In the Hands of the Malays, and Other Stories
                        
                     
                                                         
                
                    In the Hands of the Malays, and Other Stories
                                            
                            By G. A. Henty
                            
                                14 Nov, 2019                            
                            
                         
                                        
                                                                        Excerpt..........On the 1st of May, 1669, a man was standing at the edge of the shore of a rocky island, one of a group of a dozen or so similar in character, lying off the south-western portion of Sumatra. It would have been difficult to fix his nat
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                                                Excerpt..........On the 1st of May, 1669, a man was standing at the edge of the shore of a rocky island, one of a group of a dozen or so similar in character, lying off the south-western portion of Sumatra. It would have been difficult to fix his nationality. The outline of the face was Arab; the colour of the skin showed that though one or other of his parents had been white, the other had been either Arab or Malay. He stood looking after a Dutch vessel, carrying guns, like all those engaged at that time in the Eastern trade. His hands were clenched, and he was regarding the ship with an expression of malignant hate.
Close by where he stood, a roughly-made grave piled with rocks, with a wooden cross standing at its head, showed that a Christian had been buried there. Any seaman of the time who had seen the man would have rightly concluded that he had been marooned for some crime committed on board the ship that was sailing away, and their judgment would have been a correct one. Less