by G. A. Henty
“They must have lost, altogether, over a thousand of their men; but they are still vastly more numerous than your people, and nothing would suit them better than that you should follow them, and give them a chance of avenging the loss they have suffered.”
“But the rajah will come again. He will never remain quiet, under the disgrace.”
“He will trouble you no more,” Harry said. “I shot him myself, and six or seven of his principal chiefs.”
“You are indeed my friend!” the rajah exclaimed, earnestly, when the words were translated to him. “Then there is a hope that I may have peace. The death of the rajah, and of so many of the chiefs that have joined him, will lead to quarrels and disputes; and the confederacy formed against me will break up and, while fighting among themselves, they will not think of attacking, again, a place that has proved so fatal to them.”
The rajah had some difficulty in allaying the enthusiasm of his men; but he repeated what Harry had said to him, and added that, since it was entirely due to their white guest that they had repulsed the attack, there could be no doubt that his advice must now be attended to, since he had shown himself a master in war.
“Be content,” he said. “Wherever our language is spoken, the Malays will tell the story of how three thousand men were defeated by five hundred; and it will be said that the men of Johore surpassed, in bravery, everything that has been told of the deeds of their fathers. There is no fear of the enemy returning here. The rajah and many of his chiefs have fallen, by the hand of our white friend. Henceforth, for many years, you will be able to rest in peace.
“In a month you will have rebuilt the houses, and sown again the fields that have been burnt. After that, we shall have leisure, and a treble stockade shall be built, stronger and firmer than that into which they forced an entry. Your first task must be to carry the bodies of our enemies far out beyond the town, where their skeletons will act as a warning as to what welcome Johore gives to its foes. A present of money will be given to each man, this afternoon, to help him to rebuild his house, and make good the damages that he has suffered.”
The interpreter had rapidly translated the speech to Harry as it went on and, as the rajah ended, and the applause that greeted him subsided, Harry said a few words to the interpreter, which he repeated to the rajah. The latter held up his hand, to show that he had more to say.
“My white friend warns me that, for a day or two, we must not leave the town. It may be that the enemy have halted near the edge of the forest, in the hope of taking us unawares. This, however, can only be for a day or two, at most; for I have no doubt that the provisions they brought with them are, by now, exhausted and, if they stop in the forest, they will perish from hunger; therefore let no one go beyond the town, for two days. A watch shall be kept on the roof of my house and, if any of the enemy make their appearance in the forest, a horn will summon all to retire within the walls.”
There was feasting that night at the rajah’s house. All his officers and men of importance were present. Sacks of rice and other grain were distributed among the soldiers and women; some buffaloes that had been driven inside the wall to serve as food, should the siege prove a long one, were also killed and cut up; and very large jars, containing the fermented juice of the pineapple, and other fruits, were served out.
During the day the breaches in the palisades had all been repaired and, at night, the whole population were told to remain within its shelter, while numerous guards were posted by the rajah. While the meal at the rajah’s was going on, a party of native musicians played and sang, the Malays being very fond of music.
Harry sat at the rajah’s right hand, and was the subject of unbounded praise and admiration among the company. Speaker after speaker rose and addressed him and, afterwards, the interpreter said a few words to them in his name, thanking them for the goodwill they had shown, and praising them highly, not only for their bravery, but especially for the manner in which they had carried out the orders given to them. The proceedings did not terminate until a very late hour, and Harry was heartily glad when at last he could retire to rest.
In the morning, the rajah said to him:
“Now, my friend, you have not told me why you have come here. We have been so busy that we have not spoken on other subjects, save the war. The message you sent up to me was that you came from the great white lord of Calcutta, and desired to see me. You may be sure that whatever you desire of me shall be granted for, were it not for your coming, I should now be a hunted fugitive, and my people slain.”
“It is not much that I desire, Rajah. The tumangong is willing to grant to us a trading station, on the island of Singapore and, possibly, we may acquire from him the whole island; but we are aware that he is not the rightful lord of the island, and it may be that, in time, you may recover possession of all Johore. Thus, then, I come to you to ask you if you are willing to consent to this privilege being granted to us; which assuredly will benefit your kingdom by providing a market, close to you, at which you can barter your produce for goods that you require, with us or with native traders from the east. At present, we are not in a position to plant this trading station in Singapore, being engaged in serious wars in India; and it may be a considerable time before things have so settled down that we can do so. I have, therefore, only to ask your assent to our arrangement with the tumangong, whenever it can be carried out; and we shall certainly be willing to recognize your authority, by a gift of money.”
“I willingly consent,” the rajah said; “it is, indeed, but a small thing. So long as I live, I shall be ready to enter into any treaty with you; and doubtless my successor, whoever he may be, knowing what you have done for us and our state, will also agree.”
[It was not, indeed, until the year 1819 that the British took possession of the island, paying sixty thousand dollars to the tumangong. Shortly after they had settled there the young prince, who had escaped from Johore, came down there. He was awarded a pension and, at the death of the rajah, was placed on the throne by the British, to the general satisfaction of the inhabitants.]
