Chapter V: Preface (5)

It seemed to me a somewhat remarkable coincidence that I should, at that moment, be standing in front of the stone which told me that, underneath that emerald turf, lay all that was left of the poor lady’s son-in-law, the grief-stricken daughter’s husband. The situation appealed to my artistic instincts. I sat down, there and then, and, with a pencil and a bit of paper, I made a rough sketch of the soldier’s grave; carefully drawing the headstone, and inscribing on it, in very plain and very black print, the legend that I saw in front of me. Then I went home, and, while the situation was hot upon me, I wrote, not to the mother, but to the widow, a little account of what had occurred, using the most appropriate and touching language I could think of, to describe the scene and my deep sympathy. Finally I enclosed the little picture, which I had drawn with such a compelling sense of my responsibilities, and the unique character of the opportunity, to show that I was a man of rather uncommon feeling. Much pleased with the result of my efforts, I entrusted the letter to my friend (there was no such thing as a post-office), and we became almost sentimental over the chastened tears with which my letter would be read by the two poor ladies.

The mother’s letter to me had wandered about for two or three months before it came to my hands; but I learned,--ages afterwards,--that my letter to the daughter was a far longer time in transit; not the fault of my friend, but simply of the general unhingedness of things in those wild places.

The letter did at last arrive, and was handed to the widow on the day she was married to a new husband. That is why I believe in the quaintness of coincidences.

XXII

OF A COUNTRY-HOUSE CUSTOM

I went one morning to a hotel in London to call upon a celebrated writer of fiction, a lady, and she told me that, as a protest against ideas which she despised, she always locked her door when she was talking to a man. I stayed there about two hours, but I don’t remember whether the door was locked or not, probably not; no one, however, tried it, and my reputation survived the ordeal. The practice is unconventional, though innocent enough. It is much more common to find yourself in a lady’s room, at night, in a country-house in England, and there you may talk to a friend, perhaps to two, and even, on occasions, smoke a cigarette, while the door is seldom locked. Do you see any harm in it? The thing itself is so pleasant that I do not mean to discuss with you the fors and againsts; I am satisfied that it is often done, and that I sometimes profit by the arrangement. A century ago, or rather more, it was common enough, if not in England, certainly on the Continent, and the guest was sometimes present while the lady lay in bed, or made her toilette. It is conceivable that this custom deserved to be discouraged, and it seems to have gone out of fashion, no doubt for sufficiently good reasons.

I was once a guest in a delightful country-house in the heart of England, a house where nothing was lacking that could contribute to comfort, and where the hostess was attraction sufficient to draw visitors from the uttermost parts of the earth, and keep them with her as long as she desired their presence. She was wayward (an added charm), and the company came and went, and some came again, but none remained long enough to become overpoweringly tedious or compromisingly _épris_. It was winter, the hard earth was full of “bone,” the waters icebound, and the face of the country white with a thick covering of frozen snow. There were but few of us in the house, and we had been skating on the ornamental water in a neighbour’s park, miles away. That was the only form of exercise open to us, and we had enjoyed it. The long walk over the crisp snow and the uneven cart tracks of a country road, the intoxicating ease and rapidity of motion over the glassy ice, the ring of steel on that hard, smooth surface, how distinctly they all come back! And then the trudge home in the gathering dusk, between the woods whose snow-laden trees looked the very picture of winter,--it was all delightful and exhilarating, and, if our dinner-party was small, it was certainly a merry one. When we parted on the stairs it was close on midnight, and I was standing enjoying the blaze of my fire and the intense cosiness of my room, when there came a knock, and what I had thought was a cupboard-door opened to admit the head of our charming chatelaine, with an inquiry as to my comfort and contentment, and an invitation to put on a smoking-jacket and have a cigarette in her snuggery. I very eagerly and gratefully accepted that offer, and a few minutes later found myself in the most delightfully warm, cosy, and withal artistically beautiful room the heart and mind of woman could desire or design. This boudoir faced the front of the house, and looking over the lawn and terraces were three French windows, through which streamed bright rays of moonlight, for the shutters were not closed. Within, a great wood fire blazed on a wide hearth of olive-green tiles. Two lamps, with shades of _vieille rose_, shed a soft glow over inviting-looking chairs, thick carpet, tables littered with books and papers, lovely bits of porcelain and bronze, treasures in burnished silver and dull red gold. Every chair looked as if it were made for comfort, and the whole room said unmistakably, “This is where I live.” I should have noted the general effect at a glance, but I had time to appreciate the details, for, when I entered, I found the room unoccupied. In a few minutes my hostess appeared from her room, which opened out of this fascinating retreat, and said--

“Well, how do you like my snuggery; is it not cosy?”

I said it was charming and delightful, and everything that good taste and an appreciation of real comfort could make it.

“I am so glad,” she said; “will you smoke one of my cigarettes?”

“Thank you, yes.”

“Shall I light it for you?”

“That would be most kind.”

