MALAYAN 
MONOCHROMES 



BY Sir HUGH CLIFFORD, K.C.M.G. 

AUTHOR OF "studies IN BROWN HUMANITY" "FURTHER INDIA" 
"the downfall of THE CODS " ETC. 



NEW YORK 

E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 

1913 



Copyright by Augustin Challamel, Paris 



TO 

The Right Honourable 
Sir CECIL CLEMENTI SMITH, G.C.M.G., P.C. 

SOMETIME GOVERNOR AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE 
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS, 

A CHIEF UNDER WHOM IT WAS AT ONCE 

AN EDUCATION 

AND A DELIGHT TO SERVE, 

THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 

BY 

THE AUTHOR 



271914 



CONTENTS 



^ I. Mat Arif the Elemental 
II. " Our Trusty and Well-Beloved ' 
V III. Cholera on a Chinese Junk 
^ IV. The Familiar Spirit . 

V. " The Legion of Strangers " 
VI. Mir Maluk, Sepoy 
VII. Two Little Slave-Girls 
VIII. The Appointed Hour , 
IX. The Nature of an Oath 
X. The Quest of the Golden Fleece 
^' XI. The Skulls in the Forest . 
XII. In the Half-Light 



PAGE 
I 

12 

Z3 
62 
81 

100 
119 
149 
159 
187 
226 
275 



NOTE 

Most of the stories contained in this book 
have already been pubhshed in various Magazines 
and Periodicals. I must record my thanks to 
the Proprietors of Blackwood's Magazine, Temple 
Bar, Macmillan^s Magazine, and the Graphic for 
permission to reprint them. 

H. C. 



MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 



MAT ARIF THE ELEMENTAL 

This is the tale Mat Arif, the outlaw, told to 
me the night before he died. I sat with him in 
the condemned cell, for I had brought him com- 
fort in the shape of tobacco and betel-quids, 
things for which his soul longed ; and since, 
with Oriental philosophy, he bore no ill-will 
to the men who had doomed him to death, he 
was good enough to invite me to share these 
luxuries, and to bear him company for an hour 
or two. The little bare, boarded room, with 
the barred window high up in the wall running 
round two sides of it, was very quiet — so quiet 
that it gave one a feeling of isolation from the 
rest of humanity ; and the soft tones of the 
outlaw, as he sat enjoying his smoke and chew 
with complete calm and obvious content, seemed 
to emphasise rather than to break upon the 
stillness. He was a big, sturdy fellow for a 
Malay, his beautifully built frame denoting 
both strength and activity. His strong, hard 



2 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

face was deeply lined ; his eyes were bright 
and full of Hfe, yet there was in them that 
look of settled, self-contained patience which 
is so characteristic of the Asiatic in the hour 
of adversity : they were the eyes of one who was 
staring inevitable death in the face very steadily, 
without fear, without curiosity, without even 
any great measure of reluctance. To me this 
man had about him something that was mysteri- 
ous, terrible, haunting ; for though his figure 
was so instinct with force and with vitality, he 
sat there on the very brink of a gaping grave, 
and he knew it. Involuntarily my imagination 
conjured up hideous pictures of that which must 
befall him ere a dozen hours had sped : I saw 
him led forth ; I saw him blindfolded and 
pinioned ; I saw the executioner's hand grip the 
lever of the drop ; I saw my companion fall 
through the trap-door, straight as a plummet 
. . . ugh ! Strive as I would, I was power- 
less to keep my mind from dwelling upon that 
ghastly sight ; and ever as Mat Arif spoke to me, 
the wraith of that awful Thing that was, yet 
was not. Mat Arif, came between me and his 
living face. 

" It is like the chequer-game,'' he said, 
' and behold I am mat — check-mated. It hath 
been a good game and well-contested ; and 
though the end hath come, and I at last am 
worsted, I have had my share of play — ay, and 
of plunder too, for I have taken of the white 
men's pieces more than a pawn or two. 



MAT ARIF THE ELEMENTAL 3 

" Yes, Tuan, the season for concealment is 
over and past, and with it the time for lying — 
though of lies, in very truth, my lawyer-man 
had a goodly store. He lied dexterously and 
with cunning; but the judge was a wise man, 
and he believed no tittle of the vain things 
that lawyer-man said. As for me, I watched 
the conflict as one watches two fencers ; and 
it was a pretty sport, but never was I in doubt 
as to the issue. I had the grak, Tuan, — a 
presentiment that mine hour had come, — and 
I knew that nought, not even the judge himself, 
had power to save me. Indeed, the trial was 
without purpose, for Fate no man can stay or 
alter ; yet the affair was conducted in seemly 
fashion, with state and ancientry, and that 
pleased me ; for it is true, as the proverb hath 
it, that it were better that our little ones should 
perish rather than established custom. 

*' Thou say est that the trial was of necessity 
in order that justice might be done ? Doubt- 
less, Tuan, doubtless : but what is justice, 
since all things are ordained by Fate ? The 
white folk have much wisdom and might, but 
they too are only the fingers of Allah ; and 
they act, not according to their own will, but 
in such fashion as Allah giveth them to act. 
Justice, sayest thou ? Justice — ay, and in- 
justice too, are as Fate maketh them. The 
white men and the brown are alike Fate's instru- 
ments ; and Fate, the immutable, in the ap- 
pointed hour payeth all reckonings, settleth all 



4 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

scores, maketh square all accounts, be his tools 
what they may. Men think that 'tis the white 
men who have ordered my death ; but, Tuan, 
it is not so. I am sentenced by Fate, w^hich no 
man may elude ; and I have no quarrel against 
thee and thine, who do only his awful bidding. 

** Nor would I that Fate had ordained 
matters otherwise : for though death be terrible, 
it is but the price we pay for life ; and I, now 
that the passing-hour hath well-nigh sounded, 
would not shirk payment for that which hath 
been mine ; nor, to escape that payment, would 
I forego that which I have enjoyed, whereof the 
memory still lingereth with me. 

'' It was in the village of Kota Tempan that 
first I saw Her, Tuan, — Alang, the girl whom 
Fate allotted to me even from the beginning. 
I had come down over the border to collect a 
debt that was due to my father, and the folk 
with whom I stayed were bidden to a wedding- 
feast. There was a great assembly from all 
the country round, and I did manfully in the 
fencing-ring, so that many women cast kind 
glances my way. I stepped among the throng 
swinging my shoulders a little, a kris at my belt, 
a spear in my hand ; and the men treated me 
with honour, for rumour had told them of my 
prowess ; and I knew that their women-folk 
would follow me as dogs follow their masters, 
did I choose to make a sign. It is very good 
when the heart is young to know that one is a 
goodlier man than any other whom Allah hath 



MAT ARIF THE ELEMENTAL 5 

fashioned, and to be able to cast a conqueror's 
glance at all the wives and maidens, conscious 
that they love one, while their men hate and 
envy. I bore myself arrogantly those days, 
and men were meek and women bold in my 
company. But though I showed kindness to 
many a hussy, my hour had not yet come, and 
I prized sport and fighting more than all their 
blandishments. 

" But at that wedding-feast, at the hour of the 
sanding, when, as thou knowest, Tuan, the 
bride and bridegroom are led forth, decked 
splendidly, and are made to sit motionless on 
the dais before all the company, I looked up 
and saw Her. 

" She was like a flower, very delicate and 
small, and her hair was black as night, and 
smoothed with oil so that it shone ; and the 
glamour of her face was like unto that cast by the 
full-moon, so that its effulgence blinded me. 
I drew in my breath, and my liver within me 
was fiery hot of a sudden, so that it gave me 
pain ; and the nails of my hands bit into the 
flesh as I clinched them, for my whole soul 
writhed at the thought that she was being given 
as his bride to the oaf who squatted shame- 
faced beside her. But of all this I gave no 
sign, only I laughed aloud, making a jest of 
much saltness and arrogance, so that the girl 
on the dais was startled, and for a little space — 
the mere flicker of an eyelid — her gaze was fixed 
upon me. It seemed to me that a great fear 



6 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

possessed her, that she shrank away afraid ; and 
I saw her bosom heave under the weight of gold 
ornaments that bedecked it. Then I was well 
pleased, for I knew that she had seen me ; and 
in those days, so surely as a maiden looked upon 
me, love was born for me in her heart. 

" Later, when I had collected my debt, and 
something over to repay me for my trouble, I 
tarried in her village, and I was at pains to win 
the affection of the man to whom Alang had 
been wedded. In my heart I hated him be- 
cause he possessed her whom I desired — the girl 
whom Fate had set apart for me ; but this I hid 
with cunning, which was easy, for the man w^as a 
fool. Presently I had won his love, and he was 
wont to say that we were close as the finger- 
nail and the quick, which saying tickled me. 
Later, when all his trust was mine, I bade him 
accompany me over the border to mine own 
country, bringing his wife with him ; and he — 
for the silly one had great confidence in me — 
agreed willingly, since I promised him much 
happiness when mine own village should be 
reached. 

'' One day, therefore, we set off upon our 
journey, travelling through the forest by a 
narrow jungle-path : the man Kulop, Alang his 
wife, myself, and a Sakai dog — an aboriginal 
jungle-man who bore my gear on his back. All 
that day we journeyed, and my heart was very 
glad because I saw now with certainty that 
Fate had given Alang to me. In the afternoon, 



MAT ARIF THE ELEMENTAL 7 

at about the hour when the kine come down to 
water, we reached a place in the heart of the 
forest where a Httle brook ran past a sand-spit, 
and here we pitched our camp. Kulop and I 
and the Sakai, Pa' Pa-Tin, cut palm-fronds in 
the jungle and made three huts, one for Alang 
and her man, one for me, and one, well below 
the wind, for the Sakai dog ; and Kulop, the 
witless fellow, thanked me for the care which 
I bestowed upon the making of the hut which, 
as he thought, was to shelter him and his wife. 

" Now it had been in my mind to delay the 
business of killing the said Kulop until such 
time as we had crossed the border into my 
native land, whither the white man's law doth 
not run ; but when one is young one is impatient, 
and as I beheld Alang, very neat and lovable, 
making busy with the cooking-pots, the thought 
came to me that it was by no means fitting 
that I should suffer her any longer to be the 
thrall of the fool, her husband. Also, as I ate 
rice with him, the silly babble of his speech 
irked me, for he spoke of his love for me and of 
the great things which we twain should do when 
mine own village was reached, and of many other 
matters which bore witness to his lack of under- 
standing. Therefore, very suddenly I rose up, 
seized my spear, and stabbed him. Also I called 
aloud to the Sakai animal to aid me ; and he, 
holding me in great awe, lifted up a heavy club 
and broke Kulop 's head, so that his limbs stiffened 
slowly and he ceased to move about. Then we 



8 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

laid him in the shelter which he had designed for 
me, and I made shift to comfort Alang ; for she, 
being a woman, must needs weep and make 
protest. But soon, very soon, I dried her eyes, 
and gave her good reason to thank me, in that 
I had ridded her of a fool, and had given her a 
good husband in his stead. Allah! Allah I 
Allah! Many a time from that night forth did 
she lie in the crook of my arm, and tell to me 
the tale of her love ; and I were a niggard and 
unworthy did I grudge to Fate aught that 
he might demand in payment for what he then 
vouchsafed to me. 

" In mine own land I took Alang to wife, but 
I was irked by the evil things which Kulop's 
relatives said concerning me ; and presently I 
determined to revisit his village, so that his 
people might learn better manners and more 
bridled speech at my hands. I took Alang 
with me, for I desired to show her kith and kin 
that I had done well by her, and also that I had 
no cause for shame for that I had slain her man. 

*' Now, when I arrived at her village, swagger- 
ing somewhat to show that I had no fear, at 
first men and women and little children ran 
hither and thither distractedly, like chicks that 
lack a mother-hen ; but I bade them be at peace, 
and spoke them fair, so that they took heart, 
and did me reverence, apologising for the vain 
things which, in their folly, they had said concern- 
ing me and my actions. But these folk were very 
wicked, for, unknown to me, they sent runners 



MAT ARIF THE ELEMENTAL 9 

to the nearest police-post ; and one afternoon, 
when I was playing the game of kick-the-basket 
with sundry youths of the village, of a sudden 
I was surrounded and set upon by certain heavy- 
handed Sikh constables; and I, being unarmed, 
could make no suitable resistance. The Sikhs 
bound my hands, and all the village people, who 
had been so humble and soft-spoken while I was 
free, taunted me in a horrid fashion now that I 
was fettered ; but throughout I felt no grak, — no 
presentiment, of evil — and therefore I knew that 
I should surely escape. 

" On the morrow the Sikhs put me and Alang 
my wife into a boat, and began the journey down 
the Perak River to Kuala Kangsar, where the 
white men live ; and I sat in the stern with 
manacles about my wrists. Now those reaches 
of the river, Tuan, as thou knowest, are beset 
with rapids, and at the first of these our boat 
was well-nigh swamped because of the little skill 
with which the steersman guided her. Then 
I made great protest, saying that, as my 
hands were bound, I should die of suffocation 
were the boat to be upset, and I told my warders 
that the man who held the steer-oar would 
certainly drown us all. Then the Sikh corporal 
unlocked my fetters, and bade me steer the boat ; 
for the crew, fearing an accident, all declared 
that I was very cunning in the management of 
crafts through rapids — which indeed was true. 
Allah is very good, and He hath made all Sikh 
men fools, for they pray to a cow, eschew 
2 



lo MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

tobacco, and grow their hair long like women : also 
they undid my fetters . 

" I made a little secret sign to Alang that 
she should watch me closely, and when we 
reached the big fall I took order to overturn 
the boat ; and seizing Alang and a rifle, which 
belonged to one of the Sikhs, I made shift to 
win to the shore. On the bank I stood for a 
moment looking back at the Sikh men struggling 
in the water, weighed down by their heavy 
clothes, with their hair afloat like duck-weed, 
and with such an uproar coming from them that 
the voices of the rapid were stilled. I was very 
well pleased, and I jeered them with many 
pungent words ere I took to the jungle and won 
free from pursuit . Then, Alang with me, I passed 
across the border into mine own land, making 
only a little stay on the journey to burn the 
village which had done me dishonour ; and in 
mine own country I lived, loved and honoured 
by all, for many years . Now and again, when the 
fancy took me, I went a-r aiding into Perak, for 
the people there grew wealthy under the white 
man's rule, and I had a mind to share in their 
prosperity ; but I injured no one, in so far as his 
body was concerned, unless he had the folly 
and the naughtiness to offer resistance to me 
when I had a mind to possess myself of his gear. 
Therefore, those years sped merrily, and Alang 
loved me well and bore me sons, four or five, 
and a daughter or twain with eyes like her own, 
I have no quarrel with Fate, TuaUf for he hath 



MAT ARIF THE ELEMENTAL 1 1 

treated me lavishly. Alang was mine to me 
for many seasons, — mine, mine, mine, — and 
nought can rob me of that memory ; and now 
that she hath passed away, I too am weary to 
be gone. How many hours remain before the 
dawn, Tuanl — for at the dawn I go." 

And at the dawn he went, meeting his death 
with the same calm and deliberate indifference 
with which he had taken the lives of those 
who had stood between him and his desire — 
too completely satisfied with himself, and too 
sublimely conscious of his own rectitude, to 
entertain the smallest doubt as to his eternal 
salvation ; and supremely contented to lay any 
blame that might be due as a burden to be borne 
by the broad shoulders of Fate the immutable. 



II 

'' OUR TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED " 

" To me the straiter prison, 
To me the heavier chain, 
To be Diego Valdez, 

High Admiral of Spain ! " 

The Song of Diego Valdez. 

Sir Philip Hanbury-Erskine,G.C.B.,G.C.M.G., 
— whose other titles, in the Hberal type of 
the Royal Commission, which that day had 
been read before the Legislative Council, had 
filled up many lines of print, '' Our trusty 
and well-beloved Philip H anbury- Erskine," as 
the said Commission had it — was pursued by 
the twin devils of restlessness and insomnia. 
Old memories — memories that mocked his 
present eminence — tore at the heart of him ; 
and after sundry vain attempts to read, first 
a turgid official report and subsequently 
a frivolous French novel, he slipped from 
under his mosquito-net, and paddled barefoot 
on to the wide verandah that flanked his 
bedroom. 

Leaning over the balustrade, he looked forth 
upon the sleeping capital of his kingdom. The 



" TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED " 13 

throne which he had that day ascended had 
been for many years the Mecca of his pil- 
grimage, the goal of his ambitions, the dream of 
a man to whom hard toil of a practical kind 
had left scant space for dreaming. From the 
verandah upon which he stood, aided by the 
eminence upon which Government House was 
set, he looked in bird's-eye fashion over the 
town that lay sleeping about his feet. The 
ethereal moonlight of south-eastern Asia spread 
its glamour all about, blurring and softening 
details, but revealing essentials as clearly as the 
light of day could do. Against the distant sky- 
line the wooded cones of a little archipelago 
seemed to float like giant lotuses upon the 
surface of the glittering sea ; nearer inshore the 
lights of moored shipping were points of garish, 
crudely-red fire against the black bulks of the 
hulls ; immediately before them big stone build- 
ings, huddled closely together as though striving 
for standing-room, marked the offices and go- 
downs, the stores and shops of the business 
quarter of the town. 

Sir Philip's eye passed casually over all these 
things — though each one of them held for him 
memories of a half-forgotten youth — and draw- 
ing farther inland, dwelt upon the packed yet 
straggling native quarter, which, beginning where 
the solid edifices devoted to toil and trade had 
their ending, covered closely some ten square 
miles of alluvial flat, and broke up, just as a 
wave sprays against a rock, around the foot of 



14 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

the hill upon which Government House had its 
stand. Far away to the right, the bungalows 
of the European population gave a hint of their 
presence by glimpses of tiled roofs embowered in 
clustering vegetation. 

Although the town was sleeping, from the 
restless native quarter there came a low, mono- 
tonous buzz and hum, that was as a familiar 
music in Sir Philip's ears. The pulsing of native 
drums, faint as a heart-beat, but instinct with a 
wild, half-savage unrest, came to him fitfully, 
like a voice crying from the past, and set his 
nerves tingling. The subtle scent of an Eastern 
bazaar — which is compact of spice and garlic and 
fruit, and of warm, voluptuous humanity — was 
borne to him, faint and enervating, upon the 
sauntering breezes of the night, awakening old 
thoughts, old memories, old desires, with a 
vividness that is possible only when an appeal is 
made to us through our sense of smell. Sight 
and sound and scent — each one of them so 
strangely, so startlingly familiar ; each one of 
them an experience that belonged to a dim 
and distant past — whipped Sir Philip with a 
sudden craving for freedom and for youth ; 
pricked him with an unfettered recklessness ; 
rowelled him with a passionate hatred for the 
ordered present with its conventions, its for- 
malities, its duties, its burdens, its petty re- 
sponsibilities ; and held forth to him as a lure 
the delight of one " crowded hour of glorious 
life " down there in the seething ant-heap of 



'' TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED '' 15 

native life — one more hour, only one, such as had 
been his of old. 

He was a thick-set but active man, somewhat 
below middle size, with coarse black hair and 
dark, piercing eyes. He bore his fifty years 
more lightly than many men his juniors by 
a decade bore the burden of their age ; and 
to-night memory and association had awakened 
in him the recklessness, the impetuosity, and 
something of the divine, audacious folly of youth. 
He was quivering like a terrier as he stood 
there gazing out into the night, inhaling with 
fierce eagerness the scents that were borne to 
him from the bazaar ; and his grasp upon the 
verandah-rail tightened till the iron seemed to 
eat into his palms. It was to him as though he 
were holding on with might and main to the 
conventional, respectable, iron-bound realities 
that hem in the life of a high Colonial official ; 
yet he held on to them, mechanically, in- 
stinctively, reluctantly — for of a sudden these 
things were revealed to him as harassing trivi- 
alities that were of nothing worth. 

He had left this land on promotion three-and- 
twenty years before ; and in leaving, it had 
always seemed to him, he had left behind him 
also his youth. Since then, in uncounted 
quarters of the Empire, he had served in this post 
or the other, garnering unsought honours by the 
way, dealing with problems of various degrees 
of interest, complexity, difficulty, or dulness ; 
and climbing ever higher, higher in the Colonial 



i6 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

hierarchy, until now, in the fulness of time, his 
dearest, his only steady, ambition had been 
gratified, and he had returned at last to the 
land in which his first years of toil had been 
spent, to rule over it as Governor. All through 
those years, in climates good and bad, — climates 
whose unvarying heat had tanned his face to a 
dull, colourless brown, — the attainment of this 
position had ever nestled somewhere at the 
back of his mind as a cherished hope. Now 
that hope had been realised, and Philip Hanbury- 
Erskine, loosing his hold on the verandah-rail, 
threw passionate hands aloft, and broke out 
into the oldest and surely the bitterest of all 
human cries, " vanitas vanitatum ! Which of 
us has his desire, or, having it, is satisfied ? " 

He had won back his kingdom ; but the 
cruelty of convention still withheld from him 
a taste of his vanished youth. Should it ? 
Must it? To the devil with conventions and 
respectabilities ! 

He had loosed his hold on the verandah-rail, 
and with it his grip upon the staid and straitened 
path, in the rut of which the feet of a Colonial 
Governor should rest. He passed into his bed- 
room with a furiously beating heart, and presently 
youth and memory had wrought their miracle. 
Sir Philip Hanbury-Erskine passed, I have said, 
into his bedroom, but the man who presently 
emerged therefrom was not, to all outward 
seeming. Sir Philip Hanbury-Erskine. One dis- 
tinguished potentate had dropped for the nonce 



" TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED " 17 

out of the Colonial Office List : one unconsidered 
entity the more had been added to the seething, 
shifting, brown thousands of the native quarter. 

As he slipped over the rail of the ground-floor 
verandah — using in his exit from his own house 
as much caution as a thief might have adopted in 
effecting an entrance — he laughed to himself with 
a light-hearted recklessness that had not visited 
him for years. His staid, official self had been 
left among the tumbled bed-sheets and the cast- 
off pyjamas in his room upstairs, and with it had 
remained the burden of advancing age. Once 
free of the house and within the shelter of the 
black shadows cast by a clump of palms, he 
stamped his bare feet into the cool fragrance of 
the dew-drenched grass, and with difficulty re- 
strained a shout of exultation. He was young 
again — young, young, young ! He was going 
back to '* his own people," as he had always 
affectionately called them — the people among 
whom his youthful days had been spent ; the 
people whose language, thoughts, and hopes and 
fears had of old been as his own. He was about 
to dip once again into the secret wells of native 
life, to hear the old sounds, smell the old smells, 
experience the old sensations, and for a brief 
hour to forget that he was one upon whose 
shoulders Fate had imposed the burden of 
official greatness, with all its dwarfing, soul- 
stunning conventionalities . For years — such long, 
long weary years — he had not been suffered to be 



1 8 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

natural, to be himself — even to be a Man. In- 
stead, he had been only an Official, only the 
temporary holder of a given post — one who 
was so much in the public eye, in the little 
worlds wherein he had laboured, that his every 
action, his every opinion, almost his every chance 
word, had been regarded as legitimate subject for 
comment and for criticism. Now, just for once, 
before it was too late, before his should have 
become a figure too familiar in the place for such 
wild pranks to be possible, he would steal from 
the hampering fictions wherewith his life was 
beset one little hour of freedom absolute, of un- 
shackled individuality, of manhood and of youth. 
It is one of the many astounding facts of 
Asia that two sets of human lives, the white 
and the native, can coexist side by side in a 
single locality, each almost completely ignorant 
of the other, each barely touching its neighbour 
on the outside edges, and then only at rare in- 
tervals. Yet the man who is, as it were, am- 
phibious — to whom the terra firma of solid 
British convention, and the deep waters of 
Oriental life, are alike familiar — finds himself 
stepping from one to the other at will and 
with an appalling suddenness. Philip Hanbury- 
Erskine had in the days of his youth been one 
of these rare amphibians ; and even now his 
memory held the key which can unlock the gates 
that are barred so jealously against all but a 
handful of his countrymen. Within half an 
hour of the time that had seen him leave the 



" TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED " 19 

outer shell of His Excellency the Governor, the 
G.C.B. and the G.C.M.G., and all the rest of it, 
in a discarded heap upon his bedroom floor, 
Europe and its memories had been thrust into 
the obscure distance, and he was back once more 
in the old, old East. 

His bare feet puddled the dust of the road- 
way, already set with the impressions of count- 
less unshod feet ; his eyes dwelt lovingly upon 
the string-bedsteads placed in the five-foot 
ways before the native shops, and upon the 
white figures stretched corpse-like upon them ; 
the throbbing beat of drums, each thud and lilt 
of which held for him its inner meaning, came 
to his ears, the half-savage cadences keeping 
time to his own unrest ; the reek — the old, 
familiar reek — of an Asiatic bazaar, pungent, 
penetrating, enervating, voluptuous, pervaded 
the stillness of the night, and he opened wide 
his nostrils and snuffed it in lovingly because it 
awoke in him such wild visions of the past. 

Noiselessly as a shadow he flitted along the 
broad road — flanked by native shops and by 
the sleeping, white-clad figures aping the like- 
ness of the dead — and presently turned down 
a narrow alley on his left, where old and dilapi- 
dated houses leaned helplessly on one another's 
shoulders, as though overcome with weariness, 
their roofs nearly joining ragged hands across 
the crooked fairway. 

" Deplorably insanitary," was the comment 
of Sir Philip. ** Homey, homey, homey ! " cried 



20 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

the new-born man in him. '' Unchanged by 
a hair's breadth in a quarter of a century ! 
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall 
be ! Asia, my Asia ! " 

He groped his way down the straitened 
passage, for the bulging roofs overhead nearly 
excluded the moonlight, and paused presently 
to take his bearings 

" This must be the place," he murmured to him- 
self. ' * I wonder if it is unchanged too . I '11 try. ' ' 

He crept into the shadow, and drew near to a 
door sunken below the level of the alley, and 
rapped upon its panel with the knuckles of his 
hand. He rapped seven times with " dots " 
and " dashes," much as a telegraph operator 
manipulates his instrument ; and a moment 
later the door shuddered and creaked, and then 
drew cautiously backward for the space of a 
few inches. 

" Salam Aleikum ! " said a creaking, nasal 
voice. 

" Aleikum salam! "returned Sir Philip mechani- 
cally. 

'* Whither comest thou ? " pursued the voice. 

" I come," said Sir Philip — and in a flash the 
old jingling formula, which he had not thought 
upon for years, recurred to his memory — 

" I come from the forests that know no paths, 
From the waters that hold no fish ; 
From the place where the wild kite veers and sails, 
V^ere the man-apes drink as they swing from the boughs, 
Where no Law runs and where men are free ! " 



" TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED '' 21 

" Enter, Brother," said the voice, and the 
door stood wide. 

Philip had no need for the flaring torch which 
the woman who had opened to him held high 
above her head. The narrow passage down 
which they were walking, with its meaningless 
twists and turns, was to him at that moment 
the most familiar thing in all the world, though 
his feet had not trodden it for a quarter of a 
century. It gave presently upon a big square 
room, the centre of which was filled by a raised 
platform or dais, covered with thick carpets, upon 
which near a dozen natives, men and women, 
were seated playing cards. The only light in 
the place was shed by damar-torches fixed in 
heavy wooden stands. The players glanced up 
at the approach of the new-comer. 

*' Peace be upon this house and upon all who 
sit therein ! " said Philip from the doorway. 

" And upon thee peace ! " came in answering 
chorus from the card-players. 

" This be a Brother who hath strayed far," 
piped the woman, indicating Philip with a gesture 
that had in it something of proud proprietorship. 
" His password is that of the forest ! " 

The players laid down their cards and stared at 
Philip. 

*' That password hath not been used for 
twenty year and more," declared an old man who 
sat among them. " Say, little Brother, whither 
hast thou been, that thy password dates from 
the days of long ago ? " 



22 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

" I have been far/' said Philip ; '' far, very 
far — farther than eye can see, farther than horse 
may gallop, farther than bird can fly ! Listen ! 
Even my mother-tongue hangs awry upon my 
lips ! " 

" Didst thou incur the sentence of Bombay ? " 
asked the man quite simply. " Bombay," in 
the vernacular, stands for " transportation." 

" Yes," said Philip, with a sullen nod ; and 
he felt that he spoke the truth. 

" What thing led thereto ? " pursued his in- 
terrogator. 

" Certain services I rendered to the Kom- 
pani," said Philip, again with perfect truth. 
In these lands, where the memory of " Old 
John Company Bahadur " still lingers, the 
Government continues to be known among the 
natives by the ancient title. 

" The Kompani hath a long arm and a longer 
memory," said another of the card-players. 
" Art wise to return, my friend ? " 

" Of my wisdom. Brother, I am by no means 
assured," said Philip, feeling that he and Truth 
were indeed walking hand- -hand to-night. 
" But thou knowest the saying : * A golden 
rain in a stranger's land, and a pelt of hail in 
the land of thy fathers ; yet dearer ever must 
thine own land be.' To-night, I am feeling, 
according to the saying of the men of old, as 
feels the eel when it wins back to its mud-hole, 
the smA-leaf to its vine, or the areca-nut to 
its twig 1 " 



" TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED " 23 

" And, behold, there be yet another returned 
this day," piped the woman who had let him in. 
" * Tuan Iskin ' we were wont to call him in the old 
days, and now he is the Tuan Gubnor who is set 
to rule over all our land ! '* 

" Of old he had a man's tongue in him," 
said one of the card-players, a lithe, clean- 
limbed, sharp-featured fellow of about Philip's 
own age, extravagantly dressed in silks of 
many hues, and armed, in defiance of the white 
men's law, with a native kris of wonderful 
workmanship. " He and I were as brothers, 
close in friendship as is the quick and the nail ; 
and the word passed amongst us that he was 
one of the Faithful." 

'' In very truth he was," screamed the woman, 
who had now seated herself on the edge of the 
dais. ** Else, had he been an unbeliever, would 
I, Si-Bedah, have loved him ? " 

Philip Erskine, half hidden among the waver- 
ing shadows, looked keenly first at the man, 
then at the woman ; and as he looked their 
faces came up through the mists of memory 
and grew plain to him, much as the face of a 
diver grows plain to the sight as it comes upward 
through still waters. Raja Sulong was the 
name of the man, he recalled — a roistering 
young scion of a royal house whose reckless- 
ness, extravagance, and courage had passed in 
those days into a byword. The woman — 
he would never unassisted have recognised 
her — was Bedah, the dancing-girl, of old the 



24 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

cause of much " madness/' as the emphatic 
vernacular phrase has it, to the love-lorn youths 
of the city. In those days she had been a 
dainty creature with bright eyes, sleek flower- 
decked hair, soft, delicately - tinted yellow 
cheeks, and a wondrous grace of movement. 
Now she was a hag, no less ; for a quarter of 
a century brings old age to womanhood that 
blossoms prematurely before the teens are 
reached. 

''But he did not love thee, mother," sneered 
one of the other women present — " or so men 
say." 

" He did ! He did ! " screamed the woman 
who had of old been Bedah. '' But he was 
not fashioned in the mould of common men. 
He loved me, but I was what Fate had made 
of me — a woman of the bazaar ! He had no 
appetite for sisa — the scraps that remain when 
others have had their fill ; wherefore he threw 
me to the dogs — such dogs as you, and you, and 
you ! " And with a furious gesture she indicated 
several of the men present. 

'* Better such * dogs,' as thou namest us, 
than a white man ! " said one, and he turned 
aside to spit as a token of his unutterable 
disgust. 

'' Yet is he the only man that I have ever 
known," yelled the woman, her voice rising 
in tremulous, discordant sharps and flats. 
'* He was full of pity and of compassion, like 
Allah's self, the Merciful, the Compassionate. 



" TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED '' 25 

To him women-folk were not oxen to be yoked 
for the service of man, their master, but queens ; 
and as a queen he treated me — me, Bedah, the 
dancing-girl of the bazaar ! I loved him and 
he loved me ; but owing to the devil of per- 
versity within him, never did our love know 
happiness. Yet had I rather been loved once 
after a fashion such as his than a thousand 
times by you, — men of monstrous passions and 
dwarfish souls. Now hath he come back to 
rule over this our land, and you, who prate 
sedition against the Kompani and hatch clutches 
of addled plots, have a care, I say, have a care, 
for ye have now to deal with a Man ! " 

An angry growl broke from several of the 
men, and the old woman, drawing deeper 
into the shadows, fell to mumbling to herself 
as her emotions simmered away. 

" To-morrow I go to him," said Raja Sulong, 
" and he will receive me brotherly for the 
sake of old days. The pig-folk of the Kompani 
are in sore doubt anent the free tribes of the 
frontier, for their minds are divided as to the 
quarter whence the threatened raid will come. 
They think, poor deluded ones, that this said 
raid will be like unto its forerunners — a police 
stockade surprised, a few slaughtered Sikhs 
sent screaming to the Terrible Place, some 
fifty villages in flames, and then retreat. They 
know not that the eve of the Great Combat is 
at hand, that the Jehad which shall see the 
extermination of the Infidel " (all present spat 
3 



26 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

in unison at the word) " draws hourly more 
near, and that the Holy One of Paloh hath 
promised victory, final and everlasting, to the 
Children of the Prophet. Say, Brother,'* he 
continued, turning towards the shadow in which 
Philip had his seat, " hast thou also a mind to 
take a hand in this game of hazard which we 
are about to play, with men's lives for the dice 
and kingdoms for the stakes ? " 

" Allah aiding me," said Philip from the dark- 
ness in deep, guttural tones, " I too will take 
some little part in the said game ! " 

*' And the plan, the plan ? " said a youngster 
eagerly. '* Hath all been thought out with 
wisdom and with strategy ? ' 

" Judge ye, then ; judge ! " said Raja Sulong ; 
and while the rest of the party gathered about 
him, he proceeded, by means of the contents 
of a match-box, some cards, and bone counters 
to produce a rough map of the area which 
would be involved in the coming rising. Philip, 
watching keenly, heard the old names of men and 
places crop up one after the other ; and though 
sprinkled among them there were a few which 
were to him unfamiliar, in half an hour he 
found himself in possession of the whole of 
the Raja's scheme. 

" And to-morrow," that worthy concluded 
triumphantly, "I go to Tuan Iskin, who now 
hath been made Governor over us, and he 
will receive me in brotherly fashion for the sake 
of old memories. Then shall I fill his ears with 



^^ TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED" 27 

false rumours and vain report ; and he, reposing 
in me much confidence, will- order all things 
as we, who have framed this plan, would elect 
that they should be ordered. In this is plainly 
to be discerned the finger of Allah, the Merciful, 
the Compassionate, who is mindful ever of his 
children." 

Philip rose to his feet and stepped forth very 
deliberately into the full glare of the damar- 
torches. 

" What doth it profit to wait for the morrow ? " 
he asked, in a soft and even voice. " Speak now, 
friend, that he whom you name Tuan Iskin mav 
hear." 

The recklessness that had been upon him that 
evening, as a veritable demoniacal possession, 
had mastered him now. Prudence had bidden 
him depart as he had come, undetected ; but 
prudence he had thrown to the winds. He 
knew that he had but to follow her wise counsels, 
and presently he would find himself safe within 
the walls of Government House, where, armed 
with the authority that belongs to rulers, he 
would be able to baffle utterly the paltry schemes 
that had been laid bare for his inspection. But 
to-night, for a little space, he had promised 
himself, he would put off the things of his 
authority and would pass down, for the only, 
for the last time, into the world of men, to be 
there just a man among his fellows. If he were 
to defeat Raja Sulong and his conspiracies, he 
would compass his end unaided by powers 



28 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

external to himself. Therefore he rose and 
spoke, and waited with a tense, quivering 
excitement, that was all pleasurable, to see 
what would result. 

For an instant those who heard him sat in 
stunned silence ; then the room buzzed like a 
hive into which a stone has been flung. Men and 
women sprang to their feet — the former feeling 
for their weapons, the latter screaniing their fear. 
Torches and brass ewers were overturned ; bare 
feet scuttered and stamped ; voices a-thrill with 
excitement gave vent to fierce ejaculations, 
though their tones were sunken to prudent 
whispers ; and the flickering light of the un- 
extinguished torches glinted upon the blades of 
knives held in nervous, eager hands. 

A clutch fell upon Philip's arm, and he was 
drawn back against one of the immense bevelled 
pillars that stood at each corner of the dais ; 
someone, crouching upon the floor at his feet, 
thrust a naked sundang — the stout Malayan 
broadsword — into his hand ; and the voice of 
the hag, who of old had been Bedah the dancing- 
girl, whispered to him to be wary. 

The solid wooden pillar that protected his 
back from all possibility of assault filled him with 
a splendid confidence. 

** Speak now, friend, if thou hast a mind to 
speak," he said, and a laugh of sheer exultation 
broke from him. He had promised himself 
freedom from trammelling conventions, he had 
promised himself a revival of the memories of his 



'' TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED " 29 

youth. His wildest hopes had never suggested 
the possibiHty of a rough-and-tumble such as now 
was imminent, a situation such as this, which 
belonged to what had so long seemed a closed 
chapter of his history. Of old, too, life had 
spread inviting vistas ahead of him : now he 
had explored them and found them empty. His 
supreme indifference to the event, let what would 
befall, steeled him with a new courage. He 
was having a moment of big emotions, and the 
rest mattered not at all. 

A breathless silence had fallen upon the room, 
out of which there presently emerged a voice 
that cried, " He is a dead man ! He hath 
mastered our secrets ! He must die ! " 

" Hold ! Hold ! " cried other voices. 

Suddenly there was a scuttering rush made at 
him by three or four men, and Philip, swinging 
his broadsword, heard the flat of the blade tell 
loudly upon the faces of his opponents. He had 
as yet no occasion to use the edge, for two men 
went down and climbed painfully out of harm's 
way, while their fellows drew back into the 
darkness. " Well struck, but why didst thou 
not slay ? " piped Bedah at his feet. 

A loud knocking came suddenly from the 
outer door, and a hushed silence followed on its 
heels. The knocking came again more insistent 
than before, blent with the rough voice of a 
white man demanding admittance in sadly 
mispronounced Malay. 

" The police, the police I '* whispered half a 



30 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

dozen voices, and the last torch was extinguished, 
while bare feet pattered hastily across the mat- 
strewn floor. 

Heavy blows were falling now upon the outer 
door. The police were breaking it in. 

" Come, heart of my heart," whispered Be- 
dah ; and holding his hand in hers, she led him 
down from the dais and into some by-passage 
of this human rabbit-warren. Still clutching 
his broadsword, he followed blindly through the 
intense darkness ; and as the shouts of the police 
and the hammering upon the yielding door grew 
faint in the distance, he found himself being led 
out into the moonlight. 

The passage gave upon a narrow alley, — the 
identity of which came back to Philip's memory, 
as so many identities had recurred that night, — 
and as Philip and his guide emerged through the 
straitened doorway a lithe figure flung itself 
upon them, the moonlight glinting on a bared 
blade. Philip saw in a flash the nervous, 
muscular arm upraised, the snake-like kris 
poised aloft, the fierce face of Raja Sulong, — 
with flaming eyes, hair flying backward wildly, 
and tilted prominent chin, — and knew that the 
broadsword he was himself raising in his defence 
was stayed, as weapons are arrested in a night- 
mare, by the lintel of the door. 

With a grunt from Raja Sulong the kris 
descended, and Philip, feeling his impotence, 
nerved himself to receive the blow ; but with a 
shrill scream Bedah threw herself upon him, and 



" TRUSTY AND WELL-BELOVED " 31 

the snaky blade was buried in her back. PhiHp, 
freeing himself from her grip, leaped clear of the 
doorway, and concentrating all his strength and 
all his fury in a single stroke, brought the broad- 
sword down upon the head of Raja Sulong, 
cleaving it to the cheek-bones. The man's body 
dropped limply across the body of the woman. 

Philip, kneeling on one knee, turned Bedah on 
her side, and laid a hand above the region of her 
heart. No faintest throb responded. Stooping 
low above her, he kissed her reverently, and 
rising, turned and left her. 

" A life for a life," he murmured, '' and his was 
taken in self-defence, and hers was given for me. 
God forgive me this night's work, for never shall 
I forgive myself ! " 

The dawn was breaking greyly as Sir Philip 
Hanbury-Erskine was born once more into the 
official world of which he is still by no means the 
least distinguished ornament. 

Next day, clothed and in his right mind, he 
wrote the famous Minute forecasting the plan 
of campaign which the natives were about to 
adopt in the threatened frontier rising — the 
Minute upon which rests the almost super- 
stitious belief of his subordinates in his pre- 
science and understanding of native character. 
Later, as in duty bound, he bade the police make 
diligent search for the author of the double 
murder reported to have occurred upon the 
previous night in an alley of the native city. 
Later still he opened a charity bazaar, and made 



32 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

a speech so strikingly appropriate to the occasion 
that it has been pirated and sold widely for the 
benefit of uninventive country vicars. 

And when the day was ended, in the dead 
unhappy night, he told himself that old age 
had come upon him in the space of a single hour. 



Ill 

CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 

The Chinese, who are not only an intensely 
practical, but moreover a very wise people, 
hold one doctrine which commends itself more 
and more to the intelligence as we advance 
in years, and as our responsibilities keep pace 
with our increasing age. It is that parents 
are under no sort of moral obligation to support 
their children, but that, on the contrary, it 
is incumbent upon children to submit to any 
and every sacrifice if thereby their parents may 
be clad in line linen and may fare sumptuously 
every day. This is a teaching for which, as 
every parent will readily admit, there is a great 
deal to be said. 

Melancholy modern thought in Europe in- 
clines to the opinion that, seeing how children 
are hurried into existence without their leave 
asked or given, the least that those responsible 
for their being can do is to make to them such 
compensation as may be possible for the irre- 
parable injury inflicted ; wherefore the latter- 
day parent assumes towards his offspring a 
quasi-apologetic attitude, toils for the little 

33 



34 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

wretches with passionate energy, and later sub- 
mits in a poor-spirited fashion to the dictation 
of his ^' revolting " sons and daughters when, 
from the eminence of their youthful experience, 
they point out to him with crude brutality the 
folly of his antiquated ways. 

Not so the practical and utilitarian Chinaman. 
When the new-born babe is still utterly defence- 
less, the parent takes full advantage of the 
situation and assumes once and for all the 
position in regard to him which he means for 
the future to maintain. He does not waste 
time in speculation as to whether the child 
would rather have been born, or would have 
preferred to remain unborn. Instead he accepts 
the undeniable fact that the child is there, 
and loses no time in impressing upon the 
infant the notion that he has every reason to 
congratulate himself upon the fact, and to 
thank his parents therefor. Moreover, no sooner 
is a Chinese infant born than his parents forth- 
with regard him as their chattel, to be kept 
or drowned, bought, sold, or given away, as 
the case may be, in such fashion as convenience 
may dictate. Also, the laws of the land, which 
naturally were not framed by new-born infants, 
give to the Chinese parent power of life and 
death over his children; and when your papa 
cannot only cane but slay you, no matter what 
your age or standing in society, while a re- 
taliatory blow is punishable with an exceed- 
ingly pubUc and ugly death, it is surprising 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 35 

how easy it becomes for pater familias to main- 
tain a tyrannical ascendancy over his household, 
and how admirable is the discipline which is wont 
to prevail therein. Every Chinaman, therefore, 
is brought up from earliest childhood thoroughly 
impressed with the idea that he has but a single 
raison d^etre — namely, to serve, tend, and support 
his parents, to minister to their ease and to 
their comfort, and to immolate himself, even 
in the most extravagant fashion, if thereby 
this e.nd may be accomplished. 

Moreover, the Chinaman is a vastly conserva- 
tive person, and his head is constructed after 
the manner of certain fish-traps, into which, 
now and again, something may stray, but out 
of which nothing that has once entered can 
ever pass . Given, therefore, the early acquisition 
of the notion that he only exists for the greater 
convenience of his parents, and in later years 
no known force will suffice to prise the idea 
out of him . All of which shows what an excellent 
thing it is to be the Chinese parent of a large 
and vigorous family. 

On the other hand, judged from the white 
man's standpoint, there are many better billets 
than that of son or daughter of a Chinese father 
who understands and insists upon his rights ; 
and it is only fair to Chinese parents to say that 
very few of them are so culpably negligent as 
to surrender one iota of the advantages which 
immemorial custom has conferred. Wherefore, 
in this land of topsy-turvydom, sombre and 



36 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

strenuous youth toils with grave and unrelent- 
ing energy that frivolous old age may amuse 
itself becomingly. 

Su Kim and Ah Kui were youngsters belong- 
ing to the Province of Canton, who, in common 
with the youth of the greater part of the Chinese 
Empire, had never known what it was to be 
young. Their filial cares sat heavy upon what 
in the Chinese psychology occupies the place of 
a human soul ; for their families were remark- 
able for longevity, and the unhappy youths 
had not only their papas and mamas, but their 
grandparents and great-grandparents, to support. 
In Europe, if a man of small means find himself 
the harassed parent of an enormous, hungry 
family, he has, after all, only himself to blame. 
The young Chinaman, on the contrary, may 
be called upon to provide food and clothing 
for whole generations of folk to whom he 
owes nothing save the fact that he has been 
born to labour, and over whose preposterous 
numbers he, poor devil, can exercise no sort 
of control. This is why Chinese youth goes 
abroad for the most part with such a depressed 
and care-worn expression upon its yellow 
countenance. 

Su Kim and Ah Kui met one evening at 
the little opium shop of the village, not to 
buy thrice-smoked dross for themselves, but 
to procure the best form of the drug that they 
could afford wherewith to soothe the tempers 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 37 

of their respective families — tempers which 
age and long habits of tyranny had made 
querulous and irritable. They inquired after 
the health of their respective wards with much 
elaboration and politeness ; and it probably 
never so much as occurred to either of them 
to think, far less to express the thought, that 
it would be more of a blessing than a calamity 
if some of the old people were to begin to break 
up. After all, it is wonderful how patiently 
men will fit into an insupportable situation 
when once they have become inured to it by 
long familiarity. 

These preliminaries over, they fell to talking 
of ways and means, and found themselves in 
hearty agreement on the subject of the hard- 
ness of the times. The poor young fellows 
shook grave heads over the position, and asked 
one another how matters were to end. Even 
in a land where a man can live in what passes 
for a high state of comfort for £2i> 12s. per annum ^ 
the care of a whole collection of dependent 
elders presents a sore puzzle in economics to 
the family bread-winner. 

A big gross Chinaman, who was lying on a 
mat-covered bunk, delicately toasting a little 
bubbling mass of opium at the end of a thin 
skewer, transferred the stuff suddenly to the 
tiny hole in his opium pipe, drew in half a dozen 
deep, luxurious breaths, blew the smoke out 
through nose and mouth in filmy clouds, and 
then turned upon his elbow. 



38 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

" Friends/' he said, addressing Su Kim 
and Ah Kui, to whom he was a stranger, " you 
speak truly when you declare that these be 
evil times. A full stomach maketh a contented 
soul, but how shall the soul be contented when 
the belly is empty ? " 

** Very true," murmured Su Kim and Ah 
Kui ; and then, addressing one another, they 
added in stage whispers : " This honourable 
gentleman is obviously a philosopher of learning 
and discretion. His words are words of wis- 
dom." 

" ' The superior man may have to endure 
want, but he is still the superior man. The 
small man in the same circumstances loses 
his self-command,' " said the stranger, quoting 
a saying of the great Confucius. 

''He is indeed a wonderful philosopher ! " 
ejaculated the two young men. 

" But the superior man does not tamely sub- 
mit to want," continued the stranger. " And 
if he hath piety and an understanding of the 
duty he bears to his parents, he will take steps 
to prevent want coming upon those whom it is 
his business to support." 

'' True," said Ah Kui; *' but how may this 
miracle be worked ? " 

" I question whether you be worthy of this 
revelation," said the stranger, turning once 
more to delicate operations with the opium- 
skewer. 

" We are in truth dishonourable dogs, most 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 39 

genteel sir," said Su Kim, with becoming 
humility, " and indeed we are not worthy to 
hold converse with one of thy patent wisdom 
and integrity. Yet would this obscure person 
crave enlightenment from thine illustrious ex- 
planation." 

The big gross man drew in and blew out 
more smoke, and for the nonce appeared to 
ignore the presence of the two young peasants. 

" How," asked Su Kim of Ah Kui, *' how can 
ten cash be made to perform the service of 
fifty ? " 

" Tis a problem," rejoined Ah Kui, '' that 
surpasseth the ingenuity of this person, and 
might well baffle the wisdom of the most pro- 
found philosophers." 

The big gross man emitted a sound which 
was part grunt, part sneering laugh, and wholly 
derisive. 

" ' I do not believe that the elephant can see 
over the tops of the blades of grass ! ' quoth the 
ant," said he, and emitted the obnoxious sound 
once more. 

Ah Kui was greatly abashed. Su Kim was 
lost in admiration of the stranger's wisdom and 
learning. 

