Page 282 - Malay sketches

MALAY SKETCHES
our way through or take one of the enemy's boats
.on the down-stream side of the stakes.
We could hardly realise the truth when we
found ourselves at the lower end of the village
without having encountered an}' obstruction. The
barrier never existed in fact only in the imagina-
tion of Haji Ali, or, more probably, the Maharaja
Lela had intended to make it, but the Malay habits
of laziness and procrastination defeated his plan.

Just as I was thinking a very sincere thanks-
giving, the bow of the boat suddenly ran on the
shore and stuck there fast. We were so close to
the bank that this happened without the slightest
For an instant the steersman had
warning. given
the rudder a wrong turn, and we were stranded.
To my dismay, I saw on the high bank, exactly
over us, a large fire with eight or ten men round it.
I seized the shot-gun, Mahmud had a rifle, and we
knelt with fingers on trigger covering two of the
figures that were distinct enough in spite of the
for we were ten feet distant from them.
mist, hardly
Two of our men with poles were making super-
human efforts to push off the boat, when a man on
" "
the bank called out, Whose boat is that ? One
of our men replied, " Haji Mat Yassin's," having
" "
seen his boat at Blanja. Where are you from ?
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