CHAPTER FIVE
"It was the writing on his forehead," said Babalatchi, adding a
couple of small sticks to the little fire by which he was
squatting, and without looking at Lakamba who lay down supported
on his elbow on the other side of the embers. "It was written
when he was born that he should end his life in darkness, and now
he is like a man walking in a black night--with his eyes open,
yet seeing not. I knew him well when he had slaves, and many
wives, and much merchandise, and trading praus, and praus for
fighting. Hai--ya! He was a great fighter in the days before the
breath of the Merciful put out the light in his eyes. He was a
pilgrim, and had many virtues: he was brave, his hand was open,
and he was a great robber. For many years he led the men that
drank blood on the sea: first in prayer and first in fight! Have
I not stood behind him when his face was turned to the West?
Have I not watched by his side ships with high masts burning in a
straight flame on the calm water? Have I not followed him on
dark nights amongst sleeping men that woke up only to die? His
sword was swifter than the fire from Heaven, and struck before it
flashed. Hai! Tuan! Those were the days and that was a leader,
and I myself was younger; and in those days there were not so
many fireships with guns that deal fiery death from afar. Over
the hill and over the forest--O! Tuan Lakamba! they dropped
whistling fireballs into the creek where our praus took refuge,
and where they dared not follow men who had arms in their hands."
He shook his head with mournful regret and threw another handful
of fuel on the fire. The burst of clear flame lit up his broad,
dark, and pock-marked face, where the big lips, stained with
betel-juice, looked like a deep and bleeding gash of a fresh
wound. The reflection of the firelight gleamed brightly in his
solitary eye, lending it for a moment a fierce animation that
died out together with the short-lived flame. With quick touches
of his bare hands he raked the embers into a heap, then, wiping
the warm ash on his waistcloth--his only garment--he clasped his
thin legs with his entwined fingers, and rested his chin on his
drawn-up knees. Lakamba stirred slightly without changing his
position or taking his eyes off the glowing coals, on which they
had been fixed in dreamy immobility.
"Yes," went on Babalatchi, in a low monotone, as if pursuing
aloud a train of thought that had its beginning in the silent
contemplation of the unstable nature of earthly greatness--"yes.
He has been rich and strong, and now he lives on alms: old,
feeble, blind, and without companions, but for his daughter. The
Rajah Patalolo gives him rice, and the pale woman--his
daughter--cooks it for him, for he has no slave."
"I saw her from afar," muttered Lakamba, disparagingly. "A
she-dog with white teeth, like a woman of the Orang-Putih."
"Right, right," assented Babalatchi; "but you have not seen her
near. Her mother was a woman from the west; a Baghdadi woman
with veiled face. Now she goes uncovered, like our women do, for
she is poor and he is blind, and nobody ever comes near them
unless to ask for a charm or a blessing and depart quickly for
fear of his anger and of the Rajah's hand. You have not been on
that side of the river?"
"Not for a long time. If I go . . ."
"True! true!" interrupted Babalatchi, soothingly, "but I go often
alone--for your good--and look--and listen. When the time comes;
when we both go together towards the Rajah's campong, it will be
to enter--and to remain."
Lakamba sat up and looked at Babalatchi gloomily.
"This is good talk, once, twice; when it is heard too often it
becomes foolish, like the prattle of children."
"Many, many times have I seen the cloudy sky and have heard the
wind of the rainy seasons," said Babalatchi, impressively.
"And where is your wisdom? It must be with the wind and the
clouds of seasons past, for I do not hear it in your talk."
"Those are the words of the ungrateful!" shouted Babalatchi, with
sudden exasperation. "Verily, our only refuge is with the One,
the Mighty, the Redresser of . . ."
"Peace! Peace!" growled the startled Lakamba. "It is but a
friend's talk."
Babalatchi subsided into his former attitude, muttering to
himself. After awhile he went on again in a louder voice--
"Since the Rajah Laut left another white man here in Sambir, the
daughter of the blind Omar el Badavi has spoken to other ears
than mine."
"Would a white man listen to a beggar's daughter?" said Lakamba,
doubtingly.
"Hai! I have seen . . ."
"And what did you see? O one-eyed one!" exclaimed Lakamba,
contemptuously.
"I have seen the strange white man walking on the narrow path
before the sun could dry the drops of dew on the bushes, and I
have heard the whisper of his voice when he spoke through the
smoke of the morning fire to that woman with big eyes and a pale
skin. Woman in body, but in heart a man! She knows no fear and
no shame. I have heard her voice too."
