AN EXCITING TIME.
Singapore!
The chain rattled through the hausehole with a deafening roar, and the
great ship swung at anchor in the Roads.
A tropical sun beat fiercely down on the awnings, and Rupert Dale,
leaning over the rail, gazed shorewards at the great plain framed in
cocoanut palms--the Cathedral spire rising white and dazzling out of the
green, fan-like leaves. To the left the brown slopes of Fort Canning,
crowned with its giant flagstaff and fluttering flags. Round the ship a
score or more of sampans tossed and jostled each other in the sparkling
sea, their copper-skinned owners--naked to the loins--gesticulating and
shouting in a language which sounded harsh and vehement to his
unaccustomed ears. A strong, pungent odour of hot spice in which
cinnamon predominated filled the air, while kites and eagles wheeled and
swooped round him above the dancing waves.
Singapore! The gate of mystic, far Cathay! China--Japan--Siam--Borneo!
Lovely Java, sea-girt Celebes. The spice islands! Lands of wonder and
romance. The great Unknown, his future Home!
What a revelation it had been to him--the wonderful voyage. He had
never been abroad before, and "foreign parts"--as anywhere out of
England was called in Devonshire--were still a closed book.
Egypt! The Desert seen from the Suez Canal had impressed him. The Red
Sea, with a distant glimpse of Mount Ararat, had brought the Bible story
of the Israelite wanderings right before his eyes, for was not that the
very "Wilderness" all round him? What was he but a wanderer in a
strange land, surrounded by the desert of the sea--the promised land a
mere speck on the chart--a tiny island away in the far north-west. The
dear homeland, his home which he would never see again.
Then the miracle happened. First at Gib, then at Malta, Aden, Colombo,
Penang, and now here. All along the vast ocean journey, four weeks long,
wherever the great ship touched, there ashore flew the old flag, his
flag. There stood his own countrymen on guard beneath its folds. Home?
Why, he had brought it with him. There it was ashore now, and there
stood his blood brother, white-helmeted, his bayonet flashing in the sun
for witness of his birthright.
Rupert could hear a band playing somewhere ashore, and as though in
answer to his thoughts across the water there floated the heart-swelling
strain of "Home, Sweet Home." He listened entranced till the air died
away and all was silent. Then came the stirring crash of the National
Anthem. He remembered the last time he had heard it. At the Moreton
flower-show. It brought back in a flash to him the faint damp scent of
moss and roses. That happy summer day. Home and all it stood for was
here! It was good to be a Briton and feel this glorious freedom, this
great sense of fellowship, of ownership.
"You will be getting sunstroke if you stand there with your helmet off,
Cotton."
He started--the spell was broken. His fellow-passenger, a grey-haired,
clean-shaven man of fifty, with whom he had struck up a friendship
during the voyage, stood behind him with a smile on his kindly face,
which was lighted by a pair of keen, grey eyes.
"It sounds good to us exiles--the old tune--doesn't it? 'What does he
know of England who only England knows?' Eh? The chap who wrote that
must have known something of our Empire--what? And yet there are
millions of fools in the old country this moment who neither know nor
care whether the Empire exists or not; while the very bread they eat is
bought with the blood of those who created it! Look at that long wharf
over there. See those piles of bales? That is cotton pieces from
Manchester. See those chests piled under that big shed? Tea--cheap
'Straits' tea--shilling a pound in any little grocer's shop at home!
See that steamer loading those sacks, there, that black-funnelled one?
That's sago, that the kiddies eat at home."
"Wonderful!" Rupert echoed, and then he sighed. He had left the old
country--a felon. He had found a new world, a free man!--with his
country's flag flying a welcome. And yet----
"Do you see that little cruiser over there?" Patterson continued
excitedly. "It's hard to realise that she's the only British warship
within a thousand miles of this--the most important trade-route in the
world. No, that's not a British ship--that big battleship over there is
a German, and that other with four big black funnels is a Jap, and the
one beyond is a Russian. Bit of a shock, isn't it, when you recognise
what a tiny thing the British Navy is compared to the Colonial Empire it
has to defend?"