The next day, a number of men came in from villages scattered among the hills, who had not heard of the approach of the enemy until too late to enter the town, and take part in its defence. By this time, scouts had penetrated far into the forest, and brought back news that, although there were many dead there, there were no signs of the enemy. The work, therefore, of rebuilding the town was commenced; every available man of the garrison, and those who had come in, being engaged in cutting wood and bringing it in.
In the course of the next day or two several chiefs, whose attitude had before been threatening, came or sent members of their families to congratulate the rajah upon the defeat that he had inflicted upon his enemies, and to assure him of their loyalty to his rule.
Harry had stayed on, at the earnest request of the rajah; but he now declared that he must return to the coast. The rajah’s approval of the cession of a trading port, and of the island itself, was written both in the Malay and the English languages, and signed by the chief. Copies were also made and signed, by Harry, to be kept in the palace, in order that on any future occasion they could be consulted.
A great number of presents, of krises and other articles of Malayan manufacture, were offered to Harry; but he excused himself from accepting them, saying that, in the first place, it was not customary for commissioners of the Governor to accept presents; and in the second that, being constantly employed on service, he had no place where these could be deposited, during his long absences.
On the third morning after the retreat of the enemy Harry started, with his two companions, for the coast; attended by an escort of twenty men of the rajah’s own guard, commanded by a high officer. There was now no fear of molestation, but the escort was sent as a mark of honour. Starting early, they reached the coast town in the afternoon.
They were received with great joy by the inhabitants, who had been in a state of abject terror. A runner, who w
as the bearer of a message to the rajah from the headman, had left on the morning after Harry’s party had started; and had returned with the news that he had found the headless bodies of all the escort, but had seen no traces of the white man nor his followers, who had doubtless all been carried off by the enemy. The news caused terrible consternation, as it was thought that the town might be attacked, at any moment. Those of the inhabitants who possessed canoes, took to them and paddled away down the coast. The others fled to the mountains.
Finding, however, from scouts who had been left, that four days had passed without the appearance of the enemy, most of them had returned, on the evening before Harry arrived there. On hearing, from his escort, of the defeat of the invaders and their enormous loss, the most lively joy was manifested; and Harry was treated with almost reverential respect, the men of the escort agreeing that it was solely due to him that the victory had been gained. He made, however, but a very short stay in the village; and the headman at once ordered the largest canoe to be prepared. This was decorated with flowers and flags and manned by twenty rowers who, as soon as Harry and his two companions took their seats in it, rowed off to the brig.
“Welcome back, Lindsay!” Fairclough shouted, as the canoe approached; “we could hardly believe our eyes, when we saw you come down to the canoe. We have been in a terrible fright about you. The natives brought off news that the escort that had been sent down to take you to Johore were, every one, killed; and that, as there were no signs of any of your party, it was certain that you had been carried off. We sent a boat ashore, every morning, armed to the teeth; but they reported that the place was almost entirely deserted, and the two or three men left there said that no news, whatever, had been received of you.”
By this time, Harry had gained the deck.
“Where is your escort?” Fairclough asked.
“I am sorry to say that they were all murdered. However, my story is a long one and, although the rajah sent down some food with the escort he gave me, I am desperately thirsty, and will tell you all that happened when I have wetted my whistle.”
Fairclough told Hardy to come with them below, and Harry’s story was told in full, over sundry cups of tea, which Harry preferred to stronger beverages.
“That was an adventure, indeed,” Fairclough said, when Harry had brought his story to an end. “I would have given anything to have been with you in that siege. I own I should not have cared about being a prisoner in that fellow’s camp, especially as you were disarmed, and could not even make a fight for it. That affair with the leopard would have been more to my taste; though, if I had been in your place, with nothing but your knife and Abdool’s, I doubt whether I should have come out of it as well as you did; but the other business was splendid, and those Malays of the rajah’s must have fought well, indeed, to beat off a force six times their own strength.”
“The great point is that I have obtained his ratification of the tumangong’s grant, whenever it may be made.”
“That is satisfactory, of course; but it would not have, to my mind, anything like the importance of your series of adventures, which will be something to think over all your life. I wish I had been there, with my crew, to have backed you up; though I am afraid that most of them would have shared the fate of your Malay escort, in that sudden attack in the forest.”
“Yes; with all their pluck, they could scarcely have repulsed such a sudden onslaught though, certainly, the killing would not all have been on one side. I am glad, indeed, that Abdool also came safely out of it; as I should have missed him, fearfully.
“The interpreter showed himself a good man, and I hope that Lord Mornington will, when I report his conduct, make him a handsome present. If he had not got away with me, it is hardly likely I should ever have found my way to Johore and, if I had done so, I could not have explained to the rajah that he was going to be attacked, or have got him to erect the stockade that was the main cause of our success. In fact, he would probably, in his anger at the slaughter of his escort, have ordered me to be executed on the spot. As it was, he did not take either that, or the loss of his presents, greatly to heart.”
