Tales of the Malayan Coast

He had discarded his dirty linen for a blue-flannel bathing-suit that some former high official of H. B. M. service had left behind. There were traces of starvation or dissipation in every movement. His hand trembled as he conveyed the hot soup to his blue lips. Gradually the color came back to his sunken cheeks, and by the time he had laid in the second plate of curry and drank two whiskey and sodas he looked comparatively sleek and respectable. Even his anxiety for the little sleeper seemed to fade out of his weak face. I had been watching him narrowly during the meal. I could not make up my mind whether he was a clever actor or only an unfortunate; he might be the latter, and still be what I was certain of,--a scamp. The wind whistled and roared about the great verandas and into the glassless windows with all the vehemence of a New England snowstorm. It caught our well-protected punkah-lamps, and turned their broad flames into spiral columns of smoke. Ever and again a flash of lightning flared in our eyes, and revealed the water of the narrow straits lashed into a white fury. I should have been thankful for the company of even a dog on such a night, and think the loafer felt it, for I could see that he was more at ease with every crash of thunder. I tiptoed over to the "little gal," and noted her soft, regular breathing and healthful sleep, undisturbed by the fierce storm outside. I lit a manila, and handed one to my companion. We puffed a moment in silence, while the boy replenished our glasses. "Now," I said, tipping my chair back against the wall, "tell me your story." My guest's face at once assumed the expression of the professional loafer. My faith in him began to wane. "I am an American," he began glibly enough under the combined effects of the whiskey and dinner, "an old soldier. I fought with Grant in the Wilderness, and--" "Of course," I interrupted, "and with Sherman in Georgia. I have heard it all by a hundred better talkers than you. Suppose you skip it." I did not look up, but I was perfectly familiar with the expression of injured innocence that was mantling his face. He began again in a few minutes, but his voice had lost some of its engaging frankness. "I am the son of a kind and indulgent mother,--God bless her. My father died before I knew him--" I moved uneasily in my chair. He hurried on:-- "I fell in bad ways in spite of her saintly love, and ran away to sea." "Look here, my friend," I said, "I am sorry to spoil your little tale, but it is an old one. Can't you give me something new? Now try again." He looked at me unsteadily under his thin eyebrows, shuffled restlessly in his seat, and said with something like a sob in his voice:-- "Well, sir, I will. You have been kind to me and taken my little gal in; you saved her life, and, for a change, I'll tell you the truth." He drew himself up a little too ostentatiously, threw his head back, and said proudly:-- "I am a gentleman born." "Good," I laughed. "Now you are on the right track, and besides you look it." "Ah! you may sneer," he retorted, "but I tell you the truth." His face flushed and his lip quivered. He brought his fist down on the table. "I tell you my father,--ah! but never mind my father." His voice failed him. "Certainly," I replied. "Only get on with your story." "I came out to India from Boston as a young man," he continued, "either in '66 or '68, I forget which." "Try '67," I suggested. "It was not '67," he exclaimed angrily, "it was either '66 or '68." "Or some other date. However, that's but a detail. Proceed." "Sir, you can make sport of me, but what I am telling you is God's truth. May I be struck dead if one lie passes my lips. I came out to plant coffee; I thought, like many others, that I had only to cut down the jungle and put in coffee plants, and make my everlasting fortune." "And didn't you?" I asked, glancing at his dilapidated old helmet that hung over the corner of the sideboard. "Look at me!" he burst forth, springing upon his feet, his breast heaving under his blue pajamas. "Pardon the question," I answered. "Go on, you are doing bravely." He sank back into his chair with a commendable air of dignity. "I had a little money of my own," he continued, "and opened up an estate. It promised well, but I soon came to the end of my small capital. I thought I could go to Calcutta and Bombay and Simla, and cultivate my mind by travel and society, while the bushes were growing. Well it ended in the same old way. I got into the chitties' hands--they are worse than Jews--at two per cent a month on a mortgage on my estate. Then I went back to it with a determination to pay up my debt, make my estate a success, and after that to see the world. I worked, sir, like a nigger, and for a time was able to meet my naked creditor, from month to month, hoping all the time against hope for a bumper crop." "I understand," I said. "Your bumper crop did not come, and your chitty did. Where does she come in?" I nodded in the direction of the little sleeper. He glanced uneasily in the same direction, and a tear gathered in his eye. "I married on credit, sir, the daughter of an English army officer. It was infernal. But, sir, you would have done likewise. Live under the burning sun of India for four years, struggle against impossibilities and hope against hope, and then have a pair of great hazel eyes look lovingly into yours and a pair of red lips turned up to yours,--and tell me if you would not have closed your eyes to the future, and accepted this precious gift as though it were sent from above?" The pale, shrunken face of the speaker glowed, and his faded eyes lit up with the light of love. "We were happy for a time, and the little gal was born, but the bumper crop did not come. Then, sir, I sold farm tools and my