"Are you not going to kill me?" said Ali passionately. "Not yet," was the reply, "unless you try to escape, when we are to kill you like a dog, and throw you into the river." "But why?" asked Ali; "what have I done?" "I know nothing," was the surly reply. "Does my father know of this?" cried Ali. "I know nothing," said the Malay. "But you will tell me what your instructions are, and where you are going to place me." "I know nothing. I tell nothing," said the Malay. "Be silent. That is your prison. If you try to escape, you die." Ali burned to ask more questions, but he felt that it would be useless, and that he, a chief's son, was only losing dignity by talking to the man, whom he recognised now as being the sultan's most unscrupulous follower, the scoundrel who did any piece of dirty work or atrocity. This was the man who, at his master's wish, dragged away any poor girl from her home to be the sultan's slave; who seized without scruple on gold, tin, rice, or any other produce of the country, in his master's name, and for his use. His hands had been often enough stained with blood, and while wondering at his life being spared so far, Ali had no hesitation in believing that any attempt at escape would be ruthlessly punished by a stab with the kris. Obeying his captors, then, Ali went into the inner room of the ruined house, and seated himself wearily upon the floor, thinking the while of the hunting expedition, and of the light in which his conduct would be viewed by his friends. Then he wondered whether his father would send in search of him; but his heart sank as he felt that, in all probability, the Tumongong would be carefully watched by the sultan's orders, and that any movement upon his son's behalf would result in his own death. Then he began to feel that, if he was to escape, it must be through his own efforts; for he had so little faith in Hamet's nature, that he knew that his existence trembled upon a hair. He was in an inner room of the house, little better in fact than a bamboo cage. The place was old, but he could see that here and there his prison had been mended with new green bamboos, especially about the flooring, through which he could see down to the earth, some twelve feet below, the sunlight shining up between the short bamboos, just as a few gleams of sunshine came through the attap roof. There had been a window, but this had been filled in with stout bamboo cross-pieces, through and between which were woven long lengths of rattan; but the weak places had been made strong, and from old experience he knew that, unless armed with a heavy knife, it would be impossible to force a way through the tough wall of bamboo and woven cane.