A royal smuggler

The death of the Queen brought about a sad disappointment to Prabu, for, the day after those terrible rites, the Rajah caused it to be given out that he would give no audiences, nor, indeed, transact any kind of business, for the ensuing six months: nevertheless, he bore it with his usual coolness.

“God is great!” he said. “‘What is written is written.’ The Rajah is suffering under a great misfortune, and we must wait his Highness’s pleasure.”

“What!” exclaimed my brother. “Wait six months in this city of horror, with the ghosts of those poor murdered girls haunting us?—not I!”

“The Sahib Martin is as impatient as he is brave; but I shall not wait in this city. No—we will return to the coast with the Prince Mahomed’s ambassadors.”

Accordingly, we set out upon our return voyage at early dawn on the following day, and reached Mahomed’s domain without any incident worthy of record. We purposed to go on board the prahu the day after our arrival, but upon paying a farewell visit to the prince, so earnestly and kindly did he importune Prabu to remain his guest for a week or so, and so desirous was the latter of securing for his party as enthusiastic an ally in the son as he had had in the father, that he consented.

As for Martin, he was delighted at the arrangement; “for Claud,” said he, “in a few days the heavy rains will fall, the tigers will be driven down from the mountains, and we shall have a chance of some good sport.”

“Martin,” replied I, “it would be better for us if we were safe on board the prahu. I don’t believe in this young prince or chief, whichever he may be. His father was an unmitigated savage, but he was honest; the son’s manners are so velvety, that, depend upon it, he means no good.”

“What! You are at your witch-practices again, are you? Nonsense, old fellow; the truth is, you don’t half like tiger-hunting; I do, though, for it is plucky sport.”

“Plucky! Well, Martin, I don’t think so. Where is the pluck in, say, six, seven, or a dozen men, with as many sets of brains (any one being of superior quality to the tiger’s), the same number of long knives and rifles, which deal out death at a great distance, attacking one poor beast with no other weapons than its paws: an animal, too, possessing so little courage—notwithstanding all that tiger-hunters, to enhance their own deeds, say about it—that, like a cat or rat, it will seldom face a cool and determined pursuer if it can run away, without, indeed, it be goaded to madness by a bullet or so?”

“I grant you, Claud, that the tiger is a coward; for, instead of boldly facing its prey like the lion, it sneaks about the jungle, ready to fall upon the first unwary pedestrian or animal that may pass.”

“Yes, as a cat upon a mouse; but, like the cat, the tiger, if boldly faced and pursued by an animal, would run away; and, surely, there is small courage in conquering a flying enemy!”

“Then you mean to say there is no pluck in a man fighting a tiger?”

“In one man fighting one tiger, perhaps; but even then it requires more skill and practice with a particular weapon than courage; for what chance has the beast against a double-barreled rifle, in hands trained to its use? But it is of your ordinary tiger-hunting I speak disparagingly—I mean as it is practiced upon the continent of India by the vainglorious Englishmen, who, on their return home, write books about it to glorify their own courage.”

“Nevertheless, I hope we may have a choice of joining one of these hunts, Claud,” said Martin.

“Possibly so; and I, of course, shall accompany you; but it will not alter my opinion, that the chances are not equal between the hunter and the hunted. Why, what does a celebrated writer say of tiger-hunting in India?”

“I am sure I don’t know, nor do I care,” he replied, a little sulkily.

“Then I will tell you, if only to put a word in for the poor animal. He says: ‘It is little better than killing cats; nor are there so many risks attending it as in foxhunting. The sportsmen—and there are generally twenty of them, with twice that number of elephants, encaged in the howdahs, each having half a dozen loaded double-barreled rifles, charged as fast by servants as they can be fired—are perched in the same security as if in a tree, deer-shooting. A mahout sometimes gets a scratch, but it is the noble elephant that bears the brunt of the battle, and everything depends on his sagacity, courage, and steadiness. If the elephant won’t stand, becomes frightened, and goes off, then, indeed, the sportsman’s life is in some jeopardy; but this seldom happens, and even then the number and arms of the party are out of all proportion to the strength of a tiger or two.’”

“Oh! bother, Claud, I wish you hadn’t such a good memory. But what has tiger-hunting in India to do with me—we are on the island of Bali?”

