Recounts the wild, fierce, and in some Respects peculiar Incidents of a Bush Fight.

Although the pirates were taken aback by this unexpected advance of the Rajah’s gun-boat to within pistol-shot of their very doors, they were by no means cowed. Malays are brave as a race, and peculiarly regardless of their lives. They manned their guns, and stood to them with unflinching courage, but they were opposed by men of the same mettle, who had the great advantage of being better armed, and led by a man of consummate coolness and skill, whose motto was—“Conquer or die!”

We do not say that the captain of the gun-boat professed to hold that motto, for he was not a boaster, but it was clearly written in the fire of his eye, and stamped upon the bridge of his nose!

The pirate-guns were soon dismounted, their stockade was battered down, and when a party at last landed, with the captain at their head, and Edgar with his diving friends close at his heels, they were driven out of their fortification into the woods.

Previously to this, however, all the women and children had been sent further into the bush, so that the attacking party met none but fighting-men. Turning round a bend in a little path among the bushes, Edgar, who had become a little separated from his friends, came upon a half-naked Malay, who glared at him from behind a long shield. The pirate’s style of fighting was that of the Malay race in general, and had something ludicrous, as well as dangerous, about it. He did not stand up and come on like a man, but, with his long legs wide apart and bent at the knees, he bounded hither and thither like a monkey, always keeping his body well under cover of the shield, and peering round its edges or over, or even under it, according to fancy, while his right hand held a light spear, ready to be launched at the first favourable moment into the unprotected body of his adversary.

Edgar at once rushed upon him, snapping his revolver as he ran; but, all the chambers having been already emptied, no shot followed. Brandishing his cutlass, he uttered an involuntary shout.

The shout was unexpectedly replied to by another shout of “Aileen, to the rescue!” which not only arrested him in his career, but seemed to perplex the pirate greatly.

At that moment the bushes behind the latter opened; a man in ragged shirt-sleeves and torn trousers sprang through, whirled a mighty club in the air, and smote the pirate’s uplifted shield with such violence as to crush it down on its owner’s head, and lay him flat and senseless on the ground.

“Mr Hazlit!” gasped Edgar.

The merchant bounded at our hero with the fury of a wild cat, and would have quickly laid him beside the pirate if he had not leaped actively aside. A small tree received the blow meant for him, and the merchant passed on with another yell, “To the rescue!”

Of course Edgar followed, but the bush paths were intricate. He unfortunately turned into a wrong one, when the fugitive was for a moment hidden by a thicket, and immediately lost all trace of him.

Meanwhile Rooney Machowl, hearing the merchant’s shout, turned aside to respond to it. He met Mr Hazlit right in the teeth, and, owing to his not expecting an assault, had, like Edgar, well-nigh fallen by the hand of his friend. As it was, he evaded the huge club by a hair’s-breadth, and immediately gave chase to the maniac—for such the poor gentleman had obviously become. But although he kept the fugitive for some time in view, he failed to come up with him owing to a stumble over a root which precipitated him violently on his nose. On recovering his feet Mr Hazlit was out of sight.

Rooney, caressing with much tenderness his injured nose, now sought to return to his friends, but the more he tried to do so, the farther he appeared to wander away from them.

“Sure it’s a quare thing that I can’t git howld of the road I comed by,” he muttered, as with a look of perplexity he paused and listened.

Faint shouts were heard on his left, and he was about to proceed in that direction, when distinct cries arose on his right. He went in that direction for a time, then vacillated, and, finally, came to a dead stand, as well as to the conclusion that he had missed his way; which belief he stated to himself in the following soliloquy:—

“Rooney, me boy, you’ve gone an’ lost yoursilf. Ah, bad scran to ’ee. Isn’t it the fulfilment of your grandmother’s owld prophecy, that you’d come to a bad ind at last? It’s little I’d care for your misfortin myself, if it warn’t that you ought to be helpin’ poor Mr Hazlit, who’s gone as mad as blazes, an’ whose daughter can’t be far off. Och! Man alive,” he added, with sudden enthusiasm, “niver give in while there’s a purty girl in the case!”

Under the impulse of this latter sentiment, Rooney started off at a run in a new and totally unconsidered direction, which, strange to say, brought him into sudden and very violent contact with some of those individuals in whom he was interested.

