276 IN MALAY FORESTS. 



which they had to decide was whether their captive 

 was an ordinary Malay like themselves, or that awful 

 horror, a were-tiger. It was plain that a creature so 

 unnatural as that they imagined their prisoner to be 

 would not hesitate to forswear itself in order to 

 attain its liberty : not only then would the oath fail 

 in its effect, but their mosque and Koran would have 

 been polluted by the presence and touch of the un- 

 clean thing. When this last resource failed him the 

 poor old man cried to those who had known him 

 longest and best, and begged for his life for pity's 

 sake. He promised to do anything that was asked of 

 him, and, if necessary, to leave the country for ever. 

 But the Malays did not dare to let themselves be 

 influenced by any thoughts of pity or compassion. 

 They had to decide a question upon which their herds, 

 their crops, and their very lives depended, and that 

 question was put to them with Malay terseness and 

 directness by the raja. 



" If we open the trap-door," he said, turning to the 

 men who leant upon their spears behind him, " and 

 let this that we have here now go loose, what is our 

 position ? " 



What was their position ? One must realise how 

 the little village was isolated in the rnidst of a vast 

 forest, how exposed the inhabitants were to any 

 attack from it, how powerless to retaliate upon any 

 man-eating or cattle -eating tiger, which had such 

 easy access and such safe retreat, and how sick with 

 helpless misery they must have felt at the mere idea 

 that they were at the mercy of something that was 

 partly tiger, partly demon. It is easy to imagine 



