warrant that no harm befalls thee. If the Bĕndăhâra shears off thy head, he shall
only do so when thy neck has been used as a block for mine own. And thou
knowest that the King loveth me.' To’ Râja therefore allowed himself to be
persuaded, but stipulated that Wan Lingga, who was then at Kuâla Lĭpis, should
also go down to Pĕkan, since if he remained in the interior he might succeed in
subverting the loyalty of the Jĕlai people who hitherto had been faithful to To’
Râja. Accordingly Wan Lingga left Kuâla Lĭpis, ostensibly for Pĕkan, but, after
descending the river for a few miles, he turned off into a side stream, named the
Kĭchan, where he lay hidden biding his time.
When To’ Râja heard of this, he at first declined to continue his journey down
stream, but at length, making a virtue of necessity, he again set forward, saying
that he entertained no fear of Wan Lingga, since one who could hide in the forest
'like a fawn or a mouse-deer' could never, he said, fill the seat of To’ Râja of
Jĕlai.
It is whispered, that it had been To’ Gâjah's intention to make away with To’
Râja, on his way down stream, by means of that 'warlike' art for which, I have
said, he had a special aptitude; but the Jĕlai people knew the particular turn of
the genius with which they had to deal, and consequently they remained very
much on their guard. They travelled, some forty or fifty strong, on an enormous
bamboo raft, with a large fortified house erected in its centre. They never parted
with their arms, taking them both to bed and to bath; they turned out in force at
the very faintest alarm of danger; they moored the raft in mid-stream when the
evening fell; and, wonderful to relate, for Malays make bad sentinels, they kept
faithful watch both by day and by night. Thus at length they won to Pĕkan
without mishap; and thereafter they were suffered to remain in peace, no further
and immediate attempts being made upon their lives.
To’ Râja—or Pănglîma Prang as he was still called by the King and the Court
Faction—remained at the capital a prisoner in all but the name. The Bĕndăhâra
declined to accord him an interview, pointedly avoided speech with him, when
they chanced to meet in public, and resolutely declined to allow him to leave
Pĕkan. This, in ancient days, was practically the King's only means of punishing
a powerful vassal, against whom he did not deem it prudent to take more active
measures; and as, at a Malay Court, the entourage of the Râja slavishly follow
any example which their King may set them, the position of a great Chief living
at the capital in disgrace was sufficiently isolated, dreary, humiliating, and
galling.