"Cho Seng," she pouted, "you have not even looked at me. Am I so ugly that you cannot bear to see me?"
"What for um you wantee me?" Cho Seng reiterated. His neck was crooked humbly so that his eyes did not rise above the hem of her sarong, and his hands were tucked inside the wide sleeves of his jacket. His voice was as meek and mild and inoffensive as his manner.
Koyala laughed mischievously.
"I asked you a question, Cho Seng," she pointed out.
The Chinaman salaamed again, even lower than before. His face was imperturbable as he repeated in the same mild, disarming accents:
"What for um you wantee me?"
Koyala made a moue.
"That isn't what I asked you, Cho Seng," she exclaimed petulantly.
The Chinaman did not move a muscle. Silent, calm as a deep-sea bottom, his glance fixed unwaveringly on a little spot of black earth near Koyala's foot, he awaited her reply.
Leveque's daughter shrugged her shoulders in hopeless resignation. Ever since she had known him she had tried to surprise him into expressing some emotion. Admiration, fear, grief, vanity, cupidity—on all these chords she had played without producing response. His imperturbability roused her curiosity, his indifference to her beauty piqued her, and, womanlike, she exerted herself to rouse his interest that she might punish him. So far she had been unsuccessful, but that only gave keener zest to the game. Koyala was half Dyak, she had in her veins the blood of the little brownbrother who follows his enemy for months, sometimes years, until he brings home another dripping head to set on his lodge-pole. Patience was therefore her birthright.
"Very well, Cho Seng, if you think I am ugly—" She paused and arched an eyebrow to see the effect of her words. Cho Seng's face was as rigid as though carved out of rock. When she saw he did not intend to dispute her, Koyala flushed and concluded sharply:
"—then we will talk of other things. What has happened at the residency during the past week?"
Cho Seng shot a furtive glance upward. "What for um?" he asked cautiously.
"Oh, everything." Koyala spoke with pretended indifference. "Tell me, does yourbaas, themynheer, ever mention me?"
"Mynheer Muller belly much mad, belly much drinkjenever(gin), belly much say 'damn-damn, Cho Seng,'" the Chinaman grunted.
Koyala's laughter rang out merrily in delicious peals that started the rain-birds and the gapers to vain emulation. Cho Seng hissed a warning and cast apprehensive glances about the jungle, but Koyala, mocking the birds, provoked a hubbub of furious scolding overhead and laughed again.
"There's nobody near to hear us," she asserted lightly.
"Mebbe him in bush," Cho Seng warned.
"Not when the southeast monsoon ceases to blow," Koyala negatived. "Mynheer Muller loves hisbed too well when our Bornean sun scorches us like to-day. But tell me what your master has been doing?"
She snuggled into a more comfortable position on the root. Cho Seng folded his hands over his stomach.
"Morning him sleep," he related laconically. "Him eat. Him speakeeorang kaya, Wobanguli, drinkjenever. Him speakee Kapitein Van Slyck, drinkjenever. Him sleep some more. Bimeby when sun so-so—" Cho Seng indicated the position of the sun in late afternoon—" him go speakee Mynheer Blauwpot, eat some more. Bimeby come home, sleep. Plenty say 'damn-damn, Cho Seng.'"
"Does he ever mention me?" Koyala asked. Her eyes twinkled coquettishly.
"Plenty say nothing," Cho Seng replied.
Koyala's face fell. "He doesn't speak of me at all?"
Cho Seng shot a sidelong glance at her.
"Him no speakee Koyala, him plenty drinkjenever, plenty say 'damn-damn, Cho Seng.'" He looked up stealthily to see the effect of his words.
Koyala crushed a fern underfoot with a vicious dab of her sandaled toes. Something like the ghost of a grin crossed the Chinaman's face, but it was too well hidden for Koyala to see it.
"How about Kapitein Van Slyck? Has he missed me?" Koyala asked. "It is a week since I have been at the residency. He must have noticed it."
"Kapitein Van Slyck him no speakee Koyala," the Chinaman declared.
Koyala looked at him sternly. "I cannot believe that, Cho Seng," she said. "The captain must surely have noticed that I have not been in Amsterdam. You are not telling me an untruth, are you, Cho Seng?"
The Chinaman was meekness incarnate as he reiterated:
"Him no speakee Koyala."
Displeasure gathered on Koyala's face like a storm-cloud. She leaped suddenly from the aërial root and drew herself upright. At the same moment she seemed to undergo a curious transformation. The light, coquettish mood passed away like dabs of sunlight under a fitful April sky, an imperious light gleamed in her eyes and her voice rang with authority as she said:
"Cho Seng, you are the eyes and the ears of Ah Sing in Bulungan—"
The Chinaman interrupted her with a sibilant hiss. His mask of humility fell from him and he darted keen and angry glances about the cane.
"When Koyala Bintang Burung speaks it is your place to listen, Cho Seng," Koyala asserted sternly. Her voice rang with authority. Under her steady glance the Chinaman's furtive eyes bushed themselves in his customary pose of irreproachable meekness.
"You are the eyes and ears of Ah Sing in Bulungan," Koyala reaffirmed, speaking deliberately and with emphasis. "You know that there is a covenant between your master, your master in Batavia, and the council of theorang kayasof the sea Dyaks of Bulungan, whereby the children of the sea sail in the proas of Ah Sing when theHanu Tokencome to Koyala on the night winds and tell her to bid them go."
The Chinaman glanced anxiously about the jungle, fearful that a swaying cluster of cane might reveal the presence of an eavesdropper.
"S-ss-st," he hissed.
Koyala's voice hardened. "Tell your master this," she said. "The spirits of the highlands speak no more through the mouth of the Bintang Burung till the eyes and ears of Ah Sing become her eyes and ears, too."
There was a significant pause. Cho Seng's face shifted and he looked at her slantwise to see how seriously he should take the declaration. What he saw undoubtedly impressed him with the need of promptly placating her, for he announced:
"Cho Seng tellee Mynheer Muller Koyala go hide in bush—bigbaasin Batavia say muchee damn-damn, give muchee gold for Koyala."
The displeasure in Koyala's flushed face mounted to anger.
"No, you cannot take credit for that, Cho Seng," she exclaimed sharply. "Word came to Mynheer Muller from the governor direct that a price of many guilders was put on my head."
Her chin tilted scornfully. "Did you think Koyala was so blind that she did not see the gun-boat in Bulungan harbor a week ago to-day?"
Cho Seng met her heat with Oriental calm.
"Bang-bang boat, him come six-seven day ago," he declared. "Cho Seng, him speakee Mynheer Muller Koyala go hide in bush eight-nine day."
