enly called himself, and the war did not prosper. To' Gajah
had inspired but little love in the hearts of the men whom the Bendahara
had given him for a following, and they allowed their stockades to be
taken without a blow by the Jelai people, and on one occasion To' Gajah
only escaped by being paddled hastily down stream concealed in the
rolled up hide of a buffalo.

At last it became evident that war alone could never subdue the Jelai
and Lipis districts, and consequently negotiations were opened. A Chief
named the Orang Kaya Pahlawan of Semantan visited To' Raja in the Jelai,
and besought him to make his peace by coming to Pekan.

'Thou hast been victorious until now,' said he, 'but thy food is running
low. How then wilt thou fare? It were better to submit to the Bendahara,
and I will go warrant that no harm befalls thee. If the Bendahara shears
off thy head, he shall only do so when thy neck has been used as a block
for mine own. And thou knowest that the King loveth me.' To' Raja
therefore allowed himself to be persuaded, but stipulated that Wan
Lingga, who was then at Kuala Lipis, should also go down to Pekan, since
if he remained in the interior he might succeed in subverting the
loyalty of the Jelai people who hitherto had been faithful to To' Raja.
Accordingly Wan Lingga left Kuala Lipis, ostensibly for Pekan, but,
after descending the river for a few miles, he turned off into a side
stream, named the Kichan, where he lay hidden biding his time.

When To' Raja heard of this, he at first declined to continue his
journey down stream, but at length, making a virtue of necessity, he
again set forward, saying that he entertained no fear of Wan Lingga,
since one who could hide in the forest 'like a fawn or a mouse-deer'
could never, he said, fill the seat of To' Raja of Jelai.

It is whispered, that it had been To' Gajah's intention to make away
with To' Raja, on his way down stream, by means of that 'warlike' art
for which, I have said, he had a special aptitude; but the Jelai people
knew the particular turn of the genius with which they had to deal, and
consequently they remained very much on their guard. They travelled,
some forty or fifty strong, on an enormous bamboo raft, with a large
fortified house erected in its centre. They never parted with their
arms, taking them both to bed and to bath; they turned out in force at
the very faintest alarm of danger; they moored the raft in mid-stream
when the evening