ONE WHO HAD EATEN MY RICE
THE punkah swings freely for a space, then gradually shortens its stride; hovers for a moment, oscillating gently, in answer to the feeble jerking of the cord; almost stops and then is galvanized into a series of violent, spasmodic leaps and bounds, each one less vigorous than the last, until once more the flapping canvas fringe is almost still. It is by signs such as these that you may know that Ûmat, the punkah-puller, is sleeping the sleep of the just.
If you look behind the high screen which guards the doorway, you will see him; and without moving, if the afternoon is very warm and still, you may occasionally hear his soft, regular breathing, and the gentle murmur with which his nose is wont lo mark the rhythm of his slumber. An old cotton handkerchief is bound about his head in such a manner that the top of his scalp is exposed, the short bristles of hair upon it standing erect in a circular enclosure, like the trainers in a garden of young sîrih vines. On his back he wears an old, old coat of discoloured khaki, once the property of a dead policeman. The Government buttons have been taken away from him by a relentless inspector of police, and Ûmat has supplied their place with thorns, cunningly contrived pieces of stick, and one or two wooden studs. The
shoulder-straps flap loosely, and their use and inten-
tion are problems that present a constant puzzle to
Umat. A cotton sarong-not always of the cleanest
is round his waist, and falling to his knees, supplies
the place of all other nether garments. For Umat
is at once comfort-loving and economical, and Pahang
by this time had become a free land in which a man
might go clad pretty well as he liked, without some
il thing befalling him therefor. Less than ten
years carlier, a man who went abroad without his
trousers ran a good chance of never returning home
again, for Pahang Malays were apt to regard any one
so clad as a person who was no lover of battle
Among Malays who are the most physically modest
people in the world-it is well known that no man
can fight with a whole heart and with undivided
attention, when at any moment a mishap may expose
his nakedness; and those who by the inappropriate-
ness of their costume gave proof of their unprepared-
ness, simply invited the warlike persecutions of the
gilded youth of the place, who were always ready to
display prowess by mangling one from whom little
resistance was to be expected. But in Kelantan,
where Ûmat was born and bred, few men possess
trousers, and no one who loves his comfort ever wears
such things if he can help it.
Below strong, goodly lengths of bare and hairy leg
are visible, ending in broad splay feet, with soles that
seem shod with horn: for mal could dance barefoot
a thorn thicket with as much comfort as upon a velvet carpet. He half sits, half lies, huddled up in a
wicker-work armchair, his head canted stiffly over
his right shoulder, his eyes tight shut, and his mouth
wide open. Two rows of blackened tusks are ex-
posed to view, and a fair expanse of gums and tongue
stained a dull scarlet with areca nut. His feet are
on the seat of the chair one doubled snugly under
him, the other supporting the knee upon which his
chin may find a resting-place as occasion requires.
The pull cord of the punkah is made fast about his
right wrist, and his left hand holds it limply, his arms
noving forward and backward mechanically in his
sleep. It often looks as though the punkah were
pulling Ûmat, not Ûmat the punkah, so completely
a part of the thing does he appear, and so invisible is
the effort which he puts into his work.
At his feet, humming contentedly to himself, sits a
very small boy, dressed chastely in a large cap and a
soiled pocket-handkerchief; and thus Ûmat dreams
away many hours of his life. If his sleeping memory
takes him back to the days when he followed me upon
the warpath, to one of the dirty nights when we went
fishing together, or to hours spent in floundering
through the rice-swamps or trudging over the grazing
grounds and through the rhododendron scrub when
snipe were plentiful and the bag a big one, the pun-
kah leaps to and fro vigorously, taking an active
part in the scenes of which he dreams. But when
mat’s mind turns home again to the extraordinarily
ill-kept hut in the corner of my compound, which he
shares with his soft-eyed, gentle wife, Séléma, and their children, and dwells upon hearty meals and
quiet nights, then in sympathy the punkali moves
slowly, sentimentally, and stops.
“Tarek! Pull!” cries a voice from the inner room,
and Ûmat, awakening with a start, bursts into voluble
reproaches, addressed to himself in the guttural
speech of the Kelantan people. Then he very
calmly relapses into slumber.
