Chapter 5

"It was good of you to wear the sarong I gave you, and your best kabaya and the flowers I like in your hair. I heard more than one say that it showed you would make a good wife in spite of our knowing one another before marriage."

"You think that it was for you that I put on all this bravery?" she asked, looking him straight in the face. "Am I not to be your wife? Can I not dress in honor of the young Prince and--Allah?"

He turned to stammer a reply. The hot blood mounted to his temples, and he grasped the girl's arm so that she cried out with pain.

"You are to be my wife, and I your master. It is my wish that you should ever dress in honor of our rulers and our Allah, for in showing honor to those above you, you honor your husband. I do not understand you at all times, but I intend that you shall understand me. Sudah!"

"Tuan Allah Suka!" (The Lord Allah has willed it), she murmured, and they plodded on through the hot sand in silence.

After his return they saw the Prince often, and once when Anak came down to the wharf to bring a durian to the captain of the launch from her father, the old punghulo, she met him face to face, and he touched her cheek with his jewelled fingers, and said she had grown much prettier since he left.

Noa was not angry at the Prince, rather he was proud of his notice, but a sinister light burned in his eyes as he saw the flushed face and drooping head of the girl.

And once the Prince passed by the punghulo's home on his way into the jungle in search of a tiger, and inquired for his daughter. Anak treasured the remembrance of these little attentions, and pondered over them day after day, as she worked by her mother's side at the loom, or sat outside in the sand, picking the flossy burs from the betel-nuts, watching the flickering shadows that every breeze in the leaves above scattered in prodigal wastefulness about and over her.

She told herself over and over, as she followed with dreamy eyes the vain endeavors of a chameleon to change his color, as the shadows painted the sand beneath him first green and then white, that her own hopes and strivings were just as futile; and yet when Noa would sit beside her and try to take her hand, she would fly into a passion, and run sobbing up the ladder of her home. Noa became moody in turn. His father saw it and his mates chaffed him, but no one guessed the cause. That it should be for the sake of a woman would have been beyond belief; for did not the Koran say, "If thy wife displease thee, beat her until she see the sin of her ways"? One day, as he thought, it occurred to him, "She does not want to marry me!" and he asked her, as though it made any difference. There were tears in her eyes, but she only threw back her head and laughed, and replied as she should:--

"That is no concern of ours. Is your father, the captain, displeased with my father's, the punghulo's, dowry?"

And yet Noa felt that Anak knew what he would have said.

He went away angry, but with a gnawing at his heart that frightened him,--a strange, new sickness, that seemed to drive him from despair to a longing for revenge, with the coming and going of each quick breath. He had been trying to make love in a blind, stumbling way; he did not know it,--why should he? Marriage was but a bargain in Malaya. But Anak with her finer instincts felt it, and instead of fanning this tiny, unknown spark, she was driving it into other and baser channels.

In spite of her better nature she was slowly making a demon out of a lover,--a lover to whom but a few months before she would have given freely all her love for a smile or the lightest of compliments.

From that day until the day of the marriage she never spoke to her lover save in the presence of her elders,--for such was the law of her race.

She submitted to the tire-women who were to prepare her for the ceremony, uttering no protest as they filed off her beautiful white teeth and blackened them with lime, nor when they painted the palms of her hands and the nails of her fingers and toes red with henna. She showed no interest in the arranging of her glossy black hair with jewelled pins and chumpaka flowers, or in the draping of her sarong and kabaya. Only her lacerated gums ached until one tear after another forced its way from between her blackened lids down her rouged cheeks.

There had been feasting all day outside under the palms, and the youths, her many cousins, had kicked the ragga ball, while the elders sat about and watched and talked and chewed betel-nut. There were great rice curries on brass plates, with forty sambuls> within easy reach of all, luscious mangosteens, creamy durians and mangoes, and betel-nuts with lemon leaves and lime and spices. Fires burned about among the graceful palms at night, and lit up the silken sarongs and polished kris handles of the men, and gold-run kabayas of the women.

