Read Ebook: In the Hands of the Malays and Other Stories by Henty G A George Alfred

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 476 lines and 40929 words, and 10 pages

I "POOR HUMPTY DUMPTY!" 3

II FRIENDS, COUNSELORS, AND PLANS 22

V PHYLLIS AND BARBARA ENTER THE LISTS 75

VI MARK TAPLEY'S KIND OF DAYS 91

X DISCOVERIES 157

PAGE

THE WYNDHAM GIRLS 7

"A YOUNG MAN DASHED DOWN THE STEPS INTO THE RUINS" 51

AUNT HENRIETTA 81

THE EXPEDITION IN SEARCH OF PEACE 125

"'LOOK OUT, TRUCHI-KI; YOU'LL FALL!' PHYLLIS SAID" 145

"'I KNEW THAT IF I WAS AWFULLY ILL MISS BAB WOULD BE NICE TO YOU,' MURMURED MARGERY" 237

A BEARER OF GOOD TIDINGS 279

THE WYNDHAM GIRLS

"POOR HUMPTY DUMPTY!"

"No pink for me, please; I want that beautiful shimmering green, made up over shining white silk. It will make my glossy brown eyes and hair look like a ripe chestnut among its green leaves."

"Oh, Bab, such a glistening sentence! 'Shimmering green,' 'shining white,' 'glossy hair'--you didn't mean glossy eyes, I hope! Besides, chestnuts don't show among green leaves; they stay in their burs till they drop off the tree."

"Now, Phyllis, what is the use of spoiling a poetical metaphor--figure--what do you call it? Which do you like best? Have you made up your mind, Jessamy?"

"I want all white; probably this mousseline de soie."

"I'm rather inclined to the pearl, yet the violet is lovely."

"You both 'know your effects,' as that conceited little novelist said last night," cried Barbara. "Jessamy's a dream in white, and Phyl looks too sweet for mortal uses in anything demure."

The soft May wind from the distant river blew the lace curtains gently to and fro, and lifted the squares of delicate fabrics scattered over the couch on which the three young girls were sitting. Jessamy, the elder of the two Wyndham sisters, was at eighteen very beautiful, with dainty elegance of motion, refinement of speech, almost stately grace, unusual to her age and generation.

Barbara, a year younger, was her opposite. Life, energy, fun were declared in every quick turn of her head and hands; small in figure, with sparkling dark eyes, and a saucy tilt of nose and chin, she could hardly have contrasted more sharply with her tall, gray-eyed, delicately tinted sister, and with what Bab herself called "Jessamy's Undine ways."

The third girl, Phyllis, was twin in age to Jessamy, but unlike either of the others in appearance and temperament. She was in reality their cousin, the one child of their father's only brother, but, as she had been brought up with them since her fourth year, Jessamy and Barbara knew no lesser kinship to her than to each other.

At first glance Phyllis was not pretty; to those who had known her for even a brief time she was beautiful. Sweetness, unselfishness, content shone out from her dark-blue eyes, with the large pupils and long, dark lashes. Her lips rested together with the suggestion of a smile in their corners, and the clear pallor of her complexion was shaded by her masses of dark-brown hair, which warmed into red tints under the sunlight.

Across the room from her daughters and niece, enjoying the girls' happiness as she always did, sat Mrs. Wyndham, rocking slowly.

She was a fragile woman, still clad in the mourning she had worn for her husband for seven years,--a sweet and gentle creature, who, one felt at once, had been properly placed by Providence in luxury, and fortunately shielded from hardship; for the Wyndhams were wealthy. The morning-room in the great house on Murray Hill showed evidence of being the spot where the family gathered informally for rest and recreation; it made no attempt at special beauty, still it was full of countless little objects which declared the long custom of all its inmates of purchasing whatever struck their fancy, regardless of its cost or subsequent usefulness.

The three young girls, differing in many ways, were alike in bearing the stamp of having spent their short lives among luxurious surroundings, shielded from the cradle against the sharp buffets of common experience.

Even the samples fluttering under their fingers and the touch of the spring wind bore the name of a French artist on Fifth Avenue whose skill only the highly favored could command, and the consultation under way was for the selection for each young girl of gowns fit for a princess's wearing, yet intended for the use of maidens not yet "out," in the hops at the hotel at Bar Harbor in the coming summer.

"Madrina, do you care which we choose?" asked Bab, jumping up in a shower of samples which flew in all directions at her sudden movement, and running over to hug her pale mother. Jessamy said Bab was "subject to irruptions of affection."