Rupert nodded. His head was in a whirl--and his heart. He had reached
the end of his journey. He was free! And yet----
"By the by, have you decided what you're going to do? My offer is still
open. Your mining knowledge would be very useful to me in Borneo,
although you haven't got the certificate of the School of Mines. It
will be rough work--dangerous work at times, as I told you, for we are
going up to the unknown interior where the Head-hunting Muruts live, and
you may not see civilisation again for twelve months."
Rupert looked him in the face. Patterson was a "white man" he knew. A
straight man.
"I have thought it all over, and I decided last night to accept your
offer if you are still willing to take me after you have heard why I am
here. I can't explain everything, but what I shall tell you is only what
you ought to know. Come down to my cabin and I will tell you who I am."
In the saloon of the boat--deserted now--where they had spent so many
happy weeks, sharing storm and sunshine, dangers and pleasures,
unconsciously growing to know one another, as men ashore never can.
A genuine friendship, backed by respect, had been formed between Rupert
and Patterson. The former had only just realised what this friendship
had done for him.
What it meant for him now! He, who had been for so many months a
convict, cut off from all communications with his fellows--a mere
machine, a cypher! Number 381!
Patterson had offered him a job. Work after his own heart. It was only
now, at the last moment, that Rupert realised he could not accept it,
could not continue the friendship that had commenced, and which meant so
much to him, unless he told Patterson who _and what he was_!
An escaped convict, a felon with a price on his head!
A nice companion for this straight, clean Englishman, who proposed to
take him, alone, in the vast interior of wild Borneo.
To speak, to confess, meant losing his first, only friend. It meant
losing the chance of work. It might mean that he would be arrested and
sent back to England and prison!
But he had to play the game! It is curious how little things affect one
at a great crisis of one's life. Rupert had known he would have to leave
Patterson and refuse his offer--or else speak and tell him his history,
and, sub-consciously, he had decided to say nothing, make some excuse
for refusing his offer and just leave Singapore, alone.
It was the sight of the Union Jack flying from the shore, the sound of
the old English tune, "Home, Sweet Home," that had suddenly turned the
scales and made him decide to leave his fate in Patterson's hands.
He thought of his father, of little Marjorie, his sister. And last of
Ruby, the woman he loved!
They would have asked him to play the game.
So, over a final drink in the empty saloon, Rupert told his new friend,
already his old friend, Jim Patterson, the story of his life, his
imprisonment and escape from Dartmoor. He refrained from mentioning any
names; he made no attempt to defend himself.
When he had finished Patterson ordered another drink, and then lit a
cheroot. Having got his "smoke" well under way he rose and held out his
hand.
Rupert took it hesitatingly. "I'm glad you told me, Cotton," Patterson
said. "I rather flatter myself that I'm a judge of character. I knew
the moment I saw you that you had a 'history.' I didn't want to know
it, but I guess you feel better for having told me. A man who has gone
through the fires and has got his fingers burnt is worth twice as much
as the fellow who has never fought and blundered, suffered and gone on
fighting. Now then, shut down on the past and ... get ashore!"
"You--you still want me to come with you?" Rupert stammered. "You still
trust me?"
Patterson laughed. "Now, more than ever."
Half an hour later Rupert's bag was put into a long boat with Mr.
Patterson's more bulky luggage. There was a choppy sea on and it was not
an easy task to get into the boat as it rose and fell at the ship's
gangway. At last they pushed off, Patterson sitting beside Rupert in
the stern, with their baggage piled in front of them. The six Malays
bent to their long, thin paddles with short, jerky strokes, and the
light boat flew through the white-topped waves towards the shore beneath
the slopes of Fort Canning, where the Union Jack still fluttered a
welcome.
* * * * *
A long canoe cut out of a single giant tree, with a palm leaf awning
covering the stern portion, under which two white men inclined on a mat,
while eight brawny Malays, sitting crossed-legged with their backs to
them, bent their bronze-coloured bodies from which the sweat poured in
streams to the regular strokes of their paddles. In the stern, behind
the awning, sat the steersman, an old, parchment-faced Dyak with a small
white goatee beard, fierce, pig-like eyes, and a broad slit of a mouth
which dripped a blood-red juice as he chewed his betelnut quid.
