Kitabı oku: «The Argus Pheasant», sayfa 14

CHAPTER XXVIII
The Attack on the Fort

When Peter Gross failed to return by noon that day Captain Carver, becoming alarmed, began making inquiries. Hughes supplied the first clue.

"I saw him go into the bush with the heathen woman while we was buzzin' Paddy," he informed his commander. "I ain't seen him since."

A scouting party was instantly organized. It searched the banyan grove, but found nothing. One, of the members, an old plainsman, reported heel-marks on the trail, but as this was a common walk of the troops at the fort the discovery had no significance.

"Where is Inchi?" Captain Carver inquired. Search also failed to reveal the Dyak lad. As this disquieting news was reported, Lieutenant Banning was announced.

The lieutenant, a smooth-faced, clean-cut young officer who had had his commission only a few years, explained the object of his visit without indulging in preliminaries.

"One of my Java boys tells me the report is current in Bulungan that we are to be attacked to-morrow," he announced. "A holy war has been preached, and all the sea Dyaks and Malays in the residency are now marching this way, he says. The pirate fleet is expected here to-night. I haven't seen or heard of Captain Van Slyck since he left for Padang."

He was plainly worried, and Carver correctly construed his warning as an appeal for advice and assistance. The captain took from his wallet the commission that Peter Gross had given him some time before.

"Since Captain Van Slyck is absent, I may as well inform you that I take command of the fort by order of the resident," he said, giving the document to Banning. The lieutenant scanned it quickly.

"Very good, captain," he remarked with a relieved air. His tone plainly indicated that he was glad to place responsibility in the crisis upon an older and more experienced commander. "I suppose you will enter the fort with your men?"

"We shall move our stores and all our effects at once," Carver declared. "Are your dispositions made?"

"We are always ready, captain," was the lieutenant's reply.

From the roof of the residency Carver studied Bulungan town through field-glasses. There was an unwonted activity in the village, he noticed. Scanning the streets, he saw the unusual number of armed men hurrying about and grouped at street corners and in the market-place. At the water-front several small proas were hastily putting out to sea.

"It looks as if Banning was right," he muttered.

By sundown Carver's irregulars were stationed at the fort. Courtesy denominated it a fort, but in reality it was little more than a stockade made permanent by small towers of crude masonry, filled between with logs set on end. The elevation, however, gave it a commanding advantage in such an attack as they might expect. Peter Gross had been careful to supply machine-guns, and these were placed where they would do the most efficient service. Putting the Javanese at work, Carver hastily threw up around the fort a series of barbed-wire entanglements and dug trench-shelters inside. These operations were watched by an ever-increasing mob of armed natives, who kept a respectful distance away, however. Banning suggested a sortie in force to intimidate the Dyaks.

"It would be time wasted," Carver declared. "We don't have to be afraid of this mob. They won't show teeth until the he-bear comes. We'll confine ourselves to getting ready – every second is precious."

A searchlight was one of Carver's contributions to the defenses. Double sentries were posted and the light played the country about all night, but there was no alarm. When dawn broke Carver and Banning, up with the sun, uttered an almost simultaneous exclamation. A fleet of nearly thirty proas, laden down with fighting men, lay in the harbor.

"Ah Sing has arrived," Banning remarked. Absent-mindedly he mused: "I wonder if Captain Van Slyck is there?"

Carver had by this time mastered just enough Dutch to catch the lieutenant's meaning.

"What do you know about Captain Van Slyck's dealings with this gang?" he demanded, looking at the young man fixedly.

"I can't say – that is – " Banning took refuge in an embarrassed silence.

"Never mind," Carver answered curtly. "I don't want you to inform against a superior officer. But when we get back to Batavia you'll be called upon to testify to what you know."

Banning made no reply.

Carver was at breakfast when word was brought him that Mynheer Muller, the controlleur, was at the gate and desired to see him. He had left orders that none should be permitted to enter or leave without special permission from the officer of the day. The immediate thought that Muller was come to propose terms of surrender occurred to him, and he flushed darkly. He directed that the controlleur be admitted.

"Goeden-morgen, mynheer kapitein," Muller greeted as he entered. His face was very pale, but he seemed to carry himself with more dignity than customarily, Carver noticed.

"State your mission, mynheer," Carver directed bluntly, transfixing the controlleur with his stern gaze.

