"Chalakar! Bondo!" Those jarring sounds seemed to have something linking them with the tragedy of which the peaceful-looking bungalow was lately the scene, and of which you have doubtless read. A Chinese gang swooped down upon the house from behind, beating gongs and shouting. Captain Lloyd got up to see what was the matter, and was felled by a hatchet, calling out to his wife for his revolver. This had been abstracted, and the locks had been taken off his fowling-pieces. The ayah fled to the jungle in the confusion, taking with her the three children, the youngest only four weeks old. The wretches then fractured, Mrs. Lloyd's skull with the hatchet, and having stunned Mrs. Innes, who was visiting her, they pushed the senseless bodies under the bed, and were preparing to set fire to it when something made them depart.
No more is likely to be known. The police must either have been cowardly or treacherous. The Pyah Pekket called the next day and brought the frightfully mangled corpse, Mrs. Lloyd, whose reason was overturned, and Mrs. Innes, on here. It is supposed that the Chinese secret societies have frustrated justice. A wretch is to be hanged here for the crime this morning on his own confession, but it is believed that he was doomed to sacrifice himself by one of these societies, in order to screen the real murderers. The contrast was awful between the island looking so lovely in the evening light, and this horrid deed which has desolated it.
The mainland approaches close to the Dindings, but the mangrove swamps of Selangor had given place to lofty ranges, forest covered, and a white coral strand fringed with palms. It was a lovely night. The north-east monsoon was fresh and steady, and the stars were glorious. It was very hot below, but when I went up on deck it was cool, and in the colored dawn we were just running up to the island-group of which Pinang is the chief, and reached the channel which divides it from Leper Island just at sunrise. All these islands are densely wooded, and have rocky shores. The high mountains of the native State of Kedah close the view to the north, and on the other side of a very narrow channel are the palm groves and sugar plantations of Province Wellesley. The Leper Island looked beautiful in the dewy morning with its stilted houses under the cocoa-palms; and the island of Pinang, with its lofty peak, dense woods, and shores fringed with palms sheltering Malay kampongs, each with its prahus drawn up on the beach, looked impressive enough.
The fierce glory of a tropic sunrise is ever a new delight. It is always the sun of the Nineteenth Psalm, with the prevailing yellow color of the eastern sky intensifying in one spot, a cool, lingering freshness, a deepening of the yellow east into a brilliant rose color, till suddenly, "like a glory, the broad sun" wheels above the horizon, the dew-bathed earth rejoices, the air is flooded with vitality, all things which rejoice in light and heat come forth, night birds and night prowlers retire, and we pale people hastily put up our umbrellas to avoid being shriveled in less than ten minutes from the first appearance of the sun.
"Pinang," from the Pinang or areca-palm, is the proper name of the island, but out of compliment to George IV, it was called Prince of Wales Island. Georgetown is the name of the capital, but by an odd freak we call the town Penang, and spell it with an e instead of an i.
There were a great many ships and junks at anchor, and the huge "P. and O." steamer Peking, and there was a state of universal hurry and excitement, for a large number of the officials of the Colonial Government and of the "protected" States are here to meet Sir W. Robinson, the Governor, who is on his way home on leave. There are little studies of human nature going on all round. Most people have "axes to grind." There are people pushing rival claims, some wanting promotion, others leave; some frank and above-board in their ways, others descending to mean acts to gain favor, or undermining the good reputation of their neighbors; everybody wanting something, and usually, as it seems, at the expense of somebody else!
Mr. Douglas, who had got up his men in most imposing costume, anchored the Abdulsamat close to the Peking, and at once went on board, with the kris with the gold hilt and scabbard presented by the Sultan of Selangor. In the meantime the Governor sent for me to breakfast on board, and I was obliged to go among clean, trim people without having time to change my traveling dress. On deck I was introduced by the Governor to Mr. Low, the Resident in Perak, who has arranged for my transit thither, and to Mr. Maxwell, the Assistant Resident. I was so glad that I had no claims of my own to push when I saw the many perturbed and anxious faces. I sat next Sir William Robinson at breakfast, and found him most kind and courteous, and he interested himself in my impressions of the native States. No one could make out the flags on the Selangor yacht, four squares placed diagonally, two yellow and two red, in one of the red ones a star and crescent in yellow, and on the mizzenmast the same flag with a blue ensign as one of the squares! I wonder if the faineant Sultan who luxuriates at Langat knows anything of the sensationalism of his "yacht."
Mr. Douglas took me back to the launch in fierce blazing heat, which smote me just as I put down my umbrella in order to climb up her side, and caused me to fall forward with a sort of vertigo and an icy chill, but as soon as I arrived here I poured deluges of cold water on my head, and lay down with an iced bandage on, and am now much better. In nine months of tropical traveling, and exposure on horseback without an umbrella to the full force of the sun, I have never been affected before. I wear a white straw hat with the sides and low crown thickly wadded. I also have a strip four inches broad of three thicknesses of wadding, sewn into the middle of the back of my jacket, and usually wear in addition a coarse towel wrung out in water, folded on the top of my head, and hanging down the back of my neck.
Soon after I came into the salon Mr. Wood, the Puisne Judge, a very genial, elderly man, called and took me to his house, where I found a very pleasant party, Sir Thomas Sidgreaves, the Chief Justice, Mr. Maxwell, the Assistant Resident in Perak, Mr. Walker, appointed to the (acting) command of the Sikh force in Perak, and Mr. Kinnersley, a Pinang magistrate, with Mr. Isemonger, the police magistrate of the adjacent Province Wellesley. With an alteration in the names of places and people, the conversation was just what I have heard in all British official circles from Prince Edward Island to Singapore, who was likely to go home on leave, who might get a step, whether the Governor would return, what new appointments were likely to be created, etc., the interest in all these matters being intensified by the recent visit of Sir W. Robinson. It was all pleasant and interesting to me.
This evening the moonlight from the window was entrancingly beautiful, the shadows of promontory behind promontory lying blackly on the silver water amidst the scents and silences of the purple night.