Books: Among Malay Pirates
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G. A. Henty >> Among Malay Pirates
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"'Well, Harley, if the glimpse of futurity which I had is true,
all I can say is that it was extremely unpleasant.'
"'That was just my case, Charley.'
"'My dream, or whatever you like to call it, was about a mutiny of
the men.'
"'You don't say so, Charley; so was mine. This is monstrously
strange, to say the least of it. However, you tell your story first,
and then I will tell mine.'
"'It was very short,' Charley said. 'We were at mess--not in our
present mess room--we were dining with the fellows of some other
regiment. Suddenly, without any warning, the windows were filled
with a crowd of Sepoys, who opened fire right and left into us. Half
the fellows were shot down at once; the rest of us made a rush to
our swords just as the niggers came swarming into the room. There
was a desperate fight for a moment. I remember that Subadar Piran
--one of the best native officers in the regiment, by the way--
made a rush at me, and I shot him through the head with a revolver.
At the same moment a ball hit me, and down I went. At the moment a
Sepoy fell dead across me, hiding me partly from sight. The fight
lasted a minute or two longer. I fancy a few fellows escaped, for
I heard shots outside. Then the place became quiet. In another
minute I heard a crackling, and saw that the devils had set the
mess room on fire. One of our men, who was lying close by me, got
up and crawled to the window, but he was shot down the moment he
showed himself. I was hesitating whether to do the same or to lie
still and be smothered, when suddenly I rolled the dead Sepoy off,
crawled into the anteroom half suffocated by smoke, raised the
lid of a very heavy trapdoor, and stumbled down some steps into a
place, half storehouse half cellar, under the mess room. How I knew
about it being there I don't know. The trap closed over my head
with a bang. That is all I remember.'
"'Well, Charley, curiously enough my dream was also about
an extraordinary escape from danger, lasting, like yours, only a
minute or two. The first thing I remember--there seems to have
been some thing before, but what, I don't know--I was on horseback,
holding a very pretty but awfully pale girl in front of me. We were
pursued by a whole troop of Sepoy cavalry, who were firing pistol
shots at us. We were not more than seventy or eighty yards in front,
and they were gaining fast, just as I rode into a large deserted
temple. In the center was a huge stone figure. I jumped off my
horse with the lady, and as I did so she said, 'blow out my brains,
Edward; don't let me fall into their hands.'
"Instead of answering, I hurried her round behind the idol, pushed
against one of the leaves of a flower in the carving, and the stone
swung back, and showed a hole just large enough to get through,
with a stone staircase inside the body of the idol, made, no doubt,
for the priest to go up and give responses through the mouth. I
hurried the girl through, crept in after her, and closed the stone,
just as our pursuers came clattering into the courtyard. That is
all I remember.'
"'Well, it is monstrously rum,' Charley said after a pause. 'Did
you understand what the old fellow was singing about before he gave
us the pipes?'
"'Yes; I caught the general drift. It was an entreaty to Siva to
give us some glimpse of futurity which might benefit us.'
"We lit our cheroots and rode for some miles at a brisk canter
without remark. When we were within a short distance of home we
reined up.
"'I feel ever so much better,' Charley said. 'We have got that
opium out of our heads now. How do you account for it all, Harley?'
"'I account for it in this way, Charley. The opium naturally had
the effect of making us both dream, and as we took similar doses
of the same mixture, under similar circumstances, it is scarcely
extraordinary that it should have effected the same portion of the
brain, and caused a certain similarity in our dreams. In all nightmares
something terrible happens, or is on the point of happening; and so
it was here. Not unnaturally in both our cases our thoughts turned
to soldiers. If you remember, there was a talk at mess some little
time since as to what would happen in the extremely unlikely event
of the Sepoys mutinying in a body. I have no doubt that was the
foundation of both our dreams. It is all natural enough when we
come to think it over calmly. I think, by the way, we had better
agree to say nothing at all about it in the regiment.'
"' I should think not,' Charley said. 'We should never hear the
end of it; they would chaff us out of our lives.'
