marked the madman's path.

"Oh, it iss nothing," observed this judicious person, who might have
been mate, or such, of a country ship. "He got four only. Sometimes they
kill eight--twelve--even more, till they get themselves killed. That
fellow was just a common fellow."

"But why--what was he after?"

"Oh, it iss just going amok, you know. That iss a habit wit' the Malay
folk. I have seen them often."

Still Mr. Merry desired light.

"How can I say?" returned the other. "A native iss always a native,
except when he iss only a man an' a dam' fool. Perhaps his woman has
gone bad on him or he has played his last copper doit at gambling. Maybe
he has crazied himself wit' opium or bhang. Maybe he iss just come to a
finish, you know?"

"A finish?" stammered Merry.

"Where he has no more use: where he gets sorry wit' the world an' wants
to die quick. So he takes his knife an' runs amok to stab so many people
as he can, an' he don't care a dam' if only he makes a big smash. It is
like a sport, truly."

"Yes," said Merry. "Very like a sport."

Thereupon he gave pious thanks that he owned no share in the fantastic
human chemistry that could produce such results. It was the sharpest
reminder of essential racial differences. It made him feel sick and
shaky, and since he knew only the simple cure for ills of body as of
mind, he applied himself so earnestly that within half an hour he felt
nothing at all, and the proprietor of the verandaed house on the river
street had him thrown into a barge, where he slept with the flies
crawling over his beard.

Afterward he recovered sufficiently to get himself out of Palembang, and
after that out of Muntok and Batavia and Banjermassin and other places
where he had no ostensible business to be. On his road he continued to
encounter divers strange sights and incidents peculiar to the latitude
and the social layers through which he moved; but the affair was a
warning to him. He had been shocked. He had been very deeply shocked,
and he was always careful never to let himself get quite so sober
again--a development of the simple system whereby he avoided too vivid a
view of local color while he wandered on--aimlessly, as well as anyone
might judge--farther and farther downhill over the curve of the earth.

Now, it has been observed that a chap who starts downhill through the
Archipelago commonly comes to an end of his journeying soon, and
sometimes even sooner. The climate affords wha