If you sail up the cast coast of the Malay Penin-
sula, past the long sandy beaches, backed by a fringe
of casuarina trees, which are the shores of Pahang and
Trengganu, you at last reach the spot where the
bulk of the waters of the Kelantan River used once
upon a time to empty themselves into the China
Sea. The principal mouth is now a mile or two
farther up the coast, but the groves of palm trees
slow that the people have been less fickle than the
river, and that the villages have continued to thrive
in spite of the fact that the highways of traffic have
deserted them. It is here that Ûmat was born and
bred, one of a family of fisher folk, successive genera-
tions of whom have dwelt at Kuala Kelantan ever
since the beginning of things.
If you look at Ûmat’s round, splay-featured face
and observe it carefully, you may read therein much
that bears upon the history of his people. The pre-
vailing expression is one of profound, calm patience,
not the look of conscious waiting and of the pain of
hope long deferred, which is the restless European
substitute therefor, but the contented endurance of one whose lot is unchanging, whose desires are few,
and who is satisfied to be as he is. It is a negative
expression, without sadness, without pain, and yet
sufficiently far removed from dullness or stupidity.
It speaks of the long years during which Ünat’s
forebears have laboured stolidly, have been as driven
cattle before prince or chief, and yet have accepted
their lot as they found it, without resistance or com-
plaint, finding therein a fair measure of happiness.
since the knowledge of better things has been merci-
fully withheld from them. A divine discontent may
be the beginning of all improvement, but beyond all
gainsaying it sounds the knell to placid happiness
and content.
This is what one reads in Ûmal’s face when it is
in repose, but it is subject to the changes wrought by
many emotions. Suddenly his features break up
into a thousand creases, the brown skin puckering in
numberless divergent lines, like the surface of a
muddy puddle into which a stone has been cast.
A noise like the crowing of a cock combined with the
roaring of a bull accompanies this phenomenon, and
you may then know that mat’s sense of humour has
been tickled. It does not take much to amuse him.
for, like most Malays, he is very light-hearted; and
all Ûmat’s world laughs with and at him. Almost
every Kelantan fishing-boat that puts to sea carries
its álan-álan, or jester, with it, for toil is lightened if
men be merry, and in days gone by Ûmat was one
of the most popular and successful men of this class
on the coast. A quaint phrase, a happy repartee, not always expressed in the most decorous language,
the rude mimicry of some personal eccentricity, a
play upon words, or a story with almost too much
point in it–such are Ûmat’s stock in trade, and the
dexterous use of them has caused him to be well
beloved by his fellows.
But, on occasion, he can be serious enough. As
my raft whirls down a rapid, a clumsy punt sends it
reeling to what looks like certain destruction.
Umat’s ugly old nut of a face sets hard. His teeth
are clenched, his lips compressed tightly. His bare
feet grapple the slippery bamboos with clinging grip,
and his twenty-foot punting pole describes a circle
above his head. Its point alights with marvellous
rapidity and unerring aim upon the only projecting
ridge of rock within immediate reach, and all Umat’s
weight is put into the thrust, while his imprisoned
breath breaks loose in an excited howl. The raft
cants violently, wallowing knee deep, but the danger
of instant demolition is averted, and we tear through
the fifty yards of roaring, rock-beset water, which
divides us from the foot of the rapid, without further
mishap. Then Ûmat’s face relaxes, his queer laugh
resounds, and he chaffs the man whose clumsiness
has nearly been our undoing with unmerciful dis-
regard for his feelings or for the more approved pro-
prieties.
His promptness to grasp the nature of the emer-
gency, and the quick, decisive action with which he
meets it and averts catastrophe, have little to do with
Umat himself. He owes them to his forebears the fisher-folk who, for many unrecorded centuries, have
been accustomed to risk their lives on the dangerous
river bars and the treacherous waters of the China
Sea. If ready presence of mind in the face of peril,
and a quick appreciation of the surest means of
escape had not become for them an inherited in-
stinct, the breed would long ere now have become
extinct.
Ûmat, however, has at his command pluck of
quite another stamp-the courage which is no mere
asli in the pan, born of excitement and an instinet
of self-preservation, but is long enduring when beset
by a danger before which a man must sit down and
wait. It is no light thing to stare death in the eyes
for days and weeks on end, to expect it in some cri ),
violent form, and yet to possess one’s soul in patience,
and to keep a heart in one’s body that does not sink
and quail. Yet Ûmat has successfully withstood
this test, and though the limitations of his imagina-
lion doubtless made the situation easier for him than
it would be for a white man, cursed with the restless
brain of his kind, he fully grasped the risks to which
he was exposing himself. All his light-heartedness
vanished, for unlike my friend Raja Haji Hamid,
whose eyes never danced so happily as when danger
was afoot, Ûmat came of a class to whom a gamble
with death is a hated thing. For once the look of
calm patience had deserted him, for he was enduring
consciously, and by a hundred tokens it was evident
that his nerves were strung like a bow. In a word,
he detested the whole position: but though nothing bound him to it except a sentimental con-
ception of loyalty, he never attempted to bridge
from it.
