Sandokan: The King of the Sea (The Sandokan Series Book 5)

by Emilio Salgari

  “To ask us to surrender?”

  “I’d doubt they’ll sue for peace.”

  A Dyak, a respected warrior judging by the long feathers in his hair and the extraordinary amount of brass bracelets adorning his limbs, advanced toward the kampong, followed by another carrying a large wooden drum.

  “The sherip is quite familiar with the rules of warfare,” the Portuguese exclaimed. “A flag of truce accompanied by a drummer. It’s textbook procedure. Our sherip must be highly civilized. Well, Tremal-Naik, let’s go down and listen to what this Dyak general has to say.”

  They left the tower and reached the parapet above the gate just as the emissary arrived and asked to speak to the white man.

  “I’m not the master of the kampong,” the Portuguese said, leaning forward to get a better look at the men before him.

  “It matters not,” replied the emissary. “The sherip, a descendant of the Great Prophet, asked me to speak to the white man, the brother of the Tiger of Malaysia.”

  “By Jupiter!” laughed Yanez. “What does such a venerable man have to say to me?”

  “He offers to spare the lives of you and your men provided you surrender Tremal-Naik and his daughter to him.”

  “What does he plan to do with them?”

  “Behead them,” the warrior replied coldly.

  “Did he give you a reason?”

  “It is the will of Allah.”

  “My Allah disagrees. He asked me to come here and defend my friends.”

  “I repeat, it is the will of Allah. That man and his daughter must die.”

  “Meaningless words uttered to the foolish; that sherip is a charlatan, he’s fed you who knows what kind of nonsense and turned you all into fanatics.”

  “The sherip has performed miracles before our very eyes.”

  “But not before mine. Have him perform a few if he dares. I’m a little harder to deceive. Until he proves otherwise, I won’t believe him to be anything other than a charlatan manipulating a bunch of cretins.”

  “I will relate your words to him.”

  “Take your time, we’re in no rush,” said Yanez.

  The boy struck the drums three times, then the two men turned about and set off towards the camp.

  “That sherip is a cunning old man,” said Yanez to Tremal-Naik, once the emissaries were out of earshot. “What kind of miracles could he have performed for these Dyaks?”

  “Something extraordinary, no doubt,” the Bengali replied. “It isn’t easy to fool these savages, they’re distrustful by nature.”

  “Weapons, money and miracles!” exclaimed Yanez. “That’s how he won the Dyaks over. The question is why, why does he want us all dead?”

  “Why does he want my daughter and I dead,” corrected Tremal-Naik.

  “Yes, for the time being, but I wouldn’t trust that scoundrel’s word. Look! The emissary and his drummer are coming back. They’re starting to get on my nerves. If they’re still arrogant, I’ll order my men to fire a volley of nails and bullets at their legs.”

  “White man,” said the emissary, as he arrived beneath the terrace, “the sherip sends me to tell you that he will perform a miracle before your very eyes, a miracle that no other man could perform, to demonstrate his invulnerability.”

  “A few bullets from my carbine should settle the matter,” Yanez said mockingly. “How about I fire a round into his chest? I’m ready if he is.”

  “He’ll perform the test of fire. He’ll emerge from the flames unharmed, proof that he is blessed with heaven’s divine protection. He asks only that you grant him a small strip of land near the kampong to perform the demonstration.”

  “And then?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “What will he do after that?”

  “He will await your decision.”

  “My decision?”

  “To surrender the Indian and his daughter. After having witnessed such proof, you will no longer doubt his divinity. No one can stand against his will, not you, not your men, not even the Tiger of Malaysia.”

  “Since the sherip is kind enough to offer us a show, tell him he may proceed. It should make for a pleasant diversion.”

  “You doubt the sherip’s claims?”

  “I’ll tell you after I’ve seen the miracle.”

  “And then you’ll surrender?”

  “Too soon to tell.”

  “Your men will abandon you.”

