TALES OF UNREST

By Joseph Conrad

"Be it thy course to being giddy minds With foreign quarrels. "--SHAKESPEARE

TO ADOLF P. KRIEGER FOR THE SAKE OF OLD DAYS

CONTENTS

KARAIN: A MEMORY

THE IDIOTS

AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS

THE RETURN

THE LAGOON

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Of the five stories in this volume, "The Lagoon, " the last in order, is the earliest in date. It is the first short story I ever wrote andmarks, in a manner of speaking, the end of my first phase, the Malayanphase with its special subject and its verbal suggestions. Conceived inthe same mood which produced "Almayer's Folly" and "An Outcast of theIslands, " it is told in the same breath (with what was left of it, thatis, after the end of "An Outcast"), seen with the same vision, renderedin the same method--if such a thing as method did exist then in myconscious relation to this new adventure of writing for print. Idoubt it very much. One does one's work first and theorises about itafterwards. It is a very amusing and egotistical occupation of nouse whatever to any one and just as likely as not to lead to falseconclusions. 

Anybody can see that between the last paragraph of "An Outcast" andthe first of "The Lagoon" there has been no change of pen, figurativelyspeaking. It happened also to be literally true. It was the same pen: acommon steel pen. Having been charged with a certain lack of emotionalfaculty I am glad to be able to say that on one occasion at least I didgive way to a sentimental impulse. I thought the pen had been a good penand that it had done enough for me, and so, with the idea of keeping itfor a sort of memento on which I could look later with tender eyes, Iput it into my waistcoat pocket. Afterwards it used to turn up in allsorts of places--at the bottom of small drawers, among my studs incardboard boxes--till at last it found permanent rest in a large woodenbowl containing some loose keys, bits of sealing wax, bits of string, small broken chains, a few buttons, and similar minute wreckage thatwashes out of a man's life into such receptacles. I would catch sight ofit from time to time with a distinct feeling of satisfaction till, oneday, I perceived with horror that there were two old pens in there. Howthe other pen found its way into the bowl instead of the fireplace orwastepaper basket I can't imagine, but there the two were, lying side byside, both encrusted with ink and completely undistinguishable from eachother. It was very distressing, but being determined not to share mysentiment between two pens or run the risk of sentimentalising overa mere stranger, I threw them both out of the window into a flowerbed--which strikes me now as a poetical grave for the remnants of one'spast. 

But the tale remained. It was first fixed in print in the "CornhillMagazine", being my first appearance in a serial of any kind; and I havelived long enough to see it guyed most agreeably by Mr. Max Beerbohmin a volume of parodies entitled "A Christmas Garland, " where I foundmyself in very good company. I was immensely gratified. I began tobelieve in my public existence. I have much to thank "The Lagoon" for. 

My next effort in short-story writing was a departure--I mean adeparture from the Malay Archipelago. Without premeditation, withoutsorrow, without rejoicing, and almost without noticing it, I steppedinto the very different atmosphere of "An Outpost of Progress. " Ifound there a different moral attitude. I seemed able to capture newreactions, new suggestions, and even new rhythms for my paragraphs. Fora moment I fancied myself a new man--a most exciting illusion. It clungto me for some time, monstrous, half conviction and half hope as to itsbody, with an iridescent tail of dreams and with a changeable head likea plastic mask. It was only later that I perceived that in common withthe rest of men nothing could deliver me from my fatal consistency. Wecannot escape from ourselves. 

"An Outpost of Progress" is the lightest part of the loot I carriedoff from Central Africa, the main portion being of course "The Heart ofDarkness. " Other men have found a lot of quite different things thereand I have the comfortable conviction that what I took would not havebeen of much use to anybody else. And it must be said that it was buta very small amount of plunder. All of it could go into one's breastpocket when folded neatly. As for the story itself it is true enough inits essentials. The sustained invention of a really telling lie demandsa talent which I do not possess. 

"The Idiots" is such an obviously derivative piece of work that it isimpossible for me to say anything about it here. The suggestion of itwas not mental but visual: the actual idiots. It was after an intervalof long groping amongst vague impulses and hesitations which ended inthe production of "The Nigger" that I turned to my third short story inthe order of time, the first in this volume: "Karain: A Memory. "

Reading it after many years "Karain" produced on me the effect ofsomething seen through a pair of glasses from a rather advantageousposition. In that story I had not gone back to the Archipelago, I hadonly turned for another look at it. I admit that I was absorbed by thedistant view, so absorbed that I didn't notice then that the motif ofthe story is almost identical with the motif of "The Lagoon. " However, the idea at the back is very different; but the story is mainly madememorable to me by the fact that it was my first contribution to"Blackwood's Magazine" and that it led to my personal acquaintance withMr. William Blackwood whose guarded appreciation I felt neverthelessto be genuine, and prized accordingly. "Karain" was begun on a suddenimpulse only three days after I wrote the last line of "The Nigger, " andthe recollection of its difficulties is mixed up with the worries ofthe unfinished "Return, " the last pages of which I took up again at thetime; the only instance in my life when I made an attempt to write withboth hands at once as it were. 

Indeed my innermost feeling, now, is that "The Return" is a left-handedproduction. Looking through that story lately I had the materialimpression of sitting under a large and expensive umbrella in the louddrumming of a heavy rain-shower. It was very distracting. In the generaluproar one could hear every individual drop strike on the stout anddistended silk. Mentally, the reading rendered me dumb for the remainderof the day, not exactly with astonishment but with a sort of dismalwonder. I don't want to talk disrespectfully of any pages of mine. Psychologically there were no doubt good reasons for my attempt; and itwas worth while, if only to see of what excesses I was capable in thatsort of virtuosity. In this connection I should like to confess mysurprise on finding that notwithstanding all its apparatus ofanalysis the story consists for the most part of physical impressions;impressions of sound and sight, railway station, streets, a trottinghorse, reflections in mirrors and so on, rendered as if for theirown sake and combined with a sublimated description of a desirablemiddle-class town-residence which somehow manages to produce a sinistereffect. For the rest any kind word about "The Return" (and there havebeen such words said at different times) awakens in me the liveliestgratitude, for I know how much the writing of that fantasy has cost mein sheer toil, in temper, and in disillusion. 

J. C. 

TALES OF UNREST

KARAIN, A MEMORY

I

We knew him in those unprotected days when we were content to hold inour hands our lives and our property. None of us, I believe, has anyproperty now, and I hear that many, negligently, have lost their lives;but I am sure that the few who survive are not yet so dim-eyed as tomiss in the befogged respectability of their newspapers the intelligenceof various native risings in the Eastern Archipelago. Sunshine gleamsbetween the lines of those short paragraphs--sunshine and the glitter ofthe sea. A strange name wakes up memories; the printed words scent thesmoky atmosphere of to-day faintly, with the subtle and penetratingperfume as of land breezes breathing through the starlight of bygonenights; a signal fire gleams like a jewel on the high brow of a sombrecliff; great trees, the advanced sentries of immense forests, standwatchful and still over sleeping stretches of open water; a line ofwhite surf thunders on an empty beach, the shallow water foams on thereefs; and green islets scattered through the calm of noonday lie uponthe level of a polished sea, like a handful of emeralds on a buckler ofsteel. 

There are faces too--faces dark, truculent, and smiling; the frankaudacious faces of men barefooted, well armed and noiseless. Theythronged the narrow length of our schooner's decks with their ornamentedand barbarous crowd, with the variegated colours of checkered sarongs, red turbans, white jackets, embroideries; with the gleam of scabbards, gold rings, charms, armlets, lance blades, and jewelled handles of theirweapons. They had an independent bearing, resolute eyes, a restrainedmanner; and we seem yet to hear their soft voices speaking of battles, travels, and escapes; boasting with composure, joking quietly; sometimesin well-bred murmurs extolling their own valour, our generosity;or celebrating with loyal enthusiasm the virtues of their ruler. Weremember the faces, the eyes, the voices, we see again the gleam of silkand metal; the murmuring stir of that crowd, brilliant, festive, andmartial; and we seem to feel the touch of friendly brown hands that, after one short grasp, return to rest on a chased hilt. They wereKarain's people--a devoted following. Their movements hung on his lips;they read their thoughts in his eyes; he murmured to them nonchalantlyof life and death, and they accepted his words humbly, like gifts offate. They were all free men, and when speaking to him said, "Yourslave. " On his passage voices died out as though he had walked guardedby silence; awed whispers followed him. They called him their war-chief. He was the ruler of three villages on a narrow plain; the master ofan insignificant foothold on the earth--of a conquered foothold that, shaped like a young moon, lay ignored between the hills and the sea. 

From the deck of our schooner, anchored in the middle of the bay, heindicated by a theatrical sweep of his arm along the jagged outlineof the hills the whole of his domain; and the ample movement seemed todrive back its limits, augmenting it suddenly into something so immenseand vague that for a moment it appeared to be bounded only by the sky. And really, looking at that place, landlocked from the sea and shut offfrom the land by the precipitous slopes of mountains, it was difficultto believe in the existence of any neighbourhood. It was still, complete, unknown, and full of a life that went on stealthily with atroubling effect of solitude; of a life that seemed unaccountably emptyof anything that would stir the thought, touch the heart, give a hint ofthe ominous sequence of days. It appeared to us a land without memories, regrets, and hopes; a land where nothing could survive the coming of thenight, and where each sunrise, like a dazzling act of special creation, was disconnected from the eve and the morrow. 

Karain swept his hand over it. "All mine!" He struck the deck with hislong staff; the gold head flashed like a falling star; very close behindhim a silent old fellow in a richly embroidered black jacket alone ofall the Malays around did not follow the masterful gesture with a look. He did not even lift his eyelids. He bowed his head behind his master, and without stirring held hilt up over his right shoulder a long bladein a silver scabbard. He was there on duty, but without curiosity, andseemed weary, not with age, but with the possession of a burdensomesecret of existence. Karain, heavy and proud, had a lofty pose andbreathed calmly. It was our first visit, and we looked about curiously. 

The bay was like a bottomless pit of intense light. The circular sheetof water reflected a luminous sky, and the shores enclosing it made anopaque ring of earth floating in an emptiness of transparent blue. Thehills, purple and arid, stood out heavily on the sky: their summitsseemed to fade into a coloured tremble as of ascending vapour; theirsteep sides were streaked with the green of narrow ravines; at theirfoot lay rice-fields, plantain-patches, yellow sands. A torrent woundabout like a dropped thread. Clumps of fruit-trees marked the villages;slim palms put their nodding heads together above the low houses;dried palm-leaf roofs shone afar, like roofs of gold, behind the darkcolonnades of tree-trunks; figures passed vivid and vanishing; the smokeof fires stood upright above the masses of flowering bushes; bamboofences glittered, running away in broken lines between the fields. Asudden cry on the shore sounded plaintive in the distance, and ceasedabruptly, as if stifled in the downpour of sunshine. A puff of breezemade a flash of darkness on the smooth water, touched our faces, andbecame forgotten. Nothing moved. The sun blazed down into a shadowlesshollow of colours and stillness. 

It was the stage where, dressed splendidly for his part, he strutted, incomparably dignified, made important by the power he had to awaken anabsurd expectation of something heroic going to take place--a burst ofaction or song--upon the vibrating tone of a wonderful sunshine. He wasornate and disturbing, for one could not imagine what depth of horriblevoid such an elaborate front could be worthy to hide. He was notmasked--there was too much life in him, and a mask is only a lifelessthing; but he presented himself essentially as an actor, as a humanbeing aggressively disguised. His smallest acts were prepared andunexpected, his speeches grave, his sentences ominous like hints andcomplicated like arabesques. He was treated with a solemn respectaccorded in the irreverent West only to the monarchs of the stage, andhe accepted the profound homage with a sustained dignity seen nowhereelse but behind the footlights and in the condensed falseness of somegrossly tragic situation. It was almost impossible to remember who hewas--only a petty chief of a conveniently isolated corner of Mindanao, where we could in comparative safety break the law against the trafficin firearms and ammunition with the natives. What would happen shouldone of the moribund Spanish gun-boats be suddenly galvanized into aflicker of active life did not trouble us, once we were inside thebay--so completely did it appear out of the reach of a meddling world;and besides, in those days we were imaginative enough to look witha kind of joyous equanimity on any chance there was of being quietlyhanged somewhere out of the way of diplomatic remonstrance. As toKarain, nothing could happen to him unless what happens to all--failureand death; but his quality was to appear clothed in the illusion ofunavoidable success. He seemed too effective, too necessary there, toomuch of an essential condition for the existence of his land and hispeople, to be destroyed by anything short of an earthquake. He summed uphis race, his country, the elemental force of ardent life, of tropicalnature. He had its luxuriant strength, its fascination; and, like it, hecarried the seed of peril within. 

In many successive visits we came to know his stage well--the purplesemicircle of hills, the slim trees leaning over houses, the yellowsands, the streaming green of ravines. All that had the crude andblended colouring, the appropriateness almost excessive, the suspiciousimmobility of a painted scene; and it enclosed so perfectly theaccomplished acting of his amazing pretences that the rest of the worldseemed shut out forever from the gorgeous spectacle. There could benothing outside. It was as if the earth had gone on spinning, and hadleft that crumb of its surface alone in space. He appeared utterly cutoff from everything but the sunshine, and that even seemed to be madefor him alone. Once when asked what was on the other side of the hills, he said, with a meaning smile, "Friends and enemies--many enemies;else why should I buy your rifles and powder?" He was always likethis--word-perfect in his part, playing up faithfully to the mysteriesand certitudes of his surroundings. "Friends and enemies"--nothing else. It was impalpable and vast. The earth had indeed rolled away from underhis land, and he, with his handful of people, stood surrounded by asilent tumult as of contending shades. Certainly no sound came fromoutside. "Friends and enemies!" He might have added, "and memories, " atleast as far as he himself was concerned; but he neglected to make thatpoint then. It made itself later on, though; but it was after thedaily performance--in the wings, so to speak, and with the lights out. Meantime he filled the stage with barbarous dignity. Some ten years agohe had led his people--a scratch lot of wandering Bugis--to the conquestof the bay, and now in his august care they had forgotten all the past, and had lost all concern for the future. He gave them wisdom, advice, reward, punishment, life or death, with the same serenity of attitudeand voice. He understood irrigation and the art of war--the qualities ofweapons and the craft of boat-building. He could conceal his heart; hadmore endurance; he could swim longer, and steer a canoe better than anyof his people; he could shoot straighter, and negotiate more tortuouslythan any man of his race I knew. He was an adventurer of the sea, anoutcast, a ruler--and my very good friend. I wish him a quick death in astand-up fight, a death in sunshine; for he had known remorse and power, and no man can demand more from life. Day after day he appeared beforeus, incomparably faithful to the illusions of the stage, and at sunsetthe night descended upon him quickly, like a falling curtain. The seamedhills became black shadows towering high upon a clear sky; above themthe glittering confusion of stars resembled a mad turmoil stilled by agesture; sounds ceased, men slept, forms vanished--and the realityof the universe alone remained--a marvellous thing of darkness andglimmers. 

II

But it was at night that he talked openly, forgetting the exactions ofhis stage. In the daytime there were affairs to be discussed in state. There were at first between him and me his own splendour, my shabbysuspicions, and the scenic landscape that intruded upon the reality ofour lives by its motionless fantasy of outline and colour. His followersthronged round him; above his head the broad blades of their spears madea spiked halo of iron points, and they hedged him from humanity by theshimmer of silks, the gleam of weapons, the excited and respectful humof eager voices. Before sunset he would take leave with ceremony, and gooff sitting under a red umbrella, and escorted by a score of boats. All the paddles flashed and struck together with a mighty splash thatreverberated loudly in the monumental amphitheatre of hills. A broadstream of dazzling foam trailed behind the flotilla. The canoes appearedvery black on the white hiss of water; turbaned heads swayed back andforth; a multitude of arms in crimson and yellow rose and fell withone movement; the spearmen upright in the bows of canoes had variegatedsarongs and gleaming shoulders like bronze statues; the mutteredstrophes of the paddlers' song ended periodically in a plaintive shout. They diminished in the distance; the song ceased; they swarmed on thebeach in the long shadows of the western hills. The sunlight lingered onthe purple crests, and we could see him leading the way to his stockade, a burly bareheaded figure walking far in advance of a stragglingcortege, and swinging regularly an ebony staff taller than himself. Thedarkness deepened fast; torches gleamed fitfully, passing behind bushes;a long hail or two trailed in the silence of the evening; and at lastthe night stretched its smooth veil over the shore, the lights, and thevoices. 

Then, just as we were thinking of repose, the watchmen of the schoonerwould hail a splash of paddles away in the starlit gloom of the bay; avoice would respond in cautious tones, and our serang, putting his headdown the open skylight, would inform us without surprise, "That Rajah, he coming. He here now. " Karain appeared noiselessly in the doorway ofthe little cabin. He was simplicity itself then; all in white; muffledabout his head; for arms only a kriss with a plain buffalo-horn handle, which he would politely conceal within a fold of his sarong beforestepping over the threshold. The old sword-bearer's face, the worn-outand mournful face so covered with wrinkles that it seemed to look outthrough the meshes of a fine dark net, could be seen close above hisshoulders. Karain never moved without that attendant, who stood orsquatted close at his back. He had a dislike of an open spacebehind him. It was more than a dislike--it resembled fear, a nervouspreoccupation of what went on where he could not see. This, in view ofthe evident and fierce loyalty that surrounded him, was inexplicable. He was there alone in the midst of devoted men; he was safe fromneighbourly ambushes, from fraternal ambitions; and yet more than one ofour visitors had assured us that their ruler could not bear to be alone. They said, "Even when he eats and sleeps there is always one on thewatch near him who has strength and weapons. " There was indeed alwaysone near him, though our informants had no conception of that watcher'sstrength and weapons, which were both shadowy and terrible. We knew, butonly later on, when we had heard the story. Meantime we noticed that, even during the most important interviews, Karain would often give astart, and interrupting his discourse, would sweep his arm back witha sudden movement, to feel whether the old fellow was there. The oldfellow, impenetrable and weary, was always there. He shared his food, his repose, and his thoughts; he knew his plans, guarded his secrets;and, impassive behind his master's agitation, without stirring the leastbit, murmured above his head in a soothing tone some words difficult tocatch. 

It was only on board the schooner, when surrounded by white faces, byunfamiliar sights and sounds, that Karain seemed to forget the strangeobsession that wound like a black thread through the gorgeous pomp ofhis public life. At night we treated him in a free and easy manner, which just stopped short of slapping him on the back, for there areliberties one must not take with a Malay. He said himself that on suchoccasions he was only a private gentleman coming to see other gentlemenwhom he supposed as well born as himself. I fancy that to the last hebelieved us to be emissaries of Government, darkly official personsfurthering by our illegal traffic some dark scheme of high statecraft. Our denials and protestations were unavailing. He only smiled withdiscreet politeness and inquired about the Queen. Every visit began withthat inquiry; he was insatiable of details; he was fascinated by theholder of a sceptre the shadow of which, stretching from thewestward over the earth and over the seas, passed far beyond his ownhand's-breadth of conquered land. He multiplied questions; he couldnever know enough of the Monarch of whom he spoke with wonder andchivalrous respect--with a kind of affectionate awe! Afterwards, when wehad learned that he was the son of a woman who had many years ago ruleda small Bugis state, we came to suspect that the memory of his mother(of whom he spoke with enthusiasm) mingled somehow in his mind with theimage he tried to form for himself of the far-off Queen whom he calledGreat, Invincible, Pious, and Fortunate. We had to invent details atlast to satisfy his craving curiosity; and our loyalty must be pardoned, for we tried to make them fit for his august and resplendent ideal. Wetalked. The night slipped over us, over the still schooner, over thesleeping land, and over the sleepless sea that thundered amongst thereefs outside the bay. His paddlers, two trustworthy men, slept in thecanoe at the foot of our side-ladder. The old confidant, relieved fromduty, dozed on his heels, with his back against the companion-doorway;and Karain sat squarely in the ship's wooden armchair, under the slightsway of the cabin lamp, a cheroot between his dark fingers, and a glassof lemonade before him. He was amused by the fizz of the thing, butafter a sip or two would let it get flat, and with a courteous wave ofhis hand ask for a fresh bottle. He decimated our slender stock; but wedid not begrudge it to him, for, when he began, he talked well. He musthave been a great Bugis dandy in his time, for even then (and when weknew him he was no longer young) his splendour was spotlessly neat, and he dyed his hair a light shade of brown. The quiet dignity ofhis bearing transformed the dim-lit cuddy of the schooner into anaudience-hall. He talked of inter-island politics with an ironic andmelancholy shrewdness. He had travelled much, suffered not a little, intrigued, fought. He knew native Courts, European Settlements, theforests, the sea, and, as he said himself, had spoken in his time tomany great men. He liked to talk with me because I had known some ofthese men: he seemed to think that I could understand him, and, witha fine confidence, assumed that I, at least, could appreciate howmuch greater he was himself. But he preferred to talk of his nativecountry--a small Bugis state on the island of Celebes. I had visited itsome time before, and he asked eagerly for news. As men's names came upin conversation he would say, "We swam against one another when we wereboys"; or, "We hunted the deer together--he could use the noose andthe spear as well as I. " Now and then his big dreamy eyes would rollrestlessly; he frowned or smiled, or he would become pensive, and, staring in silence, would nod slightly for a time at some regrettedvision of the past. 

His mother had been the ruler of a small semi-independent state on thesea-coast at the head of the Gulf of Boni. He spoke of her with pride. She had been a woman resolute in affairs of state and of her own heart. After the death of her first husband, undismayed by the turbulentopposition of the chiefs, she married a rich trader, a Korinchi manof no family. Karain was her son by that second marriage, but hisunfortunate descent had apparently nothing to do with his exile. He saidnothing as to its cause, though once he let slip with a sigh, "Ha!my land will not feel any more the weight of my body. " But he relatedwillingly the story of his wanderings, and told us all about theconquest of the bay. Alluding to the people beyond the hills, he wouldmurmur gently, with a careless wave of the hand, "They came over thehills once to fight us, but those who got away never came again. " Hethought for a while, smiling to himself. "Very few got away, " he added, with proud serenity. He cherished the recollections of his successes; hehad an exulting eagerness for endeavour; when he talked, his aspect waswarlike, chivalrous, and uplifting. No wonder his people admired him. Wesaw him once walking in daylight amongst the houses of the settlement. At the doors of huts groups of women turned to look after him, warblingsoftly, and with gleaming eyes; armed men stood out of the way, submissive and erect; others approached from the side, bending theirbacks to address him humbly; an old woman stretched out a drapedlean arm--"Blessings on thy head!" she cried from a dark doorway;a fiery-eyed man showed above the low fence of a plantain-patch astreaming face, a bare breast scarred in two places, and bellowed outpantingly after him, "God give victory to our master!" Karain walkedfast, and with firm long strides; he answered greetings right and leftby quick piercing glances. Children ran forward between the houses, peeped fearfully round corners; young boys kept up with him, glidingbetween bushes: their eyes gleamed through the dark leaves. The oldsword-bearer, shouldering the silver scabbard, shuffled hastily at hisheels with bowed head, and his eyes on the ground. And in the midst of agreat stir they passed swift and absorbed, like two men hurrying througha great solitude. 

In his council hall he was surrounded by the gravity of armed chiefs, while two long rows of old headmen dressed in cotton stuffs squatted ontheir heels, with idle arms hanging over their knees. Under the thatchroof supported by smooth columns, of which each one had cost the life ofa straight-stemmed young palm, the scent of flowering hedges drifted inwarm waves. The sun was sinking. In the open courtyard suppliants walkedthrough the gate, raising, when yet far off, their joined hands abovebowed heads, and bending low in the bright stream of sunlight. Younggirls, with flowers in their laps, sat under the wide-spreading boughsof a big tree. The blue smoke of wood fires spread in a thin mist abovethe high-pitched roofs of houses that had glistening walls of wovenreeds, and all round them rough wooden pillars under the sloping eaves. He dispensed justice in the shade; from a high seat he gave orders, advice, reproof. Now and then the hum of approbation rose louder, andidle spearmen that lounged listlessly against the posts, looking atthe girls, would turn their heads slowly. To no man had been given theshelter of so much respect, confidence, and awe. Yet at times he wouldlean forward and appear to listen as for a far-off note of discord, asif expecting to hear some faint voice, the sound of light footsteps;or he would start half up in his seat, as though he had been familiarlytouched on the shoulder. He glanced back with apprehension; his agedfollower whispered inaudibly at his ear; the chiefs turned their eyesaway in silence, for the old wizard, the man who could command ghostsand send evil spirits against enemies, was speaking low to their ruler. Around the short stillness of the open place the trees rustled faintly, the soft laughter of girls playing with the flowers rose in clear burstsof joyous sound. At the end of upright spear-shafts the long tufts ofdyed horse-hair waved crimson and filmy in the gust of wind; and beyondthe blaze of hedges the brook of limpid quick water ran invisibleand loud under the drooping grass of the bank, with a great murmur, passionate and gentle. 

After sunset, far across the fields and over the bay, clusters oftorches could be seen burning under the high roofs of the council shed. Smoky red flames swayed on high poles, and the fiery blaze flickeredover faces, clung to the smooth trunks of palm-trees, kindled brightsparks on the rims of metal dishes standing on fine floor-mats. Thatobscure adventurer feasted like a king. Small groups of men crouched intight circles round the wooden platters; brown hands hovered over snowyheaps of rice. Sitting upon a rough couch apart from the others, heleaned on his elbow with inclined head; and near him a youth improvisedin a high tone a song that celebrated his valour and wisdom. The singerrocked himself to and fro, rolling frenzied eyes; old women hobbledabout with dishes, and men, squatting low, lifted their heads to listengravely without ceasing to eat. The song of triumph vibrated in thenight, and the stanzas rolled out mournful and fiery like the thoughtsof a hermit. He silenced it with a sign, "Enough!" An owl hooted faraway, exulting in the delight of deep gloom in dense foliage; overheadlizards ran in the attap thatch, calling softly; the dry leaves of theroof rustled; the rumour of mingled voices grew louder suddenly. Aftera circular and startled glance, as of a man waking up abruptly to thesense of danger, he would throw himself back, and under the downwardgaze of the old sorcerer take up, wide-eyed, the slender thread of hisdream. They watched his moods; the swelling rumour of animated talksubsided like a wave on a sloping beach. The chief is pensive. And abovethe spreading whisper of lowered voices only a little rattle of weaponswould be heard, a single louder word distinct and alone, or the gravering of a big brass tray. 

III

For two years at short intervals we visited him. We came to like him, to trust him, almost to admire him. He was plotting and preparing a warwith patience, with foresight--with a fidelity to his purpose and witha steadfastness of which I would have thought him racially incapable. He seemed fearless of the future, and in his plans displayed a sagacitythat was only limited by his profound ignorance of the rest of theworld. We tried to enlighten him, but our attempts to make clear theirresistible nature of the forces which he desired to arrest failed todiscourage his eagerness to strike a blow for his own primitive ideas. He did not understand us, and replied by arguments that almost droveone to desperation by their childish shrewdness. He was absurd andunanswerable. Sometimes we caught glimpses of a sombre, glowing furywithin him--a brooding and vague sense of wrong, and a concentrated lustof violence which is dangerous in a native. He raved like one inspired. On one occasion, after we had been talking to him late in his campong, he jumped up. A great, clear fire blazed in the grove; lights andshadows danced together between the trees; in the still night batsflitted in and out of the boughs like fluttering flakes of denserdarkness. He snatched the sword from the old man, whizzed it out of thescabbard, and thrust the point into the earth. Upon the thin, uprightblade the silver hilt, released, swayed before him like something alive. He stepped back a pace, and in a deadened tone spoke fiercely to thevibrating steel: "If there is virtue in the fire, in the iron, in thehand that forged thee, in the words spoken over thee, in the desire ofmy heart, and in the wisdom of thy makers, --then we shall be victorioustogether!" He drew it out, looked along the edge. "Take, " he said overhis shoulder to the old sword-bearer. The other, unmoved on his hams, wiped the point with a corner of his sarong, and returning the weapon toits scabbard, sat nursing it on his knees without a single look upwards. Karain, suddenly very calm, reseated himself with dignity. We gaveup remonstrating after this, and let him go his way to an honourabledisaster. All we could do for him was to see to it that the powder wasgood for the money and the rifles serviceable, if old. 

But the game was becoming at last too dangerous; and if we, who hadfaced it pretty often, thought little of the danger, it was decided forus by some very respectable people sitting safely in counting-housesthat the risks were too great, and that only one more trip could bemade. After giving in the usual way many misleading hints as to ourdestination, we slipped away quietly, and after a very quick passageentered the bay. It was early morning, and even before the anchor wentto the bottom the schooner was surrounded by boats. 

The first thing we heard was that Karain's mysterious sword-bearer haddied a few days ago. We did not attach much importance to the news. It was certainly difficult to imagine Karain without his inseparablefollower; but the fellow was old, he had never spoken to one of us, wehardly ever had heard the sound of his voice; and we had come tolook upon him as upon something inanimate, as a part of our friend'strappings of state--like that sword he had carried, or the fringed redumbrella displayed during an official progress. Karain did not visit usin the afternoon as usual. A message of greeting and a present of fruitand vegetables came off for us before sunset. Our friend paid us like abanker, but treated us like a prince. We sat up for him till midnight. Under the stern awning bearded Jackson jingled an old guitar and sang, with an execrable accent, Spanish love-songs; while young Hollis andI, sprawling on the deck, had a game of chess by the light of a cargolantern. Karain did not appear. Next day we were busy unloading, andheard that the Rajah was unwell. The expected invitation to visit himashore did not come. We sent friendly messages, but, fearing to intrudeupon some secret council, remained on board. Early on the third day wehad landed all the powder and rifles, and also a six-pounder brass gunwith its carriage which we had subscribed together for a present for ourfriend. The afternoon was sultry. Ragged edges of black clouds peepedover the hills, and invisible thunderstorms circled outside, growlinglike wild beasts. We got the schooner ready for sea, intending to leavenext morning at daylight. All day a merciless sun blazed down into thebay, fierce and pale, as if at white heat. Nothing moved on the land. The beach was empty, the villages seemed deserted; the trees far offstood in unstirring clumps, as if painted; the white smoke of someinvisible bush-fire spread itself low over the shores of the bay likea settling fog. Late in the day three of Karain's chief men, dressed intheir best and armed to the teeth, came off in a canoe, bringing a caseof dollars. They were gloomy and languid, and told us they had not seentheir Rajah for five days. No one had seen him! We settled all accounts, and after shaking hands in turn and in profound silence, they descendedone after another into their boat, and were paddled to the shore, sitting close together, clad in vivid colours, with hanging heads: thegold embroideries of their jackets flashed dazzlingly as they wentaway gliding on the smooth water, and not one of them looked back once. Before sunset the growling clouds carried with a rush the ridge ofhills, and came tumbling down the inner slopes. Everything disappeared;black whirling vapours filled the bay, and in the midst of them theschooner swung here and there in the shifting gusts of wind. A singleclap of thunder detonated in the hollow with a violence that seemedcapable of bursting into small pieces the ring of high land, and a warmdeluge descended. The wind died out. We panted in the close cabin; ourfaces streamed; the bay outside hissed as if boiling; the water fell inperpendicular shafts as heavy as lead; it swished about the deck, pouredoff the spars, gurgled, sobbed, splashed, murmured in the blind night. Our lamp burned low. Hollis, stripped to the waist, lay stretched out onthe lockers, with closed eyes and motionless like a despoiled corpse; athis head Jackson twanged the guitar, and gasped out in sighs a mournfuldirge about hopeless love and eyes like stars. Then we heard startledvoices on deck crying in the rain, hurried footsteps overhead, andsuddenly Karain appeared in the doorway of the cabin. His bare breastand his face glistened in the light; his sarong, soaked, clung about hislegs; he had his sheathed kriss in his left hand; and wisps of wet hair, escaping from under his red kerchief, stuck over his eyes and downhis cheeks. He stepped in with a headlong stride and looking over hisshoulder like a man pursued. Hollis turned on his side quickly andopened his eyes. Jackson clapped his big hand over the strings and thejingling vibration died suddenly. I stood up. 

"We did not hear your boat's hail!" I exclaimed. 

"Boat! The man's swum off, " drawled out Hollis from the locker. "Look athim!"

He breathed heavily, wild-eyed, while we looked at him in silence. Waterdripped from him, made a dark pool, and ran crookedly across the cabinfloor. We could hear Jackson, who had gone out to drive away our Malayseamen from the doorway of the companion; he swore menacingly in thepatter of a heavy shower, and there was a great commotion on deck. Thewatchmen, scared out of their wits by the glimpse of a shadowy figureleaping over the rail, straight out of the night as it were, had alarmedall hands. 

Then Jackson, with glittering drops of water on his hair and beard, cameback looking angry, and Hollis, who, being the youngest of us, assumedan indolent superiority, said without stirring, "Give him a drysarong--give him mine; it's hanging up in the bathroom. " Karain laidthe kriss on the table, hilt inwards, and murmured a few words in astrangled voice. 

"What's that?" asked Hollis, who had not heard. 

"He apologizes for coming in with a weapon in his hand, " I said, dazedly. 

"Ceremonious beggar. Tell him we forgive a friend . . . On such anight, " drawled out Hollis. "What's wrong?"

Karain slipped the dry sarong over his head, dropped the wet one athis feet, and stepped out of it. I pointed to the wooden armchair--hisarmchair. He sat down very straight, said "Ha!" in a strong voice;a short shiver shook his broad frame. He looked over his shoulderuneasily, turned as if to speak to us, but only stared in a curiousblind manner, and again looked back. Jackson bellowed out, "Watch wellon deck there!" heard a faint answer from above, and reaching out withhis foot slammed-to the cabin door. 

"All right now, " he said. 

Karain's lips moved slightly. A vivid flash of lightning made thetwo round stern-ports facing him glimmer like a pair of cruel andphosphorescent eyes. The flame of the lamp seemed to wither into browndust for an instant, and the looking-glass over the little sideboardleaped out behind his back in a smooth sheet of livid light. The roll ofthunder came near, crashed over us; the schooner trembled, and the greatvoice went on, threatening terribly, into the distance. For less than aminute a furious shower rattled on the decks. Karain looked slowly fromface to face, and then the silence became so profound that we all couldhear distinctly the two chronometers in my cabin ticking along withunflagging speed against one another. 

And we three, strangely moved, could not take our eyes from him. He hadbecome enigmatical and touching, in virtue of that mysterious cause thathad driven him through the night and through the thunderstorm to theshelter of the schooner's cuddy. Not one of us doubted that we werelooking at a fugitive, incredible as it appeared to us. He was haggard, as though he had not slept for weeks; he had become lean, as thoughhe had not eaten for days. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes sunk, the muscles of his chest and arms twitched slightly as if after anexhausting contest. Of course it had been a long swim off to theschooner; but his face showed another kind of fatigue, the tormentedweariness, the anger and the fear of a struggle against a thought, anidea--against something that cannot be grappled, that never rests--ashadow, a nothing, unconquerable and immortal, that preys upon life. Weknew it as though he had shouted it at us. His chest expanded time aftertime, as if it could not contain the beating of his heart. For a momenthe had the power of the possessed--the power to awaken in the beholderswonder, pain, pity, and a fearful near sense of things invisible, ofthings dark and mute, that surround the loneliness of mankind. His eyesroamed about aimlessly for a moment, then became still. He said witheffort--

"I came here . . . I leaped out of my stockade as after a defeat. I ranin the night. The water was black. I left him calling on the edge ofblack water. . . . I left him standing alone on the beach. I swam . . . He called out after me . . . I swam . . . "

He trembled from head to foot, sitting very upright and gazing straightbefore him. Left whom? Who called? We did not know. We could notunderstand. I said at all hazards--

"Be firm. "

The sound of my voice seemed to steady him into a sudden rigidity, butotherwise he took no notice. He seemed to listen, to expect somethingfor a moment, then went on--

"He cannot come here--therefore I sought you. You men with white faceswho despise the invisible voices. He cannot abide your unbelief and yourstrength. "

He was silent for a while, then exclaimed softly--

"Oh! the strength of unbelievers!"

