the palace were having a good time, and were gaily engaged in
sowing the whirlwind, with a sublime disregard for the storm, which it
would be theirs to reap, when the King returned to punish. As the
vernacular proverb has it, the cat and the roast, the tinder and the
spark, and a boy and a girl are ill to keep asunder; and consequently my
friends about the palace were often in trouble, by reason of their love
affairs, even when the King was at hand; and on his return, after he
had been absent for a day or two, there was generally the very devil to
pay. Perhaps, on this occasion, the extreme heat had something to do
with it, and made hot blood surge through young veins with unwonted
fury, for things went even worse than usual, and, after a week of
flagrant and extraordinary ill-doing, Tungku Indut, one of the King's
sons, put the finishing touch to it all, by eloping with no less than
four of his father's choicest dancing girls!

Now, these girls were as the apple of her eye to Tungku Indut's
half-sister, Tungku Aminah. They belonged to her mother's household, and
had been trained to dance from earliest infancy, with infinite care and
pains. Nor had they attained their present degree of efficiency, without
the twisting back of tortured fingers, and sundry other gentle
punishments, dear to Malay ladies, being frequently resorted to, in
order to quicken their intelligence. That her brother should now carry
off these girls, after all the trouble which had been expended upon
their education, was a sore offence to Tungku Aminah; and that the girls
themselves were very willing captives, and had found a princely lover,
while she remained unwedded, did not tend to soothe her gentle woman's
breast. Her mother was also very wroth, and sent threatening messages to
Tungku Indut, presaging blood and thunder, and other grievous trouble
when the King returned. Tungku Indut, however, resolutely declined to
give the girls up. He knew that he had gone so far that no tardy amends
could now cover his ill-deeds, and, as he had a fancy for the girls, he
decided to enjoy the goods the gods had sent him until his father came
back, and the day of reckoning arrived. His stepmother, therefore,
resigned herself to await the King's return; but Tungku Aminah could not
brook delay, and she resolved to attack Tungku Indut in his house, and
to wrest the girls from him by force of arms.

Circumstances favoured her, as her mother, who was the only person