Connecticut western news., 1895-05-02
A MILD ORIENTAL.

A MILD ORIENTAL.
 If you consider the circumstances of the case, it was the only thing that he could do. But Pambe Serang had been hanged by the neck till he 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 and 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 8 person of inn portance, far above stoker, though the stoker draws better pay. He sets the chorus of "Hya, hullal Heeah, heh, 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 8 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 franoa which begins where the Levant tongue stops and runs from Port Said eastward till east is west and the sealing brigs of the Kurils 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 shipi Take away your garbage, and Nurkeed thrust the empty pewter rice plate into Pambe's hand. Pambe beat it into a basin over Nurkeed's woolly head. Nurkeed drew his sheath knife and stabbed Pambe in the leg Pambe drew his sheath knife, but Nur- keed dropped down into the 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 the 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 a Malay, born in India, married once in Burma, where his wife had cigar shop on the Shwe Dagon road; once in Singapore to a 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 na- tive sailors can, being uninfluenced by the barbarous inventions of the western savage. Pambe was a 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 8 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 blank mind. He was no longer sultan of Zan- zibar. but very hot stoker. So he went on deck and opened his jacket to the morning breeze till sheath knife came like 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 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 akin he opened negotiations, saying: "Men of the ship, last night know that behaved unseemly to some one or another of you. Who was that man, that I 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 g blind blow at the chest sometimes only means gash on the breast bone. Ribs are difficult to thrust between unless the subject is asleep. So he said noth. ing, nor did the other lascars. Thei, faces immediately dropped all expres- sion, as is the custom of the orientals when there is killing on the carpet o1 | any chance of trouble. Nurkeed looked long at the white eyeballs. He was | A Fri characters. A big sigh, almost groan, broke from him, and he went back tc | the furnaces. The lascars took up the conversation where he had interrupted 1t. They talked of the best methods o1 | cooking rice.
 Nurkeed suffered considerably during the run to Bombay from lack of fresh air. He only came on deck to breathe when all the world was about, and ever then Q heavy block once dropped from 6 derrick within a foot of his head and ar apparently lashed grating on which he set his foot began to turn with the inten. tion of dropping him on the oased cargo 1 15 feet below, and one insupportable night the sheathknife dropped from the fo'c's'le, and this time it drew blood. So Nurkeed made complaint, and when the Saarbruck reached Bombay fed and buried himself among 800, 900 people
 and did not sign articles till the shiI
 had been a month gone from the port
 Pambe waited, too, but his Bomba,
 wife grew clamorous, and he was forced
 to sign in the Spicheren to Hongkong
 because he realized that all play and n'
 work gives Jack a ragged shirt In thu
 foggy China seas he thought grea
 deal of Nurkeed. and when Elsass- -Lo
 thringen steamers lay in port with tn
 Spicheren inquired after him and foun, | ha had Oone tO England via the can