CHAPTER II

THE JUNGLE HUNTER

Harry Kenyon did not run up the slope to the house, which was erected upon an elevation to raise it beyond the flood when the river burst its bounds, as it made a point of doing once or twice a year during the heavy rains. People out in sunny Siam do not run much, but make a point of moving deliberately as the natives do, for the simple reason that it takes a very short time to get into a violent perspiration, but a very long time to get cool; besides which, overheating means the risk of chills, and chills mean fever.

He walked gently up to meet the tall, thin, rather stern-featured, grizzly-haired man in white flannel and straw hat with puggaree, who had come out to meet him, and who saluted him heartily.

"Lovely morning, my boy, but quite warm enough already. How sweet the blossoms smell!"

"Yes, father," said Harry, whose brain was full of the great reptile; "but I've just seen such a monster."

"Crocodile?"

"Yes; quite twenty feet long."

"With discount twenty-five per cent., Hal?" said the father, laughing.

"No, father, really."

"One's eyes magnify when they look at savage creatures, especially at snakes."

"Oh yes, I know, father," said the lad impatiently; "but this was the biggest I've seen."

"Then it must have been twenty-four feet long, Hal, for I've shown you one of twenty-two."

"I didn't measure him, father; he wouldn't wait," said the boy, laughing; "but he was a monster."

"You threw something at it, I suppose?"

"Yes, a big piece out of the rockery--and hit him on the back. It sounded like hitting a leather trunk."

"Humph!" said Mr. Kenyon. "Boys are boys all the world round, it seems. Here have you been in Siam almost ever since you were born, and you act just in the same way as an English boy at home."

"Act! How did I act?"

"Began throwing stones. Bit of human nature, I suppose, learnt originally of the monkeys. So you hit the brute?"

"Yes, father, and he went off with a rush!"

"Looking for its breakfast, I suppose. Let's go and get ours."

Harry Kenyon required no second invitation, for the pangs of hunger, forgotten in the excitement, returned with full force, and in a few minutes father and son were seated at table in the well-furnished half-Eastern, half-English-looking home, enjoying a well-cooked breakfast, served on delicate china from the neighbouring country, and with glistening silver tea and coffee pot well worn with long polishing, for they were portions of a set of old family plate which had been sent out to the fairly wealthy merchant trading with England from the East.

"Hullo!" said Mr. Kenyon; "why, you are not eating any of your fish!"

"No, father. Ng has spoiled them."

"Spoiled? Nonsense; the curry is delicious."

"But I don't want to be always eating curry, father. I told him to fry them."

"Better leave him to do things his own way, my boy, and have some. They are very good. The Chinese are a wonderfully conservative people. They begin life running in the groove their fathers ran in before them, and go on following it up to the end of their days, and then leave the groove to their sons. Did you catch all these?"

"No; Phra caught more than I did. He is more patient than I am."

"A great deal, and with his studies too."

"Yes, father; I say, the fish are better than I thought."

"I was talking about the Prince being more patient over his studies than you are, Hal," said Mr. Kenyon drily.

"Yes, father," said the lad, reddening.

Mike just then brought in a dish of hot bread-cakes, and no more was said until he had left the room, when Mr. Kenyon continued:--

"Take it altogether, Hal, you are not such a bad sort of boy, and I like the way in which you devote yourself to the collecting for the museum; but I do wonder at an English lad calmly letting one of these Siamese boys leave him behind."

"Oh, but he's the son of a king," said Harry, smiling.

"Tchah! What of that? Suppose he is a prince by birth, like a score more of them, that is no reason why he should beat you."

"He can't, father," said Harry sturdily.

"Well, he seems to."

"If I liked to try hard, I could leave him all behind nowhere."

"Then, why don't you try hard, sir?"

"It's so hot, father."

"And you are so lazy, sir."

"Yes, father. I'll have a little more curry, please."

"I wish I could have your classics and mathematics curried, sir, so as to make you want more of them," said Mr. Kenyon, helping his son to more of the savoury dish. "Yes, Mike?"

"Old Sree is here, sir, with two bearers and a big basket."

"Oh!" cried Harry, jumping up; "what has he got now?"

"Sit down and finish your breakfast, Hal," said his father sternly. "Don't be such a young savage, even if you are obliged to live out here in these uncivilized parts."

The lad sat down promptly, but felt annoyed, and anxious to know what the old hunter employed by his father to collect specimens had brought.

"What has he in the big basket, Mike?" asked Mr. Kenyon.

