Part 6
Into the Slim Valley, some years ago, there came a Korinchi trader named Haji Ali, and his two sons, Abdulrahman and Abas. They came, as is the manner of their people, laden with heavy packs of _sarongs_,--the native skirts or waist-cloths,--trudging in single file through the forests and through the villages, hawking their goods to the natives of the place, with much cunning haggling or hard bargaining. But though they came to trade, they stayed long after the contents of their packs had been disposed of, for Haji Ali took a fancy to the place. Therefore he presently purchased a compound, and with his two sons set to work upon planting cocoa nuts, and cultivating a rice-swamp. They were quiet, well-behaved people; they were regular in their attendance at the mosque for the Friday congregational prayers, and as they were wealthy and prosperous they found favour in the eyes of their poorer neighbours. Thus it happened that when Haji Ali let it be known that he desired to find a wife, there was a bustle in the villages among the parents with marriageable daughters, and, though he was a man well past middle life, Haji Ali found a wide range of choice offered to him.
The girl he selected was Patimah, the daughter of poor parents, peasants living on their land in one of the neighbouring villages. She was a comely maiden, plump and round, and light of colour, with a merry face to cheer, and willing fingers wherewith to serve a husband. The wedding portion was paid, a feast proportionate to Haji Ali's wealth was held to celebrate the occasion, and the bride was carried off, after a decent interval, to her husband's home among the fruit groves and the palm-trees. This was not the general custom of the land, for among Malays the husband usually shares his father-in-law's house for a long period after his marriage. But Haji Ali had a fine new house of his own, brave with wattled walls stained cunningly in black and white, and with a luxuriant covering of thatch. Moreover, he had taken the daughter of a poor man to wife, and could dictate his own terms to her and to her parents. The girl went willingly enough, for she was exchanging poverty for wealth, a miserable hovel for a handsome home, and parents who knew exactly how to get out of her the last fraction of work of which she was capable, for a husband who seemed ever kind, generous, and indulgent. None the less, three days later she was found beating on the door of her parents' house, at the hour when dawn was breaking, trembling in every limb, with her hair disordered, her garments drenched with dew from the brushwood through which she had forced her way, with her eyes wild with horror, and mad with a great fear. Her story--the first act in the drama of the Were-Tiger of Slim--ran in this wise, though I shall not attempt to reproduce the words or the manner in which she told it, brokenly, with shuddering sobs, to her awe-stricken parents.
She had gone home with Haji Ali to the house where he dwelt with his two sons, Abdulrahman and Abas, and all had treated her kindly and with courtesy. The first day she cooked the rice ill, but though the young men grumbled, Haji Ali said never a word of blame, when she had expected blows, such as would have fallen to the lot of most wives under similar circumstances. She had no complaint to make of her husband's kindness, but none the less she had fled his dwelling, and her parents might 'hang her on high, sell her in a far land, scorch her with the sun's rays, immerse her in water, burn her with fire,' but never again would she return to one who hunted by night as a Were-Tiger.
Every evening after the Isa[9] Haji Ali had left the house on one pretext or another, and had not returned until an hour before the dawn. Twice she had not been aware of his return until she found him lying on the sleeping-mat by her side; but, on the third evening, she had remained awake until a noise without told her that her husband was at hand. Then she had hastened to unbar the door, which she had fastened after Abas and Abdulrahman had fallen asleep. The moon was behind a cloud, and the light she cast was dim, but Patimah saw clearly enough the sight which had driven her mad with terror.
[Footnote 9: Isa = The hour of evening prayer.]
On the topmost rung of the ladder, which in this, as in all Malay houses, led from the ground to the threshold of the door, there rested the head of a full-grown tiger. Patimah could see the bold, black stripes which marked his hide, the bristling wires of whisker, the long cruel teeth, and the fierce green light in the beast's eyes. A round pad, with long curved claws partially concealed, lay on the ladder rung, one on each side of the monster's head, and the lower portion of its body reaching to the ground was so foreshortened that to the girl it looked like the body of a man. Patimah gazed at the tiger, from the distance of only a foot or two, for she was too paralysed with fear to move or cry out, and as she looked a gradual transformation took place in the creature at her feet. Slowly, as one sees a ripple of wind pass over the surface of still water, the tiger's features palpitated and were changed, until the horrified girl saw the face of her husband come up through that of the beast, much as the face of a diver comes up to the surface of a pool. In another moment Patimah saw that it was Haji Ali who was ascending the ladder of his house, and the spell that had hitherto bound her was snapped. The first use she made of her regained power of motion was to leap through the doorway past her husband, and to plunge into the jungle which edged the compound.