  “I’ll have them throw you their rifles,” Yanez replied with a smile.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, Yanez and Tremal-Naik, curiously awaiting the miracle from atop the parapet, spotted two squads of Dyaks advancing towards the kampong. There were thirty men in all, divided into two columns. They had left their weapons behind; each carried a large basket full of flat stones that they must have gathered from the bed of a nearby brook.

  They stopped fifty paces from the terrace and began to lay them out on the ground in a long rectangle, six metres wide and twelve metres long.

  “A good sized brazier,” Yanez muttered to Tremal-Naik.

  Once the work had been completed, two other squads arrived carrying bundles of wood, laid them on the stones, lit them and let them burn for a couple of hours. Save for the sentries, every eye in the kampong had been fixed on those preparations, all watching from beneath the shade of the large trees that towered over the parapets.

  Anxious to convince Yanez of the sherip’s divinity, the Dyaks had left behind their weapons and slowly gathered around the fire.

  “We may be in for something truly unique,” said Yanez, “but I doubt my Tigers will be taken in by a short walk across the flames.”

  “Nor will my Malays and Javanese,” Tremal-Naik added. “They don’t believe in Allah. Who could have brought Islam to these savages?”

  “Arab traders, my friend,” the Portuguese replied. “Those intrepid adventurers have been plying these waters since the second century, long before the Europeans even knew the Malay islands existed. They began spreading their religion throughout these islands sometime in the thirteenth century. But despite their faith, most Dyaks still cling to their ancient superstitions; many still believe in magic. Ah! The sherip’s just emerged from his hut! So the scoundrel’s going to scorch his feet to prove to us that he’s a divine descendant of the Great Prophet. Looking at those blazing stones, I must say I admire his strength of spirit.”

  “A well-aimed shot would bring an end to all this,” replied Tremal-Naik.

  “We’re not assassins, my friend. We’ll kill him in battle if need be, but only if he attacks us first. It’s the civilized thing to do.”

  A loud cry warned them that the sherip was about to leave camp.

  Darma came up to watch alongside Yanez and her father. The Tigers of Mompracem gathered along the parapet, carbines level, ready to fend off a sudden attack.

  The sherip advanced towards the blazing stones, his face hidden behind a silk cloth that matched the green of his turban. Now barefoot, he had exchanged his fine clothes for a long shirt of yellow nankeen that came down to his knees.

  “He’s either a great charlatan or part salamander,” said Yanez.

  “The fakirs of India prefer hot coals to white-hot stones,” Tremal-Naik said. “Remember the Darma Raja?”

  “Of course I remember, by Jupiter! That’s the night I met Surama,” replied Yanez.

  “You saw several people run over hot coals.”

  “And many of them hobbled away. This man intends to get across those white hot stones unscathed.”

  “I doubt it, Yanez, unless he really is a great fakir.”

  “Be careful, Darma,” said Yanez, seeing the young woman lean over the parapet. “I don’t trust those rascals. It only takes an instant to fire a carbine.”

  “They’re all unarmed,” Darma replied.

  “Yes, so it would seem. On with it, oh mighty one, show us your miracle.”

  Tremal-Naik’s mysterious foe had arrived before the b
razier.

  He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, raised his arms and fixed his eyes west towards Mecca, mumbled a prayer, then stepped upon the white-hot stones, his voice thundering:

  “Allah! Allah! Allah!”

  Undaunted by the heat rising from beneath him, with sure step he slowly advanced across the blazing path, not a cry of pain escaping his lips.

  The Dyaks, entranced by his every move, raised their arms with great admiration. Truly the sherip was divine, a worthy descendant of the Great Prophet.

  Once across, the sherip halted, paused for a moment then calmly retraced his steps, as nonchalantly as if he were walking through a meadow rather than upon stones hot enough to bake a loaf of bread.

  “Amazing!” exclaimed Yanez, admiring the man’s fortitude. “How can he withstand the heat? He’s barefoot. There’s no way it could be a trick.”

  “It is impressive, I’ll give him that,” said Tremal-Naik.

