Tales of the Malayan Coast

half-dollars. One after another their heads would disappear into the sticky, blinding mass, as they fished with their teeth for the shining prizes at the bottom. Successful or otherwise, after their powers were exhausted they would suddenly pull out their heads, reeking with the molasses, and make for the ocean, unmindful of the crowds of natives in holiday attire who blocked their way. Then came a jinrikisha race, with Chinese coolies pulling Malay passengers around a half-mile course. Letting go the handles of their wagons as they crossed the line, the coolies threw their unfortunate passengers over backward. Tugs of war, wrestling matches, and boxing bouts on the turf finished the land sports, and we all adjourned to the yachts to witness those of the sea. There were races between men-of-war cutters, European yachts, rowing shells, Chinese sampans, and Malay colehs with great, dart-like sails, so wide-spreading that ropes were attached to the top of the masts, and a dozen naked natives hung far out over the side of the slender boat to keep it from blowing over. In making the circle of the harbor they would spring from side to side of the boat, sometimes lost to our view in the spray, often missing their footholds, and dragging through the tepid water. Between times, while watching the races, we amused ourselves throwing coppers to a fleet of native boys in small dugouts beneath our bows. Every time a penny dropped into the water, a dozen little bronze forms would flash in the sunlight, and nine times out of ten the coin never reached the bottom. Last of all came the trooping of the English colors on the magnificent esplanade, within the shadow of the cathedral; the march past of the sturdy British artillery and engineers, with their native allies, the Sikhs and Sepoys; then the feu-de-joie, and New Year's was officially recognized by the guns of the fort. That night we danced at Government House,--we exiles of the Temperate Zone,--keeping up to the last the fiction that New Year's Day under a tropic sky and within sound of the tiger's wail was really January first. But every remembrance and association was, in our homesick thoughts, grouped about an open arch fire, with the sharp, crisp creak of sleigh-runners outside, in a frozen land fourteen thousand miles away. IN THE BURST OF THE SOUTHWEST MONSOON A Tale of Changhi Bungalow We had been out all day from Singapore on a wild-pig hunt. There were eight of us, including three young officers of the Royal Artillery, besides somewhere between seventy and a hundred native beaters. The day had been unusually hot, even for a country whose regular record on the thermometer reads 150 degrees in the sun. We had tramped and shot through jungle and lallang grass, until, when night came on, I was too tired to make the fourteen miles back across the island, and so decided to push on a mile farther to a government "rest bungalow." I said good-by to my companions and the game, and accompanied only by a Hindu guide, struck out across some ploughed lands for the jungle road that led to and ended at Changhi. Changhi was one of three rest bungalows, or summer resorts, if one can be permitted to mention summer in this land of perpetual summer. They were owned and kept open by the Singapore Government for the convenience of travellers, and as places to which its own officials can flee from the cares of office and the demands of society. I had stopped at Changhi Bungalow once for some weeks when my wife and a party of friends and all our servants were with me. It was lonely even then, with the black impenetrable jungle crowding down on three sides, and a strip of the blinding, dazzling waters of the uncanny old Straits of Malacca in front. There were tigers and snakes in the jungle, and crocodiles and sharks in the Straits, and lizards and other things in the bungalow. I thought of all this in a disjointed kind of a way, and half wished that I had stayed with my party. Then I noticed uneasily that some thick oily-looking clouds were blotting out the yellow haze left by the sun over on the Johore side. A few big hot drops of rain splashed down into my face, as I climbed wearily up the dozen cement steps of the house. The bamboo chicks were all down, and the shutter-doors securely locked from the inside, but there was a long rattan chair within reach, and I dropped into it with a sigh of satisfaction, while my guide went out toward the servant-quarters to arouse the Malay mandor, or head gardener, whom H. B. M.'s Government trusted with this portion of her East Indian possessions. As might have been expected, that high functionary was not to be found, and I was forced to content myself, while my guide went on to a neighboring native police station to make inquiries. I unbuttoned my stiff kaki shooting-jacket, lit a manila, which my mouth was too dry to smoke, and gazed up at the ceiling in silence. It was stiflingly hot. Even the cicadas in the great jungle tree, that towered a hundred and fifty feet above the house, were quiet. Every breath I took seemed to scorch me, and the balls of my eyes ached. The sky had changed to a dull cartridge color. A breeze came across the hot, glaring surface of the Straits, and stirred the tops of a little clump of palms, and died away. It brought with it the smell of rain. For a moment there was a dead stillness,--not even a lizard clucked on the wall back of me; then all at once the thermometer dropped down two or three degrees, and a tearing wind struck the bamboo curtains and stretched them out straight; the tops of the massive jungle trees bent and creaked; there was a blinding flash and a roar of thunder, and all distance was lost in darkness and rain. It was one of the quick, fierce bursts of the southwest monsoon. I did not move, although