“There; now we can make ourselves quite comfortable and have a real good chat, and no one will come to disturb us. What have you been doing with yourself all this time? What new friends have you made? What books have you been reading? Tell me all about everything. I think you would be more comfortable over there; don’t worry about me, this is my favourite seat, but I change about and never sit very long in one place. You can imagine I am your Father Confessor, so don’t keep me waiting; tell it all, and keep back nothing; you know I shall be sure to find you out if you try to deceive me.”

I found a seat--not exactly where I had first wished to place myself, but where I was put--and our chat was so mutually interesting that I was surprised to find it was 2 A.M. when my hostess told me I must go to bed. I must have smoked a good many cigarettes, and I have a vague recollection that there were glasses with spiritual comfort as well; it is probable, for nothing that any reasonable human being could want was ever lacking there. I know that I lingered, and the white light through the curtains drew us both to the window. Never shall I forget the incomparable picture of that snow-covered landscape;--glittering, scintillating under the silver radiance of a full winter moon, riding high in a clear, grey, frosty sky. The absolute stillness of it; not a sign of life; the bare trees throwing sharp shadows on the dazzling whiteness of a prospect broken only by the evergreens of the garden, the cleared stone steps of the terraces, and beyond, a small stream winding through the narrow valley, and forming a little lake of as yet unfrozen water, its ever rippling surface showing black and sombre under the shadow of a high bank which shut out the moonlight. The contrast between that outside,--the coldness, the whiteness, the sense of far-into-the-nightness, which somehow struck one instantly; and the inside,--the warmth, the comfort, the subtle sympathy of companionship with a most fascinating, most beautiful, perfectly-garmented woman: it was too striking to be ever forgotten. The picture has risen unbidden before my eyes on many a night since then, under other skies and widely different circumstances.

Turning away from the window, I could see through an open door into my companion’s room, and I said, “How did you get into my room?” “Very easily,” she answered; “there is a cupboard in the thickness of the wall between your room and mine; it opens into both rooms, but is at present full of my gowns, as you would have seen had you had the curiosity to look in, and the door happened to be unlocked.”

I said I had abundant curiosity, and would gratify it when I got back.

My hostess smiled and said, “There is nothing to find out now; I have told you all there is to tell. Good night.”

“But,” I said, “why should I go all the way round, through cold passages, when I can walk straight through to my room by this way?” and I pointed to the open door.

“That is very ingenious of you,” she answered; “and you are not wanting either in the quick grasp of a situation, or the assurance to make the most of it. You do not deserve that I should pay you such a pretty compliment! It is too late for banter; I am getting sleepy. Good night.”

XXIII

A MERE LIE

As the tale I am going to tell you is only a lie, you will understand that it is not of my making; I cannot even pretend to have heard it at first hand. The author was a scientist who lied in the intervals between his researches. It was a relief, I suppose, after too close contact with the eternal truths of Nature. His mental fingers seemed to wander over the keys of an instrument of romance, striking strange chords and producing unsuspected effects in an accompaniment to which he sang a perpetual solo.

Amongst the most eccentric of his class the Professor would still have been a remarkable character. No one seemed to know to what nationality he belonged, and it was useless to ask him for any information, because of the doubt which clouded any statement that he made. Indeed, to put it shortly, he lied like a tombstone. When I met him his only companion was a Papuan boy, so black that a bit of coal would have made a white mark on him; and the Professor would affectionately stroke the child’s head, and say that when he had grown bigger, when his skull was fully developed, he meant to take it, and was looking forward to the day when he could examine it carefully, inside and out, and compare it with the skulls of certain wild tribes which, he felt certain, he should thus be able to prove were of true Melanesian origin. He would then sometimes relate how, during a visit to Cadiz, he took a great fancy to the head of a Spaniard whom he met there. He thought the man was in failing health; but as he could not waste time in the Peninsula, he looked about for some means of hastening the possibly slow progress of disease. The Professor soon found that the owner of the head had a reckless and profligate nephew, with whom he scraped acquaintance. To him the Professor said that he had observed his uncle, and thought him looking far from well, indeed, he did not fancy he could last long, and, explaining that he was himself an anthropologist, concerned in scientific studies for the benefit of humanity, he arranged with the nephew that, _when his uncle died_, the Professor should pay a sum of £30 and be allowed to take the uncle’s head. The uncle died shortly afterwards, and the money was paid, but the nephew, a man without principle, buried his relative in defiance of his bargain with the Professor.

The means by which the man of science secured full value for his investment made one of his best stories; and some day I may tell it to you, but, when I began this letter, I had quite a different adventure in my mind, and I will take the liberty of asking you to suppose that the collector of skulls is telling you his own tale in his own way.

