Part 13

'The jungles are growing empty now, _Tuan_, and many things are changed since the days when I was a boy roaming through the woods of the Plus valley with my father and my two brothers. Now we live in these poor jungles of the Upper Perak valley, where the yams and roots are less sweet and less plentiful than in our former home, and where the fish-traps are often empty, and the game wild and scarce. Does the _Tuan_ ask why then we quitted the valley of the Plus, and the hills of Legap, where once our camps were pitched? The _Tuan_ knows many things, and he has visited the forests of which I speak, why then does he ask our reason? It was not for love of these poor hunting grounds that we quitted the Plus valley, but because we loved our women-folk and our little ones. The _Tuan_ knows the tribe of Sakai who have their homes in the Plus, but does he not know also that they entered into a compact with the Malays of Lasak to aid in hunting us through the woods and selling all of our people whom they could catch into slavery? We of the forests had little fear of the Malays, for we could make blind trails that they could never follow, and could hide our camps in the shady places, where they could never find them. The Malays were wont, when they could trace us, to surround our camps at nightfall, and attack when the dawn was about to break, but many and many a time, when we were so surrounded, we made shift by night to escape from the circle which hemmed us in. How did we win out? What then are the trees made for? Has the _Tuan_ never heard of the bridges of the forest people that the Malays call _tali tenau_? When darkness was over the forest, the young men would ascend the trees, and stretch lines of rattan from bough to bough, over the places where the trees were too far apart for a woman to leap, and when all was ready, we would climb into the branches, carrying our cooking-pots and all that we possessed, the women bearing their babies at their breasts, and the little children following at their mothers' heels. Thus, treading shrewdly on the lines of rattan, we would pass from tree to tree, and so escape from our enemies. What does the _Tuan_ say? That it is difficult and hazardous to walk by night on slender lines stretched among the tree-tops? No, the matter was easy. Where there is room to set a foot, why need a man fear to fall? And thus we baffled the Malays, and won our freedom. But when the Sakai dogs aided the Malays, matters were changed indeed. They would sit in the tree-tops, the whole night through, calling one to another when we tried to break away; and, by day, they would track our foot-prints through places where no Malay might follow; and no trail was so blind but that the Sakai could see the way it tended. Men said that they served the Malays in this manner that thereby they might preserve their own women-folk from captivity. But I know not. The Sakai live in houses, and plant growing things--like the Malays. They know much of the lore of the forest, but many secrets of the jungle which are well known to us are hidden from their eyes. Yea, even though the fair valley of the Plus is now possessed by them, and the mountain of Korbu is now _their_ home as it was once our own, the spirits of the hills and streams are still our friends, and they teach not their secrets to the strangers. How should it not be so? Our tribe springs from the mountain of Korbu, and the hills of Legap; theirs from the broad forests towards the rising sun, beyond the Kinta valley. No tribe but ours knows of the forests at the back of Gunong Korbu, nor of the doom, which, in the fulness of time, will fall upon the Sakai. Beyond that great peak, in the depths of the silent forest places, there lives a tribe of women, fair of face and form, taller than men, paler in colour, stronger, bolder. This is the tribe that is to avenge us upon those who have won our hunting grounds. These women know not men; but when the moon is at the full they dance naked, in the grassy places near the salt-licks, where the passing to-and-fro of much game has thinned the forest. The Evening Wind is their only spouse, and through Him they conceive and bear children. Yearly are born to them offspring, mostly women-folk whom they cherish even as we do our young; but if, perchance, they bear a manchild, the mother slays it ere it is well-nigh born. Thus live they, and thrive they, ever increasing and multiplying, and their bows and blow-pipes are sometimes found by us in the deep hollows of the woods. Larger are they than those we use, more beautifully carved, and, moreover, they are of a truer aim. But woe to the man who meets these women, or who dares to penetrate into the woods in which they dwell, for he will surely die unless the ghosts give speed to his flight. Of all this tribe, I alone have seen these women, and that when I was a young hunter, many many moons agone. I and two others, my brothers, when hunting through the forest, passed beyond the limits of our own woods, following the halting tracks of a wounded stag. After much walking, and eager following of the trail, for the camp was hungry lacking meat, we found the stag lying near a brook, killed by a larger arrow than the bow we carry throws, and, at the same moment, we heard a loud, threatening cry in a strange tongue. Then I, looking up, beheld a gigantic form, as of a pale-skinned woman, breaking through the jungle, some two hundred elbow-lengths away, and, at the same moment, my elder brother fell pierced by an arrow. I stayed to see no more, but ran, with all my young blood tingling with fear, leaving my brothers and the slaughtered stag, tearing through the thickets of thorn, but never feeling them rend my skin, nor ever stopped to catch my breath or drink, until, all wounded and breathless, covered with blood and sweat-like foam, I half fell, half staggered to the camp of mine own people. Thereafter, for long days, I lay 'twixt life and death, screaming in fear of the dreadful form I ever fancied was pursuing me. My brothers never again returned to camp, and I alone am left to tell the tale.'

