Page 189 - Malay sketches

THE KING'S WAY
out, what in their uncivilised minds they count as
dishonour, in a savage and bloodthirsty fashion, but
this does not apply when the offender is a raja and
the injured man of lesser rank. The person of a
is sacred to a and if he feels that he
raja Malay,
has been disgraced beyond bearing, the result will
probably be, sooner or later, an access of blind fury
resulting in a case of amok.
The King had as many wives as the Muhammadan
law permitted, and, as his country possessed the
infinite blessing of a civil list which limited his own
income, he was always anxious that whenever he
took to himself a new wife she should receive an
allowance from the State. His Highness made a
special point of this grant to the ladies, because he
said the knowledge that if they divorced him or
him to divorce them would lose the
compelled they
allowance, had an excellent effect on their behaviour.
He had succeeded in securing allowances for several
wives, when a new lady, named Raja Sarefa, con-
sented to share the royal smiles, and the King
immediately applied on her behalf for the usual
civil list. The application, however, was not suc-
cessful, though several times renewed.
Then the King fell ill of some fell disease that
no native medicine-man could diagnose, and the
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