I was half inclined to take Aboo Din’s advice and drop down the stream. Then it
occurred to me that I might better face an imaginary foe than the whirlpools and
sunken snags of the Pahang.
I posted sentinels fore and aft and lay down and closed my eyes to the legion of
fireflies that made the night luminous, and my ears to the low, musical chant that
arose fitfully from among my Malay servants on the stern.
The Sikhs were big, massive fellows, fully six feet tall, with towering red
turbans that accentuated their height fully a foot.
They were regular artillery-men from Fort Canning, and had seen service all
over India.
They had not been in Singapore long enough to become acquainted with the
Malay language or character, but they knew their duty, and I trusted to their
military training rather than to my Malay’s superior knowledge for our safety
during the night.
I found out later that the cunning in Baboo’s small brown finger was worth all
the precision and drill in the Sikh sergeant’s great body.
I fell asleep at last, lulled by the tenderly crooned promises of the Koran, and the
drowsy, intermittent prattle of the monkeys among the varnished leaves above.
The night was intensely hot; not a breath of air could stir within our living-cabin,
and the cooling moisture which always comes with nightfall on the equator was
lapped up by the thirsty fronds above our heads, so that I had not slept many
hours before I awoke dripping with perspiration, and faint.
There was an impression in my mind that I had been awakened by the falling of
glass.
The Sikh saluted silently as I stepped out on the deck.
It lacked some hours of daylight, and there was nothing to do but go back to my
bed, vowing never again to camp for the night along the steaming shores of a
jungle-covered stream.
I slept but indifferently; I missed the cooling swish of the punkah, and all