"Don't know, sir; he wouldn't tell me. Said the Sahibs must know first."

"Then he must have got something good, I know," said Harry excitedly. "I expect it's a coo-ah."

"One o' them big, speckled peacocks with no colour in 'em, Master Harry?" said Mike respectfully. "No, it isn't one o' them; the basket's too small."

"What is it, then?"

"Don't know, sir; but I think it's one o' those funny little bears, like fat monkeys."

"May I send on for Phra, father?"

"Yes, if you like; but perhaps they will not let him come."

"Oh, I think they will; and I promised always to send on to him when anything good was brought in."

"Very well," said his father quietly; "send."

"Run, Mike," said the boy excitedly, and the man made a grimace at him. "Well, then, walk fast, and ask to see him. They'll let you pass. Then tell him we've got a big specimen brought in, and ask him, with my compliments, if he'd like to come on and see it."

"Yes, sir;" and the man hurried out, while Mr. Kenyon, who had just helped himself to a fresh cup of coffee, leaned back in his chair and smiled.

"What are you laughing at, father?" said the boy, with his bronzed face reddening again. "Did I make some stupid blunder?"

"Well, I hardly like to call it a blunder, Hal, because it was done knowingly. I was smiling at the impudence of you, an ordinary British merchant's son, coolly sending a message to a palace and telling a king's son to come on here."

"Palace! Why, it's only a palm-tree house, not much better than this, father; not a bit like a palace we see in books. And as to his being a king's son, and a prince, well, he's only a boy like myself."

"Of the royal blood, Hal."

"He can't help that, father, and I'm sure he likes to come here and read English and Latin with me, and then go out collecting. He said the King liked it too."

"Oh yes, he likes it, or he would not let his son come."

"Phra said his father wanted him to talk English as well as we do."

"And very wise of him too, my boy. This country will have more and more dealing with England as the time goes on."

Harry sat watching his father impatiently, longing the while to get out into the verandah, where he expected that the old hunter would be.

"You are not eating, my boy," said Mr. Kenyon; "go on with your breakfast."

"I've done, thank you, father."

"Nonsense. You always have two cups of coffee. Get on with the meal. It is better to make a good breakfast than to wait till the middle of the day, when it is so hot."

Harry began again unwillingly, and his father remarked upon it.

"You want to get out there, but you told me you did not wish to see what the man has brought till your friend came."

"Yes, I said so, father; but I should like Sree to tell me."

"Finish your breakfast, and you will have plenty of time."

Harry went on, and after the first few mouthfuls his healthy young appetite prevailed, and he concluded a hearty meal.

"There, you can go now," said his father. "Call me when the Prince comes."

Harry Kenyon hurried out into the broad verandah, and then along two sides of the square bungalow so as to reach the back, where sat a little, wrinkled-faced, square-shaped, yellow-skinned man, with his face and head shaved along the sides as high as the tips of his ears, leaving a short, stubbly tuft of grizzled hair extended backward from the man's low forehead to the nape of his neck, looking for all the world like the hair out of a blacking-brush stretched over the top of his head.

His dress was as scanty as that of his two muscular young companions, consisting as it did of a cotton plaid sarong or scarf of once bright colours, but now dull in hue from long usage, and a good deal torn and tattered by forcing a way through the jungle. This was doubled lengthwise and drawn round the loins, and then tightened at the waist by giving the edge of the sarong a peculiar twist and tuck in, thus forming a waist-belt in which in each case was stuck a dagger-like kris, with pistol-shaped handle and wooden sheath to hold the wavy blade, and a parang or heavy sword used in travelling to hack a way through the jungle and form a path by chopping through tangled rotan or tufts of bamboo, or lawyer cane.

The three men were squatted on their heels, with their mouths distended and lips scarlet, chewing away at pieces of betel-nut previously rolled in a pepper-leaf, which had first been smeared with what looked like so much white paste, but which was in fact lime, made by burning the white coral, abundant along some portion of the shores, and rising inland to quite mountainous height.

As soon as Harry came in sight, all rose up, smiling, and the elder man wanted to exhibit the prize contained within the great square basket standing on the bamboo flooring, while two stout bamboos, each about eight feet long, were stood up against the house, a couple of loops on either side of the basket showing where the bamboo poles had been thrust through so that the basket could hang dependent from the two men's shoulders.

"What have you got, Sree?" asked Harry, in English, which from long service with Mr. Kenyon, and mixing with other colonists, Sree spoke plainly enough to make himself understood.

"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