"The gun-boat was in the harbor the morning Mynheer Muller told me," Koyala retorted, and stopped in sudden recollection. A tiny flash of triumph lit the Chinaman's otherwise impassive face as he put her unspoken thought into words:
"Kapiteinhim bang-bang boat come see Mynheer Mullernamiddag," (afternoon) he said, indicating the sun's position an hour before sunset. "Mynheer Muller tellee Koyalavoormiddag" (forenoon). He pointed to the sun's morning position in the eastern sky.
"That is true," Koyala assented thoughtfully, and paused. "How did you hear of it?"
Cho Seng tucked his hands inside his sleeves and folded them over his paunch. His neck was bent forward and his eyes lowered humbly. Koyala knew what the pose portended; it was the Chinaman's refuge in a silence that neither plea nor threat could break. She rapidly recalled the events of that week.
"There was a junk from Macassar in Bulungan harbor two weeks—no, eleven days ago," she exclaimed. "Did that bring a message from Ah Sing?"
A startled lift of the Chinaman's chin assured herthat her guess was correct. Another thought followed swift on the heels of the first.
"The same junk is in the harbor to-day—came here just before sundown last night," she exclaimed. "What message did it bring, Cho Seng?"
The Chinaman's face was like a mask. His lips were compressed tightly—it was as though he defied her to wedge them open and to force him to reveal his secret. An angry sparkle lit Koyala's eyes for a moment, she stepped a pace toward him and her hand dropped to the hilt of the jeweled kris, then she stopped short. A fleeting look of cunning replaced the angry gleam; a half-smile came and vanished on her lips almost in the same instant.
Her face lifted suddenly toward the leafy canopy. Her arms were flung upward in a supplicating gesture. The Chinaman, watching her from beneath his lowered brow, looked up in startled surprise. Koyala's form became rigid, a Galatea turned back to marble. Her breath seemed to cease, as though she was in a trance. The color left her face, left even her lips. Strangely enough, her very paleness made the Dyak umber in her cheeks more pronounced.
Her lips parted. A low crooning came forth. The Chinaman's knees quaked and gave way as he heard the sound. His body bent from the waist till his head almost touched the ground.
The crooning gradually took the form of words. It was the Malay tongue she spoke—a language Cho Seng knew. The rhythmic beating of his headagainst his knees ceased and he listened eagerly, with face half-lifted.
"Hanu Token, Hanu Token, spirits of the highlands, whither are you taking me?" Koyala cried. She paused, and a deathlike silence followed. Suddenly she began speaking again, her figure swaying like a tall lily stalk in a spring breeze, her voice low-pitched and musically mystic like the voice of one speaking from a far distance.
"I see the jungle, the jungle where the mother of rivers gushes out of the great smoking mountain. I see the pit of serpents in the jungle—"
A trembling seized Cho Seng.
"The serpents are hungry, they have not been fed, they clamor for the blood of a man. I see him whose foot is over the edge of the pit, he slips, he falls, he tries to catch himself, but the bamboo slips out of his clutching fingers—I see his face—it is the face of him whose tongue speaks double, it is the face of—"
A horrible groan burst from the Chinaman. He staggered to his feet.
"Neen, neen, neen, neen," he cried hoarsely in an agonized negative. "Cho Seng tellee Bintang Burung—"
A tremulous sigh escaped from Koyala's lips. Her body shook as though swayed by the wind. Her eyes opened slowly, vacantly, as though she was awakening from a deep sleep. She looked at Cho Seng with an absent stare, seeming to wonder whyhe was there, why she was where she was. The Chinaman, made voluble through fear, chattered:
"Him junk say bigbaas gouverneurspeakee muchee damn-damn; no gambir, no rice, no copra, no coffee from Bulungan one-two year; sendee new resident bimeby belly quick."
Koyala's face paled.
"Send a new resident?" she asked incredulously. "What of Mynheer Muller?"
The look of fear left Cho Seng's face. Involuntarily his neck bent and his fingers sought each other inside the sleeves. There was cunning mingled with malice in his eyes as he looked up furtively and feasted on her manifest distress.
"Him chop-chop," he announced laconically.
"They will kill him?" Koyala cried.
The Chinaman had said his word. None knew better than he the value of silence. He stood before her in all humbleness and calmly awaited her next word. All the while his eyes played on her in quick, cleverly concealed glances.
Koyala fingered the handle of the kris as she considered what the news portended. Her face slowly hardened—there was a look in it of the tigress brought to bay.
"Koyala bimeby mally him—Mynheer Muller, go hide in bush?" Cho Seng ventured. The question was asked with such an air of simple innocence and friendly interest that none could take offense.
Koyala flushed hotly. Then her nose and chin rose high with pride.
"The Bintang Burung will wed no man, Cho Seng," she declared haughtily. "The blood of Chawatangi dies in me, but not till Bulungan is purged of theorang blanda" (white race). She whipped the jeweled kris out of its silken scabbard. "When the last white man spills his heart on the coral shore and the wrongs done Chawatangi's daughter, my mother, have been avenged, then Koyala will go to join theHanu Tokenthat call her, call her—"
She thrust the point of the kris against her breast and looked upward toward the far-distant hills and the smoking mountain. A look of longing came into her eyes, the light of great desire, almost it seemed as if she would drive the blade home and join the spirits she invoked.
With a sigh she lowered the point of the kris and slipped it back into its sheath.
"No, Cho Seng," she said, "Mynheer Muller is nothing to me. No man will ever be anything to me. But your master has been a kind elder brother to Koyala. And like me, he has had to endure the shame of an unhappy birth." Her voice sank to a whisper. "For his mother, Cho Seng, as you know, was a woman of Celebes."
She turned swiftly away that he might not see her face. After a moment she said in a voice warm with womanly kindness and sympathy:
"Therefore you and I must take care of him, Cho Seng. He is weak, he is untruthful, he has made a wicked bargain with your master, Ah Sing, which the spirits of the hills tell me he shall suffer for, but he isonly what his white father made him, and theorang blandamust pay!" Her lips contracted grimly. "Ay, pay to the last drop of blood! You will be true to him, Cho Seng?"
The Chinaman cast a furtive glance upward and found her mellow dark-brown eyes looking at him earnestly. The eyes seemed to search his very soul.
"Ja, ja," he pledged.
"Then go, tell the captain of the junk to sail quickly to Macassar and send word by a swift messenger to Ah Sing that he must let me know the moment a new resident is appointed. There is no wind and the sun is high; therefore the junk will still be in the harbor. Hurry, Cho Seng!"
Without a word the Chinaman wheeled and shuffled down the woodland path that led from the clearing toward the main highway. Koyala looked after him fixedly.
"If his skin were white he could not be more false," she observed bitterly. "But he is Ah Sing's slave, and Ah Sing needs me, so I need not fear him—yet."
