Adventure Magazine Cover — page 140: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

138 American ethnologist whom he had picked up, here in the jungles of Samang, and given the position because of his knowledge even in the face of colonial policy toward foreigners. Good sort, Yates! And guided by intimate acquaintanceship with native ways in all he advised, thought Sir Harrod, as his big frame relaxed under the punkah breeze and his intolerant blue eyes smiled upon the Yank’s lean figure and angular face. “What do you suggest, Mr. Yates?” he asked. “You know the ropes out here. Shall we give Pills a free hand to mop up over there and set Browne and his Sikhs to backing him up?” The native table “boys,” Ya Israng and Awang Kria, came in serving curry and chutney at that moment. There was a busy and occupied silence as each man around the residency table went through the curry-and-rice ritual with the absorbed interest of strong men in the presence of food. Over a left elbow would bend Ya Israng’s green turban and resplendent scar- let jacket, his wrinkled old monkey face con- centrated intensely upon the management of rice and curry dish and chutney jar, each presented in turn on the big Jacquer tray. Directly he had moved on, Awang Kria swung into his place with a round lacquer box filled with China trays of curry con- diments, grated coconut, tiny fried fish, seeds, nuts and flakes of some native delicacy. With a small spoon the white tuan would add a bit of each to his curry pile and Awang Kria would float on to the next man. It was the big ceremonial of the meal; the earnest, concentrated silence upon it of each man, from Sir Harrod down, gave one but little inkling that, in their lighter moments, these men held the des- tinies of the whole native State of Samang in their hands. Indeed an outsider would have found something excessively romantic in that scene; the bamboo room with cane furniture and teak dining table and its two solemn brown punkahs swinging overhead; the bearded Sikh guards in scarlet and khaki standing rigidly at attention around the walls; the native table boys in flowing white robes and scarlet sashes; and the five robust and sunburned white men _ in starched uniforms seated at dinner—all of them at ease and unalarmed while outside in the darkness a wild jungle and a native Adventure stockade seethed with intrigue and re- bellion. “Hardly yet, Sir Harrod,” smiled Yates in reply to the resident’s question directly he had finished with his curry. ‘Malay adat, custom which amounts to law with them, is unsafe to tamper with. It is better to fool ’em, to get what you want without opposing any adat, however absurd and irrational. The situation here requires no end of tact just now. Your Govern- ment has just taken over Samang from . Siam. Browne can tell you that Raja Sharif Ahmad over in the stockade is none too pleased over that transfer and that re- bellion is all around us because of this cholera outbreak. Tough luck, but they hold us responsible for it, you see. We’ve got to stamp it out to win their friendship. Yet to mop up over there would set them all off whooping. “T should say that Pills ought, first of all, to guard the residency alone against the epidemic. It won’t do for us_ to be stricken down. ‘The first wind of it down there—” Yates waved a bony hand toward the open veranda window where the stockade lay simmering with lights and subdued noise in the darkness below Residency Hill—‘‘would give Ahmad and his chiefs their cue.” Sir Harrod tugged thoughtfully at his heavy white mustache. “Right-o!” he agreed. “Pills, what pre- cautions are you taking to protect the residency itself?” Crabbe pursed his bearded lips while his pop-eyes smiled with confidence up-table. “Every precaution, Sir Harrod,” he re- plied. ‘‘Nothing save cooked food is be- ing served now. No salads, no opened fruit. The only danger point is our water. In order to insure that being pure I have appointed Ya Israng, our trusted head boy, himself to go down the road to that spring with a couple of oil tins on a bamboo yoke for spring water.”’ Sir Harrod nodded approvingly, but Webster Yates gasped. ‘““Good heavens, Pills, but you have done it!’ he exclaimed. “I’ve been wondering why old Ya Israng has been so glum during the last few days! ‘Trusted servants, my eye! Don’t you know that he’s expecting a child to his old age?”’ ‘“‘A son, Raja Ketchil; Allah knows that it will be a son,’’ corrected Ya Israng MICLOOOK C@ in