He was the guide, an old "Gutta-hunter" who knew this trackless forest,
these giant mountains through which the great river flowed three long
weeks' journey to the sea. Here, in the far interior, where no white
men had been before, it had become a clear, swift stream, with constant
rapids, up which the narrow canoe had to be dragged by the crew
waist-deep in the rushing white-foamed water as it swirled and tumbled
over the jagged rocks.
Tropical vegetation hung in thick green masses to the water's edge,
while the blacker mass of foliage of colossal trees whose huge trunks
shot up a hundred feet or more without a branch, shut in the landscape
on every hand.
"'This is the forest primeval, only more so,'" Patterson quoted gaily,
"and, if it wasn't for the leeches, not a bad place after all."
These pests hung on every leaf and blade of grass and, with outstretched
head, waited the passer-by on whom they instantly fixed, to worm through
puttie or breeches, through coat and shirt, until the flesh was reached
and the blood-sucking head inserted beneath.
For nearly nine months now Patterson and Rupert had been
travelling--prospecting and working--in this wild and dangerous region.
For Rupert, nine months of keen excitement, which had almost wiped out
the dreadful past. But, deep in his heart, was embedded the memory of
the woman he still loved; and the memory of his father and the little
homestead among the Devonshire moorlands.
The one thing he could never forget was that he would, perhaps for ever,
remain an exile. Yet he dreamed of returning home one day, of seeing
his loved ones again--if only for a few brief hours.
The sun was below the mountain tops, and it was almost time to think of
selecting a camping-place for the night. Patterson stretched himself
and sat up.
"Where shall we land?" he asked in Malay.
"I don't know--wherever your honour wishes," the helmsman replied.
"Your honour knows best."
Before Patterson could reply a huge tree on the right bank, not twenty
yards ahead, crashed down right across the stream, its great branches
throwing up a column of water, while its dense top was locked in the
foliage of the other bank.
"Murut! Murut!" shouted the Malays. "Turn quick! Quick!"
The water swirled beneath the swift strokes of the paddles as they
turned the canoe in its own length. A sudden crack with the rending
sound of a falling tree caused them to pause with paddles in the air, as
another giant of the forest crashed down the stream below them.
Instantly a shot rang out from the jungle and the air was filled with
yells of "Hoot-ka-Poot," the dread war-cry of the Head-hunting Muruts.
Naked figures climbed over the fallen trees that hemmed them in, and
musket shots from both banks added to the din, though the bullets
whizzed high overhead or harmlessly struck the water.
At the first alarm Rupert and Patterson had seized their rifles and
opened fire, Patterson shouting orders to keep the canoe in mid-stream.
"Fire at the men on the tree ahead, Cotton," he said. "We must force a
passage up stream.... Good shot!" as a Murut who had reached the middle
of the tree threw up his arms and toppled face down into the stream.
Two more were lying limp in the tangle of branches and another went
splashing and spluttering past the canoe, the swift running current red
with his blood. Suddenly the man in the bows leaped up with a shriek
that ran high above the noise of the fight, his eyes starting from his
head with horror, as he stared at a tiny bamboo shaft that he held in
his left hand, while his right plucked convulsively at his side, from
which a few drops of blood were oozing. Slowly he sank to his knees,
while his fellow paddlemen huddled away from him, muttering the dread
words, "Upas, Upas poison! He's hit!"
As the cruel poison began to work, the poor fellow's face became livid
and his limbs contorted with agony, and soon he lay a knotted and
inanimate mass of twisted limbs in the bottom of the canoe.
The deadly blow-pipe is the Murut's chief weapon, for guns are few and
only obtained where the Arab trader has penetrated to buy "gutta" and
other jungle produce. The blow-pipe is about six feet long and is bored
with wonderful skill from a perfectly straight piece of seasoned hard
wood. Its darts are made from bamboo, thin as a knitting needle, and
with a very sharp point, which is nearly cut through, so that it breaks
off in the wound before the dart can be withdrawn. A piece of pith that
exactly fits the bore of the tube is fixed to the other end of the dart,
and so powerful is this primitive weapon that a skilled warrior can blow
a dart with extreme accuracy to forty or even fifty yards range.
