The Black Parrot : A Tale of the Golden Chersonese

By Harry Hervey

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Title: The Black Parrot
A Tale of the Golden Chersonese

Author: Harry Hervey

Release date: December 8, 2025 [eBook #77428]

Language: English

Original publication: Toronto: F. D. Goodchild, 1923

Credits: Tim Lindell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK PARROT ***

THE BLACK PARROT

_A Tale of the Golden Chersonese_

BY HARRY HERVEY

AUTHOR OF "CARAVANS BY NIGHT," ETC.

"... You perceive, then, it is by the grace of Romance
that man has been exalted above the other animals...."

JAMES BRANCH CABELL

F. D. GOODCHILD
TORONTO
1923

Printed in U. S. A.

* * * * *

TO CHARLES BEDELL HERVEY

_Do you remember? I told you of the Khmers, the ancient Brahmans, who,
with elephants and war-chariots, with legions of mailed swordsmen
and archers, crashed through Manipur and Arakan, to the Lake of
Tonle Sap, and there built an empire; built the long cloisters, the
tremendous towers and stairways that now mourn beside the drowned
forests of Angkor. I said that were you to go there some night when a
full moon hangs over the jungle, you would hear the tread of perished
armies (fierce, arrogant warriors, drunken with power and conquest)
and see the Tevadas come down from the walls and dance about Naga,
the Seven-Headed Cobra. And you said, "Put it into a story!" Do you
remember?_

CONTENTS

I THE MAN FROM GUIANA

II EPISODE

III THE BLUE SLENDONG

IV S. S. _Cambodia_

V CONQUEST

VI THE DREAM CHANDLER

VII MALAY HOUSE

VIII SALAZAR

IX BARABBAS TOWN

THE BLACK PARROT

CHAPTER I

THE MAN FROM GUIANA

He had come up from that necklace of islands that trails its emeralds
over the Pacific, which is to say, he stepped out of Nowhere.

Perhaps he was a planter. Or a trader. Or a shell-hunter. Or an agent
from one of those brazen ports where white men turn brown like bricks
in a kiln. Certainly he was not a tourist.

This the proprietor of the Hotel Oost-Indie--one da Vargas, a
Portuguese from Malacca--told himself as he sat in the stern-sheets of
his launch alongside the newly arrived mail-packet and gazed at the
man by the rail. The latter, his features shadowed by a topee, stood
near the top of the ladder, a black bag in one hand and a bird-cage
in the other. He wore a white silk suit, and the sunlight seemed to
take refuge in it and give it a golden sheen. A blue slendong, such as
Javanese women wear, was bound carelessly about his middle, its fringed
ends rippling in the wind. Behind him, across the low, flat deck-house
and through the web of rigging, the straights spread out like a purple
map, contoured with rich gleams; the west was peach-red, its bloom
reflected on the canvas.

A plaintive whistle, audible above the creaks and squelches, drifted
down to Mr. da Vargas, and he focused upon the occupant of the
bird-cage: a large white cockatoo.

A man who wore a slendong and carried a bird!

To Mr. da Vargas, it suggested the quixotic. A naturalist? Many
of these fellows--a gregarious lot--came and went among the toy
archipelagos strung between Singapore and the Coral Sea. At least,
thought the Portuguese by way of justification, they never left
accounts unpaid.

A signal from the white-clad figure cut short these reflections, and
Mr. da Vargas brought his craft nearer the ladder; launches of other
hotels hovered about.

"Oost-Indie?" asked the man perfunctorily, preparing to descend.

"Yes, mynheer," replied Mr. da Vargas, using the form of address
current in Dutch possessions; if one kept a hotel in a Javanese port,
why not contribute to the atmosphere? "Excellent cuisine," he added;
"tarriff reasonable."

He of the slendong passed his bag to the Portuguese, then, cage in
hand, stepped into the launch and seated himself in the stern-sheets.
The cockatoo, frightened by the sudden violent _pop-pop_ of the engine,
raised its crest and shrieked. A magnificent creature: feathers
deepening to coral on the wings and tail, crest jetting up to a golden
tip.

"A beautiful bird, mynheer," observed Mr. da Vargas by way of opening
conversation as the launch cleft the water quayward.

The other nodded indifferently and removed his helmet, thus offering
the proprietor, who considered himself a keen judge of physiognomy, a
better opportunity for study.

He was a person of inscrutable age, with skin brown as sandalwood and
crinkled at the corners of the eyes. His hands, lithe, slender hands,
moved incessantly, one moment fingering his lapel, the next, drumming
on the gunwhale or tugging at his short, well trimmed beard; a beard
that was reddish in one light and dark gold in another.

"Do you have many guests now?" he demanded abruptly, speaking with a
perfect enunciation that suggested that English was not his native
tongue.

His eyes, green as the shallows off Madoera, had an insolent
expression. This, Mr. da Vargas perceived, was due to his right
eyebrow, which slanted toward a scar that made a pale crescent on his
temple.

The Portuguese took on a distressed air. "It is not the season yet," he
answered.

The bearded one turned and for a moment gazed out toward the horizon,
where the water melted imperceptibly into a belt of dusk. The
mail-packet, gilded by the glow in the west, seemed to hang in the
welded globe of sea and sky like a toy ship in a bottle.

Presently he spoke again.

"Are any of your recently arrived guests from Macassar?"

Was it an accent that Mr. da Vargas detected--in his pronunciation of
Macassar? A foreigner? Russian? Spanish? French?

He wrinkled his forehead as though the question caused him thought.
Something of an actor, this da Vargas, with his exaggerated eyebrows
and mustache.

"Macassar?" he repeated; and drew from his pocket some of those
black cheroots that seem rolled exclusively for men in the tropics.
"Macassar? No--no, I think not. Were you expecting some one, a
friend?"--proffering a smoke.

The stranger nodded; placed the cheroot in his coat pocket. Then,
abstractedly, he thrust a finger between the bars of the cage and poked
at the cockatoo. His indifference challenged the Portuguese to probe
deeper behind the veil of obscurity which, from the very first, had
surrounded him.

"You live in Macassar?" he persisted after a few seconds.

The man of the slendong smiled, an elusive, rather impudent expression,
and shook his head.

"A filthy place----" thus Mr. da Vargas. "No decent hotels, no...." The
sentence expired suddenly, like a gramophone that is shut off without
warning. A shrug; then, with a sigh, he delivered himself over to
silence and supineness.

Shortly before they reached the quay the man from the mail-packet came
out of his abstraction to ask:

"Has there been a message left at your hotel for me?" As an
afterthought he added, "My name is Garon."

Mr. da Vargas half shut one eye: a habit which he considered quite
effective. Meanwhile, his brain repeated the name. Garon. French.
An officer from up Saigon way. Or from Hué. Or Hai Fong. Or from one
of those sweltering towns along the coast of Indo-China. He was so
absorbed that for a moment he forgot the other's question.

"N-no," he replied slowly. "No, monsieur"--the "monsieur" rather
pleased him--"there has been no message."

Presently the launch touched the quay, a great antenna feeling out into
a wilderness of masts and spars, and he of the slendong sprang out with
the bird-cage. The cockatoo, almost losing its balance, spread its
crest and scolded. Its owner started toward a _kossong_ but paused and
turned back to Mr. da Vargas, who was still in the launch.

"When is there a boat to Singapore?"

"Singapore?"--one eye half closed. "Day after to-morrow. But if you
wish to stay longer...."

"Thank you." And the bearded man got into the carriage, leaving the
Portuguese to bring his bag.

A moment later when another launch came alongside the quay Mr. da
Vargas recognized in it a Eurasian whom he had noticed by the rail of
the mail-packet. Upon an impulse he hailed him.

"Did you see the gentleman I brought ashore?" he interrogated. "The one
who wore the blue slendong? Do you know if he came aboard at Macassar?"

He did, the Eurasian replied. He himself had seen the gentleman walk
out on the pier: and he was quite drunk.

At this information Mr. da Vargas half shut his eye again. Drunk.
Undoubtedly, he concluded, the man of the blue slendong was an officer
from French Indo-China. But what--as he signaled for his _sado_--was he
doing in Surabaya? And with that bird!

Mr. da Vargas did not know, would never know; but had he known he would
have been more interested in the man with the scarred wrists.

At that particular moment he who called himself Garon also was
conjecturing--but upon a subject quite different. He had been
conjecturing for many days. Many weeks. And now, as he rode toward the
hotel, his brain seemed atrophied; hung, withered, in his skull.

He lighted the cheroot that da Vargas had given him, and the bitter,
acrid tobacco (black leaves from Trichinopoli) burned his tongue. But
he enjoyed it fiercely, for it stimulated him, like strong drink. At
that thought he smiled--smiled insolently, as a man smiles at an
antagonist. Drink. Flint on tinder. It ignited a spark. Fool. He had
slipped at Macassar. Perhaps it was the town: the crooning surf, the
white roadways unrolling in the dusk like paths to adventure; something
lazy and loose and amorous about it....

"Name of a name!" he muttered, half aloud. "Cities and women are alike:
angels or devils--positive or negative--no compromise. And seaports are
bad."

A habit, that. And a good one, he assured himself. Ah, if he could
be sure that he had talked only to himself! Confound that slip at
Macassar----

"Too much introspection, my zig," he announced sharply, breaking in
upon himself.

Whereupon he delivered his attention to the pattern of sounds
and colors that wove about the carriage. Lamps were beginning to
appear--hot moons in the already humid dusk--and the roadway was a
torrid, dusty world; a world that swarmed with life. Perspiring white
men in linens, helmeted soldiers, coolies with bent carrying-poles, and
bronze Chinese, Arabs, and Javanese. On the right ran a canal, seeming
crowded with boats as it reflected the many craft moored by its banks.
This, he told himself, was not the picturesque confusion of the Straits
Settlement or the towns of the China coast--towns whose names inflame
the dreams of youth. There was a sense of order, of cleanliness and
activity, that was not eastern.

"Tropical Netherlands," he soliloquized ironically, "well regulated
and organized--even in their vices!"

The carriage rattled across a bridge and came to a street of Chinese
houses--rows of dim bazaars and shops. Large signs hung over the doors,
flamboyant with ideographs. And numbers. Great gilded numbers----

Numbers! They seemed to spring out and strike him. Numbers! To the
devil with them! But to the devil they would not go; they persisted and
developed a series of negatives, pictures that unreeled like a film.
Cayenne, lost in forests of silence ... Cayenne, with its Caribs and
tropic-tired _surveillants_ ... white-helmeted warders, _libérés_ and
_déportés_ in drab burlap ... men who were numbered. Five months of it!
Five months in that brazen hush, that awful hush: superheated days,
nights that dropped like black flannel. And no one knew. Not a soul.
Alone he had worked. Alone he had waited. Alone he had endured the
strain. Alone--until his release from Ile Diable, until the night at
the house of Finot, the _libéré_. A muffled lantern; whispers, a ring
of obscure faces; then a file of silhouettes stealing back into town.
Followed other nights at the house of Finot, the _libéré_; and a last
night when the silhouettes did not steal back into town. Black forests;
torment of heat and hunger. How they suffered! these men who were
numbered. At length, a river, a raft of mocomoco. Came then a chain of
breathless days, of bitter days. Smell of swamps and rotting jungle;
odors that tainted. They fought among themselves, these men who were
numbered. Finally, the raft glided from river-gloom into the glare of
the sea; glided to the side of the waiting ship....

He was put ashore on Thursday Island, one of those sun-scorched
outposts where men, believing in destiny, sit on the beach to wait for
it. Without regret he watched the ship melt into the horizon. He was
alone--yet he felt that a shadow clung to his heels. It haunted him.
And there were three days before the next boat left! Three days on
Thursday Island, with its molten sky, its monotonous dazzle of sand and
sea. He took his cue from a pallid youngster sprawled on a fishnet,
in the shadow of a warehouse. Suddenly, as one who sees a revelation,
he perceived the way. For the next three days he drank just enough to
sink his thoughts in a golden haze and keep his tongue still. Then he
departed, without sorrow, from that port of derelicts.

Macassar. To his surprise the shadowy tracker did not materialize. But
he understood. The time was not ripe. Perhaps the realization made him
careless. Ensued that indefinite, foggy period: yellow faces and the
smell of bilge-water. He returned to complete cognizance on the ship.

And now Surabaya. (This as he gazed at the numbers.) So far he had
won--alone. He who had always ridden alone! At this thought he clamped
his teeth tighter on the cheroot; drew a deep breath. Ruthless? Yes,
he had been. Trampling men as if they were husks. But never uselessly,
always with a purpose. Hard? Perhaps. For he never reckoned the cost.
A cold man with but one passion, achievement. An adventurer, riding
alone toward a star. That was it. Some day he would ride out beyond
life, still following his star. And then----

"Thousand thunders!" he exclaimed, interrupting his own thoughts.
"Sentimentalism! It is this climate--nothing but coffee thrives!"

He smiled derisively, which is to say bitterly; passed one hand over
his forehead. For a moment he looked very young, very tired, like
a boy aroused from a dream. Something cold uncoiled in his heart
and struck him, an emotion cruel as a scalpel. Sentiment! It had
withered. Only the roots remained, dead things. Pluck them out--ride
on--alone--trampling men--toward the star--a ruthless adventurer----

A soft note, uttered by the cockatoo, broke into his introspection.
His eyes swerved to the cage. After a few seconds he chuckled, without
humor. Even this creature fitted into his scheme, his callous sacrifice
of man for motive. Indeed, it had been acquired for a purpose and when
that was fulfilled it would pass as his every friendship had done, this
feathery companion of his solitude.

Thus he was musing when he came at length to the hotel. Sunset had
furled its geranium petals, and the long white main building, set back
in an inclosure in the midst of trees and gardens, gleamed coolly in
the darkness. A few stars had broken out like white heat on the torrid
sky.

He paid the driver; moved up the steps, swinging the bird-cage.
As he crossed the veranda he noticed several linen-clad figures
sitting around a table, and the sudden flare of a match, as one of
the men lighted a cheroot, reclaimed from the dark a pair of lean
wrists--wrists that were ringed with scars.

The sudden black night of the tropics settled. A black, limitless sea
was the firmament, a black reef the somber horizon where the tide of
stars surged up and broke. A breeze blew in from the straits, tepid
and briny; it wandered across the city, acquiring the scent of warm
soil and over-ripe fruit; and drifted lazily into the gardens of the
Oost-Indie, where trees and men alike shivered as it whispered of fever
and worse.

Dinner being over, the usual groups collected on the veranda. (You will
find them at any caravansary along the equator soon after nightfall,
men who probably have nothing in common except a desire to talk.)
Cigar-ends smoldered. Ice clinked as "boys" moved back and forth with
trays; this augmented by the drone of voices and mosquitos.

The man of the blue slendong, emerging from the lighted interior,
glanced right and left at the gleaming cheroots and likened them
whimsically to the cones of distant volcanoes. After a pause he
strolled toward a table at the end of the veranda, quite aware that a
man had followed him from the billiard-room. He sat down, not even
glancing at the white figure that passed. The latter paused a few feet
beyond, then turned.

"May I share your table?"--a genial British voice.

He who called himself Garon nodded; made a gesture. The other seated
himself and tapped the bell for a "boy."

"Won't you join me?" he inquired. "A man has to keep his liver afloat
somehow down here, and the Oost-Indie has just the proper mixture--a
pale-green, frosty drink, with a slice of orange floating in it, for
all the world like a swollen goldfish." He laughed, frankly pleased
with his own simile. "That reminds me of those fighting-fish in Siam.
Ever see the little beggars?"

"Yes"; thus Garon, smiling to himself with grim satisfaction.

A "boy" approached silently and took their order.

"You're a stranger in Surabaya, aren't you?" came from the man whose
face formed a pale oval above the dead white of his linens.

Garon murmured affirmatively and drew out cigarettes, passing them, not
without a purpose. The man took one and lighted it. A flickering glow
upon long, narrow features; a glimpse of scars on the wrists.

"I noticed you when you arrived," went on the voice from the pale oval;
an oval that advanced from the gloom and receded as the man drew on his
cigarette. "Does your cockatoo perform?"

"I do not train birds," Garon answered. "I collect them. I bought that
one on Thursday Island."

"Collect them?--to stuff and exhibit in museums?"

The Frenchman was still smiling to himself. "I buy and sell them."

"I see. A broker of birds. Novel business."

Garon laughed; no humor in it.

"It is not a business; it is a precaution. Wherever I go I carry some
sort of bird; then, if there rises any emergency, I sell it."

"But don't you grow attached to them?"

Attached! Garon almost laughed again. He said, "Sentiment does not
enter into business."

"Birds, eh?" mused the other. He chuckled. "Thursday Island....
Hm-m.... Ghastly place. You didn't by any chance run across the Black
Parrot down there, did you?"

Garon smiled, an expression unobserved in the darkness, and restlessly
fingered the lapel of his coat.

"A black parrot?"--simulating thoughtfulness. "Is there such a bird? I
know of the great black cockatoo which naturalists call----"

"Surely," interrupted the other, "surely you've heard of the Black
Parrot!"

"I confess ignorance. You see," he lied, "I have just come up from the
New Cumberlands. I have been buried for ... for five months."

The "boy" came then with the drinks. The rattle of ice sounded cool,
for the breeze had gone. In the breathless hush the voices from the
several groups along the veranda melted into a languorous murmur. Even
the trees sighed faintly, as though oppressed by the heat and the
stillness.

After a moment the man of the scarred wrists resumed.

"Le Perroquet Noir; that's what he's called at Cayenne. The Black
Parrot. Sounds romantic, doesn't it? Fancy anything being romantic in
this day!"

"But who is he?" pressed Garon. "Why is he called that?"

A chuckle. "May as well ask who the devil is." A pause, then: "Perhaps
he is the devil sojourning among mortals for a spell. Recruiting. If
so, he began near home; Guiana's just across from Hades, you know. But,
devil or not, he's raising particular hell in the penal colony. The
officials believe he's an escaped _relégué_ from Ile Diable, a fellow
named Letourneau, a garroter. They think he's helping others....

"But you asked why he's called the Black Parrot, didn't you? Well, I've
heard one version. A French officer from St.-Laurent told me the story;
used to belong to the Corps Militaire des Surveillants. There was a
murderer, a swarthy brute, son of an Annamite woman and a merchant of
Hai Fong, who was sent to Guiana. The prisoners dubbed him the Black
Parrot. Don't know why; perhaps he looked like one. Soon after he
reached the colony he killed a _chantier_ with a machete. Horrible
affair. It didn't take the Tribunal Maritime Special long to decide to
introduce him to Madame Guillotine. Picture the scene...."

He gestured, and sparks fell from his cheroot like meteors from a
comet. Garon was staring at his glass.

"Picture the scene," the former repeated. "The colorless dawn.... Why
are executions usually at daybreak, can you tell me?... Le Perroquet,
shut in his cell, hears the dread summons, 'C'est pour aujourd'hui,'
and is initiated into what they call _la toilette de la mort_.
Horrible, these preparations for death. Then he is marched into the
courtyard of the condemned. I say, picture the scene: the throng of
prisoners, there by compulsion, the guards and the big, dark brute on
the scaffold--a half-caste, you remember--with arms bound and collar
cut away. Perhaps a priest beside him; Monsieur de l'Ile Diable, the
headsman, waiting. Not a chance of escape. How do you suppose he
felt, this callous creature, twice a murderer? Do you imagine he was
afraid? Sebillot--he's the officer who told me the story and who saw
the execution--said he smiled, smiled as if he knew something grimly
amusing, smiled at Madame Guillotine. You can see he was a--a hard
customer, as the Americans put it. Just before tying him under the
blade he was allowed to speak; that's customary, you know. 'You may cut
off my head,' he said or words to that effect, 'but I will come back
and repay.' A foolish threat, vain.... So they guillotined him, this
brute. Sebillot--he was standing close by--swears that the head of Le
Perroquet Noir smiled as it dropped into the basket. Ridiculous, these
illusions a man has at times.

"A week or two later, Letourneau, the garroter, escaped. Following that
were a number of other escapes--or evasions, as they say in Guiana.
Then, one day, the very man who had guillotined the Parrot was drowned.
No one saw it or knew how it happened. His body was found in the river;
not a mark on it. An accident, the colonial governor pronounced it.
Poetic justice, you say? The prisoners said another thing, that it was
the vengeance of the Black Parrot. Fantastic, isn't it?...

"But men continued to escape. And after each disappearance the
_surveillant principal_ received a card, most mysteriously of course,
bearing an inscription something like this: 'Le Perroquet Noir--viens
me chercher.'... It goes like a shilling-shocker, doesn't it?... The
prison officials are quite mystified. How do these men get away,
through the jungle?--or do they put to sea and land somewhere further
along the coast? In either event, there's the danger of being captured
by bush negroes; those black fellows are anything but tame, I'm told,
and the _surveillants_ don't encourage gentle tactics. Where do you
suppose these convicts go after they've escaped? I've heard that at
Paramaribo there's a society to help escaped _déportés_. I've heard
other things, too; for instance, this yarn I picked up in Samarang."

He paused; sipped his liquor; resumed.

"Some sailors had collected in a bar along the waterfront. You know
how they talk; a bit of the sewer in their words. Conversation turned
to the Black Parrot. One of the chaps said he knew of an amazing rogue
such as one reads of in novels, who hired men to steal priceless art
treasures, ornaments and jewels with a history, and he in turn sold
them to collectors and rich fools for fabulous sums. He was a sort of
gentleman buccaneer; his life was like a romance. And, the sailor chap
went on to say, perhaps the Black Parrot was this rogue and he had
struck upon the idea of collecting a flock--adopting it, as it were,
from the jailbirds of Cayenne. An excellent way to gather a faithful
band, so the sailor chap maintained. He claimed he knew a fellow, a
shell-hunter, who indulged in questionable business, so this fellow got
his crew by picking up beach-combers and setting them on their feet."

He of the scarred wrists laughed--a soft, genial laugh. Garon merely
smiled and continued to tug at his lapel.

"But sailors," observed the stranger, "have the reputation of being
more interesting than veracious. This buccaneer de luxe may have been
a fabrication; fact is, I fancy he had his origin in a bottle. At any
rate, it's a good tale."

He picked up his glass. Garon, in the act of lighting his burnt-out
cheroot, glimpsed a smile on the long, narrow face. Even after the
match expired and they were in darkness, two pale ghosts at the very
frontier of the stars, he imagined he could still see the smile. Rather
mocking. Rather haunting.

"You, being a broker of birds," suggested the man with the scarred
wrists, humorously, "should be interested in Monsieur the Parrot. If
you catch him you'll profit a pretty penny. Something of a task, eh?
The question is: Who is he? Letourneau, the garroter? Or that amazing
rogue I heard of in Samarang? Or the ghost of Le Perroquet Noir? As the
Black Parrot himself would tell you, _viens me chercher_!"

Garon regarded the other grimly; lifted his glass.

"I go on the next boat to Singapore," he announced deliberately. "And
there"--a shrug--"well, it is not likely I shall find the Parrot
there.... To your hospitality!"

* * * * *

Later that night Garon went into the city. Mr. da Vargas, who saw him
leave the hotel, wondered where his guest, that quixotic person who
affected a blue slendong and carried a cockatoo, was going at that
hour. Not being clairvoyant, he could not know that the Frenchman was
bound for the beer-hall of Oei Moo Lim. But the man with the scarred
wrists knew. He made it a point to know.

Morning and a burnished sun.

Garon, rising late, looked out into purgatorial glare and was not
cheered. A glance into the mirror showed him a pallor beneath his
tanned skin and dark half-moons under his eyes. His depression
increased when he examined his money-belt.

"Ah, God!" he muttered, then, shrugging, soliloquized, "A key to every
lock, an answer to every riddle."

Then sudden doubt shook him. Suppose when he reached Singapore the
expected--name of a dog! more than expected, the anticipated--suppose
the anticipated did not happen. What then? Failure? Impossible. He
would succeed. Or be murdered. With his knowledge he would not be
permitted to live unless he passed the test. And what a test! he
reflected. He had, within the space of a few weeks, buried his pride,
his self-respect (which is the last virtue a man will sell) and
become--yes, a beach-comber. And all because ... because he had locked
his dreams in a dungeon with his past and consecrated himself to a
purpose. He could come back, he who had ever been lord of his body; he
would. But the waiting! That was the rending period.

He took the cockatoo with him when he went below, leaving it on the
veranda while he breakfasted. Afterward he made certain inquiries of
Mr. da Vargas; inquiries that gained him little.

"So he calls himself that, eh?" he mused, taking a seat on the veranda.
"But names! Pah! Rogues have a different one in every port!"

A few minutes later he summoned a carriage and with the inevitable bird
was driven to a steamship office near Aloon-Aloon. There he secured
his passage. This done, he had but a few coins left, not even cab-fare.
So he set out on foot.

Overhead, a copperish sun glowed and smoldered; underfoot, dust rose
in gauzy waves. In the palpable haze thus produced, men and vehicles
moved back and forth like figures behind a transparent drop, remote,
ineffectual. Garon loomed tall and white in the glare, an individual
marked for observation as he sifted through the traffic.

His walk led him across two bridges and to a long street of shifting
shadow and color, an artery that seemed to come from the very heart
of China itself. Yellow faces in the doorways and windows of gaudy
houses, yellow faces beneath awnings, beneath crimson and gold signs,
beneath lacquered, ideographed scrolls, beneath balconies and quaint
projections. Shops where silks from Fu-chau and Chi-fu were sold; shops
that smelled of perfumes and aromatic gums from Africa, and odors less
enticing; shops where gods from Burma and Siam gazed contemptuously at
gods of European make; shops that boasted gold-dust from the Celebes,
pearls from Ceylon, and precious stones from Cambay. And one shop where
gay-plumed birds preened their feathers in ill smelling cages.

To the latter Garon took himself after inquiring the way of a
blue-helmeted policeman. A warm, musty smell, reek of birds and
animals, breathed into his face as he entered. Dusk within, the corners
deepening to sable. From these dark recesses came soft cooing sounds,
twitters and shrill squawks. Through a doorway in the rear sunlight
poured, like water released from a flood-gate, sluicing a raised
portion of the floor where a Chinaman sat cross-legged on a cushion. At
Garon's entrance he rose and came forward. He glanced at the cockatoo,
nodded to its owner, and waited.

The Frenchman, his vision becoming regulated to the artificial dusk,
saw a sleek, sable cat caged in one corner; heard a faint growl. Small
feathered creatures blinked at him: blue parrots, green parrots,
crimson parrots, and gray parrots. But (this to himself whimsically)
not a black parrot.

"My no wanchee buy," he announced in Pidgin, the common tongue of the
archipelago. "My wanchee sell."

The Chinaman blinked, like one of his birds, informing him gravely:

"I speak English." And he added: "My name is Soy Lim; you have heard of
me? For many years I had a shop in Rochore Road, Singapore."

A gleam of humor animated Garon's eyes.

"Very well, Soy Lim. I wish to sell this bird"--indicating the
cockatoo. "It belongs to the species known as _Cacatua leadbeteri_;
very rare. I should not part with it except ... well, I need money.
Too, I am interested in other--er--birds now."

The eyes of Oriental and white man met. Soy Lim blinked again; took the
bird-cage; appraised its occupant. The cockatoo uttered a plaintive
whistle; to Garon, thrice plaintive. He felt a barb of regret; a barb
that he plucked out quickly.

"What will you give me for him?" he asked.

The Chinaman appeared to be considering for a moment; then he named a
price.

"Add ten guilders and you may have him"; thus Garon.

"I would not buy the bird," Soy Lim said, "if it were not that a doctor
in Goebeng wishes a cockatoo like this one. I will add two guilders."

"Ten," the Frenchman insisted.

"Two."

"Ten."

"Three."

"I said ten."

The astute yellow man shook his head. "Four. No more."

Garon started toward the door.

"Five," Soy Lim called after him.

He hesitated. "Very well," he agreed. "Five guilders added to the
original offer."

The Chinaman melted into a dark corner and returned with the money.
Garon counted it, then thrust it into his pocket, and, with a nod,
departed. A soft, plaintive whistle followed him into the street: a
reproach and a farewell.

A moment after he left the shop Soy Lim resumed his seat, the bird-cage
beside him. In his deliberate manner he slipped on a pair of loose
gloves, opened the cage door, and clutched at the cockatoo. A shriek;
the flutter of coral-tipped wings. But the gloved hand was implacable.
Soy Lim drew out the frightened creature and held it to his breast,
mouthing soft words. Slowly the bird quieted. Then the Chinaman pulled
off one glove, using his teeth, groped under the feathers, and, like a
magician conjuring an object from the air, produced a tiny cylinder of
paper.

CHAPTER II

EPISODE

Night and Singapore. Steamy, sweltering darkness. A stealthy wind
rustling mangoes and aloes, swaying banana and cocoa fronds. Song
of rippling water beneath the quays. Patter of bare feet, crunch of
wheels, in bazaar lanes and native streets. Clink of ice, fragments of
music, in hotels and clubs. Lazy nocturnes.

A multitude of stars had swarmed out and dropped low over the island.
So low that their reflections trembled in the dark harbor. So low that
Canopus seemed pinned to a mast and the Southern Cross caught in a net
of rigging. So low that the woman standing in semi-darkness, on the
upper veranda of a hotel facing the Roads, felt as though she could
reach out and touch them.

A light from the long window behind made a bright patch upon the
gallery. But she stood outside the reflection, a shadow among other
shadows. Her eyes were raised above the roadway--even above the
contours of shadow that melted across an expanse of park--and brooded
upon the sea. She was intent, absorbed, as though deciphering a code
traced in the harbor. The focus of her gaze was a pair of green eyes
that returned her stare unwaveringly. In reality they were starboard
lamps on two vessels anchored not far apart, but to her they were
Medusa's eyes.

Perhaps she sighed; it may have been a vagrant breeze in the foliage
below. At a swift movement her sleeves, long, flowing sleeves, fell
back from white skin. She lifted her arms above her, held them rigid, a
sharp surge of power sweeping through her. Thus she stood for a moment,
motionless, scarcely breathing, the glimmer of her bare skin like that
of ivory. It was a gesture of dominion, intolerant and commanding; and
she might have been a valkyr exulting in her immutable security. Then
she dropped her arms, soundlessly, and stepped backward into the patch
of light. Instantly a golden dragon on her kimono kindled. It seemed
animated, coiled about the heavy black silk and breathed fire at the
woman's head; a glow that melted into the fluid copper of her hair.
Quickly, with a luxurious swish of silk, she moved into the room; drew
the blinds. At this exertion her hair, loosely coiled, came unbound and
rippled about her face and shoulders in a burnished cowl.

Medusa's eyes. Her mind repeated that, held a picture of the green
lights. Six years ago, soon after she had reached the age of silk
frocks and feather fans, she had fallen under their spell. She had
seen them many times since, these serpent's eyes. In the harbor of New
York. The Bay of Naples. San Francisco. Yokohama. Wherever ships lay at
moorings in the night.

She broke into a laugh--a sound rich and faintly husky. A glance at the
clock on the dressing-table banished from her mind all but thought of
the hour. Fifteen minutes to eight; and she was to dine at eight.

She seated herself before the mirror, studying her replica. A face fine
and regal as that on a coin, wistful enough to be a girl's, mature
enough to be a woman's. Pale gold was the throat that rose in a slender
column from the black silk, pale gold the arms. Her lips, in contrast
with her flawless olive pallor, were vivid crimson, remarkable in that
their color was genuine.

The dinner-gown of _moire dorée_, she decided. It would look well with
the captain's uniform. (Captain Remy Barthélemy, French Annamite Army,
ran through her mind swift as flame.) She rose with easy, languid
grace; moved to a closet; opened the door. In reaching for her gown she
unconsciously let the kimono slip down about her arms, revealing superb
shoulders....

As she dressed she hummed softly. "Addio a Napoli"--a somber strain. It
carried her, in fancy, to a city that dreamed above a blue porcelain
bay; the prelude to her début, that most breathless of seasons, from
which she had emerged polished and super-poised--and untouched. She,
Lhassa Camber, the vivid glacier, hiding beneath indifference the
smoldering purpose that later was to lead her half across the world....
The tune ended in a sigh.

When she was dressed she surveyed herself in the mirror. Her only
ornament was a large comb thrust in her hair. She had used no rouge,
not because of scruples but because she was aware of the effect of her
red lips against the colorless oval of her face. Satisfied, she went
below.

An officer seated in the lounge sprang up at her entrance. On his
brilliant uniform were medals and ribbons that told of service on
far frontiers. Black hair, glossy as lacquer, was brushed back from
features almost Oriental in their impassible regularity. Wind and glare
had bitten into his granular skin, and but for his eyes and mouth, both
rather humorous, his appearance would have been that of a man calloused
not only physically but in character as well. A short waxed mustache
added a fastidious touch.

"I am late," she apologized.

He inclined forward from narrow hips. "Yes? I was not aware of it," he
lied.

She gazed at him analytically. He was what one might expect a
_légionnaire_ to be: a man whose emotions were as well disciplined
as his muscles. "Knew his father," the consul had confided before
introducing him. "Good family. I can vouch for that. You'll find him
interesting company on the voyage." She had found him interesting
already, interesting by virtue of the fact that he had seen much of the
world and absorbed from it a certain genial iniquity.

"Men always say the expected," she observed as they moved toward
the veranda, "and women do it. If they did otherwise they'd be
original--and that's dangerous."

He smiled. "Do all women do the expected?"

The implication did not escape her. However, when they were seated in
one end of the café, she commanded:

"Be specific."

The Frenchman made a gesture. "A young woman traveling out here in the
colonies is expected to have a chaperon, usually some aristocratic
ancient who takes her duties too----"

"Am I being lectured?" she interposed. "Yesterday when the consul said
you were going to Bangkok on the same boat as I, I felt that he wanted
to suggest that you keep an eye on me. For all I know, he may have
after I left. But please don't inform me that I'm being improper; I
know it."

She spoke with the splendid independence of a woman accustomed to
attention, and her manner challenged admiration into Barthélemy's face.

"Ice and fire!" he thought. But he said, "I am merely pointing out that
you are courageous--and original."

"Does that mean--dangerous?"--languidly.

He gazed into the still, dark mystery of her eyes, eyes that could one
moment kindle with a poignant intensity of feeling and the next freeze
cold as northern forests, and realized that the secret of her charm
was an enigmatical streak in her temperament, as powerful as it was
inscrutable. He likened it to _Gioconda's_ smile in that it was too
subtle to be explained.

"It means...." He shrugged. "How can I say it? I see two distinct
pictures in your eyes. Generally, I see snow--ice--polar nights!" He
smiled. "Less frequently, I see jungles--undiscovered rivers--Asia,
yes, Asia."

"Jungles," she repeated with a speculative look. "Perhaps you see
anticipation. I intend to explore jungles, undiscovered rivers.
Impossible, you think? Impossible! An alluring word. Somehow I feel
that I belong to the unknown places. My mother must have felt it, too,
or why did she call me Lhassa?"

"You are not serious."

"About the jungles? Why not?"

"You are a woman; and what would be your purpose?"

"Purpose!" she echoed scornfully. The word had stung her. "Purpose!
Does a woman have any purpose other than to make herself attractive?
Purpose! Always I've wanted some object other than simply to live; I've
never had one and I probably never shall. When I was a girl my purpose,
according to my governess, was to graduate and make a successful début.
After that my purpose was to marry. And then....

"Monsieur, have you ever dreamed over an atlas?" she demanded abruptly.
Without waiting for a reply she went on. "I remember the first time I
saw a map of the world. There was something thrilling about the lines
that marked tides and winds, the tiny dots that in reality were great
cities, and the patches of yellow that were deserts. South America was
mysterious. Africa was dark and fearsome, like my room after the light
had been turned out. But there was one continent----" A pause; when she
resumed her voice had a low, impassioned timbre. "When I looked at it I
felt as a butterfly must feel when it's caught in a net."

She smiled; paused again as a "boy" approached.

"Once," she continued when their order had been given, "I took an atlas
to my grandfather and turned to Asia.... You see, there were only we
two; I never knew my parents.... I told him I was going there some day;
and he laughed. He always laughed when I spoke of going to Asia--until
I grew older and he realized my desire wasn't a childish fancy. 'It
isn't the place for a woman,' he would say; I can hear him now. 'If
you go you'll come back with malaria and a citron complexion.' Before
I finished boarding-school he sent me to Europe with a companion. I
wanted to go eastward. We had a scene, and it almost made him ill. So I
surrendered.

"But I kept on dreaming over the map of the world. After I returned
from Italy, we spent our summers in the West, and often, in the late
afternoon, I'd go down to the waterfront and watch the ships steal out
in the dusk, headed for strange ports; ports whose names are written in
italics in the history of romance. Bangkok, Zamboanga, Karachi; towns
with barbaric names like those. One evening when I returned I found
grandfather sitting in the dark with a map, a map of Asia, crumpled at
his feet. As soon as I entered the room I knew I was alone. That was
two years ago. I felt, and still feel, that if he had spoken before
the end he would have exacted a promise.... It was a queer obsession,
his. But probably no stranger than mine. I sensed Asia tugging, I----To
illustrate: a friend in the states had a macaw, and she took it out to
her country-place and chained it to a perch in a garden. Each day it
would hear the cries of wild birds in the woods, and it would answer
with little restless screeches and bite at its chain. One evening my
friend found the macaw gone."

She ended with a shrug. Barthélemy, smiling thoughtfully, drew out
cigarettes; passed them. He lighted hers, then his own, and flicked
the match away. The smoke coiled about her head, leaving her face
unobscured to glow in the foggy blue, as vivid, he thought, as a flame
burning through gauze.

"A macaw," he mused, still smiling. "Brilliant feathers."

"A wild creature, never really tamed," she added. "A gaudy, vain bird,
but free, free as the wind.... I obeyed the impulse to break away from
the old sphere with its worn-out gods and explore other worlds. So I
came, alone except for Manuel, a Filipino who was my grandfather's
valet; and I brought him merely for convenience, to attend to baggage
and other such details. First, Bangkok; then, Zamboanga and Karachi;
all those cities with gorgeous names; alone, free as the macaw that
broke its chain."

"And how long in Bangkok?" he inquired. "Until you feel the impulse to
fly?"

"Yes. Siam! Gold-leaf Buddhas and sleepy temples. I am going there
ostensibly to visit a man whom I've never seen and who doesn't even
know I'm coming. Perhaps you know of him--Dr. Garth? I believe he was
the king's physician for a while."

Barthélemy shook his head. "I am not well acquainted in Bangkok;
the fact is, I am merely going there to pay a short visit, two days
perhaps, to an old comrade attached to the consulate. But tell me more
about this doctor."

"He and grandfather went to school together in Virginia. I didn't
write that I was coming because I like to appear unexpectedly"--with
an indolent smile. "Yes, I have a dramatic streak. But don't
misunderstand: I sha'n't intrude; I shall go to a hotel when I
arrive. The doctor is simply an explanation for my presence in Siam,
a compromise, if you wish, with the rule that says a woman must not
travel alone in Asiatic countries, at least without a conventional
reason. I....

"Notice that man," she enjoined abruptly, indicating a figure that had
risen from a near-by table. "Isn't he extraordinary-looking?"

The object of her remark was a man with a short-cropped, gold-brown
beard. He wore a white silk suit, and a blue sash was bound about his
waist, its fringed ends swinging flippantly as he strode toward the
door.

"Sacred name!" exclaimed Barthélemy, his gaze following the white-clad
form.

"Rather striking, isn't he?"

"Striking!" He chuckled. "Name of God! What a resemblance!"

"To whom?"--curious.

"For a moment I thought I had seen a ghost. Just his profile...."
Another chuckle. "The man I know is quite a character, a handsome
rogue, with the most unusual hands----"

"I didn't see his hands. What was that around his waist?"

"A slendong; similar to a sarong but narrower." He glanced toward the
doorway through which the man had gone; smiled reminiscently. "No, it
could not have been he--not unless the devil has turned a grim trick."

* * * * *

Later that night Lhassa Camber, lying in darkness, half asleep,
remembered the man whose singular appearance had attracted her in the
café. She had once seen a cinema where a horseman rode toward the
camera and apparently over the screen; and as she drowsily recalled
the wearer of the slendong, he, like the rider in the cinema, seemed
to advance, almost ruthlessly, and stride over her, vanishing into a
fissure of memory.

CHAPTER III

THE BLUE SLENDONG

Six days later, at dawn, a vessel of the Straits Steamship Company
crossed the bar at the mouth of the Menam.

Lhassa Camber, having purposely risen early to see the temple at
Paknam, stood by the rail and gazed up-stream. A belated moon, visible
above the bow, was retiring into haze; and, near the bank, a sampan
glided toward a dome that swelled out of the mist, its pinnacle burning
against a cobalt sky. To her it was a scene immemorially old: the
moon, the spired temple, and the brown man in the canoe. It charged
her fancy with visions of the dead glory of Ayuthia and Angkor; of
the gods who ruled them amid incense and silk and sandalwood, and who
fell, leaving the husks of their empire to be buried in a living tomb
of jungle. She had read histories and legends of the ancient kingdoms
of the Golden Chersonese; of Payah Lak who brought the Emerald Buddha
from Laos; of the Khmers and the Thai; of the conquest of Kiampa, and
of Santhomea who bewitched the king of Angkor; and these events aroused
a thrilling consciousness of her relationship to them through some bond
of imagination. Now that she was nearing the actual locations she felt
suppressed excitement and dread, dread of disillusion.

Soon she was joined by Captain Barthélemy, who had been her constant
companion during the voyage from Singapore. But she was aware of his
presence and conversation only in a hazy manner. She did not emerge
from this detached sphere until, the river passage completed, a curve
ahead brought Bangkok into view.

Here the Menam widened as though to accommodate the many craft that
rocked gently on its yellow surface; the sampans, junks, and lighters,
the attap-thatched canoes, the river-boats and few freighters from
other ports. A swift tide ran beneath floating houses and wharves, past
warehouses and mills, and skirted a wilderness of many-colored tiled
roofs and golden obelisks. Ramshackle huts, built on poles, crowded
down to the numerous _klongs_ (canals viscid with stagnant water) that
contributed substantially to the Oriental atmosphere.... That was
Bangkok as it first appeared to her: a brilliant polychrome.

With a thunderous clamor anchor-chains rattled down. Below, in the
steerage, sweaty beings moved back and forth in a confusion of yellow
and brown faces, of glistening arms and legs. Shrill fragments in
tongues as old as Asia floated up to the woman and the officer by the
rail. Several launches were sputtering out from the nearest dock.

"When I look at all this," she told him, with a gesture, "I feel a
flicker of recognition--just as though the eye of a camera had clicked
shut and left a suggestion of familiarity." And she added, smiling,
"Don't be obvious and say 'reincarnation.'"

He returned her smile. "It is easily explained: this is like a hundred
other Asiatic ports--the same dirty river and the same palms and
gold-leaf to cover its vices."

Immediately they were put ashore Barthélemy summoned a motor-car.
Followed a ride through blazing sunlight and dust. The hotel was by the
river, a two-storied structure in a grove of acacia and almond trees,
facing rice-mills across the stream. The officer remained until Manuel,
a small, immobile Filipino, arrived with the baggage.

"Of course I shall see you again," he said, preparing to leave.
"To-morrow? I should like to show you the palace and the _wats_. May I
call for you in the morning?"

"Suppose I let you know after I've seen Dr. Garth?"

"I will call at ten unless I hear from you before then. I am staying
with my friend, Monsieur Achille Bergaigne, in Klong Pong Road. Au
revoir, mademoiselle."

A few minutes later she followed a "boy" through a court and up a
stairway to her apartment. The rooms--a bedroom, living-room, and
copper-screened veranda--faced the Menam, and the languorous odor
of almond-trees, tainted by a breath from the river, crept into the
interior dusk.

After lunch, served by Mongolian "boys" in a hall cooled by electric
fans, she inquired about Dr. Garth.

Oh, Dr. Garth! Thus the proprietor. The madame was a friend of the
doctor? An old resident, Dr. Garth; and a remarkable man. Had she seen
his collection of Buddhas? Oh, this was her first visit to Bangkok!
A wonderful collection. The doctor had a villa, quite a pretentious
place, on the outskirts of town....

She immediately despatched a note by Manuel and retired to her room to
wait for a reply.

The reply came within a remarkably short time, and, sitting in a deep
ratan chair, in her dragon kimono, she read it. A typewritten note.

He was delighted that the granddaughter of one of his dearest friends
was in Bangkok, but regretted he had not known she was coming. Why
had not she written? She must be his guest while in the city; he was
sending his "boys" for her luggage. And would she pardon his seeming
rudeness in not calling for her personally? He had not been very active
of late and rarely left the grounds. But his carriage would be at the
hotel at five-thirty. The signature was an almost illegible scrawl that
trailed down to the very corner of the note-paper.

She reflected that it was strange he had used a typewriter; reflected
also that it would be the obvious thing to pretend to refuse, knowing
from the very start that she intended ultimately to accept. She would
be ready at five-thirty--no, at six.

Dusk was hovering in the east when she descended and found Dr. Garth's
victoria waiting in charge of a turbaned Kling. She was driven across
the city, through a yellow and brown multitude that moved ankle-deep in
dust, and toward the shining obelisk of a _wat_. The approaching night
introduced a purple tone into the scene, an undernote that subdued the
bright panungs and sarongs worn by the natives. The vista of shops,
vehicles, and quaint figures stretching to the argent pinnacle of the
temple gratified a passionate hunger for color in her. The poignant
blues and purples, the dun shadows and contrasting flares of orange
light, formed a vivid brocade that matched a pattern within herself, a
blending of luxurious sensations brought into being by the visible hues.

She was of a nature so sensitive to color that primitive pigments, raw,
throbbing vermilion, brilliant peacock blue, or imperial mauve, swept
her into exalted regions. To her, places, even individuals, resolved
into distinct colors, were parts of a great spectrum; and she, like
a prism, caught their tone and either glowed or refused to refract.
But so well disciplined were her emotions that she appeared eternally
remote. Those who glanced at her now, so flawlessly white from suède
shoes to leghorn hat, saw only a half-indifferent, half-tolerant
expression: a woman as cold as she was palely beautiful.

Dr. Garth's house, or villa as the proprietor had called it, lay
beyond the congested quarters, near a canal smothered with lotus and
water-hyacinth. It was a rambling house, almost hidden by banians,
tamarinds, and betel-palms; and the approach, a road where white dust
arose under the horses' feet, ran between hedges of bamboo.

A ghostly form materialized on the veranda as the carriage came to a
halt. It was a house-boy who took her hand-bag and slunk soundlessly
into the hall ahead of her.

"The doctor is in his study," he announced suddenly, in liquid tones.
He was young, barely twenty she judged, with ivory yellow skin and eyes
that were slightly oblique. A Eurasian she decided. "Will you go to
your room first--Miss Camber?"

He pronounced her name as though he considered his knowing it an
accomplishment. His every movement was so noiseless, his manner so
secretive, that she expected to see him vanish before her eyes, like a
shade instead of a person of substance.

"I ... no, I think I'll speak to the doctor first."

She followed the "boy" into a large, dusky room. The shutters
were closed, but a skylight arrangement diffused a twilight upon
linen-covered furniture. This half-tone included in its somber glow an
oil painting, the portrait of a woman who looked down wistfully from
her frame, even sadly Lhassa thought, as if each shrouded chair was the
ghost of a dream.

Ratan portières parted with a harsh rattle, and the Eurasian stepped
aside for her to pass.

A tall, gaunt figure stood in the center of the adjoining room, near
a shaded lamp and under a lazily flapping punka. A great cuirass of a
beard, dazzlingly white, swept down from a face brown as teak-wood.
The hands that hung at his sides were heavily veined, almost gnarled,
and so still they might have been wrought of burnished metal. Blue
eyes were deeply inset in the wrinkled face; a lusterless, faded blue
that gave Lhassa the impression they were looking far beyond her, into
limitless distance. She had a queer desire to know what they saw.

At her advent he stirred: his hands became animated, and the enlarged
veins flexed, like the roots of some tree that had suddenly come to
life.

"I am sorry I was unable to call for you"--his voice rumbling from a
great girth of chest--"but, as I said in my note, I rarely leave the
grounds--Lhassa. I will call you that, for I'm much older than your
grandfather would have been."

"Of course you must," she assured him.

She held out her hand; his groped beyond it. With a start she
understood the lusterless eyes, and quickly caught his hand. His grip
was by no means feeble. Power seemed to burn in his dark frame, to flow
out in waves of heat and electrify the room. And what a room! For the
first time she absorbed its amazing detail.

The lamp cast a round mellow pool on the floor. Above it, dimming
the walls and ceiling, was an inverted bowl of gloom; a curious
effect produced by the shadow of the lamp-shade. Bordering this
circle of light were several cabinets, behind whose glass doors
were rows of miniature ships. In one case were models of schooners,
frigates, and brigantines, of yawls, sloops, and smacks--all manner of
sailing-vessels, large and small, perfectly made and fully rigged; in
another, an incongruous mixture of modern and ancient craft, destroyers
and battleships, caravels and galleons; in still another, queer
foreign-looking boats, tiny sampans and junks, and canoes peaked of bow
and stern. The room, sunk deep in shadow beyond the radius of the lamp,
was, to Lhassa, an undersea cavern, the man a god, a sightless dweller
in darkness, who sent forth toy fleets into the world of sunlight.

