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Middy and Ensign, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 63. The Last Of It |
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_ CHAPTER SIXTY THREE. THE LAST OF IT There is not much more to say about the various people who formed the little world at the jungle-station. Despatches were sent home, in which Major Sandars and Captain Horton dwelt most strongly upon the bravery of the young officers serving respectively beneath them. Captain Horton said so much respecting Bob Roberts, that poor Bob said he felt as red as a tomato; while Tom Long, instead of becoming what old Dick called more "stuck-upper" on reading of his bravery, seemed humbled and more frank and natural. Certainly he became better liked; and at a dinner that was given after the country had settled, and Colonel Hanson and his force were about to return, that officer in a speech said that from what he had heard, Mr Midshipman Roberts and Mr Ensign Long would become ornaments of the services, to which they belonged. And so they did, and the truest of friends, when they did not quarrel, though really their squabbles only cemented their friendship the stronger. They both visited Mr and Mrs Frank Murray at their pretty bungalow at Parang, where Rachel was settled down so long as her father retained his post at the residency; but their most enjoyable visits were, as years went by, to their friend the sultan, who was fast improving the country, and encouraging his people to become more commercial, in place of the arrant pirates they had been. For in a very short time in the settlement of the country under British protection, the rank of sultan had been offered to the Tumongong, who refused it in favour of his son Ali, and this was ratified by the Governor of the Straits--Sultan Hamet dying a victim to excess, and the piratical Rajah Gantang of his wounds. Which was, so said old Dick in confidence to the two young officers, "a blessing to everybody consarned, for that there Rajah Gantang was about the wussest nigger as ever suffered from the want of soap." The last the writer heard of Dick was, that he was the oldest boatswain in the service, and that he was on board that rapid gunboat the "Peregrine," commanded by Lieutenant Robert Roberts, RN. It need only be added that Captain Smithers got over his disappointment, and two years later married Mary Sinclair, who makes him an excellent wife. So that none of those concerned had cause to regret the trip up the Malay river in HMS "Startler."
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