Cover

THE ARGUS PHEASANT

[Pg i]

The Chinaman’s laborious progress through the cane had
amused her. She knew why he stepped so carefully

THE ARGUS PHEASANT

BY

JOHN CHARLES BEECHAM

Frontispiece by
GEORGE W. GAGE

New York
W. J. Watt & Company
PUBLISHERS
[Pg iii]

Copyright, 1918, by
W. J. WATT & COMPANY

PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.
[Pg iv]

CONTENTS

[1]

THE ARGUS PHEASANT

Ah, God, for a man with a heart, head, hand,
Like some of the simple great ones gone
Forever and ever by;
One still, strong man in a blatant land,
Whatever they call him—what care I?—
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat—one
Who can rule and dare not lie!  Tennyson.

CHAPTER I

The Omniscient Sachsen

It was very apparent that his Excellency Jonkheer
Adriaan Adriaanszoon Van Schouten, governor-general
of the Netherlands East Indies,
was in a temper. His eyes sparked like an emery-wheel
biting cold steel. His thin, sharp-ridged nose
rose high and the nostrils quivered. His pale,
almost bloodless lips were set in rigid lines over
his finely chiseled, birdlike beak with its aggressive
Vandyke beard. His hair bristled straight and
stiff, like the neck-feathers of a ruffled cock, over
the edge of his linen collar. It was this latter
evidence of the governor’s unpleasant humor that[2]
his military associate, General Gysbert Karel Vanden
Bosch, observed with growing anxiety.

The governor took a pinch of snuff with great
deliberation and glared across the big table of his
cabinet-room at the general. Vanden Bosch shrank
visibly.

“Then, my dear generaal,” he demanded, “you say
we must let these sons of Jazebel burn down my
residences, behead my residents, and feed my controlleurs
to the crocodiles without interference from
the military?”

“Ach, no, your excellency!” General Vanden
Bosch expostulated hastily. “Not that!”

“I fear I have not understood you, my dear general.
What do you advise?”

The icy sweetness of the choleric Van Schouten
sent a cold shiver along the commander’s spine.
He wriggled nervously in the capacious armchair
that he filled so snugly. Quite unconsciously he
mumbled to himself the clause which the pious
Javanese had added to their prayers since Van
Schouten’s coming to Batavia: “And from the
madness of the orang blanda devil at the paleis,
Allah deliver us.”

“Ha! generaal, what do you say?” the governor
exclaimed.

Vanden Bosch coughed noisily and rallied his wits.

“Ahem, your excellency; ah-hum! It is a problem,
as your excellency knows. I could send Colonel
Heyns and his regiment to Bulungan, if your excellency
so desires. But—ahem—as your excel[3]lency
knows, all he will find is empty huts. Not a
proa on the sea; not a Dyak in his field.”

“You might as well send that many wooden men!”
Van Schouten snapped.

The general winced. His portentously solemn
features that for forty years had impressed the authorities
at The Hague with his sagacity in military
affairs became severely grave. Oracularly he suggested:

“Would it not be wise, your excellency, to give
Mynheer Muller, the controlleur, more time? His
last report was very satisfactory. Very satisfactory,
indeed!” He smacked his lips at the satisfactoriness
thereof.

“Donder en bliksem!” the governor swore, crashing
his lean fist on the table. “More time for what?
The taxes have not been paid for two years. Not a
kilo of rice has been grown on our plantations. Not
a liter of dammargum has been shipped here. The
cane is left to rot uncut. Fire has ravaged the
cinchona-groves my predecessors set with such care.
Every ship brings fresh reports of piracies, of tribal
wars, and head-hunting. How much longer must
we possess our souls in patience while these things
go on?”

The general shook his head with a brave show of
regret.

“Ach! your excellency,” he replied sadly; “he
promised so well.”

“Promises,” the governor retorted, “do not pay
taxes.”[4]

Vanden Bosch rubbed his purple nose in perplexity.

“I suppose it is the witch-woman again,” he remarked,
discouragedly.

“Who else?” Van Schouten growled. “Always
the witch-woman. That spawn of Satan, Koyala,
is at the bottom of every uprising we have in
Borneo.”

“That is what we get for letting half-breeds
mingle with whites in our mission schools,” Vanden
Bosch observed bitterly.

The governor scowled. “That folly will cost the
state five hundred gulden,” he remarked. “That is
the price I have put on her head.”

The general pricked up his ears. “H-m, that
should interest Mynheer Muller,” he remarked.
“There is nothing he likes so well as the feel of a
guilder between his fingers.”

The governor snorted. “Neen, generaal,” he negatived.
“For once he has found a sweeter love than
silver. The fool fairly grovels at Koyala’s feet,
Sachsen tells me.”

“So?” Vanden Bosch exclaimed with quickened
interest. “They say she is very fair.”

“If I could get my hands on her once, the Argus
Pheasant’s pretty feathers would molt quickly,”
Van Schouten snarled. His fingers closed like an
eagle’s talons.

“Argus Pheasant, Bintang Burung, the Star Bird—’tis
a sweet-sounding name the Malays have for
her,” the general remarked musingly. There was[5]
a sparkle in his eye—the old warrior had not lost
his fondness for a pretty face. “If I was younger,”
he sighed, “I might go to Bulungan myself.”

The governor grunted.

“You are an old cock that has lost his tail-feathers,
generaal,” he growled. “This is a task for a young
man.”

The general’s chest swelled and his chin perked up
jauntily.

“I am not so old as you think, your excellency,”
he retorted with a trace of asperity.

“Neen, neen, generaal,” the governor negatived,
“I cannot let you go—not for your own good name’s
sake. The gossips of Amsterdam and The Hague
would have a rare scandal to prate about if it became
whispered around that Gysbert Vanden Bosch was
scouring the jungles of Bulungan for a witch-woman
with a face and form like Helen of Troy’s.”

The general flushed. His peccadillos had followed
him to Java, and he did not like to be reminded of them.

“The argus pheasant is too shy a bird to come
within gunshot, your excellency,” he replied somberly.
“It must be trapped.”

“Ay, and so must she,” the governor assented.
“That is how she got her name. But you are too
seasoned for bait, my dear generaal.” He chuckled.

Vanden Bosch was too much impressed with his
own importance to enjoy being chaffed. Ignoring
the thrust, he observed dryly:

“Your excellency might try King Saul’s plan.”[6]

“Ha!” the governor exclaimed with interest.
“What is that?”

Van Schouten prided himself on his knowledge of
the Scriptures, and the general could not repress a
little smirk of triumph at catching him napping.

“King Saul tied David’s hands by giving him his
daughter to wife,” he explained. “In the same way,
your excellency might clip the Argus Pheasant’s
wings by marrying her to one of our loyal servants.
It might be managed most satisfactorily. A proper
marriage would cause her to forget the brown blood
that she hates so bitterly.”

“It is not her brown blood that she hates, it is
her white blood,” Van Schouten contradicted. “But
who would be the man?”

“Why not Mynheer Muller, the controlleur!”
Vanden Bosch asked. “From what your excellency
says, he would not be unwilling. Then our troubles
in Bulungan would be over.”

Van Schouten scowled thoughtfully.

“It would be a good match,” the general urged.
“He is only common blood—a Marken herring-fisher’s
son by a Celebes woman. And she”—he shrugged
his shoulders—”for all her pretty face and plump
body she is Leveque, the French trader’s daughter,
by a Dyak woman.”

He licked his lips in relish of the plan.

Van Schouten shook his head.

“No, I cannot do it,” he said. “I could send her
to the coffee-plantations—that would be just punishment
for her transgressions. But God keep me
from sentencing any woman to marry.”[7]

“But, your excellency,” Vanden Bosch entreated.

“It is ridiculous, generaal,” the governor cut in
autocratically. “The argus pheasant does not mate
with the vulture.”

Vanden Bosch’s face fell. “Then your excellency
must appoint another resident,” he said, in evident
disappointment. “It will take a strong man to
bring those Dyaks to time.”

Van Schouten looked at him fixedly for several
moments. A miserable sensation of having said too
much crept over the general.

“Ha!” Van Schouten exclaimed. “You say we
must have a new resident. That has been my idea,
too. What bush-fighter have you that can lead
two hundred cut-throats like himself and harry these
tigers out of their lairs till they crawl on their bellies
to beg for peace?”

Inwardly cursing himself for his folly in ceasing
to advocate Muller, the general twiddled his thumbs
and said nothing.

“Well, generaal?” Van Schouten rasped irascibly.

“Ahem—you know what troops I have, your excellency.
Mostly raw recruits, here scarce three
months. There is not a man among them I would
trust alone in the bush. After all, it might be wisest
to give Mynheer Muller another chance.” His
cheeks puffed till they were purple.

Van Schouten’s face flamed.

“Enough! Enough!” he roared. “If the military
cannot keep our house in order, Sachsen and
I will find a man. That is all, generaal. Goedendag!“[8]

Vanden Bosch made a hasty and none too dignified
exit, damning under his breath the administration
that had transferred him from a highly
ornamental post in Amsterdam to live with this
pepper-pot. He was hardly out of the door before
the governor shouted:

“Sachsen! Hola, Sachsen!”

The sound of the governor’s voice had scarcely
died in the marbled corridors when Sachsen, the
omniscient, the indispensable secretary, bustled into
the sanctum. His stooped shoulders were crooked
in a perpetual obeisance, and his damp, gray hair
was plastered thinly over his ruddy scalp; but the
shrewd twinkle in his eyes and the hawklike cast of
his nose and chin belied the air of humility he
affected.

“Sachsen,” the governor demanded, the eagle
gleaming in his lean, Cæsarian face, “where can I
find a man that will bring peace to Bulungan?”

The wrinkled features of the all-knowing Sachsen
crinkled with a smile of inspiration.

“Your excellency,” he murmured, bowing low,
“there is Peter Gross, freeholder of Batavia.”

“Peter Gross, Pieter Gross,” Van Schouten
mused, his brow puckered with a thoughtful frown.
“The name seems to have slipped my memory.
What has Peter Gross, freeholder of Batavia, done
to merit such an appointment at our hands, Sachsen?”

The secretary bowed again, punctiliously.

“Your excellency perhaps remembers,” he reminded,
“that it was Peter Gross who rescued Lieu[9]tenant
Hendrik de Koren and twelve men from the
pirates of Lombock.”

“Ha!” the governor exclaimed, his stern features
relaxing a trifle. “Now, Sachsen, answer me truthfully,
has this Peter Gross an eye for women?”

The secretary bent low.

“Your excellency, the fairest flowers of Batavia
are his to pick and choose. The good God has
given him a brave heart, a comely face, and plenty
of flesh to cover his bones. But his only mistress
is the sea.”

“If I should send him to Bulungan, would that
she-devil, Koyala, make the same fool of him that
she has of Muller?” the governor demanded sharply.

“Your excellency, the angels above would fail
sooner than he.”

The governor’s fist crashed on the table with a
resounding thwack.

“Then he is the man we need!” he exclaimed.
“Where shall I find this Peter Gross, Sachsen?”

“Your excellency, he is now serving as first mate
of the Yankee barkentine, Coryander, anchored in
this port. He was here at the paleis only a moment
ago, inquiring for news of three of his crew who had
exceeded their shore leave. I think he has gone
to Ah Sing’s rumah makan, in the Chinese campong.”

Van Schouten sprang from his great chair of state
like a cockerel fluttering from a roost. He licked his
thin lips and curved them into a smile.

“Sachsen,” he said, “except myself, you are the
only man in Java that knows anything. My hat
and coat, Sachsen, and my cane!”[10]

CHAPTER II

Ah Sing Counts his Nails

Captain Threthaway, of the barkentine,
Coryander, of Boston, should have heeded
the warning he received from his first mate,
Peter Gross, to keep away from the roadstead of
Batavia. He had no particular business in that port.
But an equatorial sun, hot enough to melt the marrow
in a man’s bones, made the Coryander’s deck
a blistering griddle; there was no ice on board, and
the water in the casks tasted foul as bilge. So the
captain let his longing for iced tea and the cool
depths of a palm-grove get the better of his judgment.

Passing Timor, Floris, and the other links in the
Malayan chain, Captain Threthaway looked longingly
at the deeply shaded depths of the mangrove
jungles. The lofty tops of the cane swayed gently
to a breeze scarcely perceptible on the Coryander’s
sizzling deck. When the barkentine rounded Cape
Karawang, he saw a bediamonded rivulet leap sheer
off a lofty cliff and lose itself in the liana below. It
was the last straw; the captain felt he had to land
and taste ice on his tongue again or die. Calling
his first mate, he asked abruptly:[11]

“Can we victual at Batavia as cheaply as at Singapore,
Mr. Gross?”

Peter Gross looked at the shore-line thoughtfully.

“One place is as cheap as the other, Mr. Threthaway;
but if it’s my opinion you want, I advise
against stopping at Batavia.”

The captain frowned.

“Why, Mr. Gross?” he asked sharply.

“Because we’d lose our crew, and Batavia’s a bad
place to pick up another one. That gang for’ard
isn’t to be trusted where there’s liquor to be got.
‘Twouldn’t be so bad to lose a few of them at Singapore—there’s
always English-speaking sailors there
waiting for a ship to get home on; but Batavia’s
Dutch. We might have to lay around a week.”

“I don’t think there’s the slightest danger of
desertions,” Captain Threthaway replied testily.
“What possible reason could any of our crew have
to leave?”

“The pay is all right, and the grub is all right;
there’s no kicking on those lines,” Peter Gross said,
speaking guardedly. “But most of this crew are
drinking men. They’re used to their rations of
grog regular. They’ve been without liquor since we
left Frisco, except what they got at Melbourne, and
that was precious little. Since the water fouled on
us, they’re ready for anything up to murder and
mutiny. There’ll be no holding them once we make
port.”

Captain Threthaway flushed angrily. His thin,[12]
ascetic jaw set with Puritan stubbornness as he
retorted:

“When I can’t sail a ship without supplying liquor
to the crew, I’ll retire, Mr. Gross.”

“Don’t misunderstand me, captain,” Peter Gross
replied, with quiet patience.

“I’m not disagreeing with your teetotaler principles.
They improve a crew if you’ve got the right
stock to work with. But when you take grog away
from such dock-sweepings as Smith and Jacobson
and that little Frenchman, Le Beouf, you take away
the one thing on earth they’re willing to work for.
We had all we could do to hold them in hand at
Melbourne, and after the contrary trades we’ve
bucked the past week, and the heat, their tongues
are hanging out for a drop of liquor.”

“Let them dare come back drunk,” the captain
snapped angrily. “I know what will cure them.”

“They won’t come back,” Peter Gross asserted
calmly.

“Then we’ll go out and get them,” Captain
Threthaway said grimly.

“They’ll be where they can’t be found,” Peter
Gross replied.

Captain Threthaway snorted impatiently.

“Look here, captain!” Peter Gross exclaimed,
facing his skipper squarely. “Batavia is my home
when I’m not at sea. I know its ins and outs.
Knowing the town, and knowing the crew we’ve got,
I’m sure a stop there will be a mighty unpleasant
experience all around. There’s a Chinaman there,[13]
Ah Sing, a public-house proprietor and a crimp,
that has runners to meet every boat. Once a man
goes into his rumah makan, he’s as good as lost until
the next skipper comes along short-handed and puts
up the price.”

Captain Threthaway smiled confidently.

“Poor as the crew is, Mr. Gross, there’s no member
of it will prefer lodging in a Chinese crimp’s
public house ten thousand miles from home to his
berth here.”

“They’ll forget his color when they taste his hot
rum,” Peter Gross returned bruskly. “And once
they drink it, they’ll forget everything else. Ah
Sing is the smoothest article that ever plaited a
queue, and they don’t make them any slicker than
they do in China.”

Captain Threthaway’s lips pinched together in
irritation.

“There are always the authorities,” he remarked
pettishly, to end the controversy.

Peter Gross restrained a look of disgust with
difficulty.

“Yes, there are always the authorities,” he conceded.
“But in the Chinese campong they’re about
as much use as a landlubber aloft in a blow. The
campong is a little republic in itself, and Ah Sing is
the man that runs it. If the truth was known, I
guess he’s the boss Chinaman of the East Indies—pirate,
trader, politician—anything he can make a
guilder at. From his rum-shop warrens run into
every section of Chinatown, and they’re so well hid[14]
that the governor, though he’s sharp as a weasel
and by all odds the best man the Dutch ever had
here, can’t find them. It’s the real port of missing
men.”

Captain Threthaway looked shoreward, where
dusky, breech-clouted natives were resting in the
cool shade of the heavy-leafed mangroves. A bit
of breeze stirred just then, bringing with it the rich
spice-grove and jungle scents of the thickly wooded
island. A fierce longing for the shore seized the
captain. He squared his shoulders with decision.

“I’ll take the chance, Mr. Gross,” he said. “This
heat is killing me. You may figure on twenty-four
hours in port.”

Twelve hours after the Coryander cast anchor in
Batavia harbor, Smith, Jacobson, and Le Beouf
were reported missing. When Captain Threthaway,
for all his Boston upbringing, had exhausted a prolific
vocabulary, he called his first mate.

“Mr. Gross,” he said, “the damned renegades
are gone. Do you think you can find them?”

Long experience in the vicissitudes of life, acquired
in that best school of all, the forecastle, had
taught Peter Gross the folly of saying, “I told you
so.” Therefore he merely replied:

“I’ll try, sir.”

So it befell that he sought news of the missing
ones at the great white stadhuis, where the Heer
Sachsen, always his friend, met him and conceived
the inspiration for his prompt recommendation to
the governor-general.[15]

Peter Gross ambled on toward Ah Sing’s rumah
makan without the slightest suspicion he was being
followed. On his part, Governor-General Van
Schouten was content to let his quarry walk on
unconscious of observation while he measured the
man.

“God in Israel, what a man!” his excellency exclaimed
admiringly, noting Peter Gross’s broad
shoulders and stalwart thighs. “If he packs as
much brains inside his skull as he does meat on his
bones, there are some busy days ahead for my
Dyaks.” He smacked his lips in happy anticipation.

Ah Sing’s grog-shop, with its colonnades and porticoes
and fussy gables and fantastic cornices terminating
in pigtail curlicues, was a squalid place
for all the ornamentation cluttered on it. Peter Gross
observed its rubbishy surroundings with ill-concealed
disgust.

“‘Twould be a better Batavia if some one set fire
to the place,” he muttered to himself. “Yet the
law would call it arson.”

Looking up, he saw Ah Sing seated in one of the
porticoes, and quickly masked his face to a smile of
cordial greeting, but not before the Chinaman had
detected his ill humor.

There was a touch of three continents in Ah Sing’s
appearance. He sat beside a table, in the American
fashion; he smoked a long-stemmed hookah, after
the Turkish fashion, and he wore his clothes after
the Chinese fashion. The bland innocence of his[16]
pudgy face and the seraphic mildness of his unblinking
almond eyes that peeped through slits no wider
than the streak of a charcoal-pencil were as the
guilelessness of Mother Eve in the garden. Motionless
as a Buddha idol he sat, except for occasional
pulls at the hookah.

“Good-morning, Ah Sing,” Peter Gross remarked
happily, as he mounted the colonnade.

The tiny slits through which Ah Sing beheld the
pageantry of a sun-baked world opened a trifle
wider.

“May Allah bless thee, Mr. Gross,” he greeted
impassively.

Peter Gross pulled a chair away from one of the
other tables and placed it across the board from Ah
Sing. Then he succumbed to it with a sigh of gentle
ease.

“A hot day,” he panted, and fanned himself as
though he found the humidity unbearable.

“Belly hot,” Ah Sing gravely agreed in a guttural
voice that sounded from unfathomable abysses.

“A hot day for a man that’s tasted no liquor for
nigh three months,” Peter Gross amended.

“You makee long trip?” Ah Sing inquired politely.

Peter Gross’s features molded themselves into an
expression eloquently appreciative of his past miseries.

“That’s altogether how you take it, Ah Sing,” he
replied. “From Frisco to Melbourne to Batavia
isn’t such a thunderin’ long ways, not to a man that’s
done the full circle three times. But when you[17]
make the voyage with a Methodist captain who
doesn’t believe in grog, it’s the longest since Captain
Cook’s. Ah Sing, my throat’s dryer than a sou’east
monsoon. Hot toddy for two.”

Ah Sing clapped his hands and uttered a magic
word or two in Chinese. A Cantonese waiter paddled
swiftly outside, bearing a lacquered tray and
two steaming glasses. One he placed before Ah
Sing and the other before Peter Gross, who tossed a
coin on the table.

“Pledge your health, sir,” Peter Gross remarked
and reached across the board to clink glasses with
his Chinese friend. Ah Sing lifted his glass to meet
the sailor’s and suddenly found it snaked out of his
hands by a deft motion of Peter Gross’s middle finger.
Gross slid his own glass across the table toward
Ah Sing.

“If you don’t mind,” he remarked pleasantly.
“Your waiter might have mistaken me for a plain
A. B., and I’ve got to get back to my ship to-night.”

Ah Sing’s bland and placid face remained expressionless
as a carved god’s. But he left the glass
stand, untasted, beside him.

The Coryander’s mate sipped his liquor and sank
deeper into his chair. He studied with an air of
affectionate interest the long lane of quaintly colonnaded
buildings that edged the city within a city,
the Chinese campong. Pigtailed Orientals, unmindful
of the steaming heat, squirmed across the
scenery. Ten thousand stenches were compounded
into one, in which the flavor of garlic predominated.[18]
Peter Gross breathed the heavy air with a smile of
reminiscent pleasure and dropped another notch into
the chair.

“It feels good to be back ashore again for a spell,
Ah Sing,” he remarked. “A nice, cool spot like
this, with nothing to do and some of your grog under
the belt, skins a blistery deck any day. I don’t
wonder so many salts put up here.”

Back of the curtain of fat through which they
peered, Ah Sing’s oblique eyes quivered a trifle as
they watched the sailor keenly.

“By the way,” Peter Gross observed, stretching
his long legs out to the limit of their reach, “you
haven’t seen any of my men, have you? Smith,
he’s pock-marked and has a cut over his right eye;
Jacobson, a tall Swede, and Le Beouf, a little Frenchman
with a close-clipped black mustache and beard?”

Ah Sing gravely cudgeled his memory.

“None of your men,” he assured, “was here.”

Peter Gross’s face fell.

“That’s too bad!” he exclaimed in evident disappointment.
“I thought sure I’d find ’em here.
You’re sure you haven’t overlooked them? That
Frenchie might call for a hop; we picked him out
of a hop-joint at Frisco.”

“None your men here,” Ah Sing repeated gutturally.

Peter Gross rumpled his tousled hair in perplexity.

“We-el,” he drawled unhappily, “if those chaps[19]
don’t get back on shipboard by nightfall I’ll have
to buy some men from you, Ah Sing. Have y’ got
three good hands that know one rope from another?”

“Two men off schooner Marianna,” Ah Sing
replied in his same thick monotone. “One man,
steamer Callee-opie. Good strong man. Work hard.”

“You stole ’em, I s’pose?” Peter Gross asked
pleasantly.

Ah Sing’s heavy jowls waggled in gentle negation.

“No stealum man,” he denied quietly. “Him
belly sick. Come here, get well. Allie big, strong
man.”

“How much a head?”

“Twlenty dlolla.”

“F. O. B. the Coryander and no extra charges?”

Ah Sing’s inscrutable face screwed itself into a
maze of unreadable wrinkles and lines.

“Him eat heap,” he announced. “Five dlolla
more for board.”

“You go to blazes,” Peter Gross replied cheerfully.
“I’ll look up a couple of men somewhere else or go
short-handed if I have to.”

Ah Sing made no reply and his impassive face
did not alter its expressionless fixity. Peter Gross
lazily pulled himself up in his chair and extended his
right hand across the table. A ring with a big
bloodstone in the center, a bloodstone cunningly
chiseled and marked, rested on the middle finger.

“See that ring, Ah Sing?” he asked. “I got that
down to Mauritius. What d’ye think it’s worth?”[20]

Ah Sing’s long, claw-like fingers groped avariciously
toward the ring. His tiny, fat-encased
eyes gleamed with cupidity.

With a quick, cat-like movement, Peter Gross
gripped one of the Chinaman’s hands.

“Don’t pull,” he cautioned quickly as Ah Sing
tried to draw his hand away. “I was going to tell
you that there’s a drop of adder’s poison inside the
bloodstone that runs down a little hollow pin if
you press the stone just so—” He moved to illustrate.

“No! No!” Ah Sing shrieked pig-like squeals of
terror.

“Just send one of your boys for my salts, will
you?” Peter Gross requested pleasantly. “I understand
they got here yesterday morning and haven’t
been seen to leave. Talk English—no China talk,
savvy?”

A flash of malevolent fury broke Ah Sing’s mask
of impassivity. The rage his face expressed caused
Peter Gross to grip his hand the harder and look
quickly around for a possible danger from behind.
They were alone. Peter Gross moved a finger
toward the stone, and Ah Sing capitulated. At his
shrill cry there was a hurried rustle from within.
Peter Gross kept close grip on the Chinaman’s
hand until he heard the shuffling tramp of sailor
feet. Smith, Jacobson and Le Beouf, blinking
sleepily, were herded on the portico by two giant
Thibetans.[21]

Peter Gross shoved the table and Ah Sing violently
back and leaped to his feet.

“You’ll—desert—will you?” he exclaimed. Each
word was punctuated by a swift punch on the chin
of one of the unlucky sailors and an echoing thud
on the floor. Smith, Jacobson, and Le Beouf lay
neatly cross-piled on one of Ah Sing’s broken chairs.

“I’ll pay for the chair,” Peter Gross declared,
jerking his men to their feet and shoving them down
the steps.

Ah Sing shrilled an order in Chinese. The
Thibetan giants leaped for Peter Gross, who sprang
out of their reach and put his back to the wall. In
his right hand a gun flashed.

“Ah Sing, I’ll take you first,” he shouted.

The screen separating them from the adjoining
portico was violently pushed aside.

“Ah Sing!” exclaimed a sharp, authoritative voice.

Ah Sing looked about, startled. The purpled
fury his face expressed sickened to a mottled gray.
Adriaan Adriaanszoon Van Schouten, governor-general
of Java, leaning lightly on his cane, frowned
sternly at the scene of disorder. At a cry from their
master the two Thibetans backed away from Peter
Gross, who lowered his weapon.

“Is it thus you observe our laws, Ah Sing?” Van
Schouten demanded coldly.

Ah Sing licked his lips. “Light of the sun—” he
began, but the governor interrupted shortly:

“The magistrate will hear your explanations.”[22]
His eagle eyes looked penetratingly upon Peter
Gross, who looked steadfastly back.

“Sailor, you threatened to poison this man,”
the governor accused harshly, indicating Ah Sing.

“Your excellency, that was bluff,” Peter Gross
replied. “The ring is as harmless as your excellency’s
own.”

Van Schouten’s eyes twinkled.

“What is your name, sailor, and your ship?” he
demanded.

“Peter Gross, your excellency, first mate of the
barkentine Coryander of Boston, now lying in your
excellency’s harbor of Batavia.”

“Ah Sing,” Van Schouten rasped sternly, “if
these drunken louts are not aboard their ship by
nightfall, you go to the coffee-fields.”

Ah Sing’s gimlet eyes shrank to pin-points. His
face was expressionless, but his whole body seemed
to shake with suppressed emotion as he choked in
guttural Dutch:

“Your excellency shall be obeyed.” He salaamed
to the ground.

Van Schouten glared at Peter Gross.

“Mynheer Gross, the good name of our fair city
is very dear to us,” he said sternly. “Scenes of
violence like this do it much damage. I would have
further discourse with you. Be at the paleis
within the hour.”

“I shall be there, your excellency,” Peter Gross
promised.

The governor shifted his frown to Ah Sing.[23]

“As for you, Ah Sing, I have heard many evil
reports of this place,” he said. “Let me hear no
more.”

