"W ell," said the major, "I hardly know what to do. It's very hot."
"Awful, sir," said Hollins, making an effort to take out his handkerchief to wipe his face. "I feel as if I were being stewed."
"Do you good," said the major smiling. "You'd be all the better for losing two stone weight."
"Yes," the great fellow sighed, in a melancholy tone, and he looked down at his huge proportions and gently shook his head.
"I should have thought you would have been content to sit under a shady tree, and if you must kill something, have a shot or two at the crocs as they come down to meet the tide, or fish for whatever there is from the banks."
"That's just what I should like, sir," said Hollins pathetically. "I don't want to go. It's all Beecher's doing. He's such a restless little beggar. I have told him over and over again that it's too hot to do anything."
Beecher looked up sharply and smiled.
The speakers were in their camp on the banks of the Loongie River, stationed there to overawe a couple of the native sultans, who had been trying to oust another Malay potentate, and divide his dominions between them. The said Rajah had appealed to the governor of the Straits Settlements for help, and a couple of companies of the 800th Light Infantry were sent up the river in the Flash gunboat to settle the matter, whereupon the two sultans slunk back into their own dominions on either side of the river. The troops were landed, and went into camp at Ijong, the persecuted Rajah's capital of bamboo and woven palm. The gunboat went up the river as far as she could go, and, as Rob Hollins said, let off her poppers to startle the crows, and then went back to Penang, leaving the military to go on overawing the pugnacious Malays, which they did by going on parade every morning to make a show, after which they ate, drank, smoked, slept, and played games, leading a lazy life in a country which seems to have been made on purpose to do nothing in with all your might.
"Humph!" ejaculated the major, with his eyes half closed.
"He's just like a mongoose," grumbled Hollins slowly; "always jumping up and poking his nose into everything."