Part 8

The Pĕnglima and his friends having gained the house proceeded to make themselves comfortable and did not attempt to disturb or annoy Haji Mûsah and his family. These latter occupied a curtained portion of the principal room, and underneath their only window a sentry was placed night and day.

Meanwhile the Shabandar, informed by messenger of what had taken place, hurried back to the neighbourhood and reinforced the adherents of Haji Mûsah, who so far had contented themselves with building and occupying stockades to command Haji Mûsah’s house.

The Pĕnglima’s tactics were again completely successful, and as it was impossible to fire on the captors without danger to their imprisoned friends the Shabandar, who now commanded the investing force, set himself to devise a plan whereby he might gain his end by craft.

The Pĕnglima’s men occupied the house and one or two small stockades close by it. The Shabandar’s party had built a series of enclosing works which practically cut off escape to landward. In front was the river and here again, both up stream and down, there lay a small fleet of guard-boats.

The Pĕnglima’s own two boats were chained to the landing-stage where they were safe, for it would have been impossible to seize them without being exposed to fire from the house, to which no reply could be made.

A month went by, and in that time Haji Mûsah, his wife, and son-in-law had fairly recovered from their injuries. Meanwhile the Shabandar, by means of spies, learned that the prisoners occupied a side of the house where there was but one window, and that always guarded at night by the same man. Through this man there was the best chance of escape for the prisoners, if only he could be bought over.

This sentry, who had some authority over part of the band, was a foreigner, he was getting tired of the game and probably did not altogether like the outlook or see how his party was to turn the situation to their own advantage. At any rate communications were opened between the Shabandar and him, and for a sum of two thousand dollars he promised to get the prisoners out of the window and through the lines to their friends.

In the dead of a dark night (and moonless Eastern nights can be black as a sepulchre) he assisted the four prisoners to make their escape through the window, while the Pĕnglima, Haji Ali, and a number of their men slept peacefully on the other side of the sheltering curtain that gave privacy to the women.

Guided by the traitor, their movements hidden in Cimmerian darkness, the little party made its way in safety to the friendly shelter of the Shabandar’s stockade. He was expecting them, and he had also prepared an unpleasant surprise for the cuckoos in temporary occupation of their stolen nest.

Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun and his friends were awakened from sleep by the banging of jingals and muskets and a hail of various missiles.

A moment’s search showed that the prisoners had escaped, and the Pĕnglima instantly realised that he was in the toils.

He had already shown that he was a man of resource, and his presence of mind did not desert him in this dangerous crisis. The darkness alone protected them, and that would not last; moreover, he could not tell at what moment his position might not be rushed. It was clear that for them was reserved the fate of those who when they got up in the morning were all dead men.

The Pĕnglima called his followers together, explained the situation and its urgency, pointed out the choice that lay before them—an attempt to pass the enemy’s stockades under cover of the night or to run the gauntlet of the guard-boats, where capture was, as he said, certain.

The men of the band, the wretched Lambor contingent, elected, as the Pĕnglima had meant they should do, to try and force their way through the enemy’s lines, never thinking that if they succeeded they would only reach a pathless jungle swamp, where they, strangers in that part of the country, must either perish miserably or return to the tender mercies of the investing foe.

Of these deplorable eventualities they took no thought; there was little time for hesitation; tightening the grasp upon their weapons they went out into the night, and in a few moments the shouts from the surrounding stockades showed that their intention had been discovered.

This was exactly what Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun had expected; he had created a diversion, and seizing his opportunity, accompanied by Haji Ali and a few of his particular associates, he made for the river and got into one of his boats, cast off and pulled out into the stream.

A very wily man was the Pĕnglima. Every one in the guard-boats was on the alert, the firing and shouts from the shore had warned them that the fox was being hunted in the covert, and the pack were after him in full cry. Still there was just a trifle of uncertainty about it, and that was the Pĕnglima’s one chance of salvation.

The slightest hesitation now, the smallest of false steps, and neither the Pĕnglima nor any of those with him would ever see the dawn. He knew it well enough, and as he ordered those who had taken the oars to pull out boldly into the stream, he grasped the helm and steering straight up the middle of the river, _against_ the tide, he gave orders that no man should speak, undertaking the whole responsibility himself.

It was still so dark that no one could see quite whence this boat came, or distinguish who was in it, but as it moved with plenty of noise and no attempt at concealment right towards the line of guard-boats, some one called out, “Who goes there?”