“I was in Australia, where I had already met with some strange experiences, the last of them a disastrous expedition into the desert, where, when I was quite alone and a thousand miles from the nearest habitation, I fell over two precipices, first breaking my right and then immediately afterwards my left leg. I got back to civilisation with some difficulty, as I had to crawl on my hands most of the way, dragging my broken legs behind me; but what really made the journey seem long was the fact that I had to forage for my own sustenance as well. I was somewhat exhausted by these hardships, and was giving myself a short holiday for rest, when Australia was moved to a pitch of the greatest excitement and indignation by the exploits of a daring bushranger, who set the Police and the Government at defiance, and established such a panic in the land that a party of Volunteers was formed, sworn to track the outlaw down and bring him in alive or dead. I do not say that I had any ultimate designs on the man’s head, but still the skull of a person of that type could not fail to be interesting. So, partly as a relaxation, but mainly in the cause of science, I joined the expedition.

“It would not interest you to describe our failures--how the man outwitted us; how, just when we thought we had him, he would slip through our fingers, partly by his own skill, his knowledge of the bush, and the excellence of his horses, but mainly, I think, by the help of sympathisers, who always gave warning of our movements and most secret plans. I will pass over all that and take you to the final scene in the drama.

“When we were not actually in the bush we were following our quarry from one country-place to another, as the information we received gave us a clue to his whereabouts. It seldom happened that we passed a night in a town, and, when not camping out, we were billeted on the people of the district, the wealthiest and most important of them being too glad to place their houses at our disposal. One evening, after a hot pursuit, feeling sure we were close upon the trail of our man, we reached a great house where a number of guests were already being entertained. In spite of our numbers we were welcomed with effusion, and, after dinner, the ladies of the party took advantage of the sudden arrival of a number of young fellows ready for anything to get up an impromptu dance. I am not a dancing man--my time has been spent in communion with Nature, in reading in the open book of Truth--therefore I left the revellers and went to bed.

“We had had a long and a hard day in the saddle, and I was weary, and must have fallen asleep almost as soon as I lay down.

“Now I must tell you what I afterwards heard from others of my party. It was a little after midnight, and the dancing was going on with great spirit, when I--this, of course, is what they tell me--suddenly appeared at a door of the ball-room in my night-dress, with a rifle in my hand, and, without hesitation, I walked through the room and out into a verandah that led towards the back of the house. My head was thrown somewhat back, my eyes were wide open and seemed fixed on some distant object, while I was evidently unconscious of my immediate surroundings.

“I fear my sudden entry into the dancing-room in such a very unconventional dress was rather a shock to some of the ladies. I am told that several screamed, and one or more of the older ones fainted; but for myself I knew none of this till afterwards. It appears that, what with astonishment at my appearance, and the necessary attentions to the ladies whose nerves were upset, a little time elapsed before any one thought of following me. Then some one fancied he heard the sound of a horse’s feet, and the men of my party pulled themselves together and made for the stables, as that was the direction I seemed to have taken.

“I was nowhere to be seen; but a stable door was open, and my horse, saddle, and bridle had gone. Then the matter began to look serious, and, as my friends saddled their horses and started to look for me, riding they hardly knew where, there were rather dismal forebodings of the probable fate of even a fully-clad man luckless enough to be lost in the Australian bush. It was a lovely starlight night with a young moon, and, under other circumstances, the ride might have been pleasant enough; but the aimlessness of the whole business was becoming painfully evident to the searchers, when the sound of a rifle-shot was distinctly heard at no great distance. The horses’ heads were turned towards the direction from which the sound came, and the troop pushed on at a brisk pace. Almost immediately, a faint column of smoke was perceived, and as the horsemen approached the spot, the embers of a dying fire shed a slight ruddy glow in the darkness. The word was passed to proceed with caution, but the party was already so close that they could see my white night-dress, as I stood with naked feet by the side of my horse, regarding, with a half-dazed expression, the smoking rifle which I held in my hand. Sixty yards off was the thin column of smoke rising from the dying fire.

“I was surrounded by my friends, who all spoke at once, and fired a perfect volley of questions at me. I said, ‘Softly, gentlemen, softly, and I will tell you all I know about it, for indeed the situation seems strange enough. As you know I went to bed. I slept and I dreamed. I suppose I was over-wrought, and my mind was full of the bushranger, for I thought I was again on his track, out in the bush, on horseback and alone. It was night, but I seemed to be riding with a purpose, or my horse knew where he was going, for by-and-by I was drawn towards a thin column of white smoke, the smoke of a wood fire, and then, as I got nearer, I caught the flickering glow of dying embers. I _felt_ the object of our search was there, and I moved forward with extreme caution, till I had got within a hundred yards, and then I distinctly saw the outlaw lying perfectly straight on the ground, his feet towards the fire, and his horse hobbled hard by. I say I saw the outlaw, but I was dreaming, and in my dream I _knew_ it was the man, though I could not see his face. I dismounted, and, leading my horse, I got to within sixty yards of the sleeper. Then, fearing that if I went nearer he might wake and escape me, I took a steady aim, pulled the trigger, and--the next instant I was wide awake standing here in my night-dress.’