He nodded twice at Lakamba sagaciously and gave himself up to
silent musing, his solitary eye fixed immovably upon the straight
wall of forest on the opposite bank. Lakamba lay silent, staring
vacantly. Under them Lingard's own river rippled softly amongst
the piles supporting the bamboo platform of the little
watch-house before which they were lying. Behind the house the
ground rose in a gentle swell of a low hill cleared of the big
timber, but thickly overgrown with the grass and bushes, now
withered and burnt up in the long drought of the dry season.
This old rice clearing, which had been several years lying
fallow, was framed on three sides by the impenetrable and tangled
growth of the untouched forest, and on the fourth came down to
the muddy river bank. There was not a breath of wind on the land
or river, but high above, in the transparent sky, little clouds
rushed past the moon, now appearing in her diffused rays with the
brilliance of silver, now obscuring her face with the blackness
of ebony. Far away, in the middle of the river, a fish would
leap now and then with a short splash, the very loudness of which
measured the profundity of the overpowering silence that
swallowed up the sharp sound suddenly.
Lakamba dozed uneasily off, but the wakeful Babalatchi sat
thinking deeply, sighing from time to time, and slapping himself
over his naked torso incessantly in a vain endeavour to keep off
an occasional and wandering mosquito that, rising as high as the
platform above the swarms of the riverside, would settle with a
ping of triumph on the unexpected victim. The moon, pursuing her
silent and toilsome path, attained her highest elevation, and
chasing the shadow of the roof-eaves from Lakamba's face, seemed
to hang arrested over their heads. Babalatchi revived the fire
and woke up his companion, who sat up yawning and shivering
discontentedly.
Babalatchi spoke again in a voice which was like the murmur of a
brook that runs over the stones: low, monotonous, persistent;
irresistible in its power to wear out and to destroy the hardest
obstacles. Lakamba listened, silent but interested. They were
Malay adventurers; ambitious men of that place and time; the
Bohemians of their race. In the early days of the settlement,
before the ruler Patalolo had shaken off his allegiance to the
Sultan of Koti, Lakamba appeared in the river with two small
trading vessels. He was disappointed to find already some
semblance of organization amongst the settlers of various races
who recognized the unobtrusive sway of old Patalolo, and he was
not politic enough to conceal his disappointment. He declared
himself to be a man from the east, from those parts where no
white man ruled, and to be of an oppressed race, but of a
princely family. And truly enough he had all the gifts of an
exiled prince. He was discontented, ungrateful, turbulent; a man
full of envy and ready for intrigue, with brave words and empty
promises for ever on his lips. He was obstinate, but his will
was made up of short impulses that never lasted long enough to
carry him to the goal of his ambition. Received coldly by the
suspicious Patalolo, he persisted--permission or no
permission--in clearing the ground on a good spot some fourteen
miles down the river from Sambir, and built himself a house
there, which he fortified by a high palisade. As he had many
followers and seemed very reckless, the old Rajah did not think
it prudent at the time to interfere with him by force. Once
settled, he began to intrigue. The quarrel of Patalolo with the
Sultan of Koti was of his fomenting, but failed to produce the
result he expected because the Sultan could not back him up
effectively at such a great distance. Disappointed in that
scheme, he promptly organized an outbreak of the Bugis settlers,
and besieged the old Rajah in his stockade with much noisy valour
and a fair chance of success; but Lingard then appeared on the
scene with the armed brig, and the old seaman's hairy forefinger,
shaken menacingly in his face, quelled his martial ardour. No
man cared to encounter the Rajah Laut, and Lakamba, with
momentary resignation, subsided into a half-cultivator,
half-trader, and nursed in his fortified house his wrath and his
ambition, keeping it for use on a more propitious occasion.
Still faithful to his character of a prince-pretender, he would
not recognize the constituted authorities, answering sulkily the
Rajah's messenger, who claimed the tribute for the cultivated
fields, that the Rajah had better come and take it himself. By
Lingard's advice he was left alone, notwithstanding his
rebellious mood; and for many days he lived undisturbed amongst
his wives and retainers, cherishing that persistent and causeless
hope of better times, the possession of which seems to be the
universal privilege of exiled greatness.
But the passing days brought no change. The hope grew faint and
the hot ambition burnt itself out, leaving only a feeble and
expiring spark amongst a heap of dull and tepid ashes of indolent
acquiescence with the decrees of Fate, till Babalatchi fanned it
again into a bright flame. Babalatchi had blundered upon the
river while in search of a safe refuge for his disreputable head.
