feelings about abusing hospitality, and a meal, come by it how you may, is a
meal, and as such is welcome. When the food had been disposed of, and quids of
betel nut and cigarettes were being discussed, the talk naturally turned upon the
war, which had so recently closed. Che’ Jahya, still living in his Fool's Paradise,
and intoxicated by his new honours and importance, was blind to any suspicions
of treachery, which, at another time, might have presented themselves to him. He
spoke condescendingly to his guests, still aping the manners of a great chief. He
dropped a passing hint or two of his own prowess in the war, and when Băginda
Sutan, the Headman of the Râwa gang, craved leave to examine the beauties of
his kris, he handed his weapon to him, without hesitation, and with the air of one
who confers a favour upon his subordinate.
This was the psychological moment for which his guests had been waiting. So
long as Che’ Jahya was armed, it was possible that he might be able to do one of
them a hurt, which was opposed to the principles upon which the Râwa men
were accustomed to work; but as soon as he had parted with his kris, all the
necessary conditions had been complied with. At a sign from their Chief, three
of the Râwa men snatched up their guns, and a moment later Che’ Jahya rolled
over dead, with three gaping holes drilled through his body. There he lay,
motionless, in an ever-widening pool of blood, on the very spot where, so few
hours before, he had dreamed those dreams of power and greatness—dreams that
had then soared so high, and now lay as low as he, crushed and obliterated from
the living world, as though they had never been.
Sutan Băginda hacked off Che’ Jahya's head, salted it, for obvious reasons,
stained it a ghastly yellow with turmeric, as a further act of dishonour, and, when
the house and village had been looted, carried his ghastly trophy with him down
river to the camp of Che’ Wan Âhman. Then it was fastened to a boat pole, fixed
upright in the sand of Pâsir Tambang, at the mouth of the Tĕmbĕling River,
where it dangled with all the horror of set teeth, and staring eyeballs—the fixity
of the face of one who has died a violent death—until, in the fulness of time, the
waters rose and swept pole and head away with them. Thus was a plain lesson
taught, by Che’ Wan Âhman to the people of Pahang, as a warning to dreamers
of dreams.
But to return to Wan Bong, whose high hopes had all been shattered as
completely, and almost as rudely, as those of poor Che’ Jahya. When the evil
news of the approach of Che’ Wan Âhman and his people reached him, Wan
Bong's scant following dwindled rapidly, and, at length, he was forced to seek
refuge in the jungles of the Jĕlai, with only three or four of his closest adherents