“Almost before I had finished I saw men looking towards the fire, which was no dream, and we all of us now distinctly made out the form of a man, lying on his side, almost on his face, with his feet towards the embers and his head by the bush. Moreover, we could both see and hear a horse, that was evidently hobbled not very far from the sleeper. It did not take long to surround the spot where the man lay; but, as we rapidly closed in on the sleeper, he never stirred. A moment more and we were beside him. A dark stream, on which the glow from the fire seemed to shed some of its own red light, was oozing slowly from beneath the man’s chest; and, as several hands turned his face up to the stars and the pale moonlight, it was too evident that he was dead, and that his life had gone out with that crimson stream which flowed from a bullet wound in his heart.

“I did not know the man myself, but several of our party recognised him. It was the bushranger, and, as I expected, his skull was not without features of special interest to science.”

XXIV

TIGERS AND CROCODILES

When I first came, a visitor, to the Malay Peninsula, I was struck by the fact that wherever I went I heard stories of tigers. If, in the course of a day’s ride, I stopped at a village to eat my luncheon, the people who pressed round to watch me and have a chat would always tell me a tiger story of local and comparatively recent occurrence. Wherever I encamped for the night, I should be sure of at least one tale of successful attack or successful resistance, where a tiger had filled the principal rôle. When once I understood the little peculiarity, I took it as a matter of course, and at talking time I used to say, “Now tell me about the tiger: what was it he did?” It may have been accident, but it is no exaggeration to say that my question nearly always drew forth a more or less ghastly story.

Now that my visit is nearly over, it occurs to me that, though I have accumulated an almost endless series of more or less interesting tales of the “low, crouching horror with the cruel fangs,” I have not retailed any of them to you. In a certain number of cases I was myself near enough to be able to verify details, and in others I had means of proving main facts. One is almost bound to say that, because tiger-stories, which are worth repeating, are almost always listened to with incredulity, or, what is worse, with that banter which often means, in plain words, “What I have not seen myself I decline to believe.” That is the attitude of England to the Orient in the presence of a tiger-story with which the auditors can claim no connection. I said that the prevalence of these tales struck me on my first arrival. I soon became _blasé_, and for a long time I have had no curiosity on the subject; but I will tell you of two tiger incidents that I personally verified, as far as I was able, and I will make no attempt to paint in the background with local colour, in order to supply you with finished pictures.

There is an island by the western shore of the Straits of Malacca. You would never guess it to be an island, for it is simply a block of mangrove-covered mud, with one side towards the sea, and the other three sides separated from the mainland by deep but narrow lagoons of tidal water. The only inhabitants are a few wood-cutters, Malays and Chinese, who live in huts of mat or bark with palm-leaf roofs, while they are employed cutting mangroves and a hard-wood palm called _Nîbong_. The huts of the Chinese are on the ground, but the Malay dwellings are invariably raised a few feet above the damp soil, and to them entry is obtained by means of a ladder. These hovels are very carelessly built; they are of flimsy materials, only intended to last for a few months, when they are abandoned and rapidly fall to pieces. They serve their purpose. The occupants are out from dawn till afternoon, when they return to cook, eat, and sleep; and so, from day to day, till the job on which they are engaged is completed, and they can return, in the case of the Malays, to their families, while the Chinese are probably moved to another scene of similar labour.

I was obliged to tell you this; you would not understand the story otherwise.

The island covers an area of several thousand acres, but except for the few wood-cutters it was, at the time I write of, uninhabited. At one spot there was a hut containing two Chinese, near it a Malay house with eight or ten men in it, and at no great distance a large shed with nearly a score of Chinese. One dark night, about 11 P.M., the two Chinese who lived together were awakened by a noise in that part of the hut where they kept their food. One of the two got up, struck a light, and went into the back room. Immediately there was a dull thud, as of a man knocked heavily down, and the poor wretch screamed, “Help me, it is a tiger!” His comrade at once got out of his mosquito-curtain, and sprang to his friend’s assistance. Seizing him by the arm, he tried to free him from the clutches of the tiger, who already had a firm hold of the doomed man’s leg. The tug of life and death did not last long, for the tiger pulled the would-be rescuer down on his face, and, the light having been extinguished in the struggle, the man’s courage went out with it, and, in a paroxysm of fear, he climbed on to the roof. There he remained till daylight, while, close beneath him, within the narrow limits of the hut, the tiger dragged his victim hither and thither, snarling and growling, tearing the flesh and crunching the bones of the man, whose agonies were mercifully hidden. In the grey light which heralds dawn, the watcher, clinging to the roof-ridge, saw the tiger drag out of the house and into the forest the shapeless remains of his late companion. When once the sun was fairly up, the survivor slid down, and without daring to look inside the hut, made his way to the nearest Police Station, and reported what had occurred. An examination of the premises fully bore out his statement.

