“Let me think,” he said. “Take you back? No; I could not take you back save as my wife. Your English people would have me shot.”
“You were my father’s guest, sir,” continued Helen. “You were admitted to his house as friend, and you have behaved to him with the basest treachery. See! Look at me! It was by your orders I was disfigured thus!”
“Treachery!” he said, quietly. “No, there was no treachery, when I came as a prince and rajah, and said to the English merchant, ‘I love your daughter: I will stoop and make her my wife.’”
“Stoop!” cried Helen, with a flash of her beautiful eyes.
“Yes,” he said, “stoop! She has confessed her love!”
“It is false!” cried Helen.
“Not with words, but with her fierce dark eyes,” he continued. “‘I shall offend my people, but what of that? Love is all-powerful. I will dismiss all my wives, and she shall reign alone.’ I went and said all that, as an English gentleman would have asked your hand, and what followed?”
Helen’s eyes were fixed upon him sternly, and her heart condemned her, but she did not speak.
“I was treated with contempt and insult! I—I, Prince and Rajah here, was shown that I, who had stooped to love a woman of an infidel race, had been mocked and played with by the beautiful English maiden; and at that moment, Helen, had I seen you, I should have killed you with my kris, and then, in my mad rage, I would have done as my people do—run headlong here and there, killing and slaying as I went, my bare kris dripping with the blood I spilt—running amok, my people call it—and killing till they slew me where I ran. I, as a Malay, should have done all this. It is the custom among my people; but your English ways prevailed. I had learned English, and I, as a Prince, after my first wild rage was past, said that I must wait—be patient—and that the time would come when my revenge could be had. I waited patiently—and waited longer, to see if the lady would be kind and gentle to me once again; but she would not while she was among her people; so I said I would bring her amongst mine, where she would soon learn to be gentle and as kind as she was of old.”
“Coward!” she cried, fiercely.