Jungle and Stream: or, The Adventures of Two Boys in Siam

It was very dreadful, and they shook their heads more and more, and there were talks about its being a sacred duty to kill such a vile being, and make the second king the first; but so far it had all been talk, for changes are a long time coming about among such people as these.

Then, too, for a long time Mr. Kenyon, this foreigner of the barbarians who came from the far West, was looked upon with sinister eyes, for was he not a favourite with the King, helping him to prepare his magic and his terrible poisons?

But as no one died, and no one seemed to be any the worse for the King's magic, and above all as the great people of the country found that Mr. Kenyon was a very pleasant gentleman, who paid great respect to them and all their institutions, it was settled that he should not be stabbed with krises – unless he behaved worse or did some real harm.

He did offend soon after, for upon settling down he was favoured by the King with a grant of land on the banks of the river, this being looked upon as a great offence, land in such a position having heretofore been reserved for the sole benefit of the great nobles of the land and the priesthood, for their large monastic institutions – great walled-in enclosures of some fifteen or twenty acres, covered with the temples, shrines, and conventual dwelling-places of the talapoins or bonzes, as they were called, and easily enough to distinguish by their closely shaven heads and long, yellow robes. Ordinary people and the poor had to live, according to law, in house-boats, with which the rivers, canals, and backwaters were covered. These waterways were the highways – there were no proper roads – and were thronged with dwelling-places large and small, warehouses, shops, and places of entertainment, all built upon bamboo rafts and moored to the banks, forming a beautifully healthy, populous city, for the tide from the sea swept to and fro, clearing it from all impurities day and night.

That grant of land gave great offence, for who was this strange barbarian who had come among them with his little curly-haired boy and a servant, that he should be treated as if he were a noble lord of the land? And once more Mr. Kenyon's position seemed to be precarious, for the King's favour went farther towards his new English friend and student. For native workmen and material were supplied in abundance, the orders given to the men being that they should build the place, dwelling and warehouses, in accordance with Mr. Kenyon's design.

All this proved a great gain to both, for while Mr. Kenyon prospered wonderfully in his trading ventures, and had ample opportunity for collecting the strange products of the country in connection with his favourite study, the King found his revenues increase and his capital become more enlightened by the introduction of Europeans, who were attracted there through finding that they were protected, treated with respect, and encouraged to trade.

This was forgiven, and all went well till the doctor came, when the native medicos grew alarmed and threatening, for this Englishman, or Scotchman, knew better than they.

As the years went on the friendship grew firmer, and the King gladly seized the opportunity of letting his son share young Kenyon's studies, for his desire was that his boy should become an enlightened ruler, who would carry on his plans for the improvement of the country over which in all probability he would some day reign.

Mr. Kenyon, who was a highly cultivated man, gratefully entered into the King's plans and invited a clever university man from Oxford to come out and act as tutor to the two boys, with the result that the young Prince Phra passed a good half of his existence with Harry at the bungalow, sharing his studies and amusements, while Harry was always as welcome a guest as his father at the palace, having only to express a wish to have it gratified, whether his want took the form of books, fishing tackle, guns, men, elephants or boats for some expedition in jungle or open stream.

Harry's chum was a prince, and to all intents and purposes Harry led the life of a king's son himself, though he did not realize the fact, everything coming quite as a matter of course. His chief trouble had to do with the climate, which was, as he told Phra, "so jolly hot."

Phra replied sadly that he could not help it.

"No," said Harry thoughtfully, "you can't help it; but it's jolly hot all the same."

CHAPTER X

WHAT HARRY HEARD

No more was heard of the tiger, but the boys laughed and talked about it together, for they could not help enjoying the ill-luck which had attended those who went in its chase.

"I know how it is," said Harry, with mock seriousness; "the tiger heard who was coming to shoot him, and he went, off to wait until Prince Phra had grown up old enough to go tiger-hunting in proper style."

"Yes, that's it," said Phra drily. "But you may as well say how you know. The tiger came and told you, I suppose."

"Oh, never mind that," said Harry. "I wish you wouldn't talk about it.

I say, when's that chest coming from London?"