"We kept our secret, and came at last to laugh over it heartily
when we were together. Then the subject dropped, and by the end of
a year had as much escaped our minds as any other dream would have
done. Three months after the affair the regiment was ordered down
to Allahabad, and the change of place no doubt helped to erase all
memory of the dream. Four years after we had left Jubbalpore we
went to Beerapore. The time is very marked in my memory, because,
the very week we arrived there, your aunt, then Miss Gardiner,
came out from England, to her father, our colonel. The instant I
saw her I was impressed with the idea that I knew her intimately.
I recollected her face, her figure, and the very tone of her voice,
but wherever I had met her I could not conceive. Upon the occasion
of my first introduction to her I could not help telling her that
I was convinced that we had met, and asking her if she did not
remember it. No, she did not remember, but very likely she might
have done so, and she suggested the names of several people at whose
houses we might have met. I did not know any of them. Presently
she asked how long I had been out in India?
"'Six years,' I said.
"'And how old, Mr. Harley,' she said, 'do you take me to be?'
"I saw in one instant my stupidity, and was stammering out an
apology, when she went on:
"'I am very little over eighteen, Mr. Harley, although I evidently
look ever so many years older; but papa can certify to my age; so
I was only twelve when you left England.'
"I tried in vain to clear matters up. Your aunt would insist that
I took her to be forty, and the fun that my blunder made rather
drew us together, and gave me a start over the other fellows at
the station, half of whom fell straightway in love with her. Some
months went on, and when the mutiny broke out we were engaged to
be married. It is a proof of how completely the opium dreams had
passed out of the minds of both Simmonds and myself, that even
when rumors of general disaffection among the Sepoys began to be
current, they never once recurred to us; and even when the news
of the actual mutiny reached us we were just as confident as were
the others of the fidelity of our own regiment. It was the old
story, foolish confidence and black treachery. As at very many other
stations, the mutiny broke out when we were at mess. Our regiment
was dining with the 34th Bengalees. Suddenly, just as dinner was
over, the window was opened, and a tremendous fire poured in. Four
or five men fell dead at once, and the poor colonel, who was next
to me, was shot right through the head. Everyone rushed to his sword
and drew his pistol--for we had been ordered to carry pistols as
part of our uniform. I was next to Charley Simmonds as the Sepoys
of both regiments, headed by Subadar Piran, poured in at the windows.
"'I have it now,' Charley said; 'it is the scene I dreamed.'
"As he spoke he fired his revolver at the subadar, who fell dead
in his tracks.
"A Sepoy close by leveled his musket and fired. Charley fell, and
the fellow rushed forward to bayonet him. As he did so I sent a
bullet through his head, and he fell across Charley. It was a wild
fight for a minute or two, and then a few of us made a sudden rush
together, cut our way through the mutineers, and darted through an
open window on to the parade. There were shouts, shots, and screams
from the officers' bungalows, and in several places flames were
already rising. What became of the other men I knew not; I made as
hard as I could tear for the colonel's bungalow. Suddenly I came
upon a sowar sitting on his horse watching the rising flames. Before
he saw me I was on him, and ran him through. I leapt on his horse
and galloped down to Gardiner's compound. I saw lots of Sepoys in
and around the bungalow, all engaged in looting. I dashed into the
compound.
"'May! May!' I shouted. 'Where are you?'
"I had scarcely spoken before a dark figure rushed out of a clump
of bushes close by with a scream of delight.
"In an instant she was on the horse before me, and, shooting down
a couple of fellows who made a rush at my reins, I dashed out again.
Stray shots were fired after us. But fortunately the Sepoys were
all busy looting, most of them had laid down their muskets, and
no one really took up the pursuit. I turned off from the parade
ground, dashed down between the hedges of two compounds, and in
another minute we were in the open country.
"Fortunately, the cavalry were all down looting their own lines,
or we must have been overtaken at once. May happily had fainted as
I lifted her on to my horse--happily, because the fearful screams
that we heard from the various bungalows almost drove me mad, and
would probably have killed her, for the poor ladies were all her
intimate friends.
"I rode on for some hours, till I felt quite safe from any immediate
pursuit, and then we halted in the shelter of a clump of trees.
