r here in the dust.

It was on this sandbank that To' Gajah and his people pitched their
camp, building a small open house with rude uprights, and thatching it
with palm leaves cut in the neighbouring jungle. To' Gajah knew that
Imam Bakar was the man with whom he really had to deal. Imam Prang Samah
and Khatib Bujang he rated at their proper worth, and it was to Imam
Bakar, therefore, that he first sent a message, desiring him once more
to answer as to who was his Master and who his Chief. Imam Bakar, after
consulting his two friends, once more returned the answer that while he
acknowledged the Bendahara as his King and his Master, his immediate
Chief was no other than 'His Highness To' Raja.' That answer sealed his
doom.

On the following day To' Gajah sent for Imam Bakar, and made all things
ready against his coming. To this end he buried his spears and other
arms under the sand within his hut.

When the summons to visit To' Gajah reached Imam Bakar, he feared that
his time had come. He was not a man, however, who would willingly fly
from danger, and he foresaw moreover that if he took refuge in flight
all his possessions would be destroyed by his enemies, while he himself,
with his wife and little ones, would die in the jungles or fall into the
hands of his pursuers. He already regarded himself as a dead man, but
though he knew that he could save himself even now by a tardy desertion
of To' Raja, the idea of adopting this means of escape was never
entertained by him for an instant.

'If I sit down, I die, and if I stand up, I die!' he said to the
messenger. 'Better then does it befit a man to die standing. Come, let
us go to Pasir Tambang and learn what To' Gajah hath in store for me!'

The sun was half-mast high in the heavens as Imam Bakar crossed the
river to Pasir Tambang in his tiny dug-out. Until the sun's rays fall
more or less perpendicularly, the slanting light paints broad reaches of
water a brilliant dazzling white, unrelieved by shadow or reflection.
The green of the masses of jungle on the river banks takes to itself a
paler hue than usual, and the yellow of the sandbanks changes its shade
from the colour of a cowslip to that of a pale and early primrose. It
was on such a white morning as this that Imam Bakar crossed slowly to
meet his fate. His dug-out grounded on the sandbank, and when it had
been made fast to a pole, its owner, fully armed, walked towards the
hut in which To' Gajah was seated.