"You see my ships?" spoke the doctor, sensing her thoughts. "A hobby.
I used to be at sea a great deal. I owned a line that carried freight
up and down the coast. Now I have my little ships--and Domingo who
reads me 'Casuals of the Sea' and other novels that smell of brine."
He chuckled, softly for one with such a volume of voice. "Artificial
stimulation, eh? Ah, well, my ships and books are better for the
constitution than whisky and soda; and a man must have some form of
dissipation....

"Domingo"--again reading her thoughts--"is one of my treasures. He
is the boy who showed you in. I picked him up in Macao when he was a
little chap. His father was a Portuguese, and his mother--Chinese or
Malay. In either case, I'm sure he inherited his gentle nature from
her. He reads to me, attends to the garden; does almost everything. You
must see the garden. It's another of my many hobbies."

He moved with a steady step to one side of the room and opened a
door. She joined him, looking across a screened veranda into a
garden. Silence brooded within its white walls, heavy with a thousand
fragrances rising from the shrubs and flowers that blended into an
unsubstantial pattern in the gloom. A pool gleamed like a dark mirror.

"I had this made for my wife to dream in while I was away hunting
curios," the doctor told her. "Oh, I've had a dozen or more hobbies!
Bronzes, jewels, antiques. And Buddhas, yes, Buddhas; from India,
from Ceylon, from Burma, from Cambodia and Annam--bronze Buddhas,
silver Buddhas--Buddhas carved from ivory, from jade, and from other
semi-precious stones. I'll show you my collection to-morrow. But it
will seem insignificant after you've seen the Emerald Buddha--and
you will see it--you must. It's in the Wat Pra Keo. It isn't really
emerald, of course, but very clear _fei tsui_ jade. Beautiful
workmanship. Exquisite. It burns like green fire. At times my fingers
ache to feel it, to touch the little curves and the cool jade."

His speech was a revelation to her. Curios. Instinctively she knew the
fragile woman of the portrait was his wife. Perhaps there had been a
reason for her wistfulness. Lhassa sensed the blindness, not of the
eyes, that must have reared a wall between the doctor and his wife. She
had known men with hobbies----Suddenly the stillness of the garden was
possessed of a poignant quality; its beauty was the expression of an
exalted despair. She felt a deep pity for this old man, so alone but
for his memories and his toy fleets.

"It's so quiet, your garden," she said, breathing the perfumes that
floated in as from an unseen censer. "Yet I feel undercurrents, unrest,
the ghosts of old things stirring. Queer, isn't it? It's like the East,
gripping me, pulling me.... I'm half afraid of it, the East, but its
fascination is too strong to resist."

"Blood," murmured Dr. Garth. "It's in the blood. Your grandfather knew
Siam well; and his father before him. They were adventurers."

She heard his words without at first grasping their significance,
but when, after a moment, she awakened to their meaning, a hollow
sensation, faintly cold, spread over her. It was a feeling of
discovery, half of shock, half of doubt; and it flashed her back to
a time in her childhood when she came upon a dusty, iron-bound chest
hidden in the attic and put down the temptation to open it in fear of
releasing an evil genie. The hollow coldness increased, touching her
thoughts and giving them an ultra-clarity. She heard herself speaking
in a tone colorless as ice.

"My grandfather--yes--yes, he was----"

Stupid, vague words, but she could find no others.

"Once we made a trip into the jungle together," he mused. "By elephant
from Chieng-mai--or was it from ... I forget now. But it doesn't
matter. He went alone many times. Once he got as far as Tali-fu. On
that trip he found a Starvation Buddha for me.... But I mustn't keep
you here with these dull reminiscences when you probably want to go to
your room. We dine at seven."

He turned; gripped a bell-cord; jerked it. Instantly the ratan
portières rattled, and the Eurasian appeared like a ghost that had been
waiting to be summoned into actuality.

"Domingo," announced Dr. Garth, "this is Miss Camber. Show her to her
room, please."

The boy smiled faintly, a smile that seemed as unreal as himself.

Lhassa placed her hand on the doctor's arm. The hollow coldness was
thawing.

"It's good of you to have me here; and I love to hear you talk of your
collections and of your adventures--with grandfather. You must tell me
more later. You will, won't you?"

As she followed the ghostlike Domingo to her room she repeated,
mentally, what Dr. Garth had said. Her grandfather.... And he had not
told her. Why? Perhaps she was about to find the missing part of the
puzzle of his strange obsession. Her grandfather....

She closed the door and leaned with her back against the panels,
vaguely disturbed by the illusion that a cobweb was being shifted back
and forth in front of her, and through its filament she glimpsed an
amorphous shape. Outside, a lizard rasped. But she scarcely heard it.
She was trying to give form to the shadow behind the cobweb; she was
repeating that he had not told her....

With morning a blood-orange sun glared upon the city, upon the Menam
and its scummy tributaries, and upon Dr. Garth's "number one boy,"
Domingo, as he moved away from the villa on the edge of town.

Domingo, being a Eurasian, scorned tramways for the reason that they
were patronized almost wholly by natives; therefore, his errand
forbidding the use of one of the doctor's carriages, he walked; walked
and cursed the sun, the heat, and the dust--particularly the dust which
rose in a suffocating cloud, obscuring the lower part of his body and
giving him the semblance of a half-formed phantom.

When he reached Si Lom Road he commandeered a rickshaw. He always
derived a certain abnormal pleasure from a rickshaw. He liked to settle
himself luxuriously in the seat, and, with half-closed eyes, watch the
play of muscles on the coolie's naked back, the streams of sweat, and
realize that countless atoms of energy were being burned for him.

His errand, the thought of which sent a frosty shudder through him,
carried him into a street where ideographed signs and great Chinese
lanterns proclaimed the type of business generally transacted. He
descended in the midst of an odorous swarm; stepped over a drain;
entered a pawnshop.

He squinted in the semi-dark, very like the blue-eyed Siamese cat
that awakened at his entrance and uncurled itself in a dim corner.
A Chinaman, drowsing cross-legged on the counter, grunted. Domingo
returned the greeting loftily and passed into an inner room. There a
woman, her mouth scarlet with betel-stain, grinned and jerked her head
toward a door opening into a court.

In this small space, seated in the protecting shade of the wall, was
what appeared to be a polished effigy but what was in reality a nearly
naked man with a shaven skull. Narrow eyes shifted from a palm-leaf
book (a holy book in Pali script) to the Eurasian. The latter returned
the look with visible disgust and fervently thanked God and the Holy
Mother that at least a part of his blood was white. The other's
hairless, greasy skin, his bare skull, seemed obscene.

The creature on the ground inclined his head forward slightly.

"May the Source of Light illuminate thy thoughts," he murmured.

"Keep your blessings," retorted the half-caste.

A smile flickered in the hairless one's eyes. When he spoke again it
was in the modern vernacular.

"You have come to close the bargain?"

"I've come to pay half of the price agreed upon," answered Domingo,
looking about uneasily.

"And the other half?"

"Afterward, when ... you know when."

"Tam chaï," shrugged he of the shaven skull.

Domingo drew from his pocket a bag whose contents clinked, and dropped
it in the man's lap. He was eager to get away, for the bare, oily flesh
made him vaguely sick.

"I'll be back to-night," he said, moving toward the doorway.

The shaven head nodded. "Tgion," he pronounced. "When you die may your
soul be fit to enter Nirvana!"

Domingo, smiling contemptuously, hurried inside. The occupant of the
court did not so much as glance after him, but, muttering, emptied the
bag. Quickly he counted the money. This done, he rose and entered the
house. From a corner he procured a saffron robe, the holy garment of a
bonze or priest, and wrapped it about himself; then, with a betel-nut
box, a begging-bowl and the palm-leaf book, he passed through the shop
into the roadway.

Westward he walked, toward the Wat Pra Keo, pausing at many houses
to collect alms, a performance which Buddhist monks consider a daily
duty. It was, therefore, nearly noon when he reached the temple he had
set out to visit. Spires and _prachedees_ (cone-shaped topes overlaid
with gold) shot up from behind a crenellated wall, tapering above
a dazzling display of stone buildings, upcurling tiled roofs and
octagonal towers. The priest, entering by one of the many gates, made
his way to a wat with fanged gables and a yellow, indigo-bordered roof.
Outside, in the court, he cleansed his hands and mouth, then passed
into the cool interior.

A floor of bronze plates reflected the intruding sunlight and flashed
quivering shadows upon pearl-inlaid pillars and a gold-fretted ceiling.
The temple was deserted but for three monks near the shrine.

The bonze knelt in front of the chancel, facing a splendor as fabulous
as Ophir's hoard. The altar, a pyramidal affair, was covered from base
to apex with gods, jeweled boxes, chalices, lacquered scrolls, and
miniature five-storied _parapluies_. At the top, in an arched shrine,
and flanked by two helmeted deities, sat a small idol: the Emerald
Buddha. On either side of the altar gaped a passageway, leading, the
bonze knew, to the treasure-house of the royal pagoda.

He fixed his eyes upon the green image and placed his hands together in
front of him.

"Namu-amie-dabunt!" he intoned, swaying back and forth; while a warm,
heavy perfume rose from the jasmine and azalea in the chancel, and,
outside, the tiny bells on the eaves tinkled an accompaniment.

As he prayed he stared, apparently transfixed, at the emerald god. How
it drew the sunlight and glowed, green as a swamp pool! he thought; the
diamonds about its neck glittered like cobras' eyes.

His supplications finished, he seated himself not far from the altar,
and there he remained, manifestly lost in meditation, for the rest
of the day. However, very little escaped his observation. He watched
from beneath half-lowered lids the many who came and went; the
saffron-swathed attendants, the worshipers, and the sprinkling of
curious foreigners, among these an officer in a bright uniform and a
woman whose hair smoldered beneath a green-lined topee; watched the
sunlight disintegrate to blue powder; watched the Emerald Buddha absorb
the dusk and gleam colorlessly in its shrine. He was alone but for one
other monk....

When he finally departed, night had shut down, nailed to the earth with
countless stars. In the courtyard he encountered a monk.

"Tgion!" he murmured, and, holding tight an object beneath his robe,
hurried to the gate.

Behind, the little bells on the fanged gables shivered in the wind and
tinkled a soft requiem.

A young moon rode over Bangkok's jungle of spires and roofs, seen from
the floating bazaars and theaters on the river; from the street where
Domingo slunk beneath scarlet Chinese lanterns; from the villa beyond
the walls where Dr. Garth paced his study; and from the club where
Lhassa Camber was dining.

Barthélemy, accompanied by his friends, Monsieur and Madame Bergaigne,
had called for her that afternoon, and with them she had explored
several _wats_ and visited the palace and the Premane. She drank
deeply of the gorgeousness, and, while it charged her with a certain
exhilaration, the draft had a pungent sediment. She could not keep from
her mind long the picture of the old doctor and his dream fleets. He
had a hidden, and, she felt, tragic significance. She tried to explain
it to herself by the fact that he belonged to the past, the obscure
past, in which her grandfather had moved so mysteriously and out of
which he loomed suddenly as a direct influence upon her own life.

One night at sea, surrounded by the black calm of the Pacific, she
had watched a meteor arch across the firmament and felt a similitude
between it and herself. Out of darkness it flashed, a smoldering
cinder, bent on a course designed by the forces that created it....
Her earliest impressions of her parents were of two immutable beings
of oil and canvas who watched her from the library wall. As she
grew, they resolved into more definite personalities, one a fair,
impatient-mouthed man, and the other a creature of tawny pallor and
blue-black hair. The latter, wrapped in a peacock shawl, her ivory
eyelids drooping over dark eyes, possessed a startling barbarity. She
seemed always on the verge of disclosing some secret that lay behind
her enigmatic smile.

Lhassa attributed her own nature, the exotic emotions that flamed
beneath frigid restraint, to the woman of the picture. As a girl she
was aware of mysterious potentialities that drew others, particularly
men, without her conscious consent, indeed, with the effect of
repelling her. She was content, then, to regard this with awe, not
trying to analyze, but when she became a woman, her more mature mind
sought to explain it. But she found herself facing a riddle, the answer
to which seemed locked in the smile of the oil-painting. From it she
turned, intuitively, to the East.

The previous night she had drawn fragments from Dr. Garth, only
fragments. Pieced together they made an unfinished picture: Asia, the
mystery of temple-ruin and jungle, and, imposed upon this background,
a figure strangely fogged, her grandfather.... This new sphere of
discoveries absorbed her so completely that she resented the intrusion
of Barthélemy and his companions; throughout the day she had a
preoccupied air. After dinner, when they took a sampan to see the
canals, the officer made known the fact that he noticed her detachment.

"Remote, always remote," he said, half seriously. "I sometimes believe
you are a symbol instead of a woman."

She smiled. Her face was close to his, pale as a silver petal in the
darkness. Monsieur Bergaigne and his wife were seated forward.

"A symbol?" she echoed. "Of what?"

"Art, perhaps, for you have the power to inspire without yourself being
stirred. And yet--yet you are too cold to be Art."

"Symbols," she repeated, her thoughts dominated by an image that had
persisted since the visit to the royal _wat_. "Green fire, Dr. Garth
called it...."

"The Emerald Buddha?"

"Yes. What does it symbolize? Obviously, the omniscience of the East.
But that was not what it conveyed to me. No, something else, something
more elusive. It meant ... Romance; yes, just that. Romance; the
Emerald Buddha. Both came out of mist; both are gods. The Emerald
Buddha. Glamour. The very uncertainty of its origin is romantic. I've
read that it's supposed to have been unearthed in Kiang-si, in--I
forget when. But where was it before that? A Laos legend says it
appeared out of a convulsion of earth during one of Buddha's visits.
There are other stories, too, all equally fantastic. Green fire. It
fascinates me. I wonder that some one doesn't steal it."

Barthélemy was smoking, and the pulsing glow of his cigarette showed
her a smile.

"Perhaps some one will--the Black Parrot, for instance."

"Black Parrot?"

He laughed. "Yes. The rogue who visits collections of jewels or old art
treasures and causes them to disappear."

"I hadn't heard of him."

"No! Really? But I forgot that you only recently came out. Speaking of
romance, hah! he is the quintessence of romance! There is a story going
about that he is a notorious thief who steals these valuables and
sells them to unscrupulous collectors. It is said he escaped from the
Guyane and----"

"But why is he called the Black Parrot?"

"Achille," called Barthélemy. "Miss Camber wishes to know how the Black
Parrot got his name. Tell her; you are a better raconteur than I."

Monsieur Bergaigne turned, his face glimmering in the darkness.

"Remy has the temperament of an artist; he likes to embellish,
mademoiselle," he informed her jocularly. "So for facts I am more
dependable. A murderer was sent to Guiana. He was half--how do you say
it in your country, nigger, eh? Well, he was a beak-nosed mongrel,
and...."

He recounted the story of Le Perroquet Noir.

"After all," he finished, his hands flashing in a Gallic gesture, "the
affair is not so mysterious. The garroter who escaped, this Letourneau,
has formed a band, and he and his rogues are moving from place to
place, working systematically. For some one higher up, perhaps? I
wonder. Now when there is a rather clever robbery the police say, 'Le
Perroquet Noir!' Of course the secret service"--a shrug--"well, the
Colonial Government--I speak of Indo-China now--does not offer salaries
large enough to induce intelligent men into the service. So what can
one expect? During the present administration there has been one----"

"Be discreet, Achille," interposed his wife.

"Discreet? Name of a blue pipe! What am I saying? Only that during
the present administration there has been one competent intelligence
officer, and his compensation was so small that to keep his social
position he was forced to steal! With affairs in such a state, it is
not strange that the Black Parrot and his flock of _déportés_ fly up
and down the coast unmolested. Why, in Pnom-penh...."

His voice was drowned as the sampan shot into the noise and confusion
of the area occupied by Bangkok's floating population. Colored lanterns
hung from gently rocking eaves like tremulous moons of some weird
solar system, multiplying their number on the black water. In the
mingled glare and gloom were shops, fruit and toddy boats, restaurants,
gambling-houses and floating theaters. On platforms in front of the
theaters were musicians and men who waved torches; within, seen in
smoky light, were dancers, rice-powdered and red-mouthed. These quaint
little creatures, dressed in gold-cloth and gaudy silks and wearing
tapering gilded head-dresses, looked like figures transposed from old
Cambodian prints.

"This is the real Siam," remarked Barthélemy, his voice raised above
the clamor, "not the Siam of guidebooks. Those _prachedee_-shaped
helmets that you see in there"--waving toward one of the theaters--"are
patterned after the head-dresses of the Tevadas and Apsaras--the sacred
dancers of the Khmers--carved on the temples at Angkor Thom."

"Angkor," she mused. "I have a mental picture of it, great causeways
and towers spectral-blue in the moonlight; not in the rain, as Pierre
Loti described it. I want to see it at night; in the daylight it must
be appalling, simply dead stones. If I could arrive at dusk and leave
before dawn----"

"That is not impossible," he interrupted. "I might ... yes, I could
write Major Brouchard, the resident at Siem-Reap, and find out when
his wife is to be in Saigon--she spends half of her time there--and it
could be arranged for you to return with her."

"It sounds alluring--and who can tell but I may accept your offer? How
long is the voyage to Saigon?"

"Saigon? My steamer leaves late to-night, or I should say, early in
the morning, and we reach Saigon Friday. Saigon is a little Paris; you
would like it. An interesting excursion from there is the trip up the
Mekong to Pnom-penh where the king of Cambodia lives. In his palace is
the ballet Groslier speaks of in his 'Danseuses Cambodgiennes'; you
have read it?..."

He talked on while she leaned back in the stern and watched the
trembling paths of light cast by the lanterns. The floating houses were
not so numerous now; the Chinese theaters lay behind, blazing against
an indigo screen. Ahead, a small boat had moored at a landing-stage,
and she noticed a man in white climbing out, visible in the light
from a near-by house-boat. He seemed curiously grotesque, almost a
hunchback. She caught only a glimpse of him, of his bearded face and
the sash at his waist, as he was absorbed by the darkness.

"Look!" she exclaimed, then added: "You're too late; he's gone. Do you
remember the man we saw at the hotel in Singapore, the one who wore
a--is slendong the word?... I just saw him, there on that dock. He
looked misshapen--yet I don't recall having noticed that in Singapore,
in fact I'm sure he----"

"No doubt it was an illusion," Barthélemy suggested.

"Perhaps"--unconvinced.

"He rather startled me at Singapore," he reflected. "Queer, his
resemblance to a man who was sent to the penal colony. Achille"--to
Monsieur Bergaigne--"you knew Lestron, did you not?"

"No. But I was in Hanoi when he was tried. _Mon Dieu!_ He was a clever
one!"

"Strangest hands, this Lestron," said Barthélemy to Lhassa. "Long and
slender ... I spoke of them before, you remember?"

She remembered; remembered also that the man who strode out of the café
in Singapore was straight. And the man she had glimpsed on the dock was
a hunchback. They were the same, beard, slendong, and all. She could
not believe there were two so alike, even in manner of dress. For a
moment she was possessed of the illusion that the figure she had seen
on the landing was not real, but a reflection upon a flawed mirror.

It was late when Lhassa returned to Dr. Garth's villa, and the young
moon had dropped low in the sky; a pale finger-nail pressed into the
darkness.

Barthélemy stood on the steps beside her, talking in his half-ironic
manner. In the gloom his features had a vital quality that she had
not felt before; he was--yes, rather likable. The night, with its
massed shadows, exhaled a heavy languor, and she allowed him to hold
her hand longer than was necessary. He was telling her that he would
expect to see her in Saigon soon, that he would write to his friend at
Siem-Reap.... Suddenly she realized that he had pressed his lips to
hers, almost brutally; that a sharp pain had gone through her throat;
and that she had neither responded nor drawn away. An icy calm settled
upon her. She answered his questioning gaze with silence.

"Queen of the polar night!" he mocked, and quoted:

"Who slays and passes, looking not again;
Who, all too lovely to be loved, still goes
Guarding with steadfast eyes her breast of snows....

"I shall remember you as that," he added. And was gone; and she stood
motionless, staring after him and listening to the dwindling crunch of
carriage-wheels.

Her heart was pounding; pounding, she thought, against ice. Had he
kissed her or did she imagine it? Undoubtedly he had. For several
minutes she remained there, trying to grasp that incredible fact. Her
mind seemed frozen. When she finally stirred it was not to enter the
house--for she felt she could not endure its cool darkness--but to
move to the garden where the atmosphere was supercharged with a heated
fragrance.

Its hush was as poignant as on the previous night, but it had not the
same power to inspire a lofty despair. Instead, it made her acutely
sensitive. There was a light in the study and its rays wove a pale
luminance in the copper screen....

She paused by the pool, looking down at the mirrored stars; her own
reflection fell white across the water. As she gazed, a sudden breeze
rippled the pool and her image shattered like a statue under a mallet.
The significance of the illusion depressed her. Cold? At times she
was consumed with sultry emotions. Her reserve was more mental than
physical, her coldness in manner rather than nature. Yet why had
Barthélemy's kiss brought only a chilly calm? She knew the answer
instantly: she did not love him and she could not simulate feeling.
Queen of the polar night. Perhaps it was true. Stars were at her feet,
in the pool, stars were overhead, and she seemed lifted from earth, an
exalted being charioting through aqueous blue. All that was cognitive
within her melted into the sheer sensation.

When she was again aware of the garden it seemed foreign, its
fragrance suffocating. As she started toward the gate, a vaporous
breath, heavy with the scent of moist soil, brushed past her face.
The sudden _whir-r-r_ of an insect came as the throbbing of wings.
She was startled by the feeling that a robed figure had passed her.
The presence she sensed was not tangible, but seemed, rather, the
personality of some individual closely related to the garden, a mental
influence that had become incorporated in the atmosphere and now fused
it with a troublous current. A responsive charge electrified her. Its
force swung her about, and again a breath fanned her. She felt a sudden
terrifying nearness to Death.

"Dr. Garth!" she exclaimed involuntarily.

As the words left her tongue she was ashamed of them. A limp reaction
flowed through her. She hurried toward the front of the house. The
sound of her steps aroused her to the fact that she was running,
fleeing from a thing intangible. She halted. This was absurd. Dr.
Garth, if he were awake and in his study, had no doubt heard her call
him. She must go back and explain.

At the door of the study she paused. Many little ships floated on the
shadows within; the ticking of a clock needled the stillness. She
tapped. After waiting a moment she decided he was asleep, and tiptoed
across the veranda. She opened the door; closed it. A vague but
increasing uneasiness forced her to retrace her steps. This time she
did not knock, but entered.

A lamp burned on the table, its shade flinging a domed shadow against
the ceiling and sinking the cabinets in dusk.

The room was unoccupied.

She was at the point of turning away when her lowered gaze encountered
an object below the table, an object at once disturbing.

It was a model of a schooner, its tiny masts splintered.... Without
knowing why or pausing to analyze, she likened it to a broken dream....

"Dr. Garth!"

The pulse in her throat beat an accompaniment to the clock. Clock. The
thought, though trivial, wedged into prominence. Where was the clock?
Not in the study; perhaps beyond the ratan portières.

Again she called. The silence closed in, oppressive. Was he ill? Was
he----

But the clock: where was it? It irritated her.

She moved to the portières, sweeping them aside. The living-room was
deserted--except for the wistful lady of the portrait. But to Lhassa
there was no wistfulness in her face now; instead, a reflection of her
own alarm.

She turned and the portières swung together with a crackle of dry
fibers. A third time she called. The invisible clock ticked on.
That clock! Her eyes searched the study; searched and found a long
tapestry hanging between two cabinets. With a quick, indrawn breath she
approached it; lifted it.

The room beyond was dark, but a reflection from the study stole in and
hinted at many gleaming shapes--and a white blot on the floor.

_Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick_: somewhere in the room.

She stood in the doorway, clinging to the tapestry and staring down
at the shirt-front. It seemed to glare out and strike her.... Remy
Barthélemy had kissed her. A kiss. How absurd....

When the numbness passed, she stepped over the threshold, and the
tapestry dropped into place, banishing the light. Terror of the dark
closed her throat. In a panic she whirled, gripped the coarse fabric,
and jerked it from its fastenings. Another moment and she was on her
knees.

"Dr. Garth! Doctor!"

Futile to call. Futile to shake him. Futile to lift one of his cold
hands and try to warm it between her own.

Her vision now accustomed to the inadequate light, she perceived a dark
thing about the doctor's neck; a thing that coiled out from beneath his
beard and flattened, fantastically, into a viper's head. At sight of
the rolled cloth horror smote her. Strangled. This helpless dweller in
darkness! That meant----The horror dwindled to a fine point, pressed
into her breast, and hurt her with a sharpness that was physical. She
had a sudden, inexplicable desire to laugh. He had opened the door to
secrets long hidden--and now the door was sealed! Irony! Why, that
afternoon she had left him sitting in the study, alive, and now----The
realization brought a moment of exquisite suffering. Was this, then,
the end of his dreaming--the end of all dreaming? Or had he merely
walked out of the dark house? She felt frightened; felt that life was
transient and Death immortal.

She raised her eyes. Gleaming shapes: many idols on tables and in glass
cabinets. The pale dial of a clock stared out of a corner. Its hands
moved on oblivious of tragedy. Time. Time had ceased for the husk
beside her. Time mocked it. Time was cruel----Control herself. But what
was she to do? Call some one. One of the house-boys. Domingo.

She rose; entered the study. A bell-cord. How ridiculously antique! As
she jerked it she imagined she heard a faint jangle in the rear. Dead,
she repeated to herself.

She listened for the sound of footsteps; heard only the sighing of
leaves in the garden. Suppose, came the sudden suspicion, the one who
used that dark cloth still prowled about! Improbable. Nevertheless, she
jerked the bell-cord again. Silence.

An exclamation broke from her. Why didn't some one come?

After a few seconds she approached the portières; parted them
tentatively; dropped them. There was a suggestion of frenzy in her
movements. As she reached for the bell-cord she heard a step in the
living-room.

"Who is it?" she challenged.

One of the Chinese "boys" appeared between the curtains. She felt
suddenly weak and groped for a chair.

Had the "mem" called? As he entered the compound--he was returning from
the city--he thought he heard the bell.

Yes, she had rung twice. Where was Domingo?

He had not come in.

And the other "boys," were they out, too?

Yes; the doctor had given them the evening off.

She thought a moment, wondering vaguely what to do. A picture of the
dark cloth rose before her. She felt suddenly choked and raised one
hand to her throat.

"Call the police," she heard herself saying in a calm voice. "Something
dreadful has happened, something terrible! The doctor----Don't stand
there and stare! Call the police!"

Left alone, she experienced a return of fright. She felt stifled, and
moved toward the veranda. In the doorway she halted, clutching the
frame. She was determined not to faint. She would not; that would be
weak. And she despised weakness. Her grip tightened.

Gradually the dizziness cleared. But the feeling that a cord was about
her throat remained, became more acute. It may have been a minute
or longer before the "boy" returned; to her it seemed a deathless
interval. At the sound of his entrance she turned, her hands at throat.
The cord was being tightened.

"Take that--that thing from his neck!" she whispered with a gesture
toward the dark room. "I don't care what they say--only do it quickly!"

A moment later she was breathing regularly, and she sank into a chair,
no longer afraid, only tired, desperately tired.

In one of the many house-boats on the river a shaven-skulled native sat
under a lantern and watched the smoke uncoil from his pipe.

He was naked but for a panung, and his bare flesh had an oily gleam. On
a folded yellow robe at his side was a palm-leaf book and begging-bowl.

Across the room, lying on rushes, were two forms: a Chinaman and a
woman whose mouth was scarlet with betel-stain. Both were asleep; their
breathing mingled with the sucking sounds beneath the floor.

Distant flares were visible through the doorway: torches that wavered
between river-gloom and stars. Reek from the swamps drifted in and
blended with the stale odors of food and human beings.

He of the shaven head (the same who had that morning journeyed to the
Wat Pra Keo) was experiencing the rich afterglow of too much arrack,
and his thoughts dwelt, not upon M[=u]-s[=o]-kwa, the Asamguika heaven,
but upon his luck at _chaï-mooie_ earlier in the evening. Diacoco, the
god of money, indeed had smiled upon him: he had almost doubled the
ticals that foolish half-caste had paid him.

At that juncture a recollection not so pleasant slipped into the midst
of his retrospection and made him shudder. He felt as though a cold
thing, a spider or a lizard, had crawled down his spine. In fancy he
saw an image green as a swamp pool; saw diamonds that glittered like
cobras' eyes. If only----Ah, well, there were always dregs in the cup,
seeds in the mango. One could not drink the wine and eat the fruit
without some unpleasantness. And he was paid his price. After all----

"Mypenary?" he muttered; that is to say, in Siamese slang, "What does
it matter?" In an hour or so mooring-ropes would be cast and they would
slip up-stream to Ayuthia and out of danger.... So he sat there and
smoked and listened to the nocturne of the great river.

Presently another cold tremor slid down his spine. This time it was
generated, not by a thought, but by a sound--a scraping against the
front deck of the house-boat. One hand crept under his panung. That was
his only movement.

A white form materialized in the doorway and entered noiselessly. He
recognized the Eurasian, Domingo--but his hand did not emerge from
under his waist-cloth.

"I am going with you," announced the half-caste, slinking into the
corner where the hairless one sat.

His skin, moist with sweat, was colorless and resembled soft tallow.
There was a sickly glisten in his eyes. However, he affected a
careless, superior manner.

"I am going with you," he repeated "You've got to take me. Do you
understand?"

The Chinaman and the scarlet-mouthed woman had awakened. The former,
lifting himself on one arm, made a sibilant sound, receiving in return
a snarl from the shaven native.

"Listen," enjoined Domingo, dropping beside him with visible
repugnance, "are you sure you weren't followed to-night?"

The hairless Siamese nodded.

Domingo shuddered. He glanced over his shoulder, then crawled to the
door and looked out. Returning, he continued:

"He's dead and...." His throat contracted; he was trembling violently.
"I had gone to my room," he whispered; "I heard a fall.... He was lying
in the study.... I knew what the police would say...." He sobbed;
wiped his eyes. "God damn them!" he burst out. Then the bravado died.
"They're driving me away from a home! They'd trap us with their
questions! So you've got to take me with you; you've got to!"

He drew out a wallet, removing several coins. The bald one's slitty
eyes became even narrower; the Chinaman raised himself again.

"I'll pay"; thus the Eurasian. He tossed the money upon the floor, and
it was snatched up by brown hands. "Can't we leave now? Or soon?"

He of the shaven head spoke for the first time.

"The tide is changing."

Domingo was still trembling. Suddenly he rose and extinguished the
lantern. The Siamese heard him sink down beside him and the glow of his
pipe stained white linens.

"You stink," the Eurasian complained. Then a sob, a crackle of dry
rushes as he crept away. "Holy Virgin!" he whimpered. "It was wrapped
around his neck...."

The shaven-skulled native continued to draw on his pipe, his gaze upon
the pale blot of the half-caste's body. He could not shake from his
thoughts the memory of Domingo's wallet....

Suddenly it came to him that his hand was still beneath his panung,
closed about the hilt of a knife. Instead of withdrawing it, he
tightened his grip; smoked on, speculatively.

"Isn't it time they were here?" asked Lhassa. "With whom did you talk?"

The sound of her voice reclaimed her from the stupor into which she had
drifted.

The Chinese "boy," back to the portières, grinned in a frightened
manner.

"I spik to commissh'ner of p'lice. He fliend docta. You savee? He ver'
excite' and busy. But he come allasame soon."

Her glance strayed to a dark-blue coiled mass on one of the cabinets,
a loop of cloth whose fringed ends hung motionless against the glass
door. She looked away quickly. The "boy's" words returned, as though on
a back-wash.

"Yes, he must be a busy man." How inane! But she wanted to talk--talk.

"Haï-ya!" the Chino breathed, with his frightened grin. "He wanchee
catch thief."

Again her eyes swerved to the silken coil; again his words returned on
a back-wash. She echoed----

"Thief?"--scarcely knowing what she said, caring less. Anything to
fight the silence!

"Yes-ss. Thief steal gleen god. King ver' excite'. I hear soldja tell
my fatha to-night. He say gods angly. But I b'long Clistian boy. Gods
no get angly; only Jesa Clist get angly."

Lhassa heard him without understanding--until a sentence whipped back
and lashed away her stupefaction.

"You don't mean--the Emerald Buddha?"

The "boy" nodded. "Yes-ss, mem. Gleen god in king's temple."

"Where did you hear that?"

"My fatha live there"--a gesture cityward--"and to-night I hear soldja
tell him. He say somebody steal gleen god and kill pliest."

"To-night?"--incredulously. She stole another glance at the dark cloth;
it exerted a terrible fascination.

"Yes-ss, mem."

The Emerald Buddha--stolen. Green fire. She felt that she should be
shocked by this news. But she wasn't. A piece of jade! And the king and
the commissioner of police were excited; excited about a god--when in
the next room lay a dead man!

She suppressed a shudder; said:

"Go and see if the other boys have come."

As he went out her gaze was drawn back to the cloth on the cabinet. She
stared, unresisting, conscious of a prickly coldness in her body; and
suddenly the blue loop seemed to take life and slither to the floor.
She almost screamed, then stifled a hysterical laugh. It had merely
slipped to the carpet.

When the "boy" returned she indicated the cloth, commanding:

"Pick it up."

He obeyed, folding it with a deliberation that sent little shivers over
her. She observed that it measured twice the length of his body, was
evidently some sort of drapery. A question forced itself past her lips.

"What is it?" she asked.

The "boy" held the cloth under the lamp, and its silken texture seemed
to crawl.

"Java woman wear, like this," he said, illustrating with a gesture, "to
carry baby. Some time Malay woman wear, too."

Simultaneous with the explanation there flickered across her brain an
image of a man in white.... Slendong!... A nausea born of excitement
rose in her. It seemed to touch her brain and bathe it in crystal
clarity. Her thoughts settled, like bits of colored glass, into a
brilliant pattern; a pattern that spread beyond her mind, that carried
her with it, the center of shifting lights and shadows. As one passing
through a strange palingenesis, she became a permanent part of the
design. She did not move--not even when she heard a ring at the front
of the house and the "boy" disappeared to answer it--but sat there,
still as a bronze valkyr, her hair gleaming like a copper helmet.

CHAPTER IV

S. S. _CAMBODIA_

A glance at the luminous dial of his wrist-watch showed Captain
Barthélemy that it was after two o'clock when the French packet
_Cambodia_ dropped down-stream toward the gulf.

He stood alone by the taffrail smoking; smoking, not because he
derived enjoyment from it, but because the tobacco fumes banished
from his nostrils the smells of copra and crude oil that drifted up
from the hold. When he had come aboard, an hour or so earlier, he had
gone directly to his cabin, but the cramped space, with its one port
and curtained bunk, proved unendurable. So, clad in singlet and silk
sarong, he had sought the deck, only to find slight relief. Heat rose
in waves from the planks, and the wheeze of the engine, audible above
the muffled clamor from stoke-hole ventilators and hatchways, was like
the panting of an exhausted creature.

"The devil!" he muttered, his scalp burning; then, more emphatically,
"Thousand devils!"

A hot vacuum, it seemed, sucked up his breath. Gasping, he flung his
unfinished cheroot into the frothy network over the propeller and
turned away.

The deck-passengers were so numerous that he had to step over them.
They sprawled or sat in every available space, and deck-lamps cast
their light upon bare legs and arms, upon the contours of breasts and
shoulders, and dark faces. He climbed to the bridge. There a sultry
wind was fanned from forward. The binnacle-light revealed a brown
figure at the wheel, and, behind the helmsman, two whites, presumably
captain and pilot.

Barthélemy moved to a point midway of the bridge-deck where the funnel
reared above the wireless-house and shrouded life-boats were swung on
either side. A folding chair lay by the rail, and he opened it and sank
into it.

Below, a bar of light was stamped on the deck, extending from an
alleyway. Beyond it were the huddled forms of deck-passengers. The
intense heat seemed to shut his brain in a cylinder and shrivel it. He
felt a smoldering animosity toward the world at large, particularly
toward those creatures below who made the very air crawl. He
contemplated them resentfully. Coolies, products of a low order of
life. Each had, like himself, a heart, a brain, and other human organs.
But there the similarity ended. Animals, he summed them up, being
shipped to obscure ports along the gulf; towns consisting of a few huts
on poles, a rotten wharf, and a warehouse, facing the inevitable lonely
sea-line.... The picture gave him a shudder, and he lay back in the
chair, surrendering to a pleasant drowsiness.

Overhead, smoke traced a hieroglyph on the sky; the stars were like
pin-pricks in a great black lantern. He thought of Lhassa Camber, but
she seemed to melt. His brain was too hot to hold her image.... In a
detached manner he heard some one talking, some one who droned and
droned maddeningly.

He closed his eyes. The monotonous voice went on. Cow, he thought;
how could one talk so much in this heat? If he, Remy Barthélemy, ever
reached Paris again ... winter in the Alps ... A frosty flash crossed
his vision: was it the Jungfrau or Lhassa Camber? A great stillness
poured over him.

He dreamed; dreamed of a macaw, a bird of magnificent plumage. It was
beating its wings and balancing itself in a large brass ring. He heard
it shrieking; saw the chain on its leg. How it screamed----

Then he awakened, startled, lost in a great volume of sound. It
required a moment to adjust himself and realize that the prolonged
blast came from the boat's whistle. By that time it had ceased. In the
sudden quiet, he heard voices; heard them distinctly.

"Well?" in flawless French.

"Five, _korab_," in French not so flawless.

Where were they? he wondered. Threads of sleep still tangled his
thoughts, but after a few seconds he understood: two men were talking
on the deck below, one obviously a native. _Korab_, he knew, was a term
of deference used by Siamese of low caste.

"Including myself?"

"Yes, _korab_. One is an officer; I saw his uniform."

"They all go to Saigon?"

"All but one, _korab_, who leaves the boat at Chantabon."

Barthélemy became curious. He sat up and looked over the rail. In the
bar of light were two shadows, one queerly distorted. Evidently the men
stood just within the alleyway.

"An officer, eh?"

"Yes, _korab_."

A long silence: throb of engine, swish of tide. Then: "That is enough."

The shadows dwindled, were wiped out of the bar of light.

Barthélemy, vaguely puzzled, resumed his reclining position. Queer.
Why was he of the flawless French so inquisitive? Five. Evidently he
referred to the number of cabin-passengers. Perhaps he was one of the
ship's officers. But, he reflected, that could not be, for something
the man had said--he could not remember the exact words--identified him
as a passenger. If----But conjectures were too strenuous. Furthermore,
he asked himself drowsily, what did it matter? Nothing mattered. He was
in purgatory; he was quite positive that he was in purgatory. Viscid,
steaming pitch was about him, sulphurous vapors; he pictured cloven
hoofs stamping over his eyes....

The next he remembered was early in the morning, before first dawn,
when he was aroused by the lascars who had come up to flush the bridge.

A blue sea, glazed and brilliant, surrounded the _Cambodia_, losing
itself imperceptibly in a flaming blue sky. The utter calm was broken
only by a vanishing ripple that marked the packet's passage through the
blue immensity.

At breakfast Barthélemy met his fellow-voyagers: a missionary bound for
Chantabon and two foresters from Tongking. A vacant place across the
table accounted for one more. He remembered vividly the conversation
he had overheard, and remarked upon the absence of the fifth man. The
captain smiled.

"His boy took his breakfast to his cabin," was his dry comment.

After the meal the Frenchman circled the deck. This brief exertion left
him drenched and gasping, and he retreated to the main cabin to remain
for the rest of the day.

Nightfall lifted the torrid curse. Barthélemy, established comfortably
on deck, heard the dinner-gong without immediately obeying its summons.
When he finally went below he almost collided with a hunched figure
in the companionway. The latter murmured an apology and hurried past,
leaving a glimpse of a familiar bearded face printed upon the officer's
brain.

"Sacred name!" he exclaimed. "He follows like Fate!"

So he was the fifth passenger! And, _mon Dieu_! Lhassa Camber was
not mistaken! He was a hunchback. Strange that he had not noticed
that in Singapore. He took a tentative step; paused. Could it be
that----Impossible. But those hands! And he might have grown a beard.
Ah, but would _he_ return? Not he! He was not such a fool. No. It was
merely a resemblance; his distorted back testified to that.

He resumed his way to the captain's mess.

After dinner, again on deck, the bearded face haunted, smiled, from
the darkness. He walked from bow to taffrail, hoping to catch another
glimpse of the hunchback. Failing, he leaned on the rail and smoked and
wondered--until a voice brought him out of his absorption.

"_Juste ciel!_ You must have two bodies! One minute you are in your
cabin, then on deck!"

He turned; saw the wireless operator passing.

"Yes?"--puzzled.

The other laughed. "How do you move so quickly in this heat!"

With that he climbed the ladder and vanished between the funnel and a
life-boat.

Barthélemy opened his mouth to call; shut it. The devil! Now what did
he mean? He would go up and find out.

Half-way up the ladder he halted, struck by a sudden realization, a
realization that fell like a whip. Idiot! Imbecile! Why hadn't he
understood immediately? In his cabin!

He hurried below, pausing at his door. The keyhole was dark. Without
hesitancy he thrust in the key. Unlocked! He turned the knob and
stepped in. Instantly the door slammed behind him; came the snap of the
light-switch. In the sudden glare he blinked--and stared into a bearded
face.

"I have been waiting for you, captain."

The speaker stood with his gibbous back to the door, a grim smile
on his mouth. A lock of rippling reddish hair touched a scar on his
temple, a livid crescent. Barthélemy noticed the scar; noticed also
that one hand was in his pocket. He smiled coolly.

"I should have recognized you before this; yes, in spite of the beard,
the scar, and ..." A chuckle. "A marvelous metamorphosis, Monsieur----"

"Monsieur Garon."

Barthélemy shrugged; he had recovered from his surprise. "Are you mad
to come back here?"

"Perhaps. But we are all madmen. Be seated"--his hand still in his
pocket--"and let us discuss--no, not the past; indeed, no, my dear
Barthélemy--but the future!"

Despite his deformity, he gave an impression of height and insolence.
An impudent rogue, thought Barthélemy; Guiana had not broken his
spirit. As his gaze swept him from head to foot, he had the feeling
that something, some familiar article, was lacking in his attire. It
puzzled and irritated him.

"Be seated," repeated Garon.

Barthélemy smiled. "You were always the devil for giving orders," he
returned, dropping carelessly upon the bunk.

He drew out cigarettes; passed them. His hand was steady. Garon took
one, and remained standing, back to the door. Each lighted his own
smoke, their movements deliberate. The cabin was still but for the
pulsing of the engines and a soft _cr-rr-assh_ outside the port.

"Well ... how did you do it?" thus the officer.

Garon's shoulders rose and fell. He was the personification of
unconcern as he stood there, smiling faintly, one hand in his pocket
and the other holding the cigarette. He had changed, Barthélemy
decided: there were crinkles at the corners of his eyes; his lips were
tighter. The scar and the misshapen back altered his appearance, of
course, but they had no effect upon his personality, for he bore them
with an air that completely robbed them of the power to disfigure.

Garon shrugged again.

"Some day I shall write it into a novel," he retorted, with a vague,
meaningless gesture. "It is wild, wild beyond belief."

Barthélemy could not shake off the impression that something was
lacking in the other's dress, nor could he understand why Garon's
humped back did not give him a grotesque look. He spoke.

"Futile, quite futile. I am sorry for you, profoundly, my
dear--er--Garon. Such effort wasted! Good God! And Cayenne is the
threshold of hell, is it not? Ile Diable! Ile St. Joseph! A pity!"

"Futile?"

"Yes. We are not at the Théâtre Municipal--you remember it, eh?--we
are not there, playing in a melodrama. You will not shoot me and make
a spectacular escape. No! This is reality. I, your friend, shall take
you in charge, yes, to Saigon, and"--smiling--"you shall tell what you
know of that illusive creature, Monsieur le Perroquet Noir.... Were it
not for that--indeed, how do I know you are not the Parrot himself?--I
should be tempted to forget that you are--well, what you are. Ile
Diable! Good God! I shudder!"

Garon smiled through a film of smoke--that illusive, shadowy smile of
his.

"I appreciate your delicacy of feeling, my friend," he took up. "Ile
Diable! I shudder with you! Place of plague and corruption! Le Martinet
and the Black Cell! ... True, we are not playing at the Théâtre
Municipal, yet--who can tell?--perhaps this is melodrama! Conceive
that I have here a revolver"--his hand, still in his pocket, moved
suggestively. "And conceive that I might--er ... You comprehend, my
friend?"

Barthélemy shook his head; a glimmer of humor animated his eyes.

"No, my dear Garon. You are far too clever to spoil a melodrama with a
tragic end. It would not be artistic; it is not done. The criminal is
inevitably delivered to justice!"

"But this is an age of revolutions, captain," reminded the other.

"I protest, my dear Garon. It would set a--a violent precedent."

Their eyes met through the gauzy smoke. Garon had cast off his
indifferent, callous air, and his face had settled into a grim mold.
Barthélemy no longer smiled. Presently the latter broke the tension.

"You know my duty. You cannot expect me to release you." Garon did not
speak, and he went on. "I am not hard, though the good God knows you
would be were you in my place now! You were ever hard, Monsieur--Garon.
That was why many hated you. I never did; I pitied you in your
isolation. That was why when they found a chink in your armor they
stabbed. It pleased them to think of you in exile. They would have
enjoyed it had you been locked in the Black Cell and your skin stripped
away by Le Martinet. Cruel devils, eh? You say? Perhaps. But envy is
poison."

He paused, and Garon, smiling ironically, said:

"Words! Compassion! They fell without effect upon my calloused soul!"
And he added, "I surrender."

Barthélemy held out his hand. "As visible proof I shall require
the--er--conception in your pocket"--grimly.

"There are certain conditions first."

"Conditions?"

"Yes. Speak of what you know to no one on the boat."

"Ah? That would be giving you a weapon."

"It would be----" Garon paused; drew a deep breath. "Barthélemy," he
declared, his voice charged with passionate earnestness, "I must have
time to think, to think well, before I--before I do anything. For me
this is an affair--no, not of life or death--but an affair of the
greatest importance. I will not explain. But I give my word of honor
that I will go with you to Saigon and there do as you command, if you
will allow me these few days of freedom."

Barthélemy almost laughed; checked himself. "Your word?"

A spark flashed in Garon's eyes. "Yes, my word. Fool! I could kill you
now if I wished! I could kill you with my bare hands; you know I could!
You remember there was a time when I was known as Gevrol, the garroter;
eh? You remember that, don't you? I am certain you do, for I recall
that I told you one night at the little café on the Rue Catinat. Hah!
The little café! You remember that, at least! ... So, you perceive, my
friend, that I am capable ... You hesitate? Have you ever known me to
break my word?"

"You broke a trust."

"Ah, God! You must have an Anglo-Saxon strain!"

Barthélemy shrugged. "What am I to think? Explain why you are here, why
you are returning to Saigon."

"I am--no, I was sailing from there for--ah, China, perhaps, or Japan;
somewhere."

The officer snapped his fingers. "You could have sailed from
Singapore----" He paused, frowning. "I saw you there, in the hotel. The
queer part is that I do not remember noticing your--I am brutal--your
broken back. In fact...." Another pause; his eyes narrowed. "In
fact.... The devil! I am stupid, a moron, not to have seen before!" He
broke into a laugh. "Monsieur Garon, the clever one! Name of a purple
cow! A chameleon! You change, not color but shape, and creep about
unobserved! Now you are a garroter, now a hunchback! Oh, _mon Dieu_!
Monsieur Garon--or is it Gevrol? Or what? King of chameleons!" Then he
curbed his burst of humor. "Yes, you could have sailed from Singapore,
and without danger of discovery. But you did not. Why?"

Garon, with a faintly amused expression, lifted one hand resignedly;
the other he kept in his pocket.

"If you must know, there was a matter that--well, that I desired to
close; an old debt."

"Hah! A debt! What do you mean?"

"Do you expect me to confide?" with a return of insolence.

"No--no, I do not."

"But you will grant me parole; yes?"

Barthélemy, suddenly remembering what he had overheard the previous
night, asked:

"You have a boy; what of him?"

"I picked him up in Singapore. He knows nothing."

"Perhaps. But we shall have to question him."

"As you wish."

Barthélemy furrowed his black-lacquer hair; unbuttoned his coat. After
a moment he rose and paced athwart, then halted by the port, looking
out perplexedly.

"What were you doing in here?" he demanded, swinging about suddenly.

"Waiting for you. I knew you recognized me in the companionway. I had
planned to remain out of sight as my boy told me there was a French
officer aboard, but I was indiscreet enough to go on deck in search of
a breeze at a time when I presumed all were at dinner."

Barthélemy searched the other's face: not a muscle moved. Satisfied, he
again glanced out of the port, as though seeking there a solution for
his problem.

"If I trust you and ..." he murmured. Then, turning, "There is no
trick in this? You swear?"

"I will go with you to Saigon--I and my boy--and there submit to formal
arrest. That is what you wish; yes?"

"You swear it?"

"On my honor."

Barthélemy twisted his mustache thoughtfully. "My judgment warns me,"
he said, "and yet--yet you are irresistible, my dear--the devil take
that name! Garon? Yes, Garon! I repeat, you are irresistible. You reach
for a thing, and, zut! you have it! ... Yes, undoubtedly I am a fool,
but--but I accept your word. Good night, monsieur!"

As Garon opened the door the other detained him with a gesture.

