on inquiry, I discovered what the ancient chief really intended. His
suggestion was that the blood-money should take the form of seven human
beings, who were to be duly delivered to the relations of the murdered
man as slaves. These seven creatures were not to be members of his or
Ku-îsh's tribe, but were to be captured by them from among the really
wild people of the hills, who had had no share in the ill-doing which it
was my object to punish. The Porcupine and his brethren, he explained,
would run some risk, and be put to a considerable amount of trouble,
before the seven wild men could be caught, and this was to be the
measure of their punishment. The old Chief went on to tell me that the
wild Sâkai only pursued a raiding party until they came to a spot where
a spear had been left sticking upright in the ground. This custom, he
said, was well known to the marauders, who took care to avail themselves
of it, so soon as their captives had been secured. My informant said
that the wild men would never venture past a spear left in this manner,
but he was unable to explain the reason, and did not profess to
understand the superstition with which this spear is probably connected
in the minds of the jungle dwellers.
Blood-money in past times, I was assured both by Malays and Sâkai, had
always been paid in this manner by the semi-wild tribes of the interior.
It was the custom, and Kria's relatives were eager in their prayers to
me to accept the proposal. Instead, I exacted a heavy fine of jungle
produce from the tribe to which Ku-îsh, the Porcupine, belonged, and
thus I gave complete dissatisfaction to all parties concerned. The Sâkai
disliked the decision because they found the fine more difficult to pay,
while the Malays thought the blood-money paid hopelessly inadequate,
when compared with the value of seven slaves. But, as the Indian Proverb
says, 'an order is an order until one is strong enough to disobey it.'
Therefore the fine was paid by the Sâkai and accepted by the Malays with
grumblings, of which I only heard the echoes.
So ends the story of the Flight of Chêp, the Bird, and of the deed
whereby Ku-îsh, the Porcupine, cleansed his honour from the shame that
had been put upon him. The murder was a brutal act, savagely done, and
the ruthless manner in which the Porcupine killed the little defenceless
child, who had done no evil to him or his, makes one's blood boil. None
the less, when one remembers the heavy debt of vengeance, for long years
of grinding cruelty and wicked wrong, which the Sâkai owes to the Malay,
one can find it in one's heart to forgive much that he may do when the
savage lust of blood is upon him, and when, for a space, his enemies of
the hated race are delivered into his hand.
THE VAULTING AMBITION
Adown the stream, whence mist like steam
Arises in early morning,
'Mid shout and singing they bear me swinging
A mark for the people's scorning.
By long hair hanging, amid the clanging
Of drums that are beaten loud,
I am borne--the Head of the ghastly Dead,
That ne'er knew coffin nor shroud!
But I swing there, nor greatly care
If the Victor jeers or sings,
Nor heed my foe, for now I know
The worth of these mortal things.
_The Song of the Severed Head._
When the Portuguese Filibusters descended upon the Peninsula, they
employed--so says the native tradition--the time-worn stratagem of the
Pious Æneas; and, having obtained, by purchase, as much land as could be
enclosed by the hide of a bull, from the Sultân of Malacca, they cut the
skin up into such cunning strips that a space large enough to build a
formidable fort was won by them. This they erected in the very heart of
the capital, which, at that time, was the head and front of the Malay
Kingdoms of the Peninsula. Thence they speedily overran the State of
Malacca, and, though the secret of making gunpowder, and rude
match-locks, was known to the Malays, native skill and valour was of no
avail when opposed to the discipline and the bravery of the mail-clad
Europeans. Thus, the country was soon subdued, and, in 1511, Sultân
Muhammad, with most of his relations and a few faithful followers, fled
to Pahang, which, at that time, was a dependency of Malacca. Here he
founded a new Dynasty, his descendants assuming the title of Bendahâra,
and doing homage and owing allegiance to the Sultân of Daik, whose
kingdom, in its turn, has since fallen to the portion of the Dutch.
The people of Pahang were ever lawless, warlike folk, and the Malacca
_Râjas_, who seem to have been a mild enough set of people while in
their own country, speedily caught the infection from their
surroundings. Thus, from one generation to another, various rival
claimants to the throne strove for the mastery during successive
centuries. The land was always more or less on the rack of civil war,
and so to-day the largest State in the Peninsula carries a population of
only some four human beings to the square mile.
