3 1822 01371 6493
 
 1. 1 iia^jWiJi
 
 UBRAKT 
 
 SAN Diteo
 
 VICTOR V 
 
 Ox- 
 
 Central University Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 Please Note: This item is subject to recall. 
 
 Date Due 
 
 NOV 9 l.q93 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 MAK 1 3 1996 
 
 
 MAY 021997 
 
 
 MAY h 1996 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CI 39 (7/93) UCSD Lib.
 
 ^ l/icioty 
 
 ^v 
 
 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 THE 
 
 MODERN LIBRARY 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 COPYRIGHT, I 9 I 5, I 92 I, BY 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, I 9 I 5, BY JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 Randorn Mouse is the publisher of 
 THE MODERN LIBRARY 
 
 BENNETT A. CERF • DONALD 8. KLOPFER • ROBERT K. HAAS 
 
 Manufactured in the United States of America 
 By H. Wolff
 
 TO 
 
 PERCEVAL 
 
 AND 
 
 MAISIE GIBBON
 
 NOTE TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 THE last word of this novel was written on the 29th 
 of May, 1914. And that last word was the single 
 word of the title. 
 
 Those were the times of peace. Now that the moment 
 ot publication approaches I have been considering the 
 discretion of altering the title-page. The word Victory, 
 the shining and tragic goal of noble eflfort, appeared too 
 great, too august, to stand at the head of a mere novel. 
 There was also the possibility of falling under the sus- 
 picion of commercial astuteness deceiving the public into 
 the belief that the book had something to do with war. 
 
 Of that, however, I was not afraid very much. What 
 influenced my decision most were the obscure promptings 
 of that pagan residuum of awe and wonder which lurks 
 still at the bottom of our old humanity. Victory was 
 the last word I had written in peace time. It was the lasi 
 literary thought which had occurred to me before the 
 doors of the Temple of Janus flying open with a crasn 
 shook the minds, the hearts, the consciences of men ali 
 over the world. Such coincidence could not be treatcc' 
 lightly. And I made up my mind to let the word stand, 
 in the same hopeful spirit in which some simple citizen 
 of Old Rome would have "accepted the Omen." 
 
 The second point on which 1 wish to offer a remark 
 is the existence (in the novel) of a person named Schom- 
 Ix-rg. 
 
 That I believe him to be true goes without saying. 1 
 am not likely to offer pinchbeck wares to my public 
 consciously. Schomberg is an old member of my com-
 
 viu NOTE TO TH£ FIRST EDITION 
 
 pany. A very subordinate personage in Lord Jiui as 
 far back as the year 1899, he became notabl}'' active in a 
 certain short story of mine pubHshed in 1902. Here he 
 appears in a still larger part, true to life (I hope), but 
 also true to himself. Only, in this instance, his deeper 
 passions come into play, and thus his grotesque psy- 
 chology is completed at last. 
 
 I don't pretend to say that this is the entire Teutonic 
 psychology ; but it is indubitably the psychology of a 
 Teuton. My object in mentioning him here is 10 bring 
 out the fact that, far from being the incarnation of re 
 cent animosities, he is the creature of my old, deep-seated 
 and, as \t were, impartial conviction. 
 
 J. C.
 
 AUTHOR^S NOTE 
 
 Jn approaching the task of writing this Note for 
 "Victory"' the first thing I am conscious of is the actual 
 nearness of the book, its nearness to me personally, to 
 the vanished mood in which it was written and to the 
 mixed feelings aroused by the critical notices the book 
 obtained when first published almost exactly a year 
 after the beginning of the great war. The writing of it 
 was finished in 1914 long before the murder of an Aus- 
 trian Archduke sounded the first note of a warning for a 
 world already full of doubts and fears. 
 
 The contemporaneous very short Author's Note which 
 is preserved in this edition bears sufficient witness to 
 the feelings with which I consented to the publication of 
 the book. The fact of the book having been published 
 in the United States early in the year made it difficult 
 to delay its appearance in England any longer. It came 
 out in the thirteenth month of the war, and my conscience 
 was troubled by the awful incongruity of throwing this 
 bit of imagined drama into the welter of reality, tragic 
 enough in all conscience but even more cruel than tragic 
 and more inspiring than cruel. It seemed awfully pre- 
 sumptuous to think there would be eyes to spare for 
 those pages in a community which in the crash of the 
 big gims and in the din of brave words expressing the 
 truth of an indomitable faith could not but feel the edge 
 of a sharp knife at its throat. 
 
 The unchanging Man of history is wonderfully adap- 
 table cloth by his power of endurance and in his ca- 
 pacity for detachment. The fact seems to be that the
 
 X AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 play of his destiny is too great for his fears and too 
 mysterious for his understanding. Were the trump of 
 the Last Judgment to sound suddenly on a working day 
 the musician at his piano would go on with his per- 
 formance of Beethoven's Sonata and the cobbler at his 
 stall stick to his last in undisturbed confidence in the 
 virtues of the leather. And with perfect propriety. For 
 what are we to let ourselves be disturbed by an angel's 
 vengeful music too mighty for our ears and too awful 
 for our terrors? Thus it happens to us to be struck 
 suddenly by the lightning of wrath. The reader will go 
 on reading if the book pleases him and the critic will go 
 on criticizing with that faculty of detachment born per- 
 haps from a sense of infinite littleness and which is yet 
 the only faculty that seems to assimilate man to the 
 immortal gods. 
 
 It is only when the catastrophe matches the natural 
 obscurity of our fate that even the best representative 
 of the race is liable to lose his detachment. It is very 
 obvious that on the arrival of the gentlemanly Mr. Jones, 
 the single-minded Ricardo and the faithful Pedro, Heyst, 
 the man of universal detachment, loses his mental self- 
 possession, that fine attitude before the universally ir- 
 remediable which wears the name of stoicism. It is all a 
 matter of proportion. There should have been a remedy 
 for that sort of thing. And yet there is no remedy. Behind 
 this minute instance of life's hazards Heyst sees the 
 power of blind destiny. Besides, Heyst in his fine detach- 
 ment had lost the habit of asserting himself. I don't mean 
 the courage of self-assertion, either moral or physical, 
 but the mere way of it, the trick of the thing, the readi- 
 ness of mind and the turn of the hand that come without 
 reflection and lead the man to excellence in life, in art, 
 in crime, in virtue and for the matter of that, even in love. 
 Thinking is the great enemy of perfection. The habit of 
 profound reflection, I am compelled to say, is the most
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE xi 
 
 j>ernicious of all the habits formed by the civilized man. 
 
 But I wouldn't be suspected even remotely of making 
 fun of Axel Heyst. I have always liked him. The flesh 
 and blood individual who stands behind the infinitely 
 more familiar figure of the book I remember as a mysteri- 
 ous Swede right enough. Whether he was a baron, too, I 
 am not so certain. He himself never laid a claim to that 
 distinction. His detachment was too great to make any 
 claims big or small on one's credulity. I will not say where 
 I met him because I fear to give my readers a wrong 
 impression, since a marked incongruity between a man and 
 his surroundings is often a very misleading circumstance. 
 We became very friendly for a time and I would not 
 like to expose him to unpleasant suspicions though, per- 
 sonally, I am sure he would have been indifferent to sus- 
 picions as he was indifferent to all the other disadvantages 
 of life. He was not the whole Heyst of course ; he is 
 only the physical and moral foundation of my Heyst laid 
 on the ground of a short acquaintance. That it was short 
 was certainly not my fault, for he had charmed me by 
 the mere amenity of his detachment which, in this case, 
 I cannot help thinking he had carried to excess. He went 
 away from his rooms without leaving a trace. I wondered 
 where he had gone to — but now I know. He vanished 
 from my ken only to drift into this adventure that, un- 
 avoidable, waited for him in a world which he persisted in 
 looking upon as a malevolent shadow spinning in the sun- 
 light. Often in the course of years an expressed sentiment, 
 the particular sense of a phrase heard casually, would 
 recall him to my mind so that I have fastened on to him 
 many words heard on other men's lips and belonging 
 to other men's less perfect, less pathetic moods. 
 
 The same observation will apply mutatis mutandis to 
 Mr. Jones, who is built on a much slenderer connection. 
 Mr. Jones (or whatever his name was) did not drift 
 away from me. He turned his back on me and walked
 
 cH AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 out of the room. It was in a little hotel in the Island of 
 St. Thomas in the West Indies (in the yeai '75) where 
 we found him one hot afternoon extended on three chairs, 
 all alone in the loud buzzing of flies to which his immo- 
 bility and his cadaverous aspect gave a most gruesome 
 significance. Our invasion must have displeased him be- 
 cause he got off the chairs brusquely and walked out leav- 
 ing with me an indelibly weird impression of his thin 
 shanks. One of the men with me said that the fellow was 
 the most desperate gambler he had ever come across. I 
 said: "A professional sharper?" and got for answer: 
 "He's a terror ; but I must say that up to a certain point 
 he will play fair. . . ."I wonder what the point was. I 
 never saw him again because I believe he went straight 
 on board a mail-boat which left within the hour for other 
 ports of call in the direction of Aspinall. Mr. Jones's 
 characteristic insolence belongs to another man of a quite 
 different type. I will say nothing as to the origins of his 
 mentality because I don't intend to make any damaging 
 admissions^ 
 
 It so happened that the very same year Ricardo — ^the 
 physical Ricardo — was a fellow passenger of mine on 
 board an extremely small and extremely dirty little 
 schooner, during a four days' passage between two places 
 in the Gulf of Mexico whose names don't matter. For 
 the most part he lay on deck aft as it were at my feet, 
 and raising himself from time to time on his elbow would 
 talk about himself and go on talking, not exactly to me 
 or even at me (he would not even look up but kept his 
 eyes fixed on the deck) but more as if communing in a 
 low voice with his familiar devil. Now and then he would 
 give me a glance and make the hairs of his stiff little 
 moustache stir quaintly. His eyes were green, and to this 
 day every cat I see reminds me of the exact contour of 
 his face. What he was travelling for or what was his 
 iiusiness in life he never confided to me. Truth to say
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE xiii 
 
 the only passeng^er on board that schooner who could 
 have talked openly about his activities and purposes was 
 a very snuffy and conversationally delightful friar, the 
 Superior of a convent, attended by a very young lay 
 brother, of a particularly ferocious countenance. We had 
 with us also, lying prostrate in the dark and unspeakable 
 cuddy of that schooner, an old Spanish gentleman, owner 
 of much luggage and, as Ricardo assured me, very i\) 
 mdeed. Ricardo seemed to be either a servant or the con- 
 fidant of that aged and distinguished-looking invalid, who 
 early on the passage held a long murmured conversation 
 with the friar, and after that did nothing but groan feebly, 
 smoke cigarettes and now and then call for Martin in 
 a voice full of pain. Then he who has become Ricardo in 
 the book would go below into that beastly and noisome 
 hole, remain there mysteriously, and coming up on deck 
 again with a face on which nothing could be read, would 
 as likely as not resume for my edification the exposition 
 of his moral attitude toward life illustrated by striking 
 particular instances of the most atrocious complexion. 
 Did he mean to frighten me? Or seduce me? Or astonish 
 me? Or arouse my admiration? All he did was to arouse 
 my amused incredulity. As scoundrels go he was far from 
 being a bore. For the rest my innocence was so great 
 then that I could not take his philosophy seriously. All 
 the time he kept one ear turned to the cuddy in the man- 
 ner of a devoted servant, but I had the idea that in some 
 way or other he had imposed the connection on the invalid 
 for some end of his own. The reader therefore won't be 
 surprised to hear that one morning I was told without 
 any particular emotion by the padrone of the schooner 
 that the "Rich man" down there was dead : He had died 
 in the night. I don't remember ever being so moved by 
 the desolate end of a complete stranger. I looked down 
 the skylight, and there was the devoted Martin busy 
 cording cowhide trunks belonging to the deceased whose
 
 ov AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 white beard and hooked nose were the only parts I could 
 make out in the dark depths of a horrible stuffy bunk. 
 
 As it fell calm in the course of the afternoon and con- 
 tinued calm during all that night and the terrible, flaming 
 day, the late "Rich man" had to be thrown overboard 
 at sunset, though as a matter of fact we were in sight 
 ji the low, pestilential, mangrove-lined coast of our desti- 
 nation. The excellent Father Superior mentioned to me 
 with an air of immense commiseration : "The poor man 
 has left a young daughter," Who was to look after her 
 I don't know, but I saw the devoted Martin taking the 
 trunks ashore with great care just before I landed myself. 
 I would perhaps have tracked the ways of that man of 
 immense sincerity for a little while but I had some of my 
 own very pressing business to attend to, which in the end 
 got mixed up with an earthquake and so I had no time to 
 give to Ricardo. The reader need not be told that I have 
 not forgotten him, though. 
 
