The greatest excitement at once ensued; all jumped to their feet and began talking and gesticulating wildly. Dr. Hose, fearing that a real fight, instead of a sham one, might be the result, hurried up-river in a light canoe, to meet the approaching participators in the Jawa, and to restrain their zeal. These people, be it remembered, had vowed to kill Dr. Hose on sight, and had even made death-dealing images both of him and of Tama Bulan, as I have already mentioned. Dr. Hose’s absolute disregard of their bloodthirsty threats and machinations disarmed them completely; he boarded their canoe in the most friendly manner and accompanied them down-stream.
When they were opposite to Aban Liah’s house, the bravest in their party fired three or four blank shots from an old muzzle-loading gun. This salute Juman was bound to answer from the house. His gun was a breech-loader, but unfortunately so old, battered, and loose in its joints that a man at the stock stood in as much danger as a man at the muzzle. Juman’s apology for his reluctance to fire it off was—(literally translated) ‘Tuan, will you shoot off this snappang for me; I am afraid its engine has the fever.’ My assistant, Lewis Etzel, discharged it twice for him, and then made the hair of the Lerons stand on-end by discharging from his Winchester rifle six shots, in rapid succession. After this exchange of salutes, the Lerons disembarked and entered the house at the up-river end. After all were assembled in a dense crowd, panting with excitement, their eyes dilated and flashing, they paused for a second and then gave a wild yell, like a jeer of derision, and began stamping their feet on the rattling boards. It was truly deafening. Instantly Juman and his people were on their feet. There was a quick, frenzied dash, with yells and stamps, until they stood face to face. This was the instant that the sham, weaponless fight should have taken place, leaving black eyes and torn ears. For a moment, it seemed as though over-excitement would lead to a deeper tragedy. The reaction came unexpectedly from Juman, the chief actor in this dramatic show (which in sooth it really was). Juman, brave enough before a single man, Tinggi, was here overcome by an attack of—what shall I call it?—stage fright? The next moment we saw him wilt and ignominiously retreat from the affray. The wild hubbub subsided weakly. Criticisms of Juman’s conduct were at once loudly, freely, and universally expressed. But, unabashed, he stoutly maintained that he had fulfilled all that was required of him, and that now was the time for Usut. The Lerons had killed many of his ancestors in days of yore, and he demanded of them, as a salve for his wounded feelings, five ‘Tawaks’—(large bronze gongs made in Java) and five small gongs, (worth in all about three hundred Mexican dollars.) This considerable sum, the Lerons protested, was far too high a price to pay for wounds inflicted on Juman’s ancestors and his own feelings; finally, after much haggling and many excited gesticulations on both sides, a compromise was struck on one Tawak, one small gong, and a ‘Lukut sekála,’ one of those invaluable beads, prized above all others by Kayans, Kenyahs, and Ibans.
(I tried my best to solve the mysterious value of these beads, but in vain. They are by no means brilliant or showy; indeed, quite the contrary, they are rather dull and ugly; of about half an inch in diameter, and on the four quarters there is a little many-pointed star of dull yellow on a dark background. They look a good deal like old Venetian glass, but whence they originally came, or wherein consists their charm, the natives themselves could not or would not tell. Once on a time, some astute Chinese traders, counting on an assured fortune, sent a Lukut sekála to Germany, where it was copied with really marvellous fidelity. With these faultless imitations they were certain that they could deceive the natives, but the latter detected the counterfeit beads at once, and, although willing to purchase the forgeries, would pay but a pittance for them.)
By the terms of the Usut, whenever the Lerons should pay a return visit to Juman, he pledged himself to restore the Lukut sekála.
As soon as Juman’s Usut was finally settled with the Lerons, Aban Liah’s vaunted seven-span pig was brought forward for inspection and admiration. Tama Liri at once fell to measuring it off; when his last span reached the animal’s snout, he arose, and, gazing round on the circle and wagging his head with a beaming and triumphant smile, announced that after all the pig was barely five spans long. The chorus of clucks of surprise with which this announcement was greeted did not, however, in the least disconcert the boastful and deceitful old host.
A CONTINGENT OF THE PEACE-PARTY.
Jamma, still resplendent in his dirty blue and white jockey cap and prodigious goggles, hustled about in a most officious manner, directing the guests and members of the household where to sit, and what to do, always in a half-apologetic tone, as if the host, Aban Liah, should be pardoned for not exactly knowing what was proper. Tama Talip, the Chief of the Lerons, now that everything in the way of Usut had been paid and snugly stowed, took his seat among the Kayans and Kenyahs, and denounced Juman’s demands and rehearsed the deaths among his forebears due to Juman’s bloodthirsty family. Juman listened stolidly, evidently not a little pleased to hear how very brave his ancestors had been. The talk went round the circle, and Jok Orong began again to drone forth the endless tale of his woes. The dreary knowledge of what this implied proved too much for the patience of the white contingent of the Peace-party, and we all crept unobserved out of the circle, and, having found, on the banks of the river, an upturned canoe, reclined thereon, and lazily watched in the gloaming the gigantic fruit-bats, (‘flying foxes’ they are called,) which were now thickly visible in all quarters of the sky and all bending their flight in one direction, toward their nocturnal feeding-ground. They imparted an antediluvian appearance to the sombre scene, and we seemed to have travelled back into a remote geologic period, among the pterodactyls. Not even the golden rays of level sunlight gleaming forth from beneath lowering clouds on the horizon could dispel this solemnity. At our feet sluggishly glided the darkening river, emerging, and again lost, from under the dense jungle on its banks, whence here and there tall, slender, tufted palms rose into the silent air from the unbroken green massed about their feet. On the opposite bank, in the distance, abruptly towered Mount Dulit, whose purple peaks were glowing with the last rays of sunlight. And ‘all the air a solemn stillness’ held, save when at intervals the muffled murmur of Jok Orong’s woes reached us from the house behind, but did not mar the scene; it partook of the nature of eternity and infinity; we felt that labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.