Chapter 9

The jungles, for a fugitive from his enemies, are not a pleasant refuge. The constant dampness, which clings to anything in the dark recesses of the forest, breeds boils and skin irritation of all sorts on the bodies of those who dare not come out into the open places. Faces, on which the sunlight never falls, become strangely pallid, and the constant agony of mind scores deep lines on cheek and forehead. The food, too, is bad. Rice the fugitive must have, or the loathsome dropsical swellings, called _basal_, soon cripple the strongest limbs; but a Malay cannot live on rice alone, and the sour jungle fruits, and other vegetable growths, with which he ekes out his scanty meals, wring his weakened stomach with constant pangs and aches. All these things Wan Bong now experienced, as he daily shifted his camp, from one miserable halting-place to another; but a greater pain than all the rest was soon to be added to his cup of bitterness. He was an opium smoker, and his hoarded store of the precious drug began to run very low. At last the day came on which it was exhausted, and Wan Bong was driven to desperation. For some twenty-four hours he strove against the overpowering longing for that subtle drug that leads the strongest will captive, but the struggle was all in vain. When, at length, the physical pain had become so intense that Wan Bong could neither stand, nor sit, nor lie down for more than a minute at a time, nor yet could still the moans which the restless torture drew from him, he despatched one of his boys to seek for the supply of opium, which alone could assuage his sufferings.

The boy left him, and his two other companions, in a patch of the high grass, which the Malays call _resam_, that chanced to grow at the edge of the forest near Batu Nering. He promised to return to him as soon as the opium should have been procured. But Che' Wan Ahman's people had anticipated that Wan Bong would, sooner or later, be forced to purchase opium, and no sooner had the messenger presented himself at the shop of the Chinese trader, who sold the drug, than he found himself bound hand and foot. He was carried before Che' Wan Ahman's representative, and interrogated. He denied all knowledge of Wan Bong's hiding-place; but Malays have methods of making people speak the truth on occasion. They are grim, ghastly, blood-curdling methods, that need not be here described in detail; suffice it to say that the boy spoke.

That evening, as the short twilight was going out in the sky, and the flakes of scarlet-dyed clouds were paling overhead, a body of men crept, with noiseless feet, through the clump of long grass in which Wan Bong was hiding. They saw him sitting on the earth, bent double over his folded arms, rocking his body to and fro, in the agony of the opium smoker, when the unsatisfied craving for the drug is strong upon him. There was a rustle in the grass behind him, the sharp fierce clang of a rifle rang out through the forest, and a bullet through Wan Bong's back ended his pains for ever. The Headman of the pursuing band was Che' Burok of Pulau Tawar, but he was a prudent person who kept well in the rear until the deed had been done. Then he came forward rapidly, and unstringing the purse-belt from around his waist, he gave it to the man who had fired the shot, in exchange for a promise that not he, but Che' Burok, should have the credit which is due to one who has slain the enemies of the King. Thus it was that Che' Burok was credited, for a time, with the deed, and reaped fair rewards from the Bendahara and his sons. But murder will out, and Che' Burok died some years later, a discredited liar, in disgrace with his former masters, and shorn of all his honours and possessions.

Wan Bong's head was sawn off at the neck, and was carried into camp, by that splendid shock of luxuriant black hair, which had been his pride when he was alive. It was clotted with blood now, and matted with the dirt from the lairs where he had slept in the jungle, but it served well enough as a handle by which to hold his dissevered head, and there was no need, therefore, to make a puncture under his chin, whence to pass a rattan cord through to his mouth, as is the custom when there is no natural handle by which such trophies can be carried.

On Che' Burok's arrival in camp, the head was salted, as Che' Jahya's had been, and, like his, it was also smeared with turmeric. Then, when the dawn had broken, it was fastened, still by its luxuriant hair, to the horizontal bar which supports the forward portion of the punting platform on a Malay boat, and the _prahu_, with its ghastly burden, started down river to Pekan, to the sound of beating drums, and clanging gongs, and to the joyous shouts of the men at the paddles. For two hundred odd miles they bore this present to their King, down all the glorious reaches of river, glistening in the sunlight, that wind through the length of the Pahang valley. The people of the villages came out upon the river banks, and watched the procession file past them with silent, unmoved countenances, and all the long way the distorted head of him, whose eyes had looked with longing on a throne, shook gently from side to side, with the motion of the boat, as though he still was musing sadly on the schemes which had brought him to his bloody death.

'ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE'

For the gods very subtly fashion Madness with sadness upon earth: Not knowing in any wise compassion, Nor holding pity of any worth.

