Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/79

 bankers raking in their gains, while the Malays of all classes gambled and cursed their luck with the noisy slapping of thighs and many references to Allah and to his Prophet—according to whose teaching gaming is an unclean thing. The sight of the play and of the fierce passions which it aroused had awakened many memories in Râja Haji, filling him with desires that made him restless; and though he had refrained from joining in the unholy sport, it was evident that the turban around his head—which his increasing years and his manifold iniquities had driven him to Mecca to seek—was that night irksome to him, since it forbade public indulgence in such forbidden pleasures.

Now as we lay talking, ere sleep came to us, he fell to talking of the old days in Selangor before the coming of the white men.

"Ya, Allah, Tûan," he exclaimed. "I loved those ancient times exceedingly, when all men were shy of Si-Hamid, and none dared face his kris, the 'Chinese Axe.' I never felt the grip of poverty in those days, for my supplies were ever at the tip of my dagger, and very few were found reckless enough to withhold aught that I desired or coveted.

"Did I ever tell you, Tûan, the tale of how the gamblers of Klang yielded up the money of their banks to me without resistance or the spinning of a single dice-box? No? Ah, that was a pleasant tale and a deed which was famous throughout Sělângor, and gave me a very great name.

"It was in this wise. I was in sorry case, for the