She followed lightly after Cho Seng until she could see the prim top of the residency building gleaming white through the trees. Then she stopped short. Her face darkened as the Dyak blood gathered thickly. A look of implacable hate and passion distorted it. Her eyes sought the distant hills:
"Hanu Token, Hanu Token, send a young man here to rule Bulungan," she prayed. "Send a strong man, send a vain man, with a passion for fair women.Let me dazzle him with my beauty, let me fill his heart with longing, let me make his brain reel with madness, let me make his body sick with desire. Let me make him suffer a thousand deaths before he gasps his last breath and his dripping head is brought to thy temple in the hills. For the wrongs done Chawatangi's daughter,Hanu Token, for the wrongs done me!"
With a low sob she fled inland through the cane.
Electric tapers were burning dimly in Governor-General Van Schouten's sanctum at thepaleisthat evening as Peter Gross was ushered in. The governor was seated in a high-backed, elaborately carved mahogany chair before a highly polished mahogany table. Beside him was the omniscient, the indispensable Sachsen. The two were talking earnestly in the Dutch language. Van Schouten acknowledged Peter Gross's entrance with a curt nod and directed him to take a chair on the opposite side of the table.
At a word from his superior, Sachsen tucked the papers he had been studying into a portfolio. The governor stared intently at his visitor for a moment before he spoke.
"Mynheer Gross," he announced sharply, "your captain tells me your contract with him runs to the end of the voyage. He will not release you."
"Then I must fill my contract, your excellency," Peter Gross replied.
Van Schouten frowned with annoyance. He was not accustomed to being crossed.
"When will you be able to take over the administration of Bulungan,mynheer?"
Peter Gross's brow puckered thoughtfully. "In three weeks—let us say thirty days, your excellency."
"Donder en bliksem!" the governor exclaimed. "We need you there at once."
"That is quite impossible, your excellency. I will need help, men that I can trust and who know the islands. Such men cannot be picked up in a day."
"You can have the pick of my troops."
"I should prefer to choose my own men, your excellency," Peter Gross replied.
"Eh? How so,mynheer?" The governor's eyes glinted with suspicion.
"Your excellency has been so good as to promise me a free hand," Peter Gross replied quietly. "I have a plan in mind—if your excellency desires to hear it?"
Van Schouten's face cleared.
"We shall discuss that later,mynheer. You will be ready to go the first of June, then?"
"On the first of June I shall await your excellency's pleasure here at Batavia," Peter Gross agreed.
"Nu!that is settled!" The governor gave a grunt of satisfaction and squared himself before the table. His expression became sternly autocratic.
"Mynheer Gross," he said, "you told us this afternoon some of the history of our unhappy residency of Bulungan. You demonstrated to our satisfaction a most excellent knowledge of conditions there. Some of the things you spoke of were—I may say—surprising. Some touched upon matterswhich we thought were known only to ourselves and to our privy council. But,mynheer, you did not mention one subject that to our mind is the gravest problem that confronts our representatives in Bulungan. Perhaps you do not know there is such a problem. Or perhaps you underestimate its seriousness. At any rate, we deem it desirable to discuss this matter with you in detail, that you may thoroughly understand the difficulties before you, and our wishes in the matter. We have requested Mynheer Sachsen to speak for us."
He nodded curtly at his secretary.
"You may proceed, Sachsen."
Sachsen's white head, that had bent low over the table during the governor's rather pompous little speech, slowly lifted. His shrewd gray eyes twinkled kindly. His lips parted in a quaintly humorous and affectionate smile.
"First of all, Vrind Pieter, let me congratulate you," he said, extending a hand across the table. Peter Gross's big paw closed over it with a warm pressure.
"And let me thank you, Vrind Sachsen," he replied. "It was not hard to guess who brought my name to his excellency's attention."
"It is Holland's good fortune that you are here," Sachsen declared. "Had you not been worthy, Vrind Pieter, I should not have recommended you." He looked at the firm, strong face and the deep, broad chest and massive shoulders of his protégé with almost paternal fondness.
"To have earned your good opinion is reward enough in itself," Peter Gross asserted.
Sachsen's odd smile, that seemed to find a philosophic humor in everything, deepened.
"Your reward, Vrind Pieter," he observed, "is the customary recompense of the man who proves his wisdom and his strength—a more onerous duty. Bulungan will test you severely,vrind(friend). Do you believe that?"
"Ay," Peter Gross assented soberly.
"Pray God to give you wisdom and strength," Sachsen advised gravely. He bowed his head for a moment, then stirred in his chair and sat up alertly.
"Nu!as to the work that lies before you, I need not tell you the history of this residency. For Sachsen to presume to instruct Peter Gross in what has happened in Bulungan would be folly. As great folly as to lecture a dominie on theology."
Again the quaintly humorous quirk of the lips.
"If Peter Gross knew the archipelago half so well as his good friend Sachsen he would be a lucky man," Peter Gross retorted spiritedly.
Sachsen's face became suddenly grave.
"We do not doubt your knowledge of conditions in our unhappy province, Vrind Pieter. Nor do we doubt your ability, your courage, or your sound judgment. But, Pieter—"
He paused. The clear gray eyes of Peter Gross met his questioningly.
"—You are young, Vrind Pieter."
The governor rose abruptly and plucked downfrom the wall a long-stemmed Dutch pipe that was suspended by a gaily colored cord from a stout peg. He filled the big china bowl of the pipe with nearly a half-pound of tobacco, touched a light to the weed, and returned to his chair. There was a pregnant silence in the room meanwhile.
"How old are you, Vrind Pieter?" Sachsen asked gently.
"Twenty-five,mynheer," Peter Gross replied. There was a pronounced emphasis on the "mynheer."
"Twenty-five," Sachsen murmured fondly. "Twenty-five! Just my age when I was a student at Leyden and the gayest young scamp of them all." He shook his head. "Twenty-five is very young, Vrind Pieter."
"That is a misfortune which only time can remedy," Peter Gross replied drily.
"Yes, only time." Sachsen's eyes misted. "Time that brings the days 'when strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders shall cease because they are few, and the grasshopper shall become a burden, and desire shall fail.' I wish you were older, Vrind Pieter."
The old man sighed. There was a far-away look in his eyes as though he were striving to pierce the future and the leagues between Batavia and Bulungan.
"Vrind Gross," he resumed softly, "we have known each other a long time. Eight years is a long time, and it is eight years since you first came to Batavia. You were a cabin-boy then, and youran away from your master because he beat you. The wharfmaster at Tanjong Priok found you, and was taking you back to your master when old Sachsen saw you. Old Sachsen got you free and put you on another ship, under a good master, who made a good man and a goodzeeman(seaman) out of you. Do you remember?"
"I shall never forget!" Peter Gross's voice was vibrant with emotion.
"Old Sachsen was your friend then. He has been your friend through the years since then. He is your friend to-day. Do you believe that?"
