It was a listless life, but a pleasant one, for such strict discipline was observed, and stringent rules laid down by the medical officer of the corvette and the detachment, that the men kept in excellent health. They had plenty of amusements; fruit was abundant, and they had taken quite a taste for the coarse country tobacco, which many of the soldiers smoked after the Malay fashion, rolled up a la cigarette in the roko, or outer sheath of the palm leaf or the plantain. Some, too, adopted the Malay's plan of rapidly cutting a pipe from a short joint of bamboo, which, with a hole bored in the side for the insertion of a thin reed or quill, formed a pipe much affected by the Jacks when they took their tobacco in smoke, instead of by the unpleasantly moist masticating process. At the residency all went on as usual; sometimes the ladies received, and there was the sound of music and singing in the pleasantly lit-up verandah; sometimes Captain Horton sent his gig, and the agreeable little reunions were held on board the "Startler," in an improvised tent, draped with the ship's colours, while the lights were reflected on the smooth surface of the hurrying stream, and the Malays on shore watched the figures that passed to and fro till the party was over. Captain Horton and Major Sandars both thought the rajah's party had forgotten the affair; but the resident held to his opinion, which was strengthened by the imploring manner in which the two girls, who had attached themselves as attendants on Rachel Linton and her cousin, begged him not to let them be fetched away. "Suppose I did let them have you back," said the resident to them one day in their native tongue, "what would happen?" One of the girls, a tall, dark, graceful creature, but with the protruding lips, high cheekbones, and flat distended nose of the Malay, rose with contracted eyebrows, took her companion, forced her upon her knees, and then drawing an imaginary kris, she placed the point on the girl's shoulder, and struck the hilt with her right hand as if driving it perpendicularly down into her heart. "They would kill us--so!" she exclaimed, "and throw our bodies in the water to the crocodiles!" The other girl shuddered, and raised her frightened eyes to the faces of the ladies as if imploring them to intercede--and not in vain. "But they will not trouble about you now;" said the resident, tentatively. "Yes, yes," they both exclaimed, "they will send a naga and many men, but you will not let us go?" "No," said the resident, quietly. "_We_ shall not give you up," and he went away thoughtfully to his room, to continue writing the despatch he had commenced some days before. That same evening the two principal officers came to have a chat, and over their cigars Major Sandars introduced the subject of the doubled sentries.