my tea and broke open one cool,
delicious mangosteen after another, I was reading in the daily Straits
Times an account of the descent of a band of head-hunting Dyaks from
the jungles of the Rejang River in Borneo on an isolated fishing
kampong, or village,--of how they killed men, women, and children,
and carried their heads back to their strongholds in triumph, and of
how, in the midst of their feasting and ceremonies, Rajah Brooke,
with a little company of fierce native soldiery, had surprised and
exterminated them to the last man; and just then the sound of heavy
cannonading in the harbor below caused me to drop my paper.

In a moment the great guns from Fort Canning answered. I
counted--seventeen--and turned inquiringly to the naked punkah-wallah,
who stood just outside in the shade of the wide veranda, listlessly
pulling the rattan rope that moved the stiff fan above me.

His brown, open palm went respectfully to his forehead.

"His Highness, the Rajah of Sarawak," he answered proudly in Malay. "He
come in gunboat Ranee to the Gymkhana races,--bring gold cup for
prizes and fast runners. Come every year, Tuan."

I had forgotten that it was the first day of the long-looked-for
Gymkhana races. A few hours later I met this remarkable man, whose
thrilling exploits had commanded my earliest boyish admiration.

The kindly old Sultan of Johore, the old rebel Sultan of Pahang,
the Sultan of Lingae, in all the finery of their native silks and
jewels, the nobles of their courts, and a dozen other dignitaries,
were on the grandstand and in the paddock as we entered, yet no
one but a modest, gray-haired little man by the side of the English
governor had any place in my thoughts. We knew his history. It was
as romantic as the wild careers of Pizarro and Cortez; as charming
as those of Robinson Crusoe and the dear old Swiss Family Robinson;
as tragic as Captain Kidd's or Morgan's; and withal, it was modelled
after our own Washington. In him I saw the full realization of every
boy's wildest dreams,--a king of a tropical island.

The bell above the judges' pavilion sounded, and a little whirlwind
of running griffins dashed by amid the yells of a thousand natives
in a dozen different tongues. The Rajah leaned out over the gayly
decorated railing with the eagerness of a boy, as he watched his own
colors in the thick of the race.

The surging mass of nakedness below caught sight of him, and another
yell rent the air, quite di