Tales of the Malayan Coast
The tense feline growl of the tiger grew more distinct. The Prince's
hand sought the jewelled handle of his kris. There was a swift rush
in the darkness, a crashing among the rubber-vines, a short, quick
snarl, and then all was still.
If you run amok in Malaya, you may kill your enemy or your dearest
friend, but you will be krissed in the end like a pariah dog. Every
man, woman, and child will turn his hand against you, from the mother
who bore you to the outcast you have befriended.
The laws are as immutable as fate.
LEPAS'S REVENGE
The Tale of a Monkey
There were many monkeys--I came near saying there were hundreds--in
the little clump of jungle trees back of the bungalow. We could lie
in our long chairs, any afternoon, when the sun was on the opposite
side of the house, and watch them from behind the bamboo "chicks"
swinging and playing in the maze of rubber-vines.
They played tag and high-spy, and a variety of other games. When
they were tired of playing, they fell to quarrelling, scolding,
and chasing each other among the stiff, varnished leaves, making so
much noise that I could not get my afternoon nap, and often had to
call to the syce to throw a stone into the branches. Then they would
scuttle away to the topmost parts of the great trees and there join
in giving me a rating that ought to have made me ashamed forever to
look another monkey in the face.
One day, I went out and threw a stick at them myself, and the next
day I found my shoes, which the Chinese "boy" had pipe-clayed and
put out in the sun to dry, missing; and the day after I found the
netting of my mosquito house torn from top to bottom.
So I was not in the best of humors when I was awakened, one afternoon,
by the whistling of a monkey close to my chair. I reached out quickly
for my cork helmet which I had thrown down by my side. As it was there,
I looked up in surprise to see what had become of my visitor.
There he sat up against the railing of the veranda with his legs
cramped up under him, ready to flee if I made a threatening gesture.
His face was turned toward me, with the thin, hairless skin of its
upper lip drawn back, showing a perfect row of milk-white teeth that
were chattering in deadly terror. The whole expression of his face
was one of conciliation and entreaty.
I knew that it was all make-believe, so I half closed my eyes and
did not move. The chattering stopped. The little fellow looked about
curiously, drew his mouth up into a pucker, whistled once or twice
to make sure I was not awake, and reached out his bony arm for a few
crumbs of cake that had fallen near.
He was not more than a foot in height. His diminutive body seemed
to have been fitted into a badly worn skin that was two sizes too
large for him, and the scalp of his forehead moved about like an
overgrown wig.
He was the most ordinary kind of gray, jungle monkey, not even a
wah-wah or spider face.
"Well," I said, after we had thoroughly inspected each other, "where
are my shoes?"
Like a flash the whistling ceased, and with a pathetic trembling of
his thin upper lip he commenced to beg with his mouth, and to put up
his homely little hands in mute appeal.
For a moment I feared he would go into convulsions, but I soon
discovered that my sympathy, had been wasted.
Then I noticed, for the first time, that there was a leather strap
around his body just in front of his back legs, and that a string was
attached to it, which ran through the railings and off the veranda. I
looked over, and there, squatting on his sandalled feet, was a Malay,
with the other end of the string in his hand.
He arose, smiling, touched his forehead with the back of his brown
palm, and asked blandly:--
"Tuan, want to buy?"
The calm assurance of the man amused me.
"What, that miserable little monkey?" I said. "Do you take me for a
tourist? Look up in those trees and you will see monkeys that know
boiled rice from padi."
The man grinned and showed his brilliantly red teeth and gums.
"Tuan see. This monkey very wise," and he made a motion with his
stick. The little fellow sprang from the railing to his bare head,
and sat holding on to his long black hair.
"See, Tuan," and he made another motion, and the monkey leaped to
the ground and commenced to run around his master, hopping first
on one foot and then on the other, raising his arms over his head
like a ballet dancer. After every revolution he would stop and turn
a handspring.
The Malay all the time kept up a droning kind of a song in his native
tongue, improvising as he went along.
The tenor of it was that one Hamat, a poor Malay, but a good
Mohammedan, who had never been to Mecca, wanted to go to become a
Hadji. He had no money but he had a good monkey that was very dear
to him. He had found it in a distant jungle, beyond Johore, when a
little baby; had brought it up like one of his own children and had
taught it to dance and salaam.
Now he must sell the monkey to the great Tuan, or Lord, that the
money might help take him to Mecca. The monkey must dance well and
please the mighty Tuan.
As the little fellow danced, he kept one eye on me as though he
understood it all.
"How old is he?" I asked, becoming interested.
"Just as old as your Excellency would like," he replied, bowing.
"Is he a year old?"
"If the Tuan please."
"Well, how much do you want for him?"
"What your Excellency can give."
"Twenty-five dollars?" I asked.
His face lit up from chin to forehead. He hitched nervously at the
folds of his sarong, and changed the quid of red betel-nut from one
corner of his mouth to the other.
"Here, Hamat," I said, laughing, "here is five dollars; take it;
when you come back from Mecca with a green turban come and see me. If
I am sick of the monkey, you can have him back."