But Umat’s face is capable of yet another change.
When his brown eyes blaze, when his features are
distorted with excitement, and a torrent of hardly
articulate words burst headlong from his lips, you
may know that Umat is angry. A tumult of wrath-
ful sound at the back of the bungalow, where the
servants congregate in the covered way which joins
the kitchen to the main building, begins the uproar,
and if you fail to interfere, some Chinese heads will
infallibly be broken in several places. On inquiry
it will prove that the cook has accused Ûmat of
adulterating the milk, or that the water coolie, whose
business it also is to make the kerosene lamps smell
and smoke, has charged him with purloining the
kerosene. No words can describe Ûmat’s fury and
indignation, if he be indeed guiltless, which is
very rarely the case. If, on the other hand, the
counts brought against him be true, he is a bad liar
and his manner speedily betrays him, while his wrath
fails to convince. Presently he will produce the
bottle of lamp oil from the folds of his strong, and
laughing sheepishly, will claim that praise should be
his portion, since it is only half full. IIe will hang
his head, assuming an attitude of exaggerated humil-
ity, while he listens to my biting comments upon his
grossly immoral conduct, ejaculating from time to
time the question: “Where should the lice feed, if
not upon the head?” and five minutes later the copound will be ringing with the songs he loves to
bellow. It is not possible to abash Ûmat.
I first met him in 1890 when, after a year spent in
Europe, I returned to Pahang for a second tour of
service at the ripe age of twenty-four, and took charge
of the districts which form the interior of that
country. I was very lonely. I had served for a
long time as political agent at the Sultan’s court
before the British Government assumed a more ac-
tive part in the administration of the state, but at
that time I had had with me some thirty Malays who
had come from the other side of the Peninsula to
share my fortunes and to keep me company. These
were now scattered to the winds, and I had none but
strangers around me. There were a few mining-
camps spattered about the district, but of the Euro-
peans who lived in them I saw little, except when I
visited them. The Pahang Malays eyed us with
suspicion, and stood aloof, for their chiefs did not
encourage a friendly attitude toward a set of intruders
in whose presence they saw a menace to their power
and privileges, while the peasantry had still to learn
that we were able to deliver them from the oppression
to which custom had almost reconciled them. For a
space, therefore, I was in a position of quite extraor-
dinary isolation, and I found the experience suffi-
ciently dreary.
Pahang had had an ill name on the east coast of the
Peninsula any time during the past three hundred
years, and until the white men “protected” the country in 1889, few strangers cared to set foot in a
land where life and property were held on so insecure
a tenure. Soon, however, the whisper spread through
the villages of Kelantan and Trengganu that work
found a high price in Pahang under the Europeans,
and a stream of large-limbed Malays, very different
in appearance from the slender, cleanly built natives
of the country, began to trickle over the borders.
On this stream Ûmat was borne to me, and so long
as my connection with Malaya remained unsevered
he remained with me “inseparable as the nail and the
quick,” to use his own expression.
mat, in the beginning, was just one of my boat-
men, the folk in whose company I explored all the
rivers in the interior of Pahang. No map of the
rountry existed in those days, and I had a notion–
the soundness of which was subsequently demon-
strated that the time would come when a thorough
knowledge of the local geography would be of great
importance and military value, and that at such a
season native guides would be unprocurable. I
speut about eight months, therefore, in punting up
and paddling down the streams, which in those days
formed the principal highways in the interior, and in
trudging through the jungle from watershed to water-
shed. Most of the Malay villages, of course, were
situated on the banks of these rivers, but there were a
certain number of inland settlements, and a network
of narrow footpaths linked each set of habitations to
its fellows. A thorough examination of these neces-
silated a great deal of travelling and camping, and as the local Malays were not greatly interested in my
doings, I got together a pack of men, mostly natives
of Kelantan, to work my boat on the river, and to
carry my baggage when I tramped.
