Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/292

 captives in hand they would not find it necessary to undertake another raid for a couple of years or so.

To' Pangku Muda's oath of fealty to the Sultan of Pêrak bound him in those days-and indeed until the British Governinent took in hand the administra- tion of the country in the middle seventies of the nineteenth century-to bring a large raft downriver once a year, loaded with jungle produce. One of the items composing this annual tribute was a Sâkai man and woman, or failing them, two clephant tusks of approved weight. The latter were not always easy to procure, so it was usually found more convenient to sacrifice instead the lifelong happiness of a couple of human beings.

Te-U and a youth named Gaur, the Pig, were selected for the first year's offering, and accordingly they presently found themselves lying on the great raft, bound hand and foot, floating slowly into a land of the existence of which they had not dreamed, in company with stores of gutta, rattan, and other jungle produce, and the supplies of rice and other foodstuffs which had won for the Plus Valley the Title of "the Rice-pot of the King."

The remainder of their days were passed in cap- tivity among the people of an alien race, who despised them heartily and held them as little better than the beasts of the field; but perhaps the fullest measure of their sufferings was their inability to satisfy the longing for the jungle and for the free life of the forest which is like a ceaseless ache in the heart of the jungle-folk.