Page 79 - Malay sketches

THE STORY OF MAT ARIS

Half an hour later Mat Aris rose and
up softly
with a kris stabbed Sahit in the throat. The
wretched man staggered to his feet, fell and tried to
struggle up again when Mat Aris shouted to the
Sakai to strike him or he would kill him also.
Pah Patin obeyed, and hit the wounded man on the
"
head with a stick. Then," said Pah Patin when
"
at last he told the there was a little life in
story,
him, but he never moved after I struck him."
The woman rushed out of the hut, but Mat Aris
followed her and brought her back to the mat by
the body of the murdered man, and there they
the Sakai to his on the
slept together, returning place
other side of the fire. The night was young then.
Before daylight Pah Patin left Mat Aris and
Salamah still sleeping by the corpse, and by order
of Mat Aris fetched two more Sakais, and these
three buried Sahit by the bank of the river in the
presence of Mat Aris and the woman.
Years afterwards, when the details were known,
an attempt was made to find the body, but it failed ;
decomposition in this climate is rapid, even bones
and the river had
disappear, many times flooded its
banks, trees had gone and others grown, the land-
marks were no longer the same, and possibly the
exact site of the was missed.
grave
63