The very air seemed dead in there--heavy and
stagnating, poisoned with the corruption of countless ages. He went on,
staggering on his way, urged by the nervous restlessness that made him
feel tired yet caused him to loathe the very idea of immobility and
repose. Was he a wild man to hide in the woods and perhaps be killed
there--in the darkness--where there was no room to breathe? He would
wait for his enemies in the sunlight, where he could see the sky and feel
the breeze. He knew how a Malay chief should die. The sombre and
desperate fury, that peculiar inheritance of his race, took possession of
him, and he glared savagely across the clearing towards the gap in the
bushes by the riverside. They would come from there. In imagination he
saw them now. He saw the bearded faces and the white jackets of the
officers, the light on the levelled barrels of the rifles. What is the
bravery of the greatest warrior before the firearms in the hand of a
slave? He would walk toward them with a smiling face, with his hands
held out in a sign of submission till he was very near them. He would
speak friendly words--come nearer yet--yet nearer--so near that they
could touch him with their hands and stretch them out to make him a
captive.
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