ay in
the state papers of Acheen.

"For fully a hundred and forty years did the Emperor of Johore
and his valiant allies, the King of Acheen and the Sultan of Maur,
seek to retake Malacca from the Portuguese. The Dato Mamat was the
last laksamana of the fleet. With him died the war and the secret of
Mount Ophir."

"The secret!" I questioned, as the Tuan Hakim paused.

"For one hundred and forty years were we at war with the
invaders. Three generations were born and died with arms in their
hands. No work was done on the land, save by women and children. Still
we had plenty of gold with which to fit out fleet after fleet, with
which to arm our soldiers and feed our people.

"It came from yonder mountain. Not even the Sultan knew its
hiding-place. That was only trusted to one family, and handed from
father to son by word of mouth.

"Long before the days of Solomon the Wise did my family hold that
secret for the state. It was one of them that gave the four hundred
and twenty talents to the laksamana of Huram's fleet. Your Koran has
made record of the gift. He did not know from whence it came. He asked,
and we told him from the Ophirs, which means from the gold mines. Then
it was that he called the mountain that raised its head four thousand
feet above the sea, and was the first object his lookout saw as they
neared the coast, 'Mount Ophir.'

"No man, however so bold, ventured within a radius of fifteen miles
around the foot of the mountain. It was haunted by evil spirits. No
man save the laksamana, who went twice a year and brought away to his
prau, which was moored on the bank of the Maur thirty miles from the
mountains, ten great loads of pure gold, each time over one hundred
bugels. I know not as to the truth, but it is told that there was
one tribe consecrated to the mining of the gold, not one of whom had
ever been outside the shadow of the mountain: that when the great
admiral ceased to come, they blocked up the entrance to the mines,
planted trees about the spot, and waited. One after another died,
until not one was left.

"Such is the tradition of my family, Tuan."

"But the great laksamana?" I asked. "I know of the ancient riches of
Malacca. Barbosa tells us that gold was so common that it was reckoned
by the bhar of four hundred weight."

My companion contemplated the end of his manila. "Do you know how
died his Highness, Montezuma of Mexico, Tuan?"

I bowed.

"So died my ancestor one hundred years