ds hung listlessly by her side, and
only for the color that came and went beneath the rouge of her brown
cheeks, she might have been dead to this last sacred act of their
marriage vows.

"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.

"O Allah, the all-merciful and loving kind!" he sang, as the blows
rained upon his face and breast. "O Allah, the compassionate."

The golden handle of his kris shone like a dying coal in the centre
of a circle of flamelike knives; then with one wild plunge forward,
into the midst of the gleaming points, it went out.

"Sudah!--It is finished," and a Malay raised his steel-