‘this is wrong. launch your canoe and we will find out who is playing with the sea,’ said the eldest magician. they stepped into the canoe; the little girl-daughter came with them; and the man took his kris a curving, wavy dagger with a blade like a flame, and they pushed out on the perak river. then the sea began to run back and back, and the canoe was sucked out of the mouth of the perak river, past selangor, past malacca, past singapore, out and out to the island of bingtang, as though it had been pulled by a string.