Page 191 - Malay sketches

THE KING'S WAY

seeming to leave his bedside. At once he said,
" "
You noticed that, did you ? I replied that I had
been much struck her care of him. "I was
very by
"
blind/' he said ; I do not know what happened,
but I am very glad you remarked how carefully
Sarefa nursed me, and that you have mentioned it,
for now you will recognise that she ought to have
an allowance."
In the presence of the lady, even though she did
not raise her eyes from the floor, it was difficult not
to recognise that, if curses come home to roost,
blessings sometimes go astray.
After a respite of eighteen months, the evil spirit
took and this time
again possession of the King,
made short work of him.
The scientific the
explanation, deriding evil-spirit
theory, said that a tumour on the brain, caused by
no matter what, accounted for the first attack, and
that as sometimes, but rarely, happens, the growth
was for a time arrested, the tumour contracted, and
the pressure on the brain was removed. But the
mischief was there, and a sudden rapid development
of the disease brought on a return of the symptoms,
a violent but hopeless struggle, and death.
It is the custom in the country of which I now
in a
write to, manner, canonise its Sultans. At the