Page 84 - Malay sketches

MALAY SKETCHES

was a place for men, where those who had a differ-
ence settled it promptly with the kris, and cowards
who came there either found their courage or
A that amused the was
departed. story gossips
as a wounded man was carried from the
that, badly
duelling field past the palisade which enclosed the
Sultan's house, His Highness had asked, through
the bars, what was the matter, and, being told, had
"
laconically remarked, If he is wounded, doctor
him if he is dead, bury him."
;
During my residence in the place a lady, for
jealousy, stabbed a man of considerable note thirteen
times with his own dagger, and sent the next
morning to know whether I would like to purchase
as she did not much the The
it, fancy weapon.
man was not and made no
killed, complaint.
Another lady, for a similar reason, visited our
stockade one night, pushed the sentry on one
side, and, finding the man she wanted, attempted
to stab him with a long kris she had brought for
that purpose.
That was then the state of in Bandar
society
Termasa.
I have said we lived all together in a stockade.
It was a very rude structure with log walls about
six feet thick and eight feet high, a mud floor, a
68