country which is still exclusively inhabited by the aboriginal tribes. It was to
semi-wild Sâkai such as these that Chêp and her people belonged.
There are tribes of other and more savage jungle-dwellers living in the forests of
the broad Sâkai country, men who fly to the jungles even when approached by
the tamer tribesmen. Their camps may be seen, on a clear day, far up the
hillsides on the jungle-covered uplands of the remote interior; their tracks are
occasionally to be met with mixed with those of the bison and the rhinoceros, the
deer and the wild swine, but the people themselves are but rarely encountered.
The tamer Sâkai trade with them, depositing the articles of barter at certain spots
in the forest, whence they are removed by the wild men and replaced by various
kinds of jungle produce. Of these, the most valued are the long straight reeds,
found only in the most distant fastnesses of the forest, which are used by the
tamer tribes to form the inner casing of their blow-pipes.
Chêp had the traditions of her people, and her great love for Kria had alone
served to nerve her to leave her tribe, and the forest country that she knew. A
great fear fell upon her when, the familiar jungles being left far behind, she
found herself floating down stream through cluster after cluster of straggling
Malay villages. The knowledge that Kria was at hand to protect her tended to
reassure her, but the instinct of her race was strong upon her, and her heart beat
violently, like that of some wild bird held in a human hand. All her life the
Malays, who preyed upon her people, had been spoken of with fear and terror by
the simple Sâkai at night time round the fires in their squalid camps. Now she
found herself alone in the very heart—so it seemed to her—of the Malay
country. Kria, while he lived among her people as one of themselves, had
seemed to her merely a superior kind of Sâkai. Now she realised that he was in
truth a Malay, one of the dominant foreign race, and her spirit sank within her.
None the less, it never occurred to her to fear pursuit. She knew how much her
tribesmen dreaded the Malays, and how strongly averse they were to quitting the
forest lands with which they were familiar, and Kria, who had recently acquired
a considerable knowledge of the Sâkai ways and customs, felt as confident as
she.
So Chêp and her lover halted at the latter's village, and took up their abode in his
house. The girl was delighted with her new home, which, in her eyes, seemed a
veritable palace, when compared with the miserable dwelling places of her own
people; and the number and variety of the cooking pots, and the large stock of
household stores filled her woman's soul with delight. Also, Kria was kind to
her, and she eat good boiled rice daily, which was a new and a pleasant