 My contact with the faithful Pedro was much shorter 
 and my observation of him was less complete but incom- 
 parably more anxious. It ended in a sudden inspiration 
 to get out of his way. It was in a hovel of sticks and mats 
 by the side of a path. As I went in there only to ask for 
 a bottle of lemonade I have not to this day the slightest 
 idea what in my appearance or actions could have roused 
 his terrible ire. It became manifest to me less than two 
 minutes after I had set eyes on him for the first time, and 
 though immensely surprised of course I didn't stop to 
 think it out. I took the nearest short cut — through the 
 wall. This bestial apparition and a certain enormous buck 
 nigger encountered in Haiti only a couple of months after- 
 wards, have fixed my conception of blind, furious, un- 
 reasoning rage, as manifested in the human animal, to 
 the end of my days. Of the nigger I used to dream for 
 years afterwards. Of Pedro never. The impression was 
 less vivid. I got away from him too quickly.
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE xr 
 
 It seems to me but natural that those three buried in 
 a corner of my memory should suddenly get out into the 
 light of the world — so natural that I offer no excuse for 
 their existence. They were there, they had to come out ; 
 and this is a sufficient excuse for a writer of tales who 
 had taken to his trade without preparation, or premedita- 
 tion and without any moral intention but that which per- 
 vades the whole scheme of this world of senses* 
 
 Since this Note is mostly concerned with personal con- 
 tacts and the origins of the persons in the tale, I am 
 bound also to speak of Lena, because if I were to leave 
 her out it would look like a slight ; and nothing would be 
 further from my thoughts than putting a slight on Lena. 
 If of all the personages involved in the "mystery of Sam- 
 buran" I have lived longest with Heyst (or with him I 
 call Heyst) it was at her, whom I call Lena, that I have 
 looked the longest and with a most sustained attention. 
 This attention originated in idleness for which I have a 
 natural talent. One evening I wandered into a cafe, in a 
 town not of the tropics but of the South of France. It 
 was filled with tobacco smoke, the hum of voices, the 
 rattling of dominoes and the sounds of strident music. 
 The orchestra was rather smaller than the one that per- 
 formed at Schomberg's hotel, had the air more of a family 
 party than of an enlisted band, and, I must confess, 
 seemed rather more respectable than the Zangiacomo 
 musical enterprise. It was less pretentious also, more 
 homely and familiar, so to speak, insomuch that in the 
 intervals when all the performers left the platform one 
 of them went amongst the marble tables collecting offer- 
 ings of sous and francs in a battered tin receptacle recall- 
 ing the shape of a sauceboat. It was a girl. Her detach- 
 ment from her task seems to me now to have equalled or 
 even surpassed Heyst's aloofness from all the mental 
 degradations to which a man's intelligence is exposed in 
 its way through life. Silent and wide-eyed she went
 
 ..-vi AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 from table to table with the air of a sleep-walker and 
 •yith no other sound but the slight rattle of the coins to 
 attract attention. It was long after the sea-chapter of 
 my life had been closed but it is difficult to discard com- 
 pletely the characteristics of half a life-time, and it was in 
 something of the jack-ashore spirit that I dropped a five- 
 franc piece into the sauceboat; whereupon the sleep- 
 walker turned her head to gaze at me and said "Merci, 
 Monsieur," in a tone in which there was no gratitude but 
 only surprise. I must have been idle indeed to take the 
 trouble to remark on such slight evidence that the voice 
 was very charming and when the performers resumed 
 their seats I shifted my position slightly in order not to 
 have that particular performer hidden from me by the 
 little man with the beard who conducted, and who might 
 for all I know have been her father, but whose real 
 mission in life was to be a model for the Zangiacomo of 
 ''Victory." Having got a clear line of sight I naturally 
 (being idle) continued to look at the girl through all the 
 second part of the programme. The shape of her dark 
 head inclined over the violin was fascinating, and, while 
 resting between the pieces of that interminable programme 
 she was, in her white dress and with her brown hands 
 reposing in her lap, the very image of dreamy inno- 
 cence. The mature, bad-tempered woman at the piano 
 might have been her mother, though there was not the 
 slightest resemblance between them. All I am certain of 
 in their personal relation to each other is that cruel pinch 
 on the upper part of the arm. That I am sure I have seen ! 
 There could be no mistake. I was in a too idle mood to 
 imagine such a gratuitous barbarity. It may have been 
 playfulness, yet the girl jumped up as if she had been 
 stung by a wasp. It may have been playfulness. Yet I saw 
 plainly poor "dreamy innocence" rub gently the affected 
 place as she filed off with the other performers down 
 the middle aisle between the marble tables in the uproar
 
 AUTH.JR'S NOTE xv i 
 
 of voices, the rattling of dominoes, through a blue atmos- 
 phere of tobacco smoke. I believe that those people left 
 the town next day. 
 
 Or perhaps they had only migrated to the other big 
 cafe, on the other side of the Place de la Comedie. It is 
 very possible. I did not go across to find out. It was my 
 perfect idleness that had invested the girl with a peculiar 
 charm, and I did not want to destroy it by any superflu- 
 ous exertion. The receptivity of my indolence made the 
 impression so permanent that when the moment came 
 for her meeting with Heyst I felt that she would be 
 heroically equal to every demand of the risky and un- 
 certain future. I was so convinced of it that I let her go 
 with Heyst, I won't 'ay without a pang but certainly 
 without misgivings. And in view o: her triumphant end 
 what more could I have done for her rehabilitation and 
 her happiness? 
 
 1920. J. C.
 
 PART I
 
 There is, as every schoolboy knows in this scientific 
 age, a very close chemical relation between coal and 
 diamonds. It is the reason, I believe, why some people 
 allude to coal as "black diamonds." Both these com- 
 modities represent wealth ; but coal is a much less port- 
 able form of property. There is, from that point of view, 
 a deplorable lack of concentration in coal. Now, if a coal- 
 mine could be put into one's waistcoat pocket — but it 
 can't ! At the same time, there is a fascination in coal, 
 the supreme commodity of the age in which we are 
 camped like bewildered travellers in a garish, unrestful 
 hotel. And I suppose those two considerations, the practi- 
 cal and the mystical, prevented Heyst — Axel Heyst — 
 from going away. 
 
 The Tropical Belt Coal Company went into liquidation. 
 The world of finance is a mysterious world in which, m- 
 credible as the fact may appear, evaporation precedes 
 liquidation. First the capital evaporates, and then the 
 company goes into liquidation. These are very unnatural 
 physics, but they account for the persistent inertia of 
 Heyst, at which we "out there" used to laugh among our- 
 selves — but not inimically. An inert body can do no harm 
 to any one, provokes no hostility, is scarcely worth de- 
 rision. It may, indeed, be in the way sometimes ; but this 
 could not be said of Axel Heyst. He was out of ever)'- 
 body's way, as if he were perched on the highest peak of 
 the Himalayas, and in a sense as conspicuous. Every one 
 in that part of the world knew him, dwelling on his little 
 island. An island is but the top of a mountain. Axel 
 
 3
 
 (p VICTORY 
 
 Heyst, perched on it immovably, was surrounded, instead 
 of the imponderable stormy and transparent ocean of air 
 merging into infinity, by a tepid, shallow sea ; a passion- 
 less off-shoot of the great waters which embrace the 
 continents of this globe. His most frequent visitors were 
 shadows, the shadows of clouds, relieving the monotony 
 of the inanimate, brooding sunshine of the tropics. His 
 nearest neighbour — I am speaking now of things showing 
 some sort of animation — was an indolent volcano which 
 smoked faintly all day with its head just above the north- 
 ern horizon, and at night levelled at him, from amongst 
 the clear stars, a dull red glow, expanding and collapsing 
 spasmodically like the end of a gigantic cigar puflfed at 
 intermittently in the dark. Axel Heyst was also a smoker ; 
 and when he lounged out on his verandah with his che- 
 root, the last thing before going to bed, he made in the 
 night the same sort of glow and of the same size as that 
 other one so many miles away. 
 
 In a sense, the volcano was company to him in the 
 shades of the night — which were often too thick, one 
 would think, to let a breath of air through. There was 
 seldom enough wind to blow a feather along. On most 
 evenings of the year Heyst could have sat outside with a 
 naked candle to read one of the books left him by his 
 late father. It was not a mean store. But he never did that. 
 Afraid of mosquitoes, very likely. Neither was he ever 
 tempted by the silence to address any casual remarks to 
 the companion glow of the volcano. He was not mad. 
 Queer chap — yes, that may have been said, and in fact 
 was said; but there is a tremendous difference between 
 the two, you will allow. 
 
 On the nights of full moon the silence around Sam- 
 buran — the "Round Island" of the charts — was dazzling ; 
 and in the flood of cold light Heyst could see his imme- 
 diate surroundings, which had the aspect of an abandoned 
 v.ettlement invaded by the jungle; vague roofs above low
 
 VICTORY - 
 
 vegetation, broken shadows of bamboo fences in the sheen 
 of long grass, something like an overgrown bit of road 
 slanting among ragged thickets towards the shore only 
 a couple of hundred yards away, with a black jetty and 
 a mound of some sort, quite inky on its unlighted side. 
 But the most conspicuous object was a gigantic black- 
 board raised on two posts and presenting to Heyst, when 
 the moon got over that side, the white letters "T. B. C. 
 Co." in a row at least two feet high. These were the 
 initials of the Tropical Belt Coal Company, his employers 
 — his late employers, to be precise. 
 
 According to the unnatural mysteries of the financial 
 world, the T. B. C. Company's capital having evapo- 
 rated in the course of two years, the company went into 
 liquidation — forced, I believe, not voluntary. There was 
 nothing forcible in the process, however. It was slow ; 
 and while the liquidation — in London and Amsterdam — 
 pursued its languid course, Axel Heyst, styled in the 
 prospectus "manager in the tropics," remained at his post 
 on Samburan, the No. i coaling-station of the company. 
 
 And it was not merely a coaling-station. There was a 
 coal-mine there, with an outcrop in the hillside less than 
 five hundred yards from the rickety wharf and the impos- 
 ing blackboard. The company's object had been to get 
 hold of all the outcrops on tropical islands and exploit 
 them locally. And, Lord knows, there were any amount 
 of outcrops. It was Heyst who had located most of them 
 in this part of the tropical belt during his rather aimless 
 wanderings, and being a ready letter-writer had written 
 pages and pages about them to his friends in Europe. At 
 least, so it was said. 
 
 We doubted whether he had any visions of wealth — 
 for himself, at any rate. What he seemed mostly con- 
 cerned for was the "stride forward," as he expressed it. 
 in the general organisation of the universe, apparently. 
 He was heard by more than a hundred persons in the
 
 6 VICTORY 
 
 islands talking of a "great stride forward for these 
 regions." The convinced wave of the hand which ac- 
 companied the phrase suggested tropical distances being 
 impelled onward. In connection with the finished courtesy 
 of his manner, it was persuasive, or at any rate silencing 
 — for a time, at least. Nobody cared to argue with him 
 when he talked in this strain. His earnestness could do 
 no harm to anybody. There was no danger of any one 
 taking seriously his dream of tropical coal so what was 
 the use of hurting his feelings? 
 
 Thus reasoned men in reputable business offices where 
 he had his entree as a person who came out East with 
 letters of introduction — and modest letters of credit, too 
 — some years before these coal-outcrops began to crop 
 up in his playfully courteous talk. From the first there 
 was some difficulty in making him out. He was not a 
 traveller. A traveller arrives and departs, goes on some- 
 where. Heyst did not depart. I met a man once — ^the 
 manager of the branch of the Oriental Banking Corpora- 
 tion in Malacca — to whom Heyst exclaimed, in no con- 
 nection with anything in particular (it was in the billiard- 
 room of the club) : 
 
 "I am enchanted with these islands !" 
 
 He shot it out suddenly, a propos des hottes, as the 
 French say, and while chalking his cue. And perhaps it 
 was some sort of enchantment. There are more spells 
 than your commonplace magicians ever dreamed of. 
 
 Roughly speaking, a circle with a radius of eight hun- 
 dred miles drawn round a point in North Borneo was 
 in Heyst's case a magic circle. It just touched Manila, 
 and he had been seen there. It just touched Saigon, and 
 he was likewise seen there once. Perhaps these were his 
 attempts to break out. If so, they were failures. The en- 
 chantment must have been an unbreakable one. The man- 
 ager — the man who heard the exclamation — had been so 
 impressed by the tone, fervour, rapture, what you will.
 
 VICTORY / 
 
 or perhaps by the incongruity of it that he had related the 
 experience to more than one person. 
 
 "Queer chap, that Swede," was his only comment ; but 
 this is the origin of the name "Enchanted Heyst" which 
 some fellows fastened on our man. 
 
 He also had other names. In his early years, long be- 
 fore he got so becomingly bald on the top, he went to 
 present a letter of introduction to Mr. Tesman of Tesman 
 Brothers, a Sourabaya firm — tip-top house. Well, Mr. 
 Tesman was a kindly, benevolent old gentleman. He did 
 not know what to make of that caller. After telling him 
 that they wished to render his stay among the islands as 
 pleasant as possible, and that they were ready to assist him 
 in his plans, and so on, and after receiving Heyst's thanks 
 — you knew the usual kind of conversation — he proceeded 
 to query in a slow, paternal tone : 
 
 "Are you interested in ?" 
 
 "Facts," broke in Heyst in his courtly voice. "There's 
 nothing worth knowing but facts. Hard facts 1 Facts 
 alone, Mr. Tesman." 
 
