The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1894-11-15
A MILD ORIENTAL

could do. But Pambe Serang had bee,
hanged by the neck till he was dead
and nobody cared whether he was RICH
or wrong.
Three years ago, when the Elsass
Lothringen steamer Saarbuck was coal
ing at Alden and the weather was yer,
hot indeed, Nurkeed, the big fat Zanzi
bar stoker who fed the second RICH
furnace 80 feet down in the hold, go
leave to go ashore. He departed 1
"Seedee boy" as they call the stokers
He returned the full blooded sultan o.
Zanzibar-his royal highness Sayyit
Burgash-with a bottle in each hand
Then he sat on the fore hatch grating
eating salt fish and onions and singing
the songs of a far country. The food be.
longed to Pambe, the serang, or head
man of the lascar sailors. He had just
cooked it for himself, turned to borrow
some salt, and when he came back Muir
keed's dirty fingers were spading into
the rice. A serang is a person Of i'm
portance, far above a stoker, though the
stoker draws better pay. He sets the
chorus of "Hya, hula! Heeah, heb, -
when the captain gig is pulled up to
the davits. He heaves the lead, too, and
sometimes, when all the ship is lazy,
he puts ON his whitest muslin and q
big red sash and plays with the passen-
gers children ON the quarter deck.
Then the passengers give him money,
and he saves it for an orgie at Bombay,
Calcutta or Pulu Penang.
"Ho, you fat, black barrel, you're
eating my food!'' said Pambe in the
other lingua franco which begins where
the Levant tongue stops and runs from
Port Said eastward till east is west and
the sealing briggs of the Kurile islands
gossip with Hakodate junks.
"Son of Eblis, monkey face, dried
sharks liver, pig man, I am the Sultan
Sayyid Burgash and the commander of
all this ship! Take away your garbage"
and Nurkeed thrust the empty pewter
rice plate into Pambe's hand. Pambe
beat it into a basin owe Nurkeed's
woolly head. Nurkeed drew his sheath
knife and stabbed Pambe in the leg.
Pambe drew his sheath knife, but MUIR
keed dropped down into the darkness of
the hold and spat through the grating
ut Pambe, who was staining the fore
deck with his blood.
Only the big white noon saw these
things, for the officers were looking
after the coaling and the passengers
were tossing in their close cabins. IAN
said Pambe, and went forward
to tie up his leg, I'VE will settle the
account later" He was a Malay, born
III India, married once in Burma,
where his wife had a cigar shop on the
Shwe Dagon road; n ce in Singapore to
q Chinese girl and once in Madras to a
Mohammedan woman who sold fowls.
The English sailor cannot, owing to
postal and telegraph facilities, marry
SO p~rofusely as he used to do, but ma
tive sailors can, being uninf1uenced by
the barbarous inventions of the western
Pambe was a good husband
when he happened to remember the ex-
of a wife, but he was also a very
good Malay, and it is not wise to offend
. Malay, because he does not forget any
thing. Moreover, in Pambe's case blood
had been drawn and food spoiled. Next
morning Nurkeed rose with a blank
mind. He was 40 longer sultan of Fan
zlbar, but very hot stoker. So he went
ON deck and opened his jacket to the
morning breeze till a sheath knife came
like a flying fish and stuck into the
woodwork Of the cooks galley, half an
inch from his right armpit. He ran down
elbow before his time, trying to remem-
Der what he could have said to the
owner of the weapon. At moor when |
all the ships lascars Were feeding, Muir
keed advanced into their midst, and be-
ing a placid man with a large regard
for his WI skin he opened negotiations, |
Men of the ship, last night I
that l behaved unseemly to some
one or another of you. Who was that
man, that l may meet him face to face
and say that / was drunk"
Pambe measured the distance to
Nurkeed's naked breast. If he spranp
him, he might be tripped ND. and a
blind blow at the chest sometimes only
a cash on the breast bone. Ribs
are difficult to thrust between unless
Inc subject is asleep. So he said moth.
ing, nor did the other ~lascars. Their
faces Immediately dropped all express
slon, as Is the custom of the o~rientals
when there is killing ON the carpet or
any chance Of trouble. Nurkeed looked
long at the white eyeballs. He was
only an African and could not read
characters. A big sigh, almost a groan,
broke from him, and he went back TO
The furnaces. The lascars took mn the
where he had interrnnted
It. They talked of the best methods of
cooking rice.
Nurkeed suffered considerably during
Eher run to bombay from lack Of fresh
he only came ON deck to breathe
when all the world was about, and even
then q heavy block once dropped from n
within a foot Of his head and an
apparently lashed grating on which he
'et his foot began 10 turn with the inten.
Ion OF dropping him ON the cased cargo
70 feet bslesg, and one ing~upporsabIe
aight the sheathknife dropped from the
so'c's'ie. and this time it drew blood.
% Nnrkeed made complaints and when
ne Saarbruck reached Bombay fed and !