"There's no one here but you--and we three, " said Hollis, quietly. Hereclined with his head supported on elbow and did not budge. 

"I know, " said Karain. "He has never followed me here. Was not the wiseman ever by my side? But since the old wise man, who knew of my trouble, has died, I have heard the voice every night. I shut myself up--formany days--in the dark. I can hear the sorrowful murmurs of women, thewhisper of the wind, of the running waters; the clash of weapons in thehands of faithful men, their footsteps--and his voice! . . . Near . . . So! In my ear! I felt him near . . . His breath passed over my neck. Ileaped out without a cry. All about me men slept quietly. I ran to thesea. He ran by my side without footsteps, whispering, whispering oldwords--whispering into my ear in his old voice. I ran into the sea; Iswam off to you, with my kriss between my teeth. I, armed, I fled beforea breath--to you. Take me away to your land. The wise old man has died, and with him is gone the power of his words and charms. And I can tellno one. No one. There is no one here faithful enough and wise enoughto know. It is only near you, unbelievers, that my trouble fades like amist under the eye of day. "

He turned to me. 

"With you I go!" he cried in a contained voice. "With you, who know somany of us. I want to leave this land--my people . . . And him--there!"

He pointed a shaking finger at random over his shoulder. It was hard forus to bear the intensity of that undisclosed distress. Hollis stared athim hard. I asked gently--

"Where is the danger?"

"Everywhere outside this place, " he answered, mournfully. "In everyplace where I am. He waits for me on the paths, under the trees, in theplace where I sleep--everywhere but here. "

He looked round the little cabin, at the painted beams, at the tarnishedvarnish of bulkheads; he looked round as if appealing to all its shabbystrangeness, to the disorderly jumble of unfamiliar things thatbelong to an inconceivable life of stress, of power, of endeavour, ofunbelief--to the strong life of white men, which rolls on irresistibleand hard on the edge of outer darkness. He stretched out his arms as ifto embrace it and us. We waited. The wind and rain had ceased, and thestillness of the night round the schooner was as dumb and complete as ifa dead world had been laid to rest in a grave of clouds. We expected himto speak. The necessity within him tore at his lips. There are thosewho say that a native will not speak to a white man. Error. No man willspeak to his master; but to a wanderer and a friend, to him who does notcome to teach or to rule, to him who asks for nothing and accepts allthings, words are spoken by the camp-fires, in the shared solitudeof the sea, in riverside villages, in resting-places surrounded byforests--words are spoken that take no account of race or colour. Oneheart speaks--another one listens; and the earth, the sea, the sky, thepassing wind and the stirring leaf, hear also the futile tale of theburden of life. 

He spoke at last. It is impossible to convey the effect of his story. Itis undying, it is but a memory, and its vividness cannot be made clearto another mind, any more than the vivid emotions of a dream. One musthave seen his innate splendour, one must have known him before--lookedat him then. The wavering gloom of the little cabin; the breathlessstillness outside, through which only the lapping of water against theschooner's sides could be heard; Hollis's pale face, with steady darkeyes; the energetic head of Jackson held up between two big palms, andwith the long yellow hair of his beard flowing over the strings of theguitar lying on the table; Karain's upright and motionless pose, histone--all this made an impression that cannot be forgotten. He facedus across the table. His dark head and bronze torso appeared above thetarnished slab of wood, gleaming and still as if cast in metal. Onlyhis lips moved, and his eyes glowed, went out, blazed again, or staredmournfully. His expressions came straight from his tormented heart. Hiswords sounded low, in a sad murmur as of running water; at times theyrang loud like the clash of a war-gong--or trailed slowly like wearytravellers--or rushed forward with the speed of fear. 

IV

This is, imperfectly, what he said--

"It was after the great trouble that broke the alliance of the fourstates of Wajo. We fought amongst ourselves, and the Dutch watched fromafar till we were weary. Then the smoke of their fire-ships was seenat the mouth of our rivers, and their great men came in boats full ofsoldiers to talk to us of protection and peace. We answered with cautionand wisdom, for our villages were burnt, our stockades weak, the peopleweary, and the weapons blunt. They came and went; there had been muchtalk, but after they went away everything seemed to be as before, only their ships remained in sight from our coast, and very soon theirtraders came amongst us under a promise of safety. My brother was aRuler, and one of those who had given the promise. I was young then, and had fought in the war, and Pata Matara had fought by my side. Wehad shared hunger, danger, fatigue, and victory. His eyes saw my dangerquickly, and twice my arm had preserved his life. It was his destiny. Hewas my friend. And he was great amongst us--one of those who were nearmy brother, the Ruler. He spoke in council, his courage was great, he was the chief of many villages round the great lake that is in themiddle of our country as the heart is in the middle of a man's body. When his sword was carried into a campong in advance of his coming, the maidens whispered wonderingly under the fruit-trees, the richmen consulted together in the shade, and a feast was made ready withrejoicing and songs. He had the favour of the Ruler and the affection ofthe poor. He loved war, deer hunts, and the charms of women. He was thepossessor of jewels, of lucky weapons, and of men's devotion. He was afierce man; and I had no other friend. 

"I was the chief of a stockade at the mouth of the river, and collectedtolls for my brother from the passing boats. One day I saw a Dutchtrader go up the river. He went up with three boats, and no toll wasdemanded from him, because the smoke of Dutch war-ships stood out fromthe open sea, and we were too weak to forget treaties. He went up underthe promise of safety, and my brother gave him protection. He saidhe came to trade. He listened to our voices, for we are men who speakopenly and without fear; he counted the number of our spears, heexamined the trees, the running waters, the grasses of the bank, the slopes of our hills. He went up to Matara's country and obtainedpermission to build a house. He traded and planted. He despised ourjoys, our thoughts, and our sorrows. His face was red, his hair likeflame, and his eyes pale, like a river mist; he moved heavily, and spokewith a deep voice; he laughed aloud like a fool, and knew no courtesyin his speech. He was a big, scornful man, who looked into women's facesand put his hand on the shoulders of free men as though he had been anoble-born chief. We bore with him. Time passed. 

"Then Pata Matara's sister fled from the campong and went to live in theDutchman's house. She was a great and wilful lady: I had seen her oncecarried high on slaves' shoulders amongst the people, with uncoveredface, and I had heard all men say that her beauty was extreme, silencingthe reason and ravishing the heart of the beholders. The people weredismayed; Matara's face was blackened with that disgrace, for she knewshe had been promised to another man. Matara went to the Dutchman'shouse, and said, 'Give her up to die--she is the daughter of chiefs. 'The white man refused and shut himself up, while his servants keptguard night and day with loaded guns. Matara raged. My brother called acouncil. But the Dutch ships were near, and watched our coast greedily. My brother said, 'If he dies now our land will pay for his blood. Leavehim alone till we grow stronger and the ships are gone. ' Matara waswise; he waited and watched. But the white man feared for her life andwent away. 

"He left his house, his plantations, and his goods! He departed, armedand menacing, and left all--for her! She had ravished his heart! Frommy stockade I saw him put out to sea in a big boat. Matara and Iwatched him from the fighting platform behind the pointed stakes. He satcross-legged, with his gun in his hands, on the roof at the stern of hisprau. The barrel of his rifle glinted aslant before his big red face. The broad river was stretched under him--level, smooth, shining, likea plain of silver; and his prau, looking very short and black from theshore, glided along the silver plain and over into the blue of the sea. 

"Thrice Matara, standing by my side, called aloud her name with griefand imprecations. He stirred my heart. It leaped three times; and threetimes with the eyes of my mind I saw in the gloom within the enclosedspace of the prau a woman with streaming hair going away from her landand her people. I was angry--and sorry. Why? And then I also cried outinsults and threats. Matara said, 'Now they have left our land theirlives are mind. I shall follow and strike--and, alone, pay the price ofblood. ' A great wind was sweeping towards the setting sun over the emptyriver. I cried, 'By your side I will go!' He lowered his head in sign ofassent. It was his destiny. The sun had set, and the trees swayed theirboughs with a great noise above our heads. 

"On the third night we two left our land together in a trading prau. 

"The sea met us--the sea, wide, pathless, and without voice. A sailingprau leaves no track. We went south. The moon was full; and, looking up, we said to one another, 'When the next moon shines as this one, we shallreturn and they will be dead. ' It was fifteen years ago. Many moons havegrown full and withered and I have not seen my land since. We sailedsouth; we overtook many praus; we examined the creeks and the bays; wesaw the end of our coast, of our island--a steep cape over a disturbedstrait, where drift the shadows of shipwrecked praus and drowned menclamour in the night. The wide sea was all round us now. We saw a greatmountain burning in the midst of water; we saw thousands of isletsscattered like bits of iron fired from a big gun; we saw a long coast ofmountain and lowlands stretching away in sunshine from west to east. It was Java. We said, 'They are there; their time is near, and we shallreturn or die cleansed from dishonour. '

"We landed. Is there anything good in that country? The paths runstraight and hard and dusty. Stone campongs, full of white faces, aresurrounded by fertile fields, but every man you meet is a slave. Therulers live under the edge of a foreign sword. We ascended mountains, we traversed valleys; at sunset we entered villages. We asked everyone, 'Have you seen such a white man?' Some stared; others laughed; womengave us food, sometimes, with fear and respect, as though we had beendistracted by the visitation of God; but some did not understand ourlanguage, and some cursed us, or, yawning, asked with contempt thereason of our quest. Once, as we were going away, an old man calledafter us, 'Desist!'

"We went on. Concealing our weapons, we stood humbly aside before thehorsemen on the road; we bowed low in the courtyards of chiefs who wereno better than slaves. We lost ourselves in the fields, in the jungle;and one night, in a tangled forest, we came upon a place where crumblingold walls had fallen amongst the trees, and where strange stoneidols--carved images of devils with many arms and legs, with snakestwined round their bodies, with twenty heads and holding a hundredswords--seemed to live and threaten in the light of our camp fire. Nothing dismayed us. And on the road, by every fire, in resting-places, we always talked of her and of him. Their time was near. We spokeof nothing else. No! not of hunger, thirst, weariness, and falteringhearts. No! we spoke of him and her! Of her! And we thought of them--ofher! Matara brooded by the fire. I sat and thought and thought, tillsuddenly I could see again the image of a woman, beautiful, and young, and great and proud, and tender, going away from her land and herpeople. Matara said, 'When we find them we shall kill her first tocleanse the dishonour--then the man must die. ' I would say, 'It shallbe so; it is your vengeance. ' He stared long at me with his big sunkeneyes. 

"We came back to the coast. Our feet were bleeding, our bodies thin. Weslept in rags under the shadow of stone enclosures; we prowled, soiledand lean, about the gateways of white men's courtyards. Their hairy dogsbarked at us, and their servants shouted from afar, 'Begone!' Low-bornwretches, that keep watch over the streets of stone campongs, asked uswho we were. We lied, we cringed, we smiled with hate in our hearts, and we kept looking here, looking there for them--for the white man withhair like flame, and for her, for the woman who had broken faith, andtherefore must die. We looked. At last in every woman's face I thoughtI could see hers. We ran swiftly. No! Sometimes Matara would whisper, 'Here is the man, ' and we waited, crouching. He came near. It wasnot the man--those Dutchmen are all alike. We suffered the anguish ofdeception. In my sleep I saw her face, and was both joyful and sorry. . . . Why? . . . I seemed to hear a whisper near me. I turned swiftly. She was not there! And as we trudged wearily from stone city to stonecity I seemed to hear a light footstep near me. A time came when I heardit always, and I was glad. I thought, walking dizzy and weary insunshine on the hard paths of white men I thought, She is there--withus! . . . Matara was sombre. We were often hungry. 

"We sold the carved sheaths of our krisses--the ivory sheaths withgolden ferules. We sold the jewelled hilts. But we kept the blades--forthem. The blades that never touch but kill--we kept the blades for her. . . . Why? She was always by our side. . . . We starved. We begged. Weleft Java at last. 

"We went West, we went East. We saw many lands, crowds of strange faces, men that live in trees and men who eat their old people. We cut rattansin the forest for a handful of rice, and for a living swept the decks ofbig ships and heard curses heaped upon our heads. We toiled in villages;we wandered upon the seas with the Bajow people, who have no country. We fought for pay; we hired ourselves to work for Goram men, and werecheated; and under the orders of rough white faces we dived for pearlsin barren bays, dotted with black rocks, upon a coast of sand anddesolation. And everywhere we watched, we listened, we asked. We askedtraders, robbers, white men. We heard jeers, mockery, threats--words ofwonder and words of contempt. We never knew rest; we never thought ofhome, for our work was not done. A year passed, then another. I ceasedto count the number of nights, of moons, of years. I watched overMatara. He had my last handful of rice; if there was water enough forone he drank it; I covered him up when he shivered with cold; and whenthe hot sickness came upon him I sat sleepless through many nights andfanned his face. He was a fierce man, and my friend. He spoke of herwith fury in the daytime, with sorrow in the dark; he remembered her inhealth, in sickness. I said nothing; but I saw her every day--always!At first I saw only her head, as of a woman walking in the low mist ona river bank. Then she sat by our fire. I saw her! I looked at her! Shehad tender eyes and a ravishing face. I murmured to her in the night. Matara said sleepily sometimes, 'To whom are you talking? Who is there?'I answered quickly, 'No one' . . . It was a lie! She never left me. Sheshared the warmth of our fire, she sat on my couch of leaves, she swamon the sea to follow me. . . . I saw her! . . . I tell you I saw herlong black hair spread behind her upon the moonlit water as she struckout with bare arms by the side of a swift prau. She was beautiful, shewas faithful, and in the silence of foreign countries she spoke to mevery low in the language of my people. No one saw her; no one heard her;she was mine only! In daylight she moved with a swaying walk before meupon the weary paths; her figure was straight and flexible like the stemof a slender tree; the heels of her feet were round and polished likeshells of eggs; with her round arm she made signs. At night she lookedinto my face. And she was sad! Her eyes were tender and frightened; hervoice soft and pleading. Once I murmured to her, 'You shall not die, 'and she smiled . . . Ever after she smiled! . . . She gave me courage tobear weariness and hardships. Those were times of pain, and she soothedme. We wandered patient in our search. We knew deception, false hopes;we knew captivity, sickness, thirst, misery, despair . . . . Enough! Wefound them! . . . "

He cried out the last words and paused. His face was impassive, and hekept still like a man in a trance. Hollis sat up quickly, and spread hiselbows on the table. Jackson made a brusque movement, and accidentallytouched the guitar. A plaintive resonance filled the cabin with confusedvibrations and died out slowly. Then Karain began to speak again. Therestrained fierceness of his tone seemed to rise like a voice fromoutside, like a thing unspoken but heard; it filled the cabin andenveloped in its intense and deadened murmur the motionless figure inthe chair. 

"We were on our way to Atjeh, where there was war; but the vessel ran ona sandbank, and we had to land in Delli. We had earned a little money, and had bought a gun from some Selangore traders; only one gun, whichwas fired by the spark of a stone; Matara carried it. We landed. Manywhite men lived there, planting tobacco on conquered plains, and Matara. . . But no matter. He saw him! . . . The Dutchman! . . . At last!. . . We crept and watched. Two nights and a day we watched. He had ahouse--a big house in a clearing in the midst of his fields; flowers andbushes grew around; there were narrow paths of yellow earth between thecut grass, and thick hedges to keep people out. The third night we camearmed, and lay behind a hedge. 

"A heavy dew seemed to soak through our flesh and made our very entrailscold. The grass, the twigs, the leaves, covered with drops of water, were gray in the moonlight. Matara, curled up in the grass, shiveredin his sleep. My teeth rattled in my head so loud that I was afraidthe noise would wake up all the land. Afar, the watchmen of white men'shouses struck wooden clappers and hooted in the darkness. And, as everynight, I saw her by my side. She smiled no more! . . . The fire ofanguish burned in my breast, and she whispered to me with compassion, with pity, softly--as women will; she soothed the pain of my mind; shebent her face over me--the face of a woman who ravishes the heartsand silences the reason of men. She was all mine, and no one could seeher--no one of living mankind! Stars shone through her bosom, throughher floating hair. I was overcome with regret, with tenderness, withsorrow. Matara slept . . . Had I slept? Matara was shaking me by theshoulder, and the fire of the sun was drying the grass, the bushes, theleaves. It was day. Shreds of white mist hung between the branches oftrees. 

"Was it night or day? I saw nothing again till I heard Matara breathequickly where he lay, and then outside the house I saw her. I saw themboth. They had come out. She sat on a bench under the wall, and twigsladen with flowers crept high above her head, hung over her hair. Shehad a box on her lap, and gazed into it, counting the increase of herpearls. The Dutchman stood by looking on; he smiled down at her; hiswhite teeth flashed; the hair on his lip was like two twisted flames. He was big and fat, and joyous, and without fear. Matara tippedfresh priming from the hollow of his palm, scraped the flint with histhumb-nail, and gave the gun to me. To me! I took it . . . O fate!

"He whispered into my ear, lying on his stomach, 'I shall creep closeand then amok . . . Let her die by my hand. You take aim at thefat swine there. Let him see me strike my shame off the face of theearth--and then . . . You are my friend--kill with a sure shot. ' I saidnothing; there was no air in my chest--there was no air in the world. Matara had gone suddenly from my side. The grass nodded. Then a bushrustled. She lifted her head. 

"I saw her! The consoler of sleepless nights, of weary days; thecompanion of troubled years! I saw her! She looked straight at the placewhere I crouched. She was there as I had seen her for years--a faithfulwanderer by my side. She looked with sad eyes and had smiling lips; shelooked at me . . . Smiling lips! Had I not promised that she should notdie!

"She was far off and I felt her near. Her touch caressed me, andher voice murmured, whispered above me, around me. 'Who shall be thycompanion, who shall console thee if I die?' I saw a flowering thicketto the left of her stir a little . . . Matara was ready . . . I criedaloud--'Return!'

"She leaped up; the box fell; the pearls streamed at her feet. The bigDutchman by her side rolled menacing eyes through the still sunshine. The gun went up to my shoulder. I was kneeling and I was firm--firmerthan the trees, the rocks, the mountains. But in front of the steadylong barrel the fields, the house, the earth, the sky swayed to andfro like shadows in a forest on a windy day. Matara burst out of thethicket; before him the petals of torn flowers whirled high as if drivenby a tempest. I heard her cry; I saw her spring with open arms in frontof the white man. She was a woman of my country and of noble blood. Theyare so! I heard her shriek of anguish and fear--and all stood still! Thefields, the house, the earth, the sky stood still--while Matara leapedat her with uplifted arm. I pulled the trigger, saw a spark, heardnothing; the smoke drove back into my face, and then I could see Matararoll over head first and lie with stretched arms at her feet. Ha! A sureshot! The sunshine fell on my back colder than the running water. A sureshot! I flung the gun after the shot. Those two stood over the dead manas though they had been bewitched by a charm. I shouted at her, 'Liveand remember!' Then for a time I stumbled about in a cold darkness. 

"Behind me there were great shouts, the running of many feet; strangemen surrounded me, cried meaningless words into my face, pushed me, dragged me, supported me . . . I stood before the big Dutchman: hestared as if bereft of his reason. He wanted to know, he talked fast, he spoke of gratitude, he offered me food, shelter, gold--he asked manyquestions. I laughed in his face. I said, 'I am a Korinchi travellerfrom Perak over there, and know nothing of that dead man. I was passingalong the path when I heard a shot, and your senseless people rushedout and dragged me here. ' He lifted his arms, he wondered, he could notbelieve, he could not understand, he clamoured in his own tongue! Shehad her arms clasped round his neck, and over her shoulder stared backat me with wide eyes. I smiled and looked at her; I smiled and waited tohear the sound of her voice. The white man asked her suddenly. 'Do youknow him?' I listened--my life was in my ears! She looked at me long, she looked at me with unflinching eyes, and said aloud, 'No! I never sawhim before. ' . . . What! Never before? Had she forgotten already? Wasit possible? Forgotten already--after so many years--so many yearsof wandering, of companionship, of trouble, of tender words! Forgottenalready! . . . I tore myself out from the hands that held me and wentaway without a word . . . They let me go. 

"I was weary. Did I sleep? I do not know. I remember walking upon abroad path under a clear starlight; and that strange country seemed sobig, the rice-fields so vast, that, as I looked around, my head swamwith the fear of space. Then I saw a forest. The joyous starlight washeavy upon me. I turned off the path and entered the forest, which wasvery sombre and very sad. "

V

Karain's tone had been getting lower and lower, as though he had beengoing away from us, till the last words sounded faint but clear, asif shouted on a calm day from a very great distance. He moved not. Hestared fixedly past the motionless head of Hollis, who faced him, asstill as himself. Jackson had turned sideways, and with elbow on thetable shaded his eyes with the palm of his hand. And I looked on, surprised and moved; I looked at that man, loyal to a vision, betrayedby his dream, spurned by his illusion, and coming to us unbelievers forhelp--against a thought. The silence was profound; but it seemed fullof noiseless phantoms, of things sorrowful, shadowy, and mute, inwhose invisible presence the firm, pulsating beat of the two ship'schronometers ticking off steadily the seconds of Greenwich Time seemedto me a protection and a relief. Karain stared stonily; and looking athis rigid figure, I thought of his wanderings, of that obscure Odysseyof revenge, of all the men that wander amongst illusions faithful, faithless; of the illusions that give joy, that give sorrow, that givepain, that give peace; of the invincible illusions that can make lifeand death appear serene, inspiring, tormented, or ignoble. 

A murmur was heard; that voice from outside seemed to flow out of adreaming world into the lamp-light of the cabin. Karain was speaking. 

"I lived in the forest. 

"She came no more. Never! Never once! I lived alone. She had forgotten. It was well. I did not want her; I wanted no one. I found an abandonedhouse in an old clearing. Nobody came near. Sometimes I heard in thedistance the voices of people going along a path. I slept; I rested;there was wild rice, water from a running stream--and peace! Every nightI sat alone by my small fire before the hut. Many nights passed over myhead. 

"Then, one evening, as I sat by my fire after having eaten, I lookeddown on the ground and began to remember my wanderings. I lifted myhead. I had heard no sound, no rustle, no footsteps--but I lifted myhead. A man was coming towards me across the small clearing. I waited. He came up without a greeting and squatted down into the firelight. Thenhe turned his face to me. It was Matara. He stared at me fiercely withhis big sunken eyes. The night was cold; the heat died suddenly out ofthe fire, and he stared at me. I rose and went away from there, leavinghim by the fire that had no heat. 

"I walked all that night, all next day, and in the evening made up a bigblaze and sat down--to wait for him. He had not come into the light. I heard him in the bushes here and there, whispering, whispering. I understood at last--I had heard the words before, 'You are myfriend--kill with a sure shot. '

"I bore it as long as I could--then leaped away, as on this very nightI leaped from my stockade and swam to you. I ran--I ran crying like achild left alone and far from the houses. He ran by my side, withoutfootsteps, whispering, whispering--invisible and heard. I soughtpeople--I wanted men around me! Men who had not died! And again we twowandered. I sought danger, violence, and death. I fought in the Atjehwar, and a brave people wondered at the valiance of a stranger. But wewere two; he warded off the blows . . . Why? I wanted peace, not life. And no one could see him; no one knew--I dared tell no one. At times hewould leave me, but not for long; then he would return and whisper orstare. My heart was torn with a strange fear, but could not die. Then Imet an old man. 

"You all knew him. People here called him my sorcerer, my servant andsword-bearer; but to me he was father, mother, protection, refuge andpeace. When I met him he was returning from a pilgrimage, and I heardhim intoning the prayer of sunset. He had gone to the holy place withhis son, his son's wife, and a little child; and on their return, bythe favour of the Most High, they all died: the strong man, the youngmother, the little child--they died; and the old man reached his countryalone. He was a pilgrim serene and pious, very wise and very lonely. I told him all. For a time we lived together. He said over me words ofcompassion, of wisdom, of prayer. He warded from me the shade of thedead. I begged him for a charm that would make me safe. For a longtime he refused; but at last, with a sigh and a smile, he gave me one. Doubtless he could command a spirit stronger than the unrest of my deadfriend, and again I had peace; but I had become restless, and a lover ofturmoil and danger. The old man never left me. We travelled together. We were welcomed by the great; his wisdom and my courage are rememberedwhere your strength, O white men, is forgotten! We served the Sultanof Sula. We fought the Spaniards. There were victories, hopes, defeats, sorrow, blood, women's tears . . . What for? . . . We fled. We collectedwanderers of a warlike race and came here to fight again. The rest youknow. I am the ruler of a conquered land, a lover of war and danger, a fighter and a plotter. But the old man has died, and I am again theslave of the dead. He is not here now to drive away the reproachfulshade--to silence the lifeless voice! The power of his charm has diedwith him. And I know fear; and I hear the whisper, 'Kill! kill! kill!'. . . Have I not killed enough? . . . "

For the first time that night a sudden convulsion of madness and ragepassed over his face. His wavering glances darted here and there likescared birds in a thunderstorm. He jumped up, shouting--

"By the spirits that drink blood: by the spirits that cry in the night:by all the spirits of fury, misfortune, and death, I swear--some day Iwill strike into every heart I meet--I . . . "

He looked so dangerous that we all three leaped to our feet, and Hollis, with the back of his hand, sent the kriss flying off the table. Ibelieve we shouted together. It was a short scare, and the next momenthe was again composed in his chair, with three white men standing overhim in rather foolish attitudes. We felt a little ashamed of ourselves. Jackson picked up the kriss, and, after an inquiring glance at me, gaveit to him. He received it with a stately inclination of the head andstuck it in the twist of his sarong, with punctilious care to givehis weapon a pacific position. Then he looked up at us with an austeresmile. We were abashed and reproved. Hollis sat sideways on the tableand, holding his chin in his hand, scrutinized him in pensive silence. Isaid--

"You must abide with your people. They need you. And there isforgetfulness in life. Even the dead cease to speak in time. "

"Am I a woman, to forget long years before an eyelid has had the timeto beat twice?" he exclaimed, with bitter resentment. He startled me. It was amazing. To him his life--that cruel mirage of love andpeace--seemed as real, as undeniable, as theirs would be to any saint, philosopher, or fool of us all. Hollis muttered--

"You won't soothe him with your platitudes. "

Karain spoke to me. 

"You know us. You have lived with us. Why?--we cannot know; but youunderstand our sorrows and our thoughts. You have lived with my people, and you understand our desires and our fears. With you I will go. Toyour land--to your people. To your people, who live in unbelief; to whomday is day, and night is night--nothing more, because you understand allthings seen, and despise all else! To your land of unbelief, where thedead do not speak, where every man is wise, and alone--and at peace!"

"Capital description, " murmured Hollis, with the flicker of a smile. 

Karain hung his head. 

"I can toil, and fight--and be faithful, " he whispered, in a weary tone, "but I cannot go back to him who waits for me on the shore. No! Take mewith you . . . Or else give me some of your strength--of your unbelief. . . . A charm! . . . "

He seemed utterly exhausted. 

"Yes, take him home, " said Hollis, very low, as if debating withhimself. "That would be one way. The ghosts there are in society, andtalk affably to ladies and gentlemen, but would scorn a naked humanbeing--like our princely friend. . . . Naked . . . Flayed! I should say. I am sorry for him. Impossible--of course. The end of all this shallbe, " he went on, looking up at us--"the end of this shall be, that someday he will run amuck amongst his faithful subjects and send 'ad patres'ever so many of them before they make up their minds to the disloyaltyof knocking him on the head. "

I nodded. I thought it more than probable that such would be the end ofKarain. It was evident that he had been hunted by his thought along thevery limit of human endurance, and very little more pressing was neededto make him swerve over into the form of madness peculiar to his race. The respite he had during the old man's life made the return of thetorment unbearable. That much was clear. 

He lifted his head suddenly; we had imagined for a moment that he hadbeen dozing. 

"Give me your protection--or your strength!" he cried. "A charm . . . Aweapon!"

Again his chin fell on his breast. We looked at him, then looked at oneanother with suspicious awe in our eyes, like men who come unexpectedlyupon the scene of some mysterious disaster. He had given himself up tous; he had thrust into our hands his errors and his torment, his lifeand his peace; and we did not know what to do with that problem from theouter darkness. We three white men, looking at the Malay, could not findone word to the purpose amongst us--if indeed there existed a word thatcould solve that problem. We pondered, and our hearts sank. We felt asthough we three had been called to the very gate of Infernal Regions tojudge, to decide the fate of a wanderer coming suddenly from a world ofsunshine and illusions. 

"By Jove, he seems to have a great idea of our power, " whispered Hollis, hopelessly. And then again there was a silence, the feeble plash ofwater, the steady tick of chronometers. Jackson, with bare arms crossed, leaned his shoulders against the bulkhead of the cabin. He was bendinghis head under the deck beam; his fair beard spread out magnificentlyover his chest; he looked colossal, ineffectual, and mild. There wassomething lugubrious in the aspect of the cabin; the air in it seemedto become slowly charged with the cruel chill of helplessness, withthe pitiless anger of egoism against the incomprehensible form of anintruding pain. We had no idea what to do; we began to resent bitterlythe hard necessity to get rid of him. 

Hollis mused, muttered suddenly with a short laugh, "Strength . . . Protection . . . Charm. " He slipped off the table and left the cuddywithout a look at us. It seemed a base desertion. Jackson and Iexchanged indignant glances. We could hear him rummaging in hispigeon-hole of a cabin. Was the fellow actually going to bed? Karainsighed. It was intolerable!

Then Hollis reappeared, holding in both hands a small leather box. Heput it down gently on the table and looked at us with a queer gasp, we thought, as though he had from some cause become speechless for amoment, or were ethically uncertain about producing that box. But inan instant the insolent and unerring wisdom of his youth gave him theneeded courage. He said, as he unlocked the box with a very small key, "Look as solemn as you can, you fellows. "

Probably we looked only surprised and stupid, for he glanced over hisshoulder, and said angrily--

"This is no play; I am going to do something for him. Look serious. Confound it! . . . Can't you lie a little . . . For a friend!"

Karain seemed to take no notice of us, but when Hollis threw open thelid of the box his eyes flew to it--and so did ours. The quilted crimsonsatin of the inside put a violent patch of colour into the sombreatmosphere; it was something positive to look at--it was fascinating. 

VI

Hollis looked smiling into the box. He had lately made a dash homethrough the Canal. He had been away six months, and only joined us againjust in time for this last trip. We had never seen the box before. Hishands hovered above it; and he talked to us ironically, but his facebecame as grave as though he were pronouncing a powerful incantationover the things inside. 

"Every one of us, " he said, with pauses that somehow were more offensivethan his words--"every one of us, you'll admit, has been haunted by somewoman . . . And . . . As to friends . . . Dropped by the way . . . Well!. . . Ask yourselves . . . "

He paused. Karain stared. A deep rumble was heard high up under thedeck. Jackson spoke seriously--

"Don't be so beastly cynical. "

"Ah! You are without guile, " said Hollis, sadly. "You will learn . . . Meantime this Malay has been our friend . . . "

He repeated several times thoughtfully, "Friend . . . Malay. Friend, Malay, " as though weighing the words against one another, then went onmore briskly--

"A good fellow--a gentleman in his way. We can't, so to speak, turnour backs on his confidence and belief in us. Those Malays are easilyimpressed--all nerves, you know--therefore . . . "

He turned to me sharply. 

"You know him best, " he said, in a practical tone. "Do you think he isfanatical--I mean very strict in his faith?"

I stammered in profound amazement that "I did not think so. "

"It's on account of its being a likeness--an engraved image, " mutteredHollis, enigmatically, turning to the box. He plunged his fingers intoit. Karain's lips were parted and his eyes shone. We looked into thebox. 

There were there a couple of reels of cotton, a packet of needles, a bitof silk ribbon, dark blue; a cabinet photograph, at which Hollis stole aglance before laying it on the table face downwards. A girl's portrait, I could see. There were, amongst a lot of various small objects, a bunchof flowers, a narrow white glove with many buttons, a slim packet ofletters carefully tied up. Amulets of white men! Charms and talismans!Charms that keep them straight, that drive them crooked, that have thepower to make a young man sigh, an old man smile. Potent things thatprocure dreams of joy, thoughts of regret; that soften hard hearts, andcan temper a soft one to the hardness of steel. Gifts of heaven--thingsof earth . . . 

Hollis rummaged in the box. 

And it seemed to me, during that moment of waiting, that the cabin ofthe schooner was becoming filled with a stir invisible and living as ofsubtle breaths. All the ghosts driven out of the unbelieving West by menwho pretend to be wise and alone and at peace--all the homeless ghostsof an unbelieving world--appeared suddenly round the figure of Hollisbending over the box; all the exiled and charming shades of loved women;all the beautiful and tender ghosts of ideals, remembered, forgotten, cherished, execrated; all the cast-out and reproachful ghosts of friendsadmired, trusted, traduced, betrayed, left dead by the way--they allseemed to come from the inhospitable regions of the earth to crowdinto the gloomy cabin, as though it had been a refuge and, in all theunbelieving world, the only place of avenging belief. . . . It lasted asecond--all disappeared. Hollis was facing us alone with something smallthat glittered between his fingers. It looked like a coin. 

"Ah! here it is, " he said. 

He held it up. It was a sixpence--a Jubilee sixpence. It was gilt; ithad a hole punched near the rim. Hollis looked towards Karain. 

"A charm for our friend, " he said to us. "The thing itself is of greatpower--money, you know--and his imagination is struck. A loyal vagabond;if only his puritanism doesn't shy at a likeness . . . "

We said nothing. We did not know whether to be scandalized, amused, orrelieved. Hollis advanced towards Karain, who stood up as if startled, and then, holding the coin up, spoke in Malay. 

"This is the image of the Great Queen, and the most powerful thing thewhite men know, " he said, solemnly. 

Karain covered the handle of his kriss in sign of respect, and stared atthe crowned head. 

"The Invincible, the Pious, " he muttered. 

"She is more powerful than Suleiman the Wise, who commanded the genii, as you know, " said Hollis, gravely. "I shall give this to you. "

He held the sixpence in the palm of his hand, and looking at itthoughtfully, spoke to us in English. 

"She commands a spirit, too--the spirit of her nation; a masterful, conscientious, unscrupulous, unconquerable devil . . . That does a lotof good--incidentally . . . A lot of good . . . At times--and wouldn'tstand any fuss from the best ghost out for such a little thing as ourfriend's shot. Don't look thunderstruck, you fellows. Help me to makehim believe--everything's in that. "

"His people will be shocked, " I murmured. 

Hollis looked fixedly at Karain, who was the incarnation of the veryessence of still excitement. He stood rigid, with head thrown back; hiseyes rolled wildly, flashing; the dilated nostrils quivered. 

"Hang it all!" said Hollis at last, "he is a good fellow. I'll give himsomething that I shall really miss. "

He took the ribbon out of the box, smiled at it scornfully, then with apair of scissors cut out a piece from the palm of the glove. 

"I shall make him a thing like those Italian peasants wear, you know. "

He sewed the coin in the delicate leather, sewed the leather to theribbon, tied the ends together. He worked with haste. Karain watched hisfingers all the time. 

"Now then, " he said--then stepped up to Karain. They looked closeinto one another's eyes. Those of Karain stared in a lost glance, butHollis's seemed to grow darker and looked out masterful and compelling. They were in violent contrast together--one motionless and the colourof bronze, the other dazzling white and lifting his arms, where thepowerful muscles rolled slightly under a skin that gleamed like satin. Jackson moved near with the air of a man closing up to a chum in a tightplace. I said impressively, pointing to Hollis--

"He is young, but he is wise. Believe him!"

Karain bent his head: Hollis threw lightly over it the dark-blue ribbonand stepped back. 

"Forget, and be at peace!" I cried. 

Karain seemed to wake up from a dream. He said, "Ha!" shook himself asif throwing off a burden. He looked round with assurance. Someone ondeck dragged off the skylight cover, and a flood of light fell into thecabin. It was morning already. 