Peter Gross impulsively reached his hand across the table. Sachsen grasped it and held it.
"Then to-night you will forgive old Sachsen if he speaks plainly to you, more plainly than you would let other men talk? You will listen, and take his words to heart, and consider them well, Pieter?"
"Speak, Sachsen!"
"I knew you would listen, Pieter." Sachsen drew a deep breath. His eyes rested fondly on his protégé, and he let go Gross's hand reluctantly as he leaned back in his chair.
"Vrind Pieter, you said a little while ago that old Sachsen knows the people who live in thesekolonien(colonies). His knowledge is small—"
Peter Gross made a gesture of dissent, but Sachsen did not let him interrupt.
"Yet he has learned some things. It is something to have served the state for over two-score years in the Netherlands East Indies, first ascontrolleur,then as resident in Celebes, in Sumatra, in Java, and finally as secretary to thegouverneur, as old Sachsen has. In those years he has seen much that goes on in the hearts of the black, and the brown, and the yellow, and the white folk that live in these sun-seared islands. Much that is wicked, but also much that is good. And he has seen much of the fevers that seize men when the sun waves hot and the blood races madly through their veins. There is the fever of hate, and the fever of revenge, the fever of greed, and the fever to grasp God. But more universal than all these is the fever of love and the fever of lust!"
Peter Gross's brow knit with a puzzled frown. "What do you mean, Sachsen?" he demanded.
Sachsen smoothed back his thinning white hair.
"I am an old, old man, Vrind Pieter," he replied "Desire has long ago failed me. The passions that our fiery Java suns breed in men have drained away. The light that is in a comely woman's eyes, the thrill that comes at a touch of her warm hand, the quickened pulse-beat at the feel of her silken hair brushing over one's face—all these things are ashes and dust to old Sachsen. Slim ankles, plump calves, and full rounded breasts mean nothing to him. But you, Vrind Pieter, are young. You are strong as a buffalo, bold as a tiger, vigorous as a banyan tree. You have a young man's warm blood in your veins. You have the poison of youth in your blood. You are a man's man, Peter Gross, but you are also a woman's man."
Peter Gross's puzzled frown became a look of blank amazement. "What in the devil are you driving at, Sachsen?" he demanded, forgetting in his astonishment that he was in the governor's presence.
Sachsen leaned forward, his eyes searching his protégé's.
"Have you ever loved a woman, Pieter?" he countered softly.
Peter Gross appeared to be choking. The veins in his forehead distended.
"What has that to do with Bulungan?" he demanded. "You've known me since I was a lad, Sachsen; you've known all my comings and goings; why do you ask me such—rot?"
A grimly humorous smile lit the governor's stern visage.
"'Let the strong take heed lest they fall,'" Sachsen quoted quietly. "Since you say that you love no woman, let me ask you this—have you ever seen Koyala?"
The little flash of passion left Peter Gross's face, but the puzzled frown remained.
"Koyala," he repeated thoughtfully. "It seems to me I have heard the name, but I cannot recall how or when."
"Think, think!" Sachsen urged, leaning eagerly over the table. "The half-white woman of Borneo, the French trader's daughter by a native woman, brought up and educated at a mission school in Sarawak. The Dyaks call her theBintang Burung. Ha! I see you know her now."
"Leveque's daughter, Chawatangi's grandchild?" Peter Gross exclaimed. "Of course I know her. Who doesn't?" His face sobered. "The unhappiest woman in the archipelago. I wonder she lives."
"You have seen her?" Sachsen asked.
Peter Gross's eyes twinkled reminiscently. "Ay, that I have."
"Tell me about it," Sachsen urged, with an imperceptible gesture to the governor to say nothing. He leaned forward expectantly.
Peter Gross cocked an eye at the ceiling. "Let me see, it was about a year ago," he said. "I was with McCloud, on the brigMary Dietrich. McCloud heard at Macassar that there was a settlement of Dyaks at the mouth of the Abbas that wanted to trade in dammar gum and gambir and didn't ask too muchbalas(tribute money). We crossed the straits and found the village. Wolang, the chief, gave us a big welcome. We spent one day palavering; these natives won't do anything without having abitcharafirst. The next morning I began loading operations, while McCloud entertained theorang kaya, Wolang, with a bottle of gin.
"The natives crowded around pretty close, particularly the women, anxious to see what we were bringing ashore. One girl, quite a pretty girl, went so far as to step into the boat, and one of my men swung an arm around her and kissed her. She screamed."
The governor took his pipe out of his mouth and looked up with interest.
"The next minute the mob of Dyaks parted as though cut with a scythe. Down the lane came a woman, a white woman."
He turned to the secretary. "You have seen her, Sachsen?"
"Ja, Pieter."
"Then you can guess how she keeled me over," Peter Gross said. "I took her for white woman, a pure blood. She is white; the brown in her skin is no deeper than in a Spaniard's. She walked up to me—I could see a hurricane was threatening—and she said:
"'You are English? Go back to your ship, now; don't wait a minute, or you will leave your heads here.'
"'Madam,' I said, 'the lad was hasty, but meant no harm. It will not happen again. I will make the lady a present.'
"She turned a look on me that fairly withered me. 'Youthink you can buy our women, too?' she said, fairly spitting the words. 'Go! go! Don't you see my Dyaks fitting arrows in their blow-pipes?'
"McCloud came running up with Chief Wolang. 'What's this?' he blustered, but Koyala only pointed to the sea and said the one word:
"'Go!'
"McCloud spoke to Wolang, but at a nod fromKoyala the chief gave an order to his followers. Fifty Dyaks fitted poisoned arrows into theirsumpitans. McCloud had good judgment; he knew when it was no use tobitcharaand show gin. We rowed back to the ship without the cargo we expected to load and set sail at once. Not an arrow followed us, but the last thing I saw of the village was Koyala on the beach, watching us dip into the big rollers of the Celebes Sea."
"She is beautiful?" Sachsen suggested softly.
"Ay, quite an attractive young female," Peter Gross agreed in utmost seriousness. The governor's grim smile threatened to break out into an open grin.
Sachsen looked at the table-top thoughtfully and rubbed his hands. "She lost you a cargo," he stated. "You have a score to settle with her." He flashed a keen glance at his protégé.
"By God, no!" Peter Gross exclaimed. He brought his fist down on the table. "She was right, eternally right. If a scoundrelly scum from over the sea tried to kiss a woman of my kin in that way I'd treat him a lot worse than we were treated."
Van Schouten blew an angry snort that cut like a knife the huge cloud of tobacco-smoke in which he had enveloped himself. Peter Gross faced him truculently.