" This honourable sir," he said to his comrade, 
'' is a prince of poets, who compresses within his 
single illustrious personality all the learning and 
science of the ancients." 

The big man, after various ungainly rollings 
and convulsions, got himself into a sitting 



40 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

posture on the bunk. He smiled upon Su Kim 
with benevolent approval. 

'' Young sir," he said, " thou dost display 
signs of possessing some rudiments of intelli- 
gence." (Su Kim blushed with gratification. 
In his family circle he was well used to querulous 
complaints, but little accustomed to approval, 
or to finding himself the recipient of stately 
compliments such as this.) " And because I 
love intelligence, even in the most lowly, I will 
open to thee the store of my wisdom, and will 
show to thee and to thy friend here how wealth 
may be garnered, and the future of thy respect- 
able parents most honourably assured." 

He beckoned the two young men nearer, and 
with an air of the greatest mystery, as though 
he were imparting some precious secret to them 
as an act of especial and almost divine con- 
descension, began to lay before them his pro- 
posals. There was situated somewhere across 
the seas, it would appear, an island with an 
unpronounceable name, ruled over by a race of 
red-headed devils called Ba-lan-da (Hollanders), 
who grew tobacco in great quantities, and who 
paid fabulous wages to likely young men whose 
good fortune selected them for labour upon the 
plantations. The account of this Tom Tiddler's 
land, where gold and silver was to be picked up 
so easily, came flowingly and embellished by 
much eloquent rhetoric from his lips ; for this 
sublime philosopher was a professional " crimp " 
or recruiting agent, and knew his business from 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 41 

a to 2. His hearers had often met men who had 
gone to the mines of the Malay Peninsula as 
indentured labourers. They knew dozens of 
families who lived in comfort upon the remit- 
tances so faithfully made by their sons from 
oversea. They had even themselves thought 
now and again, in moments of desperation, of 
seeking their fortunes in distant lands, as the 
only means open to them of supporting their 
hungry parents ; but such was the eloquence 
and the magnetism of their present instructor 
that it seemed to them as though the ideas 
which he was now putting before them were 
wholly new. Never had they realised that the 
path to affluence lay so close ahead of them, 
waiting only to be trodden by their eager 
feet. How could they know anything about 
the difference which exists between lawfully 
indentured labourers and the batches of unhappy 
wretches whom enterprising Chinese capitalists 
send now and again to the Dutch Colonies 
as a purely private speculation ? 

Their natural caution, however, prevailed 
sufficiently to prevent them from closing with 
the crimp's proposals at once. The commercial 
instinct, which is born in every Chinaman, led 
them to hold out for one, two, three evenings, 
while they haggled for a larger sum down. But, 
as the crimp well knew, the bait once nibbled 
at was sure to be swallowed sooner or later. 
Otherwise, what would have been the use of 
possessing a persuasive tongue, a most superior 
4 



42 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

manner, a vast experience of the business, and 
an overpowering personality? In other words, 
what would have been the value of the big gross 
man's sole stock-in-trade ? 

The issue was never in serious doubt, and in 
the end Su Kim and Ah Kui sold themselves 
body and soul t©-4abour on Sumatran tobacco 
plantations for thirty-five silver dollars down — 
a sum sufficient to keep the old folks at home 
for a matter of several months — and a visionary 
prospect of future wealth. 

Su Kim and Ah Kui tramped down to Canton, 
— that most villainous of all Eastern cities, — and 
there were driven, much like the silly sheep they 
resembled, on board a big junk. It was a huge, 
round-bellied, blunt-nosed affair, with a knowing- 
looking fish's eye on either side of the prow, 
such as has crept up and down the seas of south- 
eastern Asia any time during the past five 
thousand years. The accommodation and the 
comfort which it afforded were also inventions 
of remote antiquity, inventions upon which the 
stolid conservatism of the Chinese had forbidden 
any improvements to be made. There was a 
huge rusty water-tank fore and aft, a mud fire- 
place amidships, full rice sacks just out of reach 
of the bilge, a store of indifferently salted fish 
which smelt like a neglected charnel-house, and 
a hundred and forty-seven new-caught Chinese 
peasants, packed toe to toe and knee to knee, 
on both decks, like sardines in a vat. The dis- 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 43 

comfort was of a kind to destroy the reason of 
the least sensitive European ; but Su Kim and 
Ah Kui belonged to a race whose members look 
upon a half-pound tobacco tin standing per- 
pendicularly as a luxurious pillow, and can watch 
the amputation of their own limbs with curiosity 
and interest. They were nearly suffocated on 
the lower deck, but they loved a " fug," and 
those above them in the purer air envied them 
the closeness of their atmosphere. They were 
abominably cramped, and they slept leaning 
and nodding against one another, or with their 
feet thrust into their neighbours' faces ; but 
these things irked them no more and no less 
than the restrictions of board-ship life on a liner 
irk the average white man. Two of the great 
national assets of the Chinese are their indiffer- 
ence to discomfort and their extraordinary 
toughness. 

The crew — five Chinamen scorched nearly black 
by constant exposure to the sun — hoisted the 
great squares of ruddy canvas with much 
unnecessary outcry ; and the huge junk, 
endowed suddenly with ungainly life, waddled 
out on to the bosom of the China Sea. Then 
above and below decks things began to happen. 
No one who has observed his fellow-creatures 
enduring the agonies of a Channel crossing 
can have failed to be struck by the completeness 
with which sea-sickness deprives men and 
women alike of their natural reserve, sense 
of decency, and self-respect. This applies to 



44 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

people who ordinarily have at their command no 
small stock of these qualities ; but when sea- 
sickness descends upon one hundred and forty- 
seven Chinese peasants, — who even in the most 
favourable circumstances are by no means con- 
spicuous for these virtues, — and when these un- 
happy people are packed like herrings in a tub, 
the result is of a kind which it could afford no con- 
ceivable pleasure to anyone to read about. 

The visitation endured for three whole days 
and nights, during which period Su Kim, Ah Kui, 
and their one hundred and forty-five companions 
lay about like dead men upon a battle-field, and 
with not an atom more of fight left in them. 
When the Oriental collapses, it should be noted, 
he collapses very thoroughly. Towards the end 
of the fourth day, a partial resurrection took 
place, and yellow men of a ghastly pallor — their 
necks disfigured by horrible purple bruises 
caused by self-inflicted pinches and twistings of 
the flesh produced as a counter-irritant — began 
to lift their heads above the general level of 
carnage. Later, recovery became more general, 
and rice in quantities with fish to match was 
devoured ; but two of the passengers remained 
obstinately on their backs, and upon these the 
Chinese captain and the chin-chu, or super- 
cargo, held an impassive inquest. The men, they 
decided without emotion, were moribund; and it 
is well known that it is bad luck to have one of a 
company die on board a ship or under the shelter 
of a roof. It is the custom of the junks which 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 45 

crawl about the China Sea to put in here and there 
at certain deserted places to replenish their stock 
of cooking fuel, since elsewhere such supplies 
have to be purchased, whereas here they are to 
be had for the taking. Accordingly, at the first 
stopping-place the two invalids were put ashore, 
and left there. At first, poor wretches, they 
were so thankful to find themselves once more 
upon terra firma that they hardly realised their 
position ; but presently, when they understood 
that they were to be abandoned in their helpless 
condition, they raised feeble cries of protest and 
entreaty. But here the *' hardness " of the 
Chinese character, to which allusion has already 
been made, was manifested. The dying men had 
just been flung out upon the sand ; no covering 
or protection from the sun had been afforded 
them. It was not even certain that the spot 
upon which they lay was above high- water mark. 
If they did not die of disease, they would certainly 
die of hunger, thirst, and exposure. Also they 
belonged to a company, one hundred and forty- 
seven strong, each of whose members knew him- 
self to be liable to similar treatment if his health 
broke down ; yet not only was no finger raised 
in their defence, but their companions actually 
lent a hand in getting them ashore and leaving 
them to their fate. All the folk on board the 
junk were engaged in an enterprise of a specu- 
lative financial character, and no one was pre- 
pared to see his chances jeopardised from the 
start by anything notoriously calculated to 



46 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

bring ill luck in its train. After all, the Chinese 
are not the only financial operators who in their 
time have regarded the sacrifice of a human life 
or two as a matter of slight moment if weighed 
in the balance with the success of a " deal " ; 
only the Chinese, who are endowed with a 
peculiarly cynical frankness of their own upon 
occasion, do not cover up their cruelty with the 
skill which is thought to be decent in other lands. 
The junk crept onward, her speed steadily 
maintained as she ran before the monsoon ; and 
presently the south-westerly course was altered, 
and she began to beat through the clusters of 
islands which guard the southern extremity of the 
Straits of Malacca. Here she met baffling winds, 
and the heat on both decks was terrific ; also, 
with the broaching of a new water-tank, her 
troubles came upon her headlong. Three of the 
passengers fell ill one evening, and died with a 
rapidity so startling that there was no time in 
which to deal with them as with their two 
predecessors in misfortune. This, of course, was 
" very bad Joss " indeed ; but that in itself was 
not enough to account for the horror with which 
the survivors looked into one another's eyes 
as, in the pitiless grey dawn, they heaved the 
bodies to the sharks. The corpses were not 
pretty to look at. Their yellow faces were the 
unwholesome colour of clay ; the cheeks had 
fallen in, the eye-sockets were cavernous, the 
bones of the forehead were huge protuberances, 
the stomachs were extraordinarily concave, the 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 47 

finger-tips were puckered curiously. And all 
this was the work of a bare three hours' illness 
in the heart of the night. No Chinese peasant 
on board needed any man to tell him that this 
was the assault of the arch-enemy, — of the 
'' Chilly Death/' of Cholera. 

In Asia, where the majority of men live amid 
such insanitary surroundings as beggar descrip- 
tion, there is nothing that breeds a panic so 
universal as the coming of the " Chilly Death." 
If it smites men ashore, they fly headlong, 
whither they know not, bearing devastation with 
them in their frantic efforts to escape. When 
it deals its blows amid circumstances which 
preclude the possibility of flight, it cows those 
who behold its ravages in a fashion which is 
paralysing. Su Kim and Ah Kui and their 
companions were cowed now. They sat with 
their noses between their knees, looking fear- 
fully and furtively at one another, possessed by an 
awful expectancy, asking themselves over and 
over again the tremendous question : Who will 
be the next ? 

They had not long to wait. By noon of that 
day there were half a dozen fresh cases ; by 
nightfall the victims numbered two score, and 
the place was a shambles. Fear — blind, master- 
less fear — ruled that human company. Above 
them by day was the clear, pale Malayan sky, 
out of which the sun struck downward as with 
the blows of a white-hot hammer ; around them 
was the glassy floor of the sea, its waters of an 



48 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

extraordinary colourless tint, its oily surface un- 
broken by so much as a ripple ; on the skyline 
to the west the coast hills of Sumatra sat and 
shimmered through the heat-haze, a mist-like 
outline of a blue fainter than that of sea or sky. 
The big sails flapped lazily or hung motionless as 
a pall. Everything was still, peaceful, appal- 
lingly emotionless, except where overhead kites 
and carnivorous sea -fowl hovered constantly 
with an odious suggestiveness in their persistent 
attendance. The intense heat was an aggressive 
force which seemed to cut with blades of flame 
into the bodies, the brains, the very souls of its 
victims ; and all day long the great clumsy junk, 
helpless as some wounded monster, lay almost 
motionless upon the burning floor of the sea, 
under the blazing roof of the sky, with the deep, 
calm, indifferent peace of the inanimate uni- 
verse around her, and all the horrors of hell 
within. 

The sun sank to its rest in a glory of purple 
and gold ; the short, sad gloaming of the 
tropics followed, and was succeeded by the 
damp, salt coolness of the night ; and ever 
the tale of the stricken grew longer and longer. 
Just before the dawn a breeze sprang up, and 
the sails filled at last. By daybreak the junk 
was travelling at a fair pace, and the shores 
of Sumatra were becoming distinct to the 
eye. Three of the crew of five were dead or 
dying ; of the one hundred and forty-five 
passengers more than half were in a like case. 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 49 

The survivors' one idea was to get ashore. They 
had a half-crazy conviction that if this could be 
accomplished they would somehow or another 
contrive to escape from the demon which was 
devouring them. Logical thought was little 
likely to survive the experiences of the past 
day and night. Even the stolid imagination 
of the Chinese required no quickening amid 
such surroundings. For some thirty hours 
these poor wretches had sat helpless and hope- 
less among the dead and the dying ; among 
men in the first disgusting and agonising 
stages of the disease ; among others sunken in 
the hideous coma that marks the collapse ; 
among the newly stricken, out of whose eyes 
looked a very devil of fear, entreating and 
lamenting ; among the awful, still forms of 
those whose struggles were ended — for the 
survivors had not enough of spirit left in them 
to heave their dead overboard. And all the 
while each man in that ghastly company had 
waited with anxious terror to detect in himself 
the first symptoms of the disease — symptoms 
with which he had now gained so appalling a 
familiarity. There was madness too as well 
as cholera aboard the stricken junk, for here 
and there one upon whose mind the strain 
imposed had proved to be too intense raved 
with an abominable obscenity of speech, or 
moped and mowed like the feeble phantom 
of a lost soul ; while others raised their voices 
in discordant and unmeaning song. For the 



so MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

most part, however, the survivors sat still, 
paralysed by despair, watching with fearful 
eyes the scenes which were being enacted 
around them ; offering no aid to the sufferers ; 
robbed alike of all hope, all initiative, all 
spirit, but endowed suddenly with a dreadful 
capacity for acute feeling and apprehensive 
imagining. 

The sight of the coast, — which every moment 
made more distinct, so that from the deck of 
the junk the contour of cliff and scarp, the 
very trees upon the hills, were presently visible — 
lighted up a tiny flicker of hope in many breasts ; 
but some of the passengers were by now too 
dazed to be capable of receiving any impression 
other than that of their individual misery. 
The captain of the junk recognised the spot 
which he had struck, and remarked to the 
chin-chu that no landing could there be effected. 
He began to head up the coast, keeping upon a 
course parallel with it, and at about ten o'clock 
in the morning a little Dutch harbour opened 
up upon the port bow. Here was salvation 
at last, and hope strong and vigorous sprang 
into sudden life in many breasts. A little 
hum of human speech began to make itself 
heard, and many of these men of an emotionless 
race found hard, painful tears oozing grudgingly 
from their eyes. 

The casualties among the crew, and the state 
of semi-imbecility to which the survivors were 
reduced, caused the junk to be sailed in a fashion 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 51 

so unhandy as to attract the attention of the 
shore authorities ; and before the entrance to 
the harbour was made, a Httle armed steam- 
launch, with two portly Dutch officials on 
board, came pattering up to examine her. A 
Chinese interpreter hailed the junk and inquired 
what was amiss with her ; but the question was 
self-answered. The deck was strewn with the 
dead and the dying : the vessel shouted her 
scandal to all the universe. 

*' God in heaven ! " said the senior Dutch 
official to his fellow. *' Saw you ever the like ? 
It is cholera — black cholera ; and enough of it 
to decimate the whole population of Sumatra. 
Here you, coxswain ! Keep to the windward 
of her ! Do you hear me ? To the windward, 
you pig ! Juru-bhasa (Interpreter) ! Tell them 
they cannot enter this port. Tell them that 
it is forbidden to them to land anywhere in 
Sumatra. Tell them that I will sink them 
rather than let them bring this cursed plague 
into the country." 

The Juru-bhasa , leaning over the railing of 
the launch, yelled these orders to the junk, 
and in an instant her inmates, wakened out of 
their paralysis, were fighting for standing-room 
upon her slippery decks ; were pleading, 
entreating, lamenting, bewailing, praying for 
mercy, with strained, agonised faces ; with 
extravagant gesticulations ; with frantic appeal 
of voice and gesture. 

It was an appalling spectacle to witness — 



52 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

this unrestrained and collective expression of 
human emotion ; this crowd of men, so pitiful 
in their desperation and their impotence, plead- 
ing for life as they spurned, in the agony of 
their excitement, the dead and the dying heaped 
about their feet. Both the Dutch officers 
turned away sick with horror and with a kind 
of shame. It was appalling to feel that they 
were condemning these poor wretches to an 
ugly death without hope of reprieve. 

" Can we not let them land ? " asked the 
younger of the two officers pleadingly. 

" How can we ? " cried the other, in sudden 
rage. " There is no possibility of segregating 
them. It is better that these men should 
die than that the plague should be brought to 
ravage Sumatra. I cannot take that responsi- 
bility. No : they must not be allowed to 
land. It is horrible, but what will you ? We 
must think of others. These men have no 
claim on us." 

It took a long time to drive home to the 
intelligence of the men on board the junk an 
understanding of the fact that the order which 
doomed them was unalterable ; and long ere 
this was accomplished the two Dutchmen were 
themselves upon the verge of a nervous break- 
down. You may be quite clear as to your 
duty, but it is an awful thing to be called upon 
not only to give an order of such a character 
as this, but actually to supervise its execution. 
Gradually the conviction that landing was 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 53 

indeed forbidden to them, and that with the 
armed launch hovering about them they stood 
no chance of being able to evade her vigilance, 
gained ground among the miserable folk on 
board the junk, and little by little the clamour 
of entreaty died down ; the appalling silence 
which succeeded, the silence of cold despair, 
being punctuated only by an occasional shrill 
outcry. The captain and the chin-chu held 
hurried consultation. Sumatra was closed to 
them. They must cross the Straits and try 
to effect a landing on the shores of the Malay 
Peninsula. They had failed to fool the Dutch : 
perhaps they would succeed in deceiving the 
English. 

At the point where the junk found herself, 
the Straits of Malacca measure something like a 
hundred and twenty miles across ; but the sea- 
wind had died down, and a fresh breeze blowing 
off the land had succeeded it. The intention of 
the captain and the chin-chu was presently 
whispered among the crew. The plan offered a 
last chance of escape — a poor chance, perhaps, 
but dying men cling to even the slenderest hope 
with the energy of despair. It was a hope, and 
it manned them to a last effort. Landsmen and 
sailors alike threw themselves upon the tackle 
with a species of frenzy ; labouring with feverish, 
unhandy limbs, propelled by the fierce instinct 
of self-preservation. The dead and the dying 
were all unheeded, as their comrades trampled 
upon them, straining at the cordage ; the 



54 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

captain at the tiller yelled directions ; the chin- 
chu danced among the toilers, screaming his 
advice ; and slowly, reluctantly, grudgingly, 
awkwardly, the big junk came about, and began 
to head in an easterly direction. The Dutch 
officers heaved each a sigh of relief ; but they 
hung upon the skirts of the junk until she was 
half-wa}^ across the Straits and the descending 
darkness hid her from their view. 

Thereafter, for the panic-stricken creatures 
on board the junk, there ensued another fearful 
night. To make more room for the living and 
the d5dng, a number of the dead had been heaved 
over the low bulwarks ; but those that remained 
were still all too numerous. The night was 
profoundly dark, the blackness being picked 
out only by the lights at the mast-head and on 
the port and starboard bows. Between decks 
two villainous oil-lamps hung and stank, the 
garish light which they flung around revealing 
figures, forms, faces, and other things which it 
had been more merciful to hide from sight. 
And once again the fear and the expectancy, 
the awful waiting for his own turn to come, 
settled down cold, paralysing, heavy as lead, 
upon the heart of each member of that sorry 
crew. The hours dribbled by with an appalling 
slowness, as though each grudging moment 
lingered beyond its ordinary wont. Again the 
silence would be broken once in a while, not 
only by the groans of the sufferers, the sound of 
their agonised vomiting, and an occasional pro- 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 55 

longed death-rattle where a man yielded up a 
too vigorous life with pain and tremendous 
struggles, but also by the demented outcries of 
those whose nerves and brains had given way 
under the pitiless strain. 

Of these latter Ah Kui now was one. Su Kim, 
who sat crouching beside him, had maintained a 
stolid silence for hours ; but earlier he had spoken 
to his friend without winning from him any 
response. About midnight Su Kim awoke out 
of a restless, broken sleep, — during the whole of 
which he had never for an instant been freed 
from the consciousness of the hideous situation 
in which he and his fellows were placed, — to find 
Ah Kui babbling with torrential energy to him- 
self. The voice reached the listener through the 
gloom — familiar, yet unfamiliar ; the voice of 
Ah Kui — the same, yet strangely unlike itself. 
The words poured out with an extraordinary 
fluency, crowding and shouldering, tripping 
over one another's heels ; and vSu Kim heard 
familiar names of men and women, of places and 
things, which had belonged to the far-away life in 
China, which the two men had shared together, 
come up one by one to sigh and sob through 
the darkness. To him this experience, with its 
torturing reminiscence of home, was inex- 
pressibly agonising. It sawed at his frayed 
nerves, and haunted him with new, vague fears. 
He tried to stop his ears ; but that voice, which 
spoke of home with so mocking a futility, babbled 
on relentlessly, and would be heard. Su Kim's 



56 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

brain too began to totter ere the dawn broke, 
grey and woe-begone, to usher in yet another 
day. 

An hour after daybreak the babbhng of Ah 
Kui ceased, but he began forthwith to develop 
the earher symptoms of cholera. Su Kim drew 
away from him. At once the identity of his 
friend was in a fashion lost, being swallowed 
up in the fact that he too had been singled out 
as a victim of the demon which possessed the 
junk. He ceased to be Ah Kui : he became 
only another man dying of cholera, and a poten- 
tial centre oi infection — an enemy breathing 
death. 

The long hot morning dragged itself noon- 
ward, and Ah Kui passed with more than usual 
slowness and struggle through all the symptoms 
of the disease. Su Kim, huddled up in his 
corner, watched him with horror and fear ; but 
the scant stock of sympathy wherewith a China- 
man is provided had long ago been exhausted. 
Su Kim, in common with every other survivor 
on board, had now but a single care, a single 
preoccupation — how to save himself, let the 
devil take whom he would. 

The chin-chu, who had fallen ill during the 
night, fiied a little before midday, but the captain 
was still untouched. About two o'clock in the 
afternoon he called all the survivors on deck, 
and something under fifty men answ^ered his 
summons. 

" Yonder," said the captain, 'Uies the port of 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 57 

Klang. It too is ruled by red-headed foreign 
devils, as was the harbour we tried to enter 
yesterday. Once again, mayhap, they will 
turn us away to die in this hell-ship on the open 
seas. Therefore, with cunning and discretion, 
must we make all things proper, so that no 
man may detect that aught is amiss on board. 
Do you understand, good sirs ? ^' 

The crowd of haggard, hollow-eyed, panic- 
stricken men nodded their comprehension : 
then very methodically they began the work 
that lay before them. First they heaved over- 
board all the dead. It took time, and made a 
heav}^ call upon their spent energies. Then 
they looked at the sick and dying, and from 
them to the captain. 

" We must remove all signs," said he grimly; 
and again they nodded their concurrence. 

Working in little knots of half a dozen, they 
seized the sick men each in turn, bore them 
passive or fiercely resisting to the bulwarks, 
and toppled them into the sea. Some cried out, 
pleading for a last chance of life with fearful 
energy ; others fought tooth and nail with the 
dumb ferocity of wild cats ; others again, sunken 
deeply in utter collapse, lay like logs in the grip 
of the men who held them. Much time was 
occupied in the sombre work, but those who 
addressed themselves to it toiled with a grim 
and methodical determination. From their ex- 
pressionless countenances it v/ould have been 
impossible for an onlooker to guess whether they 
5 



58 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

experienced any special emotion ; only as Ah 
Kui, the last of all, splashed into the sea, calling 
upon his friend by name with passionate en- 
treaty, Su Kim winced as though he had been 
struck. 

But the task was still only half completed. 
The ship had to be cleansed of all traces of the 
tragedies which it had witnessed, and this was 
a work that occupied more than an hour. Each 
man had been so intently engaged upon his 
individual share of the toil that no one had 
noticed that the weather had changed. The 
favouring wind had dropped completely. The 
big red sails flapped limply. The junk still 
moved onward in the desired direction, but she 
moved not by the aid of wind, but borne forward 
by an irresistible current. And now she did not 
move alone, for all about her — some riding high, 
with loosely flung limbs and upturned beseech- 
ing faces ; others wallowing in pitiful impotence ; 
some with arms that seemed to beckon clumsily ; 
others with a grotesque air of floundering 
mockery ; others again with fixed eyes and rigid 
countenances dreadfully accusing — there floated 
a horrible escort. 

The men on the junk drew together in a mob, 
like frightened cattle, seeking comfort and refuge 
from their terrors in physical contact with other 
living, breathing, human beings ; but all eyes 
were fixed in horror upon that awful, jostling 
multitude. The current was bearing them 
shoreward at the same pace as the junk, and 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 59 

there was no escape from them. The dead were 
dogging the hving ; and the survivors, possessed 
by the notion that there was being wreaked upon 
them a grotesque and appalhng vengeance, 
huddled together, almost bereft of their senses, 
and robbed of all ability to make further effort 
for their own preservation. Those dipping and 
bobbing horrors rising and falling on the long 
swell compelled all eyes to watch them. From 
this there was no release, and presently, as Su 
Kim stood with his gaze glued to Ah Kui, he 
saw the dead man fling himself suddenly into an 
erect posture, with arms thrown wide in slack 
gesticulation, and then sink downward. A shrill 
scream broke from Su Kim's throat, to be lost in 
the vastness of the skies, and a thin foam dappled 
his lips. A portion of Ah Kui reappeared 
presently, and several of his neighbours were 
animated in turn much as he had been. The 
presence of half a dozen great black fins moving 
here and there among the escort of the dead 
explained the phenomenon ; but Su Kim was not 
comforted. With his own eyes he had seen the 
friend, who dying had called upon his name, rise 
up in death in awful accusation. 

The sharks were busy, but the feast prepared 
for them was over-abundant. They could not 
cope with it, and their efforts had little effect in 
reducing the number of the junk's ghastly fol- 
lowers. As the afternoon began to wane, Su 
Kim and his companions were borne by the 
current into the harbour of Klang, and with them 



6o MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

came, rolling and rollicking on the swell, the 
grim host of their accusers. 

" The Dutch authorities wired warning to 
Singapore," said the Medical Officer, ** and the 
word was passed to us from Malacca. We kept 
a bright look-out, and when we sighted the 
junk there was no lack of evidence. They had 
cleaned her up wonderfully, and on board there 
was nothing wrong at all ; but all around her 
were the poor devils they had chucked over- 
board. The men on board the junk had not a 
kick left in them. They seemed more than half 
dead with fright. 

''Do? What did we do? Oh, well, we 
rounded up the corpses first. One had to think 
of the effect on the fishing industry. Then we 
towed the junk to the quarantine island, buried 
the dead in a deep pit with lots of quicklime, 
and camped the survivors out. We only lost 
three of them, and the others are working in the 
mines, and most of them making a pot of money, 
I expect — they generally do. 

'' Prosecute ? No, what was the use ? You 
could prove nothing. The question of juris- 
diction was one difficulty, I understand ; and 
nobody could swear that the deaders had 
been thrown overboard while they were still 
alive. The absence of any sick man on board 
was suspicious, of course ; but even so, can 
one blame the poor beggars ? Remember that 
the Dutch had refused them entry ; and then a 



CHOLERA ON A CHINESE JUNK 6i 

Chinaman does not rate life — I mean other folks' 
lives — as highly as we do. Besides, God help 
the best of us if he were to find himself as they 
did, between the devil and the deep." 
And at that the matter stands. 



IV 

THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT 

Seven-and-twenty years ago there lived on the 
banks of a large river which flows into the Straits 
of Malacca a King and the King's Heir. The 
latter was npt the King's son, but only some 
form of cousin or nephew ; for in the State where 
they lived the succession is arranged somewhat 
curiously. There are three great officers in this 
land — the King, the King's Heir, and the Benda- 
hara ; and when in the fulness of time the King 
dies, his heir succeeds him, while the Bendahara 
attains the rank of next in succession, the 
dignities of the Bendahara 's post meanwhile 
falling to the lot of the eldest son of the deceased 
monarch. The virtue of this arrangement is that 
the ruler of the land is always the eldest son of 
a King ;7 has had ample time to outgrow the 
rashness and the unrestrained passions of early 
youth ; and has further qualified himself for 
the throne by years of service in subordinate 
positions. There is so much to be said in favour 
of this system that it cannot but fill one with 
admiration for the excellent theorist who devised 
it in the beginning. In practice, however, it 



THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT 63 

had some obvious disadvantages. A Malay King 
had usually an instinctive horror of his Heir, 
even when the latter was his own flesh and blood ; 
and when the man who occupied this position 
chanced to be a mere relation, this aversion was 
multiplied exceedingly. The King was apt to 
feel that his own son was being unfairly treated ; 
and, since he held power in his hands, he was 
sorely tempted to use up his Heir and the Benda- 
hara more speedily than Nature intended, thus 
adopting a simple method of raising his son to the 
rank of King's Heir with as little delay as possible. 
When this had been accomplished, he might begin 
to perceive that another of his sons was the more 
worthy ; and since he had got his hand in by 
practice upon the vile bodies of the late Heir and 
the deceased Bendahara, he might experience 
some difficulty in drawing the line at the proper 
place, and in refraining from sending his first-born 
to hobnob with the injured ghosts of his pre- 
decessors. 

This system of succession had another dis- 
advantage, for the King's Heir was not bound by 
very close ties to the King ; and if the latter 
developed signs of unseemly longevity, mere 
murder, and not the more horrible crime of 
parricide, was necessary for his removal. This 
represented an obvious temptation difficult to 
resist ; and the Bendahara, who has two people 
between him and the throne, found himself ex- 
posed to it in a twofold degree. At the time of 
which I write, however, primitive ideas of the 



64 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

fitness of things had been put somewhat out of 
gear by the presence of the calm and strangely 
impassive British Government ; and though all 
men hated the King, no one dreamed of aiding 
Nature to remove him from the earth, to which 
his presence was an obvious insult. 

The King lived on the left bank of the river, 
and the Heir had his home on the right bank, 
two hundred yards across the running water. 
This was in a way symbolical, for the King and 
his Heir were in constant opposition, and the 
latter was invariably on the right side. A few * 
miles up-stream, in a long straggling village 
which lined the waters of the river for a couple 
of miles, lived Megat Pendia, a thin and sour- 
faced man, with bleared, bloodshot eyes, shifty 
and vicious. This individual was much feared 
in his village and for many miles around, for he 
was reported to be a wizard ; and one day a 
petition, bearing some hundreds of signatures, 
w^as presented to the Resident, praying for his 
expulsion from the State. The petition gave 
chapter and verse for a dozen deaths, each one 
of which could be traced to the Familiar Spirit 
which, speaking from the mouths of the stricken 
folk, hailed Megat Pendia as its father. 

The petition was obviously ridiculous, and no 
sensible man, of course, would lend an ear to it. 
How can educated Englishmen, who know so 
many things, and are withal so thoroughly 
enlightened, take a serious view of such an 
absurdity ? But the State in question had then 



THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT 65 

but recently come under British protection, and 
the wise man who was at that time its Resident 
cared far less for the opinions of educated and 
enlightened Englishmen than for the peace and 
happiness of the people over whom he ruled. 
He saw at once that action of some sort must 
be taken in order to allay the fears of the super- 
stitious natives ; he knew that it was hopeless to 
attempt to persuade them that Megat Pendia 
was no wizard, but merely a mild, though evil- 
looking, old gentleman with bloodshot eyes. 
Therefore, as he was too just a man to allow 
Megat Pendia to be driven from his home, or to be 
otherwise punished, he instructed me to aid the 
King's Heir in administering a rebuke to the 
wizard for his evil practices, and in solemnly 
warning him of the troubles that would fall upon 
him if he did not mend his ways. 

The natives were loud in their prayers that 
Megat Pendia's neck might be fixed in the fork 
of a bough, and that he might then, for a space, 
be held under water with his face in the mud. 
Were this done, they declared, the swarm of 
grasshoppers that would arise from out the 
water would abundantly prove his guilt. I fear 
that I, in my youthful curiosity, regretted that 
the Resident could not see his way to applying 
this simple test ; for I had so often heard Malays 
speak of this phenomenon as an invariable 
result of the immersion of a wizard that I was 
anxious to witness it with my own eyes. This, 
however, was not to be ; and accordingly, one 



66 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

sunny afternoon Megat Pendia was called before 
the King's Heir and myself to receive his warning. 
The Heir was in a woeful fright, and nothing 
could hide the fear in his eyes ; while I found it 
difficult to maintain the solemn face which the 
occasion demanded. 

Megat Pendia shuffled in and squatted humbly 
on the ground, but his wicked little eyes blinked 
and glared at us most evilly. I had no doubt 
that the man firmly believed himself to be a 
wizard, and I was determined that he should 
be taught that there was risk in trying to frighten 
people ; wherefore, as this part of the business 
had been allotted to me, I held forth glibly 
upon the wickedness of witchcraft in general, 
and of Megat Pendia 's conduct in particular, 
with the withering pungency to which the Malay 
language lends itself. The Heir grew obviously 
more unhappy as the talk went on, while Megat 
Pendia glared at us with his sullen, angry eyes, 
and from time to time the Raja broke in with 
words designed to propitiate and conciliate 
the wizard. In the end our victim promised 
solemnly, with many heavy oaths, never again 
to allow his Familiar One to feast on the blood 
of men. "If he craves milk or eggs, I will 
supply them," said the Heir; for all men know 
that Familiars can live, almost happily, inside 
a bamboo case, if they be given these things 
to eat in plenty. But Megat Pendia took no 
notice of my friend's offer, and strode away 
muttering sullenly to himself. I had not a 



THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT e^ 

doubt of the expediency of what we had done, 
for without it Megat Pendia's own Ufe might 
not have been too safe, and the people of the 
district would have known little ease or peace 
had no notice been taken of their petition. 
Nevertheless, I felt somewhat sorry for the 
disreputable old creature, who had probably 
done little evil, even though he believed himself 
to have dabbled successfully in black magic, 
and had undoubtedly been at some pains to 
frighten his fellows into a similar conviction. 

For a time I heard nothing more, good or bad, 
concerning Megat Pendia ; but a month or so 
later I chanced to cross the river to pay one of 
my many business visits to the King. He was an 
exceptionally unpleasant person, but for some 
reason which I can never explain, and dimly feel 
was undoubtedly to my discredit, he and I were 
on very friendly terms. Accordingly, all minor 
business which had to be transacted with him 
was usually entrusted to me, and I was as 
familiar a figure in his house as were any of his 
own people. 

I found him as usual sitting cross-legged on a 
long rattan chair, bare to the waist, with no cap 
or kerchief on his shaven head, and with a 
bulging quid of coarse Javanese tobacco wedged 
in between his gums and his lips. In his hand 
he held a pair of nippers, attached to a long silk 
handkerchief, with which, from time to time 
he plucked a hair from his chin or body. Before 
entering his compound I could hear his roar, and 



68 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

the queer break of the notes when his voice ran 
up the scale in its excitement to a perilously high 
pitch. I gathered from this (for I knew my King 
well) that he had recently done something mean 
or wicked, and was proportionately angry with 
his victim, whom he was now denouncing to all 
who sat within his gates. As I climbed up the 
stair ladder I could see his arm and the fist which 
held the nippers waving about his head to mark 
the periods of his speech ; and he only dropped 
his voice to greet me, before breaking out into a 
fresh torrent of abuse and self-justification. One 
of his people brought me a chair, and I sat down 
and listened. 

Megat Pendia, who was not present, was 
the cause of all these loud words and angry 
gesticulations. The wizard looked as though 
he were a contemporary of Merlin, and it was 
therefore something of a shock to me to learn 
that his mother had till quite lately been 
living. I was a little reassured when I ascer- 
tained that she was now dead, for extreme 
age is more unlovely in a Malayan woman than 
in any other of God's creatures ; and when I 
further heard that her son had made her funeral 
a pretext for an attempt to borrow money from 
the King, I began to understand the reason 
of his wrath. Megat Pendia 's mother was, 
in some sort, a relation of the King's favourite 
concubine, and, as he sat roaring in his long 
chair, the monarch was evidently aware that 
he had behaved shabbily in refusing the loan. 



THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT 69 

Also, conceivably, he was working himself into 
a rage with a view to preparing himself for 
the bitter things which the pretty lips of his 
lady would probably have to say concerning 
his conduct. Perhaps, too, he was a little 
afraid of the wizard's powers, though courage 
was the one and only virtue which relieved 
the Egyptian darkness of the King's character. 
But above all things the King was a miser, 
and the sense of duty and expediency had alike 
been lost sight of when the right thing could 
only be done by opening his beloved money-bags. 

Of his present state of excitement I needed 
no explanation, for, when the Oriental Bank 
had broken a few months before, I had 
seen the naked soul of the miser looking 
out of the King's eyes while he sat panting, 
and wiping the beads of sweat from his face 
and neck, as pile after pile of greasy, flabby 
notes came up in turn for examination and 
sentence. I had known him do a thousand 
meannesses to those who might well have 
looked -to him for kindness in return for long 
service and deep devotion ; and I had never yet 
witnessed an occasion when his love of money 
had found a conqueror in any purer emotion. 

Megat Pendia, I was told by the trembling 
inmates of the King's compound, had returned 
to his home muttering angrily, and presaging 
grievous trouble for the King in the guise of 
visitations from another world ; and though 
the people hated the master whom they served, 



70 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

they had no wish to see him die. " Where 
shall the vermin feed if not upon the head ? '* 
asks the Malay proverb ; and a man of rank 
can always find a crowd of idlers to cluster 
about him, just as the leanest pig in the jungle 
has no lack of parasites. 

Shortly after this a woeful illness fell upon 
the King, and while he was yet conscious he 
sent word to me to cross the river and join 
the crowd that sat about his head. He lay 
on a mat in the balai, or reception-room, of 
his house, that he might die as publicly as 
possible, with many to help him " through 
the strait and awful pass of death." The 
room was large and bare, with no furniture 
on the mat-covered floors save only the thick 
mattress upon which the King lay, a brazier 
filled with red-hot embers, and one or two 
large brass spittoons. Two or three badly 
trimmed oil-lamps hung smoking from the 
ceiling, throwing a bright light upon the sick 
man, and filling the corners of the room with 
shapeless masses of shadow. The place was 
crammed with Malays, of both sexes and all 
ages and conditions. The Heir had visited the 
sick-room earlier in the day, and genuine tears 
of compassion had borne testimony to the 
known goodness of his heart ; but his presence 
had occasioned such a paroxysm of wrath on 
the part of the King that he had been hustled 
somewhat unceremoniously out of the compound. 
The room was abominably close, and the air 



THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT 71 

was heavy with the pungent smoke from the 
brazier and the reek of kerosene oil. Outside, 
under the open sky, the thermometer stood 
at about 80° ; indoors it cannot have fallen 
far short of 100°. 

For many nights I sat by the King's side, 
sad at heart now that in truth my old friend 
was dying ; pity for his sufferings for the time 
effacing the memory of his manifold iniquities, 
which were indeed as the sands of the seashore 
for multitude. But none the less the some- 
what grim humours of the scene appealed to 
me irresistibly, and I observed all that passed 
around me as very quaintly illustrating the 
characteristics of this strange people. 

The King was for the most part unconscious, 
and from time to time a twitching of all his 
extremities, followed by a rippling of the muscles 
under the brown skin, like a gust of wind passing 
over the surface of a pool, ended in a fit of 
strong convulsions. Then we, who sat nearest 
to him, laid violent hands upon him to restrain 
his struggles and to shampoo his tortured 
limbs. Between whiles we sat speaking to 
one another in low tones ; but, as there were 
near a hundred people present, the buzz of 
conversation made a considerable stir. The 
younger concubines of the King behaved in 
a manner which may have pleased a few, but 
certainly can have edified nobody. While the 
convulsions held the King, they aided others 
in shampooing him in a somewhat perfunctory 



72 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

manner ; and, unless I am much mistaken, 
they made this part of their duty serve as an 
occasion for touching and pressing the hands 
of one or another of the young Rajas whose 
devotion to their dying monarch had ostensibly 
called them to his bedside. When the fit had 
passed, they sat a little back, and entered 
with spirit into what the Malays call the " game 
of eye-play " with such of the visitors as chanced 
to take their fancy. And all the time their 
King and husband lay within a foot or two 
of them, fighting for his life with rending pants 
and gasps. Only one of his wives showed any 
real sympathy with his sufferings, or anxiety 
to stay his ebbing life : she was his Queen, 
and her rank and importance both hung upon 
the length of the King's days. 

Those who held themselves to have deserved 
well of the King, those who had aided him in 
his evil doings, those who had followed him 
in good and bad fortune alike, those who had 
pandered to his many vices, and the survivors 
of those who had been his teachers when he 
was young, were all present — longing for an 
hour of lucidity, when the generosity born of 
the fear of death might unloose the strings of 
the royal money-bags and make any one of 
them a rich man. I could mark the hunger 
in their eyes, the hatred of one another that 
filled them, and the boding anxiety lest the 
King should not recover consciousness in time 
to serve their purposes. 



THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT 73 

The medicine-men were in full force, for the 
European doctors had pronounced the case 
beyond human skill. The King was suffering 
from tumour on the brain, they said, and in 
a day or two at the most his life would be 
required of him. But among a superstitious 
people hope is never lost : a fiend causes the 
ailment, and if he can be routed, all will in the 
end be well. So the medicine-men pattered ' 
charms and exorcisms unceasingly ; and when * 
the fits seized the King, the most daring and ' 
the most mendacious among them would cry 
out that he beheld the Bajang (the Familiar 
One) and his horrible spouse the Lang Suir 
(the Weird Kite-Hag) sitting over against the 
body of their victim. I could see a shudder 
of fear ripple over the listeners when this cry 
was raised, and those nearest to the King 
would loose their hold on him, and draw 
back suddenly, so that his head fell with a 
slap on the matted floor. 

Every now and again the King would regain 
consciousness, and at such times he would 
gurgle out vows never more to do evil, to pray 
with regularity and precision, to forgo gambling 
and other pleasant vices, to spend much money 
in alms, and generally to be a credit to his 
ancestors and a glory to those who would come 
after him. 

Once he asked faintly for his guru, a little * 
shrivelled pilgrim who had taught him in his 
youth to read the Kuran and to understand a 
6 



74 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

few of the tenets of his faith. The gum came 
with alacrity, his face wreathed in smiles, while 
his advance through the squatting crowd was 
followed by angry, envious glances from scores 
of eyes. The old man sat down at the head 
of the mat upon which the King lay, and the 
silence of eager curiosity fell upon the listening 
people. 

'* Majesty, thy servant is here in thy presence," 
whispered the pilgrim in the King's ear. 

The King glanced up at him, with heavy, 
tired eyes, upon which the film of death was 
alread\7- forming. 

*' Guru/* he said in a hoarse, faint voice, 
" Guru, is it thou ? Thou hast ever been a good 
guru to me." 

The guru's smile widened till his red, betel- 
stained gash of a mouth extended almost from 
ear to ear. Then, very slowly and painfully, 
the King lifted up his hands until they rested 
upon his breast, and with the fingers of his left 
he began to draw off a magnificent diamond 
ring which he wore upon his right. It came 
easily enough, for the King had lost much flesh 
during his illness, and presently he held it up 
before his eyes in the full glare of the lamps. 
The guru's face was a study, as it worked with 
eagerness and avarice, while he seemed hardly 
able to keep his hands from clutching at the 
blazing gem. A sigh of admiration of the stone, 
and of disgust that it should be wasted upon the 
guru, swept over the crowd who sat about the 



THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT 75 

King, and for full two minutes the ring twirled 
and flashed before our eyes, while a dead silence 
reigned. 

Then the King spoke again. " Gurti/^ he 
repeated, '* thou hast been a good guru to me." 
Then very, very slowly he replaced the ring 
upon his finger. " May God reward thee, O 
guru ! " he said piously, and, calmly closing his 
eyes, pretended to fall into a deep sleep. 

The master passion of the miser was strong in 
death, and the guru's face wore a very sour look 
as he shambled back to his seat among the 
watchers. The little incident seemed to have 
raised the spirits of everyone present, with the 
sole exception of the guru himself. 

On the next night the King again regained 
consciousness for a space, and once more called 
for the guru. He was now terribly weak, and 
the hour of death seemed to be drawing very 
near. 

" The FamiHar One of Megat Pendia," said an 
old medicine-man, " is passing strong. He will 
have his will of the King, and I, even I, am 
without the power to drive him forth. No man 
other than Megat Pendia can save the King now ; 
he hath caused this grievous sickness, and he will 
not stay his hand until the end hath come. 
Therefore the King will die ; and Megat Pendia 
will go unscathed, for that is the white man's 
law. Ya Allah ! Ya Tuhan-ku ! All our eyes 
are alike black, but the fate of each man diifereth 
from the fate of his fellows." 



'je MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

This time, when the guru came to sit at the head 
of the King's mat, his face wore no smile of 
hope and expectation. He was very glum and 
sullen, and when the King inquired of him con- 
cerning his chances in a future life, he was 
profoundly depressing. 

'' Shall I be saved ? " asked the King, in that 
thin, far-away voice which sounded so strangely 
from his lips. 

'* God alone knoweth," ejaculated the gurUy 
with the air of one who took the most gloomy 
view of the situation. '' All who are saved see 
the lam-alif at the hour of death. Dost thou see 
it, O King?" 

The lam-alif is the letter — the wedded con- 
sonant and vowel — which forms the first portion 
of the profession of Muhammadan faith ; and the 
dulled eyes of the King sought the dingy ceiling- 
cloth above his head in the hope of seeing there 
the characters which betokened his eternal 
salvation. At last he said, '' Guru, I behold 
the lam-alif \ " 

" Then, O King, thine hour hath come/' was 
the answer. 

The King lay staring at the ceiling - cloth 
with lack-lustre eyes, but with an eager fascina- 
tion very curious to see. Then his limbs stiff- 
ened slightly, his e3^es closed, and his jaw fell. 

The silence which had held the people during 
this last scene was shattered to fragments in a 
moment. " The King is dead ! Ya Allah y the 
King is dead 1 " cried everyone. The women 



THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT ^j 

set up their discordant lamentations. The 
Queen threw herself upon the mat at the King's 
side, and screamed shrilly for the life which in 
passing had shorn her of rank and power. The 
concubines let down their back hair in as be- 
coming a mailner as they could, and made belief 
to pull it, while their bright eyes flashed love- 
glances through their waving tresses. The self- 
seekers, who now saw their last hopes blighted, 
groaned aloud, and for full five minutes the 
noise of mourning was indescribable. Then 
suddenly a voice came from the corpse. " I 
am not dead yet," it said. The King's eyes 
opened, his mouth closed, and in a faint whisper 
he asked for unleavened bread and molasses. 
They were brought to him, but he could only 
eat a mouthful, and soon after he again relapsed 
into a state of unconsciousness, from which it 
seemed probable that he would never again 
recover. 

At dawn I left him, and returned across the 
river to my house. I took a bath, and, as it 
chanced to be a holiday, w^herefore no office 
required my presence, I thought that I would 
go and look for a snipe before turning in. My 
way led up the right bank of the river, through 
the long straggling village in which Megat Pendia 
dwelt. x\s I passed through the fruit groves 
in the cool freshness of the early morning, the 
strong contrast to the stuffy, squalid place in 
which I had spent the night made it difficult 
to realise that the two scenes could be part 



78 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

and portion of the same land. The trees and 
shrubs and all the masses of greenery about me 
were drenched with dew, which glistened and 
shone in the bright sunHght ; the chorus of the 
birds, all joining together in their splendid 
morning song, the purest music ever heard, fell 
gratefully on my ears ; a pack of monkeys 
were whooping and barking in the jungles across 
the river. Everything was cool and pure 
and fragrant, and all the world seemed newly 
washed and clean. I revelled in the beauty 
of the scene, and tried to persuade m3^self that 
the sordid death-bed of the King, with all the 
greed and lasciviousness which had made it 
hideous to witness, was but an evil dream that 
had come to me during the dreary night-watches. 

Presently I met a Malay hurrying down the 
path in the direction from which I had come. 
" Whither away ? " I asked ; for this question 
is a cordial greeting among Malays. 

" I go to summon the washers of the dead," 
said the man, halting to speak to me. 

''Whois dead? "I asked. 

" My father, Megat Pendia," repHed the man. 
" He died an hour ago." 

" What ailed him?" I asked. 

" I know not ; but he was a very old man. 
He died from old age, I fancy." 

I did not go on to the snipe-grounds ; but 
instead I turned back to the station, and sent a 
doctor to examine Megat Pendia's body, for I 
feared that he might have met with foul play. 



THE FAMILIAR SPIRIT 79 

In due course I received the doctor's report, 
and his certificate left no doubt that death had 
been due to natural causes. 

In the afternoon I crossed the river to see how 
it fared with the King. At the gate of his 
compound I met one of his people. ** The King 
is better," said the man. '* Megat Pendia died 
this morning, and the FamiUar One hath de- 
parted." 

