BĚR-HANTU
dark wings, a head disproportionately large, and
horns, veritable horns! As it slowly passed and
meaned its childlike plaint, no reasonable being
could doubt that he had heard and seen the mes-
senger of death,
That weird apparition, sobbing its fateful ery, broke the spell under which we had stood enthralled, and though we felt that the King’s fate was sealed, that did not prevent us from returning to dinner.
Just after midnight a seared Malay came to say that it was feared the Sultan was dying. I hurried down the hill, took boat across the river, and, stumbling along the bank, reached the house where the sick man lay.
I entered upon a peculiar scene. I said the building was in three parts, the first a sort of ante- room, beyond which strangers of inferior rank did not in ordinary circumstances pass; then came the principal structure, which consisted of one large room, wooden pillars dividing off verandahs on either side, while the third house was exclusively devoted to women, and attached to it was an ex- erescence forming the kitchen.
The unsteady light of several lamps and many candles showed that both the centre and ante-rooms were full of people sitting on the mats which covered
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