“Well, my position is even more strengthened by the practice in Java,” said I, which Martin knew; but as my readers may not, I will tell them how the Javanese hunt the tiger, that they may judge what chance the poor beast has in the contest:—

A vast circle of spearmen is formed around the known haunt of a tiger, which is gradually contracted, until the animal, hemmed in on all sides, is compelled to attempt an escape by rushing through the phalanx. In this endeavor he is commonly killed, through the number and dexterity of the hunters, and the formidable length of their weapons. “Among a great many exhibitions of this sort,” says an old resident in Java, “to which I have been witness, I never knew an instance in which the tiger was not destroyed without the least difficulty.”

The same writer gives us another proof of the disadvantage at which the tiger is taken:—“Among the Javanese, the most interesting animal-fight is that between the tiger and the buffalo. The buffalo of the Indian islands is an animal of great size and strength, and of no contemptible courage; for he is an overmatch for the royal tiger, hardly ever failing to come off victorious in the fight with him. It must be confessed that there is no small satisfaction in seeing this peaceful and docile animal destroy his ferocious and savage enemy. Neither is possessed of much active courage; the tiger, indeed, is a coward, and fights only perfidiously, or through necessity. On this account, it is necessary to confine them within very narrow limits, and, further, to goad them by various contrivances. A strong cage, of a circular form, about ten feet in diameter and fifteen feet high, partly covered at the top, is for this purpose constructed, by driving stakes into the ground, which are secured by being interwoven with bamboo: the buffalo is then introduced, and the tiger let in afterwards from an aperature. The first rencounter is usually tremendous: the buffalo is the assailant, and his attempt is to crush his antagonist to death against the strong walls of the cage, in which he frequently succeeds. The tiger, soon convinced of the superior strength of his antagonist, endeavors to avoid him, and when he cannot do so, springs insidiously upon his head and neck.

“In a combat of this nature which I witnessed, the buffalo, at the very first effort, broke his antagonist’s ribs against the cage, and he dropped down dead; the buffalo is not always so fortunate. I have seen a powerful tiger hold him down, thrown upon his knees, for many seconds; and, in a few instances, he is so torn with wounds that he must be withdrawn, and a fresh one introduced; in nineteen cases out of twenty, however, the buffalo is the victor. After the first onset, there is little satisfaction in the combat; for the animals, having experienced each other’s strength and ferocity, are reluctant to engage, and the practices used to goad them to a renewal of the fight are abominable. The tiger is roused by firebrands and boiling water, and the buffalo by pouring upon his hide a potent infusion of capsicum, and by the application of a most poisonous nettle (lamadu), a single touch of which would throw the strongest human frame into a fever.”

But I am digressing.

Now, although, as I have intimated, I had some suspicion that the young chief had no honest intentions toward us, I had no other reason than a certain forced courtesy and kindness of manner, which seemed unnatural, or at least out of place, in a nature so wild and ferocious. Yes, there was one other—viz., a certain cunning expression about his eyes and upon his lips, that I did not like. My suspicion, however, became confirmed, that at least there was something wrong somewhere, when I accompanied my brother and Prabu down to the prahu.

“How is this?” said Prabu to Kati, as we went on board—“lying at single anchor and the guns shotted! What do you fear?”

“Kati don’t fear—he only take care. Be ready, case what might happen,” was the reply.

“Kati, my friend,” replied Prabu, laughing, “when left in command, thou art over-cautious, for what harm could happen to us in a friendly port?”

Kati’s reply to this was to the effect that, a few days before, a Dutch grab had appeared off the coast, and that she had sent a boat ashore with two men in her; and that although both had landed, and, as he believed, visited the Chief, but one of them had returned to the grab. “The other,” he said, “is now in the Chief’s house—what for is he there?”

“Truly,” said the captain, thoughtfully, “this may mean evil. I will question Mahomed. But is that your only reason for lifting one anchor and shotting the guns?” he added.

“No. The day after grab go away, the Chief come on board and admire prahu, but especially guns, which he look at with his eyes, as much as to say, ‘Should like to have guns, ship, and all.’ Then Kati say to himself, ‘S’pose Chief think same thing some night, he with his men come and run muck among prahu’s crew, and then when Captain Prabu come back, if not kill him and young sahibs, easy for him to say prahu run away, or been stolen by rascal Dutchman.’”

“My faithful Kati, I do not blame you,” replied Prabu, “for having such suspicions. You have acted bravely, but your fears are groundless. Why should this chief make us eat dirt? Did not his father swear eternal hatred to the Dutch, and friendship with their enemies?”

“But s’pose old chief honest, dat no reason young chief honest too—all son not like fathers. Then, if he hated Dutch, as he said when he took oath, what for he hab ’em in ’is house now?” he replied—adding, quaintly enough: “The noble Captain Prabu say Kati faithful; dat why he keep his eyes open when his master got his shut. It no good fasten door of cage when tiger got away.”