"Mynheer kapitein, you must fight for your lives to-day," Muller said. "Ah Sing is here, there are three thousand Dyaks and Malays below." His voice quavered, but he pulled himself together quickly. "I see you are prepared. Therefore what I have told you is no news to you." He paused.

"Proceed," Carver directed curtly.

"Mynheer kapitein, I am here to fight and die with you," the controlleur announced.

A momentary flash of astonishment crossed Carver's face. Then his suspicions were redoubled.

"I hadn't expected this," he said, without mincing words. "I thought you would be on the other side."

Muller's face reddened, but he instantly recovered. "There was a time when I thought so, too, kapitein," he admitted candidly. "But I now see I was in the wrong. What has been done, I cannot undo. But I can die with you. There is no escape for you to-day, they are too many, and too well armed. I have lived a Celebes islander, a robber, and a friend of robbers. I can at least die a white man and a Hollander."

Carver looked at him fixedly.

"Where is the resident?" he demanded.

"In a hut, in the jungle."

"In Ah Sing's hands?"

"He is Koyala's prisoner. Ah Sing does not know he is there."

"Um!" Carver grunted. The exclamation hid a world of meaning. It took little thought on his part to vision what had occurred.

"Why aren't you with Koyala?" he asked crisply.

Muller looked away. "She does not want me," he said in a low voice.

For the first time since coming to Bulungan, Carver felt a trace of sympathy for Muller. He, too, had been disappointed in love. His tone was a trifle less gruff as he asked: "Can you handle a gun?"

"Ja, mynheer."

"You understand you'll get a bullet through the head at the first sign of treachery?"

Muller flushed darkly. "Ja, mynheer," he affirmed with quiet dignity. It was the flush that decided Carver.

"Report to Lieutenant Banning," he said. "He'll give you a rifle."

It was less than an hour later that the investment of the fort began. The Dyaks, scurrying through the banyan groves and bamboo thickets, enclosed it on the rear and landward sides. Ah Sing's pirates and the Malays crawled up the rise to attack it from the front. Two of Ah Sing's proas moved up the bay to shut off escape from the sea.

An insolent demand from Ah Sing and Wobanguli that they surrender prefaced the hostilities.

"Tell the Rajah and his Chinese cut-throat that we'll have the pleasure of hanging them," was Carver's reply.

To meet the attack, Carver entrusted the defense of the rear and landward walls to the Dutch and Javanese under Banning, while he looked after the frontal attack, which he shrewdly guessed would be the most severe. Taking advantage of every bush and tree, and particularly the hedges that lined the lane leading down to Bulungan, the Malays and pirates got within six hundred yards of the fort. A desultory rifle-fire was opened. It increased rapidly, and soon a hail of bullets began sweeping over the enclosure.

"They've got magazine-rifles," Carver muttered to himself. "Latest pattern, too. That's what comes of letting traders sell promiscuously to natives."

The defenders made a vigorous reply. The magazine-rifles were used with telling effect. Banning had little difficulty keeping the Dyaks back, but the pirates and Malays were a different race of fighters, and gradually crept closer in, taking advantage of every bit of cover that the heavily grown country afforded.

As new levies of natives arrived, the fire increased in intensity. There were at least a thousand rifles in the attacking force, Carver judged, and some of the pirates soon demonstrated that they were able marksmen. An old plainsman was the first casualty. He was sighting along his rifle at a daring Manchu who had advanced within three hundred yards of the enclosure when a bullet struck him in the forehead and passed through his skull. He fell where he stood.

Shortly thereafter Gibson, an ex-sailor, uttered an exclamation, and clapped his right hand to his left shoulder.

"Are ye hit?" Larry Malone asked.

"They winged me, I guess," Gibson said.

The Dutch medical officer hastened forward. "The bone's broken," he pronounced. "We'll have to amputate."

"Then let me finish this fight first," Gibson retorted, picking up his rifle. The doctor was a soldier, too. He tied the useless arm in a sling, filled Gibson's magazine, and jogged away to other duties with a parting witticism about Americans who didn't know when to quit. There was plenty of work for him to do. Within the next half hour ten men were brought into the improvised hospital, and Carver, on the walls, was tugging his chin, wondering whether he would be able to hold the day out.

The firing began to diminish. Scanning the underbrush to see what significance this might have, Carver saw heavy columns of natives forming. The first test was upon them. At his sharp command the reply fire from the fort ceased and every man filled his magazine.