  When he had finished his second crossing, the sherip turned his masked face toward Yanez, studied him for a moment, then slowly turned about and began to walk back towards his hut, while the Dyaks, filled the air with excited cries of “Allah! Allah! Allah!”

  A few minutes later, as the warriors returned to their camp, flocking about the sherip, the emissary and the drummer appeared beneath the terrace for the third time.

  “What now?” asked Yanez.

  “You’ve witnessed the miracle. You need no further proof. Do you

  surrender?” asked the warrior.

  “Ah! Right, I promised I’d give you an answer,” said Yanez. “Tell Mohammed’s son, nephew, great-grandson or whoever he claims to be, that we thank him for that splendid performance.”

  Then with a grand gesture he removed a magnificent ring from his finger and threw it to the stunned emissary, adding:

  “With our compliments!”

  Chapter 10

  The Attack on the Kampong

  FIRE WALKING HAS been practiced throughout Southeast Asia for centuries. The rituals may vary, in some countries they are rites of purification, in others they cure sickness or are performed to bring rain, to give thanks or to ask for blessings on crops, people, and livestock.

  While the fire walk was often made across burning coals, in the South Seas the ceremony is performed upon a circular oven of heated stones measuring no less than three and a half feet in diameter.

  The tohunga, or priest, lights the fires at dawn and feeds the flames until the afternoon. Once the stones are hot enough, a few disciples remove the ash and embers. The tohunga then says an incantation, strikes the edge of the oven three times with a branch from a ti tree, then leads the barefoot march across the stones, at times making three turns before the ceremony is complete.

  What’s their secret? How do they get across unharmed?

  The tohunga attribute their invulnerability to mana, a mysterious power that can be passed along with a word or phrase, allowing initiates to cross the burning stones unharmed.

  In the late nineteenth century, Colonel Gudgeon and three other British residents of Raratonga, an island in the South Pacific, decided to try the fire ceremony of the Umu-ti. Once the tohunga had completed his march, he gave the men his ti branch and bestowed his mana upon them. The four men stepped out boldly and the colonel and two of his companions made it across unscathed, but the last of their party was badly burned. The priests claimed it was his own fault, for though he had received the mana, he had looked behind him as he crossed, an act that is severely forbidden.

  How had the colonel managed to cross that blazing bed of stones, unscathed, the soles of his feet not even hardened by the fire? The Englishman himself was at a loss to explain it.

  He did feel the heat as he crossed and something that resembled slight electric shocks, a tingling on the soles of his feet that lasted for more than seven hours after the event.

  Someone remarked to the priest that the stones could not have been that hot, but the tohunga merely threw his green branch on the oven in reply, where it began to smoke and burn in less than fifteen seconds!

  On the Fijian island of Mbenga, the trial is more intense and the power of fire walking is confined to a small clan or family, the Na Ivilankata. The ovens or lovos are saucer shaped, about seven to nine metres in diameter and two and half metres deep. Sloping sides lead to a flat bottom of stones about five metres in length. The oven is heated for two days and when the stones are white hot, the firewalkers descend down the slopes in single file and leisurely tread across them. When the ceremony is completed, they leave the oven at the point of entrance then the spectators toss in heaps of meat and hibiscus leaves that they will consume in one large feast.

  The firewalkers remain in the oven for about thirty seconds, withstanding great heat. Once, a curious traveller tried to measure it, but could only look on in dismay as the metal frame of his thermometer melted and the mercury climbed to more than 200 degrees!

  How these men withstand such heat is still a mystery; yet they do, time and time again.

  It came as no surprise then that the sherip had mastered such a feat, a feat that could impress these Dyaks and win him their unswerving loyalty. But though his warriors had been driven into a frenzy, Yanez and his men had merely looked on with interest, too wise to be taken in by such superstitions, knowing their surrender would result in death.

  The Portuguese’s contemptuous gesture, paying the sherip as if he had been a common street performer, would only provoke the holy man’s anger and further stoke the headhunters’ ire.

  The emissary had barely returned to the camp when a frightening clangour erupted about the kampong. Beating their shields, the warriors filled the air with deafening cries that scarcely sounded human.

