Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/349

 To' Kaya pursued her, and cried to those within the house to unbar the door which his wife had shut in his face. Che' Long's daughter, a girl named Ësah ran to comply with his bidding; but before she could do so, To' Kaya, who had crept under the raised floor of the house, stabbed at her savagely through the interstices of the bamboo flooring, wounding her in the hip.

The girl's father, hearing the noise, flung the door open and ran out of the house. To' Kaya greeted him with a spear thrust in the stomach, which proved his death blow. To' Kaya's wife, profiting by this interlude, leaped from the house and rushed back to her own home; but her husband followed lier, over- took her on the veranda, and stabbed her again in the breast, this time killing her on the spot.

He then entered his house, which was still tenanted by his mother-in-law, the baby, and his son, a boy of about twelve years of age, and set fire to the bed curtains with a box of lucifer matches. Now the people of Trengganu greatly dread a fire. for their houses, which are built of very inflammable material, jostle one another on every available foot of ground, and here on the seashore a steady wind blows both by day and by night. When, therefore, a Trenggânu man deliberately sets fire to his house, he has reached the last stage of desperation and is preparing to make an end of himself and all things.

At the sight of the flames To Kaya's little son made a rush at the curtains, pulled them down, and stamped the fire out. To' Kaya's mother-in-law,