Chapter XIII: A Nocturnal Expedition

Professor Standen came out of Mrs. Battiscombe’s room, closing the door after him.

“Well?” inquired her husband anxiously.

The professor looked down at his hands.

“I think she’s nice and comfortable now. Her temperature’s not normal yet; but there’s been an appreciable drop since this afternoon. I’m hoping she’ll sleep till the morning. Armourer’s very kindly given up his own bed to my daughter and had it fixed up in the room. Joyce has had a good deal of nursing experience--and there’s nothing for you to worry about at all.”

He rubbed his hands together.

“Now, what about this expedition?”

Battiscombe indicated Armourer.

“Better consult the magistrate in whose area we now are. He’s in charge.”

“Oh, no,” protested his colleague. “_Seniores priores_--and all that sort of thing, you know. I cheerfully waive all territorial rights in favour of seniority--and weight!”

“That be hanged for a tale! The Commissioner said----”

“Damn the Commissioner!” remarked Armourer cheerfully. “Abu-Samar’s your bird--not mine. My men--and my own valuable assistance--are entirely at your disposal. Professor Standen would like to join us.”

“Good enough! How about you, Vance? Any stomach for nocturnal adventuring?”

The first assistant, who had been staring gloomily into the night, shifted his position on the rail.

“Oh, I’ll come. I’m not in a mood for standing about and doing nothing. Trevor’d better stop with Miss Standen. One of us must be here, in any case.”

Battiscombe began searching for his hat.

“Then that’s settled. We’ll push off now and get it off our chests. Anybody seen my topee?”

Armourer smiled.

“You can’t have lost it, Jim. It’s the biggest thing in hats ever made!”

The other dived behind a table and presently drew himself to his full height, a smile of triumph illuminating his features.

By way of reply, he dropped it unconcernedly over Armourer’s head, thereby extinguishing his fellow-magistrate completely.

They filed out into the clearing.

“How far have we got to go?” demanded Vance.

Battiscombe reflected.

“About two and a half miles. I suggest we walk it. What do you say, professor?”

“I’m game.”

“I suppose you others are agreeable? My corporal knows the way and, as far as I can gather, the track’s badly overgrown.”

Vance looked up.

“You don’t anticipate any trouble?”

Battiscombe shook his head.

“There ought not to be any bother at all. I don’t fancy he’s been here long enough to have any native backing. You’re all armed, I imagine?”

Standen patted a side-pocket.

“I am for one.”

“Armourer’s lent me a gun,” added the first assistant. “Mine’s over on the estate.”

A shadowy form appeared round the corner of the house, carrying a lamp and followed by three or four others.

Joyce looked over the rail.

“Look after daddy, Mr. Armourer, won’t you? He’s inclined to be reckless!”

Armourer laughed.

“All right,” he called back. “We’ll impose any form of restraint we think necessary.”

The procession moved off.

There was a stiff breeze blowing from the sea and the night air was pleasantly cool. The inimitable Kuraman--short and thickset--went on ahead with the lamp; Battiscombe and Armourer came next, while Vance followed with the professor. A short distance behind, three of Armourer’s men and two of his colleagues tumbled along with their rifles slung, smoking and chattering in an undertone.

The path led them westward, turning presently south in the direction of the Ayer River.

Battiscombe tripped over a root, swore and regained his balance.

“Hope Vera’ll be better in the morning,” he said suddenly. “Thank heaven she’s as strong as a horse. Have you got that Butterfly affair with you?”

Armourer started and began searching all his pockets in turn.

“Damn!”

“What’s the matter?”

“I believe I’ve left it in my other clothes. I suppose it’ll be all right?”

He peered through the gloom at his companion.

“Is your servant honest?”

“As honest as most. The chances are he won’t have finished cleaning up in the kitchen by the time we get back. In which case he won’t have been in my room. Appear to have left my pipe too. Give me a cigarette, will you!”

“You can have a cigar, if you prefer it.”