"We deserved what we got," he asserted. "When we whites get over the notion that the world is a playground for us to spill our lusts and vices on and the lower races the playthings we can abuse as weplease, we'll have peace in these islands. Our missionaries preach morals and Christianity; our traders, like that damned whelp, Leveque, break every law of God and man. Between the two the poor benighted heathen loses all the faith he has and sinks one grade lower in brutishness than his ancestors were before him. If all men were like Brooke of Sarawak we'd have had the East Indies Christianized by now. The natives were ready to make gods out of us—they did it with Brooke—but now they're looking for a chance to put a knife in our backs—a good many of them are."
He checked himself. "Here I'm preaching. I beg your pardon, your excellency."
Van Schouten blew another great cloud of tobacco-smoke and said nothing. Through the haze his eagle-keen eyes searched Peter Gross's face and noted the firm chin and tightly drawn lips with stern disapproval. Sachsen flashed him a warning glance to keep silent.
"Mynheer Gross," the secretary entreated, "let me again beg the privileges of an old friend. Is it admiration for Koyala's beauty or your keen sense of justice that leads you to so warm a defense?"
Peter Gross's reply was prompt and decisive.
"Vrind Sachsen, if she had been a hag I'd have thought no different."
"Search your heart, Vrind Pieter. Is it not because she was young and comely, a woman unafraid, that you remember her?"
"Women are nothing to me," Peter Gross retorted irritably. "But right is right, and wrong is wrong, whether in Batavia or Bulungan."
Sachsen shook his head.
"Vrind Pieter," he declared sadly, "you make me very much afraid for you. If you had acknowledged, 'The woman was fair, a fair woman stirs me quickly,' I would have said: 'He is young and has eyes to see with, but he is too shrewd to be trapped.' But when you say: 'The fault was ours, we deserved to lose the cargo,' then I know that you are blind, blind to your own weakness, Pieter. Clever, wicked women make fools of such as you, Pieter."
One eyebrow arched the merest trifle in the direction of the governor. Then Sachsen continued:
"Vrind Pieter, I am here to-night to warn you against this woman. I have much to tell you about her, much that is unpleasant. Will you listen?"
Peter Gross shrugged his shoulders.
"I am at your service, Sachsen."
"Will you listen with an open mind? Will you banish from your thoughts all recollection of the woman you saw at the mouth of the Abbas River, all that you know or think you know of her fancied wrongs, and hear what old Sachsen has to say of the evil she has done, of the crimes, the piracies, ay, even rebellions and treasons for which she has been responsible? What do you say, Vrind Pieter?"
Pieter Gross swallowed hard. Words seemed to be struggling to his lips, but he kept them back.His teeth were pressed together tightly, the silence became tense.
"Listen, Sachsen," he finally said. His voice was studiedly calm. "You come from an old, conservative race, a race that clings faithfully to the precepts and ideals of its fathers and is certain of its footing before it makes a step in advance. You have the old concept of woman, that her lot is to bear, to suffer, and to weep. I come from a fresher, newer race, a race that gives its women the same liberty of thought and action that it gives its men. Therefore there are many things concerning the conduct of this woman that we look at in different ways. Things that seem improper, ay, sometimes treasonable, to you, seem a perfectly natural protest to me. You ignore the wrongs she has suffered, wrongs that must make life a living hell to her. You say she must be content with the place to which God has called her, submerge the white blood in her, and live a savage among savages."
Peter Gross pulled his chair nearer the table and leaned forward. His face glowed with an intense earnestness.
"Great Scot, Sachsen, think of her condition! Half white, ay, half French, and that is as proud a race as breathes. Beautiful—beautiful as the sunrise. Taught in a missionary school, brought up as a white child among white children. And then, when the glory of her womanhood comes upon her, to learn she is an illegitimate, a half-breed, sisterto the savage Dyaks, her only future in their filthy huts, to kennel with them, breed with them—God, what a horror that revelation must have been!"
He raked his fingers through his hair and stared savagely at the wall.
"You don't feel these things, Sachsen," he concluded. "You're Dutch to begin with, and so a conservative thinker. Then you've been ground through the routine of colonial service so many years that you've lost every viewpoint except the state's expediency. Thank God, I haven't! That is why I think I can do something for you in Bulungan—"
He checked himself. "Common sense and a little elemental justice go a long, long way in dealing with savages," he observed.
Sachsen's eyes looked steadily into Peter Gross's. Sachsen's kindly smile did not falter. But the governor's patience had reached its limit.
"Look you here, Mynheer Gross," he exclaimed, "I want no sympathy for that she-devil from my resident."
An angry retort leaped to Peter Gross's lips, but before it could be uttered Sachsen's hand had leaped across the table and had gripped his warningly.
"She may be as beautiful as a houri, but she is a witch, a very Jezebel," the governor stormed. "I have nipped a dozen uprisings in the bud, and this Koyala has been at the bottom of all of them. She hates usorang blandaswith a hate that the fires of hell could not burn out, but she is subtler than theserpent that taught Mother Eve. She has bewitched mycontrolleur; see that she does not bewitch you. I have put a price on her head; your first duty will be to see that she is delivered for safe-keeping here in Batavia."
The governor's eyes were sparkling fire. There was a like anger in Peter Gross's face; he was on the point of speaking when Sachsen's nails dug so deeply into his hand that he winced.
"Mynheer Gross is an American, therefore he is chivalrous," Sachsen observed. "He aims to be just, but there is much that he does not understand. If your excellency will permit me—"
Van Schouten gave assent by picking up his pipe and closing his teeth viciously on the mouthpiece.
Sachsen promptly addressed Peter Gross.
"Vrind Pieter," he said, "I am glad you have spoken. Now we understand each other. You are just what I knew you were, fearless, honest, frank. You have convinced me the more that you are the man we must have as resident of Bulungan."
Peter Gross looked up distrustfully. Van Schouten, too, evinced his surprise by taking the pipe from his mouth.
"But," Sachsen continued, "you have the common failing of youth. Youth dreams dreams, it would rebuild this sorry world and make it Paradise before the snake. It is sure it can. With age comes disillusionment. We learn we cannot do the things we have set our hands to do in the way we planned. We learn we must compromise. Onceold Sachsen had thoughts like yours. To-day"—he smiled tenderly—"he has the beginnings of wisdom. That is, he has learned that God ordains. Do you believe that, Vrind Pieter?"
"Ay, of course," Peter Gross acknowledged, a trifle bewildered. "But—"
"Now, concerning this woman," Sachsen cut in briskly. "We will concede that she was wronged before she was born. We will concede the sin of her father. We will concede his second sin, leaving her mother to die in the jungle. We will concede the error, if error it was, to educate Koyala in a mission school among white children. We will concede the fatal error of permitting her to return to her own people, knowing the truth of her birth."
His voice took a sharper turn.
