, wondering how I was to swim out to you among them crocodiles, some one popped out from the bushes and fetched me down with an awful crack on the pan."

"Struck you down?"

"Yes, sir. Hit me crool. There's a lump on the top now as big as your fist. Regularly knocked me silly. Just as they must have served you-- knocked every bit of sense out of me. There warn't much in, as old Tipsy says, but I didn't know no more till I found myself here, feeling sick as a dog, and not able to move, for I was lying awkward-like on my back, with some of them thin rotan canes tied round my arms and legs so tight that it was only at times I knowed I had any arms and legs at all."

"Poor fellow!" said Archie pityingly.

"Yes, I just have been a poor fellow, sir--poor creature, as they called them up in my part of the country. Why, I have been quite mazed-like.

That topper I got seemed to do for me altogether; and when I come-to, here I was lying in this place, not knowing where I was, and, like you, sir, I couldn't make out what it meant."

"And in the darkness, too," said Archie, "just like this?"

"Like which, sir? Why, it ain't dark now!"

"Black darkness," said Archie.

The young private whistled softly and said nothing, but shook his head and thought.

"But you know what place it is, don't you, Pete?"

"Well, I suppose it's part of one of the Rajah's roosts; but, as I tell you, my head's felt so muddled, and just as if some of the works had been knocked loose, that even now I don't seem to be able to tell t'other from which. Well, I am getting it clearer now, and of course it must be at Mr Prince Suleiman's. Why, to be sure it must; and if my wheels inside had been going as they should, I should have thought it out at once. It must be at the Rajah's place, because of the helephants as you 'eerd now and then. They must have a sort of stable close by here. And then--why, of course--I'm just as 'fused-like as you are, sir--that French count chap came in to see us the other day, and talked to me."

"He came here?" said Archie in his slow, dreamy way.

"Yes, sir; that he did."

"But I want to know," said Archie, "why we were attacked like this and I was so hurt. There seems to have been no cause or reason for it."

"Well, I d'know, sir. I can't think much more than you can. Maybe we shall see it clearly as we gets better; but it looks to me as if it's his doing, out of spite, like, for our interfering with him when he came that night and Joe Smithers arrested him and gave the alarm."

"Perhaps so," said Archie. "My head's going wrong again. I can't think."

"Then you take my advice, sir: don't you try. Try and eat a bit, for it's five days since you have had a bite, counting the night we was took."

"Five days!" said Archie.

"That's right, sir. Think you could eat one of these fruits--I don't know what you call them--melons like?"

"No," said Archie, with a shudder.

"Well, I don't wonder, sir. I couldn't at first. They brought in a lot of bananas with the water, but I couldn't touch 'em at first. When that Frenchman came, though, and saw that I hadn't eaten anything, he turned rusty, and said I was trying to starve myself to death, and that it wouldn't do, because I must remember that I was a horstrich now, and I wasn't to play no tricks like that."

"Said you were an ostrich?"

"Yes, sir; that's right. I don't know why, and I thought perhaps I hadn't heard him rightly, being so muddled-like. But I'm sure now that's what he said. Perhaps he said it because he thought I was a long-legged one and meant to run away; and I should have been about doing so before now if there hadn't been reasons."

"What reasons, Pete?"

"Why, you, sir. You don't suppose I was going to cut and leave my mate in such a hole as this?"

"Ostrich?" said Archie dreamily. "What could he mean by that? Oh-- prisoners! He called you a hostage, and we are to be kept as hostages for some reason connected with something that's going on."

"Ah! that's right, sir."

As the young private sat on the palm-leaf-covered floor of the wooden building, gazing at his companion in misfortune, and thinking of how changed he looked, Archie slowly closed his eyes and appeared to be asleep, though he was now trying to make up for lost time, and thinking deeply.

"Wonder what's the matter with his eyes," mused the young private. "He can't see, or else he wouldn't keep on talking about its being dark."

Suddenly Archie unclosed his eyes and said:

"Are your legs and wrists better now?"

"It's my head that was the worst, sir," was the reply.

"But you said that your legs and wrists were so cruelly tied up that the canes cut into your flesh."

"Oh yes, sir; that was at first. But when that Frenchie came in he told the Malay chaps to untie 'em, so that I could wait upon you--and precious glad I was."

"But how did you manage to see to give me the water?"

"I couldn't in the night, sir; but I can now.--It's no use to tell the poor chap that it's quite light, for he's all puzzled-like yet," thought the private. Then aloud, "I'd just go to sleep a bit now, sir, if I was you."

"What for?"

"Rest your head, sir. You will feel a deal better when you wake again, and perhaps see a bit clearer."

"Perhaps you are right, Pete," said Archie, with a sigh; "but I am better now. Most of the pain seems to be gone."