“You saved his kingdom for him, there is no doubt. It is not likely that he would ever have ventured to defend himself, had it not been for the confidence that he felt in you, and in the steps you took.”
“No; he told me, himself, that he would have taken flight at once and, in that case, his kingdom would have been lost; and he himself, sooner or later, hunted down.”
“And now, I suppose we can start as soon as we like?”
“Certainly; the sooner the better. I shall be very glad to be back again, for there is no saying what is going on there. Assuredly, the friendship of the Mahrattas cannot be relied upon. I know that we are not likely to make any fresh move, except in self defence, until Mysore is completely pacified, and a firm government established. Still, there is never any saying what will happen. Having been in the thick of the Mahratta business, all along, I should not like to be out of it, now.”
“Well, we will get up anchor at daybreak, tomorrow.”
All on board were glad, when the news that they were to sail for Calcutta, the next morning, was circulated through the ship. To the crew, the voyage had been a monotonous one; the weather having been uniformly fine, since they started; and they had had no adventures, such as they had hoped for, with hostile natives.
Nothing was talked of that night, between decks, but Harry’s story; which had been told by Lieutenant Hardy to the midshipmen, who had retailed it to the petty officers, and it had rapidly spread. Abdool and the interpreter were made as much of as was possible, considering that neither could understand English; and deep were the expressions of regret that none of the sailors had taken part in so tough a fight.
By the time the sun was up, next morning, the vessel was under weigh and, with light breezes, sailed round Singapore, and then headed northwest. The winds, as before, were light and, as the northeast monsoon was still blowing, the rate of progress was slow.
“I wish we could have got into the Hooghly,” Fairclough said, as he walked impatiently up and down the quarterdeck, “before the monsoon broke; but I don’t see much chance of it. It generally changes about the middle of April, and we are well on in the first week, now. At the rate at which we are sailing, we shall take at least three weeks before we get there. You see, we are only just clear of the northern point of Sumatra; and it is already a month since we got up anchor.”
“But we shall have the wind almost behind us, Fairclough.”
“Yes, when it has settled down. It is the change that I do not like. Of course, sometimes we have only a few days of moderately rough weather; but occasionally there is a hurricane at the break up, and a hurricane in the bay of Bengal is no joke. I shall not mind, much, if we get fairly past the Andamans; for from there to the mouth of the Hooghly it is open water, and I should be under no uneasiness as to the brig battling her way through it; but to be caught in a hurricane, with these patches of islands and rocks in the neighbourhood would, to say the least, be awkward.”
“Are there any ports among the islands? I recollect hearing an officer say that there was a settlement made there, some years ago.”
“That was so. In 1791 an establishment was started in the southern part of the island and, two years later, it was moved to a harbour on the northwest side of the bay. It was called Port Cornwallis; but was abandoned in 1796, being found terribly unhealthy. It was a pity, for it afforded good shelter when the northeast monsoon was blowing, and partially so from the southwest monsoon. No doubt it could have been made more healthy, if the country round had been well cleared; but it was not found to be of sufficient utility to warrant a large outlay, and the natives are so bitterly unfriendly that it would require a garrison of two or three hundred men to overawe them. We should have been always losing life—not from open attacks, perhaps, but from their habit of crawling up, and shooting men down with their arrows.”
&nb
sp; A week later, they were some seventy or eighty miles to the west of the Andaman group. Directly the brig weathered the northernmost point of Sumatra, the course had been laid more to the west, so as to avoid the dangerous inside passage. When Harry went on deck, in the morning, he found that the wind had dropped altogether.
“There is an end of the monsoon,” Fairclough said. “I am just going to shorten sail. There is no saying which way the wind will come. The glass is falling fast but, of course, that is only to be expected. I think, if you are wise, after breakfast you will take off that drill suit, and get into something better calculated to stand rough weather; for that we are sure to have, and any amount of rain. That is always the case, at the changes of the monsoon.
“You see, it is a sort of battle between the two winds; the southwesterly will gain, in the end, but the other will die hard; and it is this struggle that causes the circular storms which, when they are serious, are called hurricanes, though at ordinary times they are simply called the break up of the monsoon, which generally causes bad weather all over the Indian Ocean.”
Towards evening, low banks of cloud were seen to the south, and the sky looked dim and misty in the opposite direction.
“They are mustering their forces, you see, Lindsay; and the glass has fallen so far that I fancy the fight will be a hot one. At any rate, we will make all snug for the night.”
Sail after sail was taken in, until only a storm jib, a small fore stay-sail, and a close-reefed main top-sail were left standing. The bank of cloud to the south had risen considerably and, when darkness closed in, the upper edge was lit up by the almost incessant flicker of lightning. The upper spars were sent down on deck and then, there being nothing more to be done, the crew, who had all donned rough-weather clothes, awaited the outburst.
That it would be more than ordinarily severe there could be no doubt, and the men, clustered in little groups by the bulwarks, talked in low tones as they watched the slowly-approaching storm from the south; with occasional glances northwards, where indeed no clouds could be seen, but the sky was frequently lit up by the reflections of lightning below the horizon.