So commenced our acquaintance with Lepas. We got into the habit
of calling him Lepas, because it was the Malay for "let go," which
definition we broadened until it became a term of correction for every
form of mischief. He was such a restless, active little imp, with
hands into everything and upon everything, that it was "Lepas!" from
morning to night.
He soon learned the word's twofold meaning. If we said "Lepas" sternly,
he subsided at once; but when we called it pleasantly he came running
across the room and leaped into our laps.
It did not take Lepas as long to forget his former master as it did
to forget his former habits. In truth, his civilization was never
more than skin deep.
He would sit for hours cuddled up in the mistress's lap, playing
with her work and making deft slaps at passing flies, until he
had thoroughly convinced her of his perfect trustworthiness. Then,
the moment her back was turned, he would slip away to her bureau,
and such a mess as he would make of her ribbons and laces!
I think he liked the servants better than he did us. He would dance
and turn handsprings and salaam for them, but never for the mistress
or myself. Such tricks, he seemed to think, were beneath his new
position in society.
He had a standing grudge against me, however, for insisting on his
bath in the big Shanghai jar every day, and took delight in rolling
in the red dust of the road the moment he was through.
It was not long before he had a feud with the monkeys in the trees,
back of the house. He would stand on the ground, within easy reach
of the house, and as saucily as you please, till they were worked up
into a white heat of rage over his remarks.
Once he caught a baby monkey that had become entangled in the wiry
lallang grass under the trees, and dragged it screeching into the
house. Before we could get to him he had nearly drowned it by treating
it to a bath,--an act, I suppose, intended to convey to me his opinion
of my humane efforts to keep him clean.
I expected as a matter of course to lose another pair of shoes
or something, in payment for this unneighborly behavior, but the
colony in the trees seemed to know that I was innocent. It was not
long before they caught the true culprit, and gave him such a beating
that he was quiet and subdued for days.
But Lepas was a lovable little fellow with all his mischief. Every
afternoon when I came home from the office, tired out with the heat
and the fierce glare of the sun, he would hop over to my chair,
whistle soothingly, and make funny little chirrups with his lips,
until I noticed him.
Then he would crawl quietly up the legs of the chair until he reached
my shoulder, where he would commence with his cool little fingers to
inspect my eyes and nose, and to pick over carefully each hair of my
mustache and head.
So we forgave him when he pulled all the feathers out of a ring-dove
that was a valued present from an old native rajah; when he turned
lamp-oil into the ice cream, and when he broke a rare Satsuma bowl
in trying to catch a lizard. He was always so penitent after each
misadventure!
We had heard that Hamat had sailed for Jedda with a shipload of
pilgrims and were therefore expecting him back soon; but we had
decided not to give up Lepas. He had become a sort of necessity about
the house.
Next door to us, lived a high official of the English service. He was
a sour, cross old man and did not like pets. Even the monkeys in the
trees knew better than to go into his "compound," or inclosure.
But Lepas started off on a voyage of discovery one day, and not only
invaded his compound, but actually entered his house. The official
caught him in the act of hiding his shaving-set between the palm
thatch of the roof and the cheese-cloth ceiling. Recognizing Lepas,
he did not kill him, but took him by his leathern girdle and soused
him in his bath-tub, until he was so near dead that it took him hours
to crawl home.
Lepas went around with a sad, injured expression on his wrinkled
little face, for days. Not even a mangosteen sprinkled with sugar
could awaken his enthusiasm.
He went so far as to make up with the monkeys in the trees, and once
or twice I caught him condescending to have a game of leap-frog with
them. I made up my mind that he had determined to turn over a new leaf,
but the syce shook his head knowingly and said:--
"Lepas all the time thinking. He thinks bad things."
And so it proved.
One night the mistress gave a very big dinner party. The high official
from next door was there. So were several other high officials of
Singapore, the general commanding her Majesty's troops, and the
foreign consuls and members of Legislative Council.
It was a hot night, and the punkah-wallah outside kept the punkah, or
mechanical fan, switching back and forth over our heads with a rapidity
that made us fear its ropes would break, as very often happened.
Suddenly there was a crash, and a champagne glass struck squarely in
the high official's soup and spattered it all over his white expanse
of shirt front. We all looked up at the punkah. At the same instant
a big, soft mango smashed in the high official's face and changed
its ruddy red color to a sickly yellow.
The women screamed, and the men jumped up from the table. Then began
a regular fusillade of wine glasses and tropical fruits.
Sometimes they hit the high official from next door, at whom they all
seemed to be aimed, but more often they fell upon the table, among
the glass and dishes. In a moment everything was in wild confusion,
and the mistress's beautifully decorated table looked as though a
bomb had exploded on it.
The Chinese "boys" made a rush for the end of the room, and there,
up on the sideboard, among the glass, pelting his enemy, the high
official, as fast as he could throw, was Lepas.
A finger bowl struck the butler full in the face, and gave the monkey