He then turned to the Muruts and gave some orders in their own language. Unju had sat up, and Rupert was trying to staunch the bullet wound in his left shoulder. With Patterson’s assistance they lifted him from the canoe and laid him against a tree on the river bank. The Muruts were cutting branches of trees and with a few rattans soon constructed a rough litter. What fate awaited them Rupert hardly dared to guess. That their lives had been spared was evidently due to the presence of the Brunie chief, whom they learnt later on was an outlaw and a desperado called Mat Salleh, who, in his young days, had been a pirate and was a native of Suloo, an island of the north coast. Old Unju knew him well by reputation, and seemed to fear him far more than he did the Muruts, whom he really despised. Mat Salleh had obtained a great influence over the Muruts of the interior, who believed him to be invulnerable and possessed with supernatural power. When the litter was ready, Mat Salleh ordered them to march behind it, and surrounded by armed Muruts and preceded by others carrying the gory heads of the poor Malays, they started up a steep mountain track through the gloom of the dark jungle. After about an hour’s march they emerged from the forest into a large clearing, where paddy and sweet potatoes were planted. At the top of a conical hill in the centre of the clearing was a high stockade of bamboo enclosing some dozen houses on piles and thatched with palm leaves. As the long procession entered the clearing, a great hubbub arose out in the village. The deep notes of a big war gong mingled with the shrill cries of the women, who poured out of a gateway and danced down towards the approaching warriors. The sun had set and it was nearly dark, though a bright moon lighted up the clearing, throwing the stockade and houses into black relief against the opal sky. Rupert glanced at Patterson. The latter shrugged his shoulders. "We’re in for it, I’m afraid, Cotton. Sorry, old man, but while there’s life there’s hope!" As they entered the stockade flames shot up from a huge fire that had just been lit inside, and the ruddy glow thrown on the bronze figures of the men and the naked bodies of the women who surrounded them, made a scene so weird and eerie that Rupert’s blood ran cold with dread of what was about to happen in this devils’ cauldron. At one end of the enclosure was a long house with an open verandah about six feet above the ground, against which was placed a single bamboo in which notches had been cut to form steps.