I think Ûmat divined that I was lonely, and he
may even have dimly realized that I was an object
of pity, for he used to creep into my hut in the
evening, and seating himself upon the floor, would
tell me tales of his own country and people until the
night was far advanced. His dialect was strange
Lo me at that time, and the manner in which he
cluded some of his vowels and most of his consonants
was at first a trifle bewildering. It took a little time
lo master the phonetic law which caused anam (ix)
to shrink into ne’, and kerbau (buffalo) into kúba’,
and his vocabulary was rich in local words; but I
let him talk, and in the end learned not only to
understand, but actually to talk this new and bar-
barous brand of Malay to which he was the first tu
introduce me.
Thus mat and I became friends, and life was a
thought less dreary because he was at hand. He
taught me a number of things which I did not know
before, and his folklore and his dialect furnished
an interesting study that served to enliven hours
of solitude that at times were almost overwhelm-
ing.
Then came a period when trouble darkened the
land, and the disturbances which I had foretold, but
in the imminence of which I had failed to persuade
any one to believe, broke out in earnest. The warpath was to me a wholly new experience, but I had
no alternative but to go upon it, and Ümat elected
to trudge along at my heels while most of his fellows
made tracks for Kelantan, bearing with them the
tidings that Pahang was once more living up to its
ancient reputation. The dreary business dragged ou
for months and threatened to be endless, but Ûmat
stuck to me through bad and good fortune alike with
logged perseverance. The official theory, to which
I was never able personally to subscribe, was that
certain bands of evilly disposed people were rebelling
against the Sultan, whose country we had “pro-
tected” for very sufficient reasons, but very much
against his will. But in Pahang, until the white
men came, for thirty long years no dog had barked
save with its ruler’s leave, and to me, who had lived
in the country in its pristine condition under native
rule, it was palent that disturbances of the magnitude
we were facing could never have broken out if they
had lacked royal approval and inspiration.
In the spring of 1892, however, I found mysell
back at Kuala Lipis, my old headquarters in the far
interior, surrounded by a very restless and excited
population, and with written instructions “to treat
all the chiefs as friendly, until by some overt sign
they prove themselves to be hostile.” These pre-
rious words, to which, as most public servants will
recognize, there clings the genuine Secretariat odour,
are enshrined in my memory, but at the moment the
humour of them was wasted upon me. A thrust
between the ribs with a kris was the sort of “overt sign” which our neighbours were likely to give us.
For this we sat down and waited.
I had two white men with me a doctor and an
inspector of police, both full of pluck and of the
greatest assistance to me; about twenty Sikhs–
overgrown Casabiancas every one of them, who
would have stood upon the burning deck till they
were reduced to cinders any day if the order to quit
it had failed to reach them; and half a dozen panic-
stricken Malays, recruited in the Colony to serve as
constables, and about as much good as the proverbial
sick headache. We had at our disposal a big, un-
wieldy stockade, built to surround certain govern-
ment buildings, badly situated, and much too large
for efficient defence. The force at my command was
quite inadequate to hold it in any circumstances,
but our only chance of making a stiff fight of it lay
in guarding against a surprise.
The chiefs from all the surrounding districts, ac-
companied by great gatherings of their armed fot-
lowers, swarmed into the little town, and presently
began to build stockades in all the positions which
commanded our defences. This was done, they said,
in order to prevent the rebels from occupying these
points of vantage, but the statement was unconvine-
ing. Numbers of them visited me daily. trying to
obtain money and supplies, posing as our allies with
a contempt for my understanding which they barely
troubled themselves to conceal, and showing me by
a hundred subtle indications that they believed them-
selves to hold me in the hollew of their hand. My principal preoccupation was to keep them and their
armed parties out of my stockade, and to this end I
lived in my own bungalow, which was distant from
it a matter of a couple of hundred yards. My Chi-
nese servants had come to me, a day or two after the
arrival of the chiefs, and had mentioned that they
understood that there was to be a battle that after-
noon. After lunch, therefore, their spokesman re-
marked, they proposed, with my leave, to run away
and hide themselves in the jungle. That would have
meant that each one of them would have had his
throat ent; but as they were frightened out of their
wits, though not out of their good manners, and I
feared that they would try the experiment, I put
them into a boat which happened to be going down-
river, and so slipped them into safety. Thus I was
left alone in my bungalow, save only for Ûmat, and
he and I kept watch, turn and turn about, for a
matter of several weeks. He cooked ny rice for me,
and squatted on the mat beside me while I slept,
and whenever a chief and his truculent crew over-
flowed into the bungalow, Ûmat sat by fondling his
weapons.
