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_ Along the hot and gloomy forest path, neglected, overgrown and
strangled in the fierce life of the jungle, there came a faint
rustle of leaves. Jaffir, the servant of princes, the messenger
of great men, walked, stooping, with a broad chopper in his hand.
He was naked from the waist upward, his shoulders and arms were
scratched and bleeding. A multitude of biting insects made a
cloud about his head. He had lost his costly and ancient
head-kerchief, and when in a slightly wider space he stopped in a
listening attitude anybody would have taken him for a fugitive.
He waved his arms about, slapping his shoulders, the sides of his
head, his heaving flanks; then, motionless, listened again for a
while. A sound of firing, not so much made faint by distance as
muffled by the masses of foliage, reached his ears, dropping
shots which he could have counted if he had cared to. "There is
fighting in the forest already," he thought. Then putting his
head low in the tunnel of vegetation he dashed forward out of the
horrible cloud of flies, which he actually managed for an instant
to leave behind him. But it was not from the cruelty of insects
that he was flying, for no man could hope to drop that escort,
and Jaffir in his life of a faithful messenger had been
accustomed, if such an extravagant phrase may be used, to be
eaten alive. Bent nearly double he glided and dodged between the
trees, through the undergrowth, his brown body streaming with
sweat, his firm limbs gleaming like limbs of imperishable bronze
through the mass of green leaves that are forever born and
forever dying. For all his desperate haste he was no longer a
fugitive; he was simply a man in a tremendous hurry. His flight,
which had begun with a bound and a rush and a general display of
great presence of mind, was a simple issue from a critical
situation. Issues from critical situations are generally simple
if one is quick enough to think of them in time. He became aware
very soon that the attempt to pursue him had been given up, but
he had taken the forest path and had kept up his pace because he
had left his Rajah and the lady Immada beset by enemies on the
edge of the forest, as good as captives to a party of Tengga's
men.
Belarab's hesitation had proved too much even for Hassim's
hereditary patience in such matters. It is but becoming that
weighty negotiations should be spread over many days, that the
same requests and arguments should be repeated in the same words,
at many successive interviews, and receive the same evasive
answers. Matters of state demand the dignity of such a procedure
as if time itself had to wait on the power and wisdom of rulers.
Such are the proceedings of embassies and the dignified patience
of envoys. But at this time of crisis Hassim's impatience
obtained the upper hand; and though he never departed from the
tradition of soft speech and restrained bearing while following
with his sister in the train of the pious Belarab, he had his
moments of anger, of anxiety, of despondency. His friendships,
his future, his country's destinies were at stake, while
Belarab's camp wandered deviously over the back country as if
influenced by the vacillation of the ruler's thought, the very
image of uncertain fate.
Often no more than the single word "Good" was all the answer
vouchsafed to Hassim's daily speeches. The lesser men, companions
of the Chief, treated him with deference; but Hassim could feel
the opposition from the women's side of the camp working against
his cause in subservience to the mere caprice of the new wife, a
girl quite gentle and kind to her dependents, but whose
imagination had run away with her completely and had made her
greedy for the loot of the yacht from mere simplicity and
innocence. What could Hassim, that stranger, wandering and poor,
offer for her acceptance? Nothing. The wealth of his far-off
country was but an idle tale, the talk of an exile looking for
help.
At night Hassim had to listen to the anguished doubts of Immada,
the only companion of his life, child of the same mother, brave
as a man, but in her fears a very woman. She whispered them to
him far into the night while the camp of the great Belarab was
hushed in sleep and the fires had sunk down to mere glowing
embers. Hassim soothed her gravely. But he, too, was a native of
Wajo where men are more daring and quicker of mind than other
Malays. More energetic, too, and energy does not go without an
inner fire. Hassim lost patience and one evening he declared to
his sister Immada: "To-morrow we leave this ruler without a mind
and go back to our white friend."
Therefore next morning, letting the camp move on the direct road
to the settlement, Hassim and Immada took a course of their own.