"You forgot the--er--conception?"

For answer Garon turned his pockets out. Barthélemy frowned, then a
flash of humor illuminated his face.

"Act one, my dear Garon," he remarked dryly, "falls miserably into
anticlimax."

Garon made no comment, only smiled obscurely, and went out, quietly
closing the door.

Barthélemy lighted another cigarette and seated himself on the bunk. A
frown creased his forehead. He was still possessed of the feeling that
the picture Garon presented, standing with his back to the door, was
incomplete. It did not match the mental snap-shots he had received in
Singapore and in Bangkok.... Not until after he had retired did memory
supply the missing part: suddenly, as he lay in stuffy darkness, he
remembered the blue slendong.

During the next two days Barthélemy saw little of Garon. A few
times they met on deck and engaged in impersonal conversation; such
encounters were inevitable. Once they played double solitaire. Garon
did not eat in the captain's mess, but had his meals served in his
cabin.

The third night the packet was due at Kep, a small town on the
Cambodian coast. At dinner the captain announced that they would not
make port until after midnight. Barthélemy amused himself at solitaire
until nine thirty, then smoked a cigar and went to bed, confident the
usual clamor would arouse him when the boat dropped anchor. He did not
believe Garon would break parole, but he intended to run no risks.

It seemed that he had scarcely succumbed to sleep before he awoke;
awoke to find himself lying in darkness that pressed down like a black
cushion. Perspiration dampened his singlet, and the garment felt cool
against his skin. He sat up, listening for the familiar wash and throb,
and hearing only faint gurgles from the open port. It required but
a second for him to understand the stillness, and, glancing at his
wrist-watch, he jumped out of the bunk. Kneeling upon the built-in
settee under the port, he thrust out his head: the opening was large
enough to include even his shoulders.

The packet made a somber shadow upon the gleam of the water. There was
no wind, not even a shore breeze, and the sea stretched away, glassy
black, to a wall of solid gloom. Great, brilliant stars jetted the sky,
multiplying their number in the still mirror beneath. In the massed
shadows shoreward hung a solitary light.

Kep. Strange, he thought, that the plunge of the anchor, with the
attendant noises, had not awakened him. He stared at the land-shadows
and made out the frail etching of a wharf. The light, he perceived,
was on the dock.

He drew in his head; slipped on straw sandals and sarong; went on deck.

The waist was dim. Fore and aft, in the pale zones created by the
globe-lamps, were what seemed detached arms and legs. A white form
loitered on the bridge; the anchor-watch, he surmised. The silence was
only emphasized by mysterious creaks and groans.

He paused at the bulwark. A flash of phosphorus, evidently created by a
large fish, made an evanescent streak of green sternward. The sound of
footsteps on the bridge drew his gaze.

"When do we get under way?" he called, his voice sounding loud in the
hush.

"As soon after daylight as possible, monsieur," came the answer. "There
is freight to be brought aboard at dawn."

Barthélemy recognized the wireless operator. The latter descended from
the bridge. He was barefooted and in pajamas.

"_Juste ciel!_" he muttered. "This heat! This place! Deadly! This
is not a country for Frenchmen, no, monsieur, not even Saigon, with
all its cafés and clubs! Heat and bad liquor and brown women! Bah!
What a life!" For a moment he discoursed upon the curse of the
tropics; then announced: "Yet I presume it can be endured if one's
work is interesting. Now mine! Routine! _Mon Dieu!_... But yours--ah,
adventure!"

"Not always," was Barthélemy's opinion.

"Eh? Well, naturally you would not think so. But me, I prefer that
branch to any other."

He unbuttoned his jacket and fanned himself with the loose ends.

"Your comrade was telling me of some of your experiences," he resumed
presently.

Barthélemy gave him an inquisitive glance. "My comrade?"

"Yes. Monsieur the Hunchback--he who sent the answer to your message."

"Answer? Message?" A trickling suspicion percolated into his
consciousness.

The wireless operator, still fanning himself, chuckled. "Oh, never
fear, Monsieur le Capitaine! I can keep as silent as--as Kep! Ha, ha!"

Barthélemy bridled the questions that came to his tongue and forced
himself to say:

"You mean, Monsieur Garon told you that he and I were agents of----"

"Yes. But I gathered as much from the message."

Barthélemy smiled grimly. A message, eh? In a flash of comprehension
he saw it all. What was it the wireless operator had said two nights
before "... one minute in your cabin ... then on deck...." Garon, the
clever! Garon, the chameleon! In his cabin! And he had even answered
the message! Barthélemy quickly pieced together the fragments; a
glaring patchwork that showed him his own stupidity. He wanted to rush
below, to confront Garon, but discretion restrained him. It would not
be wise to let the operator see he was affected by the news.

"Incidentally," he remarked, "I lost that message. Can you give me
another copy?"

"Certainly. Now?"

"Oh, no, in the morning ... yet ... shall I go up with you now?"...

They ascended to the wireless-house. There, in the glare of a
green-shaded lamp, the operator went through his files while the
_légionnaire_ stood impatiently at his side.

"Strange," muttered the former, looking up reflectively and slapping
his bare chest. "I know I filed a copy--but----" His eyes swept his
desk; then, once more, he searched the files.

"Not here"--when he had finished--"but it must be in this room. I could
swear----"

"In the morning will do," interrupted Barthélemy.

"Good. I will have found it by then, monsieur."

"Thank you. Good night--or is it morning?"

The operator laughed, and Barthélemy, eager to get below, departed.

Duped. That ran through his mind as he descended to the cabins. He
halted before Garon's door. His better judgment warned him to arm
himself first, but anger consumed reason, and, without knocking, he
tried the door. It swung inward.

The cabin was not too dark for him to see the bunk, and cold fear bit
into him. He groped for the light-switch; pressed; swore aloud. Empty.
Not even an article of clothing hanging on the wall!

For a space of seconds he stood motionless, swept by mingled rage and
chagrin. Imbecile that he was, to have trusted a thief! Worse than
imbecile! He swore again, swore savagely; then returned to the deck.

He found the wireless operator still searching.

"Have you been long on watch?" he inquired, trying not to appear
excited.

"Since we anchored."

Barthélemy plunged. "Did you see Monsieur--did you see my comrade when
he went ashore?"

"Yes"--promptly--"he was the only cabin-passenger whose berth was to
Kep. He asked to be sent ashore immediately as he wished to start at
daybreak for Pnom-penh. He has been ashore ... well, over an hour now.
You did not know he was leaving so soon, eh?"

Barthélemy took the cue. "Certainly, but--er--he forgot something,
something important."

"Shall I call the captain? He will send you----"

"Yes. I will go and dress."

He hurried down the ladder and half ran to the companionway. So he was
going overland to Pnom-penh! Or was that a false clue? Bah! His word of
honor! He should have known better.

As he groped in the dark corridor leading to his cabin he had the
peculiar sensation that the blackness absorbed him, that in leaving the
deck he had left life itself. The luminous dial of his wrist-watch
wavered before him like a fleeing soul.

At his door he halted, electrified by the touch of the knob. It
was wet. In a remote way he associated the feel of moisture with a
phosphorescent flash that he had glimpsed close to the hull.... And
suddenly he knew.

He kicked open the door, stepping back.

Within, made visible by a ghostly diffusion of light from the port,
stood a waiting figure.

CHAPTER V

CONQUEST

Lhassa Camber sailed for Saigon two weeks after Barthélemy embarked on
the _Cambodia_, there being only a fortnightly service between Bangkok
and the capital of Cochin China.

As the boat carried her out upon the gulf she gazed across the glassy
purple at the island of Koh si Chang, bulking somberly above the
sea-line. In the dusk it resembled a dark mausoleum, and was, to her,
symbolical. Behind, buried in the Heavenly-Royal City, was a key to the
secret that had drawn her to Asia, but from the old quest had arisen a
new purpose, just as a soul rises from the discarded husk.

The Gulf of Siam ... Cambodia Point ... then the lighthouse of Cap
St.-Jacques burning white against an azure sky.

"Little Paris of the East": thus Saigon, with its opera and sidewalk
cafés, has been designated. Lhassa, her imagination freshly colored
by the unique splendors of Bangkok, was unimpressed as the ship came
into her berth at a dock swarming with Europeans. Nor was her interest
quickened when she was rickshawed through a rather drab Chinese quarter
and along an avenue patterned after a Paris boulevard. Saigon, she
decided, had not the mellow charm of a continental city nor the allure
of the average tropical port. It was ... Saigon.

At the hotel she found a note; the expected note:

My dear Miss Camber:

May I have the pleasure of your company for dinner at eight o'clock
to-night? If this hour is not convenient or you have a previous
engagement call me at the offices of the Saigon-Siamese Trading
Company.

Sincerely,
STEPHEN CONQUEST.

She considered the terse wording, the even, regular handwriting, and
the name, and concluded that Mr. Stephen Conquest was a very efficient,
deliberate Britisher. If he was this type, she thought, it was singular
that he and Barthélemy were intimate friends....

She had heard that social Saigon frequented the hotels and cafés at
night, and so she dressed for dinner accordingly. A gown of deep
magenta, striking in its utter simplicity; a daring shade that subdued
rather than challenged the russet tone in her hair. Silver-gray
stockings; silver slippers.

The hands of her clock indicated precisely eight o'clock when a
"boy" brought word that Mr. Conquest was waiting. She smiled at this
further proof of his exactitude, and quickly finished her toilette:
she was eager to hear why Barthélemy had not met her and what he had
accomplished.

If she was surprised at the appearance of the man who was waiting in
the close, dim writing-room she did not betray it. "_Donatello_, the
Marble Faun," she thought; she asked:

"Shall we sit here a moment?"

"It will be cooler outside," he suggested.

They moved to the café, on a terrace facing the street, and took a
table near the inclosing rail. She studied him openly.

"I'm sure you didn't write that note," she told him at length.

He smiled--a queer smile that quivered at one corner of his mouth,
whimsical and melancholy.

"No, I didn't; one of the secretaries did."

He seemed to accept without surprise the fact that she was able to
discriminate between himself and the perfunctory note. It irritated
her, and she contemplated his cuffs with disapproval: they were
more than an inch too long. Otherwise, his dress, the conventional
dinner-suit of the tropics, was faultless. In fact, she decided, he was
too perfect. When she looked at his face she had the impression that
she had seen it done in plaster in some gallery in Florence or Rome: it
had the beauty and regularity of features typical of Italian sculpture.
His coloring helped the illusion. Indeed, it was incredible that one
could remain so white in a tropical climate. Beneath the pallor his
skin glowed, as though it had absorbed the glare instead of burning.
"_Donatello_," she thought again; "or Shelley."

"I had a letter from Remy this morning," he informed her. "He said to
impress upon you how much he regrets that he can't be here, but, you
know, an army man----"

"Where is he?" she interposed.

"Up beyond Siem-Reap." A "boy" came ... went. Then----"He's been
appointed _agent française_ at some God-forgotten village on the
Mekong," Conquest explained.

"Siem-Reap," she echoed. "That is near Angkor, isn't it?" He started to
speak but she went on. "What did Captain Barthélemy tell you? I mean,
about the--the affair that brought me here."

He passed cigarettes; took one himself. She observed that his cigarette
case was ornamented with an exquisitely wrought figure in gold. The
richness of it, the perfection, was in keeping with the man.

"He knew very little," he replied. "He told me he received a message
from you a night or so after leaving Bangkok, in which you said
that something had happened, and to watch a man who wore, or had
worn, a blue slendong. Also you asked him to keep this fellow under
surveillance after reaching Saigon but to say nothing to the police.
As Remy had to go immediately to his new post, he sent the wireless
informing you that I would meet you; then, when he arrived here, he
asked me to keep my finger on the slendong chap; also to place myself
at your disposal. Which I'm delighted to do."

"You are kind," she put in.

"I assure you"--with his smile of mingled whimsy and melancholy--"my
time is of no value at present. I'm on a leave of absence, so to speak;
you see, I come up from my sago plantation very rarely, and while I'm
here I do nothing but amuse myself. I only hope I can be of service.
Thus far I haven't learned anything except that this man in question
calls himself Garon and is staying in Cholon."

"Don't belittle that knowledge," she said. "It is precisely what I want
to know. I'm sure you will forgive me for the trouble and inconvenience
I've caused when I tell you how serious this matter is. Captain
Barthélemy and I noticed the man of the blue slendong in Singapore and
remarked upon his appearance. Captain Barthélemy thought he resembled
some one whom he had known in--in Saigon, I believe. Later, while I
was visiting in Bangkok with Dr. Garth, a friend of the family, we saw
him again, and I noticed that he was a hunchback. That very night the
doctor was"--she hesitated--"was murdered. I found him when I returned
to the villa. He ... he had.... The details are frightful, but you must
know them: he had been strangled with a blue slendong."

She paused, frowning at the people in the café. How superficial they
looked, in their starched linens and elaborate gowns! And yet, she
repented, they could not share a tragedy unknown to them.

"It is strange," she resumed, "how one will instinctively connect two
remotely related incidents, isn't it? There is no logical reason why I
should suspect a man of murder simply because he happened to be wearing
a blue slendong and an identical article was found about--was found at
the place of the crime. There must be hundreds of blue slendongs. Yet I
felt ... well, perhaps it was intuition. I had an impulse, and I obeyed
it. I always do. Impulses are truer than logic. One of the doctor's
servants disappeared the night he was--was killed. This servant--boy I
should say--was a Eurasian and had been with Dr. Garth from boyhood.
The police believed him guilty. So I kept silent."

As she spoke her gaze wandered to the street. Swinging lamps made
incandescent bubbles against the sky, and beneath them floated oily,
perspiring faces, drifting by endlessly like leaves on a slow, black
tide. Frenchmen in huge topees, gaunt, sunburnt foresters from Annam
and Tongking, slouching troopers and carelessly uniformed officers;
barefooted, bare-breasted natives, Annamite _tirailleurs_ in khaki
and brass-spiked helmets, noiseless _pousse-pousse_ coolies, and
women, white and brown, whose powdered cheeks were sweat-streaked.
They repelled her, these faces: the line of blood was as clearly drawn
as the rail that separated her from the street where they surged by,
leaving the hot air quivering with the odors of stale cigarettes, of
liquor, and of cheap powders and perfumes. She had always felt removed
from the multitude, but never so completely, so appallingly, as now.
The man across the table, with his immaculate apparel, his flawless
pallor, seemed to share her segregation, and her attitude toward him
warmed.

"Any one of those out there," she continued, indicating the flood of
faces, "would have done the obvious thing: they would have told of
having seen the man of the blue slendong. But the very idea suffocated
me. Suffocated; do you understand? Police courts; conventional justice!
To me it was an opportunity. It was Romance. So I let them hunt for
Domingo, the Eurasian, while I started upon my tremendous adventure.
I believed the slendong man still in Bangkok.... You said he called
himself Garon, didn't you?... So the next day I sent my boy to the
hotels to inquire if any one fitting his description could be located.
Manuel got a clue at the Oriental. A man, hunchbacked and wearing a
blue slendong, had been stopping there, but he had left for Saigon the
night before. As there was only one ship that had sailed for Saigon the
previous night, I realized he, Garon, was on the same boat as Captain
Barthélemy. So I sent the message, and"--a shrug--"I am here."

"But," inquired the man, "what reason, what motive, had this chap, if
he killed your friend?"

She gazed at him critically.

"I suppose you will laugh, but ... no, I don't believe you will." She
leaned toward him, smiling slightly. "I believe Garon is in some way
associated with that almost mythical creature, the Black Parrot--he may
even be the Parrot."

He, too, smiled. "The Black Parrot! Why?"

"You probably heard that the Emerald Buddha was stolen from the king's
_wat_ in Bangkok; you did, of course, didn't you? Well, it disappeared
the night Dr. Garth was--was murdered. The doctor had many priceless
antiques and curios in his home, rare Buddhas and collections of jewels
with a romantic history. The Black Parrot, as you know, is reputed to
be a thief who steals just such things and sells them to unscrupulous
collectors. Why not suppose, then, that the Black Parrot or one of his
band stole the Emerald Buddha? And, again binding together two remotely
related incidents, why not suppose also that the same person came to
the doctor's villa with the intention of robbing him?"

"Was anything stolen?"

"An inventory of his collections was found, and, according to it,
nothing was missing. However, something may have prevented the thief
from carrying out his intention--my return for instance. Oh, there are
many excuses for a hurried flight!"

Conquest continued to smile. "Then you really believe this Garon is the
notorious Black Parrot?"

"Or one of his associates. Why not?" The rattle of dishes and
silverware announced the approach of their "boy." "He was in Bangkok
when the Emerald Buddha was stolen," she went on, "and he left
immediately afterward. I had hoped, and still hope, that Captain
Barthélemy could help me. I said, you remember, that he mentioned a
resemblance when he saw Garon in Singapore. Did he speak of it to you?"

Conquest nodded. "He said Garon looked like a garroter who was sent to
Cayenne, a chap called Letourneau."

"Letourneau? In Bangkok he told me the name of the man Garon
resembled; Letourneau doesn't sound like it."

"Yes, that's the name. At Remy's suggestion I made a few discreet
inquiries and learned that this Letourneau was one of the first
convicts to escape after Le Perroquet Noir was guillotined. You've
heard the story of the execution of the Black Parrot, I dare say."

"Yes. Then----" She halted; caught her breath sharply. "Dr. Garth was
strangled," she said, "and Letourneau is a...."

"On the surface it's significant enough," he agreed. "But we don't know
that Garon is Letourneau: he merely _resembles_ him."

"Nevertheless, it strengthens my theory. The Buddha, the doctor's
collections, the slendong, all, point to the Black Parrot or an agent.
Don't you see?"

"I see, yes. But what can we do to prove this theory? Inform the police
and let them arrest----"

"No, no!" she broke in. "It is my opportunity; I refuse to surrender
it!"

She said it vehemently, and a flush crept into her olive pallor. She
was conscious of Conquest's appraising look, a look that swept her
from the casque of copperish hair to the silver-cloth girdle. A vague
resentment tempered her ardor.

"Magnificent!" she heard him murmur under his breath. Then he spoke
aloud. "Did you ever read 'Freya of the Seven Isles?' Or don't you care
for Conrad?"

The word "magnificent" suggested to her a particularly well bred
animal. It acted as a challenge.

"Oh, I know what you think!" she flared. "It seems ridiculous to you
that I, a woman, should have come from Bangkok on a mission like
this! How utterly masculine! A woman must have no purpose except to
make herself attractive; if she assumes any other she is an Amazon! A
purpose! Why, think of death closing down upon a body that was given
as a means of achievement and not to be developed for personal vanity!
Think of it! The prospect of leaving only a memory of beauty appalls
me! Personality, an individual's contribution to the world through
accomplishment, is the quality that time transmutes from age to age."

She leaned nearer him, a glow in the dark splendor of her eyes.

"It seems a small thing, a ridiculous thing, what I am trying to do.
Catch a thief! A little cruel, isn't it? But ambition is essentially
cruel. After all, thieves have the same fundamental emotions as we, but
with a flaw somewhere. Too, what I intend to do seems like attempting
to destroy Romance. One must take a small step first. Indeed, if it
were not for the glamour of Romance my first step would be reduced to
the ugly level of a police-court affair. But Romance saves it, makes it
seem as though I were exploring some dark, unknown continent. Romance!
Do you understand? Or, like the rest, do you consider me a sort of
sexless creature, afflicted with a fever whose only cure is a home and
a hearthstone and some man to bore me through the winter evenings?"

His gray eyes met hers across the table, and she thought she glimpsed a
responsive gleam in them. That whimsical, melancholy smile twisted the
corner of his mouth.

"Does it matter what I think as an individual?" he queried. "Or do you
merely wish some one to approve your philosophy?"

"Does it need approval?"

"No, it's far too splendid."

She knew he was not flattering her; she sensed a sympathy of ideas
between Conquest and herself. Ideas, she repeated, not ideals. There
was something disturbing in his character, an indefinable element that
she ... distrusted or disliked? Whatever it was, it warned her against
intimacy.

"Far too splendid!" he repeated. "Romance! Unknown continents! I hope
you'll let me voyage with you. What is your next step?"

"My plans are indefinite. You said that Garon was staying in--where was
it?"

"Cholon. He's at the house of a wealthy Chinese merchant. Cholon, you
know, is the Chinese city--about three miles from Saigon proper."

"Who traced him there? You?"

"No. But I've been more or less keeping my finger on him. You see, when
Remy received your message on the boat, he cultivated Garon. Garon
said he was a bird collector. When they arrived here Remy suggested
that he occupy his quarters instead of going to a hotel, as he had to
leave immediately for his new post. But Garon declined. While in the
custom-house Remy saw one of his _tirailleurs_, so he instructed the
fellow to follow Garon and report where he went. That night he was
informed that Garon had gone to the house of a certain merchant--I
forget the name now--in Cholon. Remy came to me the next morning, and
I sent my cleverest boy to shadow him. He's been into the city twice,
each time to visit a tailor on the Rue Catinat, and almost every night
he goes to Lily Wun's.

"Lily Wun's?"

"Yes, a place kept by a Eurasian woman. She deals in wines, poppy
treacle, and other things. The élite of Saigon patronize Lily."

"Élite?"--a shade of irony in the tone.

"Of course. About one third of the population use opium or some other
narcotic. Don't look shocked. The other two thirds drink themselves to
death. What is the difference if the same end is achieved?"

As he spoke she caught a glitter in his eyes, cold as Iceland spar. He
could be cruel, she decided. A dreamer? Yes--but of a type that could
divert men to his purpose, making opportunities of their failures, or,
inspired by his illusions, sacrifice them pitilessly to his gain.

"Does Garon go there for drugs?" she asked.

"Obviously."

She was silent for a moment, then pressed:

"Do you know this Lily Wun?"

He smiled. "Every one in Saigon does."

A twinge of suspicion made her scrutinize him carefully. No, his eyes
were too clear....

"Can she be trusted?" she pursued.

"If your price is higher than the other chap's. But I wouldn't----"

"You wouldn't what? Go to Lily Wun's? Why?"

"No. I didn't know you intended to go."

"I do."

"Alone?" Then he added, "I dare not offer my protection; but my
company?"

"You may go--on one condition."

"Yes?"

"You must--well, obey me"--smiling.

"Agreed. But what do you expect to find?"

She counter-questioned, "Are you sure Garon goes there for _drugs_?"

"What else?"

"If, as you say, every one knows this Lily Wun, wouldn't you, provided
you were--well, what I suspect Garon to be; wouldn't you cultivate her
under those circumstances? And you said she could be bought."

"When do you want to go? To-morrow night?"

"Yes."

"You aren't afraid?"

She smiled tolerantly. "Of you?"

He laughed. "What will you do there? Question Lily?"

"Let the occasion care for itself."

"Excellent. Incidentally, I presumed to get tickets for the opera
to-night. Do you care to go? It's 'The Barber of Seville.'"

Her impulse was to refuse, but she reconsidered. There was a complexity
in his nature that challenged her, two elements of character that
offered a contrast as striking as his pallor and his dead-black hair.

* * * * *

Late that night, after the opera, she lay in the gloom of her room
and thought of Stephen Conquest. During the performance his cuffs
had slipped back and shown her rings of livid gray about his wrists.
Scars. As she saw them she had a fantastic picture: fire and smoke of
the Inquisition, and a tormented figure gyved to the wall ... Stephen
Conquest: a silken envelop for emotions that threatened their frail
prison ... Stephen Conquest....

She fell asleep and dreamed of grim monks and wavering candles; dreamed
of a white face in a black cell.

In a tropical climate it is considered the height of folly, even bad
form, for one to exert himself during the midday heat. Therefore, the
shops and business houses of Saigon close between eleven and two with
true Latin regard for form when it is consistent with comfort. In the
silken hours following this siesta social Saigon emerges, driving up
and down the wide avenues or gathering over _piquantes-grenadines_ at
the open-air cafés on the Rue Catinat and the Boulevard Bonnard.

Lhassa, having spent the day indoors, motored to Cholon in the late
afternoon, arriving just before sunset. In the half-tone of early night
the Chinese city had a pleasantly wicked atmosphere: narrow streets
where roofs met overhead; gay booths and shops; and endless processions
of yellow mortals. She searched the colorful throng for a familiar
hunched figure; saw no one who even resembled him.

When she returned to the hotel she dined alone on the terrace and
studied the other patrons. The men, the majority plethoric, genially
intoxicated individuals, were too eager to smile. They interpreted for
her the spirit of Saigon: luxurious looseness. She attributed this
condition to the laxity of the average Frenchman, in what he considers
exile, who forgets that one may be indiscreet in Paris without being
indecent but that it is difficult in the tropics.

She perceived in Conquest a type that noticed clothes, and she had,
therefore, gowned herself with more care than usual. Gray suède
slippers, gray silk stockings, a gray chiffon dress, and a black
leghorn hat with burnt-orange roses about the crown. The burnt-orange
roses were like a flash of her temperament: a touch of defiance in an
otherwise subdued symphony.

The meal over, she went to her room. There she debated the question
of instructing her "boy" to follow and wait outside Lily Wun's, but
finally decided she was capable of meeting any emergency. So she draped
a veil about her hat, placed a small black automatic in her purse, and
sat down to wait.

Conquest arrived at the appointed time, immaculately clad. As he
greeted her she caught in his eyes a sharp wistfulness, almost hunger,
that sent a momentary dread over her.

"Something unfortunate has occurred," he announced as they left the
hotel in a motor-car; he was driving.

"Garon has disappeared?"--intuitively.

He glanced at her. "Well, rather. Last night he left the house
in Cholon, got in a car, and was driven off. Keo-lin--that's my
boy--couldn't find any vehicle swift enough to follow, so he waited for
Garon to return. But Garon hasn't--that is, he hadn't the last I heard,
which was just before dark. I'm deucedly sorry."

"Please don't apologize," she begged. "You have been too great a help
for that. Anyhow, I feel quite optimistic. If, as you believe, Garon
takes drugs, then sooner or later he'll go to Lily Wun's, and we can
pick up his trail again--if we don't find a clue to-night."

He gave her a frankly admiring look. "You remind me of a woman I once
saw in the jungle."

"An Amazon?"--ironically.

"No, a figure carved on a wall. She was one of those ancient queens of
the Golden Chersonese; a god's consort; Indra's. I discovered her in
a temple up beyond Laos-land, a forgotten empress looking down from a
slab of sandstone upon the desolation of a forgotten temple. She was a
carving, part of a bas-relief, a creature cold to the touch; yet she
filled the temple with her presence; filled it with fire. It seemed as
though the sculptor who did her had trapped her spirit in the stone.
The flesh was dead, but the woman was there. She will be there--on
and on, age after age, even after those ruins are buried. Savants of
another century will unearth her. She will never die, not even when
the stone crumbles. She has something of the immortal Ayesha in her, a
spirit that is Art itself...."

A soft laugh. "You see," he explained, "I paint and model a bit, and
frequently my enthusiasm slips the leash. But Beauty is a lustrum for
man's sins. Beauty and Art and Romance: the Trinity. Prophets talk
much of reincarnation, of the Law of Karma, of metempsychosis. And
yet----Have you ever entered some strange port--at dawn, say--and seen
masts and sails, roofs and cathedral towers, playing like rainbow
colors in a mist; have you ever seen that and felt an intimacy with it,
a familiarity that almost frightened you?... Reincarnation? No. It's
the spirit of Art, ancient as Life, that instantly recognizes Beauty; a
spirit that belongs to no individual body but that looks, with varying
degrees of vision, from all eyes."

He paused; the motor-car was purring eastward across the city. There
was a somber quality in what he said, a quality almost tragic, that
depressed her. His profile, burningly white, seemed to cauterize the
darkness.

"Romance," he resumed whimsically, "is the deceptive one of the
Trinity. I think of it as feminine. Why? Perhaps because it possesses
men and leads them to the corners of the earth. Mountain, jungle, sea,
city, and ruin; it lures them to all of these. But it ever evades.
Romance, the beautiful illusion. _Lord Jim_ sought it--you've read
'Lord Jim,' of course. And see what he found: he passed 'under a cloud,
inscrutable ... forgotten, unforgiven.' Oh, I know it from memory!
By Jove, the more I think of that beggar the more I'm convinced he's
a great conception! Fancy that young fool giving up his life for an
illusion! Not a woman, that illusion--thank God! It's the obvious thing
to die for a woman--but an illusion...."

He chuckled. "Romance. It tyrannizes men, but the majority won't
admit it. Yes, it's a tyrant. For instance. I have a sago plantation
at Kawaras. Instead of regarding it as a prosaic place of business,
I think of it as my kingdom. It is, after a fashion, for I'm white
rajah there. Although I give the Government a percentage of my profit
in return for protection, and am under certain agreements with them,
I control the territory. A sort of miniature North Borneo Company
or Sarawak. There's a disgruntled Malay sultan who lives in state
near the plantation, and I rather wish he'd start a row--instead of
being gratified that he's peaceful! Absurd, isn't it? Yet it would be
sumptuous. Native troops; war proas; a British gunboat. I can picture
you in a setting of that sort; yes, I can clearly vizualize you ...
ranee of Kawaras."

"Ranee of Kawaras," she repeated, almost believing that a boy sat
beside her, telling of his dreams of treasure and fabulous kingdoms.
"Is that an offer?" She regretted it the instant it was spoken;
wondered why she had said it.

He laughed--a sound that the hot wind snatched from his lips and flung
behind.

"It may have been!"

The atmosphere suddenly became taut, like gauze stretched tight upon a
loom. She felt that another word would rend the fabric. The throb of
the motor was a warning drum-beat. But Conquest did not speak; they
rode in silence through tepid darkness.

Their destination was what appeared to be a huge, rambling villa
surrounded by palms and plumed bamboo. A solitary lamp glowed on
the portico; lights peeped from the chinks of blinds. Despite these
evidences of occupancy it seemed to house only a great stillness. When
they got out, a white-liveried Annamite, materializing from within,
took charge of the automobile.

"This was once the residence of an important government official,"
Conquest told her as they crossed the veranda, "who was so deeply
in debt to Lily that he was forced to give up his home as partial
payment."

Before they entered Lhassa dropped her veil. A cold nausea traveled
over her in waves. It was not the result of fear but aversion. The
sensation recalled a late afternoon in Tokio, when she visited the
Yoshiwara.

Within, the silence took on a velvet heaviness, and a pungent fragrance
as of burning aloes clung to the air. A "boy" slipped out noiselessly
from behind brown curtains. Conquest moved forward to meet him,
speaking in a whisper, then motioned to Lhassa, who had remained by the
door.

Draperies parted and rustled together behind them. A yellow-shaded lamp
revealed a room with many curtained recesses. Dragons were lacquered in
gold upon black panels. They were led to a small apartment which, like
the larger room, was black-paneled and dragon-lacquered. In the center
stood a tea-table and chairs; and a brass bowl on a stand sent up a
bluish coil of incense. Half-drawn curtains hinted at a shadowy alcove.

The pulse in Lhassa's throat began throbbing as Conquest seated her,
and the "boy" went out, softly closing the door. There was in the room,
in the house, an air of luxurious evil that seemed to soil her; the
incense, a jasmine odor, was suffocating.

"Do you regret coming?" he asked, gray eyes searching her.

"I shall be glad to breathe clean air again," was her answer. "Did you
tell the boy to send Lily Wun?"

"No. Before I do that we must have something to drink. It is necessary
to--to preserve our face, as the Chinese say. They mix an excellent
cocktail here, called the 'green dragon's breath.'"

She surveyed him doubtfully.

"Do you come often?"

He smiled. "As often as business necessitates."

"Business?"

"Yes. I have a lot of Chinos employed at Kawaras, some doing clerical
work, others at the godowns--warehouses, you know. I have to keep them
supplied with opium."

That rather shocked her sense of moral justice. "You encourage vice?"

"No, I recognize it. The Chinos wouldn't stay if they didn't have
their pipe of 'black smoke.' Furthermore, if I didn't sell it to them,
some profiteer would; so you see, paradoxical as it may seem, I am a
benefactor."

As he spoke he changed, in her eyes, as subtly, as inexplicably, as a
chemical darkens under the magic of a foreign fluid. His pallor was
gray, unnatural. "The Marble Faun," crept into her mind. The thought
frightened her, and she said hurriedly:

"What about the administration? Does it sanction Lily Wun and her
establishment?"

He smiled again. The whimsical expression seemed to melt his features
into a more human mold.

"Undoubtedly it considers Lily's business highly profitable."

"Is French colonial policy so corrupt?"

"You are too severe. Vice is an accepted unit of every large
organization; it's corrupt only when it's unlicensed. And, you know,
you can't build a Utopia so near the equator."

Again that grayness came over his face. It appalled her, and she
welcomed the entrance of a "boy" bearing a tray. Conquest spoke a
few words in what she imagined was a Chinese dialect, and the "boy"
withdrew as quietly as he had come.

"Lily will be here shortly," he announced. "I think she'll be less
suspicious if I question her. May I?"

"Of course."

A moment later the door opened to admit a woman; a sultry creature,
tawny as a leopard. Libidinous eyes looked out from a mask of white
enamel.

"You wish to see me, monsieur?"

Conquest did not rise. "Yes. A matter of confidential information."

As Lhassa gazed at Lily Wun she thought again of the Yoshiwara: the
Eurasian's face was smooth as a doll's, yet old, old as iniquity.

"I want to know something about a man with whom I intend to do
business," Conquest went on. "I understand he comes here frequently.
He's a hunchback; name's Garon. Do you know him?"

Lhassa imagined that the woman smiled faintly.

"I do not discuss my patrons, monsieur," she replied. But she made no
move to go.

"Then he _is_ a patron?"

"He is here often," she admitted.

"For the 'black smoke'?"

"Did I say that, monsieur?"

"But you don't deny it?"

"You talk like a gendarme"--her eyes narrowing to black slits. "He
comes to my house, to one of my rooms, to meet a friend. How do I know
what he does?"

"You know what you sell him."

A shrug. "Nothing--except a drink now and then. But he pays for the use
of the room."

"And what of his friend? A lady?"

"No."

He smiled. "Good. We're progressing. Do you know anything about this
Garon? Anything--interesting?"

"No."

"You were never curious enough to listen outside the door--or have one
of your boys?"

"Certainly not."

"But"--still smiling--"you might allow one of your regular patrons do
so if Monsieur Garon comes to-night?"

"He will not be here to-night," she snapped. "Why do you ask these
questions, monsieur? Am I a criminal? What do you want?"

Before Conquest could answer, Lhassa spoke.

"How do you know he isn't coming to-night? Did he tell you he wasn't?"

The narrow eyes focused upon her. "No."

Lhassa grasped at a possibility. "Then some one else did? Some one who
left a message for him? The man whom he meets here, perhaps?"

The Eurasian opened her mouth but shut it quickly and turned as if to
go.

"I will pay for the information," Lhassa announced.

The woman faced about slowly. "How much?"

"Fifty piasters."

"Twenty-five," Conquest corrected hastily.

Lily Wun smiled at him contemptuously. "Fifty," she agreed.

Lhassa nodded. "What was the message?"

"It was sealed----"

"But you opened it and read it," interposed Conquest.

Again the contemptuous smile; she addressed Lhassa.

"It was written in ideographs. It spoke of a consignment of tea that
had been received, and said that before this shipment was disposed of
the writer would notify those interested. That was all. It was not
signed."

"Who brought it?" Lhassa probed.

"A merchant from Cap St.-Jacques. He is called Ong-Yoi. He told me that
a man, a man whose name he did not give, had paid him to bring the
message, and that the boy of Monsieur Garon would call for it in the
morning."

"Is the man who sent the note the one whom Monsieur Garon frequently
meets here?"

The Eurasian shrugged. "How can I say? Monsieur Garon's friend has not
come to-night."

"What is his name, this friend?"

"I do not know, madame."

Lhassa was certain the woman was lying, but instead of pressing the
question she said:

"But you know the address of the merchant of Cap St.-Jacques? Ong-Yoi;
is that the name?"

"Yes. I know his address."

Conquest drew out pencil and envelop. "What is it?"

Lily Wun told him, adding, "That is all I know."

Lhassa paid her, and, without another word, she went out.

"You should have made her show you the message"; thus Conquest.

"But I couldn't have read it. Anyhow, I don't believe the content of
the note half as important as the address of the man who brought it,"
she confided. "Now we----"

"Suppose you tell me when we're outside?" he interrupted.

She perceived the wisdom of this advice and pretended to sip the
cocktail--a green liquid that tasted like sweetened varnish. Presently,
when he had drained his glass, she suggested that they leave.

"Now, proceed," he instructed as the motor-car whirled them away from
the huge, rambling house.

She drew in quantities of cleansing air before she spoke.

"As I said, I believe the address of the man who brought the message
more valuable to us than the message itself. It's possible that from
him we may learn the identity of the sender--and that might lead to
many discoveries--Garon, for instance."

"You mean, you propose to go to Cap St.-Jacques and hunt up this
Ong-Yoi, or whatever his name is?"

"Yes."

"Cap St.-Jacques is about forty-eight miles down the river. Why not,
instead of making that trip, let me have Keo-lin watch at Lily Wun's
and follow Garon's boy?"

"Why not do both?"

"By Jove! You're determined to get at the bottom of this affair! If
you insist on going to Cap St.-Jacques, then let me take you on my
steam-yacht. I came up on her from Kawaras. We could make the run down
the river in about four hours. I'd suggest turning the entire matter
over to me, but you wouldn't listen to that, I know."

"No, I wouldn't. But"--a pause--"I may accept your offer to take me."

"Excellent. If we leave about three o'clock in the afternoon we'll
reach Cap St.-Jacques at dusk." And he added, "We'd get back to Saigon
before midnight."

She realized that what she proposed to do was indiscreet if not
improper. But it was not her nature to allow convention to interfere
with opportunity. And she did not doubt her ability to take care of
herself; nor did she question the impulse that had led Conquest to make
the offer. He was an anomaly. She sensed something lacking in him,
some moral element that as yet she was unable to define. At times it
flashed close to the surface, like a scaly body in a woodland pool.
But it was too remote, too elusive, to cause her more than vague
apprehension.

When they reached the hotel he refused her invitation to sit on the
terrace for a while. There was reticence in his manner, a strange
eagerness to get away, that was contradicted by a devouring look; and
it came to her suddenly that he was deliberately forcing himself to
leave against his desire. In a flash of intuition she saw he was
afraid ... of her. The revelation was like the touch of fog. He said
good night perfunctorily; extended his hand. The cuff slipped back....

"Handcuffs," he said, gazing at his wrists. "Prometheus bound."

As he raised his eyes she caught a gleam cold as frost; it hurt her.
She could say nothing. He turned quickly; went.

Handcuffs. She repeated that as she ascended to her room. Again, as on
the previous night, she felt hot torment in Stephen Conquest; again she
felt oppressed by shadowy, cowled figures.

In the morning Lhassa decided to write to Captain Barthélemy and tell
him of her progress. Not knowing his address, she telephoned the
offices of the Saigon-Siamese Trading Company to inquire of Conquest.
But she was informed that he was not in nor likely to be before noon.
She then telephoned the Caserne d'Infanterie Coloniale; was given the
chief of information.

Could he tell her the name of the post to which Captain Remy Barthélemy
had been transferred? she asked.

Barthélemy? the chief of information repeated the name. Did the madame
know his----the voice stopped; pronounced the name again. Oh, Captain
Barthélemy! Ah, yes! Was she a friend of Monsieur le Capitaine?

She replied that she was.

And a new-comer to Saigon--yes?

Puzzled, she affirmed.

Ah, yes! Well, he did not remember the name of the post now. These
Asiatic names! _Mon Dieu!_ His assistant, who was out at present, had
the key to the drawer where the records were kept. Would the madame
pardon this unavoidable circumstance? And would she give him her name?
He would get the information as soon as possible and call.

She told him her name and address, and, still puzzled, hung up. The
courtesy of the chief of information was unusual in a land where
the average official has liver trouble and a hundred other tropical
complaints.

After an hour she abandoned waiting. She had some shopping to do.

As she was leaving the hotel she was accosted from behind by a little,
red-faced, mustached officer, who lifted his helmet and stood rigidly
at attention as he addressed her.

"Miss Camber? Will you pardon me? I just inquired for you. May I detain
you a moment? I am the chief of information.... Yes.... Will you sit? I
shall be brief."

He was a rather ridiculous figure, with his red face, his long mustache
and tight-fitting uniform, she thought.

"Being a man of some delicacy," he resumed, "I deemed it better to call
in person instead of telephoning. Do I understand that you are an old
friend of Monsieur le Capitaine Barthélemy?"

A vague fear cast its shadow upon her. "Why, yes," she answered. "Not
exactly an old friend, but----"

"You knew him in France? Yes?"

"No. I met him in Singapore and----But why do you ask?"

An exaggerated gesture. "A matter of delicacy! No offense,
mademoiselle! There has been an unfortunate occurrence, a----"
He paused; made another gesture. "Regrettable, mademoiselle,
very.... A good officer and a gentleman.... You see--pardon my
brusqueness--Captain Barthélemy took his life about two weeks ago."

He seemed disappointed that she did not swoon. The vague fear had
become substantial; she felt as though a tangible weight pressed
against her breast. She groped for words, deserted by her usual poise.

"Two weeks!" she echoed. "After he returned?"

"No, mademoiselle, on the way. The circumstances are
somewhat--nebulous--yes, nebulous! It occurred while the ship was in
port. Let me think--at Kep, I believe. No one knows how it happened.
He told one of the crew he wished to go ashore--it was night, I
believe--and went to his cabin. When he did not return some one was
sent after him--and he was--er--gone. His clothing was there--the
garments he had discarded--but...." Another gesture. His face had grown
redder, and he appeared quite excited. "The porthole, mademoiselle....
The only way.... Oh, yes; large enough. There was no letter--nothing
except his clothing."

The dull heaviness in her breast had grown. Barthélemy--dead! A sharp
desolation swept over her; receded; left an insidious deposit. She saw
in fancy Conquest's gray eyes.

"Being a man of some delicacy," the little officer was saying, "I
hesitated telling you over the wire. It is indeed regrettable. A good
soldier; a gentleman.... I sympathize, mademoiselle. Is there anything
I can do?"

"No," she told him, recovering her poise. "You are very considerate; I
appreciate it."

"It is nothing," he assured her. "Some delicacy, you understand.... A
daughter in France--yes, Paris.... _Ah, mon Dieu!_ Paris!..."

Bowing, he made his departure, a very straight and ridiculous little
figure. Lhassa was possessed of a crazy desire to laugh as she watched
him go through the doorway.

She returned to her room. There, sinking into a chair, she surrendered
to a host of questions; venomous questions that flashed in and out of
her mind; that pricked here and there and left itching vaccinations.
Barthélemy--a suicide. She did not believe it. Conquest; her wireless
from Bangkok. Suicide? No--murder. In some way Garon had intercepted
her message and killed Barthélemy. Conquest was an accomplice,
a----Fantastic; it couldn't be. Yet, if there were no conspiracy,
why did Conquest wish her to believe that Barthélemy had been sent
to a post in the interior? What an elaborate scheme! She remembered,
suddenly, all that Conquest had told her about Garon and the house in
Cholon; remembered Lily Wun's; remembered his offer to take her to Cap
St.-Jacques. What a web!

She sat there, reviewing the last few days. She saw everything clearly
now. It was fantastic--but true. Garon had strangled Dr. Garth; Garon
alias Letourneau, the garroter. He had stolen the Emerald Buddha. He
had learned of her message and killed Barthélemy. Then he had conspired
with Conquest to meet her and discover what she knew. Garon was the
Black Parrot. Or Conquest. Or perhaps neither. Tools.

She rose and walked to the window; walked back; resumed her seat. She
could believe Garon guilty of almost anything because he was, after
a fashion, unreal; indeed, he was so shadowy a personality that at
times she doubted his existence. But it was not so easy to associate
Conquest, a man of flesh and blood, with a fabulous band of criminals.
Yet unquestionably he was involved. Now, in the light of this new
development, countless little incidents recurred to strengthen her
suspicion.

She glanced at her watch. After eleven. At two thirty he would call to
take her to the quay. She should summon the police and have them at the
hotel to meet him. But she would do nothing of the sort. Thus far she
had ridden alone, and alone she intended to continue. Police! Something
she had said a day or so before flung back to her: "If it were not for
the glamour of Romance, my first step would be reduced to the ugly
level of a police-court affair." No, not the police. There was a more
finished way. She wondered if she dared try it. Perhaps Conquest had
planned to hold her prisoner at Cap St.-Jacques or take her out to sea.
Absurd. But the whole affair was more or less absurd. She must think,
consider well.

At the end of half an hour she had decided, and she sent for Manuel,
her "boy." A few minutes later he was in her room.

"Manuel, I am going down the river this afternoon with Mr. Conquest,"
she told him. "Remember that name, Conquest--Stephen Conquest. His
headquarters, here in the city, are at the Saigon-Siamese Trading
Company, on the Quai François Garnier. Remember that, too. We are bound
for Cap St.-Jacques. I should be back by midnight; however, I may be
delayed. If I'm not here by two o'clock--no, three; if I'm not here by
three and you haven't heard from me, go to the police and tell them
what I've told you.

"Meanwhile, I want you to be in front of the hotel, in a car, at two
thirty this afternoon, and follow me when I leave. Get the name of the
yacht and her place of mooring. After that, do whatever you wish until
seven o'clock, then return to the hotel, for I may call...."

As the door closed behind the Filipino she sank into a chair,
shuddering. First, Dr. Garth, then Barthélemy! Two within one month!
And such a month! She saw it as a pattern of brutal hues: the white
glare of the days, the poignant grays and purples of the nights; and
woven into this fabric, vanishing and reappearing at intervals, the
blue slendong. It seemed invisibly bound about her, drawing her on;
drawing her toward a revelation that she sensed with growing fear.

Another shudder. She looked down at her gray morning-dress. The ghastly
ashen shade depressed her. She must change. The gown of dull bronze
crêpe. Bronze belonged to her mood.

Lhassa felt nervous when she descended to meet Stephen Conquest, but
the sight of him gave her assurance. Indeed, it was incredible, she
thought, that he was involved in the elaborate deception that had been
exposed to her, and she wondered for a moment if she had not imagined
the conversation with the chief of information. However, all doubt was
dispelled by the recollections that were seared upon her mind.

They did not go directly to the river, but drove by a roundabout
way, which puzzled and vaguely disturbed her. Conquest was even more
talkative than usual, and as he chatted she sat and studied his long,
thin profile. Flawless in form. But there was a blemish within. She
turned this realization over in her mind with increasing dismay.
Although she had known it, instinctively, from the first, the proof
shocked her. Irrelevantly, she thought of an instance packed away in
the subconscious: One late afternoon in Washington, when ice lay pale
on the pavements and the lamps were frosty moons in the dusk, several
boys passed, their faces fine and unspoiled. And, as they passed, one
of them cursed vilely. And because she was only a little girl, she
went home and prayed for him.... Queer that she should remember that
now. Yet, somehow, Stephen Conquest reminded her of that boy with the
unspoiled face and the evil tongue. Depression settled upon her, stayed
until the river-front was reached.

Conquest's yacht was a slim sea-hound gleaming white with a coat of new
paint, a craft much larger than she had imagined.

"A thousand tons," he told her as they went aboard. "Notice her
name," he added, smiling, "I called her after Conrad's _Narcissus_.
There"--indicating a swarthy uniformed man near the wheel-house--"there
is the _Nigger_. I found him in Macao. He'd lost everything but his
certificate of navigation. I got all my crew by picking up derelicts.
It's a sort of game, a god's game. Not all human wreckage is wormwood;
often only the bark is rotten. And they're faithful, faithful as dogs."

"But," she questioned, "aren't you afraid that some day they may turn
and bite you?"

"No, I have more faith in driftwood than in the finished product from
the mills. Their sense of appreciation is more highly developed. Please
understand, I'm not a benefactor: I demand an equal measure of service
for all that I give. I don't pity these men; I merely realize their
value." A pause, then: "Would you like to go over the ship?..."

The _Narcissus_ was perfectly equipped, and immaculate from bow
to stern. Adjoining the dining-saloon was a sea-parlor with green
hangings, a deep, soft rug to match, and many bookcases. The cabins
were white-enameled and brass-finished. He took her into all but one,
which he explained, whimsically, was Bluebeard's. She wondered why he
did not show it to her, and decided he was deliberately trying to make
her inquisitive. However, her curiosity was not so easily smothered,
and when they moved on her mind held a picture of the unopened door.

The muffled sound of bells and a faint vibration announced that they
were under way, and an involuntary dread ran through her. She wondered,
with a sharp wrench of doubt, if she had acted wisely. However, she
realized it was too late for regret now. But, she asked herself, did
she regret coming? In all probability the trip would be uneventful, and
she would return knowing little if any more than before. If anything
did happen----Well, this was a desperate venture.

They returned to the deck and established themselves under the awning
aft, she on a wicker _chaise-longue_ and he in a Singapore chair.
Clammy heat steamed up from the river, beat down from the sky. It
crippled her thoughts and quivered before her in visible waves.
Conquest seemed out of focus, a pale blur in the blue incandescence.
When he offered her cigarettes she observed the gold-wrought figure on
his case; remembered, indolently, that she had noticed it before.

"It's copied from an ancient relief," he said perceiving her interest.

She took the case and studied the design. It was a woman unclothed
but for an elaborate girdle, many necklaces and bracelets, and a
three-coned tiara; a figure so finely wrought that each feature was
distinct.