A week passed. The Malays, whose hut was nearest to that visited by the tiger, were careful to bar their door after hearing what had happened; but in this case the precaution proved useless. Easterns, especially those engaged in severe manual labour, sleep exceedingly heavily, and the men of this household were aroused by a smothered cry from one of their number; the noise of a heavy body falling through the thatch having passed practically unnoticed. One of the party got up, lighted a torch, and was at once knocked down by a tiger springing upon him. In a moment every man had seized his heavy chopping-knife, and the whole party fell upon the man-eater, and, by the light of the fallen torch, hit so hard and straight that the beast suddenly sprang through the roof and disappeared. It was then, for the first time, discovered that this was the means by which the tiger had effected its entrance, and it left by the hole which it had made on entering the hut. The first man attacked was dead; the second was taken to hospital, and there died of his wounds.

There was a fourth victim. I am not certain of the facts in that case, but he was severely injured and was sent to hospital, where, I believe, he recovered with the entire loss of his scalp. That filled up the cup of crime. Almost directly afterwards the murderer killed a bullock; the carcass was poisoned, and the next day the body of a tigress was found close by that of her victim. She was not very large, eight feet from nose to the tip of the tail; she was in splendid condition--teeth perfect and coat glossy--but her legs and feet were disproportionately large to the size of her body. On her head there was a deep clean cut, and one of her fore-legs was gashed, evidently by a Malay chopper. The most curious feature was that in certainly two out of the three cases the tigress, who always attacked by night, the only time when the huts were occupied, effected her entrance by springing on the roof and forcing her way through the thin palm thatching.

There is another tiger story that I can tell you in two words. It is curious, it sounds highly improbable; but, after hearing it on the spot from the two men concerned, I believe it.

Quite recently it was the fruit season here, and, as is customary, two men were watching an orchard situated on the side of a main cart-road. The orchard was not enclosed in any way, and the fruit trees on one side actually overhung the road. The road was divided from the orchard by a rather wide but quite shallow ditch, that was always dry except during rain. Fifteen or twenty feet on the inside of this ditch was a tiny lean-to under the trees. The shelter consisted of a raised floor of split bamboos, covered by a palm-thatch roof, and a narrow sort of bench, also under the roof, but level with the floor. The bench was next to the high road.

On the night of which I write, one man was sleeping on the bench, the other on the floor of the shelter. It was fine, with a young, early-setting moon; the scattered houses of a considerable village were all round, and there was nothing to fear.

I said before that natives sleep soundly, and you must believe it, or you will never credit my story. About 1 A.M. the man sleeping on the floor of the shelter heard his friend shouting for help. The voice came from the ditch by the road, and thither the man ran, shouting “What is the matter?” “Thieves!” promptly replied the other, but a moment’s conversation dispelled the idea born of his partially-awakened intelligence, and led them to the true interpretation of the riddle. The man in the ditch said then, and says now, that he was asleep, and knew nothing till he suddenly found himself thrown in the ditch, when he awoke and shouted, “Help, thieves!” But, all the same, when he tried to get up, and his friend helped him to the shelter and got a light, it was seen that he had a deep gash in the shoulder, which kept him in hospital for nearly three weeks. The light also showed the track of a tiger up to the bench, thence to the spot in the ditch where the man was lying, and straight across the high road into another orchard. One other thing it showed, and that was a patch of earth on the top of the wounded man’s head.

The friend’s theory, shared by all the neighbours, is this. He points to the exact position in which the sleeper was lying, and how a post, from ground to roof, completely protected the back of his neck, so that the tiger could not seize him as he must have wished to do. Owing to the man’s position, and the way the post of the house and the rails of the bench (for it had a sort of back) ran, the tiger had to take a very awkward grip of his prey, catching him by the shoulder, and therefore carrying him with his head almost on the ground. Three or four steps, a second or two in time, would bring him to the shallow, dry ditch. It was so shallow that he would not jump it, but the in-and-out of a tiger with a kill would be the equivalent of a jump. In he would go easily enough, but the cut slope of the ditch and the slight rise into the road on the other side just saved the man’s life, for the top of his head hit against the edge of the ditch, and, awkwardly held as he was, knocked him out of the tiger’s mouth.

Once dropped, the beast would not return to pick his prey up again, especially with one man shouting and the noise of the other coming to his assistance.

The tiger is the scourge of the land, the crocodile of the water. They seem to be complement and supplement--each of the other: the “golden terror with the ebon bars,” the very embodiment of vitality, sinew, and muscle--of life that is savage and instant to strike--and the stony-eyed, spiky-tailed monster, outwardly a lifeless, motionless log; but, once those pitiless jaws open, it is only a question of what tooth closes on the victim, whether it be “The last chance,” “Tear the shroud,” or “God save your soul.”

I was starting for some hot springs in a remote spot, far in the interior, where I was certain of finding both elephant and rhinoceros, and the second night of my journey I spent at the junction of two large streams. Strolling back from a swim in the river, the local chief told me this pathetic story of fruitless heroism.

