One Maid's Mischief Part 91

"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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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."

"And you have cut through them?"

"Yes; through two of them, so that one has only to pull my bed aside, lift the two pieces of wood--"

"Chumbley!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hilton, joyously.

"Hullo!"

"Why, I've been giving you the credit of being ready to settle down here in the most _nonchalant_ way."

"Yes, I saw you did. That's why I chiselled away so, to get through those bamboos."

"While I was asleep?"

"While you were asleep," said Chumbley, spitting vigorously.

"Ah, my dear fellow, I shall--"

"Hold your row. Light a cigar, or they'll be suspicious."

Hilton obeyed without a word, and Chumbley went on:

"So when you are ready we'll pocket a table-knife apiece, fill our pockets with portable meat of some kind, and then be off."

"Why not to-night?"

"I don't see why not," replied Chumbley, coolly; "I'm ready. It will do you good--a bit of a scamper through the jungle, even if we get caught."

"No scoundrel shall catch me alive."

"I say, old man, don't talk as if the Malays were fly-papers and you were a pretty insect."