Tales of the Malayan Coast Part 10

I reached out my hand to take him, but he hopped a few feet away and began to beg with his teeth.

"Lepas," I said, "you have a bad heart. I wash my hands of you. When Hamat comes back you can go to him and be an ordinary, low caste monkey. Now go! I never want to see you again!"

Lepas puckered up his lips and whistled mournfully for a few moments, but seeing no sign of forgiveness in my face he jumped down and began to turn handsprings and dance with the most demure grace.

I took no notice of him, and after a few vain efforts to attract my attention, he hopped dejectedly off the veranda across the lawn, and disappeared among the timboso trees and rubber-vines.

Two weeks later Hamat returned from Mecca. He paid me a visit in state--white robe and green turban. I shook hands and called him by his new t.i.tle of n.o.bility, Tuan Hadji, but he did not refer to Lepas.

Before many minutes he commenced to look wistfully about. I pointed to the trees back of the house. He went out under them and called two or three times.

There was a great chattering among the rubber-vines, and in a moment down came Lepas and sprang to his old master's shoulder as happy as a lover.

I never saw Lepas but once again, and that was one evening on the ocean esplanade. He was in the centre of an admiring circle of half-nude Malay and Hindu boys, going through his quaint antics, while Hamat squatted before him beating on a crocodile-hide drum and singing a plaintive, monotonous song.

When it was finished, Lepas took an empty cocoanut sh.e.l.l and went out into the crowd to collect pennies.

I threw in a dollar. Lepas salaamed low as he s.n.a.t.c.hed it out and bit it to test its genuineness. It was his latest accomplishment. Then he hid himself among the laughing crowd.

That Lepas knew me, I could tell by the droop in his eye and the quick glance he gave to the right and left, to see if there was room to escape in case I made an effort to avenge my wrongs.

I had no desire, however, to renew the acquaintance, and was quite willing to let by-gones be by-gones.

KING SOLOMON'S MINES

Being an Account of an Ascent of Mount Ophir in Malaya, by His Excellency, the Tuan Hakim of Maur, and the Writer

"And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon."--1 Kings IX. 28.

"For the King's s.h.i.+ps went to Tars.h.i.+sh with the servants of Huram; every three years once came the s.h.i.+ps of Tars.h.i.+sh, bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and peac.o.c.ks."

--2 Chronicles VIII. 21.

The rose tints of a tropical sunrise had broken through the heavy bamboo chicks that jealously guarded the rapidly fleeting half-lights of my room: there came three deferential taps at the door, and the smiling, olive-tinted face of Ah Minga appeared at the opening. "Tabek, Tuan," he saluted, as he raised the mosquito curtains, and placed a tray of tea and mangosteens on a table by my side.

I sprang to the floor and across the heavily rugged room, and pulled up the offending chick.

Across the palace grounds, fresh from their morning bath, across the broad river Maur, for the nonce black in the shadow of the jungle, across the gilded tops of the jungle, forty miles away as the crow flies, rested the serrated peak of Mount Ophir.

Directly below me, a soldier in a uniform of duck and a rimless cap with a gold band was pacing up and down the gravelled walk. A little farther on a bevy of women and children were bathing in the tepid waters of the river, while a man in an unpainted prau was keeping watch for a possible crocodile.

The sun was rising directly behind the peak, a ball of liquid fire. I drew in a long draught of the warm morning air.

A Malay in a soft silken sarong, which fell about his legs like a woman's skirt, stood in the door.

"The Prince is awaiting the Tuan Consul," he said, with a graceful salaam.

I hurriedly donned my suit of white, drank my tea, and followed him along the grand salon, down a broad flight of steps, through a marble court, and into the dining room.

A great white punkah was lazily vibrating over the heavy rosewood table.

Unko Sulliman, the Prince Governor of Maur, came forward and gave me his hand.

"It will be a hard climb and a hard day's work?" he said, pleasantly, in good English.

"I have done worse," I answered.

"But not under a Malayan sky. However, it is your wish, and his Highness the Sultan has granted it. The Chief Justice will accompany you, and now you had better start before the sun is high."

I turned to the Tuan Hakim, or Chief Justice, with a gesture of unconcealed pleasure. We had shot crocodiles the day previous along the banks of the Maur, and I had found him a good shot and an agreeable companion. While not as handsome a man or as striking a representative of his race as the Unko, or Prince, he was a scholar, and could aid me more than any one else in my exploration of the ancient gold workings about the base of the famous mountain.

The launch was awaiting us at the pier in front of the Residency, and we took our places in the bow, and arranged our guns as our half-naked crew worked her slowly into mid-stream. We hoped to get some snap shots at the crocodiles that lined the banks as we steamed swiftly up the river.

"I am inclined to agree with Josephus, that yonder mountain is the Mount Ophir of Solomon, when I look at this river. It is equal to our Hudson, and could easily carry s.h.i.+ps twice the size of any he or Huram ever floated."

The Tuan Hakim nodded, and kept his eyes fastened on the nearest sh.o.r.e.

The course of the great river seemed to stretch out before us in an endless line of majestic circles. From sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, at high tide, it was a mile in breadth, and so deep that his Highness's yacht, the Pante, of three hundred tons' burden, could run up full fifty miles.

For a moment we caught a view of the wooden minarets of the little mosque at Bander Maharani; then we dashed on into the heart of another great curve.

"What is it your Koran says that the wise king's s.h.i.+ps brought from Ophir?" he asked, never taking his eyes off the mangrove-bound sh.o.r.e.

"Gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and peac.o.c.ks," I replied, quoting literally from Chronicles.

"Biak (good)! Gold and silver we have plenty. Your English companies are taking it out of the land by the pikul In the old days, before the Portuguese came, the handle of every warrior's kris was of ivory. Now our elephants are dying before the rifle of the sportsman. Soon our jungles will know them no more. Apes--" and he pointed at the top of a giant marbow, where a troop of silver wah-wahs were swinging from limb to limb. "The glorious argus pheasant you have seen."

"Boyah, Tuan!" the man at the wheel sung out.

I grasped my Winchester Express. Just ahead, half hidden by a black labyrinth of scaffold-like mangrove roots, lay the huge, mud-covered form of a crocodile.

The Tuan Hakim raised his hand, and the launch slowed down and ran in under the bank.

"Now!" he whispered, and our rifles exploded in unison.

A great splash of slimy red mud fell full on the front of my spotless white jacket, another struck in the water close by the side of the boat. The wounded crocodile had sprung into the air from his tail up, and dropped back into his wallow with a resounding thud. In another instant he was off the slippery bank and within the security of the mud-colored water.

I saw that my companion had more to tell me, possibly a native tradition of the fabled riches that were concealed within the heart of the historic mountain that was for the moment framed in a setting of green, directly ahead. I put a fresh cartridge into the barrel, and leaned back in my deck chair.

The Chief Justice extracted a manila from his case and handed it to me.

"In the days when Tunku Ali III. ruled over Maur, from Malacca to the confines of Joh.o.r.e, the Portuguese came, and Albuquerque with his s.h.i.+ps of war and soldiers in iron armor sought to wrest from our people their cities and their riches. My ancestor was a dato,--our laksamana, high admiral, of his Highness's fleet. His galley was built of burnished teak, the lining of its cabin was of sandalwood,--algum wood your Koran calls it,--and the turret in its stern was covered with plates of solid gold. You will find record of it to this day in the state papers of Acheen.