Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/312

 the end, however, words prevailed, and Umat and 1 won through. The Dato' dispersed his followers, while Mat Kilau and the bulk of the war party re- tired to a village some twenty miles distant, where they placed themselves astride my lines of com- munication. From this place, a couple of months later, I had the satisfaction of dislodging them with a portion of the force sent across the mountains to the relief of my stockade. For the moment, how- ever, all immediate danger of an attack on Kuala Lipis was averted, and that night Ûmat made dark- ness hideous by the discordant snatches of song with which he celebrated our diplomatic victory, betoken- ing the reaction occasioned by the unstringing of his tense nerves.

Later I became resident of Pahang, and I'mat came with me to the capital, and lived there for some years in a house in my compound, with Sělěma, the Pahang girl, who made him so gentle and faithful a wife. It was soon after his marriage that his trouble fell upon Ûmat, and swept much of the sun- shine from his life. He contracted a form of ophthal- mia, and for a time was totally blind. Native medi- cine-men doctored him, and drew sheafs of needles and bunches of thorns from his eyes, which they declared were the cause of his affliction. These and other miscellaneous odds and ends, similarly ex- tracted, used to be brought to me for inspection at breakfast-time, floating most unappetizingly in a cup half full of oily water; and Umat went abroad withi eye sockets stained crimson, or yellow, or black,