The country hereabout is very sparsely peopled, only a few scattered huts breaking the monotony of the virgin forest, Malays and wild tribes the sole inhabitants. Every house is on the bank of a river, and beyond the produce of their rice-fields and orchards the people rely mainly on the water to supply them with food. The Malay is exceedingly cunning in devising various means for catching fish, but what he likes best is to go out in the evening, just at sundown, with a casting-net. Either he wades about by himself, or, with a boy to steer for him, he creeps along in a tiny dug-out, throws his net in the deep pools, and usually dives in after it, to free the meshes from the numerous snags on which they are sure to become entangled.

One evening, a few days before my arrival, a Malay peasant was netting in the river accompanied by his son, a boy of twelve years old. They were wading, and, while the father moved along the edge of the deeper water under the bank, the boy walked in the shallows out in the stream. The short twilight passed, and the darkness of night was gathering over the waters of the wide river, when suddenly the father was startled by a cry from the boy, and, as he turned, he shuddered to hear the one word, “crocodile,” come in an agonised scream from the poor child. Dropping his net, the man swam and stumbled through the shallowing stream to the boy’s rescue. The child was down, but making frantic, though hopelessly ineffectual struggles to free himself from the grip of a crocodile which had him by the knee and thigh. The man was naked, except for a pair of short trousers; he had no weapon whatever, yet he threw himself, without hesitation, on the saurian, and with his hands alone began a struggle with the hideous reptile for the possession of the boy. The man was on the deep-water side of his foe, determined at all costs to prevent him from drowning the child; he had seized the creature from behind, so as to save himself from its claws, and he tried to find, through darkness and water, the eye-sockets, by which alone he could hope to reach a vulnerable joint in its impenetrable harness. The father’s fury and despair guided his hands to the reptile’s eyes, and pressing his thumbs with all his might on these points of less resistance, he inflicted such pain that the creature gave a convulsive spring which threw the man backwards into the water. But the boy was released, and the saurian retired from the fight to sulk and blink over his defeat in some dark pool beneath the overhanging grasses of the river bank.

The man carried the boy on shore, and thence to his home; but the poor child was so severely injured that, with no skilled surgeon to attend him, he died after three days of suffering.

XXV

A ROSE AND A MOTH

When I came again to this enchanted mountain, above the steaming plains, the first thing I did was to wander in the garden, amid the sweet-smelling blossoms and the bees and butterflies, and feast my eyes upon the ever-new loveliness of the changeless hills, the changeful sky and sea, that crowd the prospect with a thousand pictures of infinite beauty and inspiring grandeur. Then I saw a perfect rose, a rose of divine, deep colour--betwixt rubies and red wine--of the texture of finest velvet, and I gathered it. Once, long ago, at least so it seems, you gave me the fellow of this rose, plucked from the same tree. To me this flower will always suggest you, for, beyond the association, there are certain characteristics which you share with it, “dark and true and tender,” a rare sweetness of perfume and, in the heart of the rose, a slumbering passion, the like of which will some day wake you to the joy or the sorrow of life. I have treasured that sweet-scented blossom as long as it would stay with me; and now, when the petals are falling, I see that they are the counterpart of three rose-petals that had travelled from far over sea in a letter from you. They came the bearers of their own message, and now I seem to read it. Have I been very dense, or am I only fatuous now? Why can’t they speak, these things you have touched, or do they speak and I lack understanding? At least you sent them, and that is much from you. I am grateful, and if I am a prey to vain imaginings, you will forgive me, and understand that I did not, presumptuously and with indecent haste, set about the construction of a castle that, even now, has but my wish for its unsubstantial foundation.

Last night, this morning rather, for it was between midnight and 1 A.M., I was reading that very weird story about a phantom dog. I was deeply engrossed in the weirdest part of it, when I heard a buzzing noise, and in a dark corner behind the piano I saw a pair of very strange eyes approaching and receding. They were like small coals of fire, extraordinarily brilliant, with a pinkish flame, shedding light as well as containing it. I realised that they were the eyes of what looked like a very large moth, whose wings never ceased to move with marvellous rapidity.

My chair was touching a table on which was a long vase of perfume-laden lilies, white lilies with yellow hearts, and by-and-by the moth flew to the flowers and stood, poised in air, before a lily-blossom. There were two very bright lights on the table, and the creature was within two feet of me, so I saw it plainly enough. The wings never for an instant stopped their vibration, and it was so rapid that I could not tell their form or colour. Once directly opposite the flower, the moth produced a delicate proboscis, which it inserted into the blossom, and then slowly pushed it right up the stamen, apparently in search of honey. When extended, this feeler was of quite abnormal length, at least two or three inches. What, however, surprised me was that, having withdrawn the probe (for that was what it looked like, a very fine steel or wire probe, such as dentists use), the instrument seemed to go back into the moth’s head, or wherever it came from, to be again extended to sound the depths of another blossom. There! it is past midnight, and I hear the buzzing in the next room; here it comes; and I can examine the creature again. Alas! what a disappointment: this is a horned beetle. I thought it made over-much noise for my interesting friend. Now to continue my tale.

