PART ONE

THE DYAK CHIEF

THE DYAK CHIEF

_Hear ye a tale from the deepest depths of the heart of Borneo,_ _Where the Moeroeng leaps in wild cascades,_ _And the endless green of the jungle fades,_ _And night shuts down on the fern-choked glades_ _Where the kampong hearth-fires glow._

Listen, Oh White Man, that ye hear The words of a Dyak chief, Till ye learn the weight of the Dyak hate And the depth of the Dyak grief.

Once in the days of my strength and pride I loved a kampong maid, And very old was the tale I told ’Neath the lace of the jungle shade.

And very old was the tale I told, Though born year by year; Till I thought of the headless waist I bore-- And I drew the maiden near:

And I pledged her there by the tree-banked stream Where the rippling shadows flee, “None but the skull of a kampong chief Shall hang at my belt for thee.”

II

When over the palm-topped endless hills First broke the golden day, The taintless breeze in the highest trees Laughed as I swung away.

Laughed as I climbed the mountain path Or skirted the river’s bank, And the great lianes sung to me As on my knees I drank.

And the great lianes softly swayed And twisted in snake-like guise, Till I lost their sight in the leafy height Where peeped the purple skies.

And down through the dank morasses I leapt from clod to clod, O’er fallen trunk and lifted root And the ooze of the sunken sod--

Where the tiny trees stand tall and straight, A mass of mossy green, And lighting all like a fairy hall The sunlight sifts between.

Day by day through stress and strain I pressed my marches through; Day by day through strain and stress The weary hours flew.

And silent, from the dank brown leaves As swept my hurrying tread, The little waiting leeches rose And caught me as I sped.

Till my feet and ankles bled in streams-- But I let them clinging stay, And they swelled to seven times their size And glutted and fell away.

For never time had I to stop, And so they sucked their fill, As I splashed through the knee-deep rivers And clambered the jungle hill.

And only night could halt me, And the stars in their proud parade, They bade me look to the fray before, And back to the kampong maid.

III

Weary at last I reached a height That showed a fertile glade, Where the bending trees of the river brink Leaned out o’er a wild cascade.

And white above the waving banks The towering giants rose high, And tossed their heads in hauteur, Full-plumed across the sky.

And waved their long lianes A hundred feet in air, And shook their clinging vine-leaves As a Dyak maid her hair.

And down by the Moeroeng’s turning The river rock rose sheer, And out of the cracks the tasseled palms Like mighty plumes hung clear.

While still, behind a boulder, Where the little ripples gleam, A fisher sat in his sunken proa In the midst of the gliding stream.

Only the crash of the underbrush Told where a hunter sped, And I caught the glint of the morning sun On the blow-spear’s glittering head.

Only the crack of a mandauw Felling the little trees, And the murmuring call of a water-fall That echoed the jungle breeze.

But more to me than the hunter-- The fisher and stream and hill-- Was the kampong deep in the hollow, Nestling dark and still.

Dark and still in the valley, A single house and strong; Perched on piles two warriors high And a hundred paces long.

And straight before the tall-stepped door The mighty chief poles rose, And seemed to shake their tasseled tops In warning to their foes--

As they who slept beneath them Once did, when in their might-- With shining steel and sinews-- Full-armed they sprang to fight.

Long from the hill-side trees I watched The water women go Back and forth to the river bank, Chattering to and fro.

Long from the hill-side trees I watched Till--straight as the windless flame-- With spear and shield and mandauw, The kampong chieftain came.

Full well I knew the waist-cloth blue Where hung each shriveled head. Full well I saw the eyes of awe That followed in his tread.

Full well I heard the spoken word-- The quick obedience fanned-- And I felt the trance of the royal glance Of the Lord of the Jungle-land.

Lightly he scorned the proffered guard As he strode the upland grade, And softly I drew my mandauw And fingered the sharpened blade.

Was it for game or a head he came To the hills in the golden morn? But little I cared as the heavens stared On the day that my hope was born.

For over and over I muttered-- As I slunk from tree to tree-- “None but the head of a kampong chief Shall hang at my belt for thee.”

(None but the head of a kampong chief For you my belt shall grace, Taken by right in fairest fight-- Full-fronted--face to face.)

And I found a leafy clearing That lay across his path, And I stood to wait his coming-- The chieftain in his wrath.

As the moan before the wind-storm That breaks across the night, Were the rhythmic, muffled foot falls Of the war-lord come to fight.

The crack of little branches-- The branches pushed away-- And the Scourge of the Moeroeng Valley Sprang straight to the waiting fray.

’Twas then I knew the stories true They told of his fearful fame, As through my shield a hand’s-length His hurtling spearhead came.

Stunned I reeled and a moment kneeled To the shock of the blinding blow, But I rose again at the stinging pain And the wet of the warm blood’s flow.

And I staggered straight and I scorned to wait And I swept my mandauw high-- But ere my stroke descended He smote me athwart the thigh.

As the lean rattan at the workman’s knife-- As the stricken game in the dell-- As a bird on the wing at the blow-spear’s sting, To the reddened earth I fell.

And merrily with fiendish glee He knelt and held me fast; And I looked on high at the fleecy sky-- And I thought the look was the last.

But by the will that knows no law I wrenched my right hand free, And I drove my mandauw’s gleaming point A hand’s-breadth in his knee.

Stung by the pain he loosened, And a moment bared his breast, And like the dash of the lightning flash My weapon sought its rest.

As a log in the Moeroeng rapids The mighty chieftain rolled, And I pinned him fast for the head-stroke, In the reek of the blood-stained mold.

And I pinned him fast for the head-stroke-- But the glare of the dying eyes Gleamed forth to show the worthy foe And the heart that never dies.

