Chapter III: Armourer Entertains

A stretch of powdery sand, bleached white by a relentless Eastern sun, bordered on three sides by trees through which--to the eastward--ran a gleaming single track of railway line; a sea of deepest blue, shimmering in a vast crucible whose rim was the far horizon, like some strange metallic substance, which bubbled over on to the sand and on the surface of which a group of tiny islands clustered together like lumps of jade.

A sun hanging low in the western heavens, a breathless, sweltering stillness, broken at intervals by the shrill quarrelling of apes in the branches and the gentle plashing and sucking-back of a timid tide.

There were only two living creatures visible in the whole of this vivid tropical landscape; an Englishman in white drill who sat, pipe in mouth, on a grassy mound--and a small furry sloth whose brown eyes surveyed the biped from above with mischievous interest.

The man on the mound stirred suddenly and stretched himself and the sloth took instant flight, scurrying for the ample cover lent by the foliage.

Michael Armourer cocked his head on one side and listened.

A distant rumbling sound, accompanied by a discordant shriek, announced the approach of the afternoon train.

Battiscombe’s colleague at Jelandang glanced at his watch.

“She’s late this afternoon,” he said to himself, and tapped out his pipe on his heel.

He had almost filled it again from a voluminous oilskin pouch when the catastrophe occurred.

The train--a jolting line of white coaches drawn by an obsolete engine that puffed and snorted asthmatically--emerged from the trees on the one side at the same time as a trolly--propelled by a group of perspiring natives--appeared at the other. The trolly carried two passengers--an elderly gentleman with a short grey beard, who had a camera fixed on a tripod before him and was turning a handle vigorously, and a young girl in white.

Either the engine-driver was short-sighted or his brakes refused to respond, for before Armourer could reach the spot the natives had scattered, the man and the girl had fallen off, and the engine was pushing the trolly before it in the direction of Jesselton.

Armourer tripped up over the tripod, recovered himself, and bent down over the girl. She sat up suddenly and rubbed a bruised arm.

“I hope you’re not hurt?” he inquired with genuine anxiety.

It dawned upon him at that moment that she was unusually good-looking and that she was laughing.

“Oh, no. I’m not in the least bit hurt, thanks. Hadn’t you better have a look at father?”

Armourer rose to his full height and peered down into the hollow into which the only other occupant of the trolly had fallen.

The old gentleman was scrambling to his feet, muttering a string of harmless expletives in a particularly definite manner, most of which appeared to be addressed to the train.

“Preposterous, I call it! An expensive instrument and a perfect panorama ruined all through the confounded idiocy of a native driver! A man like that ought never to be permitted to control an engine again!”

Armourer suppressed a sudden desire to laugh.

“As a matter of fact,” he reminded the stranger, “trollies are theoretically illegal.”

The other surveyed him sourly.

“Who the dickens are you, anyway?” he demanded.

Armourer smiled.

“I happen to be the magistrate of this district. My name’s Armourer--Michael Armourer. I hope you haven’t damaged yourself.”

The older man placed both hands on his hips, stared at the tail end of the train--a couple of hundred yards away, where a little group of natives and Europeans had gathered--at his daughter, and at the half-frightened coolies who were wandering back into sight again--then threw out his chest and laughed heartily.

“Well, Joyce, here’s an adventure for you! You always declared you wanted one--and now you’ve got it!--Are you hurt?”

“Oh, dear me, no! I’ve grazed my arm; that’s all.”

“Splendid! And now, Mr. Armourer, do you mind sending that train of yours on? I think we’ve had all the publicity we require this afternoon.”

“And the trolly?”

“Of course, I was forgetting that. You might ask those grinning lunatics to get it off the line until the train has gone, then put it on again and push it back to Jesselton. I’ll pay ’em when they’re ready to start.”

“You’re not going on?”

The older man shook his head resolutely.

“I’m not going on one of those ghastly things again--in the interests of science or anything else. You can make your mind quite easy about that.”

“But, father,” protested the girl, “how are we going to get back?”

He stroked his beard.

“We shall place ourselves unreservedly in the hands of the local magistrate. I’m not so certain he oughtn’t to arrest us both in any case. We appear to have been breaking the law!”

He crossed the line and picked up his camera.

“I suppose I ought to tell you, Mr. Armourer, that I’m Professor Herbert Standen and this is my daughter Joyce. I’m interested in a good many things, but my pet subject is Poisons. And,” he added, “if I knew of a suitable one at the moment, I’d cheerfully administer it to the Director of Railways--or whatever he styles himself--who beat me at golf yesterday and suggested this infernal trolly-ride!”

He examined the camera and, setting it down tenderly at his side, straightened a leg of the collapsible tripod over his knee. Apparently satisfied that the total damage to his property was small, he cast an appreciative eye over the landscape.

“This is certainly a very beautiful spot--very beautiful. What do you think of it, Joyce?”

The girl was standing a few paces from them, shading her eyes with her hand.

“It’s simply glorious,” she said at length. “I love it.”