The old man ceased his weird story, the fear of what he thought he had seen still apparently strong upon him. He certainly believed what he said, as also did every person present, with the exception of my own sceptical self, and I have often tried to find some reasonable explanation for the story. I have not succeeded, for, even in the wildest parts of the Peninsula, the aborigines do not shoot one another on sight, whatever they may do to bands of marauding Malays, nor do serious quarrels ever arise between them over the division of a little fresh meat. Judging by the scared look in his eyes, as he told the story, the old Semang had felt the fear of imminent death very close at hand that day long ago in the quiet forests at the back of Gunong Korbu. His brethren, too, must undoubtedly have been killed by some one or something, and perhaps the old-world tradition of the Amazons, furnished to the mind of the survivor the most natural explanation of the catastrophe.

A dozen years and more have slipped away since I heard this tale, told in the fire-light of the Semang camp, in the Upper Perak valley, and now there is a trigonometrical survey station on the summit of Korbu. It is true that the surveyors employed there have made no mention in their reports of the Amazons of the neighbourhood, and the Sakai are still living in prosperity, in spite of the impending doom, which the old Semang foretold for them. None the less, however, I hold to the belief that my informant actually did see something weird and uncanny at the back of Gunong Korbu; and that the keen eyes of a jungle-dwelling Semang should not be able to clearly recognise anything their owner could encounter in the forests of the Peninsula, is, in itself, a miracle.

'HIS HEART'S DESIRE'

They wrench my back on a red-hot rack, They comb my nerves with wire, They poison with pain the blood of my brain Till the Devils of Devilry tire; They spit from Above on the name of my Love, They call my Love a liar; But they can't undo the joy I knew When I knew my Heart's Desire.

_The Song of the Lost Soul._--ANON.

Where and when these things happened does not signify at all. The East Coast is a long one, and the manners of the Malay _Rajas_ who dwell thereon have suffered but little change for centuries. Thus, both in the matter of time and of space, there is a wide choice, and plenty of exercise may be given to the imagination. The facts anyway are true, and they were related, in the watches of the night, to a White Man--whose name does not matter--by two people, with whose identity you also have no concern. One of the latter was a man whom I will call Awang Itam, and the other was a woman whose name was Bedah, or something like it. The place in which the tale was told was an empty sailing boat which lay beached upon a sandbank in the centre of a Malay river, and, as soon as the White Man had scrambled up the side, the dug-out, which had brought him, sheered off and left him.

He had come to this place by appointment, but he did not know precisely whom he was to meet, as the assignation had been made in the secret native fashion, which is as different from the invitation card of Europe as most things in the East are different from white men's gear. Twice that day his attention had been very pointedly called to this deserted sailing boat; once by an old crone who was selling sweetstuff from door to door, and once by a young chief who had stopped to speak to him, while passing up the street of the native town. By both of these some reference had been made to the moon-rise and to 'a precious thing'; and this was enough to show the White Man that something was to be learned, seen, or experienced by going to the deserted sailing boat at the rising of the moon.

