Part 20

"Now!" he whispered, and our rifles exploded in unison.

A great splash of slimy red mud fell full on the front of my spotless white jacket, another struck in the water close by the side of the boat. The wounded crocodile had sprung into the air from his tail up, and dropped back into his wallow with a resounding thud. In another instant he was off the slippery bank and within the security of the mud-colored water.

I saw that my companion had more to tell me, possibly a native tradition of the fabled riches that were concealed within the heart of the historic mountain that was for the moment framed in a setting of green, directly ahead. I put a fresh cartridge into the barrel, and leaned back in my deck chair.

The Chief Justice extracted a manila from his case and handed it to me.

"In the days when Tunku Ali III. ruled over Maur, from Malacca to the confines of Johore, the Portuguese came, and Albuquerque with his ships of war and soldiers in iron armor sought to wrest from our people their cities and their riches. My ancestor was a dato,--our laksamana, high admiral, of his Highness's fleet. His galley was built of burnished teak, the lining of its cabin was of sandalwood,--algum wood your Koran calls it,--and the turret in its stern was covered with plates of solid gold. You will find record of it to this day in the state papers of Acheen.

"For fully a hundred and forty years did the Emperor of Johore and his valiant allies, the King of Acheen and the Sultan of Maur, seek to retake Malacca from the Portuguese. The Dato Mamat was the last laksamana of the fleet. With him died the war and the secret of Mount Ophir."

"The secret!" I questioned, as the Tuan Hakim paused.

"For one hundred and forty years were we at war with the invaders. Three generations were born and died with arms in their hands. No work was done on the land, save by women and children. Still we had plenty of gold with which to fit out fleet after fleet, with which to arm our soldiers and feed our people.

"It came from yonder mountain. Not even the Sultan knew its hiding-place. That was only trusted to one family, and handed from father to son by word of mouth.

"Long before the days of Solomon the Wise did my family hold that secret for the state. It was one of them that gave the four hundred and twenty talents to the laksamana of Huram's fleet. Your Koran has made record of the gift. He did not know from whence it came. He asked, and we told him from the Ophirs, which means from the gold mines. Then it was that he called the mountain that raised its head four thousand feet above the sea, and was the first object his lookout saw as they neared the coast, 'Mount Ophir.'

"No man, however so bold, ventured within a radius of fifteen miles around the foot of the mountain. It was haunted by evil spirits. No man save the laksamana, who went twice a year and brought away to his prau, which was moored on the bank of the Maur thirty miles from the mountains, ten great loads of pure gold, each time over one hundred bugels. I know not as to the truth, but it is told that there was one tribe consecrated to the mining of the gold, not one of whom had ever been outside the shadow of the mountain: that when the great admiral ceased to come, they blocked up the entrance to the mines, planted trees about the spot, and waited. One after another died, until not one was left.

"Such is the tradition of my family, Tuan."

"But the great laksamana?" I asked. "I know of the ancient riches of Malacca. Barbosa tells us that gold was so common that it was reckoned by the bhar of four hundred weight."

My companion contemplated the end of his manila. "Do you know how died his Highness, Montezuma of Mexico, Tuan?"

I bowed.

"So died my ancestor one hundred years later. I will tell you of it, that you may write his name in your histories by the side of the name of the murdered Sultan of Mexico."

The eyes of the little man flashed, and he looked squarely into mine for the first time. Possibly he may have detected a smile on my face, at the thought of placing this leader of a band of pirates side by side in history with the once ruler of the richest empire in the New World, for he paused in the midst of his narrative and said rapidly:--

"Must I tell you what your own writers tell of the rulers of our country, to make you credit my tale? It is all here," he said, pointing to his head. "Everything that relates to my home I know. King Emmanuel of Portugal wrote to his High Kadi at Rome, that his general, the cruel Albuquerque, had sailed to the Aurea Chersonese, called by the natives Malacca, and found an enormous city of twenty-five thousand houses, that abounded in spices, gold, pearls, and precious stones. Was Montezuma's capital greater?" he triumphantly asked.

"It was as great then as Singapore is today. Albuquerque captured it, and built a fortress at the mouth of the river, making the walls fifteen feet thick, all from the ruins of our mosques. This was in 1513."

"Forgive me," I said hastily, "if I have seemed to cast doubt on the relative importance of your country."

There was a Malay kampong, or village, to our right. Under the heavy green and yellow fronds of a cocoanut grove were a half-dozen picturesque palm-thatched houses. They were built up on posts six feet from the ground, and a dozen men and children scampered down their rickety ladders, as a shrill blast from our whistle aroused them from their slumbers. Pressed against the wooden bars of their low, narrow windows, we could make out the comely, brown faces of the women. The punghulo, or chief, walked sedately out to the beach, and touched his forehead to the ground as he recognized his superior. The sunlight broke through the enwrapping cocoanuts, and brought out dazzling white splotches on the sandy floor before the houses. We passed a little space of wiry lallang grass, which was waving in the faint breeze, and radiating long, irregular lines of heat, that under our glasses resembled the marking of watered silk, and were once more abreast the green walls of the impenetrable jungle.

"The Dato Mamat captured a Portuguese ship within a man's voice from the harbor of Malacca. On it was the foreign Governor's daughter. She was dark, almost as dark as my people. Her eyes were black as night, with long, drooping lashes, and her hair fell about her shapely neck, a mass of waving curls. She was tall and stately, and her bearing was haughty. The mighty Laksamana, who had fought a hundred battles, and had a hundred wives picked from the princesses of the kingdom,--for there were none so noble but felt honored in his smiles,--loved this dark-skinned foreigner. It was pitiful!

"His great fleet, which was to have swept the very name of the Portuguese from the face of the earth, lay idle before the harbor. Its captains were burning with ambition, but the Admiral would not give the command, and they dare not disobey.

"Day after day went by while the great man hung like a pariah dog on the words of his haughty captive. She scorned his words of love, laughed at his prayers, and sneered at his devotion. Day after day the sun beat down on the burnished decks of the war praus. Night after night the evening gun in the besieged fort sent forth its mocking challenge: still the Dato made no motion. Oh, but it was pitiful! One by one the praus slipped away,--first those from Acheen, and then those from Johore,--but the valiant Laksamana saw them not. He was blind to all save one. Then she spoke: 'If thou lovest me as thou boastest, and would win my smiles, send me to my father; then go and bring me of this gold of Ophir,--for the Dato had laid his heart bare before her,--enough to sink yon boat. The daughter of a Braganza does not unite herself with a pauper. When the moon is full again, I will expect you.'

"So did the Laksamana, to the everlasting shame of Islam. When the moon was full he returned in his shining prau before the walls of Malacca, He brought from Ophir, of gold more than enough; of the pearls of Ceylon he brought a chupah full to the brim. He robbed his great palace, that he might lay at the feet of the Portuguese a fortune such as Solomon only ever saw. And yet the captains of his fleet cared not for the gold, so long as the mighty Dato saved his honor. When he left for the quay, on which stood the Governor, his daughter, and the priests of their religion, they said not a word, for he passed by with averted face; but each man grasped the jewelled handle of his kris, and swore to Allah under his breath that should but one hair of the mighty Admiral's head be lacking when he returned, they would cut the false heart from the woman and feed it to the dogs.

"So spoke the captains; but ere the breath had passed their lips their chief was a prisoner, and the guns from the fort hurled defiance at the betrayed.

"It was pitiful! Allah was avenged.

"Fiercely raged the battle, and when there was a breach in the walls, and the captain besar had ordered the attack, the Portuguese held the mighty Laksamana over the walls, and reviled the allied fleets with words of derision.