Armourer excused himself and hurried off to stimulate the coolies into action. He returned in half an hour to find the professor and his daughter down by the water’s edge.

“It’s all clear now,” he explained, “and I’ve taken the liberty of squaring your men for you. I’m afraid I didn’t give them all they had expected; but it was a good deal more than they deserved. You’d better come up to my place and see if you think you will be comfortable enough there.”

The professor stuck his hands in his pockets and favoured the younger man with an amused smile.

“You don’t for one moment suppose I’m going to plant myself and family on you at a moment’s notice?”

“I’m afraid it’s Hobson’s choice. You see, there’s only one train up and one down a day--and that’s the last of any sort until to-morrow morning.”

He indicated a faint line of grey smoke that still hung above the trees.

Standen looked startled.

“But, bless my soul, we ought to have taken that, then?”

“Certainly, if you wanted to get back to-night. But you told me to send off the trolly and the train and indicated at the same time that you didn’t desire publicity, so I thought the best thing you could do was to stop the night at my bungalow.”

The professor called to Joyce.

“Do you hear that, my dear? Mr. Armourer says we’ve to put up with him, as there’s nothing to take us to Jesselton until to-morrow.”

Joyce gasped and spread out her hands.

“But I haven’t brought a thing--not even a tooth-brush!”

Armourer laughed.

“We can fix you up with that all right,” he assured her. “There’s an estate shop within a mile of my house. If there’s anything else you really require, you had better write a little note to Mrs. Battiscombe at Rembakut--and one of my men will run over before dinner.”

He picked up the professor’s camera and tripod and crossed the line.

“Does tea appeal to you at the moment, Miss Standen?”

The girl nodded enthusiastically.

“Then follow me. I can promise you a cup in ten minutes.”

The professor took up the rear, shaking his head at intervals.

“I’m extremely grateful to you, I’m sure,” he panted, as they reached the summit of a steep incline, “but I hate putting anybody to an inconvenience.”

“You’re not,” the magistrate laughed back at him. “You’re doing me a great honour. It’s three weeks since I had a visitor of any sort.”

He extended an arm and pointed to a spot where the shingled roof of a new bungalow showed amid a veritable forest of growing rubber.

“That’s Moberly’s place. He’s the manager of the estate I told you about when we were discussing tooth-brushes. It’s one of the best bungalows out here.”

“It looks simply topping,” commented Joyce, who was by this time thoroughly reconciled to the prospect of a night spent without her luggage and secretly exultant that the accident had put an end to what had promised to be a dull and uninteresting afternoon.

“His rubber looks well,” said Standen. “There’s been a lot of good work put in there.”

“Oh, he’s thorough,” agreed the magistrate. “That dreary-looking atrocity right ahead of us is my shack.”

Joyce looked.

“It seems quite a big place.”

“Oh, it’s not the size I complain of. As a matter of fact it suits me pretty well, but when visitors come along its many defects have a habit of becoming apparent. However, you’ll see what it’s like for yourselves.”

As they crossed the wide stretch of grassland in which the building lay, a couple of terriers bounded down the steps and came scurrying to meet them.

It was somewhere between tea and dinner that Armourer, returning from an excursion to Moberly’s estate shop, found Joyce alone on the verandah.

He dropped quite a fair-sized parcel into her lap.

“Well, there’s your tooth-brush,” he said.

She wrinkled her forehead.

“But this isn’t all tooth-brush!”

“No,” admitted the magistrate, “it’s not; but it all comes under the category of toilet requisites--except the chocolates--and they’re supposed to be bad for teeth! Where’s the professor?”

She shook her head.

“I haven’t the least idea. He’s wandered out somewhere.”

Armourer scanned the landscape.

“Does he often do this?” he inquired.

“Oh yes; more often than not, in fact.”

“What a singularly convenient sort of parent!”

Her dark eyes met his and they were full of merriment.

“It’s not always convenient, you know, to be left like this. Father’s quite capable of dumping me anywhere--and forgetting where he’s put me, just like he does with his umbrella.”

“But he _will_ come back, of course?” inquired Armourer with mock anxiety.

“Of course. Don’t you want him to?”

He sat down opposite her and, clasping his hands over one knee, he appeared to be thinking deeply.

“My proper answer would be--yes, most certainly; but what I really want to say is that, if I am to be employed as a left-luggage office by absent-minded professors of poisons--er--well, it occurs to me that you’re rather the sort of baggage I should like to be left behind and never claimed! Now, that was really clever; wasn’t it? Do look at that sunset! It’s the only decent thing about here I’ve got to show you.”

She sprang to her feet and ran to the rail. Armourer stood close behind her, and for a matter of seconds an exceedingly beautiful brunette and a particularly good-looking young man remained in close proximity, the last eerie rays of a departing sun bathing them in an unearthly pallor.

The glory of the heavens--now that the sun had gone--left her breathless and trembling.

She looked up at him.

“I have never seen anything like it,” she murmured. “Isn’t it just wonderful?”

“By Jove, it is,” averred Armourer; but he was looking at her, and for him the glories of the Eastern sunset were forgotten.