'HIS HEART'S DESIRE'

They wrench my back on a red-hot rack,
They comb my nerves with wire,
They poison with pain the blood of my brain
Till the Devils of Devilry tire;
They spit from Above on the name of my Love,
They call my Love a liar;
But they can't undo the joy I knew
When I knew my Heart's Desire.

The Song of the Lost Soul.—Anon.

Where and when these things happened does not signify at all. The East Coast is a long one, and the manners of the Malay Râjas who dwell thereon have suffered but little change for centuries. Thus, both in the matter of time and of space, there is a wide choice, and plenty of exercise may be given to the imagination. The facts anyway are true, and they were related, in the watches of the night, to a White Man—whose name does not matter—by two people, with whose identity you also have no concern. One of the latter was a man whom I will call Âwang Îtam, and the other was a woman whose name was Bêdah, or something like it. The place in which the tale was told was an empty sailing boat which lay beached upon a sandbank in the centre of a Malay river, and, as soon as the White Man had scrambled up the side, the dug-out, which had brought him, sheered off and left him.

He had come to this place by appointment, but he did not know precisely whom he was to meet, as the assignation had been made in the secret native fashion, which is as different from the invitation card of Europe as most things in the East are different from white men's gear. Twice that day his attention had been very pointedly called to this deserted sailing boat; once by an old crone who was selling sweetstuff from door to door, and once by a young chief who had stopped to speak to him, while passing up the street of the native town. By both of these some reference had been made to the moon-rise and to 'a precious thing'; and this was enough to show the White Man that something was to be learned, seen, or experienced by going to the deserted sailing boat at the rising of the moon.

The Malays who were with him feared a trap, and implored him not to go alone; but the White Man did not fancy that treachery was likely just then, and, in any case, he was anxious for the adventure, and could not afford to let his people think that he was afraid. The man who, dwelling alone among Malays in an unsettled country, shows the slightest trace of fear, signs his own death-warrant. No people are more susceptible to 'bluff,' and, given a truculent bearing, and a sufficiency of bravado, a coward may pass for a brave man in many a Malay State.

The decks of the boat were wet with dew and drizzle, and she smelt abominably of ancient fish cargoes which she had carried before she was beached. A light rain was falling, and the White Man crept along the side until he reached the stern, which was covered with a roofing of rotten palm-leaf mats. Through the rents at the stern he could see the moon rising like a great red ball, throwing a broad wave of dancing light along the reaches of the river. Then he squatted down, rolled a cigarette, and awaited developments.

Presently the soft splish, whisp! splash, whisp! of a single paddle came to his listening ear; and, a moment later, a girl's form, standing erect on the vessel's side, showed distinctly in the growing moonlight. She called softly to know if anybody was aboard, and the White Man answered equally cautiously. She then turned and whispered to some unseen person in a boat moored alongside, and, after some seconds, she came towards the White Man and said: