Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/364

 things, he was never able to induce him to forego his killings or to try the experiment. So the king continued to slay robbers, thieves, and pilferers, never pausing to discriminate very closely between those who were convicted and those who were merely accused, and occasionally extending the punishment to their relations and friends. Nek 'Soh silently bewailed the wholesale waste of good material on utilitarian rather than upon humanitarian grounds, and the bulk of the population thieved and robbed and pilfered as persistently and gayly as ever, for that was the custom of the country.

It must be confessed that the Red Monthed King's attempts to effect a reform in the habits of his people were attended by no very encouraging result, and this perhaps is why he confined his attention to an effort designed to eradicate a single vice and in other directions was content to let the morality of Kělan- tan take care of itself. After many years, however, old Mulut Merah died, and his son and later his grandson, ruled in his stead. Nek 'Soh, now a very old man, continued to have a band in the government of the country, but he no longer occupied the position of king's principal adviser. This post was held by a person upon whom had been conferred the title of Maha Mentri, which means "Great Minister"; and as he was young and energetic, and was, to all intents and purposes, the real ruler of the land, he presently launched out into a scheme of reform which was des- tined, as he forecast it, to work a revolution in the manners and customs of the good people of Kelantan.