't know. We might try. What a muddle, to be sure. They think we
were going to run away with Hamet, and we may talk for ever and they
wouldn't believe us."

"But we can't sit here and do nothing."

"No; it will be horribly dull. Those Malay fellows like it. They can
sit in the sun all day and chew betel. We can't. All we can do is to
sit and eat fruit, and you can't keep up doing that always."

Sure enough the party of Malays, ten strong, who acted as their guard in
the palm-thatched house, and attended to every want instantly, did sit
in and below the veranda in the sun chewing betel, with their eyes
half-closed, till, to use Ned's words, it nearly drove him mad.

Frank tried persuasion, bribery, threats, and then force, to get out if
only for a walk; but in a patient good-humoured way the chief and his
followers refused to let them pass even out on to the veranda; and all
the boys knew at last of their position, as the sun went down, was that
which they had learned at sunrise: they were in a house somewhere deep
in the jungle, shut in by trees.

"Can't we get away when it's dark?" said Ned.

"Get away where?" cried Frank, ill-humouredly. "You ought to know by
this time that you can't get through the jungle without men to chop for
you."

"But there must be a path by which they brought us."

"Yes; one leading down to the river, where you could get no farther for
want of a boat, and trust 'em, they'll watch that night and day.
Fellows who know they'll have a kris stuck into them, and be pitched
into the river if they let a prisoner escape, look out pretty sharp."

It was rapidly growing dark when Frank, who had tried lying down,
sitting cross-legged, standing up, walking about, and lying on his
chest, with his elbows on the bamboo flooring and his chin in his hands,
suddenly exclaimed: "Have some more durian?"

"No, thank you."

"Some mangosteens?"

"No, I've had enough."

"Try some of those little bananas."

"No--no--no, I couldn't eat any more fruit."

"No more can I. Shall we tell them to bring us some curry to finish off
with?"

"Oh, I say, don't talk any more about eating," cried Ned; "we seem to
have done nothing else all day."

"Well, there wasn't anything else to do.--I know."

"What?"

"Let's catch the jungle fever. Then they'll be obliged to take us back
to the doctor."

"Nonsense! But I say, Frank, if it's so miserable and wearisome to be
shut up like this for a day, what w