II
BUT it was at night that he talked openly, forgetting
the exactions of his stage. In the daytime there
were affairs to be discussed in state. There were
at first between him and me his own splendour, my
shabby suspicions, and the scenic landscape that intruded
upon the reality of our lives by its motionless
fantasy of outline and colour. His followers thronged
round him; above his head the broad blades of their
spears made a spiked halo of iron points, and they
hedged him from humanity by the shimmer of silks, the
gleam of weapons, the excited and respectful hum of
eager voices. Before sunset he would take leave with
ceremony, and go off sitting under a red umbrella, and
escorted by a score of boats. All the paddles flashed
and struck together with a mighty splash that reverberated
loudly in the monumental amphitheatre
of hills. A broad stream of dazzling foam trailed
behind the flotilla. The canoes appeared very black
on the white hiss of water; turbaned heads swayed back
and forth; a multitude of arms in crimson and yellow
rose and fell with one movement; the spearmen upright
in the bows of canoes had variegated sarongs and
gleaming shoulders like bronze statues; the muttered
strophes of the paddlers' song ended periodically in a
plaintive shout. They diminished in the distance;
the song ceased; they swarmed on the beach in the long
shadows of the western hills. The sunlight lingered
on the purple crests, and we could see him leading the
way to his stockade, a burly bareheaded figure walking
far in advance of a straggling
cortège, and swinging
regularly an ebony staff taller than himself. The
darkness deepened fast; torches gleamed fitfully,
passing behind bushes; a long hail or two trailed in
the silence of the evening; and at last the night stretched
its smooth veil over the shore, the lights, and the
voices.
Then, just as we were thinking of repose, the watch-men
of the schooner would hail a splash of paddles
away in the starlit gloom of the bay; a voice would
respond in cautious tones, and our serang, putting his
head down the open skylight, would inform us without
surprise, "That Rajah, he coming. He here now."
Karain appeared noiselessly in the doorway of the little
cabin. He was simplicity itself then; all in white;
muffled about his head; for arms only a kriss with a
plain buffalo-horn handle, which he would politely
conceal within a fold of his sarong before stepping over
the threshold. The old sword-bearer's face, the worn-out
and mournful face so covered with wrinkles that it
seemed to look out through the meshes of a fine dark
net, could be seen close above his shoulders. Karain
never moved without that attendant, who stood or
squatted close at his back. He had a dislike of an
open space behind him. It was more than a dislike
— it resembled fear, a nervous preoccupation of what
went on where he could not see. This, in view of
the evident and fierce loyalty that surrounded him,
was inexplicable. He was there alone in the midst of
devoted men; he was safe from neighbourly ambushes,
from fraternal ambitions; and yet more than
one of our 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 the watch near
him who has strength and weapons." There was indeed
always one near him, though our informants had
no conception of that watcher's strength and weapons,
which were both shadowy and terrible. We knew,
but only later on, when we had heard the story. Meantime
we noticed that, even during the most important
interviews, Karain would often give a start, and interrupting
his discourse, would sweep his arm back with
a sudden movement, to feel whether the old fellow
was there. The old fellow, 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 least bit, murmured above his head
in a soothing tone some words difficult to catch.
It was only on board the schooner, when surrounded
by white faces, by unfamiliar sights and sounds,
that Karain seemed to forget the strange obsession
that wound like a black thread through the gorgeous
pomp of his 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 are liberties one
must not take with a Malay. He said himself that on
such occasions he was only a private gentleman coming
to see other gentlemen whom he supposed as well born
as himself. I fancy that to the last he believed us to be
emissaries of Government, darkly official persons furthering
by our illegal traffic some dark scheme of high
statecraft. Our denials and protestations were unavailing.
He only smiled with discreet politeness and inquired
about the Queen. Every visit began with that
inquiry; he was insatiable of details; he was fascinated
by the holder of a sceptre the shadow of which, stretching
from the westward over the earth and over the
seas, passed far beyond his own hand's-breadth of
conquered land. He multiplied questions; he could
never know enough of the Monarch of whom he spoke
with wonder and chivalrous respect — with a kind of
affectionate awe! Afterwards, when we had learned
that he was the son of a woman who had many years
ago ruled a 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 the
image he tried to form for himself of the far-off Queen
whom he called Great, Invincible, Pious, and Fortunate.
We had to invent details at last to satisfy his craving
curiosity; and our loyalty must be pardoned, for we
tried to make them fit for his august and resplendent
ideal. We talked. The night slipped over us, over
the still schooner, over the sleeping land, and over
the sleepless sea that thundered amongst the reefs
outside the bay. His paddlers, two trustworthy men,
slept in the canoe at the foot of our side-ladder. The
old confidant, relieved from duty, dozed on his heels,
with his back against the companion-doorway; and
Karain sat squarely in the ship's wooden armchair, under
the slight sway of the cabin lamp, a cheroot between
his dark fingers, and a glass of lemonade before him.
