He had to give in to my arguments, because all his conquests, the trust, the fame, the friendships, the love—all these things that made him master had made him a captive, too.
He looked with an owner’s eye at the peace of the evening, at the river, at the houses, at the everlasting life of the forests, at the life of the old mankind, at the secrets of the land, at the pride of his own heart; but it was they that possessed him and made him their own to the innermost thought, to the slightest stir of blood, to his last breath.
‘It was something to be proud of.
I, too, was proud—for him, if not so certain of the fabulous value of the bargain.
It was wonderful.
It was not so much of his fearlessness that I thought.
It is strange how little account I took of it: as if it had been something too conventional to be at the root of the matter.
No. I was more struck by the other gifts he had displayed.
He had proved his grasp of the unfamiliar situation, his intellectual alertness in that field of thought.
There was his readiness, too! Amazing.
And all this had come to him in a manner like keen scent to a well-bred hound.
He was not eloquent, but there was a dignity in this constitutional reticence, there was a high seriousness in his stammerings.
He had still his old trick of stubborn blushing.
Now and then, though, a word, a sentence, would escape him that showed how deeply, how solemnly, he felt about that work which had given him the certitude of rehabilitation.
That is why he seemed to love the land and the people with a sort of fierce egoism, with a contemptuous tenderness.’
CHAPTER 25
‘“This is where I was prisoner for three days,” he murmured to me (it was on the occasion of our visit to the Rajah), while we were making our way slowly through a kind of awestruck riot of dependants across Tunku Allang’s courtyard. “Filthy place, isn’t it?
And I couldn’t get anything to eat either, unless I made a row about it, and then it was only a small plate of rice and a fried fish not much bigger than a stickleback—confound them!
Jove! I’ve been hungry prowling inside this stinking enclosure with some of these vagabonds shoving their mugs right under my nose.
I had given up that famous revolver of yours at the first demand.
Glad to get rid of the bally thing.
Look like a fool walking about with an empty shooting-iron in my hand.”
At that moment we came into the presence, and he became unflinchingly grave and complimentary with his late captor.
Oh! magnificent!
I want to laugh when I think of it.
But I was impressed, too.
The old disreputable Tunku Allang could not help showing his fear (he was no hero, for all the tales of his hot youth he was fond of telling); and at the same time there was a wistful confidence in his manner towards his late prisoner.
Note!
Even where he would be most hated he was still trusted.
Jim—as far as I could follow the conversation—was improving the occasion by the delivery of a lecture.
Some poor villagers had been waylaid and robbed while on their way to Doramin’s house with a few pieces of gum or beeswax which they wished to exchange for rice.
“It was Doramin who was a thief,” burst out the Rajah.
A shaking fury seemed to enter that old frail body.
He writhed weirdly on his mat, gesticulating with his hands and feet, tossing the tangled strings of his mop—an impotent incarnation of rage.
There were staring eyes and dropping jaws all around us.
Jim began to speak.
Resolutely, coolly, and for some time he enlarged upon the text that no man should be prevented from getting his food and his children’s food honestly.
The other sat like a tailor at his board, one palm on each knee, his head low, and fixing Jim through the grey hair that fell over his very eyes.
When Jim had done there was a great stillness.
Nobody seemed to breathe even; no one made a sound till the old Rajah sighed faintly, and looking up, with a toss of his head, said quickly,
“You hear, my people!
No more of these little games.”
This decree was received in profound silence.
A rather heavy man, evidently in a position of confidence, with intelligent eyes, a bony, broad, very dark face, and a cheerily of officious manner (I learned later on he was the executioner), presented to us two cups of coffee on a brass tray, which he took from the hands of an inferior attendant.
“You needn’t drink,” muttered Jim very rapidly.
I didn’t perceive the meaning at first, and only looked at him.
He took a good sip and sat composedly, holding the saucer in his left hand.
In a moment I felt excessively annoyed.
“Why the devil,” I whispered, smiling at him amiably, “do you expose me to such a stupid risk?”
I drank, of course, there was nothing for it, while he gave no sign, and almost immediately afterwards we took our leave.