It was a lonely path between the jungle and the clearings. They
had two attendants with them, Hassim's own men, men of Wajo; and
so the lady Immada, when she had a mind to, could be carried,
after the manner of the great ladies of Wajo who need not put
foot to the ground unless they like. The lady Immada, accustomed
to the hardships that are the lot of exiles, preferred to walk,
but from time to time she let herself be carried for a short
distance out of regard for the feelings of her attendants. The
party made good time during the early hours, and Hassim expected
confidently to reach before evening the shore of the lagoon at a
spot very near the stranded Emma. At noon they rested in the
shade near a dark pool within the edge of the forest; and it was
there that Jaffir met them, much to his and their surprise. It
was the occasion of a long talk. Jaffir, squatting on his heels,
discoursed in measured tones. He had entranced listeners. The
story of Carter's exploit amongst the Shoals had not reached
Belarab's camp. It was a great shock to Hassim, but the sort of
half smile with which he had been listening to Jaffir never
altered its character. It was the Princess Immada who cried out
in distress and wrung her hands. A deep silence fell.
Indeed, before the fatal magnitude of the fact it seemed even to
those Malays that there was nothing to say and Jaffir, lowering
his head, respected his Prince's consternation. Then, before that
feeling could pass away from that small group of people seated
round a few smouldering sticks, the noisy approach of a large
party of men made them all leap to their feet. Before they could
make another movement they perceived themselves discovered. The
men were armed as if bound on some warlike expedition. Amongst
them Sentot, in his loin cloth and with unbound wild locks,
capered and swung his arms about like the lunatic he was. The
others' astonishment made them halt, but their attitude was
obviously hostile. In the rear a portly figure flanked by two
attendants carrying swords was approaching prudently. Rajah
Hassim resumed quietly his seat on the trunk of a fallen tree,
Immada rested her hand lightly on her brother's shoulder, and
Jaffir, squatting down again, looked at the ground with all his
faculties and every muscle of his body tensely on the alert.
"Tengga's fighters," he murmured, scornfully.
In the group somebody shouted, and was answered by shouts from
afar. There could be no thought of resistance. Hassim slipped the
emerald ring from his finger stealthily and Jaffir got hold of it
by an almost imperceptible movement. The Rajah did not even look
at the trusty messenger.
"Fail not to give it to the white man," he murmured. "Thy servant
hears, O Rajah. It's a charm of great power."
The shadows were growing to the westward. Everybody was silent,
and the shifting group of armed men seemed to have drifted
closer. Immada, drawing the end of a scarf across her face,
confronted the advance with only one eye exposed. On the flank of
the armed men Sentot was performing a slow dance but he, too,
seemed to have gone dumb.
"Now go," breathed out Rajah Hassim, his gaze levelled into space
immovably.
For a second or more Jaffir did not stir, then with a sudden leap
from his squatting posture he flew through the air and struck the
jungle in a great commotion of leaves, vanishing instantly like a
swimmer diving from on high. A deep murmur of surprise arose in
the armed party, a spear was thrown, a shot was fired, three or
four men dashed into the forest, but they soon returned
crestfallen with apologetic smiles; while Jaffir, striking an old
path that seemed to lead in the right direction, ran on in
solitude, raising a rustle of leaves, with a naked parang in his
hand and a cloud of flies about his head. The sun declining to
the westward threw shafts of light across his dark path. He ran
at a springy half-trot, his eyes watchful, his broad chest
heaving, and carrying the emerald ring on the forefinger of a
clenched hand as though he were afraid it should slip off, fly
off, be torn from him by an invisible force, or spirited away by
some enchantment. Who could tell what might happen? There were
evil forces at work in the world, powerful incantations, horrible
apparitions. The messenger of princes and of great men, charged
with the supreme appeal of his master, was afraid in the
deepening shade of the forest. Evil presences might have been
lurking in that gloom. Still the sun had not set yet. He could
see its face through the leaves as he skirted the shore of the
lagoon. But what if Allah's call should come to him suddenly and
he die as he ran!
He drew a long breath on the shore of the lagoon within about a
hundred yards from the stranded bows of the Emma. The tide was
out and he walked to the end of a submerged log and sent out a
hail for a boat. Jorgenson's voice answered. The sun had sunk
behind the forest belt of the coast. All was still as far as the
eye could reach over the black water. A slight breeze came along
it and Jaffir on the brink, waiting for a canoe, shivered a
little.
At the same moment Carter, exhausted by thirty hours of
uninterrupted toil at the head of whites and Malays in getting
the yacht afloat, dropped into Mrs. Travers' deck chair, on board
the Hermit, said to the devoted Wasub: "Let a good watch be kept
to-night, old man," glanced contentedly at the setting sun and
fell asleep. _
Read next: PART VI. THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH: CHAPTER III
Read previous: PART VI. THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH: CHAPTER I
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