Sometimes the little Prince Mat, the son of the Governor, came down to
the wharf and played with the children of the captain of the launch,
while his Tuan Penager, or Teacher, dozed beneath his yellow umbrella;
and often, at their play, his Excellency would pause and watch them,
smiling kindly.

At such times, the captain of the launch would fall upon his face, and
thank the Prophet that he had lived to see that day. "For," he would
say, "some day he may speak to me, and ask me for the wish I treasure."

Then he would go back to his work, polishing the brass on the railings
of his boat, regardless of the watchful eyes that blinked at him from
the mud beneath the wharf.

He smiled contentedly, for his mind was made up. He would not ask to
be made master of the Sultan's marvellous yacht, that was sent out
from Liverpool,--although the possibility made him catch his breath:
he would ask nothing for himself,--he would ask that his Excellency
let his son Noa go to Mecca, that he might become a hadji and then
some day--who knows--Noa might become a kateeb in the attap-thatched
mosque back of the palace.

And Noa, unmindful of his father's dreaming, played with the little
Prince, kicking the ragga ball, or sailing miniature praus out into
the river, and off toward the shimmering straits. But often they
sat cross-legged and dropped bits of chicken and fruit between the
palm sleepers of the wharf to the birch-colored crocodiles below,
who snapped them up, one after another, never taking their small,
cruel eyes off the brown faces that peered down at them.

Child-life is measured by a few short years in Malaya. The hot,
moist air and the fierce rays of the equatorial sun fall upon child
and plant alike, and they grow so fast that you can almost hear them!

The little Prince soon forgot his childhood companions in the gorgeous
court of his Highness, the Sultan of Johore, and Noa took the place
of his father on the launch, while the old man silently mourned as he
leaned back in its stern, and alternately watched the sunlight that
played along the carefully polished rails, and the deepening shadows
that bound the black labyrinth of mangrove roots on the opposite
shore. The Governor had never noted his repeated protestations and
deep-drawn sighs.

"But who cares," he thought. "It is the will of Allah! The Prince
will surely remember us when he returns."

On the very edge of Bander Maharani, just where the almost endless
m