You are looking at the HTML representation of the XML format.
HTML is good for debugging, but is unsuitable for application use.
Specify the format parameter to change the output format.
To see the non HTML representation of the XML format, set format=xml.
See the complete documentation, or API help for more information. 
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<api>
  <query-continue>
    <links plcontinue="1|0|Short_Notes_on_Linux_Administration" />
  </query-continue>
  <query>
    <pages>
      <page pageid="1" ns="0" title="Main Page">
        <links>
          <pl ns="0" title="Emacs and slime reference" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Install Apache and PHP to do Secure h264 Pseudo Streaming" />
          <pl ns="0" title="RedBeanPHP Cheat Sheet" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Rip Video DVD that is not Finalized" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Short Notes on AWS" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Short Notes on Apache" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Short Notes on Bash" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Short Notes on C/C++" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Short Notes on Flask and Flask-RestPlus" />
          <pl ns="0" title="Short Notes on JS" />
        </links>
      </page>
    </pages>
  </query>
</api>