With a wild whoop the Malays and Chinese rose from the bush and raced toward the stockade. There was an answering yell from the other side as the Dyaks, spears and krisses waving, sprang from the jungle. On the walls, silence. The brown wave swept like an avalanche to within three hundred yards. The Javanese looked anxiously at their white leader, standing like a statue, watching the human tide roll toward him. Two hundred yards – a hundred and fifty yards. The Dutch riflemen began to fidget. A hundred yards. An uneasy murmur ran down the whole line. Fifty yards.

Carver gave the signal. Banning instantly repeated it. A sheet of flame leaped from the walls as rifles and machine-guns poured their deadly torrents of lead into the advancing horde. The first line melted away like butter before a fire. Their wild yells of triumph changed to frantic shrieks of panic, the Dyaks broke and fled for the protecting cover of the jungle while the guns behind them decimated their ranks. The Malays and Chinese got within ten yards of the fort before they succumbed to the awful fusillade, and fled and crawled back to shelter. A mustached Manchu alone reached the gate. He waved his huge kris, but at that moment one of Carver's company emptied a rifle into his chest and he fell at the very base of the wall.

The attack was begun, checked, and ended within four minutes. Over two hundred dead and wounded natives and Chinese lay scattered about the plain. The loss within the fort had been four killed and five wounded. Two of the dead were from Carver's command, John Vander Esse and a Californian. As he counted his casualties, Carver's lips tightened. His thoughts were remarkably similar to that of the great Epirot: "Another such victory and I am undone."

Lieutenant Banning, mopping his brow, stepped forward to felicitate his commanding officer.

"They'll leave us alone for to-day, anyway," he predicted.

Carver stroked his chin in silence a moment.

"I don't think Ah Sing's licked so soon," he replied.

For the next three hours there was only desultory firing. The great body of natives seemed to have departed, leaving only a sufficient force behind to hold the defenders in check in case they attempted to leave the fort. Speculation on the next step of the natives was soon answered. Scanning the harbor with his glasses, Carver detected an unwonted activity on the deck of one of the proas. He watched it closely for a few moments, then he uttered an exclamation.

"They're unloading artillery," he told Lieutenant Banning.

The lieutenant's lips tightened.

"We have nothing except these old guns," he replied.

"They're junk," Carver observed succinctly. "These proas carry Krupps, I'm told."

"What are you going to do?"

"We'll see whether they can handle it first. If they make it too hot for us – well, we'll die fighting."

The first shell broke over the fort an hour later and exploded in the jungle on the other side. Twenty or thirty shells were wasted in this way before the gunner secured the range. His next effort landed against one of the masonry towers on the side defended by the Dutch. When the smoke had cleared away the tower lay leveled. Nine dead and wounded men were scattered among the ruins. A yell rose from the natives, which the remaining Dutch promptly answered with a stinging volley.

"Hold your fire," Carver directed Banning. "We'd better take to the trenches." These had been dug the day before and deepened during the past hour. Carver issued the necessary commands and the defenders, except ten pickets, concealed themselves in their earthen shelters.

The gunnery of the Chinese artilleryman improved, and gaunt breaches were formed in the walls. One by one the towers crumbled. Each well-placed shell was signalized by cheers from the Dyaks and Malays. The shelling finally ceased abruptly. Carver and Banning surveyed the scene. A ruin of fallen stones and splintered logs was all that lay between them and the horde of over three thousand pirates and Malay and Dyak rebels. The natives were forming for a charge.

Carver took the lieutenant's hand in his own firm grip.

"This is probably the end," he said. "I'm glad to die fighting in such good company."

CHAPTER XXIX
A Woman's Heart

Lying on the bamboo floor of the jungle hut which Muller had spoken of, his hands and feet firmly bound, and a Dyak guard armed with spear and kris at the door, Peter Gross thought over the events of his administration as resident of Bulungan. His thoughts were not pleasant. Shame filled his heart and reddened his brow as he thought of how confidently he had assumed his mission, how firmly he had believed himself to be the chosen instrument of destiny to restore order in the distracted colony and punish those guilty of heinous crimes, and how arrogantly he had rejected the sage advice of his elders.

He recollected old Sachsen's warning and his own impatient reply – the event that he deemed so preposterous at that time and old Sachsen had foreseen had actually come to pass. He had fallen victim to Koyala's wiles. And she had betrayed him. Bitterly he cursed his stupid folly, the folly that had led him to enter the jungle with her, the folly of that mad moment when temptation had assailed him where man is weakest.