"But there are millions of children born in your own land, in my land, in every land, with deformed bodies, blind perhaps, crippled, with faces uglier than baboons. Why? Because one or both of their parents sinned. Now I ask you," he demanded harshly, "whether these children, because of the sin of their parents, have the right to commit crimes, plot murders, treasons, rebellions, and stir savage people to wars of extermination against their white rulers? What is your answer?"
"That is not the question," Peter Gross began, but Sachsen interrupted.
"It is the question. It was the sin of the parent in both cases. Leveque sinned; his daughter,Koyala, suffers. Parents sin everywhere, their children must suffer."
Peter Gross stared at the wall thoughtfully.
"Look you here, Vrind Pieter," Sachsen said, "learn this great truth. The state is first, then the individual. Always the good of the whole people, that is the state, first, then the good of the individual. Thousands may suffer, thousands may die, but if the race benefits, the cost is nothing. This law is as old as man. Each generation says it a new way, but the law is the same. And so with this Koyala. She was wronged, we will admit it. But she cannot be permitted to make the whole white race pay for those wrongs and halt progress in Borneo for a generation. She will have justice; his excellency is a just man. But first there must be peace in Bulungan. There must be no more plottings, no more piracies, no more head-hunting. The spear-heads must be separated from their shafts, the krisses must be buried, thesumpitansmust be broken in two. If Koyala will yield, this can be done. If you can persuade her to trust us, Pieter, half your work is done. Bulungan will become one of our fairest residencies, its trade will grow, the piracies will be swept from the seas, and the days of head-hunting will become a tradition."
Peter Gross bowed his head.
"God help me, I will," he vowed.
"But see that she does not seduce you, Vrind Pieter," the old man entreated earnestly. "Youare both young, she is fair, and she is a siren, a vampire. Hold fast to your God, to your faith, to the oath you take as a servant of the state, and do not let her beauty blind you—no, nor your own warm heart either, Pieter."
Sachsen rose. There were tears in his eyes as he looked fondly down at the young man that owed so much to him.
"Pieter," he said, "old Sachsen will pray for you. I must leave you now, Pieter; the governor desires to talk to you."
As Sachsen left the room the governor snapped shut the silver cap on the porcelain bowl of his pipe and regretfully laid the pipe aside.
"Nu, Mynheer Gross, what troops will you need?" he asked in a business-like manner. "I have one thousand men here in Java that you may have if you need them. For the sea there is the gun-boat,Prins Lodewyk, and the cutter,Katrina, both of which I place at your disposal."
"I do not need a thousand men, your excellency," Peter Gross replied quietly.
"Ha! I thought not!" the governor exclaimed with satisfaction. "An army is useless in the jungle. Let them keep their crack troops in the Netherlands and give me a few hundred irregulars who know the cane and can bivouac in the trees if they have to. Your Amsterdammer looks well enough on parade, but his skin is too thin for our mosquitoes. But that is beside the question. Would five hundred men be enough, Mynheer Gross? We have a garrison of fifty at Bulungan."
Peter Gross frowned reflectively at the table-top.
"I would not need five hundred men, your excellency," he announced.
The governor's smile broadened. "You knowmore about jungle warfare than I gave you credit for, Mynheer Gross," he complimented. "But I should have known that the rescuer of Lieutenant de Koren was no novice. Only this morning I remarked to General Vanden Bosch that a capable commander and three hundred experienced bush-fighters are enough to drive the last pirate out of Bulungan and teach our Dyaks to cultivate their long-neglected plantations. What say you to three hundred of our best colonials,mynheer?"
"I will not need three hundred men, your excellency," Peter Gross declared.
Van Schouten leaned back in surprise.
"Well, Mynheer Gross, how large a force will you need?"
Peter Gross's long, ungainly form settled lower in his chair. His legs crossed and his chin sagged into the palm of his right hand. The fingers pulled gently at his cheeks. After a moment's contemplation he looked up to meet the governor's inquiring glance and remarked:
"Your excellency, I shall need about twenty-five men."
Van Schouten stared at him in astonishment.
"Twenty-five men, Mynheer Gross!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean?"
"Twenty-five men, men like I have in mind, will be all I will need, your excellency," Peter Gross assured gravely.
Van Schouten edged his chair nearer. "Mynheer Gross, do you understand me correctly?" he askeddoubtfully. "I would make you resident of Bulungan. I would give you supreme authority in the province. The commandant, Captain Van Slyck, would be subject to your orders. You will be answerable only to me."
"Under no other conditions would I accept your excellency's appointment," Peter Gross declared.
"But, Mynheer Gross, what can twenty-five do? Bulungan has more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, few of whom have ever paid a picul of rice or kilo of coffee as tax to the crown. On the coast there are the Chinese pirates, the Bugi outlaws from Macassar and their traitorous allies, the coast Dyaks of Bulungan, of Tidoeng, and Pasir, ay, as far north as Sarawak, for those British keep their house in no better order than we do ours. In the interior we have the hill Dyaks, the worst thieves and cut-throats of them all. But these things you know. I ask you again, what can twenty-five do against so many?"
"With good fortune, bring peace to Bulungan," Peter Gross replied confidently.
The governor leaned aggressively across the table and asked the one-word pointed question:
"How?"
Peter Gross uncrossed his legs and tugged gravely at his chin.
"Your excellency," he said, "I have a plan, not fully developed as yet, but a plan. As your excellency well knows, there are two nations of Dyaks in the province. There are the hillmen—"
"Damned thieving, murdering, head-hunting scoundrels!" the governor growled savagely.
"So your excellency has been informed. But I believe that much of the evil that is said of them is untrue. They are savages, wilder savages than the coast Dyaks, and less acquainted withblanken(white men). Many of them are head-hunters. But they have suffered cruelly from the coast Dyaks, with whom, as your excellency has said, they have an eternal feud."
"They are pests," the governor snarled. "They keep the lowlands in a continual turmoil with their raids. We cannot grow a blade of rice on account of them."
"That is where your excellency and I must disagree," Peter Gross asserted quietly.
"Ha!" the governor exclaimed incredulously. "What do you say, Mynheer Gross?"
"Your excellency, living in Batavia, you have seen only one side of this question, the side your underlings have shown you. With your excellency's permission I shall show you another side, the side a stranger, unprejudiced, with no axes to grind either way, saw in his eight years of sailoring about these islands. Have I your excellency's permission?"
A frown gathered on the governor's face. His thin lips curled, and his bristly mane rose belligerently.
"Proceed," he snapped.
Peter Gross rested his elbows on the table and leaned toward the governor.
"Your excellency," he began, "let it be understood that I bring no accusations to-night; that we are speaking as man to man. I go to Bulungan to inquire into the truth of the things I have heard. Whatever I learn shall be faithfully reported to your excellency."
Van Schouten nodded curtly.