He held out his case and Armourer lit up.

Battiscombe looked back at the others, but found they were already smoking.

He glanced thoughtfully at the overhanging trees.

“About another ten minutes of this and we ought to be in the open for a spell. Hope we don’t strike any leeches. I hate ’em.”

“Tell me about Abu-Samar,” said Armourer.

“You’ve met him?”

“Oh, yes.”

He was going to add that he had sent him in to attend Vera that afternoon, but wisely refrained.

“Unpleasant looking chap, isn’t he?--I took a rooted dislike to him from the very first. I didn’t like his eyes.”

“They are queer,” admitted Armourer.

“As far as my information goes, he’s no earthly right to any of the letters he sticks after his name. He began life somewhere about here as a sort of medicine-man and made such a good thing at it that he saved enough money to get him to Ceylon. There he took to snake-charming and eventually got in tow with a native conjurer, who produced the usual programme of hypnotic illusions. This feller disappeared after a while and the mystery of his disappearance has never been satisfactorily cleared up. Anyhow, Samar took over his stock-in-trade and blossomed forth into a fully-fledged magician on his own account. There’s a gap in the records extending over about three years, when Abu crops up again in Anam. He seems to have dropped hypnotism and gone in extensively for drugs. It appears that in this instance he employed forged certificates to endeavour to obtain a job in the French colonial service as an apothecary. The forgery was detected and Abu-Samar sent to gaol for a long term. He escaped, however, and the three principal officials responsible for his detection and imprisonment died in a mysterious manner at about the same time.”

“Poison, eh?”

“That is the general belief, but no trace of any poison was discovered at the post-mortem. It is assumed that either a peculiar, self-effacing drug was used, or that--and what I imagine is more likely--the physicians who officiated weren’t particularly smart at their job. How Abu left Anam nobody knows. He appeared a little later in Singapore, stirred up native trouble there, skipped by the skin of his teeth to Dutch territory--Sumatra, organised a band of freebooters that fairly terrorised the island--and, finding the place too warm for him, decided to transfer his attentions to Sarawak. Then he came here.”

“Where did you unearth all this?”

“The Commissioner gave me a whole screed; it runs into about ten pages. I’ll let you have a copy. It’s worth framing!”

There followed a long silence.

“Jim,” said Armourer suddenly, “your wife has never met Abu?”

“Good Lord, no--never. Why?”

“Don’t know. I was only thinking. The bridge is just in front of us. We’d better put out all lights.”

He signalled back to the other two; while Battiscombe went forward to Corporal Kuraman.

They took the track Vera had followed the day before.

It was the professor who noticed it first.

“Vance, you didn’t put your pipe in your pocket while it was still alight?”

The planter dived in a hand and produced it.

“No,” he returned; “not guilty!” He sniffed. “There is a smell of burning somewhere, though, isn’t there?”

“I certainly thought so. There!--Do you see that light through the trees?--Ah! it’s gone again. No, there it is!”

Vance whistled softly and the two district officers halted.

“What’s up?” demanded Battiscombe. “Anyone hurt?”

“The professor has just noticed a fire of some sort or other right ahead of us. No, not where you’re looking; further to the left. There! Got it?”

Battiscombe called Kuraman.

“Kuraman, what’s that light?”

The brown corporal shifted his round hat to the back of his head and stared in the direction his master was pointing. After a few seconds he sidestepped into the trees and looked again.

“It is the house of Abu-Samar, _Tuan_,” he announced presently. “I think it is burning.”

Their faces were close together now and each looked at his immediate neighbour for enlightenment.

“Better get there at the double,” said Armourer; “he’s got wind of this.”

“Don’t believe it,” asserted Battiscombe. “The Commissioner arranged it off his own bat--and not a soul knew of it, barring myself. Kuraman may be mistaken. Perhaps it’s a fire just this side of the place.”

“We’ll soon see,” said Vance, and strode off into the darkness.

