Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1895-10-24
A MILD ORIENTAL.

III you consider the cilcu stances Of
the case, it was the only thing that h,
could do. But Pambe Serarg had been
hanged by the neck TIL ho was dead.
and nobody cared whether he was right
or wrong.
Three years ago, when the Elsass.
Lothringen steamer Saarbuck was coal.
ing at Alden aud the weather was very
hot indeed, Nurkeed, the big fat Zanzi.
bar stoker who fed the second right
furnace 30 feet down in the hold, got
leave to go ashore. He departed a
"Seedee boy, " as they call the stokers
He returned the full blooded sultan of
Zanzibar-his royal highness Sayyid
Burgash-with bottle in each hand.
Then he sat on the fore hatch grating
eating salt fish and onions and singing
the songs of 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 Nur-
keed's dirty fingers were spading into
the rice A serang is person of i'm.
portance, far above stoler, though the
stoker draws better pay. He sets the
chorus Of ''Hya, hullal Heeah, heh, ="
when tho captains s gig is pulled up to
the dayits. He heaves the lead. too, and
sometimes, when all the ship is lazy,
he puts on his whitest muslin and a
big red sash and plays with the passen-
gers children on the quarter deck
Then tho 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 franoa which begins where
the Levant tongue stops and runs from
Port Said eastward till east is west and
the scaling brigs Of the Kurile islands
gossip with Hakodate junks.
"Son of Eblis, monkey face, dried
sharks liver, pig man, am the Sultan
Sayyid Burgash and the commander of
all this shipl Take away your garbage"
and Nurkeed thrust the empty pewter
rice plate into Pambe's hand, Pambe
beat IL into basin over Nurkeod's
woolly head. Nurkeed drew his sheath
knife and stabbed Panbe in the leg.
Pambe drew his sheath knife, but Nur-
keed dropped down into tho darkness Of
the hold and spat through the grating
at Pambe, who was staining the fore
deck with his blood.
Only the big white moon saw these
things, for the officers were looking
after tho coaling and the passengers
were tossing in their close cabins. "All
right" said Pambe, and went forward
to tie up his leg, I'VE will settle the
account later" He was Malay, born
in India, married once in Burma,
where his wife had cigar shop on the
Shwe Dagon road; once 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 profusely as he used to do, but ma
tive sailors can, being uninfiuenced by
tho barbarous inventions of the western
savage. Pambe was q good husband
when he happened TO remember the ex-
istence Of wife. but he was also very
good Malay, and it is not wise to offend
q 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 no longer sultan Of zan-
zibar, but very hot stoker. So hewent
on deck and opened his jacket to the
morning breeze till q sheath knife came
like flying fish and stuck into the
woodwork of the cooks galley, half an
inch from his right armpit. Heran down
elbow before his time, trying to remem-
ber what no could have said to the
owner of the weapon. At noon, when
all the ships lascars were feeding Nur'
keed advanced into their midst, and be-
ing placid man with large regard
for his own skin he opened negotiations,
saying: "AIen of the ship, last night l
know that / behaved unseemly to some
one or another of you. Who was that
man, that / may meet him face to face
and say that was drunk. ="
Pambe measured the distance to
Nurkeed's naked breast. If he sprang
at him, he might be tripped up, and a
blind blow at the chest sometimes only
means a cash on the breast bone. hiDs