The first Malay, who had done the chopping, had confronted the orang, and they stood facing each other. Suddenly the animal made a spring towards her enemy, and was received on the point of his spear. The orang was wounded, but this only increased her wrath, and she made a furious onslaught upon the man; but the spear was too much for her, and she was wounded again.
The orang opened her mouth, and showed a terrible double row of teeth flanked by four long tusks. They were enough to intimidate one unaccustomed to the creature's appearance. She made repeated attempts to reach her enemy; but the spear, very adroitly handled, foiled her every time, and gave her a new wound. This sparring, as it were, was kept up for some time, and the Americans wondered that the Malay did not drive his weapon to the heart of the infuriated animal. Doubtless he would have done so if he could; but the orang had hands as well as feet, and she grasped the spear every time it punctured her skin, and seemed to prevent it from inflicting a fatal wound.
It was a mystery to the observers how the Malay contrived to detach his weapon from the grasp of the orang, though he did so every time. But at last the brute seemed to change her tactics, or she got a better hold of the spear; for she suddenly snapped the weapon into two pieces as though it had been a pipe-stem. Deprived of his arm, the Malay ran a few rods. The orang is very clumsy on its feet, and she could not catch him. The man only went a few rods to the place where the parong latok had been placed, and with this weapon he returned to the attack.
The skirmishing with this weapon continued for some time longer, and the beast was wounded every time she attempted to get hold of her opponent. In the meantime the other Malay had not been idle. He used no deadly weapons, but substituted for them a long cord he had brought from the sampan. He made a slip-noose in one end of it, and was trying to catch the young one. It might have run away if it had been so disposed, but it seemed to be determined to stay by its mother.
"He wants you, or needs your skill with the lasso, Captain Scott," said Morris, recalling the feats with the lasso of the commander.
"He is doing very well, and he handles the line well," replied Scott. "Now he has him!" he exclaimed, as the Malay passed the cord over the head of the young orang, and hauled it taut around his neck.
With the line he dragged the orang to a sapling near the fallen tree, and, with other lines he had left there, tied his hands and feet together, and fastened him to the small tree.
He had hardly secured his victim before a yell from the first hunter startled him, and he ran with his lasso and a spear to his assistance. The old one, badly wounded by the sharp weapon of her enemy, had suddenly dropped upon all fours, and crawled to the man; seizing him by his legs, she set her villanous teeth into the calf of one of them. It looked as though the human was to be the victim of the brute.
The Malay, howling with the sharp pain, slashed away with all his might at the hind quarters of the orang; but she did not relax her grip on his leg. His companion arrived at the scene of the conflict. He dropped his lasso then, and began to use his parong latok. After he saw that blows with the weapon accomplished nothing, he plunged the blade into the body of the brute several times in quick succession. These stabs ended the battle. The orang rolled over, and then did not move again.
Both of the human combatants then walked down to the Blanchita, one of them limping badly. They showed their wounds, and through Achang asked to be "doctored." Pitts had some skill as a leach, and the medicine-chest was in his care. He laid out the patient with the wounded leg, washed the wound, and then applied some sticking-plaster to the lacerated member, after he had restored the parts to their natural position. Then he bandaged the leg quite skilfully, so as to keep all the parts in place. The hands of the other were covered with sticking-plaster and bandaged.