Tales of the Malayan Coast
and here, close down to the bank, was the palace of his nephew--the
Governor, Prince Sulliman.
A wide, red, well-paved road separated the village of thatch and
grass from the palace grounds, and ended at a wharf, up to which a
steam-launch would dash from time to time, startling the half-grown
crocodiles that slept beneath the rickety timbers.
Sometimes the little Prince Mat, the son of the Governor, came down to
the wharf and played with the children of the captain of the launch,
while his Tuan Penager, or Teacher, dozed beneath his yellow umbrella;
and often, at their play, his Excellency would pause and watch them,
smiling kindly.
At such times, the captain of the launch would fall upon his face, and
thank the Prophet that he had lived to see that day. "For," he would
say, "some day he may speak to me, and ask me for the wish I treasure."
Then he would go back to his work, polishing the brass on the railings
of his boat, regardless of the watchful eyes that blinked at him from
the mud beneath the wharf.
He smiled contentedly, for his mind was made up. He would not ask to
be made master of the Sultan's marvellous yacht, that was sent out
from Liverpool,--although the possibility made him catch his breath:
he would ask nothing for himself,--he would ask that his Excellency
let his son Noa go to Mecca, that he might become a hadji and then
some day--who knows--Noa might become a kateeb in the attap-thatched
mosque back of the palace.
And Noa, unmindful of his father's dreaming, played with the little
Prince, kicking the ragga ball, or sailing miniature praus out into
the river, and off toward the shimmering straits. But often they
sat cross-legged and dropped bits of chicken and fruit between the
palm sleepers of the wharf to the birch-colored crocodiles below,
who snapped them up, one after another, never taking their small,
cruel eyes off the brown faces that peered down at them.
Child-life is measured by a few short years in Malaya. The hot,
moist air and the fierce rays of the equatorial sun fall upon child
and plant alike, and they grow so fast that you can almost hear them!
The little Prince soon forgot his childhood companions in the gorgeous
court of his Highness, the Sultan of Johore, and Noa took the place
of his father on the launch, while the old man silently mourned as he
leaned back in its stern, and alternately watched the sunlight that
played along the carefully polished rails, and the deepening shadows
that bound the black labyrinth of mangrove roots on the opposite
shore. The Governor had never noted his repeated protestations and
deep-drawn sighs.
"But who cares," he thought. "It is the will of Allah! The Prince
will surely remember us when he returns."
On the very edge of Bander Maharani, just where the almost endless
miles of betel-nut palms shut from view the yellow turrets of the
palace, stood the palm-thatched bungalow in which Anak grew, in a
few short years, from childhood to womanhood. The hot, sandy soil all
about was covered with the flaxen burs of the betel, and the little
sunlight that found its way down through the green and yellow fronds
drew rambling checks on the steaming earth, that reminded Anak of
the plaid on the silken sarong that Noa's father had given her the
day she was betrothed to his son.
Up the bamboo ladder and into the little door,--so low that even Anak,
with her scant twelve years, was forced to stoop,--she would dart when
she espied Noa coming sedately down the long aisle of palms that led
away to the fungus-covered canal that separated her little world from
the life of the capital city.
There was coquetry in every glance, as she watched him, from behind
the carved bars of her low window, drop contentedly down on the bench
beneath a scarred old cocoanut that stood directly before the door. She
thought almost angrily that he ought to have searched a little for her:
she would have repaid him with her arms about his neck.
From the cool darkness of the bungalow came the regular click of her
mother's loom. She could see the worker's head surrounded by a faint
halo of broken twilight. Her mind filled in the details that were
hidden by the green shadows--the drawn, stooping figure, the scant
black hair, the swollen gums, the syrah-stained teeth, and sunken
neck. She impulsively ran her soft brown fingers over her own warm,
plump face, through the luxuriant tresses of her heavy hair, and then
gazed out at the recumbent figure on the bench, waiting patiently
for her coming.
"Soon my teeth, which the American lady that was visiting his
Excellency said were so strong and beautiful, will be filed and
blackened, and I will be weaving sarongs for Noa."
She shuddered, she knew not why, and went slowly across the elastic
bamboo strips of the floor and down the ladder.
Noa watched the trim little figure with its single covering of cotton,
the straight, graceful body, and perfectly poised head and delicate
neck, the bare feet and ankles, the sweet, comely face with its fresh
young lips, free from the red stains of the syrah leaf, and its big
brown eyes that looked from beneath heavy silken lashes. He smiled,
but did not stir as she came to him. He was proud of her after
the manner of his kind. Her beauty appealed to him unconsciously,
although he had never been taught to consider beauty, or even seek
it. He would have married her without a question, if she had been as
hideous as his sister, who was scarred with the small-pox. He would
never have complained if, according to Malayan custom, he had not
been permitted to have seen her until the marriage day. He must marry
some one, now that the Prince had gone to Johore, and his father had
given up all hope of seeing him a hadji; and besides, the captain of
the launch and the old punghulo, or chief, Anak's father, were fast
friends. The marriage meant little more to the man.
