Page 159 - Malay sketches

THE PASSING OF PENGLIMA PRANG SEMAUN

swallowed up this hardened criminal as it did Korah,
Dathan, Abiram, and all their company ; he ought
to have been shot or drowned or speared if he were
not being reserved for hanging, v At any rate this
was an excellent opportunity for getting rid of two
and a few other wicked
hardened villains, passably
men. The Lambor people, whose crimes were as
snow compared to those of these two arch-criminals,
had all met with violent deaths and no miracle, not
even so much as a small streak of luck, like falling
into a well and being tended by a beautiful maiden,
had saved the life of one of them.
Why was it then that, as these cold-blooded
assassins cowered together and wondered how they
were going to elude the vigilance of their enemies,
a palpable miracle was wrought to save their miser-
able skins ?
It cannot be said that anything very unusual hap-
pened, because the thing is of common occurrence,
but it was certainly thoughtfully arranged that at
that moment there should sail round the bend of the
river, in the strongest flow of the ebb-tide (now of
course slackening), an enormous mass of floating
palms, a very island of foliage broken away from
some undermined bank and drifting majestically to
the wider waters of the sea.