"To be sure! The very idea! I'll carry it out too--just a little--so as to be quite square with her; and who knows but what I might pick up some news of them after all. Why didn't I think of this before? "Let me see," he continued, thoughtfully, "how shall I manage it? What shall I do? I know. I'll run right up the river--ten miles or so beyond the Inche Maida's--and then strike into one of the supplementary streams, and make straight for the mountains. "That will be capital!" he cried, rubbing his hands. "Who knows but what I may hit upon some one or other of the old gold-workings; find ancient implements--proofs perhaps that Solomon's ships sailed up this very river. The idea is grand, sir, and I'll be off at once!" The idea was so "grand, sir," that in that hot climate it put the little doctor in a profuse perspiration, and he walked up and down the room, handkerchief in hand, dabbing his face and head. "Yes," he cried eagerly, "I may find out something about Helen Perowne and our other friends. I've got a good excuse for going now, and go I will!" He stood thinking for a few minutes; and then, adjusting his puggree so as to give plenty of shelter to the back of his head, he walked down to the river-side, and one of the Malay boatmen paddled him in his sampan across to the Residency island, where he stepped out and walked up to Mr Harley's official room, to find that gentleman looking older and more careworn than was his wont. "Well, doctor, what news?" he said, anxiously. "Anything wrong?" "No; nothing fresh." "No fever or cholera to add to one's trouble, eh?" "Nothing at all," was the reply. "No, sir, I can present you with a clean bill of health." "Then why have you come? Not for nothing, doctor," said the Resident sharply. "Here, I say," cried the little doctor, "don't be so horribly inhospitable when a man comes to see you?" "Inhospitable? Nonsense! You have not come across here to find hospitality. Now, doctor, speak out. What is it? Do you know anything?" "Plainly, no. But the fact is," said the visitor, clearing his throat, "I am not busy now; Mrs Bolter is a good deal away from home, so I thought this would be a favourable opportunity for taking a boat and a man or two, and going up the river to explore a few of the side streams so as to try and find Helen Perowne." "Rubbish!" said the Resident, sharply. "Eh?" ejaculated the doctor, who was taken aback by the Resident's quick, unceremonious way of speaking. "I said Rubbish, Bolter, and I now say Humbug, man! Do you think I do not know better than that?" "My dear Harley!" exclaimed the little doctor, indignantly. "Look here, Bolter, you want an excuse for one of your gold hunts--your Ophir explorations. Why don't you go, then, without all this childish excuse? You are your own master." The doctor was so taken aback by his friend's onslaught that he shook his head vigorously.