Full text of "In a Corner of Asia: Being Tales and Impressions of Men and Things in the ..."

Google

This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project

to make the world's books discoverable online.

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the

publisher to a library and finally to you.

Usage guidelines

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.

About Google Book Search

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web

at |http: //books .google .com/I

i ^•-'

1 1

--•rff r; T ITT

''THE OVFsli

fFherf are the ^^Ends of the Empire''? and
vphich are the Olifer-Seas ? At ** the Ends " of one
may arise the beginnings of other Empires to come.
It is notorious that '^herel>er an English-speaking
community settles and opens up ne^ lands, it speedily
speaks for itself as a Centre ; and so rapid is the
growth of the great Colonies^ that Ministers to-day
'writing despatches to Dependencies d)>er~seasj receiloe
their ambers from nations to-morrow.

But great as is the growth of the Empire and the
enterprise of its peoples y the new native-born literatures
take years to germinate and generations to arri')>e.
Thence comes it that often "we do not understand the
atmospheres of the new English-speaking peoples^ and
often misunderstand the problems^ the ambitions^ the
attitudes y befitting them as new races. And "vohile
the British Empire grows richer daily in patriotic
fervours y in speeches^ in splendour y in cant^ and in
the oracular assurances of Statesmeny the English
people seeks to understand its cousins by the inter*
change of cablegramSy by debates, and by all the
ambiguities of official memoranda.
\ It iSy hffweloery the artist's "work to bring the people
of his nation and their atmosphere before the eyes of
another. It is the artist alonCy great or smally Mpho^
by repealing and interpreting the life around him,
maizes it lining to the rest of the 'world. And the
artist is generally absent ! In the case of the English
in Indiay ten years ago, 'while the literature of
information 'was plentifuly the artist 'was absent;
Mr. Kjpling arr^ed and discolfered modern India to

The . .
Overseas
Library .

IN A CORNER OF ASIA

Xtdt ot tbe Series.

I. THE IPANE.

'Every page is instinct with subtle grace
and beauty.' — Saturday Review.

II. THE CAPTAIN OF THE LOCUSTS.

* The studies of native life strike us as
being better than almost anything of the
kind that has been written about Africa.'
—Pall Mall Gazette.

III. IN GUIANA WILDS.

' No lover of adventures will call the book
dull. Mr Rodway . . . can tell a good
story. ' — Spectator.

'Opens up a new world.' — Sun.

' Falls not far short of being a little master-
piece.' — Star.

IV. THE WELL-SINKERS.
V. IN A CORNER OF ASIA.

Other Volumes in Preparation.

HUGH CLIFFORD
W

AUTHOR OF ' IN COURT AND KAMPONG,* ' STUDIES IN BROWN HUMANITY,'

' SINCE THE BEGINNING,' ETC., ETC.

IN A CORNER OF ASIA

BEING

^ale0 and Jmpreaafona of ^en and V^hUxQB in
the ^alai2 penineula

^ J ^ J J

V -^ ->

LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN

PATERNOSTER SQUARE

M DCCC XCIX

OVERSEAS LIBRARY

"7 • •

• t. ^ • ♦ •

PREFACE

Of these Malayan tales and sketches four have
already made their appearance in the pages of
magazines. * At the Court of PelSsu ' was originally
published in Temple Bar^ *The Death-March of
Kfilop SOmbing' and *A Daughter of the Muham-
madans ' in the pages of Blackwood^ and * The Story
of Ram Singh * in Macmillan's Magazine, My thanks
are due to the editors and proprietors of the above
periodicals for the permission which they have given
to me to reprint these stories.

The Malays and the forest lands in which they
have their home have been to me objects of long
and loving personal observation, and it has been my
aim in this, as in my former books, to make others
of my race-mates acquainted with the men and
things which have had for me a powerful fascination.
With hardly an exception, the tales contained in
this book are true in nearly every detail, the
mise en sckne of all has been faithfully reproduced
from a study of real localities in the Peninsula,
and since I have striven throughout to convey a
picture of realities, not merely to write fiction, it

284207

Preface

is possible that I may occasionally have sacrificed
dramatic effects in the cause of truth. The de-
scriptions of native character, of customs, manners,
superstitions and social practices owe nothing at all
to my imagination. In writing of them I have tried
to draw things as I have seen and known them, and
in painting the pictures of scenery which are scattered
so lavishly up and down this sleepy, sun -steeped
land, I believe myself to have shown a fidelity to
my models no less scrupulous.

That I shall ever really succeed in conveying to
stay-at-home folk* any true idea of the unfrequented
places through which I have roamed widely, or of
the strange people among whom I have lived so long,

1 dare not hope ; for many even of those who have
seen with their own eyes the Peninsula and its brown
inhabitants have failed to understand, and where the
gift of sight has proved powerless how should mere

^ printed words be of any avail ? None the less, since
my brown friends and their surroundings have been
to me things very real and very lovable, these tales
have written themselves, bringing me much pleasure
in their fashioning, and if they serve to pass an idle
hour for others, they will have achieved, perhaps, the
only object for which they are fitted.

HUGH CLIFFORD.

2 Egerton Mansions, London, S.W.

Jtily 17M, 1899.

CONTENTS

' I have seen phantoms there that were as men,
And men that were as phantoms flit and roam.'

The City of Dreadful Night.

PAGE

I. AT THE COURT OF PELfesU .... 3

II. THE DEATH-MARCH OF KtrLOP st^MBING . 65

III. IN THE CENTRAL GAOL .... 99

IV. A DAUGHTER OF. THE MUHAMMADANS . . 1 39

V. THE STORY OF RAM SINGH . . . . 171

VL *THE WAGES OF SIN ' 197

Vn. ALFRED HUXLEY's RIDE . . . . 217

VIII. THE VIGIL OF PA* T^TA, THE THIEF . . 253

• •

Vll

AT THE (/:)URT OF PfiL^SU

• • • J • *

IN A CORNER OF ASIA

V _ V

AT THE COURT OF PELESU

Chapter I

' Ragged and tanned, and standing alone,

Set with their backs to the wall,
With teeth locked tight to strangle a groan.

The youngest amongst us all ;
With hands hard clenched for the coming fight,

With eyes that glisten and shine.
With nerves drawn taut and with arms grip'd tight,

The foremost skirmishing line.'

A SCENE near the coast on the eastern
l\ slope of the Malay Peninsula. A broad
river, measuring near two miles across, its waters
running white in the aching mid-day heat;
numerous islets, covered with greenery of
many shades, all motionless in the hot, still
air, each frond of the cocoanut trees stretching
impotent arms to heaven in a mute prayer for
coolness. On the right bank of the river, the
clustering thatched roofs of a large Malay
village, many of the houses extending far out

. ....... Thd. 'Overseas Library

•• • •**•••

over the waters on the piles which support
them. Around the feet of these piles innumer-
able boats of many sorts, shapes, and sizes,
moored in inextricable confusion ; and all
things throwing shadows against the white
sunlight as hard as if cut out of black papery^'
Such was the capital of the Independent
Native State of Pelesu, which some years
ago was inhabited by a Malay king of the
old school, some unimportant people, and Mr
John N orris, political agent.

The King's village consisted of one long lane,
running parallel to the river bank for a distance
of something over a quarter of a mile, from
'^ which various footpaths straggled off, through
narrow openings, into the closely-clustering
native compounds in the vicinity. The street
was unmetalled, but the red and dusty earth
had been beaten smooth and hard by the
passage of innumerable bare feet. This main
thoroughfare was lined on either hand by
native houses and Chinese shops of varying
and irregular shape and size, which matched
one another only in the materials of which
they were constructed, and in the air of dis-
order and neglect which pervaded them one
and all. At one end of the street, in an open
space facing a rickety landing-stage, a brick
mosque, glaringly whitewashed, received, re-

In a Corner of Asia

fracted, and redoubled the heat of the fierce
sunlight. Half-way up the village, and stand-
ing a little back from the road in another open
space, a whitewashed, green-shuttered bunga-
low, of European type, stood in a neglected
garden. At the far end of the village a larger
stone building of Chinese design showed its
bare windows and its slate roof over an eight-
foot wall of stone, patched here and there with
a yard or two of bamboo fencing, the whole
grown upon by creepers like drapery.

All these buildings were the property of the
King, the mosque and the neglected bungalow
serving to mark a period in his reign when,
after a short visit to the neighbouring British
colony, he had for a space devoted to public
works some portions of the funds which were
more usually employed in ministering to his
personal pleasures, and to those of the ladies
of his extensive harem. The third and largest
building was of older date, and represented the
result of a Chinese builder's efforts to con-
struct a palace worthy of a great monarch.

Both the bungalow and the old palace were
inhabited by wives of the King — ladies of rank
whom he had thought it impolitic to divorce,
but whose faded charms had long ceased to
hold his fickle heart in any semblance of
bondage. Occasionally the King visited these

The Overseas Library

ladies, and they not infrequently sent him
presents of food in brass trays, covered with
brilliant yellow cloths, borne by many maidens,
and shielded from the sunlight by the silken
spread of state umbrellas. None the less, the
King did not grace either of his more civilised
houses with the light of his presence. His
habits were curious, even for an Oriental king
— whose ways are apt to be unconventional in
many respects — and he resembled the gentle-
men whose names sometimes figure in the
police reports, in that, like them, he had no
fixed place of abode.

On the side of the main street nearest to the
river there were about a dozen squalid huts, whose
wattled walls and thatched roofs differed in no
respect from the native shops and hovels which
adjoined them. But all these huts belonged to
the King, and in any one of them he might or
might not be found at any given hour of the
day or night. Sometimes three or four of
these royal residences adjoined one another,
and were so arranged that the King could make
his way from one house to another without
attracting public notice by walking up and
down the street on which they abutted.

In each of these huts, it was understood,

dwelt a lady who occupied the proud position

of concubine to the King. The houses were

In a Corner of Asia

crammed with women, most of them nominally
attendants upon the wives of the monarch.
Some, of course, were merely cooks or waiting-
women, but the vast majority were devoted
to the King's more immediate service. When
once the monarch entered the doors of one of
these rabbit-warrens, where no other man was
suffered to set foot, he was apt to be lost to
the sight of his loyal subjects for days, or even
weeks at a time, the affairs of his country being
left meanwhile to take care of themselves,
while the State itself drifted placidly to de-
struction.

An indolent European monarch may perhaps
seek comfort in the thought ^Aprh mot le
deluge!' but the fact that he realises that a
flood of troubles is impending shows that he
has devoted some time and thought to the
affairs of his kingdom. But for an Oriental
ruler even such a languid effort as this argues
a keener interest in the condition of his subjects,
and a greater expenditure of energy than he
can well spare from his intimate pleasures,
provided that his harem and his opium-pipe
are sufficiently filled. Thus it is that in the
East, things — ^and very awful things at that —
often go on for years, all concerned being
apparently satisfied that the prevailing con-
ditions will last for ever. Then, upon a certain

The Overseas Library

day, the deluge comes down, as though one had
upset the sea, and evil-mannered native kings
and hopelessly rotten native institutions, jostle
one another on the surface of the flood.

In the State of PelSsu, at the time of which
I write, the storm, which had long been brew-
ing, was very near its breaking. Many things
foretold that clearly enough, and it should have
needed no very prophetic vision to recognise in
Mr John Norris, political agent, the stormy
petrel, the forerunner of the tempest.

Jack Norris was, at this time, one of the
many nameless Englishmen who, all unknown
and uncared for by their sheltered fellow-
countrymen in far-off England, are to be found
scattered broadcast over the East at the courts
of such independent native rulers as our hungry
European acquisitiveness has so far suffered to
escape ' protection,' which is one of the official
^ euphonisms for * annexation.' These men form
the first line of skirmishers in the mighty army
of England's empire. They are cast as bread
upon the waters ; and if any lily-white duck —
in the shape of some native potentate who has
yet much to learn of England's methods —
comes and gobbles them up, Great Britain
annexes or * protects' the land in which they
died, and moves one step forward over their
mutilated remains.

In a Comer of Asia

In modern India the political agent is more
or less * a curled and oiled Assyrian bull/ but
in Further India, and in frontier states through-
out the East, there are few harder or more
thankless billets than that of an agent at a
native court. These posts are poorly paid,
because pay .in the East is largely a matter
of age and of seniority in the service, and the
elder men, who have made their mark, are old
birds who are far too full of wisdom to be caught
with the chaff of an agent's billet. On the
other hand, those seniors who have never
scored their notch, are usually amiable imbeciles «*
who cannot be trusted to do the work. Ac-
cordingly the agencies go to the younger
generation ; and as there is an element of
danger in most of these posts, they are eagerly
scrambled for by the boys with pluck and
brains.

It is a curious trait in the character of most
Englishmen, that a prospect of danger always
casts a certain glamour over things which, for
that very reason and for many others, are
eminently unpleasant to the eye of common
sense. This glamour, it is only fair to add,
often dies away entirely on the nearer approach
of the danger from which it is derived, and the
Englishman will then, not infrequently, turn
and run. Such things have been. Some have

The Overseas Library

been hushed up, and others, which have come
to light, have been elaborately explained away,
or else we have all declined to see them, since
they tend to disprove the theory we universally
hold, that all inhabitants of Great Britain are
brave. Nevertheless, given an Englishman
with his back to the wall, and who is thus pre-
vented from making use of his legs, and it is
ordained that he should fight as no other man
can fight. The political agent, from his position
as an isolated white man in a foreign land,
where he is usually totally unsupported by any
show of force, has his back to the wall as a
permanent arrangement, and he accordingly
generally shows good sport, and makes a
pretty fight of it when he finds himself at last
in the inevitable tight place.

The State of PSlesu had long been an eyesore
to the British Government, and eventually the
evil deeds of the King gathered sufficient weight
to turn the slow wheels on which runs the ad-
ministration of one of the most ponderous
nations of the earth. Treaty negotiations were
started with a view to establishing some sort
of control over PelSsuand its irresponsible ruler,
but as the State was somewhat inaccessible,
and the King a skilful procrastinator, this was
a stage of the proceedings which occupied many
months. The Government, therefore, looked

In a Corner of Asia

about for a young officer possessed of a good
knowledge of the natives and of the vernacular,
a tough constitution and a slender stipend, all
of which qualifications were found united in the
person of young Jack N orris. Accordingly, he
was sent to Pelesu, and when the negotiations
were completed, and the treaty signed, he con-
tinued to perform the duties of political agent.

He was lodged in a native hut, the front of
which abutted on the main street, while the
back premises straggled out over the river, on
half a hundred crazy wooden piles. This hut
contained a bdlai^ or common-room, a square,
inner apartment with a raised platform in its
centre, on which Jack squatted to eat his rice,
or to receive his native visitors. Opening out
of this on the left hand was a bedroom, and at
the back was a large square apartment, in which
his native followers lived, and behind that again
was the big kitchen in which food always
seemed to be in process of preparation.

Norris spent most of his time in the bedroom,

which was oblong in shape, and looked through

two narrow windows on to the river, which

flowed by and under it. The furniture was not

elaborate. The plank flooring was covered

with straw-coloured matting made from the

plaited leaves of the mengkHang palm, and a

small mat and pillows spread beneath an enor-

The Overseas Library

mous set of chintz bed-curtains — looped up by
day — ^filled one side of the room. Near this lay
half a hundred books tumbled together upon
the floor, around a green earthenware jar which
was used for the reception of Jack's cigarette
ends and other similar i^bbish. Near the
window stood a writing table, littered with
papers, and two cane-bottomed chairs — the only
signs of European civilisation in the place —
were set close to it. In one corner of the room
stood two leather portmanteaus, with some of
Jack's clothes and his toilet requisites laid out
neatly upon them. The raft moored at the
steps, which led down from the kitchen door,
at the back of the house, to the river, was the
somewhat public and primitive bathing-place
of the queer household of which Jack N orris
was master.

His followers consisted of about twenty
Malays — ruffians who had come to Pelesu at
the heels of N orris, with whom they had fore-,
gathered in other parts of the Peninsula. They
were all men who had known the bad old days
before European ideas of right and wrong upset
native notions of the fitness of things ; they all
loved war, or thought that they did, which is
often much the same thing ; and they all swore
by Jack and believed in him intensely.

Such was the position of things at PSlesu

In a Corner of Asia

when the north-east monsoon began to break
in November i8 — , closing the ports on the
China Sea, and cutting off all communication
with the outside world.

Chapter II

*Ifs ill sitting at Rome and striving wi' the Pope.'

CUDDIE HeADRIGG.

A WEEK or two before the mouth of the
river was finally closed for the year by the
threatening of the monsoon, Jack Norris lay
stretched upon his mat with a cigarette between
his lips and a novel in his hand. He was a short,
very dark youngster of about three or four and
twenty years of age. He was thick-set and
very powerfully built, with sturdy legs, and
arms on which the biceps stood up in knots.
His features were rather broad and flat, with a
mouth that shut like a trap, and the dogged
strength of a dominant race in every hard line
which early responsibility and an eastern climate
had drawn upon his ugly face. He was clothed
after the manner of Europeans in the Malay
Peninsula during their hours of ease — in a short
linen jacket, with sleeves reaching to the elbows,
in loose linen drawers, and a broad native skirt
or sdrong^ which might be huddled up about his

The Overseas Library

waist, or suffered to drop to his ankles, or over
his feet if the mosquitoes were annoying in their
attention, at the owner's will.

It was evening, and the room in which Norris
lay was dimly lighted by a stinking oil lamp
which stood on the matted floor at Jack's elbow.
One or two Malays squatted at one end of the
room, near the curtained door, chewing quids
of areca-nut and talking together in low mur-
murs. Through the narrow open windows
the moonlight strove to penetrate, in spite of
the greasy lamplight, and the hum of a thousand
busy insects, varied by the occasional clear note
of a night-jar, was borne upon the pure night
air. The surroundings in which he found
himself had grown so familiar to Jack Norris,
that Thackeray's brilliant description of the file
at Gaunt House, at which dear Becky scored
her glittering, short-lived triumph, in the book
that he was reading for the hundredth time,
struck no note of incongruity in his mind. One
half of his brain unconsciously assimilated the
trivial talk of the Malays near the doorway,
while the other half took in the familiar words
of his book.

Presently someone came to the door and said
a few words in a low voice to one of the Malays
who was seated near it.

* There is a Chinaman who would come into

In a Corner of Asia

thy presence, T^an,' said the latter, turning to
Norris.

* Bid him enter/ said Jjick, sitting up and
laying his book down beside him.

The curtains in the doorway were put aside
and an old Chinaman entered. He saluted
Norris, and then seated himself cross-legged
on the floor near the foot of the mat. He was
a long-boned, sunken-cheeked, deeply-wrinkled
old creature, with a slender pig-tail, composed
almost entirely of silk, hanging from the sparse
grey hairs on his scalp. His shoulders were
bowed by a permanent stoop, and he brought
with him that peculiar smell of roasted coffee
and chocolate which, combined with a strange
closeness of the atmosphere that surrounds
him, always denotes the confirmed opium-
smoker.

* What is the news } ' asked Jack, speaking
in Malay, and employing the usual native
interrogative greeting.

* The news is good,' rejoined the visitor,
speaking in the same language, and making
use of the formal reply, which is as empty
of meaning as the * Quite well, thank you,'
of the confirmed invalid.

These greetings over, the Chinaman shook
himself, glanced over his shoulder at the
Malays near the door, and said uneasily, —

The Overseas Library

* There is a thing that I would say unto
thee, THau!

* Speak on/ said Norris; * these men are
mine own people. Have no fear.'

* I come to thee craving aid, THan^ resumed
the Chinaman. * I am exceeding troubled. I
have a wife.'

* I pity thee ! ' interposed Norris, sympa-
thetically.

* She is a good woman, very fair to see,
and moreover she is virtuous,* continued the
Chinaman.

'That is strange! It is difficult to find
such a one,' said Jack, who knew something
of Oriental morals. * Speak on.'

*Yes,' assented the Chinaman — *yes, it is

strange that she is what she is ; the more so,

seeing that her beauty is indeed great, and

that the King desireth her. It is in this wise.

She was married to me some four years agone,

and I have had by her two children, boys, and

she and I are happy, living together in love.

Does it seem strange to thee, THan, that one

who is young and beautiful should love me,

who am neither the one nor the other ? Yet

she, who is my wife, loveth me, and will have

naught of the King or his presents. The

THan knows the ways of the King. He

dwelleth often in the house of his concubine,

In a Corner of Asia

Che' L^yang, the which adjoins mine own.
Upon a certain day the King, peeping
through the wattled walls which divide my
house from that of his concubine, espied my
wife playing with the men-children, my sons,
and from that time he hath sought many
means to seduce her from me. He sent first
an aged crone of his household to make known
. to her his passion ; but she, on hearing the
words of the old woman, raised so great a
tumult of angry screamings that the hag fled
in fear of me. Then, later, the King sent
diamonds and fine raiment, such as women
love, by the hands of certain of his armed
youths, choosing for the purpose an hour when
I was absent from my house. But she, my
wife, received the youths with evil words, and
threw the King's gifts forth into the mire of
the street, so that the silks were soiled and the
very lustre of the diamonds was dimmed.

* Thereafter my wife boarded up the crevice
in the wall through which the King was wont
to watch her ; but in the night the boarding
was torn away.

* Thou askest, T^n^ why the King hath not

seized her by force, as he seized the wife of

Ahmad of P Alau Aur, and the wife of Chi On, the

Keh trader. Tilatty men speak of thee as the

pen-dwar pHteh — -the white antidote — and but for
B 17

The Overseas Library

that medicine many a man had suffered death
and worse in PSlSsu since thy coming. And I,
also, but for thee, had lost either life or honour.
It is thy presence, and the fear of those who
sent thee hither, which causeth the King to
employ stealth and stratagem where, in past
days, he was wont to use force. Now come I
hither to thee crying and weeping, secretly
and by night, hoping that thou wilt aid and
protect me, and the woman my wife, and the
men-children my two little sons. Both I and
my wife are British subjects. Long have we
dwelt in PSl&u, but our birthplace is in the
colony. We, therefore, are thine own people,
and we trust in thee with a thousand, thousand
hopes.'

' If thou so desirest,' said Norris, * I will
speak with the King on this matter.'

*Nay, THan, I pray thee do not so!' cried
the Chinaman, aghast at the mere suggestion.

* Nay, I pray thee, for in very truth I should
die at the hands of the King did he but know
that I had had speech with thee.'

*If that be so,' said Norris, 'the better
course were for thee and thine to quit PSlSsu,
and seek refuge in the colony.'

*That also I cannot do,' said the Chinaman ;

* my business is here in P6l&u, and were I to
quit it both my children and my wife would die

In a Corner of Asia

of famine. That may not be. Also the mouth
of the river closeth to-morrow or the day after ;
who can tell when the winds of the monsoon
will descend upon us ? No — I cannot quit
PSlSsu now, but I will do so when the river-
mouth is once more open, if all then be well. I
have sought thee only that thou mightest know
the heavy things which I and mine are bearmg
at the hands of the King ; and that knowing
thou shouldest aid me if occasion ariseth.'
'That will I do and willingly,' said Norris.

* It is a little thing. But the words of the men
of old times are true when they say : *' It is
well to be economical before thy substance is
wasted, and to be upon thy guard before thou
art smitten." It were in truth better to suffer
me to speak with the King now, and so save
thee and thine and mine and me from trouble
yet to come.'

* I dare not suffer it, THan — I dare not ! '
cried the Chinaman, once more. ' Didst thou
but speak, I would be as one already dead. I
pray thee, think not of it I '

* It is enough ! ' said Norris, discontentedly.

* It is enough ! Have no fear — I will hold my
peace, though I doubt not that evil things will
result But now return thee to thy dwelling,
and if trouble assaileth thee, come thou to me
in the hour of thy need.'

The Overseas Library

The Chinaman salaamed, rose, and with-
drew. It is not customary to offer any verbal
thanks in Malay. When one is thanked by a
xj native it is silently, and by deeds, not noisily
and in words, as amongst ourselves. It may
be open to doubt, however, whether the former
method, rarely though it be employed, is
not, on the whole, superior to the profuse use
of the latter, to which we are all so well accus-
tomed in the west — wordy thanks which, in
the majority of cases, mean little enough.

When Che* Ah Ku, the Chinaman, had
departed, Norris called Raja Haji Hamid, the
chief of his followers, to his side, and the two
sat talking far into the night

Rija Haji was a man who, on the other side
of the Peninsula, had won for himself an
astonishing reputation for courage, and a very
evil name for other qualities which, by no
stretch of the imagination, and from no con-
ceivable point of view, could possibly be re-
garded as virtues. He had been one of the
most reckless and untamed of a lawless race
of rdjas in an independent Native State before
the advent of the white men reduced things to
the dull monotony of order, and thus he had
acquired a knowledge of the seamy side of
Malay human nature which was as curious as
it was profound. Norris knew something of

In a Corner of Asia

the same subject also, but when matters of
difficulty arose he usually took counsel with
the hoary old villain who loved him, and
looked upon the affairs of Pelesu as a game in
which they were partners, with the King and
the people of the land as their adversaries.

' I also have seen the woman Chik — the wife
of Ah Ku, the Chinaman — and she is fair to
look upon,' said Rija Haji late that night;
* but there be qiany in PSlSsu far more beauti-
ful. It is not her loveliness which causeth the
heart of the King to wax hot. He desireth her
with an exceeding great longing because she
alone of all the people of this land dareth to
^ deny herself to him. Men say that he hath
sought all manner of love-potions, but they
profit him not with her. It is clear to see that
the aged man, her husband, hath full know-
ledge of the occult arts, and hath cast over
her a glamour ; how else should she be faith-
ful to one so old and ugly? None the less,
Tikm^ it is certain that trouble will arise. It
was but yesternight that I dreamed in a dream
that the King bade us eat dUri-an and other
round fruit, and that needeth no skill in the
interpretation. The fruit are bullets and
cannon-balls, and the dream betokeneth strife.
Well, it is long since I bathed me in the smoke
^ and the bullets, and I am ketdgeh — longing

The Overseas Library

for that to which I am accustomed — as the
opium smoker longeth for the drug. Mine will
be the greater pleasure if war results with these
men of PSlSsu ! Ah ! it recalls to my mind the
ancient days in mine own land. Listen, T^n,'

And Rija Haji plunged into the relation of
deeds of wrong and rapine, done in bygone
days, in the memory of which his soul de-
lighted, and with which he was wont to regale
Jack N orris for hours at a time.

It is only by dwelling among Malays in
intimacy and good fellowship that a stranger
may really learn wh^t manner of men they
are. Jack N orris, who, when he came to
PfilSsu, thought he knew as much about
natives as any man in the Peninsula, soon
found out that he was still stumbling over the
^ ^ ^ of his study, and was now daily acquir-
ing little odds and ends of knowledge which
would gradually piece themselves together,
until he should eventually find himself a
master of his subject

In a Corner of Asia

Chapter III

* The deed was done in the dark !

A scuffle, a stab, a blow,
A curse, a sob — and hark !

The wail of a voice we know !
The patter of feet that flee,

A body nerveless and stark.
Foul sight of the stars to see !

The deed was done in the dark ! '

At six o'clock one afternoon Jack Norris
awoke from sleep. It was one of the peculi-
arities of his position as a lonely white man,
living and working among a courtful of
Malayan chiefs, that he was forced to keep their
unnatural hours. Time had no meaning for any
of his associates, and presently it came to have
as little significance for him. He very rarely
found himself in bed before six or seven o'clock
in the morning, and his hour of rising was pro-
portionately late. Soon after seven in the even-
ing a meal was served, and when an hour or
two had been passed in reading and writing, he
sauntered out of his compound into the still
night air, and with one native boy at his heels,
took his way up the village street He halted
at a Chinese shop, and bowing his head to
pass under the low doorway, over which was
inscribed in Chinese characters the strangely

The Overseas Library

inappropriate legend — * The Dwelling of Divine
Repose/ stumbled up a dark and narrow pass-
age, which was more like an underground
gallery in a mine than a portion of any dwell-
ing - house, such as those with which most
white men are familiar. The place was re-
dolent of a thousand odours peculiar to the
Chinese, but Norris had subdued his nose
long ere this, and the smells inseparable from
native houses had almost ceased to annoy him.
Arrived at the end of the passage, Norris
pushed aside a dingy curtain, cloaking a door-
way on his right, and entered a small dark
room, the sanctum of Su Kim, the Chinese
trader, to whom the house belonged.

The room was more than half filled by a
raised platform, or opium bench, which served
its owner indifferently as bed, chair and table.
Sii Kim was seated cross legged upon his
bunk, carefully filling a long bamboo pipe
with the opium which he was cooking over
a small lamp that stood by him. The faint
smell of roasted coffee and chocolate, the
odour of cooking opium, filled the room as
the drug swelled into blisters, or subsided
like a bubble, as Su Kim toasted it at the
end of a metal skewer. He was an old
man, whose creased and wrinkled body was
bare to the waist. His legs were ^ased in

In a Corner of Asia

a pair of black silk trousers, very full and
loose, and to the belt which secured them
were attached a bead-worked money pouch
and a cluster of the silver hooks and prods
such as the Chinese use for tickling and pick-
ing the insides of their ears.

To the right and left of the room little
octagonal tea-poys, or stools, were ranged
against the wall, and a small brown teapot
with half a dozen tiny china cups, without
handles, stood on a wooden tray on the bunk.

To the European eye, Su Kim's sanctum
was a sufficiently squalid place, but none the
less it was one of the haunts selected by the
dlite of PSlesu in which to meet and gossip,
and exchange news. To-night Norris found
that he was the first to reach this place of
general rendezvous, and as he seated him-
self upon one of the stools, and took the cup
of tea which Su Kim handed to him, he
began the conversation in the usual way.

'What is the news?'

*The news is good,' replied Su Kim,
mechanically. * Hast thou heard of what
befell Che' Ah Ku and Li Tat on the
night of the King's feast ."^ Thou hast heard
that Li Tat is dead, and that the King hath
seized all that he possessed, claiming the same
for a debt. It is even so, and now that we are

The Overseas Library

alone, I will tell thee of Li Tat's death: We
Chinamen, traders of PSlSsu, were all bidden to
the feast of the King, and we all went. Che*
Ah Ku and Li Tat were told to eat from the
same tray of food, but Che* Ah Ku, fearing
evil, ate nought, save only the rice, and so
escaped death. But Li Tat ate unwarily, sus-
pecting no evil, seeing that from childhood he
had served the King faithfully ; but, T^n, he
had waxed rich, and the King desired his
possessions. No sooner had he returned unto
his house than a great sickness fell upon him,
by reason of the said food, and even before his
eyes had closed in death the King's Treasurer
came to his dwelling and seized upon all his
stores of money and gum ; and, as thou also
hast heard, Che' Ah Ku is faint with fear, for
it is certain that he too is doomed, and now he
knoweth not in what way his death will fall
upon him.'

* Art thou sure of that which thou sayest ? '
asked N orris.

* Yes,' replied Su Kim ; *yes, it is in truth as
I say ; but peace, Tiian — someone comes this
way.'

Presently the curtain was once more put

aside, and a largely - built, imposing-looking

man, dressed in gay-coloured Malay clothes,

with a short ^ris in his belt and a long

In a Corner of Asia

dagger, sheathed in wood, in his hand, stepped
into the room. On his head was a handker-
chief twisted into a peak ; he had clumsy
sandals on his feet, and the light caught the
gloss on his cotton sdrong^ or waist skirt, to
which a shining surface had been imparted by
hard friction with a shell. This man was the
D^to' BendShira Sri Sti^wan, a cousin of the
King, whom N orris knew well for a truculent,
bullying fellow, with a loud voice, a boisterous

manner, and the heart of a little mouse.

The conversation now turned to more in-
different topics, and by-and-by more Chiefs
dropped in and joined in the talk. The
Ungku MAda, a little-loved brother of the
King, and a friend of Jack's, was among the
last to arrive, and shortly after ten o'clock
the whole party, including N orris, adjourned
to the balai or State Hall. This was a large
building abutting on the main street and open
to the air on all sides. It was raised some six
feet from the ground on piles, and it was in
this place that the greater portion of the even-
ing was wont to be spent in gossiping, in eat-
ing sickly sweetmeats, and in gambling.

Norris and the Chiefs had been seated in
the hall some time, and sweetmeats in large
quantities had just been produced, when sud-
denly the quiet stillness of the soft Malayan

The Overseas Library

night was rent by peal after peal of shrill
screamings, such as no throat but that of a
woman in misery or pain can produce. Jack
started up, moved by that instinct which
always prompts a white man who is alone
among ' natives to take the lead in all emer-
gencies. It is the instinct of the dominant
race, and natives as a rule are well content
to follow and obey on such occasions. The
BSndahira, however, put forth a restraining
hand, and begged Norris to be seated.

' 'Tis but the howling of a dog,' said he,
*and, moreover, thou knowest the custom,
Tilan; none may leave the bdlai when food
is served until they have partaken thereof.'

Very reluctantly Jack sat down once more.
Malay custom, he knew, was like unto the laws
of the Medes and Persians which altereth not.
Quickly he dipped his hand into the dish, ate
a mouthful of sickly sweetmeat, composed in
equal proportions of sugar, flour and tggy and
then, swinging himself over the edge of the
verandah on to the ground beneath, he set off
at a run down the village street.

The night had been dark a few minutes
before, but now a ruddy moon was lying on
the horizon amid a bed of fleecy clouds. A
broad line of light lay on the surface of the
river, ribbed with the thousand ripples of the

In a Corner of Asia

water, and the huts bordering the path down
which Norris ran looked black and shapeless,
and threw heavy, impenetrable shadows across
his way. A few hundred yards down the street
a small knot of silent and terrified natives stood
pressing one against the other, half in and half
out of the shadow. A black heap was dimly
discernible in the shallow ditch that separated
the huts from the pathway, and the continuous
moans and sobs of a woman in sorrow broke
upon the stillness. As Jack drew nearer, this
black heap resolved itself into the body of a
man, lying with all the abandon of death or of
insensibility, with the form of a woman thrown
prostrate across it, her head and arms beating
the ground in all the reckless, unrestrained
grief of an Oriental. As Norris approached,
and the woman caught sight of him, her cries
broke out once tnore with redoubled energy,
the pealing screams running up the scale till
they broke on a note deafeningly shrill, which
sent a thrill of almost pain through Jack's
nerves. The man was Che' Ah Ku, and the
wailing woman was Chik, his wife.

*What thing is this.**' asked Jack, and the
little group of Malays broke silence, every man
speaking at once, each offering a different ex-
planation of the catastrophe.

* He smote his head against the lintel of the

The Overseas Library

door ! ' ' He hath fallen in a fit ! * * The mad-
ness of the pig' (epilepsy) 'hath come upon
him!' *He hath been attacked by a devil!'

* An evil spirit hath laid hold upon him ! ' were
some of the phrases which came, all in one
breath, from the various onlookers.

Jack N orris was kneeling by the side of the
unconscious Chinaman by this time, and as the
clamour of voices ceased, his clear young tones,
speaking with the perfect Malay accent for
which he was famous, fell upon the ears of the
people, and hushed their noisy vapourings into
the still silence of fear.

'This man hath been stabbed,* he said —

* stabbed at the very door of the King's house.
Where are the King's men who keep watch
and ward here by day and by night .'^ How
chanced it that they saw nought of what
passed, and why hath no man aided this
woman to carry her husband into his house ? '

There was not a man in this crowd but was
well aware, in his heart of hearts, that Che'
Ah Ku had been stabbed at the Kings in-
stance, but in Pel&u, men who desired that
their days should be long in the land knew
better than to say all that they thought Jack
Norris's plain speaking filled them with fear, for
even to listen to such things might be regarded
as a crime, and one by one they slunk away.

In a Corner of Asia

Aided by his own people, Jack then carried

the still unconscious Ah Ku into his house, and

laid him on the opium-bench in the inner room.

He had been badly mauled. A stab from a

kris had pierced his upper lip, splitting it from

the nostril to the gums, and knocking away all

the front teeth of his upper jaw. The point of

the blade had come out in the centre of Ah

Ku's left cheek. A second stab had struck him

in the forehead above his left eye, but the steel

had been stopped by the bone of the skull.

This wound was a very clean one, and Jack's

keen eyes saw by its shape that it had been

made by a kris with a ridged blade, such as

only the King's bodyguard were wont to carry.

Ah Ku had fallen backwards when he was

stabbed, and as he lay upon the ground he

had received several heavy blows on the chest

from a wooden club, or some similar blunt

instrument.

Jack pulled off his coat and rolled up his
sleeves. Then he drove all the spectators
from the room, except Rdja Haji Hamid, and
set to work to do what he could to mend Che'
Ah Ku. He washed and dressed the wounds
on Ah Ku's forehead and cheek, put a couple
of silk stitches into the severed lip, and applied
a compress to the injured chest. He plied his
patient with stimulants, and eventually had the

The Overseas Library

satisfaction of restoring him to consciousness.
Then having given orders that he was to be
tended carefully, and to be fed at regular inter-
vals, he returned to his own house.

Next day Ah Ku was better, and as soon as
Jack had dressed his wounds, a statement was
made, and taken down in writing, which gave
N orris enough information to hang several of
his most intimate acquaintances, members of
the King's bodyguard. Ah Ku had been sent
for by the King's Treasurer upon some trivial
pretext, and on his return to his own shop four
men had leaped from the shadow near the
King's house, and had only ceased their attack
when Ah Ku lay in the state of unconscious-
ness, which they mistook for death.

Jack Norris now passed through some very
weary weeks. He tended Ah Ku with elabor-
ate care, and was rewarded by seeing the
wounds heal up, though they left hard and ugly
scars behind them. But the man continued to
wax weaker and weaker, and Jack began to
perceive that some internal injury had been
sustained, against which his homely doctor-
ing was powerless to prevail. Very gradu-
ally Ah Ku lost strength, and Jack watched,
with a keenness of anxiety which well-nigh
amounted to agony, the race which the ebbing

In a Corner of Asia

life in his patient was running with the time
which would bring with it the breaking of the
monsoon and the re-opening of communication
with the outside world.

It was Jack's object to cause Ah Ku to live
until the mouth of the river should be once
more open to ships. Then he would remove
him to the neighbouring British colony, where
his appearance would be all that was needed to
complete the long and heavy indictment against
the King of P^lSsu, which would be held to
justify the Government in taking one more
forward step. So Jack fought with death,
eagerly and fiercely, day and night, heart and
soul, as a man strives to stay the ebbing of a
life he loves. His cheeks began to grow pale
and lined under his deep sun-tan, and his eyes
to shine unnaturally with anxiety and want of
sleep, but still he carried on the fight, Chik
striving to aid him early and late.

The King shut himself up in his rabbit-
warrens, and only once did Jack chance to
meet him in the street. The King, in melan-
choly accents, full of tenderness and compas-
sion, asked anxiously after Jack's patient, and
expressed his well-feigned horror of the crime
which had been perpetrated. Jack smiled
grimly with that tight-shut mouth of his, and
in equally dulcet tones, and with an elaborate
c 33

The Overseas Library

air of respect, dropped into the ear of his royal
friend a few sentences that burned like fire.
He spoke in that subtle Malay language which
lends itself so readily to the framing of soft
sounding phrases, that mean so much more
than they express. Had Jack's words been
analysed, no man could deny that they were
courteous and commonplace enough, but none
the less, both Jack and the King knew that an
accusation of murder had been made against
the Ruler of Pelesu no whit less distinctly than
if his Highness had been formally charged in
the criminars dock.

After this, the King went to bed and appar-
ently stayed there, for, if one might believe his
messages, he was always asleep, or too sick to
rise from his couch, when Jack sought an inter-
view with him. Speech with the King being
thus rendered impossible, Jack wrote him a
letter, stating in unmistakable language that
Ah Ku and his people would be removed from
Pelfisu to the colony as soon as communication
by sea was re-established ; no answer was re-
ceived to this missive, but none the less Jack
remained content. He, had given formal
notice of his intention, and he was determined
to vindicate the right of a British subject to
come and go as he pleased. He was particu-
larly anxious, however, to avoid anything which

In a Corner of Asia

could be regarded as the spiriting away of Che*
Ah Ku, and though he foresaw that trouble
would be not unlikely to ensue, he had made
up his mind that Ah Ku's departure should be
niade openly and in the light of day.

All this required nerve, for the people who
thronged the court of Pelesu began to look
askance at Jack N orris, seeing in him now
the almost openly-declared enemy of their
King.

One night Jack went to the bdlai, as he had
been accustomed to do before Che' Ah Ku
was stabbed, but the looks of the r&jas and
Chiefs, which greeted his arrival, showed him
that for the time he was the reverse of bien vu.
The BSnd3,h4ra turned to him almost as soon
as he was seated, and said sulkily, —

' How fares it with that Chinaman whom
thou art tending ? '

He knew Ah Ku's name as well as he knew
his own, but he spoke of the man contemptu-
ously as a Chinaman, because he wished to be
nasty. Norris was somewhat nettled at the
BfindihAra's manner, and by the unfriendly
faces around him, and he said in his heart he
would make these men of PelSsu 'sit up and
snort!' He knew, too, that his life was not
over safe at this time, and his knowledge of
Malay character told him that bluff, and an

The Overseas Library

ostentatious disregard of the dangers with
which his path was beset, were the best
attitude for him to assume if he desired to
prolong his insecure lease of life. Therefore,
he answered in words such as no native would
have dared to use, and in a manner which he
knew would send a tremor through his audience,

* Try to think for thyself,' he said. * How
should a man fare who has been stabbed with
knives ? *

He heard the men around him gulp and
draw in their breath at the word, for the official
contention at this time was that Che' Ah Ku's
injuries had not been wrought by man.

* Who says that Ah Ku was stabbed ? ' cried
the Bend3,h4ra.

*I say it,' returned Norris; 'and all men
say the like who speak that which it is in their
^ bellies to speak. Ah Ku was stabbed with
knives at the door of the King's house where
the men of the King's bodyguard are wont to
sit.'

< How dost thou know ? ' cried the BendShdra,
excitedly. ^ There was a lath of bamboo pro-
jecting from the thatch, and men say Ah Ku
stumbled and fell against it ! '

' Ah Ku does not measure seven cubits high,'
answered Norris, with a grin ; * think once more
that thou mayest find some better explanation.'

In a Corner of Asia

Then he laughed aloud, while his audience
shuffled uneasily, and the Chief scowled at
this stranger who seemed not to know what
the fear of death might mean.

^ Then I say that it was a devil who did this
thing!' cried the BSndahdra, almost with a
scream.

* Thy words are very true/ answered N orris,
and then raising his voice, ' and mark ye, the
devil that did this thing went on two legs, and
was armed with a ridged kris. Perchance he
borrowed the weapon from one of the King's
bodyguard, who are wont to sit at night on
the spot where the deed was done! What
profits it to seek for explanations when all men
know the truth } And, remember, though this
thing was done in the dark, it hath come into
the light of day, and there may be many in this
land of PSlSsu who will live to pay the price of
that night's work, nor will it avail them aught if
they strive to make Satan bear the burden of
their evil deeds. I ask thy leave to depart ! '
And Jack dropped over the edge of the
verandah, and left a flustered, awe-stricken
court behind him.

This was one of many such adventures
which thrust themselves upon Norris at this
time. The knowledge that his life hung by a
thread seemed to make him doubly reckless,

The Overseas Library

and though he was very much alone, though
he had no man of his own race to support him,
the excitement of his life supplied him with all
the stimulant he needed, and he learned to
enjoy the risks he ran almost hourly. And
thus the days slipped by until the monsoon
broke and a vessel was reported as having
entered the mouth of the river.

Chapter IV

* When blood runs slowly, when limbs wax weak,

When life is ebbing away,
When lips, that of old were swift to speak,

Are silent for ever and aye ;
When the passing-pain racks the wearied brain,

When the death-rattle tears the chest,
A man may rejoice at Azrael's voice.

And be glad to go to his rest.

* But when on the brink of the grave we reel,

Tho' the Soul to the Body clings.
And never a pang or a pain we feel,

And our joy in all mortal things
Is as keen as of old ; yet the hour's foretold

For our death, by our foes decreed.
The longing for life, makes furious strife.

And to die may be hard indeed.'

NoRRis set off for the mouth of the river as
soon as he learned that a ship had arrived.
He travelled in a long, narrow, open boat,
taking the oar himself, while sixteen of his men

In a Corner of Asia

bent to the paddles, to the accompaniment
of a perfect tempest of shrill shouts and
yells. The boat skimmed quickly over the
water, and in an hour Jack found himself
climbing up the port side of a dirty little
steam * tramp,' and being received by the
Malay captain and Chinese Chin-chu, or super-
cargo, at whose hands she ran many risks, and
suffered terrible things every time she put to
sea. As he boarded her, he saw certain of
the King's men scrambling into a boat moored
on the starboard side, and he knew from this
that the people of P^&u had already done
their best to prevent the ship from accepting
Ah Ku and his people as passengers.

This suspicion was 60on amply confirmed,
for the Malay captain and the Chinese super-
cargo both flatly refused to run the risk of
taking out of PSlSsu persons whom the King
desired to keep within his country. Norris
had anticipated this, however, and he pro-
ceeded to calmly explain that if the refusal to
carry Ah Ku and his family was persisted in,
the good ship Bang Ah Hong would shortly
forfeit her license to carry passengers, and
would meet with other disasters exceedingly
unpleasant to her owners. After some further
arguments, the captain of the vessel gave in,
and when Jack had exacted a promise that the

The Overseas Library

vessel should not put to sea until he gave her
permission to do so, he once more returned up
stream to the capital.

Arrived here, Jack set off on a round of
afternoon calls. First he visited the Ungku
MAda, the King's brother, who was on good
terms with Norris, and on exceedingly bad
ones with the Ruler of PSlSsu. To him Norris
explained that on the following morning he
proposed to take Che* Ah Ku and his family
out of PSlSsu.

' Do not so ! ' cried the Ungku MAda. * The
King will never permit it. If thou dost persist
thou wilt be slain, and when thou art dead I
too shall perish at the hands of the King.'

Norris laughed, and -said that the Ungku
MAda had better lend him his aid in the
removal of Ah Ku, since, if that failed, they
were both, it would seem, like to be dead men
before long. The rd/ay however, only reiterated
his entreaties to Norris to abandon his project,
and bewailed the evil fate which he foresaw
was like to overtake him and all connected
with him.

* What can one do ? ' said Norris, philosophic-
ally. * My words have gone forth. I have
said that I would do this thing, and now
behold the time is at hand.'

Norris left the Ungku MAda moaning over

In a Corner of Asia

his evil fortune with tears and futile wringing
of impotent, irresolute hands, and betook him-
self to the BSndahdra

* There will be trouble if thou dost attempt
to remove Ah Ku,' said this Chief. 'There
will be trouble, and thou and thine will be
slain. But I pray thee leave a record behind
thee that so the white men may know that I
was ever thy friend.'

The frank selfishness of this proposal set
Norris laughing once more. He was in a
thoroughly reckless mood, though his voice and
manner showed no signs of excitement, and the
humours of the situation pleased him.

* If thou art my friend/ he said, 'when the
trouble ariseth all men will know it, for thou
wilt stand by me. Therefore there will be no
need of writing or record to prove thy friend-
ship.'

* But I am a man devoid of power and
authority,' whined the BgndahAra. * I cannot
aid thee, but indeed I am thy friend.'

* He who is not for me is against me,'
translated Norris, and so saying he took his
departure.

He next visited Ungku TumSnggong,
another great Chief, who was famed for his
prudence; but this worthy, having scented
trouble in the air, had departed up stream

The Overseas Library

to snare turtle-doves, thus to avoid all con-
nection with whatsoever might occur.

Norris next went to see Tiingku Indut, the
eldest son of the King, who was at this time
at enmity with his father, and to him he re-
peated that at dawn on the following day he
proposed to remove Ah Ku and his family.

* Hast thou well considered this thy plan ? '
asked the prince.

*Yes,' said Norris, gravely; *I have con-
sidered it even to the end.'

*And thy mind is made up,' asked the
prince, *even though thou art aware that the
King will resist thine action maybe with force ? '

' Yes,' returned Norris. ' My mind is made
up, and my word hath gone forth.'

' Then if thou wilt follow my advice, remove
Ah Ku by night, so that no man may know
the hour of his departure.'

'That r may not do,' said Norris ; * I am no
thief, removing by night the property of the
King, thy father. Ah Ku and his people are
British subjects, and all such come and go as
it pl6ase$ them. At daybreak to-morrow I
take them forth, and I come hither to tell
thee my intention that all may be open, and
that no man may say that I acted secretly
or by stealth.'

'Then I have no further word to say,' said

In a Corner of Asia

Tiingku Indut, * Do that which thou thinkest
right, but verily there will be trouble, and thy
life will pay the penalty of thy desire to oppose
the King.'

So Norris departed and returned to his
house through' the darkness, which had already
fallen upon the land. He had eaten no food
since dawn, but his cravings of appetite were
not yet to be appeased, for on his arrival at
his house he found two Chiefs, messengers
from the King, who brought him word that
his Highness was awaiting his coming, and
desired urgently to have speech with him.

In spite of all their protests Norris bade all
his men remain in the house, and went alone
to this interview with the hostile King. He
knew that PSlSsu was in an exceedingly
excited state, and that the King would be
glad of any pretext which would give rise to
a quarrel that might terminate in the murder
of Jack and of his people. Anything in the
nature of trouble that might have the appear-
ance of being wholly unconnected with politics
would. Jack knew, be very welcome to the
Ruler of PelSsu, and this of all things he was
most anxious to avoid. Therefore he went
alone, and the risk which he ran by so doing
accorded with the somewhat reckless mood
that possessed him that evening.

The Overseas Library

The King was awaiting Jack's coming,
sitting upon a mat spread on the ground in
front of the whitewashed bungalow, of which
mention has already been made. The open
space in front of the house, and all the ap-
proaches to it, were thronged with men,
squatting humbly on the earth, after ^ the
manner of Malays when in the presence of
their King, and the moonlight showed Jack
that all present were armed to the teeth.
Moreover, the people of the neighbouring
villages, he noted, had been called in to the
capital, a thing in itself so unusual, that Jack
needed no man to tell him that mischief was
intended, and he felt instinctively that an
appearance of absolutely light-hearted disre-
gard to danger was at once the wisest and
the safest air that he could assume in the
presence of this multitude of his enemies,
f ' Hai, M^rah ! ' he cried laughingly to one
burly native against whom he brushed in pas-
sing, *thou and thy fellows are in force to-
night 1 '

The man scowled at him sulkily, and those
near him turned round to watch him and
N orris.

* It is true that we are in force,' grunted
M^rah. * It is said that the King desireth to
slay a tiger I'

In a Corner of Asia

Norris knew well enough that there was no
tiger in the vicinity, and that he was the person
whose death the King desired to compass.

* Have a care, M^rah,' he cried, with the
same careless laugh on his lips. * Have a
care, for tigers have claws and teeth where-
with to guard their lives.'

All knew what this hint meant, and Norris
had the satisfaction of seeing some approving
and admiring looks on the faces of the crowd,
for Malays love pluck, especially when it is
garnished with a touch of swagger and a ready
tongue.

Norris squatted upon the mat opposite to
the King, and noted with satisfaction that no
man was seated within striking distance of his
back. The King sat in silence, frowning at
the mat at which he picked unceasingly with
restless fingers. His face, conforming to the
habit of brown countenances in moments of
strong emotion, was almost black in hue, and
it was tight set as a clinched vice. All the
great Chiefs were present, squatting humbly
about their King, and Norris noticed that
even their trained self-control was powerless
to wholly conceal the anxiety of which they
were the prey. For full five minutes no man
spoke a word. Norris, who, to all appear-
ances, was the least troubled member of the

The Overseas Library

group, sat tapping gently on the mat with one
long, thin finger, furtively observing those who
sat about him, for their evident confusion ap-
pealed to his sense of humour, while he waited
for the King to fire the first shot. So much
appeared to him to be due to the courtesy
which his adversary had the right to claim ;
but at length, tiring of inaction. Jack took the
initiative.

* Men said that Your Highness desired to
have speech with me,' he said, * wherefore
came J hither. If, by any chance, this be
not so, I pray thee suffer me to depart, for
my belly is empty, since all the day long I
have gone fasting.'

The King raised his head, looking Norris
Straight in the face for the first time since he
had arrived at the place of meeting. For an
instant some of the pent-up anger, some of the
passion of hatred, some of the many emotions
that he was striving manfully to hide, peeped
out of the King's eyes at the lonely White
Man, his opponent in what seemed to be so
desperate and so unequal a conflict. Through
the mediumship of that glance Jack seemed to
peer for an instant into the King's heart. He
saw the overwhelming wonder which he experi-
enced at the bare idea of another daring to

cross his will, as no man had dreamed of

In a Corner of Asia

doing for more than thirty years ; the wild
longing to give the signal which should punish
such hardihood with instant death ; the fear
of the consequences which alone restrained
this impulse ; and underlying all other thoughts
and passions, Jack seemed to see a triumphant
certainty that, in spite of the Englishman's air
of courage, in spite of his seeming resolution,
in spite of all that he had said and done that
day to prove the contrary, he must at that
moment be quaking in his inmost soul at the
dire peril in which he stood, and must, in the
end, yield to the circumstances which were so
obviously too strong for him. It was this look,
which told only too distinctly that the King
was confident of ultimately achieving his end,
that made Jack's mouth set hard with a resolu-
tion that had in it more of personal anger than
any sentiment of which he had hitherto been
conscious in his dealings with his adversary ;
and deep down in his heart he registered an
oath that, God helping him, he would do
nothing then or after that should seem, even
for an instant, to justify the triumph in the
King's eyes.

* Have patience for a little space, T^lanl
replied the King. * There is a small matter
concerning which I would speak with thee.
It has been said by certain foolish folk that

The Overseas Library

thou dost desire to remove Ah Ku and his
family from out of this land of PSlesu. I place
no faith in the said report, for of a certainty
it is false.'

* No/ said Norris, calmly; *it is true. If
God be willing, to-morrow at dawn I shall
remove these people from out of PSlSsu.
They desire it ; they have made their desire
known unto me ; and, moreover, they are
British subjects, wherefore no man may re-
strain their coming in or their going forth/

* How can they be British subjects ? ' asked
the King. * Do they not dwell in this land
of PSl6su? Am I not the ruler .^ Are not
all men in my dominions subject to me ? '

* Your Majesty,' said Jack, in partial ac-
quiescence, 'all who are born in PSlSsu are
thy subjects, and if such as they came to me
weeping and wailing, I could in no way lend
my aid ; but these folk are natives of the
colony, mere settlers in PSl&u. They are
subjects of Her Majesty the Queen, the Most
Honourable, the Most High, and as such they
may claim, and I must give them my pro-
tection.'

' They are fortunate folk ! ' exclaimed the
King. * Verily the protection of thee and of
thy so numerous followers is as an impregnable
fort drawn round about them.'

In a Corner of Asia

Norris bit his lip hard to keep back the
angry retort that was on the tip of his tongue.
* To-morrow at the dawn they go forth from
Pelesu/ was all he said.

* But they owe me money ; they are indebted
to me ! ' cried the King.

Mf it be so that the debt can be proved,
for indeed this is the first time that I have
heard tell of it, I will stand security for the
silver, and it shall in due course be paid to
thee. But was it not to pay money owing to
Ah Ku that Your Majesty caused certain
diamonds to be sent to his house, gems which,
so men say, were cast forth into the gutter ? '

Jack was young, and for the life of him he
could not keep back the gibe. It was now the
Kings turn to wince. The lines about his
mouth set harder than ever, and his breath
came in short sobs and gasps. When next he
spoke it was with a voice that trembled with
anger.

* I care nought for the silver, as well the
T{ian knoweth,' he said. ' But I beg thee to
refrain from removing from PSlSsu those whom,
as I tell thee, I will not lightly suffer to
depart.'

Jack sighed ostentatiously. * Ya, Allah / '

he said. ' Verily my fate is evil. When men

be young, they repose in the wombs of their

D -49

The Overseas Library

mothers ; when they be grown -men they re-
pose in the wombs of custom ; when they be
dead, in the womb of the Earth. Behold, it
has ever been my wish to obey the customs
of this land of Pel&u. When among the kine,
I have striven to low ; when among the goats,
I have joined in the bleating ; when among the
fowls, I have crowed with the cocks ; but now
at last I must depart from my custom, for in
this matter I may not conform with thy will,
but must do that which is bidden me by the
Great Queen whose servant I am. I am sad
at heart ; verily my heart is sorrowful, for I can
by no means do that which thou dost desire.'

The speech, with its tags of old wise-saws,
was one well calculated to appeal to a Malay
audience, as N orris knew ; and the calmness,
that lay at the back of the firm resolution which
the words expressed, impressed the Chiefs, and
made the King feel that he was losing rather
than gaining ground.

' But, THatiy he almost shrieked, for he had
never before been thus opposed by living man,
*but, THan^ thou dost not understand! I tell
thee that I will not suffer this thing to come
to pass!'

* Full well I understand thy words, Majesty,'
replied Norris. * My fate is accursed in that
I can by no means comply with them.'

In a Corner of Asia

* But / am ruler in this land of PSlesu ! '
cried the King.

* That is indeed so ; but Ah Ku and his
people are subjects of the Queen, the Most
Honourable, the Most High, and all her folk
are free to come and go whithersoever they
may desire. I, too, am her servant, to come
at her call, to go at her bidding, and it is laid
upon me to do her commands, and to aid her
people to maintain their rights.'

* Ah, truly,' said the King, suddenly chang-
ing his tone from angry protest to the dulcet
note which heralds a sneering Malay remark
of many meanings. * I, what am I, and what
is my power ."^ I have neither men, nor
weapons, nor power, nor wisdom, nor skill, nor
state ; whereas thou, T^an, thou art indeed
well furnished with all that thou dost need in
order to carry out the wishes of thy Queen ! '

* I pray thee, sneer not, O King,' said Norris,
very quietly, though he did not at all like thfe
tone which his adversary was assuming. * I
know well the meaning of such speech. I, and
those who follow me are few and weak ; we
are a little thing to swallow, like the bait that
killed the shark. We are, as it were, only the
shadow ; but the substance which hath cast us
before it hath subdued many lands. To-night
thou art all-powerful ; thy men are numerous,

The Overseas Library

mine are few; but what profits it to disduss
such matters ? Our talk is not of such things.
I have said that I will remove Ah Ku from
Pelesu if he live till the dawn, and I also live,
and this thing I will surely do/

* But, T&an^ perchance the man will die,
lacking the strength to make the journey.'

* Better so, if he die doing that which from
his soul he desireth. Your Majesty's capital hath
had no good effect upon the health of this man,
else there had been no good to remove him.*

* Men say that he smote his head against
the beam of his doorway,' said the King.

'Many say strange things in this land of
Pelesu, knowing in their hearts that they He,'
returned N orris, grimly.

' What then hath caused his illness ? '
' He was stabbed, stabbed at the very door
pf his house, stabbed within a yard or two of
the spot where at night-time the members of
the bodyguard keep watch and ward over Your
Majesty's own dwelling. Moreover, he saw
and recognised those who compassed his death,
for it is certain that he will sooner or later lose
his life, by reason of the wounds inflicted.'

* Who was it that he saw } ' asked the King,
eagerly.

* When he reaches the colony it is possible
that the Governor will think fit to answer that

In a Corner of Asia-

question/ said Norris, grimly. * For the present
I say nothing.'

* But how does this affect me ? '

* Your Majesty can answer that question far
better than I may do.*

* Then dost thou say that / slew him ? '

* I do not say that it was Your Majesty's
hand that slew him or struck the blow/ replied
Norris, with meaning.

There was a long pause. Then the King
spoke again.

* But, THan, wilt thou not hearken to reason ? '
He spoke almost entreatingly. * I pray thee
not to do this thing. If thou dost so desire,
take the woman Chik into thy own keeping.
I will not harm her. Let her live within thy
house, but I cannot suffer her or her man to
leave Pelesu.'

'There is a saying of the men of ancient
days : ** Set not a snare and thereafter thrust
thy head therein." My house is a house for
men, and no woman could dwell therein without
a* scandal arising. Moreover, Chik will also
go to the colony with Ah Ku.'

* Is that thy last word ? ' asked the King. He
was growing weary of dashing against this
stone wall of resolution, which all known means
of persuasion seemed to be powerless to break
through.

The Overseas Library

* It is my last word ; and, moreover, I am
hungry, wherefore I would ask leave to depart/

* But understand that I cannot suffer this
thing!' cried the King, as a parting shot.

'Apa bUlih bHat. What can one do ? ' mur-
mured N orris, as he arose and made his way
through the crowd without attempting anjf
more direct reply.

As he passed back to his house he called in
at Che' Ah Ku's dwelling, and found his
patient very feeble and sick, but as anxious as
ever to depart from PSlSsu upon the following
morning. Jack gave orders as to the food
which was to be given to Ah Ku at stated
intervals all through the night, and Chik her-
self promised to keep watch by his bed till dawn.

Then Norris went to his house, and at once
fell to upon a large meal of curry and rice, to
which he did the most ample justice. He was
very hungry, having fasted many hours, and
though people are apt to wonder how a man
can have any stomach for food when he goes
in danger of his life, experience seems to show
that a prolonged mental strain often whets the
appetite even more keenly than does mere
bodily exertion.

The meal over, Norris rolled a cigarette
thoughtfully, and then called all his people
about him. -^

In a Corner of Asia

'Things are in this wise/ he said. *The
King hath sworn that he will not suffer Ah Ku
and Chik his wife to be removed, and I have
said that I will aid them to depart. There
will be trouble at dawn when we seek to escort
these people to the boat, and it may well be
that few of those who follow me will remain
alive. Therefore think well. If therfe be
among ye any who fear the risk, ye have
my leave to depart hence to-night. But may
the curse of God Almighty blight the soul
and body, heart and brain and vitals of the
man who elects to follow me to-morrow and
fails me in the hour of need. Give me your
answer that I may hear.*

* The Tilan speaks for us both,* cried R4ja
Haji Hamid. He had seated himself behind
Norris, for he did not wish to be regarded by
the other Malays as one who had any choice
in the matter.

' THatty' said an old man, speaking for his
fellows, whose eyes glistened, and whose teeth
flashed white in the lamplight, as the excited
faces thronged behind the spokesman, *we all
have eaten thy rice, and worn garments of thy

^ giving in the days of thy ease. Now trouble
hath come, we will follow thee, not only unto

. death, but, if God wills, unto the very Lake
of Fire. I speak for all my fellows. Come

The Overseas Library

•

— let us make ready our arms against the
morrow/

' It is well/ said N orris, and whistling the
tune of * There's another jolly row downstairs/
which seemed to him to be wonderfully appro-
priate to the circumstances, he turned into the
bedroom.

Shortly afterwards two Chiefs were ushered
in. They were friendly to Norris, and came
from the King to try if persuasions could not, .
even now, cause the foolhardy, strong-willed
white man to forego his purpose.

*What profits it to talk further?' said
Norris, when he had heard all that they had to
say, and had listened patiently to their gloomy
forebodings of sudden and violent death. ' If
we spoke together until the dawn, I could not
recall my words, nor would I if I could.'
So his visitors returned sorrowfully to their
King.

* It is enough/ said the Ruler of PSlesu to
his assembled Chiefs. * He is a Kafir, an
Infidel, and all such know not the fear of
death, for they believe in no life to come,
nor dread the fires of the terrible place of
which they are the everlasting fuel. For me,
I go a-hunting, but I leave this matter in your
hands, and ye shall not suffer Ah Ku and
Chik to leave PelSsu. Thy King will be

In a Corner of Asia

absent when the deed is done, and so he will
know nought of what may befall.'

The Chiefs lifted up their fingers in silent
homage. With them to hear was to obey.
No nian thought of protesting, or blaming
the monarch for his selfish policy, and half
an hour later the King was being paddled up
the river in his boat by a few of his youngest
and least-tried warriors. The more experi-
enced men were needed for the work which
to-morrow's dawn would see.

It was ten o'clock at night before Jack
N orris sat down at his desk to write the
despatch which he believed was destined to be
his last official paper. He knew that after his
death the good people of Pelesu would seek
to justify the murder by the fabrication of some
lying story, attributing the event to causes;
wholly disconnected with politics; wherefore
he was the more anxious that a true record of
all that had occurred should remain behind him
to fall into the hands of those of his people who
might hereafter come to gather up his bones.
He sent one of his people for a bamboo, in
the hollow of which he determined to hide his
letters, and he bade a small boy, whose tender
years would probably save his life, mark well
the spot where he intended to secrete this

The Overseas Library

improvised envelope in the thatch of the
roof.

He wrote calmly and steadily, a cigarette
between his lips, pausing every now and again
to seek the word he wanted, or to listen to the
* run * of a sentence. His mind was working
with more than its usual activity, and he
flattered himself that his despatch would do
him credit, though at a date when he would
no longer be at hand to profit by it. The
grim humour of the thought pleased him, and
he smiled. All the time that he sat writing
the absolute certainty of his conviction that
he was only separated from an ugly death by
a few short hours lay at the back of his mind,
but It only served to throw his thoughts on
other subjects more clearly into relief. The
very near presence of Death has a curiously
numbing effect upon one who looks him very
steadily between the eyes, and fear, for the
time, stands at gaze.

When the despatch had been drafted, re-
vised, and finally signed, N orris began a letter
to his mother. He told her the facts of the
position in which he then found himself, of
the certain death which awaited him at dawn,
and wound up with a few simple sentences
of affection and thankfulness for her sweet
love to him. He added a word or two of

In a Corner of Asia

sympathy for the grief which his death would
bring, but he was conscious all the time that
he reviewed his case dispassionately, as though,
in some unexplained way, it were that of some
third person, the pathos of whose end had no
power to move him to tears or sentimentality.
Then he wrote a short line to his little sisten
But here things were different, for his words
conjured up her piteous, weeping face, and
the despair which the news would bring to her
wide, soft eyes. He finished his letter with a
sob, and from pure inability to go on with it
For the first time that night he felt heartily
sorry for himself, and for the distant hearts
that loved him.

Suddenly a voice spoke from the curtained
doorway, and Jack hastily pulled himself to-
gether. ■

* THan, a man hath come from the house of
Ah Ku praying thee to go thither speedily.'

'What is the trouble?' asked Norris, all
memory of sentimentality gone from him in a
moment.

* Thy servant knoweth nought of the matter,'
replied the man.

Norris snatched up a sword, and, crying to
Rdja Haji Hamid to follow him, ran down the
street in the direction of Che' Ah Ku's house.
Presently the night wind bore to him a shrill,

The Overseas Library

despairing keening, which he knew meant death,
and on entering Che' Ah Ku s house he found
Chik prostrate across the corpse of her husband,
wailing as only a native woman can when the
horror of death and the loss of one who is very
dear have freshly smitten her. Ah Ku had
died while Chik sat tending him— had died of
the shattered vessels in his chest which all
Jack's care had been powerless to heal.

Chik screamed and fainted, recovering to fall
once more upon the corpse, whispering little
vain words of love to ears that could not hear,
and showering caresses upon hands, feet and
face that had ceased to feel for ever. Jack
knew that until the elaborate burial rites of the*
Chinese had been complied with Chik would
refuse to be separated from her dead, and that
all thoughts of removing her to the colony
must be abandoned for the time. He assured
himself that death had resulted thus opportunely
without the aid of poison or other foul play.
Then he turned away with his spirit suddenly
relaxed from the tension to which it had been
strung all through the night, and with a curious
appreciation of the bathos with which his ad-
venture had ended causing something akin to
disappointment in his heart. He knew now
that his difficulties* were practically at an end.
The mouth of the river was opening to traffic ;

In a Corner of Asia

he would no longer be so completely cut off
from all communication with his Government
as he had been while the monsoon held. The
good ship Bang Ah Hong would convey to
the colony a despatch from him which would
speedily bring a gun-boat to his aid, and in the
meantime there would be no question of re-
moving or protecting Chik. Even the King
would not dare to molest her while she was
busy performing the last rites for her dead hus-
band. Norris saw clearly that the British
Government would now have no alternative
but to annex or 'protect* Pelesu before the
year was out. He felt that he had played his
part unflinchingly, and in his heart there was
pride of what he had done in the hour of danger,
and something resembling surprise at his own
steadfastness. But he realised also that the
whole affair had terminated in too unsensational
a manner for much credit to be reaped by him
when such of the facts became known as would
eventually be learned by the Government from
his own modest report of his proceedings.

Then on a sudden it was borne in upon him,
with something like a shock, that his life had
been saved in the very nick of time, and the
fear of death, and of the extreme peril in which
he had stood — fears to which he had been a

stranger all the night — fell upon him unex-

The Overseas Library

pectedly, and shook him with a tremor which
made him ashamed. Presently he was startled
from his reverie by Rdja Haji Hamid, whose
very presence he had forgotten, swearing softly
under his breath.

* What ails thee ? ' asked Jack.

* Va Allah ! ' sighed Rdja Haji. ' Ya Allah,
THan ! I have dreamed the long night through
that now indeed I should once more see shrewd
blows given, and the red blood running free!
Verily, my fate is an evil fate ! And when I
looked upon the so beast - like body of this
Chinaman, whose inappropriate death hath
robbed us of our play and marred the playing,
I could in my wrath have spurned it with my
foot ! '

Jack Norris laughed softly, but his ugly face
wore a look of unwonted tenderness, and his
thoughts were with his little sister far away in
sheltered England, into whose eyes, as he saw
them in imagination, the light of youth and
happiness had once more returned.

And thus the British Government took charge
of the destinies of the land of Pelesu.

THE DEATH-MARCH OF
KULOP SUMBING

THE DEATH-MARCH OF KOLOP

sOmbing

* From age to age a glowing page

Their names must win in story,
The men who wrought and dared and fought

To make a nation's glory.
Half men, half gods, they feared no odds,

And made our England's name
Echo and roll from pole to pole,

A widening din of fame !

* But had their ways, for all their days,

Been set in lands apart.
Straitened and pent, with ne'er a vent

For mighty brain and heart,
These very men, perchance, might then

Have joined the nameless throng,
\ Who wage red war against the Law,

But win no name in son^'

The Song of the Lost Heroes,

HE was an ill fellow to look at — so men
who knew him tell me — large of limb
and very powerfully built. His face was broad
and ugly, and a peculiarly sinister expression
was imparted to it by a hare-lip, which left
his gums exposed. It was to this latter
embellishment that he owed at once his vicious

temper and the name by which he was known.
E 65

The Overseas Library

It is not difficult to understand why his
disposition should not have been of the
sweetest, for women did not love to look
upon the gash in his lip, and his nickname of
S^mizng:— which means * The Chipped One '
— reminded him of his calamity whenever he
heard it.

He was a native of P^rak, and he made
his way into Pahang through the untrodden
Sdkai country. That is practically all that
is known concerning his origin. The name
of the district in which Kfilop Stimbing had
his home represented nothing to the natives
of the Jelai Valley, and now no man knows
from what part of P^rak this adventurer came.
The manner of his coming, however, excited
the admiration, and impressed itself upon the
imaginations, of the people of Pahang — who
love pluck almost as much as they hate toil —
so the tale of his doings is still told, though
these things happened nearly a score of years
ago.

K(ilop Sdmbing probably held a sufficiently
cynical opinion as to the nature of his country-
women, who are among the most venal of
their sex. He knew that no girl could love
him for the sake of his marred, unsightly face,
but that many would bestow their favours

upon him if his money-bags were well lined.

In a Corner of Asia

Therefore he determined to grow rich with as
little delay as possible, and to this end he
looked about for someone whom he might
plunder. For this purpose P^rak was played
out. The law of the white men could not be
bribed by a successful robber, so he turned
his eyes across the border to Pahang, which
bore an evil reputation, as a land in which ill
things were done with impunity, while the
doer throve exceedingly.

He had a love of adventure, was absolutely
fearless, and was, moreover, a good man with
his hands. In common with most Malays, the
Central Gaol, and the rigid discipline of prison
life, had few attractions for him ; and as he
did not share with the majority of his race

N their instinctive dread of travelling alone in
the jungle, he decided on making a lone-hand
raid into the Sikai country, which lies between^
P^rak and Pahang. Here he would be safe
from the grip of the white man's hand, well
removed from the sight of the Government's

"^ * eyes,' as the Malays name our somnolent police-
men, and much wealth would come to the
ready hand that knew full well how to seize it.