"Don't know; some day," said Phra.

It was pretty well on to half a year from the time of the order being given to the day when the big chest was delivered at the palace, being brought up by one of the royal barges, with its many rowers in scarlet jackets, from the vessel lying at the mouth of the river, right up to the stone landing-place in front of the palace, from which it was borne, attached to a couple of great bamboos, by a dozen men, preceded and followed by guards bearing spears.

"Such a jolly fuss," said Harry, frowning. "Why, you and I could have each taken hold of an end and carried it up to our house and opened it there."

"Well, no," said Phra; "you see, it is my father's, and he is King, and it is only proper for the box to be brought up like this."

"Is it?" said Harry contemptuously. "All right, only I thought the box was for us."

"So it is," said Phra; "but father has not given it to us yet."

"Oh, all right, only it does seem so stupid; and if a lot of English boys could see, I daresay they'd laugh like fun."

"If one of them laughed at my father he'd repent it," said Phra hotly.

"Tchah! They wouldn't laugh at your father. I should like to catch 'em at it! I should have something to say then."

Phra caught his friend warmly by the arm, and his eyes brightened.

"They might, though," said Harry solemnly, "if they saw him sitting under that big umbrella, with his silk padung on, looking like an old woman in a petticoat."

"That he doesn't," said Phra warmly; "and I'm sure a padung is a much more comfortable thing out here in a hot country than a pair of trousers."

"Oh, I don't know," said Harry; "but it is jolly hot."

"You don't know, because you have only put one on just for fun; but I often feel disposed to give up wearing trousers, and to go back to a padung again."

"What, go back to being a barbarian?" cried Harry. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Well, I'm not," said Phra warmly. "It's much cooler, and more pleasant."

"Oh, you savage! You'd better say it's cooler to go without anything at all."

"So it is – in the shade," replied Phra.

"Well, I am!" cried Harry. "After all the trouble father, Dr. Cameron, and your most humble and obedient servant have taken to make a civilized being of you, to talk like that!"

"Civilized being! pooh! I should have been a civilized being without your help."

"Not you. To begin with, you wouldn't have worn trousers, and wearing trousers means everything. A man who wears trousers stands at the very top of civilization. A man who doesn't wear them is a savage."

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Phra. "I should like Mr. Cameron to hear you say that he was a savage."

"Who ever would say so? Mr. Cameron is – is – well, he's a tip-topper in everything."

"But he doesn't wear trousers when he goes with us shooting. He always wears his war petticoat then."

"Wears his what?" cried Harry wonderingly.

"That grey fighting petticoat. His kill it."

"Kill it? Kilt!" cried Harry. "Oh, what a rum chap you are sometimes, Phra! But that's only the old savage dress of the Highlanders. Hardly anybody but soldiers wears that now."

"Kill – kill it – kilt," said Phra thoughtfully. "What had you got to laugh at? Why, it does mean a war petticoat."

"All right; have it your own way," said Harry, who was watching the last of the guard following the box into the courtyard.

"But I don't want to have it my own way if I'm wrong," said Phra. "I want to be right."

"Very well. You are wrong there, lad."

"Why do they call it a kilt, then?" said Phra.

"Because it is a kilt, I suppose. Because – because – there, I don't know. We'll ask the doctor. But, I say, I didn't mean any harm about laughing at the King. I wouldn't, and I wouldn't let any one else laugh at him. He's such a good old chap; but he does look rum sometimes."

"Well, I know that," said Phra hurriedly. "And I don't like it, Hal, and I wish he would do as English gentlemen do; but he can't altogether."

"Why?"

"Because he's king, and the people wouldn't like it. The priests don't like a great deal that he does now, and they talk about it to the common people. They make them believe that my father is fighting against them and doing them harm."

"If I were your father, and they talked against me, I'd pitch them all into the river."

"No, you wouldn't, Hal. But hadn't we better go up to the door and see the chest opened?"

"Yes, come on," cried Harry eagerly, and they followed the guard, going by sentries armed with spear and kris, who smiled solemnly at the two boys, and made way for them with every show of respect.