War was lulled, and peace fell upon Pahang when Bendahâra Äli, the
father of the present Sultân, came to the throne; but, when he died in
his palace among the cocoa-nut trees, across the river opposite to the
Pekan of to-day, civil war broke out once more with redoubled fury.
During the years that he was a fugitive from the land of his birth, Che’
Wan Âhmad, who now bears the high-sounding title of Sultân Âhmad
Maätham, Shah of Pahang, made numerous efforts to seize the throne from
his brother and nephew, but it was not until the fifth attempt that he
was finally successful.
During one of those pauses which occurred in the war game, when Âhmad
had once more been driven into exile, and his brother's son Bendahâra
Korish reigned in Pahang, the ambitions of Wan Bong of Jelai brought him
who had cherished them to an untimely and ignoble death.
The Jelai valley has, from time immemorial, been ruled over by a race of
Chiefs, who, though they are regarded by the other natives of Pahang as
ranking merely as nobles, are treated by the people of their own
district with semi-royal honours. The Chief of the Clan, the Dâto’
Mahrâja Perba Jelai, commonly known as To’ Râja, is addressed as
_Ungku_, which means 'Your Highness,' by his own people. Homage too is
done to him by them, hands being lifted up in salutation, with the palms
pressed together, as in the attitude of Christian prayer, but the tips
of the thumbs are not suffered to ascend beyond the base of the chin. In
saluting a real _Râja_, the hands are carried higher and higher,
according to the prince's rank, until, for the Sultân, the tips of the
thumbs are on a level with the forehead. Little details, such as these,
are of immense importance in the eyes of the Malays, and not without
reason, seeing that, in an Independent Native State, many a man has come
by his death for carelessness in their observance. A wrongly given
salute may raise the ire of a _Râja_, which is no pleasant thing to
encounter; or if it flatter him by giving him more than his due, the
fact may be whispered in the ears of his superiors, who will not be
slow to resent the usurpation and to punish the delinquent.
At the time of which I write, the then To’ Râja of Jelai was an aged
man, cursed by the possession of many sons, arrogant folk, who loved
war. The eldest, the most arrogant, the most warlike, the most
ambitious, and the most evil of these, was Wan Bong. He, the people of
the Jelai called Che’ Âki, which means 'Sir Father,' because he was the
heir of their Dâto’, or Chief, which word in the vernacular literally
means a grandfather. He was a man of about thirty-five years of age, of
a handsome presence, and an aristocratic bearing. He wore his fine black
hair long, so that it hung about his waist, and he dressed with the
profusion of coloured silks, and went armed with the priceless weapons,
that are only to be seen in perfection on the person of a Malay prince.
Into the mind of this man there entered, on a certain day, an idea at
once daring and original. Ever since the death of Bendahâra Äli, nearly
a decade earlier, Pahang had been racked by war and rumours of war, and,
wherever men congregated, tales were told of the brave deeds done by the
rival _Râjas_, each of whom was seeking to win the throne for himself
and for his posterity. It was the memory of these things that probably
suggested his project to Wan Bong. Che’ Wan Âhmad had fled the country
after his last defeat, and Bendahâre Korish, with his sons Che’ Wan
Âhman, and Che’ Wan Da, ruled at Pekan. To none of the latter did Wan
Bong cherish any feeling but hatred, and it occurred to him that now,
while they were still suffering from the effects of their fierce
struggle with Che’ Wan Âhmad, it would be possible, by a bold stroke,
to upset their dynasty, and to secure the broad valleys of Pahang as an
inheritance for his father, To’ Râja, for himself, and for their heirs
for ever.
Every man in Pahang was, at that time, a soldier; and the people of
Jelai and Lipis were among the most warlike of the inhabitants of the
country. All the people of the interior followed Wan Bong like sheep,
and he speedily found himself at the head of a following of many
thousands of men. For a noble to rise up against his sovereign, with the
object of placing his own family upon the throne, was an altogether
unheard of thing among the natives of the Peninsula; but the very
originality of Wan Bong's plan served to impress the people with the
probability of its success. The _Râjas_ at Pekan were very far away,
while Wan Bong, with unlimited power in his hands, was at their very
doors. Therefore the natives of the upper country had no hesitation in
selecting the side to which it was most politic for them to adhere.
Wan Bong installed his father as Bendahâra of Pahang with much state,
and many ceremonial observances. All the insignia of royalty were
hastily fashioned by the goldsmiths of Penjum, and, whenever To’ Râja or
Wan Bong appeared in public, they were accompanied by pages bearing
betel boxes, swords, and silken umbrellas, as is the manner of Malay
kings.