Malays do not love to travel singly through the jungle even when the sun is high, and under ordinary circumstances no woman could by any means be prevailed upon to do such a thing. But Patimah was wild with fear of what she had left behind her, and though she was alone, though the moonlight was dim, and the dawn had not yet come, she preferred the dismal depths of the forest to the home of her Were-Tiger husband. Thus she pushed her way through the underwood, tearing her garments and her flesh with thorns, catching her feet in creepers and trailing vines, stumbling over unseen logs, and drenching herself to the skin with the dew from the leaves and grasses against which she brushed. A little before daybreak she made her way, as I have described, to her father's house, there to tell the tale of her strange adventure.
The story of what had occurred was speedily noised through the villages, and the parents with marriageable daughters, who had been disappointed by Haji Ali's choice of a wife, rejoiced exceedingly, and did not forget to tell Patimah's papa and mamma that they had always anticipated something of the sort. Haji Ali made no effort to regain possession of his wife, and his neighbours drawing a natural inference from his actions, avoided him and his sons until they were forced to live in almost complete isolation.
But the drama of the Were-Tiger of Slim was to have a final act.
One night a fine young water-buffalo, the property of the Headman, Penghulu Mat Saleh, was killed by a tiger, and its owner, saying no word to any man upon the subject, constructed a cunningly arranged spring-gun over the carcase. The trigger-lines were so set that should the tiger return to finish the meal, which he had begun by tearing a couple of hurried mouthfuls from the rump of his kill, he must infallibly be wounded or slain by the bolts and slugs with which the gun was charged.
Next night a loud report, breaking in clanging echoes through the stillness, an hour or two before the dawn was due, apprised Penghulu Mat Saleh that some animal had fouled the trigger-lines. In all probability it was the tiger, and if he was wounded he would not be a pleasant creature to meet on a dark night. Accordingly Penghulu Mat Saleh lay still until morning.
In a Malay village all are astir very shortly after daybreak. As soon as it is light enough to see to walk the doors of the houses open one by one, and the people of the village come forth singly huddled to the chin in their _sarongs_ or bed coverlets. Each man makes his way down to the river to perform his morning ablutions, or stands on the bank of the stream, staring sleepily at nothing in particular, a black figure silhouetted against the broad ruddiness of a Malayan dawn. Presently the women of the village come out of the houses, in little knots of three or four, with the children pattering at their heels. They carry clusters of gourds in either hand, for it is their duty to fill them from the running stream with the water which will be needed during the day. It is not until the sun begins to rise, when morning ablutions have been carefully performed, and the first sleepiness of the waking hour has departed from heavy eyes, that the people of the village begin to set about the avocations of the day.
Penghulu Mat Saleh arose that morning and performed his usual daily routine before he collected a party of Malays to aid him in his search for the wounded tiger. He had no difficulty in finding men who were willing to share the excitement of the adventure, and presently he set off with a ragged following of near a dozen at his heels, the party having two guns and many spears and _kris_. They reached the spot where the spring-gun had been set, and they found that beyond a doubt the tiger had returned to his kill. The tracks left by the great pads were fresh, and the tearing up of the earth on one side of the dead buffalo, in a spot where the grass was thickly flecked with blood, showed that the shot had taken effect.
Penghulu Mat Saleh and his people then set down steadily to follow the trail of the wounded tiger. This was an easy matter, for the beast had gone heavily on three legs, the off-hind leg dragging uselessly. In places, too, a clot of blood showed red among the dew-drenched leaves and grasses. None the less the Penghulu and his party followed slowly and with caution. They knew that a wounded tiger is never in a mood in which a child may play with him, and also that, even when he has only three legs with which to spring upon his enemies, he can on occasion arrange for a large escort of human beings to accompany him into the land of shadows.
The trail led through the brushwood, in which the dead buffalo lay, and thence into a belt of jungle which edged the river bank a few hundred yards above Penghulu Mat Saleh's village, and extended up-stream to Kuala Chin Lama, a distance of half a dozen miles. The tiger turned up-stream when this jungle was reached, and half a mile higher up he came out upon a slender wood-path.
When Penghulu Mat Saleh had followed thus far, he halted and looked at his people.
'Know ye whither this track leads, my brothers?' he asked in a whisper.
The men nodded, but said never a word. A glance at them would have shown you that they were anxious and uneasy.