They crossed the courtyard, which partook more of the nature of a garden, and looked particularly attractive, with its quaint, highly-pitched, gable-ended buildings around. But Harry had seen the place too often to pay any heed to the beautiful architecture, and he was all eyes for a little procession issuing from the principal doorway, consisting of the King, a quiet, grave-looking, grey-haired man, in silken jacket and sarong, and a number of his chief men, while the royal umbrella was held over his head.

The chest, one of ordinary deal, nailed down, strengthened with a couple of bands of hoop-iron, and directed in painted black letters, had been placed in front of the entrance, and ten spearmen stood in a row on each side, when the two boys, in obedience to a sign from the King, went up, each receiving a smile and a nod.

"Here is the new present," he said, smiling. "Take it, and see if everything is as you wished it to be; and I hope it will give you both much pleasure."

He spoke in very good English, and smilingly accepted the boys' thanks, before gravely turning and going back in procession to the main entrance to the palace; while, as soon as they were alone, Phra sent one of the guards to fetch a couple of artificers to bring hammers and chisels to open the chest.

"I don't believe a box ever had so much fuss made over it before," said Harry, laughing. "The things ought to be all right. I say, Phra, I hope nothing's broken."

"Oh, don't say that!"

"The big clock that came from England was. They're wretches, those sailors, for pitching packages about on board ship."

"They ought not to be allowed to be so rough," replied Phra. "My father would not permit them to be careless."

"Ah, but your father's one of the kings of Siam. We English people aren't allowed to slice people's heads off because they do as they like. I say, though, suppose they're burst."

"Burst! oh, I say, don't," cried Phra. "I've been looking forward to these things coming, so that we could play English games, and it would be horrible if we had to wait another six months."

"Perhaps they'll be all right," said Harry, in consolatory tones; "but that corner of the box has had a great bang, and the lid's split in two places, just as if it had been thrown down on the stones of a wharf."

"It says, 'With care. Keep this side up,'" said Phra.

"Oh yes; that's why they knock it about so, I suppose," replied Harry, laughing. "The sailors know their heads won't be chopped off."

"Here are the men," said Phra, as a couple of workmen came up, prostrated themselves, and then cleverly attacked the nails in the box, clumsy-looking as their tools were, removing the iron bands, wrenching up the lid and taking it off, while the guards and attendants stood stolidly looking on.

The removal of the lid revealed a quantity of paper shavings packed round sundry brown paper parcels, while one end of the chest was occupied by half a dozen pasteboard boxes, one of which was immediately opened, to reveal the neatly-sewn and laced leather cover of a football.

"What's that for?" said Phra. "Yes, I know; a football."

"Yes. You have first kick. I'll throw it down, and you run and kick it, just as you saw in our book of sports."

"I could not with the guard looking on," said Phra.

"I could," said Harry. "English fellows can do anything. Here goes."

He threw the ball down heavily, making it rebound, and then as it repeated its rebounds he rushed at it, and, although he had never done such a thing before, gave it a flying kick which sent it high in the air, but only to come down and bounce into the fountain basin in the middle of the courtyard.

"Wonderful!" the spectators seemed to say, as they looked solemnly at one another.

"Oh, I didn't mean that," cried Harry, rushing after the ball, followed by his companion, who walked sedately up just as Harry had shouted to one of the guard to come.

"Here," he said in Siamese, "fish out that ball."

The man smiled, reached out over the basin, and in another moment would have transfixed the football on his keenly-pointed lance.

But Harry was too quick for him, and gave the lance shaft a thrust.

"Not like that," he cried; "you'd kill it – let all its wind out. This way."

He showed the man how to guide the ball to the side with his spear, and then picked it up all dripping, to place it in the sun to dry.

"I say, Phra," he said, as he paused to wipe his wet face; "I'm afraid football's going to be rather a hot game out here."

"The book said it was played in winter," said Phra.

"Yes, but then we haven't got any winter here, so we must play it any time we can. But it is going to be rather a warm sort of game. Never mind; we've got the balls – six of them."

"But you don't want six."

"Yes, you do," cried Harry. "Some will burst; some will get kicked over into some one else's place and lost perhaps. But I say, we must learn to play, as we have got the balls."

