CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SERANG.
The inn stood midway in one side of the village green, which was alreadysurrounded with walking groups as well as stationary ranks awaitingpatiently the opening of the game. For Ecclesthorpe had a name in itscounty, owning two families of hereditary professionals, as well as alord of the manor, who, before the war, had kept wicket in three TestMatches, while the workman's club from Millsborough, captained this yearby Dixon Mallaby, a 'Varsity Blue, had already a quarter of a century'srepute of being hard to beat. So from far and wide those who had notgone to Timsdale-Horton races came always on the third Saturday in Juneto the "Ecclesthorpe Fixture."
As he brought his horses to a stand, Dick perceived that, while somenotice was given to the oddity of his team, scarce a glance was bestowedon its unusual driver. The visiting eleven were the objects of interestto the straggling crowd in front of "The George."
When he had helped Amaryllis down from her perch, he lit a fresh gasperfrom the yellow packet, and methodically assisted the ostler to unhitchthe horses; but just as the leader stepped free, a smart motor, comingfrom the south-west, hooted impatiently for space to reach the door ofthe inn.
The ostler, leaving Dick with his detached horses, hurried bandily toshift a farmer's gig, drawn up and abandoned in front of the porch.
Dick caught one glimpse of the car's driver, and took his wheelers bytheir bridles.
"Hey, lass!" he said. "Move tha legs a bit, now, an' lead Tod intostaable."
By his tone she knew something evil was near, and obeyed with never alook round, but disappeared with Tod into the stable-yard, Dickfollowing with his pair.
They found empty stalls, unbridled and haltered the horses without aword, and, just as Dick had found the few he must say to her, there wasthe ostler in the doorway.
"You be more helpin' like," he said, "'n owd Ned Blossom. I thank 'eekind, I do--and you, miss."
"Ah'll thank 'ee, owd hoss, to pass no word agen Ned Blossom. My friend'e be."
Then, to the vast surprise of Bandy-legs, Dick pushed a half-crown intohis hand, and added, pleasantly as you please:
"Give nags feed an' rub down. And, when Ned comes rolling along to trot'em home, tell 'im Sam Bunce won't forget Town Moor and Challacombe'sLeger."
Crossing the stable-yard with Amaryllis, "Don't walk like that--bit moreflat-footed, but don't clown it," said Dick. "And don't turn your facetowards the door of the inn--mind. Know why I made you lead Tod?"
The girl's face seemed shrunken, and shone white in the bluish shade ofher bonnet.
"There was a car," she stammered softly. "I didn't look. Was it----"
"Looked like Melchard driving," answered Dick. "I'd half a mind to takeyou out into the lane at the back. But it's safest amongst the crowd.And I must know whether----"
The crowd had grown dense before the open gates of the stable-yard, andDick's words were interrupted by the sudden outbreak of a quarrel in theheart of it.
To a running chorus of jeers, expostulation, and fierce incentives toretaliation, there came in sight, pushing his way through the crush, acreature whose appearance immediately struck Dick and Amaryllis asominous of danger.
The man, although of middle height and erect carriage, had so vast aspread and depth of chest, development of the deltoid muscles sounusual, and length of arm so unnatural as to establish the effect atonce of power and deformity; to which the yellow skin, high cheek-bones,small eyes, and the thin black moustaches, drooping long andperpendicular from each corner of the broken-toothed mouth, added anexpression of cruelty so unmitigated that Amaryllis turned sick at thesight, closing her eyes in dreadful disgust; while the European leatherand cloth costume of a chauffeur not only added horror to the outlandishfigure, but gave Dick Bellamy almost the certainty that here was yetanother accomplice of Alban Melchard.
As the monster drew near, making his way savagely towards the stables,there thrust himself in the way Bob Woodfall, the good-natured championof the village--six feet two inches and fourteen stone of bone andmuscle, good cricket and five years' war record, dressed in country-madeflannels, ready for his place in the Ecclesthorpe team.
"Hey, man!" he cried good-naturedly. "Be no manner o' sense bargin'thro' decent throng like a blasty tank into half battalion o' lousyJerrys."
Then, quite close, the Malay turned his face full on Amaryllis, and Dicksaw that its right ear had a large gold ring hanging from a hole in thelobe--a hole that was stretched by the mere weight of the metal to threetimes the size of its thickness.
But on the left side of the head was no ring to match, for the reasonthat no ear was there to support it. In some unclean strife in Hong-Kongor Zanzibar it had been torn away, leaving, to mark its place, only theorifice in the head, staring in ghastly isolation most horrible of all.
Amaryllis saw the face again, this time in its full lopsidedmonstrosity, and turned to Dick, clutching him and hiding her eyesagainst his shoulder.
Hearing her gasp, a woman in the crowd cried out:
"Howd t' heathen! He flays t' lasses, and he'll curd t' milk."
"Gi' 'im a flap on jaw, Bob Woodfall," cried a youth. "One's all '_e_'lltake."
It was. Bob, perhaps, was too kindly to put his full weight into theblow, and got no chance for a second.
With a savage cry, between a grunt and a squeal, the Malay ran in,clutching with his great horny sailor's hands. Too quickly for any eyebut Dick's to see how it was done, he had Bob Woodfall by the nape ofthe neck and the band of his trousers and lifted the long body highabove the crowd at full-length of his terrible arms, brandishing ithelpless, like some Mongolian Hercules a Norse Antaeus; took three stepsto the stone wall of the stable-yard, and would have flung the villagehero over it to break upon the cobble-stones, but for a gloved hand laidupon his shoulder, and a soft, high-pitched voice, saying: "_Taroh, planplan, Mut-mut_!"
