Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/83

 the money which I had borrowed from him and from his fellows.

"Ya, Allah, Tûan, but those days were exceedingly good days. I cannot think upon them for it makes me sad. It is true what is said in the quatrain of the men of Kědah—

"Pulau Pinang hath a new town And Captain Light is its king. Think not of the days that are gone Or you will bow low your head and your tears will flow.

"Ya, Allah! Ya Tûhan-ku! Verily I cannot endure these memories."

He lay tossing about upon his mat, muttering and exclaiming; and for a space I let him be. The thought of the old, free, lawless days, when it suddenly recurs to a Malayan râja of the old school, whose claws have been cut by the British Government, is to him like a raging tooth. It goads him to a maddened restlessness, and obliterates, for the time being, all other sensations. Words, in such circumstances, are useless; and in this particular instance I was hardly in a position to offer sympathy or consolation, seeing that Râja Haji and I were at that time engaged in an attempt to do for another Malayan state, and for the râjas who had battened upon it, all that my friend regretted so bitterly that the white men had done for Sělângor and for him.

Gradually he became calmer, and presently began