He paused a moment, trying dimly to comprehend the question, and then
answered slowly,—
“Because it is written.”
She did not draw away when he took her hand; he had chosen his answer better
than he knew.
“Because it is written,” that was all. Her own feeble revolt was but as a breath of
air among the yellow fronds above their heads.
When Noa had gone, the girl drew herself wearily up the ladder, and dropped on
a cool palm mat near the never ceasing loom. For almost the first time in her
short, uneventful life she fell to thinking of herself. She wondered if the white
ladies in Singapore married because all had been arranged by a father who forgot
you the moment you disappeared within the door of your own house,—if they
loved one man better than another,—if they could always marry the one they
liked best. She wondered why every one must be married,—why could she not
go on and live just as she had,—she could weave and sew?
A gray lizard darted from out its hiding-place in the attap at a great atlas moth
which worked its brilliant wings; clumsily it tore their delicate network until the
air was full of a golden dust.
“I am the moth,” she said softly, and raised her hand too late to save it from its
enemy.
The Sultan’s own yacht, the Pante, brought the Prince back to Maur, and as it
was low tide, the Governor’s launch went out beyond the bar and met him.
The band played the national anthem when he landed on the pier, and Inchi
Mohammed, the Tuan Hakim, or Chief Justice, made a speech.
The red gravel walk from the landing to the palace gate was strewn with hibiscus
and alamander and yellow convolvulus flowers, and bordered with the delicate
maidenhair fern.
Johore and British flags hung in great festoons from the deep verandas of the
palace, and the brass guns from the fort gave forth the royal salute.