Page 103 - Malay sketches

THE ETERNAL FEMININE

divining that the strangers meant no good, she
screamed out, "They are going to murder us."
But Grant said that he and she had done no harm
and the Malays could mean none, and, taking the
woman with him, he went out of the house and a
few steps forward to meet his assailants.
These last stopped some twenty yards from Grant
and the woman, and she said, "What harm have
" " "
we done ? The answer was Titah it is by
order of the and told the woman to
Raja they
leave the infidel and go away. But she replied,
" I shall stay with him."
Then several men said, " If you do not go, we
will kill you as well as the white man."
Grant may not have understood this sentence of
death on himself, he may not have realised how
strangely the times were out of joint, that he who
was the enemy of no man, who had done no wrong,
who represented no cause, should suddenly, in the
broad light of day, hear his own death sentence, and
in the same breath learn that he was his
facing
executioners and his account with the world was
closed. There was no time to think : instinct said,
"
There is and doubtless instinct also
Death," said,
"
Death is disagreeable : shun it."
It is commonly reputed that there are people who-
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