The room in which the King had lain stretched 
during his illness was empty now, save for four 
or five women who ministered to him. I had 
been warned that I should find him better, but 
I was not prepared for an almost complete 
recovery. The King was sitting on the long 
rattan chair, as of old, eating unleavened bread 
and molasses ravenously. His concubines, very 
demure and sober, with their modest eyes pinned 
to the floor-mats, squatted around him, tending 
him with extreme assiduity. He said that he 
was weak and very hungry, but otherwise quite 
well. 

'^ I am told that Megat Pendia died when the 
day was dawning," he said significantly. " It 
was at that hour that the Evil One left me." 

The King lived to break all his pious vows, 
and died a couple of years later with a heavy 
load of new crimes to bear before the Judgment 
Seat. But at that time I was far away on the 
east coast of the Peninsula, and I know not 
whether the lam-alif came to comfort his last 
moments with an assurance of certain salvation. 



80 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

The European doctors explained that the 
growth of the tumour on the King's brain had 
been suddenly arrested, and the case was quoted 
as one of unparalleled interest. But the Malays 
say that the King went near to lose his life at the 
hands of Megat Pendia's Familiar, and that the 
timely death of its owner alone prevented the 
Evil One from completing its work of destruction. 



*'THE LEGION OF STRANGERS" 

I AM not personally responsible for the above 
rendering into English of the name of a famous 
French corps — La Legion ^trangdre — which is 
the one unquestionably efficient piece of 
machinery at the disposal of that ubiquitous 
Administration, whereof the feverish desire to 
" govern" makes existence almost impossible to 
the unofficial population of Indo-China. 

The phrase belongs to my friend Gunner 
Stevenson of the Royal Regiment of Artillery ; 
and as I cannot attempt to reproduce the rest 
of his story in his own words, I think that it is 
only fair to give it a title in which I can quote 
him literally. He told me the tale of his 
experiences as I lay sick on my cot in the hospital 
in an Eastern city, while he clawed my cigarette- 
papers to tatters in his large, unaccustomed 
fingers. He was a nice-looking young fellow, 
smart, alert, and upstanding in his khaki uniform ; 
and since he had eyes that could see, and a mind 
capable of assimilating his impressions, he had 
much to say that was worth hearing. 

In the beginning, he explained, he had been a 

8i 



82 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

fool. The life of the British soldier in a garrison 
town of the tropics is dull to a degree that cannot 
adequately be expressed in set terms. Reveille 
at five, parade while the short hours of coolness 
last, breakfast, orderly-room later for the 
unfortunate ; and then the long, empty, panting 
day, during which men can only lie on their cots, 
kicking their heels and cursing their luck, or 
bickering aimlessly. Meals and a few uninterest- 
ing inspections and fatigues supply the infrequent 
breaks in the interminable monotony. The 
white man's enemy, the sun, holds the men close 
prisoners until the afternoon brings coolness ; 
for soldiers are expensive, and their officers 
cannot risk allowing them to take their chance 
of heat-apoplexy with Europeans of the common 
run. 

But even the two hours before the sun goes 
out, with the suddenness of an extinguished 
candle, bring but poor relief from the appalling 
boredom of the soldier's life. He may put on 
his forage-cap and walk down to the bazaar, or 
he may play cricket or football, but the time 
for recreation is all too short ; and soon after 
10 p.m. the bugle sounds " Lights out," and the 
dreary day ends, to be followed by another 
which is its exact image. Try in imagination to 
spend a year or two composed wholly of days 
such as this, and you will begin to understand 
why it is that the more intelligent and active- 
minded of our soldiers in the East are occasionally 
possessed by a devil of madness, which drives 



" THE LEGION OF STRANGERS " 83 

them to perpetrate apparently inexplicable 
follies. 

Gunner Stevenson endured barrack life for 
some two years ; then, as he himself described 
it, he acted like a fool. He had late leave one 
night, at a period when his simmering mental 
irritation had nearly reached boiling-point ; 
and in a bar in the town he forgathered with 
three Scotch engineers from steam-tramps then 
lying in the roads. These men, who spent 
most of their lives in the stokehold of Chinese- 
owned crafts — about as seaworthy as a sieve 
and as evil-smelling as a sago-factory — sweating 
at every pore, between grilling climate and 
blazing furnaces, saw fit to pity and deride 
the soldier on account of the misery of his lot. 
In unendurable fashion they contrasted his 
servitude with their freedom — save the mark ! 
They chaffed him about the " leave " he was 
forced to ask, ere he could even spend an evening 
in a tavern of the town. They affected to whistle 
to him, that he might come to heel, declaring 
roundly that dogs had more liberty from their 
masters than a private is allowed by his officers. 
Ordinarily Gunner Stevenson would have con- 
tented himself with trying to break their bones ; 
but in his then state of mind the taunts rang 
true, and the bitterness of things ate into his 
spirit. He fell to reciting the '' Devil'sCatechism,*' 
cursing the British Army, from the Commander- 
in-Chief to the last and least of the drummer- 
boys, and wound up by vaingloriously announcing 



84 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

his utter willingness to fly in the face of Pro- 
vidence and the King's Regulations, The slow 
Scotsmen laughed in their grimy beards, and 
dared him to prove that he was really " game " ; 
whereupon Gunner Stevenson, after " spoiling 
the faces " of two of them, and borrowing a 
soiled suit of clothes from the third, tramped 
down to the docks and stowed himself away on 
board a ship bound for the French Colonies. 

He awoke next morning with a sore head, a 
sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, and 
an unshakable conviction that he was a fool such 
as is seldom seen. Also he counted ruefully 
the few dollars that he possessed, and thereafter 
gave himself up to despair and the agonies of 
sea-sickness. 

The ship reached Saigon, and Stevenson, gaunt 
and miserable, with a rudimentary beard sprout- 
ing on his chin, sneaked ashore unobserved. In 
twenty-four hours from the time of his landing, 
necessity,combinedwitha lack of imagination, had 
driven him to the nearest French recruiting office, 
where he was promptly enrolled in the corps of 
which he ever afterwards spoke as " The Legion 
of Strangers." He had quitted the British Army 
— leaving behind him a spotless defaulter-sheet 
and prospects of early promotion to non-com- 
missioned rank — because the life of a soldier 
had proved too irksome in its grinding monotony, 
and because for a moment or two Discipline 
had appeared to him as a Spectre of Tyranny : 
yet in less than a week he had of his own 



" THE LEGION OF STRANGERS '' 85 

motion entered himself as a recruit in a regiment 
which offered scant promise of a career, and is 
ruled by its officers with an iron hand. 

La Legion Etr anger e^ as everybody knows, 
is composed of men of all races of white folk, 
and of every degree of ruffianism and villainy. 
Speaking generally, the soldiers in its ranks 
are the sweepings of the Continental races, the 
*' casters " and loafers whom Fate has left 
stranded in the inhospitable ports of Eastern 
Asia or of Northern or Western Africa. The 
Legion serves only abroad ; it acts as the police, 
judge, jury, and executioner in the lawless 
Hinterlands of the French Colonies. Its members 
never earn or obtain leave of absence, nor are 
they transferable to other corps. Nominally, 
discharge can be won at the end of ten years' 
continuous duty, but few live to enjoy their 
freedom — vile climates and the native folk , 
whom the French designate collectively as 
*^ pirates," using up the Legionaries with a 
startling rapidity. Cosmopolitan in character, 
composed of desperate and " broken " men, 
engaged constantly in unrecorded struggles 
with the enemies of France, — which her colonial 
administration has such an unhappy knack of 
creating, — La Legion £tr anger e bears a sinister 
reputation ; but this is altogether eclipsed by 
that boasted by the officers who lead it. They 
are popularly supposed to be a pack of unlicked 
devils, the outcasts of society, erstwhile gentle- 
men who '* have gone under," men whom ill- 



86 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

fortune has embittered, whom vice has ruined 
and made savage — Frenchmen who desire no 
longer to see France or to tread the boulevards 
of Paris. 

Yet Gunner Stevenson, who is a broad-minded 
person, had a good word to say for his comrades 
of the Legion. His charity was not large 
enough to include the Italians or the Levantines, 
but he pronounced the Swedes, Danes, Germans, 
Belgians, and Frenchmen to be good fellows, 
who left a man in peace when once he had given 
proof of his ability to stand up for himself. The 
officers, though they came down upon de- 
faulters " like a cart-load of bricks," struck him 
as fine soldiers, dashing leaders, and very just 
in their dealings with the men. The promptness 
of their drumhead courts-martial, and the 
sang-froid with which they ordered captured 
'' pirates " out for instant execution in big 
batches, appealed forcibly to his sense of the 
eternal fitness of things ; and in other matters, 
of which he was perhaps a sounder judge, his 
criticisms reflected badly on the British Army* 
For instance, he was much struck by the march- 
ing powers of the corps, which he attributed in 
a great measure to the superior method of pack- 
ing and disposing of the soldier's kit ; for he told 
me that the boots served out were very poor 
things compared with the regulation " ammuni- 
tion-boot " used in our Service. He had much 
more to say that was worth noting, but this is 
not the place in which to enlarge upon his 



" THE LEGION OF STRANGERS '' 87 

opinion concerning things technical. Instead, 
I must pass on to the description of the one big 
sensation experienced by him during the space 
that he served with " The Legion of Strangers." 

This did not arise from the battles in which he 
took his share ; for the " pirates " of the Tong- 
king Hinterland, he said, used their rifles with 
little skill. These rifles, it should be mentioned, 
were mostly of Birmingham manufacture, being 
supplied by that trade which manages to sneak 
into every corner where the Flag is not. Most 
fights resolved themselves into a scattering 
squabble of musketry spluttering over ten square 
miles of boulder-strewn hills ; and it was only 
when a small detachment of the Legionaries 
lost their way and fell into the hands of the 
enemy that much harm came to them. On 
such occasions unspeakable things were done 
to the prisoners ; but Gunner Stevenson, for- 
tunately for himself, never met with such a 
disaster as this. Therefore the affair which 
chiefly impressed itself upon his memory was 
a private quarrel, which took a course altogether 
unlike anything to which his previous experience 
as a British soldier had accustomed him. 

He had joined the Legion a few weeks prior 
to the outbreak of the war in South Africa, and 
some months elapsed before news of that event 
trickled through from the coast to the wilder- 
ness in which he was serving. It came accom- 
panied by the rumour of appalling British 
disasters, jubilantly magnified and distorted by 



88 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

the press of Indo-China, — which does not love 
the EngUsh, — and it created a tremendous 
excitement among Stevenson's comrades. 

From the first, the new recruit had found that 
he was doomed to a Hfe of great lonehness. He 
was the only Englishman in the ranks ; he knew 
no French, though he contrived to pick up 
enough to carry him along ; and the men were 
divided into a number of cliques. The Italians 
and the Levantine " scum " — I quote Gunner 
Stevenson once more — herded together, and were 
despised by their fellows because they were 
believed to be folk of little courage. The Swedes 
and Danes associated almost exclusively with 
the Germans ; the Frenchmen, who counted 
themselves the elite of the nondescript mob, 
messed together, and gave most foreigners the 
cold shoulder. 

Stevenson, who, true to his birth, had been 
brought up to believe himself worth a dozen 
foreigners, naturally claimed a place among the 
crack section of the corps, and attached himself 
to the Frenchmen, by whom, he said, he was 
treated with much kindness. When the word 
telling of war with the Boers reached the camp, 
however, his position became very difficult. 
All his comrades, he discovered, were fierce 
partisans of the Dutchmen, and cherished an 
instinctive hatred of England. At that time, 
all the world over, men thought and talked of 
little save the war ; wherefore Gunner Stevenson 
found his hand against all men and all men's 



^' THE LEGION OF STRANGERS '' 89 

hands against him, and was forced to Hsten to 
a great deal that was calculated to make an 
Englishman wince. He could not fight the 
whole regiment — the foreign tongue fettered 
him, and rendered him wholly inarticulate in 
argument ; he could only curse and blaspheme- 
in a language whose oaths brought no real con- 
solation to his conservative British soul— and 
heartily wish himself back again in the great 
hot barrack-room, the monotony of which had 
driven him once to madness. 

His own mess-mates, the Frenchmen, seem to 
have shown something like courtesy to the 
stranger ; and though they could not entirely 
repress their triumph at British mishaps, they 
did their best to refrain from being brutally 
offensive to the individual Britisher. We 
islanders are prone to believe that love of fair 
play is a virtue peculiarly our own, but the 
innate courtesy of the French may often 
perhaps bring about the same results as the 
Englishman's cult of abstract justice. Any- 
how, Gunner Stevenson, after living cheek by 
jowl during a particularly trying time with 
some of the worst blackguards of France, was 
reduced to a condition of gasping wonder at the 
forbearance which they showed him, and the 
tact displayed by the roughest of them, even 
when men's passions were stirred to an unusual 
intensity. 

That trouble must come sooner or later, since 
the war had given so adverse a turn to his cir- 
7 



90 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

cumstances, Stevenson saw clearly ; and the 
fact oppressed him, for he recognised his utter 
ignorance of foreign manners and customs, and 
knew not at all what form the trouble might 
assume. 

One day, however, the long-expected storm 
burst. A huge, hulking German, the recognised 
bully and cock of his mess, sauntered into the 
hut occupied by Stevenson and the Frenchmen. 
He put out a vast red hand and knocked the 
dominoes, which were standing in front of the 
Englishman, on to the ground, accompanying 
the action by some luridly unprintable remarks 
concerning the origin, morals, and appearance 
of the British nation as a whole, and of Steven- 
son, its soUtary representative in "The Legion 
of Strangers." 

The assault was so unprovoked and so direct 
that the Englishman lost his temper in a moment, 
and before he had time to think or to calculate 
the consequences, had flown at the German, 
yelling to him '' to put his hands up," and was 
knocking him endways with a pair of honest 
English fists, striking out straight from his 
shoulders. 

The German was fleshy, and the blows raised 
gratifying bruises and lumps all over his face ; 
and Stevenson, the joy of battle dancing within 
him, found to his delight that he could pummel 
the giant where and how he chose, since the 
fellow had not a notion of the use to which fists 
can be put. His enjoyment was complete, but 



*' THE LEGION OF STRANGERS '* 91 

it was of short duration. A great hubbub arose, 
and half the occupants of the hut threw them- 
selves on the combatants, and yelled shrill re- 
proof at Stevenson for his murderous conduct. 
His best friends among the Frenchmen were 
apparently the most shocked. They loudly de- 
plored the savage brutality of his behaviour ; 
while the German, looking dazed and surprised, 
as though he had knocked up against a hidden 
volcano, was led off to his own mess by a band of 
protesting sympathisers. 

The attitude manifested by public opinion 
was a sore puzzle to Stevenson. The man had 
offended him of set purpose, and had been badly 
thrashed for his pains. Surely that was logical 
cause and effect. Then, wherefore was all this 
pother raised even by the most friendly of the 
Frenchmen ? The thing was inexplicable. He 
had not originated the quarrel, but when it 
had been thrust upon him, he had stood up for 
himself, and had speedily settled it once for all 
by licking the offensive German. The incident 
was closed, satisfactorily, creditably to himself, 
and, as he believed, finally. 

This, however, was not the view taken by his 
comrades. Stevenson's British code of honour 
was completely satisfied, but not so that cher- 
ished by La Legion £tr anger e. According to the 
Legionaries, the German had been within his 
rights in wantonly inflicting an insult upon the 
Englishman, and the latter had been justified 
in answering it with a blow. His misdemeanour 



92 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

lay in the fact that he had not contented himself 
with the singular number. To beat a man 
heartily and repeatedly with the naked fists was 
the act of a savage, a piece of barbarism which 
was utterly inexcusable. Such things were not 
permitted to happen among gentlemen. This 
and more also was explained to Stevenson, who 
scratched his head and strained his understand- 
ing, trying vainly to catch a single ray of in- 
telligence through all this murky unreason. 

''Mais j^ai ecrase le coquin,*' he said again and 
again in his bewilderment. ''Alors c'est fini, 
n*est ce pas ? " But the suggestion was received 
with horrified denials. The incident was very 
far indeed from being finished, it was barely 
begun. It had obviously been the desire of 
the German to provoke a challenge. The pre- 
liminaries, although Stevenson had sadly over- 
acted his part in them, were now complete, and 
it only remained to arrange a duel decently and 
in order. 

But this view of the situation did not at all 
commend itself to Gunner Stevenson. He was 
ready enough to stand up to an enemy with the 
weapons God had given him, to administer or take 
a thrashing, and to shake hands heartily when all 
was over ; but to fight a duel to the death was quite 
another business, and one, moreover, for which he 
was not in the least prepared . Having vanquished 
the flabby German with quite ridiculous ease, 
Stevenson felt that he now bore him no malice, 
and could afford to regard him with a friendly and 



^' THE LEGION OF STRANGERS '* 93 

half-contemptuous disdain. He had not the 
sHghtest desire to kill him : he was even less 
anxious to be killed by him. The whole affair 
was being lifted on to a plane of tragedy that 
was appalling. Also, the moral aspect of the 
matter troubled him. If he were killed in the 
very act of trying to murder a man against 
whom he had now no spite, what would be his 
ultimate destination? The name of hell had 
often been on the lips of himself and his fellows 
in the British barrack-room, but the thing 
itself had never before appealed to him as a place 
into which he might unexpectedly step in the 
course of a few hours' time. 

He seized his helmet, and hurriedly left the 
tent. He must think the difficult problem out 
before he gave a final answer to his comrades ; 
wherefore he took his way alone to a neighbouring 
hillock, and sat himself down to smoke and 
ponder. He was very far from happy. All 
manner of things which had not recurred to his 
memory for years came crowding now into his 
mind. He thought of the sheltered village far 
away in the trim West Country — that peaceful 
place of grassy hills, wooded combes, and deep 
red lanes full of a fragrant coolness, where he had 
lived as a child ; of the little church standing in 
the infinitely quiet God's acre ; of the mother at 
whose knee he had learned the religion that had 
been so long neglected and forgotten, but was 
now unexpectedly obtruding itself upon him. 
He was more than half ashamed of himself for 



94 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

dwelling on these things, was inclined to blush 
for them as weaknesses ; but they rose up, one 
by one, to haunt him and to influence his 
decision. 

He must fight : that was certain — for if he re- 
fused, his life would not be worth living. He 
would fight, but he would not kill. If he were 
to go before the Judgment Seat, it should be 
with hands clean of blood. This resolution 
shaped itself unbidden, and smote him with 
surprise as being altogether out of keeping with 
his preconceived notion of himself. He had 
fancied that he was hardened and reckless ; that 
his nerve was equal to most things ; that he 
was eminently capable of taking care of himself; 
and that he was not one likely to endanger his 
safety for the sake of a mere scruple. Yet now 
that he was brought face to face with something 
wholly unfamiliar and repellent to his instincts, 
he found himself calmly accepting what he 
believed to be a death-sentence, rather than take 
the life of a man who was in no way bound to 
him. He longed to sneak out of the duel, but 
pride of race made this impossible ; he would 
very willingly have stifled the voice of his so 
suddenly awakened conscience, but to do this 
he was powerless : therefore, sorely against the 
grain, and feeling particularly sorry for himself, 
Gunner Stevenson knocked the ashes out of his 
pipe and walked back to the camp. 

A duel between men of La Legion Etrangere 
is a solemn rite, the due performance of which is 



'* THE LEGION OF STRANGERS '^ 95 

hedged about by much formaHty and ritual. 
There is no need for concealment, for it has the 
full approval of the authorities, and is said to 
have the effect of making fighting among the 
Legionaries very unusual. The non-commis- 
sioned officer responsible for the section of the 
challenger goes to his Company's officer and 
makes elaborate report. He next begs for an 
order to draw two rounds of ball cartridge out of 
store, and asks leave for his men to be excused 
parade on the following morning, together with 
their seconds and a few others officially con- 
nected with the business in hand. All this was 
done on behalf of the burly German, for a Court 
of Honour (an anomalous thing, by the way, 
to find itself established in " The Legion of 
Strangers ") had decided that the mauling to 
which that worthy had been subjected at the 
hands of the Englishman gave him the rights 
of the aggrieved party in the dispute. 

In the chill of the early morning, therefore, 
Gunner Stevenson found himself standing, 
rifle in hand, thirty paces distant from his 
adversary, with half a dozen men of the Legion 
looking on from a spot close at hand, but well out 
of the line of fire. There was a dank white mist 
swirling in slow eddies out of the hollows, but 
the light was fairly good, and Stevenson could 
plainly see every feature of the big German's 
face. It was horribly swollen and discoloured, 
and one eye, which was well-nigh obliterated, 
glinted wickedly behind folds of purple flesh. 



96 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Stevenson, who had spent a miserable night 
in anticipation of the coming ordeal, was quite 
horribly afraid, and the chill of the morning 
falling on his already oppressed spirit froze 
him into a kind of cold despair. The matter, 
now that it had come to the point, seemed 
curiously prosaic and trivial ; he had great 
difficulty in reahsing that he was himself inti- 
mately connected with it ; somehow he felt 
much of the aloofness of a mere spectator, 
unthrilled by excitement, though all the while 
he was conscious of the fact that he was in 
the grip of a mortal fear. 

His perceptions were sharpened wonderfully. 
Every object within view was seen with a dis- 
tinctness of detail which was abnormal, and 
each one of them seemed to possess a peculiar 
and insistent interest for him. He noted every 
stain on the canvas fatigue-kit of his enemy, 
and caught himself wondering how and by 
what each of them had been caused ; he 
spied a mole with coarse hairs sprouting from 
it on the man's left cheek, and marvelled that 
the fellow did not pluck them out, instead of 
leaving such unsightly things to offend the eye ; 
and then he noticed, this time with a shock 
of astonishment, that the German's hands 
were shaking. Till that moment Stevenson, in- 
consequently enough, had felt convinced that 
he alone was afraid ; now it occurred to him 
suddenly that his adversary was in no better 
case. The discovery elated him in an extra- 



" THE LEGION OF STRANGERS " 97 

ordinary fashion. At once he cocked his head, 
threw back his shoulders, and tried to smile. 
Regarded as a smile, it was a deplorable failure, 
for the muscles of his face were very stiff in 
their sockets ; but in the circumstances it was 
not discreditable, and it obviously discomposed 
the German. 

^^ Etes-vous prets?^^ rasped out the voice of 
the non-commissioned officer. Stevenson, made 
aware suddenly of the intense preoccupation 
in which he had been sunk, started violently, 
nearly dropping his rifle, as he mumbled an 
unintelligible assent. The German jerked a 
sound out of himself, half pant, half grunt. 

^'Unf cried the voice again. The men 
raised their rifles to their shoulders, and Steven- 
son found himself instinctively cuddling his chin 
into the stock in search of an easy position. 

'' Deux! " He glanced along the dully glint- 
ing barrel, and saw at an enormous distance, — 
so it seemed, — a shining silver ring suspended 
in mid-air, encircling a spot of inky blackness. 
The ring danced this way and that, up and 
down and from side to side, in a manner which 
made Stevenson dizzy to watch. The big 
bruised face of the German, contorted by 
spasms, leered above it with wide-open jaw, 
as though he were trying to catch that circle 
of metal in his teeth. 

''Troisf'* What immense pauses occurred 
between each word ! The ring was revolving 
madly now, whirling round and round and 



98 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

shooting forth long rays of light of all the 
colours of the prism ; and framed in that whirling 
aureola, the face of the Germxan was seen mon- 
strous and grimacing, and suddenly grey beneath 
the purple patches of bruise. Stevenson, in 
a condition bordering on a hypnotic trance, 
kept his eye fixed upon that wheel of blazing 
flames — the core of which was the tiny silver 
circle — and almost lost the sense of his own 
identity. He seemed to be floating in space, 
drawn irresistibly toward that point of dazzling 
light ; while something throbbed and pulsed, 
like the engine of a motor-car, filling the world 
with a great tumult. It was the sound of his 
own heart-beats that deafened him. 

''Feu!'' 

At last the long torture was ended, the supreme 
moment had come. Yet for an instant nothing 
happened. Then the heavens rocked to the 
roar of a mighty detonation. Stevenson heard 
something scream in his ear, and felt a cold 
breath upon his cheek. He had shut his eyes, 
and let his finger fall from the trigger. Now 
he opened them, and dropped his rifle to the 
ready. He looked for the German, and for the 
minute failed to find him. The silver ring 
with its circle of gyrating flames had vanished. 
A fat, ungainly figure was kneeling on the 
ground, shouting for mercy, its useless rifle 
thrown aside. 

Then at last Stevenson arrived at an under- 
standing of what had happened. The German 



'* THE LEGION OF STRANGERS " 99 

had fired and had missed his aim. He was 
now completely at the mercy of the Englishman. 
For the life of him, Stevenson, his calm and his 
self-confidence miraculously restored, could not 
forbear to raise his rifle, and take deliberate 
aim at the squirming wretch before him. But 
the agony which he caused made him convict 
himself of brutality ; he dropped his rifle to 
the carry, opened the breech, and jerked the 
loaded cartridge on to the grass at his feet. 

" And that was the end of my duel with the 
German in * The Legion of Strangers,' sir," he 
said to me. '' And though we were neither of 
us hurt, I had had more than I wanted. I 
deserted soon after, and gave myself up to my 
old Battery; and my major treated me real 
wefl, so I'm like to get my stripes before long 
You take it from me, sir, there are worse places 
than a barrack-room of the British Army. I 
don't hold with having too much truck with 
foreigners ; a man don't know where to have 
'em — not after what I gone through in * The 
Legion of Strangers.' A man don't know where 
to have 'em." 



VI 

MIR MALUK, SEPOY 

" Cur to the bone I " we said ; and surely the 
facts warranted that pitiless verdict. The weak- 
ness of the willing tool ; the meanness of the 
sneaking mercenary ; cowardice, cruelty, folly, 
ineptitude ; the hopeless lack of nerve at the 
critical moment which vitiates the plans laid by 
larger brains ; the brutality of the slayer in cold 
blood of the utterly defenceless — all these and 
more were here combined. What further need 
for indictment ? " Cur to the bone ! " we said, 
secure in the sanity of our judgment of this 
human animal. *' Here at last we have that 
hideous thing, which some psychologists pro- 
nounce to be non-existent — the man who is 
wholly bad." 

But let the story tell itself, and be the reader 
judge between us who condemned him and the 
Cur on whose head we poured out the vials of our 
bitterest contempt. 

The long, low barrack-room, with its walls of 
weather-boarding and its thatched roof sup- 
ported by rough rafters, was hushed to the 



MIR MALUK, SEPOY lor 

heavy silence that came upon it only when the 
night-time was far advanced. The narrow aisle 
which split it in twain was empty ; the string 
bedsteads, jutting out from the walls, were 
filled, each with its slumbering occupant. A 
hurricane-lamp suspended from the ceiling 
glared sullenly through its smoke-blackened 
glass. In the gloom the forms of the sleeping 
Punjaubi soldiers could be discerned dimly — 
some mere shapeless objects huddled beneath 
blankets of a dull red colour ; some lying on 
their backs, with limbs flung wide, and mouths 
gaping above black beards ; others with jaws 
bound about by linen wrappers like corpses laid 
out for burial ; others again snuggling on their 
sides curled up like dogs ; and a few lying pros- 
trate, their faces half hidden in their folded 
arms, '' sleeping as the devils sleep." Now and 
again a faint snore would break upon the still- 
ness, or a dreamer would mumble a fragment 
of unravelled speech ; but for the rest, the 
silence, which seemed to be one with the thick, 
hot atmosphere, filled the place as with a vapour 
of oppression. 

Suddenly a shadowy figure arose below the 
lamp, and the flame dropped to a spark, quivered 
and leaped, then died down, leaving the room in 
darkness. Immediately a shot rang out, fierce, 
startling, crashing in upon the dreams of near a 
hundred men, and losing itself in a grumble 
of echoes ere a single sleeper had been shocked 
into complete consciousness. A rustle of sound 



102 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

followed, made audible by contrast with the rude 
explosion of an instant earlier — a sound as of 
limbs that stretched and stiffened slowly in the 
last movements of their appointed course. There 
was a shuffle, too, of bare feet upon the floor ; 
and then, with wild hubbub, the barrack-room 
awoke. Sikhs and Punjaubi Muhammadans — and 
the barrack-room housed men of both races — 
are alike dowered with a genius for noise. Big, 
burly, bearded fellows — from them, if from any 
of the sons of Adam, one would look for the 
rough, deep bass of the fighter ; doers of deeds, 
not thinkers of thoughts, they should be curt 
folk of few words. Instead, to them have been 
given voices raucous and shrill, falsetto voices 
that scream and blare in strange discords, the 
loquacity of a mob of hornbills, and tones that 
cannot be modulated. The barrack-room was 
now a very Babel of rude noise, as the men 
tumbled out of their cots and crowded in a 
scrambling, roaring pack, those in front strug- 
gling to maintain their distance from the Thing 
upon the bed which had been the regimental 
sergeant-major, and from the rifle upon the 
floor which had robbed him of his strenuous 
life. Then a bugle blared the ** Fall in," and 
the men, following the instinct of obedience, lined 
up on the narrow strip of parade-ground under 
the still, pure light of the Bornean moon. 

Below them, as they stood upon the bluff, 
the waters of Sandakan Bay lay glinting like a 
shield of steel, flecked here and there by black 



MIR MALUK, SEPOY 103 

patches of shadow, which were tethered ships 
and junks ; on the right, below them still, the 
native town blinked sleepy, bloodshot eyes at 
them from the huddle of houses made formless 
by the half-darkness ; behind them, on the 
jungle-covered hills, lights shone placidly from 
the bungalows of the European quarter. The 
faces of the men showed pale under the 
moon, their eyes bright with excitement and 
fear. The Subadar, in his white bedclothes, 
with his bushy beard trained over the tops of 
his ears and bound by a linen bandage, passed 
up and down the line, reading the roll-call. 
The men answered to their names in voices 
that thrilled the ear — unnatural voices, tremu- 
lous, discordant, vibrating, and uncontrolled. 
No man was missing from that long list. 

" O Narain Singh ! " cried the Subadar. 
" Get thee to the central guard and bid the men 
stand to their arms ! " 

A Sikh in flowing white draperies leaped out 
of the ranks, and began to run swiftly down 
the hill towards the town. A second shadowy 
form broke away from the line of silent men and 
plunged into the shadows after him. 

" Who is that ? " cried the Subadar sharply. 
" Come back 1 One man is enough." But there 
was no reply ; only in the distance sounded the 
patter of bare feet as Narain Singh and his 
unknown comrade sped upon their way. 

Naarin Singh, slackening his pace when he 
heard footfalls in his rear, was nearly knocked 



I04 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

over by the impetuous onrush of the unknown ; 
and slewing his head over his shoulder as he 
rapped out a blasphemy, he recognised Mir 
Maluk, a young Muhammadan of the corps. 
The face of the new-comer — keen, handsome, 
cleanly cut, as are so many of the faces of his 
people — was ashen grey, the eyes blazing, the 
mouth gasping horribly. 

" Let us run ! " he panted. '' Let us run, 
run, run ! " 

" Run, then, O Brother," cried Narain Singh ; 
but he went craftily, neither allowing the other 
to outstrip him, nor yet to fall behind. 

The murdered sergeant-major had been a 
Muhammadan, and Narain Singh knew that if 
there had been any conspiracy afoot among the 
Sikhs to work him an ill, the secret, though 
staunchly kept, would have been widely known. 
Many of the races of India have a peculiar 
talent for this sort of intrigue, and the most 
dangerous plans can with safety be divulged 
to half a countryside without risking betraj^al. 
Narain Singh argued that he would surely have 
been one of the first to know of the plottings 
of his own caste-mates, for he flattered himself 
that he was eminently a person worthy of trust ; 
wherefore it was evident to him that the sergeant- 
major had been removed, not by Sikhs, but 
by some of his own co-religionists. Now it is at 
once the business and the joy of every member 
of a mixed Sikh and Muhammadan force to show 
up the misdeeds of the opposing creed ; wherefore 



MIR MALUK, SEPOY 105 

Narain Singh, who had no objection on prin- 
ciple to cold-blooded murder, ran cunningly, 
and kept his eyes skinned to watch the move- 
ments of Mir Maluk. 

Across the empty market-place the two men 
sped, the lean curs of the town barking and snap- 
ping at their heels. From the houses on their 
left came sounds of men disturbed, and the slow 
cackle of poultry unwilling to awake. Pre- 
sently the lights of the guard-house showed a 
couple of hundred yards ahead, playing hide- 
and-seek behind the palm trees as the men ran 
forward. As they entered the compound Mir 
Maluk fell ever so little to the rear, and dropped 
in the long grass which fringed the pathway. 
Narain Singh halted in mid-stride, and with a 
leap like a wild cat was upon him. The young 
Muhammadan was rubbing the palms of his 
hands hurriedly against the coarse stems of the 
lalang grass, while his eyes darted quick, fearful 
glances from side to side. 

'' I fouled them falling from the barrack- 
room in my haste," he gasped in explanation, 
as Narain Singh seized him roughly by the shoul- 
der ; and together the men rose and ran forward. 

At the guard-house Narain Singh made his 
report to the sergeant. 

" And this one followed me unasked, O 
Sergeant- ji I " he said. 

The sergeant turned scowling upon Mir Maluk. 
" Wherefore didst thou quit the ranks ? " he 
asked. 
8 



io6 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

" It was an order/' panted the youngster, 
winded by his long run. '' An order of the 
Subadar Sahib." 

That was his second he, and the third false 
move which he had made within the hour. 
Before dawn Mir Maluk was lodged in the 
lock-up, securely hidden from sympathetic 
Muhammadan eyes by a guard of Sikhs, who, 
exercising the right of the hereditary enemy of 
his people, mocked him unmercifully, pointing 
to the gyves upon his wrists, and hailing him as a 
proselyte, since the iron bangle, though of a 
different pattern, is the distinctive badge of the 
Lion caste. Close at hand, certain leading and 
now exceedingly wrathful Muhammadans sate in 
secret conclave, cursing Mir Maluk for a sorry 
bungler, and disputing venomously as to who 
should bear the blame for having selected so 
inefficient a tool. 

So far the incident, though ugly, was common- 
place enough. The men of the irregular forces 
in this part of the world have a nasty habit of 
using up their native officers with a rather 
prodigal extravagance. When a man stops 
promotion by unseemly longevity, when he is a 
stickler for discipline, when he declines to wink 
at broken rules, when he makes favourites, or 
puts his spite upon some clumsy recruit who has 
influential relatives among the non-commis- 
sioned officers, he runs considerable risk of dying 
very suddenly. Most native officers do one or 
more of these things ; can we wonder, therefore, 



MIR MALUK, SEPOY 107 

that the days of some of them are not suffered 
to be long in the land ? But if one such murder 
be successful, and the perpetrator escape de- 
tection, the thing is likely to assume an epi- 
demic form ; so at such times the white men in 
charge of the force grow lean with care, and their 
faces become prematurely wrinkled by watchful- 
ness and the gnawings of perpetual suspicion. 

After the death of the sergeant-major there 
followed a month of plottings and schemings. 
Those concerned to save Mir Maluk's neck were 
busy coaching false witnesses ; intimidating 
the few — the very few — who had a hankering 
after truth ; trying to discover the names and 
the keys to the consciences of probable jurymen ; 
and employing all the wiles and expedients 
known to the natives of India for the conversion 
of the Justice of the Enghsh into the laughing- 
stock of the East. 

So far as Mir Maluk himself was concerned, 
however, the prosecution had an unusually easy 
time of it. Of course he denied the deed stoutly ; 
of course the rifle used belonged to a Sikh ; of 
course the cartridge had been stolen from the 
pouch of a perfectly innocent man ; but the 
tool chosen to do the killing had proved himself 
extraordinarily maladroit, and all the careful 
planning of wiser heads had been thrown away 
upon him. He had lost his nerve at the 
critical moment — as soon as the actual shot had 
been fired. He had lacked the presence of mind, 
the courage, to stand still in the ranks, while the 



io8 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

spirit of him was rowelled by the spur of un- 
wonted emotions. He had made himself con- 
spicuous at the instant when all depended upon 
observation overlooking him, passing him by. 
Perhaps his self-control had been filched from 
him by the splash of that something wherewith 
his hands were reddened ; for the explosion had 
snapped the tension of his overwrought mind, 
and, dropping his smoking rifle, he had stumbled 
blindly, saving himself from falling by his 
outstretched palms, which had come into contact 
with the awful Thing that still lay upon the 
sergeant-major's charpoy. That unlooked-for 
accident had unstrung him, had shaken him 
with a masterless fear. It was as though the 
dead man had drawn him to himself in a dreadful 
embrace, and had set his mark upon him, so that 
the murder might not pass unavenged. There- 
after, Mir Maluk had been possessed by a single 
idea, a single desire — the desire to escape, to get 
away, no matter whither, so be it were far from 
the grim form upon the string bedstead. In that 
moment he had betrayed himself hopelessly ; and 
when the verdict of Guilty was returned, all knew 
that the finding was just. 

Seated alone in his cell, whither he had been 
brought straight from the court-house, Mir 
Maluk had ample leisure to devote to thought, 
and many things wherewith to occupy his mind. 
Death — inevitable, violent, disgraceful death — 
stared him in the eyes. The very Sikhs who 
stood guard over him had ceased to mock him, 



MIR MALUK, SEPOY 109 

for even to their narrow imaginations his was an 
impressive figure as he stood, poised unsteadily, 
on the brink of an open grave. Of a sudden the 
love of life took hold of Mir Maluk with a force 
that he never before had known. Mere existence, 
the drawing of breath, the sight of God's sunlight 
and sky, — although he saw them only through 
the barred window of a cell, — was unspeakably 
sweet. He was conscious of the rioting of the 
young blood within his veins, of the joy of 
youth, of the glow of health, of the triumph of 
physical strength, of the immense vitality that 
was his ; and every one of these things, which 
in the past he had realised not at all, assumed 
all at once an extraordinary value. 

And as his appreciation of this truth gripped 
him more and more insistently, the bitterness 
of the death that awaited him became hourly 
more bitter. It was not that the thought of 
the physical pang preyed upon him or shook 
his nerve. The innate stoicism of his breed here 
stood him in good stead. He had no fear of 
death itself, no dread of the pains that would 
accompany his passage from time into eternity. 
He knew that when the hour came he would tread 
unfalteringly the path that leads to the scaffold ; 
that he would stand upon that awful platform, 
awaiting the drawing of the bolt that would 
launch him into the unknown, without a physical 
tremor ; that he would die, as all the men of his 
race are wont to die, with calmness and with 
dignity. This was not the trouble that beset 



no MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

him. The bitterness lay in the loss of all the 
animal joys of which death would rob him. 
Life — he knew it now — was good, very good. 
A dull rage seized him at the mere thought of 
losing it. The life that lay beyond the grave 
had no attractions for him. He had no fear of it, 
he was tortured by no anxieties as to his eternal 
welfare, repentance did not touch him, remorse 
had not come to him, he did not regret the 
coward's deed which he had wrought : only a 
wild longing to live was upon him — to live, not 
in some dim spirit-world, but here on earth, the 
life of his fellow-men, the life the love of which 
had been suddenly revealed to him. 

He pondered these things in his heart, and 
ever, as the desire of living gained in force and in 
intensity, a furious anger against the men who 
had instigated his action glowed with a fiercer 
flame. So it was all over, and this was the sorry 
end ! Until the very last he had cuddled un- 
reasoning hope to his breast. Had not the men 
who had wrought his undoing told him repeatedly 
that they would look to it that his deed should 
escape detection ? He, poor fool, had had 
blind faith in their skill and cunning, and his 
faith had brought him to this. He reviewed in 
memory the stolen meetings with the leading 
Muhammadans of the corps to which he had been 
bidden. He remembered the pride which had 
been his that such men should admit him to their 
confidence. They had spoken soft things in his 
ears concerning his valour, and that of the 



MIR MALUK, SEPOY in 

fighting breed from which he was sprung. He 
had beheved their admiration genuine. The 
love of slaying for its own sake — of slaying a man 
— which is in the blood of many of the warlike 
tribesmen of Asia, had spurred him on to kill 
the sergeant-major. The act had been repre- 
sented to him as something heroic — the act of 
ridding his fellows of a tyrant whom none dared 
oppose. It had never occurred to him at the 
time that the men who praised his spirit, and 
egged him on to murder, were bending him to 
their will, making him a tool for the perform- 
ance of that which they were loth to do for them- 
selves. They had offered him money, it was 
true, and information had been conveyed to him 
in prison that the price of his crime had been 
remitted to his aged father in the Punjaub. But 
he knew in his heart that it had not been a 
money-lure, but the desire to perform some 
doughty deed that had led him on to slay. 

The fighting blood in him stirred anew as he 
meditated upon his folly and his fellows' treach- 
ery. He saw all things clearly at last — his own 
simplicity and vanity, upon which the others 
had played so cunningly ; the cowardice of 
these careful plotters, who had been so mindful 
of their personal safety ; and the ughness of 
the crime itself — this murder of a sleeping man — 
which had brought with it no thrill of victory, 
and was punishable with a dog's death. Vainly 
he pictured what might have been. He saw, 
himself attacking the enemy of his brethren 



112 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

fearlessly, man to man, in broad daylight, in 
the face of all his world. That had been a 
deed worth the doing. Had he lost his life 
then, grappling with his enemy, with the passion 
of battle afire within him, he had not grudged it. 
But now, branded for a coward, he was to 
be led forth to ignominious death, dishonoured 
of all — he who from the depths of his soul had 
longed and hungered for honour. 

And the more he dwelt upon the past, and the 
more the love of life was quickened in him, 
the more his hatred against the men who had 
duped him became inflamed ; and the more 
the fighting instinct of his people asserted 
itself, the more eagerly he desired to die, if 
die he must, dealing destruction to all about 
him, that as many as might be should share 
his ruin and feel the bitterness of his despair. 

*' Cur to the bone I " we said. *' This only 
was lacking, that, having done a coward's deed 
in cowardly wise, having failed of that measure 
of self-control that might have blinded detection, 
and having taken blood-money for his villainy, 
he should now repent him of his bargain and 
seek to purchase his own life at the price of 
those of his accomplices." 

But Mir Maluk did not plead for life. He 
made no stipulations of any kind concerning 
himself; only he expressed himself anxious 
to make complete confession. And since it 
was important in the interests of the corps 
that the guilty should not escape unpunished, 



MIR MALUK, SEPOY 113 

arrangements were promptly made for the 
taking down of that confession formally in 
the presence of witnesses. " Cowardly brute, 
of course." What other verdict could we 
pass- upon him ? But though the officers of the 
corps shared our contempt for the creature, 
they breathed more freely because Mir Maluk 
was about to make " a clean breast of it." 

All these things happened in the little town 
of Sandakan, in North Borneo, in the year of 
grace 1900, and it was in the gaol of that place 
that Mir Maluk lay in captivity. Here on a 
certain afternoon a little court assembled for 
the purpose of taking down Mir Maluk's deposi- 
tion. There were present the officer commanding 
the corps to which the prisoner belonged, the 
Subadar, the superintendent of the gaol, and 
a guard of some four or five Sikhs. The two 
white men sat at a rough wooden table in the 
little tank of a room which serves as the prison 
office ; Mir Maluk, in mufti, with the skullcap 
of the Muhammadan, stood before them near 
the door, his hands fastened by iron handcuffs 
hanging limply before him. Round him the 
Sikh soldiers were grouped, while the Subadar, 
on the right hand of the commandant, acted 
as interpreter. 

Now, the office of the gaol is situated in a 
corner of the building, and a long gallery, on 
to which the solitary cells open, runs round 
the whole square block, and leads to the office 
door from two directions. In one of the con- 



114 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

demned cells there chanced to be at this time 
a Bajau outlaw of some repute, who had been 
captured a few months earlier, and was to be 
hanged on the morrow for more crimes than 
he had fingers to his hands. In common with 
other Malayans, this man had no sort of objection 
to killing or being killed, but he cherished a 
strong prejudice against dying sitting still. 
Hanging — which means that the killing is all 
on one side — offended his sense of propriety ; 
and his ingenuity had suggested to him a more 
excellent way of shuffling off this mortal coil. 
To this end, with infinite patience and skill, 
he had for some days been making certain 
secret preparations. The gaol department of 
Sandakan is not over-manned ; discipline is 
slack at times ; supervision too often leaves 
much to be desired : and of these things Sunting, 
the Bajau, took full advantage. Thus he had 
succeeded in secreting a pisau raut — the blade 
shaped like a razor but of much tougher cast — 
which Malays use to scrape and prepare rattans. 
This weapon had probably been left at some 
convenient spot, where Sunting could find 
it when he was led forth to bathe, by a 
friend in the chair-making gang ; and to it the 
convict had added a short piece of firewood. 
From these unpromising materials Sunting had 
fashioned a very serviceable dagger. He tore 
his waist-cloth into strips, bound the blade to 
the piece of firewood, and the whole contrivance 
to his right wrist in such a manner that his 



MIR MALUK, SEPOY 115 

fist was furnished with a knuckle-duster con- 
sisting of a stout blade four inches in length 
and of a most satisfactory keenness. 

Thus equipped, Sunting waited patiently 
until the hour of the afternoon meal arrived ; 
and when the sound of the warder's tread 
reached him, he hid himself behind the door, 
which chanced to open inward. The warder 
entered, and stooped to set the tin plates which 
he carried in either hand upon the floor ; and 
as he stood bowed to the ground, Sunting 
leaped suddenly upon him, drove his knife-blade 
deep into the man's abdomen, and springing 
clear, watched him roll into a corner gasping 
desperately. A second later the war-cry was 
ringing through the wooden building, and 
Sunting, stark mad, with the fighting fury upon 
him, with his long hair streaming, his arms 
waving above his head, his face strained and 
eager, his eyes afire with the joy of battle, was 
charging down the narrow gallery, squealing 
with excitement and wild rage. 

Before the group in the prison office had had 
time to do more than jump, as the unexpected 
outbreak of noise reached them, Sunting had 
stabbed and felled two of the Sikhs and, pressing 
through the little mob of men, was flying straight 
at the throat of the commanding officer of 
the corps. The white man, sitting there all 
unarmed, looked up to see the savage face of 
the amok-runner a yard or two distant, rushing 
toward him with lightning speed. He saw 



ii6 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

the mouth thrown wide. He heard the peaUng 
yell, ^^ Amok ! Amok I ^* pulsating with fierce 
triumph, whooping in his very ear. He could 
see the bloodshot eyes of the maniac glaring 
into his own. Almost the reek of the creature's 
fevered breath blew hot upon his cheek. And 
then, ere ever he had had time to stir hand 
or foot in his own defence, there was a flutter 
of white draperies, a guttural grunt, and the 
awful figure that threatened him was effaced. 

Mir Maluk, the cur, the coward, the man on 
whom we had all emptied the vials of our con- 
tempt, had leaped to the rescue. Manacled 
though he was, he had thrown himself between 
the amo^-runner and his victim ; had caught 
the full weight of the savage blow upon his own 
naked elbow ; had borne his opponent to the 
ground ; and now, amid the litter of broken table- 
legs, was rolling over and over with him upon 
the floor, smiting him again and again with 
the iron fetters with which he was crippled, 
taking no count of the stabs that dug deep and 
deep into his own back and side. In a moment 
all the other occupants of the room had rushed 
to Mir Maluk's aid, the Sikhs clubbing their 
muskets ; and presently Sunting, battered out of 
all human semblance, lay still in death — the 
death which he had sought, and which had 
come to him in the guise he courted, as a gift 
from Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate 
God. 

Then the others gathered themselves together 



MIR MALUK, SEPOY 117 

and took count of their losses. In the con- 
demned cell yonder the warder was sobbing out 
his life. In the gallery without the door two 
Sikhs lay disabled ; and in the little office, side 
by side with the dead Bajau, was stretched the 
form of Mir Maluk, bleeding fearfully in twenty 
places, drawing laboured breath, and gazing 
at the pitying faces about him through eyes 
upon which the film was gathering. 

In a passion of gratitude to the man who had 
given his life to save him, the commandant 
knelt in the red dust of the floor and took the 
hand of the dying man in his own strong clasp. 
In faltering phrases he tried to tell the story of 
his thanks, of his remorse for a judgment the 
unsoundness of which had been so suddenly, so 
startlingly revealed — but the words would not 
come. He was paralysed by the magnitude of 
his obligation ; was humbled by a conscious- 
ness of how little he was worthy to be the object 
of so heroic a sacrifice ; and at that moment 
the very identity of his preserver with Mir 
Maluk, the cowardly murderer of the sleeping 
sergeant-major, was forgotten. The man who 
lay stricken before him was for him the embodi- 
ment of valour, the incarnation of courage — 
the virtue which, to the manly man, is the 
highest virtue of all. That he should be living 
and uninjured while this brave fellow lay 
dying in his stead seemed to him an outrage, 
a hideous injustice ; filled him with grief, and 
humiliated him mightily. 



ii8 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Mir Maluk moved feebly, struggling for 
strength to speak. Again and again his breast 
heaved, his lips opened and shut gaspingly, but 
no words came from them. Then, with a mighty 
effort, speech burst from him. 

