the Master and Lord above all others. But it was just this one thing that Imâm
Bakar was determined not to do, and at each succeeding interview the anger of
the Bĕndăhâra waxed hotter and hotter.
At the last interview of all, and before the fatal question had been asked and
answered, the King spoke with the three Chieftains concerning the manner of
their life in the remote interior, and, turning to Imâm Bakar, he asked how they
of the upper country lived.
'Thy servants live on earth,' replied the Imâm, meaning thereby that they were
tillers of the soil.
When they had once more given the hateful answer to the oft put question, and
had withdrawn in fear and trembling before the King's anger, the latter called
To’ Gâjah to him and said:
'Imâm Bakar and the men his friends told me a moment since that they eat earth.
Verily the Earth will have its revenge, for I foresee that in a little space the Earth
will swallow Imâm Bakar.'
Next day the three recalcitrant Chiefs left Pĕkan for their homes in the interior,
and, a day or two later, To’ Gâjah, by the Bĕndăhâra's order, followed them in
pursuit. His instructions were to kill all three without further questionings,
should he chance to overtake them before they reached their homes at Kuâla
Tĕmbĕling. If, however, they should win to their homes in safety, they were
once more to be asked the fatal question, and their lives were to depend upon the
nature of their answer. This was done, lest a rising of the Chieftains' relations
should give needless trouble to the King's people; for the clan was not a small
one, and any unprovoked attack upon the villages, in which the Chieftains lived,
would be calculated to give offence.
Imâm Bakar and his friends were punted up the long reaches of the Pahang river,
past the middle country, where the banks are lined with villages nestling in the
palm and fruit trees; past Gûnong Sĕnuyum—the Smiling Mountain—that great
limestone rock, which raises its crest high above the forest that clothes the plain
in which it stands in solitary beauty; past Lûbok Plang, where in a nameless
grave lies the Princess of ancient story, the legend of whose loveliness alone
survives; past Glanggi's Fort, those gigantic caves which seem to lend some
probability to the tradition that, before they changed to stone, they were once the
palace of a King; and on and on, until, at last, the yellow sandbanks of Pâsir
Tambang came in sight. And close at their heels, though they knew it not,