In his bitter self-excoriation he had no thought of condemnation for her. The fault was his, he vehemently assured himself, lashing himself with the scorpions of self-reproach. She was what nature and the sin of her father had made her, a child of two alien, unincorporable races, a daughter of the primitive, wild, untamed, uncontrolled, loving fiercely, hating fiercely, capable of supremest sacrifice, capable, too, of the most fiendish cruelty.

He had taken this creature and used her for his own ends, he had praised her, petted her, treated her as an equal, companion, and helpmate. Then, when that moment of madness was upon them both, he had suddenly wounded her acutely sensitive, bitterly proud soul by drawing the bar sinister. How she must have suffered! He winced at the thought of the pain he had inflicted. She could not be blamed, no, the fault was his, he acknowledged. He should have considered that he was dealing with a creature of flesh and blood, a woman with youth, and beauty, and passion. If he, who so fondly dreamed that his heart was marble, could fall so quickly and so fatally, could he censure her?

Carver, too, had warned him. Not once, but many times, almost daily. He had laughed at the warnings, later almost quarreled. What should he say if he ever saw Carver again? He groaned.

There was a soft swish of skirts. Koyala stood before him. She gazed at him coldly. There was neither hate nor love in her eyes, only indifference. In her hand she held a dagger. Peter Gross returned her gaze without flinching.

"You are my prisoner, orang blanda," she said. "Mine only. This hut is mine. We are alone here, in the jungle, except for one of my people."

"You may do with me as you will, Koyala," Peter Gross replied weariedly.

Koyala started, and looked at him keenly.

"I have come to carry you away," she announced.

Peter Gross looked at her in silence.

"But first there are many things that we must talk about," she said.

Peter Gross rose to a sitting posture. "I am listening," he announced.

Koyala did not reply at once. She was gazing fixedly into his eyes, those frank, gray eyes that had so often looked clearly and honestly into hers as he enthusiastically spoke of their joint mission in Bulungan. A half-sob broke in her throat, but she restrained it fiercely.

"Do you remember, mynheer, when we first met?" she asked.

"It was at the mouth of the Abbas River, was it not? At Wolang's village?"

"Why did you laugh at me then?" she exclaimed fiercely.

Peter Gross looked at her in astonishment. "I laughed at you?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, on the beach. When I told you you must go. You laughed. Do not deny it, you laughed!" The fierce intensity of her tone betrayed her feeling.

Peter Gross shook his head while his gaze met hers frankly. "I do not recollect," he said. "I surely did not laugh at you – I do not know what it was – " A light broke upon him. "Ay, to be sure, I remember, now. It was a Dyak boy with a mountain goat. He was drinking milk from the teats. Don't you recall?"

"You are trying to deceive me," Koyala cried angrily. "You laughed because – because – "

"As God lives, it is the truth!"

Koyala placed the point of her dagger over Peter Gross's heart.

"Orang blanda," she said, "I have sworn to kill you if you lie to me in any single particular to-day. I did not see that whereof you speak. There was no boy, no goat. Quick now, the truth, if you would save your life."

Peter Gross met her glance fearlessly.

"I have told you why I laughed, Koyala," he replied. "I can tell you nothing different."

The point of the dagger pricked the resident's skin.

"Then you would rather die?"

Peter Gross merely stared at her. Koyala drew a deep breath and drew back the blade.

"First we shall talk of other things," she said.

At that moment the rattle of rifle-fire reached Peter Gross's ears.

"What is that?" he cried.

Koyala laughed, a low laugh of exultation. "That, mynheer, is the children of Bulungan driving the white peccaries from Borneo."

"Ah Sing has attacked?" Peter Gross could not help, in his excitement, letting a note of his dismay sound in his voice.

"Ah Sing and his pirates," Koyala cried triumphantly. "Wobanguli and the warriors of Bulungan. Lkath and his Sadong Dyaks. The Malays from the coast towns. All Bulungan except the hill people. They are all there, as many as the sands of the seashore, and they have the orang blanda from Holland, and the Javanese, and the loud-voiced orang blanda that you brought with you, penned in Van Slyck's kampong. None will escape."

"Thank God Carver's in the fort," Peter Gross ejaculated.

"But they cannot escape," Koyala insisted fiercely.

"We shall see," Peter Gross replied. Great as were the odds, he felt confident of Carver's ability to hold out a few days anyway. He had yet to learn of the artillery Ah Sing commanded.

