As the doctor very well knew, it was only a question of time, and had he been alone he would not have hesitated about surrendering; but with Helen in his charge, there was too much at stake. So he determined, with all the stubbornness of an Englishman, to hold out to the very last extremity. "I'm a man of peace," he muttered, "but I've had to fight in my time, and if I am driven to it, they shall buy Helen Perowne at the cost of three or four lives at least; and if I can manage it, the chiefs shall be one." He glanced at Helen, who lay back with her eyes closed, and her swarthy face seemed to rouse a bitter feeling of anger in the doctor's breast. "The blackguards!" he growled. "To serve an English lady like that. I'll make some of them pay for it, and dearly too." "I say, Bolter," he muttered, "I'd no idea that you were such a brave fellow. I don't feel half so nervous as I expected I should, and hang me if I'll give up till I have fairly fought it out. I wonder whether I could hit master Rajah Murad at this distance? Well, let him put his head over the side of the boat, and I'll try--What, my dear," he cried, as Helen spoke feebly. "Is our position hopeless, Doctor?" she said. "Hopeless? Not a bit of it, my dear. I'm going to exhibit another medicine directly. You lie quite still and don't raise your head. Trust to your medical man, my dear. Always have confidence in your medical man." For answer she turned her great dark eyes upon him with a look of such hopeless misery that the doctor set his teeth hard. "By Jove!" he cried, starting in spite of himself, as there was a sharp report and a bullet whistled close by him. "Hi! you scoundrels! How dare you fire upon a boat containing a Queen's officer." He let the butt of his gun rest in the bottom of the vessel, and turned and shook his fist threateningly at the advancing prahu; but the only answer elicited was another shot, not by any means so well aimed as the last, the sound of which seemed to ring in his ear as it whizzed by. "The scoundrels shall smart for this!" he cried, furiously. "They've fired--bear witness of this, Ismael--they've fired upon a boat containing a British officer and an English lady, and--hang 'em! there they go again!" And this shot and another came whizzing by, but the rapid motion of the sampan, the want of practice on the part of the Malays, and their bad management of their clumsy gun, kept them from doing any mischief to the fugitives. "At last!" cried the doctor, as the dense mass of vegetation that screened the mouth of the little river came in sight. "Now then, my lads, keep up. You shall be rewarded handsomely for this. Make a good dash for it, and we shall soon be clear."