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.