so high, and now lay as low as he, crushed and obliterated from the
living world, as though they had never been.

Sutan Baginda hacked off Che' Jahya's head, salted it, for obvious
reasons, stained it a ghastly yellow with turmeric, as a further act of
dishonour, and, when the house and village had been looted, carried his
ghastly trophy with him down river to the camp of Che' Wan Ahman. Then
it was fastened to a boat pole, fixed upright in the sand of Pasir
Tambang, at the mouth of the Tembeling River, where it dangled with all
the horror of set teeth, and staring eyeballs--the fixity of the face of
one who has died a violent death--until, in the fulness of time, the
waters rose and swept pole and head away with them. Thus was a plain
lesson taught, by Che' Wan Ahman to the people of Pahang, as a warning
to dreamers of dreams.

But to return to Wan Bong, whose high hopes had all been shattered as
completely, and almost as rudely, as those of poor Che' Jahya. When the
evil news of the approach of Che' Wan Ahman and his people reached him,
Wan Bong's scant following dwindled rapidly, and, at length, he was
forced to seek refuge in the jungles of the Jelai, with only three or
four of his closest adherents still following his fallen fortunes. As
he lay on his bed of boughs, under a hastily improvised shelter of
plaited palm leaves, with the fear of imminent death staring him in the
eyes; when through the long day every snapping twig and every falling
fruit, in those still forests, must have sounded to his ears like the
footfall of his pursuers, Wan Bong must have had ample time to contrast
his past position with that in which he then found himself. A few days
before, he had returned to Jelai, a conqueror flushed with triumph. All
Pahang, he had then imagined, lay at his feet, and he alone, of all the
nobles of the Peninsula, had in a few months upset an old-world dynasty,
and placed himself upon a royal throne. Then, in an instant of time, the
vision had been shattered to fragments, and here he lay, like a hunted
beast in the jungles, quaking at every sound that broke the stillness,
an outlaw, a ruined man, with a price set upon his head.

The jungles, for a fugitive from his enemies, are not a pleasant refuge.
The constant dampness, which clings to anything in the dark recesses of
the forest, breeds boils and skin irritation of all sorts on the bodies
of those who dare not come out into the open places. Faces, on which t