g water;
they had often eaten from the same plate, and had slept side by side on
the same mat spread in the verandah. Later, they had been circumcised on
the same day, and, having thus entered upon man's estate, they had
together begun to participate in the life of dissipation which every
court-bred Malay boy regards as his birth-right. Thus they had gone
astraying after strange women, gambling and quarelling with the other
youths, but still in company, and with their old love for one another
unaltered. They had been duly entered as members of the King's Youths,
and had proved themselves not to be the least reckless and truculent of
those who form that ruffianly gang, but they had chiefly used their
position to carry on their love intrigues with greater freedom and
daring. Both were handsome, dashing, fearless, swaggering, gaily-dressed
boys, and many were the girls within the palace, and the town which lay
around it, who cast loving eyes upon them. Awang, however, cared little
for this, for, by the irony of that Fate which always directs that men
should fall in love with the wrong women, and _vice versa_, his heart
was eaten up with a fiery desire for a girl who was a _jamah-jamah-an_,
or casual concubine of the King, and who resolutely declined to have
ought to do with him. Nevertheless, the moth still fluttered around the
candle, and Awang never missed an opportunity of catching a passing
glimpse of the object of his longing. It was an evil day for both Awang
Itam and Tuan Bangau, however, when, as they swaggered past the
palace-fence, seeking to peep at this girl, they were seen by the King's
daughter, Tungku Uteh, and a desire was straightway born in her breast
for the young and handsome Saiyid.

In the East, love affairs develop quickly; and that very day Awang Itam
again saw Iang Munah, the girl whom he had loved so long and so
hopelessly, and by a flash of an eye-lid was informed that she had that
to tell him which it concerned him to know. When both parties desire a
secret interview many difficulties may be overcome, and that evening
Awang whispered into the ear of Tuan Bangau that 'the moon was about to
fall into his lap.'

'I dreamed not long since,' said Tuan Bangau, 'that I was bitten by a
very venomous snake!' And then Awang knew that his friend was ready for
any adventure.

To dream of a snake bite, among any of the people of the Far East, means
that ere long the dreamer will receive generous favours f