To’ Râja remained in his village of Bûkit Betong, on the banks of the
Jelai river, and Wan Bong, with his army, speedily conquered the whole
of Pahang as far as Kuâla Semantan. Thus more than half the country was
his, almost without a struggle; and Wan Bong, flustered with victory,
returned up river to receive the congratulations of his friends, leaving
Panglîma Râja Sebîdi, his principal General, in charge of the conquered
districts.
The _Râjas_ at Pekan, however, were meanwhile mustering their men, and,
when Wan Bong reached Kuâla Tembeling, he received the unwelcome
intelligence that his forces had fallen back some sixty miles to Tanjong
Gâtal, before an army under the command of Che’ Wan Âhman and Che’ Wan
Da. At Tanjong Gâtal a battle was fought, and the royal forces were
routed with great slaughter, as casualties are reckoned in Malay
warfare, nearly a score of men being killed. But Che’ Wan Âhman knew
that many Pahang battles had been won without the aid of gunpowder or
bullets, or even _kris_ and spear. He sent secretly to Panglîma Râja
Sibîdi, and, by promises of favours to come, and by gifts of no small
value, he had but little difficulty in persuading him to turn traitor.
The Panglîma was engaged in a war against the ruler of the country, the
Khalîfah, the earthly representative of the Prophet on Pahang soil, and
the feeling that he was thus warring against God, as well as against
man, probably made him the more ready to enrich himself by making peace
with the princes to whom he rightly owed allegiance. Be this how it may,
certain it is that Panglîma Râja Sebîdi went to Wan Bong, where he lay
camped at Kuâla Tembeling, and assured him that after the defeat at
Tanjong Gâtal, the royal forces had dispersed, and that the Pekan
_Râjas_ were now in full flight.
'Pahang is now thine, O Prince!' he concluded, 'so be pleased to return
to the Jelai, and I, thy servant, will keep watch and ward over the
conquered land, until such time as thou bringest thy father with thee,
to sit upon the throne which thy valour has won for him, and for his
seed for ever!'
So Wan Bong set off on a triumphal progress up river to Bûkit Betong,
disbanding his army as he went. But scarcely had he reached his home,
than he learned, to his dismay, that Che’ Wan Âhman and Che’ Wan Da,
with a large force, were only a few miles behind him at Bâtu Nering.
Panglîma Râja Sibîdi, with all his people, had made common cause with
the enemy, whose ranks were further swelled by the very men who had so
lately been disbanded by Wan Bong on his journey up river. The Pekan
_Râjas_ had carefully collected them man by man as they followed in the
wake of the dispersing army, and Wan Bong thus found himself deprived,
in an instant, not only of all that he had believed himself to have won,
but even of such poor following as had been his in the days before his
ambitious schemes were hatched.
But before the royal forces began their invasion of the upper country,
it became evident to them that Che’ Jahya, the Chief who had been left
in charge of the Tembeling River by Wan Bong, must be disposed of. This
man had followed Wan Bong's fortunes from the first, and it was known in
the royal camp that no attempt to buy his loyalty would be likely to
prove successful. Wan Bong had started up the Jelai on his triumphal
progress, and it was important that no news should reach him, that might
cause him to stay the dispersal of his men. So Che’ Jahya's fate was
sealed. About the second day after Wan Bong's departure for Bûkit
Betong, Che’ Jahya was seated in the cool interior of his house at Kuâla
Âtok, on the Tembeling River. The sun was hot overhead, and the
squeaking low of a cow-buffalo, calling to its calf, came to his ears.
The fowls clucked and scratched about the ground beneath the flooring,
and the women-folk in the cook-house chattered happily. All spoke of
peace. The war was over, and Che’ Jahya sat dreaming of the good things
which would be his in the days that were coming. He had stood by Wan
Bong when bullets were flying, and had camped on the bare earth when his
armies had taken the field. His aid and his counsel had had no small
share in his chief's success. Che’ Jahya's heart was filled with peace,
and the gladness of one whose toils are over, and who sees his rewards
well within his grasp. Already, in imagination, he was acting as the new
Bendahâras deputy, having power over men, a harem full of fair women,
and wealth to gild his ease. And yet, as he sat there dreaming, his
death was ever drawing nearer to him, unfeared and unsuspected.