"Your excellency has spoken of the unrest in Bulungan," Peter Gross continued. "Your excellency also spoke of piracies committed in these seas. It is my belief, your excellency, that the government has been mistaken in assuming that there is no connection between the two. I am satisfied that there is a far closer union and a better understanding between the Dyaks and the pirates than has ever been dreamed of here in Batavia."
The governor smiled derisively.
"You are mistaken, Mynheer Gross," he contradicted. "I almost believed so, too, at one time, and I had Captain Van Slyck, our commandant at Bulungan, investigate for me. I have his report here. I shall be glad to let you read it."
He tapped a gong. In a moment Sachsen bustled in.
"Sachsen," the governor said, "Kapitein Van Slyck's report on the pirates of the straits, if you please."
Sachsen bowed and withdrew.
"I shall be glad to read the captain's report," Peter Gross assured gravely. A grimly humorous twinkle lurked in his eyes. The governor was quick to note it.
"But it will not convince you, eh,mynheer?" he challenged. He smiled. "You Yankees are an obstinate breed—almost as stubborn as we Dutch."
"I am afraid that the captain's report will not cover things I know," Peter Gross replied. "Yet I have no doubt it will be helpful."
The subtle irony his voice expressed caused the governor to look at him quizzically, but Van Schouten was restrained from further inquiry by the return of Sachsen with the report. The governor glanced at the superscription and handed the document to Peter Gross with the remark: "Read that at your leisure. I will have Sachsen make you a copy."
Peter Gross pocketed the report with a murmured word of thanks. The governor frowned, trying to recollect where the thread of conversation had been broken, and then remarked:
"As I say, Mynheer Gross, I am sure you will find yourself mistaken. The Dyaks are thieves and head-hunters, a treacherous breed. They do not know the meaning of loyalty—God help us if they did! No two villages have ever yet worked together for a common aim. As for the pirates, they are wolves that prey on everything that comes in their path. Some of theorang kayasmay be friendly with them, but as for there being any organization—bah! it is too ridiculous to even discuss it."
Peter Gross's lips pressed a little tighter.
"Your excellency," he replied with perfect equanimity, "you have your opinion and I have mine.My work in Bulungan, I hope, will show which of us is right. Yet I venture to say this. Before I have left Bulungan I shall be able to prove to your excellency that one man, not so very far from your excellency'spaleisat this moment, has united the majority of the sea Dyaks and the pirates into a formidable league of which he is the head. More than this, he has established a system of espionage which reaches into this very house."
Van Schouten stared at Peter Gross in amazement and incredulity.
"Mynheer Gross," he finally exclaimed, "this is nonsense!"
Peter Gross's eyes flashed. "Your excellency," he retorted, "it is the truth."
"What proofs have you?" the governor demanded.
"None at present that could convince your excellency," Peter Gross admitted frankly. "All I have is a cumulative series of instances, unrelated in themselves, scraps of conversations picked up here and there, little things that have come under my observation in my sojourns in many ports of the archipelago. But in Bulungan I expect to get the proofs. When I have them, I shall give them to your excellency, that justice may be done. Until then I make no charges. All I say is—guard carefully what you would not have your enemies know."
"This is extraordinary," the governor remarked, impressed by Peter Gross's intense earnestness. "Surely you do not expect me to believe all this on your unsupported word,mynheer?"
"The best corroboration which I can offer is that certain matters which your excellency thought were known only to himself are now common gossip from Batavia to New Guinea," Peter Gross replied.
The governor's head drooped. His face became drawn. Lines formed where none had been before. The jauntiness, the pompous self-assurance, and the truculence that so distinguished him among his fellows disappeared from his mien; it was as though years of anxiety and care had suddenly passed over him.
"This discussion brings us nowhere, Mynheer Gross," he wearily remarked. "Let us decide how large a force you should have. What you have told me convinces me the more that you will need at least two hundred men. I hesitate to send you with less than a regiment."
"Let me deal with this situation in my own way, your excellency," Peter Gross pleaded. "I believe that just dealing will win the confidence of the upland Dyaks. Once that is done, the rest is easy. Twenty-five men, backed by the garrison at Bulungan and the hill Dyaks, will be able to break up the pirate bands, if the navy does its share. After that the problem is one of administration, to convince the coast Dyaks that the state is fair, that the state is just, and that the state's first thought is the welfare of her people, be they brown, black, or white."
"You think twenty-five men can do all that?" the governor asked doubtfully.
"The men I shall choose can, your excellency.They will be men whom I can trust absolutely, who have no interests except the service of Peter Gross."
"Where will you find them,mynheer?"
"Here in Java, your excellency. Americans. Sailors who have left the sea. Men who came here to make their fortunes and failed and are too proud to go back home. Soldiers from the Philippines, adventurers, lads disappointed in love. I could name you a dozen such here in Batavia now."
The governor looked at his new lieutenant long and thoughtfully.
"Do as you deem best,mynheer. It may be God has sent you here to teach us why we have failed. Is there anything else you need, besides the usual stores?"
"There is one more request I wish to make of your excellency," Peter Gross replied.
"And that is—"
"That your excellency cancel the reward offered for the arrest of Leveque's daughter."
Van Schouten stroked his brow with a gesture of infinite weariness.
"You make strange requests,mynheer," he observed. "Yet I am moved to trust you. What you ask shall be done."
He rose to signify that the interview was at an end. "You may make your requisitions through Sachsen,mynheer. God speed you and give you wisdom beyond your years."
Seated in a low-framed rattan chair on the broad veranda of his cottage, Mynheer Hendrik Muller,controlleur, and acting resident of Bulungan, awaited in perspiring impatience the appearance of his military associate, Captain Gerrit Van Slyck.
State regulations required daily conferences, that the civil arm of the government might lay its commands upon the military and the military make its requisitions upon the civil. An additional incentive to prompt attendance upon these was thatmynheerthe resident rarely failed to produce a bottle of Hollands, which, compounded with certain odorous and acidulated products of the tropics, made a drink that cooled the fevered brow and mellowed the human heart, made a hundred and twenty in the shade seem like seventy, and chased away the home-sickness of folk pining for the damp and fog of their native Amsterdam.
It was no urgent affair of state, however, that made Muller fume and fuss like a washerwoman on a rainy Monday at Van Slyck's dilatoriness. A bit of gossip, casually dropped by the master of a trading schooner who had called for clearance papers an hour before, was responsible for his agitation.
"When does your new resident arrive?" the visiting skipper had asked.
"The new resident?" Muller returned blankly. "What new resident?"
The skipper perceived that he was the bearer of unpleasant tidings and diplomatically minimized the importance of his news.
"Somebody down to Batavia told me you were going to have a new resident here," he replied lightly. "It's only talk, I s'pose. You hear so many yarns in port."