The Malays who were with him feared a trap, and implored him not to go alone; but the White Man did not fancy that treachery was likely just then, and, in any case, he was anxious for the adventure, and could not afford to let his people think that he was afraid. The man who, dwelling alone among Malays in an unsettled country, shows the slightest trace of fear, signs his own death-warrant. No people are more susceptible to 'bluff,' and, given a truculent bearing, and a sufficiency of bravado, a coward may pass for a brave man in many a Malay State.

The decks of the boat were wet with dew and drizzle, and she smelt abominably of ancient fish cargoes which she had carried before she was beached. A light rain was falling, and the White Man crept along the side until he reached the stern, which was covered with a roofing of rotten palm-leaf mats. Through the rents at the stern he could see the moon rising like a great red ball, throwing a broad wave of dancing light along the reaches of the river. Then he squatted down, rolled a cigarette, and awaited developments.

Presently the soft _splish, whisp! splash, whisp!_ of a single paddle came to his listening ear; and, a moment later, a girl's form, standing erect on the vessel's side, showed distinctly in the growing moonlight. She called softly to know if anybody was aboard, and the White Man answered equally cautiously. She then turned and whispered to some unseen person in a boat moored alongside, and, after some seconds, she came towards the White Man and said:

'There is one who would speak with thee, _Tuan_, but he cannot climb up the ship's side. He is like a dead man--unless one lifts him, how can he move? Will the _Tuan_, therefore, aid him to ascend into the ship?'

The White Man loosened his pistol in its holster, covertly, that she might not see, and stepped cautiously to the place where the boat appeared to be moored, for he, too, began to fear a trap. What he saw over the side reassured him. The dug-out was of the smallest, and it had only one occupant. He was a man who, even in the dim moonlight, showed the sharp angles of his bones. He had a peculiarly drawn and shrunken look, and the skin was stretched across his hollow cheeks like the goat-hide on a drum-face. The White Man leaped down into the boat, and, aided by the girl, he lifted the man on board. Then, painfully and very slowly, the latter crept aft, going on all fours like some unclean animal, until he had reached the shelter in the stern. The girl and the White Man followed, and they all three squatted down on the creaking bamboo decking. The man sat, all of a heap, moaning at short intervals, as Malays moan when the fever holds them. The girl sat unconcernedly preparing a quid of betel-nut from its four ingredients, and the White Man inhaled his cigarette and waited for them to speak. He was trying to get the hang of the business, and to guess what had caused two people, whom he did not know, to seek an interview with him in this weird place, at such an untimely hour.

The girl, the moonlight told him, was pretty. She had a small, perfectly shaped head, a wide smooth forehead, neat, glossy hair, bright, laughing eyes, with eyebrows arched and well-defined, 'like the artificial spur of a fighting cock,' and the pretty little hands and feet which are so common among all well-born Malay women. The man was hideous. His shrunken and twitching face with its taut skin, and his utterly broken, degraded, and decrepit appearance were indescribably horrible, and the flickering of the moonlight, through the torn mat overhead, only added to the grotesqueness of his figure.

At length the girl looked up at the White Man, and spoke:

'The _Tuan_ knows Awang Itam?' she asked. Yes, the White Man knew him well, but had not seen him for some months.

'This is he,' she said, pointing to the abject figure by her side, and her listener felt as though she had struck him across the face. When last he had seen Awang Itam, he was one of the best favoured of the King's Youths, a fine, upstanding youngster, dressed in many-coloured silks, and with an amount of side and swagger about him, which would have amply sufficed for a regiment of Her Majesty's Guards. Now he half lay, half sat, on the damp decking, the most pitiful wreck of humanity that the White Man had ever seen. What had befallen him to cause so fearful a change? I will tell you the tale, in my own words, as the White Man learned it from him and Bedah, as they sat talking during the watches of that long night.

