The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
Jingo can do it at fifty. Radjun poison on the tip – not fatal to humans, as a rule, but it don’t need to be if the dart goes through your jugular, does it?” He tossed the beastly thing aside and poked at my wound again, humming softly:
“Oh, say was you ever in Mobile bay,
A-screwin’ cotton at a dollar a day,
Sing ‘Johnny come down to Hilo’.”
I yelped with pain and he clicked his tongue reprovingly.
“Don’t swear,” says he. “Just excite yourself, and you won’t go to heaven when you die. Anyway, squeaking won’t mend it – it’s just a scrape, two stitches and you’ll be as right as rain.”
“It’s agony!” I groaned. “I’m bleeding buckets!”
“No, you ain’t, either. Anyway, a great big hearty chap like you won’t miss a bit of blood. Mustn’t be a milksop. Why, when I got this” – he touched his scar – “I didn’t even cheep. Did I, Stuart?”
“Yes, you did,” says the fair chap. “Bellowed like a bull and wanted your mother.”
“Not a word of truth in it. Is there, Paitingi?”
The red-bearded Arab spat. “You enjoy bein’ hurt,” says he, in a strong Scotch accent. “Ye gaunae leave the man lyin’ here a’ nicht?”
“We ought to let Mackenzie look at him, J.B.,” says the fair chap. “He’s looking pretty groggy.”
“Shock,” says my ministering angel, who was knotting his handkerchief round my shoulder, to my accompanying moans. “There, now – that’ll do. Yes, let Mac sew him together, and he’ll be ready to tackle twenty hatchet-men tomorrow. Won’t you, old son?” And the grinning madman winked and patted my head. “Why was this one chasing you, by the way? I see he’s a Black-face; they usually hunt in packs.”
Between groans, I told him how my palki had been set on by four of them – I didn’t say anything about Madame Sabba – and he stopped grinning and looked murderous.
“The cowardly, sneaking vagabonds!” cries he. “I don’t know what the police are thinking about – leave it to me and I’d clear the rascals out in a fortnight, wouldn’t I just!” He looked the very man to do it, too. “It’s too bad altogether. You were lucky we happened along, though. Think you can walk? Here, Stuart, help him up. There now,” cries the callous brute, as they hauled me to my feet, “you’re feeling better already, I’ll be bound!”
At any other time I’d have given him a piece of my mind, for if there’s one thing I detest more than another it’s these hearty, selfish, muscular Christians who are forever making light of your troubles when all you want to do is lie whimpering. But I was too dizzy with the agony of my shoulder, and besides, he and his amazing gang of sailors and savages had certainly saved my bacon, so I felt obliged to mutter my thanks as well as I could. J.B. laughed at this and said it was all in a good cause, and duty-free, and they would see me home in a palki. So while some of them set off hallooing to find one, he and the others propped me against the wall, and then they stood about and discussed what they should do with the dead Chinaman.
It was a remarkable conversation, in its way. Someone suggested, sensibly enough, that they should cart him along and give him to the police, but the fair chap, Stuart, said no, they ought to leave him lying and write a letter to the “Free Press” complaining about litter in the streets. The Arab, whose name was Paitingi Ali, and whose Scotch accent I found unbelievable, was for giving him a Christian burial, of all things, and the hideous little native, Jingo, jabbering excitedly and stamping his feet, apparently wanted to cut his head off and take it home.
“Can’t do that,” says Stuart. “You can’t cure it till we get to Kuching, and it’ll stink long before that.”
“I won’t have it,” says the man J. B., who was evidently the leader. “Taking heads is a beastly practice, and one I am resolved to suppress. Mind you,” he added, “Jingo’s suggestion, by his own lights, has a stronger claim to consideration than yours – it is his head, since he killed the fellow. Hollo, though, here’s Crimble with the palki. In you go, old chap.”
I wondered, listening to them, if my wound had made me delirious; either that, or I had fallen in with a party of lunatics. But I was too used up to care; I let them stow me in the palki, and lay half-conscious while they debated where they might find Mackenzie – who I gathered was a doctor – at this time of night. No one seemed to know where he might be, and then someone recalled that he had been going to play chess with Whampoa. I had just enough of my wits left to recall the name, and croak out that Whampoa’s establishment would suit me splendidly – the thought that his delectable little Chinese girls might be employed to nurse me was particularly soothing just then.
“You know Whampoa, do you?” says J.B. “Well, that settles it. Lead on, Stuart. By the way,” says he to me, as they picked up the palki, “my name’s Brooke – James Brooke16 – known as J.B. You’re Mr …?”
I told him, and even in my reduced condition it was a satisfaction to see the blue eyes open wider in surprise.
“Not the Afghan chap? Well, I’m blessed! Why, I’ve wanted to meet you this two years past! And to think that if we hadn’t happened along, you’d have been …”
My head was swimming with pain and fatigue, and I didn’t hear any more. I have a faint recollection of the palki jogging, and of the voices of my escort singing:
“Oh, say have you seen the plantation boss,
With his black-haired woman and his high-tail hoss,
Sing ‘Johnny come down to Hilo’,
Poor … old … man!”
But I must have gone under, for the next thing I remember is the choking stench of ammonia beneath my nose, and when I opened my eyes there was a glare of light, and I was sitting in a chair in Whampoa’s hall. My coat and shirt had been stripped away, and a burly, black-bearded chap was making me wince and cry out with a scalding hot cloth applied to my wound – sure enough, though, at his elbow was one of those almond-eyed little beauties, holding a bowl of steaming water. She was the only cheery sight in the room, for as I blinked against the light reflected from the magnificence of silver and jade and ivory I saw that the ring of faces watching me was solemn and silent and still as statues.
There was Whampoa himself, in the centre, impassive as ever in his splendid gown of black silk; next to him Catchick Moses, his bald head gleaming and his kindly Jewish face pale with grief; Brooke, not smiling now – his jaw and mouth were set like stone, and beside him the fair boy Stuart was a picture of pity and horror – what the h--l are they staring at, I wondered, for I ain’t as ill as all that, surely? Then Whampoa was talking, and I understood, for what he said made the terror of that night, and the pain of my wound, seem insignificant. He had to repeat it twice before it sank in, and then I could only sit staring at him in horror and disbelief.
“Your beautiful wife, the lady Elspet’, has gone. The man Solomon Haslam has stolen her. The Sulu Queen sailed from Singapore this night, no one knows where.”
[Extract from the diary of Mrs Flashman, July—, 1844]
Lost! lost! lost! I have never been so Surprised in my life. One moment secure in Tranquillity and Affection, among Loving Friends and Relations, shielded by the Devotion of a Constant Husband and Generous Parent – the next, horribly ravished stolen away by one whom who that I had esteemed and trusted almost beyond any gentleman of my acquaintance (excepting of course H. and dear Papa). Shall I ever see them again? What terrible fate lies ahead – ah, I can guess all too well, for I have seen the Loathsome Passion in his eyes, and it is not to be thought that he has so ruthlessly abducted me to any end but one! I am so distracted by Shame and Terror that I believe my Reason will be unseated – lest it should, I must record my Miserable Lot while clarity of thought remains, and I can still hold