"Time to go on deck, " said Jackson. 

Hollis put on a coat, and we went up, Karain leading. 

The sun had risen beyond the hills, and their long shadows stretchedfar over the bay in the pearly light. The air was clear, stainless, andcool. I pointed at the curved line of yellow sands. 

"He is not there, " I said, emphatically, to Karain. "He waits no more. He has departed forever. "

A shaft of bright hot rays darted into the bay between the summitsof two hills, and the water all round broke out as if by magic into adazzling sparkle. 

"No! He is not there waiting, " said Karain, after a long look over thebeach. "I do not hear him, " he went on, slowly. "No!"

He turned to us. 

"He has departed again--forever!" he cried. 

We assented vigorously, repeatedly, and without compunction. The greatthing was to impress him powerfully; to suggest absolute safety--the endof all trouble. We did our best; and I hope we affirmed our faith in thepower of Hollis's charm efficiently enough to put the matter beyond theshadow of a doubt. Our voices rang around him joyously in the still air, and above his head the sky, pellucid, pure, stainless, arched its tenderblue from shore to shore and over the bay, as if to envelop the water, the earth, and the man in the caress of its light. 

The anchor was up, the sails hung still, and half-a-dozen big boats wereseen sweeping over the bay to give us a tow out. The paddlers in thefirst one that came alongside lifted their heads and saw their rulerstanding amongst us. A low murmur of surprise arose--then a shout ofgreeting. 

He left us, and seemed straightway to step into the glorious splendourof his stage, to wrap himself in the illusion of unavoidable success. For a moment he stood erect, one foot over the gangway, one hand on thehilt of his kriss, in a martial pose; and, relieved from the fear ofouter darkness, he held his head high, he swept a serene look over hisconquered foothold on the earth. The boats far off took up the cry ofgreeting; a great clamour rolled on the water; the hills echoed it, andseemed to toss back at him the words invoking long life and victories. 

He descended into a canoe, and as soon as he was clear of the side wegave him three cheers. They sounded faint and orderly after the wildtumult of his loyal subjects, but it was the best we could do. He stoodup in the boat, lifted up both his arms, then pointed to the infalliblecharm. We cheered again; and the Malays in the boats stared--very muchpuzzled and impressed. I wondered what they thought; what he thought;. . . What the reader thinks?

We towed out slowly. We saw him land and watch us from the beach. Afigure approached him humbly but openly--not at all like a ghost witha grievance. We could see other men running towards him. Perhaps he hadbeen missed? At any rate there was a great stir. A group formed itselfrapidly near him, and he walked along the sands, followed by a growingcortege and kept nearly abreast of the schooner. With our glasses wecould see the blue ribbon on his neck and a patch of white on his brownchest. The bay was waking up. The smokes of morning fires stood in faintspirals higher than the heads of palms; people moved between the houses;a herd of buffaloes galloped clumsily across a green slope; the slenderfigures of boys brandishing sticks appeared black and leaping in thelong grass; a coloured line of women, with water bamboos on their heads, moved swaying through a thin grove of fruit-trees. Karain stopped in themidst of his men and waved his hand; then, detaching himself from thesplendid group, walked alone to the water's edge and waved his handagain. The schooner passed out to sea between the steep headlands thatshut in the bay, and at the same instant Karain passed out of our lifeforever. 

But the memory remains. Some years afterwards I met Jackson, in theStrand. He was magnificent as ever. His head was high above the crowd. His beard was gold, his face red, his eyes blue; he had a wide-brimmedgray hat and no collar or waistcoat; he was inspiring; he had justcome home--had landed that very day! Our meeting caused an eddy in thecurrent of humanity. Hurried people would run against us, then walkround us, and turn back to look at that giant. We tried to compressseven years of life into seven exclamations; then, suddenly appeased, walked sedately along, giving one another the news of yesterday. Jacksongazed about him, like a man who looks for landmarks, then stopped beforeBland's window. He always had a passion for firearms; so he stoppedshort and contemplated the row of weapons, perfect and severe, drawn upin a line behind the black-framed panes. I stood by his side. Suddenlyhe said--

"Do you remember Karain?"

I nodded. 

"The sight of all this made me think of him, " he went on, with his facenear the glass . . . And I could see another man, powerful and bearded, peering at him intently from amongst the dark and polished tubesthat can cure so many illusions. "Yes; it made me think of him, " hecontinued, slowly. "I saw a paper this morning; they are fightingover there again. He's sure to be in it. He will make it hot forthe caballeros. Well, good luck to him, poor devil! He was perfectlystunning. "

We walked on. 

"I wonder whether the charm worked--you remember Hollis's charm, ofcourse. If it did . . . Never was a sixpence wasted to better advantage!Poor devil! I wonder whether he got rid of that friend of his. Hope so. . . . Do you know, I sometimes think that--"

I stood still and looked at him. 

"Yes . . . I mean, whether the thing was so, you know . . . Whether itreally happened to him. . . . What do you think?"

"My dear chap, " I cried, "you have been too long away from home. What aquestion to ask! Only look at all this. "

A watery gleam of sunshine flashed from the west and went out betweentwo long lines of walls; and then the broken confusion of roofs, thechimney-stacks, the gold letters sprawling over the fronts of houses, the sombre polish of windows, stood resigned and sullen under thefalling gloom. The whole length of the street, deep as a well and narrowlike a corridor, was full of a sombre and ceaseless stir. Our earswere filled by a headlong shuffle and beat of rapid footsteps and byan underlying rumour--a rumour vast, faint, pulsating, as of pantingbreaths, of beating hearts, of gasping voices. Innumerable eyes staredstraight in front, feet moved hurriedly, blank faces flowed, arms swung. Over all, a narrow ragged strip of smoky sky wound about between thehigh roofs, extended and motionless, like a soiled streamer flying abovethe rout of a mob. 

"Ye-e-e-s, " said Jackson, meditatively. 

The big wheels of hansoms turned slowly along the edge of side-walks;a pale-faced youth strolled, overcome by weariness, by the side of hisstick and with the tails of his overcoat flapping gently near his heels;horses stepped gingerly on the greasy pavement, tossing their heads; twoyoung girls passed by, talking vivaciously and with shining eyes; a fineold fellow strutted, red-faced, stroking a white moustache; and a lineof yellow boards with blue letters on them approached us slowly, tossingon high behind one another like some queer wreckage adrift upon a riverof hats. 

"Ye-e-es, " repeated Jackson. His clear blue eyes looked about, contemptuous, amused and hard, like the eyes of a boy. A clumsy stringof red, yellow, and green omnibuses rolled swaying, monstrous and gaudy;two shabby children ran across the road; a knot of dirty men withred neckerchiefs round their bare throats lurched along, discussingfilthily; a ragged old man with a face of despair yelled horribly inthe mud the name of a paper; while far off, amongst the tossing heads ofhorses, the dull flash of harnesses, the jumble of lustrous panelsand roofs of carriages, we could see a policeman, helmeted and dark, stretching out a rigid arm at the crossing of the streets. 

"Yes; I see it, " said Jackson, slowly. "It is there; it pants, it runs, it rolls; it is strong and alive; it would smash you if you didn't lookout; but I'll be hanged if it is yet as real to me as . . . As the otherthing . . . Say, Karain's story. "

I think that, decidedly, he had been too long away from home. 

THE IDIOTS

We were driving along the road from Treguier to Kervanda. We passed at asmart trot between the hedges topping an earth wall on each side ofthe road; then at the foot of the steep ascent before Ploumar the horsedropped into a walk, and the driver jumped down heavily from the box. He flicked his whip and climbed the incline, stepping clumsily uphillby the side of the carriage, one hand on the footboard, his eyes on theground. After a while he lifted his head, pointed up the road with theend of the whip, and said--

"The idiot!"

The sun was shining violently upon the undulating surface of the land. The rises were topped by clumps of meagre trees, with their branchesshowing high on the sky as if they had been perched upon stilts. Thesmall fields, cut up by hedges and stone walls that zig-zagged overthe slopes, lay in rectangular patches of vivid greens and yellows, resembling the unskilful daubs of a naive picture. And the landscape wasdivided in two by the white streak of a road stretching in long loopsfar away, like a river of dust crawling out of the hills on its way tothe sea. 

"Here he is, " said the driver, again. 

In the long grass bordering the road a face glided past the carriageat the level of the wheels as we drove slowly by. The imbecile face wasred, and the bullet head with close-cropped hair seemed to lie alone, its chin in the dust. The body was lost in the bushes growing thickalong the bottom of the deep ditch. 

It was a boy's face. He might have been sixteen, judging from thesize--perhaps less, perhaps more. Such creatures are forgotten bytime, and live untouched by years till death gathers them up into itscompassionate bosom; the faithful death that never forgets in the pressof work the most insignificant of its children. 

"Ah! there's another, " said the man, with a certain satisfaction in histone, as if he had caught sight of something expected. 

There was another. That one stood nearly in the middle of the road inthe blaze of sunshine at the end of his own short shadow. And he stoodwith hands pushed into the opposite sleeves of his long coat, his headsunk between the shoulders, all hunched up in the flood of heat. From adistance he had the aspect of one suffering from intense cold. 

"Those are twins, " explained the driver. 

The idiot shuffled two paces out of the way and looked at us over hisshoulder when we brushed past him. The glance was unseeing and staring, a fascinated glance; but he did not turn to look after us. Probably theimage passed before the eyes without leaving any trace on the misshapenbrain of the creature. When we had topped the ascent I looked over thehood. He stood in the road just where we had left him. 

The driver clambered into his seat, clicked his tongue, and we wentdownhill. The brake squeaked horribly from time to time. At the foot heeased off the noisy mechanism and said, turning half round on his box--

"We shall see some more of them by-and-by. "

"More idiots? How many of them are there, then?" I asked. 

"There's four of them--children of a farmer near Ploumar here. . . . Theparents are dead now, " he added, after a while. "The grandmother liveson the farm. In the daytime they knock about on this road, and they comehome at dusk along with the cattle. . . . It's a good farm. "

We saw the other two: a boy and a girl, as the driver said. They weredressed exactly alike, in shapeless garments with petticoat-like skirts. The imperfect thing that lived within them moved those beings to howlat us from the top of the bank, where they sprawled amongst the toughstalks of furze. Their cropped black heads stuck out from the brightyellow wall of countless small blossoms. The faces were purple withthe strain of yelling; the voices sounded blank and cracked like amechanical imitation of old people's voices; and suddenly ceased when weturned into a lane. 

I saw them many times in my wandering about the country. They lived onthat road, drifting along its length here and there, according to theinexplicable impulses of their monstrous darkness. They were anoffence to the sunshine, a reproach to empty heaven, a blight on theconcentrated and purposeful vigour of the wild landscape. In time thestory of their parents shaped itself before me out of the listlessanswers to my questions, out of the indifferent words heard in waysideinns or on the very road those idiots haunted. Some of it was told byan emaciated and sceptical old fellow with a tremendous whip, while wetrudged together over the sands by the side of a two-wheeled cart loadedwith dripping seaweed. Then at other times other people confirmed andcompleted the story: till it stood at last before me, a tale formidableand simple, as they always are, those disclosures of obscure trialsendured by ignorant hearts. 

When he returned from his military service Jean-Pierre Bacadou found theold people very much aged. He remarked with pain that the work of thefarm was not satisfactorily done. The father had not the energy ofold days. The hands did not feel over them the eye of the master. Jean-Pierre noted with sorrow that the heap of manure in the courtyardbefore the only entrance to the house was not so large as it shouldhave been. The fences were out of repair, and the cattle suffered fromneglect. At home the mother was practically bedridden, and the girlschattered loudly in the big kitchen, unrebuked, from morning to night. He said to himself: "We must change all this. " He talked the matter overwith his father one evening when the rays of the setting sun enteringthe yard between the outhouses ruled the heavy shadows with luminousstreaks. Over the manure heap floated a mist, opal-tinted and odorous, and the marauding hens would stop in their scratching to examine witha sudden glance of their round eye the two men, both lean and tall, talking in hoarse tones. The old man, all twisted with rheumatism andbowed with years of work, the younger bony and straight, spoke withoutgestures in the indifferent manner of peasants, grave and slow. But before the sun had set the father had submitted to the sensiblearguments of the son. "It is not for me that I am speaking, " insistedJean-Pierre. "It is for the land. It's a pity to see it badly used. I amnot impatient for myself. " The old fellow nodded over his stick. "I daresay; I dare say, " he muttered. "You may be right. Do what you like. It'sthe mother that will be pleased. "

The mother was pleased with her daughter-in-law. Jean-Pierre broughtthe two-wheeled spring-cart with a rush into the yard. The gray horsegalloped clumsily, and the bride and bridegroom, sitting side by side, were jerked backwards and forwards by the up and down motion of theshafts, in a manner regular and brusque. On the road the distancedwedding guests straggled in pairs and groups. The men advanced withheavy steps, swinging their idle arms. They were clad in town clothes;jackets cut with clumsy smartness, hard black hats, immense boots, polished highly. Their women all in simple black, with white caps andshawls of faded tints folded triangularly on the back, strolled lightlyby their side. In front the violin sang a strident tune, and the biniousnored and hummed, while the player capered solemnly, lifting high hisheavy clogs. The sombre procession drifted in and out of the narrowlanes, through sunshine and through shade, between fields and hedgerows, scaring the little birds that darted away in troops right and left. Inthe yard of Bacadou's farm the dark ribbon wound itself up into a massof men and women pushing at the door with cries and greetings. Thewedding dinner was remembered for months. It was a splendid feast in theorchard. Farmers of considerable means and excellent repute were to befound sleeping in ditches, all along the road to Treguier, even as lateas the afternoon of the next day. All the countryside participated inthe happiness of Jean-Pierre. He remained sober, and, together with hisquiet wife, kept out of the way, letting father and mother reap theirdue of honour and thanks. But the next day he took hold strongly, andthe old folks felt a shadow--precursor of the grave--fall upon themfinally. The world is to the young. 

When the twins were born there was plenty of room in the house, for themother of Jean-Pierre had gone away to dwell under a heavy stone in thecemetery of Ploumar. On that day, for the first time since his son'smarriage, the elder Bacadou, neglected by the cackling lot of strangewomen who thronged the kitchen, left in the morning his seat under themantel of the fireplace, and went into the empty cow-house, shaking hiswhite locks dismally. Grandsons were all very well, but he wanted hissoup at midday. When shown the babies, he stared at them with a fixedgaze, and muttered something like: "It's too much. " Whether he meant toomuch happiness, or simply commented upon the number of his descendants, it is impossible to say. He looked offended--as far as his old woodenface could express anything; and for days afterwards could be seen, almost any time of the day, sitting at the gate, with his nose over hisknees, a pipe between his gums, and gathered up into a kind of ragingconcentrated sulkiness. Once he spoke to his son, alluding to thenewcomers with a groan: "They will quarrel over the land. " "Don't botherabout that, father, " answered Jean-Pierre, stolidly, and passed, bentdouble, towing a recalcitrant cow over his shoulder. 

He was happy, and so was Susan, his wife. It was not an ethereal joywelcoming new souls to struggle, perchance to victory. In fourteen yearsboth boys would be a help; and, later on, Jean-Pierre pictured two bigsons striding over the land from patch to patch, wringing tribute fromthe earth beloved and fruitful. Susan was happy too, for she did notwant to be spoken of as the unfortunate woman, and now she had childrenno one could call her that. Both herself and her husband had seensomething of the larger world--he during the time of his service; whileshe had spent a year or so in Paris with a Breton family; but had beentoo home-sick to remain longer away from the hilly and green country, set in a barren circle of rocks and sands, where she had been born. She thought that one of the boys ought perhaps to be a priest, but saidnothing to her husband, who was a republican, and hated the "crows, "as he called the ministers of religion. The christening was a splendidaffair. All the commune came to it, for the Bacadous were richand influential, and, now and then, did not mind the expense. Thegrandfather had a new coat. 

Some months afterwards, one evening when the kitchen had been swept, and the door locked, Jean-Pierre, looking at the cot, asked his wife:"What's the matter with those children?" And, as if these words, spokencalmly, had been the portent of misfortune, she answered with a loudwail that must have been heard across the yard in the pig-sty; forthe pigs (the Bacadous had the finest pigs in the country) stirred andgrunted complainingly in the night. The husband went on grinding hisbread and butter slowly, gazing at the wall, the soup-plate smokingunder his chin. He had returned late from the market, where he hadoverheard (not for the first time) whispers behind his back. He revolvedthe words in his mind as he drove back. "Simple! Both of them. . . . Never any use! . . . Well! May be, may be. One must see. Would ask hiswife. " This was her answer. He felt like a blow on his chest, but saidonly: "Go, draw me some cider. I am thirsty!"

She went out moaning, an empty jug in her hand. Then he arose, took upthe light, and moved slowly towards the cradle. They slept. He looked atthem sideways, finished his mouthful there, went back heavily, and satdown before his plate. When his wife returned he never looked up, but swallowed a couple of spoonfuls noisily, and remarked, in a dullmanner--

"When they sleep they are like other people's children. "

She sat down suddenly on a stool near by, and shook with a silenttempest of sobs, unable to speak. He finished his meal, and remainedidly thrown back in his chair, his eyes lost amongst the black raftersof the ceiling. Before him the tallow candle flared red and straight, sending up a slender thread of smoke. The light lay on the rough, sunburnt skin of his throat; the sunk cheeks were like patches ofdarkness, and his aspect was mournfully stolid, as if he had ruminatedwith difficulty endless ideas. Then he said, deliberately--

"We must see . . . Consult people. Don't cry. . . . They won't all belike that . . . Surely! We must sleep now. "

After the third child, also a boy, was born, Jean-Pierre went about hiswork with tense hopefulness. His lips seemed more narrow, more tightlycompressed than before; as if for fear of letting the earth he tilledhear the voice of hope that murmured within his breast. He watched thechild, stepping up to the cot with a heavy clang of sabots on the stonefloor, and glanced in, along his shoulder, with that indifference whichis like a deformity of peasant humanity. Like the earth they master andserve, those men, slow of eye and speech, do not show the inner fire; sothat, at last, it becomes a question with them as with the earth, what there is in the core: heat, violence, a force mysterious andterrible--or nothing but a clod, a mass fertile and inert, cold andunfeeling, ready to bear a crop of plants that sustain life or givedeath. 

The mother watched with other eyes; listened with otherwise expectantears. Under the high hanging shelves supporting great sides of baconoverhead, her body was busy by the great fireplace, attentive to the potswinging on iron gallows, scrubbing the long table where the field handswould sit down directly to their evening meal. Her mind remained by thecradle, night and day on the watch, to hope and suffer. That child, likethe other two, never smiled, never stretched its hands to her, neverspoke; never had a glance of recognition for her in its big black eyes, which could only stare fixedly at any glitter, but failed hopelessly tofollow the brilliance of a sun-ray slipping slowly along the floor. When the men were at work she spent long days between her three idiotchildren and the childish grandfather, who sat grim, angular, andimmovable, with his feet near the warm ashes of the fire. The feebleold fellow seemed to suspect that there was something wrong with hisgrandsons. Only once, moved either by affection or by the sense ofproprieties, he attempted to nurse the youngest. He took the boy up fromthe floor, clicked his tongue at him, and essayed a shaky gallop of hisbony knees. Then he looked closely with his misty eyes at the child'sface and deposited him down gently on the floor again. And he sat, hislean shanks crossed, nodding at the steam escaping from the cooking-potwith a gaze senile and worried. 

Then mute affliction dwelt in Bacadou's farmhouse, sharing the breathand the bread of its inhabitants; and the priest of the Ploumar parishhad great cause for congratulation. He called upon the rich landowner, the Marquis de Chavanes, on purpose to deliver himself with joyfulunction of solemn platitudes about the inscrutable ways of Providence. In the vast dimness of the curtained drawing-room, the little man, resembling a black bolster, leaned towards a couch, his hat onhis knees, and gesticulated with a fat hand at the elongated, gracefully-flowing lines of the clear Parisian toilette from which thehalf-amused, half-bored marquise listened with gracious languor. He wasexulting and humble, proud and awed. The impossible had come to pass. Jean-Pierre Bacadou, the enraged republican farmer, had been to masslast Sunday--had proposed to entertain the visiting priests at the nextfestival of Ploumar! It was a triumph for the Church and for the goodcause. "I thought I would come at once to tell Monsieur le Marquis. Iknow how anxious he is for the welfare of our country, " declared thepriest, wiping his face. He was asked to stay to dinner. 

The Chavanes returning that evening, after seeing their guest to themain gate of the park, discussed the matter while they strolled inthe moonlight, trailing their long shadows up the straight avenue ofchestnuts. The marquise, a royalist of course, had been mayor of thecommune which includes Ploumar, the scattered hamlets of the coast, andthe stony islands that fringe the yellow flatness of the sands. He hadfelt his position insecure, for there was a strong republican element inthat part of the country; but now the conversion of Jean-Pierre madehim safe. He was very pleased. "You have no idea how influentialthose people are, " he explained to his wife. "Now, I am sure, the nextcommunal election will go all right. I shall be re-elected. " "Yourambition is perfectly insatiable, Charles, " exclaimed the marquise, gaily. "But, ma chere amie, " argued the husband, seriously, "it's mostimportant that the right man should be mayor this year, because of theelections to the Chamber. If you think it amuses me . . . "

Jean-Pierre had surrendered to his wife's mother. Madame Levaille wasa woman of business, known and respected within a radius of at leastfifteen miles. Thick-set and stout, she was seen about the country, onfoot or in an acquaintance's cart, perpetually moving, in spite of herfifty-eight years, in steady pursuit of business. She had houses in allthe hamlets, she worked quarries of granite, she freighted coasterswith stone--even traded with the Channel Islands. She was broad-cheeked, wide-eyed, persuasive in speech: carrying her point with the placid andinvincible obstinacy of an old woman who knows her own mind. She veryseldom slept for two nights together in the same house; and the waysideinns were the best places to inquire in as to her whereabouts. She hadeither passed, or was expected to pass there at six; or somebody, comingin, had seen her in the morning, or expected to meet her that evening. After the inns that command the roads, the churches were the buildingsshe frequented most. Men of liberal opinions would induce small childrento run into sacred edifices to see whether Madame Levaille was there, and to tell her that so-and-so was in the road waiting to speak to herabout potatoes, or flour, or stones, or houses; and she would curtailher devotions, come out blinking and crossing herself into the sunshine;ready to discuss business matters in a calm, sensible way across a tablein the kitchen of the inn opposite. Latterly she had stayed for a fewdays several times with her son-in-law, arguing against sorrow andmisfortune with composed face and gentle tones. Jean-Pierre felt theconvictions imbibed in the regiment torn out of his breast--not byarguments but by facts. Striding over his fields he thought it over. There were three of them. Three! All alike! Why? Such things did nothappen to everybody--to nobody he ever heard of. One--might pass. Butthree! All three. Forever useless, to be fed while he lived and . . . What would become of the land when he died? This must be seen to. Hewould sacrifice his convictions. One day he told his wife--

"See what your God will do for us. Pay for some masses. "

Susan embraced her man. He stood unbending, then turned on his heels andwent out. But afterwards, when a black soutane darkened his doorway, he did not object; even offered some cider himself to the priest. He listened to the talk meekly; went to mass between the two women;accomplished what the priest called "his religious duties" at Easter. That morning he felt like a man who had sold his soul. In the afternoonhe fought ferociously with an old friend and neighbour who had remarkedthat the priests had the best of it and were now going to eat thepriest-eater. He came home dishevelled and bleeding, and happening tocatch sight of his children (they were kept generally out of the way), cursed and swore incoherently, banging the table. Susan wept. MadameLevaille sat serenely unmoved. She assured her daughter that "It willpass;" and taking up her thick umbrella, departed in haste to see aftera schooner she was going to load with granite from her quarry. 

A year or so afterwards the girl was born. A girl. Jean-Pierre heard ofit in the fields, and was so upset by the news that he sat down on theboundary wall and remained there till the evening, instead of going homeas he was urged to do. A girl! He felt half cheated. However, when hegot home he was partly reconciled to his fate. One could marry her toa good fellow--not to a good for nothing, but to a fellow with someunderstanding and a good pair of arms. Besides, the next may be a boy, he thought. Of course they would be all right. His new credulity knewof no doubt. The ill luck was broken. He spoke cheerily to his wife. She was also hopeful. Three priests came to that christening, and MadameLevaille was godmother. The child turned out an idiot too. 

Then on market days Jean-Pierre was seen bargaining bitterly, quarrelsome and greedy; then getting drunk with taciturn earnestness;then driving home in the dusk at a rate fit for a wedding, but with aface gloomy enough for a funeral. Sometimes he would insist on his wifecoming with him; and they would drive in the early morning, shaking sideby side on the narrow seat above the helpless pig, that, with tied legs, grunted a melancholy sigh at every rut. The morning drives were silent;but in the evening, coming home, Jean-Pierre, tipsy, was viciouslymuttering, and growled at the confounded woman who could not rearchildren that were like anybody else's. Susan, holding on against theerratic swayings of the cart, pretended not to hear. Once, as they weredriving through Ploumar, some obscure and drunken impulse caused him topull up sharply opposite the church. The moon swam amongst light whiteclouds. The tombstones gleamed pale under the fretted shadows ofthe trees in the churchyard. Even the village dogs slept. Only thenightingales, awake, spun out the thrill of their song above the silenceof graves. Jean-Pierre said thickly to his wife--

"What do you think is there?"

He pointed his whip at the tower--in which the big dial of the clockappeared high in the moonlight like a pallid face without eyes--andgetting out carefully, fell down at once by the wheel. He pickedhimself up and climbed one by one the few steps to the iron gate of thechurchyard. He put his face to the bars and called out indistinctly--

"Hey there! Come out!"

"Jean! Return! Return!" entreated his wife in low tones. 

He took no notice, and seemed to wait there. The song of nightingalesbeat on all sides against the high walls of the church, and flowed backbetween stone crosses and flat gray slabs, engraved with words of hopeand sorrow. 

"Hey! Come out!" shouted Jean-Pierre, loudly. 

The nightingales ceased to sing. 

"Nobody?" went on Jean-Pierre. "Nobody there. A swindle of the crows. That's what this is. Nobody anywhere. I despise it. _Allez! Houp!_"

He shook the gate with all his strength, and the iron bars rattled witha frightful clanging, like a chain dragged over stone steps. A dognear by barked hurriedly. Jean-Pierre staggered back, and after threesuccessive dashes got into his cart. Susan sat very quiet and still. Hesaid to her with drunken severity--

"See? Nobody. I've been made a fool! _Malheur!_ Somebody will pay for it. The next one I see near the house I will lay my whip on . . . On theblack spine . . . I will. I don't want him in there . . . He only helpsthe carrion crows to rob poor folk. I am a man. . . . We will see ifI can't have children like anybody else . . . Now you mind. . . . Theywon't be all . . . All . . . We see. . . . "

She burst out through the fingers that hid her face--

"Don't say that, Jean; don't say that, my man!"

He struck her a swinging blow on the head with the back of his handand knocked her into the bottom of the cart, where she crouched, thrown about lamentably by every jolt. He drove furiously, standingup, brandishing his whip, shaking the reins over the gray horse thatgalloped ponderously, making the heavy harness leap upon his broadquarters. The country rang clamorous in the night with the irritatedbarking of farm dogs, that followed the rattle of wheels all along theroad. A couple of belated wayfarers had only just time to step into theditch. At his own gate he caught the post and was shot out of the carthead first. The horse went on slowly to the door. At Susan's piercingcries the farm hands rushed out. She thought him dead, but he was onlysleeping where he fell, and cursed his men, who hastened to him, fordisturbing his slumbers. 

Autumn came. The clouded sky descended low upon the black contoursof the hills; and the dead leaves danced in spiral whirls under nakedtrees, till the wind, sighing profoundly, laid them to rest in thehollows of bare valleys. And from morning till night one could see allover the land black denuded boughs, the boughs gnarled and twisted, asif contorted with pain, swaying sadly between the wet clouds andthe soaked earth. The clear and gentle streams of summer days rusheddiscoloured and raging at the stones that barred the way to the sea, with the fury of madness bent upon suicide. From horizon to horizon thegreat road to the sands lay between the hills in a dull glitter of emptycurves, resembling an unnavigable river of mud. 

Jean-Pierre went from field to field, moving blurred and tall in thedrizzle, or striding on the crests of rises, lonely and high upon thegray curtain of drifting clouds, as if he had been pacing along the veryedge of the universe. He looked at the black earth, at the earthmute and promising, at the mysterious earth doing its work of life indeath-like stillness under the veiled sorrow of the sky. And it seemedto him that to a man worse than childless there was no promise inthe fertility of fields, that from him the earth escaped, defied him, frowned at him like the clouds, sombre and hurried above his head. Having to face alone his own fields, he felt the inferiority of man whopasses away before the clod that remains. Must he give up the hope ofhaving by his side a son who would look at the turned-up sods with amaster's eye? A man that would think as he thought, that would feel ashe felt; a man who would be part of himself, and yet remain to tramplemasterfully on that earth when he was gone? He thought of some distantrelations, and felt savage enough to curse them aloud. They! Never! Heturned homewards, going straight at the roof of his dwelling, visiblebetween the enlaced skeletons of trees. As he swung his legs over thestile a cawing flock of birds settled slowly on the field; dropped downbehind his back, noiseless and fluttering, like flakes of soot. 

That day Madame Levaille had gone early in the afternoon to the houseshe had near Kervanion. She had to pay some of the men who worked in hergranite quarry there, and she went in good time because her little housecontained a shop where the workmen could spend their wages without thetrouble of going to town. The house stood alone amongst rocks. A laneof mud and stones ended at the door. The sea-winds coming ashore onStonecutter's point, fresh from the fierce turmoil of the waves, howledviolently at the unmoved heaps of black boulders holding up steadilyshort-armed, high crosses against the tremendous rush of the invisible. In the sweep of gales the sheltered dwelling stood in a calm resonantand disquieting, like the calm in the centre of a hurricane. On stormynights, when the tide was out, the bay of Fougere, fifty feet below thehouse, resembled an immense black pit, from which ascended mutteringsand sighs as if the sands down there had been alive and complaining. At high tide the returning water assaulted the ledges of rock in shortrushes, ending in bursts of livid light and columns of spray, that flewinland, stinging to death the grass of pastures. 

The darkness came from the hills, flowed over the coast, put out the redfires of sunset, and went on to seaward pursuing the retiring tide. Thewind dropped with the sun, leaving a maddened sea and a devastated sky. The heavens above the house seemed to be draped in black rags, held uphere and there by pins of fire. Madame Levaille, for this evening theservant of her own workmen, tried to induce them to depart. "An oldwoman like me ought to be in bed at this late hour, " she good-humouredlyrepeated. The quarrymen drank, asked for more. They shouted over thetable as if they had been talking across a field. At one end fourof them played cards, banging the wood with their hard knuckles, andswearing at every lead. One sat with a lost gaze, humming a bar ofsome song, which he repeated endlessly. Two others, in a corner, werequarrelling confidentially and fiercely over some woman, looking closeinto one another's eyes as if they had wanted to tear them out, butspeaking in whispers that promised violence and murder discreetly, in avenomous sibillation of subdued words. The atmosphere in there was thickenough to slice with a knife. Three candles burning about the long roomglowed red and dull like sparks expiring in ashes. 

The slight click of the iron latch was at that late hour as unexpectedand startling as a thunder-clap. Madame Levaille put down a bottleshe held above a liqueur glass; the players turned their heads; thewhispered quarrel ceased; only the singer, after darting a glance at thedoor, went on humming with a stolid face. Susan appeared in the doorway, stepped in, flung the door to, and put her back against it, saying, halfaloud--

"Mother!"

Madame Levaille, taking up the bottle again, said calmly: "Here you are, my girl. What a state you are in!" The neck of the bottle rang on therim of the glass, for the old woman was startled, and the idea that thefarm had caught fire had entered her head. She could think of no othercause for her daughter's appearance. 

Susan, soaked and muddy, stared the whole length of the room towards themen at the far end. Her mother asked--

"What has happened? God guard us from misfortune!"

Susan moved her lips. No sound came. Madame Levaille stepped up to herdaughter, took her by the arm, looked into her face. 

"In God's name, " she said, shakily, "what's the matter? You have beenrolling in mud. . . . Why did you come? . . . Where's Jean?"

The men had all got up and approached slowly, staring with dullsurprise. Madame Levaille jerked her daughter away from the door, swungher round upon a seat close to the wall. Then she turned fiercely to themen--

"Enough of this! Out you go--you others! I close. "

One of them observed, looking down at Susan collapsed on the seat: "Sheis--one may say--half dead. "

Madame Levaille flung the door open. 

"Get out! March!" she cried, shaking nervously. 

They dropped out into the night, laughing stupidly. Outside, the twoLotharios broke out into loud shouts. The others tried to soothe them, all talking at once. The noise went away up the lane with the men, who staggered together in a tight knot, remonstrating with one anotherfoolishly. 

"Speak, Susan. What is it? Speak!" entreated Madame Levaille, as soon asthe door was shut. 

Susan pronounced some incomprehensible words, glaring at the table. Theold woman clapped her hands above her head, let them drop, and stoodlooking at her daughter with disconsolate eyes. Her husband had been"deranged in his head" for a few years before he died, and now she beganto suspect her daughter was going mad. She asked, pressingly--

"Does Jean know where you are? Where is Jean?"

"He knows . . . He is dead. "

"What!" cried the old woman. She came up near, and peering at herdaughter, repeated three times: "What do you say? What do you say? Whatdo you say?"

Susan sat dry-eyed and stony before Madame Levaille, who contemplatedher, feeling a strange sense of inexplicable horror creep into thesilence of the house. She had hardly realised the news, further than tounderstand that she had been brought in one short moment face to facewith something unexpected and final. It did not even occur to her to askfor any explanation. She thought: accident--terrible accident--blood tothe head--fell down a trap door in the loft. . . . She remained there, distracted and mute, blinking her old eyes. 

Suddenly, Susan said--

"I have killed him. "

For a moment the mother stood still, almost unbreathing, but withcomposed face. The next second she burst out into a shout--

"You miserable madwoman . . . They will cut your neck. . . . "

She fancied the gendarmes entering the house, saying to her: "We wantyour daughter; give her up:" the gendarmes with the severe, hard facesof men on duty. She knew the brigadier well--an old friend, familiarand respectful, saying heartily, "To your good health, Madame!" beforelifting to his lips the small glass of cognac--out of the special bottleshe kept for friends. And now! . . . She was losing her head. She rushedhere and there, as if looking for something urgently needed--gave thatup, stood stock still in the middle of the room, and screamed at herdaughter--

"Why? Say! Say! Why?"

The other seemed to leap out of her strange apathy. 

"Do you think I am made of stone?" she shouted back, striding towardsher mother. 

"No! It's impossible . . . " said Madame Levaille, in a convinced tone. 

"You go and see, mother, " retorted Susan, looking at her with blazingeyes. "There's no money in heaven--no justice. No! . . . I did not know. . . . Do you think I have no heart? Do you think I have never heardpeople jeering at me, pitying me, wondering at me? Do you know how someof them were calling me? The mother of idiots--that was my nickname!And my children never would know me, never speak to me. They would knownothing; neither men--nor God. Haven't I prayed! But the Mother of Godherself would not hear me. A mother! . . . Who is accursed--I, or theman who is dead? Eh? Tell me. I took care of myself. Do you think Iwould defy the anger of God and have my house full of those things--thatare worse than animals who know the hand that feeds them? Who blasphemedin the night at the very church door? Was it I? . . . I only wept andprayed for mercy . . . And I feel the curse at every moment of theday--I see it round me from morning to night . . . I've got to keep themalive--to take care of my misfortune and shame. And he would come. Ibegged him and Heaven for mercy. . . . No! . . . Then we shall see. . . . He came this evening. I thought to myself: 'Ah! again!' . . . I hadmy long scissors. I heard him shouting . . . I saw him near. . . . Imust--must I? . . . Then take! . . . And I struck him in the throatabove the breastbone. . . . I never heard him even sigh. . . . I lefthim standing. . . . It was a minute ago. How did I come here?"

