Children of Borneo

by Edwin Herbert Gomes

"Oh, yes, I will gladly accompany you back to your home. But you must remember and say nothing of the things you have seen or heard in this house."

They started early the next day, taking with them enough food for four days, as they expected the journey would last as long as that. Siu's wife seemed to know the way, and after journeying three days, they came to the stream near the house, and they stopped to have a bath. Some of the children of the house saw them there, and ran up to the house and said: "Siu has come back, and with him is a beautiful woman, who seems to be his wife."

Some of the older people checked the children, saying: "It cannot be Siu; he has been dead for a long time. Don't mention his name, for if his mother hears you talk of him, it will make her very unhappy."

But the children persisted in saying that it was indeed Siu that they had seen. Just then Siu and his wife appeared and walked up into the house.

Siu said to his wife: "The door before which I hang up my sword is the door of my room. Walk straight in. You will find my mother there, and she will gladly welcome you as her daughter-in-law."

When they came into the house, all the inmates rushed out to meet them, and to congratulate Siu on his safe return. They asked him many questions: Where had he been living all this time? How he came to be married? And what was the name of his wife's country? But Siu answered little, as he remembered the promise he had made to his wife, that he would not speak of what he had seen in her house.

When Siu hung up his sword, his wife pushed open the door and walked in. Siu's mother was very pleased to see her son, whom she had mourned as dead, alive and well, and when told of his marriage, she welcomed his wife with joy.

In process of time Siu's wife bore him a son, whom they named Seragunting. He was a fine child, and as befitted the grandson of Singalang Burong, he grew big and strong in a miraculously short time, and when he was three years old, he was taller and stronger than others four times his age.

One day as Seragunting was playing with the other boys, a man brought some birds which he had caught in a trap. As he walked through the house, he passed Siu who was sitting in the open verandah. Siu, forgetting the promise he had made to his wife, asked to see the birds, and he took one in his hands and stroked it. His wife was sitting near, and she saw him hold the bird, and was very vexed that he had broken his promise to her.

She said to herself: "My husband has broken his word to me. He has done the thing he promised me he would never do. I cannot stay in this house any longer. I must return to the house of my father, Singalang Burong."