In every Independent Malay State, there is a gang of fighting men, which watches over the person of the King and acts as his bodyguard. It is recruited from the sons of the chiefs, nobles, and men of the well-bred classes; and its members follow at the heels of the King whenever he goes abroad, paddle his boat, join with him in the chase, gamble unceasingly, do much evil in the King's name, slay all who chance to offend him, and flirt lasciviously with the girls within the palace. They are always ready for anything from 'pitch-and-toss to manslaughter,' and no Malay king has to ask twice in their hearing 'Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?' Their one aim in life is to gain the favour of their master, and, having won it, to freely abuse their position. As the Malay proverb has it, they carry their master's work upon their heads, and their own under their arms, and woe betide those who are not themselves under the immediate protection of the King, that chance throws in their way. Sometimes they act as a kind of irregular police force, levying _chantage_ from those whom they detect in the commission of an offence; and, when crime is scarce, they often exact blackmail from wholly innocent people by threatening to accuse them of some ill-deed, unless their goodwill is purchased at their own price. They are known as the _Budak Raja_--or King's Youths--and are greatly feared by the people, for they are as reckless, as unscrupulous, as truculent, and withal as gaily dressed and well born a gang of young ruffians, as one would be like to meet in a long summer's cruise.

Awang Itam had served the King for several years as one of the _Budak Raja_, but his immediate chief was Saiyid Usman, a youngster who was also one of the King's Youths, and was usually spoken of as Tuan Bangau. Awang had been born and bred in the house of which Tuan Bangau's father was the head, and, though in accordance with the immutable Malay custom, Awang always spoke of himself as 'thy servant' when he addressed Tuan Bangau, the relations which subsisted between them more nearly resembled those of brothers, than those which we recognise as being proper to master and servant. They had crawled about the floor of the women's apartments in company, until they were old enough to play in the open air; they had played _porok_ and _tuju lubang_, and all the games known to Malay children, still in company; they had splashed about in the river together, cooling their little brown bodies in the running water; they had often eaten from the same plate, and had slept side by side on the same mat spread in the verandah. Later, they had been circumcised on the same day, and, having thus entered upon man's estate, they had together begun to participate in the life of dissipation which every court-bred Malay boy regards as his birth-right. Thus they had gone astraying after strange women, gambling and quarelling with the other youths, but still in company, and with their old love for one another unaltered. They had been duly entered as members of the King's Youths, and had proved themselves not to be the least reckless and truculent of those who form that ruffianly gang, but they had chiefly used their position to carry on their love intrigues with greater freedom and daring. Both were handsome, dashing, fearless, swaggering, gaily-dressed boys, and many were the girls within the palace, and the town which lay around it, who cast loving eyes upon them. Awang, however, cared little for this, for, by the irony of that Fate which always directs that men should fall in love with the wrong women, and _vice versa_, his heart was eaten up with a fiery desire for a girl who was a _jamah-jamah-an_, or casual concubine of the King, and who resolutely declined to have ought to do with him. Nevertheless, the moth still fluttered around the candle, and Awang never missed an opportunity of catching a passing glimpse of the object of his longing. It was an evil day for both Awang Itam and Tuan Bangau, however, when, as they swaggered past the palace-fence, seeking to peep at this girl, they were seen by the King's daughter, Tungku Uteh, and a desire was straightway born in her breast for the young and handsome Saiyid.

In the East, love affairs develop quickly; and that very day Awang Itam again saw Iang Munah, the girl whom he had loved so long and so hopelessly, and by a flash of an eye-lid was informed that she had that to tell him which it concerned him to know. When both parties desire a secret interview many difficulties may be overcome, and that evening Awang whispered into the ear of Tuan Bangau that 'the moon was about to fall into his lap.'

