Page 113 - Malay sketches

IN THE NOON OF NIGHT

It was in the month of Ramthan, when begin
those forty days of fast observed by all good
Muhammadans though so few of them know why
they fast, or the details of the touching story which
tells the of the Martyrs of Kerbela that
sufferings
one the middle of the but when
night, past month,
up things plain
the moon still lit the water and made
as day, a strange thing happened at this small coast
village.
In it there lived a Malay revenue officer with his
wife and child, and on the night in question these
three, being at home, went to sleep about 10 P.M.
as was their wont.
A slight breeze was blowing off the sea, blowing
against the falling tide, and the moonlight glorified
the hideous expanse of slime till it looked like a
limitless mirror, blending far away with the haze-
enshrouded waters of the sea, but bordered land-
wards by that dark fringe of mangroves, the thick
forest forming a striking contrast to the moonlit
beauty of the glistening shore.
The wind sighed up the river, played through the
great brown nets hanging up to dry, and, scarcely
the of the
stirring tops mangroves, swept gently
towards the distant hills.
All the village slept, except the one Guardian of
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