The Prince came as he promised, just as the old Kadi had pronounced the couple man and wife, and laid at Anak's feet a wide gold bracelet set with sapphires, and engraven with the arms of Johore. He dropped his eyes to conceal the look of pity and abhorrence that her swollen gums and disfigured features inspired, and as he passed across the mats on the bamboo floor he inwardly cursed the customs of his people that destroyed the beauty of its women. He had lived among the English of Singapore, and dined at the English Governor's table.

A groan escaped the girl's lips as she dropped back among the cushions of her tinsel throne. Noa saw the little tragedy, and for the first time understood its full import. He ground his teeth together, and his hand worked uneasily along the scabbard of his kris.

In another moment the room was empty, and the bride and groom were left side by side on the gaudily bedecked platform, to mix and partake of their first betel-nut together. Mechanically Noa picked the broken fragments of the nut from its brass cup, from another a syrah leaf smeared with lime, added a clove, a cardamom, and a scraping of mace, and handed it to his bride. She took it without raising her eyes, and placed it against her bleeding gums. In a moment a bright red juice oozed from between her lips and ran down the corner of her distorted mouth. Noa extended his hand, and she gave him the half-masticated mass. He raised it to his own mouth, and then for the first time looked the girl full in the face.

There was no love-light in the drooping brown eyes before him. The syrah-stained lips were slightly parted, exposing the feverish gums, and short, black teeth. Her hands hung listlessly by her side, and only for the color that came and went beneath the rouge of her brown cheeks, she might have been dead to this last sacred act of their marriage vows.

"Anak!" he said slowly, drawing closer to her side. "Anak, I will be a true husband to you. You shall be my only wife--"

He paused, expecting some response, but she only gazed stolidly up at the smoke-begrimed attap of the roof.

"Anak--" he repeated, and then a shudder passed through him, and his eyes lit up with a wild, frenzied gleam,

A moment he paused irresolute, and then with a spring he grasped the golden handle of his kris and with one bound was across the floor, and on the sand below among the revellers.

For an instant the snake-like blade of the kris shone dully in the firelight above his head, and then with a yell that echoed far out among the palms, it descended straight into the heart of the nearest Malay.

The hot life-blood spurted out over his hand and naked arm, and dyed the creamy silk of his wedding baju a dark red.

Once more he struck, as he chanted a promise from the Koran, and the shrill, agonized cry of a woman broke upon the ears of the astonished guests.

Then the fierce sinister yell of "Amok! amok!" drowned the woman's moans, and sent every Malay's hand to the handle of his kris.

"Amok!" sprang from every man's lips, while women and children, and those too aged to take part in the wild saturnalia of blood that was to follow, scattered like doves before a hawk.

With the rapidity of a Malayan tiger, the crazed man leaped from one to another, dealing deadly strokes with his merciless weapon, right and left. There was no gleam of pity or recognition in his insane glance when he struck down the sister he had played with from childhood, neither did he note that his father's hand had dealt the blow that dropped his right arm helpless to his side. Only a cry of baffled rage and hate escaped his lips, as he snatched his falling knife with his left hand. Another blow, and his father fell across the quivering body of his sister.

"O Allah, the all-merciful and loving kind!" he sang, as the blows rained upon his face and breast. "O Allah, the compassionate."

The golden handle of his kris shone like a dying coal in the centre of a circle of flamelike knives; then with one wild plunge forward, into the midst of the gleaming points, it went out.

"Sudah!--It is finished," and a Malay raised his steel-bladed limbing to thrust it into the bare breast of the dying man.

The young Prince stepped out into the firelight and raised his hand. The long, shrill wail of a tiger from far off toward Mount Ophir seemed to pulsate and quiver on the weird stillness of the night.

Noa opened his eyes. They were the eyes of a child, and a faint, sweet smile flickered across the ghastly features and died away in a spasm of pain.