'I dreamed not long since,' said Tuan Bangau, 'that I was bitten by a very venomous snake!' And then Awang knew that his friend was ready for any adventure.

To dream of a snake bite, among any of the people of the Far East, means that ere long the dreamer will receive generous favours from some lady who is either of exalted rank, or of most surpassing beauty. The greater the venom of the snake, the brighter, it is believed, are the qualities with which the dreamer's future mistress is endowed. It is not only in Europe, that venom enters into the soul of a man by reason of a woman, and this is, perhaps, the explanation of how this dream comes to bear this peculiar interpretation.

Tuan Bangau's position was a curious one. He did not desire Tungku Uteh for herself; she was his King's daughter, and the wife of a royal husband; and his duty and his interest alike forbade him to accept her advances. If his intrigue with her was discovered, he was a ruined, if not a dead man, and, moreover, he was at this time devoted to another girl, whom he had recently married. The challenge which had been conveyed to him, however, was one which, in spite of all these things, his code of honour made it impossible for him to refuse. The extreme danger, which lay in such an intrigue, gave him no choice but to accept it. That was his point of view, 'His honour rooted in dishonour stood,' and no self-respecting Malay, brought up in the poisonous atmosphere of an Independent Malay State, could admit of any other opinion.

With Awang Itam things were different. I have already said that he was passionately in love with Iang Munah, and he knew that he would at length win his Heart's Desire. He would accompany his chief on his nocturnal visits to the palace, and, while Tuan Bangau wooed the Princess, the handmaiden would give herself to him. He felt the 'blood run redder in every vein' at the bare thought, and he was the eager and impatient lover when the twain crept into the palace in the noon of the night.

They effected their entrance by a way known only to themselves, and left by the same means before the breaking of the dawn, passing to their quarters in the guard-house, through the slumbering town, and lay sleeping far into the day. For more than a month they paid their secret visits unobserved by any save those whom they sought, and by the old crone who unbarred the door for them to enter; but, upon a certain night, they narrowly escaped detection. The King, like many Malay _Rajas_, kept curious hours. Sometimes, he slept all day, sometimes he slept all night; some days he went to rest at noon, to awake at midnight; and, on such occasions, he often wandered about the palace alone, pouncing upon ill-doers, like the lion which seeketh whom it may devour. In this way he chanced upon Tuan Bangau and Awang Itam, but they had fled from the palace before he had learned who they were, and who were the girls whom they had come to seek.

After this the meetings ceased for a space, but Tungku Uteh was not to be so easily baulked, and a taunting message soon brought Tuan Bangau once more to her feet. The meetings, however, no longer took place within the palace itself, the lovers meeting and passing the night in a wood-shed within the fence of the royal enclosure.

Things had gone on in this way for some time when Tungku Uteh began to weary of the lack of excitement attending the intrigue. Like many Malay women she regarded it as a reproach to a girl if no man desired her, and the longing became greater and greater to show her partner and her immediate _entourage_ that she also was wooed and loved. She had an affection for Tuan Bangau, and admired him as a lover and a man, but even this could not restrain the growing longing for notoriety. Perhaps she hardly realised how grave would be the consequences; perhaps she struggled against the impulse; who can say? The fact remains that her lover was sacrificed, as many a man has been before and since, upon the altar of a woman's ungovernable vanity.

One night, when the yellow dawn was splashing the gray in the East, and the thin smoke-like clouds were hurrying across the sky, like great night fowls winging their homeward way, Tuan Bangau awoke and found Uteh sitting beside him with his _kris_ and girdle in her hands. She had taken them from his pillow as he slept, and no persuasions on his part could induce her to return them. While he yet sought to coax her into foregoing her resolve, she leaped to her feet, and, with a sweet little laugh, disappeared in the palace, and Tuan Bangau returned homeward with Awang Itam, each knowing that now indeed their hour was come.