"Poor Helen!" sighed Grey. "Tell her, Mr Hilton--from me--" "Yes," he said, eagerly, for she hesitated and stopped. "That her old schoolfellow's arms long to embrace her once again, and that the hours have seemed very bitter since she has been gone." "Yes," he said. "I will tell her, Miss Stuart. Poor girl! she will need all the consolation that can be given her, and it will be welcome news to her that she is sure of yours." "Sure of mine, Captain Hilton? Oh, yes. For many years past I have felt like the sister of Helen Perowne." "Who is happy in possessing so dear a friend," he said, gravely. "May she ever retain your friendship--nay, I should call it sisterly love." "She shall," said Grey, in a voice that sounded hard and firm. "I am not one to change lightly in my friendships." "No," he said, quietly; "you cannot be." "How quiet and unimpulsive he is," thought Grey. "How wanting in eagerness to go to Helen's help. Surely now that she needs all his sympathy and love--now that she must be in a terrible state of suffering--he could not be so base as to forsake her! He could not, he would not do that! I should hate him if he did." There was a pause then, and they both seemed to be listening to the hum of voices in the next room; and then Grey Stuart said to herself, softly: "Should I hate him if he did?" The answer came directly. "Yes, for the man I could love must be too chivalrous to wrong a woman by neglect in her time of trial." "Yes," said Hilton, rousing himself from a state of abstraction, "we must soon be upon the river; I expected that we should have been there before now." "I pray Heaven for your safety and success, Captain Hilton," said Grey Stuart, gravely. "And for Chumbley's too?" he said. "And for Lieutenant Chumbley's and Mr Harley's too," she said, in a low voice. As she spoke the door opened, and Mrs Bolter entered, followed by the Resident; and as soon as the former was seated, Grey rose, crossed the room, and went and stood with her hands resting upon her chair, the act seeming to give her strength to bear what was becoming painful. VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. A QUESTION OF ESCAPE. Bang! _Crash_! The report of the brass lelah and the stroke of the iron ball as it shivered the branches of the trees or buried itself in the trunk of some palm-tree growing near the bank, but without injuring the occupants of the sampan in the slightest degree. The faces of Ismael and his companion were now of a curious muddy hue, and they shivered with dread, but they held the doctor even more in awe, and obeyed his orders to keep on paddling with such strength as was in them left, and seemed ready enough to persevere as long as the boat would float beneath them, hopeless as the case might be.