Page 281 - Malay sketches

A PERSONAL INCIDENT

seemed evident that we should reach the place
hours before dawn. About 1.30 A.M. Mahmud
woke me, and the boatmen nerved them-
quietly
selves for the final effort.
We knew that to get past Pasir Salak it was
necessary to go right under one bank or the other,
and the deepest water was on the left or Kampong
Gajah side. That we decided to take. Huge fires
were blazing on the bank, and round each were
a number of armed men the whole
grouped indeed,
was on the vive. As noise-
place apparently qui
lessly as possible, but none the less vigorously, the
men plied their paddles, and we made for the deep
water under the bank. Just at this moment the
thick white veil of mist came down over the river,
and under its sheltering cover we glided swiftly
down, the light of the blazing logs, close though
they were, shining vaguely through the fog, while
now and then a man's figure, of seemingly gigantic
proportions, loomed out from the fire-lit haze.
Every instant we expected to feel the shock of
the barrier, and we had determined
the boat against
that when that happened we would push our boat
along it till we found the usual opening closed by
a and as we
floating log guarded, supposed, by
boats. In the darkness we meant to try and force
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