"Come and finish opening the box," said Phra.

"'Tis opened. Why don't you say unpacking?"

"Because I am not so full of English as you are," replied Phra, with a sigh; and they bent over the chest and went on taking out its treasures: bats, stumps, bails, pads and gloves, all carefully done up in brown paper, while a whole dozen of best cricket balls were in as many little boxes.

"Seem to be making a pretty good mess with all these shavings," said Harry, raising himself up with a sigh of relief that the box was at last emptied.

"The people shall clear all away soon," replied Phra, glancing at the stolid-looking guards, who were gazing wonderingly at the new form of war club with handle bound with black string, and at the short, sharp-pointed spears which seemed to be a clumsy kind of javelin. "But this cricket seems as if it would be a very hot game to play."

"Oh, I don't know," said Harry carelessly. "Of course I've never played, but I know all about it. If you come to that, so do you."

"Yes," said Phra thoughtfully, "but I'm afraid I shall not like a game where one has to get so many runs. It will be terribly hot work."

"But you only get a great many runs if you can."

"Then it will be much cooler and pleasanter if you can't get any," said Phra. "I say, Harry, couldn't we alter the game?"

"I don't know. I daresay we could."

"Let's do the batting ourselves, and make the people bowl and run after the balls."

"And always be in?" said Harry. "Well, that wouldn't be bad. But I say, where are we to play?"

"I should like it to be right away somewhere," said Phra. "It would not be pleasant for us to be running and tearing about with our people looking on and making remarks about our getting so hot."

"Never mind about the cricket to-day," said Harry. "You want a lot of fellows to play that – twenty besides ourselves; but we could have a game of football."

"Very well; let's play football, then. I'll have all these things taken into my room. Only let's get right away. I don't care about playing here."

"Why not? It will be a capital place if we take care not to kick the ball into the fountain."

"I don't like playing here, with all the men looking on. It seems so silly to be running after a ball and kicking it, as if you were cross with it for being on the ground."

"I never thought of that," said Harry. "But let's see: why do we kick it? I wish we'd been the same as other boys."

"Well, so we are, only you were born in India, and I was born here."

"I don't mean that," cried Harry. "I mean the same as other English boys are. They go to big schools where they learn all sorts of games when they're half as big as we are. But let's see; we want to know why everything is. Why do we kick the football?"

"To make it bounce, of course."

"That isn't all. We kick it to make it fly through the air."

"For exercise," said Phra.

"That's something to do with it, I suppose; but there's something else. It's to try who's best man. Don't you see?"

"No," said Phra; "I only know that we've got to learn to play football and cricket."

"Never mind about cricket now; let's get to play football first."

"But we don't know anything about it," said Phra, "and it seems so stupid. Let's ask Mr. Cameron to show us how."

"That we just won't," cried Harry. "He'd only laugh at us. 'What!' he'd say, 'don't know how to play football? Why, I thought every boy could play that.'"

"I don't like to be laughed at," said Phra.

"Of course you don't. I don't either. That's the worse of people too. Just because they know something that you don't know, they think themselves so awfully clever, and laugh at you because you don't know the same as they do."

"Well, how do we play? Do you know?"

"I know something about it. You make sides, because it's going to be a fight."

"Then it's a cowardly game," cried Phra.

"Why?" said Harry in astonishment.

"Because in a fight you ought to use your fists; you taught me so; and this is all kicking."

"Oh, what a chap you are, Phra! If I didn't know what a straightforward one you were, I should think you were making fun. Can't you see this is not a fighting fight, but a fight in fun – to see who's to get the best of it?"

"So's a fighting fight," said Phra.

"Yes, but this is play. There ought to be a lot of fellows on each side, but I don't see why two can't have a game. I'm sure they'll get more kicking. Now we're going to play; I'm against you, and you're against me."

"I see; I'm against you, and you're against me. Well?"

"We begin out in the middle of a place, with the ball between us. I've got to kick it to the hedge on your side, and you've got to prevent me. You've got to kick it to the hedge on my side, and I've got to prevent you. That's easy enough to understand, isn't it?"

