his time had come. He was not a man, however, who would willingly fly
from danger, and he foresaw moreover that if he took refuge in flight
all his possessions would be destroyed by his enemies, while he himself,
with his wife and little ones, would die in the jungles or fall into the
hands of his pursuers. He already regarded himself as a dead man, but
though he knew that he could save himself even now by a tardy desertion
of To’ Râja, the idea of adopting this means of escape was never
entertained by him for an instant.
'If I sit down, I die, and if I stand up, I die!' he said to the
messenger. 'Better then does it befit a man to die standing. Come, let
us go to Pâsir Tambang and learn what To’ Gâjah hath in store for me!'
The sun was half-mast high in the heavens as Imâm Bakar crossed the
river to Pâsir Tambang in his tiny dug-out. Until the sun's rays fall
more or less perpendicularly, the slanting light paints broad reaches of
water a brilliant dazzling white, unrelieved by shadow or reflection.
The green of the masses of jungle on the river banks takes to itself a
paler hue than usual, and the yellow of the sandbanks changes its shade
from the colour of a cowslip to that of a pale and early primrose. It
was on such a white morning as this that Imâm Bakar crossed slowly to
meet his fate. His dug-out grounded on the sandbank, and when it had
been made fast to a pole, its owner, fully armed, walked towards the
hut in which To’ Gâjah was seated.
This Chief was a very heavily built man, with a bullet-shaped head, and
a square resolute jaw, partially cloaked by a short sparse beard of
coarse wiry hair. His voice and his laugh were both loud and boisterous,
and he usually affected an air of open, noisy good-fellowship, which was
but little in keeping with his character. When he saw Imâm Bakar
approaching him, with the slow and solemn tread of one who believes
himself to be walking to his death, he cried out to him, while he was
yet some way off, with every appearance of friendship and cordiality:
'O Imâm Bakar! What is the news? Come hither to me and fear nothing. I
come as thy friend, in peace and love. Come let us touch hands in
salutation as befits those who harbour no evil one to another.'
Imâm Bakar was astonished at this reception. His heart bounded against
his ribs with relief at finding his worst fears so speedily dispelled,
and being, for the moment, off his guard, he placed his two hands
between those of To’ Gâjah in the usual manner of Malay formal
salutation. Quick as thought, To’ Gâjah seized him by the wrists, his
whole demeanour changing in a moment from that of the rough
good-fellowship of the boon companion, to excited and cruel ferocity.
'Stab! Stab! Stab! Ye sons of evil women!' he yelled to his men, and
before poor Imâm Bakar could free himself from the powerful grasp which
held him, the spears were unearthed, and half a dozen of their blades
met in his shuddering flesh. It was soon over, and Imâm Bakar lay dead
upon the sandbank, his body still quivering, while the peaceful morning
song of the birds came uninterrupted from the forest around.
Then Khatib Bûjang and Imâm Prang Sâmah were sent for, and as they came
trembling into the presence of To’ Gâjah, whose hands were still red
with the blood of their friend and kinsman, they squatted humbly on the
sand at his feet.
'Behold a sample of what ye also may soon be,' said To’ Gâjah, spurning
the dead body of Imâm Bakar as he spoke. 'Mark it well, and then tell me
who is your Master and who your Chief!'
Khatib Bûjang and Imâm Prang Sâmah stuttered and stammered, but not
because they hesitated about the answer, but rather through over
eagerness to speak, and a deadly fear which held them dumb. At last,
however, they found words and cried together:
'The Bendahâra is our Master, and our Chief is whomsoever thou mayest be
pleased to appoint.'
Thus they saved their lives, and are still living, while To’ Gâjah lies
buried in an exile's grave; but many will agree in thinking that such a
death as Imâm Bakar's is a better thing for a man to win, than empty
years such as his companions have survived to pass in scorn and in
dishonour.