At last there came a day when the greatest of all
the chiefs had arrived, and presently a message
reached me from him saying that he was too ill to
come up the hill to see me, and inviting me to visit
him in the town. The position was not pleasant.
A refusal was out of the question, for laving regard
to the characters of the men with whom we were.
dealing, any sign of timidity would, I knew, precipitate a conflict. An ostentatious display of fearless-
ness is, on such occasions, the only safe card to play
with a Malay, and I knew that though the war party
among the younger chiefs was daily gaining strength,
the biggest man of the lot was hesitating, and, as I
thought, capable of being talked round.
Accordingly, I sent word that I would come; issued
written instructions to the white men in the stockade
on no account to quit the defences in order to attempt
a rescue if things went ill with me, since that would
mean the destruction of all; arned myself carefully,
and prepared to set out. A. minor chief with a few
followers came, according to custom, to escort me to
the town, and just as I was starting, Umat, armed
with kris and spear, and with a set look of resolve
upon his face, fell in behind me. I stopped and took
him aside.
“It is not necessary for you, to come,” I said. “If
all goes well, there will be no need of you. If aught
goes amiss, what profits it that two should suffer
instead of one?”
Ûmat grunted, but he did not turn back.
“Return,” I ordered. “I have no need of you.”
But Umat showed no sign of obeying me.
“Tuan,” he said, “for how long a time have I
caten your rice when you were in prosperity and at
ease? Is it then fitting that I should quit you in a
day of trouble? Tian, where you go, there I go
also. Where you lead I follow.”
I said no more, but went upon my way with Umat
at my heels. IIis devotion not only touched but fortified me. He was taking voluntarily risks which
I was running because circumstances left me no
alternative. Morcover, he, I knew, believed himself
to be going to certain death, whereas I was backing.
my own conception of the psychology of the men
with whom I was dealing, and saw in the action I was
taking the one chance afforded to me of saving my-
self and those under my charge from a violent and
unpleasant end.
The interview with the chiefs was a long one, and
throughout it the knowledge that Umal’s great,
fleshy body was wedged in securely between my
enemies and the small of my back gave me an added
confidence which was worth many points in my
favour. The decision, whether it was to be peace or
war. lay with the Dato’ Maharaja Pěrba Jělai –
The great territorial baron whom I had come to see-
who was, under the Sultan, the practical ruler of the
whole of the interior of Pahang. This man, before
British influence had been extended to the country,
had been the object of the Sultan’s jealousy and had
seen encroachments upon his authority by more than
one royal favourite attempted and encouraged.
Several of these upstart chiefs were among the
leaders of the present revolt, and the son of one of
them was now heading the local war party at Kuala
Lipis and was being warmly seconded by the Dato’s
own promising heir. That these youngsters had the
Sultan’s influence at their back was also obvious;
but my chances of success lay in my ability to dis-
credit them and to convince the Dato’ that he was being made a cat’s-paw of by his old enemies and
their astute master.
Hardly had the interview opened before Mat
Kilau, the youthful leader of the war party, cut
abruptly into the conversation. Assuming an air
of incredulous astonishment, I ignored him and
turned to the Dâto’.
“I came hither,” I said, “to see you, to discuss
matters with those possessed of knowledge and
understanding, not to bandy words with babes. Is
il fitting, then, and is it approved by ancient custom.
that one who has but recently been weaned, one
whose age is that of a season of maize, should disturb
with his babble the grave conferences of his elders?”
I was laying myself open to an obvious retort, but I
question whether this occurred to my audience, and
the appeal to custom, which is the great Malayan
fetish, was a sure card. Mat Kilau was promptly
suppressed, and with him the war party was silenee.!
at the outset.
This point gained, I next addressed myself to a
statement of the case as it presented itself, I averred,
to the eye of common sense.
Behold a war had broken out, and certain evilly
disposed persons were fighting the British Govern-
ment. Either this was being done by the Sultan’s
orders, or it was not. If it were, doubtless the Sultan
had issued his mandate under his seal, thus assuming
responsibility for all that might befall. If the Dâto’
would produce such a document, I should have no
further word to say. No written order, I was told, had been received; and this I was prepared to be-
lieve, for the Sultan was far too astute a person to
commit himself in such a fashion.
