Before many minutes he commenced to look wistfully about. I pointed to the trees back of the house. He went out under them and called two or three times.
There was a great chattering among the rubber-vines, and in a moment down came Lepas and sprang to his old master's shoulder as happy as a lover.
I never saw Lepas but once again, and that was one evening on the ocean esplanade. He was in the centre of an admiring circle of half-nude Malay and Hindu boys, going through his quaint antics, while Hamat squatted before him beating on a crocodile-hide drum and singing a plaintive, monotonous song.
When it was finished, Lepas took an empty cocoanut shell and went out into the crowd to collect pennies.
I threw in a dollar. Lepas salaamed low as he snatched it out and bit it to test its genuineness. It was his latest accomplishment. Then he hid himself among the laughing crowd.
That Lepas knew me, I could tell by the droop in his eye and the quick glance he gave to the right and left, to see if there was room to escape in case I made an effort to avenge my wrongs.
I had no desire, however, to renew the acquaintance, and was quite willing to let by-gones be by-gones.
Being an Account of an Ascent of Mount Ophir in Malaya, by His Excellency, the Tuan Hakim of Maur, and the Writer
"And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon."--1 Kings IX. 28.
"For the King's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram; every three years once came the ships of Tarshish, bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks." --2 Chronicles VIII. 21.
The rose tints of a tropical sunrise had broken through the heavy bamboo chicks that jealously guarded the rapidly fleeting half-lights of my room: there came three deferential taps at the door, and the smiling, olive-tinted face of Ah Minga appeared at the opening. "Tabek, Tuan," he saluted, as he raised the mosquito curtains, and placed a tray of tea and mangosteens on a table by my side.
I sprang to the floor and across the heavily rugged room, and pulled up the offending chick.
Across the palace grounds, fresh from their morning bath, across the broad river Maur, for the nonce black in the shadow of the jungle, across the gilded tops of the jungle, forty miles away as the crow flies, rested the serrated peak of Mount Ophir.