Part 4

All about him were the hoof-marks of the great sladang, the fiercest and wildest animal of the peninsula--the Malayan bull that will charge a tiger, a black lion, a boa, and even a crocodile, on sight. Hunters will go miles to avoid one of them, and a herd of elephants will go trumpeting away in fear at their approach.

"Kuching besar (big cat) eat Baboo's chow dog, then sleep in lallang grass,"--this was the child's story. "Baboo find, and say, 'Bagus kuching (pretty kitty), see Baboo's doll?' Kuching no like Baboo's doll mem consul give. Kuching run away. Baboo catch tail, run too. Kuching go long ways. Baboo 'fraid Aboo Din whip and tell kuching must go back. Kuching pick Baboo up in mouth when Baboo let go.

"Kuching hurt Baboo. Baboo stick fingers in kuching's eye. Kuching no more hurt Baboo. Kuching stop under banian tree and sleep. Big sladang come, fight kuching. Baboo sorry for good kuching. Baboo hid from sladang,--Aboo Din no whip Baboo?"

His voice dropped to a pathetic little quaver, and he put up his hands with an appealing gesture; but his brown legs were drawn back ready to flee should Aboo Din make one hostile move.

"Baboo," I said, "you are a hero!"

Baboo opened his little black eyes, but did not dispute me.

"You shall go to Mecca when you grow up, and become a Hadji, and when you come back the high kadi shall take you in the mosque and make a kateeb of you," said I. "Now put your forehead to the ground and thank the good Allah that the kuching had eaten dog before he got you."

Baboo did as he was told, but I think that in his heart he was more grateful that for once he had evaded a whipping than for his remarkable escape. A little later the punghulo came up with a half-dozen shikaris, or hunters, and a pack of hunting dogs. The men skinned the mutilated carcass of the only "good tiger" I met during my three years' hunting in the jungles of this strange old peninsula.

BABOO'S PIRATES

An Adventure in the Pahang River

There was a scuffle in the outer office, and a thin, piping voice was calling down all the curses of the Koran on the heads of my great top-heavy Hindu guards.

"Sons of dogs," I heard in the most withering contempt, "I will see the Tuan Consul. Know he is my father."

A tall Sikh, with his great red turban awry and his brown kaki uniform torn and soiled, pushed through the bamboo chicks and into my presence.

He was dragging a small bit of naked humanity by the folds of its faded cotton sarong.

The powerful soldier was hot and flushed, and a little stream of blood trickling from his finger tips showed where they had come in contact with his captive's teeth. It was as though an elephant had been worried by a pariah cur.

"Your Excellency," he said, salaaming and gasping for breath.

"It is Baboo, the Harimau-Anak!"

Baboo wrenched from the guard's grasp and glided up to my desk. The back of his open palm went to his forehead, and his big brown eyes looked up appealingly into mine.

"What is it, Tiger-Child?" I asked, bestowing on him the title the Malays of Kampong Glam had given him as a perpetual reminder of his famous adventure.

Dimples came into either tear-stained cheek. He smoothed out the rents in his small sarong, and without deigning to notice his late captor, said in a soft sing-song voice:--

"Tuan Consul, Baboo want to go with the Heaven-Born to Pahang. Baboo six years old,--can fight pirates like Aboo Din, the father. May Mohammed make Tuan as odorous as musk!"

"You are a boaster before Allah, Baboo," I said, smiling.

Baboo dropped his head in perfectly simulated contrition.

"I have thought much, Tuan."

News had come to me that an American merchant ship had been wrecked near the mouth of the Pahang River, and that the Malays, who were at the time in revolt against the English Resident, had taken possession of its cargo of petroleum and made prisoners of the crew.

I had asked the colonial governor for a guard of five Sikhs and a launch, that I might steam up the coast and investigate the alleged outrage before appealing officially to the British government.

Of course Baboo went, much to the disgust of Aboo Din, the syce.

I never was able to refuse the little fellow anything, and I knew if I left him behind he would be revenged by running away.