id="id00137">"Big thing, Sahib. Very heavy."

"Bear?"

The man made a sign, and his two followers grinned with enjoyment, and seated themselves on the basket, which squeaked loudly.

"What did you do that for?" cried Harry.

"The young Sahib must wait till the old Sahib comes, and then he see."

"Old Sahib, indeed!" cried Harry; "why, my father isn't half so old as you."

"The young Sahib wait."

"Of course I can wait," said Harry pettishly, "and I was going to wait. I only asked you what it was."

The man smiled, and shook his head mysteriously, and just then Mike thrust his head out of the door.

"Ah, got back, Mike!" cried Harry. "What did the Prince say?"

"Come on almost directly, sir; but I had no end of a job to get to see him."

"How was that?"

"Oh, those guard chaps; soldiers, I s'pose they call themselves. They're a deal too handy with those spears of theirs. They ought to be told that they mustn't point them at an Englishman's breast."

"Oh, it's only because they're on duty, Mike," replied Harry.

"Wouldn't make any difference to me, sir, whether it was on dooty or off dooty if one of them was to go inside my chest."

"Oh, you needn't be afraid of that."

"Afraid! Oh, come, I like that, Master Harry—afraid! Not likely to be afraid of any number of the squatty, yellow-skinned chaps, but they oughtn't to be allowed to carry such things. Fancy Englishmen at home all going about carrying area railings in their hands."

Harry shook his head, for his recollections of spear-pointed area railings were very vague.

"Don't matter, sir," said Mike, "they don't know any better; but I know I shall get in a row one of these days for giving one of 'em a smeller right on the nose."

"Nonsense! you mustn't do that, Mike."

"Why not, sir? Couldn't do no harm; they're as flat as flat as it is."

"You know what my father said about keeping on good terms with the natives."

"Yes, sir, I know, sir, but fair play's a jewel; if I keep on good terms with them they ought to keep on good terms with me, and sticking a spear-point into a man's wesket aren't the sort o' terms I like. 'Specially when you know the things are poisoned."

"Nonsense! The Prince assured me they were not."

"Well, those ugly, twisty krises are, sir."

"No. The only danger from them is their sharp point."

"Well, that's bad enough, sir; but how about the thing you've got yonder? What is it, Master Harry?" he asked.

"Come out and see. Don't stand there with your head just stuck out like a snake in a hole looking to see if it's safe."

"Well, but is it safe, sir?"

"Come and see. If it's safe enough for me to be out here, it's safe enough for you."

Mike evidently considered this reply unanswerable, for he came out slowly and cautiously, the two men seated on the hamper-like basket evidently enjoying the man's timidity. They glanced at Harry inquiringly, and he gave them a quick nod of assent, with the result that as Mike was passing them, with divers suspicious glances at their seat, they made a sudden spring together, as if the occupant of the bamboo covering had suddenly and by a tremendous effort raised the lid. There was a loud creaking, and with a rush Mike was back through the door, which he banged to.

The old hunter, who had seated himself to prepare a fresh piece of betel-nut for chewing, laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, while his two bearers drew their feet up and squatted now upon the basket lid, chuckling with delight, and looking to Harry as if expecting a fresh hint for startling Mike.

Harry went to the door and pushed at it, finding it give a little, but only to be pressed to directly, as if by Mike's shoulder.

"Here, it's all right; open the door," cried Harry. "He didn't get out."

The door was opened cautiously, and Mike's head slowly appeared, to look from one to the other and encounter faces that were serious now almost to solemnity.

"I thought he'd got out, sir," said Mike.

"Oh no, he's safe enough; look how they've fastened the lid down with bamboo skewers."

"Yes, sir, but some o' them things is so awful strong. What is it—tiger?"

"Oh no, it's not a tiger, Mike. A tiger would scratch and kick a basket like that to pieces in no time."

"Of course he would, sir. I say, Master Harry, hadn't you better tell old Sree to get up and sit on the basket too?"

"Hardly room, is there?" said Harry seriously.

"Plenty, sir, if you make those chaps squeedge up together a bit."

"But the basket's so tickle, Mike, and their weight might send it over sidewise. If it did the basket would go nearly flat, the lid would be burst off, and where should be we then?"

"I know where I should be, sir," said Mike—"indoors."

"You wouldn't have time, for those beasts are so wonderfully active that this one would be out of the basket like a flash of lightning."

"Would he, sir? Then don't you do it. Let him be. What is it, sir—a leopard?"

"Oh no, not a leopard, Mike."

"What, then? One of those big monkeys we've never yet got a sight of?"

"Monkey? Oh no."

"What is it, then, sir?"

"Well, you see, Mike, I don't know myself yet," said Harry, laughing.

Mike looked at him sharply, then at the three Siamese, whose faces were contorted with mirth, and back at his young master.

"Humbugging me," he said sharply. "That's it, is it, Master Harry?
Yah! I don't believe there's anything in the old hamper at all."

He went round the basket from the other direction, so as to reach the door, and as he got behind the two men on the lid, he turned.

"I do wonder at you, Master Harry, laughing at a fellow like that, and setting these niggers to make fun of me. Yah!"

He raised one foot and delivered a tremendous kick at the bottom of the basket, startling the two squatting men on the lid so that one sprang up and the other leaped off on to the bamboo floor of the verandah, while a violent commotion inside the basket showed that its occupant had also been disturbed.

"Something else for you to laugh at," said Mike, and he slipped in and closed the door.

Harry smiled, the man returned to his perch on the lid, frowning and looking very serious, while the occupant of the basket settled down quietly again, making Harry more curious than ever as to what it might be; but he mastered his desire to go and peer through the split bamboo so tightly woven together, and waited impatiently for the coming of his friend and companion.

"I believe it's a big monkey, after all," he said to himself. "Sree always said he was sure there were monsters right away in the jungle, just about the same as the one father saw at Singapore, brought from Borneo. It was precious quiet, though, till Mike kicked the basket. How savage it made him to be laughed at!"

He glanced at the basket again, and then at the old hunter and his men, all three squatting down on their heels, chewing away at their betel-nut, and evidently in calm, restful enjoyment of the habit.

"Just like three cows chewing their cud," said Harry to