_Atalanta in Calydon._

In writing of the _amok_, which Dato' Kaya Biji Derja ran in the streets of Kuala Trengganu, I have spoken of suicide as being of very rare occurrence among Malays of either sex, and, indeed, I know of no authenticated case in which a man of these people has taken his life with his own hand. A Chinaman, who has had a difference of opinion with a friend, or who conceives that he has been ill-treated by the Powers that be, betakes himself to his dwelling, and there deliberately hangs himself with his pig-tail, dying happy in the pleasing belief that his spirit will haunt those who have done him a wrong, and render the remainder of their lives upon earth 'one demned horrid grind.' Not so the Malay. He, being gifted with the merest rudiments of an imagination, prefers to take practical vengeance on his kind by means of a knife, to trusting to such supernatural retaliation as may be effected after death by his ghost.

This story deals with a suicide which occurred in Pahang in July 1893, and I have selected it to tell, because the circumstances were remarkable, and are quite unprecedented in my experience.

If you go up the Pahang River for a hundred and eighty miles, you come to a spot where the stream divides into two main branches, and where the name Pahang dies an ignominious death in a small ditch, which debouches at their point of junction. The right stream,--using the term in its topographical sense,--is the Jelai, and the left is the Tembeling. If you go up the latter, you come to rapids innumerable, a few _gambir_ plantations, and a great many of the best ruffians in the Peninsula, who are also my very good friends. If you follow the Jelai up past Kuala Lipis, where the river of the latter name falls into it on its right bank, and on, and on, and on, you come to the Sakai country, where the Malay language is still unknown, and where the horizon of the people is formed by the impenetrable jungle that shuts down on the other side of a slender stream, and is further narrowed by the limitations of an intellect which cannot conceive an arithmetical idea higher than the numeral three. Before you run your nose into these uncleanly places, however, you pass through a district dotted with scattered Malay habitations; and, if you turn off up the Telang River, you find a little open country, and some prosperous-looking villages.

One day in July 1893, a feast in honour of a wedding was being held in one of these places, and the scene was a lively one. The head and skin of a buffalo, and the pools of blood, which showed where its carcase had been dismembered, were a prominent feature in the foreground, lying displayed in a very unappetising manner on a little piece of open ground. In one part of the village two men were posturing in one of the inane sword-dances which are so dear to all Malays, each performance being a subject of keen criticism or hearty admiration to the spectators. The drums and gongs meanwhile beat a rhythmical time, which makes the heaviest heels long to move more quickly, and the onlookers whooped and yelled again and again in shrill far-sounding chorus. The shout is the same as that which is raised by Malays when in battle; and, partly from its tone, and partly from association, one never hears it without a thrill, and some sympathetic excitement. It has a similar effect upon the Malays, who love to raise a _sorak_,--as these choric shouts are termed,--and the enthusiasm which it arouses is felt to be infectious, and speedily becomes maddening and intense.

All the men present were dressed in many-coloured silks and tartans, and were armed with daggers as befits warriors, but, if you had an eye for such things, you would have noticed that all the garments and weapons were worn in a manner which would have excited the ridicule of a down-country Malay. It is not in Europe only, that the country cousin furnishes food for laughter to his relatives in the towns.

In a _Balai_, specially erected for the purposes of the feast, a number of priests, and pilgrims, and _lebai_,--that class of fictitious religious mendicants, whose members are usually some of the richest men in the villages they inhabit,--were seated gravely intoning the _Kuran_, but stopping to chew betel-nut, and to gossip scandalously, at frequent intervals. The wag, too, was present among them, for he is an inevitable feature in all Malay gatherings, and he is generally one of the local holy men. 'It ain't precisely what 'e says, it's the _funny_ way 'e says it;'--for, like the professionally comic man all the world over, these individuals are popularly supposed to be invariably amusing, and a loud guffaw goes up whenever they open their mouths, no matter what the words that issue from them. Most of his hearers had heard his threadbare old jokes any time these twenty years, but the ready laughter greeted each of them in turn, as though they were newly born into the world. A Malay does not understand that a joke may pall from repetition, and is otherwise liable to be driven into the ground. He will ask for the same story, or the same jest time after time; prefers that it should be told in the same manner, and in the same words; and will laugh in the same place, with equal zest, at each repetition, just as do little children among ourselves. A similar failure to appreciate the eternal fitness of things, causes a Malay _Raja_, when civilised, to hang seven copies of the same unlovely photograph around the walls of his sitting-room.