- He, of course, felt absolutely no twinges of
conscience, for you must not look for principle
in the men of the race to which Kiilop
Stoibing belonged. A Malay is honest and

The Overseas Library

law-abiding just so long as it suits his con-
venience to be so, and not more than sixty-
seconds longer. Virtue in the abstract does
not fire him with any particular enthusiasm,
but a love of right-doing may occasionally be
galvanised into a sort of paralytic life in his
breast, if a haunting fear of the consequences of
crime are kept very clearly before his eyes.
So KMop kicked the dust of law-restrained
P^rak from his bare brown soles, and set out
for the Sdkai country, and the remote interior
of Pahang, ' where the law of God was not
and no law of man held true.'

He carried with him all the rice that he
could bear upon his shoulders, two dollars in
silver, a little tobacco, a handsome kris, and
a long spear with a broad and shining blade.
His supplies were to last him till the first
Sdkai camps were reached, and after that his
food, he told himself, would * rest at the tip of
his dagger.' He did not propose to really
begin his operations until the mountains, which
fence the P^rak boundary, had been crossed,
so was content to allow the first Sdkai villages
to pass unpillaged. He impressed some of
the naked, frightened aborigines as bearers,
levied such supplies of food as he needed, and
the Sclkai, who were glad to be rid of him

so cheaply, handed him on from village to

In a Corner of Asia

village with the greatest alacrity. The base
of the jungle-covered mountains of the in-
terior was reached at the end of a fortnight,
and Ktilop and his Sdkai began to drag them-
selves up the steep ascent by means of roots,
trailing creepers, and slender saplings.

Upon a certain day they reached the
summit of a nameless mountain, and threw
themselves down panting for breath upon the
round bare drumming-ground of an argus
pheasant. On the crest of almost every hill
and hog's-back in the interior of the Peninsula
these drumming-grounds are found, bare and
smooth as a threshing-floor, save for the thin
litter of dead twigs with which they are strewn
by the birds. Sometimes, if you keep very still,
you may hear the cocks strutting and dancing,
and thumping the hard earth, but no man
amongst us has ever seen the pheasants going
through their performance. At night-time
their full-throated yell rings across the valleys,
waking a thousand echoes, and the cry is
taken up and thrown backwards and . for-
wards by a host of pheasants, each answering
from his own hill. Judging by the frequency
of their cry, they must be among the most
common of all jungle birds, yet so deftly
do they hide themselves that they are but
rarely seen, and the beauties of their plumage

The Overseas Library

—at once more delicate and more brilliant
than that of the peacock — and the wonders
of the countless violet eyes with which their
feathers are set, are only known to us because
these birds are so frequently trapped by the
Malays.

Where Ktilop and his Sdkai lay the trees
were thinned out. The last two hundred feet
of the ascent had been a severe climb, and
the ridge, which formed the summit, stood
clear of the tree-tops which grew half-way up
the slope. As he lay panting, Kfilop Stimbing
gazed down for the first time upon the
eastern slope of the Peninsula, the theatre in
which ere long he proposed to play a very
daring part. At his feet were tree-tops of
every shade of green, from the tender, brilliant
colour which we associate with young corn,
to the deep, dull hue which is almost black.
They fell away beneath him in a broad slope
of a living vegetation, the contour of each
individual tree, and the grey, white, or black
lines, which marked their trunks or branches,
growing less and less distinct, until the
jungle covering the plain was a blurred wash
of colour that had more of blue than green
in it. Here and there, very far away, the
sunlight fell in a dazzling flash upon something
which glistened like the mirror of a heliograph,

In a Corner of Asia

and this, Kdlop knew, was the broad reaches
of a river. .The jungle hid all traces of human
habitation, and no sign of life or movement
was visible, save only a solitary kite 'sailing
with supreme dominion through the azure
depth of air/ and the slight uneasy swaying
of some of the taller trees, as a faint breeze
swept gently over the forest. Here, in the
mountains, the air was damp and chilly, and
a cold wind was blowing, while the sun
appeared to have lost half its power. In the
plain below, however, the land lay steaming
and sweltering beneath the fierce perpendicular
rays, while the heat-haze danced restlessly
above the forest.

During the next day or two Ktilop Sdmbing
and his P6rak Sdkai made their way down the
eastern slope of the mountains, and through
the silent forests, which aire given over to
game, and to the equally wild jungle-folk, who
fly at the approach of any human beings,
precisely as do the beasts which share with
them their home.

Kdlop and his people passed several de-
serted camps belonging to these wild Sikai,
but^ the instinct of the savages tells them
^ unerringly that strangers are at hand, and
never once were any of these folk caught sight
of by the travellers.

The Overseas Library

These people live a nomadic life, roaming
hither and thither through the forest in quest
of fresh feeding-grounds when the old ones
are temporarily exhausted. They have no
knowledge of planting, and they live chiefly
ut)on yams and roots, sour jungle fruits, and
the fish which they catch in cunningly-devised
basket-work traps. These things are known
to such of us as have journeyed through their
country, for their tracks tell their story up
to this point We know, too, that they camp
in rude shelters of leaves propped crazily on
untrimmed uprights, and that they obtain
wood knives from the tamer tribesmen in
exchange for the long reeds of which the
inner casing of the SAkai blowpipes is made.
But even when they barter thus, they never
willingly meet other human beings, their wares
being deposited in certain well-known places
in the jungle, where they are replaced by
other articles which the wild folk remove when
no man is watching. A few survivors of the
captives, made by the tamer Sdkai on various
slave-raiding expeditions, may be found in
some of the Malay villages in Pahang, but of
the life of these people in their wild forest
state no man knows anything.

KAlop SAmbing, of course, took very little

interest in them, for they possess no property,

In a Corner of Asia

and nothing was therefore to be gained by
harrying them. So he pushed on through the.
wild Sdkai country, until the upper waters of
the Betok, the principal tributary of the Jelai,
were reached.

Bamboos were felled, a raft was constructed,
and then KAlop SAmbing dismissed his Sdkai,
and began his descent of the unknown river,
which led he knew not where, alone, save for
his weapons, but full of confidence in his ability
to pillage this undiscovered country single-
handed.

When you come to think of it, there was
something bordering upon the heroic in the
action of this unscrupulous man with the marred
face, who glided gently down the river on this wild,
lone-hand raid. The land was strange to him ;
the river, for all he knew, might be beset with
impassable rapids and unknown dangers of
every kind ; moreover, his object was robbery
on a large scale, and a plunderer is not likely to
meet with much love from those he despoils.
He was going to certain enmity, one might
say to almost certain death, yet he poled his
raft down the stream with deft punts, and gazed
calmly ahead of him with a complete absence
of fear.

Under happier circumstances KAlop of the
Hare-lip might surely have won rank among

The Overseas Library

those brave men whose names still ring through
the centuries as heroes, whose courage has won
for them a lasting niche in human history.

It was at noon upon the second day, that
Ktilop sighted a large camp of the tamer Sdkai
in a clearing on the right bank of the Betok.
The sight of a Malay, coming from such an
unusual quarter, filled the jungle people with
superstitious dread, and in a few minutes every
man, woman and child had fled screaming to
the forest.

KAlop went through the ten or fifteen
squalid huts which stood in the clearing, and
an occasional grunt attested that he was well
satisfied with the stores of valuable gum lying
stowed away in the sheds. He calculated that
there could not be less than seven ptkul^ and
that, even when the poor price to be obtained
from a purchaser in a distant, up-country village
was taken into consideration, would mean S6oo
in cash — a small fortune for any Malay. But
here a difficulty presented itself. How was
this precious gum to be carried down stream
into Pahang.*^ His raft would hold about one
ptkul, and he knew that the Sdkai would not
interfere with him if he chose to remove that
amount and to leave the rest. But the sight
of the remaining six ptkul was too much for
him. He could not find it in his heart to

In a Corner of Asia

abandon it, and he began to feel angry with
the Sclkai, who, he almost persuaded himself,
were defrauding him of his just rights.

He rolled his quid of betel-nut and sat down
to await the return of the Sdkai, and as he
thought of the injury they were like to do him
if they refused to aid in the removal of the rest
of the g^m, his heart waxed very hot within
him.

Presently, two frightened brown faces, scarred
with blue tattoo-marks on cheek and forehead,
and surmounted by frowzy mops of sun-bleached
hair, rose stealthily above the level of the flooring
near the door, and peeped at him with shy,
terrified eyes.

Kftlop turned his face towards them, and the
bobbing heads disappeared with surprising
alacrity.

* Come hither ! ' cried Kftlop.

The heads reappeared once more, and in a
few brief words Kftlop bade the men go call
their fellows.

The Sdkai sidled off into the jungle, and
presently a crowd of squalid aborigines came
from out the shelter of the trees and underwood
and stood looking at Kftlop curiously, with
light feet gingerly treading the ground, every
muscle braced for a swift dart into cover at the
first alarm of danger.

The Overseas Library

*Who among ye is the Chief?' asked
Kfdop.

* Thy servant is the Chief,' replied an aged
Sdkai.

He stood forward as he spoke, trembling a
little as he glanced timidly at the Malay, who
sat cross-legged in the doorway of the hut.
His straggling mop of hair was almost white,
and his skin was dry and creased and wrinkled.
He was naked, as were all his people, save for
a slender loin-clout of bark-cloth, and his thin
flanks and buttocks were white with the warm
wood ashes in which he had been lying when
Kftlop's arrival interrupted his mid-day snooze.

* Bid these, thy children, build me eight
bamboo rafts, strong and firm, at the foot of
yonder rapid,' said Kftlop. * And mark ye, be
not slow, for I love not indolence.'

' It can be done,' said the Sdkai headman,
submissively.

' That is well,' returned K6lop. * See thou to
it with speed, for I am a man prone to wrath.'

The Sdkai fell to work, and by nightfall the
new rafts were completed, and while the jungle
folk toiled, Kftlop of the Hare-lip, who had
declared that he loved not indolence, lay upon
his back on the floor of the Chief's hut and
roared a love-song in a harsh, discordant voice,
to the lady whose heart the wealth he sought

In a Corner of Asia

so eagerly, and now began to see within his
grasp, would enable him to subdue.

Ktilop slept that night in the Sdkai hut
among the restless jungle-folk. The air was
chilly up here in the foothills, and the fire,
which the Sdkai never willingly let die, smoked
and smouldered in the middle of the floor.
Half-a-dozen long logs, all pointing to a
common centre like the spokes of a broken
wheel, met at the point where the fire burned
red in the darkness, and between these boughs,
in the warm grey ashes, lay men, women, and
children, sprawling in every conceivable attitude
into which their naked brown limbs could twist
themselves. Ever and anon they would rise and
tend the fire. Then they would sit round the
newly-kindled blaze and talk in the jerky
monosyllabic jargon of the aborigines. The
pungent smoke of the wood enshrouded them
as with a garment, and their eyes waxed red
and watery, but they heeded it not, for as their
old saw has it, * Fire-smoke is the* blanket of
theSdkai.*

And KAlop of the Hare-lip slept the sleep of
the just.

The dawn broke greyly, for a mist hung low
over the forest, white as driven snow, and
cold and clammy as the forehead of a corpse.
The naked Sdkai peeped shiveringly from the

The Overseas Library-
doorways of their huts, and then went shudder-
ing back to the grateful warmth of the fire, and
the frowzy atmosphere within.

Kftlop alone made his way down to the river
bank, and there performed his morning ablutions
with scrupulous care — for whatever laws of God
and man a Malay may disregard, he never
forgets the virtue of personal cleanliness, which,
^ in an Oriental, is even more immediately im-
portant to his neighbours than all the godliness
in the world. A Malay would as soon think of
foregoing his morning tub, as he would of fasting
when food was to be had in plenty, and the
days of Ramathdn had sped.

When his ablutions were completed, K61op
climbed the steep bank once more, and, stand-
ing outside the Chiefs hut, called the Sdkai
from their lairs, bidding them hearken to his
words. They stood or squatted before him in
the white mist, through which the sun, just
" peeping above the jungle, was beginning to
send long slanting rays of dazzling white light.

They were cold and miserable — this little
crowd of naked men — and they shivered and
scratched their bodies restlessly. The trill-
ing of the thrushes and the chorus raised by
other birds came to their ears through the
still air, mingled with the whooping and barking
of the anthropoid apes ; but the morning song

In a Corner of Asia

has small power to cheer those who, like the
Sdkai, are very sensitive to cold, and it is during
the chilly waking hour that men's courage and
vitality are usually at the lowest ebb.

* Listen to me, ye Sdkai ! ' began Kiilop, in
a loud and angry voice, and at the word those
of his hearers who stood erect, squatted humbly
with their fellows, and the shivering of cold
was increased by the trembling of fear. If
there is one thing the jungle-folk dislike more
than another, it is to be called * Sdkai ' to their
faces, and the term is never used to them by
a Malay unless the speaker wishes to bully

y them. The word really means a slave, but by
the aborigines it is regarded as the most
offensive epKithet in the Malay vocabulary.
In their own tongue they speak of themselves
as sen-oiy which means a * man,' as opposed to
gob, a foreigner — for even the Sakai has some
vestiges of pride, if you know where to look for
it, and to his mind the people of his race are alone
entitled to be called 'men.' When speaking
Malay they allude to themselves as Orang
Biikit — men of the hills ; Orang tjtan — jungle-
folk, or Orang Ddlam — the folk who dwell within
the forests. They love to be spoken of as
riiayatf peasants, or as r'dayat rdja, subjects of
the King; and the Malays, who delight in

^ nicely-graded distinctions of speech in address-

The Overseas Library

ing men of various ranks and classes, habitually
use these terms when conversing with the
Sclkai, in order that the hearts of the jungle-folk
may be warmed within them. When, therefpre,
the objectionable name * Sdkai ' is used to the
forest-dwellers, the latter know that mis-
chief and trouble are afoot, and since they are
as timid as other wild creatures, a deadly fear
falls upon them at the word.

* Listen, ye accursed Sdkai ! ' cried Kftlop of
the Hare-lip, waving his spear above his head.
' Mark well my words, for I hear the warm
earth calling to the coffin planks in which your
carcasses shall presently lie, if ye fail to do my
behests. Go, gather up the gum that is stored
within your dwellings and bring it hither
speedily, lest a worse thing befall you ! '

The Sclkai rose slowly and walked each man
to his hut with lagging steps. In a few minutes
the great round balls of gum, with a little hole
punched in each, through which a rattan line
was passed, lay heaped upon the ground at
Kftlop's feet. But the Sdkai had brought
something as well as the gum, for each man
held a long and. slender spear fashioned of
bamboo. The weapon sounds harmless enough,
but these wooden blades are strong and stub-
born, and the edges and points are sharper than

steel. K61op of the Hare-lip saw that the

In a Corner of Asia

time had come for prompt action to supplement
rough words.

'Cast down your spears to the earth, ye
swine of the forest ! ' he yelled.

Almost all the Sdkai did as K61op bade
them, for the Malay is here the dominant
race, and years of oppression and wrong have
made the jungle-folk very docile in the pre-
sence of the more civilised brown man. The
Sdkai Chief, however, clutched his weapon
firmly, and his frightened old eyes ran around
the group of his kinsmen, vainly inciting them
to follow his example. The next moment his
gaze was recalled to Kftlop of the Hare-lip by
a sharp pain in his right shoulder, as the spear
of the Malay transfixed it. His own weapon
dropped from his powerless arm, and the little
crowd of Sdkai broke and fled. But a shrill
cry from Kftlop, as he ran around them, herd-
ing them as a collie herds sheep, brought them
soon to a stand-still.

No thought of further resistance remained

in their mJhds, and the gum was quickly loaded

on the rafts, and the plundered Sdkai, still wild

with fear, began to pole them down the river,

while Kftlop sat at ease on the last raft, which

two of the shuddering jungle-folk punted

carefully.

The wounded Chief, left behind in his hut,
F 8i

The Overseas Library-
sent two youths through the forest to bid their
fellow-tribesmen make ready the poison for their
blowpipe darts, since he knew that no one
would now attempt to kill K61op of the Hare-
lip at close quarters. But the poison which the
Sdkai distil from the resin of the tpoh tree re-
quires some time to prepare, and if it is to be
used with effect upon a human being, a speci-
ally strong solution is necessary. Above all,
if it is to do its work properly, it must be newly
made. Thus it was that KAlop of the Hare-lip
had time to load his rafts with gum taken from
two other S4kai camps, and to pass very nearly
out of the Sdkai country before the people
whom he had robbed were in a position to
take the offensive.

The Betok river falls into the Upper Jelai,
a stream which is also given over entirely to
the jungle-people, and it is not until the latter
river meets the Telom and the Serau, at the
point where the Lower J6lai is formed, that
the banks begin to be studded with scattered
Malay villages.

KAlop of the Hare-lip knew nothing of the

geography of the land through which he was

travelling, but he was aware that running water

presupposed the existence of habitations of men

of his own race if followed down sufficiently

far. Therefore he pressed forward eagerly,

In a Corner of Asia

bullying and goading his frightened Sdkai into
something resembling energy. He had now
more than a thousand dollars' worth of gum
on his rafts, and he was getting anxious as to
its safety. To the danger in which he himself
went, he was perfectly callous and indifferent.

It was at Kudla Merabau, a spot where a
tiny stream falls into the Upper Jelai upon its
right bank, that a small party of Sdkai lay in

_ hiding, peering through the greenery at the
gliding waters down which K61op and his
plunder must presently come. Each man
carried at his side a quiver, fashioned of a
single length of bamboo covered with the dots,
crosses, zigzags and triangles which the Sakai
delight to trace upon all their vessels. Each
quiver was filled with slender darts about the

V thickness of a steel knitting-needle, with an
elliptical piece of light wood at one end to
steady it in its flight, and a very sharp tip,
coated with the black venom of the tpoh sap.
In their hands each one of them held a
reed blowpipe ^ome twelve feet in length.
These weapons were rudely but curiously
carved.

Presently the foremost of the Sdkai stood
erect, his elbows level with his ears, his feet
heel to heel, his body leaning slightly forward
from the hips. His hands were locked to-

The Overseas Library

gather at the mouthpiece of his blowpipe, the
long reed being held firmly by his thumbs and
forefingers, which were coiled above it, while
the weight rested upon the lower interlaced
fingers of both hands. His mouth was
puckered and drawn in, like that of a man
who seeks to spit out a shred of tobacco
which the loose end of a cigarette has left
between his lips, and it nestled closely to the
wooden mouthpiece. His keen, wild eyes
glanced along the length of the blowpipe
shrewdly and unflinchingly, little hard puckers
forming at their corners. Pit ! said the blow-
pipe. The little wad of dry pith, which had
been used to exclude the air around the dart-
head, fell into the water a dozen feet away, and
the dart itself flew forward with incredible
speed, straight to the mark at which it was
aimed.

A slight shock on his right side just above
the hip apprised KAlop that something had
struck him, and looking down he saw the
dart still shuddering in his side. But, as luck
would have it, KAlop carried under his coat a
gaudy bag stuffed with the ingredients of the
betel quid, and the dart had struck this and
embedded itself therein. The merest fraction
of a second was all that KAlop needed to see
this, and to take in the whole of the situation,

In a Corner of Asia

and with him action and perception kept pace
with one another. Before the dart had ceased
to quiver, before the Sdkai on the bank had
had time to send another in its wake, before
the men who poled his raft had fully grasped
what was going forward, K61op had seized the
nearest of his Sdkai by his frowzy halo of elf-
locks, and had drawn him screaming across his
knee. The terrified creature writhed and flung
his body about wildly,, and his friends upon the
bank feared to blow their darts lest they should
inadvertently wound their kinsman while striv-
ing to kill the Malay.

' Have a care, ye swine of the forest ! ' cried
Kftlop, while he cuffed the screaming Sdkai
unsparingly in order to keep his limbs in con-
stant motion. * Have a care, ye sons of fallen
women ! If ye spew forth one more of your
darts, this man, your kinsman, dies by my
kris / *

The Sdkai on the banks had no reason to
doubt the sincerity of Kftlop s words, and since
these poor creatures love their relatives, both
V near and distant, far more than is possible in
more civilised communities, they drew off, and
Kftlop of the Hare-lip went upon his way re-
joicing. But he kept his Sdkai across his knee
none the less, and occasionally administered a
sounding cuff to him pour encourager les autres.

The Overseas Library

Thus he won his way out of the Sdkai
country, and that night he laid him down to
sleep in a Malay village in the full enjoyment
of excellent health, the knowledge that he was
at last a rich man, and a delightful conscious-
ness of having successfully performed deeds
well worth the doing.

For a month or two he dwelt in the Jelai,
at B6kit Betong, the village of To' Rdja, the
great up-country Chief, who then ruled that
district. He sold his gum to this man, and
since he was ready to let it go for something
less than the market price, the sorrows of the
Sikai were the cause of much amusement to
those from whom they sought redress, and
whose duty it should have been to afford them
protection.

But KAlop of the Hare-lip had left his heart
behind him in P^rak, for the natives of that
State can never long be happy when beyond
the limits of their own country, and must always
make their way back sooner or later to drink
of the waters of their silver river. Perhaps,
too, KAlop had some one particular lady
in his mind when he set out upon his quest
for wealth, for if you watch, you will see that
the best work and the most blackguardly deeds
of a man are alike usually due to the woman
who sits at the back of his heart, and is the

In a Corner of Asia

driving power which impels him to good or to
evil.

One day K61op of the Hare-lip presented
himself before To' Rdja, as the latter lay smok-
ing his opium-pipe upon the soft mats in his
house, and informed him that as he was about
to leave Pahang he had brought a present —
* trifling and unworthy of his acceptance' —
which he craved the Chief to honour him by
receiving.

*When dost thou go down stream?' asked
To' Rija, for the Jelai is in the far interior of
Pahang, and if a man would leave the country
by any of the ordinary routes, he must pass
down that river at anyrate as far as Kudla
LJpis.

* Thy servant goes up stream,' said K61op of
the Hare-lip.

To' Raja started.

* What ? ' said he, in a voice full of astonish-
ment

* Thy servant returns the way he came,* said
K6lop, calmly.

To' Rdja burst out into a torrent of excited
expostulation. It was death, certain death, he
said, for Kfllop once more to attempt to traverse
the Sclkai country. The other ways were open,
and no man would dream of staying him if he
sought to return to his own country by land or

The Overseas Library-
sea. It was folly, It was madness, it was im-
possible. But to all these words, KAlop of the
Hare-lip turned a deaf ear. He knew Malay
Chieftains and all their ways and works suffici-
ently well, and he had paid too heavy a toll to
To' Rdja already to have any desire to further
diminish the amount of his honest earnings.
If he wended his way homeward through in-
habited country, he knew that he would have
to comply with the exactions of every Chief
through whose district he might pass, and this
was a prospect that had few attractions for him.
The Sdkai, on the other hand, he despised
utterly, and as he was physically incapable of
feeling fear at this stage of the proceedings, he
laughed at To' Rdja's estimate of the risk he
would run. Nay, he saw in the Chiefs words
a cunning attempt to induce him to penetrate
more deeply into a land in which he might be
plundered with the greater ease. Accordingly,
he declined to be persuaded by To* Rdja, and
a day or two later he began his return journey
through the forests.

He knew that it would be useless to attempt
to induce any one to accompany him, so he
went — as he had come — alone. The dollars for
which he had exchanged his plunder were hard
and heavy upon his back, and he was further

loaded with rice and dried fish, but his weapons

In a Corner of Asia

were as bright as ever, and to him they still
seemed to be all the companions that a man
need desire. He travelled on foot, for he
could not pole a raft single-handed against the
current, and he had to trust to such paths as
he could find, guiding himself for the most part
by the direction of the river. He passed many
Sdkai camps, which were all abandoned at his
approach, and he halted in several of them to
replenish his scanty stock of provisions, but he
slept in the jungle.

It was in the evening of the second or third
day that Kulop became aware of an unpleasant
sensation. The moon was at the full, and he
could see for many yards around him in the
forest, and though no one was visible, he
became painfully conscious that somebody was
watching him. Occasionally he thought that he
caught the glint of eyes in the underwood,
and every now and again a dry twig snapped
crisply, now to the right, now to the left, now
in front of him, now behind him. He started
to his feet and sounded the sorak — the war-
yell — that pealed in widening echoes through
the forest. A rustle in half-a-dozen directions
at once showed him that the watchers had
been numerous, and that they were now taking
refuge in flight.

Kulop of the Hare-lip sat down again beside

The Overseas Library

his fire, and a new and strange sensation began
to grip his heart queerly. It was accompanied
by an uneasy feeling in the small of his back,
as though he momentarily expected to receive
a spear-thrust there, and a clammy dampness
rose upon his forehead, while of a sudden the
skin behind his ears seemed strangely cold.
Perhaps even K{ilop of the Har^-lip needed
no man to tell him that this was fear.

He replenished his fire and sat near it,
trying to still the chattering of his teeth. If
he could find himself face to face with an
enemy fear would leave him, he knew ; but
this eerie, uncanny feeling of being watched
and hounded by foes whom he could not see
struck him with palsy. . As he sat he glanced
uneasily over his shoulder from time to time,
and at last he drew back against the trunk of
a large tree, so that none might strike him from
behind. As he sat thus, leaning slightly back-
wards, he chanced to glance up, and in a tree-
top, some fifty yards away, he saw the crouch-
ing form of a Sdkai outlined blackly against
the moonlit sky.

He leaped to his feet once more, and again
the sSrak rang out, as he strove to tear his way
through the underwood to the foot of the tree
in which he had seen his enemy. But the
jungle was thick, he lost his bearings quickly,

In a Corner of Asia

and, weary with his exertions, torn with
brambles, and sweating profusely, he was glad
to make his way back to the fire again.

All through that terrible night Kulop of the
Hare-lip strove to drive away sleep from his
heavy eyes. The hours seemed incredibly
long, and he feared that the dawn would never
come. One minute he would tell himself that
he was wide awake, and a second later a rustle
in the underwood startled him into a knowledge
that he had slept. Horror and fear had their
will of him, and those who know them are
aware that there are no more skilled tormentors
than they. A hundred times he leaped to his
feet and sent the s6rak ringing through the
jungle, and each time those who watched him
fled in panic. While he remained awake and
on g^ard, the Sdkai feared him too much to
attack him. His previous escape from the dart
which they had seen pierce his side had origi-
nated in their minds the idea that he was invul-
nerable, so they- tried no longer to slay him
from a distance. This he quickly perceived,
but fear clutched him once more when he
speculated as to what would happen when he
was at last forced to give way to the weight of
weariness that even was now oppressing him
so sorely.

Presently a change began to creep over the

The Overseas Library

forest in which he sat. A little stir in the trees
around told him that the bird-folk were awaken-
ing. Objects, which had hitherto been dark and
shapeless masses in the shadows cast into
prominence by the white moonlight, gradually
assumed more definite shape. Later the
colours of the trunks and leaves and creepers,
still dark and dulled, but none the less colour,
began to be perceptible, and K6lop of the
Hare-lip rejoiced exceedingly in that the dawn
had come and the horrors of the night were
passing away.

All that day, K61op, albeit weary almost to
death, trudged onward through the forest ; but
the news had spread among the Sdkai that
their enemy was once more among them, and
the number of the jungle-folk, who dogged his
footsteps, steadily increased. KAlop could hear
their shrill whoops, as they called to one
another through the forest, giving warning of
his approach, or signalling the path which he
was taking. Once or twice he fancied that he
caught a glimpse of a lithe brown form, of two
glinting eyes, or of a straggling mop of frowzy
hair, and then he would charge, shouting
angrily. But the figure — if indeed it had any
existence save in his overwrought imagination
— always vanished as suddenly and as noise-
lessly as a shadow, long before he could come

In a Corner of Asia

within striking distance. K{ilop of the Hare-
lip found this far more terrible and frightening
than the most desperate hand-to-hand fight
could have been, for the invisibility and the
intangible nature of his enemy added the
horrors of a fever-dream to the very real
danger in which he now knew himself to
stand.

The night that followed that day was one of
acute agony to the weary man, who dared not
sleep, and about midnight he again marched
forward through the forest, hoping thereby to
elude his pursuers.

For an hour he believed himself to h^ve been
successful. Then the shrill yells broke out
again, and at the sound KAlops heart sank
within him. Still he stumbled on, too dead
tired to charge at his phantom enemy, too
hoarse at last even to raise his voice in the
sSrak^ but doggedly determined not to give
in. But as he waxed faint the number and
the boldness of his pursuers increased propor-
tionately, till their yells sounded on every side,
and Ktilop seemed like a lost soul, wending his
way to the Bottomless Pit, with an escort of
rejoicing devils shouting a noisy chorus around
him.

Another awful day followed, and when once
more the night shut down, Kulop of the Hare-

The Overseas Library

lip sank exhausted upon the ground. His
battle was over. He could bear up no longer
against the weight of his weariness and the
aching longing for sleep. Almost as his head
touched the warm, dark litter of dead leaves
with which the earth of the jungle is strewn,
his heavy eyelids closed, and his breath came
soft and regular. This was his surrender, for
at last he knew himself to be beaten. He was
half-way up the mountains now, and was almost
within reach of safety, but —

* Ah, the little more — ^and how much it is.
And the little less— ^nd what worlds away ! '

Kulop of the Hare-lip — Ktilop, the resolute,
the fearless — Ktilop the strong, the enduring,
was at the end of his tether. He had been
beaten — not by the Sdkai, but by Nature,
which no man may long defy — and in obedience
to her he surrendered his will and slept.

Presently the underwood was parted by
human hands in half-a-dozen different places,
and the Sdkai crept stealthily out of the jungle
into the little patch of open in which their
enemy lay at rest. He moved uneasily in his
sleep — not because any noise on their part had
disturbed him, for they came as silently as a
shadow cast over a broad forest by a patch of

In a Corner of Asia

scudding cloud — and at the sight the Sdkai
halted with lifted feet ready to plunge back
into cover should their enemy awake. But
the exhausted man was sleeping heavily,
wrapped in the slumber from which he was
never again to be aroused. The silent jungle-
people, armed with heavy clubs and bamboo
spears, stole to within a foot or two of the
unconscious Malay. Then nearly a score of
them lifted their weapons, poised them on high,
and brought them down simultaneously on the
body of their foe. KAlop's limbs stretched
themselves slowly and stiffly, his jaw, fell, and
blood flowed in twenty places. No cry escaped
him, and the trembling Sdkai looked down
upon the dead face of their enemy, and knew
that he had paid his debt to them in full.

They carried off none of his gear, for they
^ feared to be haunted by his ghost, and K6lop
had now nothing edible about him, such as the
jungle-folk find it hard to leave untouched.
Money had no meaning to the Sdkai, so the
silver dollars, which ran in a glistening stream
from a rent made in the linen waist-pouch by a
chance spear-thrust, were left glinting in the
moonlight by the side of that still, grey face,
with the ghastly, pallid lip split upwards to the
nostrils. Thus the SUkai took their leave of
Ktilop of the Hare-lip as he lay stretched

The Overseas Library

beside the riches which he had bought at so
dear a price.

If you want some ready money and a good
kris and spear, both of which have done execu-
tion in their day, they are all to be had for the
gathering in a spot in the forest not very far
from the boundary between Pahang and Perak,
but you must find the place for yourself, since
the Sdkai to a man will certainly deny all
knowledge of it. Therefore it is probable
that KAlop of the Hare-lip will rise up on the
Judgment Day with his ill-gotten property
intact.

IN THE CENTRAL GAOL

*T^ THEREFORE, I sentence thee to be
V V pent within the gaol for a space of
five years, with labour of a heavy sort,' con-
cluded the passionless tones issuing from the
lips of the white man on the dais behind the
big books. The flapping punkah-fringe caught
the calm words and heaved them into the body
of the court house, over the wooden dock,
among the clusters of disreputables of many
races huddled together on the greasy benches
near the door. The prisoner upon whom
sentence had just been passed, gave a guttural
grunt as the meaning of the words forced itself
upon his brain. Then he looked up at the
judge.

'Whatever the T{ian may order,' he ejacu-
lated, with a half-shrug of his shoulders, and
the facile philosophy and ready submission so
generally displayed by Orientals when Fate
is hitting his hardest. Then the two burly
Sikhs, who had been standing within the dock
one on either side of the prisoner, suddenly
turned upon him, gripped him by the shoulder

The Overseas Library

with enormous, rough hands, and hustled him
out of the wooden pen. One of them seized
the Malay's wrists and snapped a pair of iron
handcuffs on to them, a Chinese clerk threw a
newly-signed commitment-warrant across the
table to one of the Sikhs, and a moment later
the prisoner found himself being hurried forth
into the pitiless glare of the sunshine, his feet
treading the dusty, metalled road on the way
to the central gaol.

It had all happened so quickly, so like a piece
of machine-made work, that Ismail, the newly-
convicted prisoner, had had barely time in
which to realise what was happening to him.
Now, as he trudged along between his two
bearded guardians, his mind began to move
again with its accustomed freedom. He began
to observe, to imagine, to realise. The two
Sikhs talking together in a barbarous jargon —
their native tongue ; the manacles about his
wrists, which forced his hands to hang limply
before him as he walked ; the flapping of the
little strip of paper which one of his guardians
carried in his hand — the White Men, he had
heard, could do nothing without writing about
it ; — all these things were to Ismail the outward
signs of the evil thing which had befallen him.
He had *got' gaol — to use the phrase current
among his own people — by reason of an ill-

lOO

■> • • «

In a Corner i6f AsJa^

advised attempt to possess himself of certain
property, to which his sole claim was supplied
by the fact that, at the moment, he had ex-
perienced a keen desire to have it for his own.
The proprietor had proved unexpectedly pugna-
cious, and Ismail, as a result, had lost his temper
with the fellow. The consequence of this had
been that the police had laid him by the heels,
had charged him with highway robbery with
violence, with causing grievous hurt, and finally,
with resisting capture. A week earlier, Ismail
had been a very ordinary Malay peasant, with
no marked criminal instincts, and an even less
clearly accentuated moral code. He had been
deeply enamoured of a lady, however, and
since she was no less venal than other members
of her race and sex, Ismail had fallen, or, rather,
wandered into crime, with much the same
deliberate naughtiness, and with hardly more
responsibility, than is displayed by a child who
raids an easily-accessible jam-pot. The law
of the White Men, however, which regards the
sin rather than the moral limitations of the
sinner, had come down heavily upon Ismail,
and now he had * got ' gaol, and his fate was
excessively accursed. It never occurred to
him to blame himself. Fate, luck, and the
unexpected pugnacity of the person whom he
had attempted to despoil were alone respon-

lOI

• •• «

• • • • • »

• • • • - -*

Ai ^-^r^r-'^.n^h^}. Overseas Library

sible, in his opinion, for the straits in which
he found himself, and he spat in the white
dust of the road in token of his extreme
disgust at the mismanaged scheme of created
things.

The white man had said * five years.' What
did that mean ? Ismail asked himself. Had he
said *five years of maize,' or *five years of
rice ' it would have been easier to understand
what period of time he intended to name.
As it was, Ismail was quite in the dark. Did
the year mean three moons or six ? Or was
it some purely fanciful measure of time such
as the White Men might make use of? The
fear of the Unknown was upon him. What
did * getting ' gaol imply ? Not confinement
in a cage without food or sanitary appliances,
for this, it was well-known, was an abomination
to the Europeans. What then could be the
horrors which the strange pale folk regarded
as a fitting punishment for one whose fate was
insensate? Starvation? Perhaps. 'Work of
a heavy sort,' the magistrate had said, and at
this prospect, Ismail groaned.

* Dtam ! — Be still ! ' growled one of the
Sikhs, and the prisoner shuffled on again in
silence.

Presently the great gates of the gaol came
in sight ; then, as the escort and the prisoner

I02

In a Corner of A^ia

drew near, a shutter was pulled back and a
brown, bearded face looked out at them. A
wicket flew open of itself, and Ismail was
hustled into the fenced enclosure. He saw
before him a large open space, smooth grass
plots, intersected by neatly-kept gravel paths,
and brown blocks of wards, raised above the
ground on brick piles, standing back discreetly
off the grass. The buildings were of wood,
stained with Rangoon oil, and their roofs were
thatched with dust-coloured palm-leaves. They
had massive doors and no windows, but high
up in the bare walls a barred opening ran
round them supplying the necessary ventilation.

