fitting that I should live. Therefore I did it.'
And until she died, about an hour later, this, and this only, was the explanation
which she would give. The matter was related to me by the great up-country
Chief, the Dâto’ Mahrâja Pĕrba, who said that he had never heard of any parallel
case. I jestingly told him that he should be careful not to allow this deed to
become a precedent, for there are many ugly women in his district, and if they
all followed this girl's example, the population would soon have dwindled sadly.
Later, when I learned the real reasons which led to this suicide, I was sorry that I
had ever jested about it, for the girl's was a sad little story.
Some months before, a Pĕkan born Malay had come to the Jĕlai on a trading
expedition, and had cast his eyes upon the girl. To her, he was all that the people
of the surrounding villages were not. He walked with a swagger, wore his
weapons and his clothes with an air that none but a Court-bred Malay knows
how to assume, and was full of brave tales, which the elders of the village could
only listen to with wonder and respect. As the brilliant form of Lancelot burst
upon the startled sight of the Lady of Shalott, so did this man—an equally
splendid vision in the eyes of this poor little up-country maid—come into her
life, bringing with him hopes and desires, that she had never before dreamed of.
Before so brave a wooer what could her little arts avail? As many better and
worse women than she have done before her, she gave herself to him, thinking,
thereby, to hold him in silken bonds, through which he might not break; but what
was all her life to her, was merely a passing incident to him, and one day she
learned that he had returned down stream. The idea of following him probably
never even occurred to her, but, like others before her, she thought that the sun
had fallen from heaven, because her night light had gone out. Her parents, who
knew nothing of this intrigue, calmly set about making the arrangements for her
marriage, a matter in which, of course, she would be the last person to be
consulted. She must have watched these preparations with speechless agony,
knowing that the day fixed for the marriage must be that on which her life would
end, for she must long have resolved to die faithful to her false lover, though it
was not until the very last moment that she summoned up sufficient courage to
take her own life. That she ever did so is very marvellous. That act is one which
is not only contrary to all natural instincts, but is, moreover, utterly opposed to
the ideas which prevail among people of her race; and her sufferings must,
indeed, have been intense, before this means of escape can have presented itself
to her, even as a possibility. She must have been at once a girl of extraordinary
strength and weakness: strength to have made the resolve, and, having made it,