I observed the moth had a large, dark, cigar-shaped body, with two longish _antennæ_, much stouter than the proboscis, and infinitely shorter. After pursuing its researches into the internal economy of several lilies, the thing flew into my face, and I ought to have caught and examined it, for then the feeler had disappeared; but I was surprised and rather alarmed, and I thought it would return to the flowers, and I could again watch, and, if necessary, catch it. It made, however, for a dark corner, and then buzzed about the wooden ceiling till it came to an iron hook from which hung a basket of ferns. I was carefully watching it all the time, and at the hook it disappeared, the buzzing ceased, and I concluded the creature had gone into a hole where it probably lived. To-day, in daylight, I examined the ceiling all round the hook, but there was no hole anywhere.

Now is this the beginning of the dog business, and am I to be haunted by those fiery eyes, by the ceaseless clatter of those buzzing wings, and the long supple feeler that suggests the tortures of dentistry, and may probe deep into the recesses of my brain? It can’t, I think, be liver, for I have not yet learnt on which side of me that useful organ lies, and it is not drink. If it is only a moth of a rather uncommon kind, I suppose the fire in its eyes is to light it through the darkness; but I never before saw a moth going into raptures over flowers, and I can’t yet understand where it puts away that instrument of torture, unless it winds it round a bobbin, inside its head or its body, when not using it. It reminds me of a man I saw swallowing swords at the Aquarium. I was quite willing to admire and believe, until he took up a sword, the blade of which, by outside measurement, stretched from his mouth nearly to his knee, and swallowed it to the hilt at one gulp. Then I doubted; and the knotty sticks, umbrellas, and bayonets, which he afterwards disposed of with consummate ease, only increased my dislike for him. Still this proboscis is not an umbrella, and though it is about twice as long as the moth itself, and seems to come out of the end of its nose, I know so little of the internal arrangements of these creatures that I dare say this one can, by winding the instrument up like the spring of a watch, find room for it in its head. Why the thing won’t keep its wings still, and sit quietly on the petals of the flower while it thrusts that probe into the lily’s nerve-centres, I can’t imagine. Then one could examine it quietly, and not go to bed in fear of a deadly nightmare.

Perhaps, after all, it is the result of reading about that “Thing too much,” that starving, murderous cur, at 1 A.M.; if it is, I had better go to bed now, for it has just struck the hour. Am I wrong about the message of the rose? You see how hard I try to do your bidding.

XXVI

A LOVE-PHILTRE

There is, to me, something strangely attractive about Muhammadan prayers, especially those fixed for the hour of sunset. Time and again I have gone in with the Faithful, when the priest chants the _mu’azzin_, and I have sat by and been deeply impressed by the extraordinary reverence of the worshippers, while eye and ear have been captivated by the picturesque figures against their colourful background, the wonderfully musical intoning of the priest, and the not less harmonious responses. I do not pretend that this oft-repeated laudation of God’s name, this adoration by deep sonorous words and by every bodily attitude that can convey profound worship, would appeal to others as it does to me, even when I have to guess at the exact meaning of prayers whose general import needs no interpretation.

The fifth hour of prayer follows closely on that fixed for sundown, and the interval is filled up by singing hymns of praise led by the priest, or by telling, and listening to, stories of olden times. Of Eastern places the Malay Peninsula had special attractions for me, and the few European travellers I met there, and who, like myself, were not bound to a programme, seemed equally fascinated. Most of them either prolonged their stay, or determined to return for a longer visit.

It is difficult to say exactly wherein lies the spell, but there are beauties of scenery, the undoubted charm of the people (as distinguished from other Easterns), and the sense of mystery, of exclusiveness, of unspoilt nature and undescribed life, that arouse a new interest in the wearied children of the West. It is pleasant to get at something which is not to be found in any encyclopædia, and it is, above all, gratifying to obtain knowledge direct and at the fountain-head. This is why I often return, in thought, to the narrow land that lies between two storm-swept seas, itself more free from violent convulsions than almost any other. There, is perpetual summer; no volcanoes, no earthquakes, no cyclones. Even the violence of the monsoons, that lash the China Sea and the Indian Ocean into periodical fury, is largely spent before it reaches the unprotected seaboards of the richly dowered peninsula.

Forgive this digression. I was sitting with the Faithful, and the first evening prayer was over. The brief twilight was fast deepening into night. The teacher excused himself, and the disciples pushed themselves across the floor till they could sit with their backs against the wall, leaving two rows of prayer-carpets to occupy the middle of the room. I had asked some question which, in a roundabout way, led to the telling of this tale.