 I don't know if old Tesman agreed with him or not, 
 but he must have spoken about it, because, for a time, 
 our man got the name of "Hard Facts." He had the 
 singular good fortune that his sayings stuck to him and 
 became part of his name. Thereafter he mooned about 
 the Java Sea in some of the Tesman's trading schooners, 
 and then vanished, on board an Arab ship, in the direction 
 of New Guinea. He remained so long in that outlying 
 part of his enchanted circle that he was nearly forgotten 
 before he swam into view again in a native proa full of 
 Coram vagabonds, burnt black by the sun, very lean, his 
 hair much thinned, and a portfolio of sketches under his 
 arm. He showed these willingly, but was very reserved as 
 to anything else. He had had an "amusing time," he said 
 A man who will go to New Guinea for fun — well ! 
 
 Later, years afterward, when the last vestiges of youth
 
 8 VICTORY 
 
 had gone oft his face and all the hair off the top of his 
 head, and his red-gold pair of horizontal moustaches had 
 grown to really noble proportions, a certain disreputable 
 white man fastened upon him an epithet. Putting down 
 with a shaking hand a long glass emptied of its contents 
 — paid for by Heyst — he said, with that deliberate saga- 
 city which no mere water-drinker ever attained : 
 
 "Heyst's a puffect g'n'lman. Puffect ! But he's a ut-uto- 
 utopist." 
 
 Heyst had just come out of the place of public refresh- 
 ment where this pronouncement was voiced. Utopist, eh? 
 Upon my word, the only thing I heard him say which 
 might have had a bearing on the point was his invitation 
 to old McNab himself. Turning with that finished courtesy 
 of attitude, movement, voice, which was his obvious char- 
 acteristic, he had said with delicate playfulness : 
 
 "Come along and quench your thirst with us, Mr. 
 McNab!" 
 
 Perhaps that was it. A man who could propose, even 
 playfully, to quench old McNab's thirst must have been 
 an utopist, a pursuer of chimaeras; for of downright 
 irony Heyst was not prodigal. And, may be, this was the 
 reason why he was generally liked. At that epoch in his 
 life, in the fulness of his physical development, of a 
 broad, martial presence, with his bald head and long 
 moustaches, he resembled the portraits of Charles XH 
 of adventurous memory. However, there was no reason 
 to think that Heyst was in any way a fighting man
 
 11 
 
 It was about this time that Heyst became associated 
 with Morrison on terms about which people were in doubt. 
 Some said he was a partner, others said he was a sort of 
 paying guest, but the real truth of the matter was more 
 complex. One day Heyst turned up in Timor. Why in 
 Timor, of all places in the world, no one knows. Well, 
 he was mooning about Delli, that highly pestilential place, 
 possibly in search of some undiscovered facts, when he 
 came in the street upon Morrison, who, in his way, was 
 also an "enchanted" man. When you spoke to Morrison 
 of going home — he was from Dorsetshire — he shuddered. 
 He said it was dark and wet there ; that it was like living 
 with your head and shoulders in a moist gunny-bag. That 
 was only his exaggerated style of talking. Morrison was 
 "one of us." He was owner and master of the Capricorn, 
 trading brig, and was understood to be doing well with 
 her, except for the drawback of too much altruism. He 
 was the dearly beloved friend of a quantity of God- 
 forsaken villages up dark creeks and obscure bays, where 
 he traded for "produce." He would often sail through 
 awfully dangerous channels up to some miserable settle- 
 ment, only to find a very hungry population clamorous 
 for rice, and without so much "produce" between them 
 as would have filled Morrison's suit-case. Amid general 
 rejoicings, he would land the rice all the same, explain 
 to the people that it was an advance, that they were in 
 debt to him now ; would preach to them energy and in- 
 dustry, and make an elaborate note in a pocket-diary 
 which he always carried; and this would be the end of 
 
 9
 
 lo VICTORY 
 
 that transaction. I don't know if Morrison thought so, 
 but the villagers had no doubt whatever about it. When- 
 ever a coast village sighted the brig it would begin to beat 
 all its gongs and hoist all its streamers, and all its girls 
 would put flowers in their hair and the crowd would line 
 the river bank, and Morrison would beam and glitter at 
 all this excitement through his single eyeglass with an air 
 of intense gratification. He was tall and lantern- jawed, 
 and clean-shaven, and looked like a barrister who had 
 thrown his wig to the dogs. 
 
 We used to remonstrate with him: 
 
 "You will never see any of your advances if you go 
 on like this, Morrison." 
 
 He would put on a knowing air. 
 
 '*I shall squeeze them yet some day — never you fear. 
 And that reminds me" — pulling out his inseparable 
 pocketbook — "there's that So-and-So village. They are 
 pretty well off again ; I may just as well squeeze the^n 
 to begin with." 
 
 He would make a ferocious entry in the pocketbook: 
 
 Memo: — Squeeze the So-and-So village at the first time 
 of calling. 
 
 Then he would stick the pencil back and snap the 
 elastic on with inflexible finality; but he never began the 
 squeezing. Some men grumbled at him. He was spoiling 
 the trade. Well, perhaps to a certain extent ; not much. 
 Most of the places he traded with were unknown not only 
 to geography but also to the traders' special lore which 
 is transmitted by word of mouth, without ostentation, 
 and forms the stock of mysterious local knowledge. It was 
 hinted also that Morrison had a wife in each and every 
 one of them, but the majority of us repulsed these innu- 
 endoes with indignation. He was a true humanitarian 
 and rather ascetic than otherwise. 
 
 When Heyst met him in Delli, Morrison was walking 
 along the street, his eyeglass tossed over his shoulder.
 
 VICTORY n 
 
 his head down, with the hopeless aspect of those hard- 
 ened tramps one sees on our roads trudging from work- 
 house to workhouse. Being hailed across the street he 
 looked up with a wild worried expression. He was really 
 in trouble. He had come the week before into Delli, and 
 the Portuguese authorities, on some pretence of irregu- 
 larity in his papers, had inflicted a fine upon him and had 
 arrested his brig. 
 
 Morrison never had any spare cash in hand. With his 
 system of trading it would have been strange if he had; 
 and all these debts entered in the pocketbook weren't good 
 enough to raise a milrei on — let alone a shilling. The 
 Portuguese officials begged him not to distress himself. 
 They gave him a week's grace, and then proposed to sell 
 the brig at auction. This meant ruin for Morrison ; and 
 when Heyst hailed him across the street in his usual 
 courtly tone, the week was nearly out. 
 
 Heyst crossed over, and said with a slight bow, and in 
 the manner of a prince addressing another prince on a 
 private occasion : 
 
 "What an unexpected pleasure. Would you have any 
 objection to drink something with me in that infamous 
 wine-shop over there? The sun is really too strong to talk 
 in the street." 
 
 The haggard Morrison followed obediently into a 
 sombre, cool hovel which he would have disdained to 
 enter at any other time. He was distracted. He did not 
 know what he was doing. You could have led him over 
 the edge of a precipice just as easily as into that wine- 
 shop. He sat down like an automaton. He was speechless, 
 but he saw a glass full of rough red wine before him, 
 and emptied it. Heyst meantime, politely watchful, had 
 taken a seat opposite. 
 
 "You are in for a bout of fever, I fear," he said sym- 
 pathetically. 
 
 Poor Morrison's tongue was loosened at last.
 
 12 VICTORY 
 
 "Fever!" he cried. "Give me fever. Give me plague. 
 They are diseases. One gets over them. But I am being 
 murdered. I am being murdered by the Portuguese. The 
 gang here downed me at last among them. I am to have 
 my throat cut the day after to-morrow." 
 
 In the face of this passion Heyst made, with his eye- 
 brows, a slight motion of surprise which would not have 
 been misplaced in a drawing-room. Morrison's despairing 
 reserve had broken down. He had been wandering with 
 a dry throat all over that miserable town of mud hovels, 
 silent, with no soul to turn to in his distress, and positively 
 maddened by his thoughts ; and suddenly he had stumbled 
 on a white man, figuratively and actually white — for Mor- 
 rison refused to accept the racial whiteness of the Portu- 
 guese officials. He let himself go for the mere relief of 
 violent speech, his elbows planted on the table, his eyes 
 bloodshot, his voice nearly gone, the brim of his round 
 pith hat shading an unshaven, livid face. His white 
 clothes, which he had not taken off for three days, were 
 dingy. He looked already gone to the bad, past redemp- 
 tion. The sight was shocking to Heyst ; but he let nothing 
 of it appear in his bearing, concealing his impression 
 under that consummate good-society manner of his. Polite 
 attention, what's due from one gentleman listening to 
 another, was what he showed ; and, as usual, it was catch- 
 ing ; so that Morrison pulled himself together and finished 
 his narrative in a conversational tone, with a man-of-the- 
 world air. 
 
 "It's a villainous plot. Unluckily, one is helpless. That 
 scoundrel Cousinho — Andreas, you know — has been cov- 
 eting the brig for years. Naturally, I would never sell. She 
 is not only my livelihood ; she's my life. So he has hatched 
 this pretty little plot with the chief of the customs. The 
 sale, of course, will be a farce. There's no one here to bid. 
 He will get the brig for a song — no, not even that — a line 
 of a song. You have been some years now in the islands,
 
 VICTORY 13 
 
 Heyst. You know us all ; you have seen how we live. Now 
 you shall have the opportunity to see how some of us 
 end; for it is the end, for me. I can't deceive myself any 
 longer. You see it, — don't you?" 
 
 Morrison had pulled himself together, but one feK 
 the snapping strain on his recovered self-possession. 
 Heyst was beginning to say that he "could very well see 
 
 all the bearings of this unfortunate " when Morrison 
 
 interrupted him jerkily. 
 
 "Upon my word, I don't know why I have been telling 
 you all this. I suppose seeing a thoroughly white man 
 made it impossible to keep my trouble to myself. Words 
 can't do it justice ; but since I've told you so much I may 
 as well tell you more. Listen. This morning on board, in 
 my cabin I went down on my knees and prayed for help. 
 I went down on my knees !" 
 
 "You are a believer, Morrison?" asked Heyst with a 
 distinct note of respect. 
 
 "Surely I am not an infidel." 
 
 Morrison was swiftly reproachful in his answer, and 
 there came a pause, Morrison perhaps interrogating his 
 conscience, and Heyst preserving a mien of unperturbed, 
 polite interest. 
 
 "I prayed like a child, of course. I believe in children 
 praying — well, women, too, but I rather think God ex- 
 pects men to be more self-reliant. I don't hold with a man 
 everlastingly bothering the Almighty with his silly 
 troubles. It seems such cheek. Anyhow, this morning I — 
 I have never done any harm to any God's creature know- 
 ingly — I prayed. A sudden impulse — I went flop on my 
 knees; so you may judge " 
 
 They were gazing earnestly into each other's eyes. Poor 
 Morrison added, as a discouraging afterthought: 
 
 "Only this is such a God-forsaken spot." 
 
 Heyst inquired with a delicate intonation whether he 
 might know the amount for which the brig was seized
 
 14 VICTORY 
 
 Morrison suppressed an oath, and named curtly a sum 
 which was in itself so insignificant that any other person 
 than Heyst would have exclaimed at it. And even Heyst 
 could hardly keep incredulity out of his politely modu- 
 lated voice as he asked if it was a fact that Morrison had 
 not that amount in hand. 
 
 Morrison hadn't. He had only a little English gold, a 
 few sovereigns, on board. He had left all his spare cash 
 with the Tesmans, in Samarang, to meet certain bills 
 which would fall due while he was away on his cruise. 
 Anyhow that money would not have been any more good 
 to him than if it had been in the innermost depths of the 
 infernal regions. He said all this brusquely. He looked 
 with sudden disfavour at that noble forehead, at those 
 great martial moustaches, at the tired eyes of the man 
 sitting opposite him. Who the devil was he ? What was he, 
 Morrison, doing there, talking like this? Morrison knew 
 no more of Heyst than the rest of us trading in the Archi- 
 pelago did. Had the Swede suddenly risen and hit him on 
 the nose, he could not have been taken more aback than 
 when this stranger, this nondescript wanderer, said with a 
 little bow across the table: 
 
 "Oh ! If that's the case I would be very happy if you'd 
 allow me to be of use !" 
 
 Morrison didn't understand. This was one of those 
 things that don't happen — unheard of things. He had no 
 real inkling of what it meant, till Heyst said definitely: 
 
 "I can lend you the amount." 
 
 "You have the money?" whispered Morrison. "Do you 
 mean here, in your pocket?" 
 
 "Yes, on me. Glad to be of use." 
 
 Morrison, staring open-mouthed, groped over his shoul- 
 der for the cord of the eyeglass hanging down his back. 
 When he found it, he stuck it in his eye hastily. It was 
 as if he expected Heyst's usual white suit of the tropics 
 10 change into a shining garment flowing down to his toes.
 
 VICTORY IS 
 
 and a pair of great dazzling wings to sprout on the 
 Swede's shoulders — and didn't want to miss a single detail 
 of the transformation. But if Heyst was an angel from 
 on high, sent in answer to prayer, he did not betray his 
 heavenly origin by outward signs. So, instead of going 
 on his knees, as he felt inclined to do, Morrison stretched 
 out his hand, which Heyst grasped with formal alacrity 
 and a polite murmur in which "Trifle — delighted — of 
 service," could be just distinguished. 
 