While Ah Sing salaamed again, the governor
strode pompously away, followed at a respectful
distance by Peter Gross. It was not until they had
disappeared beyond a curve in the road that Ah
Sing let his face show his feelings. Then an expression
of malignant fury before which even the
two Thibetans quailed, crossed it.

He uttered a harsh command to have the débris
removed. The Thibetans jumped forward in trembling
alacrity. Without giving them another glance
he waddled into the building, into a little den screened
off for his own use. From a patent steel safe of
American make he took an ebony box, quaintly
carved and colored in glorious pinks and yellows
with a flower design. Opening this, he exposed a
row of glass vials resting on beds of cotton. Each
vial contained some nail parings.

He took out the vials one by one, looked at their
labels inscribed in Chinese characters, and placed
them on an ivory tray. As he read each label a
curious smile of satisfaction spread over his features.

When he had removed the last vial he sat at his
desk, dipped a pen into India ink, and wrote two
more labels in similar Chinese characters. When
the ink had dried he placed these on two empty
vials taken from a receptacle on his desk. The
vials were placed with the others in the ebony box
and locked in the safe.[24]

The inscriptions he read on the labels were the
names of men who had died sudden and violent
deaths in the East Indies while he had lived at
Batavia. The labels he filled out carried the names
of Adriaan Adriaanszoon Van Schouten and Peter
Gross.[25]

CHAPTER III

Peter Gross is Named Resident

“Sailor, the penalty for threatening the life
of any citizen is penal servitude on the
state’s coffee-plantations.”

The governor’s voice rang harshly, and he scowled
across the big table in his cabinet-room at the
Coryander’s mate sitting opposite him. His hooked
nose and sharp-pointed chin with its finely trimmed
Van Dyke beard jutted forward rakishly.

“I ask no other justice than your excellency’s
own sense of equity suggests,” Peter Gross replied
quietly.

“H’mm!” the governor hummed. He looked at
the Coryander’s mate keenly for a few moments
through half-closed lids. Suddenly he said:

“And what if I should appoint you a resident,
sailor?”

Peter Gross’s lips pressed together tightly, but
otherwise he gave no sign of his profound astonishment
at the governor’s astounding proposal. Sinking
deeper into his chair until his head sagged on his
breast, he deliberated before replying.

“Your excellency is in earnest?”

“I do not jest on affairs of state, Mynheer Gross.
What is your answer?”[26]

Peter Gross paused. “Your excellency overwhelms
me—” he began, but Van Schouten cut him
short.

“Enough! When I have work to do I choose the
man who I think can do it. Then you accept?”

“Your excellency, to my deep regret I must most
respectfully decline.”

A look of blank amazement spread over the governor’s
face. Then his eyes blazed ominously.

“Decline! Why?” he roared.

“For several reasons,” Peter Gross replied with
disarming mildness. “In the first place I am under
contract with Captain Threthaway of the Coryander—”

“I will arrange that with your captain,” the governor
broke in.

“In the second place I am neither a soldier nor a
politician—”

“That is for me to consider,” the governor retorted.

“In the third place, I am a citizen of the United
States and therefore not eligible to any civil appointment
from the government of the Netherlands.”

“Donder en bliksem!” the governor exclaimed. “I
thought you were a freeholder here.”

“I am,” Peter Gross admitted. “The land I
won is at Riswyk. I expect to make it my home
when I retire from the sea.”

“How long have you owned that land?”

“For nearly seven years.”

The governor stroked his beard. “You talk[27]
Holland like a Hollander, Mynheer Gross,” he observed.

“My mother was of Dutch descent,” Peter Gross
explained. “I learned the language from her.”

“Good!” Van Schouten inclined his head with a
curt nod of satisfaction. “Half Holland is all Holland.
We can take steps to make you a citizen at
once.”

“I don’t care to surrender my birthright.” Peter
Gross negatived quietly.

“What!” Van Schouten shouted. “Not for a
resident’s post? And eight thousand guilders a
year? And a land grant in Java that will make you
rich for life if you make those hill tribes stick to their
plantations? What say you to this, Mynheer Gross?”
His lips curved with a smile of anticipation.

“The offer is tempting and the honor great,”
Peter Gross acknowledged quietly. “But I can
not forget I was born an American.”

Van Schouten leaned back in his chair with a look
of astonishment.

“You refuse?” he asked incredulously.

“I am sorry, your excellency!” Peter Gross’s
tone was unmistakably firm.

“You refuse?” the governor repeated, still unbelieving.
“Eight—thousand—guilders! And a
land grant that will make you rich for life!”

“I am an American, and American I shall stay.”

The governor’s eyes sparkled with admiration.

“By the beard of Orange!” he exclaimed, “it is
no wonder you Yankees have sucked the best blood[28]
of the world into your country.” He leaned forward
confidentially.

“Mynheer Gross, I cannot appoint you resident
if you refuse to take the oath of allegiance to the
queen. But I can make you special agent of the
gouverneur-generaal. I can make you a resident in
fact, if not in name, of a country larger than half the
Netherlands, larger than many of your own American
States. I can give you the rewards I have
pledged you, a fixed salary and the choice of a thousand
hectares of our fairest state lands in Java.
What do you say?”

He leaned forward belligerently. In that posture
his long, coarse hair rose bristly above his neck,
giving him something of the appearance of a gamecock
with feathers ruffled. It was this peculiarity
that first suggested the name he was universally
known by throughout the Sundas, “De Kemphaan”
(The Gamecock).

“To what province would you appoint me?”
Peter Gross asked slowly.

The governor hesitated. With the air of a poker
player forced to show his hand he confessed:

“It is a difficult post, mynheer, and needs a
strong man as resident. It is the residency of
Bulungan, Borneo.”

There was the faintest flicker in Peter Gross’s
eyes. Van Schouten watched him narrowly. In
the utter stillness that followed the governor could
hear his watch tick.

Peter Gross rose abruptly, leaped for the door,[29]
and threw it open. He looked straight into the
serene, imperturbable face of Chi Wung Lo, autocrat
of the governor’s domestic establishment. Chi
Wung bore a delicately lacquered tray of Oriental
design on which were standing two long, thin, daintily
cut glasses containing cooling limes that bubbled
fragrantly. Without a word he swept grandly in
and placed the glasses on the table, one before the
governor, and the other before Peter Gross’s vacant
chair.

“Ha!” Van Schouten exclaimed, smacking his
lips. “Chi Wung, you peerless, priceless servant,
how did you guess our needs?”

With a bland bow and never a glance at Peter
Gross, Chi Wung strutted out in Oriental dignity,
carrying his empty tray. Peter Gross closed the
door carefully, and walked slowly back.

“I was about to say, your excellency,” he murmured,
“that Bulungan has not a happy reputation.”

“It needs a strong man to rule it,” the governor
acknowledged, running his glance across Peter
Gross’s broad shoulders in subtle compliment.

“Those who have held the post of resident there
found early graves.”

“You are young, vigorous. You have lived here
long enough to know how to escape the fevers.”

“There are worse enemies in Bulungan than the
fevers,” Peter Gross replied. “It is not for nothing
that Bulungan is known as the graveyard of Borneo.”

The governor glanced at Peter Gross’s strong face
and stalwart form regretfully.[30]

“Your refusal is final?” he asked.

“On the contrary, if your excellency will meet
one condition, I accept,” Peter Gross replied.

The governor put his glass down sharply and
stared at the sailor.

“You accept this post?” he demanded.

“Upon one condition, yes!”

“What is that condition?”

“That I be allowed a free hand.”

“H’mm!” Van Schouten drew a deep breath
and leaned back in his chair. The sharp, Julian
cast of countenance was never more pronounced,
and the eagle eyes gleamed inquiringly, calculatingly.
Peter Gross looked steadily back. The minutes
passed and neither spoke.

“Why do you want to go there?” the governor
exclaimed suddenly. He leaned forward in his chair
till his eyes burned across a narrow two feet into
Peter Gross’s own.

The strong, firm line of Peter Gross’s lips tightened.
He rested one elbow on the table and drew nearer
the governor. His voice was little more than a
murmur as he said:

“Your excellency, let me tell you the story of
Bulungan.”

The governor’s face showed surprise. “Proceed,”
he directed.

“Six years ago, when your excellency was appointed
governor-general of the Netherlands East
Indies,” Peter Gross began, “Bulungan was a No
Man’s land, although nominally under the Dutch[31]
flag. The pirates that infested the Celebes sea and
the straits of Macassar found ports of refuge in its
jungle-banked rivers and marsh mazes where no
gun-boat could find them. The English told your
government that if it did not stamp out piracy and
subjugate the Dyaks, it would. That meant loss
of the province to the Dutch crown. Accordingly
you sent General Van Heemkerken there with eight
hundred men who marched from the lowlands to the
highlands and back again, burning every village
they found, but meeting no Dyaks except old men
and women too helpless to move. General Van
Heemkerken reported to you that he had pacified
the country. On his report you sent Mynheer Van
Scheltema there as resident, and Cupido as controlleur.
Within six months Van Scheltema was
bitten by an adder placed in his bedroom and Cupido
was assassinated by a hill Dyak, who threw him out
of a dugout into a river swarming with crocodiles.

“Lieve hemel, no!” Van Schouten cried. “Van
Scheltema and Cupido died of the fevers.”

“So it was reported to your excellency,” Peter
Gross replied gravely. “I tell you the facts.”

The governor’s thin, spiked jaw shot out like a
vicious thorn and his teeth clicked.

“Go on,” he directed sharply.

“For a year there was neither resident nor controlleur
at Bulungan. Then the pirates became so
bold that you again took steps to repress them. The
stockade at the village of Bulungan was enlarged
and the garrison was increased to fifty men. Lieu[32]tenant
Van Slyck, the commandant, was promoted
to captain. A new resident was appointed, Mynheer
de Jonge, a very dear friend of your excellency.
He was an old man, estimable and honest, but ill-fitted
for such a post, a failure in business, and a
failure as a resident. Time after time your excellency
wrote him concerning piracies, hillmen raids,
and head-hunting committed in his residency or the
adjoining seas. Each time he replied that your
excellency must be mistaken, that the pirates and
head-hunters came from other districts.”

The governor’s eyes popped in amazement.
“How do you know this?” he exclaimed, but Peter
Gross ignored the question.

“Finally about two years ago Mynheer de Jonge,
through an accident, learned that he had been deceived
by those he had trusted, had a right to trust.
A remark made by a drunken native opened his
eyes. One night he called out Captain Van Slyck
and the latter’s commando and made a flying raid.
He all but surprised a band of pirates looting a captured
schooner and might have taken them had they
not received a warning of his coming. That raid
made him a marked man. Within two weeks he
was poisoned by being pricked as he slept with a
thorn dipped in the juice of the deadly upas tree.”

“He was a suicide!” the governor exclaimed, his
face ashen. “They brought me a note in his own
handwriting.”

“In which it was stated that he killed himself[33]
because he felt he had lost your excellency’s confidence?”

“You know that, too?” Van Schouten whispered
huskily.

“Your excellency has suffered remorse without
cause,” Peter Gross declared quietly. “The note is
a forgery.”

The governor’s hands gripped the edge of the table.

“You can prove that?” he cried.

“For the present your excellency must be satisfied
with my word. As resident of Bulungan I hope
to secure proofs that will satisfy a court of justice.”

The governor gazed at Peter Gross intently. A
conflict of emotions, amazement, unbelief, and hope
were expressed on his face.

“Why should I believe you?” he demanded
fiercely.

Peter Gross’s face hardened. The sternness of
the magistrate was on his brow as he replied:

“Your excellency remembers the schooner Tetrina,
attacked by Chinese and Dyak pirates off the coast
of Celebes three years ago? All her crew were
butchered except two left on the deck that night for
dead. I was one of the two, your excellency. My
dead comrades have left me a big debt to pay. That
is why I will go to Bulungan.”

The governor rose. Decision was written on his
brow.

“Meet us here to-night, Mynheer Gross,” he said.
“There is much to discuss with Mynheer Sachsen[34]
before you leave. God grant you may be the instrument
of His eternal justice.” Peter Gross raised a
hand of warning.

“Sometimes the very walls have ears, your excellency,”
he cautioned. “If I am to be resident of
Bulungan no word of the appointment must leak
out until I arrive there.”[35]

CHAPTER IV

Koyala’s Prayer

It was a blistering hot day in Bulungan. The
heavens were molten incandescence. The
muddy river that bisected the town wallowed
through its estuary, a steaming tea-kettle. The
black muck-fields baked and flaked under the torrid
heat. The glassy surface of the bay, lying within
the protecting crook of a curling tail of coral reef,
quivered under the impact of the sun’s rays like some
sentient thing.

In the village that nestled where fresh and salt
water met, the streets were deserted, almost lifeless.
Gaunt pariah dogs, driven by the acid-sharp pangs
of a never-satiated hunger, sniffed among the shadows
of the bamboo and palmleaf huts, their backs
arched and their tails slinking between their legs.
Too weak to grab their share of the spoil in the
hurly-burly, they scavenged in these hours of universal
inanity. The doors of the huts were tightly
closed—barricaded against the heat. The merchant
in his dingy shop, the fisherman in his house
on stilts, and the fashioner of metals in his thatched
cottage in the outskirts slept under their mats.
Apoplexy was the swift and sure fate of those who
dared the awful torridity.[36]

Dawn had foretold the heat. The sun shot above
the purple and orange waters of the bay like a conflagration.
The miasmal vapors that clustered
thickly about the flats by night gathered their linen
and fled like the hunted. They were scurrying upstream
when Bogoru, the fisherman, walked out on
his sampan landing. He looked at the unruffled surface
of the bay, and then looked upward quickly at
the lane of tall kenari trees between the stockade
and government buildings on an elevation a short
distance back of the town. The spindly tops of the
trees pointed heavenward with the rigidity of church
spires.

“There will be no chaetodon sold at the visschersmarkt
(fishmart) to-day,” he observed. “Kismet!”

With a patient shrug of his shoulders he went
back to his hut and made sure there was a plentiful
supply of sirih and cooling limes on hand.

In the fruit-market Tagotu, the fruiterer, set out
a tempting display of mangosteen, durian, dookoo,
and rambootan, pineapples, and pomegranates, jars
of agar-agar, bowls of rice, freshly cooked, and
pitchers of milk.

The square was damp from the heavy night dew
when he set out the first basket, it was dry as a
fresh-baked brick when he put out the last. The
heavy dust began to flood inward. Tagotu noticed
with dismay how thin the crowd was that straggled
about the market-place. Chepang, his neighbor,
came out of his stall and observed:[37]

“The monsoon has failed again. Bunungan will
stay in his huts to-day.”

“It is the will of Allah,” Tagotu replied patiently.
Putting aside his offerings, he lowered the shades of
his shop and composed himself for a siesta.

On the hill above the town, where the rude fort
and the government buildings gravely faced the sea,
the heat also made itself felt. The green blinds of
the milk-white residency building, that was patterned
as closely as tropical conditions would permit
after the quaint architecture of rural Overysel, were
tightly closed. The little cluster of residences
around it, the controlleur’s house and the homes of
Marinus Blauwpot and Wang Fu, the leading merchants
of the place, were similarly barricaded. For
“Amsterdam,” the fashionable residential suburb
of Bulungan village, was fighting the same enemy
as “Rotterdam,” the town below, an enemy more
terrible than Dyak blow-pipes and Dyak poisoned
arrows, the Bornean sun.

Like Bogoru, the fisherman, and Tagotu, the fruit-vender,
Cho Seng, Mynheer Muller’s valet and cook,
had seen the threat the sunrise brought. The sun’s
copper disc was dyeing the purple and blue waters
of the bay with vermilion and magentas when he
pad-padded out on the veranda of the controlleur’s
house. He was clad in the meticulously neat
brown jeans that he wore at all times and occasions
except funeral festivals, and in wicker sandals.
With a single sweep of his eyes he took in the kenari[38]-tree-lined
land that ran to the gate of the stockade
where a sleepy sentinel, hunched against a pert
brass cannon, nodded his head drowsily. The road
was tenantless. He shot another glance down the
winding pathway that led by the houses of Marinus
Blauwpot and Wang Fu to the town below. That
also was unoccupied. Stepping off the veranda, he
crossed over to an unshaded spot directly in front
of the house and looked intently seaward to where a
junk lay at anchor. The brown jeans against the
milk-white paint of the house threw his figure in
sharp relief.

Cho Seng waited until a figure showed itself on
the deck of the junk. Then he shaded his eye with
his arm. The Chinaman on the deck of the junk
must have observed the figure of his fellow countryman
on the hill, for he also shaded his eyes with
his arm.

Cho Seng looked quickly to the right—to the left.
There was no one stirring. The sentinel at the
gate drowsed against the carriage of the saucy brass
cannon. Shading his eyes once more with a quick
gesture, Cho Seng walked ten paces ahead. Then
he walked back five paces. Making a sharp angle
he walked five paces to one side. Then he turned
abruptly and faced the jungle.

The watcher on the junk gave no sign that he had
seen this curious performance. But as Cho Seng
scuttled back into the house, he disappeared into
the bowels of the ugly hulk.

An hour passed before Cho Seng reappeared on[39]
the veranda. He cast only a casual glance at the
junk and saw that it was being provisioned. After
listening for a moment to the rhythmic snoring that
came from the chamber above—Mynheer Muller’s
apartment—he turned the corner of the house and
set off at a leisurely pace toward the tangle of mangroves,
banyan, bamboo cane, and ferns that lay a
quarter of a mile inland on the same elevation on
which the settlement and stockade stood.

There was nothing in his walk to indicate that
he had a definite objective. He strolled along in
apparent aimlessness, as though taking a morning’s
constitutional. Overhead hundreds of birds created
a terrific din; green and blue-billed gapers
shrilled noisily; lories piped their matin lays, and
the hoarse cawing of the trogons mingled discordantly
with the mellow notes of the mild cuckoos.
A myriad insect life buzzed and hummed around him,
and scurried across his pathway. Pale white flowers
of the night that lined the wall shrank modestly
into their green cloisters before the bold eye of day.
But Cho Seng passed them by unseeing, and unhearing.
Nature had no existence for him except
as it ministered unto his physical needs. Only once
did he turn aside—a quick, panicky jump—and
that was when a little spotted snake glided in front
of him and disappeared into the underbrush.

When he was well within the shadows of the
mangroves, Cho Seng suddenly brightened and
began to look about him keenly. Following a
faintly defined path, he walked along in a circuitous[40]
route until he came to a clearing under the shade
of a huge banyan tree whose aërial roots rose over
his head. After peering furtively about and seeing
no one he uttered a hoarse, guttural call, the call the
great bird of paradise utters to welcome the sunrise—”Wowk,
wowk, wowk.”

There was an immediate answer—the shrill note
of the argus pheasant. It sounded from the right,
near by, on the other side of a thick tangle of cane
and creeper growth. Cho Seng paused in apparent
disquietude at the border of the thicket, but as
he hesitated, the call was repeated more urgently.
Wrenching the cane apart, he stepped carefully into
the underbrush.

His progress through it was slow. At each step
he bent low to make certain where his foot fell. He
had a mortal fear of snakes—his nightmares were
ghastly dreams of a loathsome death from a serpent’s
bite.

There was a low ripple of laughter—girlish laughter.
Cho Seng straightened quickly. To his right
was another clearing, and in that clearing there was a
woman, a young woman just coming into the bloom
of a glorious beauty. She was seated on a gnarled
aërial root. One leg was negligently thrown over
the other, a slender, shapely arm reached gracefully
upward to grasp a spur from another root, a coil of
silky black hair, black as tropic night, lay over her
gleaming shoulder. Her sarong, spotlessly white,
hung loosely about her wondrous form and was
caught with a cluster of rubies above her breasts.[41]
A sandal-covered foot, dainty, delicately tapering,
its whiteness tanned with a faint tint of harvest
brown, was thrust from the folds of the gown. At
her side, in a silken scabbard, hung a light, skilfully
wrought kris. The handle was studded with gems.

“Good-morning, Cho Seng,” the woman greeted
demurely.

Cho Seng, making no reply, snapped the cane
aside and leaped through. Koyala laughed again,
her voice tinkling like silver bells. The Chinaman’s
laborious progress through the cane had amused her.
She knew why he stepped so carefully.

“Good-morning, Cho Seng,” Koyala repeated.
Her mocking dark brown eyes tried to meet his, but
Cho Seng looked studiedly at the ground, in the
affected humility of Oriental races.

“Cho Seng here,” he announced. “What for
um you wantee me?” He spoke huskily; a physician
would instantly have suspected he was tubercular.

Koyala’s eyes twinkled. A woman, she knew she
was beautiful. Wherever she went, among whites or
Malays, Chinese, or Papuans, she was admired.
But from this stolid, unfathomable, menial Chinaman
she had never been able to evoke the one
tribute that every pretty woman, no manner how
good, demands from man—a glance of admiration.

“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 reit[42]erated.
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 brown[43]
brother 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 your baas, the mynheer,
ever mention me?”

“Mynheer Muller belly much mad, belly much
drink jenever (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 his[44]
bed 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 speakee orang kaya, Wobanguli,
drink jenever. Him speakee Kapitein Van Slyck,
drink jenever. 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 drink
jenever, 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.”[45]

“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 Bulun[46]gan,”
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 the orang kayas of the sea Dyaks
of Bulungan, whereby the children of the sea sail
in the proas of Ah Sing when the Hanu Token come
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—big baas in 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.”[47]

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:

“Kapitein him bang-bang boat come see Mynheer
Muller namiddag,” (afternoon) he said, indicating
the sun’s position an hour before sunset.
“Mynheer Muller tellee Koyala voormiddag” (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 her[48]
that 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 head[49]
against 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 why[50]
he was there, why she was where she was. The
Chinaman, made voluble through fear, chattered:

“Him junk say big baas gouverneur speakee 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.[51]

“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 the orang 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 the
Hanu Token that 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 is[52]
only what his white father made him, and the orang
blanda must 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.[53]
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.[54]

CHAPTER V

Sachsen’s Warning

Electric tapers were burning dimly in
Governor-General Van Schouten’s sanctum
at the paleis that 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?”[55]

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 matters[56]
which 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.[57]

“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 down[58]
from 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 you[59]
ran 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 good zeeman (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 these kolonien
(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 as controlleur,[60]
then as resident in Celebes, in Sumatra, in Java,
and finally as secretary to the gouverneur, 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.”[61]

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 the Bintang Burung.
Ha! I see you know her now.”[62]

“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 brig Mary 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 much balas (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
a bitchara first. The next morning I began loading
operations, while McCloud entertained the orang
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.”[63]

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. ‘You think 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 from[64]
Koyala the chief gave an order to his followers.
Fifty Dyaks fitted poisoned arrows into their
sumpitans. McCloud had good judgment; he knew
when it was no use to bitchara and 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 we[65]
please, 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 re[66]torted
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.[67]
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, sister[68]
to 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 us orang blandas with a hate that the fires of
hell could not burn out, but she is subtler than the[69]
serpent that taught Mother Eve. She has bewitched
my controlleur; 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. Once[70]
old 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,[71]
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, the sumpitans must 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. “You[72]
are 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.”[73]

CHAPTER VI

The Pirate League

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 know[74]
more 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 asked[75]
doubtfully. “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—”[76]

“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 with blanken
(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 under[77]stood
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.[78]

“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 the orang kayas may 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.[79]
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’s
paleis at 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?”[80]

“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.[81]
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.”[82]

CHAPTER VII

Mynheer Muller Worries

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 that mynheer
the 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.[83]

“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 these bruinevels (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 the[84]
dapper 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 far mynheer the controlleur might
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?”
the controlleur swore. 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 the controlleur,
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.[85]

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 and controlleur. 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 some Amsterdamsche 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.[86]

“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 every
rumah 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 the controlleur knew.

“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 not agenten in every corner of this
archipelago? Has he not a spy in the paleis itself?”

“He should have sent us word,” Van Slyck agreed.
“Unless mynheer, 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 the
controlleur knew at least the identity of the new[87]
executive 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.[88]

“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 the controlleur. 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-stricken controlleur.

“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—”

“To starve, or to be left to the tender mercies of
the Bajaus and the Bugis,” Van Slyck sneered.
“That would be more tender-hearted. You would
at least transfer the responsibility.”[89]

Muller’s agitation became more pronounced.

“But we must not let it go on, kapitein,” he urged.
“It hurts the business. Pretty soon we will have
an investigation, one of these gun-boats will pick up
one of our proas, somebody will tell, and what will
happen to us then?”

“We’ll be hung,” Van Slyck declared succinctly.

Muller’s fingers leaped in an involuntary frantic
gesture to his throat, as though he felt cords tightening
around his windpipe. His face paled.

“Lieve hemel, kapitein, don’t speak of such things,”
he gasped.

“Then don’t talk drivel,” Van Slyck snarled.
“You can’t make big profits without taking big
chances. And you can’t have piracy without a little
blood-letting. We’re in this now, and there’s no
going back. So stop your squealing.”

Settling back into his chair, he looked calmly
seaward and exhaled huge clouds of tobacco smoke.
The frown deepened on Muller’s troubled brow as
he stared vacantly across the crushed coral-shell
highway.

“You can think of no reason why his excellency
should be offended with us, kapitein?” he ventured
anxiously.

The controlleur’s eagerness to include him in
his misfortune, evidenced by the use of the plural
pronoun, evoked a sardonic flicker in Van Slyck’s
cold, gray eyes.

“No, mynheer, I cannot conceive why the governor
should want to get rid of so valuable a public[90]
servant as you are,” he assured ironically. “You
have certainly done your best. There have been
a few disturbances, of course, some head-hunting,
and the taxes have not been paid, but outside of
such minor matters everything has done well, very
well indeed.”

“Donder en bliksem,” Muller exclaimed, “how
can I raise taxes when those Midianites, the hill
Dyaks, will not let my coast Dyaks grow a spear of
rice? Has there been a month without a raid?
Answer me, kapitein. Have you spent a whole month
in the stockade without being called to beat back
some of these thieving plunderers and drive them
into their hills?”

The sardonic smile flashed across Van Slyck’s
face again.

“Quite true, mynheer. But sometimes I don’t
know if I blame the poor devils. They tell me
they’re only trying to get even because your coast
Dyaks and Ah Sing’s crowd rob them so. Ah Sing
must be making quite a profit out of the slave business.
I’ll bet he shipped two hundred to China last
year.”

He glanced quizzically at his associate.

“By the way, mynheer,” he observed, “you ought
to know something about that. I understand you
get a per cent on it.”

“I?” Muller exclaimed, and looked affrightedly
about him. “I, kapitein?”

“Oh, yes you do,” Van Slyck asserted airily.
“You’ve got money invested with Ah Sing in two[91]
proas that are handling that end of the business.
And it’s the big end just now. The merchandise
pickings are small, and that is all I share in.”

He looked at Muller meaningly. There was
menace in his eyes and menace in his voice as he
announced:

“I’m only mentioning this, mynheer, so that if the
new resident should happen to be one of us, with a
claim to the booty, his share comes out of your pot,
not mine. Remember that!”

For once cupidity overcame Muller’s fear of the
sharp-witted cynical soldier.

“Wat de drommel,” he roared, “do you expect me
to pay all, kapitein, all? Not in a thousand years!
If there must be a division you shall give up your
per cent as well as I, stuiver for stuiver, gulden for
gulden!”

A hectic spot glowed in each of Van Slyck’s cheeks,
and his eyes glittered. Muller’s anger rose.

“Ah Sing shall decide between us,” he cried heatedly.
“You cannot rob me in that way, kapitein.”

Van Slyck turned on his associate with an oath.
“Ah Sing be damned. We’ll divide as I say, or—”

The pause was more significant than words.
Muller’s ruddy face paled. Van Slyck tapped a
forefinger significantly on the arm of his chair.

“Just remember, if the worst comes to the worst,
there’s this one difference between you and me,
mynheer. I’m not afraid to die, and you—are!”
He smiled.