Ismail was handed over to a Sikh warder,
had his head shaved by a deft and businesslike
Chinese convict, was bathed at a well in the
centre of the compound, was stripped of his
clothes, and was presented with a spotless
jumper and trousers, blackly marked with broad
arrows and his number, 307. Ismail had ceased
to be; Convict 307 had been born into the
narrow prison world.

In this new capacity many strange things befell

him. He was weighed, an operation which filled

him with wonder and superstitious fear ; he was

examined from head to foot, and all his principal

physical characteristics were noted down in a

vast ledger; and finally he was ushered into the

103

The Overseas Library

great barred work-shed where he found some
sixty or seventy other prisoners standing in a
hollow square.

He was roughly bidden to take up a position
indicated between two other Malays, and when
he attempted to enter into conversation with
them a stentorian voice bellowed, * Be still ! '
and a warder near him pushed him violently
against the wall. Then two convicts came
across the gaol-yard bearing a long wooden
stretcher between them heavily laden with
tins of rice and curry. In dead silence
these were placed upon the ground, one in
front of each convict. When a sufficient
number of rations had been fetched in this
way, the senior warder cried suddenly, * Sit ! '
The unexpected exclamation startled 307 so,
that he jumped violently, bunting into his
nearest neighbour and nearly oversetting him.
The senior warder glared at him murderously.
' Sit ! ' he yelled, and 307, frightened out of his
wits, collapsed upon the ground. Seeing a tin
of rice in front of him, he put out his hand
instinctively towards it, but the convict on his
right plucked him sharply by the sleeve, and
whispered to him to sit still. The senior
warder, swelling with importance, stood near
the door and looked round upon his charges
with the air of a possessor of fatted cattle.

104

In a Corner of Asia

. Then once more he gave a word of command :
* Eat ! ' Immediately the sixty odd convicts
fell to work upon the food before them, messing
the rice with their fingers, mixing the curry
well into it, and dividing it into neat mouthfuls.
307 looked round him at the strange scene
with curious eyes. It was a mixed group of
Orientals, Chinese of half-a-dozen tribes, Tamils
from Southern India, Malays from many States
of the Peninsula and from various islands of
the Archipelago, a Muhammadan Bengali or
two, and one stray Siamese. They were a
peculiarly healthy body of men, very hard and
spare, well-fed, well-nurtured, but with hardly
a pound of superfluous flesh among them all.
This is the merit of our prison system in the
East. We feed our convicts sufficiently and
• well, but they rise from every meal feeling the
least little bit hungry, and they work day in
and day out with the untiring regularity of
machines. Also, they go to bed early and
rise when the dawn is still grey. All this
makes for health, and the sheer regularity of
the thing bores the native more intensely, and
wearies the soul out of him more effectually
than any white man can easily conceive. The
divorce from tobacco and opium, and the com-
plete separation from his women-folk also take
away from the native, all, or nearly all the

105

The Overseas Library

things which represent pleasure to him, and
thus, though we have robbed imprisonment of
the horrors which were inseparable from con-
finement in the barbarous gaol-gages of Inde-
pendent Malaya, the deprivations, the monotony,
and, in no small degree, the very cleanliness of
the life to which we condemn our Asiatic
convicts, carries with it for them a full measure
of punishment. Another thing which may be
placed to the credit of the system, is that in
the eyes of our prisoners and of their neigh-
bours, incarceration does not degrade the
victim. A man will, on his release, speak
quite openly to casual strangers of his ex-
periences while in gaol. He attributes the
accident of his ill-doing to a capricious and
inscrutable fate ; he regards the time spent in
captivity as a payment exacted for the sin of
discovery ; and both he and his relatives decline
to recognise any stigma as attaching to him
merely because he has had the ill-fortune to
sojourn for a space within the walls of the
Central Gaol. Also, it is only the European,
who imports his prejudices from six thousand
weary miles away, who would dream of refusing
to employ a man because he chanced to be an
ex-convict; and, therefore, our gaols not only
make a man clean and healthy of body, but

they do him no sort of harm from a worldly

1 06

In a Corner of Asia

point of view, and do not make a ruined life
/ part and portion of the punishment of every
crime. On the other hand, they do not act
as a very great deterrent to misdeeds, and in
the face of any violent temptation the native
will too often take his chance of gaol if he
knows the nature of the penalty which the
White Man will ask him to pay as the price
of discovery and conviction.

The hours of meals were the great events in
the prison day, and the convicts ate heartily,
giving their whole attention to the important
task. The noise made by the sixty or seventy
prisoners alone broke the silence — a sibilant,
guzzling sound of gently-smacking lips, licking
tongues and slow mastication. Some carefully
selected the choicest pieces of fish or vegetable
curry, placed them on one side to be eaten at
the last; others greedily stowed the tit-bits
away within them, hurriedly, furtively, suspici-
ously, as though they feared that someone
would attempt to rob them of the precious
morsels ; others again ate steadily through the
plateful before them, taking the food as it came
their way without choice or selection; all, as
they scraped the last grains of grease-soaked
rice up from the tin dish bottom to which they
clung, turned to drink deeply of huge mugs of
cold tea, and then gazed with wolfish, envious

107

The Overseas Library

eyes at such of their fellows as, having eaten
somewhat more slowly, had not yet quite
finished the ration placed before them. Starva-
tion, it was clear to 307, was no feature in the
White Man's system, but it was equally plain to
him that repletion was a thing unknown within
the prison walls. Another half plateful of rice
would just have made the difference, and 307
and his fellows would have risen up from their
meal distended of stomach, shiny and greasy of
skin, exuding perspiration from every pore, as
was their wont when they were their own
masters, and money was sufficiently plentiful.
But the White Men who had drawn up the scale
of diet, knew this quite well, and therefore the
extra half-plateful was always lacking, and the
complaint of insufficient rice made itself heard
at each weekly inspection.

The afternoon, blazingly, mercilessly hot,
wore itself away, and Ismail, who had never
worked for another in his life, and had certainly
never performed two consecutive hours of unin-
terrupted toil in all his days, was most sincerely
sorry for himself long before the four o'clock
bugle sounded, and the gangs working beyond
the prison walls began to wend their slow
way gaolwards, to a clinking accompaniment
of jangling fetters. These latter were 307's

chiefest grievance against Fate and the White

108

In a Corner of Asia

Man's Government, but protest was of no
avail, so he went sadly, stumbling heavily in
the unaccustomed irons, which added to the
aching which the hard out-door work had
already occasioned in his limbs.

On arrival in the gaol, the work-parties were
mustered, the roll called over and checked,
every convict in the place was scrupulously
bathed under armed supervision, a meal was
served out, and by five o'clock the prisoners
were all safely locked up for the night in the
big association wards.

In some of the more backward of the Pro-
tected States, the cell system has not yet been
introduced, the association wards being cheaper
to construct and maintain than are the more
elaborate prisons. The objections to the more
primitive system are, of course, obvious, and
in a very few years' time, there will probably
be no gaol in the Malayan States such as that
in which Ismail, alias 307, now found himself
confined.

The ward was a great, long barrack of a

place, strongly constructed of timber, tongued

and grooved so that no joins were visible in

the planking of the bare brown walls. The

place was lofty, and was roofed in with solid

planks fitting closely; twelve or fourteen feet

above the floor, a long, narrow aperture, securely

109

The Overseas Library

barred with iron, ran round the four sides of the
building, leaving an open space for the admis-
sion of light and air. Through this the gentle,
sad light of the Malayan afternoon stretched
long, soft fingers, touching here a shaven head
and exposing grey points amid the black stubble,
there stroking a brown cheek till it glowed with
a ruddy hue, drawing the colour out of the
plank walls, and flecking the flooring with danc-
ing specks and dashes of brightness.

There were fourteen coarse red blankets
neatly folded against the wall on each side of
the ward, each with an oblong Chinese pillow
on the top of it, and as the convicts filed into
the place, they one by one squatted down upon
the ground, every man in his appointed spot.
At last the whole gang of twenty-eight prisoners
had entered, and the great timber doors were
closed behind them with a booming clang, and
a slapping to of noisy bolts, and a jangling of
metal padlocks.

307 squatted down by the blanket and pillow
which had been allotted to him earlier in the
day, and looked round at his companions.
About twenty of them were Chinese, some of
whom were apparently bent upon going to
sleep without further ado, while the remainder
talked together, growling uncouth monosyllables
in cautious undertones. The other eight con-

IIO

In a Corner of Asia

victs were Malays, one a minor Chief who had
headed a conspiracy which had for its amiable
object the execution of a Chinaman for a murder
which he had never committed, a notion which
had its origin in a philanthropical wish to save the
real culprit, a relative of the Chief ; one, a noted
cattle-thief who was serving in the gaol for the
fourth time, and was more at home in the place,
and better acquainted with its routine than the
senior warder himself; three gang-robbers, who
had been concerned in a raid into a protected
State from across the Kemiman boundary ; a
house-breaker of some little skill and repute
among his fellows ; an old man who had his
sleeping place by Ismail's side, and Ismail, or,
rather, 307, himself. Two of the gang-robbers
were playing a kind of fox-and-geese with bits
of stick which they had managed to secrete in
spite of the prison authorities, the board being
formed by a plank of the flooring which had
been marked out into rough squares with the aid
of a rusty nail. The cattle-thief and the third
gang-robber sat near the players, watching the
game with interest, and criticising each move
knowingly. The stakes were high, a running
account being kept from day to day, but settle-
ment would not fall due until the convicts' sent-
ences expired in about four years' time. The
burglar sprawled upon his stomach, his head

III

The Overseas Library

upon his folded arms, his eyes dreamily gazing
into nothingness with a gathering film of reminis-
cence upon them, his lips humming a love song
under the breath. He was thinking of a girl,
and wondering into whose hands she had fallen
since he was taken. He would not know the
answer to this riddle for full five years to come,
by which time the lady would have lost the
first bloom of her beauty ; but the burglar did
not think of this. To him she would always
be the pretty girl whom he had left behind him.
His passion was merely that of an animal for
its mate, but it was none the less keen for that.
The imprisoned Chief sat apart, huddled up in
a corner, knees to chin, arms clasped about his
shins, his eyes sullen, resentful. His thoughts
were carrying him back to the life which he
had been wont to live before his trouble fell
upon him ; to his four wives, each in her
separate compound ; to his hunting dogs, which
gave tongue so lustily when the deer were
afoot ; to his spreading rice-fields cultivated by
others' labour; to the money which he had
saved that his declining years might be happy
and very comfortable ; to the utter freedom
and independence to which he had been ac-
customed all the days of his life ; and then, as
he came back with a shock to the reality of his
present surroundings, the horror of what had

112

In a Corner of Asia

befallen smote him cruelly like a blow dealt
mercilessly in the face, and he buried his head
in his arms, writhed as though in pain, and
groaned aloud. The cattle-thief looked up and
laughed.

*The Chief hath his afternoon gripes/ he
said to his neighbours, with a brutal jeer, and
the fierce old eyes of his victim flashed redly.

* Have a care, thou son of an evil woman,'
he said. * Have a care, lest I find means to
lay hold of a weapon, even within this cage,
and thereafter to smite thee so that thou wilt
become in fact, as well as in appearance, what
thou art — a corpse seven days dead ! '

* Patience, grandfather, patience ! ' sneered
the cattle-thief *We, who are of the people;
know full well the customs of thee and thine.
The Chiefs be ever like the tdman fish which
preys upon its own young! Thou, grand-
father, didst devour too many and too often,
seemingly, till thy own kind turned upon thee,
and now thou art like unto the fish in the
stakes which hath no means whereby escape
may be accomplished. Nay, do not rise, for
if thou makest a disturbance in this place, we
will swear to the THan that the fault was thine,
and thou wilt be slung up to the skin-stretcher,
and flogged with a rattan. Tis a clean trick

for the carding of pride, so sit thee still, grand-
H 113

The Overseas Library

father, and be wise before thou art hurt. To
repent too late, 'tis to repent too long. Thou
art not now in thine own village, and we of this
place have no mind to be ruled over by thee.
Wherefore be still, and bear thy pains with
patience, and thy gripes in silence, such as the
White Men love.'

The cattle-thief and the three gang-robbers
laughed softly at the former's wit and bold-
ness; then they turned their attention once
more upon their game, and quickly became
absorbed in it. The Chief glared at them
like some caged wild beast at one who tor-
ments it, and then fell to rocking his body to
and fro, to and fro restlessly, in a paroxysm
of helpless misery. He knew only too well
that the gaol authorities were no respecters
of persons ; that they would lash him up to
the triangles as calmly as if he were the
meanest coolie in the land ; that that last
indignity would surely follow any attempt to
punish with violence those of his fellow-
prisoners who dared to mock him in his
sorrow, and to add to the measureless depths
of his dishonour. That he should be suffer-
ing in this manner on account of an injustice
done to a Chinaman, filled him with unspeak-
able astonishment and disgust. A Chinaman,

forsooth! A creature whom he, the Chief,

114

In a Corner of Asia

had been wont to rank among the beasts of
the field ! But 'twas merely one more of the
extraordinary ways of the White Men, which
none might hope to understand, none even
attempt to explain. He groaned again.
Some day he would win a grip upon a
weapon, and then, then, then. ... He
could see the red blood spouting under the
stabbing blade ; he could hear his voice
raised once more in the sSrak^ the war-cry ;
he could mark the fear in the faces of those
within the gaol who had done him dishonour ;
and in that moment he would have no mercy,
no, not even upon those who had treated him
with respect. Soon, very soon, the chance
would come, and he would run dmok^ know-
ing once more the joy of living,, the pulsing
of hot blood through the veins, the delight of
fighting, hewing, hacking, stabbing, slaying,
until he should himself be slain. Arrrrh. . .

A strange light had come into his eyes,
which burned red like the glow of banked
embers. This was the picture which was
daily growing more and more distinct in his
hungry, furious heart, and some time, some
time very soon, the picture would become a
reality.

The burglar paid no heed to the dispute
between the Chief and the cattle-thief. The

115

The Overseas Library

dream of his girl still held him. 307 sat listen-
ing in horror. In common with most Malay
peasants, his awe of the chiefs was still intense,
and to hear one of these terrible beings spoken
to like this, filled him with a disgusted indig-
nation which shocked and sickened him. What
manner of place was this, he asked himself,
where men dealt in so unseemly a fashion
with those to whom deference was due? The
rudeness of the cattle-thief did more to make
the prospect of confinement in gaol distaste-
ful to 307 than anything which he had yet
experienced. Good manners, respect to chiefs
and elders, the little social amenities which
round off the harsh ugliness of life, represent
more to the ordinary Malay than to any other
human being, a delicate European lady alone
excepted. The absence of these things made
307 miserable. He missed them more even
than the tobacco for which his whole soul was
now pining.

The old man on 307's right had taken no
notice of the little war of words. He sat
cross-legged, staring stupidly at the opposite
wall, his almost toothless gums working
mechanically, as though chewing in imagina-
tion the quid of betel-nut, which for so many
years had never long been absent from his
mouth. His fine old face was curiously and

116

In a Corner of Asia

deeply lined. The stubble of his closely-
shaven white hair made a rime upon his
scalp; his knotted hands were clasped loosely
in front of him, lying limply in his lap ; his
feet were marked in several places by white
patches of sSpah^ a skin affliction which is of
an inherited character, but never gives any
trouble beyond an unsightly discolouration. H is
pupils were contracted to the utmost limit. He
was thinking deeply and silently of the past.

* Father/ said 307 presently, when he had be-
come weary of the heavy stillness of the place,
* it is verily hard to be deprived of tobacco. I,
thy son, am longing for the taste of the sweet
smoke, longing as does the opium-smoker for
the suck of his pipe. Is there no means by
which tobacco may be procured, father?'

The old man turned lack-lustre eyes upon
him, and said in a low, thin voice, like that of
a man who for many years has held but little
converse with his kind, * There be many
things of which we stand in sore need in this
place — things of greater weight than rich food,
betel-nut or tobacco, though surely the two last
are the gifts of God, and life is arid and com-
fortless when they are not with us for our
solace. Patience, little brother, patience! Tis
the fate to which we be born. The hair of all
men are alike for blackness, but our lots are

117

The Overseas Library

separate and distinct ; we all die, but our graves
are not one and the same. Soon thou wilt
become used to the lack of tobacco, and in the
meantime be patient and endure. 'Tis the
lesson of our captivity. Behold I, even I,
endure now with some fortitude, and yet I
have lived a life free as that of any other
jungle thing, for I have been of the forest
for fifteen long years.'

He spoke stolidly, with that faint, distant
voice of his, with but little expression or in-
flection, spoke the thoughts which were in
his heart, bom more of the consideration of
his own lot than of any quickened sympathy
for his companion ; and having spoken, he re-
lapsed into a stupid, heavy silence more de-
pressing, more eloquent of despair, than tears
or ravings could have been.

But 307 was loth to let the conversation
drop now that he had found someone with
whom to speak.

* What mean the White Men by **a year.^'*'
he asked. * Is it a year of rice — six whole
moons, or but three moons — a year of maize ? '

The cattle-thief looked across the ward at
him and laughed.

*'Tis no difficult matter to see that thou
comest from the very far interior. Ugly,' he
said mockingly. * In thy part of the country

118

In a Corner of Asia

men call a bushelful of water a deep pool, and
three fathoms of buffalo-wallow an open space !
Thou art a jungle-man, Ugly, 'tis very plain,
and perchance thou canst count only up to
three, like the Sikai animals who share thy
home. What rubbish is this of which thou
speakest ? A year of rice ! A year of maize !
Is such ignorance a fitting thing to bring hither
to folk who know many things ? '

The gang-robbers applauded uproariously, and
307 felt his cheeks flushing hotly with anger.

* Whatever thou knowest thou hast not
learned enough to keep thee clear of the
prison/ he cried. * Nor hast thou received
from thy parents — if indeed thou wast born
to a father who owned thee, which I think
unlikely — a teaching either concerning
manners or the way in which to speak to
elders and chiefs. If there be a jungle-man
in this house, 'tis he with the evil tongue,
who hath learned the fashion of his bearing
from the wild things of the woods. Jungle
pig thou art, jungle pig, an abomination to
us all.* And 307 spat noisily upon the plank
flooring in token of his extreme disgust.

The four gang -robbers broke out into a
chorus of delighted approval. * Strike him!'
t Wet him ! ' ' Draw blood ! ' * Have at him ! '
* Deal the return blow ! ' * Now with the

119

The Overseas Library

spurs ! ' * Enough of beak and fencing ! ' they
cried, borrowing the language of the cock-pit.
They none of them loved the cattle-thief, and
a fight would be a pleasant break in the dull
monotony of their lives. But the cattle-thief
knew too much of prison discipline to suffer
himself to be drawn into a fight for the amuse-
ment of his grinning companions, so he con-
tented himself with cursing 307 till he was out
of breath, and then retired into a surly silence.

307 repeated his question as to the meaning
of that mysterious period of time called a year
by the White Men, into which his sentence of
imprisonment was sub-divided, and one of the
gang-robbers, speaking with a marked KemS,-
man accent, gave him the required information,
with a certain relish in the disappointment which
the revelation brought to his hearer.

*A year, according to the reckoning of the
White Folk,' he said, * is twelve things which
they, for a reason which no man may name,
are wont to term ** moons." These spaces of
time have nought to do with moons such as
we wot of. They begin oftentimes when the
moon is at the full, at other times when the
moon is well-nigh darkened, or when the
crescent is but three days old. Also these
said ** moons'' do not number eight - and-
twenty days, as all true moons should do,

120

In a Corner of Asia

for the White Men slip into them here a day
and there a day until the tale is complete
according to their mysterious counting. Thus
the year is just whatsoever the White Men are
pleased to make it — near four hundred days or so,
as far as I have been able to reckon it. How
long is thy sentence, little brother, and for what
trouble did the White Men send thee hither ? '
* Only my fate was accursed, brother,' grunted
307 in reply. * I tried to take a little money
and gear, of which I stood in need, from a man
who passed often through our village by the
new-made road. He was a Bengali, seemingly,
and such folk are wont to make but little fight
when set upon. This man — my fate, as I have
. said, being accursed — made a great outcry and
fought like a stag at the season of rutting, and
though, since my heart was heated at his
ferocity, I split the skull of him with my wood-
knife— it went kruS'krus like a green cocoanut
when one cuts it — he lived, the life being very-
strong in him, and he told the tale to the police,
and though I said that I knew nought of the
matter, the magistrate would not listen to my
words, and therefore I am here in this prison.
The Bengali — may he die a violent death,
spewing blood — bore witness against me, and
made oath saying that I had robbed him of

five hundred dollars, whereas I found but

121

The Overseas Library

eighteen upon his body when I searched him
as he lay swooning. Verily, these B6ngili are
very cunning, but they are Infidels who pray
to a cow, and in the end they will be fuel for
the fires of the terrible place. Curse them ! '

The burglar turned over on his back with a
grunt, pulled the blanket across his stomach
and prepared to sleep. The Chief was still
staring out of blood-shot eyes at the red-stained
scene which his imagination was conjuring up
for his comfort. The Chinese still mumbled
disjointedly one to another. The gang-robbers
and the cattle-thief were once more absorbed in
their game of fox-and-geese. The short Eastern
gloaming stole up over the land, and within the
ward it was already nearly dark. A warder
opened the door, and at the jangling of the
locks all the convicts threw themselves upon
the floor in attitudes simulating sleep. Then
lamps were run up outside the walls, and a
greasy light was cast by them into the build-
ing. The night of the gaoF had begun.

Little by little the convicts in the ward began
to cuddle down upon the floor to sleep. They
fixed the narrow wooden pillows under the
napes of their necks, in the comfortless native
fashion, and betook themselves to their
slumbers, their limbs sprawling about aimlessly,
their mouths wide open, strange animal noises

122

In a Corner of Asia

issuing from them at intervals, making the
night hideous, 307 in his unusual surround-
ings found it difficqlt to doze off. The glaring
lanterns stared him in the eyes and would not
let him be at peace ; the floor, though no
harder than many other beds to which he was
well used, was comfortless, and made him rest-
less ; the unwonted companionship of criminals
of many degrees of blackness gave him an un-
easy, suspicious feeling, albeit he knew that he
had nothing to lose, and therefore nothing to
fear from them ; and, above all, the grip of the
home-sickness, which had been hovering about
him ever since the morning, was beginning to
wring from his heart its first keen pangs. The
old man on his right was still sitting erect and
cross-legged, staring always at the dead wall in
front of him. 307 rolled over upon his side and
looked up at him. The old man did not stir.
307 was filled with a desire for human con-
verse. The silence, only broken by grunts
and snores, was making its horror felt in every
fibre of his being ; the home-sickness was doubly
hard to bear while he lay and thought about it
in the semi-darkness and the close, unrestful
stillness of the place.

* Thou dost not sleep, father ? ' he said to his
neighbour, simply for the sake of hearing him-
self speak and perhaps eliciting a reply. The

123

• %

The Overseas Library

old man grunted, but he did not turn his eyes
away from the wall at which he was gazing
stupidly, * How camest thou to be pent within
this gaol, father ? '

The old man shuddered and groaned. Then
he turned his dull eyes upon 307. ' Wherefore
dost thou ask ? ' he said, in that faint, thin voice
of his.

* I ask, father, because I am sad at heart to
see one who might be an elder of my village
suffering so evil a thing.'

The old man kept his steady gaze bent upon
307, his brows knitted closely, suspicion plainly
written upon every feature. Apparently his
scrutiny of Ismail satisfied him, however, for
he presently began to speak.

'Thou askest wherefore I came hither into
this accursed place. Listen, little brother, and
I will tell thee all,'

He paused for a moment or two as though
thinking deeply. Then he began the recital of
his tale, speaking in a singularly even, unim-
passioned tone, still looking at the wall as though
hardly conscious of the presence of his listener.
It was clear that he was relating the story of
his sorrows more for his own comfort than for
the entertainment of his companion.

* 'Twas a long time ago,' he began, * a very

long, long time ago, for I was a young man,

124

In a Corner of Asia

newly wedded, and lived in the upper reaches of
the Bram River. My wife was one of my own
folk, a cousin nearly related to me, and we loved
one another even before the Feast of the Be-
coming One had bound us each to each. Within
the year after our wedding my wife bore me a
child — a daughter. At the first I was sorry
and sad because she was not a man-child, but
later, when she began to have the power of
words, spoken with a voice small and sweet
like unto the piping of a bdrau-bdrau thrush,
and pretty, dainty ways proclaiming her woman-
hood, I loved her as much as ever I could have
loved a son. In the night-time, when the child
was asleep beside us, my wife and I would talk
together concerning her future ; how we would
select for her a husband from amongst our own
kinsmen, one gentle and kindly of manner and
of tongue, one who would willingly dwell within
our house, not taking our little one from us.
And in this way time passed — three Fasts or
four, I cannot now remember — for my liver
was warm and well pleased during that season,
and the moons sped merrily.

' Now, I am afflicted from my birth by the
disease which we name Idtah — not the nervous-
ness such as old women have that makes them
to follow any example which may be set to

them by a passing stranger, no matter how

125

The Overseas Library

foolish or unseemly the act to which they are
tempted, but Idtah of the lesser sort, which
causeth me, when suddenly startled, to do vio-
lent deeds almost unknowingly, without taking
thought for the consequences. And it was
this disease, which was a legacy to me from
my father, and to him from his father before
him, that was my undoing.'

The old man paused in his narrative and
moved restlessly, clanking his chains as he did
so. He looked round for something, then
searched feebly in every direction. He was
seeking his gSbek — the long, brass pipe in which
he had been accustomed to crush his quids of
betel-nut since old age had rendered his bare
jaws unequal to the task. The jangling of his
fetters recalled to him the fact that he was a
prisoner, and that the quid, for which he was
searching from sheer force of habit, was no-
where to be found. He sighed heavily, plucked
feebly at his irons with aimless fingers, and
then resumed his tale.

* One evening, just after sunset, I went down

to my bathing-hut by the river brink, and

having washed my body, I walked back to the

house slowly and in peace, for my liver was

filled with content. The crop in the swamps

promised a goodly harvest ; the fruit-trees had

blossomed heavily ; the kine were breeding

126

In a Corner of Asia

fast, and the calves were strong and vigorous.
All was well with me and mine, and I was
happy and well pleased.

• The evening was creeping up over the land ;
the sun had sunk to rest ; the dusk was upon
us ; the blindness of fowls, as we of the interior
name the first darkness, obscured my sight.
Suddenly, as I walked towards my house, some-
thing leaped out upon me from the high, ragged
grass which lined the path ; something that
cried shrilly like a lang sMr ' (a weird kite-hag,
an evil spirit of great potency); * something
that leaped at me, startling me and filling me
with fear. Then my affliction gripped me, and
drawing my wood-knife, I struck blindly at the
squeaking thing — struck and struck and struck
again, felling it to the earth, and raining blows
upon it until it seemed to move no more, and
the fury in me was exhausted.

* Then I went to my house and called to the
woman, my wife, saying, ** I have slain some-
thing, but of its nature I know nothing. Bring
a torch, that I may see what manner of creature
is this which I have killed." My wife did my
bidding, and together we went down the path
to where the thing lay a black patch upon the
ground, for my eyes had now become used
somewhat to the darkness. I bade my wife
throw a light from the torch upon the dead

127

The Overseas Library

thing, and she pushed past me to do my bidd-
ing, peering at the object in the path. Then
she screamed shrilly ; the torch fell from her
hand and guttered bluely amidst the grass, and
she threw herself flat above the dead thing,
beating her head in the dust in a frenzy of
grief. Then my own heart stood still, and I
felt a pain there as though a giant's hand had
gripped it. I pulled the woman my wife aside.
I plucked up the torch, stirring it to a blaze
with my bare finger, and then . . . and then . . .

* She lay there, her little body mangled and
torn, her head nigh cloven in twain, her
dainty coat and waist-skirt drenched in blood.
Her little face had upon it a look of pain and
horror ; the eyes were open staring at me — I
can see them now. Ya Allah! Ya Tuhan-
ku! How evil is my fate!*

The old man buried his face in his arms,
and rocked his body backwards and forwards
in an agony of grief

*Who then was it that thy hand had slain
in the darkness, father ? * asked 307, excitedly.
The old man's story moved him strangely,
like a tale told by a wandering minstrel, a
* Soother of Cares.'

' Who was it ? ' echoed the old man. * Who
was it.'* It was Jebah, my own little child.
The daughter who was to her mother and to

128

n .':

In a Corner of Asia

me the one thing upon this bitter earth . . ^ and she
was dead . , . killed by the hand that loved her
. . . killed in the blind darkness when I dreamed
not that any save evil things were at hand.

' In that hour my reason left me, and I fell
upon the ground raving like one smitten by
the madness. Then, as I lay there lost to all
consciousness, my wife made shift to secure
my wood-knife, and to hide all other weapons
that lay within the house, else, surely, I had run
dmok, and so have ended my trouble and that of
many others, when at last I rose to my feet. ^;

*We gathered the little body up, and all
the night I watched beside it, and again and
again I said within my heart, *' This thing is
a dream ; soon . I shall wake." But the night
wore on and still the dream held, and at the
last I knew that it was indeed true.

' Presently my wife, who had been weeping

quietly and to herself, as is the manner of

women-folk when others grieve sore, and they

are loth to add to the burden of sorrow, came

to me and plucked me gently by the sleeve,

speaking to me, though for a long time her

words had no meaning in my ears. Then at

last I understood, and for the first time I had

a thought for myself also. She said that the

law of the White Men would surely require a

life for the life which I had all unwittingly
I 129

^^^^^^2*

The Overseas Library

taken. -Therefore she bade me help her bury
the little body of the child we loved, and there-
after betake me to the jungle, so that no man
might find me. But I said, '* Let the White
Men hang me on high according to their fashion.
What care I more for life? How can aught
be sweet to me under the sun now that my
hand hath done this thing, and our little one
hath been taken from us ? " But my wife made
answer, weeping softly in the gloom of the
house, " Hast thou not still thy wife, and is
thy love for her quite dead in thy heart?"
And therewith she threw herself upon me
with her face buried in my lap, crying and
weeping, sobbing out a mad tale of love for
me and love for the little one, and bidding me
not rob her of both in the space of a single
night. For a long time we sat thus weeping
together, and comforting one another, and in
the end together we buried the little body
beneath the rambut-an tree behind the house,
and when the dawn was upon us I left my wife,
and passed into the forest, nor rested until I had
reached the thick jungles near the foot-hills.'

Once more the old man broke off, and
searched aimlessly for the quid and the betel-
crusher which were not there. Then after a
space he resumed his tale in the same passion-
less, montonous voice.

130

'• \

In a Corner of Asia

* When I entered that forest upon the night
upon which the ^Spirits of Evil robbed me
of the life of my ^ child — for I still believe
that 'twas a /ang" s^ir, at whom I first aimed
my blows, though by what magic my little
one was substituted for the foul thing I know
not — I entered a prison from which I came
not forth again into the haunts of other men
for fifteen years — years — long years of the
White Men's reckoning. How did I live? I
traded with the Sdkai — the hill-folk — selling
them salt, which to their taste is sweeter than
molasses, and the 3alt my wife brought to me
in sacks borne upon her back when we twain
met by stealth in the deep places of the forest.
Fifteen years, fifteen years, years long and
weary, years spent as the wild things live
their lives, alone, in damp jungles, with the
liver leaping in fear at the sound of a wood-
knife, or the pulse holding its breath at the
sight of a man's slot among the dead leaves.
For fifteen years I dwelt thus, a hunted creature
in the thickets, biding my time ; and lang, my
wife, did all that in her lay to keep the house
and the compound, the rice-swamps, and the
kine in the grazing-grounds from suffering by
reason of my absence. ? 'Tis a wonder truly
what women will do for love. She told the
village folk that I was dead, and many youths

131

■7-w-

The Overseas Library

sought her in marriage, for she was sweet of
face, but she would have nought to do with
them, though at times she was hard put to it
to escape from their solicitations. These things
she would tell me, weeping, when she visited
me at rare intervals, and I would grind my
teeth with rage at the thought of the men
who dared molest her while I still lived. But
our great grief was that no child was born
to us, for lang was very lonely in the empty
house, and often, she told me, she would awake
at night and speak my name, thinking that I
was lying by her side, and often she would
turn sharply to the door at a sound which she
mistook for the patter of the little feet of our
child upon the stair-ladder. But for my sake
she bore all things, and so the years passed
until she was no longer in her early youth and
men ceased to seek her in wedlock.

* At last lang came to me, bringing me word
that fifteen years of the White Men's reckoning
had passed away, and that our folk said that
a crime which had gone unpunished for so
long a period of time would be forgiven. My
heart was light at this so good news, and
lighter still when with lang I stepped out of
the gloom of the forest into the blazing sun-
glare of the fields around our village. I had
entered the jungle, a young man, springy and

132

In a Corner of Asia

lithe of limb ; I came out that day old and
bent, with eyes that blinked at the sunlight
like a ghost-bird ' (an owl) * at the blazing of a
fire> and with a voice which from long disuse
had become faint and thin as you now hear it.
Moreover, my hair was white and long and
shaggy like that of a Sclkai, and wrinkles had
furrowed me, face and body.

That night I slept again once more in my
old house, which age had made as dilapidated
as I, and upon the morrow my wife guided me
to the police station newly built near our village,
and here I confessed the crime of murder.

* They locked me up, and thereafter they
brought me before a white man, and by him
I was, after a weary term of waiting, sent on
to yet another white judge. He asked me
whether I had in truth killed the child, my
daughter, and I answered " Yes." Then once
more he asked me whether the deed was done
with intent to kill, and I made answer **Yes,
I intended to kill the thing, and with that
desire in my heart I smote her with my wood-
knife/' Then the white judge made inquiry
saying, '* Didst thou in truth kill the child of
set purpose, and hast thou no word to say in
extenuation of thy crime ? " and I said, ** T^UaUy
'twas with desire to kill that I struck that
stroke and followed it up with many others,

f>raF^*.»'*'"ii|^pwT'"i*'i'««'i 'ii*JH*^*;r' r^

The Overseas Library

and behold it was thus that my daughter's life
was ripped from out her body. And for
excuse," I said, ** I have nought to say save
only that my fate is accursed." Much more
was said both before and after, and much talk
there was as to whether or no the madness
held me, but the THan Doktar gave evidence
swearing that there was no madness in my
mind, the which was very true. Then once
more the white judge asked me for more
excuses, and I answered that my evil and
accursed fate was my sole extenuation, and
thereafter seven men who had sat in a box
listening to our words, departed out of the
court-house, and presently returning bore
witness that I had slain my daughter — the
which I had unshakenly affirmed from the
first. Then the white judge said many and
bitter things to me through a very arrogant
interpreter, and I was brought to this so
dreary place, and am like to sojourn here all
the days of my life.'

The old man ceased, and turned to 307 for
an expression of sympathy, but that interesting
criminal had fallen asleep.

The old man looked round the ward at the
sprawling figures, the ugly brown and yellow
faces contorted in sleep, at the gaping mouths,
and at the smudges of red blanket which

134

ILcl.

In a Corner of Asia

showed like black, shapeless shadows in the
dim light. From without the gaol came the
w ticking of innumerable insects, the gurgling
cough of a tree-frog, and the short, sharp cry
of a night fowl. They all spoke to the convict
of that vaster open-air prison in which so many
years of his wasted and ruined life had been
passed; of the freedom and the width of the
great wild forest-land which he knew so well ;
of the rare, sweet visits of lang — the stolen
meetings which had so cheered his solitude;
of the many compensations, barely realised at
the time, which his former free captivity had
held for him, consolations now prized all the
more keenly in retrospect since they had been
taken from him utterly. Then with a half
groan, he shuffled down upon the floor to
sleep, and as his senses slowly stole away
from him he wondefed dimly and gropingly
at the strange injustice of the White Men who
had sentenced him to suffer heavy punishment
for a crime which, to his thinking, he had
already expiated.