"By this time I had heard May's story. She had felt uneasy at being
alone, but had laughed at herself for being so, until upon her
speaking to one of the servants he had answered in a tone of gross
insolence, which had astonished her. She at once guessed that there
was danger, and the moment that she was alone caught up a large,
dark carriage rug, wrapped it round her so as to conceal her white
dress, and stole out into the veranda. The night was dark, and
scarcely had she left the house than she heard a burst of firing
across at the mess house. She at once ran in among the bushes and
crouched there, as she heard the rush of men into the room she had
just left. She heard them searching for her, but they were looking
for a white dress, and her dark rug saved her. What she must have
suffered in the five minutes between the firing of the first shots
and my arrival, she only knows. May had spoken but very little
since we started. I believe that she was certain that her father
was dead, although I had given an evasive answer when she asked me;
and her terrible sense of loss, added to the horror of that time
of suspense in the garden, had completely stunned her. We waited
in the tope until the afternoon, and then set out again.
"We had gone but a short distance when we saw a body of the rebel
cavalry in pursuit. They had no doubt been scouring the country
generally, and the discovery was accidental. For a short time we
kept away from them, but this could not be for long, as our horse
was carrying double. I made for a sort of ruin I saw at the foot of
a hill half a mile away. I did so with no idea of the possibility
of concealment. My intention was simply to get my back to a rock
and to sell my life as dearly as I could, keeping the last two
barrels of the revolver for ourselves. Certainly no remembrance
of my dream influenced me in any way, and in the wild whirl of
excitement I had not given a second thought to Charley Simmonds'
exclamation. As we rode up to the ruins only a hundred yards ahead
of us, May said:
"'Blow out my brains, Edward; don't let me fall alive into their
hands.'
"A shock of remembrance shot across me. The chase, her pale face,
the words, the temple--all my dream rushed into my mind.
"'We are saved,' I cried, to her amazement, as we rode into the
courtyard, in whose center a great figure was sitting.
"I leapt from the horse, snatched the mussuk of water from the
saddle, and then hurried May round the idol, between which and the
rock behind there was but just room to get along.
"Not a doubt entered my mind but that I should find the spring as
I had dreamed. Sure enough there was the carving, fresh upon my
memory as if I had seen it but the day before. I placed my hand on
the leaflet without hesitation, a solid stone moved back, I hurried
my amazed companion in, and shut to the stone. I found, and shot to
a massive bolt, evidently placed to prevent the door being opened
by accident or design when anyone was in the idol.
"At first it seemed quite dark, but a faint light streamed in from
above; we made our way up the stairs, and found that the light came
through a number of small holes pierced in the upper part of the
head, and through still smaller holes lower down, not much larger
than a good sized knitting needle could pass through. These holes,
we afterwards found, were in the ornaments round the idol's neck.
The holes enlarged inside, and enabled us to have a view all round.
"The mutineers were furious at our disappearance, and for hours
searched about. Then, saying that we must be hidden somewhere, and
that they would wait till we came out, they proceeded to bivouac
in the courtyard of the temple.
"We passed four terrible days, but on the morning of the fifth a
scout came in to tell the rebels that a column of British troops
marching on Delhi would pass close by the temple. They therefore
hastily mounted and galloped off.
"Three quarters of an hour later we were safe among our own people. A
fortnight afterwards your aunt and I were married. It was no time
for ceremony then; there were no means of sending her away; no
place where she could have waited until the time for her mourning
for her father was over. So we were married quietly by one of the
chaplains of the troops, and, as your storybooks say, have lived
very happily ever after."
"And how about Mr. Simmonds, uncle? Did he get safe off too?"
"Yes, his dream came as vividly to his mind as mine had done. He
crawled to the place where he knew the trapdoor would be, and got
into the cellar. Fortunately for him there were plenty of eatables
there, and he lived there in concealment for a fortnight. After
that he crawled out, and found the mutineers had marched for Delhi.
He went through a lot, but at last joined us before that city. We
often talked over our dreams together, and there was no question
that we owed our lives to them. Even then we did not talk much to
other people about them, for there would have been a lot of talk,
and inquiry, and questions, and you know fellows hate that sort of
thing. So we held our tongues. Poor Charley's silence was sealed
a year later at Lucknow, for on the advance with Lord Clyde he was
killed.
"And now, boys and girls, you must run off to bed. Five minutes
more and it will be Christmas Day.
"So you see, Frank, that although I don't believe in ghosts, I have
yet met with a circumstance which I cannot account for."
