There was a woman of Kelantan named Siti Maämih; she was born of the people, neither good nor beautiful, nor attractive, nor even young, as youth goes in the East, but she had chosen to ally herself to a white man whom I will call Grant.
I know nothing of these two, but that he had work far away in a Malay jungle and she shared his loneliness, herself a stranger in that country. It was apparently an arrangement formed for mutual advantage, like many others of a more permanent character. If the connection began without any semblance of romance, it more than satisfied the expectations of the contracting parties, and when the moment of trial came the highest affection and the most sacred bond could hardly have suggested a greater sacrifice than this woman offered.
Whilst these two were living their unattractive lives there came difficulties between white man and brown—not specially between this white man and any with a darker skin: the quarrel was between white authority and Malay resentment of interference. Grant was not even remotely connected with the matter, but he was white, and under such circumstances a want of discrimination is not uncommon. There followed what is known as “a state of reprisals.” Uncivilised people, who do not understand fine distinctions in such matters, called it war. The disturbance was, however, comparatively local, Grant’s immediate neighbourhood did not seem affected, and he was probably unconcerned. Therefore he went about his work and took no special precaution, fearing no attack.
But his hut was isolated, there was only one other white man anywhere near him, no police within miles, and Maämih, who understood Malays better than her protector, was on the watch for trouble.
To expect is, sometimes, to go half way to meet, and the trouble came quickly.
One morning two Malays appeared at Grant’s house, and, having given some trivial excuse for their presence and looked about the premises, took their departure. There was nothing unusual in that, and only a very nervous person would have seen in so simple an event any cause for alarm. But even ere this, prudence would have told most white men under similar circumstances that it would be well to see to their arms and keep them handy. Grant, however, took no precautions, as he had probably convinced himself that none were necessary; as for arms, he does not appear to have had any.
That morning, or it may have been the evening before, three large boats and two small ones arrived in the river close by, but kept out of sight of Grant’s hut, and he probably did not know they were there. They belonged to a minor chief who had no connection with the Malays then in arms.
The day wore on, Grant had been out all morning looking after his work, he had returned to breakfast, been out again, and now he was back and had thrown himself down to rest, glad to get under shelter from the oppressive heat. He was a busy man and his work took him out of doors, but though he had been about all day he had seen and heard nothing to arouse his suspicions.
Seen nothing, certainly. That was not strange, it was a jungly place, and to be ten yards off in the jungle is as good, for those who seek concealment and know the jungle, as to be in another district. As for hearing anything, that too was most unlikely: the only people he could hear from were Malays, the only means of communication the Malay language, of which Grant knew very little, and the only condition on which information is to be obtained from Malays about Malays would be an intimacy with and respect for the threatened man to which Grant could hardly aspire. There must be some very powerful influence at work to induce a Muhammadan, who is not personally in danger, to tell a Christian that there is a Muhammadan plot against his life. Grant, at any rate, if he thought about it at all, could hardly expect that he, a new-comer, possessed friends who would do so much for him.
He was still resting when, about 4 P.M., a party of nearly twenty armed men suddenly appeared in front of the house and stood some fifty yards away, while two of them, carrying only the ordinary jungle knives, came up to the house and asked Grant if he wanted to buy fowls. He told the inquirers to take them to his servant, and got up as the Malays left him.
The men had no fowls, and instead of going to the servant’s quarters they rejoined their companions, and the whole body advanced towards the house.
At this moment Maämih appeared, and instantly divining that the strangers meant no good, she screamed out, “They are going to murder us.” But Grant said that he and she had done no harm and the Malays could mean none, and, taking the woman with him, he went out of the house and a few steps forward to meet his assailants.
These last stopped some twenty yards from Grant and the woman, and she said, “What harm have we done?” The answer was “Titah”—it is by order of the Raja—and they told the woman to leave the infidel and go away. But she replied, “I shall stay with him.”