He was a vagabond of the seas, a true Orang-Laut, living by
rapine and plunder of coasts and ships in his prosperous days;
earning his living by honest and irksome toil when the days of
adversity were upon him. So, although at times leading the Sulu
rovers, he had also served as Serang of country ships, and in
that wise had visited the distant seas, beheld the glories of
Bombay, the might of the Mascati Sultan; had even struggled in a
pious throng for the privilege of touching with his lips the
Sacred Stone of the Holy City. He gathered experience and wisdom
in many lands, and after attaching himself to Omar el Badavi, he
affected great piety (as became a pilgrim), although unable to
read the inspired words of the Prophet. He was brave and
bloodthirsty without any affection, and he hated the white men
who interfered with the manly pursuits of throat-cutting,
kidnapping, slave-dealing, and fire-raising, that were the only
possible occupation for a true man of the sea. He found favour
in the eyes of his chief, the fearless Omar el Badavi, the leader
of Brunei rovers, whom he followed with unquestioning loyalty
through the long years of successful depredation. And when that
long career of murder, robbery and violence received its first
serious check at the hands of white men, he stood faithfully by
his chief, looked steadily at the bursting shells, was undismayed
by the flames of the burning stronghold, by the death of his
companions, by the shrieks of their women, the wailing of their
children; by the sudden ruin and destruction of all that he
deemed indispensable to a happy and glorious existence. The
beaten ground between the houses was slippery with blood, and the
dark mangroves of the muddy creeks were full of sighs of the
dying men who were stricken down before they could see their
enemy. They died helplessly, for into the tangled forest there
was no escape, and their swift praus, in which they had so often
scoured the coast and the seas, now wedged together in the narrow
creek, were burning fiercely. Babalatchi, with the clear
perception of the coming end, devoted all his energies to saving
if it was but only one of them. He succeeded in time. When the
end came in the explosion of the stored powder-barrels, he was
ready to look for his chief. He found him half dead and totally
blinded, with nobody near him but his daughter Aissa:--the sons
had fallen earlier in the day, as became men of their courage.
Helped by the girl with the steadfast heart, Babalatchi carried
Omar on board the light prau and succeeded in escaping, but with
very few companions only. As they hauled their craft into the
network of dark and silent creeks, they could hear the cheering
of the crews of the man-of-war's boats dashing to the attack of
the rover's village. Aissa, sitting on the high after-deck, her
father's blackened and bleeding head in her lap, looked up with
fearless eyes at Babalatchi. "They shall find only smoke, blood
and dead men, and women mad with fear there, but nothing else
living," she said, mournfully. Babalatchi, pressing with his
right hand the deep gash on his shoulder, answered sadly: "They
are very strong. When we fight with them we can only die. Yet,"
he added, menacingly--"some of us still live! Some of us still
live!"
For a short time he dreamed of vengeance, but his dream was
dispelled by the cold reception of the Sultan of Sulu, with whom
they sought refuge at first and who gave them only a contemptuous
and grudging hospitality. While Omar, nursed by Aissa, was
recovering from his wounds, Babalatchi attended industriously
before the exalted Presence that had extended to them the hand of
Protection. For all that, when Babalatchi spoke into the
Sultan's ear certain proposals of a great and profitable raid,
that was to sweep the islands from Ternate to Acheen, the Sultan
was very angry. "I know you, you men from the west," he
exclaimed, angrily. "Your words are poison in a Ruler's ears.
Your talk is of fire and murder and booty--but on our heads falls
the vengeance of the blood you drink. Begone!"
There was nothing to be done. Times were changed. So changed
that, when a Spanish frigate appeared before the island and a
demand was sent to the Sultan to deliver Omar and his companions,
Babalatchi was not surprised to hear that they were going to be
made the victims of political expediency. But from that sane
appreciation of danger to tame submission was a very long step.
And then began Omar's second flight. It began arms in hand, for
the little band had to fight in the night on the beach for the
possession of the small canoes in which those that survived got
away at last. The story of that escape lives in the hearts of
brave men even to this day. They talk of Babalatchi and of the
strong woman who carried her blind father through the surf under
the fire of the warship from the north. The companions of that
piratical and son-less Aeneas are dead now, but their ghosts
wander over the waters and the islands at night--after the manner
of ghosts--and haunt the fires by which sit armed men, as is meet
for the spirits of fearless warriors who died in battle. There
they may hear the story of their own deeds, of their own courage,
suffering and death, on the lips of living men. That story is
told in many places. On the cool mats in breezy verandahs of
Rajahs' houses it is alluded to disdainfully by impassive
statesmen, but amongst armed men that throng the courtyards it is
a tale which stills the murmur of voices and the tinkle of
anklets; arrests the passage of the siri-vessel, and fixes the
eyes in absorbed gaze. They talk of the fight, of the fearless
woman, of the wise man; of long suffering on the thirsty sea in
leaky canoes; of those who died. . . . Many died. A few
survived. The chief, the woman, and another one who became
great.
There was no hint of incipient greatness in Babalatchi's
unostentatious arrival in Sambir. He came with Omar and Aissa in
a small prau loaded with green cocoanuts, and claimed the
ownership of both vessel and cargo. How it came to pass that
Babalatchi, fleeing for his life in a small canoe, managed to end
his hazardous journey in a vessel full of a valuable commodity,
is one of those secrets of the sea that baffle the most searching
inquiry. In truth nobody inquired much. There were rumours of a
missing trading prau belonging to Menado, but they were vague and
remained mysterious. Babalatchi told a story which--it must be
said in justice to Patalolo's knowledge of the world--was not
believed. When the Rajah ventured to state his doubts,
Babalatchi asked him in tones of calm remonstrance whether he
could reasonably suppose that two oldish men--who had only one
eye amongst them--and a young woman were likely to gain
possession of anything whatever by violence? Charity was a
virtue recommended by the Prophet. There were charitable people,
and their hand was open to the deserving. Patalolo wagged his
aged head doubtingly, and Babalatchi withdrew with a shocked mien
and put himself forthwith under Lakamba's protection. The two
men who completed the prau's crew followed him into that
magnate's campong. The blind Omar, with Aissa, remained under
the care of the Rajah, and the Rajah confiscated the cargo. The
prau hauled up on the mud-bank, at the junction of the two
branches of the Pantai, rotted in the rain, warped in the sun,
fell to pieces and gradually vanished into the smoke of household
fires of the settlement. Only a forgotten plank and a rib or
two, sticking neglected in the shiny ooze for a long time, served
to remind Babalatchi during many months that he was a stranger in
the land.
Otherwise, he felt perfectly at home in Lakamba's establishment,
where his peculiar position and influence were quickly recognized
and soon submitted to even by the women. He had all a true
vagabond's pliability to circumstances and adaptiveness to
momentary surroundings. In his readiness to learn from
experience that contempt for early principles so necessary to a
true statesman, he equalled the most successful politicians of
any age; and he had enough persuasiveness and firmness of purpose
to acquire a complete mastery over Lakamba's vacillating
mind--where there was nothing stable but an all-pervading
discontent. He kept the discontent alive, he rekindled the
expiring ambition, he moderated the poor exile's not unnatural
impatience to attain a high and lucrative position. He--the man
of violence--deprecated the use of force, for he had a clear
comprehension of the difficult situation. From the same cause,
he--the hater of white men--would to some extent admit the
eventual expediency of Dutch protection. But nothing should be
done in a hurry. Whatever his master Lakamba might think, there
was no use in poisoning old Patalolo, he maintained. It could be
done, of course; but what then? As long as Lingard's influence
was paramount--as long as Almayer, Lingard's representative, was
the only great trader of the settlement, it was not worth
Lakamba's while--even if it had been possible--to grasp the rule
of the young state. Killing Almayer and Lingard was so difficult
and so risky that it might be dismissed as impracticable. What
was wanted was an alliance; somebody to set up against the white
men's influence--and somebody who, while favourable to Lakamba,
would at the same time be a person of a good standing with the
Dutch authorities. A rich and considered trader was wanted.
Such a person once firmly established in Sambir would help them
to oust the old Rajah, to remove him from power or from life if
there was no other way. Then it would be time to apply to the
Orang Blanda for a flag; for a recognition of their meritorious
services; for that protection which would make them safe for
ever! The word of a rich and loyal trader would mean something
with the Ruler down in Batavia. The first thing to do was to
find such an ally and to induce him to settle in Sambir. A white
trader would not do. A white man would not fall in with their
ideas--would not be trustworthy. The man they wanted should be
rich, unscrupulous, have many followers, and be a well-known
personality in the islands. Such a man might be found amongst
the Arab traders. Lingard's jealousy, said Babalatchi, kept all
the traders out of the river. Some were afraid, and some did not
know how to get there; others ignored the very existence of
Sambir; a good many did not think it worth their while to run the
risk of Lingard's enmity for the doubtful advantage of trade with
a comparatively unknown settlement. The great majority were
undesirable or untrustworthy. And Babalatchi mentioned
regretfully the men he had known in his young days: wealthy,
resolute, courageous, reckless, ready for any enterprise! But
why lament the past and speak about the dead? There is one
man--living--great--not far off . . .
