Page 152 - Malay sketches

MALAY SKETCHES
run the gauntlet of the guard-boats, where capture
was, as he said, certain.
The men of the band, the wretched Lambor con-
tingent, elected, as the Penglima had meant they
should do, to try and force their way through the
never thinking that if they succeeded
enemy's lines,
they would only reach a pathless jungle swamp,
where they, strangers in that part of the country,
must either perish miserably or return to the tender
mercies of the investing foe.
Of these deplorable eventualities they took no
there was little time for hesitation
thought ; ; tight-
ening the grasp upon their weapons they went out
into the night, and in a few moments the shouts
from the surrounding stockades showed that their
intention had been discovered.
This was exactly what Penglima Prang Semaun
had expected ; he had created a diversion, and
seizing his opportunity, accompanied by Haji AH
and a few of his particular associates, he made for
the river and got into one of his boats, cast off and
pulled out into the stream.
A very wily man was the Penglima. Every one
in the guard-boats was on the alert, the firing and
shouts from the shore had warned them that the fox

was being hunted in the covert, and the pack were
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