within the palace. They are always ready for anything from 'pitch-and-toss to
manslaughter,' and no Malay king has to ask twice in their hearing 'Will nobody
rid me of this turbulent priest?' Their one aim in life is to gain the favour of their
master, and, having won it, to freely abuse their position. As the Malay proverb
has it, they carry their master's work upon their heads, and their own under their
arms, and woe betide those who are not themselves under the immediate
protection of the King, that chance throws in their way. Sometimes they act as a
kind of irregular police force, levying chantage from those whom they detect in
the commission of an offence; and, when crime is scarce, they often exact
blackmail from wholly innocent people by threatening to accuse them of some
ill-deed, unless their goodwill is purchased at their own price. They are known
as the Bûdak Râja—or King's Youths—and are greatly feared by the people, for
they are as reckless, as unscrupulous, as truculent, and withal as gaily dressed
and well born a gang of young ruffians, as one would be like to meet in a long
summer's cruise.
Âwang Îtam had served the King for several years as one of the Bûdak Râja, but
his immediate chief was Saiyid Üsmân, a youngster who was also one of the
King's Youths, and was usually spoken of as Tûan Bângau. Âwang had been
born and bred in the house of which Tûan Bângau's father was the head, and,
though in accordance with the immutable Malay custom, Âwang always spoke
of himself as 'thy servant' when he addressed Tûan Bângau, the relations which
subsisted between them more nearly resembled those of brothers, than those
which we recognise as being proper to master and servant. They had crawled
about the floor of the women's apartments in company, until they were old
enough to play in the open air; they had played pôrok and tûju lûbang, and all
the games known to Malay children, still in company; they had splashed about in
the river together, cooling their little brown bodies in the running water; they had
often eaten from the same plate, and had slept side by side on the same mat
spread in the verandah. Later, they had been circumcised on the same day, and,
having thus entered upon man's estate, they had together begun to participate in
the life of dissipation which every court-bred Malay boy regards as his birth-
right. Thus they had gone astraying after strange women, gambling and
quarelling with the other youths, but still in company, and with their old love for
one another unaltered. They had been duly entered as members of the King's
Youths, and had proved themselves not to be the least reckless and truculent of
those who form that ruffianly gang, but they had chiefly used their position to
carry on their love intrigues with greater freedom and daring. Both were
handsome, dashing, fearless, swaggering, gaily-dressed boys, and many were the