horse, and sent the wife to a hill station for her health. I kept the little gal. I stayed to work, as none of my natives ever worked. It was a gay station to which she went. You know the rest,--she never came back. That ended the struggle. I would have shot myself but for the little one. I took her and we wandered here and there, doing odd jobs for a few months at a time. I drifted down to Singapore, hoping to better myself, but, sir, I am about used up. It's hard--hard." He buried his head in his long, thin fingers, and sat perfectly still. There was a sound outside above the roar of the wind and the rain. At first faint and intermittent, it grew louder, and continuous, and came close. There was no mistaking it,--the march of booted men. "What's that?" asked my companion, with a start. "Tommy Atkins," I replied, "the clang of the ammunition boot as big as life." His face grew ashy white, and he looked furtively around the room. "What's the matter?" I exclaimed, but as I asked, I knew. I opened the bath-room door and shoved him in. "Go in there" I said, "and compose some more fairy tales." He was scarcely out of sight when the front door was thrown open, and a corporal's guard, wet yet happy, marched into the room. The corporal stood with his back to the door, and gave himself mental words of command,--"Eyes left, eyes right,"--then, as a last resource,--"eyes under the table." He had not noticed the little bundle in the dark corner. He drew himself up and gave the military salute. "Beg pardon, sir, but we are out for a deserter from the 58th,--Bill Hulish,--we 'ave tracked him 'ere, and with the compliments of the commanding hofficer, we'll search the 'ouse." "Search away," I answered, as I heard the outside bath-room door open and close softly. They returned empty-handed, but not greatly disappointed. "Wet night, corporal," I ventured. "One of the worst as ever I knew, sir," he replied, eying the whiskey bottle and the two half-drained glasses. "'Ad a long march, sir, fourteen miles." I pushed the bottle toward him, and with a deprecatory salute he turned out a stiff drink. "'Ere's to yer 'ealth, sir, an' may ye always 'ave an extra glass ready for a visitor." I smiled, and motioned for his men to do likewise, and then, because he was a man of sweet composure and had not asked any questions as to the extra glass and chair, told him that his bird had flown. "Bad 'cess to him, sir, 'e's led us a pretty chase for these last four weeks. If 'e was only a deserter I wouldn't mind, but 'e's a kidnapper. Leastways, Tommy Loud's young'n turned up missin' the day he skipped, an' we ain't seen nothin' of 'er since." "Is this she?" I asked, leading him to the cot. Hardly looking at the child, he raised her in his arms and kissed her. "God be praised, sir," he said with a show of feeling. "We 'ave got her back. I think her mother would 'ave died if we 'ad come back again without her,--but, O my little darlin', you look cruel bad. Drugged, sir, that's what she is. Drugged to keep 'er quiet and save food. The blag'ard!" "But what did he take her for?" I asked. "Bless you, sir," replied the corporal, "she was his stock in trade. I reckon she's drawn many dibs out of other people's pockets that would 'ave been nestlin' there to-day if it 'adn't 'a' bin for 'er." Then a broad grin broke over his ruddy features, and he looked at me quizzically. "But 'e was a great play hactor, sir." "And a poet," I added enthusiastically. "'E could beat Kipling romancin', sir." He checked himself, as though ashamed of awarding such meed of praise to his ex-colleague. "But we must be goin'; orders strict. With your permission, sir, I will leave her with a guard of one man for to-night, and send the ambulance for her in the morning." He drew up his little file, saluted, and marched out into the rain and wind, with all the cheerfulness of a duck. I could hear them singing as they crossed the compound and struck into the jungle road:-- "Oh, it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, go away'; But it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,' when the band begins to play, The band begins to--" A peal of thunder that shook the bungalow from its attap roof to its nebong pillars drowned the melody and drove me inside. A PIG HUNT In the Malayan Jungle The thermometer stood at 155 degrees in the sun. The dry lallang grass crackled and glowed and returned long irregular waves of heat to the quivering metallic dome above. The sensitive mimosa, at our feet, had long since surrendered to the fierce wooing of the sun-god, submissively folding its leaves and then its branches and putting aside its morning dress of green for one more in keeping with the color of the earth and sky. Even the clamorous cicada had hushed its insistent whir. We were dressed in brown kaki suits. Wide-spreading cork helmets were filled with the stiff varnished leaves of the mango, and wet handkerchiefs were draped from underneath their rims; yet, after an hour of exposure, our flesh ached--it was tender to the touch. The barrel of my Express scorched my hand, and I wrapped my camerabuna about it. But then it was no hotter than any other day. In fact, we never gave a thought to the weather. We were formed in a line, perhaps two miles in length, in a deserted pepper plantation, fronting a jungle of timboso trees and rubber-vines. I squatted patiently under the checkered shade of a neglected coffee tree and kept my eyes fixed on the seemingly impenetrable walls of the jungle. A hundred feet to the right and the left, under like protection, were two of my companions, determined like myself to be successful in three points,--to have the first shot at the pigs, to avoid getting shot, or shooting a neighbor. But our minds rose above mental cautions with the first faint halloos of the