Madame Levaille shivered. A wave of cold ran down her back, down herfat arms under her tight sleeves, made her stamp gently where she stood. Quivers ran over the broad cheeks, across the thin lips, ran amongst thewrinkles at the corners of her steady old eyes. She stammered--

"You wicked woman--you disgrace me. But there! You always resembled yourfather. What do you think will become of you . . . In the other world?In this . . . Oh misery!"

She was very hot now. She felt burning inside. She wrung her perspiringhands--and suddenly, starting in great haste, began to look for her bigshawl and umbrella, feverishly, never once glancing at her daughter, whostood in the middle of the room following her with a gaze distracted andcold. 

"Nothing worse than in this, " said Susan. 

Her mother, umbrella in hand and trailing the shawl over the floor, groaned profoundly. 

"I must go to the priest, " she burst out passionately. "I do not knowwhether you even speak the truth! You are a horrible woman. They willfind you anywhere. You may stay here--or go. There is no room for you inthis world. "

Ready now to depart, she yet wandered aimlessly about the room, puttingthe bottles on the shelf, trying to fit with trembling hands the coverson cardboard boxes. Whenever the real sense of what she had heardemerged for a second from the haze of her thoughts she would fancy thatsomething had exploded in her brain without, unfortunately, bursting herhead to pieces--which would have been a relief. She blew the candlesout one by one without knowing it, and was horribly startled by thedarkness. She fell on a bench and began to whimper. After a while sheceased, and sat listening to the breathing of her daughter, whom shecould hardly see, still and upright, giving no other sign of life. Shewas becoming old rapidly at last, during those minutes. She spoke intones unsteady, cut about by the rattle of teeth, like one shaken by adeadly cold fit of ague. 

"I wish you had died little. I will never dare to show my old head inthe sunshine again. There are worse misfortunes than idiot children. Iwish you had been born to me simple--like your own. . . . "

She saw the figure of her daughter pass before the faint and lividclearness of a window. Then it appeared in the doorway for a second, andthe door swung to with a clang. Madame Levaille, as if awakened by thenoise from a long nightmare, rushed out. 

"Susan!" she shouted from the doorstep. 

She heard a stone roll a long time down the declivity of the rocky beachabove the sands. She stepped forward cautiously, one hand on the wallof the house, and peered down into the smooth darkness of the empty bay. Once again she cried--

"Susan! You will kill yourself there. "

The stone had taken its last leap in the dark, and she heard nothingnow. A sudden thought seemed to strangle her, and she called no more. She turned her back upon the black silence of the pit and went up thelane towards Ploumar, stumbling along with sombre determination, as ifshe had started on a desperate journey that would last, perhaps, to theend of her life. A sullen and periodic clamour of waves rolling overreefs followed her far inland between the high hedges sheltering thegloomy solitude of the fields. 

Susan had run out, swerving sharp to the left at the door, and on theedge of the slope crouched down behind a boulder. A dislodged stone wenton downwards, rattling as it leaped. When Madame Levaille called out, Susan could have, by stretching her hand, touched her mother's skirt, had she had the courage to move a limb. She saw the old woman go away, and she remained still, closing her eyes and pressing her side to thehard and rugged surface of the rock. After a while a familiar face withfixed eyes and an open mouth became visible in the intense obscurityamongst the boulders. She uttered a low cry and stood up. The facevanished, leaving her to gasp and shiver alone in the wilderness ofstone heaps. But as soon as she had crouched down again to rest, withher head against the rock, the face returned, came very near, appearedeager to finish the speech that had been cut short by death, only amoment ago. She scrambled quickly to her feet and said: "Go away, or Iwill do it again. " The thing wavered, swung to the right, to the left. She moved this way and that, stepped back, fancied herself screamingat it, and was appalled by the unbroken stillness of the night. Shetottered on the brink, felt the steep declivity under her feet, andrushed down blindly to save herself from a headlong fall. The shingleseemed to wake up; the pebbles began to roll before her, pursued herfrom above, raced down with her on both sides, rolling past with anincreasing clatter. In the peace of the night the noise grew, deepeningto a rumour, continuous and violent, as if the whole semicircle of thestony beach had started to tumble down into the bay. Susan's feet hardlytouched the slope that seemed to run down with her. At the bottom shestumbled, shot forward, throwing her arms out, and fell heavily. Shejumped up at once and turned swiftly to look back, her clenched handsfull of sand she had clutched in her fall. The face was there, keepingits distance, visible in its own sheen that made a pale stain in thenight. She shouted, "Go away!"--she shouted at it with pain, with fear, with all the rage of that useless stab that could not keep him quiet, keep him out of her sight. What did he want now? He was dead. Deadmen have no children. Would he never leave her alone? She shriekedat it--waved her outstretched hands. She seemed to feel the breath ofparted lips, and, with a long cry of discouragement, fled across thelevel bottom of the bay. 

She ran lightly, unaware of any effort of her body. High sharp rocksthat, when the bay is full, show above the glittering plain of bluewater like pointed towers of submerged churches, glided past her, rushing to the land at a tremendous pace. To the left, in the distance, she could see something shining: a broad disc of light in which narrowshadows pivoted round the centre like the spokes of a wheel. She hearda voice calling, "Hey! There!" and answered with a wild scream. So, hecould call yet! He was calling after her to stop. Never! . . . She torethrough the night, past the startled group of seaweed-gatherers whostood round their lantern paralysed with fear at the unearthly screechcoming from that fleeing shadow. The men leaned on their pitchforksstaring fearfully. A woman fell on her knees, and, crossing herself, began to pray aloud. A little girl with her ragged skirt full of slimyseaweed began to sob despairingly, lugging her soaked burden close tothe man who carried the light. Somebody said: "The thing ran out towardsthe sea. " Another voice exclaimed: "And the sea is coming back! Look atthe spreading puddles. Do you hear--you woman--there! Get up!" Severalvoices cried together. "Yes, let us be off! Let the accursed thing go tothe sea!" They moved on, keeping close round the light. Suddenly a manswore loudly. He would go and see what was the matter. It had been awoman's voice. He would go. There were shrill protests from women--buthis high form detached itself from the group and went off running. Theysent an unanimous call of scared voices after him. A word, insulting andmocking, came back, thrown at them through the darkness. A woman moaned. An old man said gravely: "Such things ought to be left alone. " They wenton slower, shuffling in the yielding sand and whispering to one anotherthat Millot feared nothing, having no religion, but that it would endbadly some day. 

Susan met the incoming tide by the Raven islet and stopped, panting, with her feet in the water. She heard the murmur and felt the coldcaress of the sea, and, calmer now, could see the sombre and confusedmass of the Raven on one side and on the other the long white streak ofMolene sands that are left high above the dry bottom of Fougere Bayat every ebb. She turned round and saw far away, along the starredbackground of the sky, the ragged outline of the coast. Above it, nearlyfacing her, appeared the tower of Ploumar Church; a slender and tallpyramid shooting up dark and pointed into the clustered glitter of thestars. She felt strangely calm. She knew where she was, and beganto remember how she came there--and why. She peered into the smoothobscurity near her. She was alone. There was nothing there; nothing nearher, either living or dead. 

The tide was creeping in quietly, putting out long impatient arms ofstrange rivulets that ran towards the land between ridges of sand. Underthe night the pools grew bigger with mysterious rapidity, whilethe great sea, yet far off, thundered in a regular rhythm along theindistinct line of the horizon. Susan splashed her way back for afew yards without being able to get clear of the water that murmuredtenderly all around and, suddenly, with a spiteful gurgle, nearly tookher off her feet. Her heart thumped with fear. This place was too bigand too empty to die in. To-morrow they would do with her what theyliked. But before she died she must tell them--tell the gentlemen inblack clothes that there are things no woman can bear. She must explainhow it happened. . . . She splashed through a pool, getting wet to thewaist, too preoccupied to care. . . . She must explain. "He came in thesame way as ever and said, just so: 'Do you think I am going to leavethe land to those people from Morbihan that I do not know? Do you? Weshall see! Come along, you creature of mischance!' And he put his armsout. Then, Messieurs, I said: 'Before God--never!' And he said, stridingat me with open palms: 'There is no God to hold me! Do you understand, you useless carcase. I will do what I like. ' And he took me by theshoulders. Then I, Messieurs, called to God for help, and next minute, while he was shaking me, I felt my long scissors in my hand. His shirtwas unbuttoned, and, by the candle-light, I saw the hollow of histhroat. I cried: 'Let go!' He was crushing my shoulders. He was strong, my man was! Then I thought: No! . . . Must I? . . . Then take!--and Istruck in the hollow place. I never saw him fall. . . . The old fathernever turned his head. He is deaf and childish, gentlemen. . . . Nobodysaw him fall. I ran out . . . Nobody saw. . . . "

She had been scrambling amongst the boulders of the Raven and now foundherself, all out of breath, standing amongst the heavy shadows of therocky islet. The Raven is connected with the main land by a natural pierof immense and slippery stones. She intended to return home that way. Was he still standing there? At home. Home! Four idiots and a corpse. She must go back and explain. Anybody would understand. . . . 

Below her the night or the sea seemed to pronounce distinctly--

"Aha! I see you at last!"

She started, slipped, fell; and without attempting to rise, listened, terrified. She heard heavy breathing, a clatter of wooden clogs. Itstopped. 

"Where the devil did you pass?" said an invisible man, hoarsely. 

She held her breath. She recognized the voice. She had not seen himfall. Was he pursuing her there dead, or perhaps . . . Alive?

She lost her head. She cried from the crevice where she lay huddled, "Never, never!"

"Ah! You are still there. You led me a fine dance. Wait, my beauty, Imust see how you look after all this. You wait. . . . "

Millot was stumbling, laughing, swearing meaninglessly out ofpure satisfaction, pleased with himself for having run down thatfly-by-night. "As if there were such things as ghosts! Bah! It took anold African soldier to show those clodhoppers. . . . But it was curious. Who the devil was she?"

Susan listened, crouching. He was coming for her, this dead man. Therewas no escape. What a noise he made amongst the stones. . . . She sawhis head rise up, then the shoulders. He was tall--her own man! His longarms waved about, and it was his own voice sounding a little strange. . . Because of the scissors. She scrambled out quickly, rushed to theedge of the causeway, and turned round. The man stood still on a highstone, detaching himself in dead black on the glitter of the sky. 

"Where are you going to?" he called, roughly. 

She answered, "Home!" and watched him intensely. He made a striding, clumsy leap on to another boulder, and stopped again, balancing himself, then said--

"Ha! ha! Well, I am going with you. It's the least I can do. Ha! ha!ha!"

She stared at him till her eyes seemed to become glowing coals thatburned deep into her brain, and yet she was in mortal fear of makingout the well-known features. Below her the sea lapped softly against therock with a splash continuous and gentle. 

The man said, advancing another step--

"I am coming for you. What do you think?"

She trembled. Coming for her! There was no escape, no peace, no hope. She looked round despairingly. Suddenly the whole shadowy coast, theblurred islets, the heaven itself, swayed about twice, then came to arest. She closed her eyes and shouted--

"Can't you wait till I am dead!"

She was shaken by a furious hate for that shade that pursued her in thisworld, unappeased even by death in its longing for an heir that would belike other people's children. 

"Hey! What?" said Millot, keeping his distance prudently. He was sayingto himself: "Look out! Some lunatic. An accident happens soon. "

She went on, wildly--

"I want to live. To live alone--for a week--for a day. I must explainto them. . . . I would tear you to pieces, I would kill you twenty timesover rather than let you touch me while I live. How many times must Ikill you--you blasphemer! Satan sends you here. I am damned too!"

"Come, " said Millot, alarmed and conciliating. "I am perfectly alive!. . . Oh, my God!"

She had screamed, "Alive!" and at once vanished before his eyes, as ifthe islet itself had swerved aside from under her feet. Millot rushedforward, and fell flat with his chin over the edge. Far below he saw thewater whitened by her struggles, and heard one shrill cry for help thatseemed to dart upwards along the perpendicular face of the rock, andsoar past, straight into the high and impassive heaven. 

Madame Levaille sat, dry-eyed, on the short grass of the hill side, withher thick legs stretched out, and her old feet turned up in their blackcloth shoes. Her clogs stood near by, and further off the umbrellalay on the withered sward like a weapon dropped from the grasp of avanquished warrior. The Marquis of Chavanes, on horseback, one glovedhand on thigh, looked down at her as she got up laboriously, withgroans. On the narrow track of the seaweed-carts four men were carryinginland Susan's body on a hand-barrow, while several others straggledlistlessly behind. Madame Levaille looked after the procession. "Yes, Monsieur le Marquis, " she said dispassionately, in her usual calm toneof a reasonable old woman. "There are unfortunate people on this earth. I had only one child. Only one! And they won't bury her in consecratedground!"

Her eyes filled suddenly, and a short shower of tears rolled down thebroad cheeks. She pulled the shawl close about her. The Marquis leanedslightly over in his saddle, and said--

"It is very sad. You have all my sympathy. I shall speak to the Cure. She was unquestionably insane, and the fall was accidental. Millot saysso distinctly. Good-day, Madame. "

And he trotted off, thinking to himself: "I must get this old womanappointed guardian of those idiots, and administrator of the farm. It would be much better than having here one of those other Bacadous, probably a red republican, corrupting my commune. "

AN OUTPOST OF PROGRESS

I

There were two white men in charge of the trading station. Kayerts, thechief, was short and fat; Carlier, the assistant, was tall, with a largehead and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of thin legs. Thethird man on the staff was a Sierra Leone nigger, who maintained thathis name was Henry Price. However, for some reason or other, the nativesdown the river had given him the name of Makola, and it stuck to himthrough all his wanderings about the country. He spoke English andFrench with a warbling accent, wrote a beautiful hand, understoodbookkeeping, and cherished in his innermost heart the worship of evilspirits. His wife was a negress from Loanda, very large and very noisy. Three children rolled about in sunshine before the door of his low, shed-like dwelling. Makola, taciturn and impenetrable, despised the twowhite men. He had charge of a small clay storehouse with a dried-grassroof, and pretended to keep a correct account of beads, cotton cloth, red kerchiefs, brass wire, and other trade goods it contained. Besidesthe storehouse and Makola's hut, there was only one large building inthe cleared ground of the station. It was built neatly of reeds, with averandah on all the four sides. There were three rooms in it. The onein the middle was the living-room, and had two rough tables and a fewstools in it. The other two were the bedrooms for the white men. Eachhad a bedstead and a mosquito net for all furniture. The plank floor waslittered with the belongings of the white men; open half-empty boxes, torn wearing apparel, old boots; all the things dirty, and all thethings broken, that accumulate mysteriously round untidy men. There wasalso another dwelling-place some distance away from the buildings. Init, under a tall cross much out of the perpendicular, slept the man whohad seen the beginning of all this; who had planned and had watchedthe construction of this outpost of progress. He had been, at home, anunsuccessful painter who, weary of pursuing fame on an empty stomach, had gone out there through high protections. He had been the first chiefof that station. Makola had watched the energetic artist die of feverin the just finished house with his usual kind of "I told you so"indifference. Then, for a time, he dwelt alone with his family, hisaccount books, and the Evil Spirit that rules the lands under theequator. He got on very well with his god. Perhaps he had propitiatedhim by a promise of more white men to play with, by and by. At any ratethe director of the Great Trading Company, coming up in a steamer thatresembled an enormous sardine box with a flat-roofed shed erected on it, found the station in good order, and Makola as usual quietly diligent. The director had the cross put up over the first agent's grave, andappointed Kayerts to the post. Carlier was told off as second in charge. The director was a man ruthless and efficient, who at times, but veryimperceptibly, indulged in grim humour. He made a speech to Kayerts andCarlier, pointing out to them the promising aspect of their station. The nearest trading-post was about three hundred miles away. It was anexceptional opportunity for them to distinguish themselves and toearn percentages on the trade. This appointment was a favour done tobeginners. Kayerts was moved almost to tears by his director's kindness. He would, he said, by doing his best, try to justify the flatteringconfidence, &c. , &c. Kayerts had been in the Administration of theTelegraphs, and knew how to express himself correctly. Carlier, anex-non-commissioned officer of cavalry in an army guaranteed fromharm by several European Powers, was less impressed. If there werecommissions to get, so much the better; and, trailing a sulky glanceover the river, the forests, the impenetrable bush that seemed to cutoff the station from the rest of the world, he muttered between histeeth, "We shall see, very soon. "

Next day, some bales of cotton goods and a few cases of provisionshaving been thrown on shore, the sardine-box steamer went off, not toreturn for another six months. On the deck the director touched his capto the two agents, who stood on the bank waving their hats, and turningto an old servant of the Company on his passage to headquarters, said, "Look at those two imbeciles. They must be mad at home to send me suchspecimens. I told those fellows to plant a vegetable garden, build newstorehouses and fences, and construct a landing-stage. I bet nothingwill be done! They won't know how to begin. I always thought the stationon this river useless, and they just fit the station!"

"They will form themselves there, " said the old stager with a quietsmile. 

"At any rate, I am rid of them for six months, " retorted the director. 

The two men watched the steamer round the bend, then, ascending arm inarm the slope of the bank, returned to the station. They had been inthis vast and dark country only a very short time, and as yet alwaysin the midst of other white men, under the eye and guidance of theirsuperiors. And now, dull as they were to the subtle influences ofsurroundings, they felt themselves very much alone, when suddenly leftunassisted to face the wilderness; a wilderness rendered more strange, more incomprehensible by the mysterious glimpses of the vigorous lifeit contained. They were two perfectly insignificant and incapableindividuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the highorganization of civilized crowds. Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and theiraudacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety oftheir surroundings. The courage, the composure, the confidence; theemotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thoughtbelongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd thatbelieves blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions andof its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion. Butthe contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature andprimitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart. To thesentiment of being alone of one's kind, to the clear perception of theloneliness of one's thoughts, of one's sensations--to the negationof the habitual, which is safe, there is added the affirmation ofthe unusual, which is dangerous; a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites theimagination and tries the civilized nerves of the foolish and the wisealike. 

Kayerts and Carlier walked arm in arm, drawing close to one anotheras children do in the dark; and they had the same, not altogetherunpleasant, sense of danger which one half suspects to be imaginary. They chatted persistently in familiar tones. "Our station is prettilysituated, " said one. The other assented with enthusiasm, enlargingvolubly on the beauties of the situation. Then they passed near thegrave. "Poor devil!" said Kayerts. "He died of fever, didn't he?"muttered Carlier, stopping short. "Why, " retorted Kayerts, withindignation, "I've been told that the fellow exposed himself recklesslyto the sun. The climate here, everybody says, is not at all worse thanat home, as long as you keep out of the sun. Do you hear that, Carlier?I am chief here, and my orders are that you should not expose yourselfto the sun!" He assumed his superiority jocularly, but his meaningwas serious. The idea that he would, perhaps, have to bury Carlier andremain alone, gave him an inward shiver. He felt suddenly that thisCarlier was more precious to him here, in the centre of Africa, than abrother could be anywhere else. Carlier, entering into the spirit of thething, made a military salute and answered in a brisk tone, "Yourorders shall be attended to, chief!" Then he burst out laughing, slappedKayerts on the back and shouted, "We shall let life run easily here!Just sit still and gather in the ivory those savages will bring. Thiscountry has its good points, after all!" They both laughed loudly whileCarlier thought: "That poor Kayerts; he is so fat and unhealthy. Itwould be awful if I had to bury him here. He is a man I respect. " . . . Before they reached the verandah of their house they called one another"my dear fellow. "

The first day they were very active, pottering about with hammers andnails and red calico, to put up curtains, make their house habitable andpretty; resolved to settle down comfortably to their new life. For theman impossible task. To grapple effectually with even purely materialproblems requires more serenity of mind and more lofty courage thanpeople generally imagine. No two beings could have been more unfittedfor such a struggle. Society, not from any tenderness, but because ofits strange needs, had taken care of those two men, forbidding them allindependent thought, all initiative, all departure from routine; andforbidding it under pain of death. They could only live on condition ofbeing machines. And now, released from the fostering care of men withpens behind the ears, or of men with gold lace on the sleeves, they werelike those lifelong prisoners who, liberated after many years, do notknow what use to make of their freedom. They did not know what use tomake of their faculties, being both, through want of practice, incapableof independent thought. 

At the end of two months Kayerts often would say, "If it was not formy Melie, you wouldn't catch me here. " Melie was his daughter. He hadthrown up his post in the Administration of the Telegraphs, though hehad been for seventeen years perfectly happy there, to earn a dowry forhis girl. His wife was dead, and the child was being brought up by hissisters. He regretted the streets, the pavements, the cafes, his friendsof many years; all the things he used to see, day after day; allthe thoughts suggested by familiar things--the thoughts effortless, monotonous, and soothing of a Government clerk; he regretted all thegossip, the small enmities, the mild venom, and the little jokes ofGovernment offices. "If I had had a decent brother-in-law, " Carlierwould remark, "a fellow with a heart, I would not be here. " He had leftthe army and had made himself so obnoxious to his family by his lazinessand impudence, that an exasperated brother-in-law had made superhumanefforts to procure him an appointment in the Company as a second-classagent. Having not a penny in the world he was compelled to accept thismeans of livelihood as soon as it became quite clear to him that therewas nothing more to squeeze out of his relations. He, like Kayerts, regretted his old life. He regretted the clink of sabre and spurs ona fine afternoon, the barrack-room witticisms, the girls of garrisontowns; but, besides, he had also a sense of grievance. He was evidentlya much ill-used man. This made him moody, at times. But the two mengot on well together in the fellowship of their stupidity and laziness. Together they did nothing, absolutely nothing, and enjoyed the senseof the idleness for which they were paid. And in time they came to feelsomething resembling affection for one another. 

They lived like blind men in a large room, aware only of what came incontact with them (and of that only imperfectly), but unable to seethe general aspect of things. The river, the forest, all the great landthrobbing with life, were like a great emptiness. Even the brilliantsunshine disclosed nothing intelligible. Things appeared and disappearedbefore their eyes in an unconnected and aimless kind of way. The riverseemed to come from nowhere and flow nowhither. It flowed through avoid. Out of that void, at times, came canoes, and men with spears intheir hands would suddenly crowd the yard of the station. They werenaked, glossy black, ornamented with snowy shells and glistening brasswire, perfect of limb. They made an uncouth babbling noise when theyspoke, moved in a stately manner, and sent quick, wild glances out oftheir startled, never-resting eyes. Those warriors would squat inlong rows, four or more deep, before the verandah, while their chiefsbargained for hours with Makola over an elephant tusk. Kayerts sat onhis chair and looked down on the proceedings, understanding nothing. Hestared at them with his round blue eyes, called out to Carlier, "Here, look! look at that fellow there--and that other one, to the left. Didyou ever such a face? Oh, the funny brute!"

Carlier, smoking native tobacco in a short wooden pipe, would swaggerup twirling his moustaches, and surveying the warriors with haughtyindulgence, would say--

"Fine animals. Brought any bone? Yes? It's not any too soon. Look atthe muscles of that fellow third from the end. I wouldn't care to get apunch on the nose from him. Fine arms, but legs no good below the knee. Couldn't make cavalry men of them. " And after glancing down complacentlyat his own shanks, he always concluded: "Pah! Don't they stink! You, Makola! Take that herd over to the fetish" (the storehouse was in everystation called the fetish, perhaps because of the spirit of civilizationit contained) "and give them up some of the rubbish you keep there. I'drather see it full of bone than full of rags. "

Kayerts approved. 

"Yes, yes! Go and finish that palaver over there, Mr. Makola. I willcome round when you are ready, to weigh the tusk. We must be careful. "Then turning to his companion: "This is the tribe that lives down theriver; they are rather aromatic. I remember, they had been once beforehere. D'ye hear that row? What a fellow has got to put up with in thisdog of a country! My head is split. "

Such profitable visits were rare. For days the two pioneers of trade andprogress would look on their empty courtyard in the vibrating brillianceof vertical sunshine. Below the high bank, the silent river flowed onglittering and steady. On the sands in the middle of the stream, hipposand alligators sunned themselves side by side. And stretching awayin all directions, surrounding the insignificant cleared spot of thetrading post, immense forests, hiding fateful complications of fantasticlife, lay in the eloquent silence of mute greatness. The two menunderstood nothing, cared for nothing but for the passage of days thatseparated them from the steamer's return. Their predecessor had leftsome torn books. They took up these wrecks of novels, and, as they hadnever read anything of the kind before, they were surprised and amused. Then during long days there were interminable and silly discussionsabout plots and personages. In the centre of Africa they madeacquaintance of Richelieu and of d'Artagnan, of Hawk's Eye and of FatherGoriot, and of many other people. All these imaginary personages becamesubjects for gossip as if they had been living friends. They discountedtheir virtues, suspected their motives, decried their successes; werescandalized at their duplicity or were doubtful about their courage. The accounts of crimes filled them with indignation, while tender orpathetic passages moved them deeply. Carlier cleared his throat and saidin a soldierly voice, "What nonsense!" Kayerts, his round eyes suffusedwith tears, his fat cheeks quivering, rubbed his bald head, anddeclared. "This is a splendid book. I had no idea there were such cleverfellows in the world. " They also found some old copies of a homepaper. That print discussed what it was pleased to call "Our ColonialExpansion" in high-flown language. It spoke much of the rights andduties of civilization, of the sacredness of the civilizing work, andextolled the merits of those who went about bringing light, and faithand commerce to the dark places of the earth. Carlier and Kayerts read, wondered, and began to think better of themselves. Carlier said oneevening, waving his hand about, "In a hundred years, there willbe perhaps a town here. Quays, and warehouses, and barracks, and--and--billiard-rooms. Civilization, my boy, and virtue--and all. Andthen, chaps will read that two good fellows, Kayerts and Carlier, werethe first civilized men to live in this very spot!" Kayerts nodded, "Yes, it is a consolation to think of that. " They seemed to forget theirdead predecessor; but, early one day, Carlier went out and replanted thecross firmly. "It used to make me squint whenever I walked that way, "he explained to Kayerts over the morning coffee. "It made me squint, leaning over so much. So I just planted it upright. And solid, I promiseyou! I suspended myself with both hands to the cross-piece. Not a move. Oh, I did that properly. "

At times Gobila came to see them. Gobila was the chief of theneighbouring villages. He was a gray-headed savage, thin and black, witha white cloth round his loins and a mangy panther skin hanging overhis back. He came up with long strides of his skeleton legs, swinging astaff as tall as himself, and, entering the common room of the station, would squat on his heels to the left of the door. There he sat, watchingKayerts, and now and then making a speech which the other did notunderstand. Kayerts, without interrupting his occupation, would fromtime to time say in a friendly manner: "How goes it, you old image?" andthey would smile at one another. The two whites had a liking forthat old and incomprehensible creature, and called him Father Gobila. Gobila's manner was paternal, and he seemed really to love all whitemen. They all appeared to him very young, indistinguishably alike(except for stature), and he knew that they were all brothers, and alsoimmortal. The death of the artist, who was the first white man whomhe knew intimately, did not disturb this belief, because he was firmlyconvinced that the white stranger had pretended to die and got himselfburied for some mysterious purpose of his own, into which it was uselessto inquire. Perhaps it was his way of going home to his own country?At any rate, these were his brothers, and he transferred his absurdaffection to them. They returned it in a way. Carlier slapped him on theback, and recklessly struck off matches for his amusement. Kayerts wasalways ready to let him have a sniff at the ammonia bottle. In short, they behaved just like that other white creature that had hidden itselfin a hole in the ground. Gobila considered them attentively. Perhapsthey were the same being with the other--or one of them was. He couldn'tdecide--clear up that mystery; but he remained always very friendly. Inconsequence of that friendship the women of Gobila's village walkedin single file through the reedy grass, bringing every morning to thestation, fowls, and sweet potatoes, and palm wine, and sometimes a goat. The Company never provisions the stations fully, and the agents requiredthose local supplies to live. They had them through the good-will ofGobila, and lived well. Now and then one of them had a bout of fever, and the other nursed him with gentle devotion. They did not think muchof it. It left them weaker, and their appearance changed for the worse. Carlier was hollow-eyed and irritable. Kayerts showed a drawn, flabbyface above the rotundity of his stomach, which gave him a weird aspect. But being constantly together, they did not notice the change that tookplace gradually in their appearance, and also in their dispositions. 

Five months passed in that way. 

Then, one morning, as Kayerts and Carlier, lounging in their chairsunder the verandah, talked about the approaching visit of the steamer, a knot of armed men came out of the forest and advanced towards thestation. They were strangers to that part of the country. They weretall, slight, draped classically from neck to heel in blue fringedcloths, and carried percussion muskets over their bare right shoulders. Makola showed signs of excitement, and ran out of the storehouse (wherehe spent all his days) to meet these visitors. They came into thecourtyard and looked about them with steady, scornful glances. Theirleader, a powerful and determined-looking negro with bloodshot eyes, stood in front of the verandah and made a long speech. He gesticulatedmuch, and ceased very suddenly. 

There was something in his intonation, in the sounds of the longsentences he used, that startled the two whites. It was like areminiscence of something not exactly familiar, and yet resemblingthe speech of civilized men. It sounded like one of those impossiblelanguages which sometimes we hear in our dreams. 

"What lingo is that?" said the amazed Carlier. "In the first moment Ifancied the fellow was going to speak French. Anyway, it is a differentkind of gibberish to what we ever heard. "

"Yes, " replied Kayerts. "Hey, Makola, what does he say? Where do theycome from? Who are they?"

But Makola, who seemed to be standing on hot bricks, answered hurriedly, "I don't know. They come from very far. Perhaps Mrs. Price willunderstand. They are perhaps bad men. "

The leader, after waiting for a while, said something sharply to Makola, who shook his head. Then the man, after looking round, noticed Makola'shut and walked over there. The next moment Mrs. Makola was heardspeaking with great volubility. The other strangers--they were six inall--strolled about with an air of ease, put their heads throughthe door of the storeroom, congregated round the grave, pointedunderstandingly at the cross, and generally made themselves at home. 

"I don't like those chaps--and, I say, Kayerts, they must be from thecoast; they've got firearms, " observed the sagacious Carlier. 

Kayerts also did not like those chaps. They both, for the first time, became aware that they lived in conditions where the unusual may bedangerous, and that there was no power on earth outside of themselvesto stand between them and the unusual. They became uneasy, went in andloaded their revolvers. Kayerts said, "We must order Makola to tell themto go away before dark. "

The strangers left in the afternoon, after eating a meal prepared forthem by Mrs. Makola. The immense woman was excited, and talked much withthe visitors. She rattled away shrilly, pointing here and there at theforests and at the river. Makola sat apart and watched. At times he gotup and whispered to his wife. He accompanied the strangers across theravine at the back of the station-ground, and returned slowly lookingvery thoughtful. When questioned by the white men he was very strange, seemed not to understand, seemed to have forgotten French--seemed tohave forgotten how to speak altogether. Kayerts and Carlier agreed thatthe nigger had had too much palm wine. 

There was some talk about keeping a watch in turn, but in the eveningeverything seemed so quiet and peaceful that they retired as usual. Allnight they were disturbed by a lot of drumming in the villages. Adeep, rapid roll near by would be followed by another far off--then allceased. Soon short appeals would rattle out here and there, then allmingle together, increase, become vigorous and sustained, would spreadout over the forest, roll through the night, unbroken and ceaseless, near and far, as if the whole land had been one immense drum booming outsteadily an appeal to heaven. And through the deep and tremendous noisesudden yells that resembled snatches of songs from a madhouse dartedshrill and high in discordant jets of sound which seemed to rush farabove the earth and drive all peace from under the stars. 

Carlier and Kayerts slept badly. They both thought they had heard shotsfired during the night--but they could not agree as to the direction. Inthe morning Makola was gone somewhere. He returned about noon with oneof yesterday's strangers, and eluded all Kayerts' attempts to close withhim: had become deaf apparently. Kayerts wondered. Carlier, who had beenfishing off the bank, came back and remarked while he showed his catch, "The niggers seem to be in a deuce of a stir; I wonder what's up. I sawabout fifteen canoes cross the river during the two hours I was therefishing. " Kayerts, worried, said, "Isn't this Makola very queer to-day?"Carlier advised, "Keep all our men together in case of some trouble. "

II

There were ten station men who had been left by the Director. Thosefellows, having engaged themselves to the Company for six months(without having any idea of a month in particular and only a very faintnotion of time in general), had been serving the cause of progress forupwards of two years. Belonging to a tribe from a very distant partof the land of darkness and sorrow, they did not run away, naturallysupposing that as wandering strangers they would be killed by theinhabitants of the country; in which they were right. They lived instraw huts on the slope of a ravine overgrown with reedy grass, justbehind the station buildings. They were not happy, regretting thefestive incantations, the sorceries, the human sacrifices of their ownland; where they also had parents, brothers, sisters, admired chiefs, respected magicians, loved friends, and other ties supposed generallyto be human. Besides, the rice rations served out by the Company did notagree with them, being a food unknown to their land, and to which theycould not get used. Consequently they were unhealthy and miserable. Had they been of any other tribe they would have made up their minds todie--for nothing is easier to certain savages than suicide--and so haveescaped from the puzzling difficulties of existence. But belonging, asthey did, to a warlike tribe with filed teeth, they had more grit, andwent on stupidly living through disease and sorrow. They did very littlework, and had lost their splendid physique. Carlier and Kayerts doctoredthem assiduously without being able to bring them back into conditionagain. They were mustered every morning and told off to differenttasks--grass-cutting, fence-building, tree-felling, &c. , &c. , which nopower on earth could induce them to execute efficiently. The two whiteshad practically very little control over them. 

In the afternoon Makola came over to the big house and found Kayertswatching three heavy columns of smoke rising above the forests. "What isthat?" asked Kayerts. "Some villages burn, " answered Makola, who seemedto have regained his wits. Then he said abruptly: "We have got verylittle ivory; bad six months' trading. Do you like get a little moreivory?"

"Yes, " said Kayerts, eagerly. He thought of percentages which were low. 

"Those men who came yesterday are traders from Loanda who have got moreivory than they can carry home. Shall I buy? I know their camp. "

"Certainly, " said Kayerts. "What are those traders?"

"Bad fellows, " said Makola, indifferently. "They fight with people, andcatch women and children. They are bad men, and got guns. There is agreat disturbance in the country. Do you want ivory?"

"Yes, " said Kayerts. Makola said nothing for a while. Then: "Thoseworkmen of ours are no good at all, " he muttered, looking round. "Station in very bad order, sir. Director will growl. Better get a finelot of ivory, then he say nothing. "

"I can't help it; the men won't work, " said Kayerts. "When will you getthat ivory?"

"Very soon, " said Makola. "Perhaps to-night. You leave it to me, andkeep indoors, sir. I think you had better give some palm wine to our mento make a dance this evening. Enjoy themselves. Work better to-morrow. There's plenty palm wine--gone a little sour. "

Kayerts said "yes, " and Makola, with his own hands carried bigcalabashes to the door of his hut. They stood there till the evening, and Mrs. Makola looked into every one. The men got them at sunset. WhenKayerts and Carlier retired, a big bonfire was flaring before the men'shuts. They could hear their shouts and drumming. Some men from Gobila'svillage had joined the station hands, and the entertainment was a greatsuccess. 