"Not one shall escape," Koyala reiterated, the tigerish light glowing in her eyes. "Ah Sing has pledged it to me, Wobanguli has pledged it to me, the last orang blanda shall be driven from Bulungan." She clutched the hilt of her dagger fiercely – .

Amazed at her vehemence, Peter Gross watched the shifting display of emotion on her face.

"Koyala," he said, suddenly, "why do you hate us whites so?"

He shrank before the fierce glance she cast at him.

"Is there any need to ask?" she cried violently. "Did I not tell you the first day we met, when I told you I asked no favors of you, and would accept none? What have you and your race brought to my people and to me but misery, and more misery? You came with fair promises, how have you fulfilled them? In the orang blanda way, falsehood upon falsehood, taking all, giving none. Why don't I kill you now, when I have you in my power, when I have only to drop my hand thus – " she flashed the dagger at Peter Gross's breast – "and I will be revenged? Why? Because I was a fool, white man, because I listened to your lies and believed when all my days I have sworn I would not. So I have let you live, unless – " She did not finish the thought, but stood in rigid attention, listening to the increasing volume of rifle-fire.

"They are wiping it out in blood there," she said softly to herself, "the wrongs of Bulungan, what my unhappy country has suffered from the orang blanda."

Peter Gross's head was bowed humbly.

"I have wronged you," he said humbly. "But, before God, I did it in ignorance. I thought you understood – I thought you worked with me for Bulungan and Bulungan only, with no thought of self. So I worked. Yet somehow, my plans went wrong. The people did not trust me. I tried to relieve them of unjust taxes. They would not let me take the census. I tried to end raiding. There were always disorders and I could not find the guilty. I found a murderer for Lkath, among his own people, yet he drove me away. I cannot understand it."

"Do you know why?" Koyala exclaimed exultingly. "Do you know why you failed? It was I – I – I, who worked against you. The orang kayas sent their runners to me and said: 'Shall we give the controlleur the count of our people?' and I said: 'No, Djath forbids.' To the Rajahs and Gustis I said: 'Let there be wars, we must keep the ancient valor of our people lest they become like the Javanese, a nation of slaves.' You almost tricked Lkath into taking the oath. But in the night I went to him and said: 'Shall the vulture rest in the eagle's nest?' and he drove you away."

Peter Gross stared at her with eyes that saw not. The house of his faith was crumbling into ruins, yet he scarcely realized it himself, the revelation of her perfidy had come so suddenly. He groped blindly for salvage from the wreck, crying:

"But you saved my life – three times!"

She saw his suffering and smiled. So she had been made to suffer, not once, but a thousand times.

"That was because I had sworn the revenge should be mine, not Ah Sing's or any one else's, orang blanda."

Peter Gross lowered his face in the shadow. He did not care to have her see how great had been his disillusionment, how deep was his pain.

"You may do with me as you will, juffrouw," he said.

Koyala looked at him strangely a moment, then rose silently and left the hut. Peter Gross never knew the reason. It was because at that moment, when she revealed her Dyak treachery and uprooted his faith, he spoke to her as he would to a white woman – "juffrouw."

"They are holding out yet," Peter Gross said to himself cheerfully some time later as the sound of scattered volleys was wafted over the hills. Presently he heard the dull boom of the first shell. His face paled.

"That is artillery!" he exclaimed. "Can it be – ?" He remembered the heavy guns on the proas and his face became whiter still. He began tugging at his bonds, but they were too firmly bound. His Dyak guard looked in and grinned, and he desisted. As time passed and the explosions continued uninterruptedly, his face became haggard and more haggard. It was because of his folly, he told himself, that men were dying there – brave Carver, so much abler and more foresighted than he, the ever-cheerful Paddy, all those he had brought with him, good men and true. He choked.

Presently the shell-fire ceased. Peter Gross knew what it meant, in imagination he saw the columns of natives forming, column upon column, all that vast horde of savages and worse than savages let loose on a tiny square of whites.

A figure stood in the doorway. It was Koyala. Cho Seng stood beside her.

"The walls are down," she cried triumphantly. "There is only a handful of them left. The people of Bulungan are now forming for the charge. In a few minutes you will be the only white man left in Bulungan."

"I and Captain Van Slyck," Peter Gross said scornfully.

"He is dead," Koyala replied. "Ah Sing killed him. He was of no further use to us, why should he live?"

Peter Gross's lips tightened grimly. The traitor, at least, had met the death he merited.

Cho Seng edged nearer. Peter Gross noticed the dagger hilt protruding from his blouse.