A picture of their childhood days flashed through the mind of the Prince and softened the haughty lines of his young face. He saw, through it all, the wharf below the palace grounds,--the fat old penager dozing in the sun,--the raft they built together, and the birch-colored crocodiles that lay among the sinuous mangrove roots.

"Noa," he whispered, as he imperiously motioned the crowd back.

The dying man's lips moved. The Prince bent lower.

"She--loved--you. Yes--" Noa muttered, striving to hold his failing breath,--"love is from--Allah. But not for--me;--for English--and--Princes."

They threw his body without the circle of the fires.

The tense feline growl of the tiger grew more distinct. The Prince's hand sought the jewelled handle of his kris. There was a swift rush in the darkness, a crashing among the rubber-vines, a short, quick snarl, and then all was still.

If you run amok in Malaya, you may kill your enemy or your dearest friend, but you will be krissed in the end like a pariah dog. Every man, woman, and child will turn his hand against you, from the mother who bore you to the outcast you have befriended.

The laws are as immutable as fate.

LEPAS'S REVENGE

The Tale of a Monkey

There were many monkeys--I came near saying there were hundreds--in the little clump of jungle trees back of the bungalow. We could lie in our long chairs, any afternoon, when the sun was on the opposite side of the house, and watch them from behind the bamboo "chicks" swinging and playing in the maze of rubber-vines.

They played tag and high-spy, and a variety of other games. When they were tired of playing, they fell to quarrelling, scolding, and chasing each other among the stiff, varnished leaves, making so much noise that I could not get my afternoon nap, and often had to call to the syce to throw a stone into the branches. Then they would scuttle away to the topmost parts of the great trees and there join in giving me a rating that ought to have made me ashamed forever to look another monkey in the face.

One day, I went out and threw a stick at them myself, and the next day I found my shoes, which the Chinese "boy" had pipe-clayed and put out in the sun to dry, missing; and the day after I found the netting of my mosquito house torn from top to bottom.

So I was not in the best of humors when I was awakened, one afternoon, by the whistling of a monkey close to my chair. I reached out quickly for my cork helmet which I had thrown down by my side. As it was there, I looked up in surprise to see what had become of my visitor.

There he sat up against the railing of the veranda with his legs cramped up under him, ready to flee if I made a threatening gesture. His face was turned toward me, with the thin, hairless skin of its upper lip drawn back, showing a perfect row of milk-white teeth that were chattering in deadly terror. The whole expression of his face was one of conciliation and entreaty.

I knew that it was all make-believe, so I half closed my eyes and did not move. The chattering stopped. The little fellow looked about curiously, drew his mouth up into a pucker, whistled once or twice to make sure I was not awake, and reached out his bony arm for a few crumbs of cake that had fallen near.

He was not more than a foot in height. His diminutive body seemed to have been fitted into a badly worn skin that was two sizes too large for him, and the scalp of his forehead moved about like an overgrown wig.

He was the most ordinary kind of gray, jungle monkey, not even a wah-wah or spider face.

"Well," I said, after we had thoroughly inspected each other, "where are my shoes?"

Like a flash the whistling ceased, and with a pathetic trembling of his thin upper lip he commenced to beg with his mouth, and to put up his homely little hands in mute appeal.

For a moment I feared he would go into convulsions, but I soon discovered that my sympathy, had been wasted.

Then I noticed, for the first time, that there was a leather strap around his body just in front of his back legs, and that a string was attached to it, which ran through the railings and off the veranda. I looked over, and there, squatting on his sandalled feet, was a Malay, with the other end of the string in his hand.

He arose, smiling, touched his forehead with the back of his brown palm, and asked blandly:--

"Tuan, want to buy?"

The calm assurance of the man amused me.

"What, that miserable little monkey?" I said. "Do you take me for a tourist? Look up in those trees and you will see monkeys that know boiled rice from padi."

The man grinned and showed his brilliantly red teeth and gums.

"Tuan see. This monkey very wise," and he made a motion with his stick. The little fellow sprang from the railing to his bare head, and sat holding on to his long black hair.