"It represents an Apsara or celestial courtesan," he explained. "The
Khmers immortalized them in bas-relief on the walls of Angkor. However,
the original of this one isn't at Angkor, but in a temple in the Shan
States. There's a story connected with it that I'll tell you some time.
You remember the stone woman I spoke of the other night? This is a
replica made from a photograph; the work was done by an old goldsmith
in Bangkok."

At the mention of Bangkok her attention was drawn abruptly from the
case to its owner.

"You've been in Bangkok?"

He nodded.

She was at the point of inquiring if his visit was recent when she
realized the question would be too pointed; instead, she said:

"Tell me something of Angkor."

"Angkor," he mused, gazing at the figure on the cigarette-case. "Stone
cobras and mournful silence. And bats; one can never forget the bats.
I went through Angkor Wat one night, and the creatures terrified me,
wheeling and flapping about like the spirits of _Dracula's_ Un-dead...."

She half closed her eyes as he talked, her thoughts upon Bangkok
instead of Angkor. When was he in the Siamese capital? she wondered.
Why? Perhaps he was there on his yacht the night Dr. Garth was
murdered. But that did not seem logical, for if he was why did Garon
leave on the packet? No, he was not an actual actor in the Bangkok
affair, but he was concerned indirectly. He, Stephen Conquest ...
_Donatello_.... The heat destroyed the coherence of her thoughts;
fragments drifted in utter languor. He who sat opposite her, talking
of the relics of an ancient culture, was a criminal. She repeated that
with languid dismay. Fantastic. Bizarre. An illusion of the heat,
the dreadful heat. What a frightful place in which to live! A clammy
moisture seemed to congeal about her: she gazed out from a gelatinous
prison at the incredible rogue who talked on....

Toward late afternoon, when the blue mountains of Annam lifted their
peaks against an angry sky, a feeling of uneasiness stole over her. She
grew restless; suggested they go up in the bow. Dusk had lowered its
gauze, and phosphorus embroidered a luminous net around the yacht.

Presently a gong, luxuriously soft, sounded somewhere amidships.

"I have a boy who prepares dishes worthy of a calif's chef," Conquest
informed her, "so I planned to dine on the _Narcissus_ instead of at
Cap St.-Jacques. We'll not be there for an hour yet."

Lhassa welcomed the diversion.... A Chino served, his straw sandals
whispering mysteriously. Although the food was excellent, she had no
appetite. She felt excited, felt that she was on the threshold of a
tremendous adventure.

After the meal, Conquest paused in the sea-parlor and took a
paper-bound volume from one of the bookcases.

"In this old geographical journal are some excellent views of Angkor
Thom," he said. "Would you care to look at them while I find out where
we are?"

Not wishing to betray her nervousness, she took the journal and turned
the pages with assumed interest. Conquest approached a speaking-tube,
and after a brief conversation reported that they would reach Cap
St.-Jacques shortly. Relieved, she closed the magazine.

"Shall we go on deck?"

"Yes--but first, I have a surprise. If you'd really like to explore the
mystery of Bluebeard's cabin you may."

A sudden inexplicable fear tightened her throat.

"Bluebeard's cabin," she repeated. "That sounds unpleasant."

He laughed; his expression was cryptic. "Oh, I've covered all the
heads!"

She grimaced; hesitated; followed him into the passage to the cabins,
her finger-tips grown cold. The sound of the turning key rasped
loudly in the narrow alley. It startled her; left her angry at her
nervousness. Conquest opened the door and switched on a light, then
stepped aside with that cryptic expression.

At first she saw only a white state-room with a wardrobe-trunk pushed
against the wall and several bags and boxes on the floor. Then,
suddenly, with an ultra-clarity born of suspense, she perceived that
the baggage was her own.

She stared, the iciness creeping up from her fingers and touching her
heart. The drumming of her pulse was so loud that she imagined it was
audible to the man. She stood motionless.

The sudden remembrance of Manuel broke the temporary paralysis, gave
her the power to turn and face Conquest.

"This is preposterous," she heard herself saying in a voice cold as
sleet. "Preposterous. I...."

She broke off, sweeping across the cabin to the open port. The dark
shimmer of water stretched away to a cluster of lights and a black
promontory. As she looked, a tremulous antenna flickered out from the
lighthouse, was absorbed in inky-purple gloom. The pygmy flash gave an
added somberness to the scene. It was an evanescent gleam of hope in a
black and threatening world.

At the sound of Conquest's step she turned.

"It would be untruthful to say I'm sorry," he commenced. "You forced
this upon me----"

"Don't explain," she interrupted. "Tell me where we are going."

He smiled, gesturing extravagantly toward the porthole.

"Out there among the stars. You wish romance--adventure. Very well. I
shall play at being a god."

He shrugged; walked to the door; paused.

"I suppose," he said, "you think your Filipino boy will report your
absence. But he won't; I've taken steps to prevent it."

The announcement bred a momentary panic. When it passed, she thrilled
with a sudden consciousness of power.

"You are very thorough"--with a cold, scornful smile. "You even
remember my clothes. I suppose I should be afraid. But I'm not. Nor
have I any desire to escape. I suspected you might do something like
this, something utterly fantastic. You see, to-day I discovered that
Captain Barthélemy--what shall I say?--took his life?... I should
detest and loathe you; instead I pity you. In doing this preposterous
thing you've given me an opportunity. For the first time in my life I
have something to do--something to do; do you understand? And perhaps
I'll succeed; perhaps I'll find the Black Parrot; who knows? No, I'm
not afraid. You can be cruel--but not to me. You know why. You need not
guard me. I sha'n't try to get away--at least, not at present. But when
I'm ready to go I shall, yes, whether you believe it or not."

They faced each other across the cabin, her eyes smoldering with
purpose, his coldly mocking. The tableau was brief. With a faint smile
he stepped outside and closed the door.

She felt vaguely disappointed.

A moment after Conquest departed she placed the key on the inside
of the door and locked it. Then she flung herself on the berth, not
knowing whether to laugh or cry. She did neither, but crouched there,
staring ahead with unseeing eyes, a suggestion of the leopard in her
pose. Resentment against Conquest burned in her. She wanted to hurt
him, to bruise his flawless face. Her rage, reflex of fright, was so
acute that it nauseated her.

Gradually the flame of fury died. From the ashes rose a fierce desire
for companionship. Profound isolation bore down upon her. Alone.
Always alone. The macaw, the brilliant bird, flying from place to
place, free as the wind and as lonely!

She rose abruptly, closing her mind to these thoughts. From her purse
she took her automatic, stared at it. How could that small, gleaming
cylinder destroy life? She shuddered, slipped the weapon under the
mattress.

A cool breeze and a gentle heave told her the yacht was now on the open
sea and prompted her to look out of the port. A yellow moon peered
above the sea-line, flaking a weird path across the water. Behind,
the promontory of Cap St.-Jacques lay dark against the stars. The
night with its blacks, its purples, and its amber moon settled into a
pattern--the pattern of shifting, changing colors that had woven about
her in Bangkok, and, like a magic carpet, swept her to Saigon. She
was its central design, a figure woven into it securely with the blue
slendong. And it was carrying her on and on, out of her world and into
a region remote from fact.

CHAPTER VI

THE DREAM CHANDLER

Lhassa awoke and stared at the dancing flakes that were reflected upon
the ceiling; raised herself and looked out into sunlight so brilliant
that it stung her eyes; sat there and gazed with a sense of unreality
at the immaculate whiteness about her. It required a few seconds to
adjust herself. Even then the feeling of unreality lingered.

The cabin was hot, but cool currents coiled in through the port and
tunneled the heat. With the breeze came the fragrance of boiling
coffee. The odor aroused her appetite. Hungry. The thought was unique.
Banal food in the midst of such preposterous events! It made her
realize that even adventurers eat; that, indeed, her own adventure,
fabulous as it was, would be a succession of normal incidents like
food, sleep, and commonplace talk.

She drew her watch from under the pillow: nearly ten o'clock. Again she
looked out of the port; looked out at the lonely beauty of the sea, the
desolate beauty of the sea. About the yacht heaved an expanse green as
melted jade and filagreed with sunlight. She half expected to see a
plume of smoke or a faint penciling of land; but the water, made misty
blue by distance, blended into the sky.

As her gaze returned to the cabin she wondered if she was expected
to go into the dining-saloon for breakfast; wondered if Conquest was
waiting. At thought of him she frowned. What would be her attitude
toward him? If she antagonized him she would be thwarting her purpose,
but, on the other hand, it was not her nature to compromise. An innate
dignity rebelled against the freedom he had taken; pride demanded
that she be defiant. Yet she realized that only through submission,
or pretended submission, could she achieve her object. However, she
was wise enough to perceive that, in this instance, to yield beyond
regulating her actions to fit the situation would weaken her power.
Conquest must be made to feel that although she was acquiescent she was
by no means subjugated.

She was about to rise when she noticed a button near the berth.
Realizing its purpose, she pressed it. After a few minutes there came
sounds outside the door, then a tap. Slipping on her kimono, she
admitted a Chino--with a covered tray! This was more than she had
expected. Silently he arrayed her breakfast on a table and just as
silently departed.

When she had eaten she dressed. It was then a quarter to eleven, and
she sought the deck. She was relieved to find it deserted but for
two of the crew forward. They merely glanced up and, apparently not
surprised, went on with their work. As she circled the main cabin she
wondered how she would meet Conquest and what his manner would be.
Although she felt that she could deal with any situation that might
arise, she dreaded the meeting. Twice she made a round of the deck,
expecting at every turn to come upon Conquest. At length, determined to
end the strain, she approached the two deck-hands, acutely conscious
of their stares. Did they know where she could find Mr. Conquest? One
replied that he thought he was in the chart-room.

Resolutely she climbed to the bridge-deck, ignoring the gaze of the
swarthy, vizored man in the wheel-house, and stepped over the beamed
threshold into the chart-room. Conquest was seated before a table
writing, but at her entrance he got up. His gray eyes searched her for
a moment, then, as if assured of the absence of hostility, he smiled.

"Good morning."

She returned his greeting but not his smile. "I want to talk to you,"
she announced.

"Will you sit down?"--gesturing toward a chair.

"No." There was majesty in her manner, splendid disdain in her tone;
in the sunlight her hair took on a liquid sheen and became a burnished
coronet. "I want to talk to you," she repeated imperiously.

He nodded. "It will relieve the tension if we have an understanding;
that is what you think?"

"Precisely. Just what do you intend to do with me?"

A whimsical, boyish expression animated his face; an expression that
seemed almost incongruous, graven upon his ghastly pallor.

"Have you ever wandered along the waterfront of a great port?" he
asked. "If you have you will better understand what I'm going to say.
Near the docks in every harbor are stores that deal in canvas, cordage,
and furnishings for all sorts of craft. They're usually dim places,
smelling of brine and tar and hemp. Ship-chandleries, they're called."

He paused and she inquired coolly:

"Just what is the significance of that parable?"

He shrugged. "Instead of outfitting ships, I outfit dreams. It pleases
me to go among men, and, when I find them lacking in equipment, furnish
the necessary materials. That's my business. As I said last night, you
want adventure, so I'm making adventure possible."

"Do you expect me to believe that?"--scornfully.

Another shrug. "Believe it or not, it's true."

"What of Garon? I suppose you know no more about him than what you've
told me?"

He did not answer; she went on.

"Why am I here? Simply because of some ridiculous whim of yours? You'd
like to have me think that. But I don't. I'm here because if I were
free I'd be a menace to your plans. For all I know"--recklessly--"it
may have been you who killed Dr. Garth--you may be the Black Parrot.
At any rate, I'm not such a fool as to believe I'm being carried away
because of a benevolent impulse."

He twisted his mouth into a smile.

"As you suggest," he began, "perhaps I am the Black Parrot; perhaps
I'm not. Perhaps I know a great deal about Garon; perhaps I know very
little. Why destroy your illusions by telling you? Uncertainty! That
is the essence of adventure! What's more, if I denied or affirmed, you
wouldn't believe me--would you?"

She ignored his query, demanding, "Where are you taking me?"

"To the last stronghold of Romance! To a kingdom where adventure is not
an illusion!"

His smile antagonized her, but she controlled herself. Her voice was
calm when she spoke.

"You suggested an understanding," she reminded.

"Yes, a temporary understanding. You will be allowed absolute liberty
until we reach Kawaras; there I'll arrange----"

"Kawaras?" she interrupted. "Then there really is such a place? You do
own a sago plantation?"

"Yes. I'm rajah of Kawaras."

"There are white men there?"

"A few. Most of the work is done by Chinese and Malays. But as I was
saying: you are free while on the _Narcissus_. It will be useless for
you to try to buy any member of the crew. Remember they owe me their
lives; in a sense they belong to me, for I salvaged them. You'll
suffer no unpleasantness nor inconvenience--unless of your own making.
And you may have your meals privately or in the dining-saloon. Is that
clear enough?"

"No." Curiosity pricked her. "What have you done with my boy? Killed
him?"

He assumed exasperation, smiling. "You insist that I'm a murderer! Do I
look like one?" He grasped the edge of the table, leaning nearer her.
"Can nothing convince you that I'm simply a quixotic fool, gratifying
now the whims that were denied me in boyhood, by playing the rôle of
destiny to those whom it pleases me? I'm fighting, back to the wall,
against a world of sordid realism. In another age, I'd have worn
mail and chain, and----" He paused, made a gesture of futility. "But
now--now I'm only a renegade, a fool."

That whimsical melancholy smile remained on his face throughout his
speech. It baffled her, and she wondered whether he was mocking her or
in earnest. She said:

"Are you trying to evade my question?"

Another gesture. "You see, nothing can convince you. You want blatant
facts. Very well. Your boy is being held where he can't upset my plans.
I intend to keep him there until I consider it wise to release him.
Now, are you satisfied?"

"No. How did you get my baggage aboard?"

"More blatant facts! Do you insist?... Ah, well"--with a mock
sigh. "While I was waiting for you at the hotel yesterday, I gave
instructions, ostensibly at your bidding, to have two boys go to your
room as soon as you came down, pack your things, and place them in a
car I'd hired. I also settled your account. When we reached the ship
I took you on a tour of inspection to prevent you from seeing your
luggage brought aboard."

She smiled frigidly. "You are very efficient. It seems a pity that
you didn't direct your talents toward a better profession." Then
she relented; he looked so white as he stood there, indeed, almost
lifeless, like a carven image of melancholy. "Can't you see what a
futile thing you're trying to do? Don't you understand that you are
setting your own trap? In the end----"

"In the end," he broke in, "I shall undoubtedly pass--how does it
go? 'Under a cloud, inscrutable at heart, forgotten, unforgiven.'
Incredibly romantic, Conrad called his _Lord Jim_. Perhaps I, too, am
that. For who would believe, who could believe, that I am doing all
this simply to be romantic? You want to find the Black Parrot; you want
to know who killed your doctor friend; who stole the Emerald Buddha;
what happened to Barthélemy; if Garon is Letourneau, the garroter; why
I am doing this. You shall learn all these things in time--because it's
in my power to play Destiny to you. And in the end----" He shrugged.
"You at your fireside, on winter nights, dreaming of the great
adventure, and I ... 'under a cloud ... forgotten, unforgiven.'"

He was either mad or a very great rogue, she told herself. But, fool or
knave, he was picturesque, with his dead-white, perfect features, his
scarred wrists and strange smile. She did not attempt a reply to his
fantastic speech; none was necessary. She smiled--smiled at his folly,
smiled with compassion--and left him. His pallid face, the fires she
had glimpsed in his eyes, followed her, haunted her.

When the luncheon gong sounded, Lhassa debated whether she would dine
with Conquest or alone; a brief debate, for she speedily decided in
favor of the former. There was nothing to be gained by isolating
herself; indeed, on the contrary, she might be losing.

Conquest was waiting, waiting as though he expected her; which was
rather irritating. He held her chair, then seated himself and launched
into impersonal conversation--just as if they were dining under the
most prosaic circumstances!

To her that meal was the essence of grotesquery. She felt that instead
of human beings they were a pair of manikins, moving and speaking at
the direction of an invisible person. She found herself regarding the
man with something like incredulity. It seemed quite impossible that
he had--yes, abducted her. What part was he of the mysterious force
that she believed to be behind the murder of Dr. Garth, the death of
Barthélemy, and the theft of the Emerald Buddha? Could he have been
in Bangkok the night of the crime? On his yacht, perhaps? She did not
question for a moment that he was involved; his association might be
remote, but, without a doubt, he was connected. He was not a tool,
she was sure. Nor was Garon. They were partners. Garon. Where was
he? In Saigon? Most likely. It was plausible to assume that they had
conspired to hold her somewhere until Garon made his escape. But how
long would that be? And what then? Of course, she argued, there was the
possibility that she had made a colossal mistake, that there was no
connection between the murder of Dr. Garth and the theft of the Buddha,
and that Barthélemy had committed suicide. But it was improbable. For
why was she being carried away if not because she knew too much?

After lunch she went to her cabin for a siesta, but, as it was
intolerably hot, she returned to the deck and settled herself
comfortably under the awning. When she awakened, the sun, a red-gold
doubloon, was spinning into the west. For several minutes she lay
there, gazing across the low burnished undulations, gazing into the
smoky red heart of the sun. A savage beauty attended its setting; flash
of a helmet through battle-smoke. Then it dropped; and she shivered in
the sudden dusk.

Later, when she was in her cabin dressing, she thought of her
automatic, and felt under the mattress to make sure it was there. Her
hand groped without touching metal. Surprised, she lifted the mattress.
Her first emotion was fright, then anger. Had Conquest been in her
state-room? Or had the "boy" who make her berth found the weapon and
given it to his master? No matter; what mattered was that it was gone.
She felt resentful, indignant. She would go to him and demand it.

As soon as she was dressed she sought Conquest. He was not in the
saloon nor on deck, and she ascended to the chart-room. It was
unoccupied. In the dim light a chart, gleaming palely on the wall,
arrested her attention, and, with an involuntary glance behind, she
entered.

The chart was tacked above a table and showed a part of Indo-China
and Siam and the whole of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and
Borneo. The little contours danced with the vibration of the ship.
Blue lines marked the currents, black the steamship routes, tiny dots
the cables. There was one red line beginning at Saigon and stretching
across the South China Sea to Borneo. At its end, written in red ink,
were the words "Sadok" and "Kawaras." As she saw them she experienced
a shock. Kawaras--on the Bornean coast! She had not tried to place
her destination definitely; she had taken it for granted that it was
somewhere on the coast of Indo-China or the Malay Peninsula. Kawaras,
she perceived, was a narrow strip of territory between Sarawak and
Sambas; Sadok was evidently its port. Kawaras, an independent state of
Borneo! And Conquest was its rajah!

She stared at the jagged line of the great island, her breathing
repressed. Crocodiles drowsing in scum-green rivers; orchids and
exotic plants. These things meant Borneo to her. And she was going
there. The realization brought a sheer, exquisite thrill; brought a
remembrance of something Barthélemy had said. "Jungles ... undiscovered
rivers." His words came back with prophetic significance. She continued
to gaze at the chart, fascinated. Her feeling of intimacy with the
jungle-island was so strong that for the moment she seemed to lose her
individuality and became a part of it.

The strokes of a bell abaft the wheel-house intruded upon her
absorption, and she threw a quick glance toward the doorway, expecting
to see it occupied. But only darkness filled it. With another look at
the map, at the outline of Borneo, she hurried out of the chart-room
and below.

In the main companionway she met Conquest. At sight of him she
remembered the missing revolver, and an ember of indignation glowed.

"You are being entirely too thorough," she announced, halting in front
of him.

His expression was one of surprise. "I don't understand."

"No? I wish my revolver."

"Revolver?"

"I suppose"--icily--"you are not aware that some one removed a small
automatic from under my berth to-day."

He affected amazement. "No! Really? I'll have to speak to the boy who
attends to your cabin. These Chinos! They have a passion for firearms!
However, if he took it you shall have it back."

She made no further comment, only smiled coldly, and swept past him.

When she reached her cabin she slammed the door and locked it. She
was angry--angry because she was frightened. The loss of the revolver
had forced her to realize that she was in the midst of grim intrigue
instead of a rather diverting fantasy, and she was shaken by the
revelation. Every support, it seemed, had fallen away, leaving
her alone to face a situation that she had brought upon herself
deliberately. However, the fact that she was deprived of every weapon
but her wits acted as a challenge. The macaw had been trapped; but the
very cage that served as a prison would also serve as a protection.

A sense of security settled upon her. She unlocked the door. Yes, she
knew how to deal with Stephen Conquest.

The following night the _Narcissus_ was plunging through incalescent
darkness toward a full moon that hung over Borneo.

Lhassa tried to read, but she was restless and the cabin was hot. A
glimpse of the stars lured her on deck. Two cigar-ends smoldered in
the gloom aft, and so she made her way forward, to the bow, seating
herself between hawse-holes and anchor-windlass. The water, as it
rushed past the stem, sang a pæan, the pæan of youth and the sea; told
in rippling notes of blue bays and drowsy lagoons; of spicy islands
and atolls gay with palms. She sat there, arms locked about her knees,
lost in the symphony. The jangle of bells, some time later, was part
of the harmony, a wind-blown echo of pagoda chimes; indeed, she was so
exalted by the rhythm of the sea that the dissonant sound of footsteps
failed to break the spell. With something of a shock, she realized that
Conquest was standing beside her. After a glance at him she fixed her
gaze upon the saraband of moonlight. He drew out cigarettes and lighted
one. The spurt of the match must have shown him her expression of
annoyance, for he asked:

"Do you dislike me so intensely?"

At that she shifted her gaze to him: in the dim moonlight, his face
melted into a featureless oval.

"To-night, yes," she returned coldly. After a moment she went on
with cruel intent, "At times, I loathe you; at other times, you're
nothing--nothing but a means; again, I pity you."

He laughed in a manner that softened her mood. She knew she had touched
raw tissue.

"Why do you loathe me?" he pressed. "Because you think I'm a thief--a
murderer?"

The sediment of her irritation remained; she framed her reply carefully.

"A woman," she declared, "can forgive a man for stealing--yes, even
for murder--but never for a sin against her vanity. It appeals to her
to condone a wrong, principally because the act gratifies a peculiar
conceit in her nature. But when a man usurps her sacred right to decide
for herself, as you have done in bringing me here, body and baggage, he
is guilty of the unpardonable."

He toyed with his cigarette-case in silence for a few seconds. Then:

"You put it very clearly," he commented. "Yet if I were to offer
you freedom now, I wonder if you'd accept." He chuckled. "A complex
psychology, woman; complex.... No, you wouldn't. And I have no
intention of denying you the one great adventure. In years to come
you'll look back on me as a benefactor. Stephen Conquest, the fool,
who fought for Romance! And the reward? A shadow on a dark sea, a
memory.... Oh, you'll remember me! You won't be able to forget. There's
satisfaction in that."

Very deliberately she inquired, "Why is there satisfaction in that?"
And regretted it.

He made an indeterminate gesture.

"Because--well, you've asked me, so I'll tell you: because I've never
loved a woman in just the same way--that is, not a living woman.
I don't love you as flesh and blood, but as some one remote, an
individual magnificent and inaccessible. The Sibylla Delphica; you're
like that--too fine to be real. If I touched you I know you'd be cold,
colder than stone; yet you fill me with fire. Oh, never fear; I shan't
touch you! I...." His speech ended in silence.

To Lhassa, her heart beating a quick tempo, the ship--the terrace of
decks, the masts and rigging--seemed suddenly unreal; unreal, too, was
the man who stood above her, white and statuesque in the moonlight.
Her impulse was to put an end to his talk, but the fancifulness of the
situation held her mute. A faint chill had come over her.

"There was another woman," he resumed presently, "a woman just as
remote, just as inaccessible--a figure carved on a wall." He laughed
bitterly. "A figure on a wall--a bas-relief! Fancy a man loving a stone
woman! But it wasn't the unfeeling rock; it was the spirit." He paused;
glanced down at his cigarette-case. "This is she wrought in metal, the
figure you noticed the other day--the Apsara I told you of in Saigon. I
said there was a story connected with it; you remember? It's a rather
long tale, a rather foolish tale--yet----" He hesitated, as though
expecting her to speak, but she did not.

"At least," he continued, "you don't forbid me to tell it. You know the
story of the building of Angkor, of course. Perhaps it's a myth; it
may be history. After all, the difference is very slight. You remember
I described the figures on the walls. Well, there are characters,
too, one a writing similar to that now used by the Cambodians. These
characters, together with the account of an ancient Chinese diplomat,
indicate that the Khmers--the builders of Angkor, you know--were a
Brahman race that migrated from India. By Jove! I like to picture that
migration! The hordes pressing through Manipur and Arakan, through
the Shan States and Upper Siam, to the great lake of Tonle Sap;
conquering as they came, crushing the weaker or forcing them into
servitude. Imagine the color and the raw drama of it! Fancy it! Brahman
nobles, mailed warriors, postilions and foot-soldiers; elephants and
war-chariots! Stupendous!"

Lhassa sat motionless during the recital, staring up at him; staring
with amazement. She marveled at his unflagging enthusiasm, at the
persistent spirit of romance that flamed within him. Undoubtedly he was
mad, mad with too much dreaming.

"Picture those mammoth battles," he went on. "Elephants trampling
bodies, chariots crushing the dead! What arrogance must have come to
them from those victories! Is it a wonder that when they built Angkor
they created such a colossal city, such a magnificent monument to their
madness? And the irony of it, that this mighty people should reach the
pinnacle of power and perish within a space of little more than two
hundred years! That's what happened. The Thai came, and the Khmers,
drunken with conquest, fell. And now: Angkor, a memorial to their
greatness and their folly. Tragic, isn't it?"

He seemed to address the darkness into which the boat was plowing, as
if there, invisible, was a tribunal before which he was pleading the
cause of a vanished race.

"I'm not off on a tangent," he announced. "I'm leading up to my
story. Quite a number of years ago--fifty, perhaps--there was a man,
an explorer, who believed that bands of Khmers left the main body in
their march across Further India and settled and built cities--cities
that might be hidden in the jungles, forgotten ruins. So great was his
conviction that he set out to prove it. He went up into Manipur, among
the Naga tribes, where he found a clue that led him to Upper Burma, and
from Upper Burma into the Shan States. There, in that wild territory
where Burma, Siam, and Laos-land meet, he came upon the remnants of a
town that resembled Angkor. The people living in villages about it were
a light-brown color with features altogether different from the Shans.
Their religion was different, too; it was a curious combination of
ancient Brahmanism and devil-worship.

"I first heard of those ruins when I was a young chap, and I made up
my mind then that I'd visit them some day. And I did. Three years
ago I went up to Luang-Prabang and struck out northeast. Fever and
pestilence! No one will ever know what I suffered for a whim! I was out
of my head when I finally reached the ruins, so full of fever that I
thought they were part of my delirium. But I pulled through. And what
I saw was worth all the agony of the journey. Of course, it wasn't as
large as Angkor Thom, but there were the same conical towers, the
same exterior cloisters; the huge stairways, the carved Nagas and
lotus-buds, the daring relief-work. And such decay! I can't describe
it! The ruins were being devoured by the jungle, a cruel, bestial
jungle that each year is sinking great roots under its walls, covering
it with fungi and choking its dried-up pools with weeds.

"The largest building, a temple, was better preserved than the others.
The bas-reliefs were almost perfect. One slab--it ran the length of the
south wall--was unforgettable. On it were sacred dancers: Tevadas and
Apsaras. The end figure was just below a rent in the roof, and when the
sun shone, it seemed to dance in a spot-light. It ... but I told you
of it in Saigon. The features were of an Aryan caste, not Mongoloid.
They--how can I describe them? The mystery of the Beata Beatrix; the
flawlessness of the Astarte Syriaca; the sharp beauty of the alabaster
woman in Dante's Dream; and, combined with these, an inscrutable charm
entirely Oriental.... Each day while I was convalescent I had my boys
carry me into the temple so I could look at it. That sounds as though I
were demented, doesn't it? But it wouldn't if I could convey to you the
strange beauty of that stone creature. When I looked at her I felt--how
can I say it?--I felt as if----" He hesitated, chuckled. "Yes, as if I
had loved her in some previous incarnation and she had been preserved
in stone to mock me when I returned to earth. Perhaps the fever had
left me with a madness; indeed, there are times when I'd be tempted to
believe it all a dream if it were not that I have tangible proof.

"My guide learned from the natives a legend about the figure. It
represented; no it _was_ Pi-noi, an ancient bayadere, who was a consort
of the god Indra. She symbolized bodily perfection; and it was the
custom, when a woman was about to have a child, for her to go every day
and sit under the image of Pi-noi and pray that if the baby was a girl
it would have the features of Indra's consort. A rather ironic twist to
the story is the fact--at least, they tell it as a fact--that the only
baby who ever bore a resemblance to the celestial courtesan was the
child of a native woman and a white adventurer!... Before I left the
ruins I photographed the stone Pi-noi, and when I reached Bangkok I had
her wrought in gold on this case"--with a gesture--"as a souvenir of my
madness."

As he paused, Lhassa contemplated him with a feeling of depression.
His linens gave him a ghostly semblance as he stood there, isolated,
against the gray darkness. Behind him, high in the firmament, hung the
moon: it was ash-pale, and a pellicle lay across it, like mist over a
pool.

"There's a singular flaw in the masculine chemistry," he said,
resuming abruptly, "a flaw that a woman can't understand. A man may
have two loves, a good love and a bad love, without consciously being
unfaithful. One is a strange spiritual mystery, the other--well, a
means of discharging the evil from his system. It's queer, isn't it,
how one will reach for the moon, and, failing, content himself with a
polished likeness?... When I returned to civilization, after my trip
up into the Shan States, I saw a face one night in Saigon--a face
dusky gold and beautiful with an evil beauty. Pi-noi, the bayadere,
was a woman of stone, an ideal, inaccessible. Knowing this, I----" He
halted; she saw him shrug. "Knowing the moon couldn't be attained, I
contented myself with an imitation.... And now, now you come with the
spirit of Pi-noi in you; the same fascination, the same spell--and as
unattainable. You, being a woman, could never understand the episode of
the golden face. It was well expressed when you said that a woman can
forgive theft or murder but not a sin against her vanity. And another
woman, one of the type of the golden face, is a sin against the vanity
of a woman who holds herself above mere passion."

For some reason Lhassa could not resent his speech. Her only emotion
was amazement, amazement at the complexity of his character. It was
fantastic, inconceivable, that one so obviously without scruples could
be capable of the idealism, the innate appreciation of beauty, that
his story had disclosed. She was convinced there was a flaw in his
psychology, a blemish as conspicuous as the scars on his wrists: he
had been modeled after a god--but a blow had fissured the image. His
silence, his attitude of waiting, challenged her to speak, but there
was nothing she could say. The situation took on a sharp tenseness, and
she started to rise. At her first movement he spoke again.

"There's a platitude about confession being good for the soul. But
that wasn't my object--I doubt if I have a soul. No, I had another
purpose--a purpose you may understand when--well, when I've passed
'under a cloud.'" He raised his arms; stared at the white-ringed
wrists. "Chains," he said with a bitter laugh. "Pi-noi, the woman of
stone, inaccessible, beyond reach. And yet ... yet ... _I have her
eternally!_"

Lhassa watched him go; watched him disappear in the black rictus of
a companionway. "I have her eternally!" What did he mean? A sickly
coldness crept over her. She interpreted "her" to mean "you." The
story of Pi-noi, the bayadere, had shown her, among other things, that
although she was Conquest's prisoner, she had upon him a more potent
grasp. It was a weapon that frightened her. Hereafter she must avoid
him--tactfully.

She rose, shivering, and stood gazing into the pale reaches of
moonlight. The ship, it seemed, was furrowing through a gray immensity,
toward the very edge of the world. There was a nameless melancholy in
the scene, almost a presagement. It was the same pattern, she told
herself; but its colors had changed, had deepened to somber hues. The
dull grays and blacks alarmed her. Involuntarily she raised her arms,
as though to tear herself out of the design, but the gesture ended in a
submissive shrug.

As she went below, the moon looked very old: a haggard profligate
squandering its coins on the sea.

CHAPTER VII

MALAY HOUSE

Morning and the dazzle of sunlight on sea. The water glittered east
and west, glittered north and south, in corrugated blue. A heat-mist
danced in the sun's path, impalpable as smoke; to Lhassa, indefinite
as the future. The previous night Conquest had told her that morning
would bring sight of land; so she was on deck early, half expecting to
see the coast-line, but the blue and gold sea melted into the flawless,
burning sky.

Throughout the morning--a morning interminable--she sat under the
awning, eagerly watching. Conquest, as usual, did not show himself; she
presumed he was in the chart-house, where he spent most of his time.
Since the night he told her of Indra's consort she had seen little
of him, partly because she avoided him and partly because he avoided
her. A tense restraint had come between them.... Just before noon a
thread appeared on the horizon. She saw it with a tremor of excitement;
watched it gradually expand until it lay against the sky like a green
rind. At lunch Conquest told her the ship would be within two miles of
land by three o'clock and then follow the shore to Sadok. After the
meal she returned to her post.

As five bells clanged out, Conquest joined her, but for only a moment.

"Borneo," he said with a sweeping gesture. "Land of every boy's dreams;
jungles and swampy trails; orang-utans and head-hunters!"

He left her a pair of marine glasses with which she scanned the coast.
At first it was blurred because of the lenses, but she adjusted them,
and, like some fabulous continent emerging from mists, Borneo came into
focus.

White beaches and spumy surf; the green of jungles, blue hollows in the
shrubbery where trails groped inland. Beyond this savage stronghold
rose slate towers--mountains whose misty ranges melted into the
sumptuous blend of color. Their bases seemed dissolved, their peaks
floating, detached, like aërial kingdoms. An off-shore breeze, warm
from lush soil, brought a scented balm, a greeting soft and sensuous.

Lhassa experienced an exhilarating sense of discovery, of having come
upon a new world. Yet, strangely, it seemed familiar; just a flicker--a
hand sweeping the dust of centuries from a mirror--then the glass was
clouded again. The _Narcissus_ had shifted her course and was steaming
parallel with the coast. Lhassa gazed through the binoculars until her
vision quivered, then closed her eyes and lay back in the chair; closed
her eyes and dreamed of empires buried beyond the mountains, of races
whose history died with them, leaving to the world only a legacy of
mystery.

Toward late afternoon the yacht dropped in close to shore, and,
shortly before sunset, rounded a promontory, entering a small harbor.
Trees rose black and somber against a wounded sky. On one side of the
tiny bay, some distance from a break that suggested the mouth of a
river, cliffs strove up from the beach, their crests luxuriant with
palms. With the marine glasses Lhassa verified the impression that a
river emptied into the harbor. Flanking its estuary, on the left side,
were rows of huts on poles, and, beyond these, whitewashed houses. On
the opposite bank, bordering a low landing-stage, stood what appeared
to be a series of warehouses. She perceived several people on the dock,
half-naked pygmies. One figure stood apart, a man whose white garments
seemed to draw the light and gleam white in the garnet sunset.

The approach of Conquest interrupted further observation.

"I came to suggest that you pack in a hand-bag the things you'll
need immediately and leave your heavier luggage to be brought up in
the morning. I shall have to go ashore as soon as we drop anchor.
The captain will send you when you're ready, and I'll be waiting. Up
there"--with a gesture toward the promontory--"in the palm grove, is my
palace where I play at being rajah of Kawaras. I call it Malay House."

Malay House. She repeated the name; gazed at the fronds that concealed
it. He had said that Sadok was the port of Kawaras, a trading-post,
so undoubtedly there would be others besides his household. And his
household----Was Garon a member? A thrill of expectation traveled over
her. Malay House! Intrigue in the words. What would she find there?
Whom would she find there? The Black Parrot's band?

Her conjectures were cut short by a muffled detonation that rumbled out
across the water. The sound seemed a signal for the sun to disappear,
for it dropped suddenly and dusk settled, hydrangea-blue. Conquest
glanced toward a wisp of smoke that hung over the landing.

"A salute to the Tuan Rajah," he explained, smiling.

A moment later the engines were stilled, and the anchor plunged into
mud bedding some five hundred yards from the landing. Lhassa remained
on deck until Conquest was rowed to the dock. The figures by the
warehouses had been reduced to shadows, all but the white-clad one. He
seemed suspended in gloom, a creature unrelated to earth. Her curiosity
was stirred as she watched him move forward to meet Conquest. Garon?...

When she returned to the deck with her bag night had fallen. The somber
trees were merged with the sable sky; water met land blackly. All about
her was darkness made more intense by the stars and a few lights on
shore. In the direction of the landing a lantern rocked through the
gloom like a strayed and drunken star. She felt frightened as she was
helped down the ladder and into the stern-sheets of a life-boat. The
night was oppressive as a prison.

Conquest was waiting on the dock, a friendly figure in a hostile
world, and she forgot the strain that had come between them. He had
a companion who she thought, at first, was the white-clad man but
who proved to be a turbaned East Indian, evidently a servant, for he
relieved her of her bag. As they moved off, Conquest leading with the
lantern, she had the impression that the East Indian deliberately
smiled at her. It startled her, left her vaguely uneasy. The expression
was no sorcery of the shadows: he had smiled, smiled in a furtive,
prescient manner. Why? Puzzled, she stared at his turban bobbing along
in front.

An unpleasant odor tainted the air, and Conquest volunteered the
explanation that it was from sago in the godowns. "The plantation is up
the river, near the sultan's village," he added.

A path led past the warehouses and among trees, sloping upward. At the
top were many palms, their valences motionless against the starry sky.
Although she could not see the water, she could hear the smothered beat
of waves; she knew they were on the headland. Conquest did not speak
until they reached a wall of shrubs, and, ahead, a torn waste of roofs
was outlined upon the deeper darkness of trees. Then:

"Malay House," he announced, "or the Astana, as the natives call it,
which means the palace."

The house was huge and white, and a walk curved about it to a screened
portico. Several Malays stood near the doorway. "Tuan rajah baik?" they
inquired in one voice. To which Conquest nodded gravely, and entered.
Within, Lhassa gained a swift impression of spaciousness and white
walls. The East Indian had disappeared; a Malay "boy" had her bag.

"We dine about eight," Conquest said. "If you prefer, you may----"

"We?" she interposed.

"Yes, my head overseer and I."

"A white man?"

"Of course."

"No others?"

He shook his head. She decided quickly.

"I shall be ready at eight."

He spoke to two of the Malays, then informed her:

"These will be your personal boys."

"Guards," she thought as she moved up a stairway and along a dim
corridor. One of the Malays opened a door, lighted a lamp; the other
entered with her bag. The room was large and white, the furniture
stained green. A casement opened upon a veranda.

When the "boys" had gone she stood in the middle of the floor,
thinking. Her new surroundings, so obviously foreign, made real
her captivity and forced her to realize that she was shut off from
the world, with chance her only ally. A prisoner. The thought
was incongruous. It frightened her; but also it strengthened her
determination to use every opportunity. She would find out, among
other things, why the East Indian had smiled. She sensed in the head
overseer, who she fancied was the white-clad man on the dock, an
instrument. Suddenly, without reason, she thought of Garon. What of
him? Was he in Sadok or Saigon?

Shortly before eight o'clock Lhassa descended into the main hall.
Her finger-tips were cold, and a mild attack of vertigo, result of
suppressed excitement, made her vision dance. Conquest was waiting--and
with him a man in a white silk suit. Both men seemed blurred, out of
focus.

"Miss Camber," began Conquest, "this is my head overseer--Tuan Muda the
Malays call him. Tuan Muda, you know, means 'Young Lord.'"

The dizziness passed, and Lhassa saw a face deeply bronzed and clean
shaven. The mouth was impatient, almost hard, the eyes steady; green
eyes that met her gaze rather insolently. This expression, she
perceived, was due to a scar on his temple, a white crescent that drew
his left eyebrow into an impudent slant. She was acutely conscious
of his appraising look. He bowed slightly in acknowledgment of the
introduction; said nothing. It was an awkward situation, and Conquest
quickly relieved it with the announcement that dinner was ready.

Throughout the meal Tuan Muda commanded Lhassa's gaze. There was
something vaguely familiar about him, an element in personality rather
than a physical feature. His hands--long, lithe hands--called to mind
what Barthélemy had told her of Garon. But Tuan Muda could not be
Garon: Garon had a humped back. Tuan Muda: Young Lord. Who was he? Had
she seen him somewhere before or was the familiarity only imaginary?
She remembered that previous to her meeting with him she had considered
him a possible instrument; and, figuratively, she smiled. His face
proclaimed him a type not easily cajoled or coerced. His taciturnity,
his indifference, irritated her. He spoke only when Conquest addressed
him; he had no accent but a clearness of pronunciation that was
foreign. He apparently took little notice of her. Oh, yes, she knew
his type! she assured herself. Head overseer. It was a position to
which he was well suited. A driver of men, exacting, relentless in his
judgment of all, even himself. What secrets, she wondered, were hidden
behind his impassive face? What part had he in Conquest's schemes? He
was a partner surely, for his personality was not that of an underling.
As she contemplated him she was possessed, suddenly, of a desire to
subject him to her will, to force from him his secrets, to drive him as
she fancied he drove others.

After dinner they retired to a room lined with shelves of books,
and while the men had claret and cigars, she pretended to examine
several heavily bound volumes. Her impulse had been to go to her room
immediately, but curiosity persuaded her to linger. However, their talk
yielded nothing. Conquest asked if certain shipments had been made; if
there had been any news from the plantation; when Salazar was coming.
Tuan Muda answered each query tersely. She was at the point of leaving
when Conquest addressed her.

"Miss Camber, I would like to show you a few of my collections. I've
some rather interesting treasures, you know." He rose, taking from
the table one of a pair of brass candelabra and moving to an arched
doorway. "This"--as he thrust aside draperies--"is the Chinese room."

Lhassa joined him, observing that Tuan Muda sat motionless, staring
into gray whirls of smoke and restlessly fingering his lapel. The
Chinese room, like all the rooms she had seen in Malay House, was
white-plastered, and paneled and floored with teak. A gorgeously
embroidered screen and a vermilion-lacquered chest glowed in the
candle-light; porcelains and bronzes were arranged on shelves.

"Notice that carved bell," he said, pointing toward a glass cabinet.
"It's of the Kien-lung Period, made from a piece of Rasham Darya jade.
And that coral and silver _tse-boum_, there, is from Tibet, from your
name-sake, Lhassa. This"--crossing the room to a second arched doorway
and parting portières--"this is what I call the Damascus room."

Numberless weapons were on the walls and in glass cases: blades from
Damascus and Nirmul; slim Rajput swords, hilts of Jeypore enamel;
simitars and lances from North Africa; broadswords and sabers, some
jeweled, others cruelly plain; straight blades and curved blades,
small blades and large blades, the reflected candle-light trickling and
crawling along their keen edges.

"These rugs," Conquest went on, indicating three faded patterns hung
like tapestries upon the walls, and one on the floor, "are part of my
collection. The one in the corner is an old Persian silk prayer-rug
from Shiraz; that one"--gesturing--"is a Baku. The rose-pink and blue
affair we're standing on is a Sehna Khilim."

On the opposite wall, between sword-cases, was a long carpet of rose
and blue and green, bordered with a lancet leaf and palmette design.
Its bold colors attracted Lhassa, and she moved to it, studying the
exquisite weave.

"An Ispahan of the sixteenth century," Conquest informed her; "a
legacy of the Sufi reigns. I got it from a mosque in Tabriz. Quite an
adventure connected with it."

She raised one corner, running her hand over the frayed texture, and,
to her surprise, saw that the carpet was hung to conceal a door.

"That's the entrance to the Djinnee's Cave," spoke up the man in answer
to her questioning look. "It's taboo--even to my servants. In it I keep
my most valuable treasures--and my past. Oh, it's securely locked and
the key hidden!"

He smiled whimsically, but the candle-light, flickering across his
white face, hinted at suppressed bitterness. He turned quickly and
took a small dagger from a case.

"I picked up this misericorde in Smyrna," he told her, changing the
subject. "You see the blade: it's channeled and perforated for poison.
Daggers like this were used during the Crusades, and after, to give
the death-blow to a fallen knight." He balanced the misericorde on
his palm: candle-light licked along its blade and spread in a lambent
tongue on the heavily chased hilt. "When I go up-country I carry
this to use in the event any of the Dyak tribes suddenly decide to
swing a few more heads in their communal houses. Of course I take a
revolver, too--but it's not for myself. No; to die under the point of
a misericorde is more romantic than to be shot or beheaded! However,
I don't expect to have to make use of the dagger, as the Dyaks are a
peaceful lot now--especially those in Kawaras and Sarawak. The Malays
are more likely to give me trouble than the Dyaks. You see, when I
took over Kawaras the sultan was forced to agree to certain conditions
that didn't please him. So he removed his court from Sadok up the
river, to a spot near the fort; the fort's on the plantation, you
know. His palace, where he plays at being sultan, is in a conventional
Malay stockade, and built about the village are a number of Sea Dyak
communal houses. It's the usual Far-Eastern comic-opera court: the
intrigues, the jealousies, the plots and counter-plots. The sultan's
cousin, Nakoda Mubin, the commander-in-chief of the army, aspires to
the throne. He's a decent sort of chap, quite willing to bow to British
sovereignty. But the sultan is a violent irreconcilable. However, he
doesn't dare do more than fume and rage, because he knows Nakoda Mubin
is powerful, and he's afraid trouble with the raj might cost him his
throne."

Lhassa listened, but all the while she was thinking of the hidden door.
The Djinnee's Cave he had called it. "In it I keep ... my past." His
past! She determined, instantly, to explore the taboo room; she would
find a way; she felt intuitively that behind the door was the secret of
the scarred wrists--and the scarred heart.

Conquest had started toward the library, but he paused and turned.

"We may as well have an understanding now," he announced. "Your
boundary lines are the cliffs on the east and south, and the warehouses
on the north; it's unnecessary for me to forbid you to go into the
jungle. I don't think it wise to let you cross the river; however,
if you're interested, some day I'll arrange for you to see the Malay
village and the Chinese bazaar. You see, Tuan Muda and I are the only
white men in Sadok; my employees are Chinese and Klings. A word about
the servants: I explained to them that you are a ranee from across
the water, very powerful in your country, but"--with a smile--"not as
powerful as I. That's diplomacy, of course. Now, have I your word that
you'll stay within bounds?"

She gave it readily, for she believed that for the present she would
find sufficient to interest her in and about Malay House.

They returned to the library, where Tuan Muda sat, smoking and playing
solitaire. He rose at her entrance. She did not even glance at him, but
moved into the hall and up-stairs.

When she reached her room she sank into a great wicker chair and
thought; thought of Conquest, of the forbidden room, and of Tuan Muda.
Mainly of Tuan Muda. There was a challenging element of mystery about
him. His indifference antagonized her, yet, queerly, her hostility was
tinged with admiration. She realized he could not easily be subjected
by a woman's charms. She resented it and resolved, resolved coldly, to
reduce him to a state of thraldom. As she sat there planning, the lines
that Barthélemy had quoted ran through her mind:

Who slays and passes, looking not again;
Who, all too lovely to be loved, still goes
Guarding with steadfast eyes her breast of snows....

Lhassa was aware of the fact that she was beautiful. But she was not
vain beyond a normal degree. She regarded bodily perfection as an
instrument, one not to be neglected nor, on the other hand, misused.
Fortunately, she had a sense of proportion which never failed to
discriminate between the unscrupulous and the essentially proper though
unconventional.

Conquest's collections, his bronzes, swords, and rugs, presented a
new angle for conjecture. In Bangkok she had heard that the Black
Parrot was reputed to be a thief who stole art treasures, antiques of
intrinsic worth, and sold them to collectors. Was it not plausible,
then, to assume that either Garon or Tuan Muda was the Black
Parrot--working for Conquest? The convicts who escaped from Cayenne
fitted into this theory: they were members of a band, the Black
Parrot's band. It was possible, she argued, that the Black Parrot was
an organization instead of an individual; possible, yes, but it was an
unconvincing conjecture. The Black Parrot was a man. Of the two, Garon
or Tuan Muda, the former seemed the more likely suspect. She believed
that he stole the Emerald Buddha and killed Dr. Garth; stole the god
for Conquest and killed the doctor while attempting to rob him. Garon,
she assured herself, was undoubtedly Letourneau, the garroter, who had
escaped from Cayenne and aided others. But Tuan Muda? A mystery, a
rather irritating mystery.

She rose; exchanged her dress for the dragon kimono; seated herself
before the mirror. She continued to think of Tuan Muda as she ran a
comb through her long burnished hair; and as she thought of him, an
anticipatory smile touched her lips.

Lhassa did not go to sleep immediately. Her faculties were too
thoroughly aroused. She lay in darkness and stared at the ceiling,
wishing some noise would break the quiet. The stillness--the hush
of a tropical night--was profound except when a languorous breeze
stirred the window-curtains or whispered in the trees. Once she heard
footsteps below; another time, voices somewhere close by. The silence
evoked recollections and staged a pageant, a pageant imposed upon
the shifting backgrounds of the last six weeks. She saw herself with
Barthélemy in the café in Singapore; visualized the landing at Bangkok,
the temple of the Emerald Buddha, and her meeting with Conquest; heard
again the story of Le Perroquet Noir, the history of Angkor, and the
legend of Pi-noi, the bayadere. Faces and scenes became confused and
clogged her mind. She shut her eyes; tried to sleep; failed. The
moments lengthened into eons.

