LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

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