“It is I,” replied the Pĕnglima, “I bring the Shabandar’s orders to you to keep a good look-out, they are attacking the Pĕnglima Prang, and as he can’t hold out he will probably try to escape by the river. Be ready for him, I am going to warn the boats down stream,” and turning round the craft disappeared towards the other line of river-sentinels.

No one of course suspected a ruse under such a bold disguise as that, and, pulling straight for the down-stream boats, steering right on and through them, the Pĕnglima called out, “_Jâga-jâga_, ‘be on your guard,’ the Shabandar sends orders to watch for the Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, he is trying to escape, I am warning all the boats.”

No one could distinctly see who this messenger was, or even catch more than a shadowy glimpse of a spectral craft as she glided through the line, and in the excitement of expectation, the noise of firing and rival battle-shouts on shore, no one took special heed as to which way the messengers went, or whether that was the sound of their oars echoing faintly in the distance.

The Shabandar on his part made no long tarrying, but eager to revenge the murder of his brother, and feeling that at last the Pĕnglima and Haji Ali were in his power, he determined to _mĕng-âmok_, to rush the house at once without waiting for daylight.

Whilst summoning his men for the assault, he heard the cries that told him the besieged were making an attempt to break through his stockades, and without further delay he dashed into Haji Mûsah’s house, only to find it empty, the renowned Pĕnglima and his amiable friend gone, and with them a considerable quantity of dollars and everything that was both valuable and easily portable.

Torches and an examination of the muddy ground soon established the direction taken, and the missing boat, coupled with the missing property, convinced the least astute that by this way went the Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun.

Many shouted questions from the bank drew forth many assurances from those on the water that no enemy had passed that way. The evidence to the contrary was, however, all too plain, and as the boats one by one came up to the landing-place, and the watchers told their tale, it became evident that once again the Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun had justified his reputation for both daring and resource.

He had made for the sea, his party did not number ten, and they were in one boat. There was still time to overtake or intercept them at the river’s mouth, and, as the grey light of dawn began to lift the veil of mist and the freshening breeze swept in chilly gusts over the water, a fleet of boats set off to search the creeks and backwaters, while others had orders to pull straight to the river’s mouth, and there take line and see that none passed out to sea.

The Pĕnglima meanwhile had wasted no time. ’Twixt the devil behind and the deep sea in front, he had no difficulty in determining which way lay safety; but he also realised that it could not be an hour, it might be only a few minutes before his ruse would be discovered, and with his crew he could not hope to reach the sea without being overtaken. The rowers needed little exhortation to strain every nerve, and after a few miles had been travelled, the boat was forced through heavy overhanging branches into an all but imperceptible creek, so narrow the entrance and so thoroughly concealed that no one would dream of its existence. The boat could only be got a few yards up this ditch, and the party, leaving it entirely hidden, ensconced themselves in a tangled mass of jungle foliage from which they commanded a view of the river.

Here the fugitives lay all day, and watched the boats of their enemies pass by intent on the fruitless search.

It was not a pleasant place nor did they spend an altogether happy day, for they were not yet out of the wood, indeed the chances of escape were still decidedly against them, but for the moment they were safe, and whatever was to come could not be worse than the situation from which their leader had already extricated them.

Whilst the Pĕnglima was running the gauntlet of the guard-boats his late companions, the men of Lambor, some twenty or thirty in number, were having a worse experience on shore.

Being a large party and in their haste not over-cautious, they were, of course, discovered as they tried to break through the line of stockades. Some were shot, others were speared and _krised_ in hand-to-hand encounters, while a few got away to the forest under cover of the darkness. But when these stragglers fully realised that it was a choice between the enemy and painful wandering in a swampy and well-nigh impenetrable jungle, with the prospect of starvation and a lingering death, they chose rather to return to the light and a speedier reckoning.

None of this band returned to Lambor, and if they sought their fate and made an unprovoked attack upon Haji Mûsah it is not altogether surprising that to this day there is no wasted affection between the people of Lambor and the Lower Perak Chiefs.

All through that sultry day, as one by one these doomed men appeared from the jungle fastness and went down before the weapons of their adversaries, waiting tirelessly expectant in the certainty that no refuge would be found in those inhospitable depths, the Pĕnglima and his little band lay close in their concealment and longed for sheltering night.

All day long the Shabandar’s boats passed hither and thither, and with the nightfall many appeared to abandon the search and returned on the rising tide.

Then an hour or two of the new-born moon, and after that thick darkness.