But while these things were being done at Pekan and at Pâsir Tambang,
Wan Lingga, who, as I have related, had remained behind in the upper
country when To’ Râja was carried to Pekan, was sparing no pains to
seduce the faithful natives of the interior from their loyalty to their
hereditary Chief. In all his efforts, however, he was uniformly
unsuccessful, for, though he had got rid of To’ Râja, there remained in
the Lipis Valley the aged Chief of the District, the Dâto’ Kâya
Stia-wangsa, whom the people both loved and feared. He had been a great
warrior in the days of his youth, and a series of lucky chances and
hair-breadth escapes had won for him an almost fabulous reputation, such
as among a superstitious people easily attaches itself to any striking
and successful personality. It was reported that he bore a charmed life,
that he was invulnerable alike to lead bullets and to steel blades, and
even the silver slugs which his enemies had fashioned for him had
hitherto failed to find their billet in his body. From the first this
man had thrown in his lot with his kinsman To’ Râja, and, unlike him, he
had declined to allow himself to be persuaded to visit the capital when
the war came to an end. Thus he continues to live at the curious little
village of Penjum, on the Lipis river, and, so long as he was present in
person to exert his influence upon the people, Wan Lingga found it
impossible to make any headway against him.
These things were reported by Wan Lingga to To’ Gâjah, and by the latter
to the Bendahâra. The result was an order to Wan Lingga, charging him to
attack To’ Kâya Stia-wangsa by night, and to slay him and all his house.
With To’ Kâya dead and buried, and To’ Râja a State prisoner at the
capital, the game which To’ Gâjah and Wan Lingga had been playing would
at least be won. The Lipis would fall to the former, and the Jelai to
the latter as their spoils of war; and the people of these Districts,
being left 'like little chicks without the mother hen,' would acquiesce
in the arrangement, following their new Chiefs as captives of their bows
and spears.
Thus all looked well for the future when Wan Lingga set out, just before
sun-down, from his house at Âtok to attack To’ Kâya Stia-wangsa at
Penjum. The latter village was at that time inhabited by more Chinese
than Malays. It was the nearest point on the river to the gold mines of
Jâlis, and at the back of the squalid native shops, that lined the river
bank, a well-worn footpath led inland to the Chinese alluvial washings.
Almost in the centre of the long line of shops and hovels which formed
the village of Penjum, stood the thatched house in which To’ Kâya
Stia-wangsa lived, with forty or fifty women, and about a dozen male
followers. The house was roofed with thatch. Its walls were fashioned
from plaited laths of split bamboo, and it was surrounded by a high
fence of the same material. This was the place which was to be Wan
Lingga's object of attack.
A band of nearly a hundred men followed Wan Lingga from Âtok. Their way
lay through a broad belt of virgin forest, which stretches between Âtok
and Penjum, a distance of about half a dozen miles. The tramp of the men
moving in a single file through the jungle, along the narrow footpath,
worn smooth by the passage of countless naked feet, made sufficient
noise to scare all living things from their path. The forests of the
Peninsula, even at night, when their denizens are afoot, are not
cheerful places. Though a man lie very still, so that the life of the
jungle is undisturbed by his presence, the weird night noises, that are
borne to his ears, only serve to emphasise the solitude and the gloom.
The white moonlight straggles in patches through the thick canopy of
leaves overhead, and makes the shadows blacker and more awful by the
contrast of light and shade. But a night march through the forest is
even more depressing, when the soft pat of bare feet, the snapping of a
dry twig, a whispered word of warning or advice, the dull deep note of
the night-jar, and the ticking of the tree insects alone break the
stillness. Nerves become strung to a pitch of intensity which the
circumstances hardly seem to warrant, and all the chances of evil, which
in the broad light of day a man would laugh to scorn, assume in one's
mind the aspect of inevitable certainties.
I speak by the book; for well I know the depression, and the fearful
presentiment of coming evil, which these night marches are apt to
occasion; and well can I picture the feelings and thoughts which must
have weighed upon Wan Lingga, during that four hours' silent tramp
through the forest.
He was playing his last card. If he succeeded in falling upon To’ Kâya
unawares, and slaying him on the spot, all that he had longed for and
dreamed of, all that he desired for himself and for those whom he held
dear, all that he deemed to be of any worth, would be his for all his
years. And if he failed?--He dared not think of what his position would
then be; and yet it was this very thought that clung to him with such
persistence during the slow march. He saw himself hated and abhorred by
the people of the interior, who would then no longer have reason to fear
him; he saw himself deserted by To’ Gâjah, in whose eyes, he was well
aware, he was merely regarded as a tool, to be laid aside when use for
it was over; he saw himself in disgrace with the King, whose orders he
had failed to carry out; and he saw himself a laughing stock in the
land, one who had aspired and had not attained, one who had striven and
had failed, with that grim phantom of hereditary madness, of which he
was always conscious, stretching out its hand to seize him. All these
things he saw and feared, and his soul sank within him.
At last Penjum was reached, and To’ Kâya's house was ringed about by Wan
Lingga's men. The placid moonlight fell gently on the sleeping village,
and showed Wan Lingga's face white with eagerness and anxiety, as he
gave the word to fire. In a moment all was noise and tumult. Wan
Lingga's men raised their war-yell, and shrieking 'By order of the
King!' fired into To’ Kâya's house. Old To’ Kâya, thus rudely awakened,
set his men to hold the enemy in check, and himself passed out of the
house in the centre of the mob of his frightened women-folk. He was not
seen until he reached the river bank, when he leaped into the stream,
and, old man that he was, swam stoutly for the far side. Shot after shot
was fired at him, and eight of them, it is said, struck him, though none
of them broke the skin, and he won to the far side in safety. Here he
stood for a moment, in spite of the hail of bullets with which his enemy
greeted his landing. He shook his angry old arm at Wan Lingga, shouted a
withering curse, took one sad look at his blazing roof-tree, and then
plunged into the forest.
When the looting was over, Wan Lingga's people dispersed in all
directions. Nothing, they knew, fails like failure, and the Lipis
people, who would have feared to avenge the outrage had Wan Lingga been
successful, would now, they feared, wreak summary punishment on those
who had dared to attack their Chief. Wan Lingga, finding himself
deserted, fled down stream, there to suffer all that he had foreseen and
dreaded during that march through the silent forests. His mind gave way
under the strain put upon it by the misery of his position at Pekan. The
man who had failed was discredited and alone. His former friends stood
aloof, his enemies multiplied exceedingly. So when the madness, which
was in his blood, fell upon him at Pekan, he was thrust into a wooden
cage, where he languished for years, tended as befits the madman whom
the Malay ranks with the beasts.
When he regained his reason, the politics of the country had undergone a
change, and his old ambitious dreams had faded away for ever. His old
enemy To’ Râja, whom he had sought to displace, was now ruling the
Jelai, and enjoying every mark of the King's favour. Domestic troubles
in the royal household had led the King to regard the friendship of this
Chief as a matter of some importance, and Wan Lingga's chances of
preferment were dead and buried.
He returned to his house at Âtok, where he lived, discredited and
unhonoured, the object of constant slights. He spent his days in futile
intrigues and plots, which were too impotent to be regarded seriously,
or as anything but subjects for mirth, and, from time to time, his
madness fell upon him, and drove him forth to wallow with the kine, and
to herd with the beasts in the forest.
At last, in 1891, he resolved to put away the things of this world, and
set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca. All was ready for his departure on
the morrow, and his brethren crowded the little house at Âtok to wish
him god-speed. But in the night the madness fell upon him once more, and
rising up he ran _âmok_ through his dwelling, slaying his wife and
child, and wounding one of his brothers. Then he fled into the forest,
and after many days was found hanging dead in the fork of a fruit-tree.
He had climbed into the branches to sleep, and in his slumbers had
slipped down into the fork where he had become tightly wedged. With his
impotent arms hanging on one side of the tree, and his legs dangling
limply on the other, he had died of exhaustion, alone and untended,
without even a rag to cover his nakedness.
It was a miserable, and withal a tragic death, but not ill fitted to one
who had staked everything to gain a prize he had not the strength to
seize; one whom Fate had doomed to perpetual and inglorious failure.
UN MAUVAIS QUART D'HEURE
Ere the moon has climbed the mountain, ere the rocks are ribbed
with light,
When the downward-dipping tails are dank and drear,
Comes a breathing hard behind thee, _snuffle-snuffle_ through
the night--
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
On thy knees and draw the bow; bid the shrilling arrow go;
In the empty mocking thicket plunge the spear;
But thy hands are loosed and weak, and the blood has left
thy cheek--
It is Fear, O Little Hunter, it is Fear!
RUDYARD KIPLING'S _Song of the Little Hunter._
We had been sitting late in the verandah of my bungalow of Kuâla Lipis,
which overlooks the long and narrow reach, formed by the combined waters
of the Lipis and the Jelai. The moon had risen some hours earlier, and
the river ran white between the dark banks of jungle which seemed to
fence it in on all sides. The ill-kept garden, with the tennis-ground,
that never got beyond the stage of being dug up, and the rank grass
behind the bamboo fence, were flooded with the soft light, every
tattered detail of its ugliness showing as clearly as though it was
noon. The night was very still, and the soft, scented air blew coolly
round our faces.