In the middle of the night, Carlier waking suddenly, heard a man shoutloudly; then a shot was fired. Only one. Carlier ran out and met Kayertson the verandah. They were both startled. As they went across the yardto call Makola, they saw shadows moving in the night. One of them cried, "Don't shoot! It's me, Price. " Then Makola appeared close to them. "Goback, go back, please, " he urged, "you spoil all. " "There are strangemen about, " said Carlier. "Never mind; I know, " said Makola. Then hewhispered, "All right. Bring ivory. Say nothing! I know my business. "The two white men reluctantly went back to the house, but did not sleep. They heard footsteps, whispers, some groans. It seemed as if a lot ofmen came in, dumped heavy things on the ground, squabbled a long time, then went away. They lay on their hard beds and thought: "This Makola isinvaluable. " In the morning Carlier came out, very sleepy, and pulledat the cord of the big bell. The station hands mustered every morningto the sound of the bell. That morning nobody came. Kayerts turned outalso, yawning. Across the yard they saw Makola come out of his hut, atin basin of soapy water in his hand. Makola, a civilized nigger, wasvery neat in his person. He threw the soapsuds skilfully over a wretchedlittle yellow cur he had, then turning his face to the agent's house, heshouted from the distance, "All the men gone last night!"

They heard him plainly, but in their surprise they both yelled outtogether: "What!" Then they stared at one another. "We are in a properfix now, " growled Carlier. "It's incredible!" muttered Kayerts. "I willgo to the huts and see, " said Carlier, striding off. Makola coming upfound Kayerts standing alone. 

"I can hardly believe it, " said Kayerts, tearfully. "We took care ofthem as if they had been our children. "

"They went with the coast people, " said Makola after a moment ofhesitation. 

"What do I care with whom they went--the ungrateful brutes!" exclaimedthe other. Then with sudden suspicion, and looking hard at Makola, headded: "What do you know about it?"

Makola moved his shoulders, looking down on the ground. "What do I know?I think only. Will you come and look at the ivory I've got there? It isa fine lot. You never saw such. "

He moved towards the store. Kayerts followed him mechanically, thinkingabout the incredible desertion of the men. On the ground before the doorof the fetish lay six splendid tusks. 

"What did you give for it?" asked Kayerts, after surveying the lot withsatisfaction. 

"No regular trade, " said Makola. "They brought the ivory and gave it tome. I told them to take what they most wanted in the station. It isa beautiful lot. No station can show such tusks. Those traders wantedcarriers badly, and our men were no good here. No trade, no entry inbooks: all correct. "

Kayerts nearly burst with indignation. "Why!" he shouted, "I believe youhave sold our men for these tusks!" Makola stood impassive and silent. "I--I--will--I, " stuttered Kayerts. "You fiend!" he yelled out. 

"I did the best for you and the Company, " said Makola, imperturbably. "Why you shout so much? Look at this tusk. "

"I dismiss you! I will report you--I won't look at the tusk. I forbidyou to touch them. I order you to throw them into the river. You--you!"

"You very red, Mr. Kayerts. If you are so irritable in the sun, youwill get fever and die--like the first chief!" pronounced Makolaimpressively. 

They stood still, contemplating one another with intense eyes, as ifthey had been looking with effort across immense distances. Kayertsshivered. Makola had meant no more than he said, but his words seemed toKayerts full of ominous menace! He turned sharply and went away to thehouse. Makola retired into the bosom of his family; and the tusks, leftlying before the store, looked very large and valuable in the sunshine. 

Carlier came back on the verandah. "They're all gone, hey?" askedKayerts from the far end of the common room in a muffled voice. "You didnot find anybody?"

"Oh, yes, " said Carlier, "I found one of Gobila's people lying deadbefore the huts--shot through the body. We heard that shot last night. "

Kayerts came out quickly. He found his companion staring grimly overthe yard at the tusks, away by the store. They both sat in silence fora while. Then Kayerts related his conversation with Makola. Carlier saidnothing. At the midday meal they ate very little. They hardly exchangeda word that day. A great silence seemed to lie heavily over the stationand press on their lips. Makola did not open the store; he spent the dayplaying with his children. He lay full-length on a mat outside his door, and the youngsters sat on his chest and clambered all over him. It wasa touching picture. Mrs. Makola was busy cooking all day, as usual. The white men made a somewhat better meal in the evening. Afterwards, Carlier smoking his pipe strolled over to the store; he stood for a longtime over the tusks, touched one or two with his foot, even tried tolift the largest one by its small end. He came back to his chief, whohad not stirred from the verandah, threw himself in the chair and said--

"I can see it! They were pounced upon while they slept heavily afterdrinking all that palm wine you've allowed Makola to give them. A put-upjob! See? The worst is, some of Gobila's people were there, and gotcarried off too, no doubt. The least drunk woke up, and got shot for hissobriety. This is a funny country. What will you do now?"

"We can't touch it, of course, " said Kayerts. 

"Of course not, " assented Carlier. 

"Slavery is an awful thing, " stammered out Kayerts in an unsteady voice. 

"Frightful--the sufferings, " grunted Carlier with conviction. 

They believed their words. Everybody shows a respectful deference tocertain sounds that he and his fellows can make. But about feelingspeople really know nothing. We talk with indignation or enthusiasm; wetalk about oppression, cruelty, crime, devotion, self-sacrifice, virtue, and we know nothing real beyond the words. Nobody knows what sufferingor sacrifice mean--except, perhaps the victims of the mysterious purposeof these illusions. 

Next morning they saw Makola very busy setting up in the yard the bigscales used for weighing ivory. By and by Carlier said: "What'sthat filthy scoundrel up to?" and lounged out into the yard. Kayertsfollowed. They stood watching. Makola took no notice. When the balancewas swung true, he tried to lift a tusk into the scale. It was tooheavy. He looked up helplessly without a word, and for a minute theystood round that balance as mute and still as three statues. SuddenlyCarlier said: "Catch hold of the other end, Makola--you beast!" andtogether they swung the tusk up. Kayerts trembled in every limb. Hemuttered, "I say! O! I say!" and putting his hand in his pocket foundthere a dirty bit of paper and the stump of a pencil. He turned his backon the others, as if about to do something tricky, and noted stealthilythe weights which Carlier shouted out to him with unnecessary loudness. When all was over Makola whispered to himself: "The sun's very stronghere for the tusks. " Carlier said to Kayerts in a careless tone: "Isay, chief, I might just as well give him a lift with this lot into thestore. "

As they were going back to the house Kayerts observed with a sigh: "Ithad to be done. " And Carlier said: "It's deplorable, but, the men beingCompany's men the ivory is Company's ivory. We must look after it. " "Iwill report to the Director, of course, " said Kayerts. "Of course; lethim decide, " approved Carlier. 

At midday they made a hearty meal. Kayerts sighed from time to time. Whenever they mentioned Makola's name they always added to it anopprobrious epithet. It eased their conscience. Makola gave himself ahalf-holiday, and bathed his children in the river. No one from Gobila'svillages came near the station that day. No one came the next day, andthe next, nor for a whole week. Gobila's people might have been dead andburied for any sign of life they gave. But they were only mourning forthose they had lost by the witchcraft of white men, who had broughtwicked people into their country. The wicked people were gone, butfear remained. Fear always remains. A man may destroy everything withinhimself, love and hate and belief, and even doubt; but as long as heclings to life he cannot destroy fear: the fear, subtle, indestructible, and terrible, that pervades his being; that tinges his thoughts; thatlurks in his heart; that watches on his lips the struggle of his lastbreath. In his fear, the mild old Gobila offered extra human sacrificesto all the Evil Spirits that had taken possession of his white friends. His heart was heavy. Some warriors spoke about burning and killing, butthe cautious old savage dissuaded them. Who could foresee the woe thosemysterious creatures, if irritated, might bring? They should be leftalone. Perhaps in time they would disappear into the earth as the firstone had disappeared. His people must keep away from them, and hope forthe best. 

Kayerts and Carlier did not disappear, but remained above on this earth, that, somehow, they fancied had become bigger and very empty. It was notthe absolute and dumb solitude of the post that impressed them so muchas an inarticulate feeling that something from within them was gone, something that worked for their safety, and had kept the wilderness frominterfering with their hearts. The images of home; the memory of peoplelike them, of men that thought and felt as they used to think andfeel, receded into distances made indistinct by the glare of uncloudedsunshine. And out of the great silence of the surrounding wilderness, its very hopelessness and savagery seemed to approach them nearer, todraw them gently, to look upon them, to envelop them with a solicitudeirresistible, familiar, and disgusting. 

Days lengthened into weeks, then into months. Gobila's people drummedand yelled to every new moon, as of yore, but kept away fromthe station. Makola and Carlier tried once in a canoe to opencommunications, but were received with a shower of arrows, and had tofly back to the station for dear life. That attempt set the country upand down the river into an uproar that could be very distinctly heardfor days. The steamer was late. At first they spoke of delay jauntily, then anxiously, then gloomily. The matter was becoming serious. Storeswere running short. Carlier cast his lines off the bank, but the riverwas low, and the fish kept out in the stream. They dared not strollfar away from the station to shoot. Moreover, there was no game in theimpenetrable forest. Once Carlier shot a hippo in the river. They had noboat to secure it, and it sank. When it floated up it drifted away, andGobila's people secured the carcase. It was the occasion for a nationalholiday, but Carlier had a fit of rage over it and talked about thenecessity of exterminating all the niggers before the country could bemade habitable. Kayerts mooned about silently; spent hours lookingat the portrait of his Melie. It represented a little girl with longbleached tresses and a rather sour face. His legs were much swollen, andhe could hardly walk. Carlier, undermined by fever, could not swaggerany more, but kept tottering about, still with a devil-may-care air, asbecame a man who remembered his crack regiment. He had become hoarse, sarcastic, and inclined to say unpleasant things. He called it "beingfrank with you. " They had long ago reckoned their percentages on trade, including in them that last deal of "this infamous Makola. " They hadalso concluded not to say anything about it. Kayerts hesitated atfirst--was afraid of the Director. 

"He has seen worse things done on the quiet, " maintained Carlier, witha hoarse laugh. "Trust him! He won't thank you if you blab. He is nobetter than you or me. Who will talk if we hold our tongues? There isnobody here. "

That was the root of the trouble! There was nobody there; and being leftthere alone with their weakness, they became daily more like a pairof accomplices than like a couple of devoted friends. They had heardnothing from home for eight months. Every evening they said, "To-morrowwe shall see the steamer. " But one of the Company's steamers had beenwrecked, and the Director was busy with the other, relieving verydistant and important stations on the main river. He thought that theuseless station, and the useless men, could wait. Meantime Kayerts andCarlier lived on rice boiled without salt, and cursed the Company, allAfrica, and the day they were born. One must have lived on such diet todiscover what ghastly trouble the necessity of swallowing one's foodmay become. There was literally nothing else in the station but riceand coffee; they drank the coffee without sugar. The last fifteen lumpsKayerts had solemnly locked away in his box, together with a half-bottleof Cognac, "in case of sickness, " he explained. Carlier approved. "Whenone is sick, " he said, "any little extra like that is cheering. "

They waited. Rank grass began to sprout over the courtyard. The bellnever rang now. Days passed, silent, exasperating, and slow. When thetwo men spoke, they snarled; and their silences were bitter, as iftinged by the bitterness of their thoughts. 

One day after a lunch of boiled rice, Carlier put down his cup untasted, and said: "Hang it all! Let's have a decent cup of coffee for once. Bring out that sugar, Kayerts!"

"For the sick, " muttered Kayerts, without looking up. 

"For the sick, " mocked Carlier. "Bosh! . . . Well! I am sick. "

"You are no more sick than I am, and I go without, " said Kayerts in apeaceful tone. 

"Come! out with that sugar, you stingy old slave-dealer. "

Kayerts looked up quickly. Carlier was smiling with marked insolence. And suddenly it seemed to Kayerts that he had never seen that manbefore. Who was he? He knew nothing about him. What was he capable of?There was a surprising flash of violent emotion within him, as if in thepresence of something undreamt-of, dangerous, and final. But he managedto pronounce with composure--

"That joke is in very bad taste. Don't repeat it. "

"Joke!" said Carlier, hitching himself forward on his seat. "I amhungry--I am sick--I don't joke! I hate hypocrites. You are a hypocrite. You are a slave-dealer. I am a slave-dealer. There's nothing butslave-dealers in this cursed country. I mean to have sugar in my coffeeto-day, anyhow!"

"I forbid you to speak to me in that way, " said Kayerts with a fair showof resolution. 

"You!--What?" shouted Carlier, jumping up. 

Kayerts stood up also. "I am your chief, " he began, trying to master theshakiness of his voice. 

"What?" yelled the other. "Who's chief? There's no chief here. There'snothing here: there's nothing but you and I. Fetch the sugar--youpot-bellied ass. "

"Hold your tongue. Go out of this room, " screamed Kayerts. "I dismissyou--you scoundrel!"

Carlier swung a stool. All at once he looked dangerously in earnest. "You flabby, good-for-nothing civilian--take that!" he howled. 

Kayerts dropped under the table, and the stool struck the grass innerwall of the room. Then, as Carlier was trying to upset the table, Kayerts in desperation made a blind rush, head low, like a cornered pigwould do, and over-turning his friend, bolted along the verandah, andinto his room. He locked the door, snatched his revolver, and stoodpanting. In less than a minute Carlier was kicking at the doorfuriously, howling, "If you don't bring out that sugar, I will shoot youat sight, like a dog. Now then--one--two--three. You won't? I will showyou who's the master. "

Kayerts thought the door would fall in, and scrambled through the squarehole that served for a window in his room. There was then the wholebreadth of the house between them. But the other was apparently notstrong enough to break in the door, and Kayerts heard him running round. Then he also began to run laboriously on his swollen legs. He ran asquickly as he could, grasping the revolver, and unable yet to understandwhat was happening to him. He saw in succession Makola's house, thestore, the river, the ravine, and the low bushes; and he saw all thosethings again as he ran for the second time round the house. Then againthey flashed past him. That morning he could not have walked a yardwithout a groan. 

And now he ran. He ran fast enough to keep out of sight of the otherman. 

Then as, weak and desperate, he thought, "Before I finish the next roundI shall die, " he heard the other man stumble heavily, then stop. Hestopped also. He had the back and Carlier the front of the house, asbefore. He heard him drop into a chair cursing, and suddenly his ownlegs gave way, and he slid down into a sitting posture with his back tothe wall. His mouth was as dry as a cinder, and his face was wet withperspiration--and tears. What was it all about? He thought it must be ahorrible illusion; he thought he was dreaming; he thought he was goingmad! After a while he collected his senses. What did they quarrel about?That sugar! How absurd! He would give it to him--didn't want it himself. And he began scrambling to his feet with a sudden feeling of security. But before he had fairly stood upright, a commonsense reflectionoccurred to him and drove him back into despair. He thought: "If I giveway now to that brute of a soldier, he will begin this horror againto-morrow--and the day after--every day--raise other pretensions, trample on me, torture me, make me his slave--and I will be lost! Lost!The steamer may not come for days--may never come. " He shook so that hehad to sit down on the floor again. He shivered forlornly. He felt hecould not, would not move any more. He was completely distracted by thesudden perception that the position was without issue--that death andlife had in a moment become equally difficult and terrible. 

All at once he heard the other push his chair back; and he leaped tohis feet with extreme facility. He listened and got confused. Mustrun again! Right or left? He heard footsteps. He darted to the left, grasping his revolver, and at the very same instant, as it seemed tohim, they came into violent collision. Both shouted with surprise. Aloud explosion took place between them; a roar of red fire, thick smoke;and Kayerts, deafened and blinded, rushed back thinking: "I am hit--it'sall over. " He expected the other to come round--to gloat over his agony. He caught hold of an upright of the roof--"All over!" Then he heard acrashing fall on the other side of the house, as if somebody had tumbledheadlong over a chair--then silence. Nothing more happened. He did notdie. Only his shoulder felt as if it had been badly wrenched, and he hadlost his revolver. He was disarmed and helpless! He waited for his fate. The other man made no sound. It was a stratagem. He was stalking himnow! Along what side? Perhaps he was taking aim this very minute!

After a few moments of an agony frightful and absurd, he decided to goand meet his doom. He was prepared for every surrender. He turned thecorner, steadying himself with one hand on the wall; made a few paces, and nearly swooned. He had seen on the floor, protruding past the othercorner, a pair of turned-up feet. A pair of white naked feet inred slippers. He felt deadly sick, and stood for a time in profounddarkness. Then Makola appeared before him, saying quietly: "Come along, Mr. Kayerts. He is dead. " He burst into tears of gratitude; a loud, sobbing fit of crying. After a time he found himself sitting in achair and looking at Carlier, who lay stretched on his back. Makola waskneeling over the body. 

"Is this your revolver?" asked Makola, getting up. 

"Yes, " said Kayerts; then he added very quickly, "He ran after me toshoot me--you saw!"

"Yes, I saw, " said Makola. "There is only one revolver; where's his?"

"Don't know, " whispered Kayerts in a voice that had become suddenly veryfaint. 

"I will go and look for it, " said the other, gently. He made the roundalong the verandah, while Kayerts sat still and looked at the corpse. Makola came back empty-handed, stood in deep thought, then steppedquietly into the dead man's room, and came out directly with a revolver, which he held up before Kayerts. Kayerts shut his eyes. Everything wasgoing round. He found life more terrible and difficult than death. Hehad shot an unarmed man. 

After meditating for a while, Makola said softly, pointing at the deadman who lay there with his right eye blown out--

"He died of fever. " Kayerts looked at him with a stony stare. "Yes, "repeated Makola, thoughtfully, stepping over the corpse, "I think hedied of fever. Bury him to-morrow. "

And he went away slowly to his expectant wife, leaving the two white menalone on the verandah. 

Night came, and Kayerts sat unmoving on his chair. He sat quiet as ifhe had taken a dose of opium. The violence of the emotions he had passedthrough produced a feeling of exhausted serenity. He had plumbed in oneshort afternoon the depths of horror and despair, and now found reposein the conviction that life had no more secrets for him: neither haddeath! He sat by the corpse thinking; thinking very actively, thinkingvery new thoughts. He seemed to have broken loose from himselfaltogether. His old thoughts, convictions, likes and dislikes, things herespected and things he abhorred, appeared in their true light at last!Appeared contemptible and childish, false and ridiculous. He revelledin his new wisdom while he sat by the man he had killed. He argued withhimself about all things under heaven with that kind of wrong-headedlucidity which may be observed in some lunatics. Incidentally hereflected that the fellow dead there had been a noxious beastanyway; that men died every day in thousands; perhaps in hundreds ofthousands--who could tell?--and that in the number, that one death couldnot possibly make any difference; couldn't have any importance, at leastto a thinking creature. He, Kayerts, was a thinking creature. He hadbeen all his life, till that moment, a believer in a lot of nonsenselike the rest of mankind--who are fools; but now he thought! He knew! Hewas at peace; he was familiar with the highest wisdom! Then he tried toimagine himself dead, and Carlier sitting in his chair watching him; andhis attempt met with such unexpected success, that in a very fewmoments he became not at all sure who was dead and who was alive. Thisextraordinary achievement of his fancy startled him, however, and bya clever and timely effort of mind he saved himself just in time frombecoming Carlier. His heart thumped, and he felt hot all over at thethought of that danger. Carlier! What a beastly thing! To compose hisnow disturbed nerves--and no wonder!--he tried to whistle a little. Then, suddenly, he fell asleep, or thought he had slept; but at any ratethere was a fog, and somebody had whistled in the fog. 

He stood up. The day had come, and a heavy mist had descended upon theland: the mist penetrating, enveloping, and silent; the morning mistof tropical lands; the mist that clings and kills; the mist white anddeadly, immaculate and poisonous. He stood up, saw the body, and threwhis arms above his head with a cry like that of a man who, waking from atrance, finds himself immured forever in a tomb. "Help! . . . . My God!"

A shriek inhuman, vibrating and sudden, pierced like a sharp dart thewhite shroud of that land of sorrow. Three short, impatient screechesfollowed, and then, for a time, the fog-wreaths rolled on, undisturbed, through a formidable silence. Then many more shrieks, rapid andpiercing, like the yells of some exasperated and ruthless creature, rentthe air. Progress was calling to Kayerts from the river. Progressand civilization and all the virtues. Society was calling to itsaccomplished child to come, to be taken care of, to be instructed, tobe judged, to be condemned; it called him to return to that rubbish heapfrom which he had wandered away, so that justice could be done. 

Kayerts heard and understood. He stumbled out of the verandah, leavingthe other man quite alone for the first time since they had been thrownthere together. He groped his way through the fog, calling in hisignorance upon the invisible heaven to undo its work. Makola flitted byin the mist, shouting as he ran--

"Steamer! Steamer! They can't see. They whistle for the station. I goring the bell. Go down to the landing, sir. I ring. "

He disappeared. Kayerts stood still. He looked upwards; the fog rolledlow over his head. He looked round like a man who has lost his way; andhe saw a dark smudge, a cross-shaped stain, upon the shifting purity ofthe mist. As he began to stumble towards it, the station bell rang in atumultuous peal its answer to the impatient clamour of the steamer. 

The Managing Director of the Great Civilizing Company (since we knowthat civilization follows trade) landed first, and incontinently lostsight of the steamer. The fog down by the river was exceedingly dense;above, at the station, the bell rang unceasing and brazen. 

The Director shouted loudly to the steamer:

"There is nobody down to meet us; there may be something wrong, thoughthey are ringing. You had better come, too!"

And he began to toil up the steep bank. The captain and theengine-driver of the boat followed behind. As they scrambled up the fogthinned, and they could see their Director a good way ahead. Suddenlythey saw him start forward, calling to them over his shoulder:--"Run!Run to the house! I've found one of them. Run, look for the other!"

He had found one of them! And even he, the man of varied and startlingexperience, was somewhat discomposed by the manner of this finding. Hestood and fumbled in his pockets (for a knife) while he faced Kayerts, who was hanging by a leather strap from the cross. He had evidentlyclimbed the grave, which was high and narrow, and after tying the end ofthe strap to the arm, had swung himself off. His toes were only a coupleof inches above the ground; his arms hung stiffly down; he seemed to bestanding rigidly at attention, but with one purple cheek playfully posedon the shoulder. And, irreverently, he was putting out a swollen tongueat his Managing Director. 

THE RETURN

The inner circle train from the City rushed impetuously out of a blackhole and pulled up with a discordant, grinding racket in the smirchedtwilight of a West-End station. A line of doors flew open and a lot ofmen stepped out headlong. They had high hats, healthy pale faces, dark overcoats and shiny boots; they held in their gloved hands thinumbrellas and hastily folded evening papers that resembled stiff, dirtyrags of greenish, pinkish, or whitish colour. Alvan Hervey stepped outwith the rest, a smouldering cigar between his teeth. A disregardedlittle woman in rusty black, with both arms full of parcels, ran alongin distress, bolted suddenly into a third-class compartment and thetrain went on. The slamming of carriage doors burst out sharp andspiteful like a fusillade; an icy draught mingled with acrid fumes sweptthe whole length of the platform and made a tottering old man, wrappedup to his ears in a woollen comforter, stop short in the moving throngto cough violently over his stick. No one spared him a glance. 

Alvan Hervey passed through the ticket gate. Between the bare walls ofa sordid staircase men clambered rapidly; their backs appearedalike--almost as if they had been wearing a uniform; their indifferentfaces were varied but somehow suggested kinship, like the faces of aband of brothers who through prudence, dignity, disgust, or foresightwould resolutely ignore each other; and their eyes, quick or slow; theireyes gazing up the dusty steps; their eyes brown, black, gray, blue, hadall the same stare, concentrated and empty, satisfied and unthinking. 

Outside the big doorway of the street they scattered in all directions, walking away fast from one another with the hurried air of men fleeingfrom something compromising; from familiarity or confidences; fromsomething suspected and concealed--like truth or pestilence. AlvanHervey hesitated, standing alone in the doorway for a moment; thendecided to walk home. 

He strode firmly. A misty rain settled like silvery dust on clothes, on moustaches; wetted the faces, varnished the flagstones, darkened thewalls, dripped from umbrellas. And he moved on in the rain with carelessserenity, with the tranquil ease of someone successful and disdainful, very sure of himself--a man with lots of money and friends. He was tall, well set-up, good-looking and healthy; and his clear pale face had underits commonplace refinement that slight tinge of overbearingbrutality which is given by the possession of only partly difficultaccomplishments; by excelling in games, or in the art of making money;by the easy mastery over animals and over needy men. 

He was going home much earlier than usual, straight from the City andwithout calling at his club. He considered himself well connected, welleducated and intelligent. Who doesn't? But his connections, educationand intelligence were strictly on a par with those of the men with whomhe did business or amused himself. He had married five years ago. At thetime all his acquaintances had said he was very much in love; and he hadsaid so himself, frankly, because it is very well understood that everyman falls in love once in his life--unless his wife dies, when it maybe quite praiseworthy to fall in love again. The girl was healthy, tall, fair, and in his opinion was well connected, well educated andintelligent. She was also intensely bored with her home where, asif packed in a tight box, her individuality--of which she was veryconscious--had no play. She strode like a grenadier, was strong andupright like an obelisk, had a beautiful face, a candid brow, pure eyes, and not a thought of her own in her head. He surrendered quickly to allthose charms, and she appeared to him so unquestionably of the rightsort that he did not hesitate for a moment to declare himself in love. Under the cover of that sacred and poetical fiction he desired hermasterfully, for various reasons; but principally for the satisfactionof having his own way. He was very dull and solemn about it--for noearthly reason, unless to conceal his feelings--which is an eminentlyproper thing to do. Nobody, however, would have been shocked hadhe neglected that duty, for the feeling he experienced really was alonging--a longing stronger and a little more complex no doubt, but nomore reprehensible in its nature than a hungry man's appetite for hisdinner. 

After their marriage they busied themselves, with marked success, inenlarging the circle of their acquaintance. Thirty people knew themby sight; twenty more with smiling demonstrations tolerated theiroccasional presence within hospitable thresholds; at least fifty othersbecame aware of their existence. They moved in their enlarged worldamongst perfectly delightful men and women who feared emotion, enthusiasm, or failure, more than fire, war, or mortal disease; whotolerated only the commonest formulas of commonest thoughts, andrecognized only profitable facts. It was an extremely charming sphere, the abode of all the virtues, where nothing is realized and whereall joys and sorrows are cautiously toned down into pleasures andannoyances. In that serene region, then, where noble sentiments arecultivated in sufficient profusion to conceal the pitiless materialismof thoughts and aspirations Alvan Hervey and his wife spent five yearsof prudent bliss unclouded by any doubt as to the moral propriety oftheir existence. She, to give her individuality fair play, took up allmanner of philanthropic work and became a member of various rescuing andreforming societies patronized or presided over by ladies of title. Hetook an active interest in politics; and having met quite by chance aliterary man--who nevertheless was related to an earl--he was inducedto finance a moribund society paper. It was a semi-political, and whollyscandalous publication, redeemed by excessive dulness; and as it wasutterly faithless, as it contained no new thought, as it never by anychance had a flash of wit, satire, or indignation in its pages, hejudged it respectable enough, at first sight. Afterwards, when it paid, he promptly perceived that upon the whole it was a virtuous undertaking. It paved the way of his ambition; and he enjoyed also the special kindof importance he derived from this connection with what he imagined tobe literature. 

This connection still further enlarged their world. Men who wrote ordrew prettily for the public came at times to their house, and hiseditor came very often. He thought him rather an ass because he had suchbig front teeth (the proper thing is to have small, even teeth) andwore his hair a trifle longer than most men do. However, some dukes weartheir hair long, and the fellow indubitably knew his business. The worstwas that his gravity, though perfectly portentous, could not be trusted. He sat, elegant and bulky, in the drawing-room, the head of hisstick hovering in front of his big teeth, and talked for hours witha thick-lipped smile (he said nothing that could be consideredobjectionable and not quite the thing) talked in an unusual manner--notobviously irritatingly. His forehead was too lofty--unusually so--andunder it there was a straight nose, lost between the hairless cheeks, that in a smooth curve ran into a chin shaped like the end of asnow-shoe. And in this face that resembled the face of a fat andfiendishly knowing baby there glittered a pair of clever, peering, unbelieving black eyes. He wrote verses too. Rather an ass. But the bandof men who trailed at the skirts of his monumental frock-coat seemed toperceive wonderful things in what he said. Alvan Hervey put it downto affectation. Those artist chaps, upon the whole, were so affected. Still, all this was highly proper--very useful to him--and his wifeseemed to like it--as if she also had derived some distinct and secretadvantage from this intellectual connection. She received her mixed anddecorous guests with a kind of tall, ponderous grace, peculiarly her ownand which awakened in the mind of intimidated strangers incongruous andimproper reminiscences of an elephant, a giraffe, a gazelle; of a gothictower--of an overgrown angel. Her Thursdays were becoming famous intheir world; and their world grew steadily, annexing street afterstreet. It included also Somebody's Gardens, a Crescent--a couple ofSquares. 

Thus Alvan Hervey and his wife for five prosperous years lived by theside of one another. In time they came to know each other sufficientlywell for all the practical purposes of such an existence, but they wereno more capable of real intimacy than two animals feeding at the samemanger, under the same roof, in a luxurious stable. His longing wasappeased and became a habit; and she had her desire--the desire to getaway from under the paternal roof, to assert her individuality, to movein her own set (so much smarter than the parental one); to have ahome of her own, and her own share of the world's respect, envy, andapplause. They understood each other warily, tacitly, like a pair ofcautious conspirators in a profitable plot; because they were bothunable to look at a fact, a sentiment, a principle, or a beliefotherwise than in the light of their own dignity, of their ownglorification, of their own advantage. They skimmed over the surfaceof life hand in hand, in a pure and frosty atmosphere--like twoskilful skaters cutting figures on thick ice for the admiration ofthe beholders, and disdainfully ignoring the hidden stream, the streamrestless and dark; the stream of life, profound and unfrozen. 

Alvan Hervey turned twice to the left, once to the right, walked alongtwo sides of a square, in the middle of which groups of tame-lookingtrees stood in respectable captivity behind iron railings, and rang athis door. A parlour-maid opened. A fad of his wife's, this, to have onlywomen servants. That girl, while she took his hat and overcoat, saidsomething which made him look at his watch. It was five o'clock, and hiswife not at home. There was nothing unusual in that. He said, "No; notea, " and went upstairs. 

He ascended without footfalls. Brass rods glimmered all up the redcarpet. On the first-floor landing a marble woman, decently covered fromneck to instep with stone draperies, advanced a row of lifeless toesto the edge of the pedestal, and thrust out blindly a rigid white armholding a cluster of lights. He had artistic tastes--at home. Heavycurtains caught back, half concealed dark corners. On the rich, stampedpaper of the walls hung sketches, water-colours, engravings. His tasteswere distinctly artistic. Old church towers peeped above green massesof foliage; the hills were purple, the sands yellow, the seas sunny, theskies blue. A young lady sprawled with dreamy eyes in a moored boat, incompany of a lunch basket, a champagne bottle, and an enamoured man ina blazer. Bare-legged boys flirted sweetly with ragged maidens, slepton stone steps, gambolled with dogs. A pathetically lean girl flattenedagainst a blank wall, turned up expiring eyes and tendered a flower forsale; while, near by, the large photographs of some famous and mutilatedbas-reliefs seemed to represent a massacre turned into stone. 

He looked, of course, at nothing, ascended another flight of stairs andwent straight into the dressing room. A bronze dragon nailed by the tailto a bracket writhed away from the wall in calm convolutions, andheld, between the conventional fury of its jaws, a crude gas flame thatresembled a butterfly. The room was empty, of course; but, as he steppedin, it became filled all at once with a stir of many people; becausethe strips of glass on the doors of wardrobes and his wife's largepier-glass reflected him from head to foot, and multiplied his imageinto a crowd of gentlemanly and slavish imitators, who were dressedexactly like himself; had the same restrained and rare gestures; whomoved when he moved, stood still with him in an obsequious immobility, and had just such appearances of life and feeling as he thought itdignified and safe for any man to manifest. And like real people who areslaves of common thoughts, that are not even their own, they affected ashadowy independence by the superficial variety of their movements. Theymoved together with him; but they either advanced to meet him, or walkedaway from him; they appeared, disappeared; they seemed to dodge behindwalnut furniture, to be seen again, far within the polished panes, stepping about distinct and unreal in the convincing illusion of aroom. And like the men he respected they could be trusted to do nothingindividual, original, or startling--nothing unforeseen and nothingimproper. 

He moved for a time aimlessly in that good company, humming a popularbut refined tune, and thinking vaguely of a business letter from abroad, which had to be answered on the morrow with cautious prevarication. Then, as he walked towards a wardrobe, he saw appearing at his back, inthe high mirror, the corner of his wife's dressing-table, and amongstthe glitter of silver-mounted objects on it, the square white patch ofan envelope. It was such an unusual thing to be seen there that he spunround almost before he realized his surprise; and all the sham menabout him pivoted on their heels; all appeared surprised; and all movedrapidly towards envelopes on dressing-tables. 

He recognized his wife's handwriting and saw that the envelope wasaddressed to himself. He muttered, "How very odd, " and felt annoyed. Apart from any odd action being essentially an indecent thing in itself, the fact of his wife indulging in it made it doubly offensive. That sheshould write to him at all, when she knew he would be home for dinner, was perfectly ridiculous; but that she should leave it like this--inevidence for chance discovery--struck him as so outrageous that, thinking of it, he experienced suddenly a staggering sense ofinsecurity, an absurd and bizarre flash of a notion that the house hadmoved a little under his feet. He tore the envelope open, glanced at theletter, and sat down in a chair near by. 

He held the paper before his eyes and looked at half a dozen linesscrawled on the page, while he was stunned by a noise meaninglessand violent, like the clash of gongs or the beating of drums; a greataimless uproar that, in a manner, prevented him from hearing himselfthink and made his mind an absolute blank. This absurd and distractingtumult seemed to ooze out of the written words, to issue from betweenhis very fingers that trembled, holding the paper. And suddenly hedropped the letter as though it had been something hot, or venomous, orfilthy; and rushing to the window with the unreflecting precipitationof a man anxious to raise an alarm of fire or murder, he threw it up andput his head out. 

A chill gust of wind, wandering through the damp and sooty obscurityover the waste of roofs and chimney-pots, touched his face with a clammyflick. He saw an illimitable darkness, in which stood a black jumble ofwalls, and, between them, the many rows of gaslights stretched far awayin long lines, like strung-up beads of fire. A sinister loom as of ahidden conflagration lit up faintly from below the mist, falling upona billowy and motionless sea of tiles and bricks. At the rattle of theopened window the world seemed to leap out of the night and confronthim, while floating up to his ears there came a sound vast and faint;the deep mutter of something immense and alive. It penetrated him witha feeling of dismay and he gasped silently. From the cab-stand in thesquare came distinct hoarse voices and a jeering laugh which soundedominously harsh and cruel. It sounded threatening. He drew his head in, as if before an aimed blow, and flung the window down quickly. He madea few steps, stumbled against a chair, and with a great effort, pulledhimself together to lay hold of a certain thought that was whizzingabout loose in his head. 

He got it at last, after more exertion than he expected; he was flushedand puffed a little as though he had been catching it with his hands, but his mental hold on it was weak, so weak that he judged it necessaryto repeat it aloud--to hear it spoken firmly--in order to insure aperfect measure of possession. But he was unwilling to hear his ownvoice--to hear any sound whatever--owing to a vague belief, shapingitself slowly within him, that solitude and silence are the greatestfelicities of mankind. The next moment it dawned upon him that they areperfectly unattainable--that faces must be seen, words spoken, thoughtsheard. All the words--all the thoughts!

He said very distinctly, and looking at the carpet, "She's gone. "

It was terrible--not the fact but the words; the words charged with theshadowy might of a meaning, that seemed to possess the tremendous powerto call Fate down upon the earth, like those strange and appalling wordsthat sometimes are heard in sleep. They vibrated round him in a metallicatmosphere, in a space that had the hardness of iron and the resonanceof a bell of bronze. Looking down between the toes of his boots heseemed to listen thoughtfully to the receding wave of sound; to thewave spreading out in a widening circle, embracing streets, roofs, church-steeples, fields--and travelling away, widening endlessly, far, very far, where he could not hear--where he could not imagineanything--where . . . 

