30 
THREE iMONTHS IN PAHANG 
then to the right, it was equally bad; I then sent a man up a 
tree to try and see anythin^j but with no result, still another 
tree and another man who hkewise could see tiothing. While 
this was going on 1 thought I heard a groan from the bed of 
lilies. We spent over a quarter of an hour reconnoitring and 
as the time passed on, felt more and more certain that the 
sehidang must be dead. Vasin was quite confident that the 
beast was defunct, and followed the track into the lilies a little 
way with this conviction in his mind. He had to crawl to 
avoid the overhanging branches. 1 was just behind him — we 
had not gone more than ten yards from where we had been 
for the last (]uarter of an hour — when he suddenly squatted 
down on his haunches, ptjked his head forward, and said in a 
very loud voice, Dia sudah tnati Tuan, I could see nothing. 
I was just straightening myself up from a most uncomfortable 
position wheji Yasin's statement was instantly denied by the 
seladang who, with no end of a noise, scrambled to his feet. 
I did not wait to fmd out what was going to happen. I dived 
into a small opening to my left, fortunately kept my feet, 
scrambled along anyhow, came to an ant-hill which afforded 
some protection, and then swung round to meet what I cer- 
tainly thought must be a charging seladang. The moment I 
stopped I heard the seladant;, but I was thankful to realise 
that the thunder of his hooves as they beat on the ground was 
getting fainter as he rushed madly through the jungle, I 
called to Yasin and we foregathered in a moment or two, 
all very much out of breath and all very much inclined to 
hysterical laughter after the intense excitement of the last few 
minutes, 
Yasin had had nn even more exciting experience than I 
had. When he dashed back along the track by which he had 
followed the seladang, he passed, unnoticed by him, one of the 
Malays named Saleh who, with much curiosity, had approached 
closer than he ought to have done. Saleh seeing the flying 
Y'asin and hearing the crashing seladang did best time up the 
track after Yasin. Yasin thought Saleli was the seladang and 
where he went Saleh followed. Yasin was not quite clear 
how long it took him to fmd out that Saleh was following him 
and not the seladang, but he was rather annoyed with Saleh, 
Now personally I do not think that Saleh was to blame at all, 
if Yasin had not said in a loud voice Jyia sudah maii^ but had 
just kept quiet and had given me time to put another bullet 
into the beast, he would never have mistaken Saleh for a 
seladang anxious to have his blood. We laughed a good deal 
over this incident, I refer to Yasin*s flight, which relieved our 
feelings a good deal. The position of the seladang really 