Muller’s breath came thickly, and he stared fas[92]cinatedly
into the evilly handsome face of the captain,
whose eyes were fixed on his with a basilisk
glare. Several seconds passed; then Van Slyck said:

“See that you remember these things, mynheer,
when our next accounting comes.”

The silence that followed was broken by the
rhythmic pad-pad of wicker sandals on a bamboo
floor. Cho Seng came on the veranda, bearing a
tray laden with two glasses of finest crystal and a
decanter of colorless liquid, both of which he placed
on a small porch table. Drops of dew formed thickly
on the chilled surface of the decanter and rolled off
while the Chinaman mixed the juices of fruits and
crushed leaves with the potent liquor. The unknown
discoverer of the priceless recipe he used
receives more blessings in the Indies daily than all
the saints on the calendar. When Cho Seng had
finished, he withdrew. Muller swallowed the contents
of his glass in a single gulp. Van Slyck sipped
leisurely. Gradually the tension lessened. After
a while, between sips, the captain remarked:

“I hear you have a chance to pick up some prize
money.”

Muller looked up with interest. “So, kapitein!”
he exclaimed with forced jocularity. “Have you
found a place where guilders grow on trees?”

“Almost as good as that,” Van Slyck replied,
playing his fish.

Finesse and indirection were not Muller’s forte.
“Well, tell us about it, kapitein,” he demanded
bluntly.[93]

Van Slyck’s eyes twinkled.

“Catch Koyala,” he replied.

The captain’s meaning sank into Muller’s mind
slowly. But as comprehension began to dawn upon
him, his face darkened. The veins showed purple
under the ruddy skin.

“You are too clever this morning, kapitein,” he
snarled. “Let me remind you that this is your
duty. The controlleur sits as judge, he does not
hunt the accused.”

Van Slyck laughed.

“And let me remind you, mynheer, that I haven’t
received the governor’s orders as yet, although they
reached you more than a week ago.” Ironically he
added: “You must not let your friendship with
Koyala blind you to your public duties, mynheer.”

Muller’s face became darker still. He had not
told any one, and the fact that the orders seemed to
be public property both alarmed and angered him.

“How did you hear of it?” he demanded.

“Not from you, mynheer,” Van Slyck mocked.
“I really do not remember who told me.” (As a
matter of fact it was Wang Fu, the Chinese merchant.)

Muller reflected that officers from the gun-boat
which carried Van Schouten’s mandate might have
told more than they should have at the stockade.
But Koyala had received his warning a full week
before, so she must be safely hidden in the jungle by
now, he reasoned. Pulling himself together, he
replied urbanely:[94]

“Well, kapitein, it is true that I have rather neglected
that matter. I intended to speak to you
to-day. His excellency orders Koyala Bintang
Burung’s arrest.”

“The argus pheasant,” Van Slyck observed, “is
rarely shot. It must be trapped.”

“Nu, kapitein, that is a chance for you to distinguish
yourself,” Muller replied heartily, confident
that Van Slyck could never land Koyala.

Van Slyck flecked the ash from his cigar and
looked at the glowing coal thoughtfully.

“It seems to me that you might be of material
assistance, mynheer,” he observed.

“In what way?”

“I have noticed that the witch-woman is not—er—”
He glanced at Muller quizzically, wondering
how far he might venture to go—”not altogether
indifferent to you.”

Muller drew a deep breath. His ruddy face
became a grayish purple. His clenched hands
gripped each other until the bones crunched and the
veins stood in ridges. Drops of perspiration gathered
on his forehead, he wiped them away mechanically.

“Kapitein!” he gasped.

Van Slyck looked at him increduously, for he had
not dreamed Muller’s feelings ran so deeply.

“You think—she—sometimes thinks of me?”

Van Slyck’s nimble wits were calculating the value
to him of this new weakness of the controlleur. He[95]
foresaw infinite possibilities, Muller in love would be
clay in his hands.

“I am positive, mynheer,” he assured with the
utmost gravity.

“Kapitein, do not make a mistake,” Muller entreated.
His voice trembled and broke. “Are you
absolutely sure?”

Van Slyck restrained a guffaw with difficulty.
It was so ridiculous—this mountain of flesh, this
sweaty, panting porpoise in his unwashed linen in
love with the slender, graceful Koyala. He choked
and coughed discreetly.

“I am certain, mynheer,” he assured.

“Tell me, kapitein, what makes you think so?”
Muller begged.

Van Slyck forced himself to calmness and a judicial
attitude.

“You know I have seen something of women,
mynheer,” he replied gravely. “Both women here
and in the best houses in Amsterdam, Paris, and
London. Believe me, they are all the same—a fine
figure of a man attracts them.”

He ran his eye over Muller’s form in assumed
admiration.

“You have a figure any woman might admire,
mynheer. I have seen Koyala’s eyes rest on you,
and I know what she was thinking. You have but
to speak and she is yours.”

“Say you so, kapitein!” Muller cried ecstatically.

“Absolutely,” Van Slyck assured. His eyes nar[96]rowed.
The devilish humor incarnate in him could
not resist the temptation to harrow this tortured
soul. Watching Muller closely, he inquired:

“Then I can expect you to spread the net, mynheer?”

The light died in Muller’s eyes. A slow, volcanic
fury succeeded it. He breathed deeply and exhaled
the breath in an explosive gasp. His hands clenched
and the veins in his forehead became almost black.
Van Slyck and he leaped to their feet simultaneously.

“Kapitein Van Slyck,” he cried hoarsely, “you
are a scoundrel! You would sell your own mother.
Get out of my sight, or God help you, I will break
you in two.”

The door of the controlleur’s dwelling opened.
Muller leaped back, and Van Slyck’s hand leaped
to his holster.

“I am here, Kapitein Van Slyck,” a clear, silvery
voice announced coolly.

Koyala stood in the doorway.[97]

CHAPTER VIII

Koyala’s Warning

For a moment no one spoke. Koyala, poised
lightly on her feet, her slender, shapely
young figure held rigidly and her chin uptilted,
gazed steadily at Van Slyck. Her black eyes
blazed a scornful defiance. Before her contempt
even the proud Amsterdammer’s arrogance succumbed.
He reddened shamefacedly under his
tan.

“I am here, Kapitein Van Slyck,” Koyala repeated
clearly. She stepped toward him and
reached out a slender, shapely arm, bare to the
shoulder. “Here is my arm, where are your manacles,
kapitein?”

“Koyala!” Muller gasped huskily. His big body
was trembling with such violence that the veranda
shook.

“This is my affair, mynheer,” Koyala declared
coldly, without removing her eyes from Van Slyck.
She placed herself directly in front of the captain and
crossed her wrists.

“If you have no irons, use a cord, kapitein,” she
taunted. “But bind fast. The Argus Pheasant is
not easily held captive.”[98]

Van Slyck thrust her roughly aside.

“Let’s have done with this foolishness,” he exclaimed
bruskly.

“What folly, mynheer kapitein?” Koyala demanded
frigidly.

“You had no business eavesdropping. If you
heard something unpleasant you have only yourself to
blame.”

Koyala’s eyes sparkled with anger.

“Eavesdropping, kapitein? I came here with a
message of great importance to mynheer the controlleur.
Even the birds cock their ears to listen
when they hear the hunter approach, kapitein.”

Turning her back with scornful indifference on Van
Slyck, she crossed over to Muller and placed both
her hands on his shoulder. Another fit of trembling
seized the acting resident and his eyes swam.

“You will forgive me, will you not, mynheer, for
taking such liberties in your house?”

“Of—of course,” Muller stammered.

“I heard a little of what was said,” Koyala
said; “enough to show me that I have a good friend
here, a friend on whom I can always rely.”

Van Slyck caught the emphasis on the word
“friend” and smiled sardonically.

“Well, Sister Koyala,” he remarked mockingly,
“if you and Brother Muller will be seated we will hear
your important message.”

Muller plumped heavily into a chair. Things had
been going too rapidly for him, his heavy wits were
badly addled, and he needed time to compose himself[99]
and get a fresh grip on the situation. There was
only one other chair on the veranda. Perceiving
this, Van Slyck sprang forward and placed it for
Koyala, smiling satirically as he did so. Koyala
frowned with annoyance, hesitated a moment, then
accepted it. Van Slyck swung a leg over the
veranda rail.

“Your message, my dear Koyala,” he prompted.
He used the term of endearment lingeringly, with a
quick side glance at Muller, but the controlleur was
oblivious to both.

“The message is for Mynheer Muller,” Koyala
announced icily.

“Ah? So?” Van Slyck swung the leg free and
rose. “Then I am not needed. I bid the dear
bother and sister adieux.”

He made an elaborate French bow and started
to leave. The embarrassed Muller made a hasty
protest.

“Ho, kapitein!” he cried, “do not leave us.
Donder en bliksem! the message may be for us both.
Who is it from, Koyala?”

Van Slyck was divided between two desires. He
saw that Muller was in a panic at the thought of
being left alone with Koyala, and for that reason
was keenly tempted to get out of sight as quickly as
possible. On the other hand he was curious to
hear her communication, aware that only a matter
of unusual import could have called her from the
bush. Undecided, he lingered on the steps.

“It was from Ah Sing,” Koyala announced.[100]

Van Slyck’s indecision vanished. He stepped
briskly back on the porch.

“From Ah Sing?” he exclaimed. “Mynheer
Muller and I were just discussing his affairs. Does
it concern the new resident we are to have?”

“It does,” Koyala acknowledged.

“Who is it?” Muller and the captain cried in the
same breath.

Koyala glanced vindictively at Van Slyck.

“You are sure that you will not sell me to him,
mynheer kapitein?”

Van Slyck scowled. “Tell us about the resident,”
he directed curtly.

Koyala’s eyes sparkled maliciously.

“The new resident, mynheer kapitein, seems to
have a higher opinion of me than you have. You
see, he has already persuaded the governor to withdraw
the offer he made for my person.”

Van Slyck bit his lip, but ignored the thrust.

“Then he’s one of us?” he demanded bruskly.

“On the contrary, he is a most dangerous enemy,”
Koyala contradicted.

“Lieve hemel, don’t keep us waiting,” Muller
cried impatiently. “Who is it, Koyala?”

“A sailor, mynheer,” Koyala announced.

“A sailor?” Van Slyck exclaimed incredulously.
“Who?”

“Mynheer Peter Gross, of Batavia.”

Van Slyck and Muller stared at each other blankly,
each vainly trying to recall ever having heard the
name before.[101]

“Pieter Gross, Pieter Gross, he must be a newcomer,”
Van Slyck remarked. “I have not heard
of him before, have you, mynheer?”

“There is no one by that name in the colonial
service,” Muller declared, shaking his head. “You
say he is of Batavia, Koyala?”

“Of Batavia, mynheer, but by birth and upbringing,
and everything else, a Yankee.”

“A Yankee?” her hearers chorused incredulously.

“Yes, a Yankee. Mate on a trading vessel, or
so he was a year ago. He has been in the Indies
the past seven years.”

Van Slyck broke into a roar of laughter.

“Now, by the beard of Nassau, what joke is Chanticleer
playing us now?” he cried. “He must be
anxious to get that Yankee out of the way.”

Neither Koyala nor Muller joined in his mirth.
Muller frowned thoughtfully. There was the look
in his eyes of one who is striving to recollect some
almost forgotten name or incident.

“Pieter Gross, Pieter Gross,” he repeated thoughtfully.
“Where have I heard that name before?”

“Do you remember what happened to Gogolu
of Lombock the time he captured Lieutenant de
Koren and his commando?” Koyala asked. “How
an American sailor and ten of his crew surprised
Gogolu’s band, killed a great many of them, and
took their prisoners away from them? That was
Pieter Gross.”

“Donder en bliksem. I knew I had reason to
remember that name,” Muller cried in alarm. “We[102]
have no Mynheer de Jonge to deal with this time,
kapitein. This Yankee is a fighter.”

“Good!” Van Slyck exclaimed with satisfaction.
“We will give him his bellyful. There will
be plenty for him to do in the bush, eh, mynheer?
And if he gets too troublesome there are always
ways of getting rid of him.” He raised his eyebrows
significantly.

“This Yankee is no fool,” Muller rejoined anxiously.
“I heard about that Lombock affair—it
was a master coup. We have a bad man to deal
with, kapitein.”

Van Slyck smiled cynically.

“Humph, mynheer, you make me tired. From
the way you talk one would think these Yankees
can fight as well as they can cheat the brown-skins.
We will fill him up with Hollands, we will swell his
foolish head with praise till it is ready to burst,
and then we will engineer an uprising in the hill
district. Koyala can manage that for us. When
Mynheer, the Yankee, hears of it he will be that
thirsty for glory there will be no holding him. We
will start him off with our blessings, and then we
will continue our business in peace. What do you
think of the plan, my dear Koyala?”

“Evidently you don’t know Mynheer Gross,”
Koyala retorted coldly.

“Do you?” Van Slyck asked, quick as a flash.

“I have seen him,” Koyala acknowledged. “Once.
It was at the mouth of the Abbas River.” She
described the incident.[103]

“He is no fool,” she concluded. “He is a strong
man, and an able man, one you will have to look
out for.”

“And a devilish handsome young man, too, I’ll
wager,” Van Slyck observed maliciously with a
sidelong glance at Muller. The controlleur’s ruddy
face darkened with a quick spasm of jealousy, at
which the captain chuckled.

“Yes, a remarkably handsome man,” Koyala
replied coolly. “We need handsome men in Bulungan,
don’t we, captain? Handsome white men?”

Van Slyck looked at her quickly. He felt a certain
significance in her question that eluded him.
It was not the first time she had indulged in such
remarks, quite trivial on their face, but invested
with a mysterious something the way she said them.
He knew her tragic history and was sharp enough to
guess that her unholy alliance with Ah Sing grew out
of a savage desire to revenge herself on a government
which had permitted her to be brought up a
white woman and a victim of appetites and desires
she could never satisfy. What he did not know, did
not even dream, was the depth of her hate against
the whole white race and her fixed purpose to sweep
the last white man out of Bulungan.

“We do have a dearth of society here in Bulungan,”
he conceded. “Do you find it so, too?”

The question was a direct stab, for not a white
woman in the residency would open her doors to
Koyala. The Dyak blood leaped to her face; for
a moment it seemed that she would spring at him,[104]
then she controlled herself with a powerful effort
and replied in a voice studiedly reserved:

“I do, mynheer kapitein, but one must expect to
have a limited circle when there are so few that can
be trusted.”

At this juncture Muller’s jealous fury overcame
all bounds. Jealousy accomplished what all Van
Slyck’s scorn and threats could not do, it made him
eager to put the newcomer out of the way.

“What are we going to do?” he thundered. “Sit
here like turtles on a mud-bank while this Yankee
lords it over us and ruins our business? Donder en
bliksem, I won’t, whatever the rest of you may do.
Kapitein, get your wits to work; what is the best
way to get rid of this Yankee?”

Van Slyck looked at him in surprise. Then his
quick wit instantly guessed the reason for the outburst.

“Well, mynheer,” he replied, shrugging his shoulders
indifferently, “it seems to me that this is a
matter you are more interested in than I. Mynheer
Gross does not come to displace me.”

“You are ready enough to scheme murders if
there is a gulden in it for you, but you have no counsel
for a friend, eh?” Muller snarled. “Let me
remind you, kapitein, that you are involved just as
heavily as I.”

Van Slyck laughed in cynical good humor.

“Let it never be said that a Van Slyck is so base
as that, mynheer. Supposing we put our heads[105]
together. In the first place, let us give Koyala a
chance to tell what she knows. Where did you get
the news, Koyala?”

“That makes no difference, mynheer kapitein,”
Koyala rejoined coolly. “I have my own avenues
of information.”

Van Slyck frowned with annoyance.

“When does he come here?” he inquired.

“We may expect him any time,” Koyala stated.
“He is to come when the rainy season closes, and
that will be in a few days.”

“Donder en bliksem, does Ah Sing know this?”
Muller asked anxiously.

Van Slyck’s lips curled in cynical amusement at
the inanity of the question.

“He knows,” Koyala declared.

“Of course he knows,” Van Slyck added sarcastically.
“The question is, what is he going to do?”

“I do not know,” Koyala replied. “He can tell
you that himself when he comes here.”

“He’s coming here?” Van Slyck asked quickly.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“I am not in Ah Sing’s councils,” Koyala declared
coldly.

“The deuce you’re not,” Van Slyck retorted irritably.
“You seem to know a lot of things we hadn’t
heard of. What does Ah Sing expect us to do?
Pander to this Yankee deck-scrubber until he
comes?”[106]

“We will do what we think best,” Muller observed
grimly.

Koyala looked at him steadily until his glance fell.

“You will both leave him alone and attend to your
own affairs,” she announced. “The new resident
will be taken care of by Ah Sing—and by me.”[107]

CHAPTER IX

The Long Arm of Ah Sing

Two weeks after receiving his appointment as
resident of Bulungan, Peter Gross stood on a
wharf along the Batavia water-front and
looked wistfully out to sea. It was early evening
and quite dark, for the moon had not risen and the
eastern sky from the zenith down was obscured by
fitful patches of cloud, gray-winged messengers of
rain. In the west, Venus glowed with a warm,
seductive light, like a lamp in a Spanish garden. A
brisk and vigorous breeze roughed the waters of
the bay that raced shoreward in long rollers to
escape its impetuous wooing.

Peter Gross breathed the salt air deeply and
stared steadfastly into the west, for he was sick at
heart. Not until now did he realize what giving up
the sea meant to him. The sea!—it had been a
second mother to him, receiving him into its open
arms when he ran away from the drudgery of the
farm to satisfy the wanderlust that ached and ached
in his boyish heart. Ay, it had mothered him,
cradling him at night on its fond bosom while it
sang a wild and eerie refrain among sail and cordage,
buffeting him in its ill-humor, feeding him, and
even clothing him. His first yellow oilskin, he[108]
remembered poignantly, had been salvaged from a
wreck.

Now he was leaving that mother. He was leaving
the life he had lived for ten years. He was denying
the dreams and ambitions of his youth. He was
casting aside the dream of some day standing on the
deck of his own ship with a score of smart sailors
to jump at his command. A feeling akin to the
home-sickness he had suffered when, a lad of fifteen,
he lived through his first storm at sea, in the hold of
a cattle-ship, came over him now. Almost he regretted
his decision.

Since bidding good-bye to Captain Threthaway
two weeks before, he had picked twenty-four of the
twenty-five men he intended to take with him for
the pacification of Bulungan. The twenty-fifth he
expected to sign that night at the home of his quondam
skipper, Captain Roderick Rouse, better known
as Roaring Rory. Rouse had been a trader in the
south seas for many years and was now skipper of a
smart little cottage in Ryswyk, the European residence
section of Batavia. Peter Gross’s presence
at the water-front was explained by the fact that he
had an hour to spare and naturally drifted to Tanjong
Priok, the shipping center.

The selection of the company had not been an
easy task. Peter Gross had not expected that it
would be. He found the type of men he wanted
even scarcer than he anticipated. For the past
two weeks beachcombers and loafers along the
wharves, and tourists, traders, and gentlemen ad[109]venturers
at the hotels had looked curiously at the
big, well-dressed sailor who always seemed to have
plenty of time and money to spend, and was always
ready to gossip. Some of them tried to draw him
out. To these he talked vaguely about seeing a
little of Java before he went sailoring again. Opinion
became general that for a sailor Peter Gross was
remarkably close-mouthed.

While he was to all appearances idly dawdling
about, Peter Gross was in reality getting information
concerning hardy young men of adventuresome
spirit who might be persuaded to undertake an expedition
that meant risk of life and who could be relied
upon. Each man was carefully sounded before he
was signed, and when signed, was told to keep his
mouth shut.

But the major problem, to find a capable leader of
such a body of men, was still unsolved. Peter Gross
realized that his duties as resident precluded him
from taking personal charge. He also recognized
his limitations. He was a sailor; a soldier was
needed to whip the company in shape, a bush-fighter
who knew how to dispose those under him when
Dyak arrows and Chinese bullets began to fly overhead
in the jungle.

Two weeks of diligent search had failed to unearth
any one with the necessary qualifications. Peter
Gross was beginning to despair when he thought of
his former skipper, Captain Rouse. Looking him
up, he explained his predicament.

“By the great Polar B’ar,” Roaring Rory bel[110]lowed
when Peter Gross had finished his recital.
“How the dickens do you expect to clean out that
hell-hole with twenty-five men? Man, there’s a
hundred thousand Dyaks alone, let alone those
rat-faced Chinks that come snoopin’ down like
buzzards smellin’ carrion, and the cut-throat Bugis,
and the bad men the English chased out of Sarawak,
and the Sulu pirates, and Lord knows what all.
It’s suicide.”

“I’m not going to Bulungan to make war,” Peter
Gross explained mildly.

Roaring Rory spat a huge cud of tobacco into a
cuspidor six feet away, the better to express his
astonishment.

“Then what in blazes are you goin’ there for?”
he roared.

Peter Gross permitted himself one of his rare
smiles. There was a positive twinkle in his eyes as
he replied:

“To convince them I am their best friend.”

Roaring Rory’s eyes opened wide.

“Convince ’em—what?” he gasped.

“That I am their friend.”

The old sea captain stared at his ex-mate.

“You’re jokin’,” he declared.

“I was never more serious in my life,” Peter Gross
assured gravely.

“Then you’re a damn’ fool,” Roaring Rory asserted.
“Yes, sir, a damn’ fool. I didn’t think it
of ye, Peter.”

“It will take time, but I believe I see my way,”[111]
Peter Gross replied quietly. He explained his plan
briefly, and as he described how he expected to win
the confidence and support of the hillmen, Roaring
Rory became calmer.

“Mebbe you can do it, Peter, mebbe you can do
it,” he conceded dubiously. “But that devil of an
Ah Sing has a long arm, and by the bye, I’d keep
indoors after sundown if I were you.”

“But this isn’t getting me the man I need,” Peter
Gross pointed out. “Can you recommend any one,
captain?”

Roaring Rory squared back in his chair.

“I hain’t got the latitude and longitude of this-here
proposition of yours figured just yet,” he
replied, producing a plug of tobacco and biting off a
generous portion before passing it hospitably to his
visitor. “Just what kind of a man do you want?”

Peter Gross drew his chair a few inches nearer the
captain’s.

“What I want,” he said, “is a man that I can
trust—no matter what happens. He doesn’t need
to know seamanship, but he’s got to be absolutely
square, a man the sight of gold or women won’t
turn. He has to be a soldier, an ex-army officer,
and a bush-fighter, a man who has seen service in
the jungle. A man from the Philippines would
just fill the bill. He has to be the sort of a man his
men will swear by. And he has to have a clean
record.”

Roaring Rory grunted. “Ye don’t want nothin’,
do ye? I’d recommend the Angel Gabriel.”[112]

“There is such a man,” Peter Gross insisted.
“There always is. You’ve got to help me find him,
captain.”

Rouse scratched his head profoundly and squinted
hard. By and bye a big grin overspread his
features.

“I’ve got a nevvy,” he announced, “who’d be
crazy to be with ye. He’s only seventeen, but big
for his age. He’s out on my plantation now. Hold
on,” he roared as Peter Gross attempted to interrupt.
“I’m comin’ to number twenty-five. This
nevvy has a particular friend that’s with him now
out to the plantation. ‘Cordin’ to his log, this
chap’s the very man ye’re lookin’ for. Was a captain
o’ volunteer infantry and saw service in the
Philippines. When his time run out he went to
Shanghai for a rubber-goods house, and learned all
there is to know about Chinks. He’s the best rifle
shot in Java. An’ he can handle men. He ain’t
much on the brag order, but he sure is all there.”

“That is the sort of a man I have been looking
for,” Peter Gross observed with satisfaction.

“He’s worth lookin’ up at any rate,” Captain
Rouse declared. “If you care to see him and my
nevvy, you’re in luck. They’re comin’ back to-night.
They had a little business here, so they run
down together and will bunk with me. I expect
them here at nine o’clock, and if ye’re on deck I’ll
interduce you. What d’ye say?”

“I knew you wouldn’t fail me, captain,” Peter
Gross replied warmly. “I’ll be here.”[113]

The shrill whistle of a coaster interrupted Peter
Gross’s melancholy reflections. He recollected with
a start that it must be near the time he had promised
to be at Captain Rouse’s cottage. Leaving the
wharves, he ambled along the main traveled highway
toward the business district until overtaken by a
belated victoria whose driver he hailed.

The cool of evening was descending from the hills
as the vehicle turned into the street on which Captain
Rouse lived. It was a wide, tree-lined lane, with
oil lamps every six or seven hundred feet whose
yellow rays struggled ineffectually to banish the
somber gloom shed by the huge masses of foliage
that shut out the heavens. Feeling cramped from
his long ride and a trifle chill, Peter Gross suddenly
decided to walk the remainder of the distance, halted
his driver, paid the fare, and dismissed him. Whistling
cheerily, a rollicking chanty of the sea to which
his feet kept time, he walked briskly along.

Cutting a bar of song in the middle, he stopped
suddenly to listen. Somewhere in the darkness behind
him someone had stumbled into an acacia
hedge and had uttered a stifled exclamation of pain.
There was no other sound, except the soughing of
the breeze through the tree-tops.

“A drunken coolie,” he observed to himself. He
stepped briskly along and resumed his whistling.
The song came to an abrupt close as his keen ears
caught a faint shuffling not far behind, a shuffling
like the scraping of a soft-soled shoe against the
plank walk. He turned swiftly, ears pricked, and[114]
looked steadily in the direction that the sound came
from, but the somber shadows defied his searching
glance.

“Only coolies,” he murmured, but an uneasy
feeling came upon him and he quickened his pace.
His right hand involuntarily slipped to his coat-pocket
for the pistol he customarily carried. It was
not there. A moment’s thought and he recollected
he had left it in his room.

As he reached the next street-lamp he hesitated.
Ahead of him was a long area of unlighted thoroughfare.
Evidently the lamp-lighter had neglected his
duties. Or, Peter Gross reflected, some malicious
hand might have extinguished the lights. It was
on this very portion of the lane that Captain Rouse’s
cottage stood, only a few hundred yards farther.

He listened sharply a moment. Back in the
shadows off from the lane a piano tinkled, the langorous
Dream Waltz from the Tales of Hoffman. A
lighted victoria clattered toward him, then turned
into a brick-paved driveway. Else not a sound.
The very silence was ominous.

Walking slowly, to accustom his eyes to the gloom,
Peter Gross left the friendly circle of light. As the
shadows began to envelop him he heard the sound of
running feet on turf. Some one inside the hedge
was trying to overhaul him. He broke into a dog-trot.

A low whistle cut the silence. Leaping forward,
he broke into a sprint. Rouse’s cottage was only a
hundred yards ahead—a dash and he would be there.[115]

A whistle from in front. A like sound from the
other side of the lane. The stealthy tap-tapping of
feet, sandaled feet, from every direction.

For a moment Peter Gross experienced the sensation
of a hunted creature driven to bay. It was
only for a moment, however, and then he acquainted
himself with his surroundings in a quick, comprehensive
glance. On one side of him was the hedge,
on the other a line of tall kenari-trees.

Vaulting the hedge, he ran silently and swiftly in
its shadow, hugging the ground like a fox in the
brush. Suddenly and without warning he crashed
full-tilt into a man coming from the opposite direction,
caught him low, just beneath the ribs. The
man crashed back into the hedge with an explosive
gasp.

Ahead were white pickets, the friendly white
pickets that enclosed Captain Rouse’s grounds.
He dashed toward them, but he was too late. Out
of a mass of shrubbery a short, squat figure leaped
at him. There was the flash of a knife. Peter
Gross had no chance to grapple with his assailant.
He dropped like a log, an old sailor’s trick, and the
short, squat figure fell over him. He had an instant
glimpse of a yellow face, fiendish in its malignancy,
of a flying queue, of fingers that groped futilely,
then he rose.

