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A deep murmur of surprise arose in the armed party, a spear was thrown, a shot was fired, three or four men dashed into the forest, but they soon returned crestfallen with apologetic smiles; while Jaffir, striking an old path that seemed to lead in the right direction, ran on in solitude, raising a rustle of leaves, with a naked parang in his hand and a cloud of flies about his head.
Every Brunai man has his own arms, spear, kris and buckler, supplemented by an old English "Tower" musket, or rifle, or by one of Chinese manufacture with an imitation of the Tower mark. The parang, or chopper, or cutlass, is always carried by a Malay, being used for all kinds of work, agricultural and other, and is also a useful weapon of offence or defence.
The arrow hit the woman in the small of the back, and she fell mortally wounded. Then he flew down to the house, finished killing her with his spear, and cut her head off with his parang. He then went up to her room and took the musical instrument, her beautiful clothing, and beads, and placed all, together with the head, in his prahu.
A thick cloth girded his loins, and hung down before and behind like the tail of a coat, while into it was stuck his parang or broad-pointed sword.
In an hour's walk I saw enough to make me determine to give the place a trial, and on my return, finding the "Orang-kaya" was in a strong fever-fit and unable to do anything, I entered into negotiations with the owner of the house for the use of a slip at one end of it about five feet wide, for a week, and agreed to pay as rent one "parang," or chopping-knife.
He has a good supply of spears and bows and arrows for hunting, a parang, or chopping-knife, and an axe-for the stone age has passed away here, owing to the commercial enterprise of the Bugis and other Malay races.
Spears had been thrust and darted through, blows struck through cracks and holes with krises and the deadly sword-like parang, and in spite of the fierce and slowly-sustained fire kept up, the defences were rapidly becoming more dilapidated, and several fresh wounds had been received.
Bob Roberts and he were sworn friends directly, for there was something in their dispositions which made them assimilate, Ali being full of life and fun, which, since his return to Parang, he had been obliged to suppress, and take up the stiff stately formality of the Malays about him, of whom many of the chiefs looked unfavourably at the youth who had so quickly taken up and made friends with the people they looked upon as so many usurpers.
On their heads they wore a mass of feathers of the Argus pheasant. They wore on their shoulders skins of the leopard and wild cat, and neck-laces of beads and teeth. They were armed with the usual parang, blowpipe, and shield. They were a much larger race of men than the Dyaks of the north coast, but not so well favoured.
Aboo gazed into my face incredulously for a moment; then, picking up his parang and tightening his sarong, strode on ahead without a word. At noon we came upon a sandy stretch of soil that contained a few diseased cocoanut palms, fringed by a sluggish lagoon, and a great banian tree whose trunk was hardly more than a mass of interlaced roots.
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