“What! I? Pooh, boy! I was alluding to the uncertainty of our position here.”
“Oh! Oh, I see, sir. That’s all right enough. Here’s Sir Charles with a strong detachment of British infantry under his command, and the native chiefs are bound to respect him.”
“Tremendous!” said the Doctor, with a snort. “A couple of hundred men!”
“Three, sir.”
“Three indeed! What about the men on the sick-list, and the non-combatants that have to be counted in every squad? Why, if that fellow Suleiman turned nasty, where should we be, out here in the depths of this jungle?”
“Oh, there’s no occasion to fear anything of that sort, sir.”
“What! Not for a boy like you, Archie Maine, with a suit or two of clothes, a razor, and hair-brush. You put on your cap, and you cover all your responsibilities. What about the women, high and low, that we have to look after?”
“Oh, they’d be all right, sir.”
“Would they?”
“I say, Doctor, don’t talk like that. You don’t think that we have anything to fear?”
“I don’t know.—Well, fear? No, I suppose I mustn’t mention such a thing as fear; but we are hundreds of miles away from Singapore and help.”
“Oh no, sir. There’s the river. It wouldn’t take long for the gunboat to bring up reinforcements and supplies; and then, even if Mr. Sultan Suleiman turned against us—which isn’t likely—”
“I don’t know,” growled the Doctor.
“Well, sir, I think I do,” said Archie, rather importantly. “Why, if he did, there’s our friend the Rajah Hamet. He would be on our side.”
“Ah, that I don’t know,” said the Doctor again; and he tapped the table with his nails. “This is all in confidence, boy. I don’t think Sir Charles has much faith in that young gentleman. But still, that’s the way that our Government worked things in India.”
“I don’t quite understand you.”
“Read up your history, then, my boy. Our position in India has been made by the jealousies of the different princes and our political folks working them one against another. But there, you didn’t come here to chatter politics. What is it? You have got something more to say to me, haven’t you?”
“Well—er—yes, sir,” hesitated the lad.
“Out with it, boy. Never play with your medical man. No half-confidences. I can pretty well read you, Archie, so out with it frankly.”
“Well, sir, I did half make up my mind to speak to you, and came this morning on purpose; and then as soon as I saw you I felt that it was foolish—a sort of fancy of mine.”
“Well, go on; let me judge. You have got something the matter with you?”
“That’s what I don’t quite know, sir,” said the young man, who was now scarlet.
“Well, don’t shilly-shally. Let me judge. Is it some bodily ailment?”
“No, sir.”
“Glad of it. What is it, then? It can’t be money.”
“Oh no, sir.”
“Of course not. No temptations here to spend. Then you have got into some big scrape?”
“I am always getting into scrapes, sir.”
“Yes; and the Major had you up to give you a wigging, as you call it, only yesterday.”
“How did you know that, sir?” cried the lad excitedly.
“The Doctor knows pretty well everything about people, and what he doesn’t know for himself his women find out for him. Now then, what is it?”
“I am afraid you will laugh at me, sir.”
“I promise you I shall not.”
“Thank you, sir; that’s encouraging.”
“To the point, boy—to the point.”
Archie Maine drew a deep breath as if to pull himself together, and then as he met the Doctor’s searching eyes they seemed to draw out of him that which he wished to say.
“I am afraid, Doctor,” he said excitedly, “that I have got something wrong with my head.”
“Why? Pain you? Feeling of confusion?”
The lad shook the part of his person mentioned.
“Dizziness?”
“Oh no, sir; nothing of that sort.”
“Well, go on. A doctor isn’t a magician. Have you got a bad tooth? You must tell him which one to attack with his key preliminary to the scraunch.”
“Oh, you are laughing at me, Doctor.”
“Only smiling, my dear boy.”
“I don’t see anything to laugh at, sir, because it is a serious thing to me.”
“Good lad. I smiled because I felt happy over you since it didn’t seem to be anything serious.”
“But it is serious, sir.”
“Let’s hear. You say you have got something wrong with your head?”
“Well, I suppose it is my head, sir. But you know I am always getting into some trouble or another.”
“Exactly. You are notorious for your boyish pranks.”
“Yes, sir; and I want to get the better of it. It’s as the Major said: the troubles I get into are boys’ troubles, and not suitable to a young man.”
“The Major’s wise, Archie. Then why don’t you put off all your boyish mischief and remember that you are now pretty well a man grown, and, as one of our lads would say in his cockney lingo, ‘act as sich?’ ”
“Because I can’t, Doctor,” said the lad earnestly. “I want to act as a man. I’m six feet two, and I shave regularly.”
“Humph!” grunted the Doctor, who had to make an effort to keep his countenance.
“And whenever I get into trouble I make a vow that I’ll never do such a childish, schoolboyish thing again; but it’s no use, for before many days have passed, something tempts me, and I find myself doing more foolish things than ever. Can it be that there is some screw loose in my head?”
The Doctor sat looking earnestly in the lad’s agitated countenance, for his brow was one tangle of deeply marked wrinkles.
“I think sometimes I must be going mad, or at all events growing into an idiot, and you can’t think how wretched and despairing it makes me. Do you think medicine—tonic or anything of that sort—would do me good?”
The Doctor gazed at the lad fixedly till he could bear it no longer, and he was about to speak again, when the adviser uttered a loud expiration of the breath, jumping up at the same time and clapping his hands heavily on his visitor’s shoulders.
“No, my lad, I don’t,” he cried boisterously. “You are sound as a bell, strong as a young horse. Why, you ought to be proud of yourself instead of fidgeting with a lot of morbid fancies. You have been for years and years a boy, fresh—larky, as you would say—full of mischief, as I was myself—”
“You, Doctor! Impossible!”
“What! Ha, ha! Why, Archie Maine, I have watched you pretty thoroughly since we have been friends, noted your pranks, and seen