'What say ye?' continued the Penghulu. 'Do we still follow this trail?'
'It is as thou wilt, O Penghulu,' said the oldest man of the party, answering for his fellows, 'we follow thee whithersoever thou goest.'
'It is well!' said the Penghulu. 'Come let us go.' No more was said, when this whispered colloquy was ended, and the party set down to the trail again silently and with redoubled caution.
The narrow track, which the wounded tiger had followed, led on towards the river bank, and presently the high wattled bamboo fence of a native compound became visible through the trees. Penghulu Mat Saleh pointed at it. 'Behold!' was all he said. Then the party moved on again, still following the tracks of the tiger, and the flecks of red blood on the grass. These led them to the gate of the compound, and through it to the _'laman_ or open space before the house. Here they were lost at a spot where the rank spear-blades of the _lalang_ grass had been beaten down by the falling of some heavy body. A veritable pool of blood marked the place. To it the trail of the limping tiger led. Away from it there was no tracks, save those of the human beings who come and go through the rank growths which cloak the earth in a Malay compound. 'Behold!' said Penghulu Mat Saleh once more. 'Come, let us ascend into the house.' And so saying he led the way up the stair-ladder of the dwelling where Haji Ali lived with his two sons Abas and Abdulrahman, and whence a month or two before Patimah had fled during the night-time with a deadly fear in her eyes, and the tale of a strange experience faltering on her lips.
Penghulu Mat Saleh and his people found Abas sitting cross-legged in the outer apartment preparing a quid of betel-nut with elaborate care. The visitors squatted on the mats, and the usual customary salutations over, Penghulu Mat Saleh said:
'I have come in order that I may see thy father. Is he within the house?'
'He is,' said Abas laconically.
'Then make known to him that I would have speech with him.'
'My father is sick,' said Abas in a surly tone, and at the word a tremor of excitement ran through Penghulu Mat Saleh's followers.
'What is that patch of blood in the _lalang_ before the house?' asked the Penghulu conversationally, after a short pause.
'We slew a goat yesternight,' replied Abas.
'Hast thou the skin, O Abas?' asked the Penghulu, 'for I am renewing the faces of my drums, and would fain purchase it.'
'The skin was mangy, and we cast it into the river,' said Abas.
'What ails thy father, Abas?' asked the Penghulu returning to the charge.
'He is sick,' said suddenly a voice from the curtained doorway, which led to the inner apartment. It was the elder son Abdulrahman who spoke. He held a sword in his hand, and his face wore an ugly look as his words came harshly and gratingly with the foreign accent of the Korinchi people. He went on, still standing, near the doorway, 'He is sick, O Penghulu, and the noise of your words disturbs him. He would slumber and be still. Descend out of the house, he cannot see thee, Penghulu. Listen to these my words!'
Abdulrahman's manner, and the words he spoke, were at once so rough and defiant that the Penghulu saw that he must choose between a scuffle, which would mean bloodshed, and a hasty retreat. He was a mild old man, and he drew a monthly salary from the Perak Government. Moreover, he knew that the white men, who guided the destinies of Perak, were averse to bloodshed and homicide, even if the person slain was a wizard, or the son of a wizard. Therefore he decided upon retreat.
As they clambered down the steps of the door-ladder, Mat Tahir, one of the Penghulu's men, plucked him by the sleeve, and pointed to a spot beneath the house. Just below the place, in the inner apartment, where Haji Ali might be supposed to lie stretched upon the mat of sickness, the ground was stained a dim red for a space of several inches in circumference. Malay floors are made of laths of wood or of bamboo laid parallel to one another, with spaces between each one of them. This is convenient, as the whole of the ground beneath the house can thus be used as a slop-pail, waste-basket, and rubbish heap. The red stain lying where it did had the look of blood, blood moreover from some one within the house, whose wound had very recently been washed and dressed. It might also have been the red juice of the betel-nut, but its stains are but rarely seen in such large patches. Whatever it may have been the Penghulu and his people had no opportunity of examining it more closely, for Abdulrahman and Abas followed them out of the compound, and barred the door against them.
Then the Penghulu set off to tell his tale to the District Officer, the white man under whose charge the Slim Valley had been placed. He went with many misgivings, for Europeans are sceptical concerning such tales, and when he returned, more or less dissatisfied, some five days later, he found that Haji Ali and his sons had disappeared. They had fled down river on a dark night, without a soul being made aware of their intended departure. They had neither stayed to reap their crops, which now stood ripening in the fields; to sell their house and compound, which had been bought with good money,--'dollars of the whitest,' as the Malay phrase has it,--nor yet to collect their debts. This is a fact; and to one who knows the passion for wealth and for property, which is to be found in the breast of every Sumatran Malay, it is perhaps the strangest circumstance of all the weird events, which go to make up the drama of the Were-Tiger of Slim.