I had been holding forth, to the handful of men who had been dining with
me, on Malay beliefs and superstitions, while they manfully stifled
their yawns. When a man has a smattering knowledge of anything, which is
not usually known to his neighbours, it is a temptation to lecture on
the subject, and, looking back, I fear that I had been on the rostrum
during the best part of that evening. I had told them of the _Penangal_,
that horrible wraith of a woman who has died in child-birth, and who
comes to torment small children, in the guise of a fearful face and
bust, with many feet of bloody trailing entrails flying in her wake; of
that weird little white animal the _Mati-ânak_, that makes beast noises
round the graves of children; and of the familiar spirits that men raise
up from the corpses of babes who have never seen the light, the tips of
whose tongues they bite off and swallow, after the child has been
brought back to life by magic agencies. It was at this point that young
Middleton began to cock up his ears, and I, finding that one of my
listeners was at last inclined to show some interest, launched out with
renewed vigour, until my sorely tried companions had, one by one, gone
off to bed, each to his own quarters.
Middleton was staying with me at the time, and he and I sat in silence
looking at the light upon the river, and each thinking his own thoughts.
Middleton was the first to speak.
'That was a curious myth you were telling us, about the _Pôlong_, the
Familiar Spirits,' he said. 'I have heard of it before from natives, but
there is a thing I have never spoken of, and always swore that I would
keep to myself, that I have a good mind to tell you now, if you will
promise not to call me a liar.'
'That is all right,' said I. 'Fire away.'
'Well,' said Middleton, puffing at his pipe, 'you remember Juggins, of
course? He was a naturalist, you know, and he came to stay with me
during the close season[13] last year. He was hunting for bugs and
that sort of thing, and he used to fill my bungalow with all sorts of
rotting green stuff, that he brought in from the jungle. He stopped
with me for about ten days, and when he heard that I was bound for a
trip up into the Sâkai country, he said he would come too. I did not
mind much, as he was a decent beggar enough, in spite of his dirty
ways, so I said all right, and we started up together. When we got
well up into the Sâkai country, we had to leave our boats behind at
the foot of the rapids, and leg it for the rest of the time. We had
not enough bearers with us to take any food, and we lived pretty well
on what we could get, yams, and tapioca, and Indian corn, and soft
stuff of that sort. It was new to Juggins, and it used to give him
awful gripes, but he stuck to it like a man.
[Footnote 13: Close season = From November to February, when the
rivers on the East Coast are closed to traffic by the North-East
Monsoon.]
'Well, one evening, when the night was shutting down pretty fast,
Juggins and I got to a fairly large camp of Sâkai in the middle of a
clearing, and of course all the beggars bolted into the jungle when we
approached. We went on up to the largest hut of the lot, and there we
found a woman lying by the side of her dead child. It was as stiff as
Herod, though it had not been born more than half an hour, I should say,
and I went up into the house thinking I might be able to do something
for the poor, wretched mother. She did not seem to see it, however, for
she bit and snarled at me like a wounded animal, so I let her be, and
Juggins and I took up our quarters in a smaller hut near by, which
seemed fairly new, and was not so filthy dirty as most Sâkai lairs.