She was growing drowsy when she started involuntarily and raised
herself on one arm. The cause was a sound, a knock, a tap, something;
she did not know what. But as she listened she heard only the increased
palpitations of her heart. After a moment she decided, without being
convinced, that she must have been dreaming, and dropped back on the
pillow.

_Cr-rr-rr-atch!_

It came suddenly, distinctly; came from the veranda; sounded as though
some one had scratched upon the screen.

She lay motionless, ears strained.

Again: _cr-rr-rr-atch!_

No mistake; from the veranda. A moment of irresolution; then, quietly,
she swung out of the bed. At the casement she paused, peering out. Gray
darkness, stars and the loom of trees. No sound except the rustle of
leaves.

She took a step; halted.

The end of a pole had appeared outside the screen and scratched across
the wire.

As it dropped from sight she moved forward fearlessly. Standing several
feet from the screen it was possible for her to see below, and she
distinguished a dark figure against mottled shadows. It was a man, and
he held, upright, a pole fully four yards long. She could make out the
oval of his face--and a white turban. Turban! The East Indian!

As she watched, he lifted the pole tentatively, then, suddenly, dropped
it and ran, disappearing behind the house. Almost instantly another
figure, this one entirely in white, materialized in the opposite
direction and hurried to the spot where the pole lay. She gained an
impression of height and broad shoulders; knew it was Tuan Muda. As
she recognized him, he looked up, and she stepped back. Her heart was
thumping loudly. Scarcely a second he stood there, gaze lifted, then he
swung off into the gloom that had absorbed the first figure.

Lhassa waited for several minutes, and, when nothing more happened,
crept into the room. Seating herself on the side of the bed, she stared
at the gray rectangle of the casement and reviewed what she had seen.
Why had the East Indian (she was sure it was he) scratched on the
screen? Obviously he had come to tell her something--and obviously
Tuan Muda had frightened him away. And what was the East Indian doing
prowling about at this hour?

She rose; found a match; struck it; saw that the time was ten minutes
to eleven.

Once more she lay down. She was not frightened but puzzled, and wider
awake than before. She pictured the pantomime of the two men. In the
morning, she resolved, she would question the East Indian. And Tuan
Muda, too. Meanwhile, she needed sleep. But it was some time before
oblivion came, and even then she was restless, disturbed by strange
dreams and spells of semi-consciousness.

Breakfast was brought to her room by a "boy," and as she ate, sitting
on the cool veranda, she reflected upon the affair of the previous
night. There was tangible proof of its reality, for the pole lay in the
grass below.

She dressed leisurely and went down-stairs. The great white hall was
deserted; nor was there any one on the portico. In the daylight,
Malay House seemed larger than her first impression. It was, in fact,
two long two-storied white bungalows joined by spacious verandas.
The blinds and shingles were green, and palms and fragrant shrubs
surrounded it. In front the foliage had been partly cleared, and a
walk, dappled with sunlight, led under an arch of trees to the blue
glimmer of water. In that direction, she presumed, were the cliffs.

While she was standing on the portico, surveying the grounds, two
Malays, each in jacket, sarong and headkerchief, appeared from behind
the house; she recognized the "boys" assigned to her.

Where was Mr. Conquest? she inquired.

The Tuan Rajah was at the godowns, one of the Malays replied.

And Tuan Muda, too?

Yes.

She then asked where she could find the East Indian who had brought her
bag from the dock the night before.

The spokesman answered that he had not seen Abdulla Khan since early
morning. However, he suggested, Tuan Muda might know where he was;
Abdulla was the Young Lord's servant.

"Why do you call him Tuan Muda?" she probed. "What is his name?"

"We call him Tuan Muda," said the Malay, with characteristic dignity,
"because he is Tuan Muda, the Young Lord, and adviser of the Tuan
Rajah. He has no other name."

She made no further effort to pry information from the Malays, but went
to her room, and, procuring her sun-helmet, started for the warehouses.
Some distance from the house she glanced behind and saw her "boys"
following. Annoyed, she waited until they caught up with her.

"Go back," she ordered. "I wish to go alone."

"It is the Tuan Rajah's command that we follow," she was placidly
informed. "Ahmad and Pangku obey, Rajah Ranee."

Resentment glowed; but she would have been more displeased had she
understood the inference of the title "Rajah Ranee."

"He said you were my servants," she declared imperiously. "In that
case, who is to be obeyed, he or I?"

"The Tuan Rajah is lord of Kawaras," was the Malay's reply.

Chagrined, but realizing the futility of argument, she resumed her walk
to the warehouses.

As she approached the large zinc-roofed buildings, the odor of sago
assailed her. Brown men, naked but for sarongs, were at work on the
dock, and across the river, hazed by blistering sunlight, were other
figures. Several canoes made rippling paths in midstream. A tall man,
tan as his cork helmet, was standing in the doorway of the farthest
godown. She recognized him.

"Wait!" she called, for as he saw her he turned and started to enter.
"I want to speak to you."

Tuan Muda halted, frowning. He wore brown drill breeches and puttees;
his pongee shirt was damp with perspiration. The fact that he did not
remove his helmet was fuel to her mood. She knew that men did not stand
bareheaded in tropical sunlight, but she did not wish to justify what
she chose to think was lack of chivalry.

"Where is Mr. Conquest?" she asked.

"Across the river"--negligently. Thumbs were thrust under his belt;
fingers tapped his hips. She noticed his nervousness and interpreted it
as impatience.

A glance over her shoulder showed her Ahmad and Pangku a few yards away.

"Will you send them off? I can't make them go--and I wish to talk to
you alone."

He lifted his helmet and ran his fingers through his hair. It was curly
and reddish; streaked with gold where the sunlight touched it.

"What can you have to say"--replacing the head-gear--"that they should
not hear?"

A flare of anger whipped color into her cheeks.

"Do you discuss your affairs in the presence of servants?"

He shrugged. "It is often safer than with friends," he remarked
impudently. However, he flung a few words in Malayan to the natives,
and instantly they moved off. Their prompt obedience to his command
humiliated her.

"Well?"

She deliberately waited a moment, smothering her wrath, then announced:

"I saw what happened under my veranda last night. Perhaps you can
explain."

"Explain?" A lift of his eyebrows. "What is there to explain?"

"Why you were there," she snapped, "and what you were doing."

"Are you sure," he countered, "you have the right to an explanation?
How do you know it concerned you, that bit of mummery?"

"I was awakened by some one scratching on my screen"--her indignation
growing--"and I saw the East Indian below. He came for a purpose,
evidently to tell me something, but you prevented it. If you don't
explain, I shall ask him and----"

"He is my servant," Tuan Muda cut in.

"That doesn't necessarily imply that he wouldn't tell if the proper
inducement were offered."

He smiled slightly, a rather pleasant expression that momentarily
relaxed his stern features.

"No," he agreed. "But Abdulla left Kawaras this morning."

"You sent him away deliberately!" she flashed.

"I did. I thought it wise."

She prevented an outburst only by holding her tongue. For an instant
she looked at him, eyes burning, then swung about. However, realizing
he had spoken the last word, she turned back.

"You were afraid," she accused, "afraid for me to know why he came.
That's why you sent him away--why you won't explain now."

"No," he declared, unruffled. "No, that is not the reason. It would
be futile for me to attempt to explain. Absolutely. If I were so
indiscreet as to tell the truth, you wouldn't believe, and if I
lied.... But why should I lie? Therefore, it is better, under the
circumstances, to keep silent."

With that he entered the warehouse. She wanted to follow, to catch him
by the shoulders and shake him--or strike him. She hated Tuan Muda.
But, even in anger, she realized her animosity was not dislike but a
healthy resentment against his attitude.

She did not return to the house, but walked down to the landing-stage,
where several canoes were moored. Her impulse was to get into one and
paddle up the river; this, she felt, might act as an exhaust for her
temper. However, she only stood there on the dock, eyes shaded, and
gazed across the stream at the pole-raised shacks.

A long proa, as Malay craft are called, was gliding away from the
opposite bank, manned by many natives. In the stern, seated beneath a
yellow umbrella, was a figure in white--some dignitary she presumed.
But after a moment she perceived it was Conquest. She debated whether
to remain or return to the house. Curiosity conquered.

As the proa drew nearer, its white occupant saluted her. When the long
boat came alongside, two of the crew leaped upon the landing, making
fast the craft. Then Conquest was assisted out, the yellow umbrella
held over him by a tall, immobile individual in gold-trimmed jacket and
silk sarong.

"You behold me in state for the first time," was his greeting. "I've
just made my official rounds. A devilish lot of exertion on a hot day
like this."

She considered telling what had happened under her veranda and of the
interview with Tuan Muda, but decided negatively.

"It's quite impressive," she commented coolly, glancing at his retinue.
"Do you go about this way all the time?"

"Yes." He smiled. "It's one of the prices of sovereignty. However, this
bit of swank is nothing; to-morrow you'll witness a really spectacular
performance. I just received word from Salazar, my manager at the fort,
saying that he and Abu Hassan, the sultan, are arriving to-morrow
morning to pay an official call. I think I told you the sultan's
village is a five days' journey up-river, situated near the sago
plantation. The old reprobate will appear with about ten or more canoes
and Heaven only knows how large an escort of Malays and Dyaks. The
occasion rates a celebration, so I've given instructions to prepare for
a reception to-morrow night. You'll find it interesting. I see"--his
gaze straying beyond her--"that you're properly attended."

She knew without looking that Ahmad and Pangku were behind.

"They are exemplary servants," she remarked icily. "Yet I feel they are
unnecessary. I gave my word that----"

"You misunderstand. They are guardians. Perhaps you forget that you're
not in civilization. In this instance my judgment is wiser than yours.
Furthermore, these primitive people expect a certain amount of ceremony
of those who pretend to be superior. Every lady of rank must have
attendants."

She was not in a conciliatory mood. His tone, the faint irony in his
speech, was a flame in which to forge her ire. She felt inclined to
make a sharp retort, but instead she merely smiled, a smile that might
have meant anything, and marched off toward Malay House, followed at a
respectful distance by Ahmad and Pangku.

The world drew on black armor; steely chinks were the stars.

When Lhassa descended into the library, shortly before eight, she found
Tuan Muda seated beside the lamp reading, and she turned and went on
the veranda, remaining there, in spite of the mosquitos, until summoned
to dinner. She would have preferred the congenial atmosphere of her
room, but she knew that only by association with her captors (a unique
expression! she reflected) could she learn their secrets.

To her surprise and annoyance Conquest was not in the dining-room.
Tuan Muda seated her but gave no explanation of the former's absence;
that is, not until she asked; then he replied, meagerly, that the Tuan
Rajah--a faint inflexion in his voice as he pronounced the title--had
been called across the river.

It was a meal of awkward silences. He seemed to tolerate her presence,
that was all; and she pretended to ignore him. When it was over
Lhassa felt profoundly relieved. Tuan Muda strolled outside, and she
retreated to the library, where, from a window, she watched him vanish
in the darkness under the trees.

She was more chagrined than angry, and for the first time in her life
she deliberately planned to conquer a man--to satisfy her vanity.
It was a cold, calculating desire aroused by what she termed gross
indifference. She intended to reduce Tuan Muda to a state of thraldom,
even at the cost of hurting him. In the preliminaries (she assured
herself the campaign had only begun) she had failed, but defeat served
to galvanize her will. Impulsively, as she stood there staring after
him, she came to a decision: she would launch her offensive without
delay.

She hurried out of the house and along the path he had taken. It led
toward the crest of the promontory; she could hear the melancholy
plaint of the sea. Ahead, stars flecked the shadows; shadows that
seemed to melt and reveal Tuan Muda outlined half against the sky and
half against the water. He was not aware of her approach until she was
directly behind; then, evidently startled, he swung about. She was
instantly conscious of tension; indeed, she half expected to see him
stride off. But he did not. Nor did he speak. He merely ceased smoking
and gazed at her inquisitively.

"Doubtless," she began coolly, "you know I'm not here by accident."
She paused, then plunged. "I came to gratify my curiosity; in other
words, to find out why you act as if I were a piece of furniture, an
undesirable piece, at that. There's some definite reason. Are you
afraid of women? Or simply rude?"

They stood less than a yard from the break of the cliff. Before
answering, he flung away his cigarette; watched it roll over the rocks
and vanish in a shower of sparks. Presently:

"Afraid?" he said. "No, I am not afraid of women. As to being rude:
well, perhaps. But, in this case, it is because I am impatient. Name of
God! You are in the way!"

"Am I responsible for my presence in Sadok?" she demanded, finding
herself on the defensive.

"Indirectly. You chose to interfere. You knew you might suffer
unpleasant consequences."

"Yes, I interfered--after a man had been murdered, a blind man;
brutally strangled. I wanted justice; I intend to have it."

She felt that she was being ineffectual, banal. The man made an
incoherent sound, following it with:

"Justice! I am amused. Justice at a price! Are you sure your clues
are not false? No, and without being certain, you set about to send
unfortunates back to Cayenne! God of Gods! A woman's inconsistency!"

"Cayenne?" The blood beat in her cheeks as she pronounced the name.
"What do you know of Cayenne?"

He laughed; an ugly sound.

"I know," he declared, calm passion in his voice, "that it is called
Le Guillotine Sec; that it is named well.... What do I know of it?
Hah! One can learn much in five months! Five months--in Cayenne! Can
you conceive what that means?... Torture! I thought I knew pity before
I was initiated into the mysteries of La Guyane, but after I had lived
a few weeks among those miserables I found that what I had called pity
was not even altruistic sympathy! You ask what I know? Good! Listen
well!"

He lighted a cigarette; tossed the match away. In the amber flicker his
face was rigid as bronze. Something of his bitterness, a bitterness
insurgent against long suppression, was transmitted to her with the
shock of high voltage. She felt that he was opening a breach in the
rampart.

"Cayenne!" he repeated, spat the word as though it were a curse.
"To over half the world it means nothing; to a few millions, red
pepper--grim humor, that, eh?--and to a small group of unfortunates
it means, as Lamartine said, the Dry Guillotine!... Cayenne! God!
Pestilence and death! Mother of a hundred nameless plagues! And the
fever! Ah, the fever! Fièvre paludéenne! Can one ever forget that! In
the harbor; the yellow rivers; crawling on the earth; fouling the very
air! The governor, the warders and the Military Corps are so stagnant
with it that it is of no consequence to them if convicts die because of
inefficiency, because of insanitation and cruelty! Convicts! Canaille!"

As he spoke, the beat of the waves, below, seemed to sustain his
passion.

"Indeed," he went on, "what is it to Monsieur le Gouverneur if the
food of Convict Number Sixty-one Two Thirty-four is appropriated by a
_surveillant_? Monsieur le Gouverneur is well fed! It is against the
law to send new-comers to work in the forest until after six months;
the sun is fatal unless one is inured to it. But why should Monsieur le
Gouverneur be concerned if this law is evaded? It is cool in Monsieur
le Gouverneur's residence! Name of God! In such a climate one must
not excite himself! Ah, no! The heat! The fever! Indeed, no! One
must control his emotions in the tropics! And, after all, what is a
_déporté_ or a dog of a _relégué_ in the great abacus of life? A unit
that can be easily replaced! Let him suffocate in Le Prison de Nuit! If
he is insubordinate, give him the _bagne_ and _cachot_! Vive la Guyane!"

He finished with that ugly laugh. She was facing him, and he seemed,
standing with his back to the precipice, incredibly large, a being
of such physical magnitude that his shoulders effaced a portion of
sea and firmament. He dominated her, a principle instead of a man. It
required a moment for her to adjust herself to the fact that he was an
individual of flesh and blood. Even then she felt flippant when she
remarked with studied indifference:

"You are capable of emotion, aren't you?"

In the blue half-light his features took on a cruel sharpness.

"Emotion!" he echoed. "What do you know of emotion? Of pity? Of hate?
Pah! I went there hating the--I called them beasts, then--hating the
unfortunates with whom I was to be imprisoned, but I soon discovered
that my hatred was misplaced, that the beasts were those in authority
who did nothing to improve the colony, but clogged it, as refuse clogs
a sewer! Emotion! One can learn emotion in the Guyane! One can learn to
pity, to hate, to suffer! Because of my former rank I was a _libéré_,
a paroled prisoner, and I visited Ile Diable and Ile St. Joseph, and
saw men, immediately after death, thrown to the sharks--not even
decent burial! With _chantiers_ I hunted the escaped; witnessed the
spectacle of white men being beaten by bush negroes and Caribs! Yes,
I suffered--in spirit. I suffered so much that now, when you speak of
justice, of sending miserable wretches back to a living death, I am
angered at your ignorance. That is why I am rude, why I am impatient.
Are you satisfied with the explanation?"

She was not. She had penetrated behind one barricade only to find
herself confronted by another, more baffling than the first. A phrase
clung to her mind: "Because of my former rank...." What was his rank
before he was sent to the penal colony? And why was he exiled? She
realized she had not forced him to speak; he had deliberately revealed
the fact that at one time he was confined at Cayenne--why?

"You plead your cause well," she said, determined to appear unaffected.
"But what would become of civilization if your liberal principles were
accepted?"

He gestured impatiently. "Do you call it _liberal_ to crush a vile
system? Convicts have the same fundamental emotions as other humans.
Do they not love and hate? Are they not hungry and thirsty? Penal
servitude as a means of punishment is primarily just, but when it is
corrupted by inefficiency and cruelty it becomes a monstrous evil. Ah,
God, if you could but.... But, no, you couldn't, you who have known
so little pain. You say to yourself, 'A criminal is a criminal; let
him suffer.' You do not take into consideration that there may be
extenuating circumstances, that----"

"Wait," she interposed. "Are you pleading a cause--or your individual
case?"

He returned her steady gaze for a moment, then shrugged.

"Who knows?"

"If you are being personal," she resumed, "then why not explain the
extenuating circumstances? What have you done? Murdered? Stolen? What?
Perhaps"--with irony--"I have been hasty in my judgment. If I knew----"
She halted significantly. But he did not take the cue. "Is your defense
so weak that you dare not present it?" Another silence. She pressed
on ruthlessly. "Taking all into consideration, don't you think I am
justified in condemning you? Silence is generally guilt, not fortitude.
Two men are murdered, both my friends. Because I have discovered
certain facts, clues dangerous to those guilty, I am abducted, brought
here by a man who is either the Black Parrot or an associate, and I
find you, admittedly an escaped convict, in his employ. Isn't the
evidence damning? What do you know about the death of Dr. Garth in
Bangkok? Or the death of Captain Barthélemy? What do you know about
the Emerald Buddha and the other valuables said to have been stolen
by the Black Parrot? What do you know about all these things? Surely
a little--possibly a great deal. You may even be the Black Parrot
himself! How do I know?" She paused; drew a breath. "But I intend
to know. Do you understand? I am going to learn the truth, and, if
circumstances justify it, see that you're sent back to Guiana!"

With that she turned and hurried away, not giving him a chance to speak
again.

As she moved hastily toward the house she exulted in her dramatic
departure. The thrill of her new knowledge did not permit analysis
of the situation until she reached her room, but there, her dress
discarded for the dragon kimono, she gave herself over to sane
reflection.

Heretofore her thoughts of the Guyane had been attended by mental
pictures of the creative activity characteristic of the penitentiaries
in her own country, but now the word "Guiana," a word suddenly charged
with grim meaning, suggested the horrors of the old Tasmanian prisons.
And he, Tuan Muda, had been there. She shuddered; felt an involuntary
pity for him. As she visualized him, standing on the cliff, bitterly
recounting the wrongs he had witnessed, he assumed a picturesque rôle.
Tuan Muda--the Black Parrot ... that shadowy, almost mythical creature
who liberated prisoners from Cayenne ... who, having made some sort
of agreement with Conquest (Conquest, the romantic), had the men
transported to Kawaras ... to work on the sago plantation. A splendid
impulse. But it was misdirected philanthropy....

She brought herself up with a jerk. Romancing. Nevertheless, a new
vista had been opened, a view that placed Tuan Muda--and Conquest,
too--in a different light. But, as always, there were flecks on
the mirror. Dr. Garth, Barthélemy, and the green god. Could she be
mistaken? She wondered, her conviction momentarily shaken; was it
possible that she had made a monumental error? No. Ridiculous even
to consider it. Her presence at Sadok was proof of the legitimacy
of her suspicions. These men, Tuan Muda, Conquest, Garon, and their
associates, were a menace to society. They must be crushed.

"I am going to learn the truth, and, if circumstances justify it, see
that you're sent back to Guiana!"

She remembered her threat. She would keep it--if it was humanly
possible. But a faint twinge of regret accompanied the resolution. It
was pity, she told herself. Pity for an unfortunate. Only pity. What
else?

In the daylight, Lhassa looked back with a feeling of unreality
upon the encounter on the cliff. What Tuan Muda had told her (scant
information when reduced to naked fact) did not bring her any nearer a
solution of the puzzle; indeed, it added to its complexity. She felt,
as she reviewed the last few days, that she had been drifting, waiting
for something to occur without herself hastening its advent, although,
upon summarizing the situation, she realized there was little she
could do but wait. There was, however, the secret room to be explored.
Conquest had called it the Djinnee's Cave, had said his past was locked
in it. There might be another door, a hidden door, or a passage. The
idea appealed to her fancy but not to her reason. Secret passages
abounded in adventure tales; in reality, they were a negligible
quantity. Furthermore, what sane purpose was there for such a passage?
None. But that did not prevent her from imagining, with a certain
pleasurable thrill, that there might be a masked entrance to the room.

Dressed in white and wearing her sun-helmet, she descended to the
lower house and made her way into the Damascus room. She had an
uncanny feeling that she was being watched as she lifted the Ispahan
carpet that hung over the forbidden door. But she did not falter.
She examined the lock; tried the knob; stared belligerently at the
unyielding panels. The fact that the room seemed inaccessible added to
her determination to enter.

From the Damascus room she moved outside, casually strolling around
the house. The Damascus room, she discovered, was on the northwest
corner, and, built out from the rear of it, was another room--obviously
the so-called Djinnee's Cave. To her amazement, there were no windows
in it. She stared, perplexed, wondering how air was admitted.
Involuntarily she raised her eyes. The green-shingled roof slanted
down, and on it was a skylight.

For some time she regarded the glassed rectangle, regarded it
speculatively, then circled the house, studying the peculiar
architecture. Her room was on the southwest corner of the main
bungalow, and, but for the screen, one could step from her veranda upon
the sloping roof. From there it was possible to crawl to the northwest
corner, to another veranda, and drop from the eaves to the lower roof,
that of the forbidden room.

She was so absorbed in her observations that she was not aware of Ahmad
and Pangku until she returned to the front veranda. But she pretended
not to notice them, and entered; they did not follow. Once more she
went into the Damascus room. This time she stood for a moment just
within the archway, peering through the division of the curtains,
then, assured, approached one of the glass cases and removed a Barbary
scimitar. Holding it behind her, she hurried into the hall and to her
room, breathing a sigh of relief as she locked the saber in her trunk.

After debating how she would spend the morning, she selected a book
from the library, and, with the inevitable Ahmad and Pangku at her
heels, sought the spot where she had talked with Tuan Muda the night
before. She recalled that Conquest had said the manager from the
fort and the sultan, the latter attended by many warriors, would
arrive during the morning; and she recalled also that a view of the
harbor--river mouth, warehouses, and village--could be gained from the
promontory.

Palms grew close to the cliff, and, seating herself in their shade,
she opened the book. And did not read. Below, waves crooned on the
sand, and, out over the water, birds were diving and crying. She could
see tiny canoes on the river, tiny people at the godowns. She was
distracted further by the two Malays, who were comfortably established
at a respectful distance. Their presence annoyed her. Repeatedly
she tried to focus upon the printed pages, and at length gave up,
surrendering to the lure of the sea, the brilliantly blue sea with its
gifts of dreams and fancies.

Toward noon the faint breeze fled; a burnt-orange sun glared from an
aureate sky. The heat became unbearable, the shade meager, and Lhassa
was at the point of retreating to the house when she observed a small
crowd assembling on the bank opposite the landing-stage. The cause of
the gathering, she knew, was the approach of the sultan and his escort.
There were no canoes in sight. However, the stream turned a short
distance from the mouth, thus precluding a view of its further reaches.

Presently the prows of several long boats emerged, seemingly, from the
mangroves and other tropical luxuriance that bordered the river. The
proas were larger than any she had ever seen, great black craft that
leaped forward to the sweep of many flashing paddles. Each boat was
filled with naked brown men and had a roofed compartment amidships.
They swept into the river mouth; made for shore; sank their keels into
mud. She watched the men disembark. From one boat stepped a figure in
khaki and a cork helmet, evidently the manager from the fort. She did
not see Conquest or Tuan Muda; wondered why they were not there.

Her interest in the pygmy activity waned, and she moved to the house.
There she found Conquest, seated on the portico, surrounded by a number
of Malays.

"Salazar and the sultan have just arrived," he said, rising. "I'm
expecting them here any minute."

She nodded in her imperial manner. "I saw them. Isn't it good form in
Kawaras to meet guests at the landing?"

"Not when the guest is a Malay Sultan," he replied, with a smile, "and
the host Tuan Rajah. I sent Tuan Muda as my ambassador to greet Abu
Hassan and inform him I'd receive him at the Astana. Will you wait and
see the show?"

"No," she decided. Then, prompted by a sudden thought, inquired: "This
manager--will he stay here while in Sadok? If so, I prefer my meals
alone."

"Yes, he'll be at the house, but I assure you he's quite harmless."

She laughed; it lacked genuineness. "Oh, I'm not afraid of him; I
simply don't care to meet another of your--what shall I say?"

He ignored the thrust and queried: "But surely you'll go to the feast
to-night, won't you? You really shouldn't miss it."

She considered, temporizing, "Perhaps."

"I'll arrange an inconspicuous place. We'll leave the house about
eight-thirty--I'll send Tuan Muda and Salazar ahead." He added, "It's
to be in the village, you know."

She did not answer definitely, but gave him an exasperatingly cool
smile, and ascended to her room. She had not the slightest intention of
missing the festival....

The afternoon was dull, enervating. Soon after lunch Lhassa lay down
and fell asleep, and when she awakened night had powdered the earth
with black dust.

While she was dressing she heard a gramophone playing down-stairs.
The tune was familiar--one that her grandfather used to play often in
the great dim mansion in Washington. "Deep River" ... a sorrowful,
plaintive strain that conjured a picture of the shrunken old
adventurer who died with his secrets. Whenever she thought of him (a
gray man sitting in the dusk) she felt cheated; felt that a relentless
fate had prevented her from learning what she rightfully should have
known. Now, as she listened to the music, a deep weariness came over
her. It brought dissatisfaction, doubt, loneliness. She wondered if in
the end, after she had probed the mysteries of Kawaras, the knowledge
would be worth the striving. There would be always, insoluble, the
mystery of her own life, the unexplained heritage of contrasted
emotions bequeathed her by the impatient-mouthed man and the woman in
the peacock shawl. She had no doubt that she would fulfil the mission
she had taken upon herself. But then?... The gramophone ceased, and
dissatisfaction, doubt, and loneliness passed. Humming lightly to
herself, she threw a cape over her shoulders and left the room.

Conquest was waiting alone in the hall, as she knew he would be. A
sudden, and almost fierce, hunger came into his face as she joined him:
she wore a gown of mauve that emphasized her olive pallor.... Outside,
an escort of Malays was waiting. Neither she nor the man spoke until
they reached the warehouses; then he said:

"I've arranged for you to sit with some of the chiefs' wives. One or
two of them speak English, and they'll explain the show. Malays, you
know, are rather keen on touching hands, so you'll have to go through
with that performance. They turn up the palms of their hands and bend
their fingers, then you hook your finger-tips under theirs."

A long proa was waiting at the landing, and she was assisted into the
stern. When Conquest was seated, the boatmen shoved off.

A vast silence lay on the river, intruded upon only by the regular
splash of the paddles and the _chik-chak_ of lizards on the bank. A
warm wind drifted seaward from the mangrove swamps, laden with an odor
half aromatic and half sickly. To her, it was the breath of the jungle,
savage and voluptuous: and it challenged her. A restlessness seized
her, a desire to follow the river through forests and over mountains to
its hidden source.

The canoe glided toward a row of pile-raised houses that, in the
darkness, seemed to float on the water. On the bank a torch wavered.
Beyond it were other lights: flecks among blackly-etched shacks and
foliage. The boat scraped a wharf, and Lhassa was helped out in the
midst of a group of natives. Conquest took her arm and guided her
forward between huts built on poles, to a large wattled and thatched
building. A notched ladder leaned against a platform of split bamboo
lashed together with ratan, and she climbed up awkwardly with the aid
of two Malays.

Within, primitive lamps--bowls of cocoanut-oil in which floated flaming
wicks--revealed a motley of color. The great hall was festooned with
palm fronds and with yellow and crimson cloths. Around the walls,
squatting on mats, were numberless natives. Lhassa, swiftly absorbing
the scene, perceived a mixture of races: brown-eyed Malays, the men
turbaned, and gaudy with beads and bright braid, the women dressed
in silks, stiff brocades and embroidered garments; a few Arabs,
picturesque in flowing robes; somberly garbed Chinamen; Dyaks naked but
for waist-cloths and plumed with hornbill-feathers; Tanjong girls in
blue cotton skirts and jackets of gold brocade, with wire rings about
their legs; and strange, wild-looking warriors, carrying shields and
spears, and bristling with pheasants' wings and egrets.

Conscious of the many stares that were upon her, she followed Conquest
to the far end, where, in a corner, yellow-skinned Malay women were
gathered about an improvised divan of draperies and cushions. She was
confused, disconcerted, but she sank upon the silks with the air of a
Roman empress. At a word from Conquest several of the women approached
shyly. That was the beginning of a hand-touching ceremony that lasted
two or three minutes. When it was over, Lhassa noticed that Conquest
had taken a seat on a raised portion of the floor in the opposite
corner. On one side of him, the side nearest her, sat Tuan Muda, and
on the other, in shadow, another man, presumably the manager from the
plantation. The latter's face was hidden behind Conquest's head, but
she could see his hands, resting on the arms of his chair--hands warped
with great knuckles.

There was a long silence, during which the three white men sat
motionless and the natives stirred and shifted uneasily. Suddenly
a gorgeously panoplied Malay--Lhassa knew by his dress that he was
of high rank--sprang up from the pile of mats upon which he had been
sitting and strode proudly, insolently toward Conquest. He halted in
front of the white man and thrust out his hands. One of the women
whispered to Lhassa that he was the sultan. After he had touched hands
with Conquest, his chiefs and warriors followed the example. This
Bornean etiquette, though impressive, was rather lengthy. In its wake
came another silence.

Presently Conquest lifted his hand: that was a cue for the feasting to
begin.

Long-robed Malays approached a corner where numerous brass bowls and
bamboo platters rested on a cloth on the floor. Lhassa shuddered at
thought of what they contained. However, the food, when served, proved
more savory than she imagined. There were yellow rice, maize cakes,
sago biscuits, mangosteens, custard apples, bananas, mangos, pomelos,
wild oranges, sweetmeats, and bowls of cocoanut-milk. She ate the fruit
and drank the milk with relish, but doubt as to how the other food had
been prepared made it less palatable.

Several times she caught a glimpse of the man who sat on Conquest's
right, only a dim impression of blistered skin and dark eyes; eyes that
she felt upon her frequently. She did not see Tuan Muda glance in her
direction once; often Conquest's hungering gaze sought her.

The feasting over, a larger space was cleared in the center of the
hall. Again a hush swathed the assembly. Lhassa wondered whether it was
customary or due to embarrassment on the part of the natives. A moment
passed; then a Malay squatting at Conquest's feet rose and made a hasty
exit, returning almost immediately, followed by a number of young men
who carried musical instruments--bamboo guitars, gongs, and drums.
The musicians seated themselves; struck a few notes; looked about
inquisitively; began to play.

A song of the jungle, wistful and melancholy. From the gongs came a
sound as of running water, from the guitars whining, wind-like notes,
this strain given a certain rhythm by the drums. Lhassa had often heard
the "jazz" of her country called jungle-music, had, herself, believed
it an echo of savagery; but now as she listened to this cadenced plaint
she realized that syncopation was not the voice of the wild nor even
of its human inhabitants, whose music, though barbaric and at times
frenzied, was never sophisticated.

From the musicians her attention was drawn to a file of young girls
who were entering, walking slowly, sedately, their eyelids half
lowered. Arms and cheeks were smeared with turmeric. Their skirts were
short and beaded, their jackets hung with cowry shells. Brass anklets
_cling-clonged_ as they walked.

They formed rows in the center of the hall. The tempo of the music
changed; became even slower; and the girls bent their wrists and arms
in quaint little gestures, keeping in perfect time. This pantomime
continued for a few minutes; then the dancers swayed right and left,
languidly, and began a slow, undulating motion--a dance that in its
dignity, its utter lack of sex appeal, reminded Lhassa of a temple
dance she had seen in Siam.

Suddenly, almost abruptly, the music stopped. The girls remained
in graceful postures for a moment; then with a whisper of silken
draperies, with the clash of anklets and the patter of naked feet, they
glided out.

Immediately following their departure, the Malay who acted as master
of ceremonies rose and uttered what sounded to Lhassa like a volume of
unintelligible words. As he resumed his seat she looked askance at one
of the women, who leaned nearer and explained:

"He tell warriors to dance, Rajah Ranee. Dyak war-dance. Sea Dyaks make
war on Kayan tribe; cut off heads; take them home to decorate kampong."

Twelve Dyaks, resplendent in fringe, beads, silver bangles, ivory
armlets, and plumes, paraded out into the center of the floor. Some
were armed with spears, others with parangs; all carried painted
shields. The men, dividing into two groups, crouched. One of the
musicians began to play on a gourd-like instrument that produced an
eery, wailing sound. Drums throbbed. And the dance began.

To Lhassa, the first part was rather wearisome. The warriors leaped
and jumped about, gesturing and grimacing at one another. But toward
the end their movements seemed suddenly accelerated. Now (so ran the
story) the rival tribes met in battle. Parangs drew arcs of fire;
spears darted back and forth in luminous play. Now and then the dancers
uttered war-cries: shuddering falsetto screams that scaled to a high
pitch and broke. Something of their intensity was transmitted to the
onlookers; fierce yells augmented with the cries of the whirling,
gyrating warriors. The drums were beating with doubled rhythm, and
through their _throom-throoming_ wove the eery wailing, needle-sharp.

_Throom-throom! Throom-throom!_

Monotonously, maddeningly the drums continued. Lhassa found herself
fascinated. As she stared at the sweat-glazed figures she felt vaguely
frightened. She knew the savage mind was tinder for the spark of
frenzy; and already there was a glow in many eyes. Particularly, in
the eyes of a tattooed warrior who sat opposite her. Whose body was
tense. Who gripped his parang so tightly that the veins were rigid
on his hands. A sudden dread ran through her. There could be but one
end if this went on. She glanced toward Conquest, hoping to catch his
attention and signal him to stop the dance. But he was staring ahead.

_Throom-throom! Throom-throom._

The drums seemed in her body, beating wildly; beating, beating as
though to break their frail prison. She wanted to scream. Not because
of the drums, but because of the tattooed warrior who sat opposite her.
She had the mad illusion that she saw a spark in his eyes, that, as she
saw it, the spark exploded----

The warrior shot up as though from a catapult. Flame-like his parang
flickered before him. Coincident with his spring came the cough of a
revolver. Lhassa saw Conquest on his feet; beside him was Tuan Muda, a
gleaming cylinder in the Frenchman's hand. It was all swift, like the
lightning print of a camera. In the center of the confusion--the chaos
of naked arms and legs, of plumes and shields--flashed a figure in
white. The man made a quick movement, and she glimpsed something yellow
in his hands. She did not understand, knew only that the next instant
the crazed warrior was jerked backward and fell against the white man's
legs.

As suddenly as the disturbance broke, it ceased. The hall was quiet but
for the tinkle of beads, but for the sharp crescendo of the sultan's
voice. The dancers seemed to melt into the humanity packed against the
walls, leaving the floor occupied by a grim tableau.

Standing near the dais where a moment before he had been sitting was
he of the swarthy skin and dark eyes--a linen-clad figure towering
above the warrior who, maddened by the dance, had sought to quench
his passion by slaying. Around the native's neck was a roll of
yellow cloth, the ends of which were gripped in the white man's
fists. The latter--he was dark as a half-caste, with amazingly broad
shoulders--stood there for a second, no more, gazing dispassionately at
the body; then he released the improvised garrote and strode back to
his seat. Instantly two Malays ran out and picked up the body, carrying
it from the hall....

To Lhassa, the rest of the celebration was clouded. She remembered it
afterward as a puppet show enacted behind a gauze drop. The master
of ceremonies, at a word from Conquest, herded several bashful girls
into the middle of the hall, and they went through the motions of an
ineffectual pantomime. She scarcely noticed them, for her attention
was focused upon the swarthy man, who, having resumed his seat, was
invisible but for his black hair and his hands. At the conclusion of
the girls' dance the affair ended--to her relief. The tiresome ceremony
of touching hands was repeated; then Conquest approached her, and they
were out in the cool darkness. Faintly, she heard him saying something
about being sorry that the disturbance had occurred; faintly, she heard
the rhythm of the paddles.

When they reached Malay House she hurried to her room, locked the door,
and lay against the panels, aflame with excitement. Black eyes seemed
to gaze into hers, dispassionately, as they had gazed upon the Dyak's
body. She shuddered as she remembered the warped hands--hands that had
garroted the warrior ... snapped his neck.... It was not plausible,
she told herself, yet ... yet he might have been in Bangkok ... might
have.... What had Conquest called him--Salazar? What swiftness, what
brutal strength! He was no novice at garroting.

Her fingers trembled as she unhooked her dress. She did not go to
bed immediately--the fever of conjecture was too hot--but, clad in
night-dress and kimono, sat on the veranda, absorbed in thought.
Sight of the sloping roof brought to mind the Barbary simitar and
its purpose. To-morrow night she would make use of it, she decided;
to-night she was too tired. She remained there until the excitement
burned to ash; remained for nearly an hour.

As she crept into bed, yielding to its luxury, the thin wail of an owl
rippled the stillness. It sounded like a Dyak war-cry. In the following
quiet she thought she heard drums, drums that rumbled, crashed to a
climax. She fell asleep wondering if they would haunt her, if in years
to come she would hear them, rumbling, crashing.

Lhassa considered it wise to remain in her room throughout the next
day. However, in the cooler hours she ventured forth, and, followed by
Ahmad and Pangku, went out on the promontory to watch the sunset.

The _Narcissus_, riding at anchor, gleamed on the purple bay. It
stirred in her a desire to be aboard, to order the canvas hoisted and
sail away--anywhere. She did not wish to leave Sadok--not at this
juncture, just when the doors of mystery were beginning to swing
back--but she felt that a brief excursion at sea, with the wind
whipping the canvas and the water singing under the hull, would buoy
her spirits. For a reason she could not understand she was depressed.
This puzzled and annoyed her, and she tried to account for it by saying
to herself that the affair of the previous night had left a shadow
upon her, but that explanation did not satisfy.

Darkness shut down, and she returned to the house. When she made
a light in her room a gleaming object on the table winked at her.
She stared; picked it up; examined it. Her first thought was that
it was her automatic which for some inexplicable reason Conquest
had returned, but she perceived it was not: it was a man's weapon,
a forty-five-caliber nickel-plated revolver. She snapped it open.
Cartridges in the breech. She wondered who had placed it there;
wondered why. Strangely, the finding of it gave her an unwelcome
sense of insecurity. It seemed significant: she was in danger, and
some one was trying to warn and prepare her. Who? Conquest? Tuan
Muda? Undoubtedly the latter. And, again, why? Intuitively she felt
that Salazar was the reason. The elusiveness of this sudden danger,
if indeed it existed outside her fancy, invited investigation. She
resolved to speak with Tuan Muda.

Accordingly, when the dinner-gong sounded, she responded. She could
not deny that she experienced relief when she found only Tuan Muda and
Conquest below, and she voiced the query that sprang to her lips:

"Where is your pretty gorilla from the plantation?"

An instant after she spoke, a linen-clad figure appeared in the doorway
of the library. It was the first time she had seen him at close range,
and she observed thick, heavy lips and a broad neck, corded under the
chin. His skin was pachydermal, his hair and mustache blue-black.
The sheer physical strength of him was almost obscene. Fearlessly she
returned his gaze, realizing that he must have heard. It was a tense
moment, but she did not lose her poise. She chose what she considered
the best means of escape from a difficult situation: she swept out on
the veranda in majestic silence. On the top step she paused, a rush of
blood mounting to her cheeks; then she hurried down and along the path
to the promontory.

Her cheeks were still hot when she reached the cliff. She was
chagrined, and somewhat alarmed, that Salazar had heard her call him
a gorilla. She judged him, from the brief glimpses, to be saturnine,
utterly without the essential quality of humor. That was a type
she--well, not feared, but distrusted. Oppressed by a sense of
something imminent and hidden in the atmosphere, she sat down, gazing
at the sea. In the moonless night it had no allure; it was vast and
terrifying; it separated her from civilization, from aid if she needed
it. Aid. The word revolved in her mind. If there should come a time
when she was in jeopardy, what would she do? To whom would she appeal?
Coincident with the thought she saw, in fancy, the face of Tuan Muda,
immobile features and scar that gave a touch of insolence. Why trust
him more than Conquest? She wondered; and continued to wonder as she
stared into plum-black darkness.

The sound of some one approaching sent a cold tremor over her. She got
up quickly. As the steps crunched nearer a white blot among the trees
took form. The man was not recognizable until he was within a few yards
of her; then she laughed--involuntarily.

"How did you know where to find me?"

Tuan Muda made one of his expressive gestures. That was his reply.

"Is it wise for you to come here? Won't----"

"They have gone down to the river," he interposed. "I am to follow." A
pause. "Perhaps I am a fool, but----To the devil with explanations! If
I arrange for you to leave Sadok to-night, will you go?"

His abruptness, the suddenness of his offer, bewildered her. She stared
at him searchingly.

"Will you?" he persisted.

To cover her confusion she assumed a cynical pose.

"I don't understand you," she said. "First you ignore me; then, out of
a clear sky, you make an absurd offer. Of course you put the revolver
in my room this afternoon; why?"

"You did not answer my question."

"Nor did you answer mine."

He gestured again. "Name of a pig! What does it matter why I put it
there? Sufficient that I did!" But he added, "I am going on a mission
up the river to-morrow."

A faint dread touched her.

"For how long?"

He shrugged.

She hesitated, then asked, "Who is this Salazar?"

Another shrug.

"What is he?" she pressed.

"Part French and part Spanish; perhaps a touch of the tar-brush."

"You knew him at Cayenne?"

"Questions! Questions!"

She shifted her gaze to the sea, reflecting upon what he had told her.
He was going up the river to-morrow. What for? And she would be alone
with Conquest--and Salazar. But he had said something else....

"What did you mean," she prompted, "when you spoke of arranging for me
to leave to-night? How could I?"

He waved seaward. "Kuching, Sarawak, is up the coast; it is under an
English rajah. I could have some Malay boatmen take you or----"

"I would be afraid of them," she cut in.

"Not if you really wished to go."

She smiled. "That's it."

A long silence followed. She was the first to speak.

"It would be running from something I have set out to do."

An exclamation of impatience from him. "It would be getting out of the
way!"

She baited him deliberately. "Getting out of the way of what? What is
going to happen? You mystify me more and more. If I accepted your offer
it would mean ... you know what it would mean. There must be a trick
in it. Men don't sacrifice themselves without some personal reason.
What is your object? I confess I am at loss to understand."

He compressed his mouth; there was a glitter in his eye.

"Then you refuse?"

"Of course."

"I shall not make the offer again."

"I realize that."

Before she could say more he whirled and strode off. That was
unexpected. Her impulse was to call him back, to tell him she had
not meant to seem ungrateful, but a foolish pride restrained her.
She knew, intuitively, that his desire for her to leave Sadok sprang
from a sincere motive. Now he would go on his journey believing his
generous impulse unappreciated. She had only tried to exasperate him,
hoping that in anger he would disclose the reason for his offer. She
realized, too late, that his indifference was not real but a cloak for
an interest he dared not, or would not, display. Pity for him sent a
sharp charge into her throat. Cayenne had not been kind: it had left
the grooves of suffering. To him had been given the gift of pain that
he might see a hideous injustice; and in his way, a way warped by
circumstance, he had sought to remedy it. Undoubtedly Tuan Muda was
the Black Parrot, that mysterious being who freed convicts. All was
quite evident to her now: out of his bitterness had grown a desire to
aid his fellow-sufferers. Whatever his sins against society, he had
compassion; and compassion, in a world of ancient hatreds, was a god's
mission.

She sat down by the edge of the cliff, her mind an arena where rival
thoughts charioted. Below, waves broke gently on the sand, weaving a
coruscant pattern; a warm, briny wind came in from the sea. There was,
in the night, a tranquillity which a growing depression within herself
denied. Out in the darkness hung a red star, seemingly on a level with
her gaze. It was Medusa's eye--no longer green and coldly hypnotic, but
suffused with blood, and definitely portentous. It affirmed her mood.
The colors of the design--the fabulous tapestry of Romance that had
been started by the blue slendong--were rapidly deepening to ominous
shades. A shadow had dyed them ... Salazar's?

Fully half an hour passed before she stirred. Suddenly, in the midst
of her brooding, she remembered that Tuan Muda had said Conquest and
Salazar were down at the river. Of that recollection was generated a
plan. She rose, brushed the limestone dust from her dress, and returned
to the house. After looking in the library, the Chinese room, and the
Damascus room, she went up-stairs.

In the darkness she removed the Barbary simitar from her trunk. A
spirit of enterprise lightened her depression as she moved out on the
veranda and thrust the sword into a corner of the screen. The sharp
blade made an incision at a point where the wire was tacked to the
woodwork, and, by cutting upward, she succeeded in ripping one side
from its fastenings. She then slashed the wire beneath a cross-segment
of wood and bent the screen back, thus creating a triangular opening.
This done, she crawled through to the sloping roof, leaving the simitar
on the veranda, and crept over the shingles to the northwest corner.
There the main roof slanted past a veranda identical with her own,
ending above a lower roof--that of the forbidden room. The drop was
short, and she lowered herself noiselessly.

The skylight was open, its glassed frame propped above a black
rectangle. As she peered down into darkness as dense as that of a
tar-vat, she was challenged to a more venturesome effort. If she
dropped into that well of night----But that would be trapping herself.
There was a wiser, though probably not so interesting, course. In
her room were matches; with their aid she could at least glimpse the
Djinnee's Cave.

So she made her way back cautiously. In possession of the matches, she
again crawled across the shingles. At the edge of the main roof she
halted, startled.

An oblong yellowish patch outlined the skylight.

Conquest! Who but he would be in the room? She crouched there for a
moment, uncertain, then, slowly, lowered herself upon the other roof.
Her very breathing repressed, she crept to the skylight; looked down.

The rectangle was screened, and through the fine wire she saw a room
whose floor was patterned with rich rugs. The corners were beyond
range, but she imagined they were filled with bronzes, with vases and
heavy brocades. Near the center of the room, almost under the skylight,
was a painting on an easel, and, beside it, a table littered with
tubes, cups, and several paint-daubed palettes. In front of the canvas
stood Conquest.

She strained her eyes in effort to make out the subject of the picture,
but, placed as it was, the light glossed it. The man stood motionless,
gazing at the painting, enrapt, as a seer gazes into a crystal. She
fancied she could hear his slow, even breathing. What was on the canvas
that so fascinated him? Even as she wondered, she resolved to know.
It would be a daring experiment, but she felt capable of carrying it
through.

She crawled to the metal drain bordering the roof and measured the
distance to the ground. Fifteen feet at the most. Her heart beat a
swift tattoo as she crept back to the skylight. Conquest was still
gazing at the painting.

After a moment of hesitation, she deliberately struck the glass of the
skylight.

At the sharp crack, Conquest jerked out of his absorption. He looked
up, dazedly. She knew that her face was dimly visible in the opening,
that he could not help but recognize her. Without giving him time to
speak, she got up and ran to the break of the main roof; there she
halted, listening. From the room below, muffled, came the sounds of
hurrying footsteps, of an opening door. She waited for a few seconds,
then moved past the skylight to the drain. Seating herself, she swung
her feet over the side, and, turning obliquely, dropped. Her arms
seemed wrenched from her body. Followed a moment of exquisite suspense;
then she was on the ground, her limbs burning as though clamped in a
steel trap.

Swiftly recovering, she hurried to the front of the house. On the
portico she paused to glance through the doorway into the empty hall,
then entered. Her ankles ached, and she was almost breathless when she
reached the darkened Damascus room; but a thrilling realization that
her ruse was succeeding atoned for the pain. In the gloom she found the
Ispahan carpet; swept it aside; gripped the knob. But the door did not
yield. Cold disappointment formed in her breast, only to melt instantly
as her hand encountered a key in the lock. A metallic snap ... and she
stood in the Djinnee's Cave.

The light was dim, the somber tapestries and hangings, the luxury of
silks, of deep rugs and mellow paintings, blending as though shaded
by a brush. As she moved toward the canvas on the easel, over which a
curtain had been dropped, a glow of green in one corner diverted her,
and she came to a standstill, a tremor of excitement traveling the
length of her body.