Shortly before sunset, at the hour when the kine go down to water, a
party of Râwa men came to Che’ Jahya's house. These people are a race of
Sumatran Malays, and members of their tribe have been mercenaries and
hired bravos in the Peninsula, beyond the memory of man. They came to
Che’ Jahya, they said, to offer their services to him; and, in their
coming, he saw the first evidence of that authority over men and things,
of which he had sat dreaming through the hot hours of the day. He
received them courteously, and had rice and spiced viands placed before
them, inviting them to eat, and, in doing so, he almost unconsciously
assumed the tone and manners of a great chief. All partook of the meal
in heartiness and good fellowship, for the Râwa people have no fine
feelings about abusing hospitality, and a meal, come by it how you may,
is a meal, and as such is welcome. When the food had been disposed of,
and quids of betel nut and cigarettes were being discussed, the talk
naturally turned upon the war, which had so recently closed. Che’ Jahya,
still living in his Fool's Paradise, and intoxicated by his new honours
and importance, was blind to any suspicions of treachery, which, at
another time, might have presented themselves to him. He spoke
condescendingly to his guests, still aping the manners of a great chief.
He dropped a passing hint or two of his own prowess in the war, and when
Baginda Sutan, the Headman of the Râwa gang, craved leave to examine the
beauties of his _kris_, he handed his weapon to him, without hesitation,
and with the air of one who confers a favour upon his subordinate.
This was the psychological moment for which his guests had been waiting.
So long as Che’ Jahya was armed, it was possible that he might be able
to do one of them a hurt, which was opposed to the principles upon which
the Râwa men were accustomed to work; but as soon as he had parted with
his _kris_, all the necessary conditions had been complied with. At a
sign from their Chief, three of the Râwa men snatched up their guns, and
a moment later Che’ Jahya rolled over dead, with three gaping holes
drilled through his body. There he lay, motionless, in an ever-widening
pool of blood, on the very spot where, so few hours before, he had
dreamed those dreams of power and greatness--dreams that had then soared
so high, and now lay as low as he, crushed and obliterated from the
living world, as though they had never been.
Sutan Baginda hacked off Che’ Jahya's head, salted it, for obvious
reasons, stained it a ghastly yellow with turmeric, as a further act of
dishonour, and, when the house and village had been looted, carried his
ghastly trophy with him down river to the camp of Che’ Wan Âhman. Then
it was fastened to a boat pole, fixed upright in the sand of Pâsir
Tambang, at the mouth of the Tembeling River, where it dangled with all
the horror of set teeth, and staring eyeballs--the fixity of the face of
one who has died a violent death--until, in the fulness of time, the
waters rose and swept pole and head away with them. Thus was a plain
lesson taught, by Che’ Wan Âhman to the people of Pahang, as a warning
to dreamers of dreams.
But to return to Wan Bong, whose high hopes had all been shattered as
completely, and almost as rudely, as those of poor Che’ Jahya. When the
evil news of the approach of Che’ Wan Âhman and his people reached him,
Wan Bong's scant following dwindled rapidly, and, at length, he was
forced to seek refuge in the jungles of the Jelai, with only three or
four of his closest adherents still following his fallen fortunes. As
he lay on his bed of boughs, under a hastily improvised shelter of
plaited palm leaves, with the fear of imminent death staring him in the
eyes; when through the long day every snapping twig and every falling
fruit, in those still forests, must have sounded to his ears like the
footfall of his pursuers, Wan Bong must have had ample time to contrast
his past position with that in which he then found himself. A few days
before, he had returned to Jelai, a conqueror flushed with triumph. All
Pahang, he had then imagined, lay at his feet, and he alone, of all the
nobles of the Peninsula, had in a few months upset an old-world dynasty,
and placed himself upon a royal throne. Then, in an instant of time, the
vision had been shattered to fragments, and here he lay, like a hunted
beast in the jungles, quaking at every sound that broke the stillness,
an outlaw, a ruined man, with a price set upon his head.
The jungles, for a fugitive from his enemies, are not a pleasant refuge.
The constant dampness, which clings to anything in the dark recesses of
the forest, breeds boils and skin irritation of all sorts on the bodies
of those who dare not come out into the open places. Faces, on which the
sunlight never falls, become strangely pallid, and the constant agony of
mind scores deep lines on cheek and forehead. The food, too, is bad.