A fortnight later two visiting justices sat
talking together in the little prison office. * It
was a deuce of a business pumping his story
out of the old fellow,' said one of them, * but I
think we have got down to the bed-rock of the

^35

The Overseas Library

matter at last. I sat up half the night drafting
this thing/ and he thumped a bundle of manu-
script which lay on the table before him.
* Just cast your eye over it, like a good chap,
and see if it is what we want'

The other pulled the untidy sheets across
the table and read the paper with knitted
brow. * I agree,' he said. ' The murder was
an accident, and the conviction a mistake,
but native human nature — a thing that we
shall never really get the hang of — and not
White Man's folly was responsible for the latter
as much as for the former.' He scrawled his
name at the bottom of the joint-report, the
perspiration from his hand damping the
blotting-paper. * I think that ought to do his
business,' he said,

The author of the report signed his name
also. * Yes,' he said, * I think that ought to put
the crooked business straight, but. Heaven help
us ! it is difficult enough to run the thing at all
in this sweltering heat without having to defend
natives from their silly selves into the bargain.'

So in the fulness of time the old man went
back to the sleepy village and to the wife that
loved him, and with the childlikeness of his
people the memory of his past sorrows is now
well-nigh effaced by the completeness of his
present happiness.

136

A DAUGHTER OF THE
M U H A M M A D A N S

A STUDY FROM THE LIFE

* Swift through the sky the vessel of the Suras

Sails up the fields of ether like an Angel,
Rich is the freight, O Vessel, that thou bearest !

Womanly goodness ;
All with which Nature halloweth her daughters,
Tendernesi^, truth and purity and meekness.
Piety, patience, faith and resignation,
'^ Love and devotement.

Ship of the Gods ! How richly art thou laden !
Proud of the charge, thou voyagest rejoicing.
Clouds float around to honour thee, and Evening
Lingers in Heaven.'

The Curse of Kehama,

THE sunset hour had come as I passed up
the narrow track that skirted the river
bank, with a mob of villagers at my heels, old •
men who had seen many strange things in the
wild days before the coming of the White Men,
dull peasants who seemed too stolid and stupid
to have ever seen anything at all, and swagger-
ing youngsters, grown learned in the mysteries
of reading and writing, fresh from our schools,
and prepared at a moment's notice to teach the

139

The Overseas Library

wisest of the village elders the only proper
manner in which an egg may be sucked. The
rabble which every Malay village spews up
nowadays, when one chances to visit it, is
always composed of these elements, the old
y men whose wisdom is their own, and of its
kind deep and wide; the middle-aged tillers
of the soil who have no wisdom and desire
none ; the men of the younger generation
whose knowledge is borrowed and is extra-
ordinarily imperfect of its kind.

The glaring Eastern sun, sinking to its rest,
blazed full in my eyes, dazzling me, and thus I
saw but dimly the figure that crossed the path
in front of me, heading for the running water
on my right. Silhouetted blackly against the
burning disc in the West, it appeared to be
the form of a woman, bowed nearly double
beneath the weight of a burden slung in a cloth
across her back — a burden far too heavy for
her strength. This, alas ! is a sight only too
common in Asiatic lands ; for if man must idle,
woman must work as well as weep, until at last
the time comes for the long, long sleep, under
the spear-blades of the Idlang and the love-
grass, in some shady nook in the; little, peaceful
village burial-ground. Therefore, I took no
special notice of the figure moving painfully
athwart the sun-glare ahead of me, until my

140

In a Corner of Asia

arm was violently seized by the Headman, who
was walking just behind me.

' Have a care, T4an,' he cried. * Have a
care. It is Minah and her man. It is the
sickness that is not good, the evil sickness.
Go not nigh to her, T{lan^ lest some ill thing
befall.'

The instinct of the White Man always bids
him promptly disregard every warning that a
native may give to him, and act in a manner
diametrically opposed to that which a native
may advise. This propensity has added con-
siderably to the figures that represent the
European death-rate throughout Asia, and
incidentally, it has led to many of the acts of
heroism which have won for Englishmen their
Eastern Empire. It has also set the native
the hard task of deciding whether he is most
astonished at the courage or the stupidity of
the men who rule him. I have lived long
enough among natives to know that there is
generally a sound reason for any warnings that
they may be moved to give ; but Nature, as
usual, was stronger than common sense, so I
shook my arm free from the Headman's grip,
and walked up to the figure in front of me.

It was, as I had seen, that of a woman,

bowed beneath a heavy burden, a woman still

young, not ill-looking, and with the truest,

141

17^ -T

. *-■

The Overseas Library

^ most tenderly feminine eyes that I think I
have ever chanced upon. I only noticed this
later, and perhaps a knowledge of her story
helped thea to quicken my perceptions — but
at the moment my attention was completely
absorbed by the strange bundle which she
bore. It was a shapeless thing, wrapped in an
old cloth, soiled and tattered and horribly
stained, which was slung over the woman's
left shoulder, across her breast, and under her
right armpit. Out of the bundle, just above
the base of the woman's own neck, there pro-
truded a head which lolled backwards as she
moved, grey-white in colour, hairless, sightless,
featureless, formless, an object of horror and
repulsion. Near her shoulders two stumps,
armed with ugly bosses at their tips, protruded
from the bundle, motiveless limbs that swayed
and gesticulated loosely ; near her own hips
two similar members hung down almost to the
ground, dangling limply as the woman walked
— limbs that showed grey in the evening light,
and ended in five whitish patches where the
toes should have been. It was a leper far
gone in the disease whom the woman was
carrying riverwards. She did not pause when
I spoke to her, rather she seemed to quicken
her pace, and presently she and her burden,
the shapeless head and limbs of the latter bob-

142

In a Corner of Asia

bing impotently as the jolts shook them, dis-
appeared down the shelving bank in the
direction of the running water.

I stood still where she had left me, horrified
at what I had seen, for lepers or indeed
deformed people of any kind, are remarkably
rare among the healthy Malay villagers, and
the unexpected encounter had shocked and
sickened me. Of the men in the group behind
me, some laughed, one or two uttered a few
words of cheap jeer and taunt, everyone of
them turned aside to spit solemnly in token
that some unclean thing had been at hand, and
the Headman, newly appointed and weighed
upon by the sense of his responsibilities,
whispered an apology in my ear.

* Thy pardon, T'Uan,^ he said. * 'Tis an ill-
omened sight, and verily I crave thy forgive-
ness. It is not fitting that she should thus
pass and repass athwart the track, walked in
by such as thou art, bearing so unworthy a
load. I hope that thou wilt pardon her and
the village. Truly she is a bad woman to
bring this shame upon our folk.'

* Who is she ? ' I asked.

* She is a woman of this village, one devoid
of shame. And behold, this day she hath
smudged soot upon the faces of all our folk
by thus wantonly passing across thy path with

143

The Overseas Library

her man, the leper, and presently I will
upbraid her — yea, verily I will upbraid her
with pungent words ! '

' Is she also unclean ? ' I asked.

* No, Tiian, the evil sickness hath not fallen
upon her — yet. But her man is sore stricken,
and though we, who are of her blood, plead
with her unceasingly, bidding her quit this
man, as by Muhammad's Law she hath the
right now to do, she will by no means hearken
to our words, for, T^n, she is a woman of a
hard and evil heart, very obstinate and head-
strong.'

He spoke quite simply the thought that was
in his mind. In his eyes there was 'nothing of
heroism, nothing of the glory of most tender
womanhood, in the sight of this girl's self-
sacrifice ; to him and to his fellows her conduct
was merely a piece of rank folly, the wanton
whim of a woman, deaf to the pleadings and
persuasions of those who wished her well. He
had even less sympathy with me when, re-
garding the matter from my own point of
view, I spoke to him in her praise.

'Of a truth,'- I said, 'this woman of thy
village is greater than any of her kind of
whom I have heard tell in all this land of
Pahang. Thy village, O Pgnghdlu, hath a
right to be proud of this leper's wife. I charge

144

In a Corner of Asia

thee say no word of reproach to her concerning
the crossing of my path, and give her this —
f 'tis but a small sum — and tell her that it is
i given in token of the honour in which I hold her. '
. This unexpected way of regarding a matter

which had long been a topic of conversation
in the village, was altogether unintelligible to
j the Malays about me, but most of them had
long ago abandoned the task of trying to un-
.^ derstand the strange motions of the European. ^
mind, an effort which, they had become con- f

vinced, was hopeless. Money, however, is a
! valuable and honourable commodity, and
* whatever else he may fail to appreciate, this
t is a matter well within the comprehension of
the Malay of every class. Even in the minds
of the simplest villagers, the possession of
anything which is likely to bring in cash
inspires something near akin to awe, and,
therefore, my small gift had the effect of im-
mediately drying up the undercurrent of taunts
I and jeers at the expense of Minah and her
husband which had been audible among the
i Headman's followers ever since the strange
, pair had come into view. Moreover, as I
knew full well, the fact that I had spoken of
her with words of praise, and had backed my
remarks with silver, would do much to increase
the importance, and add to the consideration
K 145

immadans, whom neither the threats
illage elders, the advice of her relatic
;ars and entreaties of her sisters, nor
tions of those who would have wed w
lad power to lure away from the side
hapeless wreck of humanity whom :
husband.

:er, I made it my businesss to inquire fr
who knew concerning this woman <
rcumstances, and all that I learned teni
crease the admiration which from
ning I had felt for her.
:e all Malay women, she had h<
2d when hardly more than a child ti

In a Corner of Asia

man whom she had barely seen, and with
whom, prior to her wedding, she would not for
her life have been guilty of the indecency of
speaking a syllable. On a certain day she
had been decked out in all the finery and gold
ornaments that her people could borrow from
their neighbours for many miles around, had
been placed 'upon a dais, side by side with the
man she was to wed, and had remained there
in an agony of cramped limbs and painful
embarrassment while the village folk — who
represented all the world of which she had any
knowledge — ate their fill of the rich viands
set before them, and thereafter chanted dis-
cordantly many verses from the Kurdn in
sadly mispronounced Arabic. This terrible
publicity, for one who had hitherto been kept
in utter seclusion on the pdra, or shelf-like
upper apartment, of her father's house, almost
deprived the dazed little girl of her faculties,
and she had been too abjectly frightened even
to cry, far less to lift her eyes from her scarlet
finger-tips, on which the henna showed like
blood-stains, to steal a glimpse of the man to
whose tender mercies her parents were sur-
rendering her.

Then, the wedding over with all its attend-
ant ceremonies, for days she had been utterly
miserable. She was horribly afraid of her new

147

>->-^ ■

■vpaaipwqpwa

The Overseas Library

lord, terrified almost to death, like a little
bird in the hand of its captor. To this poor
child, not yet in her * teens/ a man and a
stranger was much what the ogre of the
fairy-tales is to the imagination of other little
girls of about the same age in our nurseries at
home — a creature all-powerful, cruel, relentless,
against whose monstrous strength her puny
efforts at resistance could nought avail. All
women who are wives by contract, rather than
by inclination, experience something of this
agony of fear when first they find themselves
at the mercy of a man ; but for the girls of a
Muhammadan population this instinctive dread
of the husband has a ten-fold force. During
all the days of her life the woman of the
Muhammadans has seen the power of the man
undisputed and unchecked by the female
members of his household ; she has seen,
perhaps, her own mother put away, after many
years of faithfulness and love, because her
charms have faded, and her lord has grown
weary of her ; she has seen the married
women about her cowed by a word, or even a
look, from the man who holds in his hands an
absolute right to dispose of his wife's destiny ;
she has watched the men eating their meals
apart— alone, if no other member of the
masculine sex chanced to be present — because,

148

In a Corner of Asia

forsooth, women are deemed to be unworthy to
partake of food with their superiors ; and, as a
result of all these things, the woman of the
Muhammadans has learned to believe from her
heart that, in truth, man is fashioned in a
mould more honourable than that in which the
paltry folk of her own sex are cast, that he is
indeed nobler, higher, greater in every way
than woman, and thus as she looks ever
upwards to him the man dazzles her, and fills
her simple, trustful soul with fear and awe.

So poor little Minah had been frightened out
of her wits by the bare thought of being
handed over to a husband for his service and
pleasure, and her gratitude to her man had
been extravagant and passionate in its intensity
when she found that he was unchangingly
kind and tender to her. For Mdmat, the man
to whom this poor child had been so early
mated, was a gentle, kind-hearted, tender-
mannered fellow, a typical villager of the in-
terior, lazy, indolent and pleasure-loving, but
courteous of manner, soft of speech, and caress-
ing by instinct, as are so many folk of the
kindly Malayan stock. He, too, perhaps, had
been moved with pity for the wild-eyed little
girl, who trembled when she addressed him in
quavering monosyllables, and he found a new

pleasure in soothing and petting her. And

149

The Overseas Library

thus, little by little, his almost paternal feeling
for his child-wife turned in due season to a
man's strong love, and awoke in her breast a
woman's passionate and enthusiastic devotion.
So Mimat and Minah were happy for a space,
although no children were born to them, and
Mtnah fretted secretly, when the hut was still
at nigjit-time, for she knew that there was
truth in what the women of the village
whispered, saying that no wife might hope to
hold the fickle heart of a man unless there were
baby fingers to add their clutching grip to her
own desperate but feeble graspings.

Two or three seasons had come and gone
since the Feast of the Becoming One had
joined MAmat and Mtnah together as man and
wife. The rich yellow crop in the rice field
had been reaped laboriously ear by ear, and
the good grain had been garnered. The
ploughs had been set agoing once more across
the dry meadows, and in the swamps the
buffaloes had been made to dance clumsily by
yelling, sweating men, until the soft earth had
been kneaded into a quagmire. Then the
planting had begun, and later, all the village
had marked with intense interest the growth and
the development of the crop, till once more the
time had arrived for the reaping, and again the
ugly bark rice-stores were full to overflowing

150

ti„

In a Corner of Asia ^

with fat, yellow grain. Minah and Mimat had
aided in the work of cultivation, and had
watched Nature giving birth to her myriad
offspring with unfailing regularity, and still no
little feet pattered over the lath flooring of their
hut, no little voice made merry music in their
compound. Mimat seemed to have become
more melancholy than of old, and he frequently
returned from the fields complaining of fever,
and lay down to rest, tired and depressed.
Minah tended him carefully, with gentle, loving
hands, but she told herself that the day was
drawing near which would bring the co-wife
who should bear sons to her husband, to oust
her from Mimat's heart. Therefore, when her
man was absent, she would weep furtively as
she sat alone among the cooking-pots in the
empty hut, and many were the vows of rich
offerings to be devoted to the shrines of the
local saints if only the joy of motherhood
might be hers.

One afternoon Mdmat came back to the hut,
and as was his wont, for he was ever tender to
his childless wife, and anxious to aid her in her
work, he fell to boiling water at the little mud
fireplace at the back of the central living-room,
where Minah was cooking the evening meal.
While he was so engaged his masculine fingers
touched the pot clumsily, causing it to tip off

151

r ._j..

The Overseas Library

the iron tripod upon which it had been resting.
The boiling water streamed over the fingers of
his right hand, and Minah screamed shrilly in
sympathy for the pain which she knew he must
be enduring ; but M4mat looked up at her with
wondering eyes.

'What ails thee, little one?' he asked, with-
out a trace of suffering in his voice.

* The water is boiling hot,' cried Minah.
' Ya Allah ! How evil is my destiny that
because, unlike other men, thou would'st stoop
to aid me in my work, so great a hurt hath be-
fallen thee ! Oh, Weh, Weh, my heart is very
sad because this trouble hath come to thee.
Let me bind thy fingers ; see, here is oil and
much rag, clean and soft.'

*What ails thee, little one.^' Mimat asked
again, staring at her uncomprehendingly. * I
have suffered no hurt, the water was cold.
See, I am unharmed. Look at my fing — '

His voice faltered, then his speech broke off,
trailing away into inarticulate sounds, while he
sat staring stupidly in mingled astonishment
and fear at his scalded hands. The little hut
was reeking with the odour sent up by that
peeling skin and flesh.

*What thing is this, Minah .f^' he asked
presently, in an awed whisper. *What thing
is this ? For in truth I felt no pain, and even

152

In a Corner of Asia

now, though for certain the water is boiling,
since my fingers are all a-frizzle, no pang hath
come to me. What is it, Minah ? *

Minah looked at the ugly hand her husband
held out for her inspection, and she was as
bewildered as he. ' Perchance 'tis some magic
which thou hast learned that maketh the fire
powerless fo harm thee,' she said simply.

Magic is too common and every-day a thing
in the Malay Peninsula, for either Minah or
Mimat to see anything extravagant in the idea.
Mimat, indeed, felt rather flattered by the
suggestion, but none the less, he denied having
any dealings with the spirits, and for some
weeks he thought little more about the discovery
of his strange insensibility to pain. The sores
on his hands, however, did not heal, and at
length matters began to look serious, since he
could no longer do his proper share of work in
the fields. By Mtnah's advice the aid of a
local medicine man of some repute was had
recourse to, and for days the little house
was noisy with the sound of old-world incanta-
tions, and redolent of heavy odours arising from
the strange spices burning in the wizard's
brazier. Mimat, too, went abroad with his
hands stained all manner of unnatural hues, and
was deprived of most of the few things which
render his rice palatable to an up-country Malay.

153

The Overseas Library

For some weeks, as is the manner of his
kind, both in Europe and Asia, the medicine
man struggled with the disease he half recog-
nised, but lacked the courage to name ; and
when at length disguise was no longer possible,
it was to Mtnah that he told the truth, told it
with the crude and brutal bluntness which
natives, and country folk all the world over,
keep for the breaking of ill tidings. He lay in
wait for her by the little bathing-hut on the
river bank, where Minah was won t to fill the
gourds with water for her house, and he began
his tale at once, without preface or preparation.

* Sister, it is the evil sickness,' he said.
* Without doubt it is the sickness that is not
good. For me, I can do nought to aid this
man of thine ; wherefore, give me the money
that is due to me, and suffer me to depart, for
I also greatly fear to contract the evil. And,
sister, it were well for thee to make shift to
seek a divorce from Mimat speedily, as is per-
mitted in such cases by the law, lest thou in like
manner become afflicted with the sickness, for
this evil is one that can in no wise be medicined,
even if Petera GAru himself were to take a
hand in the charming away of the bad humours.'

No one in Asia ever names leprosy. It is
spoken of but rarely, and then by all manner of
euphonisms, lest hearing its name pronounced,

154

In a Corner of Asia

it should seek out the speaker and abide with
him for ever. But when the words *the evil
sickness' sounded in her ears, Mtnah under-
stood, with a violent shock of most complete
comprehension ; and, alas for frail human
nature, her first thought was for herself, for it
sent a throb of relief, almost of joy, pulsing
through her. Her man was a leper! No
woman would now be found to wed with him ;
no co-wife would come into her life to separate
her from her husband ; barren and childless
though she be, the man she loved would be
hers for all his days, and no one would arise to
dispute her right, her sole right, to love and tend
and cherish him. The medicine man turned
away, and walked slowly up the path by the river
bank, counting the coppers in his hand, and she
stood where he had left her, gazing after him,
a prey to a number of conflicting emotions.
Then a realisation of the pity of it overwhelmed
her — a yearning, aching pity for the man she
Joved — and in an agony of self-reproach, she
threw herself face downward on the ground,
among the warm, damp grasses, and prayed
passionately and inarticulately, prayed to the
Leprosy itself, as though it were a sentient being,
entreating it, if indeed it must have a victim, to
take her and to spare her husband. She had
jiot been taught, as Christian women are, to

155

The Overseas Library

turn to God in the hour of her despair; and
though she breathed out prayer and plaint, as
she lay upon the damp earth and tore at the
lush grass, her thoughts were never for a moment
directed heavenwards. She was a woman of
the Muhammadans, unskilled in letters, ignorant
utterly of the teachings of her faith, and like all
her people, she was a Malay first, and a
follower of the Prophet accidentally, and, as it
were, by an afterthought. Therefore, her cry
was raised to the demon of Leprosy, to the
spirits of wind and air, and to all manner of
unclean creatures who should find no place in
the mythology of a true believer. The old-
world superstitions, the natural religion of the
Malays before ever the Arab missionaries came
to tamper with their simple paganism, always
come uppermost in the native mind in time of
stress or trouble, just as it is the natural man —
the savage — that rises to the surface, through
no matter what superimposed strata of con-
ventionalism, in moments of strong emotion.
But these things had power to help Minah but
little, and to comfort her not at all, and any
strength that she gained during that hour which
she spent prone, in agony, and alone, came to
her from her own brave and tender heart, that
fountain of willing self-sacrifice and unutterable
tenderness, the heart of a good and pure woman.

In a Corner of Asia

The evening sun was sinking redly when
at last Mtnah gathered herself together, re-
arranged her tumbled hair and crumpled gar-
ments with deft, feminine fingers, and turned her
face towards her home. Later still, when the
moon had risen and was pouring down its floods
of pure light, softening and etherealising all upon
which it shone, and penetrating the chinks of
the wattled walls in little jets and splashes of
brightness, Minah, tenderly caressing the head
of her husband, which lay pillowed on her breast,
whispered in his ears the words which revealed
to him the full measure of his calamity. No
more awful message can come to any man than
that which makes known to him that he has
been stricken by leprosy, that foulest, most
repulsive, and least merciful of all incurable
diseases ; and Mdmat, as he listened to his
wife's whispered speech, cowered and trembled
in the semi-darkness of the hut, and now and
again, as he rocked his body to and fro, to and
fro restlessly, he gave vent to a low sob of
concentrated pain very pitiful to hear. Leprosy
has a strange power to blight a man utterly, to
rob him alike of the health and the cleanliness
of hi$ body, and of the love which has made
life sweet to him ; for when the terror falls upon
anyone, even those who loved him best in the
days when he was whole, too often turn from him

157

The Overseas Library

in loathing and fear. As slowly and with pain,
M4mat began to understand clearly, and, under-
standing, to realise the full meaning of the words
that fell from his wife's lips, he drew hurriedly
away from her, despite her restraining hands,
and sat huddled up in a corner of the hut,
weeping the hard, deep-drawn tears that come
to a grown man in the hour of his trial, bringing
no relief, but merely adding one pang more to
the intensity of his suffering. Vaguely he told
himself that since Mtnah must be filled with
horror at his lightest touch, since she would
now surely leave him, as she had a right to do,
he owed it to himself, and to what little remnant
of self-respect was left to him, that the first
signal for withdrawal should be made by him.
It would help to ease the path which she must
tread, the path that was to lead her away from
him for ever, if from the beginning he showed
her plainly that he expected nothing but deser-
tion, that she was free to go, to leave him,
that he was fully prepared for the words that
should tell him of her intention, though for the
moment they still remained unspoken. There-
fore, though Mtnah drew near to him, he repulsed
her gently, and retired yet further into the
depths of the shadows, saying warningly, — •

* Have a care, lest thou also becomest infected
with the evil.*

158

In a Corner of Asia

is its wont, the leprosy, as though ashamed of ^^^
such prolonged inactivity, took a stride forward,
then halted again, then advanced once more,
but this time with more lagging feet, then
came to a standstill for a space, then moved
onward yet again. Thus, though the altera-
tions wrought by the ravages of the disease
were cruel and terrible, to Mtnah, who marked
each change take place gradually, step by step,
beneath her eyes, underlying the grey, feature-
less face, in the blind eye-sockets, the aimless,
swaying limbs that were now mere stumps, she
slw as clearly as of old the face, the glance,
the gestures that had been those of her husband,
and seeing them, she loved this formless thing
with the old passion of devotion and tenderness.
He was utterly dependent on her now. Twice
daily she bore him on her back dowh to the
river's edge, and bathed him with infinite care.
To her there seemed nothing remarkable in the
act. She had done it for the first time one day
long ago when his feet were peculiarly sore and
uncomfortable, had done it laughing, half in
jest, and he had laughed too, joining in her
merriment. But now it was the only means of
conveying him riverwards, and she carried him
on her back unthinkingly, as a matter of course.
In the same way she had come to dress and
feed him, first half laughingly, before there was
L i6i

The Overseas Library

any real necessity for sucji help, but latterly his
limbs had grown to be so useless, that without
her aid he would have gone naked and have
died of starvation. Allah or the Spirits —
Minah was never sure which of the two had
the larger share in the arrangements of her
world — had not seen fit to send her a child in
answer to her prayer, but she never lamented the
fact now. Was not Mdmat husband and child
in one ? And did she not empty all the stores
of her love, both wifely and maternal, upon him,
who needed her more sorely than a baby could
have done, and loved her with the strength of
a man and the simplicity of a trusting child ?
All the womanliness in her nature, purified and
deepened by her sad experience, rose up in the
heart of this daughter of the Muhammadans,
fortifying her in trial, blinding her to the nobility
of her own self-sacrifice, obliterating all thought
of self, filling her with a great content, and
making the squalor of her life a thing most
beautiful. And she had to work for both her
husband and herself, that there might be rice
for them to eat and clothing for their bodies, so
her labours were never ended. But the kindly
villagers who pitied her, though they could not
repress an occasional jeer at her eccentric devo-
tion to a leper, lightened her tasks for Tier in a

thousand ways, so that she found her fields

162

In a Corner of Asia

tilled, her crops weeded, and the precious grain
stored safely, without clearly knowing how the
necessary work had been performed at such
slight cost to herself. And thus Minah and
her man spent many years of the life which
even the Demon of Leprosy had been power-
less to rob of all its sweetness.

It was some years after the White Men had
entered Pahang for the purpose of quieting the
troubled land, that a new terror came to Minah,
tightening her heart-strings with an anxiety
hitherto undreamed of. Men whispered in the
villages that the strange, pale-faced folk who
now ruled the land, had many laws unknown
to the old R4jas, laws unhallowed by custom —
the greatest of Malayan fetishes — not endeared
to the people by age or tradition, and that one
of these provided for the segregation of lepers.
Minah listened, dumb with misery, as the village
elders, mumbling their discontent concerning a
thousand lying rumours, spoke also of this
measure as likely to become law in Pahang.
The wanton cruelty of the notion was what
chiefly struck her. The old native rulers had
been oppressive, with hearts like flint and
hands of crushing weight, but they had always
had a personal motive for their acts, a motive
which their people recognised and understood.

1 6.^

The Overseas Library

But what good purpose, she asked herself,
could be served by robbing her of her man ?
What gratification could the White Folk derive
from such an aimless piece of barbarity ? In
imagination she seemed to hear his fretful call,
his mumbled speech, which none but she could
interpret or understand, and the thought of the
pitifulness of his condition, if deprived of her
love and companionship, came upon her with a
sickening pang of dismay, filling her with fear,
yet nerving her to fight to the death to save
him from this bitter wrong, to fight as does the
tigress in defence of her little ones.

Minah managed with difficulty to persuade
and bribe an old crone to tend Mdmat for a
day or two. Then she set off for Kuila Opis,
the town at which, she had heard men say, the
White Men had their headquarters. Until she
started upon this journey, she had never left
her own village, and to her the twenty odd
miles of river, that separated her home from
the town, were a road of wonder through
an undiscovered country. The ordered
streets ; the brick buildings, in which the
Chinese traders had their shops ; the lamp-
posts ; the native policemen standing at the
corners of the road — shameless folk who wore
trousers, but no protecting sdrong — the vast
block of Government buildings, for to her this

164

In a Corner of Asia

far from imposing pile seemed a stupendous
piece of architecture ; the made roads, smooth
and metalled ; the wonder and the strangeness
of it all dazed and frightened her. What could
the White Men, who had so many marvellous
things, want with her poor man, the leper, that
they should desire to take him from her ? Ah,
it was cruel, cruel, more merciless and wanton
than any of the deeds of the old Rdjas, concern-
ing which men still told grisly tales with bated
.breath.

She asked for me, since I had bade her come
to me in trouble, and presently she made her
way along the unfemiliar roads to the big house
on the river bank, round which the forest
clustered so closely in the beauty that no hand
is suffered to destroy. She sat upon the mat-
ting on my study floor, awed at the strangeness
of it all, looking at me plaintively out of those
great eyes of hers, and weeping furtively. She
had the simple faith of one who has lived all
his days in the same spot, whither few strangers
go, where each man knows his neighbour and
his neighbour's affairs. It never occurred to
her that her words might need explanation or
preface of any kind, in order that they might
be rendered intelligible, and as she looked at^
me, she sobbed out her prayer, *0 suffer me-
to keep my man and my children ; O suffer

165

The Overseas Library

them not to be taken from me ! Allah, T^atty
suffer me to keep my man and my children ! '

I knew, of course, that she spoke of her
* man and her children ' simply for the sake of
decorum, since it is coarse and indecent, in the
eyes of an up-country woman, to speak of her
husband alone, even though she be childless,
but, for the moment, I supposed that she was
the wife of some man accused of a crime, who
had come to me seeking the aid I had not the
power to give.

* What has thy man done ? ' I asked.

* Done, THan ? What could he do, seeing
that he is as one dead ? Unless men lifted him
he could not move. But suffer him not to be
taken from me. He is all I have ; all I have,
and in truth I cannot live without him. I shall
die, 71^«, I shall die, if thou dost suffer this
thing to come to pass.*

Then suddenly the mist obscuring my memory
rolled away, and I saw the face of this woman
as I had seen it once before, straining under a
terrible burden on the banks of the Jelai River,
with the red sky and the dark green of the
foliage making a background against which
it stood revealed. Then at last I under-
stood, and the sight of her distress moved me
strangely.

* Have no fear, sister,' I said. * Thy man

1 66

In a Corner of Asia

shall not be taken from thee if I can do ought
to prevent it. Who is it that seeks to separate
thee from him ? '

* Men say it is an order.* To the Oriental
an order is a kind of impersonal monster,
invincible and impartial, a creature that re-^
spects no man, and is cruel to all alike.

* Have no fear,' I said. * It is true that I
have bidden the Headmen of the villages
report as to the number of those afflicted by
the evil sickness, but only with a view to
aiding those who suffer. Moreover, in this
land of Pahang, the number is very small,
and the infection seemingly doth not spread.
Therefore, sister, have no fear, and believe
me, come what may, the Government will not
separate thee from thy man. Return now in
peace to thy home, and put all trouble from thee,
and if aught cometh to sorrow thee, remember
that I am ever at hand to listen to thy plaint.'

As I finished speaking, the woman before me

was transformed. Her great faithful eyes were

filled with tears, her brown skin faded suddenly

to a dull grey with the intensity of her emotions,

and before I could stay her, she had thrown

herself full length upon the matting at my

feet, encircling them with her warm grasp.

I leapt up, humbled exceedingly that such

a woman should so abase herself before me,

167

The Overseas Library

and angered by an Englishman's instinctive
hatred of a scene, and as I tore myself
away from her I heard her say almost in a
whisper, *Thy servant hath little skill in
speech, but in truth, Tilan^ thou hast made
me happy— happy as a barren wife to whom
it is given to bear a son ! ' And as I looked
into her face it seemed to me to shine with
the beauty of her soul.

So Mlnah returned to her home with joy in
her heart and that glad look upon her face,
and in that secluded up-country village, not
twenty miles from the place where I sat writ-
ing her history, she still toils unceasingly tend-
ing the wrecked creature, that even yet is to
her the man she loves, with unfailing tender-
ness and care. Men say that he can live
but a few months longer, and it wrings my
heart to think of what the loss will be to
Mlnah when, to use the Malayan idiom, *the
order comes' to her man. In that hour of
utter desolation and profound loneliness, no
human voice will have the power to bring
that beautiful look to Mlnah's eyes, and of
a Divine Voice this Daughter of the Muham-
madans, in spite of her pure soul and her
brave heart, has no knowledge from which

to seek consolation.

i68

THE STORY OF RAM SINGH

THE night was intensely still. The dawn-
wind had not yet come to rustle and
whisper in the trees ; the crickets had not yet
awakened to scream their greeting to the
morning sun ; the night - birds had gone to
their rest, and their fellows of the day had
not yet begun to stir on branch or twig.
Nature, animate and inanimate alike, was
hushed in the deep sleep which comes in
this torrid land during the cool hour before
the dawn, and the stillness was only empha-
sised by the sound of furtive, stealthy steps
and cautious words whispered softly under the
breath. The speakers were a band of some
fifty or sixty ruffians ; Malays from the Tem-
beling Valley of Pahang, clothed in ragged,
dirty garments ; long - haired, rough-looking
disreputables from the wilder districts of
Trenggdnu and Kelantan and Besut, across
the mountain range ; and a dozen truculent,
swaggering Pahang chiefs, rebels against the
Government, outlaws in their own land, beauti-
fully and curiously armed, clothed in faded silks

171

The Overseas Library

of many colours, whose splendour had long been
dimmed and stained by the dirt and dampness of
the dank jungles in which their owners had
found a comfortless and insecure hiding-place.

A score of small dug-outs were moored to
the bank at a spot where the cocoanut trees,
fringing the water's edge, marked an inhabited
village. The gang of rebels was broken up
into little knots and groups, some in the
boats, some on the shore, the men chewing
betel-nut, smoking palm-leaf cigarettes, and
talking in grumbling whispers. They had
had a very long day of it. The mountain
range which divides Kelantan from Pahang
had been crossed on the afternoon of the pre-
vious day ; and save for a brief night's rest, the
marauders had been afoot ever since. Ever
since the dawn broke they had been making
their way down the Tembeling River, forcing
any natives whom they met to join their party ;
taking every precaution to prevent word of
their coming from reaching the lower country
for which they were bound ; paying off an old
score or two with ready knife and blazing fire-
brand; and loudly preaching a Sabil Allak
(Holy War) against the Infidel in the name
of Ungku Saiyid. The latter is the last of
the Saints of the Peninsula, a man weak and
wizened of body, but powerful and great of

17^

In a Corner of Asia

reputation, who sends forth others to do
doughty deeds for the Faith, while he lives
in the utter peace and seclusion of the little
shady village of Pdloh near Kudla Trenggdnu.
An hour or two before midnight the raiders
reached a spot about three-quarters of a mile
above the point where the Tembeling River
falls into the Pahang, and here a halt was
called. The big native house, surrounded by
groves of fruit and cocoanut trees, was the pro-
perty of one Che' B6jang, and no other dwel-
lings were in the immediate vicinity. Che'
B6jang was a weak - kneed individual, who
never had enough heart to be able to make
up his mind whether he was himself a rebel
or not ; but he claimed kinship with half the
chiefs of the raiding party, and he was filled
to the throat with a shuddering fear of them all.
The principal leaders among the rebels landed
when Che' B6jang's kampong was reached, leav-
ing the bulk of their followers squatting in the
boats and on the water's brink, and made their
way up to their relative's house. Che' B6jang
received them with stuttering effusion, his words
tripping off his frightened tongue and through
his chattering teeth in trembling phrases of wel-
come. The visitors treated him with scant cour-
tesy, pushing him and his people back into the
interior of the house. Then they seated them-

The Overseas Library

selves gravely and composedly round the big ill-
lighted room, and began to disclose their plans.
They were a curious group of people, these
raiders who, with their little knot of followers,
had dared to cross the mountain range to
batter the face of the great Asiatic god Pax
Britannica. The oldest, the most infirm, the
most wily, and the least courageous, was the
ex - Imam Prang Indera Gdjah Pahang,
commonly called To' Gijah, a huge-boned,
big-fisted, coarse-featured Malay of Sumatran
extraction, as the scrubby fringe of sparse,
wiry beard encircling his ugly face bore wit-
ness. Before the coming of the White Men
this man had been a terror in the land of
Pahang. The peasants had been his prey ;
the high-born chiefs had been forced to bow
down before him ; the King had leaned upon
him as upon a staff of strength ; and his will,
cruel, wanton and unscrupulous^ had been
his only law. The White Men had robbed
him of all the things which made life valuable
to him, and though he had held up his hand
to the last, doing all in his power to make
others run the risks that in the end he might
reap the benefit, his fears had proved too
strong for him, and he had turned rebel
eventually, because he could not believe that
Englishmen would be likely to act in good

\) 174

In a Corner of Asia

faith where he knew that he would, in similar
circumstances, have had recourse to treachery.
He had suffered acutely in the jungles whither
he had fled, for his body was swelled with dropsy
and rotten with disease ; and who shall say what
floods of hatred and longings for revenge surged
up in his heart as he sat there in the semi-dark-
ness of Che' Bujang's house, and gloated over
the prospects of coming slaughter ?