"Has my time come, too?" he asked calmly.

The Chinaman leaped on him. "Ah Sing sends you this," he cried hoarsely – the dagger flashed.

Quick as he was, quick as a tiger striking its prey, the Argus Pheasant was quicker. As the dagger descended, Koyala caught him by the wrist. He struck her with his free hand and tried to tear the blade away. Then his legs doubled under him, for Peter Gross, although his wrists were bound, could use his arms. Cho Seng fell on the point of the dagger, that buried itself to the hilt in the fleshy part of his breast. With a low groan he rolled over. His eyeballs rolled glassily upward, thick, choked sounds came from his throat —

"Ah Sing – comeee – for Koyala – plenty quick – " With a sigh, he died.

Peter Gross looked at the Argus Pheasant. She was gazing dully at a tiny scratch on her forearm, a scratch made by Cho Seng's dagger. The edges were purplish.

"The dagger was poisoned," she murmured dully. Her glance met her prisoner's and she smiled wanly.

"I go to Sangjang with you, mynheer," she said.

Peter Gross staggered to his knees and caught her arm. Before she comprehended what he intended to do he had his lips upon the cut and was sucking the blood. A scarlet tide flooded her face, then fled, leaving her cheeks with the pallor of death.

"No, no," she cried, choking, and tried to tear her arm away. But in Peter Gross's firm grasp she was like a child. After a frantic, futile struggle she yielded. Her face was bloodless as a corpse and she stared glassily at the wall.

Presently Peter Gross released her.

"It was only a scratch," he said gently. "I think we have gotten rid of the poison."

The sound of broken sobbing was his only answer.

"Koyala," he exclaimed.

With a low moan she ran out of the hut, leaving him alone with the dead body of the Chinaman, already bloated purple.

Peter Gross listened again. Only the ominous silence from the hills, the silence that foretold the storm. He wondered where Koyala was and his heart became hot as he recollected Cho Seng's farewell message that Ah Sing was coming. Well, Ah Sing would find him, find him bound and helpless. The pirate chief would at last have his long-sought revenge. For some inexplicable reason he felt glad that Koyala was not near. The jungle was her best protection, he knew.

A heavy explosion cut short his reveries. "They are cannonading again," he exclaimed in surprise, but as another terrific crash sounded a moment later, his face became glorified. Wild cries of terror sounded over the hills, Dyak cries, mingled with the shrieking of shrapnel —

"It's the Prins," Peter Gross exclaimed jubilantly. "Thank God, Captain Enckel came on time."

He tugged at his own bonds in a frenzy of hope, exerting all his great strength to strain them sufficiently to permit him to slip one hand free. But they were too tightly bound. Presently a shadow fell over him. He looked up with a start, expecting to see the face of the Chinese arch-murderer, Ah Sing. Instead it was Koyala.

"Let me help you," she said huskily. With a stroke of her dagger she cut the cord. Another stroke cut the bonds that tied his feet. He sprang up, a free man.

"Hurry, Koyala," he cried, catching her by the arm. "Ah Sing may be here any minute."

Koyala gently disengaged herself.

"Ah Sing is in the jungle, far from here," she said.

A silence fell upon them both. Her eyes, averted from his, sought the ground. He stood by, struggling for adequate expression.

"Where are you going, Koyala?" he finally asked. She had made no movement to go.

"Wherever you will, mynheer," she replied quietly. "I am now your prisoner."

Peter Gross stared a moment in astonishment. "My prisoner?" he repeated. "Nonsense."

"Your people have conquered, mynheer," she said. "Mine are in flight. Therefore I have come to surrender myself – to you."

"I do not ask your surrender," Peter Gross, replied gravely, beginning to understand.

"You do not ask it, mynheer, but some one must suffer for what has happened. Some one must pay the victor's price. I am responsible, I incited my people. So I offer myself – they are innocent and should not be made to suffer."

"Ah Sing is responsible," Peter Gross said firmly. "And I."

"You, mynheer?" The question came from Koyala's unwilling lips before she realized it.

"Yes, I, juffrouw. It is best that we forget what has happened – I must begin my work over again." He closed his lips firmly, there were lines of pain in his face. "That is," he added heavily, "if his excellency will permit me to remain here after this fiasco."

"You will stay here?" Koyala asked incredulously.

"Yes. And you, juffrouw?"

A moment's silence. "My place is with my people – if you do not want me as hostage, mynheer?"

Peter Gross took a step forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. She trembled violently.