The Malay next Rupert dropped his paddle, which floated away, and when
he looked at him he saw a thin line of blood running down his face from
a hole in his left temple. He was stone dead, but still squatted in his
place. A bullet now broke the steersman's, Unju's, paddle, and the
canoe began to drift towards the bank.
It had all happened so quickly that they had scarcely time to realise
their danger, and it was not till a shower of spears had wounded Unju
and killed the other two Malays, that Patterson saw they were almost
ashore.
"Quick, Cotton, paddle for your life!" he shouted, and, seizing a
paddle, he tried to turn the bow of the canoe to the stream again.
But it was too late, a score of naked forms leapt from the bank and
threw themselves upon the canoe, which filled with water, and surrounded
by shrieking savages was soon fast wedged in the undergrowth on the wear
side.
It would have gone hard with the two white men, for a dozen spears were
poised against them, when Unju, the Dyack, yelling his war-cry, leapt
into the midst of the Muruts, his heavy parang swung by an arm of steel,
cleaving through skull and shoulder, breast or back, and sending death
and destruction on every side. In a moment he had cleared a circle
round the canoe. Suddenly a shot rang out, and Unju collapsed into
Rupert's arms, and an instant later a tall native with a Winchester
repeating rifle in his hand, stepped from behind a tree, and, signing to
the Muruts to keep back, approached the canoe.
He wore a short Arab coat, a pair of tight-fitting "sluar," and a small
handkerchief turban of stiff gold embroidery round his head. An
acquiline nose, two piercing black eyes set very close together, and a
small black moustache that covered but did not hide a thin, cruel mouth,
showed that the newcomer was not a Murut. He addressed Patterson in
Malay with the peculiar drawl of the Brunie noble.
"Surrender, and the Muruts shall not kill you. Touch not your guns but
step up upon the land."
He then turned to the Muruts and gave some orders in their own language.
Unju had sat up, and Rupert was trying to staunch the bullet wound in
his left shoulder. With Patterson's assistance they lifted him from the
canoe and laid him against a tree on the river bank. The Muruts were
cutting branches of trees and with a few rattans soon constructed a
rough litter.
What fate awaited them Rupert hardly dared to guess. That their lives
had been spared was evidently due to the presence of the Brunie chief,
whom they learnt later on was an outlaw and a desperado called Mat
Salleh, who, in his young days, had been a pirate and was a native of
Suloo, an island of the north coast. Old Unju knew him well by
reputation, and seemed to fear him far more than he did the Muruts, whom
he really despised. Mat Salleh had obtained a great influence over the
Muruts of the interior, who believed him to be invulnerable and
possessed with supernatural power.
When the litter was ready, Mat Salleh ordered them to march behind it,
and surrounded by armed Muruts and preceded by others carrying the gory
heads of the poor Malays, they started up a steep mountain track through
the gloom of the dark jungle. After about an hour's march they emerged
from the forest into a large clearing, where paddy and sweet potatoes
were planted. At the top of a conical hill in the centre of the
clearing was a high stockade of bamboo enclosing some dozen houses on
piles and thatched with palm leaves. As the long procession entered the
clearing, a great hubbub arose out in the village. The deep notes of a
big war gong mingled with the shrill cries of the women, who poured out
of a gateway and danced down towards the approaching warriors. The sun
had set and it was nearly dark, though a bright moon lighted up the
clearing, throwing the stockade and houses into black relief against the
opal sky.
Rupert glanced at Patterson. The latter shrugged his shoulders. "We're
in for it, I'm afraid, Cotton. Sorry, old man, but while there's life
there's hope!"
As they entered the stockade flames shot up from a huge fire that had
just been lit inside, and the ruddy glow thrown on the bronze figures of
the men and the naked bodies of the women who surrounded them, made a
scene so weird and eerie that Rupert's blood ran cold with dread of what
was about to happen in this devils' cauldron. At one end of the
enclosure was a long house with an open verandah about six feet above
the ground, against which was placed a single bamboo in which notches
had been cut to form steps.