"Not in the least; the samples are all bewilderingly pretty. I only ask to have a voice in selecting the style of the gown. Madame Alouette and I sometimes differ as to what is suitable," replied Mrs. Wyndham, when she had caught her breath.

"Do you remember the elaborate lace she used on Jessamy's dimity last year, auntie?" laughed Phyllis, on her knees collecting the samples Bab had scattered.

Jessamy rose slowly, gently putting together the bits of soap-bubble-tinted gauzes on her knee; her fingers stroked them reluctantly, as if unwilling to part from them. "I am afraid I am dreadfully vain," she said, "though I hope I am only artistic. I am not sure whether I love exquisite things for their own sake or because I want them for myself, but these lovely fabrics go to my very heart. I hate cheapness to an extent that I am ashamed of, and I certainly always have an instinct for the most expensive articles in the shops, though I never think of the price."

"You're a bad Phyl, whose object in life is to ruin people by making them perfectly self-satisfied," said Jessamy. "I only hope some of the excuses you find for me are true. I'm as luxurious in nature as a cat. I know that. Come to the window; I want to see this old rose in the sunlight."

Bab stopped swinging her feet, and slipped from the arm of her mother's chair, where she had been perching, to follow them. "Don't you abuse cats, nor my sister Jessamy, miss," she said, putting her arm around slender Jessamy and peering over her shoulder at the sample of old-rose silk, while she rubbed Jessamy's arm with her chin like an affectionate dog. "They're two as nice things as I know. Madrina, I see Mr. Hurd coming across the street; he's headed this way."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Mrs. Wyndham, almost fretfully; "I suppose he is coming to talk business again. He has been tormenting me all winter to withdraw my money from the corporation; you know, he thinks it isn't secure. I am sure I cannot see why--do you, Jessamy and Phyllis? You are as good business women as I am. Don't leave me when he comes to-day; I should like to have you hear his arguments. Young as you are, you can understand quite as well as I do. He says I ought to sell my stock, or enough to secure us against misfortune, but I cannot get as high interest elsewhere, and it is safe."

"He--you said Mr. Hurd thinks it isn't safe, didn't you, mama?" asked Jessamy, turning from the window.

"But that is ridiculous! Your poor father's partner is at the helm, and your father always said he was both clever and unimpeachable; he trusted him like himself," said Mrs. Wyndham. "It is all because they won't show the books lately--as though I wanted to see the books, or minded if Mr. Hurd did not, as long as Mr. Abbott is managing! I cannot see why Mr. Hurd is so nervous; he has talked hours to me since last fall, and yet I don't see. I will not put our stock on the market--in the market--what is the right word?--and shake public confidence, flood the market--inflate it--oh, I cannot remember terms! And Mr. Abbott wrote me, and came especially to see me in March to say that would be the effect of my offering my bonds or stock now. I understand him much better than Mr. Hurd; he is more patient, and won't leave his point until I have mastered it. He said industrial stock was different from--from--the other kind. He said one must not bear the market on one's own stock, but must bull it. That means, in their queer terms, not depress it, but force things upward, which is, of course, what one would want to do with one's own values. You stay in the room to-day, children, and see if you understand. Mr. Hurd insists I am risking beggaring you, and that distresses me unspeakably."

"Don't mind Mr. Hurd, Madrina; he's an anxious attorney, that's all," said Barbara, with an air of lucidity.

"But one has to heed one's attorney, daughter," said her mother, half smiling. "Only I can't turn my back on my dear husband's business, which he brought to such splendid success, and sell out Wyndham Iron Company stock as if we weren't Wyndhams, but outsiders."

"Mr. Hurd, ma'am," said Violet, the black maid, extending a card in one hand, while the other twisted her apron-string nervously; she had caught alarm from a glance at the visitor's face.

"Bring him here, Violet. Mr. Hurd will pardon feminine confusion," Mrs. Wyndham added, rising and pointing to the samples on the couch with her extended hand, for the lawyer had followed the maid without delay. "We are pluming, or more properly donning, our feathers for flight, Mr. Hurd."

Jessamy and Phyllis clutched each other with sudden pallor; the little lawyer's voice shook with emotion. Bab flushed and ran to her mother, putting her arms around her frail figure as though to place herself as a bulwark between her and ill.

