60 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 



elephants. Also I suggested that he would receive 

 a bonus on each animal I captured. He nodded 

 and asked me to come to the palace the next day. 



Each day for three weeks I called on him and 

 spent hours in telling him of my travels. And he 

 told me something of the worries of being a Sultan. 

 He was afraid that one of the big powers would 

 establish a protectorate over Trengganu, depose him 

 and reduce his people to slavery. He knew very 

 little of foreigners, but he had come to the conclu- 

 sion that the best thing to do was to keep them out. 

 What did I think was the best plan? We held 

 long conferences, in which I enlightened him on 

 the ways of white men. The subject of elephant 

 hunting scarcely came into the conversations, but 

 I knew that he had sent messengers out to see if 

 there was any truth in my story about the herd 

 crossing from Pahang. I was slowly winning his 

 confidence; everything depended upon the truth of 

 that rumor I had picked up in Singapore. 



Exactly three weeks after our first meeting, he 

 greeted me with the words: "Tuan chdkap betid 

 (Sir, you spoke the truth)." 



"I always speak the truth," I answered, as if I 

 were annoyed. The messengers had returned with 

 the news that the herd had been seen near the 

 Pahang River. 



He asked what I proposed to do, and I drew a 

 diagram of the trap I wanted to build. He asked 

 if it would not be a better plan to shoot the big 