“Then,” said I, “suffer me, as an old friend, to give
you this much counsel. Turn a deaf ear to any
alleged verbal command, for if you act against the
British now, and have no formal mandate from the
Sultan for your action, you, and you alone, will be
held responsible. At this moment I and the men
with me are few and weak; we are a tempting morsel
for the youthful, the warlike, and the unwise-like
the bait that killed the shark. You can kill me
now.” (The Dato’ politely hastened to disavow any
such desire.) “You can kill me now, you can kill
the men in my stockade to-morrow or in a day or two;
but that will be only the begiming. If we fall, in a
little space more white men than you have ever seen
or heard of will coine pouring over the hills. They
will burn your villages, fell your cocoanut groves, kill
your cattle, and they will never rest until they have
hanged you by the neck until you are dead, for the
war will be your war, and in the absence of a mandate
from the Sultan nothing will clear you of guilt.
Even were the Sultan openly at your back, you would,
at the best, be banished to some distant island, as is
the white man’s way. It would indeed be sad,” I
concluded, “if such calamities should befall because
the advice of hot-headed youngsters had been suffered
to prevail over the wise deliberations of their elders.”
This was the gist of my argument, but Malay
fashion, we talked about and about it for hours. In the end, however, words prevailed, and Umat and 1
won through. The Dato’ dispersed his followers,
while Mat Kilau and the bulk of the war party re-
tired to a village some twenty miles distant, where
they placed themselves astride my lines of com-
munication. From this place, a couple of months
later, I had the satisfaction of dislodging them with
a portion of the force sent across the mountains to
the relief of my stockade. For the moment, how-
ever, all immediate danger of an attack on Kuala
Lipis was averted, and that night Ûmat made dark-
ness hideous by the discordant snatches of song with
which he celebrated our diplomatic victory, betoken-
ing the reaction occasioned by the unstringing of his
tense nerves.
Later I became resident of Pahang, and I’mat
came with me to the capital, and lived there for some
years in a house in my compound, with Sělěma, the
Pahang girl, who made him so gentle and faithful
a wife. It was soon after his marriage that his
trouble fell upon Ûmat, and swept much of the sun-
shine from his life. He contracted a form of ophthal-
mia, and for a time was totally blind. Native medi-
cine-men doctored him, and drew sheafs of needles
and bunches of thorns from his eyes, which they
declared were the cause of his affliction. These and
other miscellaneous odds and ends, similarly ex-
tracted, used to be brought to me for inspection at
breakfast-time, floating most unappetizingly in a cup
half full of oily water; and Umat went abroad withi
eye sockets stained crimson, or yellow, or black, according to the fancy of the native physician. The
aid of an English doctor was called in, but Ûmat was
too thoroughly a Malay to place much trust in the
simple and untheatrical prescriptions provided for
him, and though his blindness was relieved, and he
became able to walk without the aid of a staff, his
eyesight could never be wholly restored to him.
But Ûmat was of a sanguine temperament, and
even when his blindness had continued for years,
and each new remedy had proved to be merely one
more disappointment, he clung unshakenly to the
belief that in time the light would return to him.
Meanwhile, his life held much enjoyment. All
through the day his laugh used to ring out, and at
night-time the compound would resound to the songs
he loved to improvise which had for their theme the
marvellous doings of “mat, the blind man, whose
eyes cannot see.” His patience had come to the
rescue, and the sorrow of his blindness, accompanied
as it was with a sufficient wage and no great measure
of physical exertion, was a chastened grief which he
bore with little complaining. He had aged some-
what, for the loss of sight made his face look graver,
heavier, duller than of old, but his heart remained as
young as ever.
And good things have not held quite aloof from
him. One day, as I sat writing, Uniat erupted into
the room, and presently the whole house resounded
with the news that he expected shortly to become a
father. The expression of his face was a queer
medley of delight, excitement, and pride, blent with some anxiety for Sělěma; and when he spoke of the
child, whose advent he prophesied so noisily, he be-
came almost sentimental.