“I remember all about it,” said a man, sitting in the corner; “he was a stranger, a man of Sumatra, called Nakhôdah Ma’win, and he gave the girl a love-potion that drove her mad. He was a trader from Bâtu Bâra, and he had been selling the famous silks of his country in the villages up our river. Having exhausted his stock and collected his money, he embarked in his boat and made his way to the mouth of the river. Every boat going to sea had to take water on board, and there were two places where you could get it; one was at Teluk Bâtu on our coast, and the other was on an island hard by. But, in those days, the strait between the coast and the island was a favourite haunt of pirates, and Nakhôdah Ma’win made for Teluk Bâtu to get his supply of fresh water. He was in no hurry, a week or a month then made no difference; so he first called on the chief of the place, a man of importance, styled Toh Permâtang, and then he began to think about getting the water. Now it happened that Toh Permâtang had four daughters, and the youngest but one, a girl called Ra’ûnah, was very beautiful. When there is a girl of uncommon beauty in a place, people talk about it, and no doubt the Nakhôdah, idling about, heard the report and managed to get sight of Ra’ûnah. At once he fell in love with her, and set about thinking how he could win her, though she was already promised in marriage to another. These Sumatra people know other things besides making silks and daggers, and Nakhôdah Ma’win had a love-philtre of the most potent kind. It was made from the tears of the sea-woman whom we call _dûyong_. I know the creature. I have seen it. It is bigger than a man, and something like a porpoise. It comes out of the sea to eat grass, and, if you lie in wait for it, you can catch it and take the tears. Some people eat the flesh, it is red like the flesh of a buffalo; and the tears are red, and if you mix them with rice they make the rice red; at least, people say so. Anyhow, Nakhôdah Ma’win had the philtre, and he got an old woman to needle the way for him, as one always does, and she managed to mix the dûyong’s tears with Ra’ûnah’s rice, and, when the girl had eaten it, she was mad with love for the Nakhôdah. He stayed at Teluk Bâtu for a month, making excuses, but all to be with Ra’ûnah; and he saw her every day--with the help of the old woman, of course. You can’t go on like that for long without some one suspecting something, and, though I never heard for certain that there was anything really wrong, the girl was mad and reckless, and the Nakhôdah took fright. She was a chief’s daughter, while he was a trader and a stranger, and he knew they would kill him without an instant’s hesitation if Toh Permâtang so much as suspected what was going on. Therefore, having got the water on board, the Nakhôdah put to sea, saying nothing to any one. In a little place people talk of little things, and some one said, in the hearing of Ra’ûnah, that the Bâtu Bâra trader had sailed away. With a cry of agony the girl dashed from the house, her sisters after her; and seeing the boat sailing away, but still at no great distance, for there was little breeze, she rushed into the sea and made frantic efforts to tear herself from the restraining arms of her sisters, who could barely prevent her from drowning herself. At the noise of all this uproar a number of men ran down to the shore, and, when they saw and heard what was the matter, they shouted to the Nakhôdah to put back again. He knew better than to thrust his neck into the noose, and, though they pursued his boat, they failed to catch him.

“When Ra’ûnah saw that she could not get to her lover, and that each moment was carrying him farther away, she cried to him to return, and bursting into sobs, she bemoaned her abandonment, and told her tale of love in words of endearment and despair that passed into a song, which to this day is known as Ra’ûnah’s Lament.

“Yes, I can remember the verses, and will repeat them if it does not weary you. The Nakhôdah never returned.

“‘Oh, shelter! my dear shelter! the palm stands in the plain.
The fruit of the nutmeg falls to the ground and lies there.
Thine is thy sister, small but comely,
Thy diamond! the light of Permâtang Guntong.

Oh, my shelter! I hear the measured splash of the oars;
I see the drift-weed caught in the rudder.
Thou art above, my protecting shelter;
I am beneath, in lowly worship.

Oh, my shelter! ’twas the hour of evening prayer when thou
settest sail;
The oars are straining and the boat reels along.
God’s mercy is great, His promise sure;
By His blessing we shall meet in the Garden of Paradise.

Oh, my shelter! the breeze is blowing in fitful gusts;
Be careful not to pull the sail to the left.
In three months and ten days,
Thou wilt return, my brother!

Oh, my shelter! make for the island, Sri Rama;
For there are two marabouts and a fish-weir.
Though thou leavest me, be not long absent;
In two, at most in three, months, return again.

Oh, my shelter! the waters of the sea are calm,
Yet do not hug the shore.
Have no fear of my betrothed;
Was not thy sword but lately sharpened?

Oh, my shelter! thou camest to Teluk Bâtu,
And the peace of my heart has gone.
Satan delights in my undoing,
For my heart cleaves to thine.

Oh, my shelter! take good thought,
The passions war with the soul.
Do not waste the gold in thy hand,
Lest scoffers have cause to mock thee.

Oh, my Nakhôdah! when the mattress is spread, who will lie on it?
Who shall be covered by the folded coverlet?
Who will sit upon the embroidered mat,
Or lean against the great round pillow?

Oh, my Nakhôdah! the feast is waiting, but who will eat it?
The water is cool, but who will drink it?
The napkin is there, whose mouth can it wipe?
The sireh is ready, but who will use it?
Thy Sister is cold, who will fondle her?
Ah-hu! ah-hu! come death, deliver me.’

“And then she fell to weeping and moaning, struggling with her sisters, and trying to cast herself into the sea.