Mahdi, and its whilom defenders driven out when the Sultan gave his only
daughter in marriage to Tunku dia Udin, brother of the Sultan of Kĕdah.
The Sultan’s son-in-law espoused the cause of those who had been driven
from Klang, and, as he was created Viceroy and had powerful support in
Singapore, matters were further complicated.
The Viceroy and his friends recovered possession of Klang and secured the
friendship and assistance of the Chinese miners at Kuala Lumpor.
These Chinese were led by one Ah Loi, a remarkable man, styled the
“Capitan China,” whose instincts were distinctly warlike and his
authority with his countrymen supreme.
Raja Mahdi also had friends who were acting against the Chinese in the
interior, and supporters outside the State who helped him with money,
stores, and arms, and thus the ball rolled merrily along.
Dame Fortune was, as usual, fickle, and success was now with the Viceroy
and now with Mahdi and his friends. The Capitan China did his share in
his own way. He offered fifty silver dollars for every enemy’s head
delivered in the market-place in front of his house at Kuala Lumpor, and
he told me himself that his man who stood there ready to receive the
hideous trophies and pay the money did quite a brisk business.
As with all Malay war, the operations languished and revived by fits and
starts. Plenty of money meant plenty of men, arms, and ammunition, and
with them a spasmodic effort would be made and probably a success gained.
Then would follow dire scarcity, and the other side, having raised some
money, would in their turn gain an advantage.
Thus the tide of battle ebbed and flowed for months and years, and the
only plain and evident result was that the population of Selangor was
rapidly diminishing, the ground in the immediate neighbourhood of Kuala
Lumpor town being thickly planted with corpses, for there the battle was
always the hottest, both because of the Capitan China’s special method
and because of the value of the mines. The survivors on both sides
were not only being reduced to penury, but their leaders were becoming
involved in debts which only the complete success of one side followed by
lasting peace and order could enable the victors to pay from the revenues
derived from the tin-mines. The debts of the defeated would naturally be
irrecoverable.
While the State was distracted by all this trouble the Sultan still
secured a comparative tranquillity by his diplomatic sympathy with the
combatants, and whichever side held the Klang custom-house supplied him
with funds. That was the price of his qualified approval.
It was at this time that the Viceroy’s party, being in funds, conceived
the plan of raising a force in Singapore with which they hoped to deal
an effective blow to their enemies.
I have said I knew little of Cavaliero, but of Van Hagen, who took
command of the recruits, I know less. I was told that he had been an
officer in the Netherlands army, and that he lost his commission owing to
some breach of discipline, but that he was a man of birth, character, and
courage.
His heterogeneous force, composed of natives of half-a-dozen
nationalities, went by sea to Klang, disembarked and made its way
with guides through the jungle to Kuala Lumpor. There they stockaded
themselves on a hill above the town and did valiantly in its defence. But
the place was invested by the enemy, supplies were cut off, and while the
force was daily harassed by the fire from the enemy’s works, provisions
ran short and the men were threatened at once with starvation and the
probability of being surrounded and entirely cut off from their base at
Klang, twenty-five miles distant by a jungle track.
Under these circumstances, and probably moved by the growing discontent
of their men, Van Hagen and Cavaliero determined, ere it should be too
late, to endeavour to make their way back to the port.
They were all strangers in the country, and they could find no one to
guide them through the jungle, but their difficulties became so great
that they decided to risk the journey as a choice of evils, and early one
morning they set out.
I have elsewhere tried to describe a Malay jungle, and the path which
these men had to traverse was, as I know from my own experience, beset
with peculiar difficulty, and led for a great deal of the way through
swamp and water, where, of course, there was no track visible. It is not
surprising that the party lost its way. Not only that, but weak from want
of food, wanting in cohesion and discipline, and with the knowledge that
they were seeking blindly for a road unknown to all, a feeling of despair
overcame many of them, and they wandered off in different directions
never to be seen or heard of again.
The main body, with Van Hagen and Cavaliero, after a weary day’s march
and no food, arrived in the evening, utterly exhausted, at a place called
Patâling, only four miles from Kuala Lumpor! They had been walking in a
circle, and had got back to a point not far from that of their original
departure.
