Beadle's Dime Library No. 230 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- The Flying Dutchman ee ee ee SS Or Or Oe OO ees Sees weeks that one morning I saw a Malay syce, or groom dressed in a very gorgeous livery, ride up to my door leading a handsome saddled horse, and my boy, (I hed four of them, costing But it wasn’t to be, somehow. | When I woke up to try my chances I found they were _— though it would puzzle an ex- i to fiad out where that girl’s beart had gone. don’t believe she knew herself, and was hesi- tating between good looks and brains, and no d looks with more brains to compensate. I have been asked to set down what I know of the Flying Dutchman, and in a strictly scientific light, I don't know much. That is, | have very strong suspicions on the subject, but no positive facts to support them; so I shall not mention them, save incidentally. I saw the queer concern from the Spindrift, and twice again on the raft, and I saw her dis- appear in smoke. I believe she picked up John- ston, but as I’ve never seen him since I can’t as- sert it. I know we got to Singapore safe, and I know my res uncle was in a deuce of a hurry to et me off to Batavia, and made himself so con- oundedly disagreeable that I packed up and all), brought me up a note, sealed with the figure of a winged head, (bat’s wings, by-the- t, the great Mr. Vanderdecken. I wasn’t such a fool as to hesitate long about ing to his house, you may a5 Ae eard of him as being worth untold sums, and free with his cash, unlike most millionaires, and I knew his practice must be worth something comfortable. And money rules the world, as I’ve found out, so I’m going to get all I can. The note was very brief, and informed me that a lady lay sick at his country house in Selang, a little suburb about six miles away, and the Batavia doctors bad given her up. Would I come to sce her? left bim. me responsible for a failure. I can’t deny that he treated me well finan- The letter was signed *‘ Vanderdecken” as if cially, and I bad the best of letters from old ! he had been a noble man, and of course I went. Bruce, who, I believe, wasn’t over anxious to | have a penniless young doctor hanging round | ed the led horse and piloted me out of the city his granddaughter. . into the rich country round Batavia, where it Thess old fellows who have money are always | seems as if nature was trying how prodigal she down on brains till the brains coin money. | could he of her riches, Then they all put on the same literary airs, and It was the first time I'd had a chance to pretend to dote on art and science, I took passage on an old tub called the George | among the sugarcane fields, coffee and tea plan- Washington, and along one we had. It riled | tations, cocoanut groves, and all sorts of crops me to see the little proas fly by us while we | grown nowhere else. wallowed about like a confounded old porpoise Then we got out of these into a belt of forest, chasing a flying-fish. and it seemed as if we had jumped out of civili- Denyse was first mate, and he and I struck up | zation into a trackless wildernessin one minute, ite a friendship, for I found him a well-in- | for the Malays and Dutch stick close together, ormed man, though be had taught himself, and | and as soon as you get out of a settlement you had the usual morbi! ways of those sort of | run into virgin forest. fellows. 4 | There’s no such thing as detached farms there. But he could beat me on mathematics, astron- The forest was about four miles wide and omy and mechanics, while he was willing to then out we jumped again into open rolling learn chemistry, so we hit off pretty well, country, where the air was at least twenty Of course we talked of Mamie Bruce, and both | degrees cooler than the sweat-bath of Batavia, got as melancholy and morbid over if as men | and the foot-hills were dotted with villas, be- will in times of sluggish digestion and small ex- | hind which towered up the blue peaks of the ercise. | mountains in the interior, more than one of We lost two men during the voyage, who | them having its little cloud of smoke over a jumped overboard in a fit of delirium tremens, | crater. or remorse at having broken the pledge, Il don’t | My Malay pointed toa long, low white villa know which. about a mile off and said: They were two crazy Danes who had been ‘** Vanderdecken, sahib.” with us on the Spindrift, chock full of supersti- lt looked like a big place, and as we drew tion and race pride, like all those broken-down | nearer [saw that it was a very rich one. It races in Europe who can’t keep up with the nineteenth enya 5 They were picked up by a passing ship—a regular clipper, with an auxiliary engine—and we found them in the calaboose at Batavia when we got there, and learned that they had heen oe there by a Durch