"That will do, Gray," said Major Sandars, as the youths entered, and saluted the three officers seated like judges at a table, "but be within hearing." "Might ask us to sit down," thought Bob, as he saw from the aspect of the three gentlemen that something serious was afloat. But the new arrivals were not asked to sit down, and they stood before the table feeling very guilty, and like a couple of prisoners; though of what they had been guilty, and why they were brought there, they could not imagine. "It's only their serious way," thought Bob; "they are going to compliment us." He stared at the shaded lamp, round which four or five moths and a big beetle were wildly circling in a frantic desire to commit suicide, but kept from a fiery end by gauze wire over the chimney. "What fools moths and beetles are!" thought Bob, and then his attention was taken up by the officers. "Will you speak, Major Sandars?" said the resident. "No, I think it should come from you, Mr Linton. What do you say, Captain Horton?" "I quite agree with you, Major Sandars," said the captain stiffly. "What the dickens have we been doing?" thought Bob; and then he stared hard at the resident, and wished heartily that Rachel Linton's father had not been chosen to give him what he felt sure was a setting down for some reason or another. "As you will, gentlemen," said the resident firmly, and he then placed his elbows on the table and joined his fingers, while the light from the lamp shone full upon his forehead. "Mr Ensign Long--Mr Midshipman Roberts," he began. "He might have placed me first," thought Bob. "I wish someone would catch those wretched moths." "You have been out on an expedition to-day?" He waited for an answer, and as Tom Long had been placed first, Bob waited, too; but as his companion did not speak, Bob exclaimed quickly-- "Yes, sir, snipe shooting;" and as the resident bowed his head, Bob added, "two brace." "Confound you--you young dogs!" cried Captain Horton, "and you brought a brace of something else. I beg your pardon, Mr Linton; go on." Mr Linton bowed, while Bob uttered a barely audible whistle, and glanced at his companion. "Then it's about those two girls," he thought. "It seems, young gentlemen," continued the resident, "that while you were out, you met two young Malay girls?" "Yes, sir." "Who had run away from their master?" "From their owner, as he seemed to consider himself, sir," said Bob, who, to use his own words, felt as if all the fat was in the fire now, and blazed up accordingly. "You see, sir," he said quickly, "we were watching for something that we saw in the reeds, close to the boggy ground, you know, and Tom here thought it was pig, but I thought it might be a deer. So we stood quite still till we heard sounds in the distance, when out jumped two dark creatures, and I was going to fire, when we saw that they were girls." "And they ran up to us," said Tom Long.