Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/362

 ceeded in rallying his people and inducing them to fire a fourth volley. This time, however, one bullet took effect, passing in under one armpit and out under the other. To' Kâya staggered back to the wall and sank upon it, rocking his body to and fro. A fifth and final volley rang out and a bullet passing through his head, To' Kâya fell prone upon his face.

The cowardly crowd pressed forward, but fell back again in confusion for the whisper spread among them that To' Kâya was feigning death in order to get at close quarters with his assailants. At length, however, a lad named Sâmat, who was related to the deceased Ma' Chik, summoned up enough courage to run in and transfix the body with his spear, but To' Kaya was already dead.

He had killed his wife, Che' long, the Kelantan man Abdul Rahman, Pa' Pek, Ma' Pek, Tungku Long Pendekar, Ma' Chik, Haji Mih, and 'Semail; and he had wounded his baby child, his mother-in- law, Che' Long's daughter Esah, and Saleh-in all nine killed and four wounded. This is a respectable butcher's bill for any single individual, and he had done all this because having had words with his wife and having stabbed her in the heat of the moment he had felt that it would be an unclean thing for him to continue to live on the surface of a comparatively clean planet. In similar circumstances a white man might possibly have committed suicide, which would have occasioned considerably less trouble; but that is one of the many respects in which a white man differs froin a Malay.