" Bear witness, Sahib," he panted. " Bear 
witness that ... I die ... a man, Sahib . . . 
a man of a fighting stock ... a man . . . and 
no coward." 

A great rush of blood choked his utterance, 
and even as the white man at his side broke out 
into passionate protestations, Mir Maluk, the 
mercenary, the murderer, the traitor, the hero, 
yielded up the life that was in him. 

This story, I take it, is only worth telling 
because it chances to be true. For the rest, it 
needs a deeper student of psychology than 
myself to unravel the tangled skein which was 
the character of Mir Maluk, the Punjaubi Mu- 
hammadan. 



VII 
TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 

*' How low soe'er men rank us, 
How high soe'er we win. 
The children far above us 
Dwell, and they deign to love us, 
With lovelier love than ours. 
And smiles as sweet as flowers ; 
As though the sun should thank us 
For letting light come in." 

Swinburne. 

Of all the religious creeds devised by the per- 
versity of man, few are more arrogant, aggressive, 
or cruel than that which Muhammad preached 
in the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Com- 
passionate. It is of the essence of this Faith 
that its professors should be taught to regard 
all other people as creatures unworthy of con- 
sideration, — as beings who are utterly beyond 
the pale, — the eternal fuel of the Terrible Place 
in the world that is to come, and the natural 
prey of the Faithful while this life lasts. Bar- 
barous and semi-civilised folk usually find such 
doctrines as these, which justify them in all 
manner of lawless deeds, exceedingly congenial. 
Also, when a man is set to choose between being 

"9 



120 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

a pariah and an outcast with no rights of any 
kind, and joining the number of the True 
Believers, in company with whom he will here- 
after be able to victimise all non-Muhammadans 
who may come within his reach, he does not 
usually find the choice difficult, or hesitate long 
before he makes it. If you think of these things 
for a little space, you will see that the secret 
of the wonderful success that has attended 
Muhammadan missionaries — concerning which 
so many excellent people are for ever lifting up 
their hands and eyes in shocked astonishment 
— is not really much of a mystery after all. The 
enticingly easy laws regulating marriage and 
divorce ; the solemn and impressive ritual of 
Muhammadan prayer ; the absolute certainty 
which every True Believer feels that he is 
destined for eternal salvation, coupled with a 
sure knowledge that all Infidels are eternally 
doomed to perdition — combine to make the 
Faith of Muhammad very comfortable for its 
professors. None of these things, however, 
have as much force with a rude people as the 
conviction that the Muhammadans form a kind 
of moral aristocracy, privileged and encouraged 
by Allah and his Prophet to spoil, oppress, and 
reduce to slavery all Infidels who may come 
within their power. 

The Malays — true children of the drowsy 
land in which they live — are as lazy about their 
religion as they are concerning everything else 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 121 

in the world. After several centuries of con- 
version to the Faith, they continue to be Malays 
first and Muhammadans afterwards ; and the 
Law of God and the Law of Custom have either 
become inextricably entangled, or else the 
former has been set aside in favour of the latter. 
In common with all Muhammadans, good and 
bad, however, the Malays recognise the absolute 
right of the followers of the Prophet to enslave 
those who do not profess the Faith. To this end 
they preyed ruthlessly during some centuries 
upon the defenceless wild tribes of the far 
interior, killing with perfect light-heartedness 
those who offered resistance, and selling the 
weak and timid, the women-folk and the little 
children into a lifelong captivity. Also, whilst 
on the pilgrimage to Mecca in the old days, some 
obtained by purchase a few of the despised 
Habshi, so that here and there in Malayan 
villages the traveller may see the prognathous 
faces, the flat features, and the woolly heads of 
some unfortunate exiles from Africa. 

The position of these slaves was not altogether 
enviable. They were regarded much in the 
same light as the kine in the rice-swamps, and 
possessed no rights of any sort. I have before 
me an old manuscript volume, yellow with age 
and thumb-marks, written in crabbed Malayan 
characters by the hand of one who has long ago 
passed to his rest. It is a copy of the Kanun, 
the Civil and Criminal Code of the Malays, and its 
title-page informs me that it is destined for the 
9 



122 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

use of all " Great Countries, and for all Great 
Kings, and for all Dependencies and Villages." 
There are half a hundred sections that deal 
entirely with slaves — all, of course, from the 
point of view of the employer. The feelings 
and the convenience of the slave are naturally 
not taken much into account. Since some of 
the provisions of the Law illustrate far more 
vividly than I can do the light in which these 
unfortunate captives were regarded in the old 
days of Malayan rule, I propose to translate one 
or two of them, and would only warn the reader 
that those which I have selected are by no means 
the most oppressive or the most callous that the 
Code contains : — 

'' If a slave be borrowed for the purpose of 
making him climb trees (for fruit), and the 
borrower makes clear to the owner the risk of 
breaking or killing the said slave, and if the 
owner makes answer saying ' If he die, let him 
die ; and if he be broken, let him be broken,' 
and if, thereafter, the slave dies by reason of a 
fall, the borrower must none the less make good 
one-third of the value of the said slave." 

" If a slave insult a free man, he shall be slain, 
or his tongue shall be split in twain, or the skin of 
his head shall be flayed." 

" If a free man insult a slave and be resisted 
by the said slave, and if the free man then slay 
the slave, he must make good the full value of 
the said slave." 

Some of the laws which of old regulated slavery 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 123 

in Malayan lands are too ingeniously cruel to bear 
rendering into sober English ; but the above 
instances will suffice to enable the reader to form 
some idea of the position in the community 
occupied by ^abdi — slaves made from races not 
professing the Muhammadan Faith, and obtained 
by capture or by purchase — before the white men 
came to make the old order change, giving place 
to the new with an almost dislocating abruptness. 
Not content with this '' lawful " form of 
slavery, which is recommended and approved 
by the Kuran, the Malays invented a system of 
their own, or more probably perpetuated a cus- 
tom which had existed in these lands before the 
Arabian missionaries brought the light of their 
teaching into the dark places of Asia. This 
system is known as Debt Slavery, and its victims 
are called hamba ber-utang, or debt-slaves, in con- 
tradistinction to the 'abdi, or bought or captured 
slaves. The basis of this form of slavery was 
money or goods. A man who chanced for the 
time to be in poor circumstances sought out 
some rich neighbour and, in consideration of a 
small loan, voluntarily surrendered himself and 
his family, and their descendants for ever, as 
debt-slaves to his creditor or his posterity. The 
contract once made, the debtor, and all the 
people involved by him in the bargain, became 
in a sense the property of their creditor. They 
were bound^to work for him without pay — to plant 
his fields, weed and tend his crops, to wash and 
guard his kine, to accompany him to Court 



124 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

when he desired a following, to punt his boat, 
to attend him upon his journeys, to cook his rice, 
and to serve in his house, if so required. The 
master of slave-debtors usually fed and clothed 
his dependants more or less sufficiently ; but, 
as they had no opportunity of earning money, 
all their time being the property of their creditor, 
they had no chance of ever paying off their 
liabilities. If their master proved to be harsh 
or cruel, they were bound to bear it as best they 
could ; or they might, perhaps, persuade some 
other rich man to take over their debt, and so 
effect a change in the person of their owner, if 
not in the nature of their servitude. Theoreti- 
cally, they had the right to make such arrange- 
ments, and the original owner of a family of 
slave-debtors was bound to accept payment in 
lieu of service if the former chanced to be offered 
by or on behalf of the slaves. In practice, how- 
ever, this, his last right, was often denied to the 
slave-debtor ; and he was forced to continue to 
serve a man whose oppressive conduct had 
rendered him hateful, even though others were 
willing to make good the amount of the debt by 
virtue of which he was held in thrall. 

In such circumstances, it would be natural to 
suppose that only in time of great stress, when 
famine had driven men to desperation, or when 
some other equally pressing need for money had 
blinded them to the consequences of their acts, 
would any sane man be found who was prepared 
to avail himself of a system under which the 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 125 

advantages gained were so trifling and temporary, 
while the price paid for them was so heavy and 
so enduring. To imagine this, however, you 
must be entirely ignorant of the improvident 
Malayan nature. No one of this singular people 
can ever realise the future. He may know with 
absolute certainty that some action of his will 
lead to thoroughly understood and most un- 
pleasant consequences ; he may have object- 
lessons on every hand, in the persons of those who 
are already suffering heavy things because they 
have in their time been guilty of similar acts of 
folly : but the present is the present to him, and 
the future the future. The one is fully realised ; 
the other is dim, distant, utterly beyond his 
grip did he try to forecast it. The one holds 
what Thomas a Kempis calls '^ a present delight- 
ful good " ; the other has hidden in its womb 
misery and sore trouble . He sees the one clearly ; 
the other is, for the time, as a thing of no mean- 
ing : and thus it is that Malays were always 
ready to sell themselves, and those whom they 
held dear, into a lifelong bondage for twenty 
dollars in silver, or for a hundred bushels 
of rice. 

The white men, in those States of the Pen- 
insula which are now under British protection, 
early set themselves to stamp out this system of 
debt-slavery. In some cases the Government 
itself stepped in and acted as debt-payer, freeing 
those who were held in servitude by refunding 
the sums originally borrowed ; in others, debt- 



126 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

slaves were registered with the amount of 
their Habihties, a certain fixed value was 
placed upon their labour, and they were thus 
enabled to work off their indebtedness. Grad- 
ually — not without much trouble, not without 
occasioning many heartburnings among the folk 
of the opulent classes, not without strenuous 
opposition in many cases from the slaves them- 
selves, who preferred the security of their indo- 
lent servitude to being cast upon the world, there 
to seek a living by the sweat of their brows — 
the whole system has been stamped out. The 
right of any man to enter into such a contract 
of servitude is no longer recognised, aijd the 
children of debt-slaves, who were still working 
off their advances, under the new arrangement 
are no longer considered to be in any way respon- 
sible for the obligations of their parents. This is 
now thoroughly known and understood by all 
classes of the native population ; so men of 
substance have become shy of lending their 
silver on the security of a peasant's promises of 
service, since those who have contracted such 
obligations are not slow to lay their cases before 
the European officers if they grow weary of their 
servitude. Now and again, however, some rich 
man will try to trade upon the folly or the ignor- 
ance of his debtors, and will force them to work 
for him on the old footing without guerdon, until 
such time as the matter comes to the ears of the 
nearest white man, and his well-laid plans are 
knocked rudely out of gear. 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 127 

This explanation is long, and may be with- 
out interest to many, but it is necessary for 
the understanding of the incident which I am 
about to relate — the story of two very small 
brown children and the great and awful British 
Government. 

It was the hour when the kine go down to 
wallow in the shallows of the river. The slant- 
ing rays of the afternoon sun, which now was 
drawing rapidly near to the forest-girt horizon, 
were streaking the surface of the running water 
with long bars of pale colour ; the shadows 
were gathering thickly — olive and bronze near 
the river banks where the deep pools eddied 
and swirled under the overhanging boughs ; 
dusty brown and grey beneath the drooping 
fronds of the palm trees around the village ; coal- 
black and lustreless in the tiny recesses between 
tree and tree and shrub and shrub, where the 
heavy jungle reared its tangled masses from 
the edge of the water. And all the shadows — 
green and bronze, brown and grey and black 
alike — were powdered with innumerable specks 
and spangles of sunlight, dancing and restless. 
The herds of black and pink water-buffaloes 
stood knee-deep in the shallows, or wallowed 
clumsily, their blunt noses, spreading black 
horns, and twitching ears alone protruding above 
the surface of the stream. All the voices of 
Nature were blending in the evensong which 
came alike from village, rice-swamp, and jungle — 



128 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

the squeaky low of the buffaloes ; the bleat of a 
stray goat ; the clucking of drowsy fowls ; the 
scream of the earth-worms ; the hoarse croaking 
of thousands of frogs, all clearing their throats 
at once in preparation for a musical evening ; 
the ticking, and whirring, and trumpeting of all 
kinds of tree insects, through which now and 
again a noisy beetle broke discordantly with 
a triumphant, lilting shriek ; the trilling of 
distant thrushes ; the cheeping of many little 
birds, settling themselves to sleep with much 
rustling of tiny feathers ; and once in a while 
the discordant yell of a peafowl far away across 
the river. Above the thatched roofs of the 
huts that formed the village the thin smoke of 
the wood fires, over which the evening rice was 
cooking, hung low and blurred hke a patch of 
isolated mist. And amidst all these peaceful 
surroundings, within hearing of the sounds of the 
late afternoon, two little Malay girls were putting 
in a very bad quarter of an hour. 

They were quite young children, the elder being 
perhaps eleven years of age, while her sister was 
her junior by nearly two years. Their hair was 
twisted into little neat knots at the back of their 
necks, giving them the air of miniature women 
rather than of children. They were dressed in 
coarse blouses dyed dark blue with indigo, and 
cheap cotton sarongs made fast about their 
waists. Their garments were old, and tattered, 
and stained ; their little faces were pinched 
and thin ; their arms, protruding from the 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 129 

tight sleeves of their blouses, were very slender 
and wasted. Both had wet eyes — the elder girl 
weeping passionately the tears of despair ; the 
younger crying bitterly too, but with more 
restraint ; and it was not difficult to see that 
resentment and rebellion, rather than mere 
hopelessness and distress, had brought the tears 
to her cheeks. They sat in the wet underwood, 
upon which the dew was already beginning to 
form, beneath some ill-kept fruit trees at the 
edge of the compound, and they paid no heed to 
an angry voice which now and again called them 
by name from the doorway of a neighbouring 
hut — called to them with many ugly threats, 
curses, and coarse epithets. The kindly scrub 
hid them securely, and the great bulky shadows 
drew near and helped to cover them. 

'' Ahi! Ahi! Ahi! Ambui! O Ma'!'' 
sobbed lang, the elder girl. '' Little sister, I 
cannot bear it, I cannot bear it ! " 

The dim figure once more appeared at the 
doorway, outHned blackly against the ruddy 
firelight within. 

'' lang, Minah ! lang, Minah I O lang ! O 
Minah I Come hither ! Come speedily ! Ac- 
cursed ones ! Are your ears deaf ? Come, do 
you not hear ? May you die violent deaths ! 
Children of an evil mother ! You are too lazy to 
live, and yet you will not die ! Come, indolent 
ones ! Listen to me, I call for you ! " 

The speaker stood for a moment looking out 
into the gathering darkness. Then he swore 



130 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

under his breath, spat ostentatiously in token 
of his deep disgust, and turned back into the 
house, muttering angrily. 

lang gazed at him with a sort of fascination of 
fear, but Minah shook her tiny fist in his direction, 
and as he disappeared into the hut she said in a 
tense whisper — 

" May he be slain by a spear that is cast ! 
May he die stabbed, bow-strung, and impaled 
cross-wise ! " The time-honoured curses of her 
people came quaintly from her pouting baby lips ; 
but her little set face showed that her hatred of 
the man was a very real thing indeed to this 
small savage child. Then she turned to her 
sister. 

" Thou sayest that thou canst not bear it, 
lang. As for me, I will not bear it longer." 

lang looked at her disconsolately. 

'' What profits it to speak thus ? " she sobbed. 
" We be like unto the fish caught in the stakes. 
We have no power, no stratagem ; we can do 
nought but weep. Ahi ! Ahi ! Ahi / '* and 
she buried her face in her hands despairingly. 

Minah glanced at her sister with something 
like contempt in her eyes. " Do not weep, 
sister," she said. " Tears are of no avail. I 
say that I will not bear it longer, and, sister, I 
have a plan ! " 

They were a curious contrast to one another, 
these two little girls, both born of the same 
parents ; both brought up, or rather allowed 
to scramble up, in the same village and amid 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 131 

the same surroundings. lang was of the pretty 
flaccid type, that would in time develop into 
the pale, round-faced, rather ample beauty 
which endures for so short a time and is so dear 
to the hearts of Malayan men. Her great soft 
eyes were tender and shrinking, a trifle bovine 
perhaps, even a little stupid, but beautiful in 
their own way, as are the eyes of many dumb 
animals. Now they showed larger than was 
natural, for the child was starved and thin. 
Minah, on the other hand, was very dark in 
colour and very meagre in form — '' black as the 
bottom of a cooking-pot, and dry as a smoked 
sprat," would have been the unflattering descrip- 
tion of her appearance supplied by the proverbial 
similes of her own people. Her features were 
sharp, her figure was angular though wiry, but 
her little face was alive with nervous energy, 
and her eyes, bright and alert, were quick 
with intelligence. She hated the man who had 
called them from the doorway of the hut most 
vehemently. When their parents died, he had 
forced them to come and live with him, alleging 
that some old debt, of which the children knew 
nothing, gave him the right to claim their 
services. He had fed and clothed them after a 
fashion, simply because it was necessary to keep 
the little wretches in some sort of health if they 
were to work for him to the extent that he con- 
sidered necessary ; but from the first he had 
treated them as the slaves they were. So long as 
they had lived with their parents, though the two 



132 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

little sisters had had to do a large share of the 
household toil, — as is the custom among all the 
poorer classes of Malays, — their father and 
mother had loved them, and had treated them 
with the tenderness which always distinguishes 
the dealings of native parents with their children. 
So the little creatures had been happy in their 
lives, and had done their share of the work 
blithely and merril3^ Now their parents had 
been exchanged for a harsh taskmaster who 
regarded them simply as slaves and labourers ; 
who was utterly out of sympathy with them ; 
who cared nothing for their childish joys and 
sorrows ; who obviously grudged them their 
victuals ; and if he chanced to see them playing 
together, or heard one of them prattling or 
laughing with the other, cried to them angrily 
to set about their work, and thought that they 
were robbing him, though they stole nothing 
but a moment's leisure. He gave them a cuff 
or two now and again if the rice were ill-cooked, 
or the fuel which they were made to fetch from 
the forest around them were not dry, well- 
seasoned, and plentiful ; but as a rule he, like all 
Malays, was fairly sparing of his blows. That 
afternoon, however, the two poor mites had 
forgotten their duties in the intoxication of a 
game of porok with half a dozen other village 
urchins, and Che' Awang Uda, their master, had 
found them spinning the sections of cocoa-nut 
shell with their deft little feet, when they should 
have been filling the water-gourds for the house 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 133 

with their weary Httle hands. Then Che' 
Awang had felt that indeed he did well to be 
angry, so he had administered a more or less sound 
beating to both the children, lang taking her 
punishment with piteous cries and lamentations, 
while her little sister fought like a wild cat, and 
did her tiny best to retaliate in kind. Now the 
poor children had increased their guilt by hiding 
in the brushwood and refusing to answer their 
master's call ; and lang already felt her body 
aching from the fresh beating which she knew 
must surely be her lot in the near future. Not so 
Minah. She had no intention of being beaten 
again, and she said so determinedly, adding once 
more that she had a plan. 

lang did not appear to find much comfort in 
her little sister's assurances, but after a moment's 
thought the latter began to speak calmly and 
earnestly. 

" Listen, sister," she said. " It were well 
for us to run away. We can no longer bear the 
cruelty of Che' Awang. Let us take a dugout 
and set forth to seek the white folk. Men say 
that they will by no means suffer people to be 
held as slaves ; and thou knowest, sister, that 
we owe nought to Che' Awang. We are sore 
oppressed by being thus held in slavery, for the 
white men will not suffer it." 

" How dost thou know, little sister ? " asked 
lang. 

'* I heard Imam Teh speaking with Che' Awang. 
He took no thought of me because I am little, 



134 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

and he judged that I should not understand. 
He said, ' Have a care, Che' Awang, lest the 
white folk learn of thy doings in the matter of 
these children, for they will make sore trouble 
if they hear what thou hast done.* Then Che' 
Awang laughed, and said, ' It matters little, for 
the white folk live very far away ; and what 
man will tell them concerning the children ? — for 
all the people in this village owe money to me, 
and if I so willed it I could sell their land and 
their kine — even thy land and thy kine, O Imam ! 
Wherefore it were well for the folk of this place 
to be wise in the matter of their speech.' Imam 
Teh had a sour face when he heard the words, 
and he said no more to Che' Awang concerning us. 
Now, sister, let us go seek the white men, for they 
will free us." 

" I am afraid," whimpered lang. " Dost^ 
remember the white man that came to the 
village to seek fuel in his five-prahu ? He had 
white hair, and his eyes also were white, and the 
hair of his head grew down his cheeks to his chin, 
and thence into the breast of his coat. His 
skin was red and much blistered, and he was 
very angry with the men of the village because 
they were slow in the loading of the fuel. He 
spoke, too, with a strange tongue, very harsh 
and discordant, so that I could by no means 
understand his words.", 

" Yes," cried Minah, '' I remember his coming, 
and he called us to him, and thou wast afraid 
and would not approach ; but I went to him, and 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 135 

he spoke strange things, and thereafter gave me 
two Httle silver coins." 

" But he was so very ugly, Minah. Better it 
were to die here than to go seek the white folk. 
Though it rain gold in the stranger country, and 
rain nought but stones in the land that is our 
own, still our native country is the better — 
thou knowest the saying of the old people, little 
sister." 

" I know," returned Minah. " But the pro- 
verb sayeth nought of a land in which it raineth 
blows. There are more of such rainfalls awaiting 
thee in the hut yonder. If thou fearest the 
white men more than the rotan, get thee back 
to the house, and Che' Awang will surely give 
thee thy bellyful of chastisement. For me, I 
will no longer bear it. To-night I escape to the 
.white men ; and if thou wilt not come with me, 
I shall go alone." 

" But the place where the white men dwell is 
very far away," sobbed lang hopelessly. 

'* Men say that they live at Pekan, three days 
down river, near to the seashore." 

" Three days for men who paddle hard, little 
sister ; but for us many days. And how shall 
we know the place when at last we reach it ?— • 
for we have never visited it." 

" We shall know it by the sea," said Minah 
confidently. 

" But how shall we know the sea?— for that 
also we have never seen. O sister, it were in- 
deed better to suffer as we now do rather than 



136 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

to brave the dangers of which we know 
nothing." 

" We shall know the sea when we come to it. 
It is like a river, only bigger." 

'' And we shall starve." 

" No ; I have made provision. During many 
days, when we have been pounding the padij 
I have saved little dues of rice. Also I have 
hidden the cracked cooking-pot in the lalang 
grass yonder. Wait here while I go thither and 
fetch it." 

The night had fallen now, and an even dark- 
ness lay brooding over the moist, hot land, 
lang sat huddled up in the shadows, sobbing 
and dejected, while Minah stole out of their 
hiding-place and cautiously approached the 
hut. The stores which she had long been 
collecting as provisions for her journey were 
hidden in a disused rice-bin under the flooring 
of the house, among the piles upon which it 
rested. She reached the place safely, and 
secured her treasures. Then she began to make 
her way through the darkness back to the spot 
where she had left her sister. As she emerged 
from under the house, Awang Uda suddenly 
threw the door open, and stood, torch in hand, 
peering into the blackness of the night. Minah 
darted back into cover with the agility of some 
startled forest creature ; but so close was she to 
him that she could hear his heavy breathing 
and the half-inarticulate curses which the man 
was muttering to himself. He did not call to 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 137 

the children again, fearing, perhaps, to let his 
neighbours know that they were still missing, 
and Minah could see that he was anxious and 
perturbed. At the end of a few minutes he re- 
entered his house, closing the door after him, 
and Minah crept away noiselessly to join her 
sister. 

" Come, lang," she whispered, when she at 
last made out the little form which was almost 
obliterated by the great shadows around it. 
" Come, all is ready. Follow me." 

" I come," said lang, as she rose to her feet. 
She had always been dominated by her little 
sister, and though she was very fearful and un- 
happy at the idea of undertaking so difficult a 
journey, and embarking in an enterprise so 
hazardous, she followed meekly, fearing even 
more to be left behind by her resolute junior. 

The two children picked their way as best 
they could to the edge of the high bank upon 
which the village stood. Thence they scrambled 
down the steep slope to the river. They found 
many dugouts lying tied by rotan painters to 
boat-poles stuck upright in the earth, and into 
one of these they crawled. The little boat was 
half full of water, but they baled it out, and 
then cast loose the moorings and pushed off from 
the bank. The river was running with a gentle 
purring sound ; and on its surface it was less 
dark, by a shade or two, than it had been beneath 
the shelter of the fruit-groves. Still the children 
could see nothing save the shimmer of half- 
10 



138 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

light upon the face of the water, and far up 
above them a sleepy star or two peeping through 
the heavy cloud banks. Minah had managed 
to hide a couple of boat-paddles together with 
her other gear, and each child took one of them 
Minah steering, while lang paddled at the bow, 
still sobbing miserably. 

Like all Malayan children, born and bred on 
the banks of the rivers, lang and Minah were 
as much at home upon the water as they were 
upon the dry land. They both understood the 
management of a dugout as thoroughly as one 
could desire ; they both swam with ease and 
grace ; and for them the river itself had no 
terrors. What they did fear most mightily was 
the Unknown into which they were journeying. 
The section of the world with which the up- 
country native is familiar is often very circum- 
scribed indeed. I have known Malays who have 
lived for near fourscore and ten years, and who, 
during all that long, long time, have never 
wandered farther than fifty miles in any direction 
from the place in which they were born. One 
old chief, now dead, for whom I had a very great 
affection, had never passed beyond the limits of 
a radius of twenty miles drawn around his home 
during a life which, so men said, ran well into a 
second century ; yet he was the possessor of 
more curious knowledge than any other man of 
his class whom I have ever known. The few 
square miles of jungle and river and village with 
which he was acquainted had been to him a 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 139 

subject of the most loving study during a life- 
time. He knew every inch of the country with 
marvellous thoroughness ; he knew every legend 
and tradition connected with it ; he knew every 
lesson that his jungles and his villages could 
teach to a man ; and when I have sat talking 
to him till the dawn was red — for he was a very 
bad sleeper in the nights of his extreme old age 
— I have often found myself wondering whether 
when all is said and done, a man with brains, 
keen power of observation, and a sufficient 
imagination, may not learn as much from study- 
ing five square miles of territory with complete- 
ness as do many who have all the world for their 
schoolroom and a jumble of inchoate knowledge 
for their pains. 

The world for Minah and her sister had 
hitherto been bounded by a village half a mile 
up-stream, whither they had gone occasionally 
to help in the weeding of the crops ; by the 
little shady graveyard, where the round head- 
stones stood about in disorder among the rank 
grasses and the sudu plants ; by half a mile 
of jungle beyond the rice swamps at the rear 
of the compound ; and across the river by 
half a mile of the virgin forest which rose sheer 
from the banks of the stream. Now they were 
setting out upon a journey which they knew 
would last for several days. They had no 
scale of distance by which to measure things 
other than the fathom which they now felt 
to be alarmingly inadequate to their require- 



140 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

ments — and indeed, when you try to reduce 
eighty miles of running river to fathoms, the 
figures that result are somewhat terrifying. 
Not that the little girls attempted to do any- 
thing of the sort. The very fact that the 
distance ahead of them was to them measure- 
less added not a little to its terrors. If you 
can put yourself in the position of a traveller 
who, on setting forth, finds that miles, as units 
of distance, have shrunk into utter insignifi- 
cance, as a man might do who was starting 
upon a voyage to one of the more remote stars, 
you will be able to understand dimly in what 
guise the prospect of this journey presented 
itself to the minds of these little brown babies, 
and you will perhaps sympathise with Minah, 
who soon found her courage oozing out of the 
tips of her fingers and the tears running down 
her cheeks. As for lang, she had been weeping 
piteously from the first, and every now and 
again she implored her sister to return and 
abandon the enterprise. But Minah, though 
she wept furtively in the darkness, and was 
afraid to the marrow of her little bones, would 
not allow her resolution to be shaken. She 
whispered words of encouragement to lang, 
steadying her voice bravely for the purpose ; 
and thus in tears and in dread the long journey 
was begun. 

The musical noises of the jungle night made 
sleepy melody for the children as they journeyed. 
The bell-like note of the tree-frog, the hoot of 



TWO LITTLE SLAVEGIRLS 141 

the peafowls, the ticking of the insects, the 
very distant trumpeting of an elephant, the 
sharp bark of a stag near the edge of a clearing 
on the bank, the snorting of wild swine heard 
once or twice as the passage of the boat near 
the shore startled a herd of them into panic- 
stricken flight, and once the brisk and angry 
clang of a gun — each came in turn, emphasising 
the noisy silence of the forest. All night the 
children paddled bravely, falling asleep over 
their work, and recovering themselves with a 
start just as their paddles were dropping from 
their grasp. They went forward, borne by 
the current rather than by the strength of 
their feeble rowing — now grounding upon a 
sand-bank, to get clear of which called for a 
heart-breaking struggle ; now wandering into 
a backwater, which they mistook for the main 
stream ; while ever and anon a rock would 
start up before them out of the gloom menac- 
ingly, as the roar of the waters eddying around 
it set their little hearts beating with terror. 
And ever the agony of the effort by which 
alone they could keep awake, and the utter 
exhaustion that exertion brought them after a 
day of such unusual emotions, weighed heavily 
like a tangible burden. They seemed to be 
part and parcel of a hideous nightmare : fear 
of the darkness oppressed and daunted them ; 
dread of the journey that lay ahead was magnified 
now exceedingly ; pursuit, capture, and dire 
punishment seemed to be their certain fate ; and 



142 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

if they did succeed in reaching the town that 
men called Pekan, their only hope of deliverance 
lay in the protection that might be afforded 
to them by the white strangers — a race of men 
as weird and awful to these little brown girls 
as the ogres of our own nursery tales. Even 
Minah lost heart completely now ; and had 
it not been that the current forbade retreat, 
she would very willingly have returned to 
the familiar village, and have submitted to 
the worst that Che' Awang could inflict. 

The dawn, breaking wanly, looked into the 
faces of the two children through a drenching 
veil of mist, and found them grey and haggard, 
their figures bent and drooping with fatigue. 
Minah, chilled to the bone and sodden with the 
damp dews, made shift to guide the dugout 
into a tiny creek over which the jungle trees 
arched, forming a dark and gloomy tunnel. 
Here the boat was hidden, and the two children 
dragged their cramped limbs on to the shore, 
and fell asleep as soon as their heads touched 
the ground. There they lay, locked in one 
another's arms, utterly alone in the great forest. 

It was past noon when they woke, and Minah, 
resolute again now that daylight had brought 
a renewal of her courage, washed the rice in 
the stream, and, after a mighty tussle with 
a tinder box, made a fire upon which to cook 
it. The food refreshed them, and even lang 
began to take a more hopeful view of their 
prospects. After they had eaten, they slept 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 143 

again ; and when they woke, the jungle was 
noisy with its evensong, and the darkness was 
beginning to falL They ate the remainder of 
their boiled rice, packed their gear into the dug- 
out, and set forth anew on their adventurous way. 

This night passed like the preceding one, 
but it held something less of terror, for their 
unexpected success had given the children 
confidence. All the next day they lay hidden 
in the jungle, and once or twice they saw a 
boat creep by on its way up-stream, or speed 
swiftly down, borne by the current. In one 
they thought they recognised the figures of 
Che' Awang himself and a few of the villagers 
with whom they were familiar ; and lang, 
gripped suddenly by a keen home-sickness, 
was hardly to be restrained from shouting to 
them to attract attention. Even hostile faces, 
so be it they were not those of strangers, seemed 
welcome to her in the heart of this vast and 
fearful wilderness into which her little sister 
had led her. Minah prevented the indiscretion 
just in time, and again the journey was con- 
tinued as soon as the night had come. 

For more than a week the two little girls 
travelled in this fashion, lying up in the forest 
by day, and speeding forward as best they 
might under the screen of darkness ; and as 
the dawn was yellowing for the ninth day, 
they found themselves in sight of the largest 
" compound " that they had ever seen. The 
river was nearly a mile across in this place, 



144 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

so that more than once the children had ques- 
tioned whether they had not already reached 
the sea — the mighty waters, '' bigger than a 
river," of which they had heard men speak. 
The banks were covered with villages as far as 
the eye could carry ; the very islands spattered 
over the broad reaches were thick with palm 
groves and the thatched roofs of houses ; and 
far away there rose certain huge white objects 
covered by great expanses of red stuff, or by 
things which looked like gigantic kerosene- 
tins. These were the whitewashed stone and 
brick shops of the Chinese, with their roofs 
of tile or corrugated iron — wonderful things 
in the eyes of the little up-country savages. 

'* O Minah," whispered lang, frightened out 
of her wits, '* let us make for the jungle." 

The jungle is always the place of refuge in 
which the natives of the interior seek safety 
in time of peril. 

" Nay," cried Minah, biting her lips re- 
solutely. " This must be Pekan, the place 
where the white men dwell. We must press on. 
There is no jungle here in which w^e may find 
a hiding-place. The white folk are . . . good. 
They will treat us . . . kindly." 

Even her faith faltered a little, now that 
the supreme hour had come. The white men 
were certainly horrible to look at, and who could 
say whether in truth their hearts were good ? 

" I am sore afraid, Minah," cried lang, 
beginning to sob miserably. *' Let us go back," 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 14S 

'' Stupid ! '' said her sister viciously, ** How 
can we go back ? Our store of rice is finished. 
Moreover, remember the saying of the men of 
ancient days : ' If we must be struck, let it be 
with a hand that weareth a ring ; if we must be 
kicked, let it be by a foot that weareth a sandal I ' 
The white folk wear rings and boots, for I have 
seen them." 

" But they are like unto the ro/'a-people, and 
such, all men know, have the hearts of tigers," 
wept lang. 

" And Che' Awang?" snapped Minah. "What 
of him? Was not his heart that of a jungle 
pig ? Let us be devoured by tigers rather 
than torn by swine, say I. Paddle, lazy one, 
paddle ! " 

Borne down by the sheer strength of her 
small sister's will, lang said no more ; but she 
gazed at the river-side town — a poor, shabby 
little place, in all truth, but marvellous and 
awe-inspiring to her — with terror in her heart. 

At last the boat was brought up at the Resi- 
dency landing-stage ; and the two little waifs 
made it fast, and then stepped ashore, moving 
stiffly, for their limbs were cramped with squat- 
ting at the paddles, and their privations had 
told upon them. They gazed around them 
with wondering looks, for the trim neatness of 
the place, the well-kept streets and ordered 
packs of shop-buildings, were very strange to 
them after the confusion of their native com- 
pounds. The houses were veritable palaces, to 



146 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

their thinking ; and among them sauntered 
yellow Chinamen, coal-black Tamils, and now 
and again a couple of bearded Sikh policemen, 
all of whom were to the children creatures of a 
separate creation from that to which they 
owed their being. There were many Malays 
too in the street, loafing gloriously for the 
most part after the fashion of their race ; 
and to two of these the little girls addressed 
themselves, turning instinctively to folk of 
their own breed, even though their faces were 
unfamiliar. 

" Is this the place where the white men live ? " 
inquired Minah. 

" And if it be, what want you with the white 
men ? " asked one of the loafers. 

" I want to talk to them." 

The loafer laughed. 

*' And about what would you speak to the 
white men ? "he asked. 

" I have business," said Minah importantly. 

The loafer appealed to the crowd at large. 

" Behold, my brothers ! " he cried. '* This 
child is beyond a doubt the eldest daughter of 
the King of the Ants, and she hath come hither 
on business — on weighty business, mark ye — with 
the white men. Perchance she seeketh a hus- 
band from among them." 

Minah stamped her foot upon the ground 
angrily. 

*' Be still," she cried. " Be still, and lead me 
to the white men." 



TWO LITTLE SLAVE-GIRLS 147 

The loafer affected to be overcome with fear. 

'' Have mercy," he cried, abasing himself 
before her. 

" What manner of a village is this," cried 
Minah, turning in despair to her sister, " where 
the grown men are stricken with madness so 
that they do nought but belch follies ? " 

A little Malay policeman bustled up with the 
ostentatious importance of his kind. 

" What is this ? What is this ? " he inquired 
bullyingly. 

" These high-born ladies come hither seeking 
the white men. Hast ever heard tell of the 
white men, man without a waist-skirt ? " 

The policeman, made suddenly conscious of 
the fact that he was indecently clad in uniform, 
which does not allow of the use of the national 
skirt, scowled furiously, and the crowd laughed. 

'* Get you about your business, you idle 
folk," cried the policeman. " And you," turning 
to the children, " if you desire to see the white 
people, come with me." 

Later two little draggled and worn-out shreds 
of humanity were brought into my study ; and 
later still, when they had made the discovery that 
white men did not eat small children, and that 
I could speak their tongue, they perched one on 
each of my knees, and, thawed and reassured 
by the sucking of barley sugar, thus they told to 
me their tale. 

After that all was soon arranged. Che' Awang 
Uda was sent for, and when he had made the 



148 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

journey of near a hundred and twenty miles 
down-stream, he arrived at Pekan in as palpitat- 
ing a state of funk as ever conscience-made 
coward was reduced to before or since. I took 
it out of Awang Uda, for his soul's salvation, in 
a fashion that I flatter myself he will long 
remember ; and when I had ploughed him this 
way and that with all the choicest harrows of the 
Malayan vocabulary, and had put the fear of 
death into what did duty within him for a soul, 
I handed him over to the Law, which fined him 
roundly, and sent him home again a wiser and a 
sadder man. 

Trustworthy relations of my two little girl 
friends were sought out ; and eventually the 
children were handed over to them, to lead, I hope, 
as happy a life as is possible for orphans in this 
land, where, if it cannot resuscitate dead parents, 
the Government at any rate does its clumsy best 
to take their place. lang, when I saw her last, 
was blossoming into a beauty, while Minah is 
as dried-up a little chip as ever ; but a young 
lady who knows her own mind as thoroughly as 
she does can probably secure happiness even 
though comeliness be lacking. 

The British Government works upon a big 
scale, and does many surprising and wonderful 
things ; but I like to remember that once at 
least that huge, flint-hearted organism appeared 
to two little brown children in the light of a 
foster-mother, to whom they might run fearlessly 
for comfort and protection. 



VIII 

THE APPOINTED HOUR 

He sat in a private room in one of the biggest 
hotels in London, cowering over the fire, and 
enduring with httle gladness the rigours of 
an Enghsh June. Outside, below our windows, 
a crowd of men and women, Americans for the 
most part, dressed in every variety of summer 
costume, — the light frocks of the ladies and 
the straw hats of the men defiantly ignoring 
the weather, — heaved restlessly in rocking-chairs, 
each one of which was out of time with its 
fellows. Now and again shrill whistles sum- 
m.oned hansom or four-wheeler ; the hoofs of 
horses clop-clopped regularly, or skidded on 
the wet asphalt with a scratching sound ; 
at intervals a string-band, hidden from sight, 
burst out into gay music ; dulled by distance 
and the closed windows, the roar of traffic in 
the Strand came to us in a continuous sullen 
murmur. Within, the electric lights, triumphing 
over the melancholy gloom which was all the 
daylight that the fog vouchsafed us, lit up 
the showy furniture, and gave to the room 
an air that was theatrical. 

»49 



I50 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Everything around us seemed to emphasise 
the extreme modernity of the place — to speak 
of a world in which all things are ordered 
carefully for the comfort of man, provided 
that he can pay for them ; where machinery 
replaces the products of Nature — even God's 
own sunshine ; and where so much is done 
for us that many are tempted to forget to 
act, or even to think for themselves. Here, 
spread around us, crushed into an area of a 
few square miles, was the very heart of latter- 
day civilisation ; 5''et the man who sat opposite 
to me, over against the blazing fire, and I who 
spoke with him, cherished memories of another 
and a distant land — of days long dead, when 
naked knife and spear ruled our straitened 
world ; and as, for the moment, our hearts were 
sick for the great still forests, and for the sun- 
glare of my friend's fatherland, we spoke of 
times and men and places very distant, nor 
found aught discordant between such thoughts 
and our present circumstances. 

At last the little brown man who faced me 
threw himself back in his big arm-chair, laughing 
softly. 

** It is not good," he said, " to think of 
bygone times, when our bodies were young 
and our hearts untamed ; for though in his riper 
years a man may have put away from him 
wickedness, and may have turned his thoughts 
to the Faith and to Allah, and the teachings of 
His Prophet, the little devil that lurks within 



THE APPOINTED HOUR 151 

him loves to set the red blood leaping as of 
old, and to light the fires of desire in his breast, 
so that presently he falls a-longing for the un- 
regenerate days. 

*' Now suddenly the memory ariseth within 
me of the first man that ever I slew — for in 
those times never did I bid others do the work 
for me that lay to my hand. That killing 
was not at all good, and my heart surely was 
very evil ; and yet ... it is certain that 
the Appointed Hour had come for him, — that 
he was doomed to die ; else he had acted more 
discreetly, and had taken thought ere ever he 
moved me to wrath. 

" He was a common person named Mat 
Resad — a man of no birth nor breeding — 
but through skilful trading he had become 
suddenly wealthy. Now wealth is a great evil, 
for it mounteth to the heads of many like unto 
strong drink, puffing them up with arrogance, 
so that they become an offence to those who 
behold them. Thus it was with the man 
Mat Resad — for he had neither courtesy, nor 
decency, nor honour. What could you expect 
from one who lacked birth and breeding ? 
You know the proverb of our people : * No 
matter how high the rice-bird may soar, in 
the end he alighteth on the back of a water- 
buffalo' — and so it was with Mat Resad, the 
son of common folk. 

" Yet, for a little space, having won wealth, 
he ruffled it proudly ; and we, who were of the 



152 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Blood Royal, were irked by his airs and his graces, 
by his ostentations and his arrogance. Moreover, 
being himself peasant-bred, he soon gathered 
about him all manner of low riff-raff — traders 
and sons of commoners, mean folk like unto 
himself, — and calling them his * followers,' dared 
to champion their cause against all men of 
birth who would have their will of them. It 
is quite certain that this man was foredoomed 
to a violent death, and for him the Appointed 
Hour drew near apace. 

" Now in those days I was newly wed, and 
my people lived in my big boat which was 
moored to the river-bank, while every night 
I got me to the palace of my father-in-law, 
which stood behind the long bamboo fences. 
And Mat Resad also lived in his trading- 
boat, made fast a little lower down the 
stream. 

" In the palace of my father-in-law there 
were many maidens, daughters of sharks every 
one of them, with jaws agape seeking whom 
they might devour, and one of them was famous 
for her beauty. She is alive even yet, a little 
shrivelled crone, bent and wrinkled like a 
gnarled fruit tree ; but at that time many 
courted her for her loveliness — and I, though I 
was but three months wed with a woman of 
mine own blood, had still a little love to spare 
for her. But this girl's heart was filled with 
desire as big and as disproportionate as is the 
desire of the sand-fly, which, men say, cherish- 



THE APPOINTED HOUR 153 

eth the ambition of some day swallowing a 
man whole ; and no number of lovers, nor yet 
the gifts they brought to her, could satisfy 
her quite. 

" Therefore Mat Resad, the rich man, — com- 
mon fellow of no birth though he was, — found 
favour in her sight, and he went abroad vain- 
gloriously boasting of his triumphs, 

" Now this was a great shame to all the 
household of my father-in-law, and I had a 
mind to conserve his honour ; for I was but 
three months wedded to his daughter, as I 
have said. Also, perhaps, my heart, being 
young and evil, was filled with venom because 
this girl, Andak Ibul, made no distinction 
between folk of noble and of common blood. 
Women are very strange, for oft-times they 
love in crooked fashion, and know not at all the 
good from the bad. Of all this I said no word, 
but with much patience I awaited the Appointed 
Hour. Also, when Mat Resad boasted of 
Andak Ibul's favours, it seemed to me that the 
Hour w^as very near at hand. 

" Now one day a trader of Menangkabau 
arrived from the lower country, and made 
fast his boat at the village of my father-in-law. 
He had with him certain garments, trousers 
of fine silk texture, very wonderfully made ; 
and since in those days I loved to go abroad 
clad gaily to delight the hearts of the maidens, 
I sent word that I stood in need of two of these 
trousers. There chanced at that time to be 
II 



154 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

a chief paying court to my father-in-law, and 
he, when he heard that I desired these gar- 
ments, made haste to pleasure me. Therefore 
he took from the man of Menangkabau two 
very splendid pieces, and bringing them to 
me, lifting up his hands in homage, begged me 
to accept one as a present from himself, paying 
a price only for the other. This, therefore, I 
did ; and presently, when the chief had obtained 
the boon that he sought, he returned down- 
river to his home. 

" Now it chanced that this chief omitted to 
pay anything to the man of Menangkabau 
for the garment which he had presented to me, 
and the trader made a great stir, saying behind 
my back that I had robbed him by taking two 
garments and paying for one only. Yet, being 
a prudent person, this man of Menangkabau 
did not come to me himself with this frivolous 
story, but tried to find means so that others 
might plead his cause for him. Then Mat 
Resad, the exceedingly low-born one, because 
he took pride in being regarded as the champion 
of all insignificant people, had the hardihood 
to insinuate himself into the dispute. This 
certainly shows that a great madness had come 
upon him, and also that the Appointed Hour 
was near its dawn. 

" One day, therefore, Mat Resad came to 
the palace of my father-in-law at about the hour 
of high noon, when I was still a-bed, and made 
a mighty outcry, demanding payment for the 



THE APPOINTED HOUR 155 

garment on behalf of the man of Menangkabau. 
Now my father-in-law was a raja of a very 
wrathful nature, and when he beheld Mat 
Resad swaggering through the gate of his fence, 
and arrogantly demanding money, he roared 
like a bull, and the whole place was in tumult. 
For my father-in-law was angry with Mat 
Resad because of the love affair betwixt him 
and the girl Andak Ibul ; for handmaidens 
of the palace are not for people of mean origin. 
Moreover, it may be that my father-in-law too 
had cast a casual eye upon the girl, even as I 
myself had done, though I was barely three 
months wed to the lady his daughter ; for in 
those times it was the wont of all raja-iolk 
to love a great many people. 

** When I awoke, therefore, men told me what 
Mat Resad had done, and how with curses my 
father-in-law had driven him forth from within 
the palace ; and I too was very angry. Also my 
father-in-law said certain very pungent things 
to me, and this served to heighten my wrath 
against Mat Resad. 

'' Next day, before the noontide, ere yet 
I had gone from the palace to my moored 
boat, Mat Resad came there and made trouble 
with my followers, babbling foolish words, and 
saying many things that were rude and un- 
mannerly ; and in due course all this too was 
reported to me. Also the rumour came to me 
of certain new vaunts of Mat Resad concerning 
Andak Ibul, and it seemed to me that the girl's 



156 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

love towards me cooled somewhat. This filled 
full the measure of Mat Resad's offending. 

" On the morrow, a little after the hour of 
midday prayer, I rose up from my sleeping-mat 
within the palace, and went down to my boat 
moored at the river-bank, wherein all my 
followers were dwelling. And behold on the 
punting-platform forward sat Mat Resad wait- 
ing for me. 

" At first I spoke him fair, asking what he 
sought ; but when with great imprudence and 
effrontery he began to disclose the matter of the 
debt which — so he claimed — was due to the man 
of Menangkabau on account of the garment given 
to me by the chief, my liver within me grew hot 
as a burning coal. Then I upbraided him, 
calling him low-born and very arrogant, and 
asking him how he dared make trouble even 
within the fence of my father-in-law on account 
of this paltry affair, and he was sulky and 
insolent. He lifted up his hands in homage, 
sitting there at my feet ; but I knew that the liver 
within him was stubborn and did no homage, 
and I saw that the Appointed Hour was 
come. 

" Then a mighty frenzy seized upon me, and 
all things became dyed the colour of blood : my 
dagger leaped from its scabbard, and I struck 
and struck and struck. 

** The blood spouted from him, — as spouts 
water from the engine-thing wherewith men 
cleanse the wooden pavements of this town after 



THE APPOINTED HOUR 157 

the night hath fallen, — so that I was drenched 
thereby ; but I heeded not, for the madness 
was upon me, and presently he rolled over, falling 
into the belly of the boat. Thereafter he said 
' Hauk, Hauky Hauk ! ' very deep in his throat, 
and his body heaved a little this way and that ere 
he died. 

" There were seventeen wounds upon him, 
so men told me, and I myself suffered afterwards 
from certain chills, for his blood had put a spell 
upon me ; but I take little blame for what 
happened. It is quite certain that Mat Resad 
was doomed to die, and it was the finger of Allah, 
and the Appointed Hour, not I that slew him. 
Also Andak Ibul was a very pretty girl, else she 
had hardly won my love, seeing that I was 
barely three months wed to a lady of mine own 
blood I " 

My little brown friend edged nearer to the fire, 
spreading out his thin, delicate hands to the blaze 
— those hands which had taken the life of Mat 
Resad that day long ago : but for the moment I 
scarcely saw him. Instead there floated before 
my sight a vision of the great tawny river of his 
fatherland, rolling majestically to the sea between 
high walls of forest ; of the red earth where the 
running waters had cut the bank cleanly ; of the 
bamboo fence which enclosed the rude palace 
of a native king ; of the glory of vivid vegetation ; 
of the blazing sun-glare pouring down from 
heavens infinitely blue ; and of that poor mangled 
thing, the victim of the Appointed Hour, lying 



158 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

stark and awful in the midst of so much love- 
liness. 

