One Maid's Mischief

But for her costume, the Inche Maida would have passed very well for a dark Englishwoman, and she chatted on for a time about the Resident’s flowers and her own; about her visits to the English ladies at the station; and the various European luxuries that she kept adding to her home some twenty miles up the river, where she had quite a palm-tree palace and a goodly retinue of slaves.

Both Mr Harley and Hilton knew that there was some special object in the lady’s visit; but that was scrupulously kept in the background, while coffee and liqueurs were handed round, the visitors partaking freely of these and the sweetmeats and cakes kept by the Resident for the gratification of his native friends.

“It is nearly a year since you have been to see me Mr Harley,” said the lady at last. “When will you come again?”

“I shall be only too glad to come and see you,” said the Resident, “I have not forgotten the pleasure of my last journey to your home.”

“And you will come too?” said the Princess quickly; and she turned her great dark eyes upon Hilton, gazing at him fixedly the while.

“I – er – really I hardly think I can leave.”

“You will not come?” she cried, with an impetuous jerk of the head. “You think I am a savage, and you despise my ways. Mr Harley will tell you I have tried for years to learn your English customs and to speak your language. It is not fair.”

“Indeed,” cried Hilton, eager to make up for what the visitor evidently considered a slight, “I only hesitated on the score of duty.”

“You would not care to come,” she said, with the injured look of a spoiled child.

“Indeed I should,” exclaimed Hilton, “and I will come.”

“You will come?” she cried, with her dark eyes flashing.

“Yes, indeed I will.”

She leaned towards him, speaking eagerly:

“I am glad. I like you English. You shall hunt and shoot. There are tigers, and I have elephants. My slaves shall find game, and you shall have my boat to fetch you.”

Dark as her skin was, the Resident noticed the red blood mantling beneath it in her cheeks as she spoke eagerly, fixing her eyes upon Hilton as she spoke, and then lowering the lids in a dreamy, thoughtful way.

“Then you will both come?” she said.

“Yes, I promise for both; but we cannot leave the station together,” said Mr Harley.

“It is well,” she said, smiling; “and you too, lieutenant – you will come and see me? You like to shoot. All Englishmen like to shoot.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll come,” said Chumbley, with his slow, heavy drawl. “I think it would be rather jolly. Yes, I’ll come.”

She nodded and smiled at him once more, as if he amused her; and Harley noticed that she glanced at Chumbley again and again as the conversation went on, looking at him as if he were some fine kind of animal she thought it would be well to buy at the first opportunity.

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