At the same instant a cat-like something sprang
on him from behind, twisted its legs around his
body, and fastened its talons into his throat. The
impact staggered him, but as he found his footing[116]
he tore the claw-like fingers loose and shook the
creature off. Simultanelusly two shadows in front
of him materialized into Chinamen with gleaming
knives. As they leaped at him a red-hot iron seared
his right forearm and a bolt of lightning numbed his
left shoulder.

A sound like a hoarse, dry cackle came from Peter
Gross’s throat. His long arms shot out and each
of his huge hands caught one of his assailants by
the throat. Bringing their heads together with a
sound like breaking egg-shells, he tossed them aside.

Before he could turn to flee a dozen shadowy
forms semi-circled about him. The starlight dimly
revealed gaunt, yellow faces and glaring eyes, the
eyes of a wolf-pack. The circle began to narrow.
Knives glittered. But none of the crouching forms
dared venture within reach of the gorilla arms.

Then the lion arose in Peter Gross. Beside him
was an ornamental iron flower-pot. Stooping quickly,
he seized it and lifted it high above his head. They
shrank from him, those crouching forms, with shrill
pipings of alarm, but it was too late. He hurled it
at the foremost. It caught two of them and bowled
them over like ninepins. Then he leaped at the
others. His mighty right caught one under the
chin and laid him flat. His left dove into the pit of
another’s stomach. The unfortunate Chinaman collapsed
like a sack of grain.

They ringed him round. A sharp, burning sensation
swept across his back—it was the slash of a
knife. A blade sank into the fleshy part of his[117]
throat, and he tore it impatiently away. He struck
out savagely into the densely packed mass of humanity
and a primitive cave-man surge of joy
thrilled him at the impact of his fists against human
flesh and bone.

But the fight was too unequal. Blood started
from a dozen cuts; it seemed to him he was afire
within and without. His blows began to lack
power and a film came over his eyes, but he struck
out the more savagely, furious at his own weakness.
The darkness thickened. The figures before him,
beside him, behind him, became more confused.
Two and three heads bobbed where he thought
there was only one. His blows went wild. The
jackals were pulling the lion down.

As he pulled himself together for a last desperate
effort to plough through to the security of Rouse’s
home, the sharp crack of a revolver sounded in
his ear. At the same instant the lawn leaped
into a blinding light, a light in which the gory
figures of his assailants stood out in dazed and uncertain
relief. The acrid fumes of gunpowder filled
his nostrils.

Darting toward the hedges like rats scurrying to
their holes, the Chinamen sought cover. Peter
Gross hazily saw two men, white men, each of them
carrying a flash-light and a pistol, vault the pickets.
A third followed, swinging a lantern and bellowing
for the “wacht” (police). It was Roaring Rory.

“Are you hurt?” the foremost asked as he approached.[118]

“Not bad, I guess,” Peter Gross replied thickly.
He lifted his hand to his forehead in a dazed, uncertain
way and looked stupidly at the blood that
gushed over it. A cleft seemed to open at his feet.
He felt himself sinking—down, down, down to the
very foundations of the world. Dimly he heard
the cry:

“Quick, Paddy, lend a hand.”

Then came oblivion.[119]

CHAPTER X

Captain Carver Signs

When Peter Gross recovered consciousness
fifteen minutes later he found himself in
familiar quarters. He was lying on a cot
in Captain Rouse’s den, commonly designated by
that gentleman as “the cabin.” Captain Rouse’s
face, solemn as an owl’s, was leaning over him. As
he blinked the captain’s lips expanded into a grin.

“Wot did I tell ye, ‘e’s all right!” the captain
roared delightedly. “Demmit, ye can’t kill a
Sunda schooner bucko mate with a little bloodlettin’.
Ah Sing pretty near got ye, eh, Peter?”

The last was to Peter Gross, who was sitting up
and taking inventory of his various bandages, also
of his hosts. There were two strangers in the room.
One was a short, stocky young man with a pugnacious
Irish nose, freckly face, and hair red as a
burnished copper boiler. His eyes were remarkably
like the jovial navigator’s, Peter Gross observed.
The other was a dark, well-dressed man of about
forty, with a military bearing and reserved air. He
bore the stamp of gentility.

“Captain Carver,” Roaring Rory announced.
“My old mate, Peter Gross, the best man as ever
served under me.”[120]

The elder man stepped forward and clasped Peter
Gross’s hand. The latter tried to rise, but Carver
restrained him.

“You had better rest a few moments, Mr. Gross,”
he said. There was a quiet air of authority in his
voice that instantly attracted the resident, who
gave him a keen glance.

“My nevvy, Paddy, Peter, the doggonest young
scamp an old sea-horse ever tried to raise,” Rouse
bellowed. “I wish I could have him for’ard with a
crew like we used to have on the old Gloucester
Maid.” He guffawed boisterously while the younger
of the two strangers, his face aglow with a magnetic
smile, sprang forward and caught Peter Gross’s
hand in a quick, dynamic grip.

“Them’s the lads ye’ve got to thank for bein’
here,” Roaring Rory announced, with evident pride.
“If they hadn’t heard the fracas and butted in, the
Chinks would have got ye sure.”

“I rather fancied it was you whom I have to
thank for being here,” Peter Gross acknowledged
warmly. “You were certainly just in time.”

“Captain Rouse is too modest,” Captain Carver
said. “It was he who heard the disturbance and
jumped to the conclusion you might be—in difficulty.”

The old navigator shook his head sadly. “I
warned ye, Peter,” he said; “I warned ye against
that old devil, Ah Sing. Didn’t I tell you to be
careful at night? Ye ain’t fit to be trusted alone,
Peter.”[121]

“I think you did,” Peter Gross acknowledged
with a twinkle. “But didn’t you fix our appointment
for to-night?”

“Ye should have carried a gun,” Roaring Rory
reproved. “Leastwise a belayin’-pin. Ye like to
use your fists too well, Peter. Fists are no good
against knives. I’m a peace-lovin’ man, Peter,
‘twould be better for ye if ye patterned after me.”

Peter Gross smiled, for Roaring Rory’s record for
getting into scrapes was known the length and
breadth of the South Pacific. Looking up, he surprised
a merry gleam in Captain Carver’s eyes and
Paddy striving hard to remain sober.

“I’ll remember your advice, captain,” Peter Gross
assured.

“Humph!” Roaring Rory grunted. “Well, Peter,
is your head clear enough to talk business?”

“I think so,” Peter Gross replied slowly. “Have
you explained the matter I came here to discuss?”

“Summat, summat,” Rouse grunted. “I leave
the talking to you, Peter.”

“Captain Rouse told me you wanted some one
to take charge of a company of men for a dangerous
enterprise somewhere in the South Pacific,” Carver
replied. “He said it meant risking life. That
might mean anything to piracy. I understand,
however, that your enterprise has official sanction.”

“My appointment is from the governor-general
of the Netherlands East Indies,” Peter Gross stated.

“Ah, yes.”

“I need a man to drill and lead twenty-five men,[122]
all of whom have had some military training. I
want a man who knows the Malays and their ways
and knows the bush.”

“I was in the Philippines for two years as a captain
of volunteer infantry,” Carver said. “I was in
Shanghai for four years and had considerable dealings
at that time with the Chinese. I know a little of
their language.”

“Have you any one dependent on you?”

“I am a bachelor,” Captain Carver replied.

“Does twenty-five hundred a year appeal to you?”

“That depends entirely on what services I should
be expected to render.”

Confident that he had landed his man, and convinced
from Captain Rouse’s recommendation and
his own observations that Carver was the very person
he had been seeking, Peter Gross threw reserve
aside and frankly stated the object of his expedition
and the difficulties before him.

“You see,” he concluded, “the game is dangerous,
but the stakes are big. I have no doubt but what
Governor Van Schouten will deal handsomely with
every one who helps restore order in the residency.”

Captain Carver was frowning.

“I don’t like the idea of playing one native element
against another,” he declared. “It always
breeds trouble. The only people who have ever
been successful in pulling it off is the British in
India, and they had to pay for it in blood during
the Mutiny. The one way to pound the fear of
God into the hearts of these benighted browns and[123]
blacks is to show them you’re master. Once they
get the idea the white man can’t keep his grip without
them, look out for treachery.”

“I’ve thought of that,” Peter Gross replied sadly.
“But to do as you suggest will take at least two regiments
and will cost the lives of several thousand
Dyaks. You will have to lay the country bare,
and you will sow a seed of hate that is bound to bear
fruit. But if I can persuade them to trust me,
Bulungan will be pacified. Brooke did it in Sarawak,
and I believe I can do it here.”

Carver stroked his chin in silence.

“You know the country,” he said. “If you have
faith and feel you want me, I’ll go with you.”

“I’ll have a lawyer make the contracts at once,”
Peter Gross replied. “We can sign them to-morrow.”

“Can’t you take me with you, too, Mr. Gross?”
Paddy Rouse asked eagerly.

Peter Gross looked at the lad. The boy’s face
was eloquent with entreaty.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Seventeen,” came the halting acknowledgment.
“But I’ve done a man’s work for a year. Haven’t I,
avunculus?”

Captain Rouse nodded a reluctant assent. “I
hate to miss ye, my boy,” he said, “but maybe
a year out there would get the deviltry out of ye
and make a man of ye. If Peter wants ye, he may
have ye.”

A flash of inspiration came to Peter Gross as he
glanced at the boy’s tousled shock of fiery-red hair.[124]

“I’ll take you on a private’s pay,” he said. “A
thousand a year. Is that satisfactory?”

“I’m signed,” Paddy whooped. “Hooray!”

When Peter Gross and his company left Tanjong
Priok a fortnight later Captain Rouse bade them a
wistful good-bye at the wharf.

“Take care of the lad; he’s all I got,” he said
huskily to the resident. “If it wasn’t for the
damned plantation I’d go with ye, too.”[125]

CHAPTER XI

Mynheer Muller’s Dream

The Dutch gun-boat Prins Lodewyk, a terror
to evil-doers in the Java and Celebes seas,
steamed smartly up Bulungan Bay and
swung into anchorage a quarter of a mile below the
assemblage of junks and Malay proas clustered at
the mouth of Bulungan River. She carried a new
flag below her ensign, the resident’s flag. As she
swung around, her guns barked a double salute, first
to the flag and then to the resident. Peter Gross and
his company were come to Bulungan.

The pert brass cannon of the stockade answered
gun for gun. It was the yapping of terrier against
mastiff, for the artillery of the fortress was of small
caliber and an ancient pattern. Its chief service
was to intimidate the natives of the town who had
once been bombarded during an unfortunate rebellion
and had never quite forgotten the sensation of
being under shell-fire.

Peter Gross leaned over the rail of the vessel and
looked fixedly shoreward. His strong, firm chin
was grimly set. There were lines in his face that
had not been there a few weeks before when he was
tendered and accepted his appointment as resident.[126]
Responsibility was sitting heavily upon his shoulders,
for he now realized the magnitude of the task he had
so lightly assumed.

Captain Carver joined him. “All’s well, so far,
Mr. Gross,” he observed.

Peter Gross let the remark stand without comment
for a moment. “Ay, all’s well so far,” he
assented heavily.

There was another pause.

“Are we going ashore this afternoon?” Carver
inquired.

“That is my intention.”

“Then you’ll want the boys to get their traps on
deck. At what hour will you want them?”

“I think I shall go alone,” Peter Gross replied
quietly.

Carver looked up quickly. “Not alone, Mr.
Gross,” he expostulated.

Peter Gross looked sternly shoreward at the open
water-front of Bulungan town, where dugouts,
sampans, and crude bark canoes were frantically
shooting about to every point of the compass in
helter-skelter confusion.

“I think it would be best,” he said.

Carver shook his head. “I don’t think I’d do it,
Mr. Gross,” he advised gravely. “I don’t think
you ought to take the chance.”

“To convince an enemy you are not afraid is
often half the fight,” Peter Gross observed.

“A good rule, but it doesn’t apply to a pack of
assassins,” Carver replied. “And that’s what we[127]
seem to be up against. You can’t take too big precautions
against whelps that stab in the dark.”

Peter Gross attempted no contradiction. The
ever increasing concourse of scantily clad natives
along the shore held his attention. Carver scanned
his face anxiously.

“They pretty nearly got you at Batavia, Mr.
Gross,” he reminded, anxiety overcoming his natural
disinclination to give a superior unsolicited advice.

“You may be right,” Peter Gross conceded mildly.

Carver pushed his advantage. “If Ah Sing’s
tong men will take a chance at murdering you in
Batavia under the nose of the governor, they won’t
balk at putting you out of the way in Bulungan, a
thousand miles from nowhere. There’s a hundred
ways they can get rid of a man and make it look like
an accident.”

“We must expect to take some risks.”

Perceiving the uselessness of argument, Carver
made a final plea. “At least let me go with you,”
he begged.

Peter Gross sighed and straightened to his full
six feet two. “Thank you, captain,” he said, “but
I must go alone. I want to teach Bulungan one
thing to-day—that Peter Gross is not afraid.”

While Captain Carver was vainly trying to dissuade
Peter Gross from going ashore, Kapitein Van
Slyck hastened from his quarters at the fort to the
controlleur’s house. Muller was an uncertain quantity
in a crisis, the captain was aware; it was vital
that they act in perfect accord. He found his[128]
associate pacing agitatedly in the shade of a screen
of nipa palms between whose broad leaves he could
watch the trim white hull and spotless decks of
the gun-boat.

Muller was smoking furiously. At the crunch of
Van Slyck’s foot on the coraled walk he turned
quickly, with a nervous start, and his face blanched.

“Oh, kapitein,” he exclaimed with relief, “is it
you?”

“Who else would it be?” Van Slyck growled, perceiving
at once that Muller had worked himself
into a frenzy of apprehension.

“I don’t know. I thought, perhaps, Cho Seng—”

“You look as though you’d seen a ghost. What’s
there about Cho Seng to be afraid of?”

“—that Cho Seng had come to tell me Mynheer
Gross was here,” Muller faltered.

Van Slyck looked at him keenly, through narrowed
lids.

“Hum!” he grunted with emphasis. “So it is
Mynheer Gross already with you, eh, Muller?”

There was a significant emphasis on the “mynheer.”

Muller flushed. “Don’t get the notion I’m going
to sweet-mouth to him simply because he is resident,
kapitein,” he retorted, recovering his dignity. “You
know me well enough—my foot is in this as deeply
as yours.”

“Yes, and deeper,” Van Slyck replied significantly.

The remark escaped Muller. He was thrusting[129]
aside the screen of nipa leaves to peer toward the
vessel.

“No,” he exclaimed with a sigh of relief, “he has
not left the ship yet. There are two civilians at the
forward rail—come, kapitein, do you think one of
them is he?”

He opened the screen wider for Van Slyck. The
captain stepped forward with an expression of bored
indifference and peered through the aperture.

“H-m!” he muttered. “I wouldn’t be surprised
if the big fellow is Gross. They say he has
the inches.”

“I hope to heaven he stays aboard to-day,”
Muller prayed fervently.

“He can come ashore whenever he wants to, for
all I care,” Van Slyck remarked.

Muller straightened and let the leaves fall back.

“Lieve hemel, neen, kapitein,” he expostulated.
“What would I do if he should question me. My
reports are undone, there are a dozen cases to be
tried, I have neglected to settle matters with some
of the chiefs, and my accounts are in a muddle.
I don’t see how I am ever going to straighten things
out—then there are those other things—what will he
say?”

He ran his hands through his hair in nervous
anxiety. Van Slyck contemplated his agitation
with a darkening frown. “Is the fool going to
pieces?” was the captain’s harrowing thought. He
clapped a hand on Muller’s shoulder with an assumption
of bluff heartiness.[130]

“‘Sufficient unto the day—’ You know the
proverb, mynheer,” he said cheerfully. “There’s
nothing to worry about—we won’t give him a
chance at you for two weeks. Kapitein Enckel of
the Prins will probably bring him ashore to-day.
We’ll receive him here; I’ll bring my lieutenants
over, and Cho Seng can make us a big dinner.

“To-night there will be schnapps and reminiscences,
to-morrow morning a visit of inspection to
the fort, to-morrow afternoon a bitchara with the
Rajah Wobanguli, and the day after a visit to
Bulungan town. At night visits to Wang Fu’s
house and Marinus Blauwpot’s, with cards and
Hollands. I’ll take care of him for you, and you
can get your books in shape. Go to Barang, if you
want to, the day we visit Rotterdam—leave word
with Cho Seng you were called away to settle an
important case. Leave everything to me, and when
you get back we’ll have mynheer so drunk he
won’t know a tax statement from an Edammer
cheese.”

Muller’s face failed to brighten at the hopeful
program mapped out by his associate. If anything,
his agitation increased.

“But he might ask questions to-day, kapitein—questions
I cannot answer.”

Van Slyck’s lips curled. His thought was: “Good
God, what am I going to do with this lump of jelly-fish?”
But he replied encouragingly:

“No danger of that at all, mynheer. There are
certain formalities that must be gone through first[131]
before a new resident takes hold. It would not be
good form to kick his predecessor out of office without
giving the latter a chance to close his books—even
a pig of a Yankee knows that. Accept his
credentials if he offers them, but tell him business
must wait till the morning. Above all, keep your
head, say nothing, and be as damnably civil as
though he were old Van Schouten himself. If we
can swell his head none of us will have to worry.”

“But my accounts, kapitein,” Muller faltered.

“To the devil with your accounts,” Van Slyck
exclaimed, losing patience. “Go to Barang, fix
them up as best you can.”

“I can never get them to balance,” Muller cried.
“Our dealings—the rattan we shipped—you know.”
He looked fearfully around.

“There never was a controlleur yet that didn’t
line his own pockets,” Van Slyck sneered. “But
his books never showed it. You are a book-keeper,
mynheer, and you know how to juggle figures. Forget
these transactions; if you can’t, charge the
moneys you got to some account. There are no
vouchers or receipts in Bulungan. A handy man
with figures, like yourself, ought to be able to make
a set of accounts that that ferret Sachsen himself
could not find a flaw in.”

“But that is not the worst,” Muller cried despairingly.
“There are the taxes, the taxes I
should have sent to Batavia, the rice that we sold
instead to Ah Sing.”

“Good God! Have you grown a conscience?”[132]
Van Slyck snarled. “If you have, drown yourself
in the bay. Lie, you fool, lie! Tell him the weevils
ruined the crop, tell him the floods drowned it, tell
him a tornado swept the fields bare, lay it to the hill
Dyaks—anything, anything! But keep your nerve,
or you’ll hang sure.”

Muller retreated before the captain’s vehemence.

“But the bruinevels, kapitein?” he faltered.
“They may tell him something different.”

“Wobanguli won’t; he’s too wise to say anything,”
Van Slyck asserted firmly. “None of the
others will dare to, either—all we’ve got to do is to
whisper Ah Sing’s name to them. But there’s little
danger of any of them except the Rajah seeing him
until after the Prins is gone. Once she’s out of the
harbor I don’t care what they say—no word of it
will ever get back to Batavia.”

His devilishly handsome smile gleamed sardonically,
and he twisted his nicely waxed mustache.
Muller’s hands shook.

“Kapitein,” he replied in an odd, strained voice,
“I am afraid of this Peter Gross. I had a dream
last night, a horrible dream—I am sure it was him I
saw. I was in old de Jonge’s room in the residency
building—you know the room—and the stranger
of my dream sat in old de Jonge’s chair.

“He asked me questions, questions of how I came
here, and what I have done here, and I talked and
talked till my mouth was dry as the marsh grass
before the rains begin to fall. All the while he listened,
and his eyes seemed to bore through me, as[133]
though they said: ‘Judas, I know what is going on
in your heart.’

“At last, when I could say no more, he asked me:
‘Mynheer, how did Mynheer de Jonge die?’ Then
I fell on the ground before him and told him all—all.
At the last, soldiers came to take me away to hang
me, but under the very shadow of the gallows a
bird swooped down out of the air and carried me
away, away into the jungle. Then I awoke.”

Van Slyck broke into scornful laughter.

“Mynheer, you had enough to worry about before
you started dreaming,” he said bluntly. “If you’re
going to fill your head with such foolishness I’ll leave
you to your own devices.”

“But, kapitein, it might be a warning,” Muller
cried desperately.

“Heaven doesn’t send ravens to cheat such rogues
as you and I from the gallows, mynheer,” Van Slyck
mocked. “We might as well get ready to meet our
new resident. I see a boat putting off from the
ship.”[134]

CHAPTER XII

Peter Gross’s Reception

When Peter Gross stepped ashore at the
foot of the slope on which the fort and
government buildings stood, three thousand
pairs of eyes, whose owners were securely hidden
in the copses and undergrowth for a quarter of
a mile in both directions along the shore-line, watched
his every movement. With the lightning celerity
with which big news travels word had been spread
through Bulungan town that the new resident was
coming ashore, and every inhabitant possessed of
sound legs to bear him had run, crawled, or scrambled
to a favorable patch of undergrowth where he
could get a first glimpse of the orang blanda chief
without being observed.

Perfectly aware of this scrutiny, but calmly
oblivious to it, Peter Gross stepped out of the boat
and directed the sailors who rowed it to return to
their ship. As their oars bit the water he faced the
path that wound up the hillside and walked along it
at a dignified and easy pace. His sharp ears caught
the incessant rustle of leaves, a rustle not made by
the breeze, and the soft grinding of bits of coral
under the pressure of naked feet.

Once he surprised a dusky face in the bush, but[135]
his glance roved to the next object in his line of
vision in placid unconcern. As he mounted the
rise he made for the controlleur’s home, strolling
along as calmly as though he were on a Batavia lane.

“Duivel noch toe!” Muller exclaimed as the boat
returned to the ship. “He is coming here alone.”
His voice had an incredulous ring as though he half
doubted the evidence of his own senses.

Van Slyck’s eyes danced with satisfaction, and
his saturnine smile was almost Mephistophelian.

“By Nassau, I was right, after all, mynheer,” he
exclaimed. “He’s an ass of a Yankee that Van
Schouten is having some sport with in sending him
here.”

“There may be something behind this, kapitein,”
Muller cautioned apprehensively, but Van Slyck
cut him short.

“Behind this, mynheer? The fool does not even
know how to maintain the dignity due his office.
Would he land this way, like a pedler with his pack,
if he did? Oh, we are going to have some rare
sport—”

Van Slyck’s merriment broke loose in a guffaw.

“You-you will not do anything violent, kapitein?”
Muller asked apprehensively.

“Violent?” Van Slyck exclaimed. “I wouldn’t
hurt him for a thousand guilders, mynheer. He’s
going to be more fun than even you.”

The frank sneer that accompanied the remark
made the captain’s meaning sufficiently clear to
penetrate even so sluggish a mind as the controlleur’s.[136]
He reddened, and an angry retort struggled to his
lips, but he checked it before it framed itself into
coherent language. He was too dependent on
Van Slyck, he realized, to risk offending the latter
now, but for the first time in their acquaintanceship
his negative dislike of his more brilliant associate
deepened to a positive aversion.

“What are we going to do, kapitein?” he asked
quietly.

“Welcome him, mynheer!” Again the sardonic
smile. “Treat him to some of your fine cigars and
a bottle of your best Hollands. Draw him out,
make him empty his belly to us. When we have
sucked him dry and drenched him with liquor we
will pack him back to the Prins to tell Kapitein
Enckel what fine fellows we are. To-morrow we’ll
receive him with all ceremony—I’ll instruct him this
afternoon how a resident is installed in his new post
and how he must conduct himself.

“Enckel will leave here without a suspicion,
Mynheer Gross will be ready to trust even his purse
to us if we say the word, and we will have everything
our own way as before. But s-s-st! Here he
comes!” He lifted a restraining hand. “Lord,
what a shoulder of beef! Silence, now, and best
your manners, mynheer. Leave the talking to me.”

Peter Gross walked along the kenari-tree shaded
lane between the evergreen hedges clipped with
characteristic Dutch primness to a perfect plane.
Behind him formed a growing column of natives
whose curiosity had gotten the better of their diffidence.[137]

The resident’s keen eyes instantly ferreted out
Van Slyck and Muller in the shadows of the veranda,
but he gave no sign of recognition. Mounting the
steps of the porch, he stood for a moment in dignified
expectancy, his calm, gray eyes taking the
measure of each of its occupants.

An apprehensive shiver ran down Muller’s spine
as he met Peter Gross’s glance—those gray eyes
were so like the silent, inscrutable eyes of the stranger
in de Jonge’s chair whom he saw in his dream. It
was Van Slyck who spoke first.

“You were looking for some one, mynheer?” he
asked.

“For Mynheer Muller, the controlleur and acting
resident. I think I have found him.”

The mildness with which these words were spoken
restored the captain’s aplomb, momentarily shaken
by Peter Gross’s calm, disconcerting stare.

“You have a message for us?”

“I have,” Peter Gross replied.

“Ah, from Kapitein Enckel, I suppose,” Van
Slyck remarked urbanely. “Your name is—” He
paused significantly.

“It is from his excellency, the Jonkheer Van
Schouten,” Peter Gross corrected quietly.

Peter Gross’s tolerance of this interrogation convinced
Van Slyck that he had to do with an inferior
intelligence suddenly elevated to an important position
and very much at sea in it.

“And your message, I understand, is for Mynheer
Muller, the controlleur?” the captain inquired
loftily with a pert uptilt of his chin.[138]

“For Mynheer Muller, the controlleur,” Peter
Gross acknowledged gravely.

“Ah, yes. This is Mynheer Muller.” He indicated
the controlleur with a flourish. “But you
have not yet told us your name.”

“I am Peter Gross.”

“Ah, yes, Pieter Gross. Pieter Gross.” The
captain repeated the name with evident relish.
“Pieter Gross. Mynheer Pieter Gross.”

There was a subtle emphasis on the mynheer—a
half-doubtful use of the word, as though he questioned
Peter Gross’s right to a gentleman’s designation.
It was designed to test the sailor.

Peter Gross’s face did not change a muscle.
Turning to the controlleur, he asked in a voice of
unruffled calm: “May I speak to you privately,
mynheer?”

Muller glanced apprehensively at Van Slyck.
The fears inspired by his dreams made him more
susceptible to ulterior impressions than the captain,
whose naturally more acute sensibilities were blunted
by the preconceived conviction that he had an ignorant
Yankee to deal with. Van Slyck smiled
cynically and observed:

“Am I in the way, Mynheer Gross?” Again the
ironic accent to the mynheer. He rose to go, but
Muller stayed him with the cry:

“Neen, neen, kapitein. Whatever comes from the
governor concerns you, too. Stay with us, and we
will see what his excellency has to say.”

None knew the importance of first impressions[139]
better than the captain. If the new resident could
be thwarted in his purpose of seeing Muller alone
that achievement would exercise its influence on
all their future relations, Van Slyck perceived.

Assuming an expression of indifference, he sank
indolently into an easy chair. When he looked up
he found the gray eyes of Peter Gross fixed full
upon him.

“Perhaps I should introduce myself further,
captain,” Peter Gross said. “I am Mynheer Gross,
of Batavia, your new resident by virtue of his excellency
the Jonkheer Van Schouten’s appointment.”

Van Slyck’s faint, cynical smile deepened a trifle.

“Ah, mynheer has been appointed resident,” he
remarked non-committally.

Peter Gross’s face hardened sternly.

“It is not the custom in Batavia, captain, for
officers of the garrison to be seated while their
superiors stand.”

For a moment the astonished captain lost his
usual assurance. In that moment he unwittingly
scrambled to his feet in response to the commanding
look of the gray eyes that stared at him so steadily.
The instant his brain cleared he regretted the action,
but another lightning thought saved him from the
folly of defying the resident by reseating himself
in the chair he had vacated. Furious at Peter
Gross, furious at himself, he struggled futilely for
an effective reply and failed to find it. In the end
he took refuge in a sullen silence.

Peter Gross turned again to Muller.[140]

“Here are my credentials, mynheer, and a letter
from his excellency, the governor-general,” he announced
simply.

With the words he placed in Muller’s hands two
envelopes plentifully decorated with sealing-wax
stamped with the great seal of the Netherlands.
The controlleur took them with trembling fingers.
Peter Gross calmly appropriated a chair. As he
seated himself he remarked:

“Gentlemen, you may sit.”