 "Miracles do happen," thought the awestruck Morri- 
 son. To him, as to all of us in the islands, this wandering 
 Heyst, who didn't toil or spin visibly, seemed the very 
 last person to be the agent of Providence in an affair 
 concerned with money. The fact of his turning up in 
 Timor or anywhere else was no more wonderful than 
 the settling of a sparrow on one's window-sill at any 
 given moment. But that he should carry a sum of money 
 in his pocket seemed somehow inconceivable. 
 
 So inconceivable that as they were trudging together 
 through the sand of the roadway to the custom-house — 
 another mud hovel — to pay the fine, Morrison broke into 
 a cold sweat, stopped short, and exclaimed in faltering 
 accents : 
 
 "I say! You aren't joking, Heyst?" 
 
 "Joking!" Heyst's blue eyes went hard as he turned 
 them on the discomposed Morrison. "In what way, may 
 I ask?" he continued with austere politeness. 
 
 Morrison was abashed. 
 
 "Forgive me, Heyst. You must have been sent by God 
 in answer to my prayer. But I have been nearly off my 
 chump for three days with worry ; and it suddenly struck 
 me: 'What if it's the Devil who has sent him?' " 
 
 "I have no connection with the supernatural," said 
 Heyst graciously, moving on. "Nobody has sent me. I 
 iust happened along." 
 
 "I know better," contradicted Morrison. "I may be un-
 
 i6 VICTORY 
 
 worthy, but I have been heard. I know it. I feel it. For 
 why should you offer " 
 
 Heyst inclined his head, as from respect for a convic- 
 tion in which he could not share. But he stuck to his 
 point by muttering that in the presence of an odious fact 
 like this, it was natural 
 
 Later in the day, the fine paid, and the two of them on 
 board the brig, from which the guard had been removed, 
 Morrison — who, besides being a gentleman, was also an 
 honest fellow — began to talk about repayment. He knew 
 very well his inability to lay by any sum of money. It 
 was partly the fault of circumstances and partly of his 
 temperament ; and it would have been very difficult to 
 apportion the responsibility between the two. Even Mor- 
 rison himself could not say, while confessing to the fact. 
 With a worried air he ascribed it to fatality. 
 
 "I don't know how it is that I've never been able to 
 save. It's some sort of curse. There's always a bill or 
 two to meet." 
 
 He plunged his hand into his pocket for the famous 
 notebook so well known in the islands, the fetish of his 
 hopes, and fluttered the pages feverishly. 
 
 "And yet — look," he went on. "There it is — more than 
 five thousand dollars owing. Surely that's something." 
 
 He ceased suddenly. Heyst, who had been all the time 
 trying to look as unconcerned as he could, made reassur- 
 ing noises in his throat. But Morrison was not only hon- 
 est. He was honourable, too; and on this stressful day, 
 before this amazing emissary of Providence and in the 
 revulsion of his feelings, he made his great renunciation. 
 He cast off the abiding illusion of his existence. 
 
 "No. No. They are no good. I'll never be able to squeeze 
 them. Never. I've been saying for years I would; but I 
 give it up. I never really believed I could. Don't reckon 
 on that, Heyst. I have robbed you." 
 
 Poor Morrison actually laid his head on the cabin table,
 
 VICTORY i> 
 
 and remained in that crushed attitude while Heyst talked 
 to him soothingly with the utmost courtesy. The Swede 
 was as much distressed as Morrison ; for he understood 
 the other's feelings perfectly. No decent feeling was ever 
 scorned by Heyst. But he was incapable of outward cor- 
 diality of manner, and he felt acutely his defect. Con- 
 summate politeness is not the right tonic for an emotional 
 collapse. They must have had, both of them, a fairly pain- 
 ful time of it in the cabin of the brig. In the end Morri- 
 son, casting desperately for an idea in the blackness of 
 his despondency, hit upon the notion of inviting Heyst 
 to travel with him in his brig and have a share in his 
 trading ventures up to the amount of his loan. 
 
 It is characteristic of Heyst's unattached, floating 
 existence that he was in a position to accept this proposal. 
 There is no reason to think that he wanted particularly 
 just then to go poking aboard the brig into all the holes 
 and corners of the Archipelago where Morrison picked 
 up most of his trade. Far from it ; but he would have con- 
 sented to almost any arrangement in order to put an end 
 to the harrowing scene in the cabin. There was at once a 
 great transformation act : Morrison raising his diminished 
 head and sticking the glass in his eye to look affectionately 
 at Heyst, a bottle being uncorked, and so on. It was 
 agreed that nothing should be said to any one of this 
 transaction. Morrison, you understand, was not proud of 
 the episode, and he was afraid of being unmercifully 
 chaffed. 
 
 "An old bird like me! To let myself be trapped by 
 those damned Portuguese rascals ! I should never hear the 
 last of it. We must keep it dark." 
 
 From quite other motives, among which his native deli- 
 cacy was the principal, Heyst was even more anxious to 
 bind himself to silence. A gentleman would naturally 
 shrink from the part of heavenly messenger that Morri- 
 son would force upon him. It made Heyst uncomfortable
 
 i& VICTORY 
 
 as it was. And perhaps he did not care that it should be 
 known that he had some means, whatever they might 
 have been — sufficient, at any rate, to enable him to lend 
 money to people. These two had a duet down there, like 
 conspirators in a comic opera, of "Sh — ssh, shssh! Se- 
 crecy ! Secrecy !" It must have been funny, because they 
 were very serious about it. 
 
 And for a time the conspiracy was successful in so far 
 that we all concluded that Heyst was boarding with the 
 good-natured — some said : sponging on the imbecile — 
 Morrison, in his brig. But you know how it is with all 
 such mysteries. There is always a leak somewhere. Mor- 
 rison himself, not a perfect vessel by any means, was 
 bursting with gratitude, and under the stress he must 
 have let out something vague — enough to give the island 
 gossip a chance. And you know how kindly the world 
 is in its comments on what it does not understand. A 
 rumour sprang out that Heyst, having obtained some 
 .nysterious hold on Morrison, had fastened himself on 
 him and was sucking him dry. Those who had traced 
 these mutters back to their origin were very careful not 
 to believe them. The originator, it seems, was a certain 
 Schomberg, a big, manly, bearded creature of the Teu- 
 tonic persuasion, with an ungovernable tongue which 
 surely must have worked on a pivot. Whether he was a 
 Lieutenant of the Reserve, as he declared, I don't know. 
 Out there he was by profession a hotel-keeper, first in 
 Bangkok, then somewhere else, and ultimately in Soura- 
 baya. He dragged after him up and down that section of 
 the tropical belt a silent, frightened httle woman with 
 long ringlets, who smiled at one stupidly, showing a blue 
 tooth. I don't know why so many of us patronized his 
 various Cbtablishments. He was a noxious ass, and he 
 satisfied his lust for silly gossip at the cost of his cus- 
 tomers. It was he who, one evening, as Morrison and 
 Heyst went past the hotel — they were not his regular
 
 VICTORY 19 
 
 patrons — whispered mysteriously to the mixed company 
 assembled on the verandah: 
 
 "The spider and the fly just gone by, gentlemen.' 
 Then, very important and confidential, his thick paw at 
 the side of his mouth : "We are among ourselves ; well, 
 i^entlemen, all I can say is, don't you ever get mixed uji 
 with that Swede. Don't you «;ver get caught in his web."
 
 Ill 
 
 Human nature being what it is, having a silly side to it 
 as well as a mean side, there were not a few who pre- 
 tended to be indignant on no better authority than a 
 general propensity to believe every evil report ; and a 
 good many others who found it simply funny to call Heyst 
 the Spicier — behind his back, of course. He was as se- 
 renely unconscious of this as of his several other nick- 
 names. But soon people found other things to say of 
 Heyst ; not long afterward he came very much to the fore 
 in larger affairs. He blossomed out into something defi- 
 nite. He filled the public eye as the manager on the spot 
 of the Tropical Belt Coal Company with offices in London 
 and Amsterdam, and other things about it that sounded 
 and looked grandiose. The offices in the two capitals may 
 have consisted — and probably did — of one room in each; 
 but at that distance, out East there, all this had an air. 
 We were more puzzled than dazzled, it is true ; but even 
 the most sober-minded among us began to think that there 
 was something in it. The Tesmans appointed agents, a 
 contract for government mail-boats secured, the era of 
 steam beginning for the islands — a great stride for- 
 ward— Heyst's stride ! 
 
 And all this sprang from the meeting of the cornered 
 Morrison and of the wandering Heyst, which may or may 
 not have been the direct outcome of a prayer. Morrison 
 was not an imbecile, but he seemed to have got himself 
 into a state of remarkable haziness as to his exact posi- 
 tion towards Heyst. For, if Heyst had been sent with 
 money in his pocket b}' a direct decree of the Almighty in
 
 VICTORY 2^1 
 
 answer to Morrison's prayer then there was no reason 
 for special gratitude, since obviously he could not help 
 himself. But Morrison believed both in the efficacy of 
 prayer and in the infinite goodness of Heyst. He thanked 
 God with awed sincerity for His mercy, and could not 
 thank Heyst enough for the service rendered as between 
 man and man. In this (highly creditable) tangle of strong 
 feelings Morrison's gratitude insisted on Heyst's partner- 
 ship in the great discovery. Ultimately we heard that 
 Morrison had gone home through tlie Suez Canal in order 
 to push the magnificent coal idea personally in London. 
 He parted from his brig and disappeared from our ken; 
 but we heard that he had written a letter or letters to 
 Heyst, saying that London was cold and gloomy ; that 
 he did not like either the men or things, that he was "as 
 lonely as a crow in a strange country." In truth, he pined 
 after the Capricorn — I don't mean only the tropic; I mean 
 the ship too. Finally he went into Dorsetshire to see his 
 people, caught a bad cold, and died with extraordinary 
 precipitation in the bosom of his appalled family. Whether 
 his exertions in the City of London had enfeebled his 
 vitality I don't know ; but I believe it was this visit which 
 put life into the coal idea. Be it as it may, the Tropical 
 Belt Coal Company was born very shortly after Morri- 
 son, the victim of gratitude and his native climate, had 
 gone to join his forefathers in a Dorsetshire churchyard. 
 
 Heyst was immensely shocked. He got the news in the 
 Moluccas through the Tesmans, and then disappeared for 
 a time. It appears that he stayed with a Dutch government 
 doctor in Amboyna, a friend of his who looked after him 
 for a bit in his bungalow. He became visible again rather 
 suddenly, his eyes sunk in his head, and with a sort of 
 guarded attitude, as if afraid someone would reproach 
 him with the death of Morrison. 
 
 Naive Heyst! As if anybody would. . . . Nobody 
 amongst us had any interest in men who went home. They
 
 22 VICTORY 
 
 were all right; they did not count any more. Going to 
 Europe was nearly as final as going to Heaven, It re- 
 moved a man from the world of hazard and adventure. 
 
 As a matter of fact, many of us did not hear of this 
 death till months afterward — from Schomberg, who dis- 
 liked Heyst gratuitously and made up a piece of sinister 
 whispered gossip: 
 
 "That's what comes of having anything to do with that 
 lellow. He squeezes you dry like a lemon, then chucks 
 you out — sends you home to die. Take warning by Mor- 
 rison," 
 
 Of course, we laughed at the innkeeper's suggestions 
 of black mystery. Several of us heard that Heyst was 
 prepared to go to Europe himself, to push on his coal 
 enterprise personally ; but he never went. It wasn't neces- 
 sary. The company was formed without him, and his 
 nomination of manager in the tropics came out to him 
 by post. 
 
 From the first he had selected Samburan, or Round 
 Island, for the central station. Some copies of the pros- 
 pectus issued in Europe, having found their way out East, 
 were passed from hand to hand. We greatly admired the 
 map which accompanied them for the edification of the 
 shareholders. On it Samburan was represented as the cen- 
 tral spot of the Eastern Hemisphere with its name en- 
 graved in enormous capitals. Heavy lines radiated from it 
 in all directions through the tropics, figuring a mysterious 
 and effective star — lines of influence or lines of distance, 
 or something of that sort. Company promoters have an 
 imagination of their own. There's no more romantic tem- 
 perament on earth than the temperament of a company 
 promoter. Engineers came out, coolies were imported, 
 bungalows were put up on Samburan, a gallery driven 
 into the hillside, and actually some coal got out. 
 
 These manifestations shook the soberest minds. For a 
 time everybody in the islands was talking of the Tropical
 
 VICTORY 2i 
 
 Belt Coal, and even those who smiled quietly to them- 
 selves v^'ere only hiding their uneasiness. Oh, yes ; it had 
 come, and anybody could see what would be the conse- 
 quences — the end of the individual trader, smothered 
 under a great invasion of steamers. We could not afford 
 to buy steamers. Not we. And Heyst was the manager. 
 
 "You know, Heyst, enchanted Heyst." 
 
 "Oh, come ! He has been no better than a loafer around 
 here as far back as any of us can remember." 
 
 "Yes, said he was looking for facts. Well, he's got 
 hold of one that will do for all of us," commented a 
 bitter voice. 
 
 "That's what they call development — and be hanged 
 to it!" muttered another. 
 
 Never was Heyst talked about so much in the tropical 
 l')elt before. 
 
 "Isn't he a Swedish baron or something?" 
 
 "He, a baron? Get along with you!" 
 