'Presently, when the beggars who had run away found out who it was, they
began to come back again. You know their way. First a couple of men came
and looked at us. Then I gave them some baccy, and spoke a word or two
to them in _Se-noi_, that always reassures them. Then they went back and
fetched the others, and presently we were as comfortable as possible,
though we _had_ a dozen Sâkai to share our hut with us. Juggins
complained awfully about the uneven flooring of boughs, which you know
is pretty hard lying, and makes one's bones ache as though they were
coming out at the joints, but we had had a tough day of it and I slept
in spite of our hosts. I wonder why it is that Sâkai never sleep the
whole night through like Christians. I suppose it is their animal
nature, and that, like the beasts, they are most awake by night. You
know how they lie about in the warm ashes of the fireplaces till they
are black as sweeps, and then _how_ they jabber. It is always a marvel
to me what they find to yarn about. Even we white men run short of our
stock of small-talk unless something happens to keep things going, or
unless we have a beggar like you to jaw to us. They say that Englishmen
talk about their tubs, when they run dry on all other subjects of
conversation, but the Sâkai cannot talk about washing, for they never
bathe by any chance, it makes that filthy skin disease they are covered
with itch so awfully. It had rained a bit that night, when they were
hiding away in the jungle, and I could hear their nails going on their
dirty hides whenever I woke, and Juggins told me afterwards that they
kept him awake by their jabber, and that each time he thought they had
settled down for the night, he was disgusted to find that it was only
another false start. Juggins tried to get a specimen of the bacillus
that causes the skin disease, but I don't know whether he succeeded. I
fancy it is due to want of blood. The poor brutes have never had enough
to eat for a couple of hundred generations, and what food they do get is
bloating beastly stuff. They do not get enough salt either, and that
generally leads to skin disease. I have seen little brats, hardly able
to stand, covered with it, the skin peeling off in flakes, and I used to
frighten Juggins out of his senses by telling him that he had caught it,
when his nose peeled with the sun.
'Well, in the morning we got up just in time to see the poor little dead
baby, that I told you about, put into a hole in the ground. They fitted
it into a piece of bark, and stuck it in the grave they had made for it
on the edge of the clearing, and they put a flint and steel, and a
wood-knife, and some food and things in with it, though no living baby
could have had any use for half of them, let alone a dead one. Then the
old medicine man of the tribe recited the ritual over the grave. I took
the trouble to translate it once. It goes something like this:--
"O Thou who hast gone forth from among those who dwell upon the
surface of the earth, and hast taken for thy dwelling-place the
land which is beneath the earth! Fire have we given thee to
light thy fires, raiment wherewith thou mayest be clothed, food
to fill thy belly, and a knife to clear thy way. Go then and
make unto thyself friends among those who dwell beneath the
earth, and come back no more to trouble or molest those who live
upon the earth's surface."
'It was short and sweet, and then they stamped down the soil, while the
mother whimpered about the place like a cat that has lost its kittens. A
mangy, half starved dog came and smelt hungrily about the grave, until
it was sent howling away by a kick from one of the human animals near
it; and a poor little brat, who set up a piping song, a few minutes
later, was kicked, and cuffed, and knocked about, by every one who could
reach him, with hand, foot, or missile. The Sâkai think it unlucky to
sing or dance for nine days after a death, so the tribesmen had to give
the poor little urchin, who had done the wrong, a fairly bad time of it
to propitiate the dead baby.
'Then they began to pack up all their household gods, and in about an
hour the last of the laden women, who was carrying so many babies, and
cooking pots, and rattan bags and things, that she looked like the
outside of a gipsy's cart at home, had filed out of the clearing, and
Juggins and I, with our three or four Malays, were left in possession.
The Sâkai always shift camp like that when a death occurs, because they
think the ghost haunts the place where the body died, though what
particular harm the ghost of a mite of a baby could do, I cannot pretend
to say. When there is an epidemic among the Sâkai, they are so busy
shifting camp, and building new huts, that they have not time to get
proper food, and half those who do not die of the disease die of
semi-starvation. They are a queer lot.
'Well,' continued young Middleton, whose pipe had gone out, and who was
fairly into his stride now, 'Well, Juggins and I were left alone, and
all that day we hunted through the jungle to try and get a shot at a
_selâdang_,[14] but we saw nothing, and we came back to the empty Sâkai
camp at night, my Malays fairly staggering under the weight of the
rubbish that Juggins used to call his botanical specimens. We got a meal
of sorts, and I was lying off smoking, and thinking how lucky it was
that the Sâkai had cleared out, when suddenly old Juggins sat up with
his eyes fairly snapping at me.
[Footnote 14: _Selâdang_ = wild buffalo.]
'"I say," he said, "I must have that baby. It would make a ripping
specimen."
'"It would make a ripping stink," I answered. "Go to sleep, Juggins, old
man, the tapioca has gone to your head."
'"No, but I am serious," said Juggins, "I mean to have that baby whether
you like it or no, and that is flat."
'"Yes," said I, "that is flat enough in all conscience, but I wish you
would give it up. People do not like having their dead tampered with."
'"No," said Juggins again, rising as he spoke, and reaching for his
shoes, "No, I am going to dig it up now."