Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/245

 course, was long before such a product as plantation rubber had come into existence in the East, and wild gutta was much sought after by Europeans in the towns of the straits settlements. Now, six hundred dollars represented a small fortune to a man of Kûlop Sûmbing's standing, and the sight of so goodly a store of gum filled him with delight. But here lie found himself faced by a problem of some difficulty. How was the precious stuff to be carried downstream into the Malayan districts of Pahang? His raft would hold about one pîkul, and he felt reasonably certain that the Sâkai, who were fairly used to being plundered by their Malayan neighbours, would not interfere with him very seriously if he chose to remove that quantity and to leave the rest. But the thought of the remaining six pîkul was too much for him. He could not find it in his heart to abandon it; and of a sudden he was seized by a dull anger against the Sâkai who, he almost persuaded himself, were in some sort defrauding him of his just dues.

Seating himself on the threshold-beam in the doorway of one of the huts, he lighted a rokok—a cigarette of coarse Javanese tobacco encased in a dried shoot of the nîpah palm, and set himself to think out the situation and to await the return of the tribesmen; and ever, as he dwelt upon the injury which these miscreants were like to inflict upon him if they refused to help him to remove the gutta, his heart waxed hotter and hotter against them.

Presently two scared brown faces, scarred with blue tattoo-marks on cheek and forehead, and