Patâling was held by a considerable body of the enemy under two Malay
Rajas, and the weary wanderers walked straight into their arms and gave
themselves up without a struggle.
Another story says that, at the last moment before leaving Kuala Lumpor,
a guide presented himself and offered his services, which were accepted;
that he led the party hither and thither through the jungle, and in the
evening, when thoroughly exhausted, took them into Patâling.
I never heard rightly what became of the rank and file; they may have
been given their liberty and told to find their own way out of the State.
For the officers was reserved another fate.
Finding the principal defenders of Kuala Lumpor had withdrawn, the place
was occupied without difficulty by those who had for so long invested it.
The leading Chinese were made very uncomfortable, but on them depended
the working of the mines, and they were allowed to purchase their lives.
I do not think this alternative was offered to Van Hagen and Cavaliero.
They were escorted from Patâling to Kuala Lumpor, and, arrived there,
they were taken out and shot.
In excavating for the foundations of the houses which now form the town
of Kuala Lumpor, it was usual to dig up a large number of skeletons, the
bones of those who had fallen during the years of Selangor’s internecine
strife. As many as sixteen skeletons have been discovered in digging out
the foundations for one house.
One day, not many years ago, two skeletons were thus discovered. The
bones were larger, the figures taller, than those usually met with. They
were the skeletons of two men face to face, and locked in each other’s
arms.
XIII
THE PASSING OF PĔNGLIMA PRANG SĔMAUN
Oh vengeance! thou art sweet
LEWIS MORRIS
On the Perak River, about fifty miles from its mouth, and just above
the tidal influence, where the water is clear and shallow and the banks
are lined with palm groves and orchards, there is a large Malay village
called Bandar.
More than twenty years ago there dwelt in this village a man named Mĕgat
Raja, married to a particularly well-favoured girl named Mĕriam. The fact
of her marriage drew her into some sort of notoriety, and her attractions
were soon the gossip of the place. The gilded youths of Bandar were fired
by the description of Mĕriam’s charms, and one of them, a boy of good
family, position, and means, got sight of and fell in love with her.
The husband, Mĕgat Raja, was conveniently called away to accompany the
Sultan on a journey to Penang and Che Nuh, the youth aforesaid, profiting
by that opportunity, pushed his addresses with such fervour and success
that he became the lady’s lover.
Late one night when Che Nuh was in the house of his mistress, Mĕgat Raja
unexpectedly returned and the first the lovers knew of their danger was
the demand of the husband to be admitted. The house was a large one
enclosed by a palisade, and Mĕriam thus suddenly surprised, and fearing
instant death if her husband should discover Che Nuh, implored her lover
to escape by the door at the back of the house while that at the front
was being opened.
Che Nuh complied, but the husband had evidently heard something of what
had been going on in his absence, and, as the lover was about to descend
the steps, he drew back seeing Mĕgat Raja waiting on the ground beneath
them.
He drew back, but not before his presence had been perceived.
Mĕgat Raja called out “Who is that?”
Che Nuh replied “It is I, Che Nuh.”
The husband, drawing his _kris_, said “What are you doing in my house at
this time? Come down on to the ground.”
Mat Nuh was alone and Mĕgat Raja was accompanied by two other men, but
the youth unsheathed his _kris_ and went down ready to accept the chances
of a hand-to-hand struggle.
Seeing that Mat Nuh would defend himself, and knowing that he was no
contemptible adversary, the three men hesitated. What was of more account
in their minds was that Che Nuh belonged to a powerful family, and
his father was one of the principal chiefs in the country. There was,
therefore, the certainty of retaliation should they kill him, and the
uncertainty of his guilt, for Mĕriam was not the only woman in the house.
As the men stood mutually on the defensive, Mĕgat Raja asked him whom he
had come to see, and Che Nuh replied that it was a girl in the house.
Thinking to assure himself on this point, the husband entered the house
and questioned one of the servant-women, but dissatisfied with what he
heard he dashed out again determined to attack Che Nuh.
The latter had, however, taken advantage of Mĕgat Raja’s momentary
absence to get outside the gate of the palisade, and once there he
shouted for help and was soon surrounded by his friends.
In reply to a call, Che Nuh bid his adversary come outside the gate and
he would give him any satisfaction he pleased.