A moment later I was recalled to London 
and civilisation, for the bandsmen below us had 
suddenly burst into song — 

" Peace, peace, leave them in peace, 
For the weak must be ruled by the strong ; 

And the spear and the knife 

Are no longer at strife 
In the beautiful Valley of Bong ! " 

And I fell a-wondering how many Appointed 
Hours have been indefinitely postponed since the 
British Government took charge of the country 
of which to-day my friend is one of the brightest 
and most respectable ornaments. 



IX 

THE NATURE OF AN OATH 

'* I WILL sue thee and harry thee, and in the end 
the kine shall pass into my keeping. Thy face 
shall be blackened with shame, and thine honour 
shall be shorn from thee, for on my side are many 
witnesses and the law of the white folk." 

" And on my side abideth Allah and the justice 
of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate." 

A jeering laugh and a blasphemous gibe 
answered the calm speech, and Abdul Rahman — 
" servant of the Merciful " — slapped his chest in 
defiant fashion, and swaggered off vaingloriously, 
uttering as he went words that made light of the 
Master to whose service his very name was a 
dedication. The villagers, shocked and fearful, 
drew aside to let him pass. The older men 
glanced apprehensively at the brazen heavens 
above them, half expecting to see them fall in 
immediate vindication of the offended majesty 
of God. The young bloods followed Abdul 
Rahman with their eyes, and in their hearts was 
a sort of awful admiration. There was courage, 
independence, freedom, surely, for one who could 
thus take up arms against High Heaven itself. 

159 



i6o MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Their religion sat lightly enough upon these 
simple Malayan villagers. They held the whole 
duty of man to consist in praying — daily at the 
five appointed hours, weekly at the congrega- 
tional service in the makeshift mosque or surau ; 
in fasting during the month of Ramathan ; in 
abstaining from intoxicants and from swine's 
flesh ; and in being Muhammadans — true 
believers in Allah and in His Prophet. Natu- 
rally, however, no man dreamed of attempting 
to perform the whole of his duty. That would 
have been an excess of zeal indistinguishable 
from eccentricity. To refrain from pork and 
liquor was easy, temptation and opportunity 
being alike lacking ; fasting was inevitable, since 
an inherited superstition taught that ill things, 
of a practical and physical sort, were certain 
to befall one who broke this portion of the 
Prophet's law ; but few of the villagers prayed 
on week-days, the labour passing the measure of 
their energies, and most of them shirked the 
Friday service, shamelessly and with dexterity, 
so often as circumstances admitted. Yet, for 
all their laxness, these people remained firmly 
convinced of their own essential sanctity — 
comfortably secure of ultimate salvation. They 
knew themselves to be Muhammadans — the 
special proteges of Allah and His Prophet — and 
they regarded it in some sort as the business of the 
Deity and His Messenger to see them all safely 
smuggled into Paradise, — at the worst after a 
trifling sojourn in Purgatory, — when their time 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH i6i 

came. Abdul Rahman, an atheistical ruffian, 
a Muhammadan who had outgrown his faith, 
was something new to their inexperience. 

A couple of decades earlier, the free-thinker 
would probably have been lynched, with circum- 
stance and ceremony, while the villagers, filled 
with a holy joy, thanked the merciful and 
compassionate God because He had given to them 
so pleasing and exciting an employment where- 
with to break the dull monotony of their days. 
But now the white men (terrible spoil-sports 
these) had taken the peace of the land into their 
k^eeping, and their presence, which alone had 
made possible the existence of a professed 
scoffer, shielded him likewise from the retribution 
that would, in the natural course, have over- 
whelmed him. Persecution being, therefore, 
out of the question, the religiously inclined 
were obliged to put up with him as best they 
might ; while the young and unthinking members 
of the community cherished a sneaking admira- 
tion for the boldness of the fellow, the originality 
and independence of his views and phrases, and 
were not without envy of that freedom from all 
tiresome trammels and obligations of which, on 
occasion, he boasted so loudly. 

Abdul Rahman was immensely pleased with 
the sensation which he was causing in the home 
of his ancestors. He had quitted the village 
several years earlier, and had fared far since 
then. He had gone first to Singapore, and thence 
had shipped as an able seaman upon a succession 



1 62 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

of British steam tramps. In the course of his 
wanderings he had looked upon the pagodas of 
Burma, the Towers of Silence in Bombay, the 
Hindu shrines of southern India, the temples 
and joss-houses of China, the Phallic monuments 
of Bankok, and upon the domes and spires of 
Jewish synagogues and Christian churches in 
half the ports of eastern Asia. At first, as 
evidences of each new religion forced themselves 
upon his attention, he had relieved his outraged 
feelings by vigorous and ostentatious expectora- 
tion, and had thanked Allah that he was not as 
others. Later the minarets of the mosques had 
begun to stand out in his mind's e3^e with less 
conspicuous superiority among the other religious 
erections that surrounded them. Custom was 
breeding tolerance, and that is a mental attitude 
which no Oriental can assume towards alien 
faiths without danger to that of which he is 
himself a professor. Very soon tolerance gave 
birth to indifference, indifference to a sort of lazy 
doubt, doubt to frank unbelief. Until he had 
left his village on the banks of the Pahang River, 
though he had known vaguely that infidels 
existed, he had not realised them, nor appreciated 
their numbers or the variety of their cults. His 
discoveries in the great world into which he had 
strayed had upset all his preconceived notions. 
Nowhere did he find his co-religionists ruling the 
lands in which they dwelt, or even* possessing 
the lion's share of their wealth. Power, position, 
riches — everything — were in the hands of 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 163 

infidels ; and an understanding of this fact 
wounded Abdul Rahman's pride of faith. He 
was not a spiritual-minded person, and to his 
imagination the good things of this world 
bulked far bigger than the promise of an after- 
life. Mammon made a strong appeal to him ; 
Allah seemed very far away — possibly non- 
existent. Amid such a welter of contending 
creeds, how should a man feel certainty concerning 
the identity of the only true religion ? When 
the professors of strange faiths prospered ex- 
ceedingly, and even the most pious Muslim went 
to the wall, was not the inference plain that 
Muhammadanism was not blessed above its 
fellows ? Yet he still spat at the thought of 
a Jew or an idolater ; of so much inherited 
prejudice nothing could rid him. Therefore, 
if the faith of Islam dropped from him, he had 
no inclination to adopt any other religion in its 
place. He was left without belief in a future 
life, and with a grim determination to make the 
most that could be made of the present. He had 
shed, too, all vestiges of an ethical code, a desire 
to escape gaol representing the sole restraining 
influence to which he continued to be subject ; 
and this, supplemented by a considerable share 
of natural acumen, had stood him in good stead. 
Before he returned to his village he had garnered 
a fair stock of worldly goods, and, according to 
the modest estimates of his fellows, might be 
reckoned a very rich man. 

At first his home-coming had been sheer 



1 64 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

delight. The place seemed to him to have 
shrunk inexplicably since he left it ; the huts 
were smaller and more squalid, the river narrower, 
the life more primitive and less comfortable 
than his memory had pictured it. But he had 
quitted the place when he was still a mere lad, 
an unconsidered item of the community ; he 
returned to find himself at once the richest and 
the wisest man in the village. Grave and 
reverend seniors, who of old had been wont to cuff 
him mercilessly if he was careless of the kine he 
was set to herd, bowed down before him and 
deferred humbly to his opinions. They ad- 
dressed him as Inche', which is a title of honour, 
and they tumbled over one another in their 
anxiety to cadge upon him, and in their eager- 
ness to give him their daughters to wife. When 
he wove wild romances in which he, the able 
seaman, figured as the captain of a fleet, and 
white men — those incomprehensible beings 
whose ways were to him as an open book — 
sought his advice and leaned upon his counsel, 
the assembled villagers drank in his words with 
an unquestioning befief that was pathetic. For 
a time he was well pleased with these facile 
triumphs ; and a village in which most of the 
men looked up to him, and all the women-folk 
were more or less in love with him, appealed to 
him as an environment nicely adapted to his 
requirements. 

It was then, in the pride of his recognised 
superiority over his fellows, that he began little 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 165 

by little to develop his agnostical opinions, and 
so for the first time came into acute conflict 
with public sentiment. He had thought himself 
strong enough to be able to venture upon any 
liberty that pleased him ; but nine-tenths of the 
humility and obsequiousness of the villagers 
had been due to their ardent desire to make as 
much out of a rich man as might be. In this 
laudable endeavour many had failed, and 
failure had in them engendered bitterness. 
When Abdul Rahman began to sneer at religion, 
those who had been disappointed in their ex- 
pectations felt that they did well to be angry, 
and that their wrath was sanctified. 

Lynching, as has been noted, was accounted 
in these less spacious days a delight of a vanished 
and lamented past ; but there were other things 
the villagers knew, at which a District Officer 
with a sound understanding of his people might 
perhaps be disposed to connive. Imam Teh, the 
Headman, — who was also the priest of the God 
whom Abdul Rahman affected to slight, — ex- 
plained this to a number of youths one Thursday 
evening, and on the following afternoon his words 
bore fruit. You cannot be a successful lady-killer 
in a Malayan village — or perhaps anywhere else, 
for that matter — without incurring the enmity of 
other men. Abdul Rahman's wealth provided him 
with better weapons wherewith to reduce the 
fickle female heart than any of the young bucks 
of the village could afford. Malay ladies are 
venal, and they have a keen eye for colour. 



1 66 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Abdul Rahman satisfied both cravings. He was 
lavish, and he dressed up to the nines. Imam 
Teh's quiet suggestion offered to the envious 
youth of the place an opportunity for which the 
fingers of many youngsters had long been itching. 
On Friday afternoon, just as the rest of the 
male population was coming out of the mosque 
after the congregational prayers, — there had 
been on this occasion an unusually full attend- 
ance, — Abdul Rahman, clad in gorgeous silks 
such as are dear to the heart of the Malayan 
dandy, swaggered past the holy building cock- 
ing an insolent eye at the pious crowd. In a 
second half a dozen youngsters had gripped 
him, before he had become aware of the faintest 
threat of danger, and, in spite of his outcries 
and his struggles, he was carried to the nearest 
buffalo-wallow, into which he was ignominiously 
cast. Now a buffalo-wallow is as unpleasant 
a place in which to lie as can well be conceived. 
It is generally some three feet deep, and is filled 
to the brim with rich, liquid slime and other 
things. The kine lurch down into it with a 
sound like a volley of pistol-shots, and allow 
the mud to cover them till only the blunt 
muzzles and the little savage eyes remain above 
• the surface. When they emerge they are 
plastered thickly with the clinging slime, and so 
was poor Abdul Rahman ; but he, less fortunate 
than the beasts, had a full share of the dirt 
in mouth and nose and eyes and ears. He 
scrambled out and stood upon the edge of the 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 167 

wallow, spitting forth slime and curses, and 
wiping the filth from his eyes with hands that 
dripped mire. He presented a spectacle at once 
pitiful and ludicrous, and the humour of the 
situation was of a kind to appeal forcibly to 
the spectators. His grotesque appearance was 
greeted with a chorus of delighted shouts and 
laughter. 

To Abdul Rahman the violence of the shock, 
the sheer surprise, left him breathless. He had 
taught himself to regard the villagers with a 
disdain so deep that it had never occurred to 
him that they were capable of treating him 
with aught save reverence and submission. Yet 
now, without the slightest warning, he found 
himself standing in their midst covered with 
mud and ridicule, while they guffawed at him 
in stupid chorus. Where was the fear, where 
the admiration which he had fancied that he had 
inspired in them ? It was to him as though a 
mob of dumb animals had of a sudden risen in 
rebellion against their master. As he gazed 
around him, glaring savagely, his eve fell upon 
the smiling face of Imam Teh, the Headman, 
and instinctively he understood who had been 
the instigator of the outrage. Abdul Rahman 
turned upon the Imam furiously ; but it is difficult 
for a mud-caked man to assume an air of dignity. 
The grotesqueness of his wrath tickled the 
villagers to a fresh outburst of delighted 
laughter. 

** ' No matter how high the rice-bird may 



i68 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

soar/ " said Imam Teh sweetly, quoting a well- 
known native proverb, '* Mn the end he alighteth 
in a buffalo-wallow ! ' " And again the villagers 
yelled. The humbling of pride is ever a delicious 
thing in the eyes of those who are themselves 
without hope of, or desire for, change or im- 
provement. 

" The law ... I will have the law, the white 
man's law, of ye," spluttered Abdul Rahman ; 
but the villagers refused to be dismayed. 

" Our Tuan^^ said Imam Teh calmly, referring 
to the District Officer, " hath little love to waste 
on those who make trouble in matters religious. 
It is an old custom here to punish those who 
will not attend the Friday mosque If many 
remained away, the prayers would be hattal — 
rendered inefficacious — since the congregation 
of forty men would be short of its tale. The 
Tuan, who knoweth our ways and our laws, 
will care nothing for thy complaints. Go, 
Brother, go and sin no more." 

Abdul Rahman felt himself to be impotent. 
It was quite likely that the District Officer would 
decline to interfere ; and in any case, how could 
he, without loss of self-respect, confess that he 
had been flung into a buffalo-wallow by the 
villagers whom he aspired to rule ? For Abdul 
Rahman, who cherished an immense contempt 
for old Imam Teh, had long ago determined to 
supplant him in the Headmanship at the first 
convenient opportunity. Crestfallen and very 
angry, Abdul Rahman now sneaked away to 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 169 

his house, seeking unfrequented paths, and avoid- 
ing as best he might the amused gaze of the 
women crowding the doorways . But as he went 
his mind was working busily, and he was already 
hatching a scheme which should repay Imam 
Teh for the insult inflicted, and that with good 
measure, pressed down and running over. 

Abdul Rahman had not travelled in the lands 
of the white man for nothing. He had learned 
to appreciate the power of a lie and the value 
of a lawsuit as weapons of offence in the hands 
of a man with a knack of engineering things. 
Witnesses were the only requisite, and wit- 
nesses, fortunately for the Oriental litigant, are 
inexpensive articles to procure in Asia. Abdul 
Rahman had lent money to several of the vil- 
lagers ; and since these men had no possible 
means of discharging their liability, he was able 
to dandle them at the end of a string. In ten 
days all his preparations were duly made, his 
witnesses schooled to repeat a carefully con- 
cocted story, and instructed how to reply to all the 
idiotic questions which a white magistrate might, 
in his folly, be expected to put to them. Never 
was a case more dexterously fitted together, 
and Abdul Rahman felt a glow of justifiable 
pride thrilling him when he thought of the 
compactness of the lies which he had dovetailed 
into one another, and which had for their object 
the undoing of Imam Teh, the Headman. 

The story was beautifully simple. When 
12 



170 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Abdul Rahman left the village a decade earlier, 
he had placed a small herd of buffaloes in the 
keeping of Imam Teh. As a matter of fact, 
in those indigent days Abdul Rahman had 
possessed no cattle ; but that was not of the 
slightest consequence. His present wealth 
would lend vraisemblance to the story. Now 
these mythical kine, it was contended, had been 
gathered to their fathers, but their progeny 
composed the herd of five-and-twenty head 
which Imam Teh was known to possess. Abdul 
Rahman's witnesses declared that they had 
themselves delivered the original cattle to the 
Headman. They remembered every detail con- 
nected with the transaction, from the colour of 
the buffaloes and their distinguishing marks, 
down to the clothes which all concerned wore 
upon the occasion of the transfer. They also 
recalled that Imam Teh had been alone when he 
accepted charge of the cattle, and that he had 
solemnly promised that he would keep them 
for Abdul Rahman, would consider the use to 
which he might put them as sufficient recom- 
pense for his trouble, and that he would hand 
them and their progeny back to their owner 
whenever he might return from his wanderings. 
Such arrangements are very common among 
Malayan villagers, and the only point to be 
proved was the existence of the original kine. 
This Abdul Rahman's witnesses would do past 
all manner of doubt. 
The train being now laid, Abdul Rahman put 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 171 

a match to it by publicly demanding his buffa- 
loes from Imam Teh. The Headman was com- 
pletely taken aback, for the claim had, of course, 
no fragment of foundation ; and if his cattle were 
to be lost to him, he would be a partially ruined 
man. But he had been a fighter in his youth, 
and the light of battle was in his eye. Of old 
a shrewd knife-thrust would have settled the 
matter finally. To-day law had replaced cold 
steel. It was a pity, but Imam Teh was a man 
who knew how to accommodate himself to cir- 
cumstances. He did not turn a hair, but listened 
to Abdul Rahman's story with perfect patience, 
scorning to show by any outward sign that he 
was moved or troubled. The villagers gathered 
round with eager interest. This was exciting, 
they thought, and, in its way, the nearest thing 
to a fight that the tameness of the present 
could furnish. But it was disappointing after 
all. The Imam listened imperturbably ; only 
when Abdul Rahman, having worked himself 
into a fever of fury, cried out that the law and 
the witnesses were on his side, the old Headman 
contented himself with a calm and dignified 
rejoinder. 

'* On my side," he said, " abideth Allah and 
the justice of Allah, the Merciful, the Compas- 
sionate ! " 

Then he turned away and affected not to 
hear the blasphemous gibe at holy things with 
which Abdul Rahman greeted the appeal to the 
justice of God. 



172 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Swords had been crossed, and now the fight 
must be fought to a finish. Abdul Rahman had 
been a trifle disappointed by the result of this 
initial encounter. He had hoped to lash the 
Imam into a fury, and he had failed ; but that, 
after all, mattered little. He would win his 
case ; would rob the Imam, by the help of the 
white man's law, of the best half of his worldly 
goods ; and having ruined his enemy, would end 
by supplanting him. What folly it was to prate 
of Allah and His justice ! How could such 
abstractions avail aught against well-drilled 
witnesses, a white magistrate's obtuse respect 
for evidence, and a thoroughly able and adroitly 
contrived tissue of untruth ? 

The case came on fot hearing in due course, 
the District Officer inquiring into the matter 
during his next visit to the village. He held his 
court on board his house-boat, moored at the 
foot of the high red bank upon the crest of which 
the village stood. All the male population of 
the place crowded down to act as audience, the 
more fortunate squatting in the sunshine outside 
the cabin door, others sitting in canoes or on 
the shelving bank straining their ears to listen. 
Every soul present knew that Abdul Rahman and 
his witnesses were perjured to the gullet, and 
Abdul Rahman was complacently aware that 
they knew it. The precision of the machinery 
which he had brought to bear filled him, however, 
with the pride which belongs to all inventors of 
notable things ; and the village, taken as a whole, 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 173 

was inclined to share this feeUng, and shone 
contentedly in his reflected glory. Imam Teh, 
on the other hand, had sought no man's advice 
and had kept his own counsel. Many had volun- 
teered to bear witness on his behalf, but to all 
of them he had replied with a single word . 

" Sabar ! Have patience ! " he had said ; and 
with that enigmatic phrase his partisans had been 
forced to content themselves. 

The old man knew perfectly well that his all 
was at stake. The loss of his buffaloes would 
mean ruin. He might have opposed witness to 
witness, and have bewildered the magistrate by 
the clamour of cross-swearing. Had he done so, 
his position as Headman would have helped him 
to a favourable verdict, for white men are always 
suspicious of men of Abdul Rahman's type, who 
are apt to be more sophisticated and experienced 
than reliable. But Imam Teh had no wish to 
win his case by any chance of that kind. He 
desired certain victory, and his intense faith 
pointed toward the direction whence victory 
alone could reach him. He placed his trust in 
Allah and in the justice of Allah, and he felt a 
magnificent security. 

The District Officer, squatting on his sleeping- 
mat with a writing-pad upon his knee and a pipe 
in his mouth, listened patiently to Abdul Rah- 
man and his witnesses as these worthies developed 
their attack upon the Imam's property, and then 
turned to the Headman, inquiring what he had 
to say in reply The old man, who had sat quite 



174 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

unmoved and silent from the first, shifted his 
position and spoke. 

" The kine are mine own, Tican,'^ he said, " as 
Abdul Rahman and his witnesses know full 
well. But I will call no witnesses. Let Allah 
judge between us. I ask only that Abdul Rah- 
man swear to the truth of his story. Let his 
witnesses go, Tuan " — the men referred to, 
whose faces had assumed an air of extreme 
disquiet, as suddenly brightened at the word, a 
fact which was not lost upon the magistrate. 
" They be men with wives and little ones, and 
they have been driven into sin. I do not ask 
that they be made to swear, lest, swearing falsely, 
they be devoured by their oaths ; but Abdul 
Rahman himself, let him swear, Tuan, — swear in 
the mosque, the mimbar-post in his hands, the 
Holy Book upon his head, — and if in thirty days 
he be not devoured by his false oath, the kine 
shall be his. Allah, Tuan, and the justice of 
Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate, let these 
decide. I ask no other arbiter." 

*' It is well," said the District Officer. " Let 
Abdul Rahman swear in the mosque with due 
form and ceremony, and thereafter for the space 
of one month we will wait to see whether the 
oath * eats ' him. At the end of that time I 
will return and give judgment." 

The informal court passed on to the considera- 
tion of other matters, and the crowds of inter- 
ested natives melted away. Abdul Rahman, 
as he walked homeward, was uplifted, for he now 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 175 

felt sure that the kine were his, and that the 
Imam, his enemy, would be undone. Still, he 
was uneasily conscious that the villagers fell 
back to let him pass, eyeing him with something 
of horror in their gaze, and evidently fearful 
lest chance contact with him might carry with 
it defilement and misfortune. 

On the morrow, Abdul Rahman was solemnly 
sworn in the mosque in the presence of the entire 
male population of the place ; and for all his 
scepticism, the ceremony struck him as un- 
pleasantly impressive. He stood there, the 
centre of his little world, both hands grasping 
the mimbar-post, while the khatib, pressing 
the Kuran against the crown of his head, 
administered the tremendous oath, calling 
upon him to repeat it after him, word by 
word — 

" I swear, with the mimbar--post between my 
hands, with the Holy Book upon my head, that 
the kine were delivered by me to Imam Teh ; 
that the five-and-twenty head of cattle now in 
his keeping are their offspring ; and that the said 
beasts are mine by right, by promise, and by 
arrangement. If there be aught that is untrue 
in these my words, Allah is not my God, Muham- 
mad is not my Teacher, and I pray Allah and 
His Prophet to strike me and blast me, with 
sickness and misery in this life, and in the life 
that is to come to plunge me into the fires of the 
Terrible Place ! " 



176 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

It seemed to Abdul Rahman that the Holy 
Book pressed upon his head as a sore burden ; 
that the mimbar-post scorched the hands with 
which he gripped it ; that the awful words 
sounded like a knell, and that the voice which 
uttered them fell strangely on the ear, breaking 
into discordant sharps and flats that would not 
be controlled. He whispered to himself that he 
had no belief in Allah or in His Prophet ; that 
he cared nought for all this mummery ; that mere 
empty phrases could work him no injury ; but in 
spite of himself something of his old atheistical 
confidence in his convictions had fallen from him. 
The solemn words awoke anew within him the 
superstitions of his childhood — tales, until then 
forgotten, of the awful fates of men whom 
false oaths had " devoured " started into recol- 
lection. Glancing furtively around, he saw the 
calm, set face of Imam Teh, with the light of 
undimmed faith blazing in the deep-sunken 
eyes ; the fixed expression of fear, horror, ex- 
pectation worn by the assembled villagers ; 
the shudders which shook the men who had 
lied glibly at his bidding, but who would have 
gone to their deaths rather than have done the 
deed which he now was doing. 

" Amin! So be it I " 

The entire congregation took up the shout, 
as the last words of the oath were pronounced. 
There was a ring of sure confidence in that 
appeal to Heaven which shook Abdul Rahman's 
sense of security rudely. 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 177 

The khatib burst forth in a rolHng Arabic 
prayer, the splendid sonorous words echoing 
among the rafters of the mosque ; and of a 
sudden the sun was overcast, while a black rain- 
cloud plunged the world in sombre dusk. A 
tremor ran through the assembled Malays, and 
again, the prayer to God concluded, the cry 
broke forth once more — 

" Amin ! Amin ! So be it ! So be it I '' 

The ordeal was at an end, and Abdul Rahman 
lost no time in quitting the mosque and wending 
his way homeward. He went alone, for the 
villagers hung back, no man desiring to rub 
shoulders with one who was under the ban of 
Heaven — since all knew that Abdul Rahman 
had sworn to a lie, and all were now awaiting 
the catastrophe which surely must befall him 
in punishment of his crime. As he passed, 
the doors of huts were closed hastily, children 
were called in from play by their frightened 
mothers, and Abdul Rahman was aware of 
eyes that watched him curiously through the 
chinks of the wattled walls. He assumed 
a more truculent swagger than usual ; but do 
what he would, the impression left upon him 
by the ceremony in the mosque ate deeper 
and deeper into his spirit. 

Before he neared his own house the heavens 
opened suddenly and let down their deluge 
of rain. The Hghtning split the gloom across 
and across in blinding zigzags, and the thunder 
crashed with fearful detonations. Abdul Rah- 



178 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

man broke into a run, and his feet were made 
swift with a terror that was new to him. It 
was not only that he wished to avoid the rain. 
For the first time in his life the lightning made 
him afraid. In these lands of tropical sun- 
glare a noontide that is overcast has ever a 
curiously depressing effect upon the mind, 
and coming now, when his nerves were already 
on edge, the storm and the electric battle 
of the elements set Abdul Rahman tingling 
from head to foot with weird forebodings of 
evil . What if he were wrong ? What if there 
were in truth a God in heaven — a God whose 
majesty he had outraged wantonly ? Already 
the question obtruded itself, and Abdul Rahman, 
the sceptic, fled before the awful Unknown upon 
the wings of fear. 

He reached his house drenched to the skin, 
shivering, chilled, miserable ; and here a new 
and far from pleasing surprise awaited him. 
The place was deserted. His wife and the 
women who aided her in her work had fled. 
They knew that their man had sworn to a lie, 
and, fearful lest they should be engulfed by 
the doom in store for him, they had sought 
shelter elsewhere. No fire was burning on 
the hearth, no cooked food was in readiness for 
the master's return ; the very key of the box, 
in which a change of clothes was shut away, 
could not be found until after a prolonged 
search. Abdul Rahman was very angry, but 
the fury of the thunderstorm held him a prisoner. 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 179 

His nerve was not equal to the exploit of braving 
it again, and he told himself he would make 
inquiries about his wife when the rain had 
ceased. In the meantime, he set to work to 
minister to his own comfort as best he might, 
starting with the violence of a shying horse at 
each fresh explosion overhead. By the time 
he had found the key, unlocked the box, and 
changed his drenched clothing, Abdul Rahman 
was chilled to the bone and was shivering like 
a wet terrier. The thunder rolled away and 
presently ceased, but the rain held, so all that 
afternoon Abdul Rahman sat cowering over 
the fire he had lighted, and had nothing to 
distract his mind from the one thought which 
occupied it. Over and over again he re-enacted 
the scene in the mosque — saw the grave, fixed, 
horrified faces of the villagers, the triumphant 
light of certain victory in Imam Teh's eyes, 
and repeated the awful words of the oath. 
Already he felt himself to be an outcast — • 
shunned by all his world ; and to one who had 
been wont to impress his will upon others, and 
to take a leading place in the village, the experi- 
ence was the reverse of comfortable. There 
was also a sort of expectancy in the air, an 
atmosphere of patient and confident waiting, of 
which he was conscious, and by which he was 
made supremely uneasy. 

The rain fell with pitiless persistency, and 
Abdul Rahman, upon whose spirit the solitude 
and the silence, broken only by the monotonous 



i8o MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

beat of the downpour upon the thatch, weighed 
heavily, ate a comfortless meal, and crept under 
his mosquito-curtains. Sleep, however, came 
slowly, and then was interrupted by frequent 
nightmares. His head was hot, his eyes ached 
in their sockets, he tossed restlessly upon his 
mat. He had caught a severe chill while searching 
for his dry clothes, and was in for a dose of fever. 
In ordinary times he would have recognised 
this fact, and it would have disquieted him 
but little ; now it filled him with terror and 
with humiliation. Was he already being 
*' devoured " by the oath ? He thrust the 
bare suggestion from him with an angry scorn, 
which had in it more of energy and determina- 
tion than of confidence. He told himself that the 
idea was absurd, but it obtruded itself upon him 
no whit less persistently, and with it came another 
thought. Even if his attack of fever were a 
mere coincidence — in which light he was resolved 
to regard it — would not it be otherwise inter- 
preted by the villagers ? They would profess to 
be convinced that the oath was *' devouring " 
him, and Imam Teh would retain his cattle. 
The thought was gall and wormwood to Abdul 
Rahman. He must keep in good health for 
thirty days, or all his schemes were rendered 
futile. If he had the bad luck to fall ill now, 
everything would be lost — and after all, was it 
merely luck ? As he tossed upon his sleeping- 
mat he was impressed by the absolute 
necessity of avoiding illness ; and the recognition 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH i8i 

of this imperative obligation predisposed him, 
of course, to hypochondriacal musings of a 
kind in which he had never before indulged. 
Fever and the sohtude of the night-time com- 
pleted his discomfiture, and when the slow 
dawn broke he rose up from his mat haggard, 
weary, and unrefreshed. 

After he had cooked and eaten a meal, he set 
out for the house of his father-in-law, raging 
with anger against the wife whose desertion 
had added so greatly to the miseries of his nuit 
blanche. Again the village drew away its 
skirts lest they should be sullied by chance 
contact with the perjurer ; again doors were 
hastily closed at his approach ; again he knew 
himself to be spied upon by innumerable hidden 
eyes ; again he passed solitary and outcast through 
the crowded place. A consciousness of his own 
pale face and haggard mien did not add to his 
self-confidence, and the swagger which he tried 
to assume was a pitiful thing. 

At his father-in-law's house he was met by 
harsh words and closed doors. The man who 
had been so eager to give him his daughter to 
wife, and the brothers-in-law who had played 
the humble parasite so contentedly, clinked the 
spear-blades of open hostility at him from 
behind their defences, and bade him curtly 
begone, unless he wished that some worse thing 
should befall him. Until the thirty days were 
over, they said, his wife could not be restored. 
The oath must be given its time in which to 



1 82 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

"devour" him, and his wife could not risk 
becoming involved in his fate. Abdul Rahman 
found that neither bluster nor threats, neither 
pleadings nor supplications, neither bribes nor 
promises, were of the least avail. The super- 
stitious fears of a population to whom supernatural 
things are as real as the happenings of every day 
were thoroughly aroused, and Abdul Rahman, 
atheist and perjurer, was doomed to be outcast 
of all until High Heaven had declared itself for 
or against him. With a feeling near akin to 
despair he returned to his own dwelling, knowing 
all the time that he was being watched with 
eager curiosity by many invisible eyes. It was 
not a pleasant sensation, and the long, solitary 
hours, spent in brooding over his wrongs, which 
followed, were even less to his liking. Allah 
seemed suddenly to have become very real — to 
be standing in the midst of the village world, an 
awful Figure, sublime in His power and in the 
wrath of His offended majesty. Abdul Rahman, 
deserted by his fellows, gripped by fever, angry 
with all his world, and with nearly the whole of 
those terrible thirty days stretching away before 
him in limitless prospect, felt himself to be a 
worm, very miserable and utterly impotent. 

He raged at the thought of the villagers who 
had once been so servile, and now were unani- 
mous in their desertion of him. He promised 
himself the pleasure of beating his wife on her 
return, as woman had never before been beaten ; 
but even this pleasing anticipation could not 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 183 

relieve the wretchedness of the present. Worst 
of all, however, was the dead solitude and 
silence to which he was condemned. It was no 
comfort to scoff at Allah and His Prophet when 
none were at hand to hear and to be shocked ; and 
in the meantime, he was increasingly conscious 
of a sense of defeat. He was observing his own 
health with intense anxiety, and the fever won 
a firmer hold on him in consequence. Was this 
the finger of Allah, whose existence he had been 
wont to deny ? The fear gathered force with 
each passing hour, and the half - forgotten 
superstitions of his childhood — things which had 
not troubled him for years — recurred to his 
memory with persecuting persistency. 

As the days crept by he became ill in body and 
in mind ; for no man of gregarious habits can brood 
in solitude over his health and his antagonism 
to religion without suffering. His nerves were all 
on edge, and the knowledge that the villagers, 
though they held so resolutely aloof, were 
watching him narrowly, kept him in a state of 
acute uneasiness and distress. When he went 
down to the river for water — he never quitted 
his hut save under the spur of necessity — the 
bushes fringing the path were alive with hidden 
spies. Unseen figures rustled in the underwood, 
and he heard the shrill, half-suppressed giggles 
of women, and the whispered comments of men, 
who noted his haggard air with open satisfaction. 
As he sat in his doorway, children would creep 
near to pry at him, and once every day Imam 



1 84 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Teh would walk slowly past, and bend his grave 
and searching gaze upon him. 

In the past his atheism had been a light- 
hearted thing enough — bred of indifference, and 
grounded upon nothing in the nature of scientific 
doubt. But now, of a sudden, he was brought face 
to face with his unbelief, and was called upon 
to make a stand-up fight of it with the Deity, 
whose existence he had been wont so cheerfully 
to deny. This was an entirely new experience to 
Abdul Rahman, and in the hour of need his 
atheism afforded him scant support. Thrown 
back upon himself, he found the measure of his 
own impotence ; knew himself to be the merest 
fly upon the wheel ; and began to acknowledge, 
at first almost unconsciously, that he was 
contending with vast unknown Powers. The 
bias of his infancy and of his birth, too, asserted 
itself. The inherited tendency toward belief 
in things supernatural is something that has a 
deep root in the Malayan mind. It is not to be 
eradicated in a moment, or in a single generation. 
Much solitary brooding caused it to spring up 
now into a lusty growth ; and Abdul Rahman, 
spent in body and racked of mind, discovered 
that his atheism, sound enough when all was 
going well with him, was an unsatisfactory 
creed in the hour of adversity. 

Later came a sneaking acknowledgment that 
he had never been quite certain that Allah did 
not exist ; and upon this confession followed 
blank dismay. The words of the oath were 



THE NATURE OF AN OATH 185 

recalled. His own ill -health assumed a por- 
tentous meaning. Terror gripped him. 

It was just before the dawning of the tenth 
day that Abdul Rahman arrived at last at con- 
viction. The matter had been in the process 
of incubation from the moment when the 
bursting of the thunderstorm had sent him 
scuttling for shelter with new-born fear in his 
heart. Every hour of solitary brooding and 
introspection, every spasm of pain or chill with 
which the fever had shaken him, every mani- 
festation of his own impotence of which the 
recognition had been forced upon him, but, 
above all, the consciousness that the whole 
village was awaiting with patient but confident 
expectation the catastrophe which was to befall 
him, had fostered its growth, and had lent it 
form and strength. Lying now in the dead 
darkness, in the chill and cheerless hour before 
the dawning, when vitahty is at its lowest ebb, 
Abdul Rahman — " Servant of the Merciful One" 
— saw himself to be a pitiful thing. Through 
sickness and solitude and fear he had won his 
way back once more to the old conception of 
man as an impotent creature, held by an Omni- 
potent God in the awful hollow of His hand — 
the conception of man and of his Creator which 
had been accepted submissively, unquestion- 
ingly by countless generations of his forbears. 
Perhaps the force of inherited tradition, of faith 
strengthened by the simple belief of those who 
had transmitted it through the centuries — per- 
13 



1 86 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

haps, also, the power which a torturing imagina- 
tion can, on occasion, exercise — had contributed 
greatly to Abdul Rahman's conversion ; but the 
man who had boasted his atheism had come of 
a sudden into violent collision with the forces 
that scoff at human control, and in that moment 
the conviction that man in his impotence must 
seek an explanation for the inexplicable in some- 
thing greater than man had forced itself upon 
his understanding. The Deity whom he had 
offended stood over against him, and all the ills 
to which flesh is heir were the lashes of His 
scourge. In the chill dark of the hour before 
the dawn Abdul Rahman lay whimpering on 
his mat like a frightened child, and gave the 
victory to God. 

Old Imam Teh is still Headman in that village, 
and his herd of buffaloes troops at eventide 
down to the watering-place with no man to 
dispute with him its possession. Abdul Rahman 
has gone to Mecca to lay down the burden of 
his sins at the Holy Places, and is in a fair way 
to become a fanatic of the Faith. He will be a 
glaring exception to the rule if he returns from 
Arabia a more profitable member of society 
than was the man who started on the Pilgrim- 
age ; but at any rate he, for the future, will have 
no manner of doubt as to the nature of an oath. 



X 

THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 

All the wintry afternoon we had been worming 
our way down the Thames, the big steamer 
filtering slowly through the throng of crafts 
like a 'bus moving ponderously amid crowded 
traffic. When at last we won free of the river, 
the Channel chop took us on its knee and 
rocked us roughly, while the scud of wind and 
rain slapped us in the face with riotous horse- 
play. As we came up from dinner and struggled 
aft, our feet slipped and slithered over the 
wet decks, and the shouts of the frozen Lascars 
at the look-out reached us through the sopping 
gloom, despairing as the howls of souls in 
torment. The ugly, hopeless melancholy of 
our surroundings accorded well with the mood 
which possessed the majority of those on board ; 
for we were outward-bound, and men who 
leave England for the good of their purses 
carry heavy hearts with them at the start. In 
the smoking-room, therefore, with coat-collars 
tugged up about our ears, and hands thrust 
deeply into our pockets, we sat smoking 

with mournful earnestness, glaring at our neigh- 

187 



1 88 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

hours with the open animosity of the genial 
Briton. 

Through the thickening fog of the tobacco- 
smoke, the figure of the man seated imme- 
diately opposite to me was dimly visible ; but 
presently his unusual appearance claimed my 
closer attention and aroused my curiosity. His 
emaciated body was wrapped in a huge ulster, 
from the up-turned collar of which a head 
emerged that I can only describe as being 
like nothing so much as that of a death's-head 
moth. He was clean-shaven, and his cheeks 
were as hollow as saucers ; his temples were 
pinched and prominent ; from the bottom of 
deeply sunken sockets little wild eyes glared like 
savage things held fast in a gin. The mouth 
was set hard, as though its owner were enduring 
agony, and trying his best to repress a scream. 
As much of his hair as his cap and his coat-collar 
suffered to be seen was of a dirty yellow-white ; 
yet in some indefinable way the man did not 
give the impression of being old. Rather he 
seemed to be one prematurely broken ; one 
who suffered acutely and unceasingly ; one 
who, with rigid self-control, maintained a tight 
grip upon himself, as though all his nerves 
were on edge. I had marked a somewhat 
similar expression of concentrated determination 
upon the faces of fellow-passengers engaged 
in fighting the demon of sea-sickness ; but 
this man sucked at his pipe, and obviously drew 
a measure of comfort from it, in a fashion which 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 189 

showed that he was indifferent to the choppy 
motion. Yet though those buried eyes of his 
were glaring and savage — eyes that seemed 
to be eternally seeking some means of escape 
from a haunting peril — they were not restless, 
but rather were fixed in a venomous scowl ; 
while the man himself, dead quiet, save for 
the light that glinted from them, was appar- 
ently sunken in a fathomless abstraction. 

All this I noted mechanically, but it was 
the extraordinary condition of his face that 
chiefly excited my wonder. It was literally 
pock-marked with little purple cicatrices, small 
oblong lumps, smooth and shining feebly in 
^he lamplight, that rose above the surface 
of the skin, and ran this way and that at every 
imaginable angle. I had seen more than once 
the faces of German duellists wonderfully and 
fearfully beslashed ; but the scars they wore were 
long and clean, wholly unlike the badly healed 
lumps which disfigured my queer vis-a-vis, 
I fell to speculating as to what could have 
caused such a multiplicity of wounds : not a 
gunpowder explosion, certainly, for the skin 
showed none of the blue tattooing inseparable 
from injuries so inflicted ; nor yet the bursting 
of a gun, for that always makes at least one 
large jagged cut, not innumerable tiny scars 
such as those at which I was looking. I 
could think of no solution that would fit the 
case ; and as I watched, suddenly the man 
withdrew his hands from his pockets, waggHng 



..%^k/». 



I90 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

them before his face with a nervous motion, 
as though he were warding off some invisible 
assailants. Then I saw that every inch of 
the backs and palms, and as much of his wrists 
as were exposed to view, were pitted with 
cicatrices similar to those with which his face 
was bedecked. 

" Evening, you folk ! " said a nasal voice 
in the doorway, breaking discordantly upon 
the sulky silence which brooded over us ; and 
I looked up to see the figure of a typical " down- 
easter," slim and alert, standing just within 
the room. He had a keen, hard face on him, 
like a meat-axe, and the wet of the rain stood 
upon it in drops. He jerked his head at us 
in collective greeting, walked through the 
haze of smoke with free gait and swinging 
shoulders, and threw himself down in a heap 
on the horse-hair bench beside the man whose 
strange appearance had riveted my attention. 
Seated thus, he looked round at us with quick 
humorous glances, as though our British 
solemnity, which made each one of us grimly 
isolated in a crowd, struck him as at once 
amusing and impossible of endurance. 

" Snakes ! " he exclaimed genially. " This 
is mighty cheerful ! " His strident twang seemed 
to cut wedges out of the foggy silence. *' We 
look as though we had swallowed a peck of 
tenpenny nails, and the blamed things were 
sitting heavy on our stomachs. Come, let 
us be friendly. I ain't doing any trade in 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 191 

sore-headed bears. Wake up, sonny I " And 
he dug his melancholy neighbour in the ribs 
with an aggressive and outrageous thumb. 

It was for all the world as though he had 
touched the spring that sets in motion the 
clock-work of a mechanical toy. The man's 
cap flew from his head, — disclosing a scalp ill 
covered with sparse hairs and scarred like his 
face, — as he leaped to his feet with a scream, 
torn suddenly, as it were, from the depths of 
his self-absorbed abstraction. Casting quick 
nervous glances over his shoulder, he backed 
into the nearest corner, his hands clawing at 
the air, his eyes hunted, defiant, yet abject. 
His whole figure was instinct with terror — 
terror seeking impotently to defend itself against 
unnumbered enemies. His teeth were set, his 
gums were drawn back over them in two rigid 
white lines ; a sort of snarling cry broke from 
him — a cry that seemed to be the expression of 
furious rage, pain, and agonisingly concentrated 
effort. 

It all took place in a fraction of a second — 
as quickly as a man jumps when badly startled — 
and as quickly he recovered his balance, and 
pulled himself together. Then he cast a 
murderous glance at the American, — who at 
that moment presented a picture of petrified 
astonishment, — let fly a venomous oath at 
him, and slammed out of the room in a tower- 
ing rage. 

" Goramercy I " ejaculated the American 



192 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

limply. " I want a drink. Who'll join me ? " 
But no one responded to his invitation. 

That was the occasion of my first meeting 
with Timothy O'Hara ; but as I subsequently 
travelled half across the world in his company, 
was admitted to his friendship, and heard him 
relate his experiences, not once but many times, 
I am able to supply the curious with the key 
to his extraordinary behaviour that evening. 
I regret that it is impossible to give his story 
in his own words, for he told it graphically and 
with force ; but unfortunately his very proper 
indignation invariably got the better of his 
discretion, with the result that he frequently 
waxed blasphemous in the course of his narra- 
tive, and at times was rendered altogether 
inarticulate by rage. However, the version 
which I now offer to the reader is accurate in 
all essential details ; and my own first-hand 
knowledge of that gentle race called Muruts, 
at whose hands O'Hara fared so evilly, has 
helped me to fill in such blanks as may have 
existed in the tale as it originally reached me. 

A score of years ago there was a man in North 
Borneo, whose name does not matter — a man 
who had the itch of travel in him, and loved 
untrodden places for their own sake. He under- 
took to explore the interior of the no-man's- 
land which the Chartered Company euphemistic- 
ally described as its " property." He made his 
way inland from the western coast, and little 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 193 

more was heard of him for several months. At 
the end of that time a haze of disquieting rumours, 
as impalpable as the used-up fever-laden wind 
that blows eternally from the interior, reached 
the little squalid stations on the seashore ; and 
shortly afterwards the body of the explorer, 
terribly mangled and mutilated, was sluiced 
down-countr}^ by a freshet, and brought up on a 
sand-spit near the mouth of a river on the east 
coast. Here it was discovered by a couple 
of white men, who with the aid of a handful of 
unwilling natives buried it with becoming state, 
since it was the only thing with a European 
father and mother which had ever travelled 
across the centre of North Borneo, from sea to 
sea, since the beginning of time. 

In life the explorer had been noted for his 
beard, a great yellow cascade of hair which 
fell down his breast from his lip to his waist ; 
and when his corpse was found this ornament 
was missing. The Chartered Company, whose 
business it was to pay dividends in adverse cir- 
cumstances, did not profess to be a philanthropical 
institution, and could not spend its hard-squeezed 
revenues upon putting the fear of death into 
people who have made too free with the lives 
of white folk, as is the practice in other parts 
of Asia. Therefore no steps were taken by the 
local administration to punish the Muruts of the 
interior who had amused themselves by putting 
the explorer to an ugly death ; but the know- 
ledge that the murdered man's beard had been 



194 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

shorn from his chin by some truculent savage, 
and was even then ornamenting the knife- 
handle of a Murut chief in the heart of the island, 
rankled in the minds of the white men on the 
spot. The wise and prudent members of the 
community talked a great deal, said roundly that 
the thing was a shame and an abomination, and 
took care to let their discretion carry them no 
farther than the spoken word. The young and 
foolish did not say so much, but the recovery of 
that wisp of hair became to many of them a 
tremendous ambition, a dream, something that 
made even existence in North Borneo tolerable, 
while it presented itself to their imaginations as a 
feat possible of accomplishment . With a few this 
dream became an idee fixe, an object in a life that 
otherwise was unendurable ; and it may even 
have saved a few from the perpetration of more 
immediate follies. The quest would be the most 
hazardous conceivable, a fitting enterprise for 
men rendered desperate by the circumstances 
into the midst of which fate had thrust them. 

Sitting at home in England, with pleasant 
things to distract the mind all about you, and 
with nothing at hand more dangerous than a 
taxi-cab, all this pother concerning the hairs 
off a dead man's chin may appeal to you as 
something absurdly sentimental and irrational ; 
but try for the moment to place yourself in the 
position of an isolated white man at an out- 
station of North Borneo. Picture to yourself a 
tumble-down thatched bungalow standing on a 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 195 

roughly cleared hill, with four Chinese shops 
and a dilapidated police-station squatting on 
the bank of a black, creeping river. Rub in a 
smudge of blue-green forest, shutting you up on 
flanks, front, and rear. Fill that forest with 
scattered huts, wherein squalid natives live the 
lives of beasts — natives whose language you do 
not know, whose ideas you do not understand, 
who make their presence felt only by means of 
savage howls raised by them in their drunken 
orgies — natives whose hatred of you can only 
be kept from active expression by such fear as 
your armed readiness may inspire. Add to this 
merciless heat, faint exhausted air, an occasional 
bout of the black fever of the country, and not 
enough of work to preserve your mind from rust. 
Remember that the men who are doomed to live 
in these places get no sport, have no recreations, 
no companionship ; that the long, empty, 
suffocating days trail by one by one, bringing 
no hope of change, and that the only communica- 
tion with the outer world is kept up fitfully by 
certain dingy steam-tramps which are always 
behind time, and which may, or may not, arrive 
once a month. Can you wonder that amid 
such surroundings men wax melancholy ; that 
they take to brooding over all manner of trivial 
things in a fashion which is not quite sane ; 
and that the knowledge that their continued 
existence is dependent upon the wholesome 
awe in which white folk are held sometimes gets 
upon their nerves, and makes them feverishly 



196 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

anxious to vindicate the honour of their race ? 
When you have let the full meaning of these 
things sink into your minds, you will begin to 
understand why so much excitement prevailed in 
North Borneo concerning the reported ownership 
of the deceased explorer's beard. 

Timothy O'Hara and Harold Bateman had 
lived lives such as those which I have described 
for half a dozen years or more. They had had 
ample leisure in which to turn the matter of 
the explorer's beard over and over in their minds, 
till the thought of it had bred something like 
fanaticism— a kind of still, white-hot rage within 
them. It chanced that their leave of absence 
fell due upon one and the same day. It followed 
that they put their heads together and decided 
to start upon a private raid of their own into 
the interior of the Murut country, with a view 
to redeeming the trophy. It also followed that 
they made their preparations with the utmost 
secrecy, and that they enlisted a dozen 
villainous little Dyaks from Sarawak to act as 
their punitive force. The whole thing was 
highly improper and very illegal, but it promised 
adventurous experiences, and both Bateman 
and O'Hara were young and not over- wise. 
Also, it must be urged in extenuation of their 
conduct that they had the effects of some six 
years' crushing monotony to work off; that they 
had learned to regard the Muruts of the interior 
as their natural enemies ; and that the ugliness 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 197 

and the deadly solitude of their existence had 
rendered them savage, just as the tamest beast 
becomes wil(^ and ferocious when it finds itself 
held in the painful grip of a trap. 