But to Anak,--once the Prince Mat had told her she was pretty, when
she had come down to the wharf to beg a small crocodile to bury
underneath her grandmother's bungalow to keep off white ants, and
her cheeks glowed yet under her brown skin at the remembrance. Noa
had never told her she was beautiful!
A featherless hen was scratching in the yellow sand at her feet, and a
brood of featherless chicks were following each cluck with an intensity
of interest that left them no time to watch the actions of the lovers.
"Why did you come?" she asked in the soft liquid accents of her people.
There was an eagerness in the question that suggested its own answer.
"To bring a message to the punghulo," he replied, not noticing the
coquetry of the look.
"Oh! then you are in haste. Why do you wait? My father is at the
canal."
"It is about you," he went on, his face glowing. "The Prince is coming
back, and we are to be married. My father, the captain, made bold
to ask his Excellency to let the Prince be present, and he granted
our prayer."
She turned away to hide her disappointment. It was the thought of
the honor that was his in the eyes of the province, and not that
he was to marry her, that set the lights dancing in his eyes! She
hated him then for his very love; it was so sure and confident in
its right to overlook hers in this petty attention from a mere boy,
who had once condescended to praise her girlish beauty.
"When is the Prince coming?" she questioned, ignoring his clumsy
attempt to take her hand.
"During the feast of Hari Raya Hadji," he replied, smiling.
She kicked some sand with her bare toes, amongst the garrulous
chickens.
"Tell me about the Prince."
Her mood had changed. Her eyes were wide open, and her face
all aglow. She was wondering if he would notice her above the
bridesmaids,--if it was not for her sake he was coming?
And then her lover told her of the gossip of the palace,--of the
Prince's life in the Sultan's court,--of his wit and grace,--of how
he had learned English, and was soon to go to London, where he would
be entertained by the Queen.
Above their heads the wind played with the tattered flags of the palms,
leaving openings here and there that exposed the steely-white glare
of the sky, and showed, far away to the northward, the denuded red
dome of Mount Ophir.
The girl noted the clusters of berries showing redly against the
dark green of some pepper-vines that clambered up the black nebong
posts of her home; she wondered vaguely as he talked if she were to
go on through life seeing pepper-vines and betel-nut trees, and hot
sand and featherless hens, and never get beyond the shadow of the
mysterious mountains.
Possibly it was the sight of the white ladies from Singapore, possibly
it was the few light words dropped by the half-grown Prince, possibly
it was something within herself,--something inherited from ancestors
who had lived when the fleets of Solomon and Hiram sought for gold
and ivory at the base of the distant mountains,--that drove her to
revolt, and led her to question the right of this marriage that was
to seal her forever to the attap bungalow, and the narrow, colorless
life that awaited her on the banks of the Maur. She turned fiercely
on her wooer, and her brown eyes flashed.
"You have never asked me whether I love!"
The Malay half rose from his seat. The look of surprise and perplexity
that had filled his face gave place to one of almost childish wonder.
"Of course you love me. Is it not so written in the Koran,--a wife
shall reverence her husband?"
"Why?" she questioned angrily.
He paused a moment, trying dimly to comprehend the question, and then
answered slowly,--
"Because it is written."
She did not draw away when he took her hand; he had chosen his answer
better than he knew.
"Because it is written," that was all. Her own feeble revolt was but
as a breath of air among the yellow fronds above their heads.
When Noa had gone, the girl drew herself wearily up the ladder, and
dropped on a cool palm mat near the never ceasing loom. For almost
the first time in her short, uneventful life she fell to thinking
of herself. She wondered if the white ladies in Singapore married
because all had been arranged by a father who forgot you the moment
you disappeared within the door of your own house,--if they loved one
man better than another,--if they could always marry the one they
liked best. She wondered why every one must be married,--why could
she not go on and live just as she had,--she could weave and sew?
A gray lizard darted from out its hiding-place in the attap at a
great atlas moth which worked its brilliant wings; clumsily it tore
their delicate network until the air was full of a golden dust.
"I am the moth," she said softly, and raised her hand too late to
save it from its enemy.
The Sultan's own yacht, the Pante, brought the Prince back to Maur,
and as it was low tide, the Governor's launch went out beyond the
bar and met him.
The band played the national anthem when he landed on the pier,
and Inchi Mohammed, the Tuan Hakim, or Chief Justice, made a speech.
The red gravel walk from the landing to the palace gate was strewn
with hibiscus and alamander and yellow convolvulus flowers, and
bordered with the delicate maidenhair fern.
Johore and British flags hung in great festoons from the deep
verandas of the palace, and the brass guns from the fort gave forth
the royal salute.
Anak was in the crowd with her father, the old chief, and her
affianced, Noa. She had put on her silk sarong and kabaya, and some
curious gold brooches that were her mother's. In her coal-black hair
she had stuck some sprays of the sweet-smelling chumpaka flower. On her
slender bare feet were sandals cunningly wrought in colored beads. Her
soft brown eyes glowed with excitement, and she edged away from the