The people of Pahang flocked to the interior, all noisily eager to stamp out of existence the upstart Chief, who had dared to wear shoes, and to carry an umbrella in the streets of their King's capital. The aged Chief of Lĭpis and his people, however, clove to Pănglîma Prang, or To’ Râja, as he now openly called himself, and the war did not prosper. To’ Gâjah had inspired but little love in the hearts of the men whom the Bĕndăhâra had given him for a following, and they allowed their stockades to be taken without a blow by the Jĕlai people, and on one occasion To’ Gâjah only escaped by being paddled hastily down stream concealed in the rolled up hide of a buffalo.
At last it became evident that war alone could never subdue the Jĕlai and Lĭpis districts, and consequently negotiations were opened. A Chief named the Ôrang Kâya Pahlâwan of Sĕmantan visited To’ Râja in the Jĕlai, and besought him to make his peace by coming to Pĕkan.
'Thou hast been victorious until now,' said he, 'but thy food is running low. How then wilt thou fare? It were better to submit to the Bĕndăhâra, and I will go warrant that no harm befalls thee. If the Bĕndăhâra shears off thy head, he shall only do so when thy neck has been used as a block for mine own. And thou knowest that the King loveth me.' To’ Râja therefore allowed himself to be persuaded, but stipulated that Wan Lingga, who was then at Kuâla Lĭpis, should also go down to Pĕkan, since if he remained in the interior he might succeed in subverting the loyalty of the Jĕlai people who hitherto had been faithful to To’ Râja. Accordingly Wan Lingga left Kuâla Lĭpis, ostensibly for Pĕkan, but, after descending the river for a few miles, he turned off into a side stream, named the Kĭchan, where he lay hidden biding his time.
When To’ Râja heard of this, he at first declined to continue his journey down stream, but at length, making a virtue of necessity, he again set forward, saying that he entertained no fear of Wan Lingga, since one who could hide in the forest 'like a fawn or a mouse-deer' could never, he said, fill the seat of To’ Râja of Jĕlai.
It is whispered, that it had been To’ Gâjah's intention to make away with To’ Râja, on his way down stream, by means of that 'warlike' art for which, I have said, he had a special aptitude; but the Jĕlai people knew the particular turn of the genius with which they had to deal, and consequently they remained very much on their guard. They travelled, some forty or fifty strong, on an enormous bamboo raft, with a large fortified house erected in its centre. They never parted with their arms, taking them both to bed and to bath; they turned out in force at the very faintest alarm of danger; they moored the raft in mid-stream when the evening fell; and, wonderful to relate, for Malays make bad sentinels, they kept faithful watch both by day and by night. Thus at length they won to Pĕkan without mishap; and thereafter they were suffered to remain in peace, no further and immediate attempts being made upon their lives.
To’ Râja—or Pănglîma Prang as he was still called by the King and the Court Faction—remained at the capital a prisoner in all but the name. The Bĕndăhâra declined to accord him an interview, pointedly avoided speech with him, when they chanced to meet in public, and resolutely declined to allow him to leave Pĕkan. This, in ancient days, was practically the King's only means of punishing a powerful vassal, against whom he did not deem it prudent to take more active measures; and as, at a Malay Court, the entourage of the Râja slavishly follow any example which their King may set them, the position of a great Chief living at the capital in disgrace was sufficiently isolated, dreary, humiliating, and galling.
But To’ Râja's own followers clove to him with the loyalty for which, on occasion, the natives of Pahang are remarkable. The Bĕndăhâra spared no pains to seduce them from their allegiance, and the three principal Chieftains who followed in To’ Râja's train were constantly called into the King's presence, and were shown other acts of favour, which were steadfastly denied to their master. But it profited the Bĕndăhâra nothing, for Imâm Bakar, the oldest of the three, set an example of loyalty which his two companions, Imâm Prang Sâmah and Khatib Bûjang, followed resolutely. Imâm Bakar himself acted from principle. He was a man whom Nature had endowed with firm nerves, a faithful heart, and that touch of recklessness and fatalism which is needed to put the finishing touch to the courage of an oriental. He loved To’ Râja and all his house, nor could he be tempted or scared into a denial of his affection and loyalty. Imâm Prang Sâmah and Khatib Bûjang, both of whom I know well, are men of a different type. They belong to the weak-kneed brethren, and they followed Imâm Bakar because they feared him and To’ Râja. They found themselves, to use an emphatic colloquialism, between the Devil and the Deep Sea, nor had they sufficient originality between them to suggest a compromise. Thus they imitated Imâm Bakar, repeated his phrases after him, and, in the end, but narrowly escaped sharing with him the fate which awaits those who arouse the wrath of a King.
At each interview which these Chieftains had with their monarch, the latter invariably concluded the conversation by calling upon them to testify to the faith that was in them.
'Who,' he would ask, 'is your Master, and who is your Chief?'
And the three, led by Imâm Bakar, would make answer with equal regularity: