Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/239

 shadow of the central gaol; and as he did not share the Malay's instinctive dread of travelling alone in the jungle, he decided to make a lone-hand raid into the Sâkai country, which lies between Pêrak and Pahang. Here he would be safe from the grip of the white man's hand, hidden from the sight of the Government's "eyes," as the Malays so inappropriately name our somnolent policemen; and here, he felt sure, much wealth would come to the ready hand that knew full well how to seize it. To Kûlop Sûmbing, reasoning thus, the matter presented itself in the light of a purely business proposition. Such abstractions as ideas of right and wrong or questions of ethics or morality did not enter into the calculation; for the average unregenerate Malay is honest. and law-abiding just as long as it suits his convenience to be so, and not more than sixty seconds longer. Virtue for virtue's sake makes not the faintest appeal to him, but a love of right-doing may occasionally be galvanized into a sort of paralytic life within him if the consequences of crime are kept very clearly and very constantly before his eyes. He will then discard sin because sinning has become inconvenient. So Kûlop Sûmbing kicked the dust of law-restrained Perak from his bare brown soles, and set out for the Sâkai country in the remote interior of Pahang, into which even the limping, lop-sided justice of a native administration made no pretence to penetrate.

He carried with him all the rice that he could bear upon his shoulders, two dollars in silver, a little salt and tobacco, a handsome kris, and a long spear with