"It is very curious anyhow, uncle, and beats ghost stories into
fits."
"I like it better, certainly," one of the girls said, "for we can
go to bed without being afraid of dreaming about it."
"Well, you must not talk any more now. Off to bed, off to bed,"
Colonel Harley said, "or I shall get into terrible disgrace with
your fathers and mothers, who have been looking very gravely at me
for the last three quarters of an hour."
WHITE FACED DICK: A STORY OF PINE TREE GULCH
How Pine Tree Gulch got its name no one knew, for in the early
days every ravine and hillside was thickly covered with pines. It
may be that a tree of exceptional size caught the eye of the first
explorer, that he camped under it, and named the place in its
honor; or, maybe, some fallen giant lay in the bottom and hindered
the work of the first prospectors. At any rate, Pine Tree Gulch
it was, and the name was as good as any other. The pine trees were
gone now. Cut up for firing, or for the erection of huts, or the
construction of sluices, but the hillside was ragged with their
stumps.
The principal camp was at the mouth of the Gulch, where the little
stream, which scarce afforded water sufficient for the cradles in
the dry season, but which was a rushing torrent in winter, joined
the Yuba. The best ground was at the junction of the streams, and
lay, indeed, in the Yuba Valley rather than in the Gulch. At first
most gold had been found higher up, but there was here comparatively
little depth down to the bedrock, and as the ground became exhausted
the miners moved down towards the mouth of the Gulch. They were
doing well, as a whole, how well no one knew, for miners are chary
of giving information as to what they are making; still, it was
certain they were doing well, for the bars were doing a roaring
trade, and the storekeepers never refused credit--a proof in
itself that the prospects were good.
The flat at the mouth of the Gulch was a busy scene, every foot was
good paying stuff, for in the eddy, where the torrents in winter
rushed down into the Yuba, the gold had settled down and lay thick
among the gravel. But most of the parties were sinking, and it was
a long way down to the bedrock; for the hills on both sides sloped
steeply, and the Yuba must here at one time have rushed through a
narrow gorge, until, in some wild freak, it brought down millions
of tons of gravel, and resumed its course seventy feet above its
former level.
A quarter of a mile higher up a ledge of rock ran across the
valley, and over it in the old time the Yuba had poured in a cascade
seventy feet deep into the ravine. But the rock now was level with
the gravel, only showing its jagged points here and there above
it. This ledge had been invaluable to the diggers: without it they
could only have sunk their shafts with the greatest difficulty,
for the gravel would have been full of water, and even with the
greatest pains in puddling and timber work the pumps would scarcely
have sufficed to keep it down as it rose in the bottom of the
shafts. But the miners had made common cause together, and giving
each so many ounces of gold or so many days' work had erected a
dam thirty feet high along the ledge of rock, and had cut a channel
for the Yuba along the lower slopes of the valley. Of course, when
the rain set in, as everybody knew, the dam would go, and the river
diggings must be abandoned till the water subsided and a fresh dam
was made; but there were two months before them yet, and everyone
hoped to be down to the bedrock before the water interrupted their
work.
The hillside, both in the Yuba Valley and for some distance along
Pine Tree Gulch, was dotted by shanties and tents; the former
constructed for the most part of logs roughly squared, the walls
being some three feet in height, on which the sharp sloping roof
was placed, thatched in the first place with boughs, and made all
snug, perhaps, with an old sail stretched over all. The camp was
quiet enough during the day. The few women were away with their
washing at the pools, a quarter of a mile up the Gulch, and the
only persons to be seen about were the men told off for cooking
for their respective parties.
But in the evening the camp was lively. Groups of men in red shirts
and corded trousers tied at the knee, in high boots, sat round
blazing fires, and talked of their prospects or discussed the news
of the luck at other camps. The sound of music came from two or
three plank erections which rose conspicuously above the huts of
the diggers, and were bright externally with the glories of white
and colored paints. To and from these men were always sauntering,
and it needed not the clink of glasses and the sound of music to
tell that they were the bars of the camp.
Here, standing at the counter, or seated at numerous small tables,
men were drinking villainous liquor, smoking and talking, and paying
but scant attention to the strains of the fiddle or the accordion,
save when some well known air was played, when all would join in
a boisterous chorus. Some were always passing in or out of a door
which led into a room behind. Here there was comparative quiet,
for men were gambling, and gambling high.