"See, Tuan," and he made another motion, and the monkey leaped to the ground and commenced to run around his master, hopping first on one foot and then on the other, raising his arms over his head like a ballet dancer. After every revolution he would stop and turn a handspring.

The Malay all the time kept up a droning kind of a song in his native tongue, improvising as he went along.

The tenor of it was that one Hamat, a poor Malay, but a good Mohammedan, who had never been to Mecca, wanted to go to become a Hadji. He had no money but he had a good monkey that was very dear to him. He had found it in a distant jungle, beyond Johore, when a little baby; had brought it up like one of his own children and had taught it to dance and salaam.

Now he must sell the monkey to the great Tuan, or Lord, that the money might help take him to Mecca. The monkey must dance well and please the mighty Tuan.

As the little fellow danced, he kept one eye on me as though he understood it all.

"How old is he?" I asked, becoming interested.

"Just as old as your Excellency would like," he replied, bowing.

"Is he a year old?"

"If the Tuan please."

"Well, how much do you want for him?"

"What your Excellency can give."

"Twenty-five dollars?" I asked.

His face lit up from chin to forehead. He hitched nervously at the folds of his sarong, and changed the quid of red betel-nut from one corner of his mouth to the other.

"Here, Hamat," I said, laughing, "here is five dollars; take it; when you come back from Mecca with a green turban come and see me. If I am sick of the monkey, you can have him back."

So commenced our acquaintance with Lepas. We got into the habit of calling him Lepas, because it was the Malay for "let go," which definition we broadened until it became a term of correction for every form of mischief. He was such a restless, active little imp, with hands into everything and upon everything, that it was "Lepas!" from morning to night.

He soon learned the word's twofold meaning. If we said "Lepas" sternly, he subsided at once; but when we called it pleasantly he came running across the room and leaped into our laps.

It did not take Lepas as long to forget his former master as it did to forget his former habits. In truth, his civilization was never more than skin deep.

He would sit for hours cuddled up in the mistress's lap, playing with her work and making deft slaps at passing flies, until he had thoroughly convinced her of his perfect trustworthiness. Then, the moment her back was turned, he would slip away to her bureau, and such a mess as he would make of her ribbons and laces!

I think he liked the servants better than he did us. He would dance and turn handsprings and salaam for them, but never for the mistress or myself. Such tricks, he seemed to think, were beneath his new position in society.

He had a standing grudge against me, however, for insisting on his bath in the big Shanghai jar every day, and took delight in rolling in the red dust of the road the moment he was through.

It was not long before he had a feud with the monkeys in the trees, back of the house. He would stand on the ground, within easy reach of the house, and as saucily as you please, till they were worked up into a white heat of rage over his remarks.

Once he caught a baby monkey that had become entangled in the wiry lallang grass under the trees, and dragged it screeching into the house. Before we could get to him he had nearly drowned it by treating it to a bath,--an act, I suppose, intended to convey to me his opinion of my humane efforts to keep him clean.

I expected as a matter of course to lose another pair of shoes or something, in payment for this unneighborly behavior, but the colony in the trees seemed to know that I was innocent. It was not long before they caught the true culprit, and gave him such a beating that he was quiet and subdued for days.

But Lepas was a lovable little fellow with all his mischief. Every afternoon when I came home from the office, tired out with the heat and the fierce glare of the sun, he would hop over to my chair, whistle soothingly, and make funny little chirrups with his lips, until I noticed him.

Then he would crawl quietly up the legs of the chair until he reached my shoulder, where he would commence with his cool little fingers to inspect my eyes and nose, and to pick over carefully each hair of my mustache and head.

So we forgave him when he pulled all the feathers out of a ring-dove that was a valued present from an old native rajah; when he turned lamp-oil into the ice cream, and when he broke a rare Satsuma bowl in trying to catch a lizard. He was always so penitent after each misadventure!

We had heard that Hamat had sailed for Jedda with a shipload of pilgrims and were therefore expecting him back soon; but we had decided not to give up Lepas. He had become a sort of necessity about the house.