Rice the fugitive must have, or the loathsome dropsical swellings,
called _bâsal_, soon cripple the strongest limbs; but a Malay cannot
live on rice alone, and the sour jungle fruits, and other vegetable
growths, with which he ekes out his scanty meals, wring his weakened
stomach with constant pangs and aches. All these things Wan Bong now
experienced, as he daily shifted his camp, from one miserable
halting-place to another; but a greater pain than all the rest was soon
to be added to his cup of bitterness. He was an opium smoker, and his
hoarded store of the precious drug began to run very low. At last the
day came on which it was exhausted, and Wan Bong was driven to
desperation. For some twenty-four hours he strove against the
overpowering longing for that subtle drug that leads the strongest will
captive, but the struggle was all in vain. When, at length, the physical
pain had become so intense that Wan Bong could neither stand, nor sit,
nor lie down for more than a minute at a time, nor yet could still the
moans which the restless torture drew from him, he despatched one of his
boys to seek for the supply of opium, which alone could assuage his
sufferings.
The boy left him, and his two other companions, in a patch of the high
grass, which the Malays call _resam_, that chanced to grow at the edge
of the forest near Bâtu Nering. He promised to return to him as soon as
the opium should have been procured. But Che’ Wan Âhman's people had
anticipated that Wan Bong would, sooner or later, be forced to purchase
opium, and no sooner had the messenger presented himself at the shop of
the Chinese trader, who sold the drug, than he found himself bound hand
and foot. He was carried before Che’ Wan Âhman's representative, and
interrogated. He denied all knowledge of Wan Bong's hiding-place; but
Malays have methods of making people speak the truth on occasion. They
are grim, ghastly, blood-curdling methods, that need not be here
described in detail; suffice it to say that the boy spoke.
That evening, as the short twilight was going out in the sky, and the
flakes of scarlet-dyed clouds were paling overhead, a body of men crept,
with noiseless feet, through the clump of long grass in which Wan Bong
was hiding. They saw him sitting on the earth, bent double over his
folded arms, rocking his body to and fro, in the agony of the opium
smoker, when the unsatisfied craving for the drug is strong upon him.
There was a rustle in the grass behind him, the sharp fierce clang of a
rifle rang out through the forest, and a bullet through Wan Bong's back
ended his pains for ever. The Headman of the pursuing band was Che’
Bûrok of Pûlau Tâwar, but he was a prudent person who kept well in the
rear until the deed had been done. Then he came forward rapidly, and
unstringing the purse-belt from around his waist, he gave it to the man
who had fired the shot, in exchange for a promise that not he, but Che’
Bûrok, should have the credit which is due to one who has slain the
enemies of the King. Thus it was that Che’ Bûrok was credited, for a
time, with the deed, and reaped fair rewards from the Bendahâra and his
sons. But murder will out, and Che’ Bûrok died some years later, a
discredited liar, in disgrace with his former masters, and shorn of all
his honours and possessions.
Wan Bong's head was sawn off at the neck, and was carried into camp, by
that splendid shock of luxuriant black hair, which had been his pride
when he was alive. It was clotted with blood now, and matted with the
dirt from the lairs where he had slept in the jungle, but it served well
enough as a handle by which to hold his dissevered head, and there was
no need, therefore, to make a puncture under his chin, whence to pass a
rattan cord through to his mouth, as is the custom when there is no
natural handle by which such trophies can be carried.
On Che’ Bûrok's arrival in camp, the head was salted, as Che’ Jahya's
had been, and, like his, it was also smeared with turmeric. Then, when
the dawn had broken, it was fastened, still by its luxuriant hair, to
the horizontal bar which supports the forward portion of the punting
platform on a Malay boat, and the _prâhu_, with its ghastly burden,
started down river to Pekan, to the sound of beating drums, and clanging
gongs, and to the joyous shouts of the men at the paddles. For two
hundred odd miles they bore this present to their King, down all the
glorious reaches of river, glistening in the sunlight, that wind through
the length of the Pahang valley. The people of the villages came out
upon the river banks, and watched the procession file past them with
silent, unmoved countenances, and all the long way the distorted head of
him, whose eyes had looked with longing on a throne, shook gently from
side to side, with the motion of the boat, as though he still was musing
sadly on the schemes which had brought him to his bloody death.
'ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE'
For the gods very subtly fashion
Madness with sadness upon earth:
Not knowing in any wise compassion,
Nor holding pity of any worth.
_Atalanta in Calydon._