 For my part I haven't the slightest doubt that he was. 
 While he was still drifting amongst the islands, enigmati- 
 cal and disregarded like an insignificant ghost, he told 
 me so himself on a certain occasion. It was a long time 
 before he materialized in this alarming way into the de- 
 stroyer of our little industry — Heyst the Enemy. 
 
 It became the fashion with a good many to speak of 
 Heyst as the Enemy. He was very concrete, very visible 
 now. He was rushing all over the Archipelago, jumping 
 in and out of local mail-packets as if they had been tram- 
 cars, here, there, and everywhere — organizing with all his 
 might. This was no mooning about. This was business. 
 And this sudden display of purposeful energy shook the 
 incredulity of the most sceptical more than any scientific 
 demonstration of the value of these coal-outcrops could 
 have done. It was impressive. Schomberg was the only 
 one who resisted the infection. Big, manly in a portly 
 style, and profusely bearded, with a glass of beer in his
 
 24 VICTORY 
 
 thick paw, he would approach some table where the topic 
 of the hour was being discussed, would listen for a mo- 
 ment, and then come out with his invariable declaration: 
 
 "All this is very well, gentlemen ; but he can't throw 
 any of his coal-dust in my eyes. There's nothing in it. 
 Why, there can't be anything in it. A fellow like that 
 for manager? Phoo!" 
 
 Was it the clairvoyance of imbecile hatred, or mere 
 stupid tenacity of opinion, which ends sometimes by 
 scoring against the world in a most astonishing manner? 
 Most of us can remember instances of triumphant folly; 
 and that ass Schomberg triumphed. The T. B. C. Co. 
 went into liquidation, as I began by telling you. The 
 Tesmans washed their hands of it. The Government can- 
 celled those famous contracts. The talk died out, and pres- 
 ently it was remarked here and there that Heyst had 
 faded completely away. He had become invisible, as in 
 those early days when he used to make a bolt clear out 
 of sight in his attempts to break away from the enchant- 
 ment of "these isles," either in the direction of New 
 Guinea or in the direction of Saigon — to cannibals or to 
 cafes. The enchanted Heyst ! Had he at last broken the 
 spell? Had he died? We were too indififerent to wonder 
 over-much. You see we had on the whole liked him well 
 enough. And liking is not sufficient to keep going the inter- 
 est one takes in a human being. With hatred, apparently, 
 it is otherwise. Schomberg couldn't forget Heyst. The 
 keen, manly Teutonic creature was a good hater, A fool 
 often is. 
 
 "Good evening, gentlemen. Have ycu got everything 
 you want ? So ! Good ! You see ? What was I always tell- 
 ing you? Aha! There was nothing in it. I knew it. But 
 what I would like to know is what became of that — 
 Swede." 
 
 He put a stress on the word Swede as if it meant 
 scoundrel. He detested Scandinavians generally. Why?
 
 VICTORY 25 
 
 Goodness only knows. A fool like that is unfathomable. 
 He continued : 
 
 "Jt's five months or more since I have spoken to any- 
 body who has seen him." 
 
 As I have said, we were not much interested ; but 
 Schomberg, of course, could not understand that. He was 
 j;rotesquely dense. Whenever three people came together 
 in his hotel, he took good care that Heyst should be with 
 them. 
 
 "I hope the fellow did not go and drown himself," he 
 would add with a comical earnestness that ought to have 
 made us shudder ; only our crowd was superficial, and 
 did not apprehend the psychology of this pious hope. 
 
 "Why? Heyst isn't in debt to you for drinks, is he?" 
 somebody asked him once with shallow scorn. 
 
 "Drinks ! Oh, dear, no !" 
 
 The innkeeper was not mercenary. Teutonic tempera- 
 ment seldom is. But he put on a sinister expression to 
 tell us that Heyst had not paid perhaps three visits alto- 
 gether to his "establishment." This was Heyst's crime, foi 
 which Schomberg wished him nothing less than a long 
 and tormented existence. Observe the Teutonic sense of 
 ])roportion and nice forgiving temper. 
 
 At last, one afternoon, Schomberg was seen approach- 
 ing a group of his customers. He was obviously in high 
 glee. He squared his manly chest with great importance. 
 
 "Gentlemen, I have news of him. Who? Why, that 
 Swede. He is still on Samburan. He's never been awa} 
 from it. The company is gone, the engineers are gone, 
 the clerks are gone, the coolies are gone, everything's 
 gone ; but there he sticks. Captain Davidson, coming by 
 from the westward, saw him with his own eyes. Some- 
 thing white on the wharf ; so he steamed in and went 
 ashore in a small boat. Heyst, right enough. Put a book 
 into his pocket, always very polite. Been strolling on the 
 wharf and reading. T remain in possession here,' he told
 
 26 VICTORY 
 
 Captain Davidson. What I want to know is what he gets 
 to eat there. A piece of dried fish now and then — ^what? 
 That's coming down pretty low for a man who turned 
 up his nose at my table-d'hote !" 
 
 He winked with immense maHce. A bell started ring- 
 ing, and he led the way to the dining-room as if into a 
 temple, very grave, with the air of a benefactor of man- 
 kind. His ambition was to feed it at a profitable price, 
 and his delight was to talk of it behind its back. It was 
 very characteristic of him to gloat over the idea of Heyst 
 having nothing decent to eat.
 
 IV 
 
 A FEW of US who were sufficiently interested went to 
 Davidson for details. These were not many. He told us 
 that he passed to the north of Samburan on purpose to 
 see what was going on. At first, it looked as if that side 
 of the island had been altogether abandoned. This was 
 what he expected. Presently, above the dense mass of 
 vegetation that Samburan presents to view, he saw the 
 head of the flagstaff without a flag. Then, while steaming 
 across the slight indentation which for a time was known 
 officially as Black Diamond Bay, he made out with his 
 glass the white figure on the coaling-wharf. It could be 
 no one but Heyst. 
 
 "I thought for certain he wanted to be taken off, so 
 I steamed in. He made no signs. However, I lowered a 
 boat. I could not see another living being anywhere. Yes. 
 He had a book in his hand. He looked exactly as we have 
 always seen him — very neat, white shoes, cork helmet. 
 He explained to me that he had always had a taste for 
 solitude. It was the first I ever heard of it, I told him. 
 He only smiled. What could I say? He isn't the sort of 
 man one can speak familiarly to. There's something in 
 him. One doesn't care to. 
 
 " 'But what's the object? Are you thinking of keeping 
 possession of the mine?' I asked him. 
 
 " 'Something of the sort,' he says. T am keeping hold.' 
 
 " 'But all this is as dead as Julius Caesar,' I cried. 'In 
 fact, you have nothing worth holding on to, Heyst.' 
 
 " 'Oh, I am done with facts,' says he, putting his hand 
 to his helmet sharply with one of his short bows. 
 
 27
 
 28 VICTORY 
 
 Thus dismissed, Davidson went on board his ship, 
 swung her out, and as he was steaming away he watched 
 from the bridge Heyst walking shoreward along the 
 wharf. He marched into the long grass and vanished — 
 all but the top of his white cork helmet, which seemed to 
 swim in a green sea. Then that too disappeared, as if it 
 had sunk into the living depths of the tropical vegetation, 
 which is more jealous of men's conquests than the ocean, 
 and which was about to close over the last vestiges of the 
 liquidated Tropical Belt Coal Company — A. Heyst, mana- 
 ger in the East. 
 
 Davidson, a good, simple fellow in his way, was 
 strangely affected. It is to be noted that he knew very 
 little of Heyst. He was one of those whom Heyst's fin- 
 ished courtesy of attitude and intonation most strongly 
 disconcerted. He himself was a fellow of fine feeling, 
 I think, though of course he had no more polish than 
 the rest of us. We were naturally a hail-fellow-well-met 
 crowd, with standards of our own — no worse, I daresay, 
 than other people's ; but polish was not one of them. 
 Davidson's fineness was real enough to alter the course 
 of the steamer he commanded. Instead of passing to the 
 south of Samburan, he made it his practice to take the 
 passage along the north shore, within about a mile of the 
 wharf. 
 
 "He can see us if he likes to see us," remarked David- 
 son. Then he had an after-thought : 'T say ! I hope he 
 won't think I am intruding, eh?" 
 
 We reassured him on the point of correct behaviour. 
 The sea is open to all. 
 
 This slight deviation added some ten miles to David- 
 son's round trip, but as that was sixteen hundred miles 
 it did not matter much. 
 
 "I have told my owner of it," said the conscientious 
 commander of the Sissie. 
 
 His owner had a face like an ancient lemon. He was
 
 VICTORY 29 
 
 small and wizened — which was strange, because gener- 
 ally a Chinaman, as he grows in prosperity, puts on inches 
 of girth and stature. To serve a Chinese firm is not so 
 ]:)ad. Once they become convinced you deal straight by 
 them, their confidence becomes unlimited. You can do no 
 wrong. So Davidson's old Chinaman squeaked hurriedly : 
 
 "All right, all right, all right. You do what you like, 
 captain." 
 
 And there was an end of the matter ; not altogether, 
 though. From time to time the Chinaman used to ask 
 Davidson about the white man. He was still there, eh? 
 
 "I never see him," Davidson had to confess to his 
 owner, who would peer at him silently through round, 
 horn-rimmed spectacles, several sizes too large for his 
 little old face. "I never see him." 
 
 To me, on occasions, he would say : 
 
 "1 haven't a doubt he's there. He hides. It's very 
 unpleasant." Davidson was a little vexed with Heyst. 
 "Funny thing," he went on. "Of all the people I speak 
 to. nolx)dy ever asks after him but that Chinaman of 
 mine — and Schomberg," he added after a while. 
 
 Yes, Schomberg, of course. He was asking everybody 
 about everything, and arranging the information into the 
 most scandalous shape his imagination could invent. 
 From time to time he would step up, his blinking, 
 cushioned eyes, his thick lips, his very chestnut beard, 
 looking full of malice. 
 
 " 'Evening, gentlemen. Have you got all you want? 
 So ! Good ! Well, I am told the jungle has choked the 
 very sheds in Black Diamond Bay. Fact, He's a hermit 
 in the wilderness now. But what can this manager get 
 to eat there? It beats me." 
 
 Sometimes a stranger would inquire with natural 
 curiosity : 
 
 "Who? What manager?" 
 
 "Oh, a certain Swede," — with a sinister emphasis, as
 
 30 VICTORY 
 
 if he were saying "a certain brigand." — "Well known 
 here. He's turned hermit from shame. That's what the 
 devil does when he's found out." 
 
 Hermit. This was the latest of the more or less witty 
 labels applied to Heyst during his aimless pilgrimage in 
 this section of the tropical belt, where the inane clacking 
 uf Schomberg's tongue vexed our ears. 
 
 But apparently Heyst was not a hermit by tempera- 
 ment. The sight of his kind was not invincibly odious 
 to him. We must believe this, since for some reason or 
 other he did come out from his retreat for a while. Per- 
 haps it was only to see whether there were any letters 
 for him at the Tesmans. I don't know. No one knows. 
 But this reappearance shows that his detacliment from 
 /he world was not complete. And incompleteness of any 
 sort leads to trouble. Axel Heyst ought not to have 
 cared for his letters — or whatever it was that brought 
 him out after something more than a year and a half in 
 Samburan. But it was of no use. He had not the hermit's 
 vocation! That was the trouble, it seems. 
 
 Be this as it may, he suddenly reappeared in the world, 
 broad chest, bald forehead, long moustaches, polite man- 
 ner, and all — t'ne complete Heyst, even to the kindly, 
 sunken eyes on which there still rested the shadow of 
 Morrison's death. Naturally, it was Davidson who had 
 given him a lift out of his forsaken island. There were 
 no other opportunities, unless some native craft were 
 passing by — a very remote and unsatisfactory chance to 
 wait for. Yes, he came out with Davidson, to whom he 
 volunteered the statement that it was only for a short 
 time — a few days, no more. He meant to go back to 
 Samburan. 
 
 Davidson expressing his horror and incredulity of such 
 foolishness, Heyst explained that when the company came 
 into being he had his few belongings sent out from 
 Europe
 
 VICTORY 31 
 
 To Davidson as to any of us, the idea of Heyst, the 
 wandering-, drifting, unattached Heyst, having any belong- 
 ings of the sort that can furnish a house was starthngly 
 novel. It was grotesquely fantastic. It was like a bird 
 owning real property. 
 
 "Belongings? Do you mean chairs and tables?" David- 
 son asked with unconcealed astonishment. 
 
 Heyst did mean that. "My poor father died in London. 
 It has been all stored there ever since," he explained. 
 
 "For all these years?" exclaimed Davidson, thinking 
 how long we all had known Heyst flitting from tree to 
 tree in a wilderness. 
 
 "Even longer," said Heyst, who had understood verj* 
 well. 
 
 This seemed to imply that he had been wandering be- 
 fore he came under our observation. In what regions? 
 At what early age? Mystery. Perhaps he was a bird tha'' 
 had never had a nest. 
 
 *T left school early," he remarked once to Davidson, 
 tin the passage. "It was in England. A very good school 
 I was not a shining success there." 
 
 The confessions of Heyst. Not one of us — with the' 
 probable exception of Morrison, who was dead — had evei 
 heard so much of his history. It looks as if the experience 
 of hermit life had the power to loosen one's tongue, 
 doesn't it ? 
 
