Tales of the Malayan Coast
conversations that he had carried on with the tiger while they were
journeying through the jungle.
A brass lamp hung above his head in which the cocoanut oil sputtered
and burned and cast a fitful half-light about the box-like stall.
Only the eager faces of the listeners stood out clear and distinct
against the shadowy background of tapestries from Madras and Bokhara,
soft rich rugs from Afghanistan and Persia, curiously wrought finger
bowls of brass and copper from Delhi and Siam, and piles of cunningly
painted sarongs from Java.
Close against a naked fisherman sat the owner of the bazaar in tall,
conical silk-plaited hat and flowing robes, ministering to the wants
of the little actor, as the soft, monotonous voice paused for a brief
instant for the tiny cups of black coffee.
I never had the heart to interrupt him in the midst of one of these
dramatic recitals, but would stand respectfully without the circle
of light until he had finished the last sentence.
He was not frightened when I thrust the squatting natives right
and left, and he did not forget to arise and touch the back of his
open palm to his forehead, with a calm and reverent, "Tabek, Tuan"
(Greeting, my lord).
So Baboo went with us to fight pirates.
He unrolled his mat out on the bow where every dash of warm salt
water wet his brown skin, and where he could watch the flying fish
dash across our way.
He was very quiet during the two days of the trip, as though he were
fully conscious of the heavy responsibility that rested upon his young
shoulders. I had called him a boaster and it had cut him to the quick.
We found the wreck of the Bunker Hill on a sunken coral reef near the
mouth of the Pahang River, but every vestige of her cargo and stores
was gone, even to the glass in her cabin windows and the brasses on
her rails.
We worked in along the shore and kept a lookout for camps or signals,
but found none.
I decided to go up the river as far as possible in the launch in
hope of coming across some trace of the missing crew, although I
was satisfied that they had been captured by the noted rebel chief,
the Orang Kayah of Semantan, or by his more famous lieutenant, the
crafty Panglima Muda of Jempol, and were being held for ransom.
It was late in the afternoon when we entered the mouth of the Sungi
Pahang.
Aboo Din advised a delay until the next morning.
"The Orang Kayah's Malays are pirates, Tuan," he said, with a sinister
shrug of his bare shoulders, "he has many men and swift praus; the
Dutch, at Rio, have sold them guns, and they have their krises,--they
are cowards in the day."
I smiled at the syce's fears.
I knew that the days of piracy in the Straits of Malacca, save for
an occasional outbreak of high-sea petty larceny on a Chinese lumber
junk or a native trader's tonkang, were past, and I did not believe
that the rebels would have the hardihood to attack, day or night,
a boat, however unprotected, bearing the American flag.
For an hour or more we ran along between the mangrove-bordered shores
against a swiftly flowing, muddy current.
The great tangled roots of these trees stood up out of the water like
a fretwork of lace, and the interwoven branches above our heads shut
out the glassy glare of the sun. We pushed on until the dim twilight
faded out, and only a phosphorescent glow on the water remained to
reveal the snags that marked our course.
The launch was anchored for the night close under the bank, where
the maze of mangroves was beginning to give place to the solid ground
and the jungle.
Myriads of fireflies settled down on us and hung from the low limbs
of the overhanging trees, relieving the hot, murky darkness with
their thousands of throbbing lamps.
From time to time a crocodile splashed in the water as he slid heavily
down the clayey bank at the bow.
In the trees and rubber-vines all about us a colony of long-armed
wah-wah monkeys whistled and chattered, and farther away the sharp,
rasping note of a cicada kept up a continuous protest at our invasion.
At intervals the long, quivering yell of a tiger frightened the
garrulous monkeys into silence, and made us peer apprehensively toward
the impenetrable blackness of the jungle.
Aboo Din came to me as I was arranging my mosquito curtains for
the night. He was casting quick, timid glances over his shoulder as
he talked.
"Tuan, I no like this place. Too close bank. Ten boat-lengths down
stream better. Baboo swear by Allah he see faces behind trees,--once,
twice. Baboo good eyes."
I shook off the uncanny feeling that the place was beginning to cast
over me, and turned fiercely on the faithful Aboo Din.
He slunk away with a low salaam, muttering something about the
Heaven-Born being all wise, and later I saw him in deep converse with
his first-born under a palm-thatched cadjang on the bow.
I was half inclined to take Aboo Din's advice and drop down the
stream. Then it occurred to me that I might better face an imaginary
foe than the whirlpools and sunken snags of the Pahang.
I posted sentinels fore and aft and lay down and closed my eyes to
the legion of fireflies that made the night luminous, and my ears
to the low, musical chant that arose fitfully from among my Malay
servants on the stern.
The Sikhs were big, massive fellows, fully six feet tall, with towering
red turbans that accentuated their height fully a foot.
They were regular artillery-men from Fort Canning, and had seen
service all over India.
They had not been in Singapore long enough to become acquainted
with the Malay language or character, but they knew their duty,
and I trusted to their military training rather than to my Malay's
superior knowledge for our safety during the night.
I found out later that the cunning in Baboo's small brown finger was
worth all the precision and drill in the Sikh sergeant's great body.