Van Slyck ignored the permission and strolled
to one end of the veranda. He was thinking deeply,
and all the while stole covert looks at Peter Gross.
Had he been mistaken, after all, in his estimate of
the man? Was this apparent guilelessness and simplicity
a mask? Were Koyala and Muller right?
Or was the resident’s sudden assumption of dignity
a petty vanity finding vent in the display of newly
acquired powers?

He stole another look. That face, it was so frank
and ingenuous, so free from cunning and deceit,
and so youthful. Its very boyishness persuaded
Van Slyck. Vanity was the inspiration for the resident’s
sudden assertion of the prerogatives of his
office, he decided, the petty vanity of a boor eager
to demonstrate authority. Confidence restored, he
became keenly alert for a chance to humble this
froward Yankee.

It was some time before Muller finished reading
the documents. He was breathing heavily the while,[141]
for he felt that he was reading his own death-warrant.
There was no doubting their authenticity, for they
were stamped with the twin lions of the house of
Orange and the motto, “Je Maintiendrai.” The
signature at the bottom of each was the familiar
scrawl of Java’s gamecock governor.

Muller stared at them blankly for a long time, as
though he half hoped to find some mitigation of the
blow that swept his vast administrative powers as
acting resident from him to the magistracy of a
district. Dropping them on his lap at last with a
weary sigh, he remarked:

“Welcome, Mynheer Gross, to Bulungan. I
wish I could say more, but I cannot. The most I
can say is that I am happy his excellency has at
last yielded to my petition and has relieved me of a
portion of my duties. It is a hard, hard residency
to govern, mynheer.”

“A splendid start,” Van Slyck muttered to himself
under his breath.

“So I have been informed, mynheer,” Peter Gross
replied gravely. “Pardon me a moment.”

He turned toward Van Slyck: “Captain, I have
a letter for you also from his excellency. It will
inform you of my appointment.”

“It would be better form, perhaps, mynheer, for
me to receive his excellency’s commands at Fort
Wilhelmina,” Van Slyck replied suavely, delighted
at being able to turn the tables.

“Very true, very true, kapitein, if you insist,”[142]
Peter Gross agreed quietly. “I hope to visit you at
the fort within the hour. In the mean time you will
excuse Mynheer Muller and me.”

For the second time a cold chill of doubt seized
Van Slyck. Was it possible that he had misjudged
his man? If he had, it was doubly dangerous to
leave Muller alone with him. He resolved to force
the issue.

“A thousand pardons, mynheer,” he apologized
smilingly. “Mynheer Muller just now requested
me to remain.”

A swift change came into the face of Peter Gross.
His chin shot forward; in place of the frank simplicity
on which Van Slyck had based his estimate
was a look of authority.

“Mynheer Muller cancels that invitation at my
request,” he announced sternly.

Van Slyck glanced in quick appeal at his associate,
but Muller’s eyes were already lowering under
Peter Gross’s commanding glance. Unable to find
a straw of excuse for holding the captain, the controlleur
stammered:

“Certainly, mynheer. I will see you later, kapitein.”

Even then Van Slyck lingered, afraid now to leave
Muller alone. But the cold, gray eyes of Peter
Gross followed him; they expressed a decision from
which there was no appeal. Furious at Muller,
furious at his own impotence, the captain walked
slowly across the veranda. Half-way down the
steps he turned with a glare of defiance, but thought[143]
better of it. Raging inwardly, and a prey to the
blackest passions, he strode toward the stockade.
The unhappy sentinel at the gate, a Javanese
colonial, was dozing against the brass cannon.

“Devil take you, is this the way you keep guard?”
Van Slyck roared and leaped at the man. His
sword flashed from its scabbard and he brought the
flat of the blade on the unhappy wretch’s head.
The Javanese dropped like a log.

“Bring that carrion to the guard-house and put
some one on the gate that can keep his eyes open,”
Van Slyck shouted to young Lieutenant Banning,
officer of the day. White to the lips, Banning saluted,
and executed the orders.

In barracks that night the soldiers whispered
fearfully to each other that a budjang brani (evil
spirit) had seized their captain again.[144]

CHAPTER XIII

A Fever Antidote

“You have found Bulungan a difficult province
to govern, mynheer?” Peter Gross asked.

The words were spoken in a mild, ingratiating
manner. Peter Gross’s voice had the
friendly quality that so endeared him to all who
made his acquaintance, and the harshness that
had distinguished his curt dismissal of the supercilious
Van Slyck was wholly absent.

Muller wiped away the drops of perspiration that
had gathered on his forehead. A prey to conscience,
Van Slyck’s dismissal had seemed to him the beginning
of the end.

“Ach, mynheer,” he faltered, “it has been a heavy
task. Too much for one man, altogether too much.
Since Mynheer de Jonge left here two years ago I
have been both resident and controlleur. I have
worked night and day, and the heavy work, and the
worry, have made me almost bald.”

That a connection existed between baldness and
overwork was a new theory to Peter Gross and rather
amusing, since he knew the circumstances. But
not the faintest flicker of a smile showed on his face.

“You have found it difficult, then, I presume, to
keep up with all your work?” he suggested.

Muller instantly grasped at the straw. “Not[145]
only difficult, mynheer, but wholly impossible,” he
vehemently affirmed. “My reports are far behind.
I suppose his excellency told you that?”

He scanned Peter Gross’s face anxiously. The
latter’s serenity remained undisturbed.

“His excellency told me very little,” he replied.
“He suggested that I consult with you and Captain
Van Slyck to get your ideas on what is needed for
bettering conditions here. I trust I will have your
coöperation, mynheer?”

Muller breathed a silent sigh of relief. “That
you will, mynheer,” he assured fervently. “I shall
be glad to help you all I can. And so will Kapitein
Van Slyck, I am sure of that. You will find him a
good man—a little proud, perhaps, and headstrong,
like all these soldiers, but an experienced
officer.” Muller nodded sagely.

“I am glad to hear that,” Peter Gross replied.
“The work is a little new to me—I presume you
know that?”

“So I heard, mynheer. This is your first post as
resident?”

Peter Gross’s eyelids quivered a trifle. Muller’s
admission revealed that he had had correspondence
with Ah Sing, for from no other source could the
news have leaked out.

“This is my first post,” he acknowledged.

“Possibly you have served as controlleur?” Muller
suggested.

“I am a sailor,” Peter Gross replied. “This is
my first state appointment.”[146]

“Then my experience may be of value to you,
mynheer,” Muller declared happily. “You understand
accounts, of course?”

“In a measure. But I am more a sailor than a
supercargo, mynheer.”

“To be sure, to be sure,” Muller acquiesced
heartily. “A sailor to the sea and to fighting in the
bush, and a penman to his books. Leave the
accounts to me; I will take care of them for you,
mynheer. You will have plenty to do, keeping the
tribes in order. It was more than I could do.
These Dyaks and Malays are good fighters.”

“So I have been told,” Peter Gross assented
dryly.

“They told you correctly, mynheer. But they
will get a stern master now—we have heard of your
work at Lombock, mynheer.”

The broad compliment was accompanied by an
even broader smile. Muller was very much pleased
with himself, and thought he was handling a delicate
situation in a manner that Van Slyck himself
could not have improved upon.

Peter Gross’s gravity did not relax. “How are
the natives? Do you have much difficulty?” he
inquired.

Muller assumed a wobegone expression. “Ach,
mynheer,” he exclaimed dolorously, “those hill Dyaks
are devils. It is one raid after another; they will
not let us alone. The rice-fields are swept bare.
What the Dyaks do not get, the floods and typhoons
get, and the weevils eat the stubble. We have not[147]
had a crop in two years. The rice we gathered for
taxes from those villages where there was a little
blessing on the harvest we had to distribute among
the villages where the crop failed to keep our people
from starving. That is why we could not ship to
Batavia. I wish his excellency would come here
himself and see how things are; he would not be so
critical about the taxes that are not paid.”

“Do the coast Dyaks ever make trouble?” Peter
Gross asked.

Muller glanced at him shrewdly.

“It is the hill Dyaks who begin it, mynheer.
Sometimes my coast Dyaks lose their heads when
their crops are burned and their wives and children
are stolen, but that is not often. We can control
them better than we can the hill people, for they are
nearer us. Of course a man runs amuck occasionally,
but that you find everywhere.”

“I hear there is a half-white woman who wields
a great influence over them,” Peter Gross remarked.
“Who is she?”

“You mean Koyala, mynheer. A wonderful
woman with a great influence over her people; they
would follow her to death. That was a wise act,
mynheer, to persuade his excellency to cancel the
offer he made for her person. Bulungan will not
forget it. You could not have done anything that
pleases the people more.”

“She is very beautiful, I have heard,” Peter Gross
remarked pensively.

Muller glanced at him sharply, and a quick spasm[148]
of jealousy contracted his features. The resident
might like a pretty face, too, was his instant thought;
it was an angle he had not bargained for. This
Mynheer Gross was strong and handsome, young—altogether
a dangerous rival. His mellow good
nature vanished.

“That depends on what you call beauty,” he
said surlily. “She is a witch-woman, and half
Dyak.”

Peter Gross looked up in pretended surprise.

“Well, mynheer, I am astonished. They told me
in Batavia—” He checked himself abruptly.

“What did they tell you in Batavia?” Muller
demanded eagerly.

Peter Gross shook his head. “I should not have
spoken, mynheer. It was only idle gossip.”

“Tell me, mynheer,” Muller pleaded. “Lieve
hemel, this is the first time in months that some one
has told me that Batavia still remembers Muller of
Bulungan.”

“It was only idle rumor,” Peter Gross deprecated.
“I was told you were going to marry—naturally I
believed—but of course as you say it’s impossible—”

“I to marry?” Muller exclaimed. “Who? Koyala?”

Peter Gross’s silence was all the confirmation the
controlleur needed. A gratified smile spread over
his face; he was satisfied now that the resident had
no intention of being his rival.

“They say that in Batavia?” he asked. “Well,[149]
between you and me, mynheer, I would have to look
far for a fairer bride.”

“Let me congratulate you,” Peter Gross began,
but Muller stayed him.

“No, not yet, mynheer. What I have said is for
your ears alone. Remember, you know nothing.”

“Your confidence is safe with me,” Peter Gross
assured him.

Muller suddenly recollected his duties as host.

“Ho, mynheer, you must have some Hollands
with me,” he cried hospitably. “A toast to our good
fellowship.” He clapped his hands and Cho Seng
appeared in the doorway.

“A glass of lemonade or iced tea, if you please,”
Peter Gross stated.

“You are a teetotaler?” Muller cried in dismay.

“As resident of Bulungan, yes, mynheer. A servant
of the state cannot be too careful.”

Muller laughed. “Lemonade and jenever, Cho
Seng,” he directed. “Well, mynheer, I’ll wager you
are the only resident in all the colonies that will not
take his glass of Hollands. If it were not for jenever
many of us could not live in this inferno. Sometimes
it is well to be able to forget for a short time.”

“If one has a burdened conscience,” Peter Gross
conditioned quietly.

Muller started. He intuitively felt the words
were not idle observation, and he glanced at Peter
Gross doubtfully. The resident was looking over
the broad expanse of sea, and presently remarked:[150]

“You have a splendid view here, mynheer. I hope
the outlook from my house is half so good.”

Muller roused himself. “That is so, mynheer,”
he said. “I had almost forgotten; we will have to
put your house in order at once. It has not been
occupied for two years, and will need a thorough
cleaning. Meanwhile you must be my guest.”

“I thank you, mynheer,” Peter Gross replied
quietly.

“You will have an establishment, mynheer?”
Muller asked curiously. “Have you brought servants?
If not, I shall be glad to loan you Cho
Seng.”

“Thank you, I am well provided,” Peter Gross
assured.

Cho Seng padded out on the porch and served
them. Being a well-trained servant, he scarcely
glanced at his employer’s guest, but Peter Gross
favored him with a thoughtful stare.

“Your servant has been with you a long time,
mynheer?” he inquired carelessly.

“A year, mynheer. I got him from Batavia. He
was recommended by—a friend.” The pause was
perceptible.

“His face seems familiar,” Peter Gross remarked
in an offhand manner. “But that’s probably imagination.
It is hard to tell these Chinese apart.”

Conscious of having said too much again, Muller
made no reply. They sipped their drinks in silence,
Peter Gross thinking deeply the while why Ah Sing[151]
should make a former waiter in his rumah makan
Muller’s servant. Presently he said:

“If it is not too much trouble, mynheer, could you
show me my house?”

“Gladly, mynheer,” Muller exclaimed, rising with
alacrity. “It is only a few steps. We will go at
once.”

For the next half hour Peter Gross and he rambled
through the dwelling. It was modeled closely
after the controlleur’s own, with a similar green and
white façade facing the sea. The atmosphere within
was damp and musty, vermin scurried at their
approach, but Peter Gross saw that the building
could be made tenable in a few days. At last they
came to a sequestered room on the north side, facing
the hills. An almost level expanse of garden lay
back of it.

“This was Mynheer de Jonge’s own apartment,”
Muller explained. “Here he did most of his work.”
He sighed heavily. “He was a fine old man. It
is too bad the good God had to take him away from
us.”

Peter Gross’s lips pressed together tightly.

“Mynheer de Jonge was careless of his health, I
hear,” he remarked. “One cannot be too careful
in Bulungan. Therefore, mynheer, I must ask you
to get me a crew of men busy at once erecting two
long houses, after these plans.” He took a drawing
from his pocket and showed it to Muller. The
controlleur blinked at it with a puzzled frown.[152]

“These buildings will ruin the view, mynheer,”
he expostulated. “Such long huts—they are big
enough for thirty men. What are they for?”

“Protection against the fevers, mynheer,” Peter
Gross said dryly. “The fevers that killed Mynheer
de Jonge.”

That evening, when Peter Gross had returned to
the ship, Muller and Van Slyck met to compare
notes. The captain was still boiling with anger;
the resident’s visit to Fort Wilhelmina had not
soothed his ruffled temper.

“He told me he brought twenty-five irregulars
with him for work in the bush,” Van Slyck related.
“They are a separate command, and won’t be quartered
in the fort. If this Yankee thinks he can
meddle in the military affairs of the residency he
will find he is greatly mistaken.”

“Where will they be quartered?” Muller asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe he will place them in the huts he has
ordered me to build back of the residency,” Muller
remarked, rubbing his bald pate thoughtfully.

“He told you to build some huts?” Van Slyck
asked.

“Yes, some long huts. Big enough for thirty
men. He said they were to be a protection against
the fevers.”

“The fevers?” Van Slyck exclaimed in amazement.[153]

“Yes, the fevers that killed Mynheer de Jonge,
he said.”

Van Slyck’s face became livid with passion.
“Against the fevers that killed de Jonge, eh?” he
snarled. “The damned Yankee will find there are
more than fevers in Bulungan.”

He flashed a sharp look at Muller.

“When you see Koyala,” he said, “send her to
me.”[154]

CHAPTER XIV

Koyala’s Defiance

From his quarters in the residency building,
the same room where his predecessor, the
obstinate and perverse de Jonge, had lived
his brief and inglorious career, Peter Gross looked
across the rolling expanse to the jungle-crested hills
of Bulungan.

It was now two weeks since his coming. Many
changes had been wrought during the fortnight.
The residency had been cleared of vermin and made
habitable. Paddy Rouse had been installed as
secretary and general factotum. The tangle of cane,
creeper growth, and nipa palm that had grown
in the park of shapely tamarinds since de Jonge’s
death had been cut away. Two long, low buildings
had been erected as barracks, and Captain Carver
had converted the newly created plain into a drill-ground.

They were drilling now, the khaki-clad twenty-five
that had crossed the Java Sea with Peter Gross.
Two weeks on shore, supplementing the shipboard
quizzes on the drill manual, had welded them into
an efficient command. The smartness and precision
with which they executed maneuvers compelled
a grudging admiration from the stolid Dutch[155]
soldiers of Fort Wilhelmina who strolled over daily
to watch the drills.

“They’ll do, they’ll do,” Peter Gross assured himself
with satisfaction.

He stepped back to his desk and took a document
from it. It was Muller’s first report as controlleur.
Peter Gross ran his eyes down the column of figures
and frowned. The accounts balanced and were
properly drawn up. The report seemed to be in
great detail. Yet he felt that something was wrong.
The expenses of administration had been heavy,
enormously heavy, he noted. Instead of exporting
rice Bulungan had been forced to import to make
good crop losses, the report showed.

“Mynheer Muller is a good accountant,” he observed
to himself. “But there are a few items we
will have to inquire into.” He laid the report aside.

The door opened and Paddy Rouse entered. His
bright red hair, scrubby nose, and freckled face were
in odd contrast to his surroundings, so typically
Dutch. Mynheer de Jonge had made this retreat a
sanctuary, a bit of old Holland transplanted bodily
without regard to differences of latitude and longitude.
In the east wall was a blue-tile fireplace.
On the mantel stood a big tobacco jar of Delftware
with the familiar windmill pattern. Over it hung
a long-stemmed Dutch pipe with its highly colored
porcelain bowl. The pictures on the wall were
Rembrandtesque, gentlemen in doublet and hose,
with thin, refined, scholarly faces and the inevitable
Vandyke beard.[156]

“A lady to see you, sir,” Paddy Rouse announced
with military curtness, saluting. The irrepressible
Irish broke through in a sly twinkle. “She’s a
beauty, sir.”

Peter Gross controlled the start of surprise he felt.
He intuitively guessed who his visitor was.

“You may show her in,” he announced.

“Yes, sir.”

“And, Paddy—call Captain Carver, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

The shock of red hair darted away.

Peter Gross looked out of the window again. The
crucial moment, the moment he had looked forward
to since accepting his appointment, was upon him.
What should he say to her, this woman of two alien,
utterly irreconcilable races, this woman so bitterly
wronged, this woman with a hot shame in her heart
that would not die? How should he approach her,
how should he overcome her blind, unreasoning
hatred against the dominant white race, how persuade
her to trust him, to give her aid for the reclamation
of Bulungan?

At the same time he wondered why she had come.
He had not anticipated this meeting so soon. Was
there something back of it? As he asked himself the
question his fingers drummed idly on the desk.

While he was meditating he became suddenly
aware of another presence in the room. Turning,
he found himself looking into the eyes of a woman—the
woman of his thoughts. She stood beside him,
silent, possessed. There was a dagger in the snake[157]skin
girdle she wore about her waist—a single thrust
and she could have killed him. He looked at her
steadily. Her glance was equally steady. He rose
slowly.

“You are the Juffrouw Koyala,” he announced
simply. “Good morning, juffrouw.” He bowed.

There was an instant’s hesitation—or was it only
his imagination, Peter Gross asked himself—then
her form relaxed a trifle. So slight was the movement
that he would not have been sure had not
every muscle of her perfect body yielded to it with a
supple, rhythmic grace.

“Won’t you be seated?” he remarked conventionally,
and placed a chair for her. Not until then
did she speak.

“It is not necessary, mynheer. I have only a few
words to say.”

The cold austerity of her voice chilled Peter Gross.
Yet her tones were marvelously sweet—like silver
bells, he thought. He bowed and waited expectantly.
In a moment’s interlude he took stock of
her.

She was dressed in the native fashion, sarong and
kabaya, both of purest white. The kabaya reached
to midway between the knees and ankles. Her limbs
were bare, except for doe-skin sandals. The girdle
about her waist was made from the skins of spotted
pit vipers. The handle of the dagger it held was
studded with gems, rubies, turquoises, and emeralds.
A huge ruby, mounted on a pin, caught the
kabaya above her breasts; outside of this she wore[158]
no jewelry. Her lustrous black hair hung loosely
over her shoulders. Altogether a creature of the
jungle, she looked at him with a glance in which
defiance was but thinly concealed.

“What did you wish to see me about?” Peter
Gross asked when he saw that she was awaiting his
permission to speak.

Something like a spark shot from the glowing
coals of her eyes. The tragic intensity of those
eyes stirred anew the feeling of pity in the resident’s
heart.

“I am told, mynheer, that the governor withdrew
his offer for my person at your request,” she
said coldly.

The statement was a question, Peter Gross felt,
though put in the form of a declaration. He
scrutinized her face sharply, striving to divine her
object.

“That is true, juffrouw,” he acknowledged.

“Why did you do this, mynheer?”

Peter Gross did not answer at once. The direct
question astonished him.

“Why do you ask, juffrouw?” he parried.

Her finely chiseled head tilted back. Very royal
she looked, very queenly, a Diana of the tropic
jungle.

“Because Koyala Bintang Burung asks no favors
from you, Mynheer Gross. Nor from any white
man.”

It was a declaration of war. Peter Gross realized
it, and his face saddened. He had expected oppo[159]sition
but not open defiance. He wondered what
lay back of it. The Dyak blood in her, always
treacherous, never acting without a purpose, was
not frank without reason, he assured himself.

“I had no intention of doing you a favor, juffrouw,”
he announced quietly.

“What was your object, mynheer?”

The words were hardly out of her mouth before
she regretted them. The quick flash of her teeth
as she bit her lips revealed the slip. Peter Gross
instantly divined the reason—her hostility was so
implacable that she would not even parley with him.

“To do you justice, juffrouw,” he replied.

The words were like oil on flame. Her whole
figure stiffened rigidly. The smoldering light in
her eyes flashed into fire. The dusk in her face
deepened to night. In a stifled voice, bitter with
scorn, she cried:

“I want none of your justice, mynheer.”

“No, I suppose not,” Peter Gross assented heavily.
His head sagged and he stared moodily into the
fireplace. Koyala looked at him questioningly for
a moment, then turned swiftly and glided toward
the door. A word from Peter Gross interrupted her.

“Juffrouw!“

She turned slowly. The cold disdain her face
expressed was magnificent.

“What shall I do?” he entreated. His mild,
gray eyes were fixed on her flaming orbs pleadingly.
Her lips curled in scornful contempt.

“That is for you to decide, mynheer,” she replied.[160]

“Then I cross from the slate all that has been
charged against you, juffrouw. You are free to
come and go as you wish.”

A flash of anger crossed Koyala’s face.

“Your pardon is neither asked nor desired, mynheer,”
she retorted.

“I must do my duty as I see it,” Peter Gross replied.
“All that I ask of you, juffrouw, is that you
do not use your influence with the natives to hinder
or oppose the plans I have for their betterment.
May I have your pledge for that?”

“I make no promises and give no pledges, mynheer,”
Koyala announced coldly.

“I beg your pardon—I should not have asked it of
you. All I ask is a chance to work out my plans
without hindrance from those whose welfare I am
seeking.”

Koyala’s lips curled derisively. “You can promote
our welfare best by going back to Java, mynheer,”
she retorted.

Peter Gross looked at her sadly.

“Juffrouw,” he said, “you are speaking words that
you do not know the meaning of. Leave Bulungan?
What would happen then? The Chinese would
come down on you from the north, the Bugis from
the east, and the Bajaus from every corner of the
sea. Your coasts would be harried, your people
would be driven out of their towns to the jungles,
trade would cease, the rice harvests would fail,
starvation would come upon you. Your children
would be torn from you to be sold in the slave[161]-market.
Your women would be stolen. You are a
woman, juffrouw, a woman of education and understanding;
you know what the white man saves you
from.”

“And what have you whites given us in return
for your protection?” she cried fiercely. “Your
law, which is the right of a white man to cheat and
rob the ignorant Dyak under the name of trade.
Your garrisons in our city, which mean taking away
our weapons so that our young men become soft in
muscle and short in breath and can no longer make
war like their fathers did. Your religion, which
you force on us with a sword and do not believe
yourself. Your morals, which have corrupted the
former sanctity of our homes and have wrought an
infamy unspeakable. Gin, to make our men stagger
like fools; opium, to debauch us all! These are the
white man’s gifts to the Dyaks of Borneo. I would
rather see my people free, with only their bows and
arrows and sumpitans, fighting a losing fight in their
jungles against the Malays and the Chinese slave-hunters,
than be ruined by arrach and gin and opium
like they are now.”

She was writhing in her passion. Her bosom rose
and fell tumultuously, and her fingers opened and
closed like the claws of an animal. In this mood she
was a veritable tigress, Peter Gross thought.

“All that you have said is the truth,” he admitted.
He looked very weary, his shoulders were
bent, and he stared gloomily into the hearth. Koyala
stared at him with a fierce intensity, half doubtful[162]
whether he was mocking her. But his dejection
was too patent to be pretense.

“If you believe that, why are you here?” she
demanded.

“Because I believe that Bulungan needs me to
correct these evils, juffrouw,” he replied gently.

Koyala laughed shrilly, contemptuously. Peter
Gross’s form straightened and the thin, firm lines
of his lips tightened. He lifted a restraining hand.

“May I speak for a few moments, juffrouw?” he
asked. “I want to tell you what I am planning to do
for Bulungan. I shall put an end to the gin and
opium trade. I shall drive the slave-hunters and
the pirates from these seas, and the head-hunters
from their babas (jungles). I shall make Bulungan
so peaceful that the rice-grower can plough, and
sow, and harvest with never a backward look to see
if an enemy is near him. I shall take the young men
of Bulungan and train them in the art of war, that
they may learn how to keep peace within their borders
and the enemy without. I shall readjust the
taxes so that the rich will pay their just share as well
as the poor. I shall bring in honest tax-collectors
who will account for the last grain of rice they
receive. Before I shall finish my work the Gustis
(Princes) will break their krisses and the bushmen
their sumpitans; hill Dyak and coast Dyak will sit
under the same tapang tree and take sirih and betel
from the same box, and the Kapala Kampong shall
say to the people of his village—go to the groves and
harvest the cocoanut, a tenth for me and a tenth[163]
for the state, and the balance for you and your
children.”

Koyala looked at him searchingly. His tremendous
earnestness seemed to impress her.

“You have taken a big task upon yourself, mynheer,”
she observed.

“I will do all this, juffrouw, if you will help me,”
Peter Gross affirmed solemnly.

Scornful defiance leaped again into Koyala’s eyes
and she drew back proudly.

“I, mynheer? I am a Dyak of Bulungan,” she
said.

“You are half a daughter of my people,” Peter
Gross corrected. “You have had the training of a
white woman. Whether you are friend or foe, you
shall always be a white woman to me, juffrouw.”

A film came across Koyala’s eyes. She started to
reply, checked herself, and then spoke, lashing the
words out between set teeth.

“Promise upon promise, lie upon lie, that has
been the way with you whites. I hate you all, I
stand by my people.”

Swift as the bird whose name she bore, she flashed
through the door. Peter Gross took a half-step
forward to restrain her, stopped, and walked slowly
back to his chair.

“She will come back,” he murmured to himself;
“she will come back. I have sown the seed, and it
has sunk in fertile ground.”

In the banyan grove Koyala, breathing rapidly[164]
because of her swift flight, came upon Kapitein
Van Slyck. The captain rose eagerly as she darted
through the cane.

“What did he say?” he asked. “Did he try to
make love to you?”

Koyala turned on him furiously. “You are a
fool, we are all fools!” she exclaimed. “He is more
than a match for all of us. I will see you later, when
I can think; not now.” She left the clearing.

Van Slyck stalked moodily back to the fort. At
the edge of the grove he slashed viciously at a pale
anemone.

“Damn these women, you never can trust them,”
he snarled.

When the only sounds audible in the clearing were
the chirping of the crickets and the fluting of the
birds, a thin, yellow face with watery eyes peered
cautiously through the cane. Seeing the coast
clear, Cho Seng padded decorously homeward to
the controlleur’s house, stepping carefully in the
center of the path where no snakes could lie concealed.[165]

CHAPTER XV

The Council

The council of the chiefs was assembling.
From every part of Bulungan residency
they came, the Rajahs and the Gustis, the
Datu Bandars or governors of the Malay villages,
and the Orang Kayas and Kapala Kampongs, the
Dyak village heads. Their coming was in answer
to the call of Peter Gross, resident, for messengers
had been sent to every part of the province to announce
that a great bitchara (talk) was to be held in
Bulungan town.

