walked, each man to his hut, with lagging steps. In a few minutes the great balls of rubber, with a hole punched in each through which a rattan line was passed, lay heaped upon the ground at Kûlop's feet. During the absence of the men, the women and children had almost imperceptibly dribbled away, and most of them were now hidden from sight behind the huts or the felled trees of the clearing. But the men when they returned brought with them something as well as the rubber, for each of the Sâkai now held in his hand a long and slender spear fashioned from a bamboo. The weapon sounds harmless enough, but these wooden blades are strong, and their points and edges are as sharp as steel. Kûlop Sûmbing was shocked and outraged by this insolent suggestion of resistance, and arrived at the conclusion that prompt action must supplement rough words.
"Cast away your spears, you swine of the forest!" he yelled.
Almost all the Sâkai did as Kûlop bade them, for the Malay stood for them as the embodiment of the dominant race, and years of oppression and wrong have made the jungle folk very docile in the presence of the more civilized brown man. The old Chief, however, clutched his weapon in his trembling hands, and his terrified eyes ran round the group of his kinsman, vainly inciting them to follow his example. The next moment his gaze was recalled to Kûlop of the Harelip by a sharp pain in his right shoulder, as the spear of the Malay transfixed it. His own