"There is nothing official—yet," Muller declared. He had the air of one who could tell much if he chose. But when the sailor had gone back to his ship he hurriedly sent Cho Seng to the stockade with an urgent request to Van Slyck to come to his house at once.
Van Slyck was putting the finishing touches to an exquisite toilet when he received the message.
"What ails the doddering old fool now?" he growled irritably as he read Muller's appeal. "Another Malay run amuck, I suppose. Every time a few of thesebruinevels(brown-skins) get krissed he thinks the whole province is going to flame into revolt."
Tossing the note into an urn, he leisurely resumed his dressing. It was not until he was carefully barbered, his hair shampooed and perfumed, his nails manicured, and his mustache waxed and twisted to the exact angle that a two-months old French magazine of fashion dictated as the mode, that thedapper captain left the stockade. He was quite certain that the last living representative of the ancient house of Van Slyck of Amsterdam would never be seen in public in dirty linen and unwashed, regardless how farmynheer the controlleurmight forget his self-respect and the dignity of his office.
Van Slyck was leisurely strolling along the tree-lined lane that led from the iron-wood stockade to the cluster of houses colloquially designated "Amsterdam" when the impatient Muller perceived his approach.
"Devil take the man, why doesn't he hurry?" thecontrolleurswore. With a peremptory gesture he signaled Van Slyck to make haste.
"By the beard of Nassau," the captain exclaimed. "Does that swine think he can make a Van Slyck skip like a butcher's boy? Things have come to a pretty pass in the colonies when a Celebes half-breed imagines he can make the best blood of Amsterdam fetch and carry for him."
Deliberately turning his back on thecontrolleur, he affected to admire the surpassingly beautiful bay of Bulungan, heaven's own blue melting into green on the shingly shore, with a thousand sabres of iridescent foam stabbing the morning horizon. Muller was fuming when the commandant finally sauntered on the veranda, selected a fat, black cigar from the humidor, and gracefully lounged in an easy chair.
"Donder en bliksem! kapitein, but you lie abed later every morning," he growled.
Van Slyck's thin lips curled with aristocratic scorn.
"We cannot all be such conscientious public servants as you,mynheer," he observed ironically.
Muller was in that state of nervous agitation that a single jarring word would have roused an unrestricted torrent of abuse. Fortunately for Van Slyck, however, he was obtuse to irony. He took the remark literally and for the moment, like oil on troubled waters, it calmed the rising tide of his wrath at what he deemed the governor-general's black ingratitude.
"Well,kapitein, gij kebt gelijk(you are right, captain)" he assented heavily. The blubbery folds under his chin crimsoned with his cheeks in complacent self-esteem. "There are not many men who would have done so well as I have under the conditions I had to face—under the conditions I had to face—kapitein.Ja!Not many men. I have worked and slaved to build up this residency. For two years now I have done a double duty—I have been both resident andcontrolleur.Jawel!"
Recollection of the skipper's unpleasant news recurred to him. His face darkened like a tropic sky before a cloudburst.
"And what is my reward,kapitein? What is my reward? To have someAmsterdamsche papegaai(parrot) put over me." His fist came down wrathily on the arm of his chair. "Ten thousand devils! It is enough to make a man turn pirate."
Van Slyck's cynical face lit with a sudden interest.
"You have heard from Ah Sing?" he inquired.
"Ah Sing? No.Drommel noch toe!" Muller swore. "Who mentioned Ah Sing? That thieving Deutscher who runs the schooner we had in port over-night told me this not an hour ago. The whole of Batavia knows it. They are talking it in everyrumah makan. And we sit here and know nothing. That is the kind of friends we have in Batavia."
Van Slyck, apprehensive that the impending change might affect him, speculated swiftly how much thecontrolleurknew.
"It is strange that Ah Sing hasn't let us know," he remarked.
"Ah Sing?" Muller growled. "Ah Sing? That bloodsucker is all for himself. He would sell us out to Van Schouten in a minute if he thought he saw any profit in it.Ja!I have even put money into his ventures, and this is how he treats me."
"Damnably, I must say," Van Slyck agreed sympathetically. "That is, if he knows."
"If he knows,mynheer kapitein? Of course he knows. Has he notagentenin every corner of this archipelago? Has he not a spy in thepaleisitself?"
"He should have sent us word," Van Slyck agreed. "Unlessmynheer, the new resident, is one of us. Who did you say it is,mynheer?"
"How the devil should I know?" Muller growled irritably. "All I know is what I told you—that the whole of Batavia says Bulungan is to have a new resident."
Van Slyck's face fell. He had hoped that thecontrolleurknew at least the identity of the newexecutive of the province. Having extracted all the information Muller had, he dropped the cloak of sympathy and remarked with cool insolence:
"Since you don't know, I think you had better make it your business to find out,mynheer."
Muller looked at him doubtfully. "You might make an effort also,kapitein," he suggested. "You have friends in Batavia. It is your concern as well as mine, a new resident would ruin our business."
"I don't think he will," Van Slyck replied coolly. "If he isn't one of us he won't bother us long. Ah Sing won't let any prying reformer interfere with business while the profits are coming in as well as they are."
A shadow of anxiety crossed Muller's face. He cast a troubled look at Van Slyck, who affected to admire the multi-tinted color display of jungle, sun, and sea.
"What—what do you mean,kapitein?" he asked hesitantly.
"People sometimes begin voyages they do not finish," Van Slyck observed. "A man might eat a pomegranate that didn't agree with him—pouf—the colic, and it is all over. There is nothing so uncertain as life,mynheer."
The captain replaced his cigar between his teeth with a flourish. Muller's pudgy hands caught each other convulsively. The folds under his chin flutterred. He licked his lips before he spoke.
"Kapitein—you mean he might come to an unhappy end on the way?" he faltered.
"Why not?" Van Slyck concentrated his attention on his cigar.
"Neen, neen, let us have no bloodshed," Muller vetoed anxiously. "We have had enough—" He looked around nervously as though he feared someone might be overhearing him. "Let him alone. We shall find some way to get rid of him. But let there be no killing."
Van Slyck turned his attention from the landscape to thecontrolleur. There was a look in the captain's face that made Muller wince and shift his eyes, a look of cyincal contempt, calm, frank, and unconcealed. It was the mask lifting, for Van Slyck despised his associate. Bold and unscrupulous, sticking at nothing that might achieve his end, he had no patience with the timid, faltering, often conscience-strickencontrolleur.
"Well,mynheer," Van Slyck observed at length, "you are getting remarkably thin-skinned all of a sudden."
He laughed sardonically. Muller winced and replied hastily:
"I have been thinking,kapitein, that the proa crews have been doing too much killing lately. I am going to tell Ah Sing that it must be stopped. There are other ways—we can unload the ships and land their crews on some island—"