They came in various ways. The Malay Datu
Bandars of the coast towns, where the Malays were
largely in the ascendent, voyaged in royal sailing
proas, some of which were covered with canopies
of silk. Each had twenty men or more, armed to
the teeth, in his cortège. The inland Rajahs traveled
in even greater state. Relays of slaves carried
them in sedan chairs, and fifty gleaming krisses
marched before and fifty after. The humbler Orang
Kayas and Kapala Kampongs came on foot, with not
more than ten attendants in their trains, for a village
head, regardless of the number of buffaloes in
his herd, must not aspire to the same state as a
Rajah, or even a Gusti. The Rajah Wobanguli[166]
received each arrival with a stately dignity befitting
the ruler of the largest town in the residency, and
assigned him and his people the necessary number of
houses to shelter them.

But these were not the only strangers in Bulungan.
From all the country round, and from every village
along the coast, Dyaks, Malays, Chinese, and
Bugis, and the Bajau sea-wanderers, streamed into
the town. The usually commodious market-place
seemed to shrink and dwindle as the crowd of
traders expanded, and the raucous cries of the venders
rang about the street to a late hour at night.

In every second house a cock-fight was in progress.
Sweating, steaming bodies crushed each other in
the narrow streets and threatened ruin to the
thatched houses. Malays scowled at Dyaks, and
Dyaks glared vindictively at Malays. Shrewd,
bland Chinese intermingled with the crowd and
raked in the silver and copper coins that seemed to
flow toward them by a magnetic attraction. Fierce,
piratical Bugis cast amorous glances at the Dyak
belles who, although they shrank timidly into their
fathers’ huts, were not altogether displeased at
having their charms noticed.

There was hardly a moment without its bickering
and fierce words, and there were frequent brawls
when women fled shrieking, for hill Dyak and coast
Dyak and Malay and Bugi could not meet at such
close quarters without the feuds of untold generations
breaking out.

Foremost in the minds and on the lips of every[167]
individual in that reeking press of humanity was
the question: “What will the orang blanda (white
man) want?” Speculation ran riot, rumor winged
upon rumor, and no tale was too fantastical to lack
ready repetition and credulous listeners. Mynheer
would exact heavy penalties for every act of piracy
and killing traced back to Bulungan, so the stories
ran; mynheer would confiscate all the next rice
crop; mynheer would establish great plantations and
every village would be required to furnish its quota
of forced labor; mynheer would demand the three
handsomest youths from each village as hostages
for future good behavior. Thus long before the
council assembled, the tide was setting against Peter
Gross.

Bulungan was ripe and ready for revolt. It
chafed under the fetters of a white man’s administration,
lightly as those fetters sat. Wildest of
Borneo’s residencies, it was the last refuge of the
adventurous spirits of the Malay archipelago who
found life in the established provinces of Java,
Sumatra, and Celebes all too tame.

They had tasted freedom for two years under
Muller’s innocuous administration and did not intend
to permit the old order to be changed. Diverse as
their opinions on other matters might be, bitter
as their feuds might be, hill Dyak and coast Dyak,
Malay, Chinese, Bugi, and Bajau were united on this
point. So for the first time in Bulungan’s history
a feeling of unanimity pervaded a conclave of such
mongrel elements as were now gathered in old[168]
“Rotterdam” town. This feeling was magnified
by a report—originating, no one knew where, and
spreading like wildfire—that the great Datu, the
chief of all the pirates of the island seas, the mysterious
and silent head of the great confederation,
was in Bulungan and would advise the chiefs how to
answer their new white governor.

Peter Gross was not wholly ignorant of public
sentiment in the town. One of Captain Carver’s
first acts on coming to Bulungan was to establish
the nucleus of a secret service to keep him informed
on public sentiment among the natives. A Dyak
lad named Inchi, whom Carver had first hired to
help with the coarsest camp work, and who had
formed an immediate attachment for his soldierly
white baas, was the first recruit in this service and
brought in daily reports.

“Inchi tells me that the chiefs have decided they
will pay no more tax to the government,” Carver
announced to Peter Gross on the morning of the
council. The resident and he were on the drill-ground
where they could talk undisturbed. Peter
Gross’s lips tightened.

“I expected opposition,” he replied non-committally.

“Too bad we haven’t the Prins Lodewyk here,”
Carver remarked. “A few shells around their ears
might bring them to their senses.”

“We don’t need such an extreme measure yet,”
Peter Gross deprecated gently.

“I hardly know whether it’s safe for us to venture[169]
into the town,” Carver observed. “Couldn’t you
arrange to have the meeting here, away from all that
mob? There must be thirty thousand people down
below.”

“I would rather meet them on their own ground.”

“It’s a big risk. If there should be an attack, we
couldn’t hold them.”

“Thirty thousand against twenty-five would be
rather long odds,” Peter Gross assented, smiling.

“You’re going to use the fort garrison, too, aren’t
you?” Carver asked quickly.

“I shall take just two people with me,” Peter
Gross announced.

“My God, Mr. Gross! You’ll never get back!”
Carver’s face was tense with anxiety.

“Three people will be just as effective as twenty-six,
captain,” Peter Gross declared mildly. “The
victory we must gain to-day is a moral victory—we
must show the natives that we are not afraid.”

“But they’re bound to break loose. A show of
military force would restrain them—”

“I think it would be more a provocation than a
restraint, captain. They would see our helplessness.
If I go alone they will reason that we are
stronger than they think we are. Our confidence
will beget uncertainty among them.”

Carver had long since learned the futility of trying
to dissuade his chief from a course once adopted.
He merely remarked:

“Of course I’ll go?”

“I’m sorry, captain—” Peter Gross’s face ex[170]pressed
sincere regret. “Nothing would please me
more than to have you with me, but I can’t spare
you here.”

Carver realized that himself. He swallowed his
disappointment.

“Whom were you planning on taking?” he asked
abruptly.

“Inchi—”

Carver nodded approval.

—”And Paddy Rouse.”

“Paddy?” the captain exclaimed. “Of what
use—I beg your pardon, Mr. Gross.”

Peter Gross smiled. “It does seem a peculiar
mission to take that youngster on,” he said. “But
Paddy’s going to be rarely useful to me to-day,
useful in a way every man couldn’t be. These
natives have a superstitious reverence for red
hair.”

An understanding smile broke upon Carver’s
face.

“Of course. A mighty good idea. Bluff and
superstition are two almighty-powerful weapons
against savages.”

“I also hope that we shall have another ally
there,” Peter Gross said.

“Who is that?”

“The Juffrouw Koyala.”

Carver frowned. “Mr. Gross,” he said, “I don’t
trust that woman. She’s Dyak, and that’s the most
treacherous breed that was ever spawned. We’ve
got to look out for her. She’s an actress, and[171]
mighty clever in playing her little part, but she
can’t hide the hate in her heart. She’ll keep us on
the string and pretend she’s won over, but the first
chance she gets to strike, she’ll do it. I’ve met that
kind of woman in the Philippines.”

“I think you are wholly mistaken,” Peter Gross
replied decisively.

Carver glanced at him quickly, searchingly.
“She’s a damn pretty woman,” he remarked
musingly, and shot another quick glance at the
resident.

“That has nothing to do with the matter,” Peter
Gross replied sternly.

Abruptly dropping the topic, Carver asked:

“At what hour does the council meet?”

“Four o’clock.”

“You’ll be back by sundown?”

“I am afraid not. I shall probably spend the
night with Wobanguli.”

Carver groaned. “Send Inchi if things look as
though they were going wrong,” he said. “Might
I suggest that you let him go to the village right
away, and keep away from you altogether?”

“If you’ll instruct him so, please. In case there
is trouble, throw your men into the fort.” He took
a package of papers from his pocket and gave them
to Carver. “Here are some documents which I
want you to take care of for me. They are all
addressed. One of them is for you; it appoints
you military commandant of Bulungan in case something
should happen to me down below. Don’t[172]
use it otherwise. If Van Slyck should make a fuss
you will know how to handle him.”

“I understand,” Carver replied shortly, and
pocketed the envelope. He strode back to his
shelter with a heavy heart.[173]

CHAPTER XVI

Peter Gross’s Pledge

The afternoon sun was pouring its full strength
on the coral highway to Bulungan when
Peter Gross rode to the council. He was
mounted on a thoroughbred that he had brought with
him from Java, and was in full-dress uniform. On his
breast gleamed several decorations awarded him by
Governor-General Van Schouten. It was the first
time he had used them, and it was not vanity that
inspired him to pin them on his coat. He realized
the importance of employing every artifice to impress
the native mind favorably toward its new ruler.
Paddy Rouse was in field-service uniform, and rode a
chestnut borrowed from the military stables.

The terrific din created by several thousand gongs
of brass, copper, and wood, beaten in every part of
Bulungan to testify to the holiday, was plainly
audible as they cantered along the road.

“Sounds like the Fourth of July,” Paddy remarked
cheerfully.

When they neared the village two Gustis, youthful
Dyak chiefs with reputations yet to make, charged
toward them with bared krisses. As the hoofs of
their jet-black steeds thundered toward Peter
Gross, Paddy gave his horse the spur and shot it[174]
half a length ahead of the resident. His hand was
on the butt of his pistol when a low-voiced warning
from his chief restrained him. Just as it seemed
that they would be ridden down the horsemen
parted and flashed by with krisses lifted to salute.
They wheeled instantly and fell in behind the resident.

“Whew,” Paddy whistled softly. “I thought
they meant business.”

“It was meant to do us honor,” Peter Gross explained.

More native princes spurred from the town to
join the procession. In each instance the demonstration
the same. Paddy noted that every
one was mounted on a black horse and carried a
kris whose handle was of either gold or ivory, and
was studded with gems. None used saddles, but
each horse was caparisoned with a gayly colored
saddle-cloth embroidered with gold thread. The
bridles were of many-colored cords and the bits of
silver. He pointed out these things to Peter Gross
in an undertone.

“That shows that they are all of princely rank,”
Peter Gross informed him.

The din from the gongs became almost deafening
as they entered the outskirts of the town. The
crowd thickened also, and it became increasingly
difficult to break through the press. Paddy Rouse’s
eyes swam as he looked into the sea of black and
brown faces grimacing and contorting. The scene
was a riot of color; every native was dressed in his[175]
holiday best, which meant garments of the gaudiest
and brightest dyes that his means enabled him to
procure. Paddy noticed a patriarch in a pea-green
velvet jacket, blue and orange chawat, or waist-cloth,
and red, yellow, and blue kerchief head-dress.
Most of the kerchief head-dresses, worn
turban-fashion, were in three colors, blue predominating,
he observed.

“Big reception they’re giving us,” Paddy remarked.

Peter Gross’s reply was noncommittal. He felt
a little of the forces that were at work beneath the
surface, and realized how quickly this childishly
curious, childishly happy mob could be converted
into a bedlam of savagery.

As they neared the huge twin Hindu deities,
carved in stone, that formed the gate-posts of
Wobanguli’s palace grounds and the council-hall
enclosure, the crowd massed so thickly that it was
impossible for them to proceed. Paddy drove his
horse into the press and split an aisle by a vicious
display of hoofs and the liberal use of his quirt-stock.
The crowd gave way sullenly, those behind
refusing to give way for those in front. Paddy
leaned sidewise in his saddle as they passed between
the scowling gods.

“Into the lion’s den,” he whispered to Peter Gross.
His eye was sparkling; roughing the natives had
whetted his appetite for action.

Peter Gross sprang from his horse lightly—he
had learned to ride before he went to sea—and[176]
entered the dimly lit hall. Rouse remained at the
entrance and began looking about for Inchi. The
little Malay was rubbing down a horse, but gave
no sign of recognition when Rouse’s glance met his.
As Paddy looked away, his face, too, sobered.
Only his eyes were more keenly alert.

As Peter Gross became accustomed to the semi-darkness,
he distinguished about forty chiefs and
princes seated along the side walls of the building.
There were two Europeans in the room in one corner.
Peter Gross guessed their identity before he
could distinguish their faces; they were Muller
and Van Slyck.

At the farther end of the hall was a platform.
Two chairs of European make had been placed upon
it. Wobanguli occupied one, the other was vacant.
The hall was thick with smoke, for those who were
not chewing betel were laboring on big Dutch pipes,
introduced by their white rulers.

Silence greeted Peter Gross as he slowly walked
the length of the hall, and none rose to do him the
customary honor. Instead of mounting the platform
he remained standing at its base and looked
sternly into the face of the Rajah. In a voice suspiciously
sweet he asked:

“Is it so long since a son of the white father has
come to Bulungan that you have forgotten how he
must be received, O Rajah?”

There was a moment’s pregnant pause, a moment
when the royal mind did some quick thinking.
Then Wobanguli rose and said:[177]

“We have heard the call and we are here, resident.”

The moment Wobanguli rose a quick rustle and
the clicking of steel apprised Peter Gross that
the others also had risen. Although he knew it
was not in his honor—custom forbade lesser chiefs
from sitting while the Rajah stood—he accepted
it as such. He did not look around until he had
mounted the platform. Then he gazed at each
man individually. Something in his silent scrutiny
sent a cold chill into the hearts of more than one of
the chiefs who had endured it, but most of them
returned it boldly and defiantly.

Not until each of the forty had felt the power of
his mesmeric glance did Peter Gross speak.

“You may tell the council the purpose of this
meting, Rajah,” he announced, turning to Wobanguli,
and then seated himself in the vacant chair.

As Wobanguli came forward, Peter Gross had an
opportunity to measure his man. The Rajah was
tall, quite tall for a Bornean, powerfully built, but a
trifle stoop-shouldered. His features were pronouncedly
Malay rather than Dyak; there was a
furtive look in his half-shut eyes that suggested
craft and cunning, and his ever-ready smile was too
suavely pleasant to deceive the resident.

“A panther; he will be hard to tame,” was Peter
Gross’s unspoken thought.

Wobanguli began speaking in sonorous tones,
using Malay-Dyak dialect, the lingua franca of the
residency.[178]

“Rajahs, Custis, Datus, and Kapalas, to-day hath
Allah and the Hanu Token and the great god
Djath given a new ruler to Bulungan.”

Peter Gross’s brow contracted thoughtfully. It
was apparent from Wobanguli’s exordium that he
was striving to please the adherents of every faith
represented among the natives present. The Rajah
continued:

“In the days when the great fire mountains
poured their rivers of flame into the boiling ocean
our forefathers, led by the great god Djath, came to
Borneo. They built villages and begat children.
The fire mountains belched flame and molten rock,
the great floods came to drown the mountains, the
earth shook, and whole jungles were swallowed up;
but ever our fathers clung to the island they had
come to possess. Then Djath said: ‘This is a
strong people. I shall make it my own, my chosen
people, and give to them and to their children’s
children forever the land of Borneo.’

“From the seed of our fathers sprang many
tribes. New nations came from over the sea and
found habitation with us, and we called them
‘brother.’ Last of all came the white man. He sold
us guns, and knives, and metals, and fine horses,
and the drink that Allah says we must not touch,
and opium. By and bye, when he was strong and
we were weak, he said: ‘I will give you a resident
who shall be a father unto you. There will be no
more killings, but every man shall have plenty of
gongs and brass rings for his wives, and many bolts[179]
of brilliantly colored cloth, and much tobacco.’
So we let the white man give us a ruler.”

There was an ominous stirring among the assembled
chiefs. Peter Gross’s face maintained an
inscrutable calm, but he was thinking rapidly.
Wobanguli’s speech had all the elements of nitroglycerine,
he realized.

“It is now many moons since the first white
father came to dwell with us,” Wobanguli continued.
“Three times has the great fire mountain belched
flame and smoke to show she was angry with us, and
three times have we given of our gifts to appease
the spirits. We are poor. Our women hide their
nakedness with the leaves of palm-trees. Our
tribesmen carve their kris-handles from the branches
of the ironwood-tree.”

He paused. The air was electric. Another word,
a single passionate plea, would unsheath forty
krisses, Peter Gross perceived. Wobanguli was
looking at him, savage exultation leering in his
eyes, but Peter Gross’s face did not change a muscle,
and he waited with an air of polite attention. Wobanguli
faced the assembly again:

“Our elder brother from over the sea, who was
sent to us by the little father at Batavia, will tell us
to-day how he will redeem the promises made to us,”
he announced. “I have spoken.”

So abrupt was the climax that Peter Gross
scarcely realized the Rajah had concluded until he
was back in his chair. There was a moment’s
dramatic hush. Conscious that Wobanguli had[180]
brought him to the very edge of a precipice as a
test, conscious, too, that the Rajah was disappointed
because his intended victim had failed to reveal the
weakness he had expected to find, Peter Gross rose
slowly and impressively to meet the glances of the
forty chiefs now centered so hostilely upon him.

“Princes of our residency of Bulungan”—he
began; there was a stir in the crowd; he was using
the native tongue, the same dialect Wobanguli had
used—”the Rajah Wobanguli has told you the purpose
of this meeting. He has told you of the promises
made by those who were resident here before
me. He has reminded you that these promises
have not been fulfilled. But he has not told you
why they were not fulfilled. I am here to-day to
tell you the reason.”

A low, whistling sound, the simultaneous sharp
intake of breath through the nostrils of forty men,
filled the room. Pipes and betel and sirih were laid
aside. Rajahs, governors, and princes craned their
heads and looked ominously over the shafts of their
spears at their resident.

“There are in this land three peoples, or perhaps
four,” Peter Gross said. “Only two of these are
the real owners of Borneo, the people whose fathers
settled this island in the early days, as your Rajah
has told you. They are the hill Dyaks and the
sea Dyaks, who are one people though two nations.
The Malays are outlanders. The Chinese are outlanders.
They have the same right to live here
that the white man has—no more, no less. That[181]
right comes from the increase in riches they bring
and the trade they bring.”

A hoarse murmur arose. The Malay Datus’
scowls were blacker. The Dyaks looked sullenly
at their arch-enemies, the brown immigrants from
Malacca.

“Long before the first white man came here, the
two nations of Dyaks—the Dyaks of the sea and
the Dyaks of the hills—were at war with each other.
The skulls of the people of each nation decorated
the lodge-poles of their enemies. The Dyaks of
the sea made treaties with the Bajaus, the Malays,
the Bugis, and the Chinese sea-rovers. Together
these people have driven the Dyaks of the hills far
inland, almost to the crest of the great fire mountains.
But the price they pay is the surrender of their
strong men to row the proas of their masters, the
pirates. The spring rains come, but the rice is left
unsowed, for a fair crop attracts the spoilers, and
only the poor are left in peace. Poverty has come
upon your Dyaks. Your kris-handles are of wood,
while those of your masters are of gold and jewels.”

Peter Gross paused. The Dyaks were glaring
at the Malays, the Malays looked as fiercely back.
Several chiefs were fingering their kris-handles.
Muller was watching the tribesmen in anxious
bewilderment; Van Slyck hid in the shadows.

“Forget your feuds and listen to me,” Peter Gross
thundered in a voice of authority that focused
instant attention upon him. “Let me tell you what
I have come to do for Bulungan.”[182]

He turned a group of short, lithely built men
armed with spears.

“To you, hill Dyaks, I bring peace and an end of
all raiding. No more shall the coast-rovers cross
your borders. Your women will be safe while you
hunt dammar gum and resin in the forests; the
man who steals a woman against her will shall hang.
I, your resident, have spoken.”

He turned toward the delegation of coast natives.

“To you, Dyaks of the sea, I bring liberation
from your masters who make slaves of your young
men. There will be no more raids; you may grow
your crops in peace.”

To the scowling Malays he said:

“Merchants of Malacca, think not that my heart
is bitter against you, for I bring rich gifts to you
also. I bring you the gift of a happy and contented
people, rich in the produce of this fertile
island, eager to buy the things you bring to them in
trade. The balas money which you now pay the
pirates will be counted with your profits, for I will
drive the pirates from these seas.

“These are my commands to all of you. Keep
your houses in order. If a Dyak of the hills slay
a Dyak of the sea, keep your krisses sheathed and
come and tell me. If a man take a woman that is
not his own, keep your krisses sheathed and come
and tell me. If your neighbor arm his people and
drive your people to the jungle and burn their
village, come and tell me. I will do justice. But[183]
swift and terrible will be my vengeance on him who
breaks the law.”

An ominous rumble of angry dissent filled the
hall. It was instantly quelled. Towering over
them, his powerful frame lifted to its full height,
Peter Gross glared at them so fiercely that the
stoutest hearts among them momentarily quailed
and shrank back. Taking instant advantage of
the silence, he announced sternly:

“I am now ready to hear your grievances, princes
of the residency. You may speak one by one in the
order of your rank.”

Calmly turning his back on them, he walked back
to his chair.

There was a tense silence of several minutes while
Datu looked at Rajah and Rajah at Datu. Peter
Gross saw the fierce sway of passions and conflicting
opinions. Muller looked from face to face with an
anxious frown, striving to ascertain the drift of the
tide, and Van Slyck grinned saturninely.

A powerful Malay suddenly leaped to his feet,
and glared defiantly at Peter Gross.

“Hear me, princes of Bulungan,” he shouted.
“Year after year the servants of him who rules in
Batavia have come to us and said: ‘Give us a tenth
of your rice, of your dammar gum, give us bamboo,
and rattan, and cocoanuts as tribute money and
we will protect you from your enemies.’ Year after
year have our fields been laid waste by the Dyaks
of the hills, by the Beggars of the sea, till our people[184]
are poor and starve in the jungles, but no help has
come from the white man. Twice has my village
been burned by men from the white man’s ships
that throw fire and iron; not once have those ships
come to save me from the sea Beggars. Then one
day a light came. Grogu, I said, make a peace
with the great Datu of the rovers of the sea, give
him a part of each harvest. Three great rains have
now passed since I made that peace. He has kept
my coasts free from harm, he has punished the
people of the hills who stole my cattle. With whom
I ask you, princes of Bulungan, shall I chew the
betel of friendship?”

“Ai-yai-yai-yai,” was the angry murmur that
filled the hall in a rising assent.

A wizened old Malay, with a crooked back and
bereft of one eye, rose and shook a spear venomously.
His three remaining teeth were ebon from excessive
betel-chewing.

“I had forty buffaloes,” he cried in a shrill,
crackly voice. “The white man in the house on the
hill came and said: ‘I must have ten for the balas
(tribute money).’ The white kris-bearer from the
war-house on the hill came and said: ‘I must have
ten for my firestick-bearers.’ The white judge
came and said: ‘I must have ten for a fine because
your people killed a robber from the hills.’ Then
came the sea-rovers and said: ‘Give us the last ten,
but take in exchange brass gongs, and copper-money,
and silks from China.’ Whom must I serve, my[185]
brothers, the thief who takes and gives or the thief
who takes all and gives nothing?”

The tumult increased. A tall and dignified chief
in the farther corner of the hall, who had kept aloof
from the others to this time, now rose and lifted a
hand for silence. The poverty of his dress and the
lack of gay trappings showed that he was a hill
Dyak, for no Dyak of the sea was so poor that he
had only one brass ring on his arm. Yet he was a
man of influence, Peter Gross observed, for every
face at once turned in his direction.

“My brothers, there has been a feud between
my people of the hill and your people of the coasts
for many generations,” he said. “Yet we are all
of one father, and children in the same house. It is
not for me to say to-day who is right and who is
wrong. The white chief bids us give each other
the sirih and betel. He tells us he will make us
both rich and happy. The white chief’s words are
good. Let us listen and wait to see if his deeds are
good.”

There was a hoarse growl of disapproval. Peter
Gross perceived with a sinking heart that most of
those present joined in it. He looked toward
Wobanguli, but that chieftain sedulously avoided
his glance and seemed satisfied to let matters drift.

A young Dyak chief suddenly sprang to the middle
of the floor. His trappings showed that he was
of Gusti rank.

“I have heard the words of the white chief and[186]
they are the words of a master speaking to his slaves,”
he shouted. “When the buck deserts his doe to run
from the hunter, when the pheasant leaves the nest
of eggs she has hatched to the mercy of the serpent,
when the bear will no longer fight for her cubs, then
will the Sadong Dyaks sit idly by while the robber
despoils their villages and wait for the justice of the
white man, but not before. This is my answer,
white chief!”

Whipping his kris from his girdle, he hurled it at
the floor in front of Peter Gross. The steel sank
deeply into the wood, the handle quivering and scintillating
in a shaft of sunlight that entered through
a crack in the roof.

An instant hush fell on the assembly. Through
the haze and murk Peter Gross saw black eyes that
flamed with hate, foaming lips, and passion-distorted
faces. The lust for blood was on them, a moment
more and nothing could hold them back, he saw.
He sprang to the center of the platform.

“Men of Bulungan, hear me,” he shouted in a
voice of thunder. “Your measure of wickedness is
full. You have poisoned the men sent here to rule
you, you have strangled your judges and thrown
their bodies to the crocodiles, you have killed our
soldiers with poisoned arrows. To-day I am here,
the last messenger of peace the white man will send
you. Accept peace now, and you will be forgiven.
Refuse it, and your villages will be burned, your
people will be hunted from jungle to swamp and
swamp to highland, there will be no brake too thick[187]
and no cave too deep to hide them from our vengeance.
The White Father will make the Dyaks of
Bulungan like the people of the lands under the sea—a
name only. Choose ye, what shall it be?”

For a moment his undaunted bearing and the
terrible threat he had uttered daunted them. They
shrank back like jackals before the lion, their voices
stilled. Then a deep guttural voice, that seemed
to come through the wall behind the resident’s
chair, cried:

“Kill him, Dyaks of Bulungan. He speaks with
two tongues to make you slaves on the plantations.”

Peter Gross sprang toward the wall and crashed
his fist through the bamboo. A section gave way,
revealing an enclosed corridor leading to another
building. The corridor was empty.

The mischief had been done, however, and the
courage of the natives revived. “Kill the white
man, kill him,” the hoarse cry arose. A dozen
krisses flashed. A spear was hurled, it missed
Peter Gross by a hair’s breadth. Dyaks and
Malays surged forward, Wobanguli alone was between
him and them. Paddy Rouse sprang inside
with drawn pistol, but a hand struck up his pistol
arm and his harmless shot went through the roof.
A half-dozen sinewy forms pinned him to the ground.

At the same instant Peter Gross drew his automatic
and leaped toward Wobanguli. Before the
Rajah could spring aside the resident’s hand closed
over his throat and the resident’s pistol pressed
against his head.[188]

“One move and I shoot,” Peter Gross cried.

The brown wave stopped for a moment, but it
was only a moment, Peter Gross realized, for life
was cheap in Borneo, even a Rajah’s life. He
looked wildly about—then the tumult stilled as
suddenly as though every man in the hall had been
simultaneously stricken with paralysis.

Gross’s impressions of the next few moments were
rather vague. He dimly realized that some one
had come between him and the raging mob. That
some one was waving the natives back. It was a
woman. He intuitively sensed her identity before
he perceived her face—it was Koyala.

The brown wave receded sullenly, like the North
sea backing from the dikes of Holland. Peter
Gross replaced his pistol in its holster and released
Wobanguli—Koyala was speaking. In the morgue-like
silence her silvery voice rang with startling
clearness.

“Are you mad, my children of Bulungan?” she
asked sorrowfully. “Have you lost your senses?
Would the taking of this one white life compensate
for the misery you would bring on our people?”

She paused an instant. Every eye was riveted
upon her. Her own glorious orbs turned heavenward,
a mystic light shone in them, and she raised
her arms as if in invocation.

“Hear me, my children,” she chanted in weird,
Druidical tones. “Into the north flew the Argus
Pheasant, into the north, through jungle and swamp
and canebrake, by night and by day, for the Hanu[189]
Token were her guides and the great god Djath and
his servants, the spirits of the Gunong Agong called
her. She passed through the country of the sea
Dyaks, and she saw no peace; she passed through
the country of the hill Dyaks, and she saw no peace.
Up, up she went, up the mountain of the flaming
fires, up to the very edge of the pit where the great
god Djath lives in the flames that never die. There
she saw Djath, there she heard his voice, there she
received the message that he bade her bring to his
children, his children of Bulungan. Here is the
message, chiefs of my people, listen and obey.”

