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 departed. A story that amused the gossips was that, as a badly wounded man was carried from the 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 it, as she did not much fancy the weapon. The man was not killed, and made no 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 along kris she had brought for that purpose.
That was then the state of society in Bandar Těrmasa.
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
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