142 THE WOODLANDS ORCHIDS 



smiled. When her raving clamour was interrupted — died 

 down to silence — they brought her on deck, a piteous 

 spectacle. I have not to pain myself and my readers by 

 imagining the contrast with the bright and lovely girl we 

 saw a week ago. 



They reached the capital, and Williams fled ; of his after 

 life I know only that he sold some orchids in Singapore. 

 Happily the tale does not end here. 



The crime would have passed unknown or unnoticed, 

 like others innumerable of its sort in Brunei, had not 

 Kilian avenged her own wrongs. She was raving mad for 

 a while, but such a prize was worth nursing. Gradually she 

 recovered her beauty and so much of her wits that the 

 Nakodah sold her for a great sum to one of the richest 

 nobles. A few days after, perhaps the same day, she stabbed 

 this man and threw him from a window into the river — 

 possibly with some distracted recollection of her lover's fate. 

 The Nakodah was seized and others. All the horrid story 

 came out. They were executed, and the Sultan restored their 

 victim — quite mad now — to her father. But on the way she 

 leapt overboard. 