Every Dyak groveled on the ground and even the
Malay Mahometans crooked their knees and bowed
their heads almost to the earth. Swaying from side
to side, Koyala began to croon:

“Hear my words, O princes of Bulungan, hear
my words I send you by the Bintang Burung. Lo,
a white man has come among you, and his face is
fair and his words are good and his heart feels what
his lips speak. Lo, I have placed him among you
to see if in truth there is goodness and honesty in
the heart of a white man. If his deeds be as good as
his words, then will you keep him, and guard him,
and honor him, but if his heart turns false and his
lips speak deceitfully, then bring him to me that he
may burn in the eternal fires that dwell with me.
Lo, that ye may know him, I have given him a servant
whose head I have touched with fire from the
smoking mountain.”

At that moment Paddy, hatless and disheveled,[190]
plunged through the crowd toward Peter Gross.
A ray of sunlight coming through the roof fell on
his head. His auburn hair gleamed like a burst of
flame. Koyala pointed at him and cried dramatically:

“See, the servant with the sacred flame.”

“The sacred flame,” Dyaks and Malays both
muttered awesomely, as they crowded back from
the platform.

“Who shall be the first to make blood-brother of
this white man?” Koyala cried. The hill Dyak
chieftain who had counseled peace came forward.

“Jahi of the Jahi Dyaks will,” he said. Peter
Gross looked at him keenly, for Jahi was reputed
to be the boldest raider and head-hunter in the hills.
The Dyak chief opened a vein in his arm with a
dagger and gave the weapon to Peter Gross. Without
hesitating, the resident did the same with his
arm. The blood intermingled a moment, then they
rubbed noses and each repeated the word: “Blood-brother,”
three times.

One by one Dyaks and Malays came forward and
went through the same ceremony. A few slipped
out the door without making the brotherhood covenant,
Peter Gross noticed. He was too elated to
pay serious attention to these; the battle was
already won, he believed.

In the shadows in the rear of the hall Van Slyck
whispered in the ear of a Malay chieftain. The
Malay strode forward after the ceremonies were
over, and said gravely:[191]

“Blood-brother, we have made you one of us and
our ruler, as the great god Djath hath commanded.
But there was one condition in the god’s commands.
If you fail, you are to be delivered to Djath for
judgment, and no evil shall come upon our people
from your people for that sentence. Will you pledge
us this?”

They were all looking at him, Malay, hill Dyak,
and sea Dyak, and every eye said: “Pledge!”
Peter Gross realized that if he would keep their
confidence he must give his promise. But a glance
toward Van Slyck had revealed to him the Malay’s
source of inspiration, and he sensed the trick that
lay beneath the demand.

“Will you pledge, brother?” the Malay demanded
again.

“I pledge,” Peter Gross replied firmly.[192]

CHAPTER XVII

The Poisoned Arrow

“And so,” Peter Gross concluded, “I pledged
my life that we’d put things to rights in
Bulungan.”

Captain Carver did not answer. It was dim
twilight of the evening following the council meeting—they
were met in Peter Gross’s den, and the
captain had listened with an air of critical attention
to the nocturnal chirping of the crickets outside.
Had it not been for occasional curt, illuminative
questions, Peter Gross might have thought him
asleep. He was a man of silences, this Captain
Carver, a man after Peter Gross’s own heart.

“On the other hand they pledged that they would
help me,” Peter Gross resumed. “There are to be
no more raids, the head-hunters will be delivered to
justice, and there will be no more trading with the
pirates or payment of tribute to them. Man for
man, chief for chief, they pledged. I don’t trust
all of them. I know Wobanguli will violate his
oath, for he is a treacherous scoundrel, treacherous
and cunning but lacking in courage, or his nerve
wouldn’t have failed him yesterday. The Datu of
Bandar is a bad man. I hardly expected him to
take the oath, and it won’t take much to persuade
him to violate it. The Datu of Padang, the old[193]
man who lost the forty buffaloes, is a venomous old
rascal that we’ll have to watch. Lkath of the
Sadong Dyaks left while we were administering the
oath; there is no blood of fealty on his forehead.
But I trust the hill Dyaks, they are with me. And
we have Koyala.”

Another silence fell between the resident and his
lieutenant. It was quite dark now and the ends of
their cigars glowed ruddily. There was a tap on
the door and Paddy Rouse announced himself.

“Shall I get a light, sir?” he asked.

“I don’t think it is necessary, Paddy,” Peter
Gross replied kindly. He had conceived a great
affection for the lad. He turned toward Carver.

“What do you think of the situation?” he asked
pointedly.

Carver laid his cigar aside. It was not casually
done, but with the deliberateness of the man who
feels he has an unpleasant duty before him.

“I was trying to decide whether Koyala is an
asset or a liability,” he replied.

Peter Gross, too, listened for a moment to the
chirping of the crickets before he answered.

“She saved my life,” he said simply.

“She did,” Captain Carver acknowledged. “I’m
wondering why.”

Peter Gross stared into the evening silence.

“I believe you misjudge her, captain,” he remonstrated
gently. “She hasn’t had much chance in
life. She’s had every reason for hating us—all
whites—but she has the welfare of her people at[194]
heart. She’s a patriot. It’s the one passion of her
life, the one outlet for her starved and stunted
affections. Her Dyak blood leads her to extremes.
We’ve got to curb her savage nature as far as we
can, and if she does break the bounds occasionally,
overlook it. But I don’t question her absolute sincerity.
That is why I trust her.”

“If she were all Dyak I might think as you do,”
Captain Carver said slowly. “But I never knew
mixed blood to produce anything noble. It’s the
mixture of bloods in her I’m afraid of. I’ve seen
it in the Philippines and among the Indians. It’s
never any good.”

“There have been some notable half-breed patriots,”
Peter Gross remarked with a half-smile that
the darkness curtained.

“Dig into their lives and you’ll find that what an
infatuated people dubbed patriotism was just damned
meanness. Never a one of them, but was after loot,
not country.”

“You have old Sachsen’s prejudices,” Peter Gross
said. “Did I tell you about the letter I got from
him? I’ll let you read it later, it’s a shame to spoil
this evening. Sachsen warns me not to trust the
girl, says she’s a fiend. He coupled her name with
Ah Sing’s.” The vicious snap of the resident’s teeth
was distinctly audible. God, how an old man’s
tongue clacks to scandal. “I thought Sachsen was
above it, but ‘Rumor sits on the housetop,’ as
Virgil says….”

His voice trailed into silence and he stared across[195]
the fields toward the jungle-crowned hills silhouetted
against the brilliantly starlit sky.

“Sachsen is too old a man to be caught napping,”
Carver observed.

“There probably is some sort of an understanding
between Koyala and Ah Sing,” Peter Gross admitted
seriously. “But it’s nothing personal. She
thought he could help her free Bulungan. I think
I’ve made her see the better way—at least induced
her to give us a chance to show what we can do.”

“You’re sure it was Ah Sing’s voice you heard?”

Peter Gross perceived from the sharp acerbity of
the captain’s tone, as well as from the new direction
he gave their conversation, Carver’s lack of sympathy
with his views on Koyala’s conduct. He
sighed and replied mildly:

“I am positive. There is no other bass in the
world like his. Hoarse and deep, a sea-lion growl.
If I could have forced the bamboo aside sooner, I
might have seen him before he dodged out of the
runway.”

“If he’s here we’ve got the whole damn’ wasp’s
nest around our ears,” Carver growled. “I wish
we had the Prins here.”

“That would make things easier. But we can’t
tie her up in harbor, that would give the pirates free
play. She’s our whole navy, with nearly eight
hundred miles of coastline to patrol.”

“And we’re here with twenty-five men,” Carver
said bitterly. “It would be damned farcical if it
wasn’t so serious.”[196]

“We are not here to use a mailed fist,” Peter
Gross remonstrated mildly.

“I understand. All the same—” Carver stopped
abruptly and stared into the silence. Peter Gross
made no comment. Their views were irreconcilable,
he saw. It was inevitable that Carver should
undervalue moral suasion; a military man, he recognized
only the arbitrament of brute force. The
captain was speaking again.

“When do you begin the census?”

“Next Monday. I shall see Muller to-morrow.
It will take at least two months, possibly three;
they’re very easy-going here. I’d like to finish it
before harvest, so as to be able to check up the tax.”

“You’re going to trust it to Muller?”

The question implied doubt of his judgment.
Peter Gross perceived Carver was averse to letting
either Muller or Van Slyck participate in the new
administration outside their regular duties.

“I think it is best,” the resident replied quietly.
“I don’t want him condemned on his past record,
regardless of the evidence we may get against him.
He shall have his chance—if he proves disloyal he
will convict himself.”

“How about Van Slyck?”

“He shall have his chance, too.”

“You can’t give the other man all the cards and
win.”

“We’ll deal fairly. The odds aren’t quite so big
as you think—we’ll have Koyala and the hill Dyaks
with us.”[197]

“H’mm. Jahi comes to-morrow afternoon, you
say?”

“Yes. I shall appoint him Rajah over all the hill
people.”

Carver picked up his cigar and puffed in silence
for several moments.

“If you could only trust the brutes,” he exploded
suddenly. “Damn it, Mr. Gross, I wish I had your
confidence, but I haven’t. I can’t help remember
some of the things that happened back in Luzon a
few years ago—and the Tagalogs aren’t far distant
relatives of these cusses. ‘Civilize ’em with a
Krag,’ the infantry used to sing. It’s damn’ near
the truth.”

“In the heart of every man there’s something
that responds to simple justice and fair dealing—What’s
that?”

A soft thud on the wall behind them provoked
the exclamation. Carver sprang to his feet, tore
the cigar from Peter Gross’s mouth, and hurled it
at the fireplace with his own. Almost simultaneously
he snapped the heavy blinds together.
The next moment a soft tap sounded on the shutters.

Peter Gross lit a match and stepped to the wall.
A tiny arrow, tipped with a jade point, and tufted
with feathers, quivered in the plaster. Carver pulled
it out and looked at the discolored point critically.

“Poisoned!” he exclaimed. He gave it to the
resident, remarking ironically:

“With the compliments of the Argus Pheasant,
Mr. Gross.”[198]

CHAPTER XVIII

A Summons to Sadong

With pen poised, Peter Gross sat at his desk
in the residency building and stared
thoughtfully at the blank sheets of stationery
before him. He was preparing a letter
to Captain Rouse, to assure that worthy that all
was going well, that Paddy was in the best of health
and proving his value in no uncertain way, and to
give a pen picture of the situation. He began:

Dear Captain:

Doubtless you have heard from Paddy before this, but I want
to add my assurance to his that he is in the best of health and
is heartily enjoying himself. He has already proven his value
to me, and I am thanking my lucky stars that you let me have
him.

We have been in Bulungan for nearly a month, and so far all
is well. The work is going on, slowly, to be sure, but successfully,
I hope. I can already see what I think are the first fruits
of my policies.

The natives are not very cordial as yet, but I have made some
valuable friends among them. The decisions I have been called
upon to make seem to have given general satisfaction, in most instances.
I have twice been obliged to set aside the judgments
of controlleurs, whose rulings appeared unjust to me, and in
both cases my decision was in favor of the poorer litigant. This
has displeased some of the orang kayas, or rich men, of the villages,
but it has strengthened me with the tribesmen, I believe.

[199]

He described the council and the result, and continued:

I am now having a census taken of each district in the residency.
I have made the controlleur in each district responsible
for the accuracy of the census in his territory, and have made
Mynheer Muller, the acting-resident prior to my coming, chief
of the census bureau. He opposed the count at first, but has
come round to my way of thinking, and is prosecuting the work
diligently. The chief difficulty is the natives—some one has
been stirring them up—but I have high hopes of knowing,
before the next harvest, how many people there are in each
village and what proportion of the tax each chief should be
required to bring. The taxation system has been one of the
worst evils in Bulungan in the past; the poor have been oppressed,
and all the tax-gatherers have enriched themselves,
but I expect to end this….

I had a peculiar request made of me the other day. Captain
Van Slyck asked that Captain Carver and his company be quartered
away from Bulungan. The presence of Carver’s irregulars
was provoking jealousies among his troops, he said, and
was making it difficult to maintain discipline. There is reason
in his request, yet I hesitate to grant it. Captain Van Slyck
has not been very friendly toward me, and a mutiny in the garrison
would greatly discredit my administration. I have not
yet given him my answer….

Inchi tells me there is a persistent rumor in the town that the
great Datu, the chief of all the pirates, is in Bulungan. I would
have believed his story the day after the council, for I thought I
recognized his voice there; but I must have been mistaken.
Captain Enckel, of the Prins Lodewyk, who was here a week
ago, brings me positive assurance that the man is at Batavia.
He saw him there himself, he says. It cannot be that my enemy
has a double; nature never cast two men in that mold in one
generation. Since Inchi cannot produce any one who will
swear positively that he has seen the Datu, I am satisfied that
the report is unfounded. Maybe you can find out something.

[200]

As Peter Gross was affixing the required stamp, the
door opened and Paddy Rouse entered.

“The baby doll is here and wants to see you,”
Paddy announced.

“Who?” Peter Gross asked, mystified.

“The yellow kid; old man Muller’s chocolate
darling,” Paddy elucidated.

Peter Gross looked at him in stern reproof.

“Let the Juffrouw Koyala be the Juffrouw Koyala
to you hereafter,” he commanded harshly.

“Yes, sir.” Paddy erased the grin from his lips
but not from his eyes. “Shall I ask the lady to
come in?”

“You may request her to enter,” Peter Gross said.
“And, Paddy—”

“Yes, sir.”

“—leave the door open.”

“Yes, sir.”

The red head bobbed to hide another grin.

Koyala glided in softly as a kitten. She was
dressed as usual in the Malay-Javanese costume of
kabaya and sarong. Peter Gross could not help
noticing the almost mannish length of her stride and
the haughty, arrogant tilt of her head.

“Unconquerable as the sea,” he mused. “And
apt to be as tempestuous. She’s well named—the
Argus Pheasant.”

He placed a chair for her. This time she did
not hesitate to accept it. As she seated herself she
crossed her ankles in girlish unconsciousness. Peter
Gross could not help noticing how slim and perfectly[201]
shaped those ankles were, and how delicately her
exquisitely formed feet tapered in the soft, doe-skin
sandals.

“Well, juffrouw, which of my controlleurs is in
mischief now?” he asked in mock resignation.

Koyala flashed him a quick smile, a swift, dangerous,
alluring smile.

“Am I always complaining, mynheer?” she asked.

Peter Gross leaned back comfortably. He was
smiling, too, a smile of masculine contentment.
“No, not always, juffrouw,” he conceded. “But
you kept me pretty busy at first.”

“It was necessary, mynheer.”

Peter Gross nodded assent. “To be sure, juffrouw,
you did have reason to complain,” he agreed
gravely. “Things were pretty bad, even worse
than I had expected to find them. But we are
gradually improving conditions. I believe that my
officers now know what is expected of them.”

He glanced at her reprovingly. “You haven’t
been here much this week; this is only the second
time.”

A mysterious light flashed in Koyala’s eyes, but
Peter Gross was too intent on admiring her splendid
physical sufficiency to notice it.

“You are very busy, Mynheer Resident,” Koyala
purred. “I take too much of your time as it is with
my trifling complaints.”

“Not at all, not at all,” Peter Gross negatived
vigorously. “The more you come, the better I
am pleased.” Koyala flashed a swift glance at him.[202]
“Come every day if you can. You are my interpreter,
the only voice by which I can speak to the
people of Bulungan and be heard. I want you to
know what we are doing and why we are doing it;
there is nothing secret here that you should not
know.”

He leaned forward earnestly.

“We must work out the salvation of Bulungan
together, juffrouw. I am relying very much upon
you. I cannot do it alone; your people will not
believe in me. Unless you speak for me there will
be misunderstandings, maybe bloodshed.”

Koyala’s eyes lowered before his beseeching gaze
and the earnestness of his plea.

“You are very kind, mynheer,” she said softly.
“But you overestimate my powers. I am only a
woman—it is the Rajahs who rule.”

“One word from Koyala has more force in Bulungan
than the mandate of the great council itself,”
Peter Gross contradicted. “If you are with me, if
you speak for me, the people are mine, and all the
Rajahs, Gustis, and Datus in the residency could not
do me harm.”

He smiled frankly.

“I want to be honest with you, juffrouw. I am
thoroughly selfish in asking these things. I want
to be known as the man who redeemed Bulungan,
even though the real work is yours.”

Koyala’s face was hidden. Peter Gross saw that
her lips pressed together tightly and that she was
undergoing some powerful emotion. He looked[203]
at her anxiously, fearful that he had spoken too
early, that she was not yet ready to commit herself
utterly to his cause.

“I came to see you, mynheer, about an affair
that happened in the country of the Sadong Dyaks,”
Koyala announced quietly.

Peter Gross drew back. Koyala’s reply showed
that she was not yet ready to join him, he perceived.
Swallowing his disappointment, he asked
in mock dismay:

“Another complaint, juffrouw?”

“One of Lkath’s own people, a Sadong Dyak, was
killed by a poisoned arrow,” Koyala stated. “The
arrow is tufted with heron’s feathers; Jahi’s people
use those on their arrows. Lkath has heard
that the head of his tribesman now hangs in front
of Jahi’s hut.”

The smile that had been on Peter Gross’s lips
died instantly. His face became drawn and hard.

“I cannot believe it!” he exclaimed at length in a
low voice. “Jahi has sworn brotherhood with me
and sworn to keep the peace. We rubbed noses
and anointed each others’ foreheads with the blood
of a fresh-killed buffalo.”

“If you choose the hill people for your brothers,
the sea people will not accept you,” Koyala said
coldly.

“I choose no nation and have no favorites,”
Peter Gross replied sternly. “I have only one
desire—to deal absolute and impartial justice to all.
Let me think.”[204]

He bowed his head in his hands and closed his
eyes in thought. Koyala watched him like a tigress
in the bush.

“Who found the body of the slain man?” he
asked suddenly, looking up again.

“Lkath himself, and some of his people,” Koyala
replied.

“Do the Sadong Dyaks use the sumpitan?”

“The Dyaks of the sea do not fight their enemies
with poison,” Koyala said scornfully. “Only the
hill Dyaks do that.”

“H-m! Where was the body? How far from
the stream?”

“It was by a water-hole.”

“How far from Lkath’s village?”

“About five hours’ journey. The man was
hunting.”

“Was he alone? Were there any of Lkath’s
people with him?”

“One. His next younger brother. They became
separated in the baba, and he returned home alone.
It was he who found the body, he and Lkath.”

“Ah!” Peter Gross exclaimed involuntarily.
“Then, according to Dyak custom, he will have to
marry his brother’s wife. Are there any children?”

“One,” Koyala answered. “They were married
a few moons over a year ago.” Pensively she added,
in a woman’s afterthought: “The woman grieves
for her husband and cannot be consoled. She is very
beautiful, the most beautiful woman of her village.”[205]

“I believe that I will go to Sadong myself,”
Peter Gross said suddenly. “This case needs investigating.”

“It is all I ask,” Koyala said. Her voice had the
soft, purring quality in it again, and she lowered
her head in the mute Malay obeisance. The action
hid the tiny flicker of triumph in her eyes.

“I will go to-morrow,” Peter Gross said. “I can
get a proa at Bulungan.”

“You will take your people with you?”

“No, I will go alone.”

It seemed to Peter Gross that Koyala’s face
showed a trace of disappointment.

“You should not do that,” she reproved. “Lkath
is not friendly to you. He will not welcome a blood-warrior
of Jahi since this has happened.”

“In a matter like this, one or two is always better
than a company,” Peter Gross dissented. “Yet
I wish you could be there. I cannot offer you a
place in my proa—there will be no room for a
woman—but if you can find any other means of
conveyance, the state will pay.” He looked at
her wistfully.

Koyala laughed. “The Argus Pheasant will fly
to Sadong faster than your proa,” she said. She
rose. As her glance roved over the desk she caught
sight of the letter Peter Gross had just finished
writing.

“Oh, you have been writing to your sweetheart,”
she exclaimed. Chaffingly as the words were[206]
spoken, Peter Gross felt a little of the burning curiosity
that lay back of them.

“It is a letter to a sea-captain at Batavia whom
I once served under,” he replied quietly. “I told
him about my work in Bulungan. Would you care
to read it?”

He offered her the envelope. Quivering with an
eagerness she could not restrain, Koyala half
reached for it, then jerked back her hand. Her
face flamed scarlet and she leaped back as though
the paper was death to touch. With a choking cry
she exclaimed:

“I do not want to read your letters. I will see
you in Sadong—” She bolted through the door.

Peter Gross stared in undisguised bewilderment
after her. It was several minutes before he recovered
and placed the letter back in the mailing
receptacle.

“I never will be able to understand women,”
he said sadly, shaking his head.[207]

CHAPTER XIX

Koyala’s Ultimatum

The house of Lkath, chief of the Sadong Dyaks,
stood on a rocky eminence at the head of
Sabu bay. The bay is a narrow arm of the
Celebes Sea, whose entrance is cunningly concealed
by a series of projecting headlands and jealously
guarded by a triple row of saw-tooth rocks whose
serrated edges, pointed seaward, threaten mischief
to any ship that dares attempt the channel.

Huge breakers, urged on by the southeast monsoon,
boil over these rocks from one year’s end to the
next. The headlands drip with the unceasing spray,
and at their feet are twin whirlpools that go down
to the very bowels of the earth, according to tradition,
and wash the feet of Sangjang, ruler of
Hades, himself. Certain it is that nothing ever
cast into the whirlpools has returned; certain it is,
too, say the people of Bulungan, that the Sang-sangs,
good spirits, have never brought back any
word of the souls of men lost in the foaming waters.

In their rocky citadel and rock-guarded harbor
the Sadong people have for years laughed at their
enemies, and combed the seas, taking by force
when they could, and taking in trade when those
they dealt with were too strong for them. None
have such swift proas as they, and none can follow[208]
them into their lair, for only the Sadong pilots know
the intricacies of that channel. Vengeful captains
who had permitted their eagerness to outrun discretion
found their ships in the maelstrom and rent
by the rocks before they realized it, while the
Sadongers in the still, landlocked waters beyond,
mocked them as they sank to their death.

Two days after Koyala had reported the murder
of the Sadonger to Peter Gross a swift proa approached
the harbor. Even an uncritical observer
would have noticed something peculiar in
its movements, for it cut the water with the speed of
a launch, although its bamboo sails were furled on
the maze of yards that cluttered the triangle mast.
As it neared the channel its speed was reduced, and
the chug-chug of a powerful gasoline motor became
distinctly audible. The sentinel on the promontory
gesticulated wildly to the sentinels farther inland,
for he had distinguished his chief, Lkath, at the
wheel.

Under Lkath’s trained hand the proa skipped
through the intricate channel without scraping a
rock and shot the length of the harbor. With
shouts of “salaamat” (welcome) the happy Sadongers
trooped to the water-front to greet their
chief. Lkath’s own body-guard, fifty men dressed
in purple, red, and green chawats and head-dresses
and carrying beribboned spears, trotted down from
the citadel and cleared a space for the voyagers to
disembark from the sampans that had put out for
them.[209]

As the royal sampan grounded, Lkath, with a
great show of ceremony, assisted out of the craft a
short, heavy-jowled Chinaman with a face like a
Hindoo Buddha’s. A low whisper of awe ran
through, the crowd—this was the great Datu himself.
The multitude sank to its knees, and each man
vigorously pounded his head on the ground.

The next passenger to leave the sampan was the
Rajah Wobanguli, tall, a trifle stoop-shouldered, and
leering craftily at the motley throng, the cluster of
houses, and the fortifications. A step behind him
Captain Van Slyck, dapper and politely disdainful
as always, sauntered along the beach and took his
place in one of the dos-à-dos that had hastened forward
at a signal from Lkath. The vehicles rumbled
up the hill.

When they neared the temple that stood close to
Lkath’s house at the very summit of the hill an old
man, dressed in long robes, stepped into the center
of the band and lifted his hand. The procession
halted.

“What is it, voice of Djath?” Lkath asked respectfully.

“The bilian is here and awaits your presence,”
the priest announced.

Lkath stifled an exclamation of surprise.

“Koyala is here,” he said to his guests. Ah
Sing’s face was expressionless. Wobanguli, the
crafty, smiled non-committally. Van Slyck alone
echoed Lkath’s astonishment.

“A hundred miles over jungle trails in less than[210]
two days,” he remarked, with a low whistle. “How
the devil did she do it?”

There was no doubting the priest’s words, however,
for as they entered the temple Koyala herself
came to meet them.

“Come this way,” she said authoritatively, and
led them into a side-chamber reserved for the
priests. The room was imperfectly lit by a single
window in the thick rock walls. A heavy, oiled
Chinese paper served as a substitute for glass.

“He will be here to-morrow,” she announced.
“What are you going to do with him?”

There was no need for her to mention a name, all
knew whom she referred to. A silence came upon
them. Van Slyck, Wobanguli, and Lkath, with the
instinct of lesser men who know their master, looked
at Ah Sing. The Chinaman’s eyes slumbered between
his heavy lids.

“What are you going to do with him, Datu?”
Koyala demanded, addressing Ah Sing directly.

“The Princess Koyala is our ally and friend,” he
replied gutturally.

“Your ally waits to hear the decision of the council,”
Koyala retorted coldly.

Wobanguli interposed. “There are things, bilian,
that are not fitting for the ear of a woman,” he murmured
suavely, with a sidelong glance at Ah Sing.

“I am a warrior, Rajah, as well as a woman, with
the same rights in the council that you have,”
Koyala reminded.[211]

Wobanguli smiled his pleasantest. “True, my
daughter,” he agreed diplomatically. “But he is
not yet ours. When we have snared the bird it is
time enough to talk of how it shall be cooked.”

“You told me at Bulungan that this would be
decided on shipboard,” Koyala replied sharply. A
tempest began to kindle in her face. “Am I to be
used as a decoy and denied a voice on what shall be
done with my prisoner?”

“We haven’t decided—” Van Slyck began.

“That is false!”

Van Slyck reddened with anger and raised his
hand as though to strike her. Koyala’s face was a
dusky gray in its pallor and her eyes blazed with
contempt.

“Peace!” Ah Sing rumbled sternly. “He is my
prisoner. I marked him for mine before he was
named resident.”

“You are mistaken, Datu,” Koyala said significantly.
“He is my prisoner. He comes here
upon my invitation. He comes here under my
protection. He is my guest and no hostile hand shall
touch him while he is here.”

Ah Sing’s brow ridged with anger. He was not
accustomed to being crossed. “He is mine, I tell
you, woman,” he snarled. “His name is written in
my book, and his nails shall rest in my cabinet.”

The Dyak blood mounted to Koyala’s face.

“He is not yours; he is mine!” she cried. “He
was mine long before you marked him yours, Datu.”[212]

Wobanguli hastened to avoid a rupture. “If
it is a question of who claimed him first, we can lay
it before the council,” he suggested.

“The council has nothing to do with it,” Koyala
retorted. There was a dangerous gleam in her eyes.
“I marked him as mine more than a year ago, when
he was still a humble sailor with no thought of
becoming resident. His ship came to the mouth of
the Abbas River, to Wolang’s village, and traded
for rattan with Wolang. I saw him then, and swore
that one day he would be mine.”

“You desire him?” Ah Sing bellowed. The
great purple veins stood out on his forehead, and
his features were distorted with malignancy.

Koyala threw back her head haughtily.

“If I do, who is going to deny me?”

Ah Sing choked in inarticulate fury. His face
was black with rage.