Here we must, in hunters’ language, “hark back” on our course for a few minutes—if, indeed, that be hunters’ language! We do not profess to know much thereof, but the amiable reader will understand our meaning.

Just after the attack had begun, and Mr Hazlit had sallied from the hut with his war-club, as already related, Aileen became deeply impressed with the fact that all the women and children who had been wont to visit and gaze at her in wonder had vanished. The rattling of shot over her head, too, and the frequent rush of pirates past her temporary abode, warned her that the place was too much exposed in every way to be safe. She therefore sought to rouse her companion to attempt flight.

“Laura,” she said, anxiously, as a round shot cut in half the left corner-post of the building, “come, we must fly. We shall be killed if we remain here.”

“I care not,” exclaimed Miss Pritty, clasping her friend closer than ever, and shuddering; “my worst fears have been realised. Let me die!”

“But I don’t want to die yet,” remonstrated Aileen; “think of me, dear, if you can, and of my father.”

“Ah, true!” exclaimed Miss Pritty, with sudden calmness, as she unclasped her arms and arose. “Forgive my selfishness. Come; let us fly!”

If the poor lady had owned a private pair of cherubic wings, she could not have prepared for flight with greater assurance or activity. She tightened her waist-belt, wrapped her shawl firmly round her, fastened her bonnet strings in a Gordian knot, and finally, holding out her hand to her friend, as if they had suddenly changed characters, said, “Come, are you ready?” with a tremendous show of decision. She even led the wondering Aileen along a winding path into the jungle for a considerable distance; then, as the path became more intricate, she stopped, burst into tears, laid her head again on its old resting-place, and said in a hollow voice:— “Yes; all is lost!”

“Come, Laura, don’t give way; there’s a dear. Just exert yourself a little and we shall soon be safe at—at—somewhere.”

Miss Pritty made a vigorous struggle. She even smiled through her tears as she replied:— “Well, lead on, love; I will follow you—to death!”

With her eyes tightly shut, lest she should see something hideous in the woods, she stumbled on, holding to her friend’s arm.

“Where are we going to?” she asked, feebly, after a few minutes, during which Aileen had pulled her swiftly along.

“I don’t know, dear, but a footpath must lead to something or somewhere.”

Aileen was wrong. The footpath led apparently to nothing and nowhere. At all events it soon became so indistinct that they lost it, and, finally, after an hour’s wandering, found themselves hopelessly involved in the intricacies of a dense jungle, without the slightest clew as to how they should get out of it.

Aileen stopped at last.

“Laura,” she said, anxiously, “we are lost!”

“I told you so,” returned Miss Pritty, in a tone that was not quite devoid of triumph.

“True, dear; but when you told me so we were not lost. Now we are. I fear we shall have to spend the night here,” she added, looking round.

Miss Pritty opened her eyes and also looked round. The sight that met her gaze was not encouraging. Afternoon was drawing on. Thick bushes and trees formed a sort of twilight there even at noon-day. Nothing with life was visible. Not a sound was to be heard, save such little rustlings of dry leaves and chirpings as were suggestive of snakes and centipedes. The unhappy Laura was now too frightened to shudder.

“What shall we do?” she asked; “shriek for help?”

“That might bring pirates to us instead of friends,” said Aileen. “Listen; do you hear no sound?”

“Nothing,” replied Miss Pritty, after a few moments of intense silence, “save the beating of my own heart. Aileen,” she continued, with sudden anxiety, “are there not serpents in these woods?”

“Yes, I believe there are.”

“And tarantulas?”

“Probably.”

“And tortoises?”

“I—I’m not sure.”

“Darling, how can we sleep among tortoises, tarantulas, and serpents?”

Even Aileen was at a loss for a reply, though she smiled in spite of herself.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said, cheerfully, “if we must spend the night in the bush we shall get into a tree. That will at least save us from all the venomous creatures as well as dangerous beasts that crawl upon the ground. Can you climb?”

“Climb!” repeated Miss Pritty, with a hysterical laugh, “you might as well ask me if I can dive.”

“Well, you must learn. Come, I will teach you. Here is a capital tree that seems easy to get into.”

Saying this, Aileen ran to a gnarled old tree whose trunk was divided into two parts, and from which spread out a seri............