"And--with that . . . Ass, " he said again without stirring in the least. And there was nothing but humiliation. Nothing else. He could derive nomoral solace from any aspect of the situation, which radiated pain onlyon every side. Pain. What kind of pain? It occurred to him that he oughtto be heart-broken; but in an exceedingly short moment he perceived thathis suffering was nothing of so trifling and dignified a kind. It wasaltogether a more serious matter, and partook rather of the natureof those subtle and cruel feelings which are awakened by a kick or ahorse-whipping. 

He felt very sick--physically sick--as though he had bitten throughsomething nauseous. Life, that to a well-ordered mind should be amatter of congratulation, appeared to him, for a second or so, perfectlyintolerable. He picked up the paper at his feet, and sat down with thewish to think it out, to understand why his wife--his wife!--shouldleave him, should throw away respect, comfort, peace, decency, positionthrow away everything for nothing! He set himself to think out thehidden logic of her action--a mental undertaking fit for the leisurehours of a madhouse, though he couldn't see it. And he thought of hiswife in every relation except the only fundamental one. He thoughtof her as a well-bred girl, as a wife, as a cultured person, as themistress of a house, as a lady; but he never for a moment thought of hersimply as a woman. 

Then a fresh wave, a raging wave of humiliation, swept through his mind, and left nothing there but a personal sense of undeserved abasement. Whyshould he be mixed up with such a horrid exposure! It annihilated allthe advantages of his well-ordered past, by a truth effective and unjustlike a calumny--and the past was wasted. Its failure was disclosed--adistinct failure, on his part, to see, to guard, to understand. It couldnot be denied; it could not be explained away, hustled out of sight. Hecould not sit on it and look solemn. Now--if she had only died!

If she had only died! He was driven to envy such a respectablebereavement, and one so perfectly free from any taint of misfortune thateven his best friend or his best enemy would not have felt the slightestthrill of exultation. No one would have cared. He sought comfort inclinging to the contemplation of the only fact of life that the resoluteefforts of mankind had never failed to disguise in the clatter andglamour of phrases. And nothing lends itself more to lies than death. If she had only died! Certain words would have been said to him in asad tone, and he, with proper fortitude, would have made appropriateanswers. There were precedents for such an occasion. And no one wouldhave cared. If she had only died! The promises, the terrors, the hopesof eternity, are the concern of the corrupt dead; but the obvioussweetness of life belongs to living, healthy men. And life was hisconcern: that sane and gratifying existence untroubled by too much loveor by too much regret. She had interfered with it; she had defaced it. And suddenly it occurred to him he must have been mad to marry. It wastoo much in the nature of giving yourself away, of wearing--if fora moment--your heart on your sleeve. But every one married. Was allmankind mad!

In the shock of that startling thought he looked up, and saw to theleft, to the right, in front, men sitting far off in chairs and lookingat him with wild eyes--emissaries of a distracted mankind intruding tospy upon his pain and his humiliation. It was not to be borne. He rosequickly, and the others jumped up, too, on all sides. He stood still inthe middle of the room as if discouraged by their vigilance. No escape!He felt something akin to despair. Everybody must know. The servantsmust know to-night. He ground his teeth . . . And he had never noticed, never guessed anything. Every one will know. He thought: "The woman's amonster, but everybody will think me a fool"; and standing still in themidst of severe walnut-wood furniture, he felt such a tempest of anguishwithin him that he seemed to see himself rolling on the carpet, beatinghis head against the wall. He was disgusted with himself, with theloathsome rush of emotion breaking through all the reserves that guardedhis manhood. Something unknown, withering and poisonous, had enteredhis life, passed near him, touched him, and he was deteriorating. He wasappalled. What was it? She was gone. Why? His head was ready to burstwith the endeavour to understand her act and his subtle horror of it. Everything was changed. Why? Only a woman gone, after all; and yet hehad a vision, a vision quick and distinct as a dream: the vision ofeverything he had thought indestructible and safe in the world crashingdown about him, like solid walls do before the fierce breath ofa hurricane. He stared, shaking in every limb, while he felt thedestructive breath, the mysterious breath, the breath of passion, stirthe profound peace of the house. He looked round in fear. Yes. Crime maybe forgiven; uncalculating sacrifice, blind trust, burning faith, otherfollies, may be turned to account; suffering, death itself, may with agrin or a frown be explained away; but passion is the unpardonable andsecret infamy of our hearts, a thing to curse, to hide and to deny; ashameless and forlorn thing that tramples upon the smiling promises, that tears off the placid mask, that strips the body of life. And it hadcome to him! It had laid its unclean hand upon the spotless draperiesof his existence, and he had to face it alone with all the world lookingon. All the world! And he thought that even the bare suspicion ofsuch an adversary within his house carried with it a taint and acondemnation. He put both his hands out as if to ward off the reproachof a defiling truth; and, instantly, the appalled conclave of unrealmen, standing about mutely beyond the clear lustre of mirrors, made athim the same gesture of rejection and horror. 

He glanced vainly here and there, like a man looking in desperationfor a weapon or for a hiding place, and understood at last that he wasdisarmed and cornered by the enemy that, without any squeamishness, would strike so as to lay open his heart. He could get help nowhere, or even take counsel with himself, because in the sudden shock of herdesertion the sentiments which he knew that in fidelity to his bringingup, to his prejudices and his surroundings, he ought to experience, wereso mixed up with the novelty of real feelings, of fundamental feelingsthat know nothing of creed, class, or education, that he was unable todistinguish clearly between what is and what ought to be; between theinexcusable truth and the valid pretences. And he knew instinctivelythat truth would be of no use to him. Some kind of concealment seemed anecessity because one cannot explain. Of course not! Who would listen?One had simply to be without stain and without reproach to keep one'splace in the forefront of life. 

He said to himself, "I must get over it the best I can, " and began towalk up and down the room. What next? What ought to be done? He thought:"I will travel--no I won't. I shall face it out. " And after that resolvehe was greatly cheered by the reflection that it would be a mute and aneasy part to play, for no one would be likely to converse with him aboutthe abominable conduct of--that woman. He argued to himself thatdecent people--and he knew no others--did not care to talk about suchindelicate affairs. She had gone off--with that unhealthy, fat ass of ajournalist. Why? He had been all a husband ought to be. He had given hera good position--she shared his prospects--he had treated her invariablywith great consideration. He reviewed his conduct with a kind of dismalpride. It had been irreproachable. Then, why? For love? Profanation!There could be no love there. A shameful impulse of passion. Yes, passion. His own wife! Good God! . . . And the indelicate aspect of hisdomestic misfortune struck him with such shame that, next moment, hecaught himself in the act of pondering absurdly over the notion whetherit would not be more dignified for him to induce a general belief thathe had been in the habit of beating his wife. Some fellows do . . . Andanything would be better than the filthy fact; for it was clear hehad lived with the root of it for five years--and it was too shameful. Anything! Anything! Brutality . . . But he gave it up directly, andbegan to think of the Divorce Court. It did not present itself to him, notwithstanding his respect for law and usage, as a proper refuge fordignified grief. It appeared rather as an unclean and sinister cavernwhere men and women are haled by adverse fate to writhe ridiculouslyin the presence of uncompromising truth. It should not be allowed. Thatwoman! Five . . . Years . . . Married five years . . . And never to seeanything. Not to the very last day . . . Not till she coolly went off. And he pictured to himself all the people he knew engaged in speculatingas to whether all that time he had been blind, foolish, or infatuated. What a woman! Blind! . . . Not at all. Could a clean-minded man imaginesuch depravity? Evidently not. He drew a free breath. That was theattitude to take; it was dignified enough; it gave him the advantage, and he could not help perceiving that it was moral. He yearnedunaffectedly to see morality (in his person) triumphant before theworld. As to her she would be forgotten. Let her be forgotten--buried inoblivion--lost! No one would allude . . . Refined people--and every manand woman he knew could be so described--had, of course, a horror ofsuch topics. Had they? Oh, yes. No one would allude to her . . . In hishearing. He stamped his foot, tore the letter across, then again andagain. The thought of sympathizing friends excited in him a furyof mistrust. He flung down the small bits of paper. They settled, fluttering at his feet, and looked very white on the dark carpet, like ascattered handful of snow-flakes. 

This fit of hot anger was succeeded by a sudden sadness, by thedarkening passage of a thought that ran over the scorched surface of hisheart, like upon a barren plain, and after a fiercer assault of sunrays, the melancholy and cooling shadow of a cloud. He realized that he hadhad a shock--not a violent or rending blow, that can be seen, resisted, returned, forgotten, but a thrust, insidious and penetrating, that hadstirred all those feelings, concealed and cruel, which the arts of thedevil, the fears of mankind--God's infinite compassion, perhaps--keepchained deep down in the inscrutable twilight of our breasts. A darkcurtain seemed to rise before him, and for less than a second he lookedupon the mysterious universe of moral suffering. As a landscape is seencomplete, and vast, and vivid, under a flash of lightning, so hecould see disclosed in a moment all the immensity of pain that can becontained in one short moment of human thought. Then the curtain fellagain, but his rapid vision left in Alvan Hervey's mind a trail ofinvincible sadness, a sense of loss and bitter solitude, as though hehad been robbed and exiled. For a moment he ceased to be a member ofsociety with a position, a career, and a name attached to all this, likea descriptive label of some complicated compound. He was a simple humanbeing removed from the delightful world of crescents and squares. Hestood alone, naked and afraid, like the first man on the first day ofevil. There are in life events, contacts, glimpses, that seem brutallyto bring all the past to a close. There is a shock and a crash, as ofa gate flung to behind one by the perfidious hand of fate. Go and seekanother paradise, fool or sage. There is a moment of dumb dismay, andthe wanderings must begin again; the painful explaining away of facts, the feverish raking up of illusions, the cultivation of a fresh cropof lies in the sweat of one's brow, to sustain life, to make itsupportable, to make it fair, so as to hand intact to another generationof blind wanderers the charming legend of a heartless country, of apromised land, all flowers and blessings . . . 

He came to himself with a slight start, and became aware of anoppressive, crushing desolation. It was only a feeling, it is true, but it produced on him a physical effect, as though his chest hadbeen squeezed in a vice. He perceived himself so extremely forlornand lamentable, and was moved so deeply by the oppressive sorrow, thatanother turn of the screw, he felt, would bring tears out of his eyes. He was deteriorating. Five years of life in common had appeased hislonging. Yes, long-time ago. The first five months did that--but . . . There was the habit--the habit of her person, of her smile, of hergestures, of her voice, of her silence. She had a pure brow andgood hair. How utterly wretched all this was. Good hair and fineeyes--remarkably fine. He was surprised by the number of details thatintruded upon his unwilling memory. He could not help remembering herfootsteps, the rustle of her dress, her way of holding her head, herdecisive manner of saying "Alvan, " the quiver of her nostrils when shewas annoyed. All that had been so much his property, so intimately andspecially his! He raged in a mournful, silent way, as he took stockof his losses. He was like a man counting the cost of an unluckyspeculation--irritated, depressed--exasperated with himself and withothers, with the fortunate, with the indifferent, with the callous; yetthe wrong done him appeared so cruel that he would perhaps have droppeda tear over that spoliation if it had not been for his convictionthat men do not weep. Foreigners do; they also kill sometimes in suchcircumstances. And to his horror he felt himself driven to regret almostthat the usages of a society ready to forgive the shooting of a burglarforbade him, under the circumstances, even as much as a thought ofmurder. Nevertheless, he clenched his fists and set his teeth hard. And he was afraid at the same time. He was afraid with that penetratingfaltering fear that seems, in the very middle of a beat, to turn one'sheart into a handful of dust. The contamination of her crime spread out, tainted the universe, tainted himself; woke up all the dormant infamiesof the world; caused a ghastly kind of clairvoyance in which he couldsee the towns and fields of the earth, its sacred places, its templesand its houses, peopled by monsters--by monsters of duplicity, lust, andmurder. She was a monster--he himself was thinking monstrous thoughts. . . And yet he was like other people. How many men and women at thisvery moment were plunged in abominations--meditated crimes. It wasfrightful to think of. He remembered all the streets--the well-to-dostreets he had passed on his way home; all the innumerable houses withclosed doors and curtained windows. Each seemed now an abode of anguishand folly. And his thought, as if appalled, stood still, recalling withdismay the decorous and frightful silence that was like a conspiracy;the grim, impenetrable silence of miles of walls concealing passions, misery, thoughts of crime. Surely he was not the only man; his was notthe only house . . . And yet no one knew--no one guessed. But he knew. He knew with unerring certitude that could not be deceived by thecorrect silence of walls, of closed doors, of curtained windows. He wasbeside himself with a despairing agitation, like a man informed ofa deadly secret--the secret of a calamity threatening the safety ofmankind--the sacredness, the peace of life. 

He caught sight of himself in one of the looking-glasses. It was arelief. The anguish of his feeling had been so powerful that he morethan half expected to see some distorted wild face there, and he waspleasantly surprised to see nothing of the kind. His aspect, at anyrate, would let no one into the secret of his pain. He examined himselfwith attention. His trousers were turned up, and his boots a littlemuddy, but he looked very much as usual. Only his hair was slightlyruffled, and that disorder, somehow, was so suggestive of troublethat he went quickly to the table, and began to use the brushes, in ananxious desire to obliterate the compromising trace, that only vestigeof his emotion. He brushed with care, watching the effect of hissmoothing; and another face, slightly pale and more tense than wasperhaps desirable, peered back at him from the toilet glass. He laid thebrushes down, and was not satisfied. He took them up again and brushed, brushed mechanically--forgot himself in that occupation. The tumult ofhis thoughts ended in a sluggish flow of reflection, such as, after theoutburst of a volcano, the almost imperceptible progress of a streamof lava, creeping languidly over a convulsed land and pitilesslyobliterating any landmark left by the shock of the earthquake. It isa destructive but, by comparison, it is a peaceful phenomenon. AlvanHervey was almost soothed by the deliberate pace of his thoughts. Hismoral landmarks were going one by one, consumed in the fire of hisexperience, buried in hot mud, in ashes. He was cooling--on the surface;but there was enough heat left somewhere to make him slap the brushes onthe table, and turning away, say in a fierce whisper: "I wish him joy. . . Damn the woman. "

He felt himself utterly corrupted by her wickedness, and the mostsignificant symptom of his moral downfall was the bitter, acridsatisfaction with which he recognized it. He, deliberately, swore in histhoughts; he meditated sneers; he shaped in profound silence words ofcynical unbelief, and his most cherished convictions stood revealedfinally as the narrow prejudices of fools. A crowd of shapeless, uncleanthoughts crossed his mind in a stealthy rush, like a band of veiledmalefactors hastening to a crime. He put his hands deep into hispockets. He heard a faint ringing somewhere, and muttered to himself:"I am not the only one . . . Not the only one. " There was another ring. Front door!

His heart leaped up into his throat, and forthwith descended as low ashis boots. A call! Who? Why? He wanted to rush out on the landing andshout to the servant: "Not at home! Gone away abroad!" . . . Any excuse. He could not face a visitor. Not this evening. No. To-morrow. . . . Before he could break out of the numbness that enveloped him like asheet of lead, he heard far below, as if in the entrails of the earth, a door close heavily. The house vibrated to it more than to a clap ofthunder. He stood still, wishing himself invisible. The room was verychilly. He did not think he would ever feel like that. But people mustbe met--they must be faced--talked to--smiled at. He heard another door, much nearer--the door of the drawing-room--being opened and flung toagain. He imagined for a moment he would faint. How absurd! That kindof thing had to be gone through. A voice spoke. He could not catch thewords. Then the voice spoke again, and footsteps were heard on thefirst floor landing. Hang it all! Was he to hear that voice and thosefootsteps whenever any one spoke or moved? He thought: "This is likebeing haunted--I suppose it will last for a week or so, at least. TillI forget. Forget! Forget!" Someone was coming up the second flight ofstairs. Servant? He listened, then, suddenly, as though an incredible, frightful revelation had been shouted to him from a distance, hebellowed out in the empty room: "What! What!" in such a fiendish toneas to astonish himself. The footsteps stopped outside the door. He stoodopenmouthed, maddened and still, as if in the midst of a catastrophe. The door-handle rattled lightly. It seemed to him that the walls werecoming apart, that the furniture swayed at him; the ceiling slantedqueerly for a moment, a tall wardrobe tried to topple over. He caughthold of something and it was the back of a chair. So he had reeledagainst a chair! Oh! Confound it! He gripped hard. 

The flaming butterfly poised between the jaws of the bronze dragonradiated a glare, a glare that seemed to leap up all at once into acrude, blinding fierceness, and made it difficult for him to distinguishplainly the figure of his wife standing upright with her back to theclosed door. He looked at her and could not detect her breathing. Theharsh and violent light was beating on her, and he was amazed to see herpreserve so well the composure of her upright attitude in that scorchingbrilliance which, to his eyes, enveloped her like a hot and consumingmist. He would not have been surprised if she had vanished in it assuddenly as she had appeared. He stared and listened; listened for somesound, but the silence round him was absolute--as though he had ina moment grown completely deaf as well as dim-eyed. Then his hearingreturned, preternaturally sharp. He heard the patter of a rain-shower onthe window panes behind the lowered blinds, and below, far below, inthe artificial abyss of the square, the deadened roll of wheels and thesplashy trotting of a horse. He heard a groan also--very distinct--inthe room--close to his ear. 

He thought with alarm: "I must have made that noise myself;" and at thesame instant the woman left the door, stepped firmly across the floorbefore him, and sat down in a chair. He knew that step. There was nodoubt about it. She had come back! And he very nearly said aloud"Of course!"--such was his sudden and masterful perception of theindestructible character of her being. Nothing could destroy her--andnothing but his own destruction could keep her away. She was theincarnation of all the short moments which every man spares out of hislife for dreams, for precious dreams that concrete the most cherished, the most profitable of his illusions. He peered at her with inwardtrepidation. She was mysterious, significant, full of obscure meaning--like a symbol. He peered, bending forward, as though he had beendiscovering about her things he had never seen before. Unconsciouslyhe made a step towards her--then another. He saw her arm make an ample, decided movement and he stopped. She had lifted her veil. It was likethe lifting of a vizor. 

The spell was broken. He experienced a shock as though he had beencalled out of a trance by the sudden noise of an explosion. It was evenmore startling and more distinct; it was an infinitely more intimatechange, for he had the sensation of having come into this room only thatvery moment; of having returned from very far; he was made aware thatsome essential part of himself had in a flash returned into hisbody, returned finally from a fierce and lamentable region, from thedwelling-place of unveiled hearts. He woke up to an amazing infinity ofcontempt, to a droll bitterness of wonder, to a disenchanted convictionof safety. He had a glimpse of the irresistible force, and he saw alsothe barrenness of his convictions--of her convictions. It seemed to himthat he could never make a mistake as long as he lived. It was morallyimpossible to go wrong. He was not elated by that certitude; he wasdimly uneasy about its price; there was a chill as of death in thistriumph of sound principles, in this victory snatched under the veryshadow of disaster. 

The last trace of his previous state of mind vanished, as theinstantaneous and elusive trail of a bursting meteor vanishes on theprofound blackness of the sky; it was the faint flicker of a painfulthought, gone as soon as perceived, that nothing but her presence--afterall--had the power to recall him to himself. He stared at her. She satwith her hands on her lap, looking down; and he noticed that her bootswere dirty, her skirts wet and splashed, as though she had been drivenback there by a blind fear through a waste of mud. He was indignant, amazed and shocked, but in a natural, healthy way now; so that hecould control those unprofitable sentiments by the dictates of cautiousself-restraint. The light in the room had no unusual brilliance now; itwas a good light in which he could easily observe the expression of herface. It was that of dull fatigue. And the silence that surrounded themwas the normal silence of any quiet house, hardly disturbed by the faintnoises of a respectable quarter of the town. He was very cool--and itwas quite coolly that he thought how much better it would be if neitherof them ever spoke again. She sat with closed lips, with an air oflassitude in the stony forgetfulness of her pose, but after a moment shelifted her drooping eyelids and met his tense and inquisitive stare bya look that had all the formless eloquence of a cry. It penetrated, itstirred without informing; it was the very essence of anguish strippedof words that can be smiled at, argued away, shouted down, disdained. It was anguish naked and unashamed, the bare pain of existence let looseupon the world in the fleeting unreserve of a look that had in it animmensity of fatigue, the scornful sincerity, the black impudence of anextorted confession. Alvan Hervey was seized with wonder, as though hehad seen something inconceivable; and some obscure part of his beingwas ready to exclaim with him: "I would never have believed it!" butan instantaneous revulsion of wounded susceptibilities checked theunfinished thought. 

He felt full of rancorous indignation against the woman who could looklike this at one. This look probed him; it tampered with him. It wasdangerous to one as would be a hint of unbelief whispered by a priest inthe august decorum of a temple; and at the same time it was impure, it was disturbing, like a cynical consolation muttered in the dark, tainting the sorrow, corroding the thought, poisoning the heart. Hewanted to ask her furiously: "Who do you take me for? How dare you lookat me like this?" He felt himself helpless before the hidden meaning ofthat look; he resented it with pained and futile violence as an injuryso secret that it could never, never be redressed. His wish was to crushher by a single sentence. He was stainless. Opinion was on his side;morality, men and gods were on his side; law, conscience--all the world!She had nothing but that look. And he could only say:

"How long do you intend to stay here?"

Her eyes did not waver, her lips remained closed; and for any effectof his words he might have spoken to a dead woman, only that this onebreathed quickly. He was profoundly disappointed by what he had said. It was a great deception, something in the nature of treason. He haddeceived himself. It should have been altogether different--otherwords--another sensation. And before his eyes, so fixed that at timesthey saw nothing, she sat apparently as unconscious as though she hadbeen alone, sending that look of brazen confession straight at him--withan air of staring into empty space. He said significantly:

"Must I go then?" And he knew he meant nothing of what he implied. 

One of her hands on her lap moved slightly as though his words hadfallen there and she had thrown them off on the floor. But her silenceencouraged him. Possibly it meant remorse--perhaps fear. Was shethunderstruck by his attitude? . . . Her eyelids dropped. He seemed tounderstand ever so much--everything! Very well--but she must be made tosuffer. It was due to him. He understood everything, yet he judged itindispensable to say with an obvious affectation of civility:

"I don't understand--be so good as to . . . "

She stood up. For a second he believed she intended to go away, andit was as though someone had jerked a string attached to his heart. Ithurt. He remained open-mouthed and silent. But she made an irresolutestep towards him, and instinctively he moved aside. They stood beforeone another, and the fragments of the torn letter lay between them--attheir feet--like an insurmountable obstacle, like a sign of eternalseparation! Around them three other couples stood still and face toface, as if waiting for a signal to begin some action--a struggle, adispute, or a dance. 

She said: "Don't--Alvan!" and there was something that resembled awarning in the pain of her tone. He narrowed his eyes as if trying topierce her with his gaze. Her voice touched him. He had aspirationsafter magnanimity, generosity, superiority--interrupted, however, byflashes of indignation and anxiety--frightful anxiety to know how farshe had gone. She looked down at the torn paper. Then she looked up, andtheir eyes met again, remained fastened together, like an unbreakablebond, like a clasp of eternal complicity; and the decorous silence, thepervading quietude of the house which enveloped this meeting of theirglances became for a moment inexpressibly vile, for he was afraid shewould say too much and make magnanimity impossible, while behind theprofound mournfulness of her face there was a regret--a regret of thingsdone--the regret of delay--the thought that if she had only turned backa week sooner--a day sooner--only an hour sooner. . . . They were afraidto hear again the sound of their voices; they did not know what theymight say--perhaps something that could not be recalled; and words aremore terrible than facts. But the tricky fatality that lurks in obscureimpulses spoke through Alvan Hervey's lips suddenly; and he heardhis own voice with the excited and sceptical curiosity with which onelistens to actors' voices speaking on the stage in the strain of apoignant situation. 

"If you have forgotten anything . . . Of course . . . I . . . "

Her eyes blazed at him for an instant; her lips trembled--and then shealso became the mouth-piece of the mysterious force forever hoveringnear us; of that perverse inspiration, wandering capricious anduncontrollable, like a gust of wind. 

"What is the good of this, Alvan? . . . You know why I came back. . . . You know that I could not . . . "

He interrupted her with irritation. 

"Then! what's this?" he asked, pointing downwards at the torn letter. 

"That's a mistake, " she said hurriedly, in a muffled voice. 

This answer amazed him. He remained speechless, staring at her. He hadhalf a mind to burst into a laugh. It ended in a smile as involuntary asa grimace of pain. 

"A mistake . . . " he began, slowly, and then found himself unable to sayanother word. 

"Yes . . . It was honest, " she said very low, as if speaking to thememory of a feeling in a remote past. 

He exploded. 

"Curse your honesty! . . . Is there any honesty in all this! . . . Whendid you begin to be honest? Why are you here? What are you now? . . . Still honest? . . . "

He walked at her, raging, as if blind; during these three quick strideshe lost touch of the material world and was whirled interminably througha kind of empty universe made up of nothing but fury and anguish, tillhe came suddenly upon her face--very close to his. He stopped short, andall at once seemed to remember something heard ages ago. 

"You don't know the meaning of the word, " he shouted. 

She did not flinch. He perceived with fear that everything around himwas still. She did not move a hair's breadth; his own body did not stir. An imperturbable calm enveloped their two motionless figures, the house, the town, all the world--and the trifling tempest of his feelings. Theviolence of the short tumult within him had been such as could well haveshattered all creation; and yet nothing was changed. He faced his wifein the familiar room in his own house. It had not fallen. And right andleft all the innumerable dwellings, standing shoulder to shoulder, had resisted the shock of his passion, had presented, unmoved, to theloneliness of his trouble, the grim silence of walls, the impenetrableand polished discretion of closed doors and curtained windows. Immobility and silence pressed on him, assailed him, like twoaccomplices of the immovable and mute woman before his eyes. He wassuddenly vanquished. He was shown his impotence. He was soothed by thebreath of a corrupt resignation coming to him through the subtle ironyof the surrounding peace. 

He said with villainous composure:

"At any rate it isn't enough for me. I want to know more--if you'regoing to stay. "

"There is nothing more to tell, " she answered, sadly. 

It struck him as so very true that he did not say anything. She went on:

"You wouldn't understand. . . . "

"No?" he said, quietly. He held himself tight not to burst into howlsand imprecations. 

"I tried to be faithful . . . " she began again. 

"And this?" he exclaimed, pointing at the fragments of her letter. 

"This--this is a failure, " she said. 

"I should think so, " he muttered, bitterly. 

"I tried to be faithful to myself--Alvan--and . . . And honest toyou. . . . "

"If you had tried to be faithful to me it would have been more to thepurpose, " he interrupted, angrily. "I've been faithful to you and youhave spoiled my life--both our lives . . . " Then after a pause theunconquerable preoccupation of self came out, and he raised his voice toask resentfully, "And, pray, for how long have you been making a fool ofme?"

She seemed horribly shocked by that question. He did not wait for ananswer, but went on moving about all the time; now and then coming up toher, then wandering off restlessly to the other end of the room. 

"I want to know. Everybody knows, I suppose, but myself--and that's yourhonesty!"

"I have told you there is nothing to know, " she said, speakingunsteadily as if in pain. "Nothing of what you suppose. You don'tunderstand me. This letter is the beginning--and the end. "

"The end--this thing has no end, " he clamoured, unexpectedly. "Can't youunderstand that? I can . . . The beginning . . . "

He stopped and looked into her eyes with concentrated intensity, witha desire to see, to penetrate, to understand, that made him positivelyhold his breath till he gasped. 

"By Heavens!" he said, standing perfectly still in a peering attitudeand within less than a foot from her. 

"By Heavens!" he repeated, slowly, and in a tone whose involuntarystrangeness was a complete mystery to himself. "By Heavens--I couldbelieve you--I could believe anything--now!"

He turned short on his heel and began to walk up and down the room withan air of having disburdened himself of the final pronouncement of hislife--of having said something on which he would not go back, even ifhe could. She remained as if rooted to the carpet. Her eyes followedthe restless movements of the man, who avoided looking at her. Her widestare clung to him, inquiring, wondering and doubtful. 

"But the fellow was forever sticking in here, " he burst out, distractedly. "He made love to you, I suppose--and, and . . . " Helowered his voice. "And--you let him. "

"And I let him, " she murmured, catching his intonation, so that hervoice sounded unconscious, sounded far off and slavish, like an echo. 

He said twice, "You! You!" violently, then calmed down. "What could yousee in the fellow?" he asked, with unaffected wonder. "An effeminate, fat ass. What could you . . . Weren't you happy? Didn't you have all youwanted? Now--frankly; did I deceive your expectations in any way? Wereyou disappointed with our position--or with our prospects--perhaps? Youknow you couldn't be--they are much better than you could hope for whenyou married me. . . . "

He forgot himself so far as to gesticulate a little while he went onwith animation:

"What could you expect from such a fellow? He's an outsider--a rankoutsider. . . . If it hadn't been for my money . . . Do you hear? . . . For my money, he wouldn't know where to turn. His people won't haveanything to do with him. The fellow's no class--no class at all. He's useful, certainly, that's why I . . . I thought you had enoughintelligence to see it. . . . And you . . . No! It's incredible!What did he tell you? Do you care for no one's opinion--is there norestraining influence in the world for you--women? Did you ever give mea thought? I tried to be a good husband. Did I fail? Tell me--what haveI done?"

Carried away by his feelings he took his head in both his hands andrepeated wildly:

"What have I done? . . . Tell me! What? . . . "

"Nothing, " she said. 

"Ah! You see . . . You can't . . . " he began, triumphantly, walkingaway; then suddenly, as though he had been flung back at her bysomething invisible he had met, he spun round and shouted withexasperation:

"What on earth did you expect me to do?"

Without a word she moved slowly towards the table, and, sitting down, leaned on her elbow, shading her eyes with her hand. All that time heglared at her watchfully as if expecting every moment to find in herdeliberate movements an answer to his question. But he could not readanything, he could gather no hint of her thought. He tried to suppresshis desire to shout, and after waiting awhile, said with incisive scorn:

"Did you want me to write absurd verses; to sit and look at you forhours--to talk to you about your soul? You ought to have known I wasn'tthat sort. . . . I had something better to do. But if you think I wastotally blind . . . "

He perceived in a flash that he could remember an infinity ofenlightening occurrences. He could recall ever so many distinctoccasions when he came upon them; he remembered the absurdly interruptedgesture of his fat, white hand, the rapt expression of her face, theglitter of unbelieving eyes; snatches of incomprehensible conversationsnot worth listening to, silences that had meant nothing at the timeand seemed now illuminating like a burst of sunshine. He remembered allthat. He had not been blind. Oh! No! And to know this was an exquisiterelief: it brought back all his composure. 

"I thought it beneath me to suspect you, " he said, loftily. 

The sound of that sentence evidently possessed some magical power, because, as soon as he had spoken, he felt wonderfully at ease; anddirectly afterwards he experienced a flash of joyful amazement atthe discovery that he could be inspired to such noble and truthfulutterance. He watched the effect of his words. They caused her to glanceto him quickly over her shoulder. He caught a glimpse of wet eyelashes, of a red cheek with a tear running down swiftly; and then she turnedaway again and sat as before, covering her face with her hands. 

"You ought to be perfectly frank with me, " he said, slowly. 

"You know everything, " she answered, indistinctly, through her fingers. 

"This letter. . . . Yes . . . But . . . "

"And I came back, " she exclaimed in a stifled voice; "you knoweverything. "

"I am glad of it--for your sake, " he said with impressive gravity. Helistened to himself with solemn emotion. It seemed to him that somethinginexpressibly momentous was in progress within the room, that everyword and every gesture had the importance of events preordained fromthe beginning of all things, and summing up in their finality the wholepurpose of creation. 

"For your sake, " he repeated. 

Her shoulders shook as though she had been sobbing, and he forgothimself in the contemplation of her hair. Suddenly he gave a start, asif waking up, and asked very gently and not much above a whisper--

"Have you been meeting him often?"

"Never!" she cried into the palms of her hands. 

This answer seemed for a moment to take from him the power of speech. His lips moved for some time before any sound came. 

"You preferred to make love here--under my very nose, " he said, furiously. He calmed down instantly, and felt regretfully uneasy, asthough he had let himself down in her estimation by that outburst. Sherose, and with her hand on the back of the chair confronted him witheyes that were perfectly dry now. There was a red spot on each of hercheeks. 

"When I made up my mind to go to him--I wrote, " she said. 

"But you didn't go to him, " he took up in the same tone. "How far didyou go? What made you come back?"

"I didn't know myself, " she murmured. Nothing of her moved but her lips. He fixed her sternly. 

"Did he expect this? Was he waiting for you?" he asked. 

She answered him by an almost imperceptible nod, and he continued tolook at her for a good while without making a sound. Then, at last--

"And I suppose he is waiting yet?" he asked, quickly. 

Again she seemed to nod at him. For some reason he felt he must know thetime. He consulted his watch gloomily. Half-past seven. 

"Is he?" he muttered, putting the watch in his pocket. He looked up ather, and, as if suddenly overcome by a sense of sinister fun, gave ashort, harsh laugh, directly repressed. 

"No! It's the most unheard! . . . " he mumbled while she stood before himbiting her lower lip, as if plunged in deep thought. He laughed againin one low burst that was as spiteful as an imprecation. He did not knowwhy he felt such an overpowering and sudden distaste for the facts ofexistence--for facts in general--such an immense disgust at the thoughtof all the many days already lived through. He was wearied. Thinkingseemed a labour beyond his strength. He said--

"You deceived me--now you make a fool of him . . . It's awful! Why?"

"I deceived myself!" she exclaimed. 

"Oh! Nonsense!" he said, impatiently. 

"I am ready to go if you wish it, " she went on, quickly. "It was due toyou--to be told--to know. No! I could not!" she cried, and stood stillwringing her hands stealthily. 

"I am glad you repented before it was too late, " he said in a dulltone and looking at his boots. "I am glad . . . Some spark of betterfeeling, " he muttered, as if to himself. He lifted up his head after amoment of brooding silence. "I am glad to see that there is some senseof decency left in you, " he added a little louder. Looking at her heappeared to hesitate, as if estimating the possible consequences of whathe wished to say, and at last blurted out--

"After all, I loved you. . . . "

"I did not know, " she whispered. 

"Good God!" he cried. "Why do you imagine I married you?"

The indelicacy of his obtuseness angered her. 

"Ah--why?" she said through her teeth. 

He appeared overcome with horror, and watched her lips intently asthough in fear. 

"I imagined many things, " she said, slowly, and paused. He watched, holding his breath. At last she went on musingly, as if thinking aloud, "I tried to understand. I tried honestly. . . . Why? . . . To do theusual thing--I suppose. . . . To please yourself. "

He walked away smartly, and when he came back, close to her, he had aflushed face. 

"You seemed pretty well pleased, too--at the time, " he hissed, withscathing fury. "I needn't ask whether you loved me. "

"I know now I was perfectly incapable of such a thing, " she said, calmly, "If I had, perhaps you would not have married me. "

"It's very clear I would not have done it if I had known you--as I knowyou now. "

He seemed to see himself proposing to her--ages ago. They were strollingup the slope of a lawn. Groups of people were scattered in sunshine. The shadows of leafy boughs lay still on the short grass. The colouredsunshades far off, passing between trees, resembled deliberate andbrilliant butterflies moving without a flutter. Men smiling amiably, or else very grave, within the impeccable shelter of their black coats, stood by the side of women who, clustered in clear summer toilettes, recalled all the fabulous tales of enchanted gardens where animatedflowers smile at bewitched knights. There was a sumptuous serenity init all, a thin, vibrating excitement, the perfect security, as of aninvincible ignorance, that evoked within him a transcendent belief infelicity as the lot of all mankind, a recklessly picturesque desire toget promptly something for himself only, out of that splendour unmarredby any shadow of a thought. The girl walked by his side across an openspace; no one was near, and suddenly he stood still, as if inspired, andspoke. He remembered looking at her pure eyes, at her candid brow; heremembered glancing about quickly to see if they were being observed, and thinking that nothing could go wrong in a world of so much charm, purity, and distinction. He was proud of it. He was one of its makers, of its possessors, of its guardians, of its extollers. He wanted tograsp it solidly, to get as much gratification as he could out of it;and in view of its incomparable quality, of its unstained atmosphere, of its nearness to the heaven of its choice, this gust of brutal desireseemed the most noble of aspirations. In a second he lived again throughall these moments, and then all the pathos of his failure presenteditself to him with such vividness that there was a suspicion of tears inhis tone when he said almost unthinkingly, "My God! I did love you!"