“I will, woman!” he bawled. “You are mine—Ah
Sing’s—”

He leaped toward her and buried his long fingers,
with their sharp nails, in the soft flesh of her arm.
Koyala winced with pain; then outraged virginity
flooded to her face in a crimson tide. Tearing
herself away, she struck him a stinging blow in the
face. He staggered back. Van Slyck leaped toward
her, but she was quicker than he and backed
against the wall. Her hand darted inside her
kabaya and she drew a small, silver-handled dagger.
Van Slyck stopped in his tracks.

Ah Sing recovered himself and slowly smoothed[213]
his rumpled garments. He did not even look at
Koyala.

“Let us go,” he said thickly.

Koyala sprang to the door. She was panting
heavily.

“You shall not go until you pledge me that he is
mine!” she cried.

Ah Sing looked at her unblinkingly. The deadly
malignancy of his face caused even Van Slyck to
shiver.

“You may have your lover, woman,” he said in a
low voice.

Koyala stared at him as though turned to stone.
Suddenly her cheeks, her forehead, her throat even,
blazed scarlet. She flung her weapon aside; it
clattered harmlessly on the bamboo matting. Tears
started in her eyes. Burying her face in her arms,
she sobbed unrestrainedly.

They stared at her in astonishment. After a
sidelong glance at Ah Sing, Wobanguli placed a
caressing hand on her arm.

“Bilian, my daughter—” he began.

Koyala flung his arm aside and lifted her tear-stained
face with a passionate gesture.

“Is this my reward?” she cried. “Is this the
return I get for all I have done to drive the orang
blanda out of Bulungan? My lover? When no
lips of man have ever touched mine, shall ever touch
mine—” She stamped her foot in fury. “Fools!
Fools! Can’t you see why I want him? He
laughed at me—there by the Abbas River—laughed[214]
at my disgrace—yea, I know he was laughing,
though he hid his smile with the cunning of the
orang blanda. I swore then that he would be mine—that
some day he should kneel before me, and beg
for these arms around his, and my kiss on his lips.
Then I would sink a dagger into his heart as I bent
to kiss him—let him drink the deep sleep that has
no ending outside of Sangjang.”

Her fingers clenched spasmodically, as though she
already felt the hilt of the fatal blade between them.

Van Slyck drew a deep breath. The depth of her
savage, elemental passion dazed him. She looked
from man to man, and as he felt her eyes upon him
he involuntarily stepped back a pace, shuddering.
The doubt he had of her a few moments before vanished;
he did not question but what he had glimpsed
into her naked soul. Lkath and Wobanguli were
convinced, too, for fear and awe of this wonderful
woman were expressed on their faces. Ah Sing
alone scanned her face distrustfully.

“Why should I trust you?” he snarled.

Koyala started, then shrugged her shoulders indifferently
and flung the door open for them to pass
out. As Ah Sing passed her he halted a moment
and said significantly:

“I give you his life to-day. But remember,
Bintang Burung, there is one more powerful than
all the princes of Bulungan.”

“The god Djath is greater than all princes and
Datus,” Koyala replied quietly. “I am his priestess.[215]
Answer, Lkath, whose voice is heard before yours in
Sadong?”

Lkath bowed low, almost to the ground.

“Djath rules us all,” he acknowledged.

“You see,” Koyala said to Ah Sing, “even your
life is mine.”

Something like fear came into the eyes of the
Chinaman for the first time.

“I go back to Bulungan,” he announced thickly.[216]

CHAPTER XX

Lkath’s Conversion

The afternoon sun was waning when Peter
Gross’s sailing proa arrived at Sadong.
The resident had been fortunate in finding
a Sadonger at Bulungan, and a liberal promise of
brass bracelets and a bolt of cloth persuaded the
rover to pilot them into Sadong harbor. Paddy
Rouse accompanied his chief.

A vociferous crowd of Dyaks hastened to the
beach under the misapprehension that the proa
was a trader. When shouts from the crew apprised
them that the orang blanda chief was aboard,
their cries of welcome died away. Glances of
curious and friendly interest changed to glances of
hostility, and men on the edges of the crowd slunk
away to carry the news through the village. The
inhospitable reception depressed Peter Gross, but
he resolutely stepped into one of the sampans that
had put off from shore at the proa’s arrival and was
paddled to the beach.

“We must be awfully popular here,” Paddy remarked
cheerfully, and he looked unabashed into
the scowling faces of the natives. He lifted his hat.
Rays from the low-hanging sun shone through his
ruddy, tousled hair, making it gleam like living[217]
flame. A murmur of surprise ran through the
crowd. Several Dyaks dropped to their knees.

“They’re beginning to find their prayer-bones,
Mr. Gross,” Paddy pointed out, blissfully unconscious
that it was he who had inspired their reverence.

At that moment Peter Gross saw a familiar girlish
figure stride lightly down the lane. His face brightened.

“Good-afternoon, juffrouw!” he exclaimed delightedly
as she approached. “How did you get
here so soon?”

He offered his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation
Koyala permitted his friendly clasp to encircle
the tips of her fingers.

“Lkath has a house ready for you,” she said.
“The dos-à-dos will be here in a moment.” They
chatted while the natives gaped until the jiggly,
two-wheeled carts clattered toward them.

Lkath received them at the door of his house.
Peter Gross needed only a glance into his face to
see that Koyala had not been mistaken in her warning.
Lkath entertained no friendly feeling toward
him.

“Welcome to the falcon’s nest,” Lkath said.

The words were spoken with a stately courtesy
in which no cordiality mingled. Dyak tradition
forbade closing a door to a guest, however unwelcome
the guest might be.

Seized with a sudden admiration of his host, who
could swallow his prejudices to maintain the tra[218]ditional
hospitality of his race, Peter Gross resolved
to win his friendship at all costs. It was his newborn
admiration that inspired him to reply:

“Your house is well named, Gusti. None but
eagles would dare roost above the gate to Sangjang.”

Lkath’s stern features relaxed with a gratified
smile, showing that the compliment had pleased
him. There was more warmth in his voice as he
said:

“My poor house and all that is in it is yours,
Mynheer Resident.”

“There is no door in Borneo more open than
Lkath’s,” Peter responded. “I am happy to be
here with you, brother.”

The words were the signal, according to Dyak
custom, for Lkath to step forward and rub noses.
But the chief drew back.

“The blood of one of my people is between us,
Mynheer Resident,” he said bluntly. “There can
be no talk of brother until the Sadong Dyaks are
avenged.”

“Am I not here to do justice?” Peter Gross
asked. “To-morrow, when the sun is an hour high,
we will have a council. Bring your people who
know of this thing before me at that time.”

Lkath bowed and said: “Very good, Mynheer
Resident.”

Having performed his duty as head of his nation,
Lkath the chief became Lkath the host, and ushered
Peter Gross, Rouse, and Koyala into the house.
Peter Gross was surprised to find the dwelling fitted[219]
out with such European conveniences as chandelier
oil-lamps, chairs, and tables, and even a reed organ.
Boys dressed in white appeared with basins of water
and napkins on silver salvers for ablutions. The
dinner was all that an epicure could desire. Madeira
and bitters were first offered, together with a well-spiced
vegetable soup. Several dishes of fowls and
other edible birds, cooked in various ways, followed.
Then a roast pig, emitting a most savory odor, was
brought in, a fricassée of bats, rice, potatoes, and
other vegetables, stewed durian, and, lastly, various
native fruits and nuts. Gin, punch, and a native
beer were served between courses.

Lkath’s formal dignity mellowed under the influence
of food and wine, and he became more loquacious.
By indirect reference Peter Gross obtained,
piece by piece, a coherent account of the hunting
trip on which the Sadonger had lost his life. It
confirmed his suspicion that the brother knew far
more about the murder than he had admitted, but
he kept his own counsel.

The next morning the elders assembled in the
balais, or assembly-hall. Peter Gross listened to
the testimony offered. He said little, and the only
man he questioned was the Sadonger’s brother,
Lkath’s chief witness.

“How did they know it was Jahi who was responsible?”
he asked the Sadongers who had accompanied
Lkath on the search. “They broke into voluble
protestations. Did they use the sumpitan?
Was it not exclusively a weapon of the hill Dyaks?[220]
Did not the feathers on the arrow show that it
came from Jahi’s tribe? And did they not find a
strip of red calico from a hillman’s chawat in the
bush?”

Peter Gross did not answer their questions.
“Show me where the body was found,” he directed.

Paddy Rouse, usually bold to temerariousness,
protested in dismay, pointing out the danger in
venturing into the jungle with savages so avowedly
unfriendly.

“There is no middle course for those who venture
into the lion’s den,” Peter Gross replied. “We will
be in no greater danger in the jungle than here, and
I may be able to solve the mystery and do our cause
some good.”

“I’m with you wherever you go,” Paddy said
loyally.

Lkath led the expedition in person. To Peter
Gross’s great relief, Koyala went also. The journey
took nearly five hours, for the road was very
rugged and there were many détours on account of
swamps, fallen trees, and impenetrable thickets.
Koyala rode next to Peter Gross all the way. He
instinctively felt that she did so purposely to protect
him from possible treachery. It increased his
sense of obligation toward her. At the same time
he realized keenly his own inability to make an adequate
recompense. Old Sachsen’s words, “If you
can induce her to trust us, half your work is done,”
came to him with redoubled force.

They talked of Bulungan, its sorry history, its[221]
possibilities for development. Koyala’s eyes glowed
with a strange light, and she spoke with an ardency
that surprised the resident.

“How she loves her country!” he thought.

They were riding single file along a narrow jungle-path
when Koyala’s horse stumbled over a hidden
creeper. She was not watching the path at the
moment, and would have fallen had not Peter Gross
spurred his animal alongside and caught her. Her
upturned face looked into his as his arm circled
about her and held her tightly. There was a furious
rush of blood to her cheeks; then she swung back
into the saddle lightly as a feather and spurred her
horse ahead. A silence came between them, and
when the path widened and he was able to ride
beside her again, he saw that her eyes were red.

“These roads are very dusty,” he remarked,
wiping a splinter of fine shale from his own eyes.

When they reached the scene of the murder Peter
Gross carefully studied the lay of the land. Lkath
and the dead man’s brother, upon request, showed
him where the red calico was found, and how the
body lay by the water-hole. Standing in the bush
where the red calico strip had been discovered,
Peter Gross looked across the seven or eight rods to
the water-hole and shook his head.

“There is some mistake,” he said. “No man can
blow an arrow that far.”

Lkath’s face flashed with anger. “When I was
a boy, Mynheer Resident, I learned to shoot the
sumpitan,” he said. “Let me show you how a Dyak[222]
can shoot.” He took the sumpitan which they had
taken with them at Peter Gross’s request, placed an
arrow in the orifice, distended his cheeks, and blew.
The shaft went across the water-hole.

“A wonderful shot!” Peter Gross exclaimed in
pretended amazement. “There is none other can
shoot like Lkath.”

Several Sadongers offered to show what they
could do. None of the shafts went quite so far as
their chief’s. Taking the weapon from them, Peter
Gross offered it to the dead Sadonger’s brother.

“Let us see how far you can shoot,” he said
pleasantly.

The man shrank back. Peter Gross noticed his
quick start of fear. “I cannot shoot,” he protested.

“Try,” Peter Gross insisted firmly, forcing the
sumpitan into his hand. The Sadonger lifted it to
his lips with trembling hands, the weapon shaking
so that careful aim was impossible. He closed his
eyes, took a quick half-breath, and blew. The
arrow went little more than half the distance to the
water-hole.

“You did not blow hard enough,” Peter Gross said.
“Try once more.” But the Sadonger, shaking his
head, retreated among his companions, and the
resident did not press the point. He turned to
Lkath.

“It is time to start, if we are to be back in Sadong
before malam” (night) “casts its mantle over the
earth,” he said. Well content with the showing he
had made, Lkath agreed.[223]

They were passing the temple; it was an hour
before sundown when Peter Gross said suddenly:

“Let us speak with Djath on this matter.” He
singled out Koyala, Lkath, and the Sadonger’s
brother, inviting them to enter the temple with him.
A dusky pallor came over the Sadonger’s face, but
he followed the others into the enclosure.

“The great god Djath is not my god,” Peter
Gross said, when they had entered the silent hall
and stood between the rows of grinning idols.
“Yet I have heard that he is a god who loves the
truth and hates falsehood. It seems good to me,
therefore, that the Bintang Burung call down
Djath’s curse on this slayer of one of your people.
Then, when the curse falls, we may know without
doubt who the guilty one is. Is it good, Lkath?”

The chief, although plainly amazed at hearing
such a suggestion from a white man, was impressed
with the idea.

“It is good,” he assented heartily.

Peter Gross looked at Koyala. She was staring
at him with a puzzled frown, as if striving to fathom
his purpose.

“Invoke us a curse, O Bintang Burung, on the
slayer,” he asked. “Speak your bitterest curse.
Give him to the Budjang Brani, to the eternal fires
at the base of the Gunong Agong.”

Koyala’s frown deepened, and she seemed on the
point of refusal, when Lkath urged: “Call us down a
curse, daughter of Djath, I beg you.”

Seeing there was no escape, Koyala sank to her[224]
knees and lifted her hands to the vault above. A
vacant stare came into her eyes. Her lips began to
move, first almost inaudibly; then Peter Gross
distinguished the refrain of an uninterpretable
formula of the Bulungan priesthood, a formula
handed down to her by her grandfather, Chawatangi.
Presently she began her curse in a mystic drone:

“May his eyes be burned out with fire; may the
serpents devour his limbs; may the vultures eat his
flesh; may the wild pigs defile his bones; may his
soul burn in the eternal fires of the Gunong Agong—”

“Mercy, bilian, mercy!” Shrieking his plea, the
dead Sadonger’s brother staggered forward and
groveled at Koyala’s feet. “I will tell all!” he
gasped. “I shot the arrow; I killed my brother;
for the love of his woman I killed him—”

He fell in a fit, foaming at the mouth.

There was utter silence for a moment. Then
Peter Gross said to the aged priest who kept the
temple:

“Call the guard, father, and have this carrion
removed to the jail.” At a nod from Lkath, the
priest went.

Neither Lkath nor Koyala broke the silence until
they had returned to the former’s house. Peter
Gross, elated at the success of his mission, was puzzled
and disappointed at the look he surprised on
Koyala’s face, a look of dissatisfaction at the turn
of events. The moment she raised her eyes to meet
his, however, her face brightened.

When they were alone Lkath asked:[225]

“How did you know, O wise one?” His voice
expressed an almost superstitious reverence.

“The gods reveal many things to those they love,”
was Peter Gross’s enigmatical reply.

To Paddy Rouse, who asked the same question,
he made quite a different reply.

“It was really quite simple,” he said. “The only
man with a motive for the crime was the brother.
He wanted the wife. His actions at the water-hole
convinced me he was guilty; all that was necessary
was a little claptrap and an appeal to native superstition
to force him to confess. This looked bad
for us at the start, but it has proven the most fortunate
thing that could have happened. Lkath will
be with us now.”[226]

CHAPTER XXI

Captured by Pirates

When they rose the next morning Peter
Gross inquired for his host, but was met
with evasive replies. A premonition that
something had gone wrong came upon him. He
asked for Koyala.

“The Bintang Burung has flown to the jungle,”
one of the servant lads informed him after several
of the older natives had shrugged their shoulders,
professing ignorance.

“When did she go?” he asked.

“The stars were still shining, Datu, when she
spread her wings,” the lad replied. The feeling
that something was wrong grew upon the resident.

An hour passed, with no sign of Lkath. Attempting
to leave the house, Peter Gross and Paddy were
politely but firmly informed that they must await
the summons to the balais, or assembly-hall, from the
chieftain.

“This is a rum go,” Paddy grumbled.

“I am very much afraid that something has
happened to turn Lkath against us,” Peter Gross
remarked. “I wish Koyala had stayed.”

The summons to attend the balais came a little
later. When they entered the hall they saw a large[227]
crowd of natives assembled. Lkath was seated
in the judge’s seat. Peter Gross approached him to
make the customary salutation, but Lkath rose and
folded his hands over his chest.

“Mynheer Resident,” the chief said with dignity,
“your mission in Sadong is accomplished. You have
saved us from a needless war with the hill people.
But I and the elders of my tribe have talked over
this thing, and we have decided that it is best you
should go. The Sadong Dyaks owe nothing to the
orang blanda. They ask nothing of the orang
blanda. You came in peace. Go in peace.”

A tumult of emotions rose in Peter Gross’s breast.
To see the fruits of his victory snatched from him in
this way was unbearable. A wild desire to plead
with Lkath, to force him to reason, came upon him,
but he fought it down. It would only hurt his
standing among the natives, he knew; he must command,
not beg.

“It shall be as you say, Lkath,” he said. “Give
me a pilot and let me go.”

“He awaits you on the beach,” Lkath replied.
With this curt dismissal, Peter Gross was forced
to go.

The failure of his mission weighed heavily upon
Peter Gross, and he said little all that day. Paddy
could see that his chief was wholly unable to account
for Lkath’s change of sentiment. Several times he
heard the resident murmur: “If only Koyala had
stayed.”

Shortly before sundown, while their proa was[228]
making slow headway against an unfavorable
breeze Paddy noticed his chief standing on the
raised afterdeck, watching another proa that had
sailed out of a jungle-hid creek-mouth shortly before
and was now following in their wake. He cocked
an eye at the vessel himself and remarked:

“Is that soap-dish faster than ours, or are we
gaining?”

“That is precisely what I am trying to decide,”
Peter Gross answered gravely.

Paddy observed the note of concern in the resident’s
voice.

“She isn’t a pirate, is she?” he asked quickly.

“I am very much afraid she is.” Peter Gross
spoke calmly, but Paddy noticed a tremor in his
voice.

“Then we’ll have to fight for it?” he exclaimed.

Peter Gross avoided a direct reply. “I’m wondering
why she can stay so close inshore and outsail
us,” he said. “The wind is offshore, those high hills
should cut her off from what little breeze we’re
getting, yet she neither gains nor loses an inch on us.”

“Why doesn’t she come out where she can get
the breeze?”

“Ay, why doesn’t she?” Peter Gross echoed.
“If she were an honest trader she would. But
keeping that course enables her to intercept us in
case we should try to make shore.”

Paddy did not appear greatly disturbed at the
prospect of a brush with pirates. In fact, there was
something like a sparkle of anticipation in his eyes.[229]
But seeing his chief so concerned, he suggested
soberly:

“Can’t we beat out to sea and lose them during
the night?”

“Not if this is the ship I fear it is,” the resident
answered gravely.

“What ship?” The question was frankly curious.

“Did you hear something like a muffled motor
exhaust a little while ago?”

Paddy looked up in surprise. “That’s just
what I thought it was, only I thought I must be
crazy, imagining such a thing here.”

Peter Gross sighed. “I thought so,” he said with
gentle resignation. “It must be her.”

“Who? What?” There was no escaping the
lad’s eager curiosity.

“The ghost proa. She’s a pirate—Ah Sing’s own
ship, if reports be true. I’ve never seen her; few
white men have; but there are stories enough about
her, God knows. She’s equipped with a big marine
engine imported from New York, I’ve heard; and
built like a launch, though she’s got the trimmings of
a proa. She can outrun any ship, steam or sail,
this side of Hong Kong, and she’s manned by a crew
of fiends that never left a man, woman or child alive
yet on any ship they’ve taken.”

Paddy’s face whitened a little, and he looked
earnestly at the ship. Presently he started and
caught Peter Gross’s arm.

“There,” he exclaimed. “The motor again!
Did you hear it?”[230]

“Ay,” Peter Gross replied. “We had gained a
few hundred yards on them, and they’ve made it
up.”

Paddy noted the furtive glances cast at them by
the crew of their own proa, mostly Bugis and Bajaus,
the sea-rovers and the sea-wash, with a slight sprinkling
of Dyaks. He called Peter Gross’s attention
to it.

“They know the proa,” the resident said.
“They’ll neither fight nor run. The fight is ours,
Paddy. You’d better get some rifles on deck.”

“We’re going to fight?” Rouse asked eagerly.

“Ay,” Peter Gross answered soberly. “We’ll
fight to the end.” He placed a hand on his protégé’s
shoulder.

“I shouldn’t have brought you here, my lad,”
he said. There was anguish in his voice. “I
should have thought of this—”

“I’ll take my chances,” Paddy interrupted gruffly,
turning away. He dove into their tiny cubicle, a
boxlike contrivance between decks, to secure rifles
and cartridges. They carried revolvers. When he
came up the sun was almost touching the rim of the
horizon. The pursuing proa, he noticed had approached
much nearer, almost within hailing distance.

“They don’t intend to lose us in the dark,” he
remarked cheerfully.

“The moon rises early to-night,” Peter Gross
replied.[231]

A few minutes later, as the sun was beginning to
make its thunderclap tropic descent, the juragan, or
captain of the proa issued a sharp order. The
crew leaped to the ropes and began hauling in
sail. Peter Gross swung his rifle to his shoulder and
covered the navigator.

“Tell your crew to keep away from those sails,”
he said with deadly intentness.

The juragan hesitated a moment, glanced over his
shoulder at the pursuing proa, and then reversed his
orders. As the crew scrambled down they found
themselves under Paddy’s rifle.

“Get below, every man of you,” Peter Gross
barked in the lingua franca of the islands. “Repeat
that order, juragan!”

The latter did so sullenly, and the crew dropped
hastily below, apparently well content at keeping
out of the impending hostilities.

These happenings were plainly visible from the
deck of the pursuing proa. The sharp chug-chug
of a motor suddenly sounded, and the disguised
launch darted forward like a hawk swooping down
on a chicken. Casting aside all pretense, her
crew showed themselves above the rail. There
were at least fifty of them, mostly Chinese and
Malays, fierce, wicked-looking men, big and powerful,
some of them nearly as large, physically, as the
resident himself. They were armed with magazine
rifles and revolvers and long-bladed krisses. A
rapid-firer was mounted on the forward deck.[232]

Paddy turned to his chief with a whimsical smile.
“Pretty big contract,” he remarked with unimpaired
cheerfulness.

Peter Gross’s face was white. He knew what
Paddy did not know, the fiendish tortures the pirates
inflicted on their hapless victims. He was debating
whether it were more merciful to shoot the lad and
then himself or to make a vain stand and take the
chance of being rendered helpless by a wound.

The launch was only a hundred yards away now—twenty
yards. A cabin door on her aft deck opened
and Peter Gross saw the face of Ah Sing, aglow in
the dying rays of the sun with a fiendish malignancy
and satisfaction. Lifting his rifle, he took quick aim.

Four things happened almost simultaneously as
his rifle cracked. One was Ah Sing staggering forward,
another was a light footfall on the deck behind
him and a terrific crash on his head that filled the
western heavens from horizon to zenith with a blaze
of glory, the third was the roaring of a revolver in
his ear and Paddy’s voice trailing into the dim distance:

“I got you, damn you.”

When he awoke he found himself in a vile, evil-smelling
hole, in utter darkness. He had a peculiar
sensation in the pit of his stomach, and his lips and
tongue were dry and brittle as cork. His head felt
the size of a barrel. He groaned unconsciously.

“Waking up, governor?” a cheerful voice asked.
It was Paddy.

By this time Peter Gross was aware, from the[233]
rolling motion, that they were at sea. After a
confused moment he picked up the thread of memory
where it had been broken off.

“They got us, did they?” he asked.

“They sure did,” Paddy chirruped, as though it
was quite a lark.

“We haven’t landed yet?”

“We made one stop. Just a few hours, I guess,
to get some grub aboard. I can’t make out much
of their lingo, but from what I’ve heard I believe
we’re headed for one of the coast towns where we
can get a doctor. That shot of yours hit the old
bird in the shoulder; he’s scared half to death he’s
going to croak.”

“If he only does,” Peter Gross prayed fervently
under his breath. He asked Paddy: “How long
have we been here?”

“About fourteen hours, I’d say on a guess. We
turned back a ways, made a stop, and then headed
this way. I’m not much of a sailor, but I believe
we’ve kept a straight course since. At least the roll
of the launch hasn’t changed any.”

“Fourteen hours,” Peter Gross mused. “It
might be toward Coti, or it might be the other way.
Have they fed you?”

“Not a blankety-blanked thing. Not even sea-water.
I’m so dry I could swallow the Mississippi.”

Peter Gross made no comment. “Tell me what
happened,” he directed.

Paddy, who was sitting cross-legged, tried to
shuffle into a more comfortable position. In doing[234]
so he bumped his head against the top of their
prison. “Ouch!” he exclaimed feelingly.

“You’re not hurt?” Peter Gross asked quickly.

“A plug in the arm and a tunk on the head,”
Paddy acknowledged. “The one in my arm made
me drop my rifle, but I got two of the snakes before
they got me. Then I got three more with the gat
before somebody landed me a lallapaloosa on the
beano and I took the count. One of the steersmen—jurumuddis
you call ’em, don’t you?—got you.
We forgot about those chaps in the steersmen’s box
when we ordered the crew below. But I finished
him. He’s decorating a nice flat in a shark’s belly by
now.”

Peter Gross was silent.

“Wonder why they didn’t chuck us overboard,”
Paddy remarked after a time. “I thought that was
the polite piratical stunt. Seeing they were so
darned considerate, giving us this private apartment,
they might rustle us some grub.”

“How shall I tell this light-hearted lad what is
before us?” Peter Gross groaned in silent agony.

A voluble chatter broke out overhead. Through
the thin flooring they heard the sound of naked feet
pattering toward the rail. A moment later the ship’s
course was altered and it began pitching heavily
in the big rollers. Peter Gross sat bolt upright,
listening intently.

“What’s stirring now?” Paddy asked.

“Hist! I don’t know,” Peter Gross warned
sharply.[235]

There was a harsh command to draw in sail, intelligible
only to Peter Gross, for it was in the island
patois. Paddy waited in breathless anticipation
while Peter Gross, every muscle strained and tense,
listened to the dissonancy above, creaking cordage,
the flapping of bamboo sails, and the jargon of
two-score excited men jabbering in their various
tongues.

There was a series of light explosions, and then a
steady vibration shook the ship. It leaped ahead
instantly in response to its powerful motor. It
was hardly under way when they heard a whistling
sound overhead. There was a moment’s pause, then
the dull boom of an explosion reached their ear.

“We’re under shell-fire!” Paddy gasped.

“That must be the Prins,” Peter Gross exclaimed.
“I hope to Heaven Enckel doesn’t know we’re
aboard.”

Another whistle of a passing shell and the thunder
of an explosion. The two were almost simultaneous,
the shell could not have fallen far from the
launch’s bow, both knew.

“They may sink us!” Paddy cried in a half-breath.

“Better drowning than torture.” The curt reply
was cut short by another shell. The explosion was
more distant.

“They’re losing the range.” Paddy exclaimed
in a low voice. In a flash it came to him why Peter
Gross had said: “I hope Enckel doesn’t know
we’re here.”[236]

Peter Gross stared, white, and silent into the
blackness, waiting for the next shell. It was long
in coming, and fell astern. A derisive shout rose
from the pirates.

“The Prins is falling behind,” Paddy cried despairingly.

“Ay, the proa is too fast for her,” the resident
assented in a scarcely audible voice. Tears were
coursing down his cheeks, tears for the lad that he
had brought here to suffer unnameable tortures, for
Peter Gross did not underestimate the fiendish
ingenuity of Ah Sing and his crew. He felt grateful
for the wall of darkness between them.

“Well, there’s more than one way to crawl out
of a rain-barrel,” Paddy observed with unimpaired
cheerfulness.

Peter Gross felt that he should speak and tell
Rouse what they had to expect, but the words
choked in his throat. Blissful ignorance and a
natural buoyant optimism sustained the lad, it
would be cruel to take them away, the resident
thought. He groaned again.

“Cheer up,” Paddy cried, “we’ll get another
chance.”

The grotesqueness of the situation—his youthful
protégé striving to raise his flagging spirits—came
home to Peter Gross even in that moment of suffering
and brought a rueful smile to his lips.

“I’m afraid, my lad, that the Prins was our last
hope,” he said. There was an almost fatherly
sympathy in his voice, responsibility seemed to have[237]
added a decade to the slight disparity of years between
them.