To' Gdjah's three sons, the three who, out
of his odd score of children, had remained
faithful to their father in his fallen fortunes,
were also of the party. They were Mat KUau,
Awang Nong, and Teh Ibrahim, typical young
Malay roisterers, truculent, swaggering, boast-
ful, noisy and gaily clad. They had no very
fine record of bravery to point to in the past,
but what they lacked in this respect they made
up for in lavish vaunts of the great deeds which
it was their intention to perform in the future.

The foremost fighting chief of the band was
the 6rang Kdya PahlAwan of Semantan, who
was also present. A thick-set, round-faced,
keen-eyed man of about fifty years of age, he
was known to all the people of Pahang as a
warrior of real prowess, a scout without equal
in the Peninsula, and a jungle-man who ran
the wild tribes of the woods close in his know-
ledge of forest-lore. When the devil entered

175

The Overseas Library

into him he was accustomed to boast with an
unfettered disregard for accuracy which might
have caused the shade of Ananias to writhe
with envy, but the deeds which he had really
done were so many and so well - known that
he could afford for the most part to hold his
peace when others bragged of their valour.
His son Wan Lela, a chip of the old block,
who had already given proofs of his courage,
sat silently by his father's side.

The last of the Pahang chiefs to enter the
house was Mdmat Kelubi, a Semantan man
who, from being a boatman in the employ of
a European mining company, had risen during
the disturbances to high rank among the rebels,
and now bore the title of Panglima Kiri, which
has something of the same meaning as Briga-
dier-General. He was a clean-limbed, active
fellow of about thirty years of age, and he
stated that heJiad just returned from Kdyangan
(fairyland), where he had been spending three
months in fasting and prayer, a process which
had had the happy result of rendering him in-
vulnerable to blade and bullet. Three weeks
later he was shot and stabbed in many places
by a band of loyal Malays, which can only be
accounted for by the supposition that the fairy
magic had gone wrong in one way or another.

To* Gijah spoke when all were seated, and

176

In a Corner of

Che' BAjang then learned tha
to be made just before dawn
detachment of Sikhs statior
stockade at Kudla TSmb6ling
had been in daily communica
men, and something like friend
up between them, but no idea
upon their guard occurred to
would entail some personal risl
rather than that, he would ha
whole Sikh race to be exterm
At about three o'clock in tl
chiefs joined their sleepy fo
boats. The word was pass<
silence, and the dug-outs witt
armed men were then pushed
stream. The stockade, which
object of the attack, was situate
of rising ground overlooking
the T^mbeling and Pahang rii
feet was stretched the broad san
Tambang, which has been tt
many thrilling events in the
Malayan State. The Tembeli;
at right angles to the Pahang, i
of the former sets strongly tow
bank. The chiefs knew this
therefore ordered their people
boats to drift, feeling sure th;

The Overseas Library .

stroke of a paddle the whole flotilla would run
aground of its own accord at Pdsir Tambang.

The busy eddies of chill wind, which come
up before the dawn to wake the sleeping world
by whispering in its ear, were beginning to
stir gently among the green things with which
the banks of the river were clothed. A cicada,
scenting the daybreak, set up a discordant ^

whirr ; a sleepy bird among the branches piped
feebly, and then settled itself to rest again with
a rustle of tiny feathers ; behind Che' Bujang's
kampong a cock crowed shrilly, and far away
in the jungle the challenge was answered by
one of the wild bantams ; the waters of the
river, fretting and washing against the banks,
murmured complain ingly. But the men in the
boats, floating down the stream borne slowly
along by the current, were absolutely noiseless.
The nerves of one and all were strung to a
pitch of intensity. Horny hands clutched ,

weapons in an iron grip ; breaths were held,
ears strained to catch the slightest sound from
*the stockade which, as they drew nearer, was
plainly visible on the prominent point, outlined
blackly against the dark sky. The river, black
also, save where here and there the dim star-
light touched it with a leaden gleam, rolled along
inexorably, carrying them nearer and nearer to

the fight which lay ahead, bearing sudden and

178

In a Corner of Asia

awful death to the dozen Sikhs in the
stockade.

At last, after a lapse of time that seemed an;
age to the raiders, the boats grounded one by one
upon the sand-bank of Pisir Tambang, so gently
and so silently that they might have been ghostly
crafts blown thither from the Land of Shadows.;

The Orang Kdya Pahliwan landed with
Wan Lela, Mat Ktlau, Awang Nong, Teh
Ibrahim, Pangltma Ktri, and a score of picked
men at his heels, leaving old To* Gdjah and
the rest of the party in the boats. Very
cautiously they made their way to the foot of
the eminence upon which the stockade stood,
flitting across the sand in single file as noise-
lessly as shadows. Then, with the like pre-
cautions, they crept up the steep bank till the
summit was reached, when the Orang Kdya
drew hastily back, and lay flat on his stomach
under the cover of some sparse bushes. He
and his people had ascended at the extreme
corner of the stockade, and he had caught
sight of the glint of a rifle-barrel as the Sikh
passed down his beat away from him. The
raiders could hear the regular fall of the heavy
ammunition-boots as the sentry marched along.
Then they heard him halt, pause for a moment,
and presently the sound of his footfalls began

to draw near to them once more. Each man

179

The Overseas Library

among the raiders held his breath, and listened
in an agony of suspense. Would he see them
and give the alarm before he could be stricken
dead? Would he never reach the near end
of his beat ? Ah, he was there, within a yard
of the 6rang Kdya1 Why was the blow not
struck? Hark, he halted, paused, and looked
about him, and still the Orang Kiya held his
hand ! Had his nerve failed him at this
supreme moment ? Now the sentry had turned
about and was beginning to pace away from
them upon his beat. Would the 6rang Kiya
never strike ? Suddenly a figure started up
against the sky-line behind the sentry's back,
moving quickly, but with such complete absence
of noise that it seemed more ghost-like than
human. A long black arm grasping a sword
leaped up sharply against the sky ; the weapon
poised itself for a moment, reeled backwards,
and then with a thick swish and a thud
descended upon the head of the Sikh. The
sentry's knees quivered for a moment; his
body shook like a steam-launch brought sud-
denly to a standstill upon a submerged rock ;
and then he fell over in a limp heap against
the wall of the stockade, with a dull bump and a
slight clash of jingling arms and accoutrements.
In a second all the raiders were upon their feet,
and led by the Orang Kdya, waving his reeking

1 80

li^

In a Corner of Asia

blade above his head, they rushed into the now
unguarded stockade. Their bare feet pattered
across the little bit of open which served the Sikhs
for a parade-ground, and then, sounding their
war-cry for the first time that night, they plunged
into the hut in which the Sikhs were sleeping.

There were nine men, out of the eleven
survivors, inside the hut. The jangle caused
by the fall of the sentry by the gate had
awakened two of them, and these threw them-
selves upon the rebels and fought desperately
with their clubbed rifles. They had no other
weapons. Their companions qame to their
aid, and a good oak Snider-butr was broken
into two pieces over Teh Ibrahim's head in the
fight which ensued, though no injury was done
to him by the blow.^ The rush of the Sikhs
was so effectual that they all won clear of the
hut, and six of their number escaped into the
jungle and so saved themselves. The remain-
ing three were killed outside the hut, and
KuAla Tembeling stockade had fallen into the
hands of the raiders. Their greatest enemy,
the loyal ImAm Prang Indera Stia Rdja, had
his village some thirty odd miles lower down
the Pahang River, at Piilau Tdwar, and if this
place could also be surprised, the best part of
Pahang would be in the possession of the

rebels, and a general rising in their favour

i8i

The Overseas Library

might be confidently looked for. The Orang
Kdya and his people knew this, and their
hearts were uplifted with triumph, for they saw
now that the Saint who had foretold victory to
their arms had been no lying prophet.

Unfortunately for the rebels, however, all
the Sikhs had not been within the walls of the
stockade when the well-planned attack was
delivered. Sikhs keep very curious hours, and
one of their habits is to rise before the dawn
breaks, and to go shuddering down in the black
darkness of that chilly hour to the river^s brink,
there to perform the elaborate ablutions which,
to the keen regret of our olfactory organs, seem
ever to be attended with such lamentably in-
adequate results. On the morning of the
attack two of the little garrison, Ram Singh
and Kishen Singh, had bestirred themselves
before their fellows, and were already shivering
on the water's edge when the raiders arrived,
It says a good deal for the admirable tactics of
the latter that it was not until the attack had
been delivered that the two Sikhs became aware
of the approach of their enemies. Suddenly, as
they stood, naked save for their loin-cloths, the
great stillness of the night was broken by a
tempest of shrill yells. Then came half-a-
dozen shots, ringing out crisply and fiercely,

and awakening a hundred clanging echoes in

182

In a Corner of Asia

the forest on either bank of the river. An
answering cheer was raised by the Malays in
the boats, the tumult of angry sound seeming
to spring from out of the darkness in . front,
behind, on every side of the bewildered Sikhs.
The thick mist beginning to rise from the
surface of the water served to plunge the sand-
bank upon which they stood into fathomless
gloom. The ears of the two men rang again
with the clamour of the fight going on in the
stockade, with the shouts and yells of those who
shrieked encouragement to their friends from the
moored boats, with the clash of weapons, and
with the sudden outbreak of the unexpected hub-
bub. But they could see nothing — nothing but
the great inky shadows all about them into which
everything seemed to be merged, and from which
issued such discordant and fearful sounds.

* Where art thou, Ram-siar, my brother?' cried
Kishen Singh, despairingly ; and a heavy silence
fell around them for a moment as his voice was
heard by the Malays in the boats. Then the
cries of the enemies nearest to the two Sikhs broke
out more loudly than before. * 'Tis the voice of
an infidel ! ' cried some — * Stab, stab ! ' — * Kill,
and spare not, in the name of Allah ! ' — * Where,
where ? —and then came the crisp pattering of
many bare feet over the dry, hard sand in the direc-
tion from which the Sikh had shouted to his fellow.

183

7^r.7v^^=^

The Overseas Library

* Brother, I am here/ cried Ram Singh, more
quietly, close to Kishen Singh's elbow. * Alas,
but we have no arms, and these jungle-pigs be
many. We must tear the life from them with
our hands. Oh, GAru Nanuk, have a care for
thy children in this their hour of need ! '

In the dead darkness both men could hear
the swish of naked blades on all sides of them,
for the Malays were as much baffled by the
gloom as were their victims, and men struck
right and left on the bare chance of smiting
something. Presently the swish of a sword
very near to Ram Singh ended suddenly in a
sickening thud, the sound of steel telling loudly
upon yielding flesh, and Kishen Singh gave a
short, hard cough. The unseen owner of the
weapon which had gone home raised a cry of
' Bdsah / Bdsak ! I have wetted him ! I have
drawn blood ! ' and a yell of exultation went up
from a score of fierce voices. Guided by the
noise, Ram Singh threw himself upon the
struggling mass which was Kishen Singh roll-
ing over and over in his death-agony, with the
Malays tossing and tumbling, hacking and
smiting above him. Ram Singh's left hand
grasped a sword-blade, and though the fingers
were nearly severed he managed to wrench
the weapon from the grip of a Malay. Then,
with a roar as of some angry forest-monster, he

184

In a Corner of Asia

charged the spot where the tumult was
loudest.

Putting all his weight into each blow, and
striking blindly and ceaselessly, he fought his
way through the throng in the direction from
which the sound of the river purring between
its banks was borne to him. The Malays fell
back before his desperate onslaught, but they
closed in behind him, wounding him cruelly
with their swords and daggers and wood-knives,
while he in his blindness did them but little
injury. None the less, as the dawn began to
break, Ram Singh, bleeding from more than a
score of wounds, and with his left arm nearly
severed, succeeded at last in leaping into one
of the moored boats, and cutting the rope,
pushed out into mid-stream. There were three
Malays on board the little dug-out, but they
quickly slipped over the side, and swam for
the shore, deeming this blood-stained, fighting,
roaring Sikh no pleasant foe with whom to do
battle ; and as they went. Ram Singh, utterly
spent by his exertions and by loss of blood,
slipped down into the bottom of the boat in a
limp heap. To' GSjah, furious at the sight of
an enemy's escape, danced a kind of palsied
quick-step on the sand-bank, cursing his people
and the mothers that bore them to the fifth and
sixth generation, and administering various

185

' n ■ • • *,

The Overseas Library

kicks and blows to such among his followers
as he knew would not dare to retaliate in kind.
But all this exhibition of bad temper was to no
purpose. The excitement of the assault and
of the unequal fight in the darkness was over,
and the raiders were worn out by the long
journey of the preceding day and night. They
were very sleepy, and their stomachs cried
aloud for rice. The rank and file absolutely
declined to give chase until they had eaten and
slept their fill ; and thus, as the daylight began
to draw the colour out of the jungle on the
river-banks, out of the yellow stretch of sand
and the gleaming reach of running water, the
dug-out, in which the wounded Sikh lay, was
suffered to drift rocking down the stream, until
at last it disappeared round the bend a quarter
of a mile below the rebel camp.

Ram Singh lay so very still that the raiders
may perhaps have persuaded themselves that
he was dead ; but they should have made sure,
for their next move must be down stream, and
the success or failure of their enterprise de-
pended almost entirely upon the village of
Pulau T4war, in which the loyal Imdm Prang
Stia Rdja lived, being surprised as KuAla
Tembeling had been. The rebel chiefs knew
this, but it is characteristic of the race to which
they belonged that they suffered the whole of

i86

In a Corner of Asia

their plan of. action to be jeopardised rather
than take the pronipt measures that must have
ensured success, because these necessitated a
certain amount of immediate trouble and exer-
tion. Ram Singh was also aware of the
enormous importance of a warning being carried
to ImAm Prang, and weighed against this, the
mere question of saving or losing his own life
seemed to him a matter of little moment.

Although he was too weak to stand or to
manage the boat, he determined to remain
where he was until the current bore him to
PAlau Tdwar, and then, and not till then, to
spread the news of the fall of Kudla Tembeling.
He knew enough of Malay peasants to feel
sure that no man among them would dare to
help him if they learned that the rebels were
in the immediate vicinity, and that he had
received his wounds at their hands. Therefore
he decided to keep his own counsel until such
time as he found himself in the presence of
the Imdm Prang. He knew also that he
could not rely upon any Malay to pass the
word of warning which alone could save Imdm
Prang from death, and the whole of Pahang
from a devastating little war. Therefore he
determined that, dying though he believed
himself to be, he must take that warning word
himself* He swore to himself that he would

187

■1,1 ■ TLM—n^^ 'fc^-

The Overseas Library

not even halt to bind his wounds, nor to seek
food or drink. Nothing must delay him, and
the race was to be a close one between his
own failing strength and inexorable time.

It was a typical Malayan morning. A cool
fresh breeze was rippling the face of the water,
and stirring the branches of the trees. The
sunlight was intense, gilding the green of the
jungle, deepening the black tints of the
shadows, burnishing the river till it shone like
a steel shield, and intensifying the dull bronze
of the deep pools where they eddied beneath
the overhanging masses of clustering vegeta-
tion. The shrill thrushes were sending their
voices pealing with an infectious gladness
through the sweet morning air; the chirp of
many birds came from out the heavy foliage
of the banks to the ears of the wounded man,
and seemed to speak to him of the cruel in-
difference with which Nature beheld his suffer-
ings. Presently his boat neared a village, and
the people crowding to the bathing-huts moored
to the shore cried to him with listless curiosity
asking him what ailed him.

* 'Tis nought, oh, my brothers,' Ram Singh
returned, in a voice as firm and cheerful as his
ebbing strength admitted.

But a woman, pointing with a trembling

finger, screamed, *See, there is blood, much

i88

In a Corner of Asia

blood ! ' and a child, catching her alarm, lifted
up its tiny voice and wept dismally.

* Let be, let be ! ' whispered an old man
cautiously to his fellows. * In truth there is
much blood, even as Minah yonder hath said ;
but let us be wise and have nought to do with
such things. Perchance, if we but speak to the
wounded man, hereafter men will say that we
had a hand in the wounding. Therefore suffer
him to drift ; and for us, let us live in peace.'

So Ram Singh was suffered to continue his

journey down the stream undisturbed by prying

eye or helping hand. The sun rose higher

and higher, each moment adding somewhat

to the intensity of the heat. By nine o'clock,

when but half the weary pilgrimage was done,

the waters of the river, struck by the fierce

slanting rays, shone with all the pitiless

brilliancy of a burning-glass. The colour of

all things seemed suddenly to have become

merged in one blazing white tint, an aching,

dazzling glare, blinding the eye and scorching

the skin. The river caught the heat and

hurled it back to the cloudless sky; the

sound of bird and insect died down, cowed

by the terrors of the approaching noon-tide ;

the winds sank to rest; the heat-haze, lean

and hungry as a demon of ancient myth, leaped

up and danced horribly, with restless noiseless

189

The Overseas Library

feet, above yellow sand-spits and heavy banks
of greenery ; and all the tortured land seemed
to be simmering audibly. An open dug-out,
even when propelled by strong men at the
paddles so that the pace of the rush through
the still, hot air makes some little coolness,
is under a Malayan sun more like St
Lawrence s gridiron than a means of locomo-
tion; but when it is suffered to drift down
the stream at such a rate of speed only as
the lazy current may elect to travel, it quickly
becomes one of the worst instruments of
torture known to man. I n the Malay Peninsula
men have frequently died in a few hours from
exposure to the sun, and this form of lingering
death, which is ever ready to a Rdja's hand,
should he desire to inflict it, is perhaps more
dreaded than any other. Ram Singh bore all
this, and in comparison the pain of his seven-
and- twenty wounds seemed to sink almost
into insignificance. The blood with which he
was covered caked in hard black clots ; his
stiffening wounds ached maddeningly ; the
clouds of flies swarmed about him, adding
yet one more horror to all that he had to
endure ; but never for a moment did this
brave man forego his purpose of keeping his
secret for Im4m Prang himself, and though
the fever surged through his blood and almost

190

•^*

I
I

In a Corner of Asia

obscured his brain he held steadfastly to the

plan which he had formed.

Shortly after noon a sudden collision with

some unseen object jarred the Sikh cruelly,

; and wrung a moan from his lips. A brown

' hand seized the gunwale of the dug-out, and a

moment later a beardless, brown face, seamed

^ with many wrinkles,, looked down into the

' boat. The dull, unfeeling eyes wore that

f bovine expression which is ever to be seen

J in the countenances of those Malay peasjants

who can remember the evil days when they

and their fellows were as harried beasts of

burden beneath the cruel yoke of their chiefs.

' What ails thee, brother ? ' asked the face,

still without any signs of curiosity.

' I have been set upon by Chinese gang

robbers,* whispered Ram Singh, lying bravely

in spite of his ebbing strength. * Help me to

reach the ImAm Prang at PAlau Tdwar that

I may make to him rapport'

The instinct of the Malay villager of the

old school is always to obey an order, no

matter from whose lips it may come. In many

places in the Peninsula you may nowadays

see ^ some youngster, who has gotten some

book-learning and what he represents as a

thorough insight into the incomprehensible ways

of the White Men, ruling the elders of his village

191

The Overseas Library

with a despotism that is almost Russian ; and
the sad-eyed old men run to do his bidding
with feet that step unsteadily through the weight
of the years they carry, nor dream of question-
ing his right to command. It is the instinct of
the peasantry of this race, as it is wont to be,
dying hard in the face of modern innovations.

The man who had hailed Ram Singh did
not even think of disputing the Sikh's order,
and in a little while the dug-out was racing
down stream with the cool rush of air fanning
the fevered cheeks of the wounded man most
deliciously. An hour or two later PAlau
TAwar was reached, and ImAm Prang, hearing
that a Sikh in trouble wished to have speech
with him, came down to the water's edge, and
squatted by the side of the dug-out,

* What thing hath befallen thee, brother ? '

he asked, aghast at the fearful sight before

him. The dug-out was a veritable pool of

blood, and the great fevered eyes of the

stricken man stared out at him from a face

blanched to an ashen grey, more awful to look

upon by contrast with the straggling fringe of

black beard. The pale lips opened and shut,

like the mouth of a newly-landed fish, but no

sound came from them ; the great weary eyes

seemed to be speaking volubly, but, alas ! it

was in a language to which the Chief could

192

>l-4

In a Corner of Asia

find no key. Was the supreme effort which
the stricken Sikh had so nobly made to be
wasted ? For a moment it seemed as though
the irony of Fate would have it so ; and Ram
Singh, deep down in his heart, prayed to GAru
Nanuk to give him the strength he lacked
that his deed might be suffered to bear fruit.
Mightily, with the last remnants of his failing
forces, the Sikh fought for speech. He gasped
and struggled in a manner fearful to see, till
at last the words came, and who shall say at
what a cost of bitter agony?

' Dato' . . . the . . . rebels ..." came the
faltering whisper. *The rebels . . . Kudla
. . . Tembeling . . . fallen . . . taken . . .
many killed . . . make ready , . . against their
; . . coming . . . and behold ... I have brought
the word . . . and I die . > . I die. . . .' His
utterance was choked by a great flow of blood
from his mouth, and without a struggle Ram
Singh fainted away and lay as one dead.

Imdm Prang was a man of action, and he
had his people collected and his stockades in
a thorough state of defence long before the
afternoon began to wane. While Imdm Prang
was busily engaged in profiting by the warning
thus timely brought to him, Ram Singh was
tended with gentle hands and soothed with
kind words of pity by the women-folk of the
N 193

f.' •,..,• • -M

The Overseas Library

hiefs household. He was a swine-eating
fidel, it was true, but he had saved them,
id all that they held dear, from death, or
3tn the capture which is worse than death.
So the rebels were repulsed, and were
lased back to the land from whence they
id come, and up and down that land, and
ross and across it, till many had been slain
id the rest made prisoners, and at last Pahang
ight once more sleep in peace. And Ram
ngh, who had saved the situation, was sent

hospital in Singapore, where he was visited
' the Governor of the Colony, who came
ither in his great carriage to do honour to
e simple Sikh private ; and when at last he
is discharged from the native ward healed

his wounds, a light post in the Pahang
)lice Office was found for him, where he will
rve until such time as death may come to
n in very truth. If you chance to meet him,

will be much flattered should you allow him
divest himself of his tunic ; and you will then
B a network of scars on his brown skin,
lich will remind you of a raised map designed
display the mountain-system of Switzerland.
2 is inordinately proud of them, and rightly

say I, for which man among us can show
;h undoubted proofs of courage, endurance, .
d self-sacrifice as this obscure hero ?

V ■ '^'-

! :■

'THE WAGES OF SIN'

'THE WAGES OF

IT was once my privilege to
the intimate and partic
of a Malay Rdja of the old
ruling prince, such as sit in ha
thence give orders for the deal
tion of their enemies, but. a subo
of a royal family, of the kind tl
It was my friend's proudest bo
the twenty years immediately
advent of the British, he had,
hand, brought a larger numbe
creatures to an evil end than h
his kind throughout the length
the Peninsula. He was so ge
with himself on account of th:
record, that he hugged it to his
rarely spoke about it ; but whe
cunning coaxing, I had led hin
his lurid past, he would, in the
ment engendered by his awaki
occasionally wind, up the recital
violence and manifold naughtine
his breast, and crying, 'And ii

The Overseas Library

Hamid hath slain two hundred men — not count-
ing Chinamen ! '

The words which I have italicised have
always appeared to me to represent accurately
the value which the average Malay sets upon
the life of a Chinese. It is natural enough
that a warrior should despise the yellow
skin, for he prizes others according to the
amount of fight which they are capable of
showing upon occasion, and judged from this
standpoint, the Chinamen who visit us in the
Peninsula are poor creatures indeed. But it is
not only the fighting-man who looks upon the
CelestiaFs life as a thing of no account. The
opinion as to its utter worthlessness prevails
equally with the Rija, the Chief, and the
peasant ; it is as strong in the villages and the
country places as it is in the town and in the
palace ; and in the estimation of no class of
Malays, I verily believe, does the Chinaman
rank much higher than the beasts that perish.
He is an infidel, for one thing ; he is a rich
man, often enough, and such are the natural
prey of Prince and Chief; he is a skilful and a
shifty trader, who cheats the peasants out of
their halfpence, and is detested accordingly;
moreover, until the White Men came, he was a
creature who was utterly defenceless, and one

whom no man had a mind to defend ; where-

198

In a Corner of Asia

fore, all these things combined to make the
Chinese *food for spears from the beginning/
to use the expressive Malay idiom.

But the Chinaman, poor fellow, must live
like other people, and since the provinces of
Southern China carry so large a population that
emigration is almost a necessity, in most of the
large Malay villages of the Peninsula, the shop
of at least one Celestial is to be found. He is
despised by those around him, but he makes
money ; he is an outcast, and knows it, but his
own passionate contempt for the Fan Kui —
the Foreign Devils — enables him to bear all
this with a certain amount of equanimity. He
is generally alone, and his only means of com-
munication with his fellow - creatures is a
la^nguage which he finds it quite impossible to
learn with any approach to accuracy. He has
no woman-kind of his own, and his pleasures
are chiefly confined to those which his opium
pipe can supply, but the fact that money is
being made is for him compensation for many
things. In a little space, half the village is in
his debt, and as the folk who owe him money
are bound to treat him with civility, he begins
to taste the sweets of power. H e uses it badly,
of course, for he hates all the villagers cordially.
He has no scruples, no heart, no mercy, no

morality, commercial or private. When the

199

■f < .^

The Overseas Library

men-folk are in the fields, or in the jungles
seeking gum and rattans, the women come to
the shop and either contract debts which they
and their husbands are powerless to meet, or
else beg for trifles for which sooner or later
the shopkeeper makes them pay in very full
measure. Thus, presently, half the women-
folk in the village are in the power of the
alien. Later, perhaps, some woman who has
learned to love and long for opium voluntarily
takes up her abode with the detested foreigner,
and her people, who are deeply in debt to him,
dare not protest.

To understand the whole horror of this, you
must realise that, to the Muhammadan, the
infidel man is a thing revoltingly unclean. His
touch is pollution, and the bare idea of an
intimacy arising between him and a woman of
the Faithful, is sufficient to fill a Malay with
loathing and disgust, to bring into being in
his heart passions even stronger than those
which in similar circumstances would be ex-
perienced by Europeans who saw their sisters
mated with negroes, or Australians who
witnessed the infatuation of a white woman
for a despised black fellow. The horror of
the thing is so great that, when such events
came to pass before the coming of the White
Men, a dead .Chinaman was almost invariably

200

In a Corner of Asi;

the result ; and if you have eyes to s
heart of the people, you will find litt
wonder that matters should be setl
rough and ready way. Now, ho'
impartial British Government, amon
strange caprices, insists upon lookin
life of a Chinaman in precisely the
as that in which it regards those of
and though the hatred and the ho
certain doings inspire in the Malays
altered, the old simple remedies car
be used with safety and convenience
This is one of the many ways in
higher civilisation has complicated ]
people of the land.

The village of Bukit S'Gumpal
three miles inland from the ban
Pahang River, at a point some ei
from the mouth. It consists of a
kampong perched upon low hills,
directly from the wide rice swami
feet. The houses are fashioned of
walls of bark or wattled bamboo, i
with palm-leaf thatch cut in the ne
jungles. Towering cocoanut trees,
palms of betel-nut, sugar and sago i
surround the houses, and the droop
and the branches of many fruit tree

,mmBmttmammmmmmmmm

The Overseas Library

the fierce sunshine, making the villages places
of perpetual coolness. In the rice swamps
below the villages things are different. During
half the year the fields He fallow, unsightly
stretches of muddy earth, cut up by low, broken-
down dams, and grown upon by rank grass,
on which the clay-stained herds of kine graze
listlessly. Then later, the buffaloes are driven
into pens, and are taken forth four at a time to
dance clumsily in the soft earth of the fields
until the soil has been kneaded into a quag-
mire. Meanwhile the dams that separate one
field from another, and retain the water in little
squares of irregular shape, are repaired carefully
with new sods and cakes of mud. Later still,
and the rice plants are transplanted from the
nurseries near the houses, and are planted out,
one by one, till the wide swamps are set
sparsely with little tender growths. Later yet,
and all the land is covered with an even coat-
ing of the purest green to be seen anywhere,
save only in an English meadow in the happy
springtime, and the folk who watch the grow-
ing crop fall to calculating the prospects of the
harvest, and weed the fields carefully, with
something dimly resembling energy. Then, if
so you desire, you may make acquaintance with
real heat. The sun lashes down upon the

broad expanses of swamp, in which the water

202

. ■' 1

In a Corner of Asia

is tepid to the touch ; on all sides there is sun-
glare, fierce, merciless, and not one square inch
of shade is to be found anywhere where the
rice is growing ; the green blades of the crop
rise around you waist-high, and the heat they
receive is multiplied exceedingly, and is tossed
back again to the brazen sky overhead ; no
cloud comes to your relief, save only a few thin
films of mist pale with heat, that sail across the
heavens robbing it of colour until all is achingly,
dazzlingly white ; and above the crop, as far as
the eye can see, to the black banks of forest in
the distance, the heat-haze dances like a rest-
less phantom.

It was near the edge of one of these rice-
fields that a party of Malay weeders, men and
women, were at work about mid-day in the
autumn months of 1897. They were all
dressed in upper garments of coarse cotton
stuff, dyed blue with indigo. The men wore
short trousers of bleached cotton, stained all
imaginable colours by much wear, and round
their waists were huddled the folds of their
sarongs. The women wore their skirts hanging
from waist to ankle, and beneath these their
loins were girt cunningly to protect them from
the assaults of the great horse-leeches with
which the rice-swamps abound. Both men and
women alike wore cotton sdrongs twisted

203

The Overseas Library

turban-wise about their heads, in such a manner
as to leave a thick pad of material on the top,
and a broad curtain of the stuff covering their
necks and the upper portion of their backs as
they stooped squatting at their work.

On a hill rising abruptly from the rice-
swamp, at a distance .of less than a hundred
yards from the weeders, the wattled walls of a
Chinese shop, built upon the bare ground, not
raised above it on piles as are all Malay dwell-
ings, showed yellow in the sunshine, for there
were no fruit trees to cast a grateful shade
around it. In this house, the weeders knew,
there was at this time a woman named Lunet,
a near relative of several of the men, own sister
to two of the stooping women. She had for
some months been living in concubinage with
the Chinese shopkeeper, Ah Si, and she had
turned a deaf ear to the pleadings and the
protests of her own people. She had fallen a
victim to the passion for opium, and the craving
for the drug was stronger than honour, the love
of her own folk, or the hope of eternal salva-
tion. Every one of the weeders owed money
to Ah Si, so it was not easy to remonstrate
with him. He could so very easily make
himself unpleasant. None the less, they
and all their fellow villagers took the matter
very much to heart. The shame which the

204

In a Corner of Asia

misconduct of their relation was bringing upon

them was very bitter, very hard to bear, and if

LAnet could have been slain by angry words

her days would have been few indeed. No

wonder that the older men among the villagers

murmured discontentedly against the White

Man's rule, saying that the kris was the

weapon designed from the beginning for the

solution of difficulties such as the present, and by

no other means could the * soot-grimed * face of

the community be cleansed from the shame that

LAnet and Ah Si had put upon it. Little marvel

that the party of weeders, as they glanced up at

the hut on the hill, growled their disapproval

and their hatred, in the intervals of their toil.

But that morning, while the villagers were

at work, with the mid-day sun casting little

round shadows about each huddled figure,

death, cruel and sudden, came to Lunet,

cutting her off in her sins. The weeders

reported that they heard her screams, and as

they ran to the hut, the men drawing their

knives, and the women whimpering at their

heels, they saw a Chinaman, named Lim

Chong, running from the door in the direction

of the jungle, with a chopper reeking with

blood in his right hand. The police soon got

upon the track of Lim Chong, and in due

course the man was arrested. The weeders

205

The Overseas Library

appeared as witnesses, and swore to what they
had seen. Two of the female witnesses were
sisters of the murdered woman ; the others
who gave testimony were all more or less
closely related to her. Lim Chong tried to
establish an alibiy but Ah Si and another
Chinaman, whom he called as his witnesses,
swore that they knew nothing concerning his
whereabouts upon the morning in question.
Accordingly, Lim Chong was committed for
trial, and was in due course sentenced to death.
The absence of the Sultan of Pahang in
Singapore, caused some delay in the ratification
of the sentence, and wlien the matter at length
came before the Council, rumours of foul play
had reached some of the members, and were
obscurely hinted at during the discussion
that ensued. No one would say anything
definite, nor could I learn from what sources
the information had been derived. It was
merely a rumour, I was told — a tale 'brought
by the passing wind, the flying bird, the flow-
ing stream ' — it might, or it might not be true.
Did I think it worth while to look into it.*^
Most emphatically I did consider it worthy of
inquiry ; so the discussion was postponed, and a
Malay detective despatched to Bukit S'Gumpal,
there to pick up the threads of the mystery.

He lived in the village for some weeks, but

206

In a Corner of Asia

he could hear no whisper concerning Liinet*s
murder, save only that it had been done by a
Chinese hawker named Lim Chong. Two or
three things, however, seemed to him to be
suspicious, and at last, weary of idling, he
declared himself, and insisted upon all the
witnesses in the trial accompanying him by
boat to the capital. They came without pro-
test at his bidding, for Malay villagers are
very docile folk, having been at the beck and
call of others for many generations, and on
their arrival at the capital a panic seized two
of the women witnesses. As a result, they
told all that they knew concerning the death
of their sister LAnet, and when once the long
silence had been broken, everyone of the
party vied with his fellows to reveal the truth.
Even Bakar, one of the witnesses against Lim
Chong, who had himself committed the crime,
confessed his guilt unreservedly.

It now became my pleasant duty to recom-
mend Lim Chong for the Sultan's pardon, and
as soon as the necessary documents had been
obtained, I went in person to the prison to tell
the poor fellow that evidence of his innocence
had at last been obtained. He listened to what
I had to say, quite calmly and dispassionately,
only remarking at intervals that he had always

said that he had not committed the murder, but

207

The Overseas Library

that everyone had refused to believe him.
Then, when I had done, he suddenly fell a
trembling, and burst into a passion of tears,
subsiding to the floor, where he sat rocking
his body to and fro, as though in pain. It is
the first and only time that I have seen a
Chinaman break down so uncontrollably.

Shortly after his release, his presence of
mind and his business instincts reasserted
themselves. He presented me with a long
bill, neatly made out in English. One of the
items, I remember, was as follows : — -

To one wife, abducted by man while in
captivity .... $200.

When I read this, I was much shocked at
what had occurred, but I was relieved to find
on inquiry that Lim Chong was not and never
had been a married man. In the East, there
are always little bits of comedy like this to be
found enlivening even the grimmest tragedies.
In the end, the Government presented Lim
Chorig with $1000, a sum which represented
untold wealth to one of his class and position,
and I have no hesitation in saying that, in spite
of the cruel mental torture to which he was
subjected during the period of his captivity,
he looks back upon the day of his arreston a
false charge as the most fortunate in his career.

At the second trial the real facts of the case

208

In a Corner of Asia

came to light, and these are worth relating,
because they throw some light upon the feel-
ings and the nature of the Malay villagers in
the quiet country places, and incidentally help
to prove how enormously difficult it may often
be to deal justly with those accused of crime,
upon unimpeachable evidence, in a land where
plans may be laid so carefully, may be carried
intQ execution with so much cold-blooded de-
liberation, and may thereafter be so completely
hidden by means of a secret, widely known, yet
faithfully kept.