She seemed touched by the emotion of his voice. Her lips quivered alittle, and she made one faltering step towards him, putting out herhands in a beseeching gesture, when she perceived, just in time, thatbeing absorbed by the tragedy of his life he had absolutely forgottenher very existence. She stopped, and her outstretched arms fell slowly. He, with his features distorted by the bitterness of his thought, sawneither her movement nor her gesture. He stamped his foot in vexation, rubbed his head--then exploded. 

"What the devil am I to do now?"

He was still again. She seemed to understand, and moved to the doorfirmly. 

"It's very simple--I'm going, " she said aloud. 

At the sound of her voice he gave a start of surprise, looked at herwildly, and asked in a piercing tone--

"You. . . . Where? To him?"

"No--alone--good-bye. "

The door-handle rattled under her groping hand as though she had beentrying to get out of some dark place. 

"No--stay!" he cried. 

She heard him faintly. He saw her shoulder touch the lintel of the door. She swayed as if dazed. There was less than a second of suspense whilethey both felt as if poised on the very edge of moral annihilation, ready to fall into some devouring nowhere. Then, almost simultaneously, he shouted, "Come back!" and she let go the handle of the door. Sheturned round in peaceful desperation like one who deliberately hasthrown away the last chance of life; and, for a moment, the room shefaced appeared terrible, and dark, and safe--like a grave. 

He said, very hoarse and abrupt: "It can't end like this. . . . Sitdown;" and while she crossed the room again to the low-backed chairbefore the dressing-table, he opened the door and put his head out tolook and listen. The house was quiet. He came back pacified, and asked--

"Do you speak the truth?"

She nodded. 

"You have lived a lie, though, " he said, suspiciously. 

"Ah! You made it so easy, " she answered. 

"You reproach me--me!"

"How could I?" she said; "I would have you no other--now. "

"What do you mean by . . . " he began, then checked himself, and withoutwaiting for an answer went on, "I won't ask any questions. Is thisletter the worst of it?"

She had a nervous movement of her hands. 

"I must have a plain answer, " he said, hotly. 

"Then, no! The worst is my coming back. "

There followed a period of dead silence, during which they exchangedsearching glances. 

He said authoritatively--

"You don't know what you are saying. Your mind is unhinged. You arebeside yourself, or you would not say such things. You can't controlyourself. Even in your remorse . . . " He paused a moment, then said witha doctoral air: "Self-restraint is everything in life, you know. It'shappiness, it's dignity . . . It's everything. "

She was pulling nervously at her handkerchief while he went on watchinganxiously to see the effect of his words. Nothing satisfactory happened. Only, as he began to speak again, she covered her face with both herhands. 

"You see where the want of self-restraint leads to. Pain--humiliation--loss of respect--of friends, of everything thatennobles life, that . . . All kinds of horrors, " he concluded, abruptly. 

She made no stir. He looked at her pensively for some time as though hehad been concentrating the melancholy thoughts evoked by the sight ofthat abased woman. His eyes became fixed and dull. He was profoundlypenetrated by the solemnity of the moment; he felt deeply the greatnessof the occasion. And more than ever the walls of his house seemedto enclose the sacredness of ideals to which he was about to offer amagnificent sacrifice. He was the high priest of that temple, the severeguardian of formulas, of rites, of the pure ceremonial concealing theblack doubts of life. And he was not alone. Other men, too--the best ofthem--kept watch and ward by the hearthstones that were the altars ofthat profitable persuasion. He understood confusedly that he was partof an immense and beneficent power, which had a reward ready for everydiscretion. He dwelt within the invincible wisdom of silence; he wasprotected by an indestructible faith that would last forever, that wouldwithstand unshaken all the assaults--the loud execrations of apostates, and the secret weariness of its confessors! He was in league with auniverse of untold advantages. He represented the moral strength of abeautiful reticence that could vanquish all the deplorable crudities oflife--fear, disaster, sin--even death itself. It seemed to him he wason the point of sweeping triumphantly away all the illusory mysteries ofexistence. It was simplicity itself. 

"I hope you see now the folly--the utter folly of wickedness, " he beganin a dull, solemn manner. "You must respect the conditions of your lifeor lose all it can give you. All! Everything!"

He waved his arm once, and three exact replicas of his face, of hisclothes, of his dull severity, of his solemn grief, repeated the widegesture that in its comprehensive sweep indicated an infinity of moralsweetness, embraced the walls, the hangings, the whole house, all thecrowd of houses outside, all the flimsy and inscrutable graves of theliving, with their doors numbered like the doors of prison-cells, and asimpenetrable as the granite of tombstones. 

"Yes! Restraint, duty, fidelity--unswerving fidelity to what is expectedof you. This--only this--secures the reward, the peace. Everything elsewe should labour to subdue--to destroy. It's misfortune; it's disease. It is terrible--terrible. We must not know anything about it--weneedn't. It is our duty to ourselves--to others. You do not live allalone in the world--and if you have no respect for the dignity of life, others have. Life is a serious matter. If you don't conform to thehighest standards you are no one--it's a kind of death. Didn't thisoccur to you? You've only to look round you to see the truth of what Iam saying. Did you live without noticing anything, without understandinganything? From a child you had examples before your eyes--you could seedaily the beauty, the blessings of morality, of principles. . . . "

His voice rose and fell pompously in a strange chant. His eyes werestill, his stare exalted and sullen; his face was set, was hard, waswoodenly exulting over the grim inspiration that secretly possessed him, seethed within him, lifted him up into a stealthy frenzy of belief. Nowand then he would stretch out his right arm over her head, as it were, and he spoke down at that sinner from a height, and with a sense ofavenging virtue, with a profound and pure joy as though he couldfrom his steep pinnacle see every weighty word strike and hurt like apunishing stone. 

"Rigid principles--adherence to what is right, " he finished after apause. 

"What is right?" she said, distinctly, without uncovering her face. 

"Your mind is diseased!" he cried, upright and austere. "Such a questionis rot--utter rot. Look round you--there's your answer, if you only careto see. Nothing that outrages the received beliefs can be right. Yourconscience tells you that. They are the received beliefs because theyare the best, the noblest, the only possible. They survive. . . . "

He could not help noticing with pleasure the philosophic breadth of hisview, but he could not pause to enjoy it, for his inspiration, the callof august truth, carried him on. 

"You must respect the moral foundations of a society that has madeyou what you are. Be true to it. That's duty--that's honour--that'shonesty. "

He felt a great glow within him, as though he had swallowed somethinghot. He made a step nearer. She sat up and looked at him with an ardourof expectation that stimulated his sense of the supreme importance ofthat moment. And as if forgetting himself he raised his voice very much. 

"'What's right?' you ask me. Think only. What would you have been ifyou had gone off with that infernal vagabond? . . . What would you havebeen? . . . You! My wife! . . . "

He caught sight of himself in the pier glass, drawn up to his fullheight, and with a face so white that his eyes, at the distance, resembled the black cavities in a skull. He saw himself as if about tolaunch imprecations, with arms uplifted above her bowed head. He wasashamed of that unseemly posture, and put his hands in his pocketshurriedly. She murmured faintly, as if to herself--

"Ah! What am I now?"

"As it happens you are still Mrs. Alvan Hervey--uncommonly lucky foryou, let me tell you, " he said in a conversational tone. He walked up tothe furthest corner of the room, and, turning back, saw her sitting veryupright, her hands clasped on her lap, and with a lost, unswerving gazeof her eyes which stared unwinking like the eyes of the blind, at thecrude gas flame, blazing and still, between the jaws of the bronzedragon. 

He came up quite close to her, and straddling his legs a little, stoodlooking down at her face for some time without taking his hands out ofhis pockets. He seemed to be turning over in his mind a heap of words, piecing his next speech out of an overpowering abundance of thoughts. 

"You've tried me to the utmost, " he said at last; and as soon as he saidthese words he lost his moral footing, and felt himself swept away fromhis pinnacle by a flood of passionate resentment against the bunglingcreature that had come so near to spoiling his life. "Yes; I'vebeen tried more than any man ought to be, " he went on with righteousbitterness. "It was unfair. What possessed you to? . . . What possessedyou? . . . Write such a . . . After five years of perfect happiness!'Pon my word, no one would believe. . . . Didn't you feel you couldn't?Because you couldn't . . . It was impossible--you know. Wasn't it?Think. Wasn't it?"

"It was impossible, " she whispered, obediently. 

This submissive assent given with such readiness did not soothe him, did not elate him; it gave him, inexplicably, that sense of terrorwe experience when in the midst of conditions we had learned to thinkabsolutely safe we discover all at once the presence of a near andunsuspected danger. It was impossible, of course! He knew it. She knewit. She confessed it. It was impossible! That man knew it, too--as wellas any one; couldn't help knowing it. And yet those two had been engagedin a conspiracy against his peace--in a criminal enterprise for whichthere could be no sanction of belief within themselves. There could notbe! There could not be! And yet how near to . . . With a short thrillhe saw himself an exiled forlorn figure in a realm of ungovernable, of unrestrained folly. Nothing could be foreseen, foretold--guardedagainst. And the sensation was intolerable, had something of thewithering horror that may be conceived as following upon the utterextinction of all hope. In the flash of thought the dishonouringepisode seemed to disengage itself from everything actual, fromearthly conditions, and even from earthly suffering; it became purely aterrifying knowledge, an annihilating knowledge of a blind and infernalforce. Something desperate and vague, a flicker of an insane desire toabase himself before the mysterious impulses of evil, to ask for mercyin some way, passed through his mind; and then came the idea, thepersuasion, the certitude, that the evil must be forgotten--must beresolutely ignored to make life possible; that the knowledge must bekept out of mind, out of sight, like the knowledge of certain death iskept out of the daily existence of men. He stiffened himself inwardlyfor the effort, and next moment it appeared very easy, amazinglyfeasible, if one only kept strictly to facts, gave one's mind to theirperplexities and not to their meaning. Becoming conscious of a longsilence, he cleared his throat warningly, and said in a steady voice--

"I am glad you feel this . . . Uncommonly glad . . . You felt this intime. For, don't you see . . . " Unexpectedly he hesitated. 

"Yes . . . I see, " she murmured. 

"Of course you would, " he said, looking at the carpet and speakinglike one who thinks of something else. He lifted his head. "Icannot believe--even after this--even after this--that you arealtogether--altogether . . . Other than what I thought you. It seemsimpossible--to me. "

"And to me, " she breathed out. 

"Now--yes, " he said, "but this morning? And to-morrow? . . . This iswhat . . . "

He started at the drift of his words and broke off abruptly. Every trainof thought seemed to lead into the hopeless realm of ungovernable folly, to recall the knowledge and the terror of forces that must be ignored. He said rapidly--

"My position is very painful--difficult . . . I feel . . . "

He looked at her fixedly with a pained air, as though frightfullyoppressed by a sudden inability to express his pent-up ideas. 

"I am ready to go, " she said very low. "I have forfeited everything. . . To learn . . . To learn . . . "

Her chin fell on her breast; her voice died out in a sigh. He made aslight gesture of impatient assent. 

"Yes! Yes! It's all very well . . . Of course. Forfeited--ah! Morallyforfeited--only morally forfeited . . . If I am to believe you . . . "

She startled him by jumping up. 

"Oh! I believe, I believe, " he said, hastily, and she sat down assuddenly as she had got up. He went on gloomily--

"I've suffered--I suffer now. You can't understand how much. So muchthat when you propose a parting I almost think. . . . But no. There isduty. You've forgotten it; I never did. Before heaven, I never did. Butin a horrid exposure like this the judgment of mankind goes astray--atleast for a time. You see, you and I--at least I feel that--you and Iare one before the world. It is as it should be. The world is right--inthe main--or else it couldn't be--couldn't be--what it is. And we arepart of it. We have our duty to--to our fellow beings who don't want to. . . To . . . Er. "

He stammered. She looked up at him with wide eyes, and her lips wereslightly parted. He went on mumbling--

". . . Pain. . . . Indignation. . . . Sure to misunderstand. I'vesuffered enough. And if there has been nothing irreparable--as youassure me . . . Then . . . "

"Alvan!" she cried. 

"What?" he said, morosely. He gazed down at her for a moment with asombre stare, as one looks at ruins, at the devastation of some naturaldisaster. 

"Then, " he continued after a short pause, "the best thing is . . . The best for us . . . For every one. . . . Yes . . . Least pain--mostunselfish. . . . " His voice faltered, and she heard only detached words. ". . . Duty. . . . Burden. . . . Ourselves. . . . Silence. "

A moment of perfect stillness ensued. 

"This is an appeal I am making to your conscience, " he said, suddenly, in an explanatory tone, "not to add to the wretchedness of all this:to try loyally and help me to live it down somehow. Without anyreservations--you know. Loyally! You can't deny I've been cruellywronged and--after all--my affection deserves . . . " He paused withevident anxiety to hear her speak. 

"I make no reservations, " she said, mournfully. "How could I? I foundmyself out and came back to . . . " her eyes flashed scornfully for aninstant ". . . To what--to what you propose. You see . . . I . . . I canbe trusted . . . Now. "

He listened to every word with profound attention, and when she ceasedseemed to wait for more. 

"Is that all you've got to say?" he asked. 

She was startled by his tone, and said faintly--

"I spoke the truth. What more can I say?"

"Confound it! You might say something human, " he burst out. "It isn'tbeing truthful; it's being brazen--if you want to know. Not a wordto show you feel your position, and--and mine. Not a single word ofacknowledgment, or regret--or remorse . . . Or . . . Something. "

"Words!" she whispered in a tone that irritated him. He stamped hisfoot. 

"This is awful!" he exclaimed. "Words? Yes, words. Words meansomething--yes--they do--for all this infernal affectation. They meansomething to me--to everybody--to you. What the devil did you use toexpress those sentiments--sentiments--pah!--which made you forget me, duty, shame!" . . . He foamed at the mouth while she stared at him, appalled by this sudden fury. "Did you two talk only with your eyes?" hespluttered savagely. She rose. 

"I can't bear this, " she said, trembling from head to foot. "I amgoing. "

They stood facing one another for a moment. 

"Not you, " he said, with conscious roughness, and began to walk upand down the room. She remained very still with an air of listeninganxiously to her own heart-beats, then sank down on the chair slowly, and sighed, as if giving up a task beyond her strength. 

"You misunderstand everything I say, " he began quietly, "but I preferto think that--just now--you are not accountable for your actions. "He stopped again before her. "Your mind is unhinged, " he said, withunction. "To go now would be adding crime--yes, crime--to folly. I'llhave no scandal in my life, no matter what's the cost. And why? You aresure to misunderstand me--but I'll tell you. As a matter of duty. Yes. But you're sure to misunderstand me--recklessly. Women always do--theyare too--too narrow-minded. "

He waited for a while, but she made no sound, didn't even look athim; he felt uneasy, painfully uneasy, like a man who suspects heis unreasonably mistrusted. To combat that exasperating sensationhe recommenced talking very fast. The sound of his words excited histhoughts, and in the play of darting thoughts he had glimpses now andthen of the inexpugnable rock of his convictions, towering in solitarygrandeur above the unprofitable waste of errors and passions. 

"For it is self-evident, " he went on with anxious vivacity, "it isself-evident that, on the highest ground we haven't the right--no, wehaven't the right to intrude our miseries upon those who--who naturallyexpect better things from us. Every one wishes his own life and the lifearound him to be beautiful and pure. Now, a scandal amongst people ofour position is disastrous for the morality--a fatal influence--don'tyou see--upon the general tone of the class--very important--themost important, I verily believe, in--in the community. I feelthis--profoundly. This is the broad view. In time you'll give me . . . When you become again the woman I loved--and trusted. . . . "

He stopped short, as though unexpectedly suffocated, then in acompletely changed voice said, "For I did love and trust you"--and againwas silent for a moment. She put her handkerchief to her eyes. 

"You'll give me credit for--for--my motives. It's mainly loyalty to--tothe larger conditions of our life--where you--you! of all women--failed. One doesn't usually talk like this--of course--but in this case you'lladmit . . . And consider--the innocent suffer with the guilty. The worldis pitiless in its judgments. Unfortunately there are always those init who are only too eager to misunderstand. Before you and before myconscience I am guiltless, but any--any disclosure would impair myusefulness in the sphere--in the larger sphere in which I hope soon to. . . I believe you fully shared my views in that matter--I don't wantto say any more . . . On--on that point--but, believe me, trueunselfishness is to bear one's burdens in--in silence. The idealmust--must be preserved--for others, at least. It's clear as daylight. If I've a--a loathsome sore, to gratuitously display it would beabominable--abominable! And often in life--in the highest conceptionof life--outspokenness in certain circumstances is nothing less thancriminal. Temptation, you know, excuses no one. There is no such thingreally if one looks steadily to one's welfare--which is grounded induty. But there are the weak. " . . . His tone became ferocious for aninstant . . . "And there are the fools and the envious--especially forpeople in our position. I am guiltless of this terrible--terrible . . . Estrangement; but if there has been nothing irreparable. " . . . Something gloomy, like a deep shadow passed over his face. . . . "Nothing irreparable--you see even now I am ready to trust youimplicitly--then our duty is clear. "

He looked down. A change came over his expression and straightwayfrom the outward impetus of his loquacity he passed into the dullcontemplation of all the appeasing truths that, not without some wonder, he had so recently been able to discover within himself. During thisprofound and soothing communion with his innermost beliefs he remainedstaring at the carpet, with a portentously solemn face and with a dullvacuity of eyes that seemed to gaze into the blankness of an empty hole. Then, without stirring in the least, he continued:

"Yes. Perfectly clear. I've been tried to the utmost, and I can'tpretend that, for a time, the old feelings--the old feelings are not. . . . " He sighed. . . . "But I forgive you. . . . "

She made a slight movement without uncovering her eyes. In his profoundscrutiny of the carpet he noticed nothing. And there was silence, silence within and silence without, as though his words had stilled thebeat and tremor of all the surrounding life, and the house had stoodalone--the only dwelling upon a deserted earth. 

He lifted his head and repeated solemnly:

"I forgive you . . . From a sense of duty--and in the hope . . . "

He heard a laugh, and it not only interrupted his words but alsodestroyed the peace of his self-absorption with the vile pain of areality intruding upon the beauty of a dream. He couldn't understandwhence the sound came. He could see, foreshortened, the tear-stained, dolorous face of the woman stretched out, and with her head thrown overthe back of the seat. He thought the piercing noise was a delusion. But another shrill peal followed by a deep sob and succeeded by anothershriek of mirth positively seemed to tear him out from where he stood. He bounded to the door. It was closed. He turned the key and thought:that's no good. . . . "Stop this!" he cried, and perceived with alarmthat he could hardly hear his own voice in the midst of her screaming. He darted back with the idea of stifling that unbearable noise with hishands, but stood still distracted, finding himself as unable to touchher as though she had been on fire. He shouted, "Enough of this!" likemen shout in the tumult of a riot, with a red face and starting eyes;then, as if swept away before another burst of laughter, he disappearedin a flash out of three looking-glasses, vanished suddenly from beforeher. For a time the woman gasped and laughed at no one in the luminousstillness of the empty room. 

He reappeared, striding at her, and with a tumbler of water in his hand. He stammered: "Hysterics--Stop--They will hear--Drink this. " She laughedat the ceiling. "Stop this!" he cried. "Ah!"

He flung the water in her face, putting into the action all the secretbrutality of his spite, yet still felt that it would have beenperfectly excusable--in any one--to send the tumbler after the water. Herestrained himself, but at the same time was so convinced nothing couldstop the horror of those mad shrieks that, when the first sensation ofrelief came, it did not even occur to him to doubt the impression ofhaving become suddenly deaf. When, next moment, he became sure that shewas sitting up, and really very quiet, it was as though everything--men, things, sensations, had come to a rest. He was prepared to be grateful. He could not take his eyes off her, fearing, yet unwilling to admit, the possibility of her beginning again; for, the experience, howevercontemptuously he tried to think of it, had left the bewilderment of amysterious terror. Her face was streaming with water and tears; therewas a wisp of hair on her forehead, another stuck to her cheek; her hatwas on one side, undecorously tilted; her soaked veil resembled a sordidrag festooning her forehead. There was an utter unreserve in her aspect, an abandonment of safeguards, that ugliness of truth which can only bekept out of daily life by unremitting care for appearances. He did notknow why, looking at her, he thought suddenly of to-morrow, and whythe thought called out a deep feeling of unutterable, discouragedweariness--a fear of facing the succession of days. To-morrow! It was asfar as yesterday. Ages elapsed between sunrises--sometimes. He scannedher features like one looks at a forgotten country. They were notdistorted--he recognized landmarks, so to speak; but it was only aresemblance that he could see, not the woman of yesterday--or wasit, perhaps, more than the woman of yesterday? Who could tell? Wasit something new? A new expression--or a new shade of expression?or something deep--an old truth unveiled, a fundamental and hiddentruth--some unnecessary, accursed certitude? He became aware that he wastrembling very much, that he had an empty tumbler in his hand--that timewas passing. Still looking at her with lingering mistrust he reachedtowards the table to put the glass down and was startled to feel itapparently go through the wood. He had missed the edge. The surprise, the slight jingling noise of the accident annoyed him beyond expression. He turned to her irritated. 

"What's the meaning of this?" he asked, grimly. 

She passed her hand over her face and made an attempt to get up. 

"You're not going to be absurd again, " he said. "'Pon my soul, I did notknow you could forget yourself to that extent. " He didn't try to concealhis physical disgust, because he believed it to be a purely moralreprobation of every unreserve, of anything in the nature of a scene. "I assure you--it was revolting, " he went on. He stared for a moment ather. "Positively degrading, " he added with insistence. 

She stood up quickly as if moved by a spring and tottered. He startedforward instinctively. She caught hold of the back of the chairand steadied herself. This arrested him, and they faced each otherwide-eyed, uncertain, and yet coming back slowly to the reality ofthings with relief and wonder, as though just awakened after tossingthrough a long night of fevered dreams. 

"Pray, don't begin again, " he said, hurriedly, seeing her open her lips. "I deserve some little consideration--and such unaccountable behaviouris painful to me. I expect better things. . . . I have the right. . . . "

She pressed both her hands to her temples. 

"Oh, nonsense!" he said, sharply. "You are perfectly capable of comingdown to dinner. No one should even suspect; not even the servants. Noone! No one! . . . I am sure you can. "

She dropped her arms; her face twitched. She looked straight into hiseyes and seemed incapable of pronouncing a word. He frowned at her. 

"I--wish--it, " he said, tyrannically. "For your own sake also. . . . "He meant to carry that point without any pity. Why didn't she speak?He feared passive resistance. She must. . . . Make her come. His frowndeepened, and he began to think of some effectual violence, when mostunexpectedly she said in a firm voice, "Yes, I can, " and clutched thechair-back again. He was relieved, and all at once her attitude ceasedto interest him. The important thing was that their life wouldbegin again with an every-day act--with something that could not bemisunderstood, that, thank God, had no moral meaning, no perplexity--andyet was symbolic of their uninterrupted communion in the past--in allthe future. That morning, at that table, they had breakfast together;and now they would dine. It was all over! What had happened betweencould be forgotten--must be forgotten, like things that can only happenonce--death for instance. 

"I will wait for you, " he said, going to the door. He had somedifficulty with it, for he did not remember he had turned the key. Hehated that delay, and his checked impatience to be gone out of theroom made him feel quite ill as, with the consciousness of her presencebehind his back, he fumbled at the lock. He managed it at last; then inthe doorway he glanced over his shoulder to say, "It's rather late--youknow--" and saw her standing where he had left her, with a face white asalabaster and perfectly still, like a woman in a trance. 

He was afraid she would keep him waiting, but without any breathingtime, he hardly knew how, he found himself sitting at table with her. He had made up his mind to eat, to talk, to be natural. It seemed tohim necessary that deception should begin at home. The servants must notknow--must not suspect. This intense desire of secrecy; of secrecy dark, destroying, profound, discreet like a grave, possessed him with thestrength of a hallucination--seemed to spread itself to inanimateobjects that had been the daily companions of his life, affected with ataint of enmity every single thing within the faithful walls that wouldstand forever between the shamelessness of facts and the indignation ofmankind. Even when--as it happened once or twice--both the servants leftthe room together he remained carefully natural, industriously hungry, laboriously at his ease, as though he had wanted to cheat the black oaksideboard, the heavy curtains, the stiff-backed chairs, into thebelief of an unstained happiness. He was mistrustful of his wife'sself-control, unwilling to look at her and reluctant to speak, for itseemed to him inconceivable that she should not betray herself by theslightest movement, by the very first word spoken. Then he thoughtthe silence in the room was becoming dangerous, and so excessive as toproduce the effect of an intolerable uproar. He wanted to end it, as oneis anxious to interrupt an indiscreet confession; but with the memory ofthat laugh upstairs he dared not give her an occasion to open her lips. Presently he heard her voice pronouncing in a calm tone some unimportantremark. He detached his eyes from the centre of his plate and feltexcited as if on the point of looking at a wonder. And nothing could bemore wonderful than her composure. He was looking at the candid eyes, at the pure brow, at what he had seen every evening for years in thatplace; he listened to the voice that for five years he had heard everyday. Perhaps she was a little pale--but a healthy pallor had alwaysbeen for him one of her chief attractions. Perhaps her face was rigidlyset--but that marmoreal impassiveness, that magnificent stolidity, as ofa wonderful statue by some great sculptor working under the curse of thegods; that imposing, unthinking stillness of her features, had till thenmirrored for him the tranquil dignity of a soul of which he had thoughthimself--as a matter of course--the inexpugnable possessor. Those werethe outward signs of her difference from the ignoble herd that feels, suffers, fails, errs--but has no distinct value in the world except as amoral contrast to the prosperity of the elect. He had been proud of herappearance. It had the perfectly proper frankness of perfection--andnow he was shocked to see it unchanged. She looked like this, spoke likethis, exactly like this, a year ago, a month ago--only yesterday whenshe. . . . What went on within made no difference. What did she think?What meant the pallor, the placid face, the candid brow, the pureeyes? What did she think during all these years? What did she thinkyesterday--to-day; what would she think to-morrow? He must find out. . . . And yet how could he get to know? She had been false to him, to thatman, to herself; she was ready to be false--for him. Always false. Shelooked lies, breathed lies, lived lies--would tell lies--always--to theend of life! And he would never know what she meant. Never! Never! Noone could. Impossible to know. 

He dropped his knife and fork, brusquely, as though by the virtue of asudden illumination he had been made aware of poison in his plate, andbecame positive in his mind that he could never swallow another morselof food as long as he lived. The dinner went on in a room that had beensteadily growing, from some cause, hotter than a furnace. He had todrink. He drank time after time, and, at last, recollecting himself, was frightened at the quantity, till he perceived that what he hadbeen drinking was water--out of two different wine glasses; and thediscovered unconsciousness of his actions affected him painfully. He wasdisturbed to find himself in such an unhealthy state of mind. Excess offeeling--excess of feeling; and it was part of his creed that any excessof feeling was unhealthy--morally unprofitable; a taint on practicalmanhood. Her fault. Entirely her fault. Her sinful self-forgetfulnesswas contagious. It made him think thoughts he had never had before;thoughts disintegrating, tormenting, sapping to the very core oflife--like mortal disease; thoughts that bred the fear of air, ofsunshine, of men--like the whispered news of a pestilence. 

The maids served without noise; and to avoid looking at his wife andlooking within himself, he followed with his eyes first one and thenthe other without being able to distinguish between them. They movedsilently about, without one being able to see by what means, fortheir skirts touched the carpet all round; they glided here and there, receded, approached, rigid in black and white, with precise gestures, and no life in their faces, like a pair of marionettes in mourning;and their air of wooden unconcern struck him as unnatural, suspicious, irremediably hostile. That such people's feelings or judgment couldaffect one in any way, had never occurred to him before. He understoodthey had no prospects, no principles--no refinement and no power. Butnow he had become so debased that he could not even attempt to disguisefrom himself his yearning to know the secret thoughts of his servants. Several times he looked up covertly at the faces of those girls. Impossible to know. They changed his plates and utterly ignored hisexistence. What impenetrable duplicity. Women--nothing but women roundhim. Impossible to know. He experienced that heart-probing, fierysense of dangerous loneliness, which sometimes assails the courage ofa solitary adventurer in an unexplored country. The sight of a man'sface--he felt--of any man's face, would have been a profound relief. Onewould know then--something--could understand. . . . He would engage abutler as soon as possible. And then the end of that dinner--whichhad seemed to have been going on for hours--the end came, taking himviolently by surprise, as though he had expected in the natural courseof events to sit at that table for ever and ever. 

But upstairs in the drawing-room he became the victim of a restlessfate, that would, on no account, permit him to sit down. She had sunkon a low easy-chair, and taking up from a small table at her elbow afan with ivory leaves, shaded her face from the fire. The coals glowedwithout a flame; and upon the red glow the vertical bars of the gratestood out at her feet, black and curved, like the charred ribs of aconsumed sacrifice. Far off, a lamp perched on a slim brass rod, burnedunder a wide shade of crimson silk: the centre, within the shadows ofthe large room, of a fiery twilight that had in the warm quality of itstint something delicate, refined and infernal. His soft footfalls andthe subdued beat of the clock on the high mantel-piece answered eachother regularly--as if time and himself, engaged in a measured contest, had been pacing together through the infernal delicacy of twilighttowards a mysterious goal. 

He walked from one end of the room to the other without a pause, like atraveller who, at night, hastens doggedly upon an interminable journey. Now and then he glanced at her. Impossible to know. The gross precisionof that thought expressed to his practical mind something illimitableand infinitely profound, the all-embracing subtlety of a feeling, theeternal origin of his pain. This woman had accepted him, had abandonedhim--had returned to him. And of all this he would never know the truth. Never. Not till death--not after--not on judgment day when all shall bedisclosed, thoughts and deeds, rewards and punishments, but the secretof hearts alone shall return, forever unknown, to the InscrutableCreator of good and evil, to the Master of doubts and impulses. 

He stood still to look at her. Thrown back and with her face turned awayfrom him, she did not stir--as if asleep. What did she think? Whatdid she feel? And in the presence of her perfect stillness, in thebreathless silence, he felt himself insignificant and powerless beforeher, like a prisoner in chains. The fury of his impotence called outsinister images, that faculty of tormenting vision, which in a momentof anguishing sense of wrong induces a man to mutter threats or makea menacing gesture in the solitude of an empty room. But the gust ofpassion passed at once, left him trembling a little, with the wondering, reflective fear of a man who has paused on the very verge of suicide. The serenity of truth and the peace of death can be only secured througha largeness of contempt embracing all the profitable servitudes of life. He found he did not want to know. Better not. It was all over. It wasas if it hadn't been. And it was very necessary for both of them, it wasmorally right, that nobody should know. 

He spoke suddenly, as if concluding a discussion. 

"The best thing for us is to forget all this. "

She started a little and shut the fan with a click. 

"Yes, forgive--and forget, " he repeated, as if to himself. 

"I'll never forget, " she said in a vibrating voice. "And I'll neverforgive myself. . . . "

"But I, who have nothing to reproach myself . . . " He began, making astep towards her. She jumped up. 

"I did not come back for your forgiveness, " she exclaimed, passionately, as if clamouring against an unjust aspersion. 

He only said "oh!" and became silent. He could not understand thisunprovoked aggressiveness of her attitude, and certainly was veryfar from thinking that an unpremeditated hint of something resemblingemotion in the tone of his last words had caused that uncontrollableburst of sincerity. It completed his bewilderment, but he was not atall angry now. He was as if benumbed by the fascination of theincomprehensible. She stood before him, tall and indistinct, like ablack phantom in the red twilight. At last poignantly uncertain as towhat would happen if he opened his lips, he muttered:

"But if my love is strong enough . . . " and hesitated. 

He heard something snap loudly in the fiery stillness. She had brokenher fan. Two thin pieces of ivory fell, one after another, without asound, on the thick carpet, and instinctively he stooped to pick themup. While he groped at her feet it occurred to him that the woman therehad in her hands an indispensable gift which nothing else on earth couldgive; and when he stood up he was penetrated by an irresistible beliefin an enigma, by the conviction that within his reach and passing awayfrom him was the very secret of existence--its certitude, immaterial andprecious! She moved to the door, and he followed at her elbow, castingabout for a magic word that would make the enigma clear, that wouldcompel the surrender of the gift. And there is no such word! The enigmais only made clear by sacrifice, and the gift of heaven is in the handsof every man. But they had lived in a world that abhors enigmas, andcares for no gifts but such as can be obtained in the street. She wasnearing the door. He said hurriedly:

"'Pon my word, I loved you--I love you now. "

She stopped for an almost imperceptible moment to give him an indignantglance, and then moved on. That feminine penetration--so clever andso tainted by the eternal instinct of self-defence, so ready to see anobvious evil in everything it cannot understand--filled her with bitterresentment against both the men who could offer to the spiritual andtragic strife of her feelings nothing but the coarseness of theirabominable materialism. In her anger against her own ineffectualself-deception she found hate enough for them both. What did they want?What more did this one want? And as her husband faced her again, with his hand on the door-handle, she asked herself whether he wasunpardonably stupid, or simply ignoble. 

She said nervously, and very fast:

"You are deceiving yourself. You never loved me. You wanted a wife--somewoman--any woman that would think, speak, and behave in a certainway--in a way you approved. You loved yourself. "

"You won't believe me?" he asked, slowly. 

"If I had believed you loved me, " she began, passionately, then drew ina long breath; and during that pause he heard the steady beat of bloodin his ears. "If I had believed it . . . I would never have come back, "she finished, recklessly. 

He stood looking down as though he had not heard. She waited. After amoment he opened the door, and, on the landing, the sightless woman ofmarble appeared, draped to the chin, thrusting blindly at them a clusterof lights. 

He seemed to have forgotten himself in a meditation so deep that on thepoint of going out she stopped to look at him in surprise. While shehad been speaking he had wandered on the track of the enigma, out of theworld of senses into the region of feeling. What did it matter what shehad done, what she had said, if through the pain of her acts and wordshe had obtained the word of the enigma! There can be no life withoutfaith and love--faith in a human heart, love of a human being! Thattouch of grace, whose help once in life is the privilege of themost undeserving, flung open for him the portals of beyond, and incontemplating there the certitude immaterial and precious he forgotall the meaningless accidents of existence: the bliss of getting, thedelight of enjoying; all the protean and enticing forms of the cupiditythat rules a material world of foolish joys, of contemptible sorrows. Faith!--Love!--the undoubting, clear faith in the truth of a soul--thegreat tenderness, deep as the ocean, serene and eternal, like theinfinite peace of space above the short tempests of the earth. It waswhat he had wanted all his life--but he understood it only then for thefirst time. It was through the pain of losing her that the knowledge hadcome. She had the gift! She had the gift! And in all the world she wasthe only human being that could surrender it to his immense desire. He made a step forward, putting his arms out, as if to take her tohis breast, and, lifting his head, was met by such a look of blankconsternation that his arms fell as though they had been struck down bya blow. She started away from him, stumbled over the threshold, andonce on the landing turned, swift and crouching. The train of her gownswished as it flew round her feet. It was an undisguised panic. Shepanted, showing her teeth, and the hate of strength, the disdain ofweakness, the eternal preoccupation of sex came out like a toy demon outof a box. 

"This is odious, " she screamed. 