Then, determined to put a word in, as Prabu seemed to have such a thorough conviction of the Chief’s honesty, I said:

“Well, Kati, what think you of trusting ourselves tiger-hunting with this chief?”

“Think it no harm at all, s’pose sahibs keep eyes wide, wide open, and take six prahu’s men with ’em—only,” he added, with a glance full of meaning, “to help clear jungle; nothing else.”

“Bother! we shall lose the tiger-hunt after all,” exclaimed my brother.

“Better that than hunt with tigers for our companions, Martin.”

“The Sahib Claud’s word are not good—the Chief is our friend,” replied Prabu, angrily. “Kati has frightened himself by conjuring up the shadow of a demon; but Kati, brave as a lion by himself, is all fear when his master’s safety is concerned.”

“Kati fears the anger of his good master more than the spears and creeses of a thousand Balinese chiefs,” replied the faithful fellow.

“Hast thou intimated to one of the crew thy suspicions?” asked Prabu, sternly.

“Is it possible the servant could breathe to slaves that which was only for the ear of the master?” was the reply.

“Then,” said Prabu, in kindlier tones, “Kati, my friend, thou hast done well, and thy master is not angered. Now, sahibs,” he added, “we will return ashore.”

“Truly, Prabu,” said I, as we were walking towards the pandapa—wherein now, as upon our previous visit, we had our lodging—“thou art obstinate in thy faith in this Mahomed’s honesty!”

“Who is Prabu, that he should doubt his friend and ally?” was the answer.

“Not even,” said I, “when, at this moment—if Kati’s story be true—he is harboring a Dutch spy in his palace? For if this man were not a spy, why did the Chief not tell thee of his coming to the island?” At which Prabu became thoughtful for a minute, and then replied:

“True, the sahib has some ground for his suspicions, and I will ask the Chief who this man is, and why he harbors him,” he replied; and he left us there and then, to visit the palace.

About two hours afterwards, however, he rejoined us, and seemingly in the best of spirits; for, unusually with him at any time, he laughed heartily as he told us that the Dutchman, after all, was no Dutchman—indeed, nothing but a native soothsayer, who had obtained a passage to the island in the Dutch grab.

“But the Dutch grab, what business had she on this coast?” I asked, still doubtful whether the captain of that vessel might not have been in communication with the Chief to our future detriment.

“A trader only, who put in for wood and water. True, her captain desired to trade for bales of the native cloth, but the Chief dismissed him with the plea that there was none in his territory fit for the market. Sahib, sahib,” he added, laughing again, “poor, faithful Kati has been frightened half out of his life by a Dutch trader, the natural curiosity of a young chief, and the landing in the island of a wen-necked hunchback.”

“A what?”—“A wen-necked hunchback!” exclaimed my brother and I simultaneously, and starting as if stung by a venomous snake.

“A wen-necked hunchback,” he repeated, quite coolly. “But why do the sahibs startle, as if a tiger had leapt forth from my mouth?”

“Prabu,” said my brother, “is this hunchback a snake-charmer?”

“Allah only knows!”

“Have you seen him?”

“No—and if I had I could not tell, for, truly, men do not have their occupations written upon their foreheads.”

“Can I see him?” asked my brother, knitting his brows, and clenching his hands together till the nails entered his skin. “Don’t laugh, Prabu, again, for I am serious, and feel as likely to run a muck as one of your own countrymen.”

“Let the Sahib Martin be patient till to-morrow, and perhaps he may see this man about the palace gardens,” replied Prabu. “But why dost thou so desire to meet this poor wretch?”

“Because,” replied my brother, “I shall then know whether he be the villain who robbed us of our cousin—nay, who perhaps hath murdered her.”

“Pray Allah it may prove so, Sahib Martin,” replied Prabu, also playing with the haft of his creese, and, rarely for him except under the greatest excitement, something of the ferocity of his race in his eyes, “for we will tear the whole truth from his heart.”

“Prabu,” cried my brother, starting from his seat, and taking our companion by the hand, “thank you—thank you for that speech;” then sitting down again, he murmured, as tears ran down his cheeks—

“Poor dear Marie!”

“Poor dear young sahib!” said Prabu, deeply affected at my brother’s anguish, “weep not, dear boy” (this was the first time he had used such a familiar phrase); “for be assured, if still upon earth, we will find her; if—” but he could not utter the word as he caught the expression upon Martin’s face—“she shall be avenged.”

Need I say that our dreams that night were of

THE WEN-NECKED HUNCHBACK?