Then several men said, “If you do not go, we will kill you as well as the white man.”
Grant may not have understood this sentence of death on himself, he may not have realised how strangely the times were out of joint, that he who was the enemy of no man, who had done no wrong, who represented no cause, should suddenly, in the broad light of day, hear his own death sentence, and in the same breath learn that he was facing his executioners and his account with the world was closed. There was no time to think: instinct said, “There is Death,” and doubtless instinct also said, “Death is disagreeable: shun it.”
It is commonly reputed that there are people who do not know what fear is; to them in such a situation instinct no doubt suggests that death is a new and pleasant experience. With this man it was different; as he saw here and there a gun raised and pointed at him from a distance of a few paces, he probably felt the fear of sudden and violent death, and if he was in any way responsible for what he did in that supreme moment his thought must have suggested that these men would not harm a woman of their own nationality and religion, for he took her in his arms.
A shot was fired, and the bullet shattered Maämih’s left arm. Then, seeing what had happened, Grant put her behind him and two more shots were fired, one of which struck Grant in the breast, and saying, “They have killed me,” he fell on his face to the ground.
A Malay rushed up with a heavy chopping knife, but the woman threw herself on the body and put her unwounded arm over Grant’s neck to save him. The Malay’s first blow inflicted a deep wound on Maämih’s arm and made her loose her hold; the man then struck Grant a heavy blow on the back of the neck, but he was already dead.
The murderers took no further notice of the woman, except to try and rob her of the jewellery she wore, but they plundered the house, and having decapitated the dead man and otherwise mutilated his body, they threw the remains into the river and departed.
The woman was cared for by a countryman of her own until she could be removed to a hospital, where, after weeks of suffering, she recovered from her injuries.
The motive of this outrage was simply the desire of an individual and his small following to wipe out the white man, and as Grant’s isolated position made him a specially easy prey, he fell a victim. His only European neighbour was also murdered by the same band. I know of no similar attack being made by Malays on a white man within modern times, and I question whether there is such another instance of a Malay woman’s devotion—not that they are not capable of such self-sacrifice, I think they are, but the circumstances necessary to call it forth very seldom arise.
This woman realised what was going to happen before she left the shelter of the house, she had time after that to think, her life was not sought, she was told to go away and warned that if she did not separate herself from the white man she would share his fate. Moreover, she knew that no sacrifice of hers could save him, and more than all, as affecting her woman’s nerves, she saw face to face the men with murder in their faces and the means to accomplish it in their hands.
The motive which kept Maämih by Grant’s side and which led her, after receiving the first shot, to interpose herself between his body and the weapons of his foes, must have been as high as it was powerful. Just as there was nothing to fear by standing aside (for none would have blamed her), so there was nothing to hope from the forbearance of Grant’s murderers, and that she did not also lose her life by her devotion to him was the accident of an ill-directed shot and a well-aimed blow which sought to sever the woman’s arm and reach the neck it protected—the neck of a dead man.
United to the devotion which deemed no sacrifice too great for one she loved, was that other sort of courage which comes of knowledge and deliberate intention. No one can fail to admire the pluck which takes no thought of danger, the instinct which impels a wild beast to charge an enemy and probably achieve thereby its own destruction. Even then it can hardly be said that the sensation of fear has never been and cannot be experienced by the most formidable and gallant denizens of the forest and the desert. All sportsmen know the contrary, and a child has put a tiger to flight by suddenly throwing a basket in the face of the beast. Had the child run away, its death was probable, whereas it saved the life of an old man already in the tiger’s clutches, and yet the child’s action was not the result of courage but of fear.
This Malay woman, in whom the love of life was strong, and on whose nerves the horror and certainty of what awaited her must have had a terrifying effect, deliberately renounced safety, with that higher resolve which, vanquishing fear, faces the unknown in the spirit described by the Persian who, writing eight centuries ago, has found so worthy an interpreter in the author of the lines—