Such was Babalatchi's line of policy laid before his ambitious
protector. Lakamba assented, his only objection being that it
was very slow work. In his extreme desire to grasp dollars and
power, the unintellectual exile was ready to throw himself into
the arms of any wandering cut-throat whose help could be secured,
and Babalatchi experienced great difficulty in restraining him
from unconsidered violence. It would not do to let it be seen
that they had any hand in introducing a new element into the
social and political life of Sambir. There was always a
possibility of failure, and in that case Lingard's vengeance
would be swift and certain. No risk should be run. They must
wait.
Meantime he pervaded the settlement, squatting in the course of
each day by many household fires, testing the public temper and
public opinion--and always talking about his impending departure.
At night he would often take Lakamba's smallest canoe and depart
silently to pay mysterious visits to his old chief on the other
side of the river. Omar lived in odour of sanctity under the
wing of Patalolo. Between the bamboo fence, enclosing the houses
of the Rajah, and the wild forest, there was a banana plantation,
and on its further edge stood two little houses built on low
piles under a few precious fruit trees that grew on the banks of
a clear brook, which, bubbling up behind the house, ran in its
short and rapid course down to the big river. Along the brook a
narrow path led through the dense second growth of a neglected
clearing to the banana plantation and to the houses in it which
the Rajah had given for residence to Omar. The Rajah was greatly
impressed by Omar's ostentatious piety, by his oracular wisdom,
by his many misfortunes, by the solemn fortitude with which he
bore his affliction. Often the old ruler of Sambir would visit
informally the blind Arab and listen gravely to his talk during
the hot hours of an afternoon. In the night, Babalatchi would
call and interrupt Omar's repose, unrebuked. Aissa, standing
silently at the door of one of the huts, could see the two old
friends as they sat very still by the fire in the middle of the
beaten ground between the two houses, talking in an indistinct
murmur far into the night. She could not hear their words, but
she watched the two formless shadows curiously. Finally
Babalatchi would rise and, taking her father by the wrist, would
lead him back to the house, arrange his mats for him, and go out
quietly. Instead of going away, Babalatchi, unconscious of
Aissa's eyes, often sat again by the fire, in a long and deep
meditation. Aissa looked with respect on that wise and brave
man--she was accustomed to see at her father's side as long as
she could remember--sitting alone and thoughtful in the silent
night by the dying fire, his body motionless and his mind
wandering in the land of memories, or--who knows?--perhaps
groping for a road in the waste spaces of the uncertain future.
Babalatchi noted the arrival of Willems with alarm at this new
accession to the white men's strength. Afterwards he changed his
opinion. He met Willems one night on the path leading to Omar's
house, and noticed later on, with only a moderate surprise, that
the blind Arab did not seem to be aware of the new white man's
visits to the neighbourhood of his dwelling. Once, coming
unexpectedly in the daytime, Babalatchi fancied he could see the
gleam of a white jacket in the bushes on the other side of the
brook. That day he watched Aissa pensively as she moved about
preparing the evening rice; but after awhile he went hurriedly
away before sunset, refusing Omar's hospitable invitation, in the
name of Allah, to share their meal. That same evening he
startled Lakamba by announcing that the time had come at last to
make the first move in their long-deferred game. Lakamba asked
excitedly for explanation. Babalatchi shook his head and pointed
to the flitting shadows of moving women and to the vague forms of
men sitting by the evening fires in the courtyard. Not a word
would he speak here, he declared. But when the whole household
was reposing, Babalatchi and Lakamba passed silent amongst
sleeping groups to the riverside, and, taking a canoe, paddled
off stealthily on their way to the dilapidated guard-hut in the
old rice-clearing. There they were safe from all eyes and ears,
and could account, if need be, for their excursion by the wish to
kill a deer, the spot being well known as the drinking-place of
all kinds of game. In the seclusion of its quiet solitude
Babalatchi explained his plan to the attentive Lakamba. His idea
was to make use of Willems for the destruction of Lingard's
influence.
"I know the white men, Tuan," he said, in conclusion. "In many
lands have I seen them; always the slaves of their desires,
always ready to give up their strength and their reason into the
hands of some woman. The fate of the Believers is written by the
hand of the Mighty One, but they who worship many gods are thrown
into the world with smooth foreheads, for any woman's hand to
mark their destruction there. Let one white man destroy another.
The will of the Most High is that they should be fools. They
know how to keep faith with their enemies, but towards each other
they know only deception. Hai! I have seen! I have seen!"
He stretched himself full length before the fire, and closed his
eye in real or simulated sleep. Lakamba, not quite convinced,
sat for a long time with his gaze riveted on the dull embers. As
the night advanced, a slight white mist rose from the river, and
the declining moon, bowed over the tops of the forest, seemed to
seek the repose of the earth, like a wayward and wandering lover
who returns at last to lay his tired and silent head on his
beloved's breast.
