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: “Tian chakap bétul 
(Sir, you spoke the truth).” 
“T 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 