 During that memorable passage, in the Sissie, which 
 took about two days, he volunteered other hints — for you 
 could not call it information — about his history. And 
 Davidson was interested. He was interested not because 
 the hints were exciting but because of that innate curi- 
 osity about our fellows which is a trait of human nature. 
 Davidson's existence too, running the Sissie along the 
 Java Sea and back again, was distinctly monotonous and, 
 in a sense, lonely. He never had any sort of company 
 on board. Native deck-passengers in plenty, of course.
 
 32 VICTORY 
 
 but never a white man, so the presence of Heyst for two 
 days must have been a godsend. Davidson was telHng us 
 all about it afterward. Heyst said that his father had 
 written a lot of books. He was a philosopher. 
 
 "Seems to me he must have been something of a 
 crank, too," was Davidson's comment. "Apparently he 
 had quarrelled with his people in Sweden, Just the sort 
 of father you would expect Heyst to have. Isn't he a bit 
 of a crank himself? He told me that directly his father 
 died he lit out into the wide world on his own, and had 
 been on the move till he fetched up against this famous 
 coal business. Fits the son of his father somehow, don't 
 you think?" 
 
 For the rest, Heyst was as polite as ever. He offered 
 to pay for his passage; but when Davidson refused to 
 hear of it he seized him heartily by the hand, gave one 
 of his courtly bows, and declared that he was touched 
 by his friendly proceedings. 
 
 "I am not alluding to this trifling amount which you 
 decline to take," he went on, giving a shake to Davidson's 
 hand, "But I am touched by your humanity," Another 
 shake, "Believe me, I am profoundly aware of having 
 been an object of it." Final shake of the hand. All this 
 meant that Heyst understood in a proper sense the little 
 Sissie's periodical appearance in sight of his hermitage. 
 
 "He's a genuine gentleman," Davidson said to us. "I 
 was really sorry when he went ashore." 
 
 We asked him where he had left Heyst, 
 
 "Why, in Sourabaya — where else?" 
 
 The Tesmans had their principal counting-house in 
 Sourabaya, There had long existed a connection between 
 Heyst and the Tesmans. The incongruity of a hermit 
 having agents did not strike us, nor yet the absurdity of 
 a forgotten cast-off, derelict manager of a wrecked, col- 
 lapsed, vanished enterprise, having business to attend to. 
 We said Sourabaya, of course, and took it for granted
 
 VICTORY 3.3 
 
 that he would stay with one of the Tesmans. One of us 
 even wondered what sort of reception he would get ; for 
 it was known that Julius Tesman was unreasonably bitter 
 about the Tropical Belt Coal fiasco. But Davidson set us 
 right. It was nothing of the kind. Heyst went to stay in 
 Schomberg's hotel, going ashore in the hotel launch. Not 
 that Schomberg would think of sending his launch along- 
 side a mere trader like the Sissie. But she had been meet- 
 ing a coasting mail-packet, and had been signalled to. 
 Schomberg himself was steering her. 
 
 "You should have seen Schomberg's eyes bulge out 
 when Heyst jumped in with an ancient brown leather 
 bag!" said Davidson. "He pretended not to know who 
 it was — at first, anyway. I didn't go ashore with them. 
 We didn't stay more than a couple of hours altogether. 
 Landed two thousand cocoanuts and cleared out. I have 
 agreed to pick him up again on my next trip in twenty 
 days' rime."
 
 V 
 
 DAvrosoN happened to be two days late on his return 
 trip ; no great matter, certainly, but he made a point 
 of going ashore at once, during the hottest hour of the 
 afternoon, to look for Heyst. Schomberg's hotel stood 
 back in an extensive enclosure containing a garden, some 
 'arge trees, and, under their spreading boughs, a de- 
 tached "hall available for concerts and other perform- 
 ances," as Schomberg worded it in his advertisements. 
 Torn and fluttering bills, intimating in heavy red capitals 
 "Concerts every night," were stuck on the brick pillars 
 on each side of the gateway. 
 
 The walk had been long and confoundedly sunny. 
 Davidson stood wiping his wet neck and face on what 
 Schomberg called "the piazza." Several doors opened 
 on to it, but all the screens were down. Not a soul was 
 In sight, not even a China boy — nothing but a lot of 
 painted iron chairs and tables. Solitude, shade, and gloomy 
 silence — and a faint, treacherous breeze which came from 
 under the trees and quite unexpectedly caused the melting 
 Davidson to shiver slightly — the little shiver of the tropics 
 which in Sourabaya, especially, often means fever and the 
 hospital to the incautious white man. 
 
 The prudent Davidson sought shelter in the nearest 
 darkened room. In the artificial dusk, beyond the levels 
 of shrouded billiard-tables, a white form heaved up from 
 two chairs on which it had been extended. The middle of 
 the day, table d'hote tiffin once over, was Schomberg's 
 easy time. He lounged out, portly, deliberate, on the 
 defensive, the great fair beard like a cuirass over his 
 
 34
 
 VICTORY 35 
 
 manly chest. He did not like Davidson, never a very 
 faithful client of his. He hit a bell on one of the tables 
 as he w^ent by, and asked in a distant, Officer-of-the 
 Reserve rranner : 
 
 "You desire?" 
 
 The good Davidson still sponging his wet neck, de- 
 clared with simplicity that he had come to fetch away 
 Heyst, as agreed. 
 
 "Not here !" 
 
 A Chinaman appeared in response to the bell. Schom- 
 bcrg turned to him very severely : 
 
 "Take the gentleman's order." 
 
 Davidson had to be going. Couldn't wait — only begged 
 that Heyst should be informed that the Sissie would 
 leave at midnight. 
 
 "Not — here, I am telling you!" 
 
 Davidson slapped his thigh in concern. 
 
 "Dear me ! Hospital, I suppose." A natural enough 
 surmise in a very feverish locality. 
 
 The Lieutenant of the Reserve only pursed up his 
 mouth and raised his eyebrows without looking at him. 
 It might have meant anything, but Davidson dismissed 
 the hospital idea with confidence. However, he had to 
 get hold of Heyst between this and midnight. 
 
 "He has been staying here?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, he was staying here." 
 
 "Can you tell me where he is now?" Davidson went 
 on placidly. Within himself he was beginning to grow 
 anxious, having developed the affection of a self-appointed 
 protector towards Heyst. The answer he got was: 
 
 "Can't tell. It's none of my business," accompanied 
 by majestic oscillations of the hotel-keeper's head, hinting 
 at some awful mystery. 
 
 Davidson was placidity itself. It was his nature. He 
 (lid not betray his sentiments, which were not favourable 
 to Schomberg,
 
 ^6 VICTORY 
 
 "I am sure to find out at the Tesmans' office," he 
 thought. But it was a very hot hour, and if Heyst was 
 down at the port he would have learned already that 
 the Sissie was in. It was even possible that Heyst had 
 already gone on board, where he could enjoy a coolness 
 denied to the town. Davidson, being stout, was much 
 preoccupied with coolness and inclined to immobility. He 
 lingered awhile, as if irresolute. Schomberg, at the door, 
 looking out, affected perfect indifference. He could not 
 keep it up, though. Suddenly he turned inward and asked 
 with brusque rage : 
 
 "You wanted to see him?" 
 
 "Why, yes," said Davidson. "We agreed to meet " 
 
 "Don't you bother. He doesn't care about that now." 
 
 "Doesn't he?" 
 
 "Well, you can judge for yourself. He isn't here, is 
 he? You take my word for it. Don't you bother about 
 him. I am advising you as a friend." 
 
 "Thank you," said Davidson, inwardly startled at the 
 savage tone. "I think I will sit down for a moment and 
 have a drink, after all." 
 
 This was not what Schomberg had expected to hear. 
 He called brutall}' : 
 
 "Boy!" 
 
 The Chinaman approached, and after referring him to 
 the white man by a nod the hotel-keeper departed, mut- 
 tering to himself. Davidson heard him gnash his teeth 
 as he went. 
 
 Davidson sat alone with the billiard-tables as if there 
 had been not a soul staying in the hotel. His placidity 
 was so genuine that he was not unduly fretting himself 
 over the absence of Heyst or the mysterious manners 
 Schomberg had treated him to. He was considering these 
 things in his own fairly shrewd way. Something had 
 happened ; and he was loath to go away to investigate, 
 being restrained by a presentiment that somehow enlight-
 
 VICTORY 37 
 
 enment would come to him there. A poster of "Concerts 
 Every Evening," like those on the gate, but in a good state 
 of preservation, hung on the wall fronting him. He looked 
 at it idly and was struck by the fact — then not so very 
 common — that it was a ladies' orchestra; "Zangiacomo's 
 eastern tour — eighteen performers." The poster stated 
 that they had had the honour of playing their sele^ 
 repertoire before various colonial excellencies, also before 
 pashas, sheiks, chiefs, H. H. the Sultan of Mascate, etc., 
 c4c. 
 
 Davidson felt sorry for the eighteen lady-performers, 
 lie knew what that sort of life was like, the sordid con- 
 ditions and brutal incidents of such tours led by such 
 Zangiacomos who often were anything but musicians by 
 profession. While he was staring at the poster, a door 
 somewhere at his back opened, and a woman came in 
 who was looked upon as Schomberg's wife, no doubt with 
 truth. As somebody remarked cynically once, she was too 
 unattractive to be anything else. The opinion that he 
 treated her abominably was based on her frightened ex- 
 pression. Davidson lifted his hat to her, Mrs. Schomberg 
 gave him an inclination of her sallow head and inconti- 
 nently sat down behind a sort of raised counter, facing 
 the door, with a mirror and rows of bottles at her back. 
 Her hair was very elaborately done with two ringlets 
 on the left side of her scragg>' neck ; her dress was of 
 silk, and she had come on duty for the afternoon. For 
 some reason or other Schomberg exacted this from her, 
 though she added nothing to the fascinations of the place. 
 She sat there in the sm-oke and noise, like an enthroned 
 idol, smiling stupidly over the billiards from time to 
 time, speaking to no one, and no one speaking to her 
 Schomberg himself took no more interest in her than 
 may be implied in a sudden and totally unmotived scowl. 
 Otherwise the very Chinamen ignored her existence. 
 
 She had interrupted Davidson in his reflections. Being
 
 38 VICTORY 
 
 alone with her, her silence and open-eyed immobility 
 made him uncomfortable. He was easily sorry for people. 
 It seemed rude not to take any notice of her. He said, in 
 allusion to the poster : "Are you having these people in 
 the house?" 
 
 She was so unused to being addressed by customers 
 that at the sound of his voice she jumped in her seat. 
 Davidson was telling us afterward that she jumped ex- 
 actly like a figure made of wood, without losing her rigid 
 immobility. She did not even move her eyes ; but she 
 answered him freely, though her very lips seemed made 
 of wood. 
 
 "They stayed here over a month. They are gone now. 
 They played every evening." 
 
 "Pretty good, were they?" 
 
 To this she said nothing; and as she kept on staring 
 fixedly in front of her, her silence disconcerted David- 
 son. It looked as if she had not heard him — which was 
 impossible. Perhaps she drew the line of speech at the 
 expression of opinions. Schomberg might have trained 
 her, for domestic reasons, to keep them to herself. But 
 Davidson felt in honour obliged to converse ; so he said, 
 putting his own interpretation on this surprising silence : 
 
 "I see — not much account. Such bands hardly ever 
 are. An Italian lot, Mrs. Schomberg, to judge by the name 
 of the boss?" 
 
 She shook her head negatively. 
 
 "No. He is a German really ; only he dyes his hair and 
 beard black for business. Zangiacomo is his business 
 name." 
 
 "That's a curious fact," said Davidson. His head being 
 full of Heyst, it occurred to him that she might be aware 
 of other facts. This was a very amazing discovery to any 
 one who looked at Mrs. Schomberg. Nobody had ever 
 suspected ' .er of having a mind, I mean even a little of
 
 VICTORY 3?- 
 
 it, I mean any at all. One was inclined to think of her as 
 an It — an automaton, a very plain dummy, with an ar- 
 rangement for bowing the head at times and smiling 
 stupidly now and then. Davidson viewed her profile with 
 a fattened nose, a hollow cheek, and one staring, un- 
 winking, goggle eye. He asked himself : Did that speak 
 just now? Will it speak again? It was as exciting, for 
 the mere wonder of it, as trying to converse with a 
 mechanism. A smile played about the fat features of 
 Davidson ; the smile of a man making an amusing experi- 
 ment. He spoke again to her : 
 
 "But the other members of that orchestra were real 
 Italians, were they not?" 
 
 Of course, he didn't care. He wanted to see whether 
 the mechanism would work again. It did. It said they 
 were not. They were of all sorts, apparently. It paused, 
 with the one goggle eye immovably gazing down the 
 whole length of the room and through the door opening 
 on to the "piazza." It paused, then went on in the same 
 low pitch : 
 
 "There was even one English girl." 
 
 "Poor devil !" said Davidson. "I suppose these women 
 are not much better than slaves really. Was that fellow 
 with the dyed beard decent in his way?" 
 
 The mechanism remained silent. The sympathetic soul 
 of Davidson drew its own conclusions. 
 
 "Beastly life for these women!" he said. "When you 
 say an English girl, Mrs. Schomberg, do you really mean 
 a young girl? Some of these orchestra girls are no 
 chicks." 
 