By this Mat Salleh and the Murut chiefs mounted, and squatting round a
huge jar began to refresh themselves by sucking a reed that was inserted
in the top. Similar jars were placed near the fire, and groups of
warriors quickly surrounded them. Patterson and Rupert were dragged to
the fire, and poor wounded Unju was also dragged there by a horrible old
hag, who appeared to be the mistress of the ceremonies. The women now
took the heads, still dripping with blood, and began to slowly dance
round the fire, chanting a deep song with a high wailing note at the end
of each stave. Their long black hair hung straight to their waists,
they were naked save for a dark cloth of bark round their loins. The
great wooden gong beat time and throbbed on the still night air.
Gradually the time became faster, and men and women from the drinking
jars joined in the dance. The gory heads were tossed from hand to hand,
and it was evident to the unfortunate prisoners that the drink was
beginning to inflame the dancers.
Spears and parangs flashed in the firelight, and old Unju, who had
hitherto remained motionless, stirred uneasily and at last spoke to
Patterson in a low voice.
"Beware, O chief, for they will take our heads presently when their
blood is fired by drink."
Patterson nodded. "I'm afraid I've given you a poor run for your money,
Cotton," he whispered. Rupert smiled. "I'm all right. Glad we're
together."
At this moment a band of women were seen advancing from the chief's
house, leading two youths who were to be initiated as warriors. They
each carried a head by the hair and were led into the circle of dancers.
The same old hag who had conducted the dance now smeared the youths with
blood, shrieking an invocation, to which the crowd replied at intervals
with a shout of "Augh!" Next an old warrior stepped forward and broke
off their two front teeth with the aid of a stone and a short iron
instrument, afterwards filing the stumps off to the gums.
This was done to enable the sumpitan or blowpipe to be used with greater
facility and is the sign of manhood. More jars of tapi (rice spirit)
were broached, and every one gave themselves up to drinking.
Patterson whispered to Unju and asked him if he was able to walk, to
which the old man replied that he could walk all night if his head
remained on his shoulders--about which he expressed some misgivings.
"Listen," said Patterson, "in a short time the moon will be down. They
have put green boughs on the fires to smoke the heads while they drink.
It is pitch dark under the stockade, and most of the men are already
drunk. If we can crawl one by one to the stockade, without being seen,
we can overpower the man at the gate, and, once outside, Unju must guide
us to the river. It is a desperate venture, but to remain here is
certain death."
Unju shook his head. On the whole, he preferred to remain where he was.
Their lives were in the hands of fate. To go or stay--it would come to
the same thing in the end.
Patterson turned impatiently to Rupert. "What do you say? At least we
shall be doing something, and, anyway, get a fight for our lives. This
inaction is getting on my nerves."
Rupert managed to laugh. "It is a bit dull. I almost feel as if I were
watching my own head being smoke-dried over that beastly fire."
It was agreed that at a signal from Patterson each man should begin to
creep towards the stockade, keeping as far apart as possible. If one
was discovered and caught the other two were to make a dash for it,
trusting to the excitement and drunken confusion to get away.
Patterson drew a ring off his finger, a plain gold band, and gave it to
Rupert, asking him (in the event of his getting away and Patterson being
caught) to give it to a certain person he named and whose address Rupert
would find at the National Bank, Singapore.
"Anything I can do for you, old man, if--if you're unlucky?"
Rupert thought for a moment. "There is a girl I love called Ruby
Strode. You will probably find her at the Ingenue Theatre, London.
Tell her that I understood and appreciated everything she did on my
behalf--tell her she was my last thought."
"Right-ho," Patterson replied cheerily. "Now, crawl a few feet away and
lie low until you hear me whistle twice. Then make for the stockade on
your hands and knees. Each man for himself, remember. It's our only
chance."
Rupert gripped his hand. The next moment he found himself alone. By
the faint light of the flames from the fire he could see the hideous,
naked figures of the Muruts dancing to and fro, men and women. They
reeled, leapt, staggered. The rice spirit was doing its deadly work,
and already they were mad with excitement.
Suddenly above the noise Rupert heard two long, low whistles. He turned
over on his hands and knees. But, as he did so, he heard a wild yell.
The hag-like woman had seen him. Patterson was discovered, too.
A score of writhing, steel-coloured, blood-stained bodies reeled towards
them, closed round them, cutting off all chance of escape.
Rupert saw Patterson rise to his feet. He followed his example, giving
himself up for lost. The flames from the bough-fed fire leaped up
brightly for a moment, then died down again, making the night
inky-black.