Trapped by Malays | Page 3

river we could find a better place? It don't seem much good only ketching them there little hikong-sammylangs."
"Eikon Sambilang, Pete. Don't you know what that means?"
"That's what the niggers call them, sir. I suppose it's because it's their name."
"Five-barbelled fish, Pete, eh?"
"Just like them, sir. Then why don't they call them barbel, sir, like we do? I have seen lots of them ketched up Teddington way by the gentlemen in punts--whackers, too--not poor little tiddlers like these 'ere. We ought to go right up the river in a sampan, with plenty of bait, and try in a bit of sharp stream close to one of them deep holes."
"No good, Pete. We shouldn't do any good. Those beauties of crocodiles clear out the holes."
"What! whacking the water, sir, with their tails? I've heerd them lots of times. Rum place this 'ere, sir, ain't it?"
"Yes, Pete; rather a change from England. But it is very beautiful, and I like it."
"Well, yes, sir; that's right enough. So do I like it. I often think it would be just lovely if old Ripsy would get down with the fever. My word! what would he be like when Dr Morley had done with him, and he began to crawl about and use his cane to help him hobble, instead of being so jolly handy with it in his fashion?"
"Peter Pegg, that's a nasty, revengeful way of talking."
"Is it, sir?" said the young private, giving himself a twist, as if in recollection of a tap with the cane.
"Yes. You don't mean to tell me that you wish Sergeant Ripsy would catch this nasty jungle fever?"
"No, sir, I don't want to tell you; but I do."
"I don't believe you, Pete. The Sergeant's a fine soldier and a brave man, and I honestly believe that he thinks he is doing his duty."
"Oh, he's brave enough, I dare say. So are you, sir."
"Bosh!"
"So am I, sir."
"Double bosh! Turkish for nothing, Pete."
"Is it, sir? I don't care. I know when the row comes off with that there Rajah Solomon--and there's a pretty bit of cheek, sir: him, a reg'lar heathen, going and getting himself called by a Christian name! I should like to give him Solomon--you'll fight with the best of them, sir. I often think about it. You'll fight with the best of them, sir. And 'tain't brag, Mr Archie Maine, sir--you let me see one of them beggars coming at you with his pisoned kris or his chuck-spear, do you mean to tell me I wouldn't let him have the bayonet? And bad soldier or no, I can do the bayonet practice with the best of them. Old Tipsy did own to that."
"Look here, Pete; you are what the Yankees call blowing now. Let's wait till the time comes, and then we shall see what we shall see. And look here; don't you let me hear you call Sergeant Ripsy Tipsy again. One of these days, mark my words, he will find out that you have nicknamed him with a T instead of an R, and he will never forgive you."
"Tckkk!"
"What are you laughing at, sir?"
"Oh, don't say sir, Mr Archie! There's no one near. Of course I don't mind when anybody's by, but I couldn't help laughing. Old Patient Job found it out long ago."
"He did?"
"Yes, sir."
"And yet you wonder that he has got what you call his knife into you!"
"Oh, I don't think that's why, sir."
"Well, I do."
"No, sir; it's his aggravating way of wanting to see a company of human men going across the parade like a great big caterpillar or a big bit of a machine raking up the sand."
"Never mind. Old Ripsy is a fine soldier, and I advise you not to let him hear you."
"Pst!"
"What is it?"
"Mr Maine, sir," whispered the lad; and the subaltern's heels dropped at once from the table upon which they had been resting, for plainly heard through the window, in a loud, forced cough, full of importance, came the utterance, "Errrrum! Errum!" and Private Peter Pegg's lower jaw dropped, and his eyes, as he fixed them upon the subaltern's face, opened in so ghastly a stare of dread that, in spite of his annoyance, Ensign Maine's hands were clapped to his mouth to check a guffaw. But as the regular stamp more than stride of a heavy man reached his ears, the young officer's countenance assumed a look of annoyance, and he whispered in a boyish, nervous way:
"Slip off, Pete; and don't let him see you leaving my room."
"I can't, sir," whispered the lad, with a look full of agony.
"What!"
"He telled me if ever he catched me loafing about your quarters he'd--"
"Don't talk. Cut!"
"I can't, sir."
"You can."
"But--"
"Don't talk. Off at once."
"But I tell you, sir--"
"I don't want to be told. He mustn't see you going away from