w guttural sound, and his men stole up silently one by one.

"Whisht!" said Tim. "Tibakky;" and he divided about half the contents
of the box, the leaf being eagerly received and deposited in a fold of
the sarong.

"Whisht!" said Tim again, after a stealthy glance back at the house, and
putting the tobacco back, he drew out a bottle. "Will you drink the new
ranee's health?"

His question was received in utter silence.

"No!" said Tim. "I thought you wouldn't, and I'm sorry for your
religion. Well, I will. Long life to my darling young misthress!"

He took out the cork, passed his hand over the top of the bottle, and
then applying it to his lips, took a long gurgling draught, swallowing
pretty well a pint before he lowered the flask, the Malays gazing
longingly at him as he drank.

"I'm sorry for you, boys," said Tim; "for that's a drop of good stuff,"
and he replaced the bottle. "But, look here," he said, with a laugh,
"left from up-stairs;" and holding up the basket, he took out a cake or
sweet of the kind cleverly concocted by the Malay women, and began to
eat. "Any one do a bit in this way!" he continued, with his mouth full.

If he had offered the bottle now, they would have drunk from it to a
man, and after a momentary pause the chief of the guard took a cake from
the basket, broke off a scrap, removed his betel-nut, tasted the sweet,
took a good bite, and uttered a low guttural order; which resulted in
each man taking a cake, the last man growing excited from the belief
that they would not go round; but there was just one each, and the
head-man spoke again, with the result that his men went back to their
posts eating greedily, while Tim stood in the darkness trembling with
excitement.

"Well," he said, fearing to betray himself; "now then for my snooze.
Good-night!"

The Malay laid his hand upon his shoulder. "Stop!" he said, "let me
taste from the bottle."

"Don't apologise," said Tim, wilfully misunderstanding him. "I was
always the man to respect any one who stood by his religion, and so was
my mother before me. Good-night."

Tim turned into the house. "Oh, murther," he muttered, returning to his
own tongue; "the wine might have shpoilt the docthor's rat poison. What
an eshcape!"

"Well?" whispered Mr Braine and the doctor in a breath, as Tim appeared
looking white and scared.

"Oh, they've tuk it, ivery mother's son of thim, gintlemen; an' if they
all die, docthor, don't go and say