"You will not interrupt anything more important than the selection of dancing-gowns for the children," said Mrs. Wyndham, with her soft dignity, though she turned a little paler. "Is there any special reason for your visit--kind visit always--Mr. Hurd? And may the girls hear what you have to say, since their interests are at stake?"

"Special reason, madam? Special, indeed! God help me, I don't know how to say what I have to say, but I prefer the young ladies to hear it. You remember, I have urged their presence at our previous conferences, but you considered them too young to be troubled--Poor chicks!" he added suddenly.

"Evideand most savage of the pirates who infest these seas, and is feared by the native traders as much as by the Dutch merchants who trade with the East. He never spared a man, white or brown, that fell into his hands. Sometimes he would sail alone, sometimes with a score of native craft. With these he would land on one of the islands or on the mainland, burn, plunder, and murder, and carry off into slavery the young men and women. The last we heard of him was two years ago. A boat was picked up with two men still alive in her; they were the sole survivors of one of our vessels that had been captured by him. He had transferred the greater part of his own crew to her. Every soul on board our ship had been murdered, with the exception of these two men, who managed to conceal themselves among the cargo, and had, while the pirates were carousing, dropped into a boat that lay alongside, and escaped. In the morning they could see their own ship bearing west while the original pirate was making for the north-east.

The ship had been headed in this direction, but the wind was contrary and the light had disappeared suddenly. They, however, kept on their course, and although the next morning they came upon some wreckage of charred timber, and had cruised for some hours in the neighbourhood, they had seen no signs of boats. Then rapidly came in the news that descents had been made upon various points on the mainland, and one morning a horseman rode in, saying that a landing had been effected at a point about thirty miles from Batavia. Plantations had been destroyed, all the white colonists killed, and able-bodied natives carried off as slaves. There was only one vessel of war at Batavia, but the governor and council took up two merchantmen that happened to be there, and put on board of each fifty soldiers, together with a strong crew to work the guns. Lieutenant Van Houten was in command of the soldiers on one of these vessels. His engagement to Fraulein Meyers had now been announced. Her father was settled on a plantation that he had purchased from a colonist whose health had suffered from the climate, and who was now returning home. It was twelve miles to the east of the town, and situated near the sea-shore.

He had been appointed to the command at his own request. He had more than shared in the general consternation at the pirate's escape. He was not one, however, to blame the captain. Certainly the Arab had acted under great provocation, and he knew that had he been in the captain's place he would have yielded to the solicitations of the ladies, especially as it seemed that the death of the culprit was as certain as, if slower than, that by the rope. He himself would vastly have preferred to have seen the man hung. He recognized how dangerous an enemy he was; and as soon as he heard of his escape he became anxious about the safety of his betrothed, remembering as he did the evident admiration that this scoundrel had felt for her. He had even begged her father to move into the town until the depredations of the pirates had been arrested. But Mr. Meyers had scoffed at the idea. "It is just the time for nutmeg picking. It is quite absurd. There is no other plantation within three miles, and even if they came along here, it would not pay them to land for the plunder of a solitary house."

His daughter was very tearful when she heard that her lover was going out in search of the pirate. "There is no occasion for you to go," she said. "Why should you have volunteered for such dangerous service?"

After this, his betrothed had no further objection to his going. It was known that the pirate's rendezvous was on the east coast of Sumatra, where he had made an alliance with a tribe at war with its neighbours, and had aided in conquering the latter; and it was in that direction that the three ships steered their course, hoping to encounter the pirates as they came down the Straits of Malacca on one of their expeditions. They cruised backwards and forwards for a week without seeing a sail, save a few native boats creeping along close to the shore. One morning, however, the look-out at the mast-head saw a number of sail in the distance. Among them were two vessels much larger than the others. These were doubtless the Dutch ships that had been captured; the others were native craft, most of them rowing, as could be seen as the sun flashed on their oars. Preparations were at once made for battle, for there was no change in the direction of the pirate flotilla after it was certain that they must have seen the Dutch fleet.

"She certainly looks like her," the other agreed. "Well, if so, there is one more debt to be paid off. The captain was a good old fellow, and I liked the second mate very much. I hope both of them fell before the vessel was seized, for we may be sure that they would not have had an easy death if they were captured. It will be a tough fight, for I have no doubt that the boats are crammed with men. There is one thing which I do not expect they have--many guns, except in the two ships; but counting only fifty men a boat--and no doubt many of them carry a hundred--we shall be tremendously outnumbered if they get alongside."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet