s like all
other _Semangs_ to look upon. I and many others have seen him, roaming
alone, naked, and muttering to himself, when we have been in the forests
seeking for jungle produce. All men know that it is He who by night
harries us in our villages. If one ventures to go forth from our houses
in the time of darkness, to the bathing raft at the river's edge, or to
tend our sick, or to visit a friend, Si Pudong is ever to be found
watching, and thus the tale of his kills waxes longer and longer.'

'But men are safe from him while they sit within their houses?' asked
Mat with evident anxiety.

'God alone knows,' answered Che' Seman piously, 'who can say where men
are safe from Him of the Hairy Face? He cometh like a shadow, and slays
like a prince, and then like a shadow he is gone! And the tale of his
kills waxes ever longer and yet more long. May God send Him far from us!
Ya Allah! It is He! Listen!'

At the word, a dead silence, broken only by the hard breathing of the
men and women, fell upon all within the house. Then very faintly, and
far away up stream, but not so faintly but that all could hear it, and
shudder at the sound, the long-drawn, howling, snarling moan of a hungry
tiger broke upon the stillness. The Malays call the roar of the tiger
_aum_, and the word is vividly onomatopoetic, as those who have heard
the sound in the jungle during the silent night watches can bear
witness. All who have listened to the tiger in his forest freedom know
that he has many voices wherewith to speak. He can give a barking cry,
which is not unlike that of a deer; he can grunt like a startled boar,
and squeak like the monkeys cowering at his approach in the branches
overhead; he can shake the earth with a vibrating, resonant purr, like
the sound of faint thunder in the foot-hills; he can mew and snarl like
an angry wildcat; and he can roar like a lusty lion cub. But it is when
he lifts up his voice in the long-drawn moan that the jungle chiefly
fears him. This cry means that he is hungry, and, moreover, that he is
so sure of his kill that he cares not if all the world knows that his
belly is empty. It has something strangely horrible in its tone, for it
speaks of that cold-blooded, dispassionate cruelty which is only to be
found in perfection in the feline race. These sleek, smooth-skinned,
soft-footed, lithe, almost serpentine animals, torture with a grace of
movement, and a gentleness in strength which has something in it mo