wet to the skin. Presently I could make out three blurred figures fighting their way slowly against the storm across the compound. One was the guide; the second was the mandor, naked save for a cotton sarong around his waist; the third was a stranger. The trio came up on the veranda--the stranger hanging behind, with an apologetic droop of his head. He was a white man, in a suit of dirty, ragged linen. It took but one look to place him. I had seen hundreds of them "on the beach" in Singapore,--there could be no mistake. "Loafer" was written all over him--from his ragged, matted hair to the fringe on the bottom of his trousers. He held a broken cork helmet, that had not seen pipe-clay for many a month, in his grimy hands, and scraped one foot and ducked his dripping head, as I turned toward him with a gruff,-- "Well?" "Beg pardon, sir," he said, in a harsh, rasping voice, "but I heard that the American Consul was here. I am an American." He looked up with a watery leer in his eyes. "Go on," I said, without offering to take the hand of my fellow-countryman. He let his arm fall to his side. "I ain't got any passport; that went with the rest, and I never had the heart to ask for another." He gave a bad imitation of a sob. "Never mind the side play," I commented, as he began to rumble in the bottomless pocket of his coat. "I will supply all that as you go along. What is it you want?" He withdrew his hand and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "Come in out of the rain and you won't need to do that," I said, amused at this show of feeling. "I thought as how you might give a countryman a lift," he whined. I smiled and stepped to the door. "Boy, bring the gentleman a whiskey and soda." The "boy" brought the liquor, while I commenced to unstrap and dry my Winchester. My fellow-countryman did not move, but stood nervously tottering from one leg to the other, as I went on with my task. He coughed once or twice to attract my attention. "Beg pardon, sir, but I meant work--good, honest work. Work was what I wanted, to earn this very glass of whiskey for my little gal. She's sick, sir, sick--sick in a hut at the station." "Your little what?" I asked in amazement. "My little gal, sir. She's all that's left me. If you'll trust me with the glass, I'll take it to her. Can't give you no security, I'm afraid, only the word of a broken-down old father, who has got a little gal what he loves better than life!" My long experience with tramps and beach-combers was at fault. No words can convey an idea of the pathos and humility he threw into his tone and actions. The yearning of the voice, the almost divine air of self-abnegation, the subdued flash of pride here and there that suggested better days, the hopeless droop of the arms, and the irresolute tremble of the corners of his mouth would have appealed to the heart of a heathen idol. That one of his caste should refuse a glass of "Usher's Best," and be willing to brave the burst of a southwest monsoon to take it to any one--child, mother, or wife--was incredible. "Drink it," I said roughly. "You will need it before you get to the station. Boy, bring me my waterproof and an umbrella. Now out you go. We'll see whether this 'little gal' is male or female,--seven or seventy." The loafer snatched up his helmet with an avidity that admitted of no question as to his earnestness. We made a wild rush down across the oozing compound, through a little strip of dripping jungle, over a swaying foot-bridge that spanned the muddy Sonji Changhi, and along the sandy floor of a cocoanut grove. On the outskirts of a station we came upon a deserted bungalow, that was trembling in the storm on its rotten supports. We went up its rickety ladder and across its open bamboo floor, to the darkest corner, where, on an old mat under the only dry spot in the hut, lay a bundle of rags. My companion dropped down among the decayed stumps of pineapples and cocoanut refuse, and commenced to croon in a hoarse voice, "Daddy come,--Daddy come,--poor dearie," and made a motion as though to put the bottle to a small, dirty white face that I could just make out among the rags. I pushed him aside and gathered the unconscious little burden up into my arms. There was no time for sentiment. Every minute I expected the miserable old shelter would go over. We made our way as best we could back through the darkness and driving blasts of rain. The loafer followed with a long series of "God bless you's." He essayed once or twice to hold the umbrella over his "little gal's" head, but each time the wind turned it inside out, and he gave it up with an air of feeble inconsequence that characterized all his movements. I put my burden down on a couch in the dining room, and chafed her hands and feet, while the boy brought a beer bottle filled with hot water. It was a sweet little face, pinched and drawn, with big hazel eyes, that looked up into mine as my efforts sent the blood coursing through her veins. She was between five and six years old. A mass of dark brown hair, unkempt and matted, fell about her face and shoulders. I wrapped a rug about her. She was asleep almost before I had finished. A little later I roused her, and she nestled her damp little head against my shoulder as I gave her some soup; but her eyelids were heavy, and it seemed almost cruel to keep her awake, even for the food she so badly needed. The father had shuffled about uneasily during my motherly attentions, and seemed relieved when I was through. While the boy brought a steaming hot curry and a goodly supply of whiskey and soda, I turned the self-confessed father of the big hazel eyes into the bath-room. With the grime and dirt off his face he was pale and haggard. There were big blue marks under his shifting gray eyes and his hair hung ragged and singed about his ears.