That of course meant an internecine struggle between the two parties, and
Mĕgat Raja declined it, for the odds were now against him, and he was
still uncertain whether his wife were unfaithful or not.
On the strong suspicion that he held, his inclination was to at least
make short work of the woman, but here again he was deterred by the
knowledge that her relations would certainly be revenged on him. He,
therefore, decided on another course of action. On the assumption that
his wife was guilty (and of this he became tolerably well assured), he
treated her as though he held the proofs, divorced her, turned her out of
his house, and declined to let her have any of her own possessions or to
remove any of his.
This action was considered a very serious indignity by Mĕriam’s friends,
and it so happened that she possessed a relative named Pĕnglima Prang
Sĕmaun, an adherent of the Sultan’s Wazîr, the Raja Bĕndahâra, and he was
reputed one of the principal warriors in the country.
Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun called upon the Chief of Bandar and laid a formal
complaint against Mĕgat Raja, demanding to know why he had taken the
law into his own hands and treated Mĕriam in a manner to put all her
relatives to shame.
The Chief of the village of Bandar was also one of the great officers
of State named the Ôrang Kâya Shabandar. He was a man renowned for his
courage, was wealthy, a trusted officer of the Sultan, the receiver of
customs, and lived at the upper end of the village.
He listened politely to Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, and when the latter wound
up his complaint by saying he would certainly attack Mĕgat Raja if he
obtained no redress, the Shabandar put his advice in the form of this
ancient saw:
“If you have no gold, it is well to sing small; if you have no pivot-guns
(jingals), it is well to put a pleasant face on the matter; and if you
have no cannon, it is better to be quiet.”
The advice was meant in good part and not as a taunt, but Pĕnglima Prang
Sĕmaun took it as the latter and retired with rage in his heart, saying
“It is well for you who have gold and jingals and cannon to tell me I
have none of these things, but I will have my revenge of you with only a
_kris_.”
Then he returned to his own home to think how this was to be worked out.
The Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun’s house was between these of the Shabandar,
up stream, and Mĕgat Raja, down stream, and he knew that he was not
strong enough to resist a combined attack from both of them. Therefore he
determined that force must be backed by cunning if he was to achieve his
end. He concluded that his only plan was to attack the Shabandar, dispose
of him first as the most important, and then deal with Mĕgat Raja at his
leisure.
Meanwhile, Che Nuh had expressed his desire to marry Mĕriam, but as his
relatives recognised that such an open avowal of his _liaison_ must lead
to trouble with Mĕgat Raja and his folk, they declined to allow him to do
this, and Che Nuh’s negative attitude towards the lady only increased the
wrath of her kinsman, Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun.
I have said that this bravo, for that was his _métier_, was the henchman
of the Raja Bĕndahâra, the highest authority in the State after the
Sultan. Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, having determined to kill the Shabandar,
felt it necessary to report the intention to his master and, mindful of
possible wrath to come, to ask his sanction.
Accordingly the Pĕnglima went up river to Blanja where the Bĕndahâra
lived, told his tale and asked for leave to kill the Shabandar.
The reply of the Bĕndahâra was, “If you think you are able to do it, go
on.”
That was enough. Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun returned to Bandar with a kindred
spirit named Haji Ali, another bravo of reputation as evil as his own,
and these two worthies soon settled their plan of operations.
The Sultan was at Pâsir Panjang (only a few miles above Bandar), with a
large following and a crowd of boats, and the Pĕnglima and his friend
determined to wreak their vengeance on the Shabandar on the _Râya Haji_,
the day to which the most religious Muhammadans prolong the fast of
Ramthân.
The day did not, however, suit, there were too many people constantly
about the Shabandar’s house, and the conspirators had to return home
without effecting their purpose.
On the following day, however, in the afternoon, Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun,
Haji Ali, and three others, made a formal visit to the Shabandar,
obtained admission to his house, and found in it no one besides himself
and a Sumatran Raja, a visitor from down river. I say no one else but,
as Pĕnglima Prang well knew, there were in the Shabandar’s house two aged
ladies, the mother of the Sultan’s children and her sister.
The five men waited until they saw the Sumatran Raja take his departure,
and in order to do this visitor honour, the Shabandar unarmed and
unattended, accompanied him to the river-bank and there bid him farewell.