Meanwhile, the women-folk had come from far and near, to help to prepare the feast, and the men, having previously done the heavy work of carrying the water, hewing the firewood, jointing the meat, and crushing the curry stuff, they were all busily engaged in the back premises of the house, cooking as only Malay women can cook, and keeping up a constant babble of shrill trebles, varied by an occasional excited scream of direction from one of the more senior women among them. The younger and prettier girls had carried their work to the door of the house, and thence were engaging at long range in the game of 'eye play,'--as the Malays call it,--with the youths of the village, little heeding the havoc they were making in susceptible male breasts, whose wounds, however, they would be ready enough to heal, as occasion offered, with a limitless generosity.

The bride, of course, having being dressed in her best, and loaded with gold ornaments, borrowed from many miles around, which had served to deck every bride in the district ever since any one could remember, was left seated on the _geta_, or raised sleeping platform, in the dimly lighted inner apartments, there to await the ordeal known to Malay cruelty as _sanding_. The ceremony that bears this name, is the one at which the bride and bridegroom are brought together for the first time. They are officially supposed never to have seen one another before, though no Malay who respects himself ever allows his _fiancee_ to be finally selected, until he has crept under her house, in the night time, and watched her through the bamboo flooring, or through the chinks in the wattled walls. They are led forth by their respective relations, and placed side by side upon a dais, prepared for the purpose, where they remain seated for hours, while the guests eat a feast in their presence, and thereafter chant verses from the _Kuran_. During this ordeal they must sit motionless, no matter how their cramped legs may ache and throb, and their eyes must remain downcast, and fixed upon their hands, which, scarlet with henna, lie motionless one on each knee. Malays, who have experienced this, tell me that it is very trying, and I can well believe it, the more so, since it is a point of honour for the man to try to catch an occasional glimpse of his _fiancee_ out of the corner of his eyes, without turning his head a hair's breadth, and without appearing to move an eyelash. The bridegroom is conducted to the house of his bride, there to sit in state, by a band of his relations and friends, some of whom sing shrill verses from the _Kuran_, while others rush madly ahead, charging, retreating, capering, dancing, yelling, and hooting, brandishing naked weapons, and engaging in a most realistic sham fight, with the bride's relations and friends, who rush out of her compound to meet them, and do not suffer themselves to be routed until they have made a fine show of resistance. This custom, doubtless, has its origin in the fact that, in primitive states of society, a man must seek a wife at his risk and peril, for among the _Sakai_ in some of the wilder parts of the country, the girl is still placed upon an anthill, and ringed about by her relations, who do not suffer her _fiance_ to win her until his head has been broken in several places. The same _feeling_ exists in Europe, as is witnessed by the antagonism displayed by the school-boy, and even the older and more sensible males of a family, to their would-be brother-in-law. It is the natural instinct of the man, to protect his women-folk from all comers, breaking out, as natural instincts are wont to do, in a hopelessly wrong place.

As I have said, the bride had been left in the inner apartments, there to await her call to the dais; and the preparations for the feast were in full swing, and the men were enjoying themselves in their own way while the women cooked, when, suddenly, a dull thud, as of some falling body, was heard within the house. The women rushed in, and found the little bride lying on the floor, with all the pretty garments, with which she had been bedecked, drenched in her own blood. A small clasp knife lay by her side, and there was a ghastly gash in her throat. The women lifted her up, and strove to staunch the bleeding, and as they fought to stay the life that was ebbing from her, the drone of the priests, and the beat of the drums, came to their ears from the men who were making merry without. Then suddenly the news of what had occurred spread among the guests, and the music died away, and was replaced by a babble of excited voices, all speaking at once.

The father of the girl rushed in, and, as she lay on the sleeping platform, still conscious, he asked her who had done this thing.

'It is my own handiwork,' she said.

'But wherefore, child of mine,' cried her mother, 'but wherefore dost thou desire to slay thyself?'

'I gazed upon my likeness in the mirror,' said the girl, speaking slowly and with difficulty, 'and I beheld that I was very hideous to look upon, so that it was not fitting that I should live. Therefore I did it.'

And until she died, about an hour later, this, and this only, was the explanation which she would give. The matter was related to me by the great up-country Chief, the Dato' Mahraja Perba, who said that he had never heard of any parallel case. I jestingly told him that he should be careful not to allow this deed to become a precedent, for there are many ugly women in his district, and if they all followed this girl's example, the population would soon have dwindled sadly. Later, when I learned the real reasons which led to this suicide, I was sorry that I had ever jested about it, for the girl's was a sad little story.

