“Whose chimney is on fire? you mean, Claud. I’ll be bound it is not anything much more terrible,” replied Martin, with a laugh, which, by the way, was forced; for afterwards he confessed that he had some notion of a rebellion and general massacre—no very uncommon occurrence in the East.
“God is great!” exclaimed Prabu; “some sudden calamity has happened,” and he left the house to inquire. We followed, and coming up to a bevy of men and women, shrieking, crying, beating their breasts and tearing their hair, asked them the reason of the noise.
“Siva hath visited the city with vengeance for its sins! Our mother is called away.”
“Their mother!” said the incorrigible Martin to me. “The old lady must have had a large family!” But Prabu, overhearing the words, said, quite seriously:
“Truly, sahib, she had a large family; nearly the whole people of Bali were her children, and to them she was a good mother.”
“What mean you?” I asked; “that the Queen is dead?”
“Alas! sahib, it is so: the good and heroic Ratu Wandan Savi died suddenly during the night.”
“And so spoiled our breakfast,” replied Martin.
“Shame, brother! Speak not thus flippantly of so serious a matter,” said I, angrily.
“Why surely, old Claud, you wouldn’t have me, a Christian, go howling and shrieking about the streets, like a half-tamed wild beast, for the death of a person I never saw! You might as well expect me to go into mourning for a Queen of the Cannibal Islands. But,” he added, seriously, “Prabu, tell us who and what was this Queen, whom you call both good and great?”