THE LANG MEN O' LARUT
[Footnote: Copyright, 1891, by MACMILLAN & CO.]


The Chief Engineer's sleeping suit was of yellow striped with blue, and
his speech was the speech of Aberdeen. They sluiced the deck under him,
and he hopped on to the ornamental capstan, a black pipe between his
teeth, though the hour was not seven of the morn.

'Did you ever hear o' the Lang Men o' Larut?' he asked when the Man from
Orizava had finished a story of an aboriginal giant discovered in the
wilds of Brazil. There was never story yet passed the lips of teller,
but the Man from Orizava could cap it.

'No, we never did,' we responded with one voice. The Man from Orizava
watched the Chief keenly, as a possible rival.

'I'm not telling the story for the sake of talking merely,' said the
Chief, 'but as a warning against betting, unless you bet on a perrfect
certainty. The Lang Men o' Larut were just a certainty. I have had talk
wi' them. Now Larut, you will understand, is a dependency, or it may be
an outlying possession, o' the island o' Penang, and there they will get
you tin and manganese, an' it mayhap mica, and all manner o' meenerals.
Larut is a great place.'

'But what about the population?' said the Man from Orizava.

'The population,' said the Chief slowly, 'were few but enorrmous. You
must understand that, exceptin' the tin-mines, there is no special