Tide Marks by H.M. Tomlinson — Read

We got out to the coast again at last, and so cheaply, too, for our foolish intrusion into the wild against which society protects us, that I had the feeling that we had either stolen about unobserved, or that the evil genius of the place had craftily slipped the punishment into our pocket, and that we might find it when we thought the episode was closed. When, some weeks before, I first saw Kota Bharu I had thought it a pleasingly barbarous place; but then, coming on it out of the wilderness, I saw that it was an outpost of London and Peking. Even the primitive altar in a field, which looked pagan enough when I noticed it on the outward journey, now seemed not so distantly related to St. Paul's. We were all right again, with familiar things about us.

Next morning we boarded a little coasting steamer for Singapore. She was neat and bright, my cabin was hung with chintz having a pattern of rosebuds, and the saloon table was as well ordered as that of a good hotel. The captain, the kind man, listened to the tale of our fun up country, and then said: "You'd like some news from home. Here's the papers by the last mail. " Most certainly, secure within chintz curtains again, and with poisoned feet already less inflamed, we wanted news of England. The smiling little sailor re-entered with a week's bound numbers of the _Daily Photograph_. I opened the volume.