He rushed off to the most famous midwife in the
place, and presented her with the retaining fee
prescribed by Malay custom-a small brass dish
filled with leaves of the sirih vine, and six pence of
our money. The recipient of these treasures is
thereafter held pledged to attend the patient when-
ever she may be called upon to do so, and after the
child is born she can claim further payments for the
services rendered. These are not extravagantly high,
according to European notions, two depreciated
Mexican dollars being the charge for a first confine-
ment, a dollar or a dollar and a half on the next
occasion, and twenty-five or at the most fifty cents
being deemed an adequate payment for each subse-
quent event.
When mat had “placed the sirih leaves,” he had
done all that was immediately possible for Sělēma,
and he sat down to endure the anxieties of the next
few months with the patience of which he had so
much at his command. The pantang ber-anak, or
birth-taboos, hem a Malayan husband in almost as
rigidly as they fence his wife, and Umat went in
constant dread of unwittingly transgressing any of the
laws upon the nice observance of which the welfare
of Sělěma and the future of their child depended.
He ceased to shave his head, foregoing the cool com-
fort of a naked scalp. Ile dared not even cut his
hair, and a thick, black shock presently stood five inches high upon his head, and tumbled raggedly
about his neck and ears. Sělěma was about to be-
come the mother of his first-born, and for Ûmat to
cut his hair in such circumstances would have been
to invite disaster. He would not kill the fowls for
the cook now, nor would he even drive a stray dog
from the compound with violence, lest he should
chance to do it a hurt; for he must shed no blood
and do no injury to any living thing during his wife’s
pregnancy. One day he was sent on an errand up-
river, and did not return for two nights. On inquiry
it appeared that he camped in a friend’s house and
learned next day that his host’s wife was also expect-
ing shortly to give birth to a child. Therefore he
had had to spend at least two nights in the house.
Why? Because, if he had failed to do so, he might
have brought death to Sělčma. Why should this be
the result? Allah alone knoweth, but such is the
teaching of the men of old, the very wise ones who
lived aforetime.
But mat’s chief privation was that he was for
bidden to sit in the doorway of his house. This, to
a Malay, was serious, for the seat in the doorway,
at the head of the stair-ladder which leads to the
ground, is to him much what the chimney corner is to
an English peasant. It is here that he sits and looks.
out patiently at life, as the European stares into the
heart of a fire; it is here that his neighbours come to
gossip with him, and it is in the doorway of his own
or his friends’ houses that the rumours that fill his
narrow world are borne to him. To obstruct a doorway at such a time, however, would have been fat d
to Sělěma’s prospects, and almost certain death to
her and to her child; so though the restriction robbed
his life of much of its comfort, Umat submitted to it
with meekness.
His wife, meanwhile, had to be no less circumspect.
She bridled her woman’s tongue rigorously, and no
word of disparagement of man or beast was allowed.
to pass her lips. IIad she miscalled or depreciated
any living thing the consequences, as was well
known, would have been that her child would have
reproduced the defects upon which she had com-
mented. This, it will be noted, represent Jacob’s
wands driven hilt-deep into the ground. She was
often dropping with fatigue, and faint and ill before
her hour came, but she dared not lie down upon her
mat during the hours of daylight lest she should fall
asleep, in which case evil spirits would almost cer
tainly have entered into her unborn child. There
fore, she struggled on till dusk, and Ümat did his
clumsy best to comfort her and to lighten her suf
ferings by constant tenderness and care.
One night, when the moon was nearly at the full,
the town suddenly broke out into a tumult of dis-
cordant sound. The large brass gongs, in which the
Chinese devils delight, clanged and clashed and
brayed; the Malay drums throbbed and thudded:
and a tremendous clamour was raised by thousands
of human voices lifted in shrill and strenuous outery,
The jungle on the distant bank across the river echoed
and reechoed the noise, till the air seemed to be <quivering with its vibrations. The moon, which is
beloved by all dwellers in the tropics, and is especially
dear to Oriental lovers, was suddenly seen to be in
dire peril, for before the eyes of all men the jaws of
hat infamous monster, the Gerhana, could be seen
to have fastened themselves upon her, and were
swallowing her inch by inch. Even the Chinese,
who are astronomers and had learned how to foretell
eclipses while our forebears were still very rudimen-
tary folk, firmly believe in this legendary causation of
the phenomenon, and all men are enjoined to aid the
moon on such occasions by raising a tumult that will
frighten her assailant away. So now all the people
shouted, while the gongs clanged and the drums were
beaten, until the terrified dragon withdrew, and the
moon was seen sailing unharmed across the sky,
looking down in love and gratitude upon her children,
to whose aid she owed her deliverance.
