"They will not come to fetch you," said the Princess, smiling. "Why not?" said Hilton, sharply. "I tell you they will search till we are found, and then you destroy yourself by having us here." "Yes," said the Princess, with her eyes half-closed; "they will search. They have searched, and have given it up. They found a small boat overset upon a bank of sand; part of your clothes were in it, and they think you were both drowned." "Confusion!" cried Hilton, fiercely. "You have a woman to fight with," said the Princess, smiling, "and I have taken my steps so well that no one will seek you here. I told my people to bring you both, and they obeyed. They would have sooner died than failed." "Tell me more," said Chumbley, quickly. "Have you seen Mr Harley?" "I will tell you nothing," said the Princess, "till you are both my friends. There, I must leave you now. Promise me you will be patient, and not so foolish as to try to escape and fight. It would be horrible to me if you or any of my people should be hurt in some mad attempt. Promise me you will be patient and not try." "Not I," said Chumbley, laughing. "I shall try to escape, and so will he." "Then you are wicked and foolish!" cried the Inche Maida, angrily. "Both, I am afraid," said Chumbley. "I always was; but may I make a request as a prisoner?" "As a visitor, yes," said the Princess, smiling. "May I ask, then, if you propose to gild the bars of our cage?" "I do not understand," she replied, gazing at him earnestly. "I mean that it is very hot. May I have a cold drink of some kind; and do you allow smoking in the drawing-room?" The Princess smiled, and in what Chumbley afterwards called the Arabian Nights style, clapped her hands, when a couple of Malay slave-girls ran in, received their orders, and hurried out again, while their mistress walked to the window, as she had done more than once before, apparently with the idea of giving her prisoners an opportunity to converse and debate their position. "Well, Hilton, old man, what do you think of this?" said Chumbley, smiling. "We Europeans have gone ahead, and got steam and electricity, and all the luxuries of civilisation, as the fine writers call it, while the East has stopped just where it was, and we might be Ali Baba's Brothers, or the One-eyed Calender, or some other of those Arabian Night cock-o'-waxes here amongst all these slaves and spearmen. I say, I think I shall write a book about it--`The adventures of two officers taken prisoners by a wicked queen.'" "Chumbley," retorted Hilton, "you used to have one good quality." "Had I? What was that, old man?" "You were a fellow who didn't talk much," said Hilton; "but now your tongue goes like a woman's, and you are a positive nuisance." "Thankye, old fellow. But you ought not to grumble, seeing how impressionable you have of late proved to the prattling of a woman's tongue."