I am in nowise concerned to justify their 
doings : my part is to record them. O'Hara 
and Bateman vanished one day from the last 
outpost of quasi-civilisation, having given out 
that they were off up-country in search of big 
game — which was a fact. Their little expedi- 
tion slipped into the forest, and the wilderness 
swallowed it. When once they had pushed out 
into the unknown interior they were gone^past 
power of recall, were lost as completely as a 
needle in a ten-acre hay-field ; and they breathed 
more freely because they had escaped from 
the narrow zone wherein the law of the white 
man runs, and need guide themselves for the 
future merely by the dictates of their own 
rudimentary notions of right and wrong. 

They had a very hard time of it, so far as I can 
gather ; for the current of the rivers, which 
crept towards them, black and oily, from the 
upper country, was dead against them, and the 
rapids soon caused them to abandon their boats. 
Then they tramped it, trudging with dogged 
perseverance up and down the hills, clambering 
painfully up sheer ascents, slipping down the 
steep pitches on the other side, splashing and 
labouring through the swamps betwixt hill and 
hill, or wading waist-deep across wildernesses of 
rank lalang-gv ass, from the green surface of which 



198 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

the refracted heat smote them under their hat- 
brims with the force of blows. Aching in every 
limb, half-blinded by the sweat that trickled 
into their eyes, flayed by the sun, mired to the 
ears in the morasses, torn by thorn-thickets, 
devoured by tree-leeches, stung by all manner 
of jungle-insects, and oppressed by the weight 
of self-imposed effort that pride forbade them to 
abandon, they struggled forward persistently, 
fiercely, growing more savage and more vin- 
dictive at every painful step. The golden fleece 
of beard, which was the object of their quest, 
became an oriflamme, in the wake of which they 
floundered eternally through the inferno of an 
endless fight. Their determination to recover it 
became a madness, a possession : it filled their 
minds to the exclusion of aught else, nerved them 
to fresh endeavour, spurred them out of their 
weariness, and would not suffer them to rest. 
But the bitterness of their travail incensed them 
mightily against the Murut folk, whose lack of 
reverence for white men had imposed so tre- 
mendous a task upon these self-appointed cham- 
pions of their race ; and as they sat over their 
unpalatable meals when the day's toil was 
ended, they talked together in bloodthirsty 
fashion of the vengeance they would wreak and 
the punishment they would exact from the tribe 
which was discovered to be in possession of the 
object of their search. 

One feature of their march was that prudence 
forbade a halt. The Murut of North Borneo is 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 199 

a person of mean understanding, who requires 
time wherein to set his slow intellect in motion. 
He is a dipsomaniac, a homicide by training and 
predilection, and he has a passion for collecting 
other people's skulls, which is as unscrupulous 
and as fanatical as that of the modern phila- 
telist. Whenever he encounters a stranger, he 
immediately falls to coveting that stranger's 
skull ; but as he is a creature of poor courage, it 
is essential to his comfort that he should win 
possession of it only by means that will not 
endanger his own skin. The question as to 
how such means may be contrived presents a 
difficult problem for his solution, and it takes 
his groping mind from two to three days in 
which to hit upon a workable plan. The ex- 
plorer, as Bateman and O'Hara were aware, had 
lost his life because, overcome by fatigue, he 
had allowed himself to commit the mistake of 
spending more than a single night under a 
hospitable Murut roof- tree, and had so given 
time to his hosts to plot his destruction. Had 
he only held steadily upon his way, all might 
have been well with him : for in a country where 
every village is at enmity with its neighbours, 
a short march would have carried him into a 
stranger's land, which he should have been able 
to quit in its turn ere the schemes for his immola- 
tion hatched therein had had time in which 
to ripen. O'Hara and Bateman, therefore, no 
matter how worn out they might be by that 
everlasting, clambering tramp across that cruel 



200 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

huddle of hill-caps, were rowelled by necessity 
into pushing forward, and still forward, as surely 
as the day dawned. 

Often the filth and squalor of the long airless 
huts — each one of which accommodated a whole 
village community in its dark interior, all the 
pigs and fowls of the place beneath its flooring, 
and as many blackened human skulls as could 
find hanging space along its roof-beams — sickened 
them, and drove them forth to camp in the 
jungle. Here there were only wild beasts, — • 
self-respecting and on the whole cleanly beasts, 
which compared very favourably with the less 
attractive animals in the village huts, — but a 
vigilant guard had to be maintained against 
possible surprise ; and this, after a heart-breaking 
tramp, was hard alike upon white men and 
Dyaks. 

The raiders had pitched their camp in such a 
place one evening ; and as the party lacked meat, 
and the pigeons could be heard cooing in the tree- 
tops close at hand, O'Hara took his fowling- 
piece and strolled off alone into the forest, with 
the intention of shooting a few birds for the pot. 
The jungle was very dense in this part of the 
country — so dense, indeed, that a man was power- 
less to see in any direction for a distance of more 
than a dozen yards ; but the pigeons were 
plentiful, and as they fluttered from tree to 
tree O'Hara walked after them without realis- 
ing in the least how far he was straying from 
his starting-point. At last the fast-failing light 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 201 

arrested his attention, and as he stooped to pick 
up the last pigeon, the search for which among 
the brambles had occupied more time than he 
had fancied, it suddenly struck him that he 
ought to be returning to the camp, while a doubt 
as to its exact direction assailed him. He was in 
the very act of straightening himself again with 
a view to looking about him for some indication 
of the path by which he had come when a slight 
crackle in the underwood smote upon his ear. 
He remained very still, stooping forward as he 
was, holding his breath, and listening intently. 
It flashed through his mind that the sound 
might have been made by one of the Dyaks, 
who perhaps had come out of the camp in search 
of him, and he waited the repetition of the snap- 
ping noise with eagerness, hoping that it would 
tell him whether it were caused by man or beast. 
As he stood thus for an instant with bowed 
shoulders, the crackle came again, louder, 
crisper, and much nearer than before ; and at the 
same moment, before he had time to change his 
attitude or to realise that danger threatened 
him, something smote him heavily in the back, 
bringing him prone to the earth with a grunt. 
The concussion was caused by some yielding 
substance, that yet was quick and warm ; and 
the litter of dead leaves and the tangle of under- 
wood combined to break his fall. He was not 
hurt, therefore, though the breath was knocked 
out of him, and that unseen something, which 
tumbled and writhed upon his back, pinned him 
14 



202 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

to the ground. He skewed his head round, 
trying to see what had assailed him, and im- 
mediately a diabolical face peeped over his 
shoulder an inch or two above it. He only saw 
it, as it were, in a flash ; but the sight was one 
which, he was accustomed to say, he would never 
forget. In after years it was wont to recur to 
him in dreams, and as surely as it came it woke 
him with a scream. It was a savage face, brown 
yet pallid, grimed with dirt and wood ashes, 
with a narrow retreating forehead, a bestial 
prognathous snout, and a tiny twitching chin. 
The little black eyes, fierce and excited, were 
ringed about by angry red sores, for the eye- 
lashes had been plucked out. The eyebrows 
also had been removed, but from the upper 
lip a few coarse wires sprouted uncleanly. The 
face was split in twain by a set of uneven teeth, 
pointed like those of a wild cat, and tightly 
clenched, while above and below them the gums 
snarled rigidly, bearing witness to the physical 
effort which their owner was making. The scalp 
was divided into even halves by a broad parting, 
on either side of which there rose a tangle of 
dirty, ill-kept hair, that was drawn back into 
a chignon, giving to the creature a curious sex- 
less aspect. All these things 0*Hara noted in 
the fraction of a second ; and as the horror 
bred of them set him heaving and fighting as 
well as his cramped position made possible, a 
sharp knee-cap was driven into the back of his 
neck, and his head fell forward with a concussion 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 203 

that blinded him. For a moment he lay still 
and inert, and in that moment he was conscious 
of little deft hands, that flew this way and that, 
over, under, and around his limbs, and of the 
pressure of narrow withes, drawn suddenly 
taut, that ate into his flesh. Up to this time 
the whole affair had been transacted in a dead, 
unnatural silence that somehow gave to it the 
strangeness and unreality of a nightmare ; but 
now, as O'Hara lay prostrate with his face 
buried in the underwood, the evensong of the 
forest insects, which rings through the jungle 
during the gloaming hour, was suddenly inter- 
rupted by an outbreak of queer sounds — by 
gurgling, jerky speech intermixed with shrill 
squeakings and whistlings, and by the clicking 
cackle which stands the Murut folk instead of 
laughter. Yet even now the voices of his captors 
were subdued and hushed, as though unwilling 
to be overheard ; and O'Hara, understanding 
that the Muruts feared to be interrupted by 
their victim's friends, made shift to raise a shout, 
albeit the green stuff forced its way into his 
mouth and choked his utterance. 

Immediately the little nimble hands were 
busy, clutching him afresh, while the tones of 
those inhuman voices shrilled and gurgled and 
clicked more excitedly than before. O'Hara 
was heaved and tugged, first one way, then 
another, until finally his body was rolled over 
on to its back, falling with a dull bump. He 
shouted once more, putting all the strength 



204 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

that was in him into the j^ell, and the nearest 
Murut promptly stamped on his mouth with his 
horny heel. O'Hara bit viciously at the thing, 
but his teeth could make no impression upon 
its leathery under-surface, and before he could 
shout again he found himself gagged with a 
piece of wood, which was bound in its place 
by a couple of withes. Despair seized him then, 
and for a moment or two he lay still, with the 
manhood knocked fairly out of him by a crushing 
consciousness of impotence, while the gabble of 
squeak and whistle and grunt, still hushed 
cautiously, broke out more discordantly than 
ever. 

The withes about his limbs bound O'Hara so 
cripplingly that only his neck was free to move ; 
but presently, craning it upward, he caught 
sight of his persecutors for the first time. They 
formed a squalid group of little, half-starved, 
wizened creatures, not much larger than most 
European children of fourteen, but with brutal 
faces that seemed to bear the weight of whole 
centuries of care and of animal self-indulgence. 
They were naked, save for their foul loin-clouts ; 
they were abominably dirty, and their skins 
were smothered in leprous-looking ringworm ; 
they had not an eyelash or an eyebrow among 
them, for the hairs had been plucked out by the 
root ; but their scalps were covered by frowsy 
growths, gathered into loathsome chignons on 
the napes of their necks. Every man was 
armed with one or more spears, and from the 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 205 

waist of each a long knife depended, sheathed 
in a wooden scabbard hung with tufts of hair. 
One of them — the man of whose face O'Hara had 
caught a ghmpse above his shoulder — flourished 
his sheathed knife insistently in his captive's 
face with grotesque gesticulations, and O'Hara 
shuddered every time that the disgusting tassels 
that bedecked the scabbard swept his cheek. 
The fading daylight was very dim now, enabling 
O'Hara to see only the form of the things by which 
he was surrounded : colour had ceased to have 
any meaning in those gloomy forest aisles. The 
grinning savage prancing and gibbering around 
him, and brandishing that sheathed weapon with 
its revolting trophies, puzzled him. If he meant 
murder, why did he not draw his blade ? In 
the depth of his misery the inconsequence of 
this war-dance furnished O'Hara with an addi- 
tional torture. 

Presently two of the Muruts came suddenly 
within his field of vision bearing a long green 
pole. This they proceeded to thrust between 
O'Hara 's flesh and the withes that were en- 
twined about him ; and when this had been 
accomplished, the whole party set their shoulders 
under the extremities of the pole and lifted their 
prisoner clear from the ground. Then they bore 
him off at a sort of jog-trot. 

The thongs, tightened fearfully by the pressure 
thus put upon them, pinched and bruised him 
pitilessly ; his head, lacking all support, hung 
down in an attitude of dislocation, waggHng 



206 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

this way and that at every jolt ; the blood 
surged into his brain, causing a horrible vertigo, 
and seeming to thrust his eyes almost out of 
their sockets ; he thought that he could feel his 
limbs swelling above the biting grip of the 
withes, and an irresistible nausea seized him. 
Maddening cramps tied knots in his every 
muscle ; and had his journey been of long 
duration, Timothy O'Hara would never have 
reached its end alive. Very soon, however, the 
decreased pace, and the shrill whistling sounds 
which came from the noses of his Murut bearers, 
told him that the party was ascending a hill — 
for these strange folk do not pant like ordin- 
ary human beings, and the uncanny no^se was 
familiar to O'Hara from many a toilsome march 
in the company of native porters. Presently, 
too, between the straining legs of the leading files 
O'Hara caught a flying glimpse of distant fire ; 
and that, he knew, betokened the neighbourhood 
of a village. 

A few minutes later, just as he thought that 
he was about to lose consciousness, the village 
was reached — a long, narrow hut, raised on 
piles, and with a door at either end, from the 
thresholds of which crazy ladder-ways led to the 
ground. Up the nearest of these rude staircases 
the Muruts struggled with their burden, banging 
his head roughly against each untrimmed rung, 
and throwing him down on the bamboo flooring 
with a chorus of grunts. For a moment there 
was silence, while the entire community gathered 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 207 

round the white man, staring at him eagerly 
with a kind of ferocious curiosity. Then with 
one accord all the men, women, and children 
present set up a diabolical chorus of whoopings 
and 3^ellings. They seemed to give themselves 
over to a veritable insanity of noise. Some, 
squatting on their heels, supporting the weight 
of their bodies on arms thrust well behind them, 
tilted their chins to the roof and howled like 
maniacs. Others, standing erect, opened their 
mouths to their full extent, and emitted a series 
of shrill, blood-curdling bellows. Others, again, 
shut their eyes, threw their arms aloft, and, 
concentrating every available atom, of energy 
in the effort, screamed till their voices broke. 
The ear-piercing din sounded as though all the 
devils in hell had of a sudden broken loose. 
Heard from afar, the savage triumph, the 
diabohcal delight that found in it their fitting 
expression, might well have made the blood 
run cold in the veins of the bravest ; but heard 
close at hand by the solitary white man whose 
capture had evoked that hideous outcry, and 
who knew himself to be utterly at the mercy of 
these fiends, it was almost enough to unship his 
reason. O'Hara told me that from that moment 
he forgot the pain which his bonds occasioned 
him, forgot even his desire for escape, and was 
filled with a tremendous longing to be put out 
of his agony — to be set free by death from this 
unspeakable inferno. His mind, he said, was 
working with surprising activity, and ** as 



2o8 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

though it belonged to somebody else." In a 
series of flashes he began to recall all that he had 
ever heard of the manners and customs of the 
Muruts, of the strange uses to which they put 
their prisoners ; and all the while he was possessed 
by a kind of restlessness that made him eager 
for them to do something — of no matter how 
awful a character — that would put a period to 
his unendurable suspense. 

Meanwhile the Muruts were enjo3dng them- 
selves thoroughly. Great earthenware jars, 
each sufficiently large to drown a baby with 
comfort, were already standing round the en- 
closed verandah which formed the common- 
room of the village, on to which each family 
cubicle opened, and to these jars the Muruts — 
men, women, and children — repeatedly ad- 
dressed themselves, squatting by them, and 
sucking up the abominable liquor which filled 
them through long bamboo tubes. Each toper, 
as he quitted the jar, fell to howling with re- 
doubled energy ; and as more and more of the 
fiery stuff was consumed, their cries became more 
savage, more inarticulate, and more diabolical. 

Half a dozen men, however, were apparently 
busy in the performance of some task on a spot 
just behind O'Hara's head, for though they 
frequently paid visits of ceremony to the liquor- 
jars, they always staggered back to the same 
part of the room when their draughts were 
ended, and there fell to hacking and hammering 
at wood with renewed energy. O'Hara was 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 209 

convinced that they were employed in con- 
structing some infernal instrument of torture ; 
and the impossibility of ascertaining its nature 
was maddening, and set his imagination picturing 
every abominable contrivance for the infliction 
of anguish of which he had ever heard or read. 
And all the while the hideous orgies, for which 
his capture was the pretext, were waxing more 
fast and furious. 

Suddenly the hidden group behind him set 
up a shrill cat-call, and at the sound every 
Murut in sight leaped to his or her feet, and 
danced frantically with hideous outcry and 
maniacal laughter. A moment later a rattan 
rope whined as it was pulled over the main 
beam of the roof with something heavy at its 
end ; and as the slack of the cord was made fast 
to the wall-post opposite to him, O'Hara was 
aware of some large object, suspended in mid- 
air, swinging out into the middle of the verandah 
immediately above him. This, as he craned 
his neck up at it, struggling to see it more clearly 
in the uncertain torch-light, was presently 
revealed as a big cage, an uneven square in 
shape, the bars of which were some six inches 
apart, saving on one side, where a wide gap was 
left. He had barely had time to make this 
discovery when a mob of Murut men and women 
rushed at him, cut the bonds that bound him, 
and mauling him mercilessly, lifted him up, and 
literally threw him into the opening formed by 
the gap. The cage rocked crazily, while the 



210 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Muruts yelled their delight, and two of their 
number proceeded hastily to patch up the gap 
with cross-pieces of wood. Then the whole 
crowd drew away a little, though the hubbub 
never slackened, and O'Hara set his teeth to 
smother the groans which the pain of the re- 
moved bonds nearlv wruns: from him. For the 
time fear and all other emotions were forgotten 
in the acuteness of the agon}'- which he endured ; 
for as the blood began to flow freely once more, 
every inch of his body seemed to have been 
transformed into so many raging teeth. His 
extremities felt soft and flabby, — cold, too, like 
jellies, — but O'Hara was by nature a very 
strong man, and at the time of his capture he 
had been in the pink of condition. In an in- 
credibly short while, therefore, the pain subsided, 
and he began to regain the use of his cramped 
limbs. 

He was first made aware of his recovered 
activity by the alacrity with which he bounded 
into the centre of the cage in obedience to a 
sharp prick in the back. He tried to rise to his 
feet, and his head came into stunning contact 
with the roof ; then, in a crouching attitude, he 
turned in the direction whence the attack had 
reached him. What he saw filled him with 
horror. The leader of the Muruts who had 
captured him, his eyes bloodshot with drink, 
was staggering about in front of him with 
grotesque posturings, waving his knife in one 
hand and its wooden sheath in the other. It 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 211 

was the former, evidently, that had administered 
that painful prod to O'Hara's back, but it was 
the latter which chained the white man's 
attention even in that moment of whirling 
emotions, for from its base depended a long 
shaggy wisp of sodden yellow hair — the golden 
fleece of which O'Hara and Bateman were in 
search. In a flash the savage saw that his 
victim had recognised the trophy to which he 
had already been at some pains to direct his 
attention, and the assembled Muruts gave un- 
mistakable tokens that they all grasped the 
picturesqueness of the situation. They yelled 
and howled and bayed more frantically than 
ever ; some of them rolled upon the floor, 
their limbs and faces contorted by paroxysms 
of savage merriment, while others staggered 
about, smiting their fellows on their bare 
shoulders, squeaking like bats, and clicking like 
demoralised clockwork. A second prod with a 
sharp point made O'Hara shy across his narrow 
cage like a fly-bitten horse, and before he could 
recover his balance a score of delicately handled 
weapons inflicted light wounds all over his face 
and hands. As each knife touched him its 
owner threw up his head and repeated some 
formula in a shrill sing-song, no word of which 
was intefligible to O'Hara save only the name 
of Kina-Balu — the great mountain which domin- 
ates North Borneo, and is believed by the 
natives to be the eternaL resting-place of the 
spirits which have quitted the life of earth. 



212 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Then, for the first time, O'Hara understood 
what was happening to him. He had often 
heard of the ceremony known to the wild Muruts 
as a hangun, which has for its object the main- 
tenance of communication between the hving 
and the dead. He had even seen a pig hung 
up, as he was now hanging, while the tamer 
Muruts prodded it to death very carefully and 
slowly, charging it the while with messages for 
the spirits of the departed ; and he remembered 
how the abominable cruelty of the proceeding 
had turned him sick, and had set him longing 
to interfere with native religious customs in 
defiance of the prudent Government which he 
served. Now he was himself to be done to 
death by inches, just as the pig had died, and 
he knew that men had spoken truly when they 
had explained to him that the unfortunate 
quadruped was only substituted for a nobler 
victim as a concession to European prejudice, 
to the great discontent of the tame Muruts. 

These thoughts rushed through his mind with 
the speed of lightning, and all the while it seemed 
to him that every particle of his mental forces 
was concentrated upon a single object — the 
task of defending himself against a crowd of 
persecutors. Crouching in the centre of the 
cage, snarling like a cat, with his e3^es bursting 
from their sockets, his every limb braced for a 
leap in an}^ direction, his hands scrabbling at 
the air to ward off the stabs, he faced from side 
to side, his breath coming in quick, noisy pants. 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 213 

Every second one or another of the points that 
assailed him made him turn about with a cry 
of rage, and immediately his exposed back was 
prodded by every Murut within reach . Suddenly 
he heard his own voice raised in awful curses 
and blasphemies, and the familiar tones of his 
mother-tongue smote him with surprise. He 
had little consciousness of pain as pain, only 
the necessity of warding off the points of his 
enemies' weapons presented itself to him as some- 
thing that must be accomplished at all costs, and 
each separate failure enraged him. He bounded 
about his cage with an energy and an agility 
that astonished him, and the rocking of his 
prison seemed to keep time with the lilting of 
his thumping heart-beats. More than once he 
fell, and his face and scalp were prodded terribly 
ere he could regain his feet ; often he warded 
off a thrust with his bare hands. But of the 
wounds which he thus received he was hardly 
conscious ; his mind was in a species of delirium 
of rage, and all the time he was torn with a fury 
of indignation because he, a white man, was 
being treated in this dishonouring fashion by 
a pack of despicable Muruts. But he received 
no serious injury ; for the Muruts, who had 
many messages for their dead relations, were 
anxious to keep the life in him as long as might 
be, and in spite of their intoxication, prodded 
him wath shrewdness and caution. How long 
it all lasted O'Hara never knew with certainty ; 
but it was the exhaustion caused by loss of 



214 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

breath and blood, and by the wild leaping of that 
bursting heart of his, that caused him presently 
to sink on the floor of his cage in a swoon. 

Then the Muruts, finding that he did not 
answer to their stabs, drew off and gathered 
eagerly around the liquor-jars. The killing 
would come soon after the dawn, — as soon, in 
fact, as their overnight orgies made possible, — 
when the prisoner would be set to run the 
gauntlet, and would be hacked to pieces after 
one final, delicious bangun. It was essential, 
therefore, that enough strength should be left 
in him to enable him to show good sport ; and 
in the meantime their villainous home-made 
spirits would bring that measure of happiness 
which comes to the Murut from being suffered, 
for a little space, to forget the fact of his own 
repulsive existence. Accordingly, with noisy 
hospitality, each man tried to make his neigh- 
bours drink to greater excess than himself, and 
all proved willing victims. With hoots and 
squeals of laughter, little children were torn 
from their mothers' breasts and given to suck 
at the bamboo pipes, their ensuing intoxication 
being watched with huge merriment by men 
and women alike. The shouts raised by the 
revellers became more and more shaky, less 
and less articulate ; over and over again the 
groups around the jars broke up, while their 
members crawled away, to lie about in death- 
like stupors, from which they roused themselves 
only to vomit and drink anew. 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 215 

Long before this stage of the proceedings had 
been reached, O'Hara had recovered his senses ; 
but prudence bade him he as still as a mouse. 
Once or twice a drunken Murut lurched on to 
his feet and made a pass or two at him, and now 
and again he was prodded painfully ; but, putting 
forth all the self-control at his command, he 
gave no sign of life. At last every Murut in 
the place was sunken in abominable torpor, 
excepting only the chief, from whose knife- 
scabbard hung the tuft of hair which had once 
ornamented the chin of the explorer. His little 
red eyes were fixed in a drunken glare upon 
O'Hara, and the latter watched them with a 
fascination of dread through his half-closed 
lids. Over and over again the Murut crawled 
to the nearest liquor-jar, and sucked up the dregs 
with a horrible sibilant gurgling ; and at times 
he even staggered to his feet, muttering and 
mumbling over his tiny, busy chin, waving his 
weapon uncertainly, ere he subsided in a limp 
heap upon the floor. On each occasion he gave 
more evident tokens of drowsiness, and at last 
his blinking eyes were covered by their lashless 
lids. 

At the same moment a gentle gnawing sound, 
which had been attracting O'Hara 's attention 
for some minutes, though he had not dared to 
move by so much as a finger's breadth to dis- 
cover its cause, ceased abruptly. Then the 
faintest ghost of a whisper came to his ears from 
below his cage, and, moving with the greatest 



2i6 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

caution, and peering down through the un- 
certain Ught, he saw that a hole had been made 
by sawing away two of the laths which formed 
the flooring. In the black hole immediately 
beneath him the faces of two of his own Dyaks 
were framed, and even as he looked one of them 
hoisted himself into the hut, and began deftly 
to remove the bars of the cage, working as 
noiselessly as a shadow. The whole thing was 
done so silently, and O'Hara's own mind was so 
racked by the emotions which his recent experi- 
ences had held for him, that he was at first 
persuaded that what he saw, or rather fancied 
he saw, w^as merely the figment conjured up for 
his torture by the delirium which possessed him. 
He felt that if he suffered himself to believe 
in this mocking delusion even for an instant, 
the disappointment of discovering its utter 
unreality would drive him mad. He was 
already spent with misery, physical and mental ; 
he was consciously holding himself in leash to 
prevent the commission of some insane extrava- 
gance ; he was seized with an unreasoning 
desire to scream. He fought with himself — a 
self that was unfamiliar to him, although its 
identity was never in doubt — as he might have 
fought with a stranger. He told himself that 
his senses were playing cruel pranks upon him, 
and that nothing should induce him to be 
deceived by them ; and all the while hope — 
mad, wild, hysterical hope — was surging up in 
his heart, shaking him like an aspen, wringing 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 217 

unaccustomed tears from his eyes, and tearing 
his breast with noiseless sobs. 

As he lay inert and utterly wretched, unable 
to bear up manfully under this new wanton 
torture of the mind, the ghost of the second 
Dyak clambered skilfully out of the darkness 
below the hut floor, and joined his fellow, who 
had already made a wide gap in the side of the 
cage. Then the two of them seized O'Hara, 
and with the same strange absence of sound 
lifted him bodily out of the prison and through 
the hole in the flooring on to the earth below. 
Their grip upon his lacerated flesh hurt him 
acutely ; but the very pain was welcome, for 
did it not prove the reality of his deliverers ? 
What he experienced of relief and gratitude 
O Tiara could never tell us, for all he remembers 
is that, gone suddenly weak and plaintive as a 
child, he clung to the little Dyaks, sobbing broken- 
heartedly, and weeping on their shoulders without 
restraint or decency, in an utter abandon of self- 
pity. Also he recalls dimly that centuries later 
he found himself standing in Bateman's camp, 
with his people gathering about him, and that of 
a sudden he was made aware that he was mother- 
naked. After that, so he avers, all is a blank. 

The closing incidents of the story were related 
to me by Bateman one evening when I chanced 
to forgather with him in an up-country outpost 
in Borneo. We had been talking far into 
the night, and our solitude d deux and the 
15 



21 8 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

lateness of the hour combined to thaw his usual 
taciturnity and to unlock his shy confidence. 
Therefore I was put in possession of a secret 
which until then, I believe, had been closely 
kept. 

'* It was an awful night," he said, " that upon 
which poor O'Hara was missing. The Dyaks 
had gone out in couples all over the place to 
try to pick up his trail, but I remained in the 
camp ; for though there was a little moon, it 
was too dark for a white man's eyes to be of any 
good. What with the inactivity, and my fears 
for O'Hara, I was as ' jumpy ' as you make 'em ; 
and as the Dyaks began to drop in, two at a 
time, each couple bringing their tale of failure, 
I worked myself up into such a state of depres- 
sion and misery that I thought I must be going 
mad. Just about three o'clock in the morning 
the last brace of Dyaks turned up, and I was 
all of a shake when I saw that they had poor 
O'Hara with them. He broke loose from them 
and stumbled into the centre of the camp, 
stark naked, and pecked almost to bits by those 
infernal Murut knives ; but the wounds were 
not over-deep, and the blood was caking over 
most of them. He was an awful sight, and 
I was for tending his hurts without delay ; but 
he pushed me roughly aside, and I saw that his 
eyes were blazing with madness. He stood 
there in the midst of us all, throwing his arms 
above his head, cursing in English and in 
the vernacular, and gesticulating wildly. The 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 219 

Dyaks edged away from him, and I could see 
that his condition funked them mortally, I 
tried again and again to speak to him and calm 
him, but he would not listen to a word I said, 
and for full five minutes he stood there raving 
and ranting, now and again pacing frenziedly 
from side to side, pouring out a torrent of in- 
vective mixed with muddled orders. One of 
the Dyaks brought him a pair of trousers, and 
after looking at them as though he had never 
seen such things before, he put them on, and 
stood for a second or two staring wildly round 
him. Then he made a bee-line for a rifle, loaded 
it, and slung a bandolier across his naked 
shoulders ; and before I could stay him he was 
marching out of the camp with the whole crowd 
of Dyaks at his heels. 

" I could only follow. I had no fancy for 
being left alone in that wilderness, more especi- 
ally just then, and one of the Dyaks told me 
that he was leading them back to the Murut 
village. You see I only speak Malay, and as 
O'Hara had been talking Dyak I had not been 
able to follow his ravings. Whatever lingo he 
jabbered, however, it was as plain as a pikestaff 
that the fellow was mad as a hatter ; but I 
had to stop explaining this to him, for he 
threatened to shoot me, and the Dyaks would 
not listen. They clearly thought that he was 
possessed by a devil, and they would have gone 
to hell at his bidding while their fear of him was 
upon them. 



220 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

" And his madness made him cunning too, for 
he stalked the Murut den wonderfully neatly, 
and just as the dawn was breaking we found our- 
selves posted in the jungle within a few yards 
of the two doors, which were the only means of 
entrance or exit for the poor devils in the hut. 

" Then O'Hara leaped out of his hiding-place 
and began yelling like the maniac he was ; and in 
an instant the whole of that long hut was hum- 
ming like a disturbed beehive. Three or four 
squalid creatures showed themselves at the door- 
way nearest O'Hara, and he greeted them with 
half the contents of his magazine, and shrieked 
with laughter as they toppled on to the ground, 
rolling over and over in their death-agony. There 
was such a wailing and crying set up by the other 
inhabitants of the hut as you never heard in all 
your life, — it was just Despair made vocal, — the 
sort of outcry that a huge menagerie of wild 
animals might make when they saw flames lapping 
at their cages ; and above it all I could hear 
O'Hara's demoniac laughter ringing with savage 
delight, and the war-whoops of those little devils 
of Dyaks, whose blood was fairly up now. The 
trapped wretches in the hut made a stampede 
for the farther door : we could hear them scuffling 
and fighting with one another for the foremost 
places. They thought that safety lay in that 
direction ; but the Dyaks were ready for them, 
and the bullets from their Winchesters drove 
clean through three and four of the squirming 
creatures at a time, and in a moment that door- 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 221 

way too, and the ground about the ladder-foot, 
were a shambles. 

** After that for a space there was a kind of 
awful lull within the hut, though without O'Hara 
and his Dyaks capered and yelled. Then the 
noise which our folk were making was drowned 
by a series of the most heart-breaking shrieks 
you ever heard or dreamed of, and immediately 
a second rush was made simultaneously at each 
door. The early morning hght was getting 
stronger now, and I remember noting how in- 
congruously peaceful and serene it seemed. Part 
of the hut near our end had caught fire somehow, 
and there was a lot of smoke, which hung low 
about the doorway. Through this I saw the 
crowd of Muruts struggle in that final rush, 
and my blood went cold when I understood 
what they were doing. Every man had a woman 
or a child held tightl^^ in his arms, — held in front 
of him as a buckler, — and it was from these poor 
devils that those awful screams were coming. I 
jumped in front of the Dyaks and yelled to them 
in Malay to hold their fire ; but O'Hara thrust 
me aside, and shooed the Dyaks on with shouts 
and curses and peals of laughter, slapping his 
palm on his gunstock, and capering with delight 
and excitement. The Dyaks took no sort of 
heed of me, and the volleys met the Muruts like 
a wall of lead. 

'* I had slipped and fallen when O'Hara pushed 
me, and as I clambered on to my feet again I 
saw the mob of savages fall together and crumple 



222 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

up, for all the world as paper crumples when 
burned suddenly. Most of them fell back into 
the dark interior of the hut, writhing in con- 
vulsions above the Htter of dead ; but one or 
two pitched forward headlong to the ground, and 
I saw a little brown baby, which had escaped un- 
harmed, crawling about over the corpses, and 
squeaking like a wounded rabbit. I ran forward 
to save it, but a Dyak was too quick for me, 
and before I could get near it, he had thrown 
himself upon it, and . . . ugh ! 

" The Muruts began cutting their way through 
the flooring then, and trying to bolt into the 
jungle. One or two of them got away, I think ; 
and this threw O'Hara into such a passion of 
fury that I half expected to see him kill some of 
the Dyaks. He tore round to the side of the 
hut, and I saw him brain one Murut as he made 
a rush from under the low floor. One end of the 
building was in roaring flames by this time, and 
half a dozen of the Dyaks had gone in at the 
other end and were bolting the wretched creatures 
from their hiding-places, just as ferrets bolt 
rabbits from their burrows, while O'Hara and 
the other Dyaks waited for them outside. They 
hardly missed one of them, sparing neither age 
nor sex, though I ran from one to the other like 
a madman, trying to prevent them. It was 
awful . . . awful ! and I was fairly blubbering 
with the horror of it, and with the consciousness 
of my own impotence. I was regularly broken 
up by it, and I remember at the last sitting down 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 223 

upon a log, burying my face in my hands, and 
crying like a child. 

*' The thing seemed to be over by then : there 
was no more bolting, and the Dyaks were begin- 
ning to clear out of the hut as the flames gained 
ground and made the place too hot for them. 
But, at the last, there came a terrific yell from 
the very heart of the fire, and a single Murut 
leaped out of the smoke. He was stark naked, 
for his loin-clout had been burned to tinder ; he 
was blackened by the smoke, and his long hair 
was afire and waving behind him. His mouth 
was wide, and the cries that came from it went 
through and through my head, running up and up 
the scale till they hit upon a note the shrillness 
of which agonised me. Surrounded by the flames, 
he looked hke a devil in the heart of the pit. In 
one scorched arm he brandished a long knife, 
the blade of which was red with the glare of the 
flames, and in the other was the sheath, blazing 
at one end, and decked at the other by a great 
tuft of yellow hair that was smouldering damply. 

*' As soon as he saw him O'Hara raised a 
terrible cry and threw himself at him . The two 
men grappled and fell, the knife and scabbard 
escaping from the Murut's grasp and pitching 
straight into the heart of the fire. The struggle 
lasted for nearly a minute, O'Hara and his 
enemy rolling over and over one another, breath- 
ing heavily, but making no other sound. Then 
something happened — I don't know clearly what; 
but the Murut 's head dropped, and O'Hara 



224 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

rose up from his dead body, moving very stiffly. 
He stood for a minute or so, looking round him 
in a dazed fashion, until at last his eyes caught 
mine. Then he staggered towards me, reeling 
like a tipsy man. 

" * Mother of Heaven 1 ' he said thickly, 
* what have I done ? What have I done ? ' 

" He stared round him at the little brown 
corpses, doubled up in dislocated and contorted 
attitudes, and his eyes were troubled. 

'' ' God forgive me ! ' he muttered. ' God 
forgive me ! ' 

" Then he spun about on his heel, his hands 
outstretched above his head, his fingers clutching 
at the air, a thin foam forming on his lips, and 
before I could reach him he had toppled over in 
a limp heap upon the ground. 

" I had an awful business getting O'Hara 
down-country. He was as mad as a March hare 
for three weeks. But the Dyaks worked like 
bricks — though I could not bear the sight of them 
— and the currents of the rivers were in our 
favour when we reached navigable water . I know 
that O'Hara was mad that morning, — no white 
man could have acted as he did unless he had 
been insane, — and he alwa3^s swears that he 
has no recollection of anything that occurred 
after the Dyaks rescued him. I hope it may 
be so, but I am not certain. He is a changed man 
anyway, as nervous and jumpy as you make 
'em, and I know that he is always brooding over 
that up-country trip of ours." 



QUEST OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE 225 

" Yes/' I assented, " and he is constantly- 
telling the first part of the story to every chance 
soul he meets." 

" Exactly/' said Bateman. " That is what 
makes me sometimes doubt the completeness 
of his oblivion concerning what followed. What 
do you think ? " 



XI 

THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 

It was some time in the early " nineties " of 
the last century that Martin Halliday died in 
the Malay Peninsula of too much tropical 
Asia. That was not the name which the 
doctors gave to the disease. They called it 
" malignant tertian," and appeared to know 
a surprising number of things about it, ex- 
cept the precise fashion whereby it might 
be cured — which, after all, was the point 
of most interest to poor Halliday and to his 
friends. The doctors and their diagnosis, how- 
ever, only succeeded in angering the dving 
man ; and his sickness prevented him from 
keeping a fair hold upon his temper. Latterly, 
indeed, his language became so improper to 
the circumstances that the business of nursing 
him had to be taken out of professional and 
entrusted to mere lay hands. This duty was 
performed for him — clumsily enough, I dare 
say, but with no stinted measure of care and 
affection — by Jack Norris and Tommy Burton. 
The latter, poor fellow, pegged out a while back, 

shot in a border scrimmage ; wherefore Norris is 

226 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 227 

left alone to bear witness concerning the strange 
case of Martin Halliday. 

Martin Halliday was the District Officer in 
charge of a God-forsaken slip of country lying on 
the shores of the Straits of Malacca. The coast- 
lands thereabout were mostly dismal stretches 
of mangrove-swamp, in which dingy, stunted 
trees, with boughs gnarled and fantastically 
distorted, stood ankle-deep in slick, black slime, 
and foul, tepid water. Through the belt of mud, 
a few evil-smelling rivers slunk into the sea, 
staining the Straits with their inky tides ; but 
here and there the hideous monotony was broken 
by httle patches of yellow beach, set with 
fringes of casuarina trees. The natives of the 
district were amphibious folk, and their villages 
consisted for the most part of unsightly huts, 
strutting crazily on piles, out of reach of the 
black waters, just within the rivers' mouths. 
They plied in indolent fashion the trade of 
fishermen, and their huts reeked with decaying 
spoils of the sea. There hung about these 
people and their habitations a perennial dank- 
ness, suggestive of green mould. Until steam 
and the white folk came to knock their world 
awry, their ancestors had been sea-rovers to a 
man, and had gotten some wealth and many 
emotions at the expense of their neighbours. 
But such romance as danger, adventure, and 
excitement had lent to their lives had long ago 
been filched from them ; and the fisher-folk of 



228 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Martin Halliday's time passed their days amidst 
surroundings whereof the natural gloom was 
deepened by the dreary monotony imposed upon 
them by their alien rulers in the name of law and 
order. No ship ever touched at any point along 
that desolate shore. Halliday's infrequent mails 
filtered down to him from the distant upper- 
country, where the railway line ran through the 
big mining settlements ; and occasionally a 
steamer, ploughing her way up or down the 
Straits of Malacca, passed near enough for her 
masts to be visible, or for the pin-points of her 
lights to be glimpsed, pricking through the 
darkness of the night. 

Halliday lived in that district — the only white 
man within a week's journey — for more months 
than it is good to count. He used to wander 
about it, wading through the swamps, or making 
his way from village to village in a crank canoe, — 
administering justice and the affairs of his little 
world in paternal fashion, — himself cut off from 
his kind almost as utterly as if his home had 
been made upon an island the route to which 
was a forgotten secret. In front of him, when 
he stood upon the scraps of beach, lay the open 
highway of the sea, over which passed more than 
half the traffic of eastern Asia ; behind him, on 
the other side of a hedge of dense vegetation, full 
sixty miles in thickness, was civilisation of a sort 
— roads and railways, mines and business-houses, 
seats of government, clubs, ball-rooms, and 
cricket-grounds ; but his own district, stranded 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 229 

between two streams of restless life, remained 
remote from all things modern, passed over and 
forgotten by the centuries. 

Before he had done with it, Martin Halliday 
knew that unsightly tract of coast like the palm 
of his own hand ; and in a fashion he loved it. 
The hopelessness of ever making anything of it 
did not affect him. His people clung to their 
swamps and beaches with a dogged, unambitious 
patience. They were as inert as some species 
of marine crustacean welded to its native rock. 
At first the white man's energy — a quality 
inexpressibly disgusting to the fisher-folk — was 
revolted by their indolence : but later Martin 
himself became attuned to his environment. 
Time, for him, lost its value. The days and 
the weeks and the months slid by, and he took 
no note of them. Insensibly, little by little, he 
hushed the restlessness of his soul to the rhythm 
of the slow^-creeping rivers, to the deep slumber 
of the dense swamp-forests. He became content 
just to live on in the groove into which Fate 
had fitted him : and since he now contrived 
to govern without worrying them, his people 
learned to love him ; and the men at the head 
of the administration, whom he had ceased to 
pester, left him. where he was, and well-nigh for- 
got the obscure fact of his existence. 

The only active pleasure that was his came to 
him from sharing with the fisher-folk the sport 
whereby they lived. A long night afloat upon 
the shoals was a delight that could never pall. 



230 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

He loved the glory and the immensity of the 
heavens above him ; the vast expanse of gently 
heaving sea all around, upon the bosom of 
which the little boat rocked lazily ; the sense 
of freedom and of space that he derived from 
the empty skies and waters. He loved the 
nearness to inviolate nature, of which at such 
times he was conscious ; loved, too, the close 
relationship in which he found himself with an 
immemorial past, when he thus shared a life 
that has continued unchanged and unchanging 
for centuries. 

Yet it was through one such night as this, 
spent upon the fishing banks of the mouth of the 
Banat River, that his own peace, and that of his 
district, came to be broken. 

The boat, laden with a heavy take, crept into 
the river, her weary crew tugging ploddingly at 
the sweeps. In front of her the dawn was 
breaking in woebegone fashion above that 
darker smudge against the grey sky, which was 
the mountains of the interior. Out of the gloom 
and the vastness of the night she came, the 
regular creak and plash of rowing breaking on 
the stillness like the laboured breathing of one 
spent with travail. Shadowy, she emerged from 
a world of shadows, and so passed with toil into 
a ghostly land. The heavens before her were the 
colour of lead, behind her the colour of ink ; 
the immensity of the sea, spreading away, lost 
in the gloom, was felt, not seen ; the tide running 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 231 

toward her from out the hidden upper-country 
was a sombre flood, gUnting here and there with 
the cold flash of steel ; the sand-spits on either 
hand were barren patches, sepia-tinted ; the 
forest, mysterious behind a veil of rising mist, 
reared a precipitous bulk of undefined outline, 
vague and menacing. 

Martin Halliday, worn out with watching, 
and chilled to the bone by the dawn-wind, 
squatted on the bamboo decking, and looked 
out, past the dim forms of the fishermen, bending 
drowsily above their oars, at this world of 
neutral tints. The cold, merciless depression 
bred of fatigue, of the forlorn aspect of inanimate 
things, and of the early-morning hour, was 
upon him. Something of strangeness, of mys- 
tery, — something indefinably awful and fear- 
inspiring in the landscape, — gripped his imagina- 
tion. It was his lot to see Kuala Banat after- 
wards, many times and in many aspects ; yet 
in the end, it was his impression of this place 
as he first lighted upon it in the dimness, the 
melancholy, and the fearfulness of the dawn, 
that remained with him as its essentially true 
picture. 

The boat came to her moorings alongside a 
sand-spit soon after the day had fully broken. 
Huts were improvised ; a rude meal was cooked 
and eaten ; and then the tired men lay down to 
sleep, in defiance of the strengthening light. 

When Halliday awoke the sun was already 
slipping adown the western sky, and his fellows 



232 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

were busy cooking the evening meal, preparatory 
to beating up the coast to their village, which 
was distant over a dozen miles. Leaving them 
to their work, Halliday, after a dip in the river, 
took his gun and wandered off into the forest. 
The woods were noisy with the clamour with 
which birds and insects greet the approach of 
evening, but to the white man, somewhat spent 
with the exertions of the previous night, and 
heavy still with the slumber from which he had 
so recently awakened, it seemed as though a 
great peace brooded over that solitude. In all 
that jungle there was no trace of human beings — 
the arch-disturbers of tranquillity : this v/as the 
primeval wilderness, a citadel which from the 
beginning had been held securely against man- 
kind by the forest and the forest creatures — or 
so it seemed to Martin Halliday. 

He came presently to a little open space, from 
the edge of which the towering trees, hung with 
countless parasitic draperies, stood back in 
serried lines. Here a flock of paroquets was 
feasting joyously upon an invisible swarm of 
flies, and for a space he paused to watch with a 
keen yet lazy pleasure. In a kind of mazy 
dance the little birds — each one of them a flash 
of gay colours as the soft sunlight touched its 
plumage — flew back and forth, in and out, 
weaving wonderful patterns, forming each 
instant some new, momentary combination of 
delicate tints against the sombre background 
of the forest. They were an animated kaleido- 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 233 

scope, these darting atoms of greens and reds 
and yellows and purples, passing and repassing 
with marvellous dexterity in frantic, graceful 
haste ; now skimming low with incredible speed, 
again shooting suddenly upward in abrupt ascent 
to avoid collision with the tree-trunks, only to 
dive back again in another irresistible swoop. 
It seemed to Martin that he was standing here, 
as the first of forest-bred men might have stood, 
in the heart of a new world, — an untouched 
woodland, — with Nature for his sole comrade ; 
that here no faintest echo could strike upon his 
ears of the jarring note which men alone dare 
to sound even in the hidden sanctuaries of that 
earth upon which, in the beginning, the Creator, 
looking, beheld only goodness. The aloofness of 
the spot from men and from the doings of men 
was to Martin its supreme attraction. Here at 
any rate, he thought, even the fisher-folk had 
refrained from breaking in upon a peace ordained 
of God. The place where he was standing had 
never suffered profanation : it had no past, no 
history ; it was straight from the hand of its 
Maker — inviolate, undefiled ; containing in itself, 
as it were, a direct revelation for one who could 
approach it with due reverence. And then, as 
these thoughts were passing through his mind, 
his attention was suddenly attracted by certain 
unfamiliar objects, half hidden by the under- 
growth, surrounding the open space upon which 
he was looking. He moved forward to investi- 
gate them more closely, and the flock of paro^ 
16 



234 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

quets vanished into the tree-tops in a Httle 
column-swirl of colour. The brushwood was 
dense, but beneath it he was presently able to 
distinguish earthworks, such as could only have 
been thrown up by the toil of human ants. 
They were so ancient that they had lost all the 
appearance of ''made" ground, yet they still 
served to convey more than a hint of what had 
been. There was about them a certain mathe- 
matical precision, a straightness of line, a firm- 
ness of the right-angles, a method, a business- 
like air, which surely never 3^et characterised 
the handiwork of a Malayan people. 

Martin Hailiday sat down upon the bank that 
lay upon the seaward side, and looked at that 
which he had discovered. He had been mis- 
taken, he thought : his notion that this was un- 
visited, primeval forest was a dream. It came 
upon him as a revelation, with the force of a 
shock, that this district of his, with which he 
had been so long familiar, had a story of its own — 
an unrecorded past of which he hitherto had 
caught no hint. What were the events of 
which this place had been the scene? This 
plainly had been a fort — a fort held by white 
men. Its workmanship proved that, beyond 
all question. Who, he wondered, were the men 
that built it ? What was its history, what the 
story of its abandonment ? The crumbling 
walls, the silent witnesses of all that had there 
been enacted, mocked his curiosity while they 
fired his imagination. The place, utterly for- 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 235 

gotten, packed away in the wilderness, covered 
b^^ the green pall of vegetation, fascinated him 
in an extraordinary fashion. He felt concerning 
it no mere antiquarian interest : rather he was 
obsessed by the thought of the individual human 
beings, white folk like himself, who had been 
his forerunners in this district, that had seemed 
his exclusive possession. He was conscious of 
a feeling of kinship to them, which made them 
more real to him than the brown men and women 
with whom he daily consorted . He was surprised 
by the strength of the attraction which the idea 
of them exercised over him. It was as though, 
in some inexplicable way, the souls of these 
dead -and -gone adventurers were communing 
direct with his own soul. It was an uncanny, an 
eerie notion, which filled him with a kind of inde- 
finable dread ; repelling him, as it were, by a 
sense of close fellowship with the beings of a 
vague spirit-world whereof the portals had for 
a moment been left ajar. The rustle of the 
awakening breeze in the forest around sounded 
in his ears like the flitting to and fro of unseen 
ghosts ; the shadows, creeping up through the 
narrow open spaces between the tree- trunks, 
were to him as the gathering armies of the dead. 
With an effort he dragged himself out of the semi- 
hypnotic stupor into which he had suffered 
himself to fall, rose to his feet, and turned his 
back upon the ruined fort. When a few minutes 
later he stepped out of the forest and rejoined 
his companions at the edge of the sand-spit, it 



236 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

seemed to him that he had passed suddenly from 
a world of wonder into the prosaic life of every- 
day. He came back to reality with a pang, the 
intensity of which astonished him. 