 "Young enough," came the low voice out of Mrs 
 Schomberg's unmoved physiognomy. 
 
 Davidson, encouraged, remarked that he was sorry £01 
 her. He was easily sorry for people. 
 
 "Where did they go to from here?" he asked.
 
 40 VICTORY 
 
 "She did not get with them. She ran away." 
 
 This was the pronouncement Davidson obtained next 
 It introduced a new sort of interest. 
 
 "Well ! Well !" he exclaimed placidly ; and then, with 
 the air of a man who knows life: "Who with?" he in- 
 quired with assurance. 
 
 Mrs. Schomberg's immobility gave her an appearance 
 of listening intently. Perhaps she was really listening, 
 but Schomberg must have been finishing his sleep in 
 some distant part of the house. The silence was profound, 
 and lasted long enough to become startling. Then, en- 
 throned above Davidson, she whispered at last : 
 
 "That friend of yours." 
 
 "Oh, you know I am here looking for a friend," said 
 Davidson hopefully. "Won't you tell me " 
 
 "I've told you." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 A mist seemed to roll away from before Davidson's 
 eyes, disclosing something he could not believe. 
 
 "You can't mean it !" he cried. "He's not the man for 
 it." But the last w'ords came out in a faint voice. Mrs. 
 Schomberg never moved her head the least bit. Davidson, 
 after the shock which made him sit up, went slack all 
 over. 
 
 "Heyst! Such a perfect gentleman!" he exclaimed 
 weakly. 
 
 Mrs. Schomberg did not seem to have heard him. This 
 startling fact did not tally somehow with the idea David- 
 son had of Heyst. He never talked of women, he never 
 seemed to think of them, or to remember that they 
 existed ; and then all at once — like this ! Running off 
 with a casual orchestra girl ! 
 
 "You might have knocked me down with a feather," 
 Davidson told us some time afterward. 
 
 By then he was taking an indulgent view of both the 
 :?arties to that amazing transaction. First of all, on retlec-
 
 VICTORY 41 
 
 lion, he was by no means certain that H prevented Heyst 
 from being a perfect gentleman, as before. He confronted 
 our open grins or quiet smiles with a serious round face. 
 ITe}st had taken the girl away to Samburan ; and that was 
 no joking matter. The loneliness, the ruins of the spot, 
 had impressed Davidson's simple soul. They were in- 
 compatible with the frivolous comments of people who 
 had not seen it. That black jetty, sticking out of the jungle 
 into the empty sea ; those roof-ridges of deserted houses 
 peeping dismally above the long grass ! Ough ! The gi- 
 gantic and funereal blackboard sign of the Tropical Belt 
 Coal Company, still emerging from a wild growth of 
 bushes like an inscription stuck above a grave figured by 
 the tall heap of unsold coal at the shore end of the wharf, 
 added to the general desolation. 
 
 Thus the sensitive Davidson. The girl must have been 
 miserable indeed to follow a strange man to such a spot. 
 Heyst had, no doubt, told her the truth. He was a gentle- 
 man. But no words could do justice to the conditions 
 of life on Samburan. A desert island was nothing to it. 
 ^Moreover, when you were cast away on a desert island — 
 why, you could not help yourself ; but to expect a fiddle- 
 playing girl out of an ambulant ladies' orchestra to re- 
 main content there for a day, for one single day, was 
 inconceivable. She would be frightened at the first sight 
 of it. She would scream. 
 
 The capacity for sympathy in these stout, placid men! 
 Davidson was stirred to the depths ; and it was easy to 
 see that it was about Heyst that he was concerned. We 
 asked him if he had passed that way lately. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I always do — about half a mile off." 
 
 "Seen anybody about?" 
 
 "No, not a soul. Not a shadow." 
 
 "Did you blow your whistle?" 
 
 "Blow the whistle? You think I would do such a 
 thing?"
 
 4-2 VICTORY 
 
 He rejected the mere possibility of such an umvar- 
 rantable intrusion. Wonderfully delicate fellow, David- 
 son! 
 
 "Well, but how do you know that they are there?" 
 he was naturally asked. 
 
 Heyst had entrusted Mrs. Schomberg with a message 
 for Davidson — a few lines in pencil on a scrap of crum- 
 pled paper. It was to the effect that an unforeseen neces- 
 sity was driving him away before the appointed time. He 
 begged Davidson's indulgence for the apparent dis- 
 courtesy. The woman of the house — meaning Mrs. 
 Schomberg — would give him the facts, though unable to 
 explain them, of course. 
 
 "What was there to explain?" wondered Davidson 
 dubiously, "He took a fancy to that fiddle-playing girl, 
 and " 
 
 "And she to him, apparently," I suggested. 
 
 "Wonderfully quick work," reflected Davidson. "What 
 do you think will come of it?" 
 
 "Repentance, I should say. But how is it that Mrs. 
 Schomberg has been selected for a confidante?" 
 
 For indeed a waxwork figiu'e would have seemed more 
 useful than that woman whom we all were accustomed 
 to see sitting elevated above the two billiard-tables — 
 without expression, without movement, without voice, 
 without sight. 
 
 "Why, she helped the girl to bolt," said Davidson turn- 
 uig at me his innocent eyes, rounded by the state of 
 constant amazement in which this affair had left him, 
 like those shocks of terror or sorrow which sometimes 
 leave their victim afflicted by nervous trembling. It looked 
 as though he would never get over it. 
 
 "Mrs. Schomberg jerked Heyst's note, twisted like a 
 pipe-light, into my lap while I sat there unsuspecting," 
 Davidson went on. "Directly I had recovered my senses, 
 I asked her what on earth she had to do with it that
 
 VICTORY 43 
 
 Heyst should leave it with her. And then, behaving like 
 a painted image rather than a live woman, she whispered, 
 just loud enough for me to hear: 
 
 " 'I helped them. I got her things together, tied them up 
 in my own shawl, and threw them into the compound 
 out of a back window. I did it.' 
 
 "That woman that you would say hadn't the pluck 
 to lift her little finger!" marvelled Davidson in his quiet, 
 slightly panting voice. "What do you think of that?" 
 
 I thought she must have had some interest of her own 
 to serve. She was too lifeless to be suspected of im- 
 pulsive compassion. It was impossible to think that Hcysi 
 had bribed her. Whatever means he had, he had no'"-, the 
 means to do that. Or could it be that she was moved by 
 that disinterested passion for delivering a woman to a 
 man which in respectable spheres is called matchmaking? 
 — a highly irregular example of it ! 
 
 "It must have been a very small bundle," remarked 
 Davidson further. 
 
 "I imagine the girl must have been specially at- 
 tractive," I said. 
 
 "I don't know. She was miserable. I don't suppose it 
 was more than a little linen and a couple of these white 
 frocks they wear on the platform." 
 
 Davidson pursued his own train of thought. He sup- 
 ])osed that such a thing had never been heard of in the 
 history of the tropics. For where could you find anj 
 one to steal a girl out of an orchestra? No doubt fellows 
 here and there took a fancy to some pretty one — but it 
 v.-as not for running away with her. Oh dear no! It 
 needed a lunatic like Heyst. 
 
 "Only think what it means," wheezed Davidson, imagi- 
 native under his invincible placidity. "Just only try to 
 think! Brooding alone on Samburan has upset his brain 
 He never stopped to consider, or he couldn't have done 
 it. No sane man , . . How is a thing like *^hat to go oni
 
 44 V-CTORY 
 
 \Vhat's he going to do with her in the end ? It's madness." 
 
 "You say that he's mad. Schomberg tells us that he 
 must be starving on his island ; so he ma}' end yet by 
 eating her," I suggested. 
 
 Mrs. Schomberg had had no time to enter into details, 
 Davidson told us. Indeed, the wonder was that they had 
 been left alone so long. The drowsy afternoon was slip- 
 ping by. Footsteps and voices resounded on the verandah 
 — I beg pardon, the piazza ; the scraping of chairs, the 
 ping of a smitten bell. Customers were turning up. Mrs. 
 Schomberg was begging Davidson hurriedly, but without 
 looking at him, to say nothing to any one, when on a 
 half -uttered word her nervous whisper was cut short. 
 Through a small inner door Schomberg came in, his hair 
 brushed, his beard combed neatly, but his eyelids still 
 heavy from his nap. He looked with suspicion at David- 
 son, and even glanced at his wife ; but he was baffled 
 by the natural placidity of the one and the acquired habit 
 of immobility in the other. 
 
 "Have you sent out the drinks?" he asked surlily. 
 
 She did not open her lips, because just then the head 
 boy appeared with a loaded tray, on his way out. Schom- 
 berg went to the door and greeted the customers outside, 
 but did not join them. He remained blocking half the 
 doorway, with his back to the room, and was still there 
 when Davidson, after sitting still for a while, rose to go. 
 At the noise he made Schomberg turned his head, watched 
 him lift his hat to Mrs. Schomberg and receive her 
 wooden bow accompanied by a stupid grin, and then 
 looked away. He was loftily dignified. Davidson stopped 
 at the door, deep in his simplicity. 
 
 *T am sorry you won't tell me anything about my 
 friend's absence," he said. ''My friend Heyst, you know. 
 I suppose the only course for me now is to make in- 
 \^uiries down at the port. I shall hear something there, 
 I don't doubt."
 
 VICTORY 45 
 
 "Make inquiries of the devil !" replied Schomberg in 
 a hoarse mutter. 
 
 Davidson's purpose in addressing the hotel-keeper had 
 been mainly to make Mrs. Schomberg safe from sus- 
 picion; but he would fain have heard something more 
 of Heyst's exploit from another point of view. It was a 
 shrewd try. It was successful in a rather startling way, 
 because the hotel-keeper's point of view was horribly 
 abusive. All of a sudden, in the same hoarse sinister tone, 
 he proceeded to call Heyst many names, of which "pig- 
 dog" was not the worst, with such vehemence that he 
 actually choked himself. Profiting from the pause, David- 
 son, whose temperament could withstand worse shocks, 
 remonstrated in an undertone : 
 
 "It's unreasonable to get so angry as that. Even if he 
 had run off with your cash-box " 
 
 The big hotel-keeper bent down and put his infuriated 
 face close to Davidson's. 
 
 "My cash-box! My — he — look here, Captain Davidson I 
 He ran off with a girl. What do I care for the girl ? The 
 girl is nothing to me." 
 
 He shot out an infamous word which made Davidson 
 start. That's what the girl was ; and he reiterated the 
 assertion that she was nothing to him. What he was 
 concerned for was the good name of his house. Wherever 
 he had been established, he had always had "artist parties'' 
 staying in his house. One recommended him to the others ; 
 but what would happen now, when it got about that leaders 
 ran the risk in his house — his house — of losing members 
 of their troupe? And just now, when he had spent seven 
 hundred and thirty-four guilders in building a concert- 
 hall in his compound. Was that a thing to do in a re- 
 spectable hotel? The cheek, the indecency, the impudence, 
 the atrocity ! Vagabond, impostor, swindler, ruffian, 
 schzvein-hund ! 
 
 He had seized Davidson by a button of his coat, de-
 
 46 VICTORY 
 
 taining" him in the doorway, and exactly in the Hne of Mrs. 
 Schomberg's stony gaze. Davidson stole a glance in 
 that direction ana thought of making some sort of reassur- 
 ing sign to her, but she looked so bereft of senses, and 
 almost of life, perched up there, that it seemed not worth 
 while. He disengaged his button with firm placidity. 
 Thereupon, with a last stifled curse, Schomberg vanished 
 somewhere within, to try and compose his spirits in soli- 
 tude. Davidson stepped out on the verandah. The party 
 of customers there had become aware of the explosive 
 interlude in the doorway. Davidson knew one of these 
 men, and nodded to him in passing; but his acquaintance 
 called out : 
 
 "Isn't he in a filthy temper? He's been like that ever 
 since."' 
 
 The speaker laughed aloud, while all the others sat 
 smiling. Davidson stopped. 
 
 "Yes, rather." His feelings were, he told us, those of 
 bewildered resignation ; but of course that was no more 
 visible to the others than the emotions of a turtle when 
 it withdraws into its shell. 
 
 "It seems unreasonable," he murmured thoughtfully. 
 
 "Oh, but they had a scrap !" the other said. 
 
 "What do you mean? Was there a fight! — a fight with 
 Heyst?" asked Davidson, much perturbed, if somewhat 
 incredulous. 
 
 "Heyst? No, these two — the bandmaster, the fellow 
 who's taking these women about and our Schomberg. 
 Signor Zangiacomo ran amuck in the morning, and went 
 for our worthy friend. I tell you, tliey were rolling on the 
 floor together on this very verandah, af'.er chasing each 
 other ail over the house, doors slamming, women scream- 
 ing, seventeen of them, in the dining-room ; Chinamen up 
 the trees — Hey, John ! You climb tree to see the fight, eh ?" 
 
 The boy, almond-eyed and impassive, emitted a scofnful 
 grunt, finished wiping the table, and withdrew.
 
 VICTORY 47 
 
 "That's what it was — a reai, go-as-you-please scrap. 
 And Zangiacomo began it. Oh, here's Schomberg. Say. 
 Schomberg, didn't he fly at you, when the girl was missed 
 because it was you who insisted that the artists should go 
 about the audience during the interval?" 
 