I fell asleep at last, lulled by the tenderly crooned promises of
the Koran, and the drowsy, intermittent prattle of the monkeys among
the varnished leaves above. The night was intensely hot; not a breath
of air could stir within our living-cabin, and the cooling moisture
which always comes with nightfall on the equator was lapped up by the
thirsty fronds above our heads, so that I had not slept many hours
before I awoke dripping with perspiration, and faint.
There was an impression in my mind that I had been awakened by the
falling of glass.
The Sikh saluted silently as I stepped out on the deck.
It lacked some hours of daylight, and there was nothing to do but go
back to my bed, vowing never again to camp for the night along the
steaming shores of a jungle-covered stream.
I slept but indifferently; I missed the cooling swish of the punkah,
and all through my dreams the crackle and breaking of glass seemed
to mingle with the insistent buzz of the tiger-gnats.
Baboo's diminutive form kept flitting between me and the fireflies.
The first half-lights of morning were struggling down through the
green canopy above when I was brought to my feet by the discharge of
a Winchester and a long, shrill cry of fright and pain.
Before I could disentangle myself from the meshes of the mosquito net
I could see dimly a dozen naked forms drop lightly on to the deck
from the obscurity of the bank, followed in each case by a long,
piercing scream of pain.
I snatched up my revolver and rushed out on to the deck in my bare
feet.
Some one grasped me by the shoulder and shouted:--
"Jaga biak, biak, Tuan (be careful, Tuan), pirates!"
I recognized Aboo Din's voice, and I checked myself just as my feet
came in contact with a broken beer bottle.
The entire surface of the little deck was strewn with glittering
star-shaped points that corresponded with the fragments before me.
I had not a moment to investigate, however, for in the gloom, where
the bow of the launch touched the foliage-meshed bank, a scene of
wild confusion was taking place.
Shadowy forms were leaping, one after another, from the branches above
on to the deck. I slowly cocked my revolver, doubting my senses,
for each time one of the invaders reached the deck he sprang into
the air with the long, thrilling cry of pain that had awakened me,
and with another bound was on the bulwarks and over the side of the
launch, clinging to the railing.
With each cry, Baboo's mocking voice came out, shrill and exultant,
from behind a pile of life-preservers. "O Allah, judge the dogs. They
would kris the great Tuan as he slept--the pariahs!--but they forgot
so mean a thing as Baboo!"
The smell of warm blood filled the air, and a low snarl among the
rubber-vines revealed the presence of a tiger.
I felt Aboo Din's hand tremble on my shoulder.
The five Sikhs were drawn up in battle array before the cabin door,
waiting for the word of command. I glanced at them and hesitated.
"Tid 'apa, Tuan" (never mind), Aboo Din whispered with a proud ring
in his voice.
"Baboo blow Orang Kayah's men away with the breath of his mouth."
As he spoke the branches above the bow were thrust aside and a dark
form hung for an instant as though in doubt, then shot straight down
upon the corrugated surface of the deck.
As before, a shriek of agony heralded the descent, followed by
Baboo's laugh, then the dim shape sprang wildly upon the bulwark,
lost its hold, and went over with a great splash among the labyrinth
of snakelike mangrove roots.
There was the rushing of many heavy forms through the red mud,
a snapping of great jaws, and there was no mistaking the almost
mortal cry that arose from out the darkness. I had often heard it
when paddling softly up one of the wild Malayan rivers.
It was the death cry of a wah-wah monkey facing the cruel jaws of
a crocodile.
I plunged my fingers into my ears to smother the sound. I understood
it all now. Baboo's pirates, the dreaded Orang Kayah's rebels, were the
troop of monkeys we had heard the night before in the tambusa trees.
"Baboo," I shouted, "come here! What does this all mean?"
The Tiger-Child glided from behind the protecting pile, and came
close up to my legs.
"Tuan," he whimpered, "Baboo see many faces behind trees. Baboo 'fraid
for Tuan,--Tuan great and good,--save Baboo from tiger,--Baboo break
up all glass bottles--old bottles--Tuan no want old bottle--Baboo
and Aboo Din, the father, put them on deck so when Orang Kayah's men
come out of jungle and drop from trees on deck they cut their feet
on glass. Baboo is through talking,--Tuan no whip Baboo!"
There was the pathetic little quaver in his voice that I knew so well.
"But they were monkeys, Baboo, not pirates."
Baboo shrugged his brown shoulders and kept his eyes on my feet.
"Allah is good!" he muttered.
Allah was good; they might have been pirates.
The snarl of the tiger was growing more insistent and near. I gave
the order, and the boat backed out into mid-stream.
As the sun was reducing the gloom of the sylvan tunnel to a translucent
twilight, we floated down the swift current toward the ocean.
I had given up all hope of finding the shipwrecked men, and decided
to ask the government to send a gunboat to demand their release.
As the bow of the launch passed the wreck of the Bunker Hill and
responded to the long even swell of the Pacific, Baboo beckoned
sheepishly to Aboo Din, and together they swept all trace of his
adventure into the green waters.
Among the souvenirs of my sojourn in Golden Chersonese is a bit
of amber-colored glass bearing the world-renowned name of a London
brewer. There is a dark stain on one side of it that came from the
hairy foot of one of Baboo's "pirates."
HOW WE PLAYED ROBINSON CRUSOE
In the Straits of Malacca
Two hours' steam south from Singapore, out into the famous Straits of