The Battery and the Boiler: Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables by - (top 100 novels TXT) 📕

the authorities of Sarawak certified that they were honest men.

“Now, Robin,” said Sam, as they pushed through the crowds, “there seems to me something auspicious in our arriving about the same time with the Great Eastern, and I hope something may come of it, but our first business is to make inquiries for Mrs Langley. We will therefore go and find the hotel to which we have been recommended, and make that our head-quarters while we are engaged in our search.”

“Can I lend you a hand, Mr Shipton?” asked Slagg, who had become, as it were, irresistibly more respectful to Robin and Sam since coming among civilised people.

“No, Slagg; our mission is too delicate to admit of numbers. If we require your services we’ll let you know.”

“Ah! I see—too many cooks apt to spoil the broth. Well, my mission will be to loaf about and see Bombay. You and I will pull together, Stumps.”

“No,” said Stumps, to the surprise of his companions, “I’ve got a private mission of my own—at least for this evening.”

“Well, please yourself, Stumpy,” said Slagg with a good-humoured laugh, “you never was the best o’ company, so I won’t break my heart.”

At the hotel to which they had been recommended two rooms were engaged,—a small single room for Letta, and one with two beds and a sofa for themselves.

Having breakfasted and commended Letta to the landlady’s care, Sam and Robin sallied forth together, while Slagg and Stumps went their separate ways, having appointed to meet again in the evening for supper.

We will follow the fortunes of Mr John Shanks. That rather vacant and somewhat degenerate youth, having his precious bag slung from his shoulders, and his left arm round it for further security, sauntered forth, and began to view the town. His viewing it consisted chiefly in looking long and steadily at the shop windows of the principal streets. There was a slight touch of cunning, however, in his expression, for he had rid himself, cleverly as he imagined, of his comrades, and meant to dispose of some of the contents of his bag to the best advantage, without letting them know the result.

In the prosecution of his deep-laid plans, Stumps attracted the attention of a gentleman with exceedingly black eyes and hair, a hook nose, and rather seedy garments. This gentleman followed Stumps with great care for a considerable time, watched him attentively, seemed to make up his mind about him, and finally ran violently against him.

“Oh! I do beg your pardon, sir. I am so sorry,” he said in a slightly foreign accent, with an expression of earnest distress on his not over-clean countenance, “so very, very, sorry; it was a piece of orange peel. I almost fell; but for your kind assistance I should have been down and, perhaps, broke my legs. Thank you, sir; I do hope I have not hurt you against the wall. Allow me to dust your sleeve.”

“Oh! you’ve done me no damage, old gen’l’man,” said Stumps, rather flattered by the man’s attention and urbanity. “I’m all right; I ain’t so easy hurt. You needn’t take on so.”

“But I cannot help take on so,” returned the seedy man, with an irresistibly bland smile, “it is so good of you to make light of it, yet I might almost say you saved my life, for a fall to an elderly man is always very dangerous. Will you not allow me to give my benefactor a drink? See, here is a shop.”

Stumps chanced to be very hot and thirsty at the time; indeed he had been meditating some such indulgence, and fell into the trap at once. Accepting the offer with a “well, I don’t mind if I do,” he entered the drinking saloon and sat down, while his new friend called for brandy and water.

“You have come from a long voyage, I see,” said the seedy man, pulling out a small case and offering Stumps a cigar.

“How d’ee know that?” asked Stumps bluntly.

“Because I see it in your bronzed face, and, excuse me, somewhat threadbare garments.”

“Oh! as to that, old man, I’ve got tin enough to buy a noo rig out, but I’m in no hurry.”

He glanced unintentionally at his bag as he spoke, and the seedy man glanced at it too—intentionally. Of course Stumps’s glance let the cat out of the bag!

“Come,” said the stranger, when the brandy was put before them, “drink—drink to—to the girls we left behind us.”

“I left no girl behind me,” said Stumps.

“Well then,” cried the seedy man, with irresistible good humour, “let us drink success to absent friends and confusion to our foes.”

This seemed to meet the youth’s views, for, without a word of comment, he drained his glass nearly to the bottom.

“Ha! that’s good. Nothin’ like brandy and water on a hot day.”

“Except brandy and water on a cold day, my dear,” returned the Jew—for such he was; “there is not much to choose between them. Had you not better take off your bag? it incommodes you in so narrow a seat. Let me help—No?”

“You let alone my hag,” growled Stumps angrily, with a sudden clutch at it.

“Waiter! bring a light. My cigar is out,” said the Jew, affecting not to observe Stumps’s tone or manner. “It is strange,” he went on, “how, sometimes, you find a bad cigar—a very bad cigar—in the midst of good ones. Yours is going well, I think.”

“Well enough,” answered Stumps, taking another pull at the brandy and water.

The seedy man now launched out into a pleasant light discourse about Bombay and its ways, which highly interested his poor victim. He made no further allusion to the bag, Stumps’s behaviour having betrayed all he required to know, namely, that its contents were valuable.

Soon the brandy began to take effect on Stumps, and, as he was unaccustomed to such potent drink besides being unused to self-restraint, he would speedily have made himself a fit subject for the care of the police, which would not have suited his new friend at all. When, therefore, Stumps put out his hand to grasp his tumbler for another draught, his anxious friend inadvertently knocked it over, and then begged his pardon profusely. Before Stumps could decide whether to call for another glass at the risk of having to pay for it himself, the Jew pointed to a tall, sallow-faced man who sat in a corner smoking and reading a newspaper.

“Do you see him!” he asked, in a low mysterious whisper.

“Yes; who is he? what about him?” asked the youth in a similar whisper.

“He’s an opium-smoker.”

“Is he?” said Stumps with a vacant stare. “What’s that?”

Upon this text the seedy man delivered a discourse on the pleasures of opium-smoking, which quite roused the interest and curiosity of his hearer.

“But is it so very nice to smoke opium?” he asked, after listening for some time.

“Nice, my dear? I should think it is—very nice, but very wrong—oh! very wrong. Perhaps we ought not even to speak about it.”

“Nonsense!” said the now half-tipsy lad with an air of determination. “I should like to try it. Come, you know where I could have a pipe. Let’s go.”

“Not for worlds,” said the man with a look of remonstrance.

“Oh, yes you will,” returned Stumps, rising.

“Well, you are a wilful man, and if you will I suppose you must,” said the Jew.

He rose with apparent reluctance, paid the reckoning, and led his miserable victim into one of the numerous dens of iniquity which exist in the lowest parts of that city. There he furnished the lad with a pipe of opium, and, while he was in the state of semi-stupor resulting therefrom, removed his bag of treasure, which he found, to his delight, contained a far richer prize than he had anticipated, despite the quantity of trash with which it was partly filled.

Having secured this, he waited until Stumps had partially recovered, and then led him into one of the most crowded thoroughfares.

“Now, my boy,” he said affectionately, “I think you are much better. You can walk alone.”

“I should think I could,” he replied, indignantly shaking off the man’s grasp. “Wh–what d’ee take me for?”

He drew his hand across his eyes, as if to clear away the cloud that still oppressed him, and stared sternly before him, then he stared, less sternly, on either side, then he wheeled round and stared anxiously behind him. Then clapping his left hand quickly to his side, he became conscious that his bag was gone, and that his late friend had taken an abrupt departure without bidding him farewell.