Green fire. The little figure seemed a magnet for the light: clear
flames were caught and imprisoned in its translucent body. Instantly
it dominated her, as it had done that day in Bangkok. It was Asia in
symbolism, source of light and serenity, of darkness and chaos; and it
conjured scenes sharp with contrast: the quiet of a bamboo garden,
a temple court at dusk; the heaving turmoil of empires unrooted and
trampled; the ignorance and omniscience of ages. It carried her,
unresisting, into a new dimension of imagination, a dimension she had
sensed but not explored, and from which she was recalled abruptly by
the harshness of a voice. She knew before she turned that Conquest had
entered.

He stood, back to the wall, smiling. It was not the familiar smile of
mingled whimsy and melancholy, but a smile of anger and--and something
else, something she could not define. His intense pallor seemed to
strike at her and wound her.

"That was clever," he declared. "But you remember what happened to
Pandora; you know the story, of course. She freed little devils,
hundreds of little evil spirits."

The blood was throbbing in her throat. But she was not afraid. Not of
Conquest. She framed a cool reply.

"But in the end they were returned to the box," she said.

"Yes--after they'd taught her a lesson."

His eyes were brilliant, glazed, as with fever. A red spot stained
either cheek. She remembered the simile he had suggested in Saigon:
a silken sheath for emotions too violent to be restrained by a frail
fabric. Her calm was shot through with sudden dread.

He spoke again. "I told you this room was forbidden, that not even the
servants were admitted. You recall that, don't you? But you tricked
your way in, pried into affairs that do not concern you. Very well.
Now I'll show you what you'll never--never, do you hear?--never be able
to forget!"

He strode quickly to one end of the room, to a shrouded picture on
the wall, and flung back its covering. In the frame, upon a dark
background, was a woman, gyved wrist and limb. Her white body stood out
from the shadows, seemed almost to leap out. The face was immobile,
superb in its apparent indifference to pain. But its very impassivity
was eloquent of agony.

"That," he declared passionately, "that is my past. From that I sprung,
marked from the very first!" He jerked back his cuffs, exposing the
scars. "Marked!" he repeated. "I painted her face from a photograph,
putting into it the torture, the humiliation, that she must have
endured. What fortitude! Look! I've inherited none of it; only the
bitterness, only----"

He broke off, shuddering. With that shudder his passion seemed to
exhaust itself. When he spoke again it was calmly.

"You, with your pride, your heritage of aristocratic blood, can never
understand what it means to have been born in a shadow, to have had a
father and mother sentenced to penal servitude!" Once more he shuddered
"Such colossal cruelty! Such injustice! In these days, when Tasmania
is no longer an evil word, the horrors of the old convict settlements
seem like weird tales, awful tales. There's a book that tells the
truth--'For the Term of His Natural Life.'... For the term of his
natural life! My father heard that pronounced upon him at the circuit
court; my mother, too. He was a bush-ranger, a king of bush-rangers;
in common words, a horse and cattle thief.... My mother used to ride
with him. She was with him when he shot a man.... For the term of his
natural life! He got that and she, too. He was sent to Port Arthur,
and she to the woman's prison at Inverness. And they did that to
her"--flinging one arm toward the painting--"that. I don't know why.
But they did. And when I was born these were on my wrists--these badges
of the prisons!"

He paused, wrists extended. The livid marks hurt her, hurt her more
than his pallor. She wanted to stop this outpouring of bitterness, to
tell him to hide his scars, but she was helpless in the spell of the
grim recital.

"My mother's sister took me away when I was still a baby," he went on.
"There was money, a great deal; bush-rangers were often rich. I went to
school in Sydney until my aunt died. Then I took the money and started
out to conquer the world. I was fifteen--alone--with several thousand
pounds, with these marks on my wrists and gall in my heart. I won--that
is, I added to the pounds, I doubled them, tripled them. I gratified
the love of luxury that I'd inherited from my mother, the craving
for the adventure that filled my father's life. Money! Famous art
treasures! Power! But there was something else"--his voice rising to an
emotional pitch--"something that I couldn't find. I had come so far--I
had risen from that"--indicating the picture--"but I couldn't make the
pinnacle, I couldn't reach this!"

As he spoke he approached the easel and drew back the cover from the
canvas. The painting, like the other, was of a woman. Beyond that there
was no similarity. A pillar of light, done with a hazy aureate tone,
slanted down upon a bronze girl clad only in an elaborate girdle and a
barbaric head-dress. Many bracelets were on her arms, many necklaces
about her throat. There was no lure of sex in the smooth, burnished
body: its perfection, its beauty of form, lifted it above mere desire.
And the face----

"Pi-noi, the bayadere," she heard the man saying. "The woman of stone,
the ideal, magnificent, inaccessible! Do you see anything strange in
the face, anything striking? It looks as though she had come to life,
here in this room...."

As Lhassa stared at the face, she felt that she was looking into a
mirror, that the flawless features, the proud lips and the fine sweep
of the brow were her own. She had the wild illusion that that was she
on the canvas and the body standing a few feet away was only a copy, an
imperfect replica.

"Here in this room!" Conquest repeated. "The ideal, no longer stone, no
longer inaccessible. Do you understand? Do you?"

She did not. Nor did she understand why he suddenly crushed her in
his arms. Nor why he pressed his mouth to hers. Nor why he released
her as abruptly as he had seized her. She knew only that the touch
of his lips seemed to turn her into stone. She was not angry; her
sensibilities were frozen. The very absence of visible resentment, she
realized, was more deadly than voiced reproof.

Without a word she turned and left the room; left him standing, dazed,
between the gyved woman and the creature in the pillar of light.

She was in her room.

She stood in the center of the floor, as motionless as the picture
of Pi-noi, the bayadere. She was thinking of Pi-noi. Of the flawless
bronze features, the proud lips, and the fine sweep of the brow.

It was unbelievable, what was in her mind, yet she could not deny the
conviction with which it possessed her. After years of groping in a
labyrinth, with only the smile of a canvas woman to guide her, she
had found a door. A door that opened upon bewildering possibilities.
Possibilities that startled her; that made her gasp; that seemed the
mist from which dreams were distilled, a vapor too impalpable to be
touched:

Pi-noi, the sacred courtesan, beneath whose statue women sat and
prayed. Women in travail. Prayers for the unborn. One woman had
been granted her prayer: her child--the child of a white father, an
adventurer from beyond her small horizon--had the features of Indra's
consort....

Conquest's story unfolded. And woven into it were the threads of
another story. The story which Dr. Garth had not finished. The story
of her grandfather. Slowly, like grains of sand sifting in an
hour-glass, the facts passed through her mind. Her grandfather ... an
adventurer ... who had traveled in Upper Siam.... But he had never
told her.... He had tried to prevent her from going to Asia.... Why?
Because he was afraid? Because she looked like the woman in the peacock
shawl? Because the woman in the peacock shawl resembled Pi-noi, the
bayadere?... Was that his secret?...

She drew a deep breath and gazed at her hands. The royal blood of
the Khmers? The blood of conquerors? of the ultimately conquered?
She wondered; wondered if Conquest knew more than he had told. For
instance, the name of the man whose child was born with Pi-noi's
features?

But she could not go to him to-night. Not in that room where the white
body seemed to leap out from the shadows. No. But in the morning, when
the sun would be shining, when the earth would be real, and not mist
from which dreams were distilled....

It was late when Lhassa awakened. The early morning coolness had gone,
and the trees shivered in the white glare. Like a memory of delirium
was the recollection of the happenings in the forbidden room. It was
as though she had drunk of strong wine; and the taste of it, lingering
on her tongue, was the only proof that it was real. As she dressed she
dwelt on each detail with growing wonder, almost unbelief.

She did not wait for her breakfast, but went down-stairs immediately.
In the dining-room she found one of the house-boys. The Tuan Rajah had
eaten early and left the house, was his answer to her query. Was the
Rajah Ranee ready for her breakfast? She decided to eat and then go
down to the warehouses. Undoubtedly he would be there or in the village.

She swallowed the food quickly and set out for the godowns. On the way
she met Ahmad and Pangku. They informed her that the Tuan Rajah was not
at the warehouses. Nor Tuan Muda. Nor the Tuan from the plantation.

Did they know where the Tuan Rajah was? she asked.

Yes. Early, before dawn, the sultan had left, and the Tuan Rajah had
accompanied him.

This information vaguely alarmed her. Left? she echoed. How long would
he be away?

Perhaps a day, perhaps a week, perhaps a month. But before he went he
instructed them to watch over the Rajah Ranee.

Lhassa then inquired if Tuan Muda had gone with him; and the Tuan from
the plantation.

They did not know; neither of the white lords was at the godowns.

Surprised and disappointed, scarcely knowing what to think, she
retraced her steps. It did not seem consistent that Conquest would stay
away long, she thought. Surely he was not bound for the plantation! She
remembered he had told her the journey required five days; remembered
also that Tuan Muda had departed on a mission up the river. Were they
together? A dread seized her. Suppose Salazar had not accompanied the
sultan----She wished, suddenly, that she had accepted Tuan Muda's offer.

The encounter in the Djinnee's Cave--the finding of the Emerald Buddha
and Conquest's revelations--had left her with a sense of sordidness. It
proved that she had not been mistaken in her suspicions. If Conquest
himself had not stolen the Buddha--and she did not think he committed
the actual theft--it was removed from the Wat Phra Keo by some one in
his pay, presumably Garon. Perhaps, after all, he, Conquest, was the
Black Parrot, and had helped the convicts to escape from Cayenne for
the obvious motive of employing them to obtain such treasures as filled
his house. She felt that she was daily getting nearer the truth. And it
frightened her. She realized that, without being aware of it, she had
trusted Tuan Muda, and she was afraid the truth might incriminate him.

But the pivot of her thoughts was Conquest. She did not understand his
sudden departure. How could he be sure she would not get away in his
absence? However, escape, when considered, was practically impossible.
Even if she succeeded in evading Ahmad and Pangku, what could she do?
Go into the jungle or put to sea in a canoe--either of which would be
folly. She only wished she was as certain of him as he was of her! He
held, she believed, a secret--a secret that Fate seemed intent upon
keeping--and she was impatient with the forces that prevented her from
seeing and questioning him immediately.

By the time she reached the house she had come to a decision: she would
not suffer the strain of uncertainty. Therefore, she instructed Ahmad
and Pangku:

"Find out if Monsieur Salazar went with the sultan this morning. If
not, tell him I wish to see him. I'll be in the library."

She would have liked to believe that Salazar had gone, but she could
not. The thought that he was the only other white in Sadok was not a
pleasant one. Yet, if he was, she wanted to know.

As she sat in the library, waiting, a cerement of fear formed about
her; she grew restless, nervous. Close by, on a table, were cigarettes,
and she took one. The tobacco, black and bitter, burned her tongue.
But it occupied her, and, after finishing the cigarette, she lighted
another. It was reduced almost to the cork tip before she heard some
one cross the portico. Her heart doubled its count; she pressed the
cigarette into a bowl. It might be one of the "boys."

A linen-clad form appeared in the doorway.

"I met your boys on the way here," he informed her. "They said you
wanted to see me. Yes?"

There was a husky note in his voice. The thought came to her that he
might relieve it if he cleared his throat.

"Yes," she verified rather sharply, for it displeased her that he had
found her gauzed in smoke. It seemed to weaken her prestige.

He stood in the doorway, his shoulders sagging with lazy strength. He
did not remove his helmet, and his dark eyes gazed at her questioningly
from under its brim. She wondered, involuntarily, if at that moment he
was remembering that she had called him a gorilla....

"Yes," she repeated. "Do you know where Mr. Conquest has gone?"

He made a sucking sound as he cleared his teeth; it was rather obscene.

"To the plantation," he replied shortly.

She tried to appear unaffected by the announcement.

"How long will he be away?"

He shrugged and stepped out of the doorway, placing his hands on his
hips. At the movement she imagined that great muscles rippled and
flexed. There was a persistent brutishness about him that shocked her.

"Why?" he quizzed. "You want to see him?"

"Yes"--reluctantly. She resented a certain indefinite menace in his
manner. "I asked how long he'd be gone."

"Oh, a month perhaps--maybe two months." Another shrug; he frowned.
"Belly of St. Gray! How am I to tell?" Then, after a moment, he
pursued: "Is it important that you see him?"

His conduct was in keeping with his thick, plethoric neck and
pachydermal skin. Her resentment was increasing. She remembered Tuan
Muda's allusion to black blood. At thought of the Frenchman she queried:

"How long will Tuan Muda be away?"

"Tuan Muda? Oh, yes, Tuan Muda! I can't say how long; I don't know.
But you want to see Monsieur the Rajah--and it's important, eh?" He
appeared to be contemplating a prospect that rather pleased him. Again
he sucked through his teeth. "No"--after a pause--"I can't tell how
long he will be away. Is that all you wish to know?"

"What's to become of me?" she demanded.

He did not answer immediately; he seemed to put her every question
through some mental process before deciding upon a reply. He was either
very dull or an excellent actor.

"I have had instructions," he said at length; and she did not like the
tone in which he said it.

"Well?" she prompted.

"After two weeks, if you give your word to forget everything you
know--you understand what I mean--I am to put you aboard the yacht and
send you anywhere you care to go. If not, then"--a shrug--"then you
stay here--indefinitely."

"You mean, until he returns," she corrected, speaking more to herself
than to him. "Which may be a month or may be longer." She drew a sharp
breath. "And you have no idea when Tuan Muda will be back?"

"No; I told you no before. However, I can assure you it won't be soon.
Is that all?"

She made no reply, but walked to the window and looked out
thoughtfully. She heard Salazar leave. "I can assure you it won't be
soon." Those words lodged in her mind. He, Tuan Muda, had gone up the
river, knowing she would be alone with Salazar. But, she realized, she
was being inconsistent: he had offered to send her to Sarawak. And she
had refused--foolishly.

She shuddered. The taste of stale tobacco was sickening.

Day fled; night locked the world in a grim prison. To Lhassa, the chill
of evening was like the chill of stone flagging and iron bars. Darkness
made real the fears that through the day had seemed too fantastic to
be other than imaginary. From her window she saw the red star that
she had watched from the cliff on the previous night. It was darker,
almost a garnet hue: to her, a bloodshot eye. It conjured a picture
of Salazar. He had been in her mind all afternoon, but now he assumed
a more definite shape. He was a being that she associated with dark
colors, a personality sultry and saturnine; and the star seemed in some
mysterious way related to him, a part of his individuality--an eye
that watched her inexorably. She had intended to stay in her room,
but as the dinner-hour drew near she questioned this policy. Salazar
might interpret her absence to mean that she was afraid of him. And he
must not know the truth.... She confessed to herself that his presence
caused her alarm. He was not a type with whom a woman could match wits:
his only weapons, thews and biceps, were too powerful for the subtlety
of fencing.

Shortly after seven o'clock she descended to the lower hall with an
unconcern that was not genuine. As she reached the bottom step she
glimpsed a white suit on the portico. A quiver of dread shook her. But
she did not pause: she would prove to herself that she was not afraid.

Casually she strolled out to where he stood leaning against a post. She
pretended not to notice him and gazed up at the sky. Instead of stars,
she saw his eyes, black as the spaces into which she looked. He stirred.

"I have been thinking," he announced abruptly.

She did not speak; kept her gaze on the sky.

"I've been thinking of what you said. How important is it that you see
Monsieur the Rajah?"

She wondered what motive was behind his words. But she did not look at
him.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing"--she imagined he shrugged--"except that I might arrange
it--if it's important."

Suddenly she understood and lowered her gaze. His face was a mottle on
the darkness, his eyes black hollows.

"You mean--send me after him?"

His reply was preceded by that usual moment of silence. "I mean--take
you after him."

She smiled to herself, without humor. Bovine ... even in the
preliminaries.

"We could leave to-night," he went on. "We might overtake him; if not,
we could get there ... mmm ... about Saturday--perhaps. He might not be
pleased, but"--a shrug--"you said it was important." A pause; then he
added, "If you're afraid of the trip----"

"I assure you I am not afraid,"--quickly.

"If you're afraid," he repeated, "I can relieve that. You'll be well
protected. Nothing to harm you; the Dyaks aren't wild any more; no
beasts; only a few pythons and crocodiles. No discomfort. There's a
shelter in the canoe--and at night you'll be under a lanko on the bank.
Of course, if you don't----"

"You forget Ahmad and Pangku," she interrupted.

"Ahmad? Pangku?"

"Yes, my boys--whom Mr. Conquest told to watch me."

He snapped his fingers. "Malays! Cattle! I can attend to them." He
laughed. "Belly of St. Gray! If only they stand in the way----" His
sentence ended in another laugh. "There's a path back of the house,"
he continued, "that leads to a landing below the warehouses. I could
be waiting there with the boatmen and the proa, and you could slip out
unseen by this Ahmad or this Pangku. It is simple--quite--if you wish
to do it."

Silence followed. Lhassa imagined she could hear the irregular measure
of her heart. Five days in the jungle with.... No. And yet was it a
greater hazard than remaining in Sadok with him for a month or longer?
Of course, Tuan Muda might return----

The sound of the dinner-gong came throbbing from within. It had a ring
of security that decided her.

"No," she announced; "I don't care to go."

She went inside, followed by Salazar.

Throughout the meal she felt that every atom within her had turned into
a living coal. She burned, whether with excitement, strain, or what,
she could not decide; nor did she try to analyze. Her mind was a smoky
forest. There formed before her pictures of dark rivers, of swamps,
of damp jungles; and always Salazar was included. The man himself was
silent. He ate quickly and left the table without a word. A few minutes
later the smell of tobacco drifted to her.

She sat motionless, her eyes directed upon an insect that was crawling
up one of the candlesticks toward the flame. Although she saw it, it
occupied no place in her thoughts. She was thinking of the stillness of
the house, of the quiet outside; thinking that every night for a month
or more she would have to endure that solitude with him.

The insect neared the top of the candle; paused just below the flame.

Could she tolerate his boorishness or, worse than that, the uncertainty
that tensioned the atmosphere? A thousand things might happen in thirty
days, but in five.... She shut her eyes.

When she opened them the insect was trembling on the lip of the candle.
She perceived it, consciously, for the first time; expected to see it
consumed. But suddenly it turned and crawled down the candle unsinged.

Her eyes narrowed. She gazed steadily at the candle-flame for a moment,
then smiled, fearlessly.

She rose and followed the scent of tobacco.

CHAPTER VIII

SALAZAR

Daybreak and a foggy splendor. Lhassa, seated under the thatched
shelter amidships, felt as though the proa was carrying her into a
filmy, unsubstantial world, a world of apple-green, of jade and olive.
Ahead, through rifts in the mist, the river gleamed like a band of
agate, its transparency clouded with foam as it rushed, rock-cloven,
out of green twilight. Green were the mangroves whose roots writhed
at the water's edge; green the growths that flung up a wild snare on
either bank. Even the atmosphere was touched with the pigment that
saturated earth, for an ice-green glow illuminated the haze.

The beings that peopled this indefinite world seemed as foreign as
the surroundings. Bronze torsos, sweat-bright, glistened before her,
shoulders and arms heaving with the sweep of the paddles. She knew that
behind, sternward, were more bronze torsos. Sitting in the bow was
Salazar; she could see only his helmet and red neck. She hated that
neck. It looked raw and cruel. She had seen it for five days, brick-red
in the glare, purplish at dusk. But after to-day she would no longer be
forced to stare at it through the brutal hours: with late afternoon
they would reach their destination.

In the cool shade of the thatch her face was a lustrous, milky oval.
But, in reality, she was not pale: the sun had burned her skin to a
tawny ripeness. Shadows absorbed the lines of her European dress and
made it seem a loose, flowing robe; her sola-topee resolved into a
burnished helmet. Thus panoplied, and with her proud, golden features,
she might have been the queen of these bronze men, journeying through
the forests of her primeval dominion.

But, sovereign though she seemed, her thoughts were not of empire or
conquest. She was thinking that when the sun arched, blood-orange, over
the wilderness, and the darkness she dreaded settled down, the journey
would be ended, the last five days a memory; raw, primitive colors on a
scroll. Involuntarily she unrolled that scroll.

She would never forget that first dawn after her departure from Sadok.
The early morning fog, lying in gauzy layers on the river, did not
impart a soft tone to the landscape but seemed to make more indefinite
the menace that hovered over her. The very odors that breathed out
from the banks--stench of mangroves and nameless rotting plants--were
threatening. When the mist dissolved, a magnificent vista was cleared:
the river blending into luxuriant groves and thickets, and, beyond
the forests, mountains. But, to her, their blue peaks, swimming
detached from earth, were cold, even supercilious, and too splendid
to be affected by human pleas. Their aloofness increased the feeling
that she was utterly, terribly alone. Salazar sat in the bow, his
neck a red blur in the sunlight; remained there throughout the day,
with the exception of a few minutes at noon when he crawled under the
shelter to distribute food, and at which time he affected toward her an
indifferent manner that would have been comforting had she believed it
genuine.

In mid-afternoon they reached a confluence: one branch of the stream
drifted languidly into cane-brake while the other whirled indignant,
foam-lipped waves against enormous boulders. Passage was difficult,
but the canoe, guided by hardened muscles, charged into the rapids,
tossing aside spume and miraculously avoiding the rocks that seemed to
lie in wait for it. Excitement for the while crowded out all thoughts
except those centering upon immediate safety, but when the craft, sides
a-quiver, nosed once more into placid waters her fears for the future
returned.

That night they camped on a gravel bank flanking a soggy wilderness.
From her _lanko_--an improvised shelter made of saplings, thatch, and
canvas--she could see the natives' fires, red wasps that stung the
darkness. Salazar had taken up quarters in the proa. He did not come
near her; two Malays served her dinner. After the meal, she sat in
the doorway of the _lanko_, the revolver that Tuan Muda had given her
in her bosom. Behind, in the morass, strange insects rasped; across
the river, wau-waus called to one another. It was her initiation into
jungle-night, and these sounds were shuddersome--not that she feared
the creatures who uttered them, but because the rasps and cries forced
her to realize how much she had depended, all her life, upon the
mere presence of human animals. Once she heard the sorrowful note of
an argus-pheasant. She did not know what it was; knew only that it
expressed an infinitude of loneliness and despair. Tired nerves and
a tired body soon compelled her to try to sleep. The glow of a cigar
marked the beached canoe. She tied the flap of the _lanko_; lay down
with the revolver beside her. But sleep would not come. She stared at
the reflections of flames on the canvas and listened to the tapping of
her heart. Once a tall shadow was flung upon the wall. But it passed,
leaving her chilled by an icy aftermath of fright. Soon she slipped
into a doze, only to awaken suddenly, startled by the stillness. She
rose and moved quietly to the division of the canvas, peeping out.
Embers against the gloom; a chaos of shadows. Shivering in the night
chill, she returned to the cot. When she surrendered to drowsiness
again it was to sleep until dawn.

The second day was marked by a change in the scenery. The river entered
a great black cathedral of jungle whose nave stretched beneath vaults
of foliage and from whose reaches steamed poisonous vapors. Narrow,
murky channels trickled into the main stream, the combined sounds
swelling into an obscene liturgy. Through the vine-woven roof came an
infiltration of sunshine, its brilliance toned to twilight. Monkeys
chattered incessantly; several times she saw a corrugated hide bedded
in slime. Broad-leaved plants grew on the banks; mauve and yellow
convolvuli, mosses and tall ferns. The odors from these flowering
parasites almost smothered her. By noon a headache was pulsing at the
back of her neck. The polluted fragrances dulled her faculties, and she
sank into a lassitude, her mind a stage for fantasies.... The dusk was
the green nebula of the moon, the Malays weird creatures of that world,
and she was on the barge of some moon-lord, being carried, a captive,
into the cryptic fastness of his kingdom.... To her intense relief,
close to sunset the river coiled out of the dense jungle. Ahead,
floated the peaks of the mountains. She was fervently thankful for the
sight of them--and thankful for the luxury of clean air.

Again, as on the foregoing night, she sat in the doorway of the _lanko_
and watched the natives' fires; watched the glow of Salazar's cigar
as he smoked in the canoe. He puzzled her. The fact that he rarely
spoke and seemed to avoid her was not assuring, but suggested a fold
of character she had not suspected. She felt that he had some ulterior
motive in taking her to the plantation, some purpose that he was
keeping concealed until a time when he deemed it wise to disclose it.
His manner was constrained; and she knew he was not a type voluntarily
to repress himself without a selfish reason. He became symbolical of
the jungle, a dark spirit, threatening by virtue of his very restraint.
Salazar was waiting--for what? Wondering, she repeated the performance
of tying the flap of the shelter and lying down to stare at the
reflections on the canvas....

Morning, and on toward the mountains that seemed always far away,
unattainable. Now and then a break in the forest yielded a view of some
stockaded village; of bamboo houses with conical roofs; of fowls and
bullocks and naked brown beings. A snatch of song from the boatmen;
the splash of fish leaping out of the water. Smell of damp plants
and sweet herbs; smell of woodsmoke from kampongs behind the trees;
smell of tobacco from Salazar's pipe. To Lhassa, it was a tapestry of
vivid colors and emotions. Stitched into its fabric were threads of
thought, some broken, others weaving on, disappearing and recurring at
intervals. There were moments when she regretted having come: it seemed
foolish that she had plunged into the jungle on a quest likely to lead
into a blind alley--and danger. In all probability Conquest did not
know the name of the white adventurer whose child resembled Pi-noi; he
might have heard the story without learning the identity of its chief
character. And perhaps the story itself was simply a fabrication told
by the dwellers in the ruined city to give authenticity to the legend
of Indra's consort. And what if it were true, what if her mother had
been born of a Khmer woman and an American? What then? Nothing, she
answered herself. Nothing--except that the mystery surrounding her
grandfather would then be dispelled; nothing--except that she would
then know the truth. There would be relief in that.

Frequently she thought of Tuan Muda; wondered where he had gone. These
recollections and doubts were bitter-sweet. She tried to analyze
her attitude toward him and decided it was made up of sympathy and
impersonal interest; sympathy for his loneliness, interest in his
romantic career. He was a criminal--a thief or even a murderer--so how
could she feel more? A strange friendship born of a strange situation,
she summarized. That was why, in moments of deepest isolation or fear,
her thoughts sped to him.

Another night: a replica of those preceding it.

The next morning she saw her first egret. It flashed up from the
rush-encumbered shallows, white-winged, blue-throated, a herald of
the exotic swamp they were approaching. The stream had narrowed to a
mere channel that coursed sluggishly through a wilderness of reed-like
plants, and the boatmen were forced to abandon the paddles for poles.
Growing in the spongy ground were lilies and small coral-hued buds;
orchids and morbific blossoms. In the sunlight the lush earth stewed,
sending up vapors impregnated with the reek of decayed matter. Mingled
with this foul exhalation were scents of intoxicating sweetness. The
green mirrors of swamp-pools were shadow-flaked, as butterflies, pale
blue and black, careened between the mud and the incandescent sky.

The sun melted in a furnace of smoky gold. The swamp had thinned, the
river widened, and wild bananas and betel-palms fringed the banks.
Again the flare of fires in the dusk. A new moon floated in the sky,
pale and thin as an ivory shaving. Lhassa was seated in the door of
the _lanko_, speculating upon the morrow, when she saw a red coal
approaching. Salazar halted in front of her; he did not remove the
cigar from his mouth as he spoke.

"To-morrow afternoon, late, we'll reach Barabbas Town."

And she repeated: "Barabbas Town?"

A sudden glow of his cigar showed surprise on his swarthy face.
Followed a sibilant: "Sapristi! Monsieur the Rajah didn't tell you of
Barabbas Town?... mmm.... Well, it's the settlement at the plantation,
near the sultan's village."

"Who lives there? Why is it called that?" The name, Barabbas Town,
kindled her fancy.

"Who lives there? Why, the men who work the sago." He took the cigar
from his mouth; sucked through his teeth. "As for the name, Barabbas
Town, Monsieur the Rajah seems to think it amusing. Why I don't know.
Barabbas. What does it mean? Monsieur the Rajah knows; ask him when you
see him."

"Who are these men who work there?" she interrogated.

He returned the cigar to his mouth and drew on it. He was smiling.

"You are too inquisitive. However, they'll not trouble you--for they
sha'n't see you. I'll leave you in the sultan's village, in the palace
with some of his wives, while I go to inform Monsieur the Rajah that
you want him."

She was not sure she approved the idea.

"Why not take me directly to Mr. Conquest--to Barabbas Town?"

He grunted and seemed to consider the question before replying
meagerly, "Oh, for a reason."

"What reason?" she pressed.

Another grunt. "You force me to be ... mmm ... indelicate. At the fort
are men--men who have not seen a white woman for several months. Some
of them ... well ... perhaps you understand."

She laughed, not at the content of his speech, but at his choice of
words. For a moment he seemed about to say something, then turned and
strode away. She wanted to call him back and question him, but she only
stared inquisitively at his receding figure.

The thin wafer of a moon floated downward, and Lhassa retired into the
_lanko_; retired wondering if at Barabbas Town were the men who had
escaped from Guiana, if there lay the solution of the Black Parrot
mystery. Barabbas Town--the village of thieves. The flames reflected
on the canvas flickered out. The only sounds were from insects and
night birds. Barabbas Town....

And now it was morning of the fifth day, and as the proa pressed into
mist as uncertain as her future she saw all this in retrospect. Each
heave of the boatmen's shoulders was sweeping her nearer a refuge from
the fears that had held her captive since leaving Sadok. It mattered
little that Conquest might be displeased at her coming. He could only
send her back, and by then she would know the truth, she would have
fulfilled the prophecy that Barthélemy had read in her eyes.

Noon. Another marshy plain; viscid pools, and bogs green with
corruption. The river frayed into several narrow streams, and the canoe
followed the widest of these channels, gliding over the speared shadows
of nipa and sago palms. With the passing of afternoon the mountains
sank into a great forest; a forest that, as it gulped the sun, seemed
to extend and include the world in its black embrace. One of the
boatmen broke into song. The forest snatched up the sound, and, like
a vast stringed instrument, vibrated a weird accompaniment.... Gloom
and silence and fireflies. Suddenly Lhassa saw a break in the sable
wall. A huge stockade impended, stretching grayly into dusk. Above it
swelled cone-shaped roofs. The reflection from a fire somewhere in the
inclosure outlined a gateway and illuminated the lower boughs of trees.

She sighed--with relief, with weariness.

Came a squelch as the proa furrowed mud. Close by were other canoes,
empty, lying like great logs on the bank. From the gateway surged a
multitude of half-clothed beings. Shouting from the boatmen, shouting
from the villagers; sounds not unlike the chatter of apes. Indeed, to
her, the men hurrying down to the water's edge were no better than the
simians that inhabited the same jungle.

Salazar made no move to help her from the boat; and, vexed at his
rudeness, she picked up her hand-bag and climbed over the side, sinking
ankle-deep in mud. Two Malays lifted her out of the ooze. Vexation
flamed into fury. She was tired in body and nerves; and the mud seemed
a culminating insult to her dignity. She hated the noise and confusion
about her, but, more fiercely, she hated Salazar.

Presently the man approached and said something about going to the
palace. Burning with rage and humiliation, she followed.

Inside the stockade, bamboo houses, log-raised, were huddled in closely
packed groups. Some distance from the gate, perhaps a thousand yards,
was what appeared to be a monster building, a tumbled pile of grass
roofs and wattled walls flung upon poles; but she perceived, at closer
range, that instead of one great building, it was a series of houses
joined by narrow verandas. Before it, in a clearing, was a fire,
reflecting upon a crowd of men and women. Salazar halted by the notched
poles that served as a ladder to the entrance of the palace. A heavy,
sensual-looking Malay, impressive in silks and gold ornaments, greeted
him, and the two held a long conversation while she stood by regarding
them with hostility.

"The Datu Tumanggong says you may stay with Dalima, the sultan's head
wife," Salazar informed her at length.

She wanted to ignore him, but there were questions to be answered.

"When will I see Mr. Conquest?"

"In the morning."

"Why not now?"

"The fort is two miles further up the river."

"You can send one of the boatmen."

He shook his head. "Monsieur the Rajah won't be pleased when he learns
you are here; and there's a matter I wish to discuss with him while
he's in a good humor. I'll bring him in the morning."

She was too weary to argue. Several women had appeared behind Salazar
and were smiling at her shyly. Knowing, intuitively, that they were
the sultan's wives, she joined them without more talk. The oldest, a
gray-haired woman wearing silks and many beads, motioned toward the
ladder. Obviously none of them spoke English. Lhassa climbed up.

Into a labyrinth she was conducted, through rooms with sagging floors
and across frail verandas, and to an apartment in the very heart of
the palace. It was bare but for two chests and a bed. The bed, a truly
Malay affair, was curtained and had gold-embroidered valences and
seven stiff brocaded pillows. Lhassa wanted to be alone, but, seeing
that the women had no intention of leaving, she realized they would be
offended if she sent them away. The oldest, evidently Dalima, the head
wife, opened one of the chests and removed several silk garments, which
she laid out on the bed. This offered an excuse to dismiss the women,
and Lhassa gestured toward the silks, then indicated the door. The
gray-haired woman nodded and spoke to the others, who immediately filed
out.

When Lhassa's clothes were exchanged for one of the native robes, a
luxurious drowsiness filled her. The silk, clinging coolly to her
skin, seemed to smother her resentment against the world, against even
Salazar. She sank upon the bed, so utterly exhausted that its hard
pillows were comfortable. To sleep--to sleep without fear. Nothing
else mattered, nothing. To-morrow would care for itself. Suddenly
she remembered her revolver and wished she might transfer it from
her hand-bag to a nearer spot without being observed. But that was
impossible, as the head wife had established herself beside the bed
with an air of permanence. However, Lhassa decided, it was not likely
she would have need of it during the night.

A few minutes later, when the women returned with food, she waved
them away, smiling faintly, and Dalima dismissed them. Evidently
Dalima did not intend to leave, for she began to croon softly, swaying
back and forth. Lhassa gazed at her drowsily; closed her eyes. A
river of darkness flowed over her, drowning her senses. The crooning
was far away; was from a figure in a dream.... Was her grandmother
yellow-skinned, like Dalima? she wondered. A faint resentment followed
the question. But the next instant it was lost in the void that
inclosed her.

She awoke early. A warm infusion of sunlight introduced a golden tone
into the room, and Dalima and the lesser wives were seated near the
bed, chewing betel and contemplating her with characteristic curiosity.

She made them understand that she desired water, then, when she had
washed, food. After a breakfast of fruit and cocoanut-milk, she was
brought a robe of dark-blue silk and a gold brocaded head-scarf. Not
wishing to appear unappreciative, she smilingly accepted the garments.
While she dressed, the women hovered about, stroking the silk or
touching her burnished hair and making little sounds of approval.

Her toilette finished, she sat down, wondering how long she would have
to wait for Salazar. It would probably be noon before he arrived with
Conquest. With a sigh of resignation, she rose and looked out of the
irregular opening that served as a window. A glimpse of queer-looking
huts, Dyak houses she imagined, gave her the impulse to inspect the
village. But as she moved toward the door Dalima blocked the way.
Forgetting that the other did not know English, she demanded to
pass. However, Dalima must have understood, for she shook her head.
Impatient, Lhassa made a move to thrust her aside, but the head wife
grasped her sleeve and poured out a volume of words. One of the other
women made a hurried exit.

"I don't understand," said Lhassa, trying to translate her meaning into
a gesture.

Dalima continued her outpouring of words, repeatedly jerking her hand
toward the door. Relief came with the return of the woman who had made
a hurried departure. She brought with her a girl whose features were
more Aryan than those of the sultan's wives and who addressed Lhassa
in English, telling her that at the "skola" in Pontianak, she had been
taught the tongue of the "orang-dagang," and, because she was learned,
she had been instructed to say to the "mem" that she must not disobey
the command of the "Tuan-besar" by leaving the palace. This information
had the effect of a cold spray upon her thoughts.

"Who is Tuan-besar?" Lhassa demanded, sensing the truth.

Why, her husband, the Big Lord! the girl replied, apparently amazed at
such a ridiculous question.

Resentment shook Lhassa. Husband! Yes, she knew who the "Big Lord"
was--what she did not know was why he had left an order confining her
in the palace.

"Did he say how long I was to be kept here?" she asked.

The girl translated her inquiry to Dalima, then repeated the head
wife's answer: Until he returned.

"When will that be?"--persistently. "Where has he gone?"

He had gone to the fort on the Tuan Rajah's plantation, and it was not
known when he would return.

Lhassa realized there was nothing to do but submit. But there was no
reason why she should not be angry. So she swept to the bed and flung
herself upon it, venting her temper in flaming thoughts. A prisoner. No
less than that. And why? Why? Why? She indulged herself to the point
of imaginary scenes with Salazar, the choicest of which she intended
to repeat when she saw him. As a consequence of her rage she spent a
thoroughly miserable morning. Once she considered forcing her way out
with her revolver, but she realized that such a drastic step would gain
nothing. Repeatedly the thought came to her that Salazar might, for a
reason she did not care to dwell upon, keep Conquest in ignorance of
her presence. But each time she thrust the suspicion away, ridiculing
it. Thus far he had not molested her; he would not dare now. Her nerves
were responsible for these--she called them abnormal thoughts.

Through the dull afternoon she sat there, waiting; sat there like a
captive queen, proudly impatient. She was not alone for a second; at
least two of the sultan's wives were with her constantly. Their smiles
no longer seemed friendly, but were mocking. She hated them all, even
Dalima, who had crooned her to sleep.

Toward sunset, when the trees rose black against an amber sky, she
paced the floor, the sibilant swish of her robes seeming, to her,
audible proof of the tension she felt. A great hollow dread enveloped
her as the sunlight took on a claret hue. She ceased her frenzied
walking and sank upon the bed, fingers pressed to her eyes. A short
time afterward she heard some one enter; heard voices. But she did not
look--not until she felt a touch on her arm.

It was the girl who spoke English.... The Tuan-besar had returned, she
announced.

Lhassa sprang up. "Where?..."

The girl, motioning her to follow, moved through the doorway.

Again the labyrinth, the many rooms, the many verandas, then a large,
dim hall; and in it, Salazar, his clothing stained by the ruddy glow
reflected through the windows. She was not startled at finding him
alone; she had known from the moment she was summoned that he would
be alone. Now, as she saw him, the reason flashed upon her. He was no
longer symbolical of the jungle, a dark, restrained spirit: in that
flash he was simplified. With the blow a great weight seemed felled;
the burden of mental anxiety crumbled. It left her unafraid, but weak,
so weak that she doubted her power to command a pose of coolness.

"I know what you've come to say," she began; "I know Mr. Conquest
isn't at Barabbas Town." She paused; resumed dispassionately. "It was
beastly of you to make me wait all day before showing me--this. It was
more than beastly. I suppose you learned at Cayenne that waiting is
exquisite torture." Another pause; then, "Where is he?"

Salazar stirred for the first time since her entrance. The red stain
was fading from his suit as the sun declined. Admiration sharpened his
gaze.

"Monsieur the Rajah, you mean? Probably on his way here."

Her glance wandered about the room while she tried to think of
something to say. She observed that the girl had gone. Each object, the
mats, the lamps, and even the seams in the walls, stood out as if under
a magnifying-glass. She felt that she was but a husk of her real self,
empty of the power to move or speak. Finally:

"Here?" she echoed. "Will Tuan Muda be with him?"

He shrugged.

"Where were they when--when you lied to me?"

"At a village not far from Sadok. They did leave with the sultan that
morning--but they parted from his flotilla at the confluence; you
remember? A kampong on the branch; business." After a moment he added:
"They were to be there two days. According to that, they returned to
Sadok ... mmm ... day before yesterday. That would make them now--well,
about half-way here if----"

"They would follow immediately," she broke in.

He nodded. "Monsieur the Rajah will bring a little army of his Malays.
I've counted on that."

"Counted?"

"Yes. He can't possibly have more than two hundred, while the sultan's
warriors...." A gesture expressive of great numbers.

"Then you've bought the sultan?"--surprised at her ability to keep on
talking coolly.

He chuckled. "What happens if you touch a match to gunpowder? Belly of
St. Gray! He has been waiting, afraid to act without encouragement, but
now...." Another gesture.

She pressed on. "What do you intend to do about them--Tuan Muda and Mr.
Conquest?"

"Oh, the sultan's warriors will be waiting in ambush below the village."

For some reason she could not be shocked; her only sensation was a
remoteness from everything. An annulated film had formed before her,
multiplying its black rings. She asked:

"Am I worth--that?"

He laughed. "There are other reasons."

"Namely?"

"Why should I tell?"

"But how will you get away?"

He spread out his hands--ugly hands, she thought, brutish. He had
garroted a warrior with them....

"I have the whole coast between Sarawak and Sambas. When the
British--or the Dutch--hear what has happened ... well, I shall be
beyond reach."

At a sudden thought she inquired:

"What of the men at Barabbas Town?"

He laughed again. That was his only answer. The sun had set, the ruddy
tone gone from his clothing. He seemed unreal, a ghost; a black ghost,
she thought.

"Are they the men from Guiana, the convicts?" she heard herself asking.

Salazar nodded--Salazar, the unreal, the black ghost.

"Twenty-seven," he said. He smiled; sucked through his teeth. "Bartoli,
a thief; Guichon, who made coins that deceived even himself; Troissard,
who led a mutiny in Algeria; Beluche, king of killers"--naming them
off on his fingers--"Chevreul, a poisoner; Marigny, Condé, Aymonier,
Cadière, Doudart.... Twenty-seven."

She forced a smile; the skin over her cheek-bones seemed parchment.

"Are you trying to frighten me?"--her voice still calm, but with a
calmness that presaged storm. She must end this interview, end it
quickly, or he would realize she was acting.

"I suppose," she continued, "you will turn me over to them if I don't
do as you want me to; and what do you want me to do?"

She did not intend to laugh, but the sound broke from her. That laugh
seemed to snap something vital within her. The film was thickening, the
black rings expanding and contracting.

"You're too impossible, Monsieur Salazar. You're not real--you--you
must be out of a book ... a book.... Plotting and sudden death! A
white man setting savages to murder other white men! Oh, you're too
impossible! But I forgot--forgot what Tuan Muda told me. You're not
white!"

Little sparks appeared among the rings; she was dizzy.

"I forgot," she went on, laughing hysterically. "But you're so
impossible. Beluche, king of killers! As if you could frighten me with
that! I suppose you'll say next that when you've killed Tuan Muda and
Conquest you'll carry me off--carry me off! Not Beluche--no--Salazar,
king of killers ... Monsieur Salazar, the impossible...."

Suddenly the man became a pivot around which the room revolved. She
remembered, crazily, a place she had once visited at a street fair,
a papier-mâché castle, ridiculous with stairways on chains, winds
that came out of nowhere, and, as a climax, a chute that flung one,
unharmed, upon a pile of sawdust. How silly! Too old for that now.
Stairways on chains; winds; and a shoot--But something was wrong,
wrong. For it cast her, not upon a pile of sawdust, but into a
coal-pit.

CHAPTER IX

BARABBAS TOWN

A proa moved up-stream through the marshy region that Lhassa Camber had
traversed in a similar craft two days before.

The white man amidships saw the same wilderness of reed-like
plants, the lilies, the orchids and other poisonous blooms; saw the
green-mirror pools, and the blue and black butterflies. But he found no
beauty in them: they were foul and rotten, even the butterflies, which
he knew bred in the miasma.

His fingers moved incessantly--long, tan fingers--tapping the sides of
the canoe or pulling at his week's growth of beard.

Muscles crawled and knotted on the boatmen's arms as they swung the
poles. The white man regarded this display of biceps appraisingly;
marveled at the energy burning under the satiny skins. Thirty arms. He
would need them.

It was mid-afternoon. The sun was rapidly sinking when the river led
them out of the feculent area.

The Malay steering spoke.

"Do we halt to-night, Tuan Muda?"

The answer came promptly.

"No, Matu Baba. To-morrow, after we reach Abu Hassan's village, we
rest."

The helmsman thrust a liberal quantity of betel into his mouth.

"Baik!" he commented, chewing. "The young lord is wise."

Some time later (dusk motes were multiplying) he spoke again.

"Tenngo! Look! A camp has been here, Tuan Muda," he announced, pointing
to the right.

The Frenchman gave the order to go in close to shore. As the proa
glided within a few feet of the bank Matu Baba slid overside. Near the
water's edge were the black remains of burnt wood lying in ashes. The
Malay examined the ground.

"A woman of the Orang Putih has been here, Tuan Muda," he reported.
"Also a man."

Tuan Muda stared at the remnants of the fire.

"To-morrow," he pronounced, "I will send a runner to the Tuan Rajah,
telling him. Mari!"

Matu Baba stepped into the proa and picked up the steering-oar.

Darkness fell across the water. In the forest, birds whistled an eery
accompaniment to the splash of the paddles. A half-moon fastened a wisp
of cloud to the sky.

Morning found the proa in the black forest. Black trees on the bank;
black reflections on the water, the latter stamped with gold where the
sunlight seared a path.

Tuan Muda peered inquisitively at the immobile wall of jungle; peered,
and wondered why he felt that his gaze was being returned from behind
that leafy barricade. Neurotic imaginings, he decided, passing one hand
over his red-veined eyes.

Shortly before noon the stockade of Abu Hassan's village came into view.

As the bow of the canoe crunched into the bank Tuan Muda swung over the
side, seeming not to care when mud closed about his ankles.

"I am going to the house I occupied before," he flung over his shoulder
to Matu Baba as he moved off. "You know the one."

He passed several natives, but if he saw them he gave no evidence
of it. Two children, hovering in the gateway of the stockade, fled
before his approach. When he was within the inclosure, his pupils
contracted to a sharp focus. He observed the usual mild activities:
women dyeing on the open verandas or pounding paddy in the granaries;
children playing in the streets; men lounging about, chewing betel;
conspicuously few men. There was, he thought, a hostile element in the
quiet that was emphasized by the beating of a tom-tom somewhere close
by.

As he neared the palace he saw a group of Sea Dyak warriors just
outside the entrance, in the clearing. He did not fail to notice that
they wore padded jackets and carried shields and spears. In their midst
was a huge-muscled Malay whom he recognized as the sultan's cousin, the
Datu Tumanggong or commander-in-chief of the army. The latter greeted
Tuan Muda as he came up; the warriors shifted uneasily, their beads
tinkling.

"Waleika salaam!" returned the Frenchman, then, omitting preliminaries,
he instructed, "Tell the sultan I wish an audience."

Nakoda Mubin, the Datu Tumanggong, was a big, sensual-looking Malay,
with rounded chest-muscles and great thighs, a type too bovine to be
very clever yet stubborn enough to be dangerous. He regarded Tuan Muda
with narrow, yellow-suffused eyes, fingering his gold breast-plates.

"My cousin is not in an approachable mood this morning, O Rajah Besar,"
he said. "May I counsel you to wait until to-morrow?"

"I will see him now, Nakoda Mubin," was the white man's reply.

"With that he passed on, making his way to a hut perched on poles some
distance away. Climbing to the gallery that ran the length of the
front, he seated himself within view of the group in the clearing. The
commander-in-chief had disappeared; the warriors' spears made points
of fire in the sunlight. He took from his pocket a cheroot; lighted
it; inhaled the strong tobacco. An introspective expression clouded
his eyes. With one hand he tapped his knee. Thus he sat, evidently
absorbed, until Nakoda Mubin came out of the palace; even then he only
shifted his position. The commander-in-chief spoke to the warriors,
then approached.

"The sultan will receive you, O Rajah Besar!" he said.

The Frenchman descended from the veranda and followed the Datu
Tumanggong.

Abu Hassan Abdulla Boru, Sultan of Kawaras, was seated on a dais in
the hall of state, smothered in silks and fanned with feathers of the
fire-backed pheasant. Surrounding him were warriors and attendants.
Tuan Muda remarked the absence of women; a disturbing sign. The great
room was still but for the creaking of his leather puttees as he
entered.

The sultan raised his right arm in greeting; he did not offer to shake
hands. Tuan Muda nodded, halting in the center of the hall. The ruler's
features were impassive--thin, arrogant features that told of Arab
blood--but they were no more uncommunicative than the white man's.

"You come from the Tuan Rajah?" thus the sultan.

Again Tuan Muda nodded.

"The Tuan Rajah is well?" pursued Abu Hassan.

"He was well when I left Sadok," the Frenchman replied.

Silence followed. The two men stared at each other. Beads clashed
softly as a warrior moved. At length Tuan Muda remarked:

"I saw only a few men in your village. They are on a hunting
expedition, I presume."

Abu Hassan's expressionless face did not change.

"They have gone to a festival in the village of Rajah Orang Masahar."

Oblong portions of the roof, propped up to facilitate ventilation,
admitted shafts of light; and Tuan Muda fixed his eyes upon one of
these, contemplating it with a ghost of a smile. From outside, muffled
by walls, came the faint pulsing of a tom-tom.

"I see," he commented, watching the particles of dust that swam in the
light.

Another silence. Across the Frenchman's mind rode swift thoughts:
"Ridiculous.... Conquest suspected the truth.... Diplomacy...." After
a brief interval he announced, "I have come as an ambassador from the
Tuan Rajah."

The sultan took an opium pill from a pouch at his side before he said,
"Your mission is of peace, yes, Tuan?"

Tuan Muda dropped his gaze to the other.