At the bend in the path they broke into a sharp trot. As the trees thinned out, the truth of the corporal’s statement revealed itself. Driven low by the breeze, columns of smoke swept over them, setting them coughing. Between the gusts, they caught glimpses of a blazing inferno, where reed wall and sago roof were enveloped in a sea of flame that soared roaring to the skies.

“Spread out,” shouted Battiscombe at the top of his voice. “Vance, you nip round to the right and take a couple of men with you; professor, d’you mind being responsible for the left? You can have Kuraman and one other. That leaves one each for us, Michael. I want you to get on the far side. Stop anybody you find. If there’s any serious difficulty or you see Samar, fire a couple of rounds in the air and we’ll concentrate on that spot.”

“I fancy we’re too late,” said Armourer between his teeth--and selected his man. “Cheerio, everybody!”

Suddenly, as they stole to their posts through smoke that enveloped them like a choking fog, two shots rang out.

The professor, his eyes streaming, charged into Armourer. Both sat down heavily.

The magistrate was on his feet in an instant.

“Who the devil was that?”

“Me,” responded the professor blandly. “Don’t do anything rash. I’ve lost my fellows already in the confounded smoke. Give me a hand.”

The other groped for his arm and pulled him up.

“Did you fire?” asked Standen.

“No. I fancy it was Battiscombe. It seemed to come from that direction. Come on!”

The pall shifted, and at that moment every object in the tiny clearing stood out as in the light of day.

Battiscombe was standing quite close to the house, with his man a bare yard behind him. Vance had just appeared from the trees. A figure, that had lain hidden behind a fallen portion of the structure, started suddenly to its feet and--in that fleeting second--Armourer recognised Abu-Samar. He carried a large basket, held together by a strap, and a portion of it appeared to be smouldering. He drew himself very erect and stood, immobile as an ebony statue, against a background of living flame. An arm shot upward as if in splendid defiance--and the smoke descended again, blotting out everything.

Battiscombe fired again--three rounds in quick succession--and Kuraman, dropping to one knee, emptied his magazine into the darkness.

There followed a wild, chaotic stampede, a pause for breath in the immediate vicinity of the furnace--and a scattered sortie into the night-shrouded forest.

An hour or so later they collected round Kuraman’s lamp.

“That fellow bears a charmed life,” declared Battiscombe, gasping for breath.

“A very amusing evening,” conceded Vance; “but, from your point of view, a decided washout.”

Armourer counted the shadowy figures that constituted the group carefully.

“One missing,” he declared. “Who is it?”

“The professor,” said the planter again. “I saw him a minute ago, grubbing at something in the ruins.”

Standen joined them at that moment. His face, when they could get a glimpse at it, was blacker than Kuraman’s, and he smiled the engaging smile of a self-satisfied nigger minstrel.

He thrust a charred bundle up to Armourer’s nose.

“Smell that!”

The D.O. sniffed.

“Unpleasant,” was his immediate verdict,--“very!”

“Well,” announced Standen, depositing it on the ground and feeling for his handkerchief, “that’s precisely the same smell as I noticed in Moberly’s room this afternoon when I went back. This is the basket Abu-Samar was trying to take with him. There was a good deal of blood on it when I picked it up and it had been badly trampled. It looks as if one of you fired pretty accurately. The basket contained a jumbled mass of crushed glass receptacles and--this.”

He bent over the charred mess and presently extracted from its shapeless interior something wrapped in a piece of sacking.

“Bring the lamp closer,” shouted Battiscombe.

A moment later they stood in a ragged circle, staring down at an enormous chrysalis. The professor touched it with his spectacle case--and the thing moved.

“You see--it’s alive.”

“Yes,” muttered Vance, “it’s alive all right, but----”

Standen surveyed them all in turn.

“I have every reason to believe, gentlemen,” he declared, as if delivering a lecture to a crowd of interested students, “that this is our friend the crimson butterfly--in embryo!”