During the run up the coast to the nearest 
village Martin Halliday questioned the fisher- 
men concerning the ruins upon which he had 
chanced ; but they evinced a strange disin- 
clination to speak of them, or to satisfy his 
curiosity. They obviously tried to shun the 
subject, shutting themselves up within the little 
hard ring of pretended inability to understand, 
which is the last refuge of the Oriental when 
pressed in a direction whither he does not 
desire to tread. Martin felt himself to be 
baffled, and the original white man stirred in 
him for the first time for many months, causing 
the bare fact of opposition, of difficulty, to be 
in itself stimulating, inciting him to determine 
upon further investigation. Moreover, the queer 
fascination which the ruins in the forest had 
had for him still held him in thrall. He could 
not rid himself of the thought of the place, of its 
mystery, its compelling charm. 

From that day forth the abiding peace of 
Halliday's somnolent district was broken. The 
old fort and its dead-and-gone inhabitants gripped 
him curiously. He visited the place repeatedly, 
in spite of the reluctance of his natives to accom- 
pany him ; he talked of it by day, dreamed of it 
by night ; he was for ever attempting to persuade 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 237 

his people to build a village there, — where surely 
a village of old had stood, — at the mouth of the 
Banat River. The fishing-banks at that point 
were the best upon the coast ; the nearest in- 
habited spot from which they could be reached 
was a good dozen miles away. Kuala Banat 
itself was lovely — sand-spits and glorious forests, 
a river of clear water, and not a swamp anywhere 
near at hand to add to the discomfort of life. 
There were a thousand unanswerable arguments 
to be advanced in favour "of the new settlement ; 
there was absolutely nothing to be urged against 
it ; and yet, inexplicably, the natives of the 
district, usually so easy to lead and to influence, 
would have nought to do with Halliday's scheme. 
To all his coaxings they turned a deaf ear. They 
would give no reasons, but they were obdurate. 
It was then that Halliday made the discovery 
that he was by no means so completely a vegetable 
or an Oriental as he had fondly imagined. He 
began to develop some distinctively Occidental 
characteristics — a white man's impatience, a 
white man's persistence, a white man's energy ; 
something, too, of a white man's temper ; and 
the Government, which had so nearly forgotten 
him, became once more uncomfortably aware of 
his existence. 

For many months he proved himself to be a 
most inconvenient sort of person to his dis- 
illusioned Malays, while he bombarded Head- 
Quarters with correspondence on the subject 
of Kuala Banat, and the new settlement which 



238 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

he was bent upon making in that specially 
favoured spot. At that moment the Govern- 
ment chanced to be bus}^ hunting the particular 
hare called '* Immigration." Halliday's pet pro- 
ject had therefore the good luck to fall in with 
the prevailing besetment at Head-Quarters, and 
accordingly, after the proper number of months 
had been elaborately wasted in correspondence, 
thirty families of Trengganu fisher-folk — people 
from a Native State packed away on the east 
coast of the Peninsula — were duniped down 
upon Halliday's shores for the purpose of colonis- 
ing Kuala Banat. Martin personally conducted 
the new-comers to the site of his selection, and 
the next news received from his district told the 
Government that the entire crowd of immigrants 
had been blotted out — by plague, it was presumed 
— and that Halliday himself had been brought 
round by sea to the nearest port in a d5dng con- 
dition, and to all appearances raving mad. Here 
he presently died, as has already been related, 
of '* malignant tertian " — or, as I think, of too 
much tropical i^sia. 

The bare outhne of these facts you may find 
for yourself, if you know where to look for it, 
duly enshrined in the files of a certain office ; but 
the rest — the apocryphal, perhaps, but unques- 
tionably the more interesting part of the stor}^ — 
is not so much as hinted at in the official docu- 
ments. The first inkling of it was got by Jack 
Norris and Tommy Burton from the hps of 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 239 

Martin Halliday a little before he died. The 
detailed account is compiled from the dead man's 
diaries, supplemented to some extent by a sort of 
commentary furnished by Pawang Mat Jasin, 
the medicine-man of Kuala Pulai. Mainly, how- 
ever, the story comes to us resting on no surer 
foundation than poor Halliday's unsupported 
testimony, and fever — if indeed it were fever 
that killed him, the which he to the end most 
strenuously denied — is apt to make a man the 
prey of curious fancies. 

The room of the bungalow in which Martin 
Halliday lay a-dying was bare and comfortless 
enough. The plank floor was uncarpeted, and 
the only furniture was the great iron bedstead, 
with dingy mosquito-curtains looped up irregu- 
larly around it, a couple of wooden arm-chairs 
in which Burton and Norris sat watching, and a 
small bedside table. The latter was loaded with 
medicine-bottles ; and some unappetising cold 
food, which poor Martin could not so much as 
look at, lay on a plate beside them. The air 
of the tropical night, oppressively still and 
empty, was rendered unusually heavy by 
the smell of disinfectants. 

Halliday lay upon the bed, a gaunt figure 
covered to the waist by a blanket, and for some 
hours he had been tossing uneasily in a sort of 
comfortless sleep, while Norris and Burton sat 
as still as mice, fearing to disturb him by even 
the slightest movement. They knew that their 
friend had but a short span of life left to him, 



240 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

and the act of sitting there hour after hour im- 
potently awaiting the event — watching Death, as 
it were, creeping upon him inch by inch — had 
had an unutterably depressing and eerie effect 
upon their minds . The awful silence, punctuated 
only by Halliday's uneasy breathing, and by 
the ticking of distant insects, which seemed 
to be telhng with relentless precision the seconds 
as they passed, pricked the watchers to restless- 
ness. Their nerves were all on edge. Any rude 
sound — even a scream of pain — would have come 
as a positive relief : the tension of the stillness, 
and of this inevitable waiting for the inevitable, 
was so acute. 

It must have been a couple of hours before the 
dawn was due when Halliday, who had been 
moaning in a sort of subdued, heart-broken, 
panting fashion for some minutes, suddenly fixed 
upon Norris eyes that blazed with fever, and 
yet held in them a clear recognition of his identity. 
Jack and Tomm}?- were both on their feet in a 
moment, pressing the sick man to taste such 
nourishment as they had to offer; but he would 
do no more than barely moisten his parched 
lips. Then, after a struggle which seemed as 
though it would rip the life out of him, he began 
to speak, hurriedly, with a furious, anxious 
energy, pouring out his words in little jets, as 
blood pumps from a severed artery. He was 
obviously possessed by a great dread lest his 
strength should fail him ere ever he had said 
his say. At first his friends tried to quiet and 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 241 

restrain him, bidding him rest ; but he became 
so excited that they had no choice but to let him 
have his wilL 

" I must speak/' he panted. " I must speak, 
or I shall never rest in my grave. I have the 
lives of thirty families upon my conscience as it 
is — God help me ! — and unless I make you under- 
stand — force you to believe — make you know the 
truth — the truth that I alone know — some other 
fool may do as I did, and 1,1 — shall be responsible. 
The natives won't speak — most of them ; and if 
they were to speak, white men wouldn't listen 
— any more than I did. I wouldn't listen, I 
wouldn't listen ! " The cry rose in a thin wail. 

" Promise," he sobbed. " Promise — promise 
that you will never let anybody try to make a 
settlement at Kuala Banat ! Promise me that ! 
Promise on your words of honour, as you hope 
to be saved ! Say, ' So help me, God 1 ' Say 
it after me ! Quick ! Quick ! " 

To humour him, Norris and Burton took the 
solemn oath, though they fully believed him to be 
delirious ; and then for a little space he lay back 
upon his pillows spent and hstless, as though 
his energies were exhausted, as though he could 
now rest satisfied, his self-imposed task being 
accomplished. Presently he spoke again, his 
words coming in a tone of less excitement but 
in a sort of tense, throaty whisper which was 
ghastly. 

*' I ought to tell you why — why I have made 
you swear, only — I can't — I'm too weak. I 



242 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

don't want you to think that I — am mad, or 
raving. Test me. I'm as sane as either of you. 
BeHeve it — beheve me ! Don't put your trust 
in all that doctors' drivel about fever — and the 
delirium of fever. I know what I am saying — 
what I have written — every word of it. And 
it is truth — God's truth ! My diary — you'll find 
it there — set down from day to day. I tell you 
it is God's truth, and you shall believe ! " 

A great cry, a cry as of despair made awfully 
articulate, went from him — a cry that rings in 
Norris's ears at times even now. And when 
in fancy he hears it, there is borne in upon 
his mind afresh the complete realisation, 
which came to him in that moment, of the 
intensity of conviction by which this dying 
man was possessed. Then against the force 
of that passionate faith arguments and reason 
are for the time powerless. 

That cry was the last sound which Martin 
Halliday uttered, for he straightway fell into 
a stupor from which he never returned to con- 
sciousness. 

The examination of his papers was a task 
which fell to the lot of the friends who had 
nursed him. They also wrote the usual melan- 
choly letters to his people at H.ome, softening 
down, as was fitting, the ugly circumstances 
from the midst of which death had taken him ; 
for why should they insist unnecessarily upon 
the bare and loveless bungalow, the dingy 
mosquito-curtains, the wrangles with the doctor- 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 243 

folk, and all the rest of it ? An account of any 
death which occurs upon the outskirts usually 
requires a world of careful editing before ever 
it can be made suitable for Home consumption. 
On occasions such as this a dead man's friends 
have always to reconcile their consciences to a 
certain amount of necessary insincerity, out of 
regard for the distant hearts that loved him ; 
but in the case of Martin Halliday, his two 
more or less self-appointed executors assumed 
a rather unusually heavy responsibility. After 
they had together examined the diary of which 
Martin had spoken on his death-bed, they came 
to the decision that, for the time at any rate, 
it must be suppressed. They had a care for their 
friend's memory, and they knew that an un- 
imaginative Government, supported by its 
medical advisers, would unhesitatingly declare 
in cold-blooded fashion that Halliday had been 
suffering from acute dementia. His relatives 
in England, on the other hand, would be even 
less likely to understand. A study of the diary 
could only produce pain and distress in the 
minds of those who had loved Martin Halliday ; 
in those who had not known or cared for him, it 
might breed derision. For the dead man's sake, 
therefore, the thing must be abstracted from his 
effects — and abstracted it accordingly was. 

None the less. Jack Norris has made it his 
business, in as unobtrusive and effectual a 
manner as possible, to see that Halliday's dying 
wishes shall be respected, and that no new 



244 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

settlement shall ever again be established at 
Kuala Banat. Precisely how he contrived to 
work it is a trade secret concerning which I had 
best be silent ; but he has succeeded in getting 
the place medically condemned, which means that 
it is " officially " uninhabitable for all time. 
He would hardly have taken such action as this 
had he not believed more than a little in the 
reality of Halliday's experiences. He declines 
to talk about the matter, however, and the most 
that I could ever drag from him was the hope 
that the dead man would now " rest in his 
grave." 

During the months of delay which supervened 
before poor Halliday's project for the settlement 
of Kuala Banat had been " put through," as 
he phrases it in his diary, the ruined fort which 
he had discovered seems to have obsessed him. 
Again and again he revisited it — went out of his 
way to make objectless excursions to it. There 
was nothing to take him to the place, for his 
own natives had shown themselves to be strongly 
averse from all idea of colonising it, and for a 
season the immigration project hung fire most 
disappointingly. When he got there, he had 
not anything to do. The jungles held no game 
worth shooting, the fishing-banks could only be 
worked at night-times : he was not even im- 
pelled by antiquarian interest to attempt excava- 
tions or to search for relics of the past. Yet he 
was drawn to the old fort, as it were, by some 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 245 

irresistible force ; was restless and uneasy when 
at a distance from it ; and yet not satisfied when 
he had reached this Mecca of his many pil- 
grimages. He passed hours sitting idly upon 
one or another of the crumbling earthworks, 
dreaming and musing, straining his ears to catch 
the whisper of a bygone age ; and when with 
the sunset his natives clamoured to depart, 
he would tear himself away with a conscious 
effort, and with the unreasoning longing to 
return already quickening within him. The 
Malays of the district, upon whom in most 
things he was wont to impose his will, would 
never consent to spend a night at Kuala Banat, 
and Martin Halliday noted half-wonderingly 
that he had ** a sort of hungry craving " to see 
the old fort by moonlight. 

His enthusiasm for the place finds frequent 
expression in his diary : he goes into rhapsodies 
over its beauty. " Kuala Banat," he writes, 
" is out and away the most lovely spot in the 
whole district — a river of limpid water, sand- 
spits yellow as a buttercup, and then forest — 
great towering banks of forest reared up on 
every side to any height you like — forest in- 
finitely old, that looks down upon you in a sort 
of scorn from the magnificence of all its supreme 
mystery. It is like the stars, * with power to 
burn and brand his nothingness into man.' It 
has got a queer grip upon me, this place : it 
seizes my imagination — I can't win free of it. 
How often I stand looking at those huge, silent 



246 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

trees, and long for them to have voices where- 
with to speak, that they might tell me of the 
sights which they have seen — the tragedy of 
that abandoned fort, of this deserted fairyland. 
For there must have been a tragedy — I know it, 
I feel it. This place of all places could never 
have been forsaken by men unless they had been 
driven out of it, driven, driven. What was it, I 
wonder — pestilence, famine, war ? At times I 
fancy that I am on the very brink of discovering 
the secret, though how and whence I do not 
know. Yet I can do nothing to hasten it : I 
can only sit and wait — for what ? It is as 
though I were listening, straining my hearing ; 
and as if, were my senses more acute, I should 
learn all without moving a finger. What non- 
sense it sounds, now that the words are written 
here in black and white ; yet that is what I feel, 
and I can only sit still and wait." 

" Every time I come back here," he writes 
on another occasion, " the influence of the place, 
the fascination of it, grows stronger. I have 
had the strangest sensations about it from the 
start — I can't describe them. It was at first 
as though something in me fought hard to hold 
me back, to keep me away from Kuala Banat ; 
while something else — something apart from 
me — drew me to return again and again. Though 
I love the place, it was not all pleasure in the 
beginning. There was a sort of horror in it too 
— the kind of feeling that you have when you 
go into danger ; hating it, going against your 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 247 

will, but going all the same because you can't 
help yourself, can't resist it — because it compels 
you, fascinates while it terrifies you. Every 
man, I fancy, has experienced something of the 
sort in greater or in less measure ; but with me 
it is unreasoning, causeless, meaningless, and yet 
is so insistent, so irresistible, that it will not 
let me rest. When I am away from the place, 
I am uneasy — all on edge. I feel as though 
something were lacking to me : yet when I am 
back there again I am still unsatisfied, still 
restless, still listening with painful intentness 
for some sound that I cannot catch, some word 
of revelation that I cannot hear or under- 
stand." 

It is curious to contrast passages such as these 
with the dull official prose of Hallidaj^'s reports, 
written at the same time, with the object of 
inducing the Government to adopt his scheme 
for the founding of a fishing-colony at Kuala 
Banat, and it is difficult to believe that the two 
were the work of the same man. In the official 
papers the arguments for the settlement are 
marshalled with care, and there are no traces of 
anything more than the subdued enthusiasm of 
the ordinary District Officer playing the advocate 
for his pet project. In the diary, however, we 
are brought into contact with quite a different 
being. It is no longer the machine-made civilian 
who speaks, but a man of a curiously introspec- 
tive, even morbid, tendency — the prey of strange 
fancies, of inconsequent prepossessions. Even 



248 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

the diary is mainly filled by a dull record of duty, 
the monotony of which is only broken by occa- 
sional '* purple patches " of almost hysterical 
prose, inspired invariably by the thought of 
Kuala Banat, and by half-mystical musings 
concerning the sensations with which the place 
inspired him. Of these I have now quoted 
enough, and the remainder of the stor}^ must tell 
itself as best it may without more than an 
occasional reference to the sources whence it is 
derived. 

One glorious daj^- Martin Halliday saw the 
culmination of his desires. Thirty families of 
Trengganu folk were landed from a Government 
launch at Kuala Pulai, distant a dozen miles or 
so from Kuala Banat ; and as soon as she was 
quit of her passengers, the little craft which had 
brought them fussed away down the coast. 
Halliday had collected a number of sailing-boats 
in which to convey the settlers and their gear to 
their destination, and no sooner had they been 
set ashore than he was in a fever to be gone. He 
knew that the natives of the district regarded 
Kuala Banat with superstitious awe, and he was 
in deadl}^ fear lest aught should be said by them 
that might awaken the prejudice of the Treng- 
ganu people. As a matter of fact, he need not 
have worried himself upon this score. The 
Malays of Kuala Pulai were probably quite 
convinced of certain facts, and entertained no 
sort of doubt as to what awaited the Trengganu 
folk at Kuala Banat ; but they did not care. 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 249 

The new-comers did not belong to the district ; 
though they spoke the same language, professed 
the same religion, were of the same colour as the 
villagers of Kuala Pulai, they were strangers, to 
whom the natives of the place were bound by 
no ties of consanguinity or interest. Therefore, 
their fate, be it ugly or fortunate, was a matter 
of supreme indifference. The Pulai people just 
let them go — never said a word of warning or 
dissuasion, never so much as lifted a finger to 
stay them. It would be unjust to impute much 
blame. Martin Halliday was known to be a 
resolute fellow ; his heart was set upon this 
project. If the immigrants were scared away 
by any old-wives' tales, he would certainly make 
it hot for whoever was responsible. The curious 
thing is, however, that I am convinced that this 
aspect of the position had no great influence in 
determining the action of the Kuala Pulai Malays. 
They simply did not care — did not think the 
Trengganu people worth troubling about. There 
you have the Oriental — his extraordinary in- 
difference, his total lack of sympathy for those 
who are not connected with him. If the same 
circumstances could repeat themselves in Europe 
— which, of course, is sheer extravagant im- 
possibility — every soul in the place would have 
warned the Trengganu natives, and Halliday's 
scheme would have died still-born. As it was, 
the thing went forward without a hitch. 

Martin himself occupied a somewhat different 
position from that of the immigrants in the 
17 



2SO MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

estimation of the district. His was a familiar 
figure in every village, almost in every house. 
His people had got used to him, knew where to 
have him, knew the best and the worst of him, 
were secure in his ability to understand them and 
their needs. If aught should happen to him, 
some new white man would be let loose among 
them, and the gods alone could say what manner 
of creature the stranger might be. Accordingly, 
through its mouthpiece, old Pawang Mat Jasin 
of Kuala Pulai, the district spoke to Martin 
Halliday, and Martin thought to convict the 
district, in the person of the medicine-man, of 
incipient insanity. 

The old fellow came to Martin by night on the 
eve of his departure for Kuala Banat, and 
pleaded with him earnestly to abandon the 
scheme. At first he talked soberly enough, 
though he was far from explicit upon the subject 
of his fears ; but when he found that his words 
were making no impression, he worked himself 
up into a wild state of excitement, threw himself 
upon the floor at the white man's feet, imploring 
him with the passionate energy of one who 
prays for his life, weeping and threatening 
through his tears. Halliday could make nothing 
of it. He tried to drive it into the old fellow's 
understanding that a project which had been 
approved by Head-Quarters could not be aban- 
doned incontinently and without sufficient 
reason ; but the Pawang was impervious to 
argument. The calamity, as he termed it, had 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 251 

not yet befallen ; therefore it could still be 
avoided. To him Halliday, its visible embodi- 
ment, was the Government. He either could 
not or would not grasp the idea of the impersonal 
organism at the back of the District Officer. To 
his thinking, the decision rested with the white 
man : matters could not have gone too far, 
could not have passed out of his hands. There 
must still be a means of retreat at his command. 
So he pleaded and wept, raved like a lunatic, and 
at last poured forth a volume of inarticulate, 
nebulous threats. 

Halliday was dazed by the old man's excite- 
ment. Had he not been familiar with the habits 
of this Muhammadan peasant, he would have 
been tempted to fancy that he had been drinking. 
Knowing that the Pawang had never tasted in- 
toxicating liquor in his life, however, Halliday 
was unable to find a working explanation in any 
such hypothesis, and his acquaintance with 
Malayan character quickened his anxieties. He 
feared that the old fellow might be on the brink 
of one of those nervous outbreaks which, with his 
countrymen, are apt to culminate in amok- 
running ; and he felt convinced that such a 
catastrophe could only be averted by keeping 
the Pawang under his eye, by gripping the soul 
of him in the vice of a stronger nature, and 
holding it fast until the paroxysm had worn 
itself out. 

Halliday accordingly invited the medicine- 
man to accompany him to Kuala Banat ; and 



252 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

though at first the bare idea appeared to fill him 
with panic, the Pawang in the end consented, 
provided that he should be free to quit the place 
when and how he pleased. This condition 
Halliday accepted, and when his little fleet set 
sail from Kuala Pulai, Pawang Mat Jasin, alone 
among the natives of the district, took passage on 
board the white man's boat ; sitting huddled up 
in the stern, mumbling prayers and incantations 
against evil, quaking and chattering with super- 
stitious fears, and now and again shivering 
violently like a wet terrier. He did not present 
an encouraging spectacle, but Halliday was im- 
mensely relieved at having him with him, for 
the peace of his district is a thing very precious 
to the officer in charge of it, and it seemed to 
Martin that, left to his own devices, the Pawang, 
in his uncanny state of excitement, might have 
gone near to breaking it. 

To Martin Halliday's fascinated gaze Kuala 
Banat was looking more beautiful than ever as 
his little string of sailing-crafts trailed into the 
mouth of the river under the soft sunshine of the 
afternoon. Far down the side of a dome of 
marvellous colour the sun was sinking on to a 
bed of fleecy purple clouds ; in the heavens, a 
vivid ethereal green melted imperceptibly into a 
pure blue above the roseate tints which dyed the 
western sky ; the reflection of the sunset — a 
mellow and chastened glory — caused the inland 
range of mountains to stand out prominent and 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 253 

incredibly distinct, solid wave-crests of cobalt. 
Below the line of hills, in the immediate fore- 
ground, the forest rose abruptly, every shade of 
green intensified and vivified by the evening 
light ; below it again, on either hand, the yellow 
sand-banks opened a gate through which the 
river, gleaming redly, its waters alive with 
motion, poured its silent tide. With much 
shouting, the creaking of rattan cables, and the 
grinding of anchors upon the shingles, the boats 
were made fast. The splendour faded from the 
sky ; the night shut down hke a black curtain, 
rent here and there by the red flame of cooking- 
fires. Then the moon arose, and a glamour as of 
a fairy world was shed over the scene. 

The natives, worn out by the labours of the 
day and the heat, ate their meal of rice and 
fish, and snuggled down to sleep on board the 
boats ; but far into the night Martin Halliday 
sat and mused. He had dreamed a dream, and 
behold it was coming true. It was to be his lot 
to people this lovely wilderness as it had once 
before been peopled — how long ago he could 
only guess. He looked at shore and river with 
a sense of proud and fond proprietorship. It 
was his, hisj as was no other spot on all God's 
glorious earth, and he would make of it what he 
would. Waking he dreamed, and so passed into 
a tranquil sleep. 

On the morrow the work of establishing a vil- 
lage was begun in real earnest, and the Treng- 
ganu folk — a handy race when it comes to 



254 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

the use of tools — proved that they had higher 
standards of architecture and comfort than 
were commonly possessed by the natives of 
Halliday's district. The huts when finished 
promised to be quite superior things of their 
kind, and while they were building the settlers 
slept quite contentedly on board their boats. 
The Banat fishing-banks, too, yielded better 
takes than even Halliday had anticipated, and 
matters appeared to be going so well that he 
fell to chaffing the Pawang, who continued to be 
as fearful, as morose, and as uneasy as ever. 

*' We have not 3^et gone up on to the land to 
live, Tuan,'' the old man said. ** We dwell in 
our boats. Let us not sound the war-cry of 
triumph before the assault hath begun." 

" We are ashore all day," objected Halhday. 

*' Ay," croaked the Pawang, " and afloat all 
night. Wait, Tuauy wait. Oh, quit this accursed 
place, even now, even now ! " 

" Rot ! " said Martin to himself, and he 
jeered the Pawang anew. The old man said no 
more, but he was not amused. 

On the third day, when Martin was out with a 
party of Trengganu folk cutting timber for the 
village, chance took him in the direction of the 
old fort. He had visited it many times since 
his arrival — had wasted there in dreamy in- 
action and solitude more hours than he cared 
to reckon up ; but his people had never had 
occasion to cut posts in this particular locality. 
Now, as they were clearing the underwood 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 255 

around the roots of a big tree which they designed 
to fell, they lighted suddenly upon some curious 
objects. They were three human skulls lying in 
a regular row upon the surface of the ground. 
The Malays, who dislike such things, would not 
touch them ; but Martin was interested, and he 
examined them closely. It was with a curious 
feeling of anger in his heart that he made the 
discovery that they must once have been set 
upon the shoulders of white folk like himself — 
the shape was unmistakable, he could not be 
deceived. One, moreover, must have belonged 
to a child ; one to a woman ; and one, the largest, 
to a man. The latter had been broken by a blow 
which had crashed through the bone at the back ; 
the other two were intact. 

The facts thus revealed smote him with a 
shock. Those three grim bone-faces, gazing at 
him out of hollow eye-sockets, with fixed ex- 
pressions whereof the very immobile rigidity im- 
pressed him with a sense of their implacable 
hate, appealed to him with extraordinary force 
as he realised that they were the relics of fellow- 
Europeans, and that one of them — the strongest 
— had died a death of violence. They seemed 
to him to be very near akin to him : he recog- 
nised the bond of a common humanity, which 
was different from the brown humanity of the 
natives around him ; of a common faith, a 
common tradition and history. Though they 
were separated from him by centuries of time ; 
though the names they had borne in life — nay, the 



256 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

very race to which they had belonged— were un- 
known to him ; though in every way these dead 
folk were infinitely more remote from him than 
were the living men and women — the Malays — 
among whom he had sojourned so long ; still 
they seemed to claim him as one of themselves — 
as a friend, an ally. The thought of them — the 
notion that they had been killed here, alone in 
the wilderness, beset by merciless enemies — 
moved him strangely. Was it the white blood, 
the colour-prejudice, — which will survive all 
shedding of preconceived opinions, years passed 
in closest fellowship with men of a lesser breed, 
— that suddenly was stirring within him ? He 
could not tell ; but the sentiment was there, 
strong and wrathful — a feeling of anger at the 
death which had befallen these strangers, a 
fierce hatred of their murderers, a burning desire 
to see them avenged. He told himself that his 
attitude of mind was absurd, illogical ; but the 
feeling was there, refused to be driven forth. It 
gripped him with a force that would not be 
denied. 

Added to this also was another sensation — 
uncanny, eerie; felt, yet dimly realised. It was 
as though these dead folk had been waiting for 
him, and he for them ; as though, from the 
first, they had put forth the attraction which 
had drawn him so irresistibly to the spot — the 
uneasy sense of being impelled to visit and re- 
visit it, of which he had been conscious. The 
discovery of the unburied Christian skulls 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 257 

appeared to indicate at last the nature of the 
" something required of him " of which he had 
been vaguely aware. He was amazed by the 
notion, yet it none the less appealed to him with 
the force of certainty — they desired Christian 
burial, and in some occult fashion they had been 
able to communicate their will to him. It was 
an idea fantastic, absurd, in this prosaic age, 
at the end of the nineteenth century ; yet out 
here in the wilderness it contrived to wear a 
garb of probability. 

Solemnly he committed the skulls to the 
earth, repeating over them such fragments of 
the Burial Service as he could remember, and 
long he sat beside the grave which he had dug 
and filled, pondering with quickened interest 
over the lost story of this man and woman and 
child. The chance which had revealed the 
skulls to him seemed to bring the forgotten 
tragedy of the deserted fort very near to him. 
More than ever he longed to know the details of 
its fall and its abandonment, of the lives and the 
deaths of the men who had held it ; and it seemed 
to him that, though he had now performed the 
last duty to the dead, the odd sense that something 
more was required of him clung as insistently as 
of old, and now with a threefold force. 

That night Martin Halliday awoke long 
before the dawn was due, aroused into the wide- 
eyed wakefulness which means that sleep has 
gone, not to return for many hours. He sat up 
under the palm-leaf shelter, beneath which his 



258 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

mat was spread, in the stern of the boat, and 
gazed out into the serene stillness of the night. 
The moon was shedding its soft, illusive glamour 
over forest and river, giving to the scene the 
lovely unreality of a theatrical display. Not a 
breath of wind was stirring ; no sound of bird 
or insect came from the sleeping woodland ; the 
silence reigned as though it were too holy to be 
broken ; there was a magic in it that was un- 
earthly by reason of its tremendous solemnity. 

Suddenly it occurred to Martin how often he 
had wished to see the old fort by moonlight, and 
the " sick longing," which he had noted in his 
diary with a certain sense of surprise at its un- 
accountable force, cried out to be satisfied. 
Noiselessly he slipped on his shoes, clambered 
over the side, tight-roped along a treacherous 
bamboo gangway, and so stepped ashore. The 
deep black shadows lay under the canopy of 
forest-branches to all seeming as solid as the tree- 
trunks, baffling the eye with a thousand illusions 
of barrier and obstacle ; but the path to the 
old fort was one with which Halliday was now 
familiar through long use, and he had no difficulty 
in finding his way. He came presently to the 
little opening in which he had once seen the 
paroquets feasting on the swarm of flies ; and as 
he did so, the little fox-terrier, which unnoticed 
had been following at his heels, whined suddenly 
and bolted for the boats, its tail tight-pressed 
between its legs . Martin wheeled about, thinking 
that a snake had stricken the dog ; but nothing 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 259 

moved in the underwood . He called and whistled , 
but the terrier only scuttled the faster. Martin 
could hear in the stillness the hurried beat of 
its little pads. He called the dog's name again, 
then hushed his voice. There seemed a pro- 
fanation in thus raising an outcry in the silence 
of the forest and the night. 

Halliday faced the fort once more and stepped 
out into the little clearing, moving cautiously, 
for the dog's desertion made him fearful lest 
some beast of prey should be near at hand. 
He snuffed the air, half expecting to smell the 
strong scent — like that which might be given 
off by a whole pack of foxes — which is the sure 
indication of a tiger's presence ; but the air was 
untainted, laden only with the heavy fragrance 
of the forest. Reassured, he moved on, then 
came to an abrupt standstill. In front of him, 
near the middle of the fort, above the spot where 
on the preceding afternoon he had buried the 
relics of the dead, three white objects lay upon 
the ground. They were the skulls, ranged in 
an ordered row just as they had been when first 
he had seen them. The sight of them bewildered 
him. Who had disinterred them ? was his first 
thought. But then he remembered that no man 
among his Malays would willingly have touched 
them when unburied, far less have disturbed 
them when decently covered by the earth. 
Some forest creature, then ? But the explanation 
carried with it no conviction. The beasts of the 
jungle have scant use for bones which have lain 



260 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

exposed to the weather for years, perhaps for 
centuries. None the less, though in his heart 
he knew that the search was vain, he examined 
the ground dihgently for tracks ; but nothing of 
the kind could he discover. The skulls seemed 
to have been drawn upward through the soil, 
which had collapsed upon itself. iVbove it they 
lay, glaring through sightless eye-sockets, their 
uneven teeth grinning fixedly over the places 
where the missing lower jawbones had once 
hung. As Martin gazed at them in a sort of 
paroxysm of horror, they seemed to be instinct 
with that uncanny air of expectation, of waiting, 
patiently but inexorably, for — he knew not what ; 
for something that they demanded of him — 
something that he must do. 

The awful loneliness of the place gripped him 
suddenly with a chill dread. He longed to turn 
and run, even as the dog had fled the spot, but 
he was powerless to move. It was as though he 
were riveted to the ground ; and he stood there, 
with his gaze nailed to the three white objects 
which the moonlight revealed so clearly. He 
experienced the queer sensation which comes to 
a man when he fixes his eyes immovably for too 
long a time upon some bright point till he feels 
his body, as it were, falling away from him, and 
the soul, of whose existence he is rarely conscious 
in an active degree, forcing its way out of its 
shell. The skulls were hypnotising him. 

How long he stood there he did not know, nor 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 261 

tad he any memory at a later time of what 
thereafter befell him, nor of how he made his 
way back to his sleeping mat on board the fishing- 
boat. When he awoke, that night-wandering 
appealed to his recollection as a thing of utter 
unreality — part of the tangled and vivid dreams 
that had oppressed him sleeping. He did not 
believe that he had left his mat, till he found his 
shoes still upon his feet. He did not believe in 
the skulls having become exhumed, seemingly 
unaided, until he stood once more in the little 
clearing looking down at them. Then, though 
the fresh, glad daylight flooded the forest all 
around him, his heart stood still with supersti- 
tious fear, and the sweat that broke out upon his 
forehead was clammy cold. 

With head depressed, he walked back to his 
boat, trying the while to disentangle his recol- 
lections, to winnow out the reality from the 
dreams. Up to the time that he had discovered 
the skulls, rejected, apparently, by the earth in 
which he had laid them, he had been awake. 
So much was proved : but afterwards. . . . 
There was in his mind a space blank of recol- 
lections of an actual sort, but crowded strangely 
with dream-sensations. He remembered stand- 
ing on the seashore — but was it he who had 
stood there ? — standing in the fading light of 
afternoon, gazing with strained and anxious 
eyes in the direction of Malacca. He remem- 
bered that as he stood there he crossed himself 
repeatedly, as he had seen men do in con- 



262 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

tinental churches, and muttered fragments of 
Latin prayer. He recalled that even at the 
time he had wondered vaguely, as men wonder 
in dreams, how and when he had learned these 
Paters and Aves that now arose so glibly to 
his lips. He remembered that there had 
been despair in his heart ; that the empty 
horizon to the south had been to him like 
heavens of brass to which men lift impotent 
hands in entreaty addressed to ears that will 
not hear. 

He remembered turning away, with sigh and 
groan and prayer and curse all breaking from 
his lips, and passing back towards the fort. 
When he caught sight of it, it was to him 
at once strange and familiar — strange to him, 
Martin Halliday, but familiar to that other self 
which had in some inexplicable fashion entered 
into possession of his bod3^ The fort was not 
as he had seen it in his waking hours, for it wore 
a strange air of life and of occupation. A high 
new stockade crowned its walls ; the earth of 
its trenches was red from- the spade and barely 
coated with fresh green weeds ; smoke curled up- 
ward from the roof of a hut within the defences. 
It w^as the same place as that which was now so 
well known to Martin Halliday, and yet it was 
so different as almost to defy recognition . Recall- 
ing its every detail now that he was in truth 
awake, Halliday had much ado to convince him- 
self that he had not really looked upon it — the 
memory was so vivid, so real, so exact to its last 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 263 

least feature. Yet to that other self within him 
the sight; so intimately familiar, had had, Halli- 
day felt through some subtle intuition, an un- 
usual, an alarming aspect. He caught himself 
standing still ; noted that his hand was clutch- 
ing at his heart, as though to still its beating ; 
that it flew thence to his throat, as though his 
arrested breath were choking him. An instant 
later he was rushing madly towards the little 
crooked door which gave access to the fort. The 
place was deserted. He heard himself calling 
in some strange and yet familiar tongue, and 
at the last a feeble cry answered to his agonised 
appeals. Blind with horror and rage, he forced 
his way through the entrance to the hut, the door, 
wrenched from its hinges and hanging by its 
bolts, obstructing his movements. The dark- 
ness was gathering fast by now, and for a moment 
his eyes were useless to him in the obscurity of 
the hut ; but he was conscious of a fitful plucking 
at his feet, and presently, stooping earthward, 
his hand touched something that winced and 
moved, something that was wet with a fluid warm 
and sticky. 

He recalled searching for a flint and steel ; 
remembered wondering why matches were not 
forthcoming ; remembered, too, admiring the 
dexterity of that other self which, in spite of 
hands smitten by a sudden palsy, manipulated 
the clumsy fire-maker so deftly. Soon a damar 
torch flared up, and the flame revealed the 
forms of a woman and a child — Europeans 



264 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

these, but clad strangely, after the forgotten 
fashion of some bygone age — lying upon the 
floor in pools of blood. Martin Halliday waking 
took in again in retrospect every hideous detail 
of that scene, — it was printed in fire across his 
brain, — and once again he was seized by a wild 
whirl of savagery and passion. First, he remem- 
bered, he had flung himself down by the side 
of that slaughtered mother and child, weeping 
hysterically, seeking to coax the life back into 
the murdered woman, striving vainly to stay 
the ebb of the child's vitality. He remembered 
praying and cursing, entreating and threatening 
all in a breath — all in that unknown tongue 
that yet was for him so fall of meaning ; re- 
membered lying still, spent and impotent, 
in a kind of numbed stupor ; remembered 
rising up at the last with grim determination 
to avenge. 

He recalled passing out into the moonlight 
and standing there for an instant oppressed by 
the unreality of things familiar. He remem- 
bered throwing his arms aloft, his fingers writh- 
ing in furious contortion, and calling down a 
curse upon that wicked place, and upon the men 
of the breed that had wrought his undoing. 
There was, it had seemed to Halliday, an awful 
force, an appalling passion and intensity, a 
volcanic, indestructible vitality in that effort of 
will which he, that other self, was putting forth, 
as he called down, blending his words with 
tremendous blasphemies, destruction upon the 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 265 

place and its people at the hands of his fellows ; 
destruction at the hands of the Powers of Evil 
upon all who might follow in their footsteps. 
It was to Halliday as though all the strength 
of this man's soul had become transmuted 
suddenly into a new, an evil, an all-compelling 
forcey eternal as is all force, but in this case in- 
exhaustible, unchangeable. Then, in the very 
midst of his passionate exhortation, Halliday 
had become aware of a rustling in the grass 
behind him of which that other self remained 
unconscious. An instant later and something 
had struck him violently on the head — a numbing 
blow that in a flash obliterated sensation. He 
had awakened to find himself lying upon his 
mat on board his boat, with the bright sun- 
light of a Malayan morning casting the glamour 
of its glory all about him, and with an in- 
consequent conviction that he had not merely 
dreamed. 

He began of a sudden to be of the like mind 
with Pawang Mat Jasin, the medicine-man. He 
would very willingly have abandoned his project 
of forming a settlement at Kuala Banat. For 
him, as for the medicine-man, the place was 
haunted — haunted by the memory of the events 
which had so strangely been revealed to him ; 
haunted in a fashion yet more grim by that 
all-pervading, all-compelling force which had 
seemed to emanate from the agonised soul of 
the man who had stood blaspheming and cursing 
dreadfully out yonder in the moonlight. That 
18 



266 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

spirit, racked with pain and hate and rage, 
seemed to his morbid imagining to have perpetu- 
ated itself in a subtle but enormously potent 
influence that brooded eternally over the scene 
of its tortures and dissolution. It was this, 
Martin now thought, which from the first had 
called him, almost in spite of himself, bidding 
him return again and again to Kuala Banat, 
whispering to him ceaselessly that something 
was required of him. Now, in the full light 
of the noontide, he shuddered as he asked 
himself what might be the nature of that 
something which was demanded by that brood- 
ing Spirit. 

Vainly he strove to shake himself free of 
doubts, forebodings, superstitions, but his joy 
and his peace were gone. He knew himself to 
be desperately afraid, but the relief of action 
was denied to him. The projected settlement 
had been officially approved ; public money 
had been devoted to it. The vividest vision 
that ever came to ruin sleep would not justify 
a retreat now in the e3^es of a prosaic Govern- 
ment. No, the thing must go on, be the end 
good or evil. There was no drawing back. 
Martin Halhday set his teeth, and bade himself 
endure as best he might. 

The Trengganu folk had completed their 
houses, and that day was occupied in trans- 
ferring their gear from the boats. Men, women, 
and children took a hand in the job, and by an 
early hour in the afternoon the task was com- 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 267 

pleted. Kuala Banat, for the first time for 
near four hundred years it is probable, had been 
settled by the white man's energy and by the 
victims which, in the white man's Law, that 
energy so often claims for its own. 

There are in Malayan lands two hours of 
compelling melancholy — the hour that comes 
before the dawn, the hour that precedes the 
falling of the night. The first is the season 
when all things hush suddenly in a breathless 
quiet, as though expectant of coming evil. It is 
the moment of slackened vitality which sees 
so many lives, that have travailed all the night, 
desist from fight and yield to death ere the 
breaking of the day. Lying wide-eyed in the 
darkness, you can almost catch the sound of the 
flitting spirits that pass, and with them flit also 
your poor shreds of hope. It is the hour of cold 
despair or torturing presentiments ; of utter, 
heart-breaking despondency, against which you 
have, for the moment, nothing of force, of 
energy, or of courage to oppose. Malays know 
these things, and they love to prolong sleep 
until the dawn is yellowing the dim east ; but 
during the hour before the death of day no 
Malay will wilhngly coquette with slumber. 
Men know that this is the season set apart in 
some especial manner for the dominion of the 
Powers of 111, and that a body in which the soul 
is not alert and wakeful may at such times find 
itself tenanted suddenly by unbidden guests. 
The day with its labour and its heat draws 



268 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

near its ending ; once more energies are slack- 
ened, vitality ebbs ; the spirit which has upheld 
and driven the body upon its laborious way 
droops and fails ; the chorus of the birds has 
dwindled down to a few weary twitterings, 
the strident scream of the cicada has ceased, 
while the busy hum and tick of night-insects 
has not yet swelled to the full volume of 
its monotonous murmurings. Light is dying, 
colour is fading, form itself is losing gradually 
its distinctness. The world is becoming merged 
in vast, lowering shadows, and all things exhale 
a subtle suggestion of melancholy and of mystery. 

Martin Halliday, shaken by his experiences 
of the previous night, dreading fearfully the 
hours of darkness that lay ahead of him, — burn- 
ing also, it may be, with the beginnings of the 
malignant fever which brought him presently 
to his death, — stood on the sand-spit that 
evening watching the dying of the day, and was 
conscious of an oppression of spirit such as had 
never visited him before. Old Pawang Mat 
Jasin crept to his side, and stood for a moment 
silent, his eye roaming seaward. Then he 
spoke. 

" Tuariy^' he said, " thou surely hast the 
grak — the presentiment of coming evil. All day 
I have marked thee, and whither didst thou go 
in the heart of yester-night ? Listen to my 
words, Tuan. Quit this evil place now, while 
there is still time. Come ! See my sampan 
lieth yonder. Come I " 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 269 

*' And the Trengganu folk ? " queried Halli- 
day. 

*' Let them bide, Tuan^^^ said the medicine- 
man. '' We may not take them with us now 
lest the Government be angry, seeing that there 
is an order that they should dwell in this hell- 
haunted place. Very evidently these same 
men of Trengganu are to be numbered among 
those who are the food for the flames of the 
Terrible Place, fore-ordained from the beginning. 
It is certainly the will of Allah, the Merciful 
and the Compassionate. Let them bide ; but 
thou, Tuan, come away with me while yet there 
is time." 

" Go thou, if so thou wilt," said Halliday. 
He had no heart left in him, no conviction 
wherewith to battle against the superstitions 
of the medicine-man — or what Martin had till 
very recently been used to call superstitions. 
From the bottom of his heart he longed to 
go, but to go he was ashamed. " Go thou," 
he repeated. 

" While there is time, while there is time ! " 
the Pawang cried breathlessly, clutching Martin's 
arm with a force that pained. " See, see 
yonder ! " 

With outstretched hand that shook violently, 
he pointed in the direction of a large island to 
the south ; and Martin Halliday, following his 
gaze, saw something that made his heart stand 
still. 

Round the point of the island, and heading 



270 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

steadily for Kuala Banat, a ship was making her 
way — a ship with an impossibly high poop 
and forecastle and with huge sails of a strange 
fashion above which flags floated. The evening 
land-breeze was beginning to spring up, and 
now blew steadily from the north-east ; yet in 
the teeth of the wind this strange ship sped 
on, heading steadily for Kuala Banat. 

" What is it ? " he asked, and his voice fell 
hoarse and in strange accents upon his ears. 

Pawang Mat Jasin was shaking like a leaf, 
and was repeating with feverish haste the 
names and praises of Allah and His Prophet. 

'* While there is yet time," he whispered. 
" While there is yet time. Come ! In the name 
of Allah, come ! " 

" But what manner of ship is that?" asked 
Martin Halliday. " It must be some sort of 
junk." 

Even while he said the word, he knew that 
never yet did junk sail out of China with form 
or sails such as those ; that never junk or sailing 
vessel built by man could sweep onward as that 
ship was sweeping in the very eye of the wind. 
He had marked her round stem, her great 
castles built up fore and aft, her heavy bulwarks, 
her high masts supporting great bellying squares 
of sail, and he knew her for what she was — 
something that hitherto had lived for him only 
in the pages of ancient books — a galleon of the 
fifteenth century. Was he still dreaming, as the 
night before he had dreamed ? 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 271 

Pawang Mat Jasin released his arm, and 
stepped away. 

" Tis a ship of the devils," he whispered 
hoarsely, " a junk such as, men say, the devils 
of this place alone use. If thou wilt not come, 
I must leave thee, Tuan. It is not good for 
men to war with demons." 

He drew his sundang from its sheath and 
rapidly traced a figure on the sand with its blunt 
point. 

" See," he said, pointing to the rude design. 
" I have drawn here the Sanggul Patimah, 
within which it is not given for any spirit of evil 
to penetrate. Perchance it may serve thee as a 
kubu — stockade — in the hour of thine extremity. 
But for me, I crave leave to depart. When a 
man may not fight, 'tis best to retreat." 

He turned away, drew his sampan close to the 
shore, stepped on board, and began to paddle 
with long, swift strokes northward into the 
gathering darkness. Martin stood watching 
him until he was merged in the falling shadows. 
Turning back, a little before the last of the day- 
light died, Martin, feeling all at once terribly 
alone, saw dimly the outline of the galleon 
• sailing onward steadily, indifferent to the freshen- 
ing breeze. The only sound of which he was 
conscious was the mournful howling of his 
dog. 

The rest of the story comes to me from 
Richard Malcolm of the Trigonometrical Survey, 



272 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

who chanced to turn up at Kuala Banat in a 
Government launch on the following morning. 

" You have asked me to tell you about my 
arrival at poor Halliday's death-trap," he writes. 
" It is an experience which I shall never forget, 
and one that I don't like to recall more often 
than I can help, but the facts were these. We 
put into Kuala Banat in the Ena just about 
midday, and at first could not make out what 
was wrong. The whole beach was strewn with 
people apparently asleep, — asleep in the blazing 
sunlight, — which did not seem natural, seeing 
that a cluster of newly built huts was standing 
ready for occupation. There was an awful hush 
over the place, broken only by the woeful howl- 
ing of a dog ; and my Malays looked at one 
another fearfully and spoke in whispers that 
made my hair lift. I never, as you know, 
got the hang of their lingo. Very soon I grasped 
the fact that we were looking, not at sleeping, 
but at dead people. After we got ashore, 
it was the queerest thing you ever set eyes on. 
Men, women, and children were all lying about 
like dead men on a battlefield, and every one 
of them face downward, with arms outflung 
as though they had fallen in headlong flight. 
Their faces, too, were as much alike as their 
attitudes. Each had the eyes protruding in 
the most ghastly fashion, the mouth open as 
though in the act of screaming, except in one 
or two cases where the teeth were locked to- 
gether like a clinched vice. It gave me the 



THE SKULLS IN THE FOREST 273 

creeps to look into those faces : they were so 
many incarnations of Fear petrified. 

" We dug a trench and buried the crowd, 
though I had a job to get my Malays to touch 
them, and it was only at the last that we found 
poor Halliday. He was lying like the rest, 
face downward, with arms outstretched before 
him, and he was inside a sort of figure-thing 
which someone had traced upon the sand. His 
dog sat beside him with uplifted muzzle, howling 
dismally. Halliday was the only soul alive, but 
he was as mad as a hatter — and small wonder, 
seeing that he had been lying for hours with 
the sun beating down upon the back of his bare 
head. Of course there was no question of 
getting a doctor to certify the cause of the 
death of all these people, — the nearest medical 
man was a hundred miles away, — but I always 
fancy that the camp must have been enveloped 
quite suddenly by some deadly miasma. I 
don't know how else to account for it : for it 
was not cholera, that is certain ; and there was 
nothing to make one think that it was poison. 
I don't know whether there is any exhalation 
known to science which fits in with my theory. 
Anyway, I expect there are heaps of things 
in the jungle that even scientific men know 
precious little about. It was a stupid thing, I 
have always thought, to try and colonise Kuala 
Banat. The natives of the coast, I understand, 
knew that the place was abominably unhealthy, 
and never would have anything to do with 



274 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

it at any price : and natives, it has always 
seemed to me, know a lot more about this sort 
of thing than we do." 

