Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/305

 path was to me a wholly new experience, but I had no alternative but to go upon it, and Ümat elected to trudge along at my heels while most of his fellows made tracks for Kelantan, bearing with them the tidings that Pahang was once more living up to its ancient reputation. The dreary business dragged ou for months and threatened to be endless, but Ûmat stuck to me through bad and good fortune alike with logged perseverance. The official theory, to which I was never able personally to subscribe, was that certain bands of evilly disposed people were rebelling against the Sultan, whose country we had "pro- tected" for very sufficient reasons, but very much against his will. But in Pahang, until the white men came, for thirty long years no dog had barked save with its ruler's leave, and to me, who had lived in the country in its pristine condition under native rule, it was palent that disturbances of the magnitude we were facing could never have broken out if they had lacked royal approval and inspiration.

In the spring of 1892, however, I found mysell back at Kuala Lipis, my old headquarters in the far interior, surrounded by a very restless and excited population, and with written instructions "to treat all the chiefs as friendly, until by some overt sign they prove themselves to be hostile." These pre- rious words, to which, as most public servants will recognize, there clings the genuine Secretariat odour, are enshrined in my memory, but at the moment the humour of them was wasted upon me. A thrust between the ribs with a kris was the sort of "overt