millionaire led anderdecken, said to be a descendant of the Flying Dutchman, and going by the same title on account of bis habits of wandering about all the time. I went to see them, and found them pretty well broken down from rough treatment, but reasonable enough, having been kept off their rum for a week, iN what surprised me was the story they to They insisted that they had seen old Bruce and Mamie on board Vanderdecken’s ship, and that they bad been visited by ghosts, one of whom was Old Nick himself, who had given them a temperance lecture. I laid it all to the state of their nerves, and gave them some bromiide of potassium; but I couldn’t help wondering what put the Bruces into their heads till I saw Denyse, who was getting in cargo on the old tub I had come in. To my surprise, he told me the men were right. He had seen Miss Bruce and her grand- father on deck, ‘‘Then why in thunder didn’t you bail them?” IT asked him; for I should have done so myself, - fe colored a little, aud answered; “] bad no right to force myself on them when they were in the company of a richer man than myself. The captain didn’t want to speak the ship, and I had no business to take the command from him.” — *‘On confound your notions of discipline,” I said; ‘They freeze the flesh and blood out of a map.” “Do they?” said he, with a sigh. ‘‘I wish they did, Pete-s, I find my flesh and blood getting the best of me, when I desire most to nail my mind on science,” So we ig Pr to disagree, and I went to deliver my Jetters, and met with a very cordial reception, on account of my having Dutch blood in me. I was invited out to all sorts of houses, and must say | found Batavia a very jolly place, where I was quite a lion among the doctors on The Malay syce held my stirrup as I mount- shadow, It was set in the midst of the most brilliant green lawns I ever saw, dotted with clumps of teak trees at least a hundred feet in bight. so close together that the building seemed to rise out of a colored velvet cushion, and little herds of graceful spotted deer and antelopes were feeding about or resting under the trees as we rode up. What was not quite as pretty was a brute of a rhinoceros, who came snuffing up to us; and seemed bent on giving mea rip, till we heard the sound of a horr, and out raced a lot of half- naked Malays, with long pikes, who prodded the brute till he ran off, squealing like a pig, when my syce laughed and said: ** Allee samee playee, sahib. No hurt sahib.” : ee him!” I said, ‘‘ what’s he doing ere * Vanderdecken sahib callee him pe said my gentleman, affably. ‘“‘Sabib bab muchee plenty pettee, tiger, elephantee, allee ressee.” And so he went on in his confounded pigeon talk, which he had picked up from the China- men, I suppose. It’s a queer thing how that pigeon English will carry a man all through fhe East, when they don’t understand anything else but their own tongue. One has to learn it .as a sort of neutral language, strange to both parties but used by a kind of common consent, because neither knows any better. We rode on to the house and found that the Malay had told the truth. Mr, Vanderdecken’s ' pets” seemed to range over all the dangerous brutes he could find, and I'll be hanged if I didn’t almost step on a huge python, who lay coiled up in the sun by the doorstep, and didn’t trouble himself to move, beyond turning bis wicked-looking head to look at me. _ I think, if the siyce hadn’t been there I should have given a yell, but I had become used to the severe dig- nity white men have to show among these yel- low fellows, and I pretended not to mind the snake, though I confess my heart beat like a trip-hammer till I was in the house. Then came another agreeable pk piesa The broad entrance hall was Sark and cool compared em cg et CC LL LL LLL LE LLL LAA —— account of my having a nice lot of instruments | to the glare outside, and I didn’t see clearly for they’d never seen before. The microscope in | nearly a minute, though I knew I was treading vias fy. was quite a revelation to them, and | on a hard polished floor, slippery as glass, _ when I cured one or two cases of malarial | I saw some Malay servants salaaming before fever that they were used to consider hopeless, the whole cane was after me, and I had all I could do, And it was after l’d been there about six me and making me signs to follow quietly, as if they knew there was sickness in the house, and then I felt something furry rub against my hand, like a big dog. J me about twenty cents a week each, board and | ny), trom the millionaire I had beard so much a | of 1880. eee ew "(which was a lie, l had , | looked down and found thata buge tiger was trusbing me in his amiable fashion, his tace set in the most diabolical grin conceivable, while his great tail waved like a fan. And those confounded Malays saw me start, and grinned, too, while one whispered; ‘‘Tiger no baddee. Catchee muchee sahib. No flaidee tiger, sahib.” ‘* I’m not afraid, you — ackass,” said I ** Where's the sick by the by). or to see, and where’s your lady I was sent ' sahib?”’ on ——EE———— ' ; , ‘ ! i | | | get out of Batavia, and I enjoyed the ride | from Batavia, | | and cimeters worth thousands of dollars. — ee “Sahib Vanderdecken comee,sahib, Dis way,” he told me, and then he led me on through 8 long, lofty corridor with brilliantly psinted walls covered with the sortof pictures they have in Buddhist temples and joss-houses, only more artistic and lavishly gilded and lacquered to protect them from the climate. At last he ushered me into a grand seloon at He would not hold | least sixty feet long (land’s cheap in Java}, and told me, quietly: ‘‘ Vanderdecken sahib comee plenty muchee soonee.” Then he left me to cool my heels and amuse myself by looking at the saloon, which certainly was well worth inspection, for it fairly over- flowed with wealth, The nearest approach I'd seen to it was in the palace of the Rajah of Patarashku, a petty prince, about. twenty miles Dutch and lived on a heavy annuity, with all his ancestors’ treasures besides. But he was an ignorant boor as regards European art, and I found cheap French chromos and bronzed plas- ter statuettes in his saloon beside jeweled ey Mr. Vanderdecken’s saloon, while it had all the gorgeousness of a native’s palace, bad none of the inco ities so common there, and | was convin against mv will that he must bea man of culture and education, if he did have an eccentric taste in pets. I had hardly got through my rapid inspection when the door opened and into the room walked one of the handsomest men, for a half-breed, I'd ever seen. I say for a half-breed, for I could ' see he was one in an instant. ee seemed to be built of white limestone and sur- | rounded with a very broad colonnade so that | body of the h | the body of the house was always in a cool blue | spoke to me in perfect English. w | | } | po . i And I don’t believe in mixing breeds. The cross very seldom follows the best parent, and the Eurasiens I bad seen in Singapore were a miserable lot, sure to go under in the survival of the fittest. But this fellow was a man all over, not om? tall, but put together like a prize-fighter, wit an iron j1w and a pair of eyes that looked as if muopia* was never likely to trouble them. He was dressed in full Malay costume bnt only fault was that it was a little too precise and latinized, showing that he had learned it from books. ‘You are the American doctor of whom I Near the house there were beds of flowers set | hear such distinguished testimonials,” he said half inguiringly. I bowed as I answered: ‘*] fear people overrate my abilities, Mr. Van- derdecken, but such as they are, they are at your service,” . He nodded bis bead and looked doubtful. ‘“You are a young min for a physician,” he said, slowly. “That's a fault mends coe! said Il. ‘ Na- poleon had it when he took t and he lost it before Waterloo.” His face lighted up as he answered: ‘** An vld but ap. retort. I admire Napoleon, sir. He fought England to the last.” . ‘** And she beat him too,’ said I, ‘*Perhaps—in one way. But he beat ber another, for his nephew—some say his son—met the queen of England as an equal and kissed her before all Europe.” wal ¢ Then he seemed to regret talking so much, for be pursued hurriedly: ~ ‘** [sent for youin a dangerous case, I may say a desperate one. A young lady, daugbter—no— granddaughter of a friend of mine, lies at the int of death. If you can cure ber I will cheerfully pay any sum you demand, but I have not much hope for she has bad brain fever for weeks—” 4 ‘‘ Are you a physician?” I asked, interrupting him without any ceremony. He seemed confused at my abruptness, ** No,” he said, ratber aap On < ‘*Then how do you know she has brain fever?’ I asked him. We” ‘* Doctor Van Vliet said so, and all his ¢ol- leagues have united in the opinion,” he said rather stiffly. i replied (for I always believe in 7 : “Well,” taking a millionaire down if you can do it safely in a professional capacity) ‘ | belong to the eb School, who do not fein See any such thing what is vulgarly called brain fever, and ¥ don’t pronounce on a disease till we can classify it. Diagnosis never lies, sir, ero may be read wroue: ‘You bave a patient in the house. Where is she? If I want to ask questions, I'll ask after I’ve seen her.” The man listened, and when I had done he ‘* More dog-Latin or rather Greek. The dbotor as might jubt oe well have said “ short-sightedness,”’ for that’s all jt means.—EprTos. iS < Gomicvoe mp beat of that sultry. who had sold bis dominions to the e Army of Italy | EO : — <n . 7 * _———_ -—-- ES OS eS a ee — = s —— -