This was the moment for the development of the plot.
Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun took leave of the Shabandar and shook hands with
him. Haji Ali, a very big powerful man, then also took leave and grasped
the Shabandar’s hand, but instead of letting it go he drew the Dâtoh
towards him, and the reply to his question of what this meant was a stab
in the back from Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun’s _kris_.
The blade did not pierce the skin, it bent, and the thrust was repeated
with the same result, Haji Ali all the while holding the unarmed man by
the hand.
Then the Pĕnglima threw away the useless weapon, and, seizing another
_kris_, plunged it time after time into the helpless body of the
Shabandar, who fell to the ground, while Haji Ali and each of the others
stabbed him in turn.
Leaving the body lying on the bank, the men rushed straight back into the
house, shut the gates of the enclosure and immediately prepared to defend
themselves, taking particular care that the two ladies already mentioned
should not get away.
The news of a murder perpetrated like this is carried on the breeze,
and for a few minutes the Shabandar’s adherents rushed up one after the
other to be slaughtered as they arrived by the Pĕnglima and his party
reinforced by their own men who had been awaiting the _dénoûement_.
Then gates and doors were closed, windows barred, cannon, pivot-guns,
and muskets loaded, and Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun having rifled the house
(which contained the customs collections as well as the Shabandar’s
private property), and thus possessed himself of all those things which
he previously lacked, sat down to calmly await the development of events.
The plot had been cunningly conceived. The brutal murder of the unarmed
chief was certain to be instantly avenged, and that would have been done
by an attack on the house had it not been that it contained, besides the
murderers, the Sultan’s late wife and her sister, who were well-nigh sure
to come to harm in the assault.
The risk of that possibility deterred the Sultan’s people, who had
surrounded the house with stockades, and all that could be done was to
prevent the Pĕnglima, Haji Ali, and their men, from escaping. The process
of starving out the besieged could not be resorted to, for here also the
ladies would have suffered.
The moment the deed was done, Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun proclaimed that he
was merely the instrument of the Sultan’s Wazîr, and that he had acted on
the authority of the Raja Bĕndahâra. That, if true, complicated the case
considerably, and as matters had arrived at an _impasse_, a parley was
called, and it was arranged that the Pĕnglima and his people should be
given a safe-conduct to the Sultan at Pâsir Panjang.
Accordingly, the Pĕnglima Prang, Haji Ali, and the others left their
shelter and embarked in boats provided for them, but they took good care
not to let the ladies, who were their prisoners, get out of reach.
Arrived at Pâsir Panjang, Pĕnglima Prang at once sent a messenger to
the Raja Bĕndahâra to inform him of the state of affairs and ask his
aid. The Bĕndahâra responded to this appeal by taking boat, and, with a
great following, descended the river to Pâsir Panjang. Once there, he
availed himself of an ancient custom called _îkat-diri_—that is, to “bind
yourself”—and, accompanied by all his people, he went and stood in front
of the Sultan’s house with his hands loosely tied behind his back with
his own head-kerchief, and, thus uncovered in the sun, he and all his
following shouted _âmpun Tûan-ku, be-rîbu-rîbu âmpun_—“Pardon, my lord, a
thousand-thousand pardons.”
After a quarter of an hour’s waiting, while the air was filled with this
plea for mercy, and the Bĕndahâra and his company stood like prisoners in
front of the closed house, a door opened, a herald bearing the Sultan’s
insignia appeared and cried out: “Our lord pardons you, and permits you
to enter into his presence.”
That settled the affair. The Sultan’s minister had accepted the
responsibility for what had been done; he was far too great a man to
be treated as a criminal, and, taking advantage of an old custom, he
confessed his fault, offered himself a prisoner, sought and obtained the
Sultan’s pardon.
Amongst those who had received the message of peace, and who entered into
the presence, were the Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, Haji Ali, and the three
other murderers of the Shabandar.
Now, the Shabandar had a brother, and he was a man of war, and the Sultan
well knew that this method of dealing with the murderers would not
satisfy him, so he at once created him Dâtoh Shabandar in succession to
the dead man, in the hope that the gift of this dignity might make for
the general peace.