"Why should it be otherwise, O Abu Hassan?"

The sultan scratched his sides in true Malay fashion.

"The ways of white men are strange, O Young Lord. They have wrought
many changes among the Orang Malayu. Before the Tuan Rajah came, I
ruled the coast between Sarawak and Sambas; now I am no more than a
servant of the Tuan Rajah, who has robbed me of my lands, of my trade
with the Javanese merchants and the Arabs of Macassar. Allah! That I,
son of Hadji Abdulla, should permit such injustice!"

"You were willing to sign a charter with the Tuan Rajah's Government,"
reminded Tuan Muda.

"With the guns of a great war-canoe threatening--yes!"

"Not until now have you complained, O Sultan Besar!"

Abu Hassan spat, his gaze openly hostile. "Ya! Not until now! The guns
of the Tuan Rajah are cruel--they bury protests in thunder! But there
comes an end to everything, Young Lord!"

Tuan Muda gestured impatiently. "I am not here to discuss that, but
another affair, an affair of more immediate importance. It is known to
the Tuan Rajah that about the time of the new moon a white woman--the
ranee whom you saw during your visit at Sadok--was brought into
your territory. She is a great queen in her country, a Ranee Besar;
therefore, the Tuan Rajah wishes your help in finding her. He declares
that his agent, Salazar, called by your people Tuan-besar, carried her
away in his absence. He commands your aid in apprehending him, or, if
you already know where he is, orders that he be delivered over to me;
also the white ranee."

The sultan had taken on a mask of impassivity again. For a moment
after the Frenchman finished he chewed his opium pellet in silence,
evidently framing an answer.

"I know nothing of this Ranee Besar," he declared at length, "nor of
Tuan-besar. He bade me farewell the day I left Sadok--you were there,
Tuan Muda--and since then I have not seen him."

Thought Tuan Muda, "He is lying." To Abu Hassan he said: "But they came
up the river. I saw the marks of their camp a short distance below
here."

"They may have passed in the night, O Young Lord!"

Tuan Muda smiled. "Do your men sleep at their posts, that they do not
know and report who goes up and down the stream, O Sultan Besar?"

"I know nothing of them," Abu Hassan maintained stolidly. After a pause
he suggested, "The forest is wide: they may have left the river and
traveled around my kampong to the plantation. The agents of the Tuan
Rajah who live there may have hidden them. They are evil men. Only a
few days ago one of them forced the wife of a Datu to be unfaithful.
That is not the first time such has happened to women of my village.
My people are angry, particularly the Dyaks. They are savages, these
Dyaks; they demand justice. There are among them young men desirous of
wedding but who cannot marry until they each procure a head. They are
not easy to hold in check, these young men."

"She is in the village," the Frenchman told himself. To the other he
pointed out: "If, as you think, the men at the plantation are hiding
Tuan-besar and the ranee, would it be wise for me to go there alone?
They are fortified. They might refuse me entrance--or even kill me.
Give me a hundred of your warriors. With them I will force my way into
the fort--if it is necessary."

He watched the ruler's face as he spoke. The expressionless mold did
not alter. However, he was not deceived.

"My warriors are at Rajah Orang Masahar's kampong," said the Malay.
"They will not return until to-morrow. Then, if you desire, you may
have, not one hundred, but two--nay! three hundred or a thousand!"

The Frenchman was thinking: "He plans to kill me; he will try it
to-night if I remain.... Yet I cannot leave.... We are trapped
unless.... Camel! Pig of a Malay! He must believe me entirely at his
mercy...."

Aloud he protested: "Much may happen in a night. There are at least
fifty men in the village now; they, with my boatmen, would be enough."

But Abu Hassan shook his head.

"They are too few to meet the guns of the fort. To-morrow, Young Lord."

Tuan Muda's lean fingers locked behind him. Again he fixed his gaze
on the shaft of light, affecting a frown. Yes, he must appear dull;
pretend to consider, then consent. Dirty nigger! Where were the
warriors? Find out. At length:

"Very well," he agreed. "I shall wait." Then he added: "The Tuan
Rajah will be pleased to learn of your magnanimity. I shall send my
head-man, Matu Baba, to him with a message, telling all that has passed
between us. Salaamat jalan!"

With that he turned and strode out.

Abu Hassan Abdulla Boru, Sultan of Kawaras, relaxed. He smiled and
scratched himself contentedly.

"He is a very great fool," he thought. "The Tuan Rajah has followed and
is waiting somewhere down the river. This messenger will tell him my
warriors are away and ... Allah! The dregs of my shame are sprinkled
with pearls!"

Tuan Muda returned to his temporary quarters, where he found Matu Baba
waiting, seated amid the impedimenta brought from the canoe.

"Lord," announced the Malay solemnly, rising. "We will be killed if we
remain here."

The Frenchman made no immediate comment. A faint smile crooked his
mouth as he slipped his hand into his pack and groped among clothing.

"The Sea Dyaks are savages," the native went on. "They torture
their captives. I heard of a man who was taken by them and impaled
upon bamboo swords, and another whose arms and legs were broken and
afterward hacked off with a parang-ilang. The sultan, who is cruel,
would not interfere if----"

"Put those boxes inside," Tuan Muda broke in. "You observe those
warriors in the clearing? Well, they are there to watch us.... Now. You
were predicting impalement for us"--as he drew from his pack a deck of
cards. "No, Matu Baba. They may intend to murder us, but--" He snapped
his fingers. "Wits against force! Strategy; do you know what that
means?"

Matu Baba, engaged in moving the boxes inside, said:

"The Young Lord is brave. But I have seen the warriors attired for
battle; I have heard them singing, _vae vae-ae vo vae_; which is the
head-hunter's song. My men have also seen and heard, and they threaten
to leave before they are slain. Hassim swears that as he passed the
Communal House he saw a head, newly severed; a white head, Lord."

Tuan Muda seated himself cross-legged near the doorway and shuffled
the cards. He accepted the other's statements without visible emotion.
However, a frown creased his forehead, not because of what Matu Baba
had said, but because of the tom-tom that kept up its persistent
throbbing somewhere in the village. Suddenly he demanded:

"Where is that drum? Why is it beating like that?"

"It may be a Dyak woman, Lord, trying to frighten away an evil bird.
But my men say it is another thing, that it is a warning to leave."

The Frenchman was placing the cards for a game of solitaire.

"They need not desert, Matu Baba. I am going to send them out of
danger--yes, now.... Lay out my mattress, there, where it can be seen
by those monkeys in the clearing."

The boatman obeyed, asking:

"Where will you send them? Back to...."

"Yes, down the river. It will take a day and a night to reach the
others, eh?"

"Yes, Lord. But----"

"And the same time to return with them. That would make it--this is
Wednesday, eh?--well, about dusk of Friday. Hmm. But"--shrugging--"it
cannot be helped. I counseled the Tuan Rajah not to leave them so far
behind."

Matu Baba stood in the doorway, gazing anxiously at the white man.

"Lord, you will not stay here alone?"

"One of your men must remain with me."

"Why not I?"

"No, your task is to bring the others. Leave the swiftest runner--leave
Hassim--yes, he is the one. I want him to carry a message to the Tuan
Rajah to-night.... To the devil with that drum!"

"He will never do it; you both will be slain."

"Open the tin of biscuits," Tuan Muda directed; "also the meat. Do you
realize I have had nothing in my stomach since dawn?... Slain, eh? Name
of God! A pessimist!"

He paused, holding up a part of the deck; the other cards were arranged
in seven piles on the floor.

"Attend, Matu Baba! If chance is with me, I match these cards with
those. If not----" A shrug. He turned three cards. "A red deuce on a
black three.... You must go as soon as my lunch is prepared. There will
be no interference." He chuckled. "Indeed, Abu Hassan will be delighted
to see you depart! When you have finished here, I want you to get some
turmeric--powdered turmeric. I'll give you cigarettes to trade for it.
Try the _dukun_. Say I have a terrible skin-disease--anything! Only get
it--a pouchful.... You remember the place where we saw the marks of a
camp? On your return you will find a messenger waiting there.... The
cards are running well. A ten there--regard...."

He talked on, more to himself than to the Malay, while the latter set
up a collapsible table and chair, and laid out a meal of tinned food.
Punctuating his thoughts were the muffled beats of the drum.

"The devil!" he exclaimed suddenly. "The devil, again! I am blocked. In
here"--tapping the pile of cards he had been turning--"is the queen of
hearts; but a black knave stands in the way. You comprehend? Because
of him I fail--this time." He rose. "Go and tell the men to prepare to
leave. Also attend to the other matter. Here are the cigarettes."

Tuan Muda had eaten and was puffing a black cheroot when Matu Baba
returned. The latter drew from under his jacket a leather pouch.

"I got it from a Dyak woman, Lord."

The Frenchman nodded approval, taking the pouch and dropping it into
his pocket.

"You are ready? Where is Hassim?"

"He is coming, Lord." Matu Baba hesitated, then inquired, "Is there
nothing more before I go?"

"Nothing."

Again the head-man hesitated, then said, "Farewell, Young Lord!"

A shadowy smile flickered across the white man's face, momentarily
absorbing the tired, haggard look.

"_Au revoir_, Matu Baba!"

When the Malay had gone, Tuan Muda flung away the butt of his cheroot
and lighted a fresh one, then, picking up the cards, shuffled them to
the ominous accompaniment of the tom-tom.

A smoky dusk; embers in the west. Fireflies, sparks from the forge of
the sunset, reeled through the forest. Black trees rose in charred
tracery upon the sky. Before the palace a fire burned, its glare
staining the men squatting around it. Other fires, scattered over the
village, flaunted ragged banners.

As the sudden night fell, the glow of a cigarette marked the spot where
Tuan Muda sat; where he had been sitting since Matu Baba's departure,
smoking and playing solitaire.

The tom-tom had ceased, and not a moment too soon. Another throb and
his nerves, at the point of disintegration, would have been powder. Now
the quiet, although portentous, served as a lubricant for the clogged
machinery of his brain and body: he dared surrender to the weariness
and the doubts that through the day had been clamoring for recognition.
Kaleidoscopically, the events of the last few weeks arranged themselves
in his mind. Indecision and weakness; tension that threatened to snap
his will; the burden of carrying a secret. A mosaic of emotions,
colored by the glare of the days and the black pigment of the nights.
In the center of this polychrome, a figure serene and poised, was the
woman.

"Cold as ice-floes," he thought. "Splendid, brilliant, but cold. She
will not forgive. It will stand between us--for ever. Garon! Bah! I
hate the name! No, she will have no mercy--not even when the truth is
known!"

A sensation of futility smote him. Life: a bitter quest. One sought
a star only to find, upon reaching it, that beyond was another, more
desirable; and so on until the body, weary of searching, wasted
back to the substance that yielded it. If he won to-night, if his
venture succeeded, it would be a brief victory, a moment of triumph,
then--Guiana. There was irony in the realization that, as she had
threatened, she would cause his return to the convict settlement. Yes,
he would go back; there was nothing else to do. His duty was there, in
that pestilential land. And she would continue on her splendid way,
too magnificent to forgive or even know----He clipped off sharply.

"Hassim"--addressing a black shadow beside him--"make a fire and boil
some water."

The Malay moved noiselessly into the house, and Tuan Muda rose. He
stamped his cigarette underfoot and paced the gallery, watching the
figures that were outlined darkly against the blaze in the clearing.

Presently he went inside. From his kit he got an electric pocket-lamp
and writing-materials. For several minutes his pencil moved swiftly
over the paper; then he read what he had written, and, satisfied,
folded the note.

"Hassim"--to the boy, now squatting in front of the fireplace--"this is
the message for the Tuan Rajah. Remember my instructions; also remember
what I told you to do if caught. Before you go, find the _dukun_ and
tell him I am stricken with fever and wish to consult him. Do not
return with him, but leave immediately. You comprehend?"

"Ya, Tuan putih! Go now?"

"Is the water boiling?"

The Malay bent over the pot. "It is steaming, Tuan."

"Here is the message. Pigi!"

When the boy had gone Tuan Muda switched off the pocket-lamp and thrust
it under his mattress. Then, by the weird firelight, he poured part
of the boiling water into another pot and mixed with it the turmeric
which Matu Baba had procured. The powdered root dissolved quickly. For
a few minutes he watched the liquid simmer, after which he examined his
revolver and placed it with the flash-light.

"Now"--aloud--"we produce a temperature!"

He drank two cups of hot water, then soaked his handkerchief. When the
cloth was heated sufficiently he folded it upon his forehead and lay
down. In little more than a minute sweat streamed from his pores; his
face burned. But the _dukun_ did not appear.

"Name of God!" he thought. "If he does not come soon I shall have to do
it again!"

He was on the verge of rising to get more hot water when he heard the
creaking of the ladder. Flinging away the wet handkerchief, he closed
his eyes and feigned heavy breathing. Came a step; then:

"Tuan sent for me?"

He opened his eyes, muttering, "Dmam"--Malayan for fever.

The _dukun_, or village doctor, bent over him, touching his forehead.

"What can I do, Tuan? Have you none of the great medicines of your
people?"

The Frenchman shivered voluntarily.

"The draft," he said, gesturing toward the door.

"There is no wind, Tuan." Animal-like he sniffed the air, which was
aromatic with the fumes of turmeric.

Tuan Muda shivered again. "I feel it.... Shut the door."

The Malay lowered the thong-swung weight that worked the door and
returned to the white man's side. The latter spoke.

"In the fireplace"--weakly--"is medicine, great medicine. My boy put it
there to boil. See.... Wait!"--lifting himself on one elbow--"take this
light."

He drew the pocket-lamp from under the mattress with his left hand,
snapping it on, while with his right he jerked out the revolver. As the
glittering barrel caught the light, the _dukun_ recoiled, springing to
his feet. Tuan Muda also leaped up.

"Step back, O _dukun_!" he commanded. "And be silent! You understand?
Back farther"--forcing the other against the wall--"there!"

The Malay stared at the muzzle of the weapon, apparently more surprised
than frightened.

"Answer my questions," the Frenchman snapped, "and I shall not harm
you! Where are the men of the village?"

"Apa?" meaning, "What?"--the usual recourse of a Malay when trying to
gain time.

"You understand! Where are they?"

"I do not know, Tuan."

"A lie! Quickly!"--with a movement of the revolver.

"They are waiting to kill the Tuan Rajah and his men."

"Where?"

"Down the river."

"How far?"

"Less than a mile."

The native's words recalled to Tuan Muda his eery sensations when
he passed through the black forest. Why, he wondered, had he been
permitted to pass? He continued:

"Did you see the white ranee whom the Tuan-besar brought here? Where is
she? In the palace?"

The _dukun_ opened his mouth to answer; snapped it shut. A subtle
cunning crept into his eyes. Tuan Muda saw it; knew instantly that the
Malay had realized he would not dare sound an alarm by shooting; and he
swung the revolver, hammerwise. Followed a cracking sound. The _dukun_
staggered but did not fall, and, before the Frenchman could strike
again, he was on guard.

It was not an encounter of thrusts and blows, but of sinew and muscle.
One of Tuan Muda's arms was free; the other, upright and gripping
the barrel of the revolver, was in the Malay's clutch. Straining and
twisting, they reeled about the room; they grappled and pitched; they
stumbled and crashed into the walls. Tuan Muda heard the creaking of
the floor above their short, swift breathing; wondered how long the
bamboo would hold. Twisting his leg about the _dukun's_, he clung with
his entire strength. They thudded to the floor, chest to chest. For an
instant the Frenchman was underneath, crushed by the other's weight,
but with a wrench he rolled the body from him and struck. Crunch of
teeth; a gurgling sound. He found himself suddenly released and gained
his feet, his vision freckled with yellow. A corrugated butt met the
rising native between the eyes.... Tuan Muda sank limply against the
wall, trembling with reaction.

"Dead," he thought, sparks still bursting before him. "Men ...
bodies ... wherever I go ... God of Gods!"

Weakly, scarcely conscious of the action, he moved to the fireplace and
kicked several branches into the embers. The dry wood flared. He gazed
at the fire stupidly, his senses crawling out of a smoky sphere. The
odor of turmeric brought him back to his task.

"Pah! A Malay!" Thus compromising his conscience. "I slew him for a
purpose!"

He crossed to the door, opening it a crack and peering out. Black
figures in the clearing. He smiled grimly. Assassins? Fools, instead.
He found his kit and took from it a shaving-outfit and a mirror,
arranging them on a box in front of the fire. On a folding chair close
by he placed his pocket-lamp, lighted, propping it against the pot of
turmeric. He then stripped himself of all garments but his singlet.

Ten minutes later he was shaved and ready to apply the pigment. It
was no easy task, for the liquid dried almost the instant it touched
the skin and he had to work swiftly to accomplish a smooth coat. When
this was done--his body stained except between armpits and thighs--he
set about, grimly, to divest the Malay of clothing. The garments were
repugnant to him, but, stifling his disgust, he put them on, and,
attired in sarong, jacket, and turban, proceeded to dress the native
in his own clothes. Cold insects seemed to crawl up and down his spine
as he worked. Afterward he lighted a cigarette to purge himself, and,
puffing furiously, dragged the body to the mattress and dropped it face
downward. Then he arranged the mosquito curtain over it.

"Now"--with a sigh--"let them come!"

A look at his watch: nearly ten. He dropped the time-piece into
a pocket of the jacket; in the other he placed the revolver and
flash-light. Once more he peered outside. "Too early," he thought. From
the door his gaze roved about the room, rising at length to the roof,
which, like those of other Malay houses, was of thatch and built so
that strips could be lifted and propped as a means of ventilation. One
corner was raised. It offered a suggestion that he immediately accepted.

Quenching the fire, he groped his way into the corner with a folding
chair, and, stepping upon the taut canvas, gripped one of the
transverse poles supporting the roof and drew himself into the opening.
The space was small, the ridge upon which he perched narrow, but by
crouching and clamping his elbows upon the sides of the thatch he was
able to establish himself with a certain amount of comfort. A glance
behind showed him, between forking palms, the augmented brilliance of
stars. A tawny glow filtered through the trees, but the dense foliage
denied a view of the clearing. Some distance away, bulking against
massed shadows, was the palace. At sight of it a dreadful possibility
rose to the surface of his thoughts. What if she were not there or even
in the village! He thrust the doubt away. She was near; he could feel
her ... cold as northern lights.

From the river came the basso of frogs. Once a monkey chattered
somewhere in the ambient darkness; frequently he heard rats in the
room below. With the passing of minutes fatigue gnawed at his brain
and muscles, and he found himself on the offensive against insidious
attacks of drowsiness. Repeated inspections of his watch apprised him
of the advancing seconds.

Soon a copperish moon rose, limning the trees blackly against the sky.
With it came a breeze, languorous and burdened with sweet jungle odors.
These fragrances were potent wine to his already tired senses. Several
times, on the very verge of sleep, he almost tumbled from his perch.
Finally, in desperation, he decided to run the risk of a smoke to
occupy and stimulate him. He struck a match; stifled it instantly.

A muffled creak.

Drowsiness dropped from him like a cloak. He drew out his flash-light,
holding it in readiness and clinging to the thatch with his other hand.

Another creak.

He made out a faint line of gray in the blackness below, a line that
slowly widened into a rectangle and disclosed a crouching form.
Then, magically, the rectangle shrank, vanished. He marveled at the
soundlessness of that entrance. Clever devil! He was crossing the floor
now, probably creeping on all fours. In a moment he would strike....
Yes: there! _Thud! Thud! Thud!_ Name of God! He was hacking! Revulsion
uncoiled in the Frenchman. Waiting no longer, he snapped on the
flash-light.

The sudden ray photographed a naked back and a lifted blade--a blade
that did not fall. The native whirled, staring wildly into the circle
of light.

Tuan Muda jumped. As he landed, the floor sagged threateningly. The
Malay, a shaggy-haired creature, stood not four feet away, transfixed.
His weapon, the Frenchman perceived, was a heavy, concave sword known
as a parang-ilang.

"Son of Shaïtan!" he flung in Malayan, drawing his revolver and
thrusting it into the light. "Whelp of abomination! It is I, Tuan Muda,
whom you came to slay! Look! See whom you have hacked to pieces! Regard
your own end, for when the sultan learns of your mistake he will have
you spitted like a goat and sliced to death! Look, foolish one!"

As the surprised native turned Tuan Muda seized his wrist and twisted
it until the sword dropped. Then he planted his foot upon the blade.

"If you make a sound," he threatened, "I shall kill you! Did you come
alone--or is there another outside? Answer, lizard--crawling thing!"

Evidently the Malay's mind could not grasp the situation beyond the
bare realization that he had made a mistake, a terrible mistake.

"Are you alone?" pressed Tuan Muda. "Answer!"

The native blinked stupidly at the light. After a moment his lips moved.

"The sultan sent me, O Tuan."

"Alone?"

"Yes, Tuan."

"What has become of the mem-sahib whom the Tuan-besar brought here?"

"Tuan?"--not understanding.

"The white woman," Tuan Muda snapped. "The ranee from Sadok."

"She was in the palace until to-day, Tuan, but she fought the sultan's
wives, so they moved her."

A thrill passed through the Frenchman. A leopardess! Yes, a snow
leopardess! But suddenly the thrill ended in fear.

"Moved her?" he echoed. "Where?"

"She is in the house of Sajut."

"In the village?"

"Yes, Tuan."

"Who is with her?"

"Two of the sultan's warriors are guarding her; I saw them early in the
evening, sitting on the gallery."

Silence. Tuan Muda was thinking rapidly. "If you have lied," he said at
length, "I----"

"I have not lied," the native put in hastily, dropping on his knees.
"Slay me, O Tuan Putih--slay me quickly, then all will be at an end! If
I live, the sultan will have me tortured! He will have me spitted like
a goat, as you said! Be merciful, Tuan--strike my head from my body!"

Tuan Muda slipped the revolver into his pocket and quickly picked up
the sword. He had no intention of deliberately murdering the Malay, but
a plan had unfolded whereby he might divert this circumstance into a
useful channel. The native was motionless, waiting calmly for death.
The Frenchman lifted the blade; paused.

"No," he pronounced, "I will not soil it with your blood. I shall tie
you and stuff your mouth and leave you to be spitted like a goat."

Fear glazed the Malay's eyes.

"O Most Generous, Most Kind!" he pleaded. "Slay me now! Slay me, O
Rajah Putih!"

Again Tuan Muda raised the blade; paused.

"No," he reiterated, "I will not! Indeed, I am moved to spare you, toad
that you are. If you will come with me and do as I direct, I shall free
you when we have escaped from the village, and then you may fly from
the wrath of Abu Hassan."

An incredulous stare greeted this announcement.

"Go with you, Tuan? Not die?" It required a moment for him to adjust
himself to the fact that he was being offered freedom from a
predicament that, to him, seemed soluble only by death. "What would you
have me do, O Rajah Besar?"

"Lead me to the house where the Ranee Putih is confined."

"Ya, Tuan!"--eagerly. "I will, I----"

"Silence, snake!" the white man hissed. "I said I would spare you, yes,
but only if you do as I command; and, first of all, I order you to be
quiet! Furthermore, if you make a suspicious move, if anything happens
to even suggest that you intend treachery, I shall--no, not kill you,
but wound you and leave you to be tortured! Swear by Allah that you
will obey!"

"I swear, O Tuan!"

"And if you break that oath may your soul be delivered to Shaïtan, may
your traitorous name be a stink among men, even to those of your own
family! Repeat that!"

The Malay did.

"Now"--thus the Frenchman--"answer my questions. Is the sultan waiting
for you?"

"He commanded me to return with your head."

Tuan Muda thought a moment, then announced: "We shall have to work
fast. There were two men guarding her, you said--only two?"

"I saw no more, O Tuan."

"Hmm. We must surprise them--er.... Your name? Tama? We must surprise
them, Tama--strike swiftly, you with your sword, I with my gun.
Then--but I will tell you what to do then. Is there a trail to the
plantation, to the fort?"

"Yes, Tuan, through the swamp."

Tuan Muda moved to the door, being careful to keep the native under
observation, for, whereas he did not believe the Malay's superstitious
nature would permit him to break so terrible an oath, he could not
afford to take the chance. The fire in the clearing had burned low,
and two figures squatted near the embers, whether facing him or not he
was unable to see. That they might be watching was a risk he must run.
Turning, he flung the parang-ilang on the floor and drew his revolver.

"Pick up your sword," he directed, switching off the flash-light
and opening wide the door. "Climb down the ladder and go under the
house--do it quickly!"

Tama obeyed, and Tuan Muda followed, his attention divided between his
newly acquired ally and the figures in the clearing.

"Now," he murmured when they were beneath the log-raised dwelling,
"which way?"

The native made a gesture, and, at a word from the Frenchman, led off
through the sleeping village.

In a house in one corner of the stockade, Lhassa Camber sat wrapped in
dull contemplation.

A bar of moonlight plunged under a raised portion of the roof and
splintered on the floor.

Since morning, when she had been brought from the palace, an increasing
sense of helplessness had cemented her into stolid acceptance of
whatever the somber future held. Her passivity, indeed, if it was that,
was neither weakness nor surrender. It was the indifference following
a succession of blows, the hardening of the tissues to pain. She was
bruised from the struggle with the sultan's wives. But the blow that
had left her stunned was not upon her body. Words, a few small words,
and, like cruel steel, they had bitten into her heart; they had severed
the magic pattern that had been spun about her. And the amazing feature
was that the very thread which had woven the design was the one that
snarled it!

Since that evening in Singapore, the blue slendong had become
integrated into her thoughts, into her being, with a meaning that she
had only dimly sensed; now, with sudden vision, she perceived its true
significance. It was a symbol, the symbol of Romance. It had unrolled
out of nowhere, bright with the promise of adventure, and had carried
her over sea and into jungle, only to betray her to reality. In the
light of this treachery, the Emerald Buddha, once a power that conjured
dreams of battle and valor and death, all the splendid sacrifices and
tragedies of Romance, became merely a piece of jade which millions
worshiped with bovine stupidity. "Romance, the beautiful illusion."
Conquest had said; Conquest, himself proof of the words.

She had believed herself clever. But she had been blind. For why had
not she guessed the truth before Salazar told her? She could hardly
have recognized him: the previous glimpses were too brief, the one in
Singapore and the other in Bangkok, and each time he was disguised with
a beard and a distorted back. But intuition should have stirred the
embers; intuition, and his brown, slender hands. Hands that had stolen.
Hands....

All day they had haunted her. They had crept in among her thoughts and
commanded them. They had woven lithely about her heart and pulled.
She had tried to tear them away, had, in fancy, bruised them as they
had bruised her. But they persisted. She even pictured them fighting
in the trap Salazar had set, pictured them lying stilled by a blow.
But she could not exult in these imaginary scenes: they wounded her.
Wounded her. She repeated that, stupefied by the realization. He, Tuan
Muda--she would never call him Garon--had the power to hurt her.

The acknowledgment of this truth was accompanied by an agony so
profound that it seemed to crack her. She felt a rending as of ice
under tremendous pressure, a grinding and crushing of emotions. It was
as though her father, that impatient-mouthed man of the oil-painting,
had sheathed her in restraint, but the fire of her mother, the vivid
creature in the peacock shawl, had burned through the prison. She was,
suddenly, free and pagan; a touch of barbaric Africa in the sensation.
She remembered a night in Saigon when she had watched a tide of faces
sweep by and felt utterly separated, secure, in her calm back-water
off the main stream. A gesture, a grandiose gesture that had vanished
before the advent of this man ... this man from the prisons. Out of the
very sphere that she had condemned, out of turmoil and sweat and the
shambles of dreams, he had come, bringing a revelation of the beauty
and the agony of life. Life! In a flash she saw its strength and its
weakness, its conquests and its defeats; all emotions that welded into
one magnificent purpose in the blast-furnace of mercy. To be merciful!
To cleanse his hands in compassion!

But as the hours passed, crawling hours, dreary with doubt and
suspense, the fire burnt out; and now not a spark animated the dead
cells. She sat there, neither condemning nor forgiving, only waiting;
waiting without hope, without even the conscious desire to hope.

About her was the hush of a necropolis. Yet she knew that beyond the
door were two beings very much alive. Frequently she heard them moving
or talking. She heard one of them now. He spoke. It sounded like a
challenge. Her imagination answered: Salazar!

She rose, trembling. If it were he she knew what she would do; she
knew. Throughout the day the thought had recurred insistently, but
until now she had rejected it. Yes, she would do it. His coarse muscles
were greater than her strength. But she remembered a trick she had seen
on the voyage from Nagasaki to Hong Kong, a fatal trick. Two Japanese
were fighting in the steerage, and one pressed his thumbs into the
hollows under the other's ears....

Again she heard a challenge. Another voice replied. Came a sudden
thudding crash beyond the door, then the concussion of a great weight
striking the gallery. Footsteps; blows. The floor beneath her shook.
She realized, frightened, that two bodies were rolling and struggling
outside. Even as she realized it, the noises ceased. The sudden quiet
was as confusing as a roar.

She started toward the door; stopped. Was the door opening or did she
only fancy it? As if answering the question, a form emerged from an
oblong diffusion of gray light. She recognized the dress and turban of
a native, and relief sent a sharp charge into her throat. She asked:

"What do you want?"

The splintered moonlight lay between them, and he moved into it,
transformed from a ghost into a being of flesh. Dizziness blurred her
gaze; the room was no longer stationary. He spoke, and his voice was
reminiscent of another; his face, too. Long hands, reaching slowly,
doubtfully toward her, furnished the last clue. The space between them
shrank. She was not aware of movement, nor did she see him stir; it was
as though an invisible force carried her into his arms. The warmth of
him struck an answering flame. It seemed to fuse them into one. Then,
swiftly as it had kindled, it died, leaving them to break apart like
cold and brittle metal. Her lips felt bruised where he had crushed them.

"I didn't mean...." she began, but gave up as adequate words refused to
form.

"You didn't...."

She gestured weakly, inexpressively. The sudden breath of fire had left
white ashes.

"You understand," she resumed incoherently. "The strain, the frightful
strain; and then you came; came out of nowhere! Oh, you understand!"
she repeated. "I know you do!"

He was standing in the moonlight, and she saw the muscles of his cheek
tense. The old insolent expression was absent, perhaps because the scar
that was responsible for it was under his turban-cloth. Garon! No, he
couldn't be! He couldn't!

"Tell me," she breathed swiftly, "tell me who you are; tell me if
Salazar lied when he said you--your name----" Again words failed her;
the remainder of her appeal was a plea from her eyes.

His fingers--those restless fingers!--tapped the haft of a sword thrust
under his sarong. A long, deliberate pause preceded his words.

"I was called"--he moistened his lips--"I was called Garon--and I was
there, in Bangkok, that night--but----"

"Don't lie!"--in dead tones.

His expression changed: something of his former impudence, the proud
intolerance that was part of his individuality, flashed back. He lifted
his eyebrows; shrugged.

"Lie? Why should I?"

Her inherent arrogance responded to the change, but she crushed
it; crushed it and repeated that inexpressive gesture. She desired
passionately to believe--But the blue slendong! Barthélemy!

"I don't know," she sighed. "I am too tired to think. My brain seems
crippled. I----" She paused, groping desperately for something to say.
"Oh, I'll believe!" she finished up, surrendering. "I'll believe if you
swear, swear to God, that you didn't do it. Will you swear? To God?"

Silence. His face was still as bronze in the moonlight. Vainly she
tried to draw from his immobile countenance some hint of his thoughts.
Finally, he drew a deep breath. The muscles over his jaw rippled.

"I swear--that I did not--touch him."

Relief; a melting of tension. But she pressed on. "And you don't know
who did? Or what became of Captain Barthélemy?"

"No."

"You swear to that, too?"

An exclamation of impatience. "You have my oath that I am not guilty!
Is not that sufficient? If I told you everything now you wouldn't
believe. Furthermore, if we remain here talking we will be killed."

As he spoke a shadow flickered past the doorway, accompanied by a
creak. Startled, she whispered, "Who is that?"

"One of the sultan's men. He has agreed to show us the trail to the
fort."

"Are you alone? I mean, is Mr. Conquest with you?"

"He is at the fort--or should be by now. This is no time for
explanations. If we reach him it will mean at least temporary safety,
and then----"

"But I must know more!"--insistently. "I will not go blindly! How did
Mr. Conquest get there? What has happened?"

His hands flashed impatiently. "Name of God! A woman must know every
detail!"

"Are my feelings to be ignored?" she flared. "You have been active,
occupied, but I ... waiting--waiting--not knowing! I can't endure it
any longer!"

The expression of annoyance vanished from his face.

"My nerves; like that"--snapping his fingers. "Forgive me. What
has happened? Well, when we returned to Sadok and learned what had
occurred, the Tuan Rajah gathered together as many men as possible,
including the crew of the _Narcissus_, and we set out. We knew, of
course, that Salazar and the sultan were allied. Two days ago we
separated; a tactical move. Conquest, with about thirty Malays, left
the river to march by a circuitous route through the jungle to Barabbas
Town. He suspected that Salazar may have corrupted the men there, and,
if that was the case, he intended to seize the fort. It would gain a
strategical point; you see? We figured that he would reach there this
afternoon or to-night. Meanwhile, the greater part of his little army,
under the captain of the _Narcissus_, set up camp to wait, and I, with
a few men, went on to--to take the temperature of the situation, so
to say. I was to sound the sultan and find you--if possible. It was
agreed that if affairs proved ugly I would send for the captain and
his force, and join Conquest at Barabbas Town. If there was no trouble
smoldering, then--well, our warlike advance would not be generally
known, and no strained situation would rise from it. Savages, you
comprehend, must be handled with diplomacy. They----"

"But trouble _is_ smoldering," she inserted.

"It has broken. An attempt to murder me was made to-night, and the
sultan's men are ambushed along the river. Earlier in the evening I
sent a runner to Barabbas Town to tell Conquest I suspected you were
here. If we reach the fort, and he has succeeded in his venture, we can
hold it until relief comes. I have sent for the others." He stopped
suddenly, then asked, "Where is Salazar?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him since morning. He told me of the
ambushed warriors, and I.... But I don't understand why you were
permitted to pass into the village."

"Obviously, the sultan wished to learn how much I knew. But
Salazar...." A significant pause.

She forced a smile. "It's all so fantastic, so--so ridiculous. He is
like a bad character out of a story. He.... But what does he expect to
gain?"

"Loot in the Tuan Rajah's house," he explained. "There is enough even
to be divided among those rogues at the plantation should they aid him.
After that, freedom. Do you forget that they are hunted men?"

She had not. Nor had she forgotten that he, also, was hunted. As she
started to speak there came a creak from the veranda. He crept to the
doorway, peering out.

"We are squandering time"--turning back. "Are you ready?"

She stepped into the bar of moonlight, pausing, irresolute. Hunted men.
Those words were a shuttle that carried an insidious thread.

"We shall have to climb the stockade," he announced. "There are a few
houses outside, Dyak houses. But if we are cautious there is small
danger, and, even if we are seen, our dress should protect us." When
she made no move to join him he said: "You hesitate--why?"

The shuttle had woven a definite design. She dreaded to pronounce
the words that hovered on her tongue, yet she knew she would not be
satisfied until she did, until she had his reply.

"Tuan Muda"--in a low, faintly husky voice--"one more question.
Don't be impatient. There's a possibility, you know, that we may not
reach the fort. A thousand things could happen. So tell me, tell me
truthfully: why were you sent to Guiana?"

He stood motionless by the door, darkness thick on his face. She could
hear his heavy breathing. He answered:

"I had charge of certain funds at Hanoi; a government position. I....
It was a sordid affair."

Her tense body relaxed. There flowed over her a strange, thrilling
sense of stillness, a sort of passionate peace, driving in its very
calm.

"Come here," she commanded.

The scarf had slipped from her head, and the moonlight made a pale
nimbus in her hair; about her body, too, was a faint glow, a weaving,
illusory sheen in her silken robe. He came toward her slowly, like a
man approaching a cathedral image. She extended her hands.

"Take them"--almost in a whisper--"hold them." He obeyed. "I believe
you, Tuan Muda--Young Lord!"

He stood facing her for a moment, eyes lowered. Then he released her
hands; moved quickly to the door; stood waiting on the threshold.

That exodus from the village was printed upon Lhassa's mind in a series
of etchings: the still, dark houses, the chalky moon; the native
gliding ahead, and Garon at her side. Once outside the stockade and
beyond the houses scattered around it, she seemed to enter a new world;
a world inhabited by shadows that took on human shape and vanished
magically, and alive with snapping twigs, with leafy whispers, and
strange little bird and insect calls. To her, this ghostly shadow-play,
these sounds, were part of a conspiracy to torment her.

A path plunged through an arcade in the forest, but they shunned it,
thus lessening the danger of an encounter. Moist plants brushed her
ankles; the snaring filament of creepers. Frequently her long skirt
was caught and torn. With each rustle of the grass, each hiss of the
leaves, she expected to feel some slithering thing loop about her legs
or drop sinuously from above. Terror of the dark, most despotic of
fears, was rapidly sweeping her into its fold. The Frenchman walked
beside her, saying not a word. Ahead, flickering noiselessly through
the gloom, was the guide. She wanted desperately to hear a human voice,
tones other than those of forest creatures, but she perceived the
wisdom of silence. Questions, pricking doubts, thoughts relevant and
impertinent, flashed in and out of her mind, all trivial beside the one
dominant desire to fly from the night.

Suddenly she became conscious that the ground was yielding under her
feet. She saw that the trees had thinned and were being replaced by
rushes and high grasses. A damp breath rose from the earth. Her impulse
was to rebel against going through the swamp, but she mastered the
weakness; ground her teeth together in expression of her determination.
Garon was holding her arm now. His grip gave her a poignant sense of
security, to which she abandoned herself wholly. About them played a
dim luminosity from decaying matter--pulsing phosphorus and glowing
fungi. In front, squelching in mud, moved the native, a black shadow
leading them deeper into the phantom bog. To her, in her condition of
abnormal alertness, every log was an armored monster. Once when a bird
wheeled out of hiding she almost screamed. Garon must have felt the
tremor that shot through her, for he tightened his grip and pressed
closer.

"How far?" she breathed, more to hear her own voice than from an actual
desire to know.

"Not far--a mile, perhaps."

She seemed to slip back centuries. In her thoughts, in her elemental
emotions of fear, of horror, of instinctive clinging to the
man-creature at her side, she reverted to the plane of those beings
who hunted and fought in Silurian forests. The morass stretched before
them in an endless succession of pools and mire-traps through which
they slushed and stumbled. The deliquescing vapors nauseated her, and
she wondered if she had the strength to continue. Fatigue assaulted
her like a tangible weight: she found herself on her knees, with Garon
standing over her, gripping her shoulders.

"Tired," she whispered. "Rest--just a moment." She sank to a sitting
position, regardless of the moist ground, and smiled up at him wearily.
"Stupid to be so weak, isn't it? But I can't help it. You understand."

A quick pressure on her shoulders answered.

The native, she observed, had halted and was hovering close to the
speared palisade of swamp-grass; and, suddenly, she saw him stiffen
into an attitude of listening. Presently he addressed Garon in Malayan.

"What is it?" she demanded, weariness absorbed in anxiety.

The moonlight was so bright that it transformed night into weird, livid
day, and his expression of concern was visible to her. He drew from his
pocket a gleaming cylinder.

"He says there is some one coming on the trail."

The path was hidden by reeds so high that even a tall person passing
would be precluded from view. Garon crept toward the fringe of grass,
and she followed. Not five yards from the trail, he sank on his heels,
waiting; she crouched behind.

There came to her, faintly, the irregular beat of footsteps.
Apprehensively, she watched, her vision dancing with strain. Nearer.
The footfalls seemed to pound upon the quiet. Then, suddenly, the night
gave up a white form that staggered rather than walked along the path.
Without warning, Garon shot up. The white form halted, swinging about
to face him across the intervening space.

"Don't fire!" Garon called. "It is Tuan Muda!"

A short, hysterical laugh answered him. Lhassa knew. That laugh! She
had not heard it since the night she tricked her way into the room of
the two portraits.

Garon had reached the trail, and she hurried after him, her heart
throbbing as though it would burst. Conquest was coatless; his
unbuttoned cuffs dangled ridiculously. A swelling on his forehead
marred his flawless face. His collar was torn open, and a great rent
gaped from shoulder to waist, revealing skin that, in the moonlight,
was dark, and splotched with even darker stains. As she came up, taking
in these details at a glance, he toppled over. But he had not fainted,
for he raised himself on one arm and regarded her with wide eyes.

"Done up," he muttered. "Miss Camber ... God knows ... glad you're
safe." He paused; swallowed. His breathing was jerky. "Devil of a mess.
Salazar, he...." Again he was forced to stop, to swallow painfully.

"Don't try to explain," Garon advised. "Where are you hurt?"

"Nothing serious," deprecated the other. "Must tell you--what's
happened. The cowardly Malays! They ran away, deserted! I tried to stop
them, and this--this is what I got"--touching his bare side. "When I
woke up I started for the village to----"

"Why did they desert?" the Frenchman broke in. "What happened?"

Conquest shuddered, closing his eyes as though to exclude some terrible
sight. Lhassa's attention was momentarily drawn from his face to a
glitter in his hand. A dagger. In the moonlight she could see the
perforated blade, and she recognized the misericorde he had shown her
at Malay House.

"Ghastly!" he murmured. "Ghastly! All--every one!" His eyes opened. "We
reached the fort about four hours ago; it may have been five; at any
rate, it was after dark. Still as a tomb; not a light. I suspected
treachery. The gate was open. So I went in, taking only half of the
force." Another shudder. "God! We found them all ... twenty-seven ...
scattered over the place ... some in the house, others outside....
Beastly! Awful!"

His words spread their poisonous meaning through her. She was not
shocked; she could not so quickly accept a statement of tremendous
tragedy. Had she witnessed it she could have felt the most exquisite
horror, instantly, but only hearing made it seem too unreal to affect
her immediately beyond a sense of something imminently disastrous.

Conquest went on:

"Must have surprised them. Early this morning, perhaps. Time the Dyaks
attack, you know; no doubt about them being Dyaks. You understand....
Monstrous. My Malays were terrified. They refused to stay. I argued
with the beggars, threatened. But no; white feather. Too few, they
said, all be killed. I tried to interfere. Foolish, of course. But I
did. A miracle I wasn't killed. Soon as I came out of it I started for
the village. I knew Abu Hassan--damned murderer!--had sent those Dyaks.
I.... But how do you happen to be here?"

Garon briefly recounted his adventures, from the arrival at the village
to the escape. Lhassa heard his recital fragmentarily. What Conquest
had told was revolving in her mind, increasing in ghastliness with
each turn. Her own paltry pains and anxieties were ground to dust under
the sheer brutality of the realization. That there was no protection
at the fort, that they were trapped, left her strangely unafraid; fear
for her personal safety was lost in a rapidly augmenting horror of the
unspeakableness of what had occurred at Barabbas Town.

"Don't you see!" exclaimed Conquest. "Salazar! He intends that there
shall be no one to share the spoils; he knows the sultan will be
satisfied with the return of his former power. The damned renegade!"
He turned his eyes upon Lhassa. "You said that some day one of my pack
would turn and bite me; you remember? But I'm not finished--not yet!"

He struggled to his feet, thrusting aside Garon's restraining hand. To
Lhassa, there was splendid defiance in that gesture. By it he dominated
his soiled, rent clothing and the sordid reality of his wound. She
saw, in a flash of comprehension, the colossal failure that his life
had been. A relentless Fate had snatched from him, even before birth,
the love that is human heritage, leaving him to discover the injustice
as he grew, and, embittered, to replace the real with counterfeit.
She understood the desperation that had driven him to a career of
lawlessness. Now he was facing the supreme tragedy of losing even the
substitutes with which he had deceived himself into happiness; and yet,
with a gesture, he mocked the destiny that sought to crush him.

"I have a plan," he said. "You, Tuan Muda, must help me by taking Miss
Camber to the fort. That's the safest place for her."

"And yourself?" queried Garon.

"A chance, a single chance if I go to Abu Hassan!"

"Death!" was the Frenchman's opinion.

"No time to explain now. But I will succeed."

"You will be slain before you reach him."

Lhassa shivered. Slain. She must ask him quickly, before he escaped her
again; ask the question that had haunted her for days. Only a minute;
it would require no longer.

"No," Conquest declared. "I'll go alone to the village; they'll take
me prisoner. Then I'll demand an interview. I won't be refused--I'm
still rajah of Kawaras. They won't dare kill me without orders from the
sultan, and when I've seen him----"

"I will accompany you," broke in Garon.

"And leave Miss Camber alone?"

Lhassa spoke. "I am not afraid."

"It's not a question of courage," Conquest told her; one hand was
pressed to his side, and he swayed unsteadily. "It's part of my plan
that you two go to the fort. I.... What's that?" The question was
evoked by a rustle in the swamp. "Only my native," explained Garon.
Conquest continued: "You, Tuan Muda, can do nothing with the sultan.
But I--well, my position gives me prestige."

"You are too weak," Lhassa said, then, "Before you go I must ask----"

"That you even think of my welfare," he interrupted, with his twisted
smile, "will give me the strength I need. It's the one chance. Unless I
take it--well, wherever we fly, Abu Hassan's warriors will follow. Our
forces can't reach here before day after to-morrow. So go to the fort;
wait." He paused, breathing heavily. "You will go, won't you?"

He directed a pleading gaze at her; a gaze that was eloquent, that
seemed to entreat: "This is the splendid opportunity I have dreamed.
Will you deny me that?" Yet what could he do? A pygmy in the path of
overshadowing events!

Said Garon decisively, "Take this"--extending his revolver.

Conquest flashed the misericorde in answer. "I shall have to dispose of
this before I reach the village." He grimaced with pain. "Go! If you
delay, if.... Listen!"

In the quiet following his injunction, Lhassa heard swift, squelching
steps in the march. The native was no longer waiting by the fringe of
grass: a black, rapidly diminishing shadow marked his retreat through
the rushes. Garon raised his pistol; dropped it.

"Treacherous pig!" he muttered. "Now he will probably go to the sultan.
I should have----"

"No time to waste," Conquest cut in. "Hurry!" As he made a move to go,
he smiled at Lhassa, that smile of mingled whimsy and melancholy. "Do
you remember," he said, "how _Lord Jim_ went up the river, at Patusan,
with an unloaded revolver?"

He laughed a rattling laugh and stumbled off. Paler became his receding
figure, paler still; then it was absorbed, a white shadow blotted out
by somber darkness.

"Come."

Garon's voice. She followed, thinking of that rattling laugh; a laugh
that, a few minutes later, she echoed bitterly. She did not answer the
Frenchman's inquisitive glance. For the story of Pi-noi, the bayadere,
was locked in her mind, to remain until she learned the truth--if,
indeed, she ever did! Again Fate had interfered, this time in the
form of the fleeing native. The door had closed--for ever? In fancy,
she saw the woman of the peacock shawl, a figure inscrutable in the
mauve shadows of her frame, her eyelids drooping lower over her eyes,
as if mocking the possibility of ever divulging the secret behind her
enigmatic smile.

From the moment Conquest left Lhassa and Garon he had been rehearsing,
in his mind, the details of his plan; now, as he neared the village,
he went over them again, doggedly, persistently. Fever was burning in
his brain, threatening to consume his thoughts; an icy flame seared his
side. His puttees cramped his swollen legs, but he would not remove
them; no; he needed them.... His plan....

He skirted the Dyak houses surrounding the stockade and approached
the gate from the river. Through the trees that separated him from the
stream he saw lights, wavering torches. They moved, were evidently
on some craft. Dully he realized that the boat was going up-stream.
Up-stream! Toward the plantation--the fort! Had the escape been
discovered so soon? he wondered. Hurry. Boat; going to fort. That
throbbed in his inflamed brain. Fort. She was there, she----At thought
of her the entire force of his being was swept into an agonizing
desire. So sheer and draining was his passion that his limbs seemed to
melt under him. He stumbled; clutched at a tree-trunk; lay against it
weakly. Put her from his mind; put her away--for ever. She belonged
to a sphere immeasurably higher than this. Pi-noi; out of reach. His
throat filled. He sensed malignant powers, forces that were gathering,
typhoon-black, and riding him down bent on destroying his individual
entity. Impotent rage shook him. He went on.

He had an unobstructed view of the front of the stockade now. From
the angle at which he approached, the long wall seemed to taper into
darkness. There were figures at the gate, warriors carrying torches.
Above the palisade waved a ruddy fan, sequined with sparks. For an
instant it startled him, but he swiftly perceived that it was reflected
from a bonfire in the inclosure. Undoubtedly, he told himself, their
escape was known. Abu Hassan's men would be combing the jungle soon. He
must hasten. He paused; loosened his puttees; resumed.

Like a specter, a wraith from the black forest, he must have appeared
to the warriors as he stumbled into the radius of their torches. They
stared; made no movement to touch him. He had halted and was standing
with both hands at his side. The flame was biting deeper; it seemed
to devour the last reserve of strength. The world became a sable band
and struck at his eyes. In the midst of the blackness he saw, as one
looking through a telescope, a swarm of figures beyond the gateway,
figures about a fire; to him, coal-hued demons dancing against a
back drop of flame. With a desperate effort, he sought to crawl back
from the border of unconsciousness. Suddenly the telescope expanded,
including in its range the stockade and the bronze-skinned men who were
lifting him. As he gained his feet he strained away from them.