Some months before, a Pekan born Malay had come to the Jelai on a trading expedition, and had cast his eyes upon the girl. To her, he was all that the people of the surrounding villages were not. He walked with a swagger, wore his weapons and his clothes with an air that none but a Court-bred Malay knows how to assume, and was full of brave tales, which the elders of the village could only listen to with wonder and respect. As the brilliant form of Lancelot burst upon the startled sight of the Lady of Shalott, so did this man--an equally splendid vision in the eyes of this poor little up-country maid--come into her life, bringing with him hopes and desires, that she had never before dreamed of. Before so brave a wooer what could her little arts avail? As many better and worse women than she have done before her, she gave herself to him, thinking, thereby, to hold him in silken bonds, through which he might not break; but what was all her life to her, was merely a passing incident to him, and one day she learned that he had returned down stream. The idea of following him probably never even occurred to her, but, like others before her, she thought that the sun had fallen from heaven, because her night light had gone out. Her parents, who knew nothing of this intrigue, calmly set about making the arrangements for her marriage, a matter in which, of course, she would be the last person to be consulted. She must have watched these preparations with speechless agony, knowing that the day fixed for the marriage must be that on which her life would end, for she must long have resolved to die faithful to her false lover, though it was not until the very last moment that she summoned up sufficient courage to take her own life. That she ever did so is very marvellous. That act is one which is not only contrary to all natural instincts, but is, moreover, utterly opposed to the ideas which prevail among people of her race; and her sufferings must, indeed, have been intense, before this means of escape can have presented itself to her, even as a possibility. She must have been at once a girl of extraordinary strength and weakness: strength to have made the resolve, and, having made it, to fearlessly carry it into execution, dying with a lie on her lips, which should conceal her real reasons, and the fact of her rapidly approaching maternity; and weakness in that the burden laid upon her was greater than she could bear. Poor child, ignorant, yet filled with a terrible knowledge, false, yet faithful even unto death, strong in her weakness, with a marvellous strength, yet weak in her first fall.

She has lived her life, and that which she has done, May God within Himself make whole.

AMONG THE FISHER FOLK

A palm-leaf sail that stretches wide, A sea that's running strong, A boat that dips its laving side, The forefoot's rippling song. A flaming sky, a crimson flood, Here's joy for body and mind, As in our canting crafts we scud With a spanking breeze behind.

_The Song of the Fisher Folk._

This is a land of a thousand beauties. Nature, as we see her in the material things which delight our eyes, is straight from the hand of God, unmarred by man's deforming, a marvellous creation of green growths and brilliant shades of colour, fresh, sweet, pure, an endless panorama of loveliness. But it is not only the material things which form the chief beauties of the land in which we dwell. The ever-varying lights of the Peninsula, and the splendid Malayan sky that arches over us are, in themselves, at once the crown of our glory, and the imparters of a fresh and changeful loveliness to the splendours of the earth. Our eyes are ever glutted with the wonders of the sky, and of the lights which are shed around us. From the moment when the dawn begins to paint its orange tints in the dim East, and later floods the vastness of the low-lying clouds with glorious dyes of purple and vermillion, and a hundred shades of colour, for which we have no name, reaching to the very summit of the heavens; on through the early morning hours, when the slanting rays of the sun throw long broad streaks of dazzlingly white light upon the waters of sea and river; on through the burning noonday, when the shadows fall black and sharp and circular, in dwarfed patches about our feet; on through the cooler hours of the afternoon, when the sun is a burning disc low down in the western sky, or, hiding behind a bank of clouds, throws wide-stretched arms of prismatic colour high up into the heavens; on through the hour of sunset, when all the world is a flaming blaze of gold and crimson; and so into the cool still night, when the moon floods us with a sea of light only one degree less dazzling than that of day, or when the thousand wonders of the southern stars gaze fixedly upon us from their places in the deep clear vault above our heads, and Venus casts a shadow on the grass; from dawn to dewy eve, from dewy eve to dawn, the lights of the Peninsula vary as we watch them steep us and all the world in glory, and half intoxicate us with their beauty.

But the sea is the best point or vantage from which to watch the glories of which I tell--speaking as I do in weak colourless words of sights and scenes which no human brush could ever hope to render, nor mortal poet dream of painting in immortal song--and if you would see them for yourself, and drink in their beauty to the full, go dwell among the Fisher Folk of the East Coast.

They are a rough, hard-bit gang, ignorant and superstitious beyond belief, tanned to the colour of mahogany by exposure to the sun, with faces scarred and lined by rough weather and hard winds. They are plucky and reckless, as befits men who go down to the sea in ships; they are full of resource, the results of long experience of danger, and constant practice in sudden emergencies, where a loss of presence of mind means a forfeiture of life. Their ways and all their dealings are bound fast by a hundred immutable customs, handed down through countless ages, which no man among them dreams of violating; and they have, moreover, that measure of romance attaching to them which clings to all men who run great risks, and habitually carry their lives in their hands.