The Raja Bĕndahâra, accompanied by Pĕnglima Prang and his friends, then
returned to Blanja.
The new Shabandar had no intention of leaving his brother’s murderers
to boast of their exploit, and, in a very short time, he asked for the
Sultan’s permission to attack them and wipe out the disgrace of his
relative’s unavenged death.
The Sultan said the request must be preferred to the Raja Bĕndahâra, for
so long as the Pĕnglima Prang was in his village he could not be attacked
without the Wazîr’s sanction. Application was duly made to the Bĕndahâra,
who replied that it would be contrary to custom to attack the Pĕnglima
Prang while living at his door, but that if they could get him away they
might do what they pleased.
The Pĕnglima Prang was, however, far too wary to be lured away from
safety, and matters were in this state when there returned from a
pilgrimage to Mecca a man called Haji Mûsah, nearly related to the late
Shabandar.
Haji Mûsah was at this time a rather small, spare man of middle age, but
his heart was out of proportion to the size of his body, and when he
heard what had recently taken place in Bandar, and how Pĕnglima Prang
Sĕmaun and Haji Ali had got away unpunished, his anger knew no bounds.
He promptly waited upon the Sultan and begged for permission to attack
the Pĕnglima, and, if necessary, to include in the operations his
protector, the Raja Bĕndahâra.
The Sultan hesitated to give the desired permission, but the fact that
the proposal had been made very soon reached Blanja and the ears of both
the Wazîr and Pĕnglima Prang. Whatever the latter was he could not be
accused of cowardice, and he at once offered to anticipate an attack by
making an expedition against Haji Mûsah to silence so arrogant a foe.
The Raja Bĕndahâra enraged at the idea that his name should have been
mentioned with so little respect, and apprehensive that Haji Mûsah might
find the means (as he knew he had the will) to carry out his suggestion,
cordially approved the Pĕnglima’s proposal.
It did not take long to collect from the neighbouring village of Lambor
enough men to fill two boats, and, as that was all the Pĕnglima wanted
for his purpose, the party had started for Bâtak Râbit (Haji Mûsah’s
village) before the down-stream people had the smallest inkling of their
intention. The time was specially well chosen from the fact that the
Shabandar was absent in a remote district.
In Japan they say, “If you have not seen Nikko you cannot say _gekko_,”
and if there is anyone who knows the Malay Peninsula and yet has never
watched the sun set across the rice-fields, when the ripe grain hangs
heavily in the ear, his knowledge of the beauties of Malay scenery is
very incomplete.
A wide, flat plain covered by the golden harvest, the rice-stalks
standing five or six feet above the ground from which they have sucked
all the water which nourished them in the earlier stages of growth. One
yellow sea of yellow ears, the green stalks only discernible in the near
foreground.
This sea is broken by islands of palms and fruit-trees in which nestle
the picturesque brown huts of cottagers, houses of wood, built on wooden
piles with palm-thatched roofs and mat walls.
The setting sun strikes in great beams of saffron light across this
wide expanse of grain bounded by distant ranges of soft blue hills. How
greedily one drinks it all in! and, as the Eye of Day droops lower,
there shoot from between its closing lids rays of fire which tinge the
glistening palms with a rosy effulgence, followed all too soon by the
pale opalescent shades which proclaim the approach of the fast-driving
chariot of night.
A grey haze rises from the damp earth, spreads in thin wreaths across the
darkening plain, thickens to a heavy dead-white vapour, and as the silver
sickle rises over the distant hills it shines upon clustered plumes of
dark fronds mysteriously poised above a motionless drift of snow-like
cloud.
On the edge of such a field was the home of Haji Mûsah. Behind stretched
the rich plain, in front a great river, both wide and deep, its banks
lined by groves of coco-nuts in the neighbourhood of villages, but
elsewhere covered by forest and the _nipah_ palm.
The dwelling stood a few feet back from the river, and, as its owner was
a man of means, the structure was of some size, the floor and walls of
stout planks and a strong palisade enclosed the surrounding yard. The
house was, as usual, on wooden piles, and the kitchen, also on piles but
separated from the main building, was connected with it by a platform.
It was here that Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, Haji Ali, and the rest of their
crew arrived one morning before daylight and quickly landed under the
cover of darkness.