Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/329

 love tokens from their admirers, and thereafter to display them to their envious companions; and even the men are frequently guilty of similar indiscretions. Usually the Sultan himself is the last person to learn what is going forward, for though there are many people at a Malayan court who are eager to curry favour with him by telling tales of their neighbours, the man who does so must himself be without sin or damaging secret of his own, and such innocents are passing rare.

Âwang Îtam had served the Sultan for several years as one of the bûdak râja, but, his immediate chief was Saiyid Usman, a youngster who was also one of the King's Youths, and was usually spoken of as Tûan Bângau. Âwang had been boru and bred in the household of which Tûan Bângau's father was the head; and, though in accordance with the immutable Malayan custom, he always addressed him as "Your Highness," and used the term "your servant" in lieu of the personal pronoun, when alluding lo himself, the relations subsisting between him and his chief more nearly resembled those of two brothers than any which we regard as customary between master and man. They had been born within a week or two of one another; had crawled about the floor of the women's apartments in company until they were old enough to run wild in the open air; they had learned to play pôrok and tûju lûbang, and all the games known to Malay childhood, still in company; they had splashed about in the river together, cooling their little brown bodies in the running water: they