Page:Malay Sketches.pdf/57

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ÂMOK

ing and wounding all who come in his way, regardless of age or sex, whether they be friends, strangers, or his own nearest relatives.

Just before sunset on the evening of the 11th February, 1891, a Malay named Imam Mamat (that is Mamat the priest) came quietly into the house of his brother-in-law at Pasir Gâram on the Perak River, carrying a spear and a gôlok, i.e. a sharp, pointed cutting knife.

The Imam went up to his brother-in-law, took his hand and asked his pardon. He then approached his own wife and similarly asked her pardon, immediately stabbing her fatally in the abdomen with the gôlok. She fell, and her brother, rushing to assist her, received a mortal wound in the heart. The brother-in-law’s wife was in the house with four children, and they managed to get out before the Imam had time to do more than stab the last of them, a boy, in the back as he left the door. At this moment, a man, who had heard the screams of the women, attempted to enter the house, when the Imam rushed at him and inflicted a slight wound, the man falling to the ground and getting away.

Having secured two more spears which he found in the house, the murderer now gave chase to the woman and her three little children and made short

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