He did not stir; but her look, her agitated movements, the sound of hervoice were like a mist of facts thickening between him and the visionof love and faith. It vanished; and looking at that face triumphant andscornful, at that white face, stealthy and unexpected, as if discoveredstaring from an ambush, he was coming back slowly to the world ofsenses. His first clear thought was: I am married to that woman; and thenext: she will give nothing but what I see. He felt the need not to see. But the memory of the vision, the memory that abides forever within theseer made him say to her with the naive austerity of a convert awed bythe touch of a new creed, "You haven't the gift. " He turned his backon her, leaving her completely mystified. And she went upstairs slowly, struggling with a distasteful suspicion of having been confronted bysomething more subtle than herself--more profound than the misunderstoodand tragic contest of her feelings. 

He shut the door of the drawing-room and moved at hazard, alone amongstthe heavy shadows and in the fiery twilight as of an elegant place ofperdition. She hadn't the gift--no one had. . . . He stepped on a bookthat had fallen off one of the crowded little tables. He picked up theslender volume, and holding it, approached the crimson-shaded lamp. Thefiery tint deepened on the cover, and contorted gold letters sprawlingall over it in an intricate maze, came out, gleaming redly. "Thornsand Arabesques. " He read it twice, "Thorns and Ar . . . . . . . . " Theother's book of verses. He dropped it at his feet, but did not feel theslightest pang of jealousy or indignation. What did he know? . . . What?. . . The mass of hot coals tumbled down in the grate, and he turned tolook at them . . . Ah! That one was ready to give up everything he hadfor that woman--who did not come--who had not the faith, the love, thecourage to come. What did that man expect, what did he hope, what didhe want? The woman--or the certitude immaterial and precious! The firstunselfish thought he had ever given to any human being was for thatman who had tried to do him a terrible wrong. He was not angry. He wassaddened by an impersonal sorrow, by a vast melancholy as of all mankindlonging for what cannot be attained. He felt his fellowship with everyman--even with that man--especially with that man. What did he thinknow? Had he ceased to wait--and hope? Would he ever cease to wait andhope? Would he understand that the woman, who had no courage, had notthe gift--had not the gift!

The clock began to strike, and the deep-toned vibration filled theroom as though with the sound of an enormous bell tolling far away. Hecounted the strokes. Twelve. Another day had begun. To-morrow had come;the mysterious and lying to-morrow that lures men, disdainful of loveand faith, on and on through the poignant futilities of life to thefitting reward of a grave. He counted the strokes, and gazing at thegrate seemed to wait for more. Then, as if called out, left the room, walking firmly. 

When outside he heard footsteps in the hall and stood still. A bolt wasshot--then another. They were locking up--shutting out his desire andhis deception from the indignant criticism of a world full of noblegifts for those who proclaim themselves without stain and withoutreproach. He was safe; and on all sides of his dwelling servilefears and servile hopes slept, dreaming of success, behind the severediscretion of doors as impenetrable to the truth within as the graniteof tombstones. A lock snapped--a short chain rattled. Nobody shall know!

Why was this assurance of safety heavier than a burden of fear, and whythe day that began presented itself obstinately like the last day ofall--like a to-day without a to-morrow? Yet nothing was changed, fornobody would know; and all would go on as before--the getting, theenjoying, the blessing of hunger that is appeased every day; the nobleincentives of unappeasable ambitions. All--all the blessings of life. All--but the certitude immaterial and precious--the certitude of loveand faith. He believed the shadow of it had been with him as long as hecould remember; that invisible presence had ruled his life. And now theshadow had appeared and faded he could not extinguish his longing forthe truth of its substance. His desire of it was naive; it was masterfullike the material aspirations that are the groundwork of existence, but, unlike these, it was unconquerable. It was the subtle despotism ofan idea that suffers no rivals, that is lonely, inconsolable, anddangerous. He went slowly up the stairs. Nobody shall know. The dayswould go on and he would go far--very far. If the idea could not bemastered, fortune could be, man could be--the whole world. He wasdazzled by the greatness of the prospect; the brutality of a practicalinstinct shouted to him that only that which could be had was worthhaving. He lingered on the steps. The lights were out in the hall, anda small yellow flame flitted about down there. He felt a sudden contemptfor himself which braced him up. He went on, but at the door of theirroom and with his arm advanced to open it, he faltered. On the flight ofstairs below the head of the girl who had been locking up appeared. Hisarm fell. He thought, "I'll wait till she is gone"--and stepped backwithin the perpendicular folds of a portiere. 

He saw her come up gradually, as if ascending from a well. At every stepthe feeble flame of the candle swayed before her tired, young face, andthe darkness of the hall seemed to cling to her black skirt, followedher, rising like a silent flood, as though the great night of the worldhad broken through the discreet reserve of walls, of closed doors, ofcurtained windows. It rose over the steps, it leaped up the walls likean angry wave, it flowed over the blue skies, over the yellow sands, over the sunshine of landscapes, and over the pretty pathos of raggedinnocence and of meek starvation. It swallowed up the delicious idyllin a boat and the mutilated immortality of famous bas-reliefs. It flowedfrom outside--it rose higher, in a destructive silence. And, above it, the woman of marble, composed and blind on the high pedestal, seemed toward off the devouring night with a cluster of lights. 

He watched the rising tide of impenetrable gloom with impatience, as ifanxious for the coming of a darkness black enough to conceal a shamefulsurrender. It came nearer. The cluster of lights went out. The girlascended facing him. Behind her the shadow of a colossal woman dancedlightly on the wall. He held his breath while she passed by, noiselessand with heavy eyelids. And on her track the flowing tide of a tenebroussea filled the house, seemed to swirl about his feet, and risingunchecked, closed silently above his head. 

The time had come but he did not open the door. All was still; andinstead of surrendering to the reasonable exigencies of life he steppedout, with a rebelling heart, into the darkness of the house. It was theabode of an impenetrable night; as though indeed the last day had comeand gone, leaving him alone in a darkness that has no to-morrow. Andlooming vaguely below the woman of marble, livid and still like apatient phantom, held out in the night a cluster of extinguished lights. 

His obedient thought traced for him the image of an uninterrupted life, the dignity and the advantages of an uninterrupted success; while hisrebellious heart beat violently within his breast, as if maddened by thedesire of a certitude immaterial and precious--the certitude of love andfaith. What of the night within his dwelling if outside he could findthe sunshine in which men sow, in which men reap! Nobody would know. Thedays, the years would pass, and . . . He remembered that he had lovedher. The years would pass . . . And then he thought of her as we thinkof the dead--in a tender immensity of regret, in a passionate longingfor the return of idealized perfections. He had loved her--he had lovedher--and he never knew the truth . . . The years would pass in theanguish of doubt . . . He remembered her smile, her eyes, her voice, hersilence, as though he had lost her forever. The years would pass andhe would always mistrust her smile, suspect her eyes; he would alwaysmisbelieve her voice, he would never have faith in her silence. She hadno gift--she had no gift! What was she? Who was she? . . . The yearswould pass; the memory of this hour would grow faint--and she wouldshare the material serenity of an unblemished life. She had no love andno faith for any one. To give her your thought, your belief, was likewhispering your confession over the edge of the world. Nothing cameback--not even an echo. 

In the pain of that thought was born his conscience; not that fear ofremorse which grows slowly, and slowly decays amongst the complicatedfacts of life, but a Divine wisdom springing full-grown, armed andsevere out of a tried heart, to combat the secret baseness of motives. It came to him in a flash that morality is not a method of happiness. The revelation was terrible. He saw at once that nothing of what he knewmattered in the least. The acts of men and women, success, humiliation, dignity, failure--nothing mattered. It was not a question of more orless pain, of this joy, of that sorrow. It was a question of truth orfalsehood--it was a question of life or death. 

He stood in the revealing night--in the darkness that tries the hearts, in the night useless for the work of men, but in which their gaze, undazzled by the sunshine of covetous days, wanders sometimes as far asthe stars. The perfect stillness around him had something solemn in it, but he felt it was the lying solemnity of a temple devoted to the ritesof a debasing persuasion. The silence within the discreet walls waseloquent of safety but it appeared to him exciting and sinister, likethe discretion of a profitable infamy; it was the prudent peace of aden of coiners--of a house of ill-fame! The years would pass--and nobodywould know. Never! Not till death--not after . . . 

"Never!" he said aloud to the revealing night. 

And he hesitated. The secret of hearts, too terrible for the timid eyesof men, shall return, veiled forever, to the Inscrutable Creator ofgood and evil, to the Master of doubts and impulses. His consciencewas born--he heard its voice, and he hesitated, ignoring the strengthwithin, the fateful power, the secret of his heart! It was an awfulsacrifice to cast all one's life into the flame of a new belief. Hewanted help against himself, against the cruel decree of salvation. Theneed of tacit complicity, where it had never failed him, the habit ofyears affirmed itself. Perhaps she would help . . . He flung the dooropen and rushed in like a fugitive. 

He was in the middle of the room before he could see anything but thedazzling brilliance of the light; and then, as if detached and floatingin it on the level of his eyes, appeared the head of a woman. She hadjumped up when he burst into the room. 

For a moment they contemplated each other as if struck dumb withamazement. Her hair streaming on her shoulders glinted like burnishedgold. He looked into the unfathomable candour of her eyes. Nothingwithin--nothing--nothing. 

He stammered distractedly. 

"I want . . . I want . . . To . . . To . . . Know . . . "

On the candid light of the eyes flitted shadows; shadows of doubt, of suspicion, the ready suspicion of an unquenchable antagonism, thepitiless mistrust of an eternal instinct of defence; the hate, theprofound, frightened hate of an incomprehensible--of an abominableemotion intruding its coarse materialism upon the spiritual and tragiccontest of her feelings. 

"Alvan . . . I won't bear this . . . " She began to pant suddenly, "I'vea right--a right to--to--myself . . . "

He lifted one arm, and appeared so menacing that she stopped in a frightand shrank back a little. 

He stood with uplifted hand . . . The years would pass--and he wouldhave to live with that unfathomable candour where flit shadows ofsuspicions and hate . . . The years would pass--and he would neverknow--never trust . . . The years would pass without faith andlove. . . . 

"Can you stand it?" he shouted, as though she could have heard all histhoughts. 

He looked menacing. She thought of violence, of danger--and, just foran instant, she doubted whether there were splendours enough on earth topay the price of such a brutal experience. He cried again:

"Can you stand it?" and glared as if insane. Her eyes blazed, too. Shecould not hear the appalling clamour of his thoughts. She suspectedin him a sudden regret, a fresh fit of jealousy, a dishonest desire ofevasion. She shouted back angrily--

"Yes!"

He was shaken where he stood as if by a struggle to break out ofinvisible bonds. She trembled from head to foot. 

"Well, I can't!" He flung both his arms out, as if to push her away, and strode from the room. The door swung to with a click. She made threequick steps towards it and stood still, looking at the white and goldpanels. No sound came from beyond, not a whisper, not a sigh; not evena footstep was heard outside on the thick carpet. It was as though nosooner gone he had suddenly expired--as though he had died there and hisbody had vanished on the instant together with his soul. She listened, with parted lips and irresolute eyes. Then below, far below her, asif in the entrails of the earth, a door slammed heavily; and the quiethouse vibrated to it from roof to foundations, more than to a clap ofthunder. 

He never returned. 

THE LAGOON

The white man, leaning with both arms over the roof of the little housein the stern of the boat, said to the steersman--

"We will pass the night in Arsat's clearing. It is late. "

The Malay only grunted, and went on looking fixedly at the river. Thewhite man rested his chin on his crossed arms and gazed at the wakeof the boat. At the end of the straight avenue of forests cut by theintense glitter of the river, the sun appeared unclouded and dazzling, poised low over the water that shone smoothly like a band of metal. Theforests, sombre and dull, stood motionless and silent on each side ofthe broad stream. At the foot of big, towering trees, trunkless nipapalms rose from the mud of the bank, in bunches of leaves enormousand heavy, that hung unstirring over the brown swirl of eddies. In thestillness of the air every tree, every leaf, every bough, every tendrilof creeper and every petal of minute blossoms seemed to have beenbewitched into an immobility perfect and final. Nothing moved onthe river but the eight paddles that rose flashing regularly, dippedtogether with a single splash; while the steersman swept right and leftwith a periodic and sudden flourish of his blade describing a glintingsemicircle above his head. The churned-up water frothed alongside witha confused murmur. And the white man's canoe, advancing upstream in theshort-lived disturbance of its own making, seemed to enter the portalsof a land from which the very memory of motion had forever departed. 

The white man, turning his back upon the setting sun, looked along theempty and broad expanse of the sea-reach. For the last three miles ofits course the wandering, hesitating river, as if enticed irresistiblyby the freedom of an open horizon, flows straight into the sea, flowsstraight to the east--to the east that harbours both light and darkness. Astern of the boat the repeated call of some bird, a cry discordant andfeeble, skipped along over the smooth water and lost itself, before itcould reach the other shore, in the breathless silence of the world. 

The steersman dug his paddle into the stream, and held hard withstiffened arms, his body thrown forward. The water gurgled aloud; andsuddenly the long straight reach seemed to pivot on its centre, theforests swung in a semicircle, and the slanting beams of sunset touchedthe broadside of the canoe with a fiery glow, throwing the slender anddistorted shadows of its crew upon the streaked glitter of the river. The white man turned to look ahead. The course of the boat had beenaltered at right-angles to the stream, and the carved dragon-head of itsprow was pointing now at a gap in the fringing bushes of the bank. Itglided through, brushing the overhanging twigs, and disappeared from theriver like some slim and amphibious creature leaving the water for itslair in the forests. 

The narrow creek was like a ditch: tortuous, fabulously deep; filledwith gloom under the thin strip of pure and shining blue of the heaven. Immense trees soared up, invisible behind the festooned draperies ofcreepers. Here and there, near the glistening blackness of the water, a twisted root of some tall tree showed amongst the tracery of smallferns, black and dull, writhing and motionless, like an arrested snake. The short words of the paddlers reverberated loudly between the thickand sombre walls of vegetation. Darkness oozed out from between thetrees, through the tangled maze of the creepers, from behind thegreat fantastic and unstirring leaves; the darkness, mysterious andinvincible; the darkness scented and poisonous of impenetrable forests. 

The men poled in the shoaling water. The creek broadened, opening outinto a wide sweep of a stagnant lagoon. The forests receded from themarshy bank, leaving a level strip of bright green, reedy grass to framethe reflected blueness of the sky. A fleecy pink cloud drifted highabove, trailing the delicate colouring of its image under the floatingleaves and the silvery blossoms of the lotus. A little house, perchedon high piles, appeared black in the distance. Near it, two tall nibongpalms, that seemed to have come out of the forests in the background, leaned slightly over the ragged roof, with a suggestion of sadtenderness and care in the droop of their leafy and soaring heads. 

The steersman, pointing with his paddle, said, "Arsat is there. I seehis canoe fast between the piles. "

The polers ran along the sides of the boat glancing over their shouldersat the end of the day's journey. They would have preferred to spend thenight somewhere else than on this lagoon of weird aspect and ghostlyreputation. Moreover, they disliked Arsat, first as a stranger, and alsobecause he who repairs a ruined house, and dwells in it, proclaimsthat he is not afraid to live amongst the spirits that haunt the placesabandoned by mankind. Such a man can disturb the course of fate byglances or words; while his familiar ghosts are not easy to propitiateby casual wayfarers upon whom they long to wreak the malice of theirhuman master. White men care not for such things, being unbelievers andin league with the Father of Evil, who leads them unharmed through theinvisible dangers of this world. To the warnings of the righteous theyoppose an offensive pretence of disbelief. What is there to be done?

So they thought, throwing their weight on the end of their long poles. The big canoe glided on swiftly, noiselessly, and smoothly, towardsArsat's clearing, till, in a great rattling of poles thrown down, andthe loud murmurs of "Allah be praised!" it came with a gentle knockagainst the crooked piles below the house. 

The boatmen with uplifted faces shouted discordantly, "Arsat! O Arsat!"Nobody came. The white man began to climb the rude ladder giving accessto the bamboo platform before the house. The juragan of the boat saidsulkily, "We will cook in the sampan, and sleep on the water. "

"Pass my blankets and the basket, " said the white man, curtly. 

He knelt on the edge of the platform to receive the bundle. Then theboat shoved off, and the white man, standing up, confronted Arsat, who had come out through the low door of his hut. He was a man young, powerful, with broad chest and muscular arms. He had nothing on buthis sarong. His head was bare. His big, soft eyes stared eagerly atthe white man, but his voice and demeanour were composed as he asked, without any words of greeting--

"Have you medicine, Tuan?"

"No, " said the visitor in a startled tone. "No. Why? Is there sicknessin the house?"

"Enter and see, " replied Arsat, in the same calm manner, and turningshort round, passed again through the small doorway. The white man, dropping his bundles, followed. 

In the dim light of the dwelling he made out on a couch of bamboos awoman stretched on her back under a broad sheet of red cotton cloth. She lay still, as if dead; but her big eyes, wide open, glittered in thegloom, staring upwards at the slender rafters, motionless and unseeing. She was in a high fever, and evidently unconscious. Her cheeks were sunkslightly, her lips were partly open, and on the young face there was theominous and fixed expression--the absorbed, contemplating expression ofthe unconscious who are going to die. The two men stood looking down ather in silence. 

"Has she been long ill?" asked the traveller. 

"I have not slept for five nights, " answered the Malay, in a deliberatetone. "At first she heard voices calling her from the water andstruggled against me who held her. But since the sun of to-day rose shehears nothing--she hears not me. She sees nothing. She sees not me--me!"

He remained silent for a minute, then asked softly--

"Tuan, will she die?"

"I fear so, " said the white man, sorrowfully. He had known Arsat yearsago, in a far country in times of trouble and danger, when no friendshipis to be despised. And since his Malay friend had come unexpectedly todwell in the hut on the lagoon with a strange woman, he had slept manytimes there, in his journeys up and down the river. He liked the man whoknew how to keep faith in council and how to fight without fear by theside of his white friend. He liked him--not so much perhaps as a manlikes his favourite dog--but still he liked him well enough to help andask no questions, to think sometimes vaguely and hazily in the midst ofhis own pursuits, about the lonely man and the long-haired woman withaudacious face and triumphant eyes, who lived together hidden by theforests--alone and feared. 

The white man came out of the hut in time to see the enormousconflagration of sunset put out by the swift and stealthy shadows that, rising like a black and impalpable vapour above the tree-tops, spreadover the heaven, extinguishing the crimson glow of floating clouds andthe red brilliance of departing daylight. In a few moments all the starscame out above the intense blackness of the earth and the great lagoongleaming suddenly with reflected lights resembled an oval patch of nightsky flung down into the hopeless and abysmal night of the wilderness. The white man had some supper out of the basket, then collecting afew sticks that lay about the platform, made up a small fire, notfor warmth, but for the sake of the smoke, which would keep off themosquitos. He wrapped himself in the blankets and sat with his backagainst the reed wall of the house, smoking thoughtfully. 

Arsat came through the doorway with noiseless steps and squatted down bythe fire. The white man moved his outstretched legs a little. 

"She breathes, " said Arsat in a low voice, anticipating the expectedquestion. "She breathes and burns as if with a great fire. She speaksnot; she hears not--and burns!"

He paused for a moment, then asked in a quiet, incurious tone--

"Tuan . . . Will she die?"

The white man moved his shoulders uneasily and muttered in a hesitatingmanner--

"If such is her fate. "

"No, Tuan, " said Arsat, calmly. "If such is my fate. I hear, I see, I wait. I remember . . . Tuan, do you remember the old days? Do youremember my brother?"

"Yes, " said the white man. The Malay rose suddenly and went in. Theother, sitting still outside, could hear the voice in the hut. Arsatsaid: "Hear me! Speak!" His words were succeeded by a complete silence. "O Diamelen!" he cried, suddenly. After that cry there was a deep sigh. Arsat came out and sank down again in his old place. 

They sat in silence before the fire. There was no sound within thehouse, there was no sound near them; but far away on the lagoon theycould hear the voices of the boatmen ringing fitful and distinct onthe calm water. The fire in the bows of the sampan shone faintly in thedistance with a hazy red glow. Then it died out. The voices ceased. The land and the water slept invisible, unstirring and mute. It was asthough there had been nothing left in the world but the glitter of starsstreaming, ceaseless and vain, through the black stillness of the night. 

The white man gazed straight before him into the darkness with wide-openeyes. The fear and fascination, the inspiration and the wonder ofdeath--of death near, unavoidable, and unseen, soothed the unrest of hisrace and stirred the most indistinct, the most intimate of his thoughts. The ever-ready suspicion of evil, the gnawing suspicion that lurks inour hearts, flowed out into the stillness round him--into the stillnessprofound and dumb, and made it appear untrustworthy and infamous, likethe placid and impenetrable mask of an unjustifiable violence. In thatfleeting and powerful disturbance of his being the earth enfolded inthe starlight peace became a shadowy country of inhuman strife, abattle-field of phantoms terrible and charming, august or ignoble, struggling ardently for the possession of our helpless hearts. Anunquiet and mysterious country of inextinguishable desires and fears. 

A plaintive murmur rose in the night; a murmur saddening and startling, as if the great solitudes of surrounding woods had tried to whisperinto his ear the wisdom of their immense and lofty indifference. Soundshesitating and vague floated in the air round him, shaped themselvesslowly into words; and at last flowed on gently in a murmuring streamof soft and monotonous sentences. He stirred like a man waking up andchanged his position slightly. Arsat, motionless and shadowy, sittingwith bowed head under the stars, was speaking in a low and dreamy tone--

". . . For where can we lay down the heaviness of our trouble but ina friend's heart? A man must speak of war and of love. You, Tuan, knowwhat war is, and you have seen me in time of danger seek death as othermen seek life! A writing may be lost; a lie may be written; but what theeye has seen is truth and remains in the mind!"

"I remember, " said the white man, quietly. Arsat went on with mournfulcomposure--

"Therefore I shall speak to you of love. Speak in the night. Speakbefore both night and love are gone--and the eye of day looks upon mysorrow and my shame; upon my blackened face; upon my burnt-up heart. "

A sigh, short and faint, marked an almost imperceptible pause, and thenhis words flowed on, without a stir, without a gesture. 

"After the time of trouble and war was over and you went away from mycountry in the pursuit of your desires, which we, men of the islands, cannot understand, I and my brother became again, as we had beenbefore, the sword-bearers of the Ruler. You know we were men of family, belonging to a ruling race, and more fit than any to carry on our rightshoulder the emblem of power. And in the time of prosperity Si Dendringshowed us favour, as we, in time of sorrow, had showed to him thefaithfulness of our courage. It was a time of peace. A time ofdeer-hunts and cock-fights; of idle talks and foolish squabbles betweenmen whose bellies are full and weapons are rusty. But the sower watchedthe young rice-shoots grow up without fear, and the traders came andwent, departed lean and returned fat into the river of peace. Theybrought news, too. Brought lies and truth mixed together, so that no manknew when to rejoice and when to be sorry. We heard from them about youalso. They had seen you here and had seen you there. And I was glad tohear, for I remembered the stirring times, and I always remembered you, Tuan, till the time came when my eyes could see nothing in the past, because they had looked upon the one who is dying there--in the house. "

He stopped to exclaim in an intense whisper, "O Mara bahia! O Calamity!"then went on speaking a little louder:

"There's no worse enemy and no better friend than a brother, Tuan, forone brother knows another, and in perfect knowledge is strength for goodor evil. I loved my brother. I went to him and told him that I could seenothing but one face, hear nothing but one voice. He told me: 'Open yourheart so that she can see what is in it--and wait. Patience is wisdom. Inchi Midah may die or our Ruler may throw off his fear of a woman!'. . . I waited! . . . You remember the lady with the veiled face, Tuan, andthe fear of our Ruler before her cunning and temper. And if she wantedher servant, what could I do? But I fed the hunger of my heart on shortglances and stealthy words. I loitered on the path to the bath-houses inthe daytime, and when the sun had fallen behind the forest I crept alongthe jasmine hedges of the women's courtyard. Unseeing, we spoke toone another through the scent of flowers, through the veil of leaves, through the blades of long grass that stood still before our lips; sogreat was our prudence, so faint was the murmur of our great longing. The time passed swiftly . . . And there were whispers amongst women--andour enemies watched--my brother was gloomy, and I began to think ofkilling and of a fierce death. . . . We are of a people who take whatthey want--like you whites. There is a time when a man should forgetloyalty and respect. Might and authority are given to rulers, but to allmen is given love and strength and courage. My brother said, 'You shalltake her from their midst. We are two who are like one. ' And I answered, 'Let it be soon, for I find no warmth in sunlight that does not shineupon her. ' Our time came when the Ruler and all the great people wentto the mouth of the river to fish by torchlight. There were hundredsof boats, and on the white sand, between the water and the forests, dwellings of leaves were built for the households of the Rajahs. Thesmoke of cooking-fires was like a blue mist of the evening, and manyvoices rang in it joyfully. While they were making the boats ready tobeat up the fish, my brother came to me and said, 'To-night!' I lookedto my weapons, and when the time came our canoe took its place in thecircle of boats carrying the torches. The lights blazed on the water, but behind the boats there was darkness. When the shouting began and theexcitement made them like mad we dropped out. The water swallowed ourfire, and we floated back to the shore that was dark with only hereand there the glimmer of embers. We could hear the talk of slave-girlsamongst the sheds. Then we found a place deserted and silent. We waitedthere. She came. She came running along the shore, rapid and leavingno trace, like a leaf driven by the wind into the sea. My brother saidgloomily, 'Go and take her; carry her into our boat. ' I lifted her inmy arms. She panted. Her heart was beating against my breast. I said, 'Itake you from those people. You came to the cry of my heart, but my armstake you into my boat against the will of the great!' 'It is right, 'said my brother. 'We are men who take what we want and can hold itagainst many. We should have taken her in daylight. ' I said, 'Let us beoff'; for since she was in my boat I began to think of our Ruler's manymen. 'Yes. Let us be off, ' said my brother. 'We are cast out and thisboat is our country now--and the sea is our refuge. ' He lingered withhis foot on the shore, and I entreated him to hasten, for I rememberedthe strokes of her heart against my breast and thought that two mencannot withstand a hundred. We left, paddling downstream close to thebank; and as we passed by the creek where they were fishing, the greatshouting had ceased, but the murmur of voices was loud like the hummingof insects flying at noonday. The boats floated, clustered together, inthe red light of torches, under a black roof of smoke; and men talked oftheir sport. Men that boasted, and praised, and jeered--men that wouldhave been our friends in the morning, but on that night were already ourenemies. We paddled swiftly past. We had no more friends in the countryof our birth. She sat in the middle of the canoe with covered face;silent as she is now; unseeing as she is now--and I had no regret atwhat I was leaving because I could hear her breathing close to me--as Ican hear her now. "

He paused, listened with his ear turned to the doorway, then shook hishead and went on:

"My brother wanted to shout the cry of challenge--one cry only--to letthe people know we were freeborn robbers who trusted our arms and thegreat sea. And again I begged him in the name of our love to be silent. Could I not hear her breathing close to me? I knew the pursuit wouldcome quick enough. My brother loved me. He dipped his paddle without asplash. He only said, 'There is half a man in you now--the other half isin that woman. I can wait. When you are a whole man again, you will comeback with me here to shout defiance. We are sons of the same mother. ' Imade no answer. All my strength and all my spirit were in my hands thatheld the paddle--for I longed to be with her in a safe place beyond thereach of men's anger and of women's spite. My love was so great, thatI thought it could guide me to a country where death was unknown, if Icould only escape from Inchi Midah's fury and from our Ruler's sword. We paddled with haste, breathing through our teeth. The blades bit deepinto the smooth water. We passed out of the river; we flew in clearchannels amongst the shallows. We skirted the black coast; we skirtedthe sand beaches where the sea speaks in whispers to the land; and thegleam of white sand flashed back past our boat, so swiftly she ran uponthe water. We spoke not. Only once I said, 'Sleep, Diamelen, for soonyou may want all your strength. ' I heard the sweetness of her voice, butI never turned my head. The sun rose and still we went on. Water fellfrom my face like rain from a cloud. We flew in the light and heat. Inever looked back, but I knew that my brother's eyes, behind me, werelooking steadily ahead, for the boat went as straight as a bushman'sdart, when it leaves the end of the sumpitan. There was no betterpaddler, no better steersman than my brother. Many times, together, wehad won races in that canoe. But we never had put out our strength as wedid then--then, when for the last time we paddled together! There was nobraver or stronger man in our country than my brother. I could not sparethe strength to turn my head and look at him, but every moment I heardthe hiss of his breath getting louder behind me. Still he did not speak. The sun was high. The heat clung to my back like a flame of fire. Myribs were ready to burst, but I could no longer get enough air intomy chest. And then I felt I must cry out with my last breath, 'Let usrest!' . . . 'Good!' he answered; and his voice was firm. He was strong. He was brave. He knew not fear and no fatigue . . . My brother!"

A murmur powerful and gentle, a murmur vast and faint; the murmur oftrembling leaves, of stirring boughs, ran through the tangled depths ofthe forests, ran over the starry smoothness of the lagoon, and the waterbetween the piles lapped the slimy timber once with a sudden splash. A breath of warm air touched the two men's faces and passed on witha mournful sound--a breath loud and short like an uneasy sigh of thedreaming earth. 

Arsat went on in an even, low voice. 

"We ran our canoe on the white beach of a little bay close to a longtongue of land that seemed to bar our road; a long wooded cape going farinto the sea. My brother knew that place. Beyond the cape a river hasits entrance, and through the jungle of that land there is a narrowpath. We made a fire and cooked rice. Then we lay down to sleep on thesoft sand in the shade of our canoe, while she watched. No sooner had Iclosed my eyes than I heard her cry of alarm. We leaped up. The sun washalfway down the sky already, and coming in sight in the opening of thebay we saw a prau manned by many paddlers. We knew it at once; it wasone of our Rajah's praus. They were watching the shore, and saw us. Theybeat the gong, and turned the head of the prau into the bay. I felt myheart become weak within my breast. Diamelen sat on the sand and coveredher face. There was no escape by sea. My brother laughed. He had thegun you had given him, Tuan, before you went away, but there was only ahandful of powder. He spoke to me quickly: 'Run with her along the path. I shall keep them back, for they have no firearms, and landing in theface of a man with a gun is certain death for some. Run with her. On theother side of that wood there is a fisherman's house--and a canoe. When I have fired all the shots I will follow. I am a great runner, andbefore they can come up we shall be gone. I will hold out as long as Ican, for she is but a woman--that can neither run nor fight, but she hasyour heart in her weak hands. ' He dropped behind the canoe. The prau wascoming. She and I ran, and as we rushed along the path I heard shots. My brother fired--once--twice--and the booming of the gong ceased. Therewas silence behind us. That neck of land is narrow. Before I heard mybrother fire the third shot I saw the shelving shore, and I saw thewater again; the mouth of a broad river. We crossed a grassy glade. Weran down to the water. I saw a low hut above the black mud, and a smallcanoe hauled up. I heard another shot behind me. I thought, 'That is hislast charge. ' We rushed down to the canoe; a man came running from thehut, but I leaped on him, and we rolled together in the mud. Then I gotup, and he lay still at my feet. I don't know whether I had killed himor not. I and Diamelen pushed the canoe afloat. I heard yells behind me, and I saw my brother run across the glade. Many men were bounding afterhim, I took her in my arms and threw her into the boat, then leaped inmyself. When I looked back I saw that my brother had fallen. He felland was up again, but the men were closing round him. He shouted, 'I amcoming!' The men were close to him. I looked. Many men. Then I lookedat her. Tuan, I pushed the canoe! I pushed it into deep water. She waskneeling forward looking at me, and I said, 'Take your paddle, ' whileI struck the water with mine. Tuan, I heard him cry. I heard him cry myname twice; and I heard voices shouting, 'Kill! Strike!' I never turnedback. I heard him calling my name again with a great shriek, as whenlife is going out together with the voice--and I never turned my head. My own name! . . . My brother! Three times he called--but I was notafraid of life. Was she not there in that canoe? And could I not withher find a country where death is forgotten--where death is unknown!"

The white man sat up. Arsat rose and stood, an indistinct and silentfigure above the dying embers of the fire. Over the lagoon a mistdrifting and low had crept, erasing slowly the glittering images ofthe stars. And now a great expanse of white vapour covered the land: itflowed cold and gray in the darkness, eddied in noiseless whirls roundthe tree-trunks and about the platform of the house, which seemed tofloat upon a restless and impalpable illusion of a sea. Only far awaythe tops of the trees stood outlined on the twinkle of heaven, like asombre and forbidding shore--a coast deceptive, pitiless and black. 

Arsat's voice vibrated loudly in the profound peace. 

"I had her there! I had her! To get her I would have faced all mankind. But I had her--and--"

His words went out ringing into the empty distances. He paused, andseemed to listen to them dying away very far--beyond help and beyondrecall. Then he said quietly--

"Tuan, I loved my brother. "

A breath of wind made him shiver. High above his head, high above thesilent sea of mist the drooping leaves of the palms rattled togetherwith a mournful and expiring sound. The white man stretched his legs. His chin rested on his chest, and he murmured sadly without lifting hishead--

"We all love our brothers. "

Arsat burst out with an intense whispering violence--

"What did I care who died? I wanted peace in my own heart. "

He seemed to hear a stir in the house--listened--then stepped innoiselessly. The white man stood up. A breeze was coming in fitfulpuffs. The stars shone paler as if they had retreated into the frozendepths of immense space. After a chill gust of wind there were a fewseconds of perfect calm and absolute silence. Then from behind the blackand wavy line of the forests a column of golden light shot up into theheavens and spread over the semicircle of the eastern horizon. The sunhad risen. The mist lifted, broke into drifting patches, vanished intothin flying wreaths; and the unveiled lagoon lay, polished and black, inthe heavy shadows at the foot of the wall of trees. A white eagle roseover it with a slanting and ponderous flight, reached the clear sunshineand appeared dazzlingly brilliant for a moment, then soaring higher, became a dark and motionless speck before it vanished into the blue asif it had left the earth forever. The white man, standing gazing upwardsbefore the doorway, heard in the hut a confused and broken murmur ofdistracted words ending with a loud groan. Suddenly Arsat stumbled outwith outstretched hands, shivered, and stood still for some time withfixed eyes. Then he said--

"She burns no more. "

Before his face the sun showed its edge above the tree-tops risingsteadily. The breeze freshened; a great brilliance burst upon thelagoon, sparkled on the rippling water. The forests came out of theclear shadows of the morning, became distinct, as if they had rushednearer--to stop short in a great stir of leaves, of nodding boughs, ofswaying branches. In the merciless sunshine the whisper of unconsciouslife grew louder, speaking in an incomprehensible voice round the dumbdarkness of that human sorrow. Arsat's eyes wandered slowly, then staredat the rising sun. 

"I can see nothing, " he said half aloud to himself. 

"There is nothing, " said the white man, moving to the edge of theplatform and waving his hand to his boat. A shout came faintly over thelagoon and the sampan began to glide towards the abode of the friend ofghosts. 

"If you want to come with me, I will wait all the morning, " said thewhite man, looking away upon the water. 

"No, Tuan, " said Arsat, softly. "I shall not eat or sleep in this house, but I must first see my road. Now I can see nothing--see nothing! Thereis no light and no peace in the world; but there is death--death formany. We are sons of the same mother--and I left him in the midst ofenemies; but I am going back now. "

He drew a long breath and went on in a dreamy tone:

"In a little while I shall see clear enough to strike--to strike. Butshe has died, and . . . Now . . . Darkness. "

He flung his arms wide open, let them fall along his body, then stoodstill with unmoved face and stony eyes, staring at the sun. The whiteman got down into his canoe. The polers ran smartly along the sidesof the boat, looking over their shoulders at the beginning of a wearyjourney. High in the stern, his head muffled up in white rags, thejuragan sat moody, letting his paddle trail in the water. The white man, leaning with both arms over the grass roof of the little cabin, lookedback at the shining ripple of the boat's wake. Before the sampan passedout of the lagoon into the creek he lifted his eyes. Arsat had notmoved. He stood lonely in the searching sunshine; and he looked beyondthe great light of a cloudless day into the darkness of a world ofillusions.