Page 57 - Malay sketches

AMOK

By this time the news had spread up stream and
down, and every one was aware that there was
abroad an armed man who would neither give nor
receive quarter.
For two days, a body of not less than two hundred
armed men under the village chiefs made ceaseless
but unavailing search for the murderer. At 6 P.M.
on the second day, Imam Mamat suddenly appeared
in front of the house of a man called Lasam, who
had barely time to slam the door in his face and
fasten it. The house at that moment contained four
men, five women, and seven children, and the only
weapon they possessed was one spear.
Lasam asked the Imam what he wanted, and he
said he wished to be allowed to in the house.
sleep
He was told he could do so if he would throw away
his arms, and to this the Imam replied by an attempt
to spear Lasam through the window. The latter,
however, seized the weapon, and with the help of
his son, wrested it out of the Imam's hands, Lasam
receiving a stab in the face from the golok. During
this the Imam had forced himself
struggle, halfway
through the window, and Lasam seizing his own
spear, thrust it into the thigh of the murderer, who
fell to the In the the shaft of the
ground. fall,
broke the blade in the wound.
spear off, leaving
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