One Maid's Mischief. George Manville Fenn
idea of Mr. Perowne was that upon his daughter joining him she should take the lead and give receptions; and to this end the first party was arranged, to which Mr. and Mrs. Doctor Bolter and the chaplain had been invited, the time rapidly coming round, and the guests assembling at Mr. Perowne’s handsome house, where the luxurious dinner, served in the most admirable manner by the soft-footed, quiet Chinese servants, passed off without a hitch; and at last, with a smile that seemed to have the effect of being directed at every gentleman at table, Helen Perowne rose, and the ladies left the room.
The conversation soon became general, and then the doctor’s voice rose in opposition to a laugh raised against something he had said.
“Oh, yes,” he cried, “laugh and turn everything I say into ridicule: I can bear it. I have not been out all these years in the jungle for nothing.”
“Does Mrs. Bolter approve of your theory, doctor?” said the Resident.
“I have not mentioned it to her, sir,” replied the doctor, glancing at the curtains looped over the open doorway; “and if you have no objection, I will make the communication myself. My journey home and my marriage have put it a good deal out of my head. But what I want to tell all here is, that the thing is as plain as the nose on your face.”
Mr. Harley, to whom this was principally addressed, gently stroked the bridge of his aquiline nose, half closed his eyes, and smiled in a good-humoured way.
“That’s right,” said the doctor. “Go on unbelieving. Some day I’ll give you the most convincing proofs that what I say is right.”
“But will Mrs. Bolter approve of your running wild in the jungle now you are married?” said the Resident, quietly.
“Pooh, sir—pooh, sir! My wife is a very sensible little woman, isn’t she, Arthur?” he cried; and the chaplain smiled and bowed before lapsing into a dreamy state, and sitting back in his chair, gazing at the curtains hanging softly across the open door.
“Oh, we’re ready enough to believe, doctor,” said the Resident; “don’t be offended.”
“Pooh! I’m not offended,” exclaimed the doctor. “All discoveries get laughed at till the people are forced to believe. Here, young man, you’ve had enough fruit,” he cried sharply, as one of the party stretched forth his hand to help himself to the luscious tropic fruits with which the table was spread.
“What a tyrant you are, doctor,” said the young officer.
“Here, boy,” cried the doctor, to one of the silent Chinese servants gliding about the table, “more ice.—You’re as unbelieving as John Chinaman here.”
“We’ll believe fast enough, doctor,” said the last speaker; “but it is only fair that we should ask for facts.”
“Facts, Captain Hilton,” said the doctor, turning sharply upon the sun-tanned young officer, who, like the rest of the party, was attired in white, for the heat of the large, lightly-furnished room was very great, “facts, sir? What do you want? Haven’t you your Bible, and does it not tell you that Solomon’s ships went to Ophir, and brought back gold, and apes, and peacocks?”
“Yes,” said Captain Hilton, “certainly;” and the Reverend Arthur bowed his head.
“Oh, you’ll grant that,” said the little doctor, with a smile of triumph and a glance round the table.
“Of course,” said the young officer, taking a cigarette.
“I say, Doctor,” said the Resident—“or no; I’ll ask your brother-in-law. Mr. Rosebury, did the doctor ventilate his astounding theory over in England?”
“No,” replied the chaplain, smiling, “I have never heard him propound any theory.”
“I thought not,” said the Resident. “Go on, doctor.”
“I don’t mind your banter,” said the little doctor, good-humouredly. “Now look here, Captain Hilton, I want to know what more you wish for. There’s Malacca due south of where you are sitting, and there lies Mount Ophir to the east.”
“But there is a Mount Ophir in Sumatra,” said Lieutenant Chumbley, the big, heavy dragoon-looking fellow, who had not yet spoken.
“In Sumatra?” cried the doctor. “Bah, sir, bah! That isn’t Solomon’s place at all. I tell you I’ve investigated the whole thing. Here’s Ophir east of Malacca, with its old gold workings all about the foot of the mountain; there are the apes in the trees—Boy, more ice.”
“And where are the peacocks?” drawled Chumbley.
“Hark at him!” cried the doctor; “he says where are the peacocks? Look here, Mr. Chumbley, if you would take a gun, or a geologist’s hammer, and exercise your limbs and your understanding, instead of dangling about after young ladies—”
“Shouldn’t have brought them out, doctor,” drawled the young fellow, coolly.
“Or say a collecting-box and a cyanide bottle,” continued the doctor, “instead of getting your liver into a torpid state by sitting and lying under trees and verandas smoking and learning to chew betel like the degraded natives, you would not ask me where are the peacocks?”
“I don’t know where they are, doctor,” said the young man, slowly.
“In the jungle, sir, in the jungle, which swarms with the lovely creatures, and with pheasants too. Pff! ’tis hot—Boy, more ice.”
“Don’t be so hard on a fellow, doctor,” drawled the lieutenant. “I’m new to the country, and I’ve twice as much body to carry about as you have. You’re seasoned and tough; I’m young and tender. So the jungle swarms with peacocks, does it?”
“Yes, sir, swarms,” said the doctor, with asperity. “Well,” said Chumbley, languidly, “let it swarm! I knew it swarmed with mosquitoes.”
“Sir,” said the doctor, contemptuously, as he glanced at the great frame of the young officer, “you never exert yourself, and I don’t believe, sir, that you know what is going on within a mile of the Residency.”
“I really don’t believe I do,” said the young man, with a sleepy yawn. “I say, Mr. Perowne, can’t you give us a little more air?”
“My dear Mr. Chumbley,” said the host, a thin, slightly grey, rather distingué man, “every door and window is wide open. Take a little more iced cup.”
“It makes a fellow wish he were a frog,” drawled the lieutenant. “I should like to go and lie right in the water with only my nose in the air.”
As he spoke he gazed sleepily through his half-closed eyes at the broad, moonlit river gliding on like so much molten silver, while on the farther bank the palms stood up in columns, spreading their great fronds like lace against the spangled purple sky.
Below them, playing amidst the bushes and undergrowth that fringed the river, it seemed as if nature had sent the surplus of her starry millions from sky to earth, for the leaves were dotted with fire-flies scintillating and flashing in every direction. A dense patch of darkness would suddenly blaze out with hundreds of soft, lambent sparks, then darken again for another patch to be illumined, as the wondrous insects played about like magnified productions of the points of light that run through well-burned tinder.
From time to time there would be a faint plash rise from the river, and the water rippled in the moonbeams, sounds then well understood by the occupants of Mr. Perowne’s dining-room, for as the languid lieutenant made another allusion to the pleasure of being a frog, the doctor said, laughing: “Try it Chumbley; you are young and tolerably plump, and it would make a vacancy for another sub. The crocodiles would bless you.”
“Two natives were carried off last week while bathing on the bank,” said a sharp, harsh voice, and a little, thin, dry man who had been lying back in an easy-chair with