“Is one’s life to be devoted to oneself?” said Ali calmly. “I am not as you are. You are Christians. I am a follower of the prophet. We call you dogs and giaours. You look upon us with contempt. But men are but men the whole world over, and it seems to me that one’s life cannot be better spent than in trying to do good to one’s friends.”
“But,” said Tom Long, “you would be fighting against your friends, the Malays.”
“No,” said Ali, mournfully. “I should be fighting for them in doing anything that would free them from the rule of idle sensualists and pirates.”
“I tell you what,” cried Bob Roberts, enthusiastically, “we’ll whop old Hamet and Rajah Gantang out of their skins, and you shall be sultan instead, or your father first and you afterwards.”
Ali’s eyes flashed as he turned them upon the speaker.
“You could be chief banjo, you know,” said Bob.
“Chief—banjo?” said Ali, wonderingly.
“No, no; I mean gong—Tumongong,” cried Bob.
“Oh, yes,” said Ali, smiling. “But no, no: that is a dream. Let us be serious. One of your people could not go, it would be impossible; but I am a Malay, and if I dress myself as a common man—a slave—I could follow where the hunting-party went, and find out all you want to know.”
“No, no,” cried Bob, earnestly, “I should not like that.”