The Pĕnglima and his friends had regained their boat, and as, about midnight, the tide began to ebb, the vessel was pushed noiselessly out into the river and bracing themselves for a final effort the rowers gripped their oars, stiffened their backs and put their whole strength into the work before them.

The river as it approaches the sea grows wider at every bend, the searchers were exhausted and asleep, or had already returned up-stream, the night was dark and the fugitives were unmolested until, between 4 A.M. and 5 A.M., in the last reach, they saw a line of boats guarding the river’s mouth.

There were wide intervals between each vessel, but even in that uncertain light it was impossible for a boat to run this blockade without being seen.

At this final juncture the Pĕnglima’s Familiar did not desert him.

Of course the earth ought to have opened and swallowed up this hardened criminal as it did Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and all their company; he ought to have been shot or drowned or speared if he were not being reserved for hanging. At any rate this was an excellent opportunity for getting rid of two hardened villains, and a few other passably wicked men. The Lambor people, whose crimes were as snow compared to those of these two arch-criminals, had all met with violent deaths and no miracle, not even so much as a small streak of luck, like falling into a well and being tended by a beautiful maiden, had saved the life of one of them.

Why was it then that, as these cold-blooded assassins cowered together and wondered how they were going to elude the vigilance of their enemies, a palpable miracle was wrought to save their miserable skins?

It cannot be said that anything very unusual happened, because the thing is of common occurrence, but it was certainly thoughtfully arranged that at that moment there should sail round the bend of the river, in the strongest flow of the ebb-tide (now of course slackening), an enormous mass of floating palms, a very island of foliage broken away from some undermined bank and drifting majestically to the wider waters of the sea.

If these great clumps of root and branch and foliage may be seen sailing every day down a Malay river into the Straits of Malacca, this particular island was so gigantic, that in size at least it was miraculous. It is possible that to another man the passing drift would have suggested nothing, but the Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun was on such terms with Fortune that he knew exactly the psychological moment at which to take her. Here he remembered that the Malays call these floating islands _âpong_, and that boats know very much better than to get in their way. His craft then he promptly steered right into the back of this Satan-sent refuge, and, forcing it in amongst the palms and covering it as well as was possible, he calmly sat down and awaited the issue.

The island sailed slowly along, and when the huge mass got near enough to the guard-boats for them to realise their danger, there was a deal of shouting and pulling of anchors, kicking up sleepy boatmen and frantic struggles to avoid this river Juggernaut.

So passed the Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun; not to the vales and Queens of Avilion, but to the open sea, from sore stress to safety, from an earthly death to an earthly life.

One can almost hear him chuckle as he sails through that last danger and watches his enemies’ efforts to get back into their places.

Malays do not pine for manual labour, they had already had more than enough of it, and as they were now being towed idly along, they lay down to sleep, vaguely wondering, in that moment of tired but delicious drowsiness, what occult powers this leader possessed to secure at such a moment the powerful help of this great leviathan, under whose green and shady sails they were being wafted to safety and “the haven where they would be.”

A day or two of pleasant coasting, a walk across country, and Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun, with Haji Ali and a considerable booty, arrived safely at Blanja and received the congratulations of his master, the Raja Bĕndahâra.

We read that when it was the fashion for knights to devote themselves to the service of distressed damsels, they wrought many startling deeds, which cannot always be satisfactorily explained without recognising that devotion in so good a cause was sometimes supernaturally aided.

Unfortunately, the practice has fallen into desuetude; let us hope it is because the damsels of the nineteenth century are never in distress, want no assistance, or despise that of the mere man.

Malays are perhaps, in some respects, a few hundred years behind the age, and I like to think that in this veracious story the Pĕnglima Prang Sĕmaun made his first appearance as the champion of a lady in distress.

XIV

BĔR-HANTU

Striving to reach the mystic source of things, the secrets of the earth and sea and air

L. MORRIS

We could all see the _tunggul mêrah_, the crimson streak which boded the death of the King. Looking from the top of our green-terraced hill across the clear wide river late one afternoon, this curious phenomenon appeared in the sky, above the last spur of a picturesque range of mountains which separates the valleys of two considerable streams whose united waters flow into the Straits of Malacca.

Standing on the right bank of the river, a stretch of level land lies between the opposite bank and the foot of this range, and the wealth of foliage hides from view the houses, orchards, and rice-fields which cover that fertile plain. But the Sultan’s house, a palm-thatched wooden structure, three houses on piles joined together by short platforms after the accepted Malay pattern, stands out clearly enough, rather down-stream than opposite the point of view.