Next door to us, lived a high official of the English service. He was a sour, cross old man and did not like pets. Even the monkeys in the trees knew better than to go into his "compound," or inclosure.

But Lepas started off on a voyage of discovery one day, and not only invaded his compound, but actually entered his house. The official caught him in the act of hiding his shaving-set between the palm thatch of the roof and the cheese-cloth ceiling. Recognizing Lepas, he did not kill him, but took him by his leathern girdle and soused him in his bath-tub, until he was so near dead that it took him hours to crawl home.

Lepas went around with a sad, injured expression on his wrinkled little face, for days. Not even a mangosteen sprinkled with sugar could awaken his enthusiasm.

He went so far as to make up with the monkeys in the trees, and once or twice I caught him condescending to have a game of leap-frog with them. I made up my mind that he had determined to turn over a new leaf, but the syce shook his head knowingly and said:--

"Lepas all the time thinking. He thinks bad things."

And so it proved.

One night the mistress gave a very big dinner party. The high official from next door was there. So were several other high officials of Singapore, the general commanding her Majesty's troops, and the foreign consuls and members of Legislative Council.

It was a hot night, and the punkah-wallah outside kept the punkah, or mechanical fan, switching back and forth over our heads with a rapidity that made us fear its ropes would break, as very often happened.

Suddenly there was a crash, and a champagne glass struck squarely in the high official's soup and spattered it all over his white expanse of shirt front. We all looked up at the punkah. At the same instant a big, soft mango smashed in the high official's face and changed its ruddy red color to a sickly yellow.

The women screamed, and the men jumped up from the table. Then began a regular fusillade of wine glasses and tropical fruits.

Sometimes they hit the high official from next door, at whom they all seemed to be aimed, but more often they fell upon the table, among the glass and dishes. In a moment everything was in wild confusion, and the mistress's beautifully decorated table looked as though a bomb had exploded on it.

The Chinese "boys" made a rush for the end of the room, and there, up on the sideboard, among the glass, pelting his enemy, the high official, as fast as he could throw, was Lepas.

A finger bowl struck the butler full in the face, and gave the monkey time to make his escape out into the darkness through the wide-open doors.

We saw nothing more of Lepas for a week or more; we had, indeed, about given him up, wondering as to his whereabouts, when one afternoon, as I was taking my usual post-tiffin siesta on the cool side of the great, wide-spreading veranda, I heard a timid whistle, and looked up to see Lepas seated on the railing, as sad and humble as any truant schoolboy.

His hair was matted and faded and his face was dirty. His form had lost some of the plumpness that had come to it with good living, but there was the same wicked twinkle in his eyes, and the same hypocritical deceit in his bearing as of old.

I reached out my hand to take him, but he hopped a few feet away and began to beg with his teeth.

"Lepas," I said, "you have a bad heart. I wash my hands of you. When Hamat comes back you can go to him and be an ordinary, low caste monkey. Now go! I never want to see you again!"

Lepas puckered up his lips and whistled mournfully for a few moments, but seeing no sign of forgiveness in my face he jumped down and began to turn handsprings and dance with the most demure grace.

I took no notice of him, and after a few vain efforts to attract my attention, he hopped dejectedly off the veranda across the lawn, and disappeared among the timboso trees and rubber-vines.

Two weeks later Hamat returned from Mecca. He paid me a visit in state--white robe and green turban. I shook hands and called him by his new title of nobility, Tuan Hadji, but he did not refer to Lepas.

Before many minutes he commenced to look wistfully about. I pointed to the trees back of the house. He went out under them and called two or three times.

There was a great chattering among the rubber-vines, and in a moment down came Lepas and sprang to his old master's shoulder as happy as a lover.

I never saw Lepas but once again, and that was one evening on the ocean esplanade. He was in the centre of an admiring circle of half-nude Malay and Hindu boys, going through his quaint antics, while Hamat squatted before him beating on a crocodile-hide drum and singing a plaintive, monotonous song.