'What say ye?' continued the Pĕnghûlu. 'Do we still follow this trail?'
'It is as thou wilt, O Pĕnghûlu,' said the oldest man of the party, answering for his fellows, 'we follow thee whithersoever thou goest.'
'It is well!' said the Pĕnghûlu. 'Come let us go.' No more was said, when this whispered colloquy was ended, and the party set down to the trail again silently and with redoubled caution.
The narrow track, which the wounded tiger had followed, led on towards the river bank, and presently the high wattled bamboo fence of a native compound became visible through the trees. Pĕnghûlu Mat Saleh pointed at it. 'Behold!' was all he said. Then the party moved on again, still following the tracks of the tiger, and the flecks of red blood on the grass. These led them to the gate of the compound, and through it to the ’lâman or open space before the house. Here they were lost at a spot where the rank spear-blades of the lâlang grass had been beaten down by the falling of some heavy body. A veritable pool of blood marked the place. To it the trail of the limping tiger led. Away from it there was no tracks, save those of the human beings who come and go through the rank growths which cloak the earth in a Malay compound. 'Behold!' said Pĕnghûlu Mat Saleh once more. 'Come, let us ascend into the house.' And so saying he led the way up the stair-ladder of the dwelling where Haji Äli lived with his two sons Äbas and Äbdulrahman, and whence a month or two before Patimah had fled during the night-time with a deadly fear in her eyes, and the tale of a strange experience faltering on her lips.
Pĕnghûlu Mat Saleh and his people found Äbas sitting cross-legged in the outer apartment preparing a quid of betel-nut with elaborate care. The visitors squatted on the mats, and the usual customary salutations over, Pĕnghûlu Mat Saleh said:
'I have come in order that I may see thy father. Is he within the house?'
'He is,' said Äbas laconically.
'Then make known to him that I would have speech with him.'
'My father is sick,' said Äbas in a surly tone, and at the word a tremor of excitement ran through Pĕnghûlu Mat Saleh's followers.
'What is that patch of blood in the lâlang before the house?' asked the Pĕnghûlu conversationally, after a short pause.