With that opinion I find myself in profound 
agreement. 



XII 
IN THE HALF-LIGHT 

" Of old, unhappy, far-off things, 
And battles long ago." 

I HAD come from afar. On the preceding evening 
I had made one of a large company that had 
assembled at Carcosa — the official abode of the 
Resident General of the Federated Malay States, 
at Kuala Lumpor — to dance and flirt and 
chatter and bridge, to eat a sumptuous ball- 
supper, and incidentally to drink the health of 
Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, in 
celebration of her sixty-second year upon the 
throne of her fathers. The thing had been 
exceedingly well done, and if only terms of a 
moderate character could have been made with 
the thermometer, we might have cheated our- 
selves into the belief that we were taking part in 
some big country-house ball at home. In spite 
of the heat, however, we had enjoyed ourselves 
after our fashion : had been inclined to con- 
gratulate one another upon the heights to which 
our local civilisation had attained ; and had 
been dazzled (simple souls !) by the beauty and 

variety of the frocks displayed, which anywhere 

275 



276 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

else would have been accounted sadly out-of- 
date. 

We had gone to bed late ; and I, poor wretch, 
had been obliged to rise early. By seven 
o'clock I was at the railway station. By a 
little after nine I was at Kuala Kubu, forty 
miles away ; and an instant later, I was on my 
bicycle, with my face pointing eastward, and 
the immense, blue bulk of the mountains of the 
main range confronting me beneath a brazen 
sky. 

I need not dwell upon my ride. For two 
hours and two-and-twenty minutes, without 
pause or intermission, I had toiled doggedly, at 
times almost despairingly, up the long, white, 
winding road, with the inexorable gradient of 
one foot of rise in every thirty feet of running 
length — every inch of it against me — weighing 
upon me sorely like the sins of David. The 
" divide " reached at last, I had had a tub and a 
change of clothes ; had eaten ravenously of such 
things as the rest-house keepers of these lands 
give us to eat ; and then, mounting my bicycle 
once more, had plunged down the eastern slope 
of the mountains at headlong pace. 

For fourteen miles the machine had bucketed 
itself down the grade — scraping past drowsy 
bullocks and their sleepy drivers ; skirting with 
perilous wheels the lips of ravines ; dancing 
across wooden bridges, beneath which the hill- 
torrents raced furiously ; cantering down the 
long slope with a joyousness that was infectious. 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 277 

Gradually I had exchanged the crisp coolness of 
the mountain passes for the soft, enervating, 
scent-laden warmth of the foot-hills ; and while 
the afternoon was still young, I found myself 
pedalling across the flat valley of the Dong, 
following that river down to its junction with 
the waters of the upper Lipis. 

My house, the British Residency at Kuala 
Lipis, lay from this point some five-and-twenty 
miles down-stream ; but I had turned into the 
stretch of hilly country, in the heart of which 
lurk the big rapids of Jeram Besu, down which 
the whole volume of the Lipis plunges so 
gloriously, when suddenly one of the cranks 
of my machine snapped short off, and I was 
reduced to a painful, one-legged mode of pro- 
gression, ignominiously reminiscent of the con- 
tortions of a crippled mantis. Uphill — and 
there are many uphill pitches in the road 
hereabouts — I could make no progress, and was 
forced to wheel my bicycle ; but on the down- 
grades and along the flat I got on pretty well. 
The afternoon was waning, however, and the 
short-lived dusk was upon me, as I coasted down 
the last long hill which leads to the great bridge 
spanning the Lipis, at the foot of the rapids, 
still eighteen miles from home. 

Deciding that I would go no farther that 
evening, I left my injured bicycle at the police 
station. Refusing the proffered hospitality of 
the Malay serjeant and his wife, I quitted the 
place and walked inland, groping in the gathering 



278 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

darkness for a slender footpath which led to a 
neighbouring village. 

Eleven years earlier, travelling with a Malay 
Raja on foot, on elephant-back, and down-river 
on frail bamboo rafts, the journey from Kuala 
Lumpor to this spot upon the Lipis, which I had 
that day accomplished in a few hours, had 
occupied me a matter of nearly three weeks of 
fairly hard going ; and during all my long ride, 
the contrast between the present and even that 
recent past had smitten me, as I sighted each 
familiar landmark, with the force of a succession 
of blows. It had awakened in me, too, the 
nostalgia for the years that have passed from us, 
and for all those years have held, which is the 
keenest of all forms of home-sickness. 

Presently I found myself in the village — a 
village hidden from sight by a narrow belt of 
jungle; a village in which I had spent many a night 
during the old, half-forgotten times, ere ever the 
white man's energy, and love of speed and organ- 
ised order, came to bring peace to a troubled 
land, and to end its aeon-long isolation. 

It was quite like old days. As soon as the 
villagers realised that I had come among them, 
as long ago I was wont to come, they made me 
welcome in their old, kindly fashion. I had a dip 
in the river while the elders of the place, squat- 
ting on the banks, held torches aloft for my 
guidance, and aided me with their counsel. I 
was provided with a complete outfit of new 
cotton sarongs — one for a skirt, and one to cover 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 279 

the nakedness of m}^ shoulders ; and presently, 
a welcome meal of rice and curry having been 
devoured in sepulchral silence, we all gathered 
round the betel-boxes, set on the mat-strewn floor 
of the house of the village Headman, and in the 
half-light of the damar torches the peace which 
is of evening descended upon us. 

Indeed I had come from afar. Last night 
there had been bright lights, pretty frocks, the 
melody of dance-music, the whispering shuffle of 
dancing feet, — all the accessories of our developed 
civilisation, — imported whole and unchanged from 
home. To-night there was a mass of thatching 
overhead, black with smoke and hung with a 
network of cobwebs ; a flooring of split bamboos 
covered with palm-leaf mats ; a dim back- 
ground inhabited by women, cats, and children ; 
a few shabby hangings made of patchwork ; a 
couple of clumsy wooden betel-boxes ; and that 
irregular circle of quaint Oriental figures squat- 
ting gravely in the half-light. 

The contrast was so sudden and so violent, 
the change from the one scene to the other was 
so abrupt, that the imagination was strained to 
connect the ball-room at Carcosa with this 
native hut — to realise that they belonged, not 
only to one and the same planet, but to the 
same land ; that they existed in such close 
proximity. Last night, and during all that 
day, I had been a white man, .wearing a 
white man's conventional garb, speaking a white 
man's language, thinking a white man's thoughts, 



28o MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

using a white man's gear — railway and road 
and rest-house, and the modern, the prosaic 
bicycle. To-night, for the nonce, circumstances 
had made me once again a Malay among Malays : 
living for a little space the life that of old I was 
wont to live ; sharing the food, the clothes, the 
lodging of the natives ; sharing also, for a fleeting 
hour, their speech, their thoughts, their feelings ; 
looking again, after a weary while, through their 
eyes upon the world and its mysteries as these 
things present themselves to the Malayan vision. 
I could remember the time when a goodly 
portion of Malaya was still wholly Malayan, — 
God help it ! — and of those who sat around me 
there were many who shared my memories. We 
had a past in common — they and I ; and for a 
moment it seemed to me as though the wheels 
of time had been reversed — as though that 
past, with its halo of picturesqueness and 
romance, had been restored to us. I had had my 
hand with my fellows in the toil and labour of 
revolution ; with other white men I had com- 
bined to play the part of Providence to a vast 
area and to thousands of human beings. All 
day long I had had before my eyes the plain 
evidences of our work — the annihilation of 
distance, the regulation and the ordering of life. 
My very bicycle had been left for safe keeping 
at a police station not half a mile away. And 
the insistent recollection of these things mocked 
the illusion that the old, unregenerate, adventure- 
some past had come again. Almost unconsciously, 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 281 

as I sat there in the half-light, I groaned aloud, 
and the words of an old-world quatrain of the 
people rose unbidden to my lips — 

" Betel-nut Island boasts a new town ; 
Kapitan Oli' is its king. 
Think not upon days that are dead, 
Or, bowing low your head, the tears will flow." 

It was a rhyme fashioned rudely by the fisher- 
folk of Kedah when Captain Light and his com- 
pany of adventurers broke in upon their soli- 
tude, wrung Penang (Betel-nut Island) from their 
Sultan, and ground the heel of the white man 
into the face of a lovely land. It is pitifully 
inarticulate, as are most Malayan expressions 
of any sentiment which all Malayans share ; 
but in the vernacular it has a sob in it — a note 
of mourning for that past which has been taken 
away never to return — such as a man may 
catch who has ears with which to listen, and a 
heart with which to understand. 

A soft murmur ran through the group which 
sat around me ; for my coming had twanged 
for these men, as for me, an old chord of memory. 
Their minds, like mine, were roaming amid the 
recesses of that Past which had been filched 
from us so utterly by the thieving years. 

" y<2 Allah! Muhammad!^' ejaculated the 
old Chief, who was my host. " In very truth, 
it is not good to dream of the brave days that are 
dead, for straightway a saucy devil awakens in 
the heart, crying to a man to come back, come 
back — whither no man may return." 
19 



282 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

He was a very old man, — near his hundredth 
year, so village tradition had it, — and the twisted 
kerchief sat grotesquely on his glassy head, 
while the long goat's beard on his chin waggled 
to and fro with the motion of his jaws. His 
voice, though low, was firm and clear ; his wise 
old eyes, which had looked in their time upon 
many wonderful things, were still bright ; but 
now the pupils were contracted to mere pin- 
points, for he was gazing back through the 
years at the brave, dead days of which he spoke. 

" They lie, Tuan,'' he said, almost fiercely, 
" they lie who declare that age stills the fire of 
desire in a man's heart ! It is not so. I who 
speak to you — I, who have tasted youth and age 
— I tell you that they lie. Youth is still awake 
in this old heart of mine — youth and the hot 
desire of youth ; only the body of me is old. My 
limbs have turned traitors, and will no longer 
obey my behests ; and the ability to do that 
which my heart would fain do is taken from me, 
while the longing is quick in me as it was in the 
days when I was young. 

" Ya Allah ! They were, in truth, brave days, 
those days that are for ever dead. Men were 
men in those times, and the strongest and the 
boldest was also the happiest and best, for — thy 
pardon, Tuan — a man then stood upon his own 
two feet and held his place by virtue of his two 
strong hands : with never a law or a code, made 
for the protection of cowards, to shore him lest 
he fall ; with never a policeman-thing to be his 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 283 

buckler ; with never a white man at his beck and 
call to secure him in possession of that which he 
lacked the courage and manhood to hold for him- 
self. 

" I mind me — ah. the brave days ! — when 
youth was mine, — youth and strength and the 
pride of life, — when I went forth among my 
fellows swaggering in my walk, with a kris in my 
girdle and a broadsword in my hand, cocking a 
masterful eye at youth and maiden ; watching the 
one make way for me, and the other casting love- 
glances upon me, while I was secure and uplifted 
by the knowledge that there were none to gain- 
say me ; that the whole world — my world, Tuan — 
must yield me up its best. Which of you," he 
cried in a sort of frenzy, glaring around suddenly 
upon the younger men of the audience who hung 
upon his every word, '* which of you, I ask, 
dares say as much to-day ? Hasten, run wailing 
to the police station ; bid the eye-folk of the 
Government come witness thy dishonour ! Cry 
upon them to bring handcuffs, to make ready the 
stocks, to write meaningless things in booklets, 
to make attestations in the court-house, to move 
the white men to aid thee — from a Man ! Ya 
Allah, ya Tuhan-ku ! In these pitiful times, if 
ever ye were to behold a Man, terror would be 
in those craven hearts of yours, as of old there 
was terror ; but now the white folk in their 
wisdom have reared up many barriers behind 
which the coward may seek shelter — and behold, 
to seek it ye are by no means ashamed ! " 



284 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

A fit of coughing seized him, and he sat for a 
minute or two rocking to and fro, fighting with 
the spasm that tore at his worn-out lungs . Then, 
with something more of calm, he resumed his 
monologue. 

*' I mind me how once, in those spacious days, 
when youth was mine and the world a free world, 
I was bidden to a wedding by the Rawa people 
at Temau. For you must know that at that time 
the Rawa folk held the valley of the Dong as 
their own country, paying no heed to the Orang 
Kaya Stiawangsa, who was the Chief of all the 
Lipis country ; nor yet to our overlord the 
Bendahara Sewa Raja, who, under the Sultan 
of Daik, was the ruler of all Pahang. The Rawa 
people and the men of Mendheling — both clans 
of strangers whose true home was in Sumatra — 
fought one another in the Dong valley for near 
a score of years, striving for the possession of 
the gold mines of Raub, sometimes the one, 
sometimes the other having for the moment the 
advantage. We of the Lipis valley had little 
care in the matter of that Raub mine, for nearer 
at hand were the mines of Jalis, and the Chinese 
who toiled therein were wise people, who yielded 
up to us without vain resistance a good half of 
the gold they won by their labours. That was 
fitting : but, to our thinking, the Rawas and the 
Mendhelings were bitten by a maggot of folly 
that infected their intellects, since it goaded 
them to work in the mines with their own hands, 
as, I am told, some of our young men also toil 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 285 

in these degenerate times. There was a deep 
hole at Raub, filled to the brim with water, green 
with duck- weed, and at the bottom thereof 
there reposed an immense nugget, as big as the 
head of a full-grown bull buffalo ; and it was 
for the possession of this nugget that the Rawas 
and Mendhelings warred so ceaselessly. Which- 
ever had, for the season, the mastery, set all its 
young men diving and groping for the nugget ; 
and once and again a man would feel it with his 
hands, or with his knife would chip off a frag- 
ment as big as a mangosteen. Then the news 
would reach the enemy ; and forthwith there 
would be a raid, much bloodshed and destruction, 
whereafter the diving for the nugget would be 
resumed. Nowadays, the best of nuggets is no 
bigger than a man's thumb-nail ; but in the old 
times it was not only the hearts of men that were 
bigger and braver than to-day we find them. 

** In this battUng of the Rawas with the Mend- 
helings, I have ever seemed to trace the Finger 
of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate God ; 
for thus there was established, as it were at our 
very doors, a school of chivalry in which our 
young men of the Lipis valley might be trained 
and hardened for war, and made ripe for adven- 
ture and the performance of brave deeds . It was 
fighting on behalf of the Rawas on that night 
when we assaulted Raub, and burned near a 
score of Mendhelings, — men, women-folk, and 
children, — stabbing with our knives such of 
them as sought saucily to win free from the 



286 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

roaring flames, that I first bathed me in the 
bullets and smoke of battle ; and it was by 
reason of the prowess that I then had shown 
that I was bidden to this wedding at Temau. 

'* Now you must know that these same Rawas 
were very evil and arrogant folk, fearing neither 
god nor devil, and having in them no reverence 
save for their own lustful selves. Above all, 
there were, of their leaders, two brothers, who 
surpassed all their fellows in boldness, and wicked- 
ness, and cunning, and power of magic, and in 
such-like manly qualities ; and these men styled 
themselves respectively Allah Taala Muda and 
Allah Taala Ber-juntai — that is to say, ' God 
Almighty the Younger,' and * God Almighty, 
enthroned on high, with His legs hanging down * ; 
but for shortness' sake, and because of the 
excessive naughtiness of these titles, we spoke 
of them commonly as ' The Younger ' and * He 
of the Dependent Legs.' Now it was to the 
wedding of Him of the Dependent Legs that I 
was bidden. 

" I went thither from Sega, walking up the 
banks of the Lipis, through the open grass country, 
to Ranggul, where I crossed the river and passed 
through the orchards and rice-fields until I arrived 
at Temau. Long ere I sighted the stockade, I 
heard the throb of the drums, the hoarse sorak 
of the Rawa-folk, and I knew that men were 
strutting and capering in the sword dance ; and 
I said to the three who followed at my heels, 
' Allah being willing, presently I too will take 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 287 

a hand in the game that is going forward 
yonder.' 

" I entered the stockade, cocking my chin 
and swaggering a Httle in my gait, as was then 
my wont, and men drew aside to let me pass ; 
while from the houses all about, the bright eyes 
of the women glinted through the chinks, bidding 
me a merry welcome. I sat for a space watching 
the dancing, and in truth the play was of the 
poorest ; wherefore presently I spat upon the 
ground, as men spit when some unclean thing 
is at hand. He of the Dependent Legs squatted 
at my side, watching me, and soon he said in 
mine ear, and his voice was angry, ' Why dost 
thou spit. Little Brother ? ' 

" Then looking him in the eyes arrogantly, I 
made answer, saying, ' I spit, O Dependent Legs, 
because it pleases me to spit, and moreover, 
because this child's play that is going forward 
yonder offends my taste.' 

*' ' Ha, ha. Little Brother,' said He of the 
Legs. * The proverb speaks truth when it 
declares the men of Pahang to be an arrogant 
breed. Yonder, engaged in that which thou 
stylest " child's play," is Pendekar Mat Aris, 
next to my own self the greatest fencer that is 
to be found among the Rawa people. Will the 
little child of Pahang (for thus, in his anger, he 
named me sneeringly) take a part in this game 
with this poor orphan of a Pendekar ? ' 

*' Now at the name of Pendekar Mat Aris my 
heart had stood still ; for his fame as a fencer 



288 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

had been noised through all the land, and never 
had I found myself pitted against one of such 
skill and reputation. If these happenings had 
befallen to-day to any of you young ones of this 
narrow time, I make no question that it would 
have seemed to you that the propitious hour had 
come in which to call for aid upon the policemen- 
things, and to seek the protection of law and of 
white men. But in those years there were no 
policemen, no laws, and no white men ; and a 
man's honour or dishonour was in his own, not 
in his neighbours', keeping. 

" He of the Legs had spoken the last words 
aloud, and a sneer was on his lips, while many 
eyes — the eyes of men and women alike — were 
fixed upon my face. If I accepted and failed, 
I would be dishonoured as one who had boasted 
vainly without cause ; if I succeeded, name and 
fame, the admiration and respect of men, and 
the love of many women, would be mine. The 
choice was easy. 

'' Therefore I rose up very slowly, stretching 
myself insolently, as one who is wearied by some 
stupidity to near the point of death. Also, very 
deliberately, I spat upon the ground thrice, and 
yawning into the face of Him of the Legs, I said, 
' My heart asketh for nothing better. Per- 
chance a bout of right fencing will serve to remove 
from my mouth the evil taste which the watching 
of so much clumsy fooling hath left there.' 

" Then I stepped into the ring, while the great 
crowd gathered closer around with eagerness and 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 289 

expectation in their mien ; and crossing to the 
Pendekar, I gave him salutation with all courtesy, 
touching hands. Next we took up our posts at 
opposite extremities of the arena, and the fencing 
began. 

.*' For near as long as it would take to chew a 
quid of betel-nut, we capered and postured ; 
sank to our knees ; rose to our full heights ; 
crouched and sprang — now this way, now that 
way, but always preserving our distance from 
one another. I could hear the men grunt com- 
ments anent my agility, and from the houses 
came a titter of delight from the women who 
watched — a titter broken now and again by 
long-drawn breaths of deepest satisfaction and 
pleasure ; but all the while, with the tail of my 
eye, I watched the Pendekar 's every movement. 
He was on his mettle now, and his posturing and 
his sudden leaps were very fine and courageous ; 
but it seemed to me that he sacrificed to style 
some of his activity, and that his forward leaps 
were slow and awkward if compared with his 
leaps to the sides and to the rear. 

" When I judged that I had sufficiently taken 
the measure of him, I gradually decreased the 
distance that separated us, edging towards him 
with averted face, tempting him to the attack. 
On and on I drew across the arena, my muscles 
strained, my limbs braced ready for action ; and 
then some instinct whispered to me that the 
assault was coming. I slewed round, crouching, 
and beheld him leaping upon me, and so far gone 



290 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

in his leap that there was for him no halting. 
A swift movement to one side served to avoid 
his blow, and as he flashed past me, my palm 
smote him full in the face. He was caught 
completely off his balance, and with a crash 
came headlong to the ground, but not so quickly 
but that I, with the bony edge of my left foot, 
had cut his face open from chin to eyebrow. 
The next instant I was back at my side of the 
arena capering and posturing majestically, while 
the people yelled. 

** Out of the corner of my eye I watched the 
Pendekar pick himself out of the dust, his dress 
disordered, his face streaming blood, his eyes 
full of anger ; and so distracted was he by his 
mishap that he forgot to assume a fencer's 
attitude, and stood there spitting out blood and 
evil words like a beaten child. Therefore I 
laughed aloud, never ceasing in my posturing, 
and I cried to the people, ' Behold the handi- 
work of a child of Pahang I I have taken away 
his reputation and some portion of his face. 
Presently, if I be so minded, and if she be well 
favoured, perchance I will take also his wife.' 
And again I laughed mockingly. 

" At that word, he drew his kris clear from 
his scabbard, and was upon me. I saw him 
flash across the open space ; I saw his eyes ablaze 
with fury ; I saw his set face, his teeth grinding 
together, his lips drawn back, his white gums 
exposed to view, snarling. I had no time in 
which to draw my weapon ere he stabbed ; but 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 291 

my hand went out as quick as the lightning- 
darts that spUt the heavens in twain, and I had 
him by the wrist with his knife-point arrested 
barely an inch from my breast. Twice more 
he stabbed ; twice more I caught his wrist and 
stayed the blade : and at the fourth stab, so 
fiercely did my grip close upon his flashing arm 
that I felt the slender bone snap as a twig snaps 
upon which a man leans too heavily. His 
dagger fell to the ground, and he stood before me 
powerless. 

" I picked up his weapon, and pricked him with 
it in the breast, insolently, drawing blood a little, 
for I was angry. For a moment I had a mind 
to kill him, even as he would have killed me, while 
he stood there unarmed and unresisting ; but 
then the thought came to me that there are 
worse things than death, and I had the desire 
to punish him to the full. So once more I 
laughed lightly, as a girl laughs when her lover 
whispers soft things to her in the shadows, and 
pricking him once more with the knife-point, 
said, so that all the people might hear, ' I thank 
thee for thy courtesy. To' Pendekar. Thou 
art bountiful exceedingly I Behold, thou hast 
given to me thy name and thy reputation ; this 
weapon that I hold in my hand for a keepsake, 
by the aid of which to remember thee ; thy 
blood, which floweth from thee ; thy bone, which 
my grip hath snapped. There remaineth, there- 
fore, only a little of the debt unpaid. I have 
a mind to take also the bone of thy bone, the 



292 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

flesh of thy flesh, — thy wife, To' Pendekar, — since 
men say that she is fair.' 

" He stood before me impotent, curbed in his 
pride, but I saw the fire of hatred and of murder 
in his eyes ; and I was glad, for he had sought 
to rob me of my life, and life was then passing 
sweet to me. His right hand hung useless at his 
side, and his left hand clenched and unclenched 
vainly in his rage ; but his face worked and 
was contorted as the face of a lunatic, and the 
apple in his throat throbbed like a living thing 
imprisoned and seeking to be free. And as we 
stood thus, facing one another, — I the victor, he 
the vanquished, — the crowd parted, and the 
woman stood before us. She stood there in 
the sunlight, with the dancing shadows cast by 
the leaves of the fruit trees overhead playing in 
and out among the bright silks in which she 
was clad, and with a sarong drawn partly over 
her face, for she was shamed by the glance of so 
many eyes ; and for a space she sought to speak, 
but the words would not come. Then, at last, 
very pitifully she sobbed out, bending the gaze of 
her great eyes on me, * Have patience, Inche 1 
Have patience a little I Be not too hard upon 
him whose fate is accursed. Spare him, Inche ! 
spare him ! ' 

*' But I was transported by the beauty of her, 
though in truth she was not more fair than 
many another, and I made answer, ' I hold 
by the saying of the men of ancient days : " Let 
the sparrows mate with sparrows, and the great 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 293 

hornbills with birds of their own feather I " 
Thou, Little Sister, art no drab-coloured bird- 
ling to pair with this weakling with a broken 
wing that stands before thee. Rather thou 
shouldst seek a fitting mate, one worthy of thee, 
such as am 1/ 

** ' I am not worthy,' she sobbed, for indeed 
this woman had some sense of the fitness of 
things ; but I bade her be still, and leave such 
matters to mine own judgment. Then, seeing 
that I was by no means to be cajoled, she 
straightway broke forth into such noisy lamen- 
tations as women use ; for, after the manner of 
her kind, which is ever perverse and contra- 
dictory, she raised most uproar when the heart 
within her was best pleased. 

'* Next, turning to the Pendekar, I said, 
' Now choose, cripple. Wilt thou have life, 
or this woman ? For, if thou wilt not divorce 
her according to the Law of Allah, the Merciful, 
the Compassionate, here and now, thy life 
shall be forfeit, and thereafter the woman 
shall be mine. Shall it be a free gift or a 
capture ? Choose, and delay not, for already 
I hear the sound of a rending shroud, and the 
grave-mould shouting to the coffin-planks.' 

" He burst forth into imprecations, curses, 
impotent threats. He called down the vengeance 
of High Heaven upon me with awful cries 
and blasphemies. He prayed, he implored, he 
entreated, abasing himself before me, caress- 
ing my feet with abjectness and with tears. 



294 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

But my heart in me was turned to steel when I 
remembered how he had sought so naughtily 
to slay me, and how nearly he had compassed 
his end. 

" At last; therefore, he stood upon his feet 
once more, his countenance sullen and very 
ungracious ; and I, understanding that he 
would now consent to that which I demanded, 
chose out my three followers and one other man, 
my friend, and bade them to be the four adult 
witnesses and freemen whom the Law insists 
should hear the words of divorce pronounced. 

*' They passed into the open space and 
ranged themselves around, while the woman 
squatted on the earth, whimpering a little, hard 
by her husband's feet. Then, as I pricked him 
shrewdly with the knife-point, as an earnest 
of what I yet might do, Pendekar Mat Aris 
repeated hurriedly the prescribed formula : 
' I divorce this woman — once ! ' and again, 
* I divorce this woman — twice ! ' His face was 
like the face of one three days dead ; his eyes 
were like the eyes of a hunted beast ; a thin 
foam had gathered about his mouth ; but the 
demon of fear pricked him to a final effort. 
' I divorce this woman — thrice I ' The third 
talak had been given in the presence of wit- 
nesses, as is by the Law required. The divorce 
was pronounced final and irrevocable ; but as 
the words passed his lips the Pendekar fell to 
the ground, and lay as one dead. I think the 
wrist which I had broken must have occasioned 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 295 

him much agony ; also, doubtless, he was 
overcome by the shame and the despair which 
were in his heart. 

" I took the woman for my own, in spite of 
her pretended reluctance, — it is the way of 
women to seek by protestations to enhance 
their value, — nor did I wait for the accom- 
plishment of the edah — the hundred days of 
widowhood which the Law provides should 
divide a divorced woman from her next bridal. 
There were some who thought ill of me for 
this, though they had the discretion to hide 
their opinions : but indeed I was wise, for ere 
the hundred days were accomplished I had 
wearied of the woman ; wherefore I never 
married her, but suffered her to go from me 
whither she would, after she had abided with 
me a matter of some two months. Also, by 
that time I had another love affair upon my 
hands in the matter of the young wife of Him 
of the Dependent Legs — her at whose wedding 
I had assisted. She, sitting hidden from sight 
within the house, had been a witness of my 
prowess, and she had fallen (who can blame 
her ?) deep in love with me. There was great 
trouble in the Lipis valley by reason of that 
elopement, for the Rawa people raided us, and 
many lives were lost, many homesteads burned 
with fire, and many folk carried off into slavery ; 
nor did the strife cease until the Order came in 
the appointed hour to Him of the Dependent 
Legs, and he went headlong to the Fires of the 



296 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

Terrible Place babbling excuses for his insolent 
usurpation of that awful Name. 

" Ya Allah! Ya Tahun-ku I Said I not 
truly that life was life in those untrammelled 
days ; that men were men ; that all were free 
to carve out, each for himself, such things 
as his heart lusted after, such things as his 
hands had strength to grip and the courage to 
hold ? " 

Another fit of coughing seized the aged 
Headman, and again he rocked to and fro rent 
by the spasm, a dreadful shadow cast by that 
lurid Past upon the tranquil, ordered, seemly 
Present. 

When the fit of noisy coughing had ended, 
another villager took up the tale. 

" Brave days," he crooned — for he too was an 
aged man, '' Brave days, in very truth, were 
those days when the heart and the body were 
young, but they were grim times for many 
a man. Dost remember To' Kli ? " he said, 
addressing the Headman. " Dost remember 
when Wan Da raided this Lipis valley from 
across the mountains of Selangor, seeking to 
win back the Throne of Pahang from his uncle, 
Underneath-the-Foot ? We sent petition post- 
haste to Pekan, praying Underneath-the-Foot 
to send us aid, so that we might make issue 
with our trouble ; and after a weary while 
there came big boats loaded with guns and 
shooting medicine, wherewith to arm us ; arid 
bearing also, it may be, some twoscore of 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 297 

the King's Youths — men bred to be the food of 
spears, as the saying is. Wan Da, the invader, 
had amassed some wealth by raiding for many 
months the hill-tribes folk of the main range — 
Sakai of no account — and selling their children 
into slavery to the miners of Selangor. Also he 
had gotten him the Raub mine, and held the 
whole country up to the fringes of Durian 
S'batang. The great Trunk Road runs to-day 
not a stone 's-throw from the stockade which 
he then built. The mud walls stand to this 
hour. You must have seen them, Tuan, but 
a little while ago as you passed by on your 
air-carriage. 

" Now, when first the King's Youths arrived, 
we of the Lipis valley were very well content, 
for we said among ourselves, * Now, at last, 
shall we have protection. Now these warriors 
will fight the enemy ; our cattle and our homes 
will be secure ; we shall have some scant leisure 
in which to have a care for our rice-fields, so 
that the women and the little ones may not cry 
in vain for food.' 

" But very soon we discovered that we had 
gotten two enemies in place of one ; for the 
King's Youths came amongst us like the toman 
fish which devour their own young. They had 
the manners and the cleverness which are bred in 
those who sojourn at the Courts of Kings ; they 
had conquering airs, bright weapons, ready 
tongues, fine garments of many colours, and 
nimble wits. In a little space there was trouble 
20 



298 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

in our villages, for they ate our substance, 
slaughtered our cattle for their food, stripped our 
fruit trees, and did us all manner of dishonour 
in the name of the King. But worst of all, they 
intruded into our households. Now, a man's 
house is intended by Allah to be his own ; and 
a man's women-folk are dedicated to his peculiar 
service ; but the naughty Youths, whom the 
King had sent for our defence, would by no 
means acquiesce in these propositions. Instead, 
they made love under our very eyes to all our 
women-kind — from the little virgin daughters, 
sitting secluded on the hanging-shelf, to the wife 
busy with her household affairs among the 
cooking-pots. It was a very great scandal, 
the more so since the fickle women, — for Allah 
hath withholden from these all judgment and 
discretion, dowering them only with a certain 
shame, that serves in some imperfect measure 
to curb the desire of their hearts, — flattered by 
the insolent attentions of these town -bred 
gallants, conspired with them unceasingly to 
work our dishonour. 

" One night when I was sleeping in my house 
in the village of Sega, I was aroused by a tapping 
on the door ; and rising up, I beheld my brother 
Meng standing without, his face pale in the 
moonlight. At his bidding, I took my arms and 
went forth to join him ; and then, with shak- 
ing voice, he whispered in mine ear how one 
Saiyid Ebong, a King's Youth, and a descendant 
of the Prophet Muhammad, had entered his 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 299 

house with four armed followers, and had 
bidden him roughly be gone. Now Meng, the 
son of my mother's brother, and therefore mine 
own brother to me, had been but lately wedded 
to a girl, the daughter of my father's sister's 
husband — a pretty maid, but sadly lacking both 
in propriety and discretion ; and Meng wept 
with rage and jealousy as he thought of her 
closeted with the Saiyid. Yet what could he 
do ? He was one man against four ; he was 
unskilled in the use of weapons, and they were 
trained to arms from their youth upward. 
Moreover, they were of the number of the King's 
Youths, and under the King's protection. There- 
fore he had come to me, weeping and wailing, 
seeking my aid and counsel. Together we 
aroused from their slumbers sundry other of 
the villagers, and told them that which had 
befallen ; but they were timorous, and they 
besought Meng that he would make with his 
calamity such issue as he might, not involving 
them, lest some worse trouble should fall upon 
the entire village. I also added my prayer to 
theirs ; but Meng was past reason, for the demon 
of jealousy had him m his grip, and drawing his 
wood-knife — he had no kris — he made as though 
he would have slain me, and then dashed from 
me in the direction of his house. I followed at 
a safe distance, and in the calm moonlight I 
watched his figure flitting like a shadow between 
the trunks of the cocoa-nut trees . Creeping under 
the raised flooring of his house, he stabbed up- 



300 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

ward furiously in a certain spot, wliere he knew 
the sleeping mats to lie stretched, and a woman's 
scream answered the thrust. I heard him give 
a hard coughing cry, deep down in his throat, 
and then he stabbed again, and yet again. 
Lights sprang into red life within the hut ; there 
was a great outcry and commotion, a running 
to and fro of feet upon the yielding bamboo 
laths. Then the door was flung wide, and a 
knot of men fell through the opening down the 
stairway to the ground. Meng dashed from 
under the house yeUing, * Amok I Amok I ' and 
flung himself upon the heap of struggling men. 
I saw the blade of his wood-knife rise and fall, 
flashing in the moonlight ; I heard cries of pain 
and terror ; and dimly, half revealed, I spied 
the pale face of the Saiyid peep through the open 
doorway and then withdraw into the darkness. 

" I saw the struggling knot of human beings 
break, just as a bubble breaks, and become 
dissolved into its component parts. The bodies 
of one man and of one old woman remained 
upon the spot over which it had rolled and 
writhed. Meng's weapon had taken so much 
toll. I saw three figures rush away into the 
shadows. I saw Meng, limping a Httle from 
some hurt, and bewildered by the darkness, run 
in pursuit, first of one, then of another, and at 
last stand still, his wood-knife dripping blood. 
He raised a strained face skyward, and the 
moonlight fell full upon it. Never shall I forget 
that face 1 It was gashed across by a cut from 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 301 

which the blood flowed freely ; the teeth were 
locked together, like the teeth of a tiger that 
has died fighting hard for life ; the skin was 
sallow and unpleasant to the sight, as the skin of 
a corpse ; and the eyes, tense with agony and 
with despair, were fixed accusingly upon High 
Heaven. Thrice he cried aloud in a voice that 
fell lamentably upon the quiet of the night — 
cried to God : ' Allah I Allah ! Allah ! ' It was 
a terrible cry to which to listen, for there was in 
it a note of great bitterness, a great despair, an 
intense revolt against the cruelty, the injustice of 
Fate. Then his voice broke in a sob, and * lang,' 
he cried, and again, ' lang, my little lang,' 
calling pitifully upon his wife, for he knew that 
he had killed her. Next, with a sudden leap, he 
plunged into the brushwood at the edge of the 
village, and was gone. 

'* There was a great commotion in the village, 
for word soon spread that Meng, the son of my 
mother's brother, and mine own brother to me, 
had run amok, and all doors were barred and a 
strict watch kept. The Saiyid, whose misdeeds 
had brought this trouble upon us, was very 
angry, speaking pungent words to our elders, 
and threatening them with the wrath of Under- 
neath-the-Foot, in that a gross dishonour had 
been wrought upon his servants. At dawn the 
next day there was a panic at the river-brink, 
for Meng, leaping from a hiding-place in the 
underwood, fell upon those who had come down 
to fetch water, slaying a man, a woman, and two 



302 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

children, and escaping unhurt ere any could 
stay him. At this the anger of the Saiyid 
passed beyond all bounds ; and at last, obedient 
to his bidding, we sallied forth ; and Omar, the 
son of Chik, shot Meng from afar with one of the 
King's rifles while he sat dropping to sleep at 
the foot of a forest tree, not dreaming that any- 
one was at hand. 

" Later, when the Saiyid had made represen- 
tation to the King, we of Sega were forced to pay 
much diat — blood-money — on account of the 
killings which Meng in his madness had wrought. 
Ahij Ahi, that was, in truth, an evil season ! 
Our crops were perforce neglected ; we dared no 
longer resist the King's Youths, and could only 
shut our eyes, as best we might, to their wicked- 
nesses ; and even when (longing to be free of 
these our oppressors) we rose and drove Wan Da 
and his people back into Selangor, the King sent 
one of his Treasurers up-stream, and exacted 
from our villages a heavy price as the cost of the 
weapons and the shooting-medicine which he 
had supplied, and which we had used for the 
routing of his enemies. 

'' Ahi, Dato', those days were brave days, per- 
chance, because we, who now are old, then were 
young ; and youth, surely, is above all gifts — the 
best seasoning for every appetite, the one season- 
ing that never yet bred satiety. But though 
youth itself was good, and the brave days were 
brave for those who held power and strength, — 
as was the case with thee and with the Saiyid, — 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 303 

what of us weaklings, who had neither the one 
nor the other— we, the cattle of mankind, who 
bore the burdens of all, and had no means to 
ease or lighten them? '* 

A silence fell upon us as we squatted there 
in the half-dark ; and then a youngster lifted 
up his voice and spoke. 

" For me," he said, " I hold the opinion of 
the aged Dato' here. Give me a free world 
for a man to carve as Fate and his own strong 
hands permit. There must have been a savour 
in the times of which ye tell. Now, what is 
there ? School for our boyhood ; a little of 
love and of loitering for our youth ; nothing to 
awaken the dormant manhood in the heart of 
a man ; no deeds to do, no tests of courage, 
no guerdons to be gained by a prowess greater 
than that which belongs to one's fellows. It 
is a dead, a monotonous, a stupid world into 
which we of to-day are born ; and I say, * Give 
us back the Past, with all its risks, out of which 
a triumph might be torn by manhood ! ' *' 

There was a hum of approval from all the 
young men who sat around ; but the present 
Headman of the village, the grandson of the 
old Chief who was my host, checked it with 
a gesture. 

" Hearken to me," he said, " for I have lived 
actively in the old and in the new. I have 
known both, I have judged both, and I speak 
words that are true. It is like this. To you, 
very wise ones, — whose span of life barely equals 



304 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

the three months that go to a season of maize, — 
and to thee, Dato', — whose years are so heavy 
upon thee that thou Hvest now only in the 
memory of thy youth, — it is the old times 
that are good, because they seem to hold in 
them the fire of youth and the pride of life. 
To you young ones they are good, because you 
do not understand ; whilst thou, who art very 
old, dost forget many things. 

" Have you ever seen a tiger spring upon 
the neck of a buffalo as the kine troop down 
to water ? Have you noted the sureness of 
the blow, the judgment of the leap, and how 
the cattle scatter and fly, not dreaming of 
resistance? Have you thought of the terror 
in the heart of the buffaloes, as nightly they 
take their way across the pastures in the quiet 
of the eventide, not knowing when a bush may 
be rent asunder by the crashing onslaught of the 
great beast, whose coming means death to one, 
despairing flight to all? Well, in the olden 
times, of which my memory still holds the un- 
dimmed record, we, the people of the land, — 
the men not born to high rank or station, — were 
a herd of buffaloes ; and the tigers — the Rajas, 
the Chiefs, ay, and brave and strong men 
like the Dato' here — were over-numerous, and 
held us at their mercy ; and of mercy they had 
scant measure. 

" Now once, long ago, I chanced to be at the 
Court of the King when there was great work 
forward by reason of his daughter's wedding ; 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 305 

and among the sports arranged for the pleasure 
of the noble company there assembled was a 
duel to the death between a buffalo bull, of 
great size and comeliness, and a full-grown male 
tiger — the most splendid that my eyes have 
ever looked upon. A big arena, fenced with 
the trunks of cocoa-nut trees driven deep into 
the ground, had been prepared ; and first of 
all the tiger was let loose, and he came forth, 
very handsome and majestic, lashing his flanks 
with his tail, and snarling a little at the scent 
of so many human beings. We who looked 
upon him held our breath in admiration, for 
he was in truth very wonder-compelling and 
awe-inspiring in his magnificence and his 
ferocity. There was the monster, fierce and 
cruel and brave, the thought of which had 
been an abiding terror to the defenceless kine 
straying through the pastures ; and surely he 
had, in his time, taken from them many a 
heavy toll. As I looked upon him, I said in 
my heart, ' Yonder stands my Lord the King ! ' 
And sorrow was in my soul in that Fate had 
fashioned me of common clay — or, as it were, 
had made me only one of the grazing kine, not 
a flesh-eater such as this. 

" Then, next, certain doors were flung wide 
at the opposite side of the arena, and through 
them was admitted the huge buffalo bull. He 
was big of limb, cleanly formed, and the muscles 
stood out like the rounded coils of the fig-vine 
that eat into the bark of a tree. Also his hide 



3o6 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

was glossy, for he was in fighting trim, and 
those who tended him had groomed him with 
loving hands. He moved out into the open 
space as the door fell to behind him, holding 
his head high, and blowing a little at the tiger- 
tainted wind. Back and back went his horns, 
till the tips touched his shoulder points ; and up 
and up went his muzzle, while his eyes looked 
down its length at his enemy with, as it were, 
a kind of contemptuous disgust. Thrice his 
off fore hoof was lifted, and as he smote the 
earth with it he snorted mightily ; but there 
was pride and anger, not fear, in the sound 
that came from his nostrils. 

" I glanced from him to the tiger, and behold, 
the demeanour of that kingly beast had 
changed. He was no longer the majestic one 
who rules so cruelly over the brutes of the 
forest and the field ; he was transformed into a 
big sneaking cat — a cat that was much afraid — 
that ran to and fro, to and fro against the stout 
barriers of the arena, seeking vainly to escape. 

'' Another snort of defiance and of anger 
came from the buffalo. Then, in a flash, his 
great head dropped between his forefeet, and 
was tucked away beneath his belly, so that 
the horns stood out like two immense reap- 
ing hooks, such as the Rawas use. His limbs 
were gathered under him ; together they smote 
the ground ; and with incredible speed the 
huge bulk of the beast was hurled forward in 
the direction of the tiger, the little angry eyes 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 307 

lurking behind the horns, guiding the onslaught. 
The horns struck the tiger full in the flank, 
piercing his striped skin. Next the great cat 
was lifted off the ground, and was rubbed this 
way and that against the stout cocoa-nut trunks. 
Then, with a tremendous heave, it was thrown 
clear into the air. A moment later it was a 
writhing mass of blood and stained skin, mangled 
and broken and rent ; and the buffalo, with 
no hurt save a scratch upon his nose, drew 
back snorting and stamping, to glare upon 
the ruin he had wrought. 

'' My brothers, for once the tiger and the 
buffalo had been suffered to fight out a passage 
of their eternal battle with a fair field and 
no favour ; and behold, the buffalo — he who 
since the beginning of things hath ever been 
the vanquished one — stood revealed the victor, 
and the secret of the tiger's prowess was made 
manifest. He owed his triumphs, my brothers, 
not to his strength, not to his valour, not to any 
of the qualities that make for greatness, but 
solely to the advantage of position. 

" That was a spectacle that set me, and it 
may be others too, a-thinking ; for the battle 
between the tiger and the bull appeared to 
many of us to be, in some sort, an allegory. 
Was it, I asked myself, by virtue of some inherent 
superiority that those whom Fate had dowered 
with high station played the role of the tiger, 
while we, folk of little standing, were held at 
their mercy, at their will and pleasure, even 



308 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

as the dull kine are held? Or was it after 
all — the thought persisted — with our rulers as 
with the tiger — the advantage of position that 
gave or denied victories? 

'' Later, when the white folk came into this 
same land of Pahang, it seemed to me that the 
barriers — the police stations, the eye-folk of 
the Government, the court-houses, the white 
men, who deal out justice with an even hand 
to rich and poor, strong and weak, great and 
small, — all the things of which the Dato' here 
spoke slightingly a little while ago, — were, in 
truth, the barriers of that arena in which the 
battle between the kine and the tiger could be 
fought out at last on an equality. Now which, 
think you, afforded the chance to the buffalo 
of displaying such qualities of valour as he 
possessed — the open pastures, where the advan- 
tage of position was ever with his enemy, or the 
walled arena, in which each stood forth, robbed 
of all outside aids, each to face each with such 
strength and courage as Allah hath vouchsafed 
to him ? 

" Oh, you very wise young men, — who know 
nothing, because your memories register no 
experiences, — when you dwell in fancy upon 
the days that are dead, you behold them 
through the glamour of the half-light, such 
as that in which we here sit talking. You see 
only the outlines, bold and beautiful — only the 
charm and the romance. But in the full light 
such as memory sheds I see the truth — the 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 309 

bitter, cruel truth ; and humbly I thank Allah, 
the Merciful, the Compassionate, because the 
face of our world is changed. To all of you it 
seemeth, when dreams of the past fill you with 
regret, — that past of which you never supped 
the bitter taste, — that you would have been 
counted among the number of the tigers ; that 
others, not you, would have been the kine upon 
which your lordships would have preyed. But 
remember, though the tiger-folk were over- 
numerous for the comfort of their fellows, the 
kine were as a hundred to one ; and by such odds 
is the chance to be reckoned against your ability 
— had you lived in those times — to take that 
for which your hearts lusted, or even to keep 
securely that which was your own according to 
the law of man and of God. Ponder this in 
your hearts, and thank Allah for the present, 
wasting no foolish tears over the past, which 
held so much of bitterness and of sorrow for 
us all. Also — I crave thy pardon, Dato' — the 
barriers which the white folk have reared about 
us, for the confusion of evil-doers and for the 
defence of the impotent, cannot fittingly be 
named ' shelters upbuilt for the protection of 
cowards.' Rather they are means whereby all 
men are robbed of the advantage of position ; 
wherefore to-day, in a measure which in the 
past was undreamed of, each man stands upon 
his own two feet, holds his Fate in his own two 
hands — and, to my thinking, thereby is developed 
in the heart of each one of us such seeds of 



310 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

manliness as Allah hath bestowed upon him at 
his birth, if he lack not the soul wherewith to 
win the mastery over Fate." 

A silence fell upon the group of Malayan 
villagers, and thoughts crowded my mind. I 
had stepped out of the present into the past ; 
out of our modern civilisation into the old 
adventuresome, romantic life which of old had 
been dear to me. For me too its memories held 
the glamour and the glory of youth, — were 
hallowed by the " light that never was on land 
or sea " ; and at my first coming that evening, 
with the past suddenly revived for me by the 
old familiar sights and experiences; — the sounds 
that I had known so well, the faint soft scents 
of the fruit-groves without, and of the smoke of 
the wood-fire within the native hut, — I too had 
been stirred with sentimental regrets for the old 
order, that in passing had deprived me of so 
much of my individual freedom and liberty, and 
had penned me in a present too narrow for my 
needs. Also, for a moment, I had been beset 
with doubt. From the ball-room at Carcosa 
to the hut of the Malayan Headman, from the 
new to the old, from the elaborate environment 
of a fastidious civilisation to the old-world, 
primitive surroundings of this native gathering, 
I had had to make, as it seemed, hardly more 
than a single step. And behold all things 
were as I remembered them : nothing had 
suffered change. Was it then, after all, only a 
surface transformation that we had wrought? 



IN THE HALF-LIGHT 311 

Had we only plastered over the unalterable face 
of the East a thin veneer, which the action of 
Time, perhaps, would chip away almost as 
quickly as our busy hands had contrived to 
impose it ? The thought had had in it a sort 
of terror. The meanest of us who accepts for 
his lot in life the career of a civil servant in 
Asia pays in his own person, and in the persons 
of those who are dearest to him, many a heavy 
price for his country's Empire. Take away from 
us, even for a moment, our faith in the value of 
the work to which we have set our hands, to 
which we have devoted our lives, for which we 
have made so many and such bitter sacrifices, 
and there is taken from us also all hope, all 
raison d'etre, all that remains to us of content- 
ment, of consolation, of solace, of recompense. 
If the British Empire in the East be not the 
greatest engine for good that God in His eternal 
wisdom hath made ; if the work upon which 
we spend ourselves (judged not only by balance- 
sheets, but by results of a vaster, higher, deeper, 
broader, more lasting character) be not innately 
and in itself worthy of accomplishment, — a 
definite contribution to the permanent improve- 
ment of the condition of mankind, — then we 
ourselves have wasted our days — those precious 
days that will never dawn again — and all the 
labour and the sorrow and the sacrifice are in 
vain. 

This I had felt when, obeying a momentary 
impulse, I had quoted to my companions the 



312 MALAYAN MONOCHROMES 

rude quatrain of the Kedah fisher-folk, which 
had set a-flowing these streams of Malayan 
talk. But now I was comforted. As the 
younger of the two Headmen had said, I had, 
with the youngsters around me, been tempted 
for a space to look at the Past — hallowed by 
the dim beauties of memory — even as men 
see things with their ugliness mercifully veiled 
when they gaze upon them in the half-light. 
Now, in a flash, life in Malaya was revealed to 
me as it was and is ; and I was glad because the 
Past — with all its bravery, all its romance, and 
all its ills — was dead. 



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