  “Not the answer they were expecting,” laughed Yanez. “They’ll show us no quarter. Bah! We’ll defend ourselves until we’ve fired our last cartridge.”

  Then he raised his voice and shouted:

  “Men, time to give them a taste of what we can do!”

  Unimpressed by the sherip’s show of divinity, the Tigers of Mompracem, Malays and Javanese rushed to their battle stations, determined to hold their ground, confident of victory.

  Defended by thick walls of teakwood that could withstand blasts from lelas and meriams, they did not fear their foes, having great faith in their abilities and above all in Yanez, a leader whose fame matched the formidable Tiger of Malaysia’s.

  Tremal-Naik’s men were of equal metal, all having scoured the sea in times past, the life of a pirate being one of the few profitable trades in those waters.

  The Dyaks would have their work cut out for them. Expecting no quarter, the kampong’s defenders were prepared to sell their lives dearly, each man determined to fight to the death.

  While the besiegers gathered around the sherip’s hut, the Tigers, Malays and Javanese rushed to the corners of the wall and trained their guns upon the field.

  Yanez and Tremal-Naik had remained behind the parapet above the gate, certain that the Dyaks would attempt to storm the entrance.

  The battery had been strengthened with the kampong’s largest swivel gun, six pirates of Mompracem stood by its side awaiting the order to open fire. Sambigliong had gone to man the large piece atop the tower, from where he could sweep the field with every volley.

  “Darma,” said the Portuguese, as the Dyaks began to form their attack columns. “I’d feel more at ease if you went below, I know you’re a good shot, but those rascals are going to start firing their lelas and meriams at any moment and I don’t want to expose you to such danger.”

  “Do you think the sherip will launch a full scale attack?” asked the young woman.

  “Some people are just incapable of showing gratitude.”

  “I don’t understand, Señor Yanez.”

  “I paid that sherip for entertaining us with a ring worth no less than a thousand florins, and what does he do? He has his men gather their weapons and attack. So much for being g
enerous. If I’d given such a gift to a street performer in my country, he would have carried me to Spain on his shoulders, maybe even up the Sierra de Guadarrama. What a world!”

  “Ah! Señor Yanez!” laughed Darma. “You’ll be making jokes on your deathbed.”

  “You haven’t stopped laughing either,” smiled the Portuguese, “even though death may soon come knocking at our gate. There’s good blood in those veins, young lady!”

  “I’m not afraid of the Dyaks, not with you and your Tigers here to protect us.”

  A cannon blast interrupted their discussion. The attackers had fired their meriam.

  The shell hissed over the wall and crashed on the other side of the kampong, missing the fort entirely.

  “I’d adjust that aim, if I were you,” said Yanez.

  “Hurry, Darma, get below,” said Tremal-Naik. “They won’t always miss.”

  “And I should just sit around doing nothing even though we’re greatly outnumbered?” asked Darma.

  “We’ll call for you if we need an extra carbine,” replied Tremal-Naik. “But for now I want you safe in the bungalow.”

  Four blasts thundered in rapid succession. The small lela had been fired and a volley of cannonballs thudded against the wall’s thick planks.

  “Get below,” Tremal-Naik repeated, “I can’t fight if you’re here; I’ll go mad with worry. If you want to help, go to the kitchen and keep an eye on the ovens, make sure they don’t go out.”

  “The ovens?” asked Yanez as Darma kissed her father and quickly set off down the steps. “Planning to offer them breakfast?”

  “I’m cooking up a surprise for them,” replied the Bengali, “but I doubt they’ll like what’s on the menu. Look, they’ve begun their advance! Take the swivel gun, Yanez, you’re an excellent shot.”

  “With pleasure,” replied the Portuguese, tossing away his cigarette as he grabbed the weapon.

  Four columns of Dyaks, each comprised of sixty or eighty men, were advancing towards the kampong, kampilans drawn, their large square buffalo-skin shields raised in protection. A fifth column of gunners had fanned out across the field to cover the advance with their lelas and meriams.