“Tell me about the Prince.”
Her mood had changed. Her eyes were wide open, and her face all aglow. She
was wondering if he would notice her above the bridesmaids,—if it was not for
her sake he was coming?
And then her lover told her of the gossip of the palace,—of the Prince’s life in
the Sultan’s court,—of his wit and grace,—of how he had learned English, and
was soon to go to London, where he would be entertained by the Queen.
Above their heads the wind played with the tattered flags of the palms, leaving
openings here and there that exposed the steely-white glare of the sky, and
showed, far away to the northward, the denuded red dome of Mount Ophir.
The girl noted the clusters of berries showing redly against the dark green of
some pepper-vines that clambered up the black nebong posts of her home; she
wondered vaguely as he talked if she were to go on through life seeing pepper-
vines and betel-nut trees, and hot sand and featherless hens, and never get
beyond the shadow of the mysterious mountains.
Possibly it was the sight of the white ladies from Singapore, possibly it was the
few light words dropped by the half-grown Prince, possibly it was something
within herself,—something inherited from ancestors who had lived when the
fleets of Solomon and Hiram sought for gold and ivory at the base of the distant
mountains,—that drove her to revolt, and led her to question the right of this
marriage that was to seal her forever to the attap bungalow, and the narrow,
colorless life that awaited her on the banks of the Maur. She turned fiercely on
her wooer, and her brown eyes flashed.
“You have never asked me whether I love!”
The Malay half rose from his seat. The look of surprise and perplexity that had
filled his face gave place to one of almost childish wonder.
“Of course you love me. Is it not so written in the Koran,—a wife shall
reverence her husband?”
“Why?” she questioned angrily.