'There is a custom, Tûan, when such things occur. The Porcupine has killed the Gob (Malay), and our tribe must repay sevenfold. Seven lives for a life. It is the custom.'

The proposal sounded generous, and I was inclined to jump at it, until, on inquiry, I discovered what the ancient chief really intended. His suggestion was that the blood-money should take the form of seven human beings, who were to be duly delivered to the relations of the murdered man as slaves. These seven creatures were not to be members of his or Ku-îsh's tribe, but were to be captured by them from among the really wild people of the hills, who had had no share in the ill-doing which it was my object to punish. The Porcupine and his brethren, he explained, would run some risk, and be put to a considerable amount of trouble, before the seven wild men could be caught, and this was to be the measure of their punishment. The old Chief went on to tell me that the wild Sâkai only pursued a raiding party until they came to a spot where a spear had been left sticking upright in the ground. This custom, he said, was well known to the marauders, who took care to avail themselves of it, so soon as their captives had been secured. My informant said that the wild men would never venture past a spear left in this manner, but he was unable to explain the reason, and did not profess to understand the superstition with which this spear is probably connected in the minds of the jungle dwellers.

Blood-money in past times, I was assured both by Malays and Sâkai, had always been paid in this manner by the semi-wild tribes of the interior. It was the custom, and Kria's relatives were eager in their prayers to me to accept the proposal. Instead, I exacted a heavy fine of jungle produce from the tribe to which Ku-îsh, the Porcupine, belonged, and thus I gave complete dissatisfaction to all parties concerned. The Sâkai disliked the decision because they found the fine more difficult to pay, while the Malays thought the blood-money paid hopelessly inadequate, when compared with the value of seven slaves. But, as the Indian Proverb says, 'an order is an order until one is strong enough to disobey it.' Therefore the fine was paid by the Sâkai and accepted by the Malays with grumblings, of which I only heard the echoes.

So ends the story of the Flight of Chêp, the Bird, and of the deed whereby Ku-îsh, the Porcupine, cleansed his honour from the shame that had been put upon him. The murder was a brutal act, savagely done, and the ruthless manner in which the Porcupine killed the little defenceless child, who had done no evil to him or his, makes one's blood boil. None the less, when one remembers the heavy debt of vengeance, for long years of grinding cruelty and wicked wrong, which the Sâkai owes to the Malay, one can find it in one's heart to forgive much that he may do when the savage lust of blood is upon him, and when, for a space, his enemies of the hated race are delivered into his hand.

THE VAULTING AMBITION

Adown the stream, whence mist like steam
Arises in early morning,
'Mid shout and singing they bear me swinging
A mark for the people's scorning.
By long hair hanging, amid the clanging
Of drums that are beaten loud,
I am borne—the Head of the ghastly Dead,
That ne'er knew coffin nor shroud!
But I swing there, nor greatly care
If the Victor jeers or sings,
Nor heed my foe, for now I know
The worth of these mortal things.

The Song of the Severed Head.

When the Portuguese Filibusters descended upon the Peninsula, they employed—so says the native tradition—the time-worn stratagem of the Pious Æneas; and, having obtained, by purchase, as much land as could be enclosed by the hide of a bull, from the Sultân of Malacca, they cut the skin up into such cunning strips that a space large enough to build a formidable fort was won by them. This they erected in the very heart of the capital, which, at that time, was the head and front of the Malay Kingdoms of the Peninsula. Thence they speedily overran the State of Malacca, and, though the secret of making gunpowder, and rude match-locks, was known to the Malays, native skill and valour was of no avail when opposed to the discipline and the bravery of the mail-clad Europeans. Thus, the country was soon subdued, and, in 1511, Sultân Muhammad, with most of his relations and a few faithful followers, fled to Pahang, which, at that time, was a dependency of Malacca. Here he founded a new Dynasty, his descendants assuming the title of Bĕndăhâra, and doing homage and owing allegiance to the Sultân of Daik, whose kingdom, in its turn, has since fallen to the portion of the Dutch.