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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?"
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 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 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, 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.
"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 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. Lieutenant 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 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 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."
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.
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:
"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-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 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 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. 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 reiterated. His neck was crooked humbly so that his eyes did not rise above the hem of her sarong, and his hands were tucked inside the wide sleeves of his jacket. His voice was as meek and mild and inoffensive as his manner.
Koyala laughed mischievously.
"I asked you a question, Cho Seng," she pointed out.
The Chinaman salaamed again, even lower than before. His face was imperturbable as he repeated in the same mild, disarming accents:
"What for um you wantee me?"
Koyala made a moue.
"That isn't what I asked you, Cho Seng," she exclaimed petulantly.
The Chinaman did not move a muscle. Silent, calm as a deep-sea bottom, his glance fixed unwaveringly on a little spot of black earth near Koyala's foot, he awaited her reply.
Leveque's daughter shrugged her shoulders in hopeless resignation. Ever since she had known him she had tried to surprise him into expressing some emotion. Admiration, fear, grief, vanity, cupidity – on all these chords she had played without producing response. His imperturbability roused her curiosity, his indifference to her beauty piqued her, and, womanlike, she exerted herself to rouse his interest that she might punish him. So far she had been unsuccessful, but that only gave keener zest to the game. Koyala was half Dyak, she had in her veins the blood of the little brown 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 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."
"Kapitein Van Slyck him no speakee Koyala," the Chinaman declared.
Koyala looked at him sternly. "I cannot believe that, Cho Seng," she said. "The captain must surely have noticed that I have not been in Amsterdam. You are not telling me an untruth, are you, Cho Seng?"
The Chinaman was meekness incarnate as he reiterated:
"Him no speakee Koyala."
Displeasure gathered on Koyala's face like a storm-cloud. She leaped suddenly from the aërial root and drew herself upright. At the same moment she seemed to undergo a curious transformation. The light, coquettish mood passed away like dabs of sunlight under a fitful April sky, an imperious light gleamed in her eyes and her voice rang with authority as she said:
"Cho Seng, you are the eyes and the ears of Ah Sing in Bulungan – "
The Chinaman interrupted her with a sibilant hiss. His mask of humility fell from him and he darted keen and angry glances about the cane.
"When Koyala Bintang Burung speaks it is your place to listen, Cho Seng," Koyala asserted sternly. Her voice rang with authority. Under her steady glance the Chinaman's furtive eyes bushed themselves in his customary pose of irreproachable meekness.
"You are the eyes and ears of Ah Sing in Bulungan," Koyala reaffirmed, speaking deliberately and with emphasis. "You know that there is a covenant between your master, your master in Batavia, and the council of 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."
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 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.