"Do you not know me?" he cried in Malayan. "I am the Tuan Rajah!
Release me!" Then, lapsing into English, "Let go, I say--let...."

With a jerk he broke free and staggered through the gateway. The
natives had multiplied; surrounded him. The dizziness had not dissolved
entirely, and, as he slewed drunkenly, hands seized him. He did not
protest nor struggle this time.

"Take me to the sultan," he demanded faintly.

He was half carried, half dragged forward between rows of men and
women. Ahead, the black demons still trembled against the flames. He
saw the clearing, the palace; saw shaggy, feathered shields and the
nimbuses of spears and swords. Faces--faces dark and hostile, faces
curious, faces tattooed and made hideous by disfiguring designs--seemed
welded together, bound him in like a chain of coins. An innate dignity,
rising to the surface though purgatorial pain, made him shake off the
hands that held him and reel on alone. In the clearing--a sphere of
smoke and flame and coal-hued figures--he found himself confronted by
a huge-muscled individual whom he recognized as Nakoda Mubin, the Datu
Tumanggong.

"... expect you so soon, Tuan Rajah," he heard the Malay saying. He
laughed; an ugly, mirthless sound. Control of his mind and body was
returning, and he stood without aid, swaying only slightly.

"Your people will regret this night, O Datu," he told Nakoda Mubin,
his eyes narrowed and burning in the white oval of his face. "Do you
remember the great gray ship that came to Sadok, with guns mightier
than the sultan's paltry six-pounders?"

The commander-in-chief's huge shoulders heaved expressively.

"What have I done? Am I sultan?" And he added, "There are wrongs, O
Tuan Rajah, wrongs that must be settled with the parang."

"No, not with blood! And you do not believe that, Nakoda Mubin!"

Another heave of the biceped shoulders. "Am I sultan?" he repeated.

"Take me to Abu Hassan," the white man ordered.

"I must first see if my cousin can receive you, Tuan Rajah. He had
retired, but when it was reported----"

"Yes, I know," Conquest interposed. "About them I have come to talk, O
Datu." He drew wide the gap in his shirt. "I am wounded, Nakoda Mubin,
and if I delay, my strength will be gone; then I shall be unable to
speak. And I know where Tuan Muda and the woman of the Orang Putih are.
Tell your cousin that! Tell him quickly!"

He stood there, a lone white figure in the midst of brown humanity,
while a warrior hurried into the palace with his message. Again the
faces welded into an encircling chain. In his febrile mind they took on
a savage significance. They were the faces of dark races, of yellow and
brown and black, merged into a barrier of flesh and bone; a threatening
wall that surrounded him, imprisoned him. All the arrogant pride of
blood answered the challenge of that swarthy menace. He seemed suddenly
touched with an accolade, invested with the responsibility of his race.
Mail and chain, a crimson cross at his breast! And about him, a rising
flood of color! Armageddon!

Breaking through the wall of faces came the messenger. The Datu
Tumanggong nodded; raised his arm. The human flood parted, and
Conquest passed through the rift thus cleared, followed by the
commander-in-chief. At the notched poles leading up to the palace he
made an attempt to climb; collapsed. A warmth was spreading over his
left hip. Two warriors lifted him to the gallery and stood him on his
feet. Hands slipped swiftly over his body; feeling for a weapon, he
knew. He smiled grimly. Between the guards he walked into the palace.

The hall of state was dusky. Damar-torches sent out a resinous
fragrance that mingled unpleasantly with human reek and the odor of
swill rising from under the floor. Attendants lined the walls; guards
armed with muskets, and Malay chieftains and nobles. In the far end,
seated upon silks and cushions, was the sultan. On either side of him,
swung from the ceiling on rotang-thongs, were two huge _tawaks_ or
gongs. Silence filled the room like a perceptible presence. Conquest
moved slowly, painfully past the hostile ranks, his gaze fixed on
Abu Hassan. He must pretend to be even weaker, he warned himself.
Accordingly, as he reached the middle of the hall, his knees crumpled.
He did not try to rise unassisted, but lay there until he was raised,
sagging, by two warriors.

"Salaamat pagi!" he muttered to the sultan.

Abu Hassan sat like a bronze idol on his dais, a cruel smile animating
his otherwise expressionless face. One hand played with a gold
ornament hung on a chain about his neck; the other fingered a sword,
wood-sheathed, suspended from his plaited waist-belt. The gongs on
either side of him caught the torch-light and glared like monster
eyes. A sudden release of hatred poisoned Conquest; hatred, not for
Abu Hassan as an individual, but for what he symbolized. He seemed the
vital link holding together that chain of faces; the festering core
from which their cause drew the virus of rebellion. Sever the chain;
paralyze the source. These thoughts, flame-hot, quivered in his brain.

The sultan did not return his greeting; instead he asked:

"Why have you come, O Rajah of the Orang Putih?" Without waiting for a
reply he proceeded: "If it is mercy you seek----"

"Not mercy," broke in Conquest, "but a compromise."

"There can be none."

"Not even if I tell you where Tuan Muda and the white woman have fled?"

The cruel smile remained graven on Abu Hassan's countenance.

"Not even if you betray them--for I know where they are. My men have
followed along the trail, and the Tuan-besar, with many warriors, has
gone by the river. They are surrounded--caught like pheasants in a
trap."

Conquest remembered, with growing despair, the torches he had seen on
the river. The walls were closing in! Desperately he tried to whip out
the fire from his brain, to think clearly; but his thoughts seemed
hazed in smoke. He pushed back the men who supported him, standing
alone.

"Why do you do this, O Abu Hassan?"--peremptorily. "What is it you
want?"

The sultan was still fingering his sword. "Blood," came the grim reply.

Conquest's glance swept the hall, the many faces. "Do your nobles
desire to wash these alleged wrongs in blood?"--with a gesture that
cost him a wrench of pain. Involuntarily he touched his side; it was
warm and moist, and he wiped his hand on his shirt-front. A second
later he gasped at the significance of the stain: a crimson cross on
his breast! "Do they?" he repeated, with a rising inflexion. "Or is it
selfish gain you seek?"

"I am sultan of Kawaras," Abu Hassan answered, the smile gone from his
face. "My word is absolute. Your rule must be destroyed, ground like
paddy-meal."

"But," countered Conquest, "you have murdered my men at the plantation.
Does not that satisfy you?"

"Your rule must be destroyed--totally," reiterated the Sultan.

Impatience seized Conquest. This parleying was too slow. Salazar moving
to the fort on the river; the warriors on land. Relentless Destiny was
riding at his very heels, threatening to stamp out, not only himself,
but her! He plunged ahead:

"Despite what you say," he commenced, "there is a compromise. Will you
hear it?"

Abu Hassan gestured intolerantly. "Fire consumes air, words time. But
speak."

Conquest was almost trembling. A new expectancy augmented the
excitement that surcharged his every nerve. This was the test!

"Is it fitting, O Sultan," he asked, "that we talk before your
court? Send them out and I will speak." After a pause he added:
"Have you forgotten the gold which you once saw in my safe at Sadok?
However"--significantly--"it is no longer in that safe.... Will you
talk with me alone?"

An inscrutable expression crept into the sultan's eyes. But he did not
speak immediately.

"Are you afraid, O Mighty Ruler?" taunted the white man. "I am wounded
and unarmed. However, as a means of precaution you might instruct the
Datu Tumanggong and his men to wait outside the door."

The inscrutable expression in Abu Hassan's narrowed eyes contracted to
a gleam. Abstractedly he gripped the haft of his sword; then, as though
suddenly aware of the weapon, he glanced at the sheathed blade. When he
raised his eyes the cruel smile had returned.

"I will speak with you alone, O Rajah of the Orang Putih," he announced
decisively.

Fear trickled insidiously down Conquest's spine; passed. He knew why
Abu Hassan had granted him an interview alone; he understood that
smile....

The sultan spoke to his nobles, then to the Datu Tumanggong. The rigid
ranks lining the walls broke. Conquest, watching them, felt a fierce
exultation. The first point won! Now the fight was against time more
than any other element. His gaze wandered after the departing nobles.
Why were they so slow? he wondered. They seemed to crawl! And she
was on the way to the fort, if not there already, unaware that....
A clawing pain plucked at his side. It was tearing down the tissues
that separated it from his heart. Soon it would reach the vital spot
and----He was rocked by a sudden revolt against the total blotting
out of his person. Not the end! Humanity ... not an incredible growth
of fungi on a sordid and rotten planet.... No. There was, there must
be, he assured himself desperately, a force behind the physical
manifestation. That force, that sublime impulse, had brought him
here--for her.... Pull up; no more introspection. The door had closed,
and he was alone with Abu Hassan.

"Speak!" the sultan commanded.

His face was so impassive that Conquest had the absurd illusion that it
would shatter, like a plaster idol's, if he struck it. Arrogant devil!
he thought. No time to lose; start the mummery.

"Abu Hassan," he began, breathing spasmodically, "have you considered
well? Have you forgotten the great warship that once came to Sadok?
There are a hundred others"--swaying unsteadily--"and if necessary
every one will be sent to put down your rebellion. You are a wise man;
you should realize that."

Impatience came into the sultan's face.

"Do you threaten, O Rajah of the Orang Putih?"

Conquest took a step; paused, his features convulsed. "My leg," he
muttered. "I think ... ligaments torn." Then he added, "Not threats,
Abu Hassan, but facts."

"Facts!" the Malay echoed. "I know facts, too! There are other sultans,
other rajahs and nobles who have suffered the same indignities that I
have suffered. Do you not suppose they would sympathize with my cause?
They might even do more than sympathize. Haï-ya! I know facts--many
facts! The men who were killed were criminals; you gave them refuge.
Yes. And there are things in your palace which do not belong. The
Tuan-besar has told me. If white rajahs greater than you come with
their war-canoes and their mighty guns I shall tell them all this. Will
they punish me for slaying criminals? I am not a fool, O Rajah of the
Orang Putih. I have considered well."

Insolent nigger! thought Conquest. Clever, too. And thorough. Well,
he was equally clever, equally thorough. He took another step;
clutched his knee; dropped. He closed his eyes, as though from intense
suffering. But he watched the sultan from under lowered lids. The
latter did not stir. Only his hands moved: one closed over the haft of
his sword, while the other continued to play with the gold pendant.

"I did not grant this interview to have it spent in threats," he
declared. "There was mention of gold--gold which you have hidden."

Conquest opened wide his eyes. "Gold?"--affecting puzzlement. "Oh, the
gold.... My leg.... God!... Yes, the gold. I remember. My--my brain
seems fogged. Perhaps the pain...." He did not rise, but huddled
there, gripping his leg. "Yes, the gold," he went on. "You want it." A
laugh. "I will tell you where it is--for--for a consideration...." The
sentence ended in a groan.

"What consideration?" interrogated Abu Hassan, his brow darkening.

Conquest pressed back a smile. The fool! He had looked into the trap
and seen the bait!

"If you will agree not to molest the white woman," he led on, "I will
tell you ... ah, the pain! ... tell you where the money is. If not...."

The sultan ceased fingering the gold ornament, and it settled,
gleaming, over the hollow of his chest. Conquest watched it, fascinated
by what it suggested.

"I have nothing to do with the woman," Abu Hassan returned. "She
belongs to the Tuan-besar."

"But surely----" Conquest started to rise but dropped back. "I--I'm
growing weaker," he gasped, crawling toward Abu Hassan. "Give me your
promise to--to send her back to Sadok, and I will reveal where--where
it is."

He dragged himself to the edge of the dais and fell in a heap at the
sultan's feet. Breathing painfully, he slipped his right hand under
his puttee. Abu Hassan looked down upon him with savage pleasure. Ape!
thought Conquest. But he pleaded:

"You see how I am suffering. Your promise ... free her...."

The sultan's sword flashed from its scabbard. He did not rise, but sat
there, the blade poised.

"I will cleave you as I would a mango if you do not tell me now!"

Conquest rose to his knees, facing the lifted blade. His hand was still
under his puttee, agony still stamped upon his face. Hot waves pounded
against his temples. He focused upon Abu Hassan's gold pendant.

"If you promise to free her!" he persisted in a whisper.

"No!"

Blood seemed to burst before Conquest's eyes. In the garnet haze
flickered a blade. He realized, vaguely, that he had jerked the
misericorde from inside his puttee, that he had struck with the whole
force of his being. A fleshy thud; a sobbing breath. The Malay's sword,
held aloft, fell noiselessly upon the pillows--but no more soundlessly
than did the sultan himself. Conquest, spent by the blow, toppled
forward upon him. It was all done with cataclysmic rapidity, measured
by seconds. As he raised himself he laughed hysterically, his gaze upon
the hilt of the dagger; the dagger that jetted above the ornament on
Abu Hassan's breast.

"What?" he gasped loudly, between strangled breaths. "You will free
her? And Tuan Muda, too?"--rising to his feet, his vision blurred--"You
swear before Allah? Very well"--glancing at the door--"The gold is
in a secret safe in my house"--gripping the body under the arms and
dragging it toward the rear of the dais--"in the room I call the
Damascus room. You will know it by the weapons on the walls"--covering
the sultan with pillows and silks--"many parangs and krisses. The safe
is behind a Kayan shield hung above the fireplace. The key is in my
desk, a yellowish one; the others are gray. Now"--sinking upon the
dais, temporarily exhausted--"now send for her--quickly--before the
Tuan-besar reaches the fort. You will?... What? The Datu Tumanggong? I
will call him."

Marshaling his strength, he staggered from the dais. A sudden fear
nauseated him. Would he fail now--after that? The horror of what he had
done writhed in his brain. He reached the door and opened it half-way,
placing himself in a position that effectually obstructed a view of
the room. As he expected, the Datu Tumanggong was standing just beyond
the threshold, his warriors grouped behind him. The commander-in-chief
entered without a word from Conquest. The latter closed the door and
leaned against it. Nakoda Mubin paused a few yards away, gazing about.

Conquest moved to join him, and at his first step the Malay turned,
drawing his parang.

The white man spoke softly, his expression pregnant with meaning----

"I greet you, Nakoda Mubin--_Sultan of Kawaras_!"

The Datu Tumanggong stared stupidly. "Where----" Words ceased as a
faint light of comprehension came into his eyes. He took in the room
with another glance, his gaze halting a moment on the dais, then
returning to Conquest. "You have----" Again words failed. He made
a threatening move forward, but instead swung about ponderously and
hurried toward the mound of silks and pillows. Conquest reeled past
him, flinging himself upon the dais.

"Wait!" he whispered. "Take care what you----"

The commander-in-chief was panting, his muscled sides heaving with
excitement.

"You have...."

"Yes...." He stopped, incoherent. A treacherous limpness flowed through
him. But he must not relax--not yet. "His death is your opportunity,"
he took up, sorting his words out of confusion. "You have the army
behind you. You did not kill him. You...." He dropped back upon the
cushions, staring up helplessly. "You can slay me," he continued,
sucking in air, for his lungs seemed parched and hot as sand. "But if
you do you will never be sultan. Will you listen? Will you hear my
plan?"

Nakoda Mubin ran his fingers slowly over the edge of his sword. A gleam
had sprung into his eyes, a covetous gleam. His asthmatic breathing
rattled in the silence.

"I have not the power to save you after this, O Tuan Rajah," he said at
length.

"Speak lower!" Conquest commanded. "It is not myself whom I wish to
save, but the white woman--and Tuan Muda. My men are coming up the
river now. They will reach here day after to-morrow at the latest. If
they fail, there are others, you know that; thousands, not of my army,
but of the army of my Government, who will come--like that"--with a
weak gesture--"and wipe you out. What are your swords, your spears,
your few ancient muskets, against their guns?" He raised himself on his
elbow, his eyes feverishly brilliant. "Show your people the futility
of resistance against a power as great as the British Raj! Recall your
warriors from ambush! Protect the white woman--Tuan Muda! Send----"

His voice broke. He sank upon the pillows--but not to stay. He raised
himself instantly, his white face pleading. Nakoda Mubin was still
running his fingers speculatively over the blade of his parang; the
gleam in his eyes had become a glow, and his breathing quickened with
the mounting intensity of his emotion.

"Do as I say, Nakoda Mubin," resumed Conquest. "Send your warriors to
the fort immediately--to save the white woman--to prevent the murder of
Tuan Muda! Salazar--the Tuan-besar.... I am afraid...." His mouth was
heavy with saliva; at least, he thought it was saliva until it bubbled
from his lips. "To-morrow," he pressed on, in a frenzy, "or whenever
my men arrive, let them enter the village unmolested. Then, if there
is any trouble, they will.... Your people will not be punished; only
the Dyaks who took--the heads--at the fort. I promise that none of the
immediate line of Abu Hassan Abdulla Boru shall succeed him as ...
oh, like hot needles!... as sultan. For what he has done--he shall
be--outlawed.... Quickly! Say you agree! If we wait ... Salazar...."

He sank upon the pillows again, his pulse throbbing tumultuously. Damn
the roar! A thousand hoofs. The horsemen of Fate, riding down upon him!
Clatter! Clatter! Swifter the beat of iron-shod hoofs----But Nakoda
Mubin. For a moment he had forgot the Malay's presence. He started up.

"You will?" he asked, his voice falling like a shadow from his lips.
"You will send?..."

The Datu Tumanggong had ceased feeling the edge of his sword. Abruptly,
he thrust the blade into its sheath.

"The people will demand justice for Abu Hassan's death, O Tuan Rajah,"
he announced.

Somehow Conquest managed to sit up. The hoofs were still beating in his
ears. Riders ... iron-shod ... horsemen of Fate!

"You mean...?" he demanded, his voice lost in the clamor that filled
his ears.

He could not hear the Datu Tumanggong's reply, but he read the word
that formed on his lips. He laughed crazily.

"I agree!" he whispered. "But first--recall your men--send...."

Dimly, as though reflected upon a dusty mirror, he saw the Datu
Tumanggong draw his sword and approach one of the gongs.

_Bong! Bong!_

For a brief interval the thunder of the oncoming horsemen was drowned
in the liquid ring. Again Conquest laughed--or perhaps he sobbed. He
did not know. He crawled toward the silken mound. The misericorde was
there. He would pay--pay. But he must hurry. The horsemen were behind,
gaining.

_Bong! Bong!_ Again steel smote brass.

He had promised justice, an eye for an eye. But he would do it in his
own manner. Perforated; got it in Smyrna. His groping hand touched
the hilt of the misericorde; closed about it; tugged. He would beat
them all, even Fate! He had it now; raised it.... The next instant the
horsemen rode over him, over the crimson cross on his breast, over his
brain, trampling out the last sparks of sentiency.

When Lhassa and Garon came within view of the fort the moon was poised
above the serrated stockade, and one of the watch-towers rose in somber
outline upon it. Below this, black against the sky, were the jagged
blades of palms. It was like a picture out of a book of silhouettes.

As they drew nearer, the man spoke; spoke for the first time since they
had parted with Stephen Conquest in the swamp.

"You must wait at the gate while I look inside."

She understood and shuddered.

"I would rather go with you. Nothing could be more terrible than
waiting alone."

They continued in silence to the gate.

The fort, a square stockaded affair with watch-towers at each corner,
overlooked the river. The underbrush had been cut down for a distance
of twenty yards or more about it, but beyond that were thick groves of
sago-palms that shut it in, with the exception of the river side, like
an outer stronghold. The atmosphere was ponderous with that muffled
stillness that broods in deep ocean caverns; not a quiet that portended
evil, but the hush following tragedy; and, while it inspired fear, the
result was not dread of anything living but awe of the dead.

The gate hung open, and as they entered Lhassa voluntarily grasped
Garon's arm; felt the muscles stiffen. The stockade seemed vast beyond
belief and inclosed many log houses, some small, evidently dwellings,
others large enough to be warehouses. Doorways were black as the mouths
of tombs. Over all hung the smell of sago. Barabbas Town, village
of thieves. Automatically she changed it: Barabbas Town, village of
the dead.... Incredible that such horror could exist in the warm,
breathless night! She stopped, her limbs turned to lead.

"Why not go up there?" she asked, indicating the nearest watch-tower.
"We can see the river." Her voice, a mere whisper, sounded as though it
came from anywhere but her own throat.

Garon nodded. At the doorway he thrust her back.

"Wait. I will go up alone first."

This time she consented, and, a moment later, heard him climbing a
stair, then moving about in the watch-tower. Her imagination refused
to be disciplined; she closed her eyes, trying to shut out the grim
engravings that cut into her mind, but darkness only heightened their
vividness. Conquering an impulse to search the shadows, she raised her
eyes toward the moon--a disk of steel, riven pitilessly into the sky.
It depressed her with a sense of her impotence and of its inexorable
calm. She was glad when she heard Garon descending.

"You may go up now."

Pressing back innumerable questions, she followed him inside. The room
was windowless. She knew he had a flash-light and wondered, vaguely,
why he did not use it: instead of making a light, he took her arm and
guided her through the dark. They ascended into a space dimly lighted
by countless diamond-shaped spots of moonlight entering through a
trellis-work window. She made out a chair, a smudge against the wall,
and sat down. With the easing of her taut nerves, a great reservoir of
weariness was released. She felt, suddenly, very old. Garon, standing
in the checkering moonlight, looked like a harlequin in black and
white. Without reason she laughed; sounds that seemed to profane the
hush.

"I feel as if we were two ghosts hovering at the very edge of the
earth," she said. A pause during which she glanced through the lattice
at the wharf and the river. "We will be" she resumed after a moment,
"if he fails; won't we?"

Garon nodded; then, "I shall close the gate," he announced.

"No," she intervened. "If they come, will a wall stop them? A few
minutes, perhaps, but--well, I shall be glad to have it finished
quickly. Another reason, a foolish reason, is that I can't endure to
be shut in here"--a gesture that included the entire fort--"with--with
_them_. Stupid, isn't it? But I think it would stifle me. Death seems
to--but I can't explain what it does to me. I felt it that night in Dr.
Garth's study...."

She stopped, realizing what she had said.

"There's no good in hiding things," she took up quickly. "I've
contained myself until now. I can't any longer. Questions! I hate them!
You'll answer me now, won't you, Garon?" It was the first time she had
called him that, and the name, coming from her, sounded strange. "You
will answer, won't you?" she pleaded. "Won't you?"

Garon jerked his hand in that impatient, expressive manner of his.

"Questions!"--bitterly. "Questions! I hate them, too! Your first words
to me were questions! Name of God! They follow me like hounds!"

He whirled and strode to the end of the room; returned. She regarded
him almost apathetically. Her sensibilities had been played upon so
incessantly, and with such brutal force, that now they refused to
respond. Fear, pity, condemnation, all were stilled by the profound
quiet that bore down. That very silence, potent as walls of mortar,
seemed to imprison her and stifle her already tired emotions.

"Why are you afraid of questions?" she queried. "Questions! Yes,
they've haunted me, too. Dr. Garth. Barthélemy. The Black Parrot. The
native who came to my veranda." She sighed, once more gazing at the
river. "What became of him, the East Indian? Why was he there that
night? Why did he scratch on the screen?"

"Why?" he echoed, almost savagely. "Why? He came to tell you something
I did not wish you to know then. I happened----"

"Where did you send him?" she broke in, her eyes returning to him.

His hands were locked together in front of him; she could see the veins
standing out like black seams.

"To Sarawak--to Kuching"--in that fierce tone.

Intuitively she knew the truth. But she pressed on.

"Why?"

She was not watching his face but his hands, and she wondered, vaguely,
why the veins did not snap....

"I sent to--well, to the rajah of Sarawak."

The breath caught in her throat. She was trembling.

"For--for help?" He did not answer. Her breath escaped in a sob. "For
help?" she repeated. "For me--yes, for me. You were going to sacrifice
your chance of escape, your freedom, for--me."

He laughed in a strained manner. The veins on his hands rippled
ceaselessly as he worked his fingers back and forth.

"Perhaps I planned to leave before the rajah's men arrived."

"No," she denied. "No." She added no words of praise; her tone was an
accolade. She lifted her eyes to his face. It was blurred, but not too
indistinct for her to see his expression. How worn he looked, there in
the checkering moonlight!

"Sympathy!" he muttered. "You spend it prodigally"--a characteristic
gesture--"I lied to you--lied because I was afraid you would not come
away with me if you knew the truth. I ... God of Gods! I am still
afraid!"

A vibration of dread swept her.

"You lied? About...."

"Yes. Barthélemy and the doctor."

A pause; to her, an excruciatingly long pause. All the dead chords of
emotion came to life and crashed with frightful dissonance. She waited,
waited until she could suffer the silence no longer.

"Go on!" she begged. "Go on; won't you?"

"Lied," he murmured, as though speaking to himself, pleading before
an inner tribunal. "The Buddha--a green devil. I agreed to get it for
Conquest. That was why I was in Bangkok."

Another pause, brief this time. She said:

"Then Stephen Conquest is the Black Parrot?"

He laughed; a hard, brutal laugh.

"The Black Parrot! Hah! The Black Parrot! He who was called that is
dead; died under the guillotine; but the society, the Black Parrot
that----"

"The society?"--too impatient to keep silent. "You mean, the Black
Parrot is a band instead of an individual?"

"Yes! Yes! Of course! An organization," he went on, "started by Salazar
after the execution of Le Perroquet Noir; a society to aid convicts.
Perhaps you know Salazar's name, that is, the name under which he was
convicted?... Letourneau; a garroter; sentenced from Senegal. Conquest
came to Cayenne; was there before Le Perroquet's execution; and he
agreed to employ and shelter any criminal who evaded--also to have a
boat there periodically. He----"

"But the notorious thief," she interrupted again, "the one who is
supposed to have stolen the jewels and the art treasures?"

"A fabulous creation! Conquest circulated the stories and hired men to
steal for him. I went to Bangkok to get the Buddha. I----"

He clipped off abruptly, listening.

"What is it?"--from her.

As if in answer, there came a ringing beat, faint as the echo of chimes
in a padded hall.

"A gong," he pronounced.

"Where?"

"In the village."

Again the metallic pulsation.

"What could it mean?"

He shrugged.

"Do you suppose he has reached there--and that means....
Perhaps"--starting to rise--"perhaps it would be wise to close the gate
and----Wait! First, finish what you were telling me! I must know the
truth before--before anything happens!"

He moved to the trellised window and looked out, then turned back.

"I had to get the Buddha," he repeated. "That was the price of my
shelter at Sadok. Conquest and I planned the theft at Singapore; he met
me in Surabaya on my way from--from Guiana. When I reached Bangkok I
visited the temple; made observations. The next day I sent my servant
disguised as a Buddhist monk. He was to place himself inconspicuously
and remain until after dark, then steal out with the Buddha under his
robes."

At intervals the gong sounded, ominously punctuating his story.

"Evidently," he continued, pacing the floor, "some one else had made
similar plans. My servant was in the court, by one of the doors. As
he entered to get the idol, a priest--that is, a native dressed as a
priest--struck down the guardian of the Buddha. This priest took the
god. My man followed. To be brief, it was some one in the pay of your
friend, the doctor. His boy, a Eurasian, came to the priest's house for
the image. My servant tracked him. When he found out where he went he
returned for me."

The gong persisted, seeming to rise in intensity until its beats
sounded like the far-off blows of a hammer on a forge. With an
exclamation of annoyance, Garon swung about, facing the window;
stood there, an amorphous blot against the lattice. Sensing a sudden
tenseness in his attitude, she joined him. At first she saw only the
wharf and the ashen expanse of the river, but presently the flicker of
a white garment gave her a clue to the shape that was merged with the
landing. Her breathing quickened.

"I didn't hear them," she whispered.

"Muffled paddles"--laconically.

There were other flickers now. The occupants of the canoe had
disembarked, and several were approaching the fort, moving so silently
that she doubted their reality. She could make out pale jackets.
Malays, not Dyaks.

"What can we do?" she breathed.

Garon's shoulders rose and fell. He had plucked out his revolver. As
she noticed it, she had an insane impulse to laugh. How could that
ridiculously small thing protect them? Fantastic to believe it would!
Desperation numbed her. But she was not too stupefied to sort out a
coherent idea and give voice to it.

"Tell me"--recklessly--"tell me what happened that night at the
doctor's house! This may be the last----"

His hand closed over her mouth, and he drew her into a corner.
Resentment smoldered, but she did not resist, for, suddenly, her body
felt dead, her spirit seeming to exist outside its sheath but with the
power to see and hear.

From below came indistinguishable sounds.

Garon pulled off his white jacket and flung it into the opposite
corner, then pushed her behind him. His touch awakened veins of
cold fire. Over his shoulder, she could see the stair-head and the
moon-stains on the floor. The latter she likened, fantastically, to
a chess-board; pictured hands moving pawns upon the black and gray
squares.

Below, now, was absolute quiet, a premonitory quiet.

The Malays were searching the inclosure, she told herself. It was
inevitable that they would come to the watch-tower eventually. And
then.... If she only knew what had happened that night in Bangkok!
His ear was close to her lips; she might whisper----But his stolid
shoulder, pressed against her, commanded silence.

The chess-board of moonlight stood out in ultra-clarity. She wished,
desperately, that those unseen pawns were visible. Anything to
distract, to put down the inquisition of suspense! She could feel
Garon's heart beating; could hear it. But was it his heart she heard? A
prickly sensation played over her spine.

Footsteps; below; now on the stair.

She felt the muscles in Garon's back harden. Something of his courage
flowed into her and gave her the strength to watch the stairway.

Nearer drew the footsteps.

A grayish blot appeared in the darkness, growing magically into a head
and a pair of shoulders that rose into the light falling through the
lattice. At sight of the man's face, splotched with moonlight, and the
glittering barrel in his hand, a strangling surge filled her throat.
She gasped.

Instantly Salazar wheeled out of the moonlight; and instantly the
crashing detonation of two revolvers ruptured the silence.

Garon seemed hurled back upon her, the force of his body expelling the
breath from her lungs. For a moment she was lost in heaving darkness.
When her vision returned she saw a face lying in the checkering
moonlight: Garon's. Something snapped in her brain. She felt that a
whip had curled about her, lashing the blood into her very eyes; that
it was jerking her forward; swinging her toward Salazar.

Her attack was so unexpected, so furious, that she had struck him
twice, had sunk her fingers into his face, before he made any move
other than a recoil. Then one of his great arms fell upon her
shoulders, encircling her neck; the other sought to protect his eyes.
She heard him cursing. His breath was hot upon her face.

They staggered into the middle of the room. She clung, gripping his
hair, while he crushed her wrists in an attempt to break her hold. The
sudden chill of metal, an icy shock that electrified her, recalled the
fact that he was armed, and, releasing his hair, she snatched at the
weapon. Her fingers closed over it; twisted. In desperation she buried
her teeth in his hand. A blow sent her backward, gasping. Hazily, she
saw Salazar stooping to recover his revolver, and she flung herself
upon him, clutching his arm in both hands. As he sprang erect the
violence of the movement, together with his strength, swung her behind
him. Thus locked, they swayed and tottered.

She realized, despairingly, that he must conquer eventually. Already a
flame played before her. Back of the smoke in her mind, a spark glowed:
if she knew a sharp thrust or some other means of paralyzing a vital
nerve there would be a chance for victory. Jiu-jitsu; wrestling. Vulgar
sports ... prize-rings ... men with pachydermal skin.... An inner
consciousness groped.

Salazar was clawing at her wrist now. She sensed his purpose and tried
to wrench away. The silk over one shoulder parted like taut paper.
Following that, she felt fingers creep about her wrist and fasten. The
man laughed. For a second of blinding agony she thought her arm had
snapped. Her hand slipped from his grasp; encountered his neck. The
contact ignited the spark. Jiu-jitsu; wrestling.... It came, a flash
out of smoky obscurity.

With a jerk she tore her other hand free and seized him about the
neck, sinking her thumbs into the hollows under his ears; clung while,
cursing, he dragged her across the room. They thudded against a wall.
But her grip did not loosen. She held--held. Time and feeling did not
exist; she was no longer conscious of the pain in her hands, where
his nails dug cruelly into the flesh. All the power of her being was
drawn into one purpose. It ceased to be a struggle between herself
and Salazar: she was fighting against something old and lustful, an
evil that had menaced earth-creatures since the beginning of life. And
she held--held. Numbness tugged at her muscles. She felt it crawling
over them, deadly as paralysis. Suddenly she knew she was slipping.
Salazar's face seemed to be floating away, sinking; then, it was
staring at her from below the lattice.

Sobbing with exhaustion, she fell to her knees; dropped upon the
floor. The blood, leaping into her brain, threatened to burst it. She
did not faint, but there followed an interval during which she seemed
suspended from life. She could hear her tumultuous breathing amidst
awful silence. It was a clue to her body, and she found it and raised
herself, gazing, not at the face below the window, but at Garon.

After a moment she crawled to him. The beating of his heart awakened
a responsive tremor in her fingers. She shook him; spoke his name. He
stirred. Bending closer, she whispered what she had done, adding:

"We must go below. The others are there; no use to resist. And I can't
stay in this room. You remember ... stifles me."

She helped him to his feet, slipping one of his arms over her shoulder
and gripping him about the waist. He almost bore her to the floor,
but she managed to stagger to the stair with him. As they passed
the window she glimpsed the wharf and the river, and thought she saw
another canoe. But it did not matter; let a hundred more come. She had
temporarily drifted out of the realm of feeling.

Somehow they descended; emerged into moonlight. As she expected, the
Malays were waiting, grouped near the gate. Garon straightened and
spoke feebly in Malayan. Several natives stepped forward, thrusting
their swords into the earth. Followed a brief exchange of words; then
the Frenchman laughed weakly.

"He says"--his body sagged and she gripped him tighter--"he says we are
safe. The village ... they...."

She clung to one arm as he slipped to the ground; his weight almost
pulled her down beside him. Two Malays approached, and she heard
herself asking what to do; heard one of the natives reply that a canoe
was waiting to take them to the village. Garon was lifted.

Dazedly, she followed to the wharf; allowed the Malays to help her
into the proa; sank beside Garon. As one not fully awake, she realized
that a miracle had been wrought, that, somehow, Stephen Conquest had
succeeded. Her impulse was to relax, but she fought the weakness. Not
yet, not until she had definite assurance of their safety.

The moon hung just above the trees; to her, a lamp in a gray basilica.
In a moment it would be gone.

She shivered in anticipation of the darkness.

They had reached the village.

Massed figures on the bank; and torches. As the proa touched shore, the
throng parted before a huge-muscled Malay who came down to the water's
edge. Lhassa dimly remembered having seen him before. The sultan? He
spoke to the boatmen, several of whom bent over Garon. She understood
that they had been instructed to carry him inside the stockade. Hands
assisted her out of the boat.

A wider lane opened in the mass, and up this she moved, scarcely
conscious of the many stares. The apathy following suspense had settled
upon her. In her world, her world of throbbing pain, there was but one
other.

At the gate she paused automatically. Behind were the men bearing
Garon; also the large Malay who had ordered his removal. In response to
her inquisitive look the latter told her that she and Tuan Muda were
safe; told her that Abu Hassan was dead and that he, Nakoda Mubin, was
sultan now. She said:

"Where can we take him?"

Nakoda Mubin led the way to a house not far from the gate. Within, by
the light of a torch, she saw Garon's wound; asked:

"Will he die?"--raising a blurred gaze to the new ruler of Kawaras.

He said something about a clean wound; a poultice of wood-ash;
cleansing; a bandage. She heard him giving orders to the other Malays,
and she remained seated, one hand on Garon's hot forehead. Not until
the Malays returned did the memory of Conquest pierce her fogged
consciousness.

"Where is he?" she demanded abruptly, then explained, "Mr. Conquest,
the Tuan Rajah."

He had requested to see her when she arrived, the Malay replied,
but she was probably too late: the Tuan Rajah had lapsed into that
unconsciousness that precedes death.

His words had a maiming effect: she felt severed from some vital
member. For a moment she wavered between the man at her side and him
who had sacrificed himself for her. She knew intuitively that Stephen
Conquest had made his last gesture, undoubtedly a romantic gesture,
to preserve the beauty which he loved, her beauty. That love, she
realized, was a strange thing, a love of her physical perfection
without the desire to possess; a worship of some mysterious essence of
beauty, elusive as Art.

"Take me to him," she said decisively.

Nakoda Mubin guided her past groups of staring natives to a house near
the palace. He waited on the gallery while she entered.

It was dark within, and a damp, musty draft brushed her face. In one
corner lay a white shroud. As she saw it a suffocating sensation closed
her throat. She knew that she was too late. But she bent and touched
the cold forehead. At the contact, a great, bitter flood rose past her
throat and overflowed. She remained kneeling, still as the body beside
her.

The story of Pi-noi, the bayadere, crowding into her mind now, seemed
unsubstantial as mist, a wisp of fog that had floated past, leaving
only a memory to prove that it had existed. She felt defeat with a
conviction that was final. Gone was her grandfather, gone was Dr.
Garth, gone was Stephen Conquest; all who might have told. The woman
of the peacock shawl, that flaming symbol of the mysterious forces
that she had sought desperately to understand, drew her gaudy silks
about her and melted into the shadows of her frame, to become eternally
obscure. Her smile, that unforgettable smile, assumed, in retrospect,
a touch of irony. It suggested that there might have been another
reason for her grandfather's obsession: some intrigue, an affair of
the bazaars, too sordid to be disclosed. Yes, Lhassa repeated to
herself, she was defeated; she would never know the truth. In the years
to come she would dream and wonder; dream of the dead city locked in
Siamese jungles; wonder if between herself and the stone woman on its
temple-wall was even the slightest bond. And always hovering over these
fancies, mocking them, would be the creature in the peacock shawl, with
her smile of irony.

And it came to Lhassa, suddenly, that this was the true Romance, to
never really know, but to conjure out of dream-fog events as she
wished them; to believe that in her was the royal blood of the Khmers;
or that Conquest had merely painted her features into the portrait
of Pi-noi, and that her secret was locked for ever in the smile of a
canvas woman.

To Lhassa, the next two days were a sequence of superheated hours,
divided into moments of doubt and strain and anxiety. Although Garon's
wound was not fatal, there was, as always in such cases, the danger
of a relapse or infection because of the lack of professional care.
Most of the time he was unconscious; often he was delirious. Whenever
he spoke (words and sounds harsh as the crackling of isinglass) a
strange breathlessness seized Lhassa; fear of what the fever-talk
might disclose. Nakoda Mubin assigned three Malay women to her, and
she kept them busy fanning and bathing Garon. She herself attended
to the dressing of his wound. As she watched him suffer--he lay
still as a bronze figure under the haze of mosquito-netting--his
agony seemed to extend and envelop her. He possessed her with such
tyranny that her own bruises were absorbed in a greater pain, a pain
as deep as motherhood. She would not believe him guilty of the crime
that circumstance fastened upon him. He was a thief, yes, but not a
murderer. And the fact that he had stolen, a fact that she kept before
herself deliberately, did not shock her. His transgressions melted in
the flame of suffering, and tempered, became pure metal. The end of
the first day found her seated beside the sleeping man, her skin pale
as ivory beneath the corona of copperish hair. Outside, gauze-winged
creatures wheeled through the dusk, and a Mohammedan chanted toward
Mecca. And, suddenly, she understood the beauty of blind forgiveness.

With morning Garon's temperature was lower. He awakened early and tried
to talk, but she closed his lips with her cool hand. When he persisted
she retreated to her quarters, leaving him in the charge of the native
women. At noon (heat and a sultry blue sky) she returned. She was heavy
with the weariness that muffles all pains. But she drew strength from
the knowledge that nightfall would ease the strain. Conquest's men were
due then; white men from the yacht. She could rest--rest.

Dusk had drenched the earth with lilac when shouts brought her outside.
Natives were hurrying toward the gate. In the clearing, a fire was
meshed in dull gold against violet shadows, and its light flickered
upon the men who were surging through the gateway. She saw white faces,
and broke into a run, trembling with excitement. As she approached, one
of these faces turned and stared.

"Miss Camber!"

She heard her name with something of a shock. The man who spoke it wore
white clothes and a pith-helmet. However, now that she was closer,
his skin seemed dark as a native's. When he raised his head-gear she
caught the flash of a familiar smile.

"You don't recognize me, eh?" he asked, with an accent as familiar as
his smile. "The stain, probably; you know it has to wear off."

And then she knew. She tried to speak, but the words slipped back in
her throat. Finally she forced a hysterical laugh.

"Captain Barthélemy...."

Vertigo clouded his face. But she heard him exclaim:

"_Mon Dieu!_ I did not know it would be such a shock! I thought....
Then he has not told you?"

She grasped his arm and clung until the dizziness passed.

"Garon? No."

"Garon!" he repeated. "You don't know who he is?"

His words seemed to beat down upon her brain and break into bits; she
tried to pick up the fragments, to piece them together. For a moment
she could only shake her head. Finally:

"You mean"--incredulously--"the money he stole ... Hanoi...."

He spread out his hands in a very Latin manner, smiling.

"That was a clever plan of one of the cleverest men in the colonies.
Major Lestron is his name--Lestron of the secret service. At least,
that was his rank; now"--a shrug--"perhaps head of the department or a
resident superior--even a governor. After this, he can become almost
anything he wishes!"

She caught his arm and held, for she was weak and flecks danced before
her.

"Come to my house," she managed to say. "He's in the next one, wounded.
You must tell me everything--everything--now--without delay. I--I--why,
I thought you were.... Come!"

When they reached the veranda she sank into a chair, motioning him into
another. About them the darkness was purple, swarming with brilliant
fireflies. Reflections from the near-by fire stained the contours of
her face and form; hinted at Barthélemy's dark skin and eyes.

"The ship," she began confusedly; "the report that you had--had died.
I don't know where to tell you to start--only start quickly! The
money ... Hanoi...."

"As I said, a very clever hoax," he resumed. "Only Major Lestron and
the governor knew the truth. It was arranged that Lestron should take
the money, be convicted, and sentenced to exile in Cayenne. Not even
the officials there were to know. As a prisoner, he would have a better
chance to clear the Black Parrot mystery, and, incidentally, work on
the governor's greatest hobby, prison reform. If the present system of
penal colonization could be proved faulty and inefficient, it would
be a victory for the governor, a score against his political enemies.
So Lestron went--as a convict. The situation was so precarious that
after he was freed by the Black Parrot and left Guiana, he abandoned
communication with the governor except through a rather ingenious
method involving the buying and selling of birds. Oh, Lestron had a
difficult rôle! You see, Conquest, who was at the bottom of it all,
was on the boat that came to take Lestron and the escaped convicts
away from Guiana; and evidently he suspected Lestron, for he put him
ashore on Thursday Island. Lestron believed he was being tested, so he
pretended to--well, to go to the devil. He drank. And it was a wise
move, for he _was_ followed--by Conquest himself! But he had passed the
test, and was accepted."

Barthélemy paused; shrugged.

"May I smoke? You won't join me?" He lighted a cigarette before he
continued. "As to what happened on the _Cambodia_: I recognized
Lestron, and, believing him an escaped convict, put him under arrest."
She saw his white shoulders move in another shrug. "Lestron was in a
corner; I sha'n't go into the details. At Kep, a port on the Cambodian
coast, he went ashore, but swam back and hid in my cabin. I thought
he had broken parole--until I found him there. He told me everything;
said the affair was larger than he had anticipated; and outlined a plan
whereby we could coöperate. After arranging my clothes in a manner to
make it appear that I had committed suicide, we swam ashore; it was
necessary that I vanish completely. We went overland to Pnom-penh,
and there telegraphed the governor for permission to put our plan
into action. It was granted, and I, transformed into an East Indian,
accompanied Lestron to Saigon as his servant. He told Conquest, whom we
met there, that a Captain Barthélemy had recognized him on shipboard
and he had killed him....

"Of course, you were a complication. Before we left the _Cambodia_ it
was decided that it would be better to let you go on to Saigon, and, if
no other course opened up after you arrived, let you be held prisoner
by Conquest. You see, we were playing a desperate game. Soon after you
reached Saigon, Lestron and I left for Sadok. Conquest had agreed to
confine you in a house in Cholon, in the care of some woman he knew;
otherwise, we would have taken some measure to protect you. We had
a plan, but, _sacré gars!_ it was disrupted when Conquest suddenly
carried you off on his yacht!

"The night you reached Sadok I came to your veranda--you remember?--to
tell you the truth. I acted against Lestron's orders, for he believed
you would be a better ally if you were kept in ignorance. I disagreed.
But--he happened to catch me. The next morning he sent me to Kuching
to get help from the rajah of Sarawak. Conquest, you comprehend, was
a British subject; so the aid of a British officer would prevent any
possible entanglements. I went and ... well, there is little more,
except that when I returned, with help, I heard what had happened, and
we started for the village immediately. Yesterday we reached the camp
down the river and learned of the new trouble. Naturally, we expected
to have to fight, but this morning a messenger from the sultan brought
news of what had taken place. Needless to say, I was greatly relieved.
I thought ... ah, a thousand terrible things, dear mademoiselle! Now
tell me your story. I am more than anxious to hear."

She shuddered. "Salazar," she began, and recounted her grim adventures.

"_Mon Dieu!_" Barthélemy exclaimed when she had finished; and, "_Dieu
de Dieu!_"

She sat still for a moment, gazing at the fireflies that punctuated the
gloom. Then she rose.

"I shall have to go to him now," she announced. "Wait!"--as Barthélemy
started to rise--"I would rather go alone. Come in--in a few minutes.
You understand?"

That he did was evident by his silence. He stood at the top of the
ladder while she descended, the tip of his cigarette augmenting the
glow of the fireflies.

When she entered the room where Garon lay--she still thought of him as
Garon--the Malay woman fanning him put down the palm-leaf and moved
out. It was dark, but not too dark for her to see that his eyes were
open. Her hand trembled as she felt his forehead. It was moist.

"Have they come?" he asked.

"Yes."

She seated herself on the side of the bed, looking over him and
through the window. Warm stars jetted the darkness, and a muffled
clamor--subdued voices and indistinguishable sounds--floated in from
the night. After a brief hesitation, she said:

"I have seen Captain Barthélemy. He is coming in a moment." She paused,
then added, "It was cruel to keep me in ignorance, cruel. You did it
just to make me suffer, didn't you? Yet"--she relented--"yet I suppose
you thought it was wise--and perhaps it was."

She heard him sigh. But he did not speak.

"Haven't you anything to tell me before he comes?" Another sigh. "You
mean"--his voice husky--"about Bangkok and the doctor?"

She smiled to herself faintly. But her heart contracted. "I mean
anything you wish."

After a seemingly interminable silence he spoke.

"The Buddha. A green devil; you remember I called it that? It caused
it all. I took it out of Siam strapped to my back. That was my--my
hump. Grim humor, eh? Yes, a green devil. We went to the doctor's house
to get it, my boy and I. He had.... But I told you that. We entered
through a gate opening into the garden. I had warned Sua-Mok--Sua-Mok
was my boy--I had warned him against violence. Before we entered I saw
the doctor sitting at a table with a toy ship in his hands. His back
was toward us. I had to get the Buddha; it was the price of admittance
to Conquest's household. I knew it could be returned to the temple
after the affair. So I instructed Sua-Mok to bind the doctor while
I covered him with a pistol. I told him to have care. I gave him my
slendong and...."

She suppressed a shudder. The stars in the window suddenly froze to
points of ice. Garon raised himself on one elbow, and she started to
press him back, but the impulse was overcome by a deadly inertia.

"And...."

"No!" she commanded. "Don't say it!"

He made a strangled sound, sharp with bitterness.

"The law!" he declared savagely. "The law! It begins with clean hands,
but before the finish they are as black as the criminal's!"

He broke off, exhausted; sank upon the pillows; lay there, breathing
heavily.

She got up, seeming to float away in a mist of silk. In the doorway
she halted, her hands groping for the frame, her eyes raised to the
sky. A sense of tremendous catastrophe fell upon her; the temple that
she had built came crashing down, gilded spires, ivory minarets, and
all. The blue slendong had betrayed her to a reality more brutal than
disillusion. And yet that very tragedy, she realized, was an initiation
into a higher arcanum. The gods had fallen; but they were only images.
Romance was not dead. The memory of Stephen Conquest lived to deny
that. In some mysterious way he reclaimed the blue slendong ... Stephen
Conquest, a flash on a dark sea, a glimmer too incredible to be real....

As she stood there, gazing into world-sprayed darkness, she felt
something of the ache and immensity of space; something of the
smallness of earth-man as compared to the endless chains of stars
and the still but ever moving machinery of universe upon universe.
Frightened, she turned--turned to Garon.

In the window above his bed, seen between black branches, were stars,
gleaming as through prison bars. They brought to mind a remark
Barthélemy had made; and a great surge rose in her, a surge that
carried her to the bedside.

"Do you remember," she asked in a voice of thrilling timbre; "that I
said I would learn the truth, and, if circumstances justified it, see
that you were sent back to Guiana? Do you remember?" He did not answer,
and she continued. "Captain Barthélemy said you could become a resident
or even a governor. A governor, Garon! Don't you see?" She paused;
caught her breath. "Go back to Guiana! Go back and pay in mercy for
that night in Bangkok. Go back and wipe out the filth and fever, the
injustice and cruelty! Go back--for me!"

The flame of her fervency must have touched him, for he raised himself
again, and she could hear the quickened tempo of his breathing.

"Go back?" he repeated. "Go back ... alone?"

For an instant she stood motionless; then, her eyes filled with
inscrutable wisdom, she lifted her arms in a gesture exultant and
possessive.

"You go alone," she pronounced softly.

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