Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/50

 looks as though he might be crowding a hundred. But where are all the people?”

There was no one to be seen; at least no one but the aged elephant, who stood there leisurely waving his trunk back and forth and peering at us out of his little eyes in a fashion which disproved the Doctor’s theory of blindness. There were at least a dozen of the huts; the doors all stood wide open, with fowls running in and out, and stretched directly across the threshold of one lay an old sow with her litter of pigs who blinked at us lazily, and then, apparently assured that we were harmless, closed her eyes with a satisfied grunt.

“Good!” cried the Doctor. “This is precisely what we want. We shall be sure to find a guide here who will take us over to Angkor for a few ticals. Hello there! Hello!”

There was no direct answer, but at the same instant the echoes of the forest were awakened by a piercing scream, which seemed to proceed from behind the huts among the palms.

“By Jove!” exclaimed the Doctor. “A female in distress? It is, as I live! Shades of my ancestors! This won’t do! No true born Briton can turn away from that appeal.”

Now the cry came again. It was surely that of a woman in agony, just as the Doctor said.

We hurried behind the huts, coming upon a group of half-naked natives, who were clustering about two giant cocoa palms in the middle of a little clearing.

“Thunder and Mars! What barbarity!” burst from the Doctor, as we looked ahead.

Between the palms was a young girl, her only dress the panoung, or Siamese breech cloth, worn by men, which dropped from the waist below the knees. She was bound by the wrists and ankles to the two trees writhing under the blows of a strip of rawhide wielded by a wicked looking fellow behind her. Each time it descended a shout of satisfaction went up from those who crowded around.

“I’ll soon put a stop to this!” shouted the Doctor. “Nothing of the sort can be allowed with your uncle about.”

Never had I respected the man as I did at that moment when he sprang away from us and dashed fearlessly among the group.

Not that Maurice and I were backward. Cocking our rifles we followed the Doctor, shouting as we went.