* * * * *

A moment toward a kampong, And toward a kampong maid, I looked ... and a head rolled helpless To the crash of a falling blade.

IV

With strips from my torn jacket I bound my arm and thigh, And I headed back o’er the leafy track With hope and spirits high.

And as I sped with leaping heart All Nature seemed to sing; And my legs ran red where trickling bled The head of the Jungle King.

The purring tree-tops called me-- The fleecy clouds rolled by-- And the forest green was a sun-shot sheen, And the sky was a laughing sky.

And only night could halt me, And the stars in their proud parade, They bade me look to the path before That led to the kampong maid.

Bleeding and torn, spent and worn, At last I reached the hill, Whence each hearth-light in the falling night Was a welcome bright and still.

For each hearth-light in the falling night Cut clear through the growing gloam-- Of all brave things the best that brings The weary Wanderer home.

But the waiting watchers spied me, And met me as I ran; And they saw the head of the chieftain, And they hailed me man and man.

But through the heart-whole greetings I felt the anxious gaze, And over my brain like a pall was lain The weight of the Doubter’s craze.

And I begged them to tell me quickly-- For I quailed at the story stayed-- And I asked them if aught had happened To the head of the kampong maid.

And there in the leafy gloaming-- Where the stars lit one by one, They told me the tale at my homing-- And I felt the passions run--

Hate as the white-hot flame jet-- Shame as the burning bar-- Grief as the poisoned arrow-- Revenge as the salted scar:

Rankling--roaring--blinding-- Rising and ebbing low; Till overhead the skies burst red, And I tottered beneath the blow.

For they told of a White Man’s coming, And the weapon that carries far; And his love for the Maid--but over it laid The hush of the falling star.

Faithlessness--treachery--cunning-- Weakness and love and fear-- Oh very old was the tale they told, Though born year by year.

And I drew my blade and I leapt away-- But they sprang and held me fast: And they promised me there by the dead chief’s hair, My hate should be filled to the last.

And they showed me him bound and knotted To the base of a splintered tree, Stripped to the sun and spat upon And taunted--awaiting me.

And I saw _her_ in the shadows-- But ... I might not know her, then-- A sneer for the kampong women-- And a jest for the kampong men.

* * * * *

And thus in the days of my strength and pride, From over the distant sea, The White Man came in his open shame And stole my love from me.

V

The next morn at the rising sun The tom-toms roared their fill, And echoed like rolling thunder From hill to farthest hill.

And the birds of the jungle fluttered And lifted and soared away, And we dragged the fettered prisoner forth To blink at the blinding day.

Full length and naked on the ground We staked him foot and hand, And we laughed in glee as we watched to see The pest of the jungle-land.

Oh we laughed in glee as we watched to see The little leeches swing, End on end till they reached the flesh Of the prostrate, struggling Thing.

Like river flies in the summer rains They covered the White Man o’er-- Body and legs and arms and face, Till the whole was a bleeding sore.

And the red streams ran from the crusted pools And crimsoned the leafy ground, And the scent of gore but brought the more As the smell of game to the hound.

Hour by hour I watched him die, Slowly day by day, Hour by hour I watched the flesh Sinking and turning gray:

Hour by hour I heard him shriek To the skies and the White Man’s God-- But only the gluttons came again And reddened the reeking sod.

Weeping, writhing, groaning-- Paled to an ashen dun-- And the clotted blood turned black as mud And stunk in the midday sun.

(Bones where stretched the tautening flesh-- A shining, yellow sheen-- And the flies that helped the leeches work In the stagnant pools between.)

* * * * *

Till the fourth day broke in a blaze of gold-- And I knew the end was nigh-- And I called the tribes from near and far, To watch the White Man die.

From every kampong of the south Where the broad Barito winds-- From every kampong of the east The murmuring hill-wind finds--

From every kampong of the west Where the Djoeloi falls and leaps-- From every kampong of the north Where the great Mohakkam sweeps--

From east and west and south and north The mighty warriors came, To prove the weight of the Dyak hate And the shame of the naked shame.

In noiseless scorn and wonder They scanned the victim there, Except that when an Elder spake To mock at his despair.

Or when from out the long-house-- Where loosened footboards creaked-- A woman leaned in frenzy And tore her hair and shrieked.

And from the wooded hill-tops The answering echoes came, Till all our far-flung wilderness Stooped down to curse his name.

In sullen, savage silence They watched the streamlets flow: In savage, sullen silence-- The war-lords--row on row--

Ranged around by rank and years, Oh goodly was the sight, Square shouldered--spare--with muscles bare Coiled in their knotted might--

And little serpent eyes that gleamed In glittering, primal hate, Like adders, that beneath the leaves The coming foot falls wait.

The shrunken heads about their belts Stared with senseless grin, As though in voiceless mummery They mocked him in his sin.

As though in sightless greeting-- To make his entry good To th’ lost and leering legion Of the martyred brotherhood.

* * * * *

We rubbed his lips with costly salt-- (You know how far it comes)-- And when he called for drink--we laughed-- And rolled the Sick-man’s Drums.

* * * * *

They beckoned me unto his side-- The blood-stench filled the dell-- They asked me--“Ye are satisfied?” And I answered--“It is well.”

The final glaze was settling fast-- The weary struggles ceased-- And on his breath was the moan of death That prayed for life released.

So we propped his mouth wide open With a knob of rotten vine, And the leeches entered greedily As white men to their wine.

Palate and roof and tongue and gums, They gushed in rivers gay-- And gasping--his own blood choked him-- And his Spirit passed away.

_This is the tale the old chief tells When the western gold-belt dies, And the jungle trees in the evening breeze Tower against the skies, And the good-wife bakes the greasy cakes Where the kampong hearth-fires rise._