lder, and began to saw away
through the prisoner's bonds.

He was so firmly secured that this process took some time, during which
Ali, by the strange revulsion that came upon him, felt as if he must
fall prone upon his face from sheer giddiness; but by an effort he stood
firm till his limbs were set free.

His wrists were painfully marked, and his arms felt numb and helpless,
but his first thought, as soon as the ligatures that had held him were
off, was how to escape.

His captors read this and smiled, each man drawing his kris and showing
it menacingly, while their leader told him that he was a prisoner until
the sultan's wishes were known.

"Are you not going to kill me?" said Ali passionately.

"Not yet," was the reply, "unless you try to escape, when we are to kill
you like a dog, and throw you into the river."

"But why?" asked Ali; "what have I done?"

"I know nothing," was the surly reply.

"Does my father know of this?" cried Ali.

"I know nothing," said the Malay.

"But you will tell me what your instructions are, and where you are
going to place me."

"I know nothing. I tell nothing," said the Malay. "Be silent. That is
your prison. If you try to escape, you die."

Ali burned to ask more questions, but he felt that it would be useless,
and that he, a chief's son, was only losing dignity by talking to the
man, whom he recognised now as being the sultan's most unscrupulous
follower, the scoundrel who did any piece of dirty work or atrocity.
This was the man who, at his master's wish, dragged away any poor girl
from her home to be the sultan's slave; who seized without scruple on
gold, tin, rice, or any other produce of the country, in his master's
name, and for his use. His hands had been often enough stained with
blood, and while wondering at his life being spared so far, Ali had no
hesitation in believing that any attempt at escape would be ruthlessly
punished by a stab with the kris.

Obeying his captors, then, Ali went into the inner room of the ruined
house, and seated himself wearily upon the floor, thinking the while of
the hunting expedition, and of the light in which his conduct would be
viewed by his friends.

Then he wondered whether his father would send in search of him; but his
heart sank as he felt that, in all probability, the Tumongong would be
carefully watched by the sultan's orders, and that any movement upon his
son's behalf would result in his own death.

Then he