The conduct of Lunet, as I have already
said, had formed the subject of much angry
talk in the village of Bukit S'Giimpal. Every
Malay in the place, from the Headman, PSng-
lima Rdja Akob, to the meanest peasant in the
village, had felt most keenly the shame that this
woman was putting upon them. Her conduct
was an outrage against religion, against custom
— which in Malayan lands is often far mightier
than the Faith-^against honour, and against the
credit and good name of all her folk. Protests,
remonstrances, angry abuse, had all been tried in
vain. Liinet declined to pay the slightest atten-
tion to the pleadings of her relatives. Later
entreaties were exchanged for advice and solemn
warnings, later still, and these were replaced by

threats. But still Liinet paid no heed.

o 209

■• ■■

The Overseas Library

Now of all the good people of Bukit S'G6m-
pal who were so exercised in mind at the sight
of Liinet's open profligacy, no man took the
matter more severely to heart than Bakar, a
native of a neighbouring State, who had settled
in the village, and had taken one of Lunet's
sisters to wife. According to accepted Malay
notions, he, not being a near blood relation,
should have been less aggrieved than many
others, but this was not Bakar^s view of the
situation. The opinion that Liinet stood in
need of a shroud and a coffin appears to have
been very generally held and expressed by the
villagers around her, and whenever the matter
was discussed in his presence, Bakar invariably
declared that one of these days he would be
forced to make the necessary arrangements
himself, unless some of LAnefs nearer relatives
decided to take the matter into their own hands,
and that quickly. His declaration was always
greeted with applause, and daily his loudly-
expressed resolve received some fresh encour-
agement. In the meantime, as is the way with
Malays on most occasions, everyone talked a
great deal, and no one did anything.

At last, on the morning which saw the party
of weeders stooping over their work in the
fields below the house, Bakar strolled through
the village with two men, relatives of Liinet's,

2IO

In a Corner of Asia

at his heels. He had again been boasting
loudly of his intention to kill Lunet On his
way to the house he met a third man named
Lembeh, and invited him to come and see the
deed done. Lembeh went, being encouraged
to do so by the two other men Rdsap and Sdpi.
Later he declared that he went because he
feared for his life should he refuse to accom-
pany Bakar, but I fancy there can be little
doubt that in truth he went ' to see the fun/

Arrived at the house, Rdsap, Sdpi and
Lembeh stood at the door, looking into the
single room which formed its interior. Ltinet
was alone, lying on the bunk or opium-bench.
She had a slight attack of fever which confined
her to her bed. Bakar walked quietly up to her,
seized her by her long hair, as she sat up to greet
him, pulled her face upwards across his knee,
and cut her throat from ear to ear with his long,
keen wood-knife. LAnet gave one scream, loud
enough to be heard by the workers in the rice-
swamp, and then subsided in a limp heap upon
the floor of the hut. Bakar at once went out
into the open air, and told the weeders, who
came running up to inquire, what he had done.
Some of the women sobbed and whimpered fur-
tively, but the public opinion, as represented by
this little knot of villagers, was in Bakar's favour.
Soon the weeders returned to their toil, Bakar

211

Library

S4pi and R^lsap
ob, the Headman,
ad occurred,
adman that is the
■y sordid tragedy,
ig one of the best
lang, a reputation
srtainly justified ;

proved courage ;
red monthly from
lat was ample for
dealings with his
distinguished as
— to him the pro-
II headmen to the
> own young, had
was a man of the
:ed to be, and his
were the same as
lim. It has been
eneral discontent
Dnduct. He re-
jle act of justice,

manners of the
t the Government
Murder had been
found wherewith
ice of the White
ght, in PlJiglima

In a Corner of Asiia

Rdja Akob's opinion, and it was out of the
question that he should be that victim. There-
jfore, in order to prevent what he regarded as an
^t of injustice by which Bakar would suffer, the
Pllngltma decided to arrange for a little act of in-
fustice on his own account, the only loser by which
should be a Chinaman, a person of no importance.

Fate, who had a mind to make Lim Chong a
rich man at the expense of the suffering Pahang
Grovernment, had sent that simple hawker
irandering through the village of B^kit S'GCUn-
tol upon the day immediately preceding the
Oiurder, and since he was friendless and un-
known, while Ah Si, the shopkeeper, had
friends as well as enemies in the land, Lim
Chong seemed to PJtngltma R4ja Akob to be as
heaven-sent a victim as did the bramble-tram-
melled ram to Abraham of old. All the eye-
witnesses to the murder, all the weeding party
who had seen Bakar while his hands were still
red, all the folk to whom they had passed the
news of what had occurred, were summoned to
the Chiefs house, and there they received the
instructions as to what they were to say to the
J White Men — orders which they subsequently
■ obeyed to the letter.

At the time of the murder, Lim Chong was

a mile or two distant with Ah Si and another

Chinaman, but these worthies had a wholesome

213

The Overseas Library

fear of the Malays — a sentiment very common
among their countrymen in the Peninsula— and
though they knew that their friend was being
accused of a crime which it was impossible that
he could have committed, and though the
woman who had been killed had been, in a
manner, dear to Ah Si, neither he nor his
fellow would own to any knowledge concerning
Lim Chongs whereabouts upon the day in
question. In spite of his despairing entreaties
to them to say that they knew that he had been
far from the scene of the crime at the moment
of its perpetration, they both remained stolidly
indifferent, and swore that they had no ac-
quaintance with the unfortunate man. Never,
perhaps, has the cruel callousness, the cold-
bloodedness, and the utter heartlessness of the
craven-spirited Chinese codlie been better or
more strikingly illustrated.

When the truth came out, Bakar was sen-
tenced to death, Panglima Rdja Akob to im-
prisonment for life, and R4sap and Sipi to long
terms of incarceration. Bakar, the man who had
found it so easy to kill a defenceless woman in cold
blood, went to the gallows screaming for mercy,
proving at the last that he was a cur at heart, a
striking contrast to most Malays, who when their
time comes, look a violent death calmly in the
face, unflinchingly, with a smile upon their lips.

214

ALFRED HUXLEY'S :

' As I ride, as I ride,
With a full heart for my gui<
So its tide rocks my side,
As I ride, as I nde,
That, as I were double-eyed,
He, in whom our Tribes coc
Is descried, ways untried,
As I ride, as I ride.'

Through the Metidja to .

ALFRED HUXLEY, the d
stood on his verandah si
telegram in his hand. For a mo
giddy, and the landscape, seen bel
chicks, danced and reeled in a n
was not wholly due to the heat-
which he looked upon it. Then 1
the piece of coarse paper with ner
fingers, and thrust it into his pock
The little Tamil telegraph peon,
cap surmounting the ill-kept hair v
in a chignon, stood before him,
bare foot across the instep of tl
watching the white man furtively
knew nearly all the news that i
time came rapping along the ^

The Overseas Library

operator, like most of his kind in Asia, was an
incorrigible gossip. Natives, too, are far better
informed concerning the private business of
their *white neighbours than most Europeans
find it convenient to believe, and though the
peon s face was innocent of all expression, he
was in reality watching the doctor with amused
curiosity, and would presently record his im-
pressions for the benefit of the operator with
unfettered coarseness and much unconscious
humour. Most people, white and brown alike,
knew a good deal about Alfred Huxley's
troubles, and the knowledge that this was so
often made "the young doctor wince when he
was alone ; and since the telegram was calcu-
lated to touch up an old sore shrewdly, the
telegraph peon felt that he had a right to find
some interest in the situation. The sight of
pain and suffering is always attractive to a large
number of minds of the lower order, and in this
the eternal East differs little from the mush-
room West.

The telegram was very short : —

* Wife dying for want of a surgeon. Nurse
can do nothing. Bring instruments.

*^ Archer.'

Alfred Huxley's lean, hungry, nervous face

218

In a Corner of Asia

was working and twitching spasmodically, as
though the muscles and tendons yf^-^- V"*-;""-
jerked from the back of his head
unseen hand. His eyes roamed wi
stared before him stupidly, fixed vag
nothing in particular. His lips were ;
parting and closing tightly. He pi
self together with a strong effort, a
hurriedly towards his bedroom. His i
arrested by the insinuating voice of tl

'The T^n has not signed the
said.

Huxley turned back angrily, and
his initials across the bottom of t
paper which the peon held out to hi
once more, with the same hurried
turned towards his bedroom. Again
of the peon stopped him.

' Is there no answer .■' '

Huxley swore aloud. Then he
his watch. It wanted a quarter of ;
mid-day — the burning, blazing, pitile:
the Malay Peninsula. It would ta
quarter of an hour to make his prt
and then a good eight hours to rej
Bram, where Mrs Archer lay dying
of a surgeon's aid — eight hours for eij
twenty of them up the stiff grade of
tain side. He made the calculation

;(

The Overseas Library

ally as he turned towards the writing-table on
the verandah. Then he seated himself and
wrote a telegram,

* Will be with you by eight o'clock.

* Huxley.'

The pencilled characters, written by the hand
that shook so violently, straggled untidily over
the rough, cheap paper. Huxley threw his
message to the waiting peon, who caught it
deftly. * Take that to the office/ he said, over
his shoulder, as he once more strode across the
verandah towards his bedroom.

As he entered the door he shouted again
and again to his * boy.' He continued to shout
mechanically, with short intervals for swearing,
while he made his preparations for departure
with feverish eagerness, but no one answered
his summons. His servants, as is the way of
the people who tend bachelors in these Eastern
lands, had all sneaked off to the bazaar, and
not a soul was within ear-shot. Huxley threw
off the white duck suit which he was wearing,
exchanging it for a dust-coloured pair of Khaki
trousers, which had seen much service in jungle
and snipe - swamp, wriggled into a rasping
flannel shirt, stiff and rough from the ungentle
treatments which it had received at the hands

220

In a Corner of Asia

of the station dhobiy drew on a pair of very
badly-whitened canvas shoes, crammed a big
sun-hat on to his head, and so arrayed, rushed
out into the verandah, sweating at every pore.
He had dressed in so frenzied a hurry that his
haste had but served to delay him, and his
clothes looked as though they had been thrown
on to his back with a pitchfork. He seized
his bicycle, and lifting it clear from off the floor,
carried it down the steps that led from the
verandiah to the ground. He then made the
discovery that his trousers were showing a
violent eagerness to slip over his hips, and he
had to run back into his bedroom for his leather
belt, returning presently, strapping it round his
waist as he ran. He felt the pneumatic tyres
of his machine and found that they were slack,
and cursing mechanically, he set to work to
inflate them. The operation took him far
longer than was in any wise necessary, for his
excitement made him lack steadiness of hand
and eye, but at length the rubber stood up firm
and round, refusing to yield to his testing thumb.
He leaped on to his bicycle, and then back to
the ground again, and rushed back into his
bedroom. He had forgotten his hold-all. The
litter of clothes which, in his eagerness, he had
scattered up and down his room, on chairs, bed
and floor, concealed the bag from sight, and

221

The Overseas Library

before he succeeded in finding it, he had reduced
the already disordered room to an absolute
wreck. He ran out into the fierce sun-glare
once more, and strapped the hold-all on to the
backbone of his bicycle. Then he mounted
into the saddle, and rode at a break-neck pace
to the little hospital which stood a few hundred
yards down the white road. A sleepy totie
and a very wide-awake Tamil dresser answered
his call, and soon the oak box containing the
shining instruments was safely stowed away in
the hold-all, and Huxley, scorching up the road
with his face towards Ku4la Bram, thanked
God that he was fairly on his way at last.

It seemed to him that whole aeons of time
had elapsed since the telegram reached him,
and his preparations for departure had been
begun, yet as he flew past the gates of the
police barracks, the mid-day bugle, blown by a
small Sikh boy, puffing for all he was worth,
with distended cheeks and a sublime disregard
for tune, screamed discordantly through the
still, hot air. Huxley, without slackening his
pace, looked at the watch which he carried in
a pouch at his belt. Yes, it was just twelve
o'clock, and he had eight hours in which to cover
the distance that separated his station from KuAla
Bram — eighty miles to traverse in the time, if
his promise to the Archers was to be fulfilled.

222

In a Corner of Asia

Huxley leaned forward and ra
blazing highway, little whirling spur
like dust leaping up and dancin
with one another at the tail of his
He missed a clumsy bullock-cart (
fraction, passed like a flash betwe
strolling Chinese coolies, stone (
sound of his warning bell ; was force
speed and swerve dangerously to a
half dozen native urchins, tanned
with hair in frowsy, tattered tui
yellow by the sun, who were makii
out of arid and unpromising mate
centre of the road ; and yelling hii
to warn the heedless, passed dash
the crowds of natives like the onset (
and vanished down the road, leavin
hubbub of shrill voices, laughter a
late protest in his wake.

In a few minutes he had won
native town, and as he saw the '.
road, achingly, glaringly white, lyir
before him, like a solid sunbeam,
eyes, he increased the already furi
which he was riding. In the tumult
to which he was a prey, Huxley foi
ing delight in the desperate pace,
relief in the exertion and the actioi
comfort in the knowledge that each

The Overseas Library

treadles brought him nearer to Ku&la Bram.
Presently he reached the parting of the ways ;
the road which he had been following wriggling
away through the low scrub jungle, to run on
and on up the West Coast of the Peninsula,
the other to his right heading directly for the
main range. A dozen miles or so away, dead
in front of him as he changed the direction
of his journeying, Huxley could see the un-
dulating lines of the mountain tops, with the
trees that crowned them making a jagged fret-
work against the paleness of the white-hot sky.
The hills, seen from a distance of a dozen miles,
showed a faint, even blue, soft and smoky ;
here and there, on a spur that ran forward into
the plain, the individual trees that covered the
slopes of the forest-clad uplands could be seen
with marvellous distinctness through the clear
air; the whole range seemed to dance and
shimmer restlessly in the heat-haze. Huxley
looked at the mountains, and his lips set
tightly. The road, he knew, wound up and
up and over the great barrier before him. He
felt like a soldier brought for the first time into
the presence of the enemy whom it was his
business to overcome. Then he breasted the
rise, steadying his pace somewhat, for the set
of the grade against him suddenly shortened
his breathing, and seemed to double the weight

224

In a Corner of Asia

of the machine. The road ran through low
secondary growth, young jungle that had sprung
up and lived riotously on land that for a brief
season had been made to yield a crop to some
indolent Malay, whose energy was not equal to
the prolongation of the strife which he had
thoughtlessly begun with Nature. Here and
there a coffee garden, the plants half smothered
for lack of weeding, bearing witness unmistak-
ably to their native ownership, swarmed up a
hillside, and fell headlong into big jungle a
' few hundred yards away. A roadside shop,
with clusters of yellow bananas strung across
the window on lines of rattan, five or six bottles
of * strop' — sickly sweet syrup, manufactured
from unimaginable nastinesses — and an indolent
crowd of loafers, lolling clumsily on a rude and
comfortless bench, flashed past Huxley as he
breasted the slope. A neat cottage in a trim
garden, carefully fenced, marked the spot where
a party of Javanese road coolies had their
home, for these folk are never happy unless
they have reared around them some clusters of
the flowers for which they have so real and so
instinctive a love. Presently, as Huxley whirled
along, a dirty cluster of thatched coolie-lines,
inhabited by grease and dung-smeared Tamils,
naked save for their foul loin-clouts, sprung up
on either side of the white road, and he passed
P 225

The Overseas Library

between the rows of uneven buildings to an
accompaniment of many nameless odours, while
the lean curs scuttled out of his way, snarling
angrily, with tails pressed tightly between their
legs. The first flight of the foot-hills was
reached in about half an hour, and here the
road ran downward for a mile, so Huxley,
panting gently, threw his feet on to the rests,
and let his bicycle spin away, carried forward at
a delightful pace by the impetus acquired by its
own weight. He was beginning to leave the
secondary jungle, and the forest which now rose
up abruptly on either hand showed little sign
of having been tormented by man. The great
trees raced back towards the station which
Huxley had left behind him, all appearing to
lean hurriedly forward as they ran. Five or
six hundred feet below him the tumbled waters
of the river fought their way through a narrow
gorge, warring noisily with the serried ranks of
boulders that seemed to dispute every inch of
their passage. A great jungle crow, with rusty
red plumage and a black unlovely head, sprang
up out of some clusters of long grass, and
swinging clumsily on one great waving stem,
cried ^ Baby bab, bab,' discordantly, as Huxley
flew past. The bicycle, unchecked by brake or
peddle, bounded forward, the wheels whizzing
round eagerly, the whole machine appearing to

226

In a Corner of Asia

be endowed with life ; and Huxley, his lips
parted, his breath coming rather short, sweat
pouring from his face and drenching his clothes,
sat firmly on the saddle, grateful for the
momentary rest, and finding the air, which
blew so coolly against his cheeks, as he
plunged through it, wonderfully refreshing and
invigorating.

The road wound down hill, turning and
twisting, and almost unconsciously the fingers
on the handles of the bicycle guided its course,
so that it flew round each sweeping corner as
though it chose its way of its own accord, un-
aided by its rider. Presently the river gleamed
brightly under the white's man's feet, as the
bicycle flew across the wide wooden bridge that
spanned it near the bottom of the slope, and
half a mile up stream, Alfred could see the
yellow earth upturned by a gang of Chinese
miners, their blue-cIad figures swarming up and
down the notched tree-trunks that served them
as ladders, like strings of ants running to and
fro around their nest. The river crossed, the
road wound up and up again, with here and
there a short steep pitch down which the bicycle
sped merrily. The grade was about one in
thirty, not very steep, but extremely persistent,
and each mile made Huxley more and more

conscious of the weight of his machine and of

227

The Overseas Library

the hold-all hanging bound between his knees.
The river tumbled, and boiled, and foamed,
and swore down below him in the valley ; the
road ran up the edge of the narrow gorge,
skirting it giddily ; the eternal forest, still,
splendid, majestic, rose on every side,
mysterious and impenetrable ; the mountains,
climbing up and up upon one another's shoul-
ders, seemed to reach to the sky, for Huxley
had to strain his head backwards to catch a
glimpse of the crests overhead ; and up the
dusty road, amid all this splendour and prodigal
magnificence, the white man toiled painfully,
kicking his machine revolution by revolution
towards the summit of the pass. The last
village on the western slope came into view
at about a quarter past one o'clock, and Huxley
crawled past the untidy hovels on the roadside,
and drew up at the little police station, stand-
ing in a bare compound, distinguished from its
neighbours by its roof of red tiles.

A blue-clad Malay constable brought him a
drink of ice-cold water in a glass, that had been
cunningly fashioned from an old whisky bottle
by breaking off the upper portion, and after he
had drunk greedily, Huxley asked the police-
man how much further it was to the pass, and
what was the nature of the road.

* It is fourteen milestones from this place/

228

In a Corner of Asia

said the constable. ' And the T^dan must climb,
and climb, and climb, all the way.'

*Is none of it down hill?' asked Huxley,
rather hopelessly.

* Sin ! Pig's flesh ! . Poison ! ' exclaimed the
policeman, with emphasis. He wished to
convey that if there were an inch of descent
between the station and the pass he would be
prepared to sin, to eat of the accursed meat,
arid to suffer himself to be poisoned without
protest. Being a Malay, however, his energy
was not equal to the task of filling in his
sentence with all the parts of speech requisite
for the proper conveyance of the above senti-
ment ; therefore, he contented himself with the
substantives, and trusted to the tone in which
he pronounced them to prevent any misunder-
standing as to his meaning.

With something like a groan, Huxley re-
mounted his machine, and began the weary
plod up hill. The road skirted gorge after
gorge, twisting and twining round the sides of
the mountains, spanning with tiny bridges the
little bustling mountain streams that came leap-
ing and bounding downwards from the upland
springs, and climbing up and up and up,
steadily, heartlessly, relentlessly. Every now
and again Huxley, looking upwards, would see

the white road line twisting through the

229

The Overseas Library

greenery hundreds of feet above him, and
almost despairingly he would ask himself
whether it were possible for him to lug his
machine to such a height, and then would
press doggedly at the treadles with straining
legs and bowed shoulders. Later he would
look down and mark the spot from which he
had attained the height, wondering that he had
climbed it successfully, and wondering, too,
whether he had the strength for many more
such ascents. He was not conscious of being
out of breath, but his heart leaped, and bumped,
and jerked, and throbbed, playing a dull tattoo
against his ribs. The blood sang noisily in his
ears. His body, though drenched with sweat,
felt cold and numb. But still he plodded on,
A splendid waterfall dancing down the moun-
tain-side, and vanishing in a hissing, splashing
torrent of broken water into the culvert that
bore it under the road, called to him to stop
and rest, to bathe his head and arms, to cease
for a moment the hopeless struggle. But still
he plodded on. The cool mountain air blew
about his face, in strong contrast to the fevered
breath of the plain which he had left behind
him only an hour or two ago. It should have
been refreshing, invigorating ; instead, it seemed
to pierce him to the bone, to make him limp
and weak, while the wild leaping of his heart

230

In a Corner of Asia

against his ribs made his eyes heavy as with
sleep, so that he longed to stretch himself to
rest upon the ground. But still he plodded on.
He did not dare look at his watch. He felt
that it would tell him that he had as yet only
accomplished but a small portion of his journey.
Such knowledge, he felt, would fill him with
despair, and might, perhaps, rob him of the
power to press forward, so he did not touch
the pouch that felt so heavy against his aching
side. And doggedly, unflinchingly, he plodded
on. It seemed to him that the man who was
driving the bicycle up that endless slope was
not himself, but some other poor devil, whom
he, Alfred Huxley, was cruelly forcing to per-
form the labour for which he was physically
incapacitated. He felt a deep pity for the un-
fortunate creature, a pity, however, that was not
in any way inclined to mercy ; and so, despair-
ingly, heartlessly, he plodded painfully forward.
The sweat trickled down his face and body, but
he was conscious of no warmth, rather the
perspiration seemed to be clammy and cold
like that which had damped his forehead, he
remembered, when the sight of his first opera-
tion had turned him sick and giddy. His eyes
began to swim, seeing things dimly, unsteadily,
with diflSculty ; and his heart leaped and bounded
more furiously than before. But still, by a

231

The Overseas Library

strong effort of will, he plodded doggedly
onwards.

Presently he found himself repeating words
mechanically, while only half conscious of their
meaning.

* And does the road wind up hill all the way ? '

* Yes, to the very end ! *

* And does the journey last the live long day ? '

* From morn to night, my Friend ! '

Over and over again the words repeated
themselves aimlessly in his tired head, becom-
ing inextricably entangled with the motion of
his machine — part of himself and it. *And
does the road ' (plunging kick at the descending
treadle) ' wind up hill alV (despairing shove with
the left toe) * the way ? ' . . . What a weight
the machine was ! . * Yes, to the very end ! '
(Push it home, push it home, force that treadle
earthwards !) * And does the jour- (The beast
is disputing every inch of the way !) ney last
the live long day ? ' (That sent it round !)
* From morn to night ' (another despairing
thrust at the obstinate wheel) * my Friend ! '
And so once more, and then again, and then
again, eternally.

* Tm getting very done,' Huxley whispered

to himself. His words, spoken aloud, seemed

to be very faint and distant, and the buzzing in

his ears deadened their sound. * I'm getting

232

In a Corner of Asia

awfully done, but I won't give in. It is a little
thing compared with what she must be suffer-
ing. And it is for Her ... for Her ! * He
repeated the words again and again, as though
the thought they brought to his weakened
memory would nerve him for the struggle that
was fast proving too much for him.

Then, as his limbs worked on and on, each
effort more painful, more terribly against the
grain than the last, his mind went wandering
off into the past, and the old agony, that was
never wholly still within him, wrung his soul
afresh, acting somewhat after the manner of an
anaesthetic, making faint for the moment the
aching of his limbs, and the violent palpitations
of his heart.

He recalled the time when the merry sun-
light of the Peninsula took to itself a new
meaning, when the chorus of the bird-folk at
early morning sang songs to him, the inter-
pretation of which had never before been
revealed to his listening ears, when all the
world was glad and sweet, and good to live in,
because a wonderful thing had come into his
life. Alfred Huxley had seen little enough of
women during his student days, and very soon
after he had taken his degrees, he had come
out to the East, where he had mostly been

stationed in out-of-the-way places, shunned by

233

The Overseas Library

ladies, like badly-made frocks and unbecoming
lights. Then suddenly fever had shaken the
life out of one of his superiors at head-
quarters, and Huxley had been sent for from
the jungles where he had found a solid, mono-
tonous sort of happiness, to the little gpssiping
Eastern town, where folk lived through a
sort of perpetual Canterbury Week, with the
thermometer hovering about ninety in the
shade of the deep verandahs. Huxley had
very reluctantly unpacked bis tweed clothes,
had replenished his almost vanished wardrobe,
and, as in duty bound, had taken his share of
the * afternoon gentility,' the laborious and per-
spiring sociability that men consider due to
their high civilisation in the tiny but self-
important little capitals of the Peninsula.
Then, since he had been long in banishment
from people of his own caste, the young doctor
fell into a well, after the manner of other oxen
and asses. I n other words he fell hopelessly in
love with Mary Chalmers, the only daughter of
a high official, who ruled over a department
that he was for ever confusing in his mind with
a kingdom. Miss Chalmers was a pretty girl,
and as such had many admirers, but she was
also a girl of brains, and it was this even more
than her beauty that fascinated the young
doctor. She had read a great deal, and talked

234

In a Corner of Asia

well upon many subjects. Moreover, she had
the gift of sympathy and understanding which
enables a woman to enter whofe-heartedly into
the thoughts of those about her ; and Huxley,
whose solitude had made him silent when
among his^own people, found himself talking, as
he had never talked before, to this girl with
the deep, true eyes, and the kind, sweet face.
When with her he found himself always at his
best ; was surprised to hear words coming from
his lips which he knew to be better worth
listening to than those of his comrades in the
stupid little town ; and, loving the girl with all
his soul, he had brought himself to believe that
Mary returned his love. The dream had been
a brilliant one while it lasted, making all
Alfred's world a fairyland, and the awakening
had been all the more cruel in consequence.
With incredulous horror Huxley learned that
Miss Chalmers was about to marry Mr Archer,
an official who occupied a position even higher
than that of her father, a big man with a sharp,
brusque manner, masterful, and, as Alfred
thought, cruel almost to savagery. Mary
Chalmers, however, was fascinated by Archer,
mistaking, perhaps, roughness for strength, and
selfishness for manly independence, and it was
plain to everyone that she worshipped the
very ground he trod upon with his great,

235

The Overseas Library

thickly-shod feet. Then it was that Huxley
committed an unpardonable offence. In spite
of the certainty of his defeat, he told Mary of
his love for her, and though she was kinder
than many would have been in similar cir-
cumstances, Huxley came away from his last
interview with her more miserable than he had
hitherto conceived it possible for a human
being to be. Since then he had not seen her
at all. He had avoided all chances of meeting
her during the weeks that he still remained at
the capital, and shortly afterwards he had been
sent back to his own jungle district, some older
man having been found to take the place which
death had left vacant. Archer, soon after his
marriage, was appointed to the charge of a State
on the eastern slope of the Peninsula, and the
first and only communication that Huxley had
had with him since he went to live at Kudla
Bram was the telegram that was now sending
him struggling over the main range. The dis-
trict surgeon, who should have been at Kudla
Bram, had recently been sent away to Europe,
rotten with dysentery, and Archer had not con-
sidered it necessary to send for a special doctor
to attend Mrs Archer in her trouble ; a nurse,
he thought, would suffice. Now, so Alfred
gathered from the telegram, the case had

proved itself to be beyond the nurse's skill, and

236

In a Corner of Asia

•

with how much reluctance he could well im-
agine, Archer had decided upon calling Huxley
to the aid of his dying wife. That he had done
so, proved to Alfred more clearly than aught
else how urgent must be the need. Therefore,
in spite of failing strength and a wildly gallop-
ing heart, he plodded doggedly onwards.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon when
Huxley saw the red-tiled roofs of the Govern-
ment buildings and the dusty browns and yellows
of the native hovels, thatched with palm-leaves,
reeling tipsily before his swimming eyes. This,
he knew, was the summit ; and through the
narrow gap in the mountains came an ice-cold
gust of wind to greet him. On every side the
mountains rose, tumbled pall-mall one above
the other, each one so close that in the clear air
it seemed as though Huxley had but to put
out his hand to touch its forest-clad slopes.
Every tree-top was seen distinctly, with its
wealth of branch and leaf, each with its own
peculiar shade of green or bronze or yellow or
red or rust-colour. Very far away, thousands
of feet below him, Huxley could see the hot,
moist expanses of jungle-covered plain, over
which a fine blue mist, half damp, half distance,
hovered like a thin fog.

A little blue-clad Malay constable tumbled
hastily down the stairs of the police station, and

The Overseas Library

did his best to look as though he had, in truth,
been standing sentry from the first — a duty
which he and his fellows regarded as a super-
stitious practice of the White Man, with which
they found themselves completely out of
sympathy.

Huxley did not halt for a moment. No
sooner had the sudden removal of the weight
of the bicycle from his aching legs told him
that the grade was at last in his favour, than
he set his feet upon the coasters, and let the
machine have its own way. With a sort of
buck, as though glad to find itself released, the
bicycle shook itself free, and leaped forward
, down the slope. The road wound down and
down, with many sinuous twists and curves,
skirting the side of the mountain, with one vast
bank of vegetation climbing up and up on the
one hand, and with another similar slope of
jungle dipping down and down into the gorge
where a stream pattered noisily. The bicycle
whirled downwards with ever-increasing pace,
bounding rather than revolving, and creating
such a wind in its passage that Huxley feared
to be blown from his seat. The shocks which
the violent contact of the machine with the
ground communicated to Huxley's arms through
the mediumship of his handle-bars, ran up his

taut muscles to the shoulders, numbing his whole

238

In a Corner of Asia

body. He clung desperately, impotently, to the
machine, his eager, Red Indian face strained
with excitement and anxiety, his eyes, puckered
against the wind, fix^d keenly on the track
ahead of him, staring intently through his con-
tracted eyelids. His lips were parted slightly,
and his breath came in quick, short pants. But
he made no effort to check the desperate speed.
It mattered little to him, he thought wildly,
if death should chance to come to him in the
guise of a broken neck, and each turn of the
scampering wheels brought him nearer and
nearer to Mary. The mad palpitations in his
breast increased rather than diminished, and he
felt almost light-headed, all sorts of incongruous
memories of days long past and dead, of in-
cidents that had happened when he was a child
in short frocks, of the little troubles of his
school days, of half holiday afternoons long
since forgotten, came crowding into his mind.
The bicycle whirled on and on. Curve after
curve, and bend after bend was swept round at
a headlong pace, the machine canting danger-
ously at every turn. In little more than ten
minutes the fifth milestone whizzed past, a
dwarfed white ghost standing aside to let him
by; and immediately afterwards, Huxley
plunged round a corner to find a clumsy bullock-
cart almost across the road. There were about

239

The Overseas Library

two feet of space between the near wheels and
the edge of a precipice which dropped sheer
down several hundred feet to the granite
boulders in the stream below. Frank aimed
for it desperately. He had a vision, instan-
taneous but distinct, like a view seen by the
glare of a flash of lightning, of a sleepy Tamil,
with a scared black face, rearing himself up from
out of the red cloth in which he had been rolled
in the bottom of his cart, his thin, eager hands
tugging aimlessly at the cord reins ; of great
rough wheels turning slowly ; of two dirty white
bullocks with lowered heads, in which the
nostrils showed scarlet, and the eyes placid and
beastlike ; and then on the side of the nearer
there suddenly came into being a huge red
gash, that ripped along the smooth hide
and emitted torrents of crimson fluid. The
bicycle reeled, waddled perilously, nearly un-
seating its rider, and then flew forward upon its
way, the off treadle dripping blood. Huxley's
throbbing heart came lolloping up into his
gullet, at the nearness of the danger and the
narrowness of his escape, until in his dazed
state he half expected to see it come flying out
from between his lips. But the sight, at very
close quarters, of the grim face of Death, sudden
and precipitate, had sobered him ; and, as he
whirled on down the grade, the thought came

240

In a Corner of Asia

to him that Mary's well-being hung, for that
one day, upon his continued existence. There-
fore, he began to apply his brake, and though
the jarring of the lever sent showers of * pins
and needles ' flying up his arms to his shoulder
joints, the headlong speed of the machine began
to slacken, and, for the first time since he had left
the divide, he felt that his bicycle was once more
under his control. Still he dashed downwards
at a fiery pace, and presently the chill, fresh air
of the mountains — which ever seems to the
sojourner in the plains of Asia to have some-
thing so indescribably clean and pure about it
— began to be exchanged for the steaming
warmth of the hot, damp lowlands. He passed
strings of clumsy bullock-carts, and more than
once he had to dismount to avoid a destructive
collision. But he was up and off again down
the white road, almost before he was conscious
of having checked the progress of his machine.
At a quarter before four o'clock, he whirled past
the first police station on the Eastern side of the
Peninsula, and entered the forest beyond. The
road was level now, and once more his feet had
to do their share of the work, but after the long
rest which the descent had given them, they
appeared to move mechanically, without con-
scious effort. He had covered the last fourteen
miles in three quarters of an hour, and he heaved
Q 241

The Overseas Library

a sigh of relief as he remembered that half his
journey, and the whole of the severe hill-climb-
ing was over and done with. His road still
skirted a brawling little mountain stream, and
every now and again he caught a glimpse of a
long reach of troubled water, fretting around
great blocks and jagged boulders of granite, a
torrent of bronze and olive-colour flowing be-
neath an arching canopy of heavy foliage. Half
a dozen miles further on Huxley passed through
a big mining village and stopped for a few
minutes to drink deeply of bottled beer,
which was offered for sale at a Chinese shop.
Then he mounted his bicycle, and once more
pushed forward in the direction of Kudla Bram.
For a mile or two he continued to thread the
vast Malayan forest, through which the even-
song of the birds was beginning to ring. Then
the road passed out of the shady places, and ran
for a dozen miles through a narrow valley,
covered with coarse grass, wild rhododendrons,
and low, sparse brushwood. Here and there
a native village, marked from afar by the crests
of the coco-nut and betel palms, sat sleepily on
the bank of a lazy stream ; the bright, intense
green of the growing rice splashed the plain
with wide washes of colour ; and herds of water-
buffaloes trooped with leisurely gait towards the

river, squeaking plaintively.

242

In a Corner of Asia

Later, the grassy country was exchanged for
the valley of the Bram, where the villages and
rice-fields clustered closely about the banks of
a beautiful river, that spread out into wide
shallows, set with yellow sand-banks, and then
contracted once more into narrower compass,
to plunge headlong down a granite-bound rapid,
below which it once more opened out to saunter
lazily along its bed.

Huxley ran down the banks of the Bram for
some ten miles, and flew across the great
masonry bridge that spanned it below the rapids,
just as the dusk was coming, and the noisy
chorus of bird and insect, that had almost
deafened his ears during the last hour was
dying down, its place being taken by the
myriad lesser sounds that together make the
music of the long, cool night in the quiet jungle
places. A faint moon was swimming through
the cloud banks overhead, and by its pale light
Huxley continued his way, painfully, laboriously.
He was very faint and spent. His heart still
palpitated savagely, and he felt sick and ill, but
still he struggled on. He knew that only some
fifteen miles now lav between him and his
journey's end, and the thought nerved him to
a final effort.

The long, straight road spread on and on in
front of him, pale and dim in the veiled moon-

243

The Overseas Library

light ; on either hand the vast black masses of
jungle rose above him, gigantic and grotesque,
like threatening shadows cast by the mysterious
beings of some other world ; a little star peeped
out of the clouds and winked at him derisively,
mocking his pain ; an argus pheasant, some-
where in the jungle across, the river, hooted
musically to its mate, and the plaintive howl
was echoed from half-a-dozen neighbouring hill-
tops ; and on every side, the insects, in their
thousands, whizzed, and ticked, and whirred
ceaselessly.

As the moonlight brightened, the white mile-
stones by the roadside showed rapidly diminishing
numbers, then single figures, then a five, a four,
a three, a two. The wattled walls of the houses
of the station which straggled out over the road
came into view ; then the high fence of a gaol ;
a Sikh barracks roofed with corrugated iron,
looking white in the moonlight ; the big block
of Government offices ; and lastly in the near
distance the house which, so it seemed to
Huxley, had been in his mind's eye ever since
he left his own home. The young doctor
scrambled down off the saddle of his machine,
leaning heavily upon the bicycle as he rested it
against the steps of the verandah, and, leaving^
it, staggered up into the hall. The big clock
half way up the staircase chimed the three

244

In a Corner of Asia

quarters, and Huxley felt a faint throb of pride
in the fact that he was full fifteen minutes before
his promised time.

Archer came hurrying down the stairs, and
shook him perfunctorily by the hand.