Going backwards and forwards with liquors into the gambling room of
the Imperial Saloon, which stood just where Pine Tree Gulch opened
into Yuba Valley, was a lad, whose appearance had earned for him
the name of White Faced Dick.
White Faced Dick was not one of those who had done well at Pine
Tree Gulch; he had come across the plains with his father, who had
died when halfway over, and Dick had been thrown on the world to
shift for himself. Nature had not intended him for the work, for
he was a delicate, timid lad; what spirits he originally had having
been years before beaten out of him by a brutal father. So far,
indeed, Dick was the better rather than the worse for the event
which had left him an orphan.
They had been traveling with a large party for mutual security
against Indians and Mormons, and so long as the journey lasted Dick
had got on fairly well. He was always ready to do odd jobs, and as
the draught cattle were growing weaker and weaker, and every pound
of weight was of importance, no one grudged him his rations in
return for his services; but when the company began to descend the
slopes of the Sierra Nevada they began to break up, going off by
twos and threes to the diggings of which they heard such glowing
accounts. Some, however, kept straight on to Sacramento, determining
there to obtain news as to the doings at all the different places,
and then to choose that which seemed to them to offer the surest
prospects of success.
Dick proceeded with them to the town, and there found himself
alone. His companions were absorbed in the busy rush of population,
and each had so much to provide and arrange for, that none gave a
thought to the solitary boy. However, at that time no one who had
a pair of hands, however feeble, to work need starve in Sacramento,
and for some weeks Dick hung around the town doing odd jobs, and
then having saved a few dollars, determined to try his luck at the
diggings, and started on foot with a shovel on his shoulders and
a few days' provisions slung across it.
Arrived at his destination, the lad soon discovered that gold digging
was hard work for brawny and seasoned men, and after a few feeble
attempts in spots abandoned as worthless he gave up the effort,
and again began to drift; and even in Pine Tree Gulch it was not
difficult to get a living. At first he tried rocking cradles, but
the work was far harder than it appeared. He was standing ankle
deep in water from morning till night, and his cheeks grew paler,
and his strength, instead of increasing, seemed to fade away. Still,
there were jobs within his strength. He could keep a fire alight
and watch a cooking pot, he could carry up buckets of water or wash
a flannel shirt, and so he struggled on, until at last some kind
hearted man suggested to him that he should try to get a place at
the new saloon which was about to be opened.
"You are not fit for this work, young 'un, and you ought to be
at home with your mother; if you like I will go up with you this
evening to Jeffries. I knew him down on the flats, and I dare say
he will take you on. I don't say as a saloon is a good place for a
boy, still you will always get your bellyful of victuals and a dry
place to sleep in, if it's only under a table. What do you say?"
Dick thankfully accepted the offer, and on Red George's recommendation
was that evening engaged. His work was not hard now, for till the
miners knocked off there was little doing in the saloon; a few men
would come in for a drink at dinnertime, but it was not until the
lamps were lit that business began in earnest, and then for four
or five hours Dick was busy.
A rougher or healthier lad would not have minded the work, but
to Dick it was torture; every nerve in his body thrilled whenever
rough miners cursed him for not carrying out their orders more
quickly, or for bringing them the wrong liquors, which, as his brain
was in a whirl with the noise, the shouting, and the multiplicity
of orders, happened frequently. He might have fared worse had not
Red George always stood his friend, and Red George was an authority
in Pine Tree Gulch--powerful in frame, reckless in bearing and
temper, he had been in a score of fights and had come off them,
if not unscathed, at least victorious. He was notoriously a lucky
digger, but his earnings went as fast as they were made, and he was
always ready to open his belt and give a bountiful pinch of dust
to any mate down on his luck.
One evening Dick was more helpless and confused than usual. The
saloon was full, and he had been shouted at and badgered and cursed
until he scarcely knew what he was doing. High play was going on
in the saloon, and a good many men were clustered round the table,
Red George was having a run of luck, and there was a big pile
of gold dust on the table before him. One of the gamblers who was
losing had ordered old rye, and instead of bringing it to him, Dick
brought a tumbler of hot liquor which someone else had called for.
With an oath the man took it up and threw it in his face.
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