ng his body to and fro, in the agony of the opium
smoker, when the unsatisfied craving for the drug is strong upon him.
There was a rustle in the grass behind him, the sharp fierce clang of a
rifle rang out through the forest, and a bullet through Wan Bong's back
ended his pains for ever. The Headman of the pursuing band was Che'
Burok of Pulau Tawar, but he was a prudent person who kept well in the
rear until the deed had been done. Then he came forward rapidly, and
unstringing the purse-belt from around his waist, he gave it to the man
who had fired the shot, in exchange for a promise that not he, but Che'
Burok, should have the credit which is due to one who has slain the
enemies of the King. Thus it was that Che' Burok was credited, for a
time, with the deed, and reaped fair rewards from the Bendahara and his
sons. But murder will out, and Che' Burok died some years later, a
discredited liar, in disgrace with his former masters, and shorn of all
his honours and possessions.

Wan Bong's head was sawn off at the neck, and was carried into camp, by
that splendid shock of luxuriant black hair, which had been his pride
when he was alive. It was clotted with blood now, and matted with the
dirt from the lairs where he had slept in the jungle, but it served well
enough as a handle by which to hold his dissevered head, and there was
no need, therefore, to make a puncture under his chin, whence to pass a
rattan cord through to his mouth, as is the custom when there is no
natural handle by which such trophies can be carried.

On Che' Burok's arrival in camp, the head was salted, as Che' Jahya's
had been, and, like his, it was also smeared with turmeric. Then, when
the dawn had broken, it was fastened, still by its luxuriant hair, to
the horizontal bar which supports the forward portion of the punting
platform on a Malay boat, and the _prahu_, with its ghastly burden,
started down river to Pekan, to the sound of beating drums, and clanging
gongs, and to the joyous shouts of the men at the paddles. For two
hundred odd miles they bore this present to their King, down all the
glorious reaches of river, glistening in the sunlight, that wind through
the length of the Pahang valley. The people of the villages came out
upon the river banks, and watched the procession file past them with
silent, unmoved countenances, and all the long way the distorted head of
him, whose eyes had looked with longing on a throne, shook gently from
side