would, sooner or later, be forced to purchase opium, and no sooner had the
messenger presented himself at the shop of the Chinese trader, who sold the
drug, than he found himself bound hand and foot. He was carried before Che’
Wan Âhman's representative, and interrogated. He denied all knowledge of Wan
Bong's hiding-place; but Malays have methods of making people speak the truth
on occasion. They are grim, ghastly, blood-curdling methods, that need not be
here described in detail; suffice it to say that the boy spoke.
That evening, as the short twilight was going out in the sky, and the flakes of
scarlet-dyed clouds were paling overhead, a body of men crept, with noiseless
feet, through the clump of long grass in which Wan Bong was hiding. They saw
him sitting on the earth, bent double over his folded arms, rocking his body to
and fro, in the agony of the opium smoker, when the unsatisfied craving for the
drug is strong upon him. There was a rustle in the grass behind him, the sharp
fierce clang of a rifle rang out through the forest, and a bullet through Wan
Bong's back ended his pains for ever. The Headman of the pursuing band was
Che’ Bûrok of Pûlau Tâwar, but he was a prudent person who kept well in the
rear until the deed had been done. Then he came forward rapidly, and
unstringing the purse-belt from around his waist, he gave it to the man who had
fired the shot, in exchange for a promise that not he, but Che’ Bûrok, should
have the credit which is due to one who has slain the enemies of the King. Thus
it was that Che’ Bûrok was credited, for a time, with the deed, and reaped fair
rewards from the Bĕndăhâra and his sons. But murder will out, and Che’ Bûrok
died some years later, a discredited liar, in disgrace with his former masters, and
shorn of all his honours and possessions.
Wan Bong's head was sawn off at the neck, and was carried into camp, by that
splendid shock of luxuriant black hair, which had been his pride when he was
alive. It was clotted with blood now, and matted with the dirt from the lairs
where he had slept in the jungle, but it served well enough as a handle by which
to hold his dissevered head, and there was no need, therefore, to make a puncture
under his chin, whence to pass a rattan cord through to his mouth, as is the
custom when there is no natural handle by which such trophies can be carried.
On Che’ Bûrok's arrival in camp, the head was salted, as Che’ Jahya's had been,
and, like his, it was also smeared with turmeric. Then, when the dawn had
broken, it was fastened, still by its luxuriant hair, to the horizontal bar which
supports the forward portion of the punting platform on a Malay boat, and the
prâhu, with its ghastly burden, started down river to Pĕkan, to the sound of
beating drums, and clanging gongs, and to the joyous shouts of the men at the