He was amused by the fizz of the thing, but after a
sip or two would let it get flat, and with a courteous
wave of his hand ask for a fresh bottle. He decimated
our slender stock; but we did not begrudge it to
him, for, when he began, he talked well. He must have
been a great Bugis dandy in his time, for even then
(and when we knew him he was no longer young) his
splendour was spotlessly neat, and he dyed his hair a
light shade of brown. The quiet dignity of his bearing
transformed the dim-lit cuddy of the schooner into an
audience-hall. He talked of inter-island politics with
an ironic and melancholy shrewdness. He had travelled
much, suffered not a little, intrigued, fought. He knew
native Courts, European Settlements, the forests, the
sea, and, as he said himself, had spoken in his time to
many great men. He liked to talk with me because
I had known some of these men: he seemed to think
that I could understand him, and, with a fine confidence,
assumed that I, at least, could appreciate how
much greater he was himself. But he preferred to
talk of his native country — a small Bugis state on the
island of Celebes. I had visited it some time before,
and he asked eagerly for news. As men's names
came up in conversation he would say, "We swam
against one another when we were boys"; or, "We
hunted the deer together — he could use the noose
and the spear as well as I." Now and then his big
dreamy eyes would roll restlessly; he frowned or
smiled, or he would become pensive, and, staring in
silence, would nod slightly for a time at some regretted
vision of the past.
His mother had been the ruler of a small semi-independent
state on the sea-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 turbulent opposition of the chiefs,
she married a rich trader, a Korinchi man of no family.
Karain was her son by that second marriage, but his
unfortunate descent had apparently nothing to do
with his exile. He said nothing 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 related
willingly the story of his wanderings, and told us
all about the conquest of the bay. Alluding to the
people beyond the hills, he would murmur gently, with
a careless wave of the hand, "They came over the
hills once to fight us, but those who got away never
came again." He thought for a while, smiling to
himself. "Very few got away," he added, with proud
serenity. He cherished the recollections of his successes;
he had an exulting eagerness for endeavour;
when he talked, his aspect was warlike, chivalrous,
and uplifting. No wonder his people admired him.
We saw him once walking in daylight amongst the
houses of the settlement. At the doors of huts groups
of women turned to look after him, warbling softly,
and with gleaming eyes; armed men stood out of the
way, submissive and erect; others approached from
the side, bending their backs to address him humbly;
an old woman stretched out a draped lean arm —
"Blessings on thy head!" she cried from a dark doorway;
a fiery-eyed man showed above the low fence of a
plantain-patch a streaming face, a bare breast scarred
in two places, and bellowed out pantingly after him,
"God give victory to our master!" Karain walked
fast, and with firm long strides; he answered greetings
right and left by quick piercing glances. Children
ran forward between the houses, peeped fearfully
round corners; young boys kept up with him, gliding
between bushes: their eyes gleamed through the dark
leaves. The old sword-bearer, shouldering the silver
scabbard, shuffled hastily at his heels with bowed
head, and his eyes on the ground. And in the midst of a
great stir they passed swift and absorbed, like two men
hurrying through a 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 on their heels, with
idle arms hanging over their knees. Under the thatch
roof supported by smooth columns, of which each one
had cost the life of a straight-stemmed young palm,
the scent of flowering hedges drifted in warm waves.
The sun was sinking. In the open courtyard suppliants
walked through the gate, raising, when yet far off, their
joined hands above bowed heads, and bending low in
the bright stream of sunlight. Young girls, with
flowers in their laps, sat under the wide-spreading
boughs of a big tree. The blue smoke of wood fires
spread in a thin mist above the high-pitched roofs
of houses that had glistening walls of woven reeds,
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, and
idle spearmen that lounged listlessly against the posts,
looking at the girls, would turn their heads slowly.
To no man had been given the shelter of so much respect,
confidence, and awe. Yet at times he would
lean forward and appear to listen as for a far-off note
of discord, as if 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 familiarly touched on
the shoulder. He glanced back with apprehension; his
aged follower whispered inaudibly at his ear; the chiefs
turned their eyes away in silence, for the old wizard,
the man who could command ghosts and 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 bursts of joyous sound. At
the end of upright spear-shafts the long tufts of dyed
horse-hair waved crimson and filmy in the gust of wind;
and beyond the blaze of hedges the brook of limpid
quick water ran invisible and 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 of torches could be seen burning under the
high roofs of the council shed. Smoky red flames
swayed on high poles, and the fiery blaze flickered
over faces, clung to the smooth trunks of palm-trees,
kindled bright sparks on the rims of metal dishes
standing on fine floor-mats. That obscure adventurer
feasted like a king. Small groups of men crouched
in tight circles round the wooden platters; brown hands
hovered over snowy heaps of rice. Sitting upon a
rough couch apart from the others, he leaned on his
elbow with inclined head; and near him a youth improvised
in a high tone a song that celebrated his valour
and wisdom. The singer rocked himself to and fro,
rolling frenzied eyes; old women hobbled about with
dishes, and men, squatting low, lifted their heads to
listen gravely without ceasing to eat. The song of
triumph vibrated in the night, and the stanzas rolled
out mournful and fiery like the thoughts of a hermit.
He silenced it with a sign, "Enough!" An owl hooted
far away, exulting in the delight of deep gloom in dense
foliage; overhead lizards ran in the attap thatch,
calling softly; the dry leaves of the roof rustled; the
rumour of mingled voices grew louder suddenly.
After a circular and startled glance, as of a man waking
up abruptly to the sense of danger, he would throw
himself back, and under the downward gaze of the old
sorcerer take up, wide-eyed, the slender thread of his
dream. They watched his moods; the swelling rumour
of animated talk subsided like a wave on a sloping beach.
The chief is pensive. And above the spreading whisper
of lowered voices only a little rattle of weapons would be
heard, a single louder word distinct and alone, or the
grave ring of a big brass tray.