'May they be devoured by a tiger!' snarled Ku-îsh, the Porcupine, deep down in his throat, and, at the word, all his hearers shuddered. The curse is the most dreadful that the jungle people know, and if you shared your home with the great cats, as they do, you would regard it with equal fear and respect. Ku-îsh said little more, but he went back to the camp and unslung an exceedingly ancient match-lock, which hung from a beam of the roof in the Chief's hut. It was the only gun in the camp, and was the most precious possession of the tribe, but no man asked him what he was doing, or tried to stay him when he presently plunged into the jungle heading down stream.
Two days later, in the cool of the afternoon, Kria left Chêp in the house busy with the evening's rice, and, accompanied by a small boy, his son by a former marriage, he went to seek for fish in one of the swamps at the back of the village. These marshy places, which are to be found in the neighbourhood of many Malay Kampongs, are ready-made rice fields, but since the cultivation of a pâdi swamp requires more exacting labour than most Malays are prepared to bestow upon it, they are often left to lie fallow, while crops are grown in clearings on the neighbouring hills. In dry weather the cracked, parched earth, upon which no vegetation sprouts, alone marks the places which, in the rainy season, are pools of stagnant water, but so sure as there is a pond, there also are the little muddy fish which the Malays call rûan and sĕpat. Where they vanish to when the water in which they live is licked up by the sunrays, or how they support life during a long season of drought, no man clearly knows, but it is believed that they burrow deep into the earth, and live in the moist mud underfoot until better times come with the heavy tropic rain.
Kria carried two long jôran, or native fishing rods, over his shoulder, and his little naked son pattered along at his heels, holding a tin containing bait in his tiny hands. The boy crooned to himself, after the manner of native children, but his father walked along in silence. Arrived at the swamp, which was now a broad pool of water, with here and there a tuft of rank rushes showing above the surface, Kria and his child each took a rod and began patiently angling for the little fish. The sun crept lower and lower down the western sky, till its slanting rays painted the surface of the pool to the crimson hue of blood. The clouds were dyed with a thousand gorgeous tints, and the soft light of the sunset hour mellowed all the land. Kria had seen the same sight many a hundred times before, and he looked on it with the utter indifference to the beauties of nature, which is one of the least attractive characteristics of Malays. If the reddened pool at his feet suggested anything to him, it was only that the day was waning, and that it was time to be wending his way homeward.
He began to gather up his fishing tackle, while his son, squatting on the ground, passed a rattan cord through the fishes' gills to their mouths, so that the take might be carried with greater ease. While they were so engaged, a slight rustle in the high grass behind them caused both father and son to start and look round. Not a breath of wind was blowing, but, none the less, a few feet away from them, the tops of the grass moved slightly, as though the stalks were brushed against by the passage of some wild animal.
'Hasten, little one,' said Kria, uneasily; 'it is a tiger.'
But, as he spoke the words, the grass was parted by human hands, and Kria found himself looking into the wild and angry eyes of Ku-îsh, the Porcupine, along the length of an ancient gun barrel. He had time to note the rust upon the dulled metal, the fantastic shape of the clumsy sight, and the blue tatoo marks on the nose and forehead of his enemy. All these things he saw mechanically, in an instant of time, but before he had moved hand or foot the world seemed to break in fragments around him, to the sound of a furious deafening explosion, and he lay dead upon the sward with his skull shattered to atoms, and the bloody, mucous strings of brain flecking the fresh green grass.
At the sight, Kria's son fled screaming along the edge of the pool, but Ku-îsh's blood was up, and he started in pursuit. The child threw himself down in the long grass, and, raising his little arms above his cowering head, shrieked for mercy in his pure shrill treble voice. Ku-îsh, for answer, plunged his spear again and again through the little writhing body, and, at the second blow, the expression of horror and fear faded from the tender rounded face, and was replaced by that look of perfect rest and peace which is only to be seen in the countenance of a sleeping child.
Ku-îsh gathered up the fish, and took all the tobacco he could find on Kria's body, for a Sâkai rarely loses sight completely of those cravings of appetite, which, with him, are never wholly satisfied. Then, when the darkness had shut down over the land, he crept to Kria's house, and bade Chêp follow him. She came without a word, for women whose ancestors have been slaves for generations have very little will of their own. She wept furtively when Ku-îsh told her, in a few passionless sentences, that he had killed Kria and his son, and she bewailed herself aloud when, at their first halting-place, she received the severe chastisement, which Ku-îsh dealt out to her with no grudging hand, as her share in the general punishment. But, when the thrashing was over, she followed him meekly, with the tears still wet upon her cheeks, making no attempt to escape. Thus Ku-îsh, the Porcupine, and Chêp, the Bird, made their way through the strange forests, until they had once more regained the familiar Sâkai country, and were safe among their own people.
Pursuit into such a place is impossible, for a Sâkai comes and goes like a shadow, and can efface himself utterly when he desires to do so. Thus, though Kria's relatives clamoured for vengeance, little could be done. I was myself at that time in charge of the district in which these things occurred, and it was only by the most solemn promises that no evil should befall them, that I induced the various Sâkai chiefs to meet me near the limits of their country. My request that Ku-îsh should be handed over for trial was received by the assembled elders as a demand which was manifestly ridiculous. Ku-îsh was in the jungle, and they knew that pursuit would be useless, unless his own people aided in the chase. This they were determined not to do, and I, being bound by promises not to harm the Chiefs, was powerless to force them to come to my assistance.
At length, a very aged man, the principal headman present, a wrinkled old savage, scarred by encounters with wild beasts, and mottled with skin disease and dirt, lifted up his voice and spoke, shaking his straggling mop of frowsy grizzled hair in time to the words he uttered.