The crimson portent is not visible for long, and we realise that, whatever it means, it is accounted for by the segment of a rainbow shining through a bank of low clouds which obscure the rest of the “arch of heaven,” and so blur the prismatic colours that nothing is clearly discernible but a short column of flame, all the more striking for its dull grey background. The tradition of ill-omen is of ancient origin, but the fact that the Sultan now lies grievously ill gives an air of probability to the gossip of the prophets.

That evening, as we sat at dinner, we were suddenly startled by the cry of the banshee. Up till that moment we had none of us had any personal acquaintance with the banshee, but this was it sure enough. A long-drawn-out distressing wail, as of a lost child, repeated at uncertain intervals, now here now there, first on one side of the house and then on the other, at one moment unpleasantly close, and the next a piteous little half-choked sob in the distance. Without any doubt this was the banshee, and as the moonlight was now streaming fitfully through the clouds across the white pillars of the verandah, we thought we might have the good fortune to see this harbinger of doom.

We walked out on to the moonlit terrace, and the beauty of the night was so intense that one felt it as through a new sense.

The hill on which the house stood was cut into a series of terraces, and the highest of these, a wide lawn of velvety grass, was surrounded by tall graceful coco-nut trees, not close together but each standing alone with its spiky leaves clearly delineated against the sky.

Overhead a moon shedding that wonderful soft light only seen in the East, where atmosphere, foliage, and all the surroundings seem specially designed to make the ascendancy of the Queen of Night superbly beautiful.

The exquisite feathery fronds of the bamboo, bending in graceful curves, with each leaf clearly defined against a background of grey-blue sky; a dozen varieties of palms, from the lofty coco-nut and the stately jagary to the thick clumps of _bertam_, like gigantic ferns; picturesque groups of flowering trees and shrubs on terrace after terrace, carry the eye down to the shimmering gleam of the wide river on which the moonlight falls lovingly, throwing into greater contrast the deep shadows that lie under the overhanging foliage of the banks. Four miles of glistening water, then the river narrows and fades into the mist-enshrouded forest.

Close beneath us twinkle the lights of the village, the houses spreading from river-brink to the high ground which rises abruptly on our left. In front and on either side, range after range of jungle-covered hills, from fifteen hundred to several thousands of feet in height. There is a luminous haze over all distant objects, giving the idea of indefinite height and distance, making all things vague and unsubstantial, yet infinitely satisfying that other sense which only awakes under the influence of perfect beauty.

The extraordinary charm of this scene intoxicated us as with draughts of nectar, and in that enravishment, kings, omens, and ghostly warnings were forgotten.

But hark! Yes, there is the cry, wailing in the distance—now much nearer, and now—before our very eyes the banshee itself!

Sailing slowly through the air between the feathery leaves of the palms, like a lost soul wending its uncertain, purposeless way through the balmy Eastern night, was a creature with heavy dark wings, a head disproportionately large, and horns, veritable horns! As it slowly passed and moaned its childlike plaint, no reasonable being could doubt that he had heard and seen the messenger of death.

That weird apparition, sobbing its fateful cry, broke the spell under which we had stood enthralled, and though we felt that the King’s fate was sealed, that did not prevent us from returning to dinner.

Just after midnight a scared Malay came to say that it was feared the Sultan was dying. I hurried down the hill, took boat across the river, and, stumbling along the bank, reached the house where the sick man lay.

I entered upon a peculiar scene. I said the building was in three parts, the first a sort of ante-room, beyond which strangers of inferior rank did not in ordinary circumstances pass; then came the principal structure, which consisted of one large room, wooden pillars dividing off verandahs on either side, while the third house was exclusively devoted to women, and attached to it was an excrescence forming the kitchen.

The unsteady light of several lamps and many candles showed that both the centre and ante-rooms were full of people sitting on the mats which covered the floor. There must have been between one and two hundred present, and I noticed that there were about equal numbers of men and women, and all the principal Malays of the neighbourhood were there. The curtains which usually divided the centre room were up, but on one side there was evidently a bed, screened by patchwork hangings, and there I concluded His Highness lay.

It was plain from the preparations that, despairing of effecting a cure by native medicines administered by native doctors, it was intended to try a little witchcraft and have a performance of what is called _Bĕr-hantu_. That seemed to me to fall in very well with the _tunggul mêrah_ and the banshee, and I was therefore quite prepared for the raising of the Devil or any other uncanny manifestation.