“Anak!” he said slowly, drawing closer to her side. “Anak, I will be a true
husband to you. You shall be my only wife—”
He paused, expecting some response, but she only gazed stolidly up at the
smoke-begrimed attap of the roof.
“Anak—” he repeated, and then a shudder passed through him, and his eyes lit
up with a wild, frenzied gleam,
A moment he paused irresolute, and then with a spring he grasped the golden
handle of his kris and with one bound was across the floor, and on the sand
below among the revellers.
For an instant the snake-like blade of the kris shone dully in the firelight above
his head, and then with a yell that echoed far out among the palms, it descended
straight into the heart of the nearest Malay.
The hot life-blood spurted out over his hand and naked arm, and dyed the
creamy silk of his wedding baju a dark red.
Once more he struck, as he chanted a promise from the Koran, and the shrill,
agonized cry of a woman broke upon the ears of the astonished guests.
Then the fierce sinister yell of “Amok! amok!” drowned the woman’s moans,
and sent every Malay’s hand to the handle of his kris.
“Amok!” sprang from every man’s lips, while women and children, and those
too aged to take part in the wild saturnalia of blood that was to follow, scattered
like doves before a hawk.
With the rapidity of a Malayan tiger, the crazed man leaped from one to another,
dealing deadly strokes with his merciless weapon, right and left. There was no
gleam of pity or recognition in his insane glance when he struck down the sister
he had played with from childhood, neither did he note that his father’s hand had
dealt the blow that dropped his right arm helpless to his side. Only a cry of
baffled rage and hate escaped his lips, as he snatched his falling knife with his
left hand. Another blow, and his father fell across the quivering body of his
sister.