 Schomberg had reappeared in the doorway. He ad- 
 vanced. His bearing was stately, but his nostrils were 
 extraordinarily expanded, and he controlled his voice v/ith 
 apparent effort. 
 
 "Certainly. That was only business. I quoted him 
 special terms and all for your sake, gentlemen. I was 
 thinking of my regular customers. There's nothing to do 
 in the evenings in this town. I think, gentlemen, you were 
 all pleased at the opportunity of hearing a little good 
 music ; and where's the harm of offering a grenadine, or 
 what not, to ? V.dy artist? But that fellow — that Swede — 
 he got round the girl. He got round all the people out here. 
 I've been watching him for years. You remember how he 
 got round Morrison." 
 
 He changed front abruptly, as if on parade, and 
 marched off. The customers at the table exchanged glances 
 silently, Davidson's attitude was that of a spectator. 
 Schomberg's moody pacing of the billiard-room could be 
 heard on the verandah. 
 
 "And the funniest part is," resumed the man who hao 
 been speaking before — an English clerk in a Dutch house 
 — "the funniest part is that before nine o'clock that same 
 morning those two were driving together in a gharry down 
 to the port, to look for Heyst and the girl. I saw them 
 rushing around making inquiries. I don't know what they 
 would have done to the girl, but they seemed quite read\ 
 to fall upon your Heyst, Davidson, and kill him on the 
 quay." 
 
 He had never, he said, seen an>'thing so queer. Those 
 two investigators working feverishly to the same end 
 were glaring at each other with surprising ferocity. If
 
 *8 VICTORY 
 
 hatred and mistrust they entered a steam-launch, and 
 went flying from ship to ship all over the harbour, caus- 
 ing no end of sensation. The captains of vessels, coming 
 on shore later in the day, brought tales of a strange in- 
 vasion, and wanted to know who were the two offensive 
 lunatics in a steam-launch, apparently after a man and 
 a girl, and telling a story of which one could make neither 
 head nor tail. Their reception by the roadstead was gen- 
 erally unsympathetic, even to the point of the mate of an 
 American ship bundling them out over the rail with un- 
 seemly precipitation. 
 
 Meantime Heyst and the girl were a good few miles 
 away, having gone in the night on board one of the 
 Tesman schooners bound to the eastward. This was known 
 afterward from the Javanese boatmen whom Heyst hired 
 for the purpose at three o'clock in the morning. The 
 Tesman schooner had sailed at daylight with the usual 
 land breeze, and was probably still in sight in the offing 
 at the time. However, the two pursuers after their experi- 
 ence with the American mate made for the shore. On 
 landing, they had another violent row in the German 
 language. But there was no second fight ; and finally, with 
 looks of fierce animosity, they got together into a gharry — 
 obviously with the frugal view of sharing expenses — and 
 drove away, leaving an astonished little crowd of Euro- 
 peans and natives on the quay. 
 
 After hearing this wondrous tale, Davidson went away 
 from the hotel verandah, which was filling with Schom- 
 berg's regular customers. Heyst's escapade was the general 
 topic of conversation. Never before had that unaccount- 
 able individual been the cause of so much gossip, he 
 judged. No ! Not even in the beginnings of the Tropical 
 Belt Coal Company when becoming for a moment a public 
 character he was the object of silly criticism and unintelli- 
 t^ent envy for every vagabond and adventurer in the islands.
 
 VICTORY 49 
 
 Davidson concluded that people liked to discuss that sort 
 of scandal better than any other. 
 
 I asked him if he believed that this was such a great 
 scandal after all. 
 
 "Heavens, no !" said that excellent man who, himself, 
 was incapable of any impropriety of conduct. "But it 
 isn't a thing I would have done myself ; I mean even if 
 I had not been married." 
 
 There was no implied condemnation in the statement ; 
 rather something like regret. Davidson shared my sus- 
 picion that this was in its essence the rescue of a dis- 
 tressed human being. Not that we were two romantics, 
 tingeing the world to the hue of our temperament, but 
 that both of us had been acute enough to discover a 
 long time ago that Heyst was. 
 
 "I shouldn't have had the pluck," he continued. "T ^ee 
 a thing all round, as it were; but Heyst doesn't, or .-^v 
 he would have been scared. You don't take a woman iiiiu 
 a desert jungjle without being made sorry for it soonci 
 or later, in one way or another ; and Heyst being a gentie 
 man only makes it worse."
 
 We said no more about Heyst on that occasion, and 
 it so happened that I did not meet Davidson again for 
 some three months. When we did come together, almost 
 the first thing he said to me was : 
 
 "I've seen him." 
 
 Before I could exclaim, he assured me that he had taken 
 no libertv. that he had not intruded. He was called in. 
 Otherwise he would not have dreamed of breaking in 
 upon Hevst's crivacy, 
 
 "I am certain you wouldn't," I assured him. conceal- 
 ing my amusement at his wonderful delicacy. He was the 
 most delicate man that ever took a small steamer to and 
 fro amongst the islands. But his humanity, which was not 
 less strong and praiseworthy, had induced him to take 
 his steamer past Samburan wharf (at an average distance 
 of a mile) every twenty-three days — exactly. Davidson 
 was delicate, humane and regular. 
 
 "Heyst called you in?" I asked, interested. 
 
 Yes, Heyst had called him in as he was going by on 
 his usual date. Davidson was examining the shore through 
 his glasses with his unwearied and punctual humanity as 
 he steamed past Samburan. 
 
 "I saw a man in white. It could only have been Heyst. 
 He had fastened some sort of enormous flag to a bamboo 
 pole, and was waving it at the end of the old wharf." 
 
 Davidson didn't like to take his steamer alongside- - 
 I'or fear of being indiscreet, I suppose ; but lie steerpd 
 'ilose inshore, stopped his engines, and lowered a boat. 
 
 so
 
 VICTORY »i 
 
 He went himself in that boat, which was manned, of 
 course, by his Malay seamen. 
 
 Heyst, when he saw the boat pulling towards him, 
 dropped his signalling-pole; and when Davidson arrived, 
 he was kneeling down engaged busily in unfastening the 
 flag from it. 
 
 "Was there anything wrong?" I inquired, Davidson 
 having paused in his narrative and my curiosity being 
 naturally aroused. You must remember that Heyst as the 
 Archipelago knew him was not — what shall I say — was 
 not a signalling sort of man. 
 
 "The very words that came out of my mouth," said 
 Davidson, "before I laid the boat against the piles. I could 
 not help it." 
 
 Heyst got up from his knees and began carefully folding 
 up the flag thing, which struck Davidson as having the 
 dimensions of a blanket. 
 
 "No, nothing wrong," he cried. His white teeth flashed 
 agreeably below the coppery horizontal bar of his long 
 moustaches. 
 
 I don't know whether it was his delicacy or his obesity 
 which prevented Davidson from clambering upon the 
 wharf. He stood up in the boat, and, alx)ve him, Heyst 
 stooped low with urbane smiles, thanking him and apolo- 
 gizing for the liberty, exactly in his usual manner. David- 
 son had expected some change in the man, but there was 
 none. Nothing in him betrayed the momentous fact that 
 within that jungle there was a girl, a performer in a ladies' 
 orchestra, whom he had carried straight off the concert 
 platform into the wilderness. He was not ashamed or 
 defiant or abashed about it. He might have been a shade 
 confidential when addressing Davidson. And his words 
 were enigmatical. 
 
 "I took this course of signalling to you," he said to 
 Davidson, "because to preserve appearances might be oi 
 the utmost importance. Not to me, of course. I don't
 
 S2 VICTORY 
 
 care what people may say, and of course no one can hurt 
 me. I suppose I have done a certain amount of harm, 
 since I allowed myself to be tempted into action. It seemed 
 innocent enough, but all action is bound to be harmful. 
 It is devilish. That is why this world is evil upon the 
 whole. But I have done with it ! I shall never lift a little 
 finger again. At one time I thought that intelligent ob- 
 servation of facts was the best way of cheating the time 
 which is allotted to us whether we want it or not, but 
 now I have done with observation, too.'j 
 
 Imagine poor, simple Davidson being addressed in 
 such terms alongside an abandoned, decaying wharf jut- 
 '.ing out of tropical bush. He had never heard anybody 
 speak like this before; certainly not Heyst, whose con- 
 versation was concise, polite, with a faint ring of playful- 
 ness in the cultivated tones of his voice. 
 
 "He's gone mad," Davidson thought to himself. 
 
 But, looking at the physiognomy above him on the 
 wharf, he was obliged to dismiss the notion of common, 
 crude lunacy. It was truly most unusual talk. Then he 
 remembered — in his surprise he had lost sight of it — that 
 Heyst now had a girl there. This bizarre discourse was 
 probably the effect of the girl. Davidson shook ofif the ab- 
 surd feeling, and asked, wishing to make clear his friend- 
 liness, and not knowing what else to say : 
 
 "You haven't run short of stores or anything like 
 that?" 
 
 Heyst smiled and shook his head. 
 
 "No, no. Nothing of the kind. We are fairly well off 
 here. Thanks, all the same. If I haA^e taken the liberty to 
 detain you, it is not from any uneasiness for myself and 
 my — companion. The person I was thinking of when 
 I made up my mind to invoke your assistance is Mrs. 
 Schomberg." 
 
 "I have talked with her," interjected Davidson.
 
 VICTORY 53 
 
 "Oh ! You? Yes, I hoped she would find means to " 
 
 "But she didn't tell me much," interrupted Davidson, 
 who was not averse from hearing something — he hardly 
 knew what. 
 
 "H'm — ^yes. But that note of mine? Yes? She found 
 an opportunity to give it to you? That's good, very 
 good. She's more resourceful than one would give her 
 credit for." 
 
 "Women often are," remarked Davidson. The strange- 
 ness from which he had suffered, merely because his inter- 
 locutor had carried off a girl, wore off as the minutes 
 went by. "There's a lot of unexpectedness about women," 
 he generalized with a didactic aim which seemed to miss 
 its mark ; for the next thing Heyst said was : 
 
 "This is Mrs. Schomberg's shawl." He touched the 
 stuff hanging over his arm. "An Indian thing, I believe," 
 he added, glancing at his arm sideways. 
 
 "It isn't of particular value," said Davidson truthfully. 
 
 "Very likely. The point is that it belongs to Schomberg's 
 wife. That Schomberg seems to be an unconscionable 
 ruffian — don't you think so ?" 
 
 Davidson smiled faintly. 
 
 "We out here have got used to him," he said, as if ex- 
 cusing a universal and guilty toleration of a manifest 
 nuisance. "I'd hardly call him that. I only know him as 
 a hotel-keeper." 
 
 "I never knew him even as that — not till this time, 
 when you were so obliging as to take me to Sourabaya. 
 I went to stay there from economy. The Netherlands 
 House is very expensive, and they expect you to bring 
 your own servant with you. It's a nuisance." 
 
 "Of course, of course," protested Davidson hastily. 
 
 After a short silence Heyst returned to the matter of 
 the shawl. He wanted to send it back to Mrs. Sdiomberg. 
 He said that it might be very awkward for her if she
 
 54 VICTORY 
 
 were unable, if asked, to produce it. This had given him, 
 Heyst, much uneasiness. She was terrified of Schom- 
 berg. Apparently she had reason to be. 
 
 Davidson had remarked that, too. Which did not pre- 
 vent her, he pointed out, from making a fool of him, in 
 a way, for the sake of a stranger. 
 
 "Oh! You know!" said Heyst. "Yes, she helped me — 
 us." 
 
 "She told me so. I had quite a talk with her," Davidson 
 informed him. "Fancy any one having a talk with Mrs. 
 Schomberg! If I were to tell the fellows they wouldn't 
 believe me. How did you get round her, Heyst? How did 
 you think of it? Why, she looks too stupid to understand 
 human speech and too scared to shoo a chicken away. Oh, 
 the women, the women ! You don't know what there may 
 be in the quietest of them." 
 
 "She was engaged in the task of defending her position 
 in life," said Heyst. "It's a very respectable task." 
 
 "Is that it? I had some idea it was that," confessed 
 Davidson. 
 
 He then imparted to Heyst the story of the violent 
 proceedings following on the discover)' of his flight. 
 Heyst's polite attention to the tale took on a sombre cast ; 
 but he manifested no surprise, and offered no comment. 
 When Davidson had finished he handed down the shawl 
 into the boat, and Davidson promised to do his best to 
 return it to Mrs. Schomberg in some secret fashion. Heyst 
 expressed his thanks in a few simple words, set ofif by 
 his manner of iinished courtesy. Davidson prepared to 
 depart. They were not looking at each other. Suddenly 
 Heyst spoke : 
 
 "You understand that this was a case of odious per- 
 secution, don't you ? I became aware of it and " 
 
 It was a view which the sympathetic Davidson was 
 capable of appreciating. 
 
 "I am not surprised to hear it" he said placidly.
 
 VICTORY 55 
 
 "Odious enough, I dare say. And you, of course — not 
 being a married man — were free to step in. Ah, well !" 
 
 He sat down in the stern-sheets, and already had the 
 steering lines in his hands when Heyst observed abruptly : 
 
 "The world is a bad dog. It will bite you if you give 
 it a chance; but I think that here we can safely defy the 
 fates." 
 
 When relating all this to me, Davidson