Kuantan, by Murray Leinster (ePub/pdf)

In a remote Malayan state under British protection, a colonial deputy commissioner receives word that his friend, a local raja, has been deposed and brutally tortured. Bound by strict orders to maintain diplomatic tact and avoid triggering a costly jungle war, he travels upstream through dense wilderness to verify the rumors.

He arrives to find the village hollowed by fear and the palace occupied by a usurper who treats him with veiled contempt. The blinded former ruler, reduced to a whimpering beggar, seems broken beyond repair. As torches flare for a celebratory feast, the official recognizes that his own death has been quietly decreed.

Caught between imperial policy and mortal danger, he must decipher loyalty from deception in a court where walls have eyes and every smile hides a kris. The fragile peace of the protectorate hangs on whether he can outwit a cunning enemy without sacrificing the moral ascendancy his government demands.