There is, to the European mind, only one possible explanation. Haji Ali and his sons had been the victims of foul play. They had been killed by the simple villagers of Slim, and a cock-and-bull story trumped up to account for their disappearance. This is a very good, and withal a very astute explanation, showing as it does a profound knowledge of human nature, and I should be more than half inclined to accept it as the correct one, but for the fact that Haji Ali and his sons turned up in quite another part of the Peninsula some months later. They have nothing out of the way about them to mark them from their fellows, except that Haji Ali goes lame on his right leg.
THE AMOK OF DATO KAYA BIJI DERJA
I have done for ever with all these things, --Deeds that were joyous to knights and kings, In the days that with song were cherish'd. The songs are ended, the deeds are done, There's none shall gladden me now, not one, There is nothing good for me under the sun, But to perish as these things perish'd.
_The Rhyme of the Joyous Garde._
The average stay-at-home Englishman knows very little about the Malay, and cares less. Any fragmentary ideas that he may have concerning him are, for the most part, vague and hopelessly wrong. When he thinks of him at all, which is not often, he conjures up the figure of a wild-eyed, long-haired, blood-smeared, howling and naked savage, armed with what Tennyson calls the 'cursed Malayan crease,' who spends all his spare time running _amok_. As a matter of fact, _amok_ are not as common as people suppose, but false ideas on the subject, and more especially concerning the reasons which lead a Malay to run _amok_, are not confined to those Europeans who know nothing about the natives of the Peninsula. White men, in the East and out of it, are apt to attribute _amok_ running to madness pure and simple, and, as such, to regard it as a form of disease, to which any Malay is liable, and which is as involuntary on his part as an attack of smallpox. This, I venture to think, is a mistaken view of the matter. It is true that some _amok_ are caused by madness, but such acts are not peculiar to the Malays. Given a lunatic who has arms always within his reach, and the result is likely to be the same, no matter what the land in which he lives, or the race to which he belongs. In independent Malay States everybody goes about armed; and weapons, therefore, are always available. As a consequence, madmen often run _amok_, but such cases are not typical, and do not present any of the characteristic features which distinguish the _amok_ among Malays, from similar acts committed by people of other nationalities. By far the greater number of Malay _amok_ results from a condition of mind which is described in the vernacular by the term _sakit hati_--sickness of liver--that organ, and not the heart, being regarded as the centre of sensibility. The states of feeling which are described by this phrase are numerous, complex, and differ widely in degree, but they all imply some measure of anger, excitement, and mental irritation. A Malay loses something he values; he has a bad night in the gambling houses; some of his property is wantonly damaged; he has a quarrel with one whom he loves; his father dies; or his mistress proves unfaithful; any one of these things causes him 'sickness of liver.' In the year 1888, I spent two nights awake by the side of Raja Haji Hamid, with difficulty restraining him from running _amok_ in the streets of Pekan, because his father had died a natural death in Selangor. He had no quarrel with the people of Pahang, but his 'liver was sick,' and to run _amok_ was, in his opinion, the natural remedy. This is merely one instance of many which might be cited, and serves to illustrate my contention that _amok_ is caused, in most cases, by a condition of mind, which may result from either serious or comparatively trivial causes, but which, while it lasts, makes a native weary of life. At such times, he is doubtless to some extent a madman--just as all suicides are more or less insane--but the state of feeling which drives a European to take his own life makes a Malay run _amok_. All Malays have the greatest horror of suicide, and I know of no properly authenticated case in which a male Malay has committed such an act, but I have known several who ran _amok_ when a white man, under similar circumstances, would not improbably have taken his own life. Often enough something trivial begins the trouble, and, in the heat of the moment, a blow is struck by a man against one whom he holds dear, and the hatred of self which results, causes him to long for death, and to seek it in the only way which occurs to a Malay--namely, by running _amok_. A man who runs _amok_, too, almost always kills his wife. He is anxious to die himself, and he sees no reason why his wife should survive him, and, in a little space, become the property of some other man. He also frequently destroys his most valued possessions, as they have become useless to him, since he cannot take them with him to that bourne whence no traveller returns. The following story, for the truth of which I can vouch in every particular, illustrates all that I have said: