Tales of the Malayan Coast - Rounsevelle Wildman

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of his preoccupation to sneak back on the homeward trail.

      “Aboo,” I commanded sarcastically, “pergie! (move on!) Baboo is a man and a witch. He is tired of walking, and is riding on the back of the tiger!”

      Aboo gazed into my face incredulously for a moment; then, picking up his parang and tightening his sarong, strode on ahead without a word.

      At noon we came upon a sandy stretch of soil that contained a few diseased cocoanut palms, fringed by a sluggish lagoon, and a great banian tree whose trunk was hardly more than a mass of interlaced roots. A troop of long-armed wah-wah monkeys were scolding and whistling within its dense foliage with surprising intensity. Occasionally one would drop from an outreaching limb to one of the pendulous roots, and then, with a shrill whistle of fright, spring back to the protection of his mates.

      A Malay silenced them by throwing a half-ripe cocoanut into the midst of the tree, and we moved on to the shade of the sturdiest palm. There we sat down to rest and eat some biscuits softened in the milk of a cocoanut.

      “There is a boa in the roots of the banian, Aboo,” I said, looking longingly toward its deep shadow.

      He nodded his head, and drew from the pouch in the knot in his sarong a few broken fragments of areca nut. These he wrapped in a lemon leaf well smeared with lime, and tucked the entire mass into the corner of his mouth.

      In a moment a brilliant red juice dyed his lips, and he closed his eyes in happy contentment, oblivious, for the time, of the sand and fallen trunks that seemed to dance in the parching rays of the sun, oblivious, even, of the loss of his first-born.

      I was revolving in my mind whether there was any use in continuing the chase, which I would have given up long before, had I not known that a tiger who has eaten to repletion is both timid and lazy. This one had certainly breakfasted on a dog or on some animal before encountering Baboo.

      I had hoped that possibly the barking of the curs might have caused him to drop the child, and make off where pursuit would be impossible; but so far we had, after those footprints, found neither traces of Baboo alive, nor the blood which should have been seen had the tiger killed the child.

      Suddenly a long, pear-shaped mangrove-pod struck me full in the breast. I sprang up in surprise, for I was under a cocoanut tree, and there was no mangrove nearer than the lagoon.

      A Malay looked up sleepily, and pointed toward the wide-spreading banian.

      “Monkey, Tuan!”

      My eyes followed the direction indicated, and could just distinguish a grinning face among the interlacing roots at the base of the tree. So I picked up the green, dartlike end of the pod, and took careful aim at the brown face and milk-white teeth.

      Then it struck me as peculiar that a monkey, after all the evidence of fright we had so lately witnessed, should seek a hiding-place that must be within easy reach of its greatest enemy, the boa-constrictor.

      Aboo Din had aroused himself, and was looking intently in the same direction. Before I could take a step toward the tree he had leaped to his feet, and was bounding across the little space, shouting, “Baboo! Baboo!”

      The small brown face instantly disappeared, and we were left staring blankly at a dark opening into the heart of the woody maze. Then we heard the small, well-known voice of Baboo:—

      “Tabek (greeting), Tuan! Greeting, Aboo Din! Tuan Consul no whip, Baboo come out.”

      Aboo Din ran his long, naked arm into the opening in pursuit of his first-born—the audacious boy who would make terms with his white master!

      “Is it not enough before Allah that this son should cause me, a Hadji, to curse daily, but now he must bewitch tigers and dictate terms to the Tuan and to me, his father? He shall feel the strength of my wrist; I will—O Allah!”

      Aboo snatched forth his arm with a howl of pain. One of his fingers was bleeding profusely, and the marks of tiny teeth showed plainly where Baboo had closed them on the offending hand.

      “Biak, Baboo, mari!” (Good, come forth!) I said.

      First the round, soft face of the small miscreant appeared; then the head, and then the naked little body. Aboo Din grasped him in his arms, regardless of his former threats, or of the blood that was flowing from his wounds. Then, amid caresses and promises to Allah to kill fire-fighting cocks, the father hugged and kissed Baboo until he cried out with pain.

      After each Malay had taken the little fellow in his arms, I turned to Baboo and said, while I tried to be severe—

      “Baboo, where is tiger?”

      “Sudah mati (dead), Tuan,” he answered with dignity. “Tiger over there, Tuan. Sladang kill. I hid here and wait for Aboo Din!”

      He touched his forehead with the back of his brown palm. There was nothing, either in the little fellow’s bearing or words, that betrayed fear or bravado. It was only one mishap more or less to him.

      We followed Baboo’s lead to the edge of the jungle, and there, stretched out in the hot sand, lay the great, tawny beast, stamped and pawed until he was almost unrecognizable.

      “Kuching besar (big cat) eat Baboo’s chow dog, then sleep in lallang grass,”—this was the child’s story. “Baboo find, and say, ‘Bagus kuching (pretty kitty), see Baboo’s doll?’ Kuching no like Baboo’s doll mem consul give. Kuching run away. Baboo catch tail, run too. Kuching go long ways. Baboo ’fraid Aboo Din whip and tell kuching must go back. Kuching pick Baboo up in mouth when Baboo let go.

      Baboo’s good tiger

      “Baboo catch tail, run too” (see page 26)

      “Kuching hurt Baboo. Baboo stick fingers in kuching’s eye. Kuching no more hurt Baboo. Kuching stop under banian tree and sleep. Big sladang come, fight kuching. Baboo sorry for good kuching. Baboo hid from sladang—Aboo Din no whip Baboo?”

      His voice dropped to a pathetic little quaver, and he put up his hands with an appealing gesture; but his brown legs were drawn back ready to flee should Aboo Din make one hostile move.

      “Baboo,” I said, “you are a hero!”

      Baboo opened his little black eyes, but did not dispute me.

      “You shall go to Mecca when you grow up, and become a Hadji, and when you come back the high kadi shall take you in the mosque and make a kateeb of you,” said I. “Now put your forehead to the ground and thank the good Allah that the kuching had eaten dog before he got you.”

      Baboo did as he was told, but I think that in his heart he was more grateful that for once he had evaded a whipping than for his remarkable escape. A little later the punghulo came up with a half-dozen shikaris, or hunters, and a pack of hunting dogs. The men skinned the mutilated carcass of the only “good tiger” I met during my three years’ hunting in the jungles of this strange old peninsula.

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