Chumbley, big, strong man as he was, felt sick as he stood there leaning on his sword, while with shouts of triumph the mob of mingled nationality dragged the corpse from the muddy pool.
“You here, Chumbley?” said a familiar voice, and he turned to see Mr Harley.
“Yes: what a horrid affair!”
“Horrible! We don’t often have them now. It is a native custom that is dying out. You know, I suppose, when a Malay has committed some crime that makes his pardon hopeless, or when some strong desire for revenge seizes him, he runs Amok—a-muck, as people call it—and then the innocent suffer till he is put out of the way.”
“Then you think they are not mad?” said Chumbley, who could not withdraw his eyes from the ghastly corpse, round which the slayers stood in triumph.
“Mad with frenzy or enthusiasm,” said Harley, “some of them think it an heroic death to die and—Good Heavens!—it is Murad!”
“No!” cried Chumbley.
It was. The Rajah had escaped from prison, had run Amok through the streets of Singapore, and the disfigured clay that lay there in the mud and blood, was all that remained of the abductor of Helen Perowne.
The two English spectators turned away with a shudder, and hurried to where poor Hilton lay back, rather faint from his wound, which was too slight, however, to be of a lasting nature.
Four poor creatures died from Murad’s kris, and sixteen were wounded more or less severely before he was slain.