"Oh yes, I understand that; but I shan't play here."

"Why?"

"Because we're sure to fall out over it and fight, and I don't want our guards to see me and you fighting."

"Oh, we shouldn't be so stupid."

"I don't know whether it's stupid, but I know how you are when you get hurt a bit, Hal. No, I shan't play here."

"Very well, come on home with me. There's plenty of room at the bottom of the garden, and there'll be no one to see us there except Mike, and I'll take care he is sent somewhere else."

"That will do," said Phra. "How many balls shall we want?"

"Only one, of course."

"Why not have two?" said Phra. "One apiece; then we shouldn't fall out."

"And we shouldn't be playing at football. This ball will do. Come on."

Phra made no further opposition, but he hazarded the remark that it was rather hot to play.

"Yes, this is the hottest place I was ever in," said Harry. "There couldn't be any place hotter. But come along; English boys don't study about its being hot or cold when they want to do anything. I'm glad Doctor Cameron is nowhere near. He'd be interfering and dictating about the game directly. That's the worst of him, he knows so much. It will be much nicer for us to learn how to play well before he sees us at it, and then we shall know as much as he does."

The boys trudged off, with the sun shining down upon them as it can shine down in Siam. It was somewhere about a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, and it may readily be set down as being a hundred and twenty in the sun; so that Harry was quite right in his remarks about Dr. Cameron, for if he had been present he most assuredly would have interfered to the extent of making them put the football away, and ordering them into the shade.

But there was no one to interfere, as they trudged on, and entered by the gate of the bungalow, finding all very quiet till they got around to the back, where a peculiar noise came through the open jalousies of one window, making Harry step forward on tip-toe till he could look in.

This done, he stepped cautiously back to his companion.

"Only Mike," he whispered. "Lying on his back fast asleep, and snoring like a young thunderstorm in the distance. Come along; we shall have it all to ourselves."

"Where's your father?"

"Gone down to the port in a boat, to see the captain of one of the ships."

Five minutes later they were in a good-sized field, well hedged in with native growth, and displaying a very respectable lawn-like greensward, one which had cost Mr. Kenyon years of trouble to get something like an English meadow.

It was a capital place, and having settled which were to be the goals – though Harry did not call them so – they walked into the middle of the enclosure to make a start.

"Now," said Harry, "of course we don't know exactly how to begin, but – "

"Why didn't we read what it said in the book?" said Phra.

"What book?"

"The one that came in the chest."

"I didn't see any book in the chest."

"I did: The Book of Games; it was at the top, wrapped up in paper, and I sent it into my room so as to be safe."

"Well, you are a fellow!" cried Harry. "Never mind; we'll read all through it to-night. Let's begin our way to-day. There lies the ball, and we must start fair. I'll say one – two – three, and away! and then we must kick."

The boys stood face to face with the ball between them, and so close that their toes nearly touched it.

"Ready?" said Harry.

"Yes."

"Then one – two – three – and away!"

Phra was quick as lightning almost, and at the word away! he kicked at the ball; but Harry, instead of kicking, thrust it a little on one side so as to get a kick to himself, and he got it, right on the shin.

"Oh!" he cried, beginning to hop on one leg, while Phra sent the ball flying towards his goal, and ran after it at full speed.

"Hi! stop! stop! stop!" shouted Harry.

But Phra was too much excited to halt. He was finding a certain amount of satisfaction in delivering kick after kick to the yielding ball, which, in spite of a long voyage, proved to be wonderfully elastic, and flew here, there, and everywhere, except in the direction of the goal. For Phra's kicks were wanting in experience. He kicked too high, or too low, or out of centre; and the consequence was that he had a great deal of exercise, before a final kick sent the ball up to the hedge which formed one goal.

He turned round now, streaming with perspiration and flushed with triumph, to find that Harry had been limping and panting after him, to come up now, hot and angry.

"I've won," cried Phra. "What a capital game!"

"You've won!" grumbled Harry. "Of course you have. Any one could win who didn't play fair. But it wasn't playing."

"Why, what's the matter?" said Phra, staring.