*Come up,* he said. * We've been having
the devil of a time. I tell you a man does not
know what he's letting himself in for when he
commits matrimony. Come up and see what
can be done. No, don't stay to change your
clothes, there's no time to be lost'

Huxley reeled to the doorway, and thence
crawled back down the steps to his bicycle.
With trembling fingers he unbuckled the straps
of his hold-all. Carrying it with difficulty, as
a man might lift a weight which strained his
every muscle, he once more made his way into
the hall, and began with pain and difficulty to
follow his host up the steep stairs. On the first
landing he dropped the hold-all, and reeled
tipsily against the balusters. H is face was drawn
and grey, his mouth twitched nervously, his right
hand was pressed convulsively to his left side,
the fingers of his disengaged hand scrabbled at
the wooden wall aimlessly, his breath came in
hard, short sobs, through lips that were the
colour of ashes. The whole staircase upon
which he stood seemed to be whirling round
and round dizzily, and the sound of Archer's

245

The Overseas Library

imperious voice calling to him, in evident irri-
tation at bis delay, came to his ears faint and
distant, like a cry from another world. Then,
almost as suddenly as it had come, the
paroxysm passed away, and picking up his
hold-all, he crawled with lagging feet up the
remaining stairs.

In the bedroom Mrs Archer lay stretched
upon the sheets, beneath the looped-up
mosquito-net, her open eyes staring blindly
at the linen canopy from which the curtain
depended. She was either in a faint, or un-
conscious through the influence of some power-
ful anaesthetic. The air of the room was
heavy and sickly with the fumes of chloroform
and disinfectants. As Huxley looked at the
prostrate figure the giddiness of a moment
before seemed to return to him, and all his
love and longing for the girl, the passion which
he had restrained so firmly, which he had
struggled with so bravely for months, surged
up anew in his breast, wringing him with the
old tortufe, the old humiliation, the old despair.

The white-clad nurse stepped across the
matted floor on noiseless slippered feet, greet-
ing the doctor with that confidential air which
thieves and other professional people are
accustomed to reserve for those of their own
CcJling. In a few whispered words she told

246

In a Corner of Asia

him the details of the case, and Huxley, still
ddzed and giddy, answered her mechanically
in a hoarse undertone. Then Archer, despite
his protests, was driven from the room by the
mandate of the nurse, and as he paced angrily
up and down the passage, the sound of in-
distinct words, and aimfess movements within
the room reached his ears fitfully.

It seemed to him as though the operation,
whatever it was, which the doctor and the
nurse were performing, would never end. He
heard the ticking of the crickets and tree-
beetles in the palms about the house, the
hiccoughing note of a frog in the jungle across
the river, and every now and again the hooting
scream of an argus pheasant. The great clock
on the stairs ticked persistently, monotonously,
wearying his brain. Would they never have
done ? Then there came a sharp exclamation,
a cry, and silence. Archer, listening without,
could not determine whether the sounds had
proceeded from operator, nurse, or patient.
He stepped hastily to the door, and peered
into the room. He saw the still form of his
wife upon the bed, and the doctor and nurse
whispering together as they bent over her.
The nurse, disturbed by his coming, looked up,
and motioned him away with her left hand.
He obeyed mechanically, and another weary

247

The Overseas Library

period of waiting supervened. Then at last
the nurse appeared at the door, and half closing
it behind her, stood gazing at him with the
handle still held between her fingers. It
needed no spoken word to tell Archer that
something was wrong.

* What is it, woman ? ' he asked huskily.

The nurse gave a half-hysterical sob ; then
she spoke in a scared whisper.

' The operation was a very delicate one,* she
said. * I made him try it ... it was the only
chance of saving her. ... It had to be done
at once or not at all. . . . He did his best
. . . but his hand was unsteady ... it
slipped ... it was no one's fault . . . not
immediately fatal ... matter of hours . . •
no one to blame ... it was the only
chance. . . .'

She broke off, weeping and laughing hysteric-
ally, as Archer pushed roughly past her, and
entered the room.

Mary lay upon the bed, terribly worn and
wasted, but still mercifully unconscious. Her
open eyes stared unflinchingly at the bed-
canopy, but to Archer, armed with the know-
ledge that she was dying, there seemed to
have come a new look of agony and distress
into her sweet face. He saw everything in
the room with a minute observation of detail

248

In a Corner of Asia

that was strange to him. He saw every fold
of the drooping sheets ; the high clothes-horse
with some of his wife's dainty dresses depend-
ing from them like mocking phantoms of her
bright and graceful presence as he had known
it in the past ; he saw the oil-lamp on the
table, and fell a-wondering whether it would
smell evilly through being turned down so
low; he noted even the knick-knacks on the
dressing-table, and the invalid appliances on
the stand at the bed-side. All these things,
trivial and insignificant, seemed to leap up at
him as he entered the room, impressing them-
selves so forcibly upon his mind that in after
years he could recall their every detail without
an effort ; but for the moment the only thing
he was conscious of was the still form upon the
bed, and the figure of Alfred Huxley, the man
who had loved and killed her, drenched with
sweat, caked with dust, kneeling at the bed-
side, with his face hidden in his folded arms.
Half mad with grief, that was none the less
three parts rage against the man who had taken
Mary from him, he strode furiously to the side
of the kneeling figure, tripping over an open
box of shining surgical instruments as he did
so. The bright blades sprawled out over
the floor with a noisy clatter, but no one

heeded them. The next moment Archer seized

249

The Overseas Library

Huxley by the shoulder and shook him
viciously.

*You villain! You clumsy scoundrel!' he
cried. * You've killed her, killed her ! Robbed
me of her — out of malice, as like as not ! ' and
he swore a great oath.

But Huxley made no answer to his accuser.
His body came away from the sheet limply in
the other's clutch, and then, slipping from
Archer's grasp, subsided in a shapeless heap
upon the floor, the white face, twisted and con-
torted hideously by the pangs of the death
agony, glaring grotesquely at the ceiling.

The young doctor's wildly-leaping heart had
carried its owner over the unseen boundary
which divides the living from the dead, stilling
its own pains and sorrows for ever.

250

THE VIGIL OF PA' TOA,
THE THIEF

THE VIGIL OF PA' TUA, THE THIEF

THAT portion of the China Sea which
washes the yellow sands and the dense
forests of the Malay Peninsula is still one of
the most sequestered spots in all the world. It
is studded with half a hundred islands, some
inhabited by men, some by sea-birds and
swallows only, and one and all smothered from
tip to water-line in inextricable tangles of
greenery. The few hundred islanders are an
amphibious folk who live chiefly by and on the
sea, looking to it, not to the land which they
cultivate so indolently, so grudgingly, for their
means of livelihood. There is, however, one
product of the desert islands which is more
valuable than anything which these toilers on
the deep succeed in wresting from the sea.
This is the edible birds' nests which the
swallows build in the caves that indent the
faces of almost every cliff in the Archipelago,
for they find a ready market in Singapore, where
huge prices are paid for those of the best qualities.
They are much sought after by Chinese epi-
cures, who prefer the soup which is prepared
from them to almost anything in the world, un-

253

The Overseas Library

less it be an egg which has been an heirloom in
the family for several generations, or certain por-
tions of the interior economy of the chow dog.

The trade in these nests has been, for so
long a time, such a recognised means of money-
getting, that each cave in the little Archipelago is
claimed as the property of the descendants of the
original discoverer; and if a new cave be found —
as still sometimes happens in these remote seas —
the lucky man who first chances upon it has the
right to regard it as his exclusive property, no one
being permitted to take the nests from it without
paying him tribute, or obtaining his permission.

Pa' Ttia was a man of the islands. He had
been born and bred on Tioman, the largest of
the group, and he had the reputation among his
fellows of being able to make his way into any
place which a swallow might have the agility to
visit None the less he was a fisherman by
trade, and as he owned no caves of his own, he
had only occasion to show his skill when others
paid him a fee for gathering the nests on their
behalf. In this way he made acquaintance
with many of the best islands of the Archi-
pelago, but his knowledge was by no means
exhaustive, and as is the case with most of the
people of Tioman, there were many parts of the
group which he had never had occasion to visit

254

In a Corner of Asia

By habit and inclination, Pa* TAa was a thief,
and moreover he had the misfortune to be
amorously inclined.

In July 1898, Pa' Tda discovered that he
was in love. It was not for the first time by
any means, for as his nickname, which signifies
* Old Father/ implies, he was not in his first
youth. He had indeed been married, and had
thereafter divorced his wives, more times than
he could count with ease upon his horny fingers,
and even at that moment he had an old woman,
whom he had taken to wife in the days of his
youth, hidden away in his hut on the beach
of Tioman. Nevertheless, since his religion
allowed him to be married four deep at any
one time, he was anxious to be joined once
more in holy wedlock — the comfortable, easily-
dissolved wedlock of the Muhammadans. The
object of his passion was a widow — a buxom,
full-busted girl of the islands — whose cheeks
were ruddy under the brown skin with health
and fresh sea air, whose straight, firm limbs
could manage a boat, husk a cocoanut, and
endure a long day of laborious fish-curing with
as little fatigue as any woman in the Archi-
pelago. This lady, moreover, was virtuous,
which meant that she was only to be won by a
formal marriage before thie Imim in the presence

of many relatives. This, like many other re-

255

The Overseas Library

spectable things, was inconvenient, for it neces-
sitated the payment by Pa' Tua of a wedding
portion, and also of a further sum of money —
the blanja hangus, or * burnt cash* — which
should defray the expenses to which the lady
would be put on account of the marriage feast.
Therefore, like many others before him. Pa Tua
found that money was the enemy of true love ; and
though he had made his old wife pinch and screw
and stint herself in order to pay for her rival in
her man's affections, the process was a very long
one, and Pa* T6a began to grow impatient.

He was the part owner of a fishing boat, and
he laboured hard to save up the sum that he
needed, but at last, weary with toil, he hit upon
a plan by means of which he might enrich him-
self more rapidly. One of his neighbours owned
an island situated at a distance of three or four
miles from Tioman, a rocky, jungle-covered
place, honey-combed with caves, in which the
birds of the most valuable kind built freely. If
he could become possessed of half a hundred-
weight of these birds* nests, Pa' Tua would, he
told himself, have money enough and to spare.
I have said that Pa* TAa was accustomed to
steal whenever the opportunity occurred, there-
fore he had no scruples about carrying his de-
sign into execution. His only anxiety was to
escape detection, and to disarm suspicion from

256

In a Corner of Asia

the outset. To the latter end he went to Che'
Arif, the owner of the desert island, one sunny
morning in July, and asked him for the loan of
his small boat, saying that he proposed to visit
another island, which he named, for the purpose
of plucking some coco-nuts in an abandoned
plantation. Che' Arif, quite unsuspicious of evil
designs on the part of Pa' Tua, readily lent the
boat, and half an hour later that worthy set out
for the island of the birds' nests.

The sea was calm, the sun was blazing over-
head, the little waves splashed against the
wooden sides of the boat in lazy, playful ripples,
and Pa' Tua sitting in the stern, with a round
palm-leaf hat upon his head, paddled steadily
until he was out of sight of the village. Then
he changed the direction of his canoe and
headed straight for Che' Arif s island. At the
end of about an hour and a half he reached his
destination, made the painter fast to a project-
ing boss of rock, and clambered up the preci-
pitous side of the cliff. The island rises from
the sea like a lime-stone bluff from out the
flatness of a surrounding plain, and Pa' TAa
had much ado to win a footing at all. The
first few feet were the most difficult, for the
wash of the waves had prevented the creepers
and bushes from gaining a grip upon the rock,

but twelve feet higher up the luxuriant vegeta-
R 257

The Overseas Library

tion clustered in heavy masses. When this
point was reached, Pa* Tua halted for a moment
or two to rest. Below and in front of him, as
far as the eye could carry, the sea spread away
and away to the jagged sky-line which was a
restless scollop-work of tiny wavelets. Above
him, as he craned his neck to see it, the face of
the cliff rose up and up, a vast mass of greenery,
broken in places by a projecting block of ragged
white rock, and here and there by a patch of
coal-black shadow — the caves and fissures in
which the birds nested.

Presently, when he had recovered his breathy
Pa Tua resumed his climb. By clutching the
creepers and the roots and branches with fingers
and toes — for, like all Malays, Pa Tiia possessed
the advantage of prehensile feet — he swung him-
self up the face of the cliff without any very
serious difficulty, and at last found himself, pant-
ing slightly, gazing into the depths of the lowest
of the caves. It was a cleft in the rock, long
and narrow, with high walls rising sheer on
either side, and joining overhead so as to form
a kind of tunnel. The space between wall and
wall was just large enough at the entrance to
admit of the passage of a man's body, but the
narrow way into the interior of the cave was
of varying width, appearing to Pa' Tua to open
out in places and then to become contracted

258

In a Corner of Asia

again where the rocks bulged together. So
far as he could judge, however, the passage
was most narrow at its entrance. The roof of
the cavern, some twelve feet above the spot
where Pa' Tua was clinging, ran into the
centre of the cliff almost horizontally, jagged
and broken by projecting rocks. Then it
suddenly vanished, vanished in a black mass
of indistinct shadow which showed that there
was a high arching cave beyond. The floor
of the passage dropped away from beneath
Pa' TAa's elbows in a steep descent, sloping
down between its walls of rock until it too
was swallowed up in the darkness of the un-
seen cave to which the narrow passage led.
This floor was a solid slab of stone, worn
smooth by the passing of much rain-water.

Pa' Tua took off* his hat, and hung it on the
bough of a neighbouring bush. Next he
slipped his waist - cloth over his head and
hung it by the side of his hat. Squatting thus,
arrayed in his trousers only, he looked round
at the sea which lay some fifty feet below him,
and was relieved to find that no one was within
sight. Then he laid himself flat on his stomach,
and began to push himself very cautiously down
into the narrow passage, crawling head fore-
most, and checking his progress carefully with
his hands extended before him, and with his

259

The Overseas Library

clinging knees and feet. In this manner he
glided slowly over the edge of the cavers brink.
No sooner had his toes followed the rest of
his body, however, than he found that he was
sliding over the smooth stone. The passage
was too narrow for him to be able to draw
back his elbows, and the sides as well as the
floor of the strait were water-worn to a glassy
smoothness. He struggled as one buried alive
might fight for freedom within the narrow limits
of his coffin, but his efforts served only to ac-
celerate the pace at which he was slipping into
the unknown abyss. The rate at which he
was travelling became furious, and then, with
a sickening thud, the rapid motion of Pa' Tua s
body was abruptly arrested. He was conscious
of the feeling that all men have at times ex-
perienced in nightmares, when for a space
one is completely paralysed at a moment when
action is of the most terrible importance. He
fought wildly, just as the sleeper fights, and
in precisely the same manner he was utterly
without the power of movement. He could
feel the heavy hand of the rock gripping him
mercilessly on each side, he could feel his skin
torn and rent and smarting, but only his legs
were free, and they slid vainly over the polished
flooring of the cave, affording him no purchase.
He heard distinctly the tinkle of a loosened

260

-^„^--.-

In a Corner of Asia

pebble rattling down the passage in front of
him ; a host of bats, rudely awakened by his
coming, flew backwards and forwards dis-
tractedly above his prostrate body, whistling
and squeaking, and one of them struck Pa'
Tua in the face with its loathsome wings.
He made one more violent effort to free him-
self, tearing his flesh cruelly, so that the blood
ran warmly down his body from a score of
wounds, but he did not succeed in moving by
a hair's-breadth. He was held fast in the grip
of the rocks, securely wedged between the walls
on either hand by the impetus of his descent
into the bowels of the cave. When the whole
horror of his position forced itself with an agony
of realisation upon his frightened mind, Pa Tua
for a space lost his reason. He screamed aloud,
and the hollow of the rocks took up his cries
and hurled them back to him mockingly ; the
bats awoke in thousands, and joined the hurry-
ing, motiveless band that already rustled and
squeaked above the defenceless man, striking
him in the face again and again ; he dashed
his head from side to side, smiting the rocks
with it till the blood ran freely, and trickled
into his eyes and mouth. His arms, which he
had stretched before him, were now cramped
mpst painfully against his sides, and all his wild

ejftbrts to free them were of no avail. So he
/ 261

The Overseas Library

struggled, and fought, and screamed, and bruised
himself, till exhausted nature gave way, and he
lapsed into merciful unconsciousness.

When he regained his senses, the situation
was in no way changed. He was feeling faint
and sick, and his cramped limbs ached most
agonisingly. Also he was conscious of many
bruises and cuts, which throbbed and smarted
as though he had recently received a very severe
and complete thrashing. But the agony of his
body, keen and terrible though it was, was of
utter insignificance when compared with the
mental suffering of which he was a prey. He
had come to the island secretly and alone,
giving out that he was bound for quite another
place. Until the afternoon was far advanced,
no one would think of searching for him, and
even if his folk did grow anxious, much precious
time must inevitably be lost while they were
seeking for him on the island which he had
never visited. He recalled with horror the
view of the empty sea upon which he had
looked with such satisfaction just before he
began that fatal descent into the cave. No
man had seen him enter, and nothing but his
hat and sdrong hanging on a bough near the
mouth of the cavern would afford any indica-
tion as to his whereabouts. A puff of wind
might easily blow them away, and then Pa'

262

In a Corner of Asia

Tua knew that he would die in the prison of
the rocks without a soul learning his fate until
it was too late. His back was towards the
entrance of the cave, and in front of him there
was nought but black darkness, jagged rocks,
and fringe upon fringe of hanging bats sleeping
peacefully. He had no means of telling how
the day was waning. That it was still day he
knew by the faint light that made its way over
his shoulder, and was visible on the roof of his
prison, but whether he had lain there for one
hour or many he had no means of guessing.
To him, racked with pain, body and mind, each
minute seemed like many days, and each instant
brought its added tale of sufferings.

Presently an ant ran up the surface of the
rock and passed over the man's face. It
tickled his cheek most irritatingly, and he
crushed it against the left-hand wall, rasping
his skin as he did so. The appearance of the
insect filled him with horror. He knew the
abundance of ants to be found in every nook
and cranny of the Malay Peninsula, and he
knew also that they are omnivorous feeders.
If no help came, he would himself die of starva-
tion, while he furnished food for countless living
creatures ! The bare idea drove him nearly
mad, and he fell to fighting and struggling with
the unyielding rocks more desperately than
/ 263

■ I

■

• 4

The Overseas Library

even He strove impotently, till he was spent
and panting, but his efforts were all in vain.
He only succeeded in further wrenching his
cramped limbs, and adding new wounds to the
cuts and abrasions with which he was already
covered. A cloud of blue flies were hovering
about him, settling on the clots of blood and
the places where his flesh had been torn. They
caused his wounds to itch horribly, and though
when he moved his legs wildly, some of them
rose with a loud angry buzzing, they resumed
their meal the moment that he was still again.
Their presence made him feel as though he were
dead and falling into corruption even while life
and the love of life were still strong within him.
All day long Pa' Tua lay in his painful cap-
tivity, suffering grievously from cramp and
terror, and torturing himself still more by
dreadful imaginings of agonies yet to come.
It had been chilly in the interior of the cavern
when Pa' Tua had first entered it, coming
straight into its gloom from the bright sun-
glare of the tropic noon. Now, as the after-
noon passed away, it became positively cold.
The fresh landward-breeze, which brings the
fisher-folk home to their huts and their rice-
pots after the day's toil in the blazing heat,
began to breathe faintly over the sea, first in
fitful gusts, then in more sustained puffs, and

264

In a Corner of Asia

later with a steady persistence. Even in the
interior of the cavern it made its presence felt,
and each breath of the wind was full of fears
for the miserable captive, since any one of them
might blow his hat and sdrong far away, and so
deprive him of his last chance of rescue.

At last, at about six o'clock, Pa' Tua heard
the sound of human voices, and with his heart
almost bursting with relief and thankfulness, he
cried excitedly for aid. His voice rumbled and
roared in the roof of the cavern, till it seemed
as though the whole hill was shouting for aid,
and when he listened for a reply, the sound of
men scrambling up the cliff came to him, and
filled him with joy. Now that he was dis-
covered, nothing mattered much. He would,
perhaps, be punished for his attempted theft,
he might have to forego all hope of wedding the
attractive widow, but what did such trifling mis-
fortunes matter when weighed against the delight
of freedom from his horrible captivity, and a re-
turn to life from out of what had appeared to him
during the last few hours to be a very grave ?

Presently the faint light at the mouth of the
cave was obscured by some moving body, and
Pa' Tila cried lustily that he was wedged firmly
in the narrow passage and could not get free.
He was unable to see the entrance to the
cavern, so could not tell who might be his

265

The Overseas Library

rescuers, but soon the voice of Che' Arif
sounded in his ears.

'Va Allah!' it exclaimed. * He hath tried
to force an entrance to the Cave of the Little
Children ! How shall we set him free ? '

' Entah /' (I know not!) said another voice,
indifferently.

*Pull my legs/ sobbed Pa Tua. *0 my
brothers, I am in agony. My limbs are
cramped, so that I may not move. Pull my
legs and set me face. O be not slow, for I
am in very great pain.*

Che' Arif, clinging to the face of the cliff, as
Pa* Tua had done, rested his elbows on the
brink of the cavern's mouth, and peered
anxiously down the narrow passage. The glow
of the sunset was behind him, and its light
penetrated into the obscurity sufficiently to
enable Che' Arif to make out the form of Pa'
Tua lying wedged between the walls of rock
some twenty feet below him, and some ten
yards down the passage. The bare soles of
Pa' Tua's feet were towards Che' Arif, and the
toes were bleeding in many places, where they
had been dashed against the rocks by Pa' Tua
in his wild struggles to free himself. The rest
of the unfortunate man's body, from knees to
neck, appeared to be crushed into a narrow
compass that even at that distance seemed to

266

In a Corner of Asia

be altogether too small for the accommodation
of any human being. It made Che* Arif ache
in every limb merely to look at the terribly
cramped position of the man who had sought
to rob himi, and at the sight all the righteous
indignation that had filled his heart at the
thought of Pa' Tua*s scurvy conduct towards
him died out within him, Che' Arif tore Pa'
Tua's waist-cloth, which still hung upon the
bough where he had placed it, into a few long
strips, and with the deft fingers of a fisherman
well used to ropes and knots, he soon fashioned
therefrom a fairly stout cord. This he gave to
the man who was with him — a youngster named
Mat — bidding him hold it firmly in both hands,
and lower himself cautiously down the passage,
while Che' Arif held the end and paid the rope
out slowly. With that ugly tortured form lying
at the other end of the passage, the descent
was by no means tempting, but after some
discussion and persuasion Mat consented to try
the experiment. Mat was not heavy, and Che'
Arif was a strong man, so the former slid down
the slippery floor of the passage without diffi-
culty. When his feet touched those of Pa'
Tua, however, Mat found that his own position
was so cramped that it was impossible for him
to reach any portion of the prisoner's body with

his hands. Accordingly, Che' Arif was forced

267

i"^mil

The Overseas Library

to draw Mat back again to the entrance of the
cavern, and after some further discussion a
second attempt was made, Mat being lowered
into the passage head foremost. This time
Mat was enabled to win a firm grip upon Pa'
Tua s ankles with his hand, and he then cried
to Che' Arif to pull. Che* Arif ran his bare
toes into the earth and greenery at the mouth
of the cavern, set his teeth, and tugged savagely.
The cord cut deeply into Mat's flesh, Pa' Tua's
legs cracked like pistol shots, and the unfortu-
nate man screamed aloud, for the strain upon
his cramped limbs caused him unspeakable
agony. Then something gave way with a jerk
that nearly sent Che' Arif flying backwards
down the precipice into the sea beneath ; Mat
uttered a shrill cry, half surprise, half fear ; and
Pa' Tua's screams ended in a dull groan. The
improvised cord had parted in the middle, and
Mat lay face downwards in the narrow passage,
with his head between Pa Tua's feet. Che' Arif
stripped off" his own s&rong, tore it up hastily,
and after many attempts, succeeded in joining it
to the end that had been made fast about Mat's
waist. Then he drew his companion up out of
the cave, panting and sweating with exertion
and fear. Pa' Tua remained wedged in between
the rocks as firmly as ever.

Che' Arif cast a glance round the darkening

268

\\.

I ^ *Tfi

In a Corner of Asia

horizon, and what he saw made him exceedingly
uncomfortable. Where the afterglow of the
sunset still lingered, great bulky clouds, inky
black against the paleness of the sky-line, were
creeping up out of the under- world. In less
than an hour a storm would be upon them, and
the island on which he stood afforded no
shelter for the boats. If he decided to watch
with Pa' Tua through the night he too would
be a captive before morning, his boat being
dashed to pieces or washed adrift. He could
not afford to risk losing his crafts, and he also
wanted his dinner. Therefore, he decided to
leave the unfortunate Pa' TAa alone upon the
island, and to return to Tioman, whence he
would bring help next morning. He explained
this to Pa' Tua, and the news was greeted with
cries and screams of entreaty, for the idea of
a lonely night spent in the terrible position
in which he found himself was horrible to the
tortured man.

* A/>a bUlih bilat ? What can one do ? ' was
all the response that Che' Arif made to these
agonised prayers. He shrugged his shoulders,
and said philosophically that Fate was an ac-
cursed thing, that the hair of all men was alike
black, but that the lot of each of God's creatures
was a thing separate and distinct. After looking
at Pa' Tua's terrible plight he probably felt grate-

269

•-"■*

The Overseas Library

ful for the fact that Fate had not destined all
men to suifer in precisely the same manner. Then
he and Mat stepped on board the two boats — the
one which had brought them to the island, and
the dug-out that Pa*Tua had borrowed that morn-
ing — and made what haste they could back to
Tioman. They narrowly escaped being caught
by the storm, and as the wind raged all night,
lashing sea and land with driving torrents of
rain, all agreed, and quite rightly, that nothing
could be done to help Pa' TAa until the day
had dawned.

What horrors the long hours of darkness
held for poor Pa* Tua what man can imagine ?
Do you realise what cramp means ? The cramp
that you have, perhaps, felt for a moment or
two at a time in the muscles of your legs ? —
when all the sinews seem to tie and twist them-
selves into hard, swelling knots, which grow
harder and more excruciatingly painful every
instant, till you jump and kick wildly, and
wriggle yourself into every sort of grotesque
contortion while you seek for the one position
that will give you relief If the pain lasts for
more than a few seconds at a time you cry out
from sheer agony, and yet it very rarely happen
that your sufferings are in any way continuous,
or affect more than a single member at one and
the same time. But Pa* Tua was afflicted with

270

In a Corner of Asia

acute cramp from his neck to his hips, cramp
that wrung every muscle of his body, with its
separate, unendurable pang, cramp that he was
powerless to relieve by the slightest change of
position, cramp that he was forced to bear with-
out moving, without sympathy or commisera-
tion, in utter loneliness.

Over and over again during the night the
cramp seized him, wringing him with such a re-
finement of agony that he fainted many times
because he had not the strength to endure longer.
Occasionally he recovered consciousness to find
that his limbs were numbed for a moment or
two into utter insensibility, but all too soon the
cramp returned, not in mere spasmodic pangs,
but continuously, until once more his brain
ceased to work. The storm which broke with
such fury over the Archipelago sent deluges of
rain pouring in a continuous stream down the
narrow passage of the cave, drenching the un-
fortunate man to the skin, turning his flesh into
rough puckers with the cold, and setting his
teeth chattering. The bats seeking shelter
from the rain whistled and squeaked unceas-
ingly, striking him in the face again and again.
The water, however, had the merit of keeping
all insects from approaching him. The thunder
roared and rolled overhead, and rumbled through
the cavern. The lightning played about the

271

;

The Overseas Library

interior of the cave in great blue sheets
and streaks of blinding brilliancy. And all
night long Pa' Tiia lay suffering as it has
been given to few men to suffer since the
world began.

The dawn broke wan and pale through
heavy grey clouds that covered all the heavens.
The heavy rain storm of the night had been
succeeded by a dreary drizzle. All the world
looked cold and damp and disconsolate, and
the chill of early morning, intensified by the
gloom of the cavern, ate into Pa Tua's bones.
It seemed to him that he waited for hours and
hours before the welcome sound of kindly,
human voices told him that at last aid was at
hand. He was too spent and exhausted to do
more than moan inarticulately when Che* Arif
and a score of other Tioman islanders swarmed
up the face of the cliff, and spoke to him from
the mouth of the cave. To many of the
older men it was a marvel that any life was
still in him, but Pa' Tua, who had been
marked out by Fate for unusual suffering,
had also been endowed with peculiar powers
of endurance.

The rescue party brought with them two
little boys, urchins of the islands, who knew
intimately the Cave of the Little Children, as
Pa' Tua s prison is named, since they were well

272

In a Corner of Asia

accustomed to climb down into it year after
year when the time came for collecting the
birds' nests. A number of ropes, fashioned
from coir, and a bamboo filled with buffalo
fat completed the equipment of the relief
expedition.

It seemed to Pa' Tua that an interminable
period elapsed before the party got to work.
There was a great deal of talk as to what was
to be done, and Pa' Tua could hear the gruff
voices of the men mixing with the shrill trebles
of the children. At last, one of the latter, a
boy of about nine years of age, wiry and
spare, with skin tanned to a deep, rich brown
by the sun, and a dirty-looking tassel of ill-
kept hair growing out of the back of his shaven
head, took hold of a rope in both hands, and,
seating himself at the edge of the cavern s
mouth, prepared to slide down to where Pa'
Tua was lying. But first, as is the immemorial
custom of the children of the islands when they
descend into this cave, he raised his voice in a
piping cry to the local demon. * Pardon, O
Grandfather ! ' he shrilled three times in suc-
cession, and the wild echoes of the place took
up the cry and sent it rumbling along the roof
of the cavern at the end of the passage. Then
the boy slid lightly down to Pa' Tua, whither
the other child soon followed him. The elder
s 273

The Overseas Library

of the two climbed through the slit between
wall and wall above the imprisoned man, for
his little body slipped through the narrow
opening without difficulty. He brought some
water and a little rice with him, and he tried
to feed Pa TAa with some of it. The unfor-
tunate man, however, was in too severe physical
pain to think of anything save only his coming
release, and though he had gone fasting for
four-and-twenty hours, he refused the food, but
drank eagerly of the water. Then the children
with their deft little hands began to daub his
body with the buffalo grease until such portions
of his brown skin as they could reach shone
and glistened like that of a Tamil coolie when
he has smeared himself from head to foot with
rancid, evil-smelling ghi. This done, one of
the boys made two coir ropes fast to Pa' Tua's
legs, and gave the word to the men at the pit's
mouth to pull with all their might.

The men seized the ropes, and crying to one
another to pull all together, they threw their
weight upon them, making the while the dis-
cordant and inarticulate noises which Malays
ever find necessary when a piece of violent
exertion falls to their lot. But above the noisy
chorus of the fishermen there rose a piercing
and heartrending scream, and the boy who
could see Pa' Tiia's face yelled shrilly to the

274

In a Corner of Asia

men to ease the strain. Some of the Malays
ceased pulling at once ; others did not hear
distinctly, and these continued to tug at the
ropes until their fellows bade them give
over. Then a hubbub of disjointed discussion .
arose.

* It causeth too much pain/ cried the voice of
one of the boys from a long distance down the
pit * He cannot bear it. Do not pull any
more, he cannot support the agony.' By the
sound of his words it was evident to the men
at the mouth of the cave that the child was
sobbing convulsively. He had been close to
Pa' Tlia s face when the men began to pull the
rope ; he had heard that soul-searching scream
of agony, not softened by distance, but. sounded
in his very ear, and multiplied in intensity by
the confined place in which it was uttered ; but
above all he had seen Pa' Tiia's face — pro-
minent-eyed, strained, wrung with torture — the
face of a man upon the rack. No wonder the
child sat in the darkness huddled up and
weeping unrestrainedly, no wonder if for
months afterwards that awful face came to
him in his dreams to make night hideous,
dragging him back to consciousness, sweating
and palsied with a great fear.

Pa' Tlia lay moaning feebly, muttering * I die,
I die,' over and over again. The bats awoke in

275

The Overseas Library

thousands and squeaked shrilly. The cave took
up every sound, and grumbled its dissatisfaction
in ceaseless murmuring echoes. It seemed as
though the Demon of the Cave was growling
angrily because men sought to wrest from his
cruel grasp the victim which he had fairly won.

The men of the rescue party disputed loudly
but disjointedly as to what was next to be done.
No one had a plan, and all spoke at once, most
of them being contented with merely exclaiming
at the exceeding perversity of Fate.

* It is indeed accursed ! * said one. * What is
now our stratagem ? ' asked a second, vaguely.
* He cannot bear the pain,* murmured a third,
as though this self-evident proposition had just
occurred to him in the light of a new idea.
' Let us try once more,' suggested another.
The attempt, accordingly, was again made, but
the result was once more the same. Pa Tua
could not bear the racking agony of the strain.
He was so tightly wedged, and during the long
hours that he had lain jambed between the rocky
walls he had by his struggles so firmly fixed
himself in his terrible position, that he could
only be released at the cost of such severe bodily
pain as it is given to few to suffer and survive.
Malays, for all they are often wantonly cruel,
have a great and instinctive horror of pain
which it is not their object to inflict. Their

276

In a Corner of Asia

present desire was to aid Pa' TAa, and the sight
of his agony quite unmanned them, so that at
each fresh attempt the men dropped the rope as
soon as Pa' Tiia's cries told them that his tor-
ment had become insupportable. At last, very
reluctantly, the vain effort to free the unfortun-
ate man was abandoned. Had there been a
white man within a hundred miles, the fisher-folk
would have sought his aid, and had he been pro-
vided with anaesthetics, it is possible that Pa' Tiia
might have been set free while he lay drugged
into insensibility. As it was, there was nothing
to be done but just to keep watch and ward
over him until in the fulness of time the end
should arrive.

A party camped as best they could upon the
rocky and inhospitable island, and men came to
bring them supplies, and to relieve them at fre-
quent intervals. Rice and other food was lowered
to Pa' TAa at the end of a long bamboo, or was
carried to him by little children. Every now
and again the watchers would put the miserable
man to fresh torture by well-meant efforts to
effect his release, each successive attempt prov-
ing as useless as its predecessors. They strove
to keep him clean, to guard him from the
assaults of the myriad ants which hastened from
every part to the place where the buffalo grease

had been spread so lavishly, and stayed to feast

277

The Overseas Library

rapturously upon the body of the man. They
tried vainly to drive away the swarms of flies.
But, as the days dragged on, their vigilance often
flagged, while the insects gathered numbers,
and never wearied or lost heart. And so,
before the end came, the horrible fate of being
devoured alive, which Pa' Tiia had seen pre-
saged in the visit of the first ant, fell upon him,
adding new pangs and indescribable miseries to
the heavy burden of his sufferings.

Like all those who lead the clean, open-air
life of the fisherfolk, Pa* Tua was blessed, or
rather cursed, with a mighty constitution, and
thus his life, each moment of which was a
separate agony^ was prolonged mercilessly. It
was not until the fifth day of his captivity had
come and drawn to evening that his release
came to him. In the quiet night-time, alone
and untended — for the weary watchers had gone
to their rest — Pa T6a, who for hours had been
raving wildly in delirium, stepped across the
border which divides mental unconsciousness
from physical death, and they found him in the
morning lying cramped between the rocks, with
the life gone from out of him.

Then once more the boys descended into the
Cave of the Little Children, but the envious
Demon of the place still refused to surrender
his victim, and after long and futile attempts to

278

In a Corner of Asia

wrench the corpse from the grip of the rocks,
the endeavour was finally abandoned.

So Fate, more vindictive than human justice,
refused even the burial rites of the Muhamma-
dans — without which, as is well known, the
salvation of the immortal soul is by no means
assured — to the tortured body of Pa' Tua, the
Thief

THE END

I
i

Colston &* Coy. Limited ^ Printers ^ Edinburgh

RETURN TO the circulation desk of any

University of California Library

or to the

NORTHERN REGIONAL UBRARY FACILITY
BkJg. 400, Richmond Field Station
University of California
Richmond, CA 94804-4698

ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS
2-month loans may be renewed by calling

(510)642-6753
1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books

toNRLF
Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days

prior to due date

DUE AS STAMPED BELOW

rCD 1 3 199 6

A-

/ ■

'TfO.OOO (4/04)