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She had no complaint to make of her husband's kindness, but none the less she had fled his dwelling, and her parents might 'hang her on high, sell her in a far land, scorch her with the sun's rays, immerse her in water, burn her with fire, but never again would she return to one who hunted by night as a Were-Tiger.
Now here was one of them turning up in the odour of sanctity, so to speak, and claiming the traditional hospitality of the East." "It was rather trying, but you could have left your husband to do most of the entertaining." "My husband was fifty miles up-country, talking sense, or what he imagined to be sense, to a village community that fancied one of their leading men was a were-tiger."
It was in this place that I heard the following story of a Were-Tiger, from Pĕnghûlu Mat Saleh, who was, and perhaps is still, the Headman of this miscellaneous crew. Into the Slim Valley, some years ago, there came a Korinchi trader named Haji Äli, and his two sons, Äbdulrahman and Äbas.
But Patimah was wild with fear of what she had left behind her, and though she was alone, though the moonlight was dim, and the dawn had not yet come, she preferred the dismal depths of the forest to the home of her Were-Tiger husband.
Her story the first act in the drama of the Were-Tiger of Slim ran in this wise, though I shall not attempt to reproduce the words or the manner in which she told it, brokenly, with shuddering sobs, to her awe-stricken parents. She had gone home with Haji Äli to the house where he dwelt with his two sons, Äbdulrahman and Äbas, and all had treated her kindly and with courtesy.
"A what tiger?" "A were-tiger; you've heard of were-wolves, haven't you, a mixture of wolf and human being and demon? Well, in those parts they have were-tigers, or think they have, and I must say that in this case, so far as sworn and uncontested evidence went, they had every ground for thinking so.
Haji Äli made no effort to regain possession of his wife, and his neighbours drawing a natural inference from his actions, avoided him and his sons until they were forced to live in almost complete isolation. But the drama of the Were-Tiger of Slim was to have a final act.
It is not for me, or such as I am, to question the opinion of these wise men of the West, but if ghosts, and phantoms, and witchcraft and hag-ridings are to be accepted on such grounds, I must be allowed to put in a plea, for similar reasons, in favour of the Loup Garou, the Were-Tiger, and all their gruesome family.
This is a fact; and to one who knows the passion for wealth and for property, which is to be found in the breast of every Sumatran Malay, it is perhaps the strangest circumstance of all the weird events, which go to make up the drama of the Were-Tiger of Slim. There is, to the European mind, only one possible explanation. Haji Äli and his sons had been the victims of foul play.
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