Morning came and wore away to noon, and still the beast stayed by his post. Then the fever began to hit me and my head throbbed. I propped myself up against the trunk of the tree, saving all my strength until the moment when I should need it most.
Ali's body was unrecognizable; he had been gored repeatedly in the tossing and now he was simply a mass of torn, trampled flesh. The beast returned to it again and again to sniff and paw, and the sight made me weak and ill.
The ten natives were scattered through the trees near me and we talked back and forth. They, of course, depended upon me and my "magic" to save them, and I, with the fever burning more fiercely every minute, realized that something must be done immediately. My thirst was becoming unendurable and my strength was leaving me rapidly. I called to the men to join me in my tree, and they swung from limb to limb until we were together. The seladang took up his position beneath us, bellowing and pawing.
I counted the arms in the party; we had, besides our parangs, four spears and three krises. With the parangs we cut stout branches; then we tore our sârongs into strips and bound the krises to the poles. As was usual in the Archipelago, especially in the inland districts, the spears and krises were poisoned, and our only hope of victory lay in that fact. I knew that the poison would kill a man in a few minutes and I had seen smaller animals die of it, but I did not know what effect it would have on so large and powerful a brute as a seladang.
Next we gathered leaves and stuffed a sack, made from a sârong, full of them, and tied it with a string, so that we could dangle it in front of the beast. Then three of us armed with the krises took positions so that we should be above the seladang when he charged, and we lowered the sack. He snorted and drew back; then he put his strength into his legs and lunged forward. I drove downward with my kris, tearing a wound in his back near the hump; he whirled and charged again, and this time one of the natives blinded him in one eye.
He withdrew a few yards, snorting, bellowing and pawing. He turned again on the body of poor Ali, as if to vent his anger on it. Presently we lured him back with the bundle of leaves, and he charged again. I scored another cut near his hump.
"Then three of us armed with krises took positions so that we
should be above the seladang when he charged, and we lowered
the sack. He snorted and drew back."
This charging and jabbing went on for fully an hour, and we seemed no nearer success than when we started. It was impossible to get in a death-stroke, and the poison apparently was having no effect upon him. In any event, I thought, we were winding him, and, if we could last out another night, he would have to seek water. But there was another danger—one of the natives, crazed by thirst and excitement, might run amok there in the tree. I planned, if we were forced to remain in the tree through the night, to take charge, diplomatically, of the krises and spears. I regretted having spent all the ammunition for my revolver on that useless fusillade the day before.