And the monster obeyed the voice and touch of his master, restoringWoodfall to his feet with a docility that made him, if possible, morehateful to the crowd than before.
"_Akau baleh_," continued Melchard. "_Dan nante sana_."
And Mut-mut, the crowd yielding passage, made his way to the car, andsat at the wheel.
Arrived at the gates of the stable-yard almost simultaneously withMelchard, was Dixon Mallaby; and Dick observed not only that there wasacquaintance between them, but also that, while the parson enduredrecognition, Melchard sought it.
"I'm ashamed of that fellow of mine," he said. "Yet I cannot help beingattached to the ruffian. He would die to serve me; but the ribaldry ofan English crowd is too much for his temperament."
"If you don't want him to die without serving you, Mr. Melchard,"replied the parson, "I should advise you to keep him in better control."
"Ah, well! I owe him so much already, you see. The strange fellow savedmy life in the Persian Gulf. Serang--boat's swain, you know, to theLascar crew. Sharks in the water--horrible!"
The parson thought that even in this the serang had done the world poorservice.
Having delicately wiped his face with a ladylike handkerchief in memoryof his danger and gratitude, Melchard tried again.
"I saw you arrive with your quaint team, sir," he said; "the unicorn, Imean, not the eleven."
But the parson allowed no outsider to poke fun at the St. Asaph'scricket club.
"Handled his horses in fine style, your driver. Why!" exclaimedMelchard, as if noticing Dick and Amaryllis with her head on hisshoulder for the first time, "there he is--and pleasantly occupied. Imean the fellow with the girl in his arms, and the cut on his face. Iwonder how he got it."
Amaryllis heard the voice and the words, and, to keep her breath fromgasping and her body from trembling, she caught and ground between herteeth a wrinkle of Dick's coat.
Melchard, she felt, had taken a step towards her.
"I don't know how he got it," the clergyman was saying. "But somethingpainful, I understand, happened to the other man. The girl is hisdaughter, recoveri
ng from an illness."
Melchard took another step towards the couple.
"Better let well alone, Mr. Melchard," said Dixon Mallaby sternly. "Yourservant has already made trouble enough."
Throughout these few strained moments Dick had borne himself as a manconcerned only with his daughter. But at this moment Dixon Mallabycaught a gleam from his eyes which assured him that the leastfamiliarity or impertinence of Melchard's would be resented in a mannerlikely to divert the crowd's lingering anger from Mut-mut to his master.Much as he disliked Melchard and his indefinitely unpleasant reputation,he was not going to have his match spoiled by the beating and kicking toa jelly of a scented and dandified Millsborough dentist.
So, ignoring Melchard, he went up to Sam Bunce.
"I am afraid your daughter is hardly as strong as you thought, Mr.Bunce," he said.
Melchard, with a finicking air of nonchalance, stood where he was left,lighting a cigarette.
"'Tis nowt but she's frit with that flay-boggart of a Chinaman," saidDick, "wi'out it be she trembles lest 'er daddy gets fightin' agen.There, then, little lass," he said, stooping to her ear, and coaxingback courage, thought the parson, with a voice extraordinarily tender."Way out o' t' crowd her vitals'll settle back to rights and she'll footit another six mile singing."
"Then you won't see our match, Mr. Bunce?"
"'T' lass knows nowt o' cricket," replied Dick. "'Mornin' seemed likeshe relished going to t' fun and press o't. But now she's feared o'seein' that blasted ogre again. So, thankin' you, sir, for your lift andyour good heart to us, we'll just foot it along o'er t' moor."
Dixon Mallaby shook hands with him; the girl, as she drew away from SamBunce's arm, bobbed the parson a curtsey. But she never turned her faceto him, and Mallaby, thoughtfully watching the pair down the road to thesouth-west, observed that she never once looked back; for even when,being almost indistinguishable among the moving crowd at the corner ofthe green, they were hailed by the ostler, toddling quickly from theyard, waving a handkerchief and crying: "Hey, Mr. Bunce, Mr. Sam'lBunce!" it was only the man who turned his head, waving his hand as ifin reply to a belated farewell.
The parson swung round in time to see Melchard snatch the handkerchieffrom the ostler's hand.
Feeling the clergyman's eyes upon him, he muttered: "Looks like one ofmine," and ran the hem quickly through his fingers, prying into thecorners.
At the third, he found a mark, and dropped the handkerchief on thestones.
"Of course not," he said, and laughed. "Stupid of me, when I hadn't beenin the stables."
Dixon Mallaby picked it up.
"Tis t'yoong wumman's," objected Bandy-legs. "Dropped un inside,stablin' t' 'osses."
But the parson put the handkerchief in his pocket.
"I am acquainted with Miss Bunce," he said. "Perhaps I shall see themagain."
With a feeling which he found unreasonable, that he had protected a goodwoman from a bad man, Mr. Dixon Mallaby went to the dressing-room in"The Royal George."
Out of Melchard's sight, he examined the handkerchief--a lady's, markedwith the embroidered initials A.C., and it struck him, once more with asense of unreason, not only that the beastly dentist had discovered thatthese letters did not stand for Araminta Bunce, but that he knew thenames which they were here intended to represent.