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Many of the other Sumatran people are in the possession of a very high degree of freedom, founded upon a rigid attachment to their old established customs and laws. The grand council of the nation consists of the king or Sultan, the maharaja, laksamana, paduka tuan, and bandhara.
Night after night the evening gun in the besieged fort sent forth its mocking challenge: still the Dato made no motion. Oh, but it was pitiful! One by one the praus slipped away, first those from Acheen, and then those from Johore, but the valiant Laksamana saw them not. He was blind to all save one.
"But the great laksamana?" I asked. "I know of the ancient riches of Malacca. Barbosa tells us that gold was so common that it was reckoned by the bhar of four hundred weight." My companion contemplated the end of his manila. "Do you know how died his Highness, Montezuma of Mexico, Tuan?" I bowed. "So died my ancestor one hundred years later.
No man save the laksamana, who went twice a year and brought away to his prau, which was moored on the bank of the Maur thirty miles from the mountains, ten great loads of pure gold, each time over one hundred bugels.
Then she spoke: 'If thou lovest me as thou boastest, and would win my smiles, send me to my father; then go and bring me of this gold of Ophir, for the Dato had laid his heart bare before her, enough to sink yon boat. The daughter of a Braganza does not unite herself with a pauper. When the moon is full again, I will expect you. "So did the Laksamana, to the everlasting shame of Islam.
That was only trusted to one family, and handed from father to son by word of mouth. "Long before the days of Solomon the Wise did my family hold that secret for the state. It was one of them that gave the four hundred and twenty talents to the laksamana of Huram's fleet. Your Koran has made record of the gift. He did not know from whence it came.
It was answered that they must surrender at discretion; which the laksamana hesitating to do, a furious assault took place both by water and land upon his galleys and works, which were all effectually destroyed or captured, not a ship and scarcely a man escaping. He himself in the last extremity fled to the woods, but was seized ere long by the king of Pahang's scouts.
"In the days when Tunku Ali III. ruled over Maur, from Malacca to the confines of Johore, the Portuguese came, and Albuquerque with his ships of war and soldiers in iron armor sought to wrest from our people their cities and their riches. My ancestor was a dato, our laksamana, high admiral, of his Highness's fleet.
The laksamana hung out a white flag and sent to treat with Nunno, but, some difficulty arising about the terms, the engagement was renewed with great warmth. News was brought to the Portuguese that the maharaja was killed and that the king of Pahang was approaching with a hundred sail of vessels to reinforce them.
"For fully a hundred and forty years did the Emperor of Johore and his valiant allies, the King of Acheen and the Sultan of Maur, seek to retake Malacca from the Portuguese. The Dato Mamat was the last laksamana of the fleet. With him died the war and the secret of Mount Ophir." "The secret!" I questioned, as the Tuan Hakim paused.
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