But during the period that her fate had hung in the
balance Sělěma had been thrust into the empty fire-
place and had sat there, under the shadow of the
ray-like shelf depending from the low rafters, trent-
bling with fear of the unknown. The little basket
work stand, upon which the hot rice pot is wont to
rest, was put on her head as a cap, and in her girdle
the long wooden rice spoon was stuck daggerwise.
Thus equipped she remained motionless and silent
during the whole period of the eclipse. Neither she
or mat had a notion why it was necessary to do
these things, but they never dreamed of questioning
the custom that prescribed them. The men of olden days have decreed that women with child
should behave in this manner when the moon is in
trouble, and the consequences of neglect are far too
serious to be risked; so Sělěma and Ûmat acted ac-
cordingly to their simple faith.
Later came a day when Sělěma nearly lost her life
by reason of the barbarities which Malayan science
holds to be necessary if a woman is to live through
her confinement without mishap. Great bands of
linen were passed around her body, and the ends were
pulled at, tug-of-war fashion, by rival knots of aged
crones. She was roasted over a charcoal brazier
till her skin was blistered and she was well-nigh
suffocated. She was made the victim of other in-
describable horrors, and tortured in divers ways.
Umat’s brown face was gray with fear and anxiety.
and drawn and aged with pain. He paced rest-
lessly between his hut and my study, retailing to me
realistic details of the enormities being perpetrated
by the midwife and her assistants, and he poured the
tale of his suspense into my ears, and wet the floor
mats with his great beady tears. Hours passed,
and at last a feeble cry came from Umat’s house,
a thin wailing which brought with it such relief that
I, too, found the apple lumping in my throat. Ümat,
beside himself with delight and almost delirious with
joy at Sělěma’s trial being over, rushed to me with the
news that a man-child had been born to him, and that
his wife was doing well. He was like a mad thing, laugh-
ing through his tears and sobbing in his laughter, the
most triumphant parent that I have ever seen.
Thereafter, nightly, for many weeks, the cries of
Awang as the boy was named-broke the peace
of my compound during the midnight hour. Ma-
layan custom was still busy with him, and the poor
little wretch was being bathed ruthlessly in cold
water, after being dragged out of his sleep for the
purpose, and then was dried by being hekl face
downward over a charcoal brazier. The pungent
smoke choked his breath and pained his eyes, but he
contrived to survive this and other drastic expe
riences, though he bawled his protests and disapproval
with a pair of sturdy lungs. Only a percentage of
Malayan children live through the attentions of
their mothers, but Iwang was among the survivals,
and as soon as he was old enough to be allowed out.
of the house, he became Ûmat’s constant friend
and companion. Long before he could speak he and
his father appeared to have established a complete
understanding, and later you could hear them hold-
ing long conversations together, on the matting out.
side my study door, for hours at a time.
As Awang grew big enough to use his legs, he used
to patter nimbly round Ümat with an air which had
in it something of protection. He was generally
mother-naked, save that now and again a cap was
set rakishly upon one side of his little bullet head.
and when I spoke to him he used to wriggle in a most
ingratiating fashion, and thrust his small hand half-
way down his throat in his embarrassment. Îmat
delighted in him, and his eyes followed him con-
stantly, and though they were very dim, I used to fancy that he saw Awang more clearly than anything
else on earth.
In the fullness of time I was transferred from
Malaya to another part of the Empire, distant from
it a matter of some nine thousand miles, and shortly
afterward Ûmat elected to return to his own country,
taking his Pahang wife and his several children with
him. He had saved a little money-some of it
come by none too honestly, I shrewdly suspect-
and in Kelantan he entered into possession of cer-
tain ancestral lands. I still hear tidings of him
occasionally, and I learn that he has blossomed out.
into a sort of minor headman, his authority being
mainly based upon his intimate knowledge of the
curious ways of white men. It is hardly likely that
he and I will ever meet again, but I shall always
recall with tenderness and gratitude the man who.
having eaten my rice when I was in prosperity and
at ease, held that it was “not fitting” to quit me in
time of trouble.
Nguồn: Wikisource English — The Further Side of Silence/One Who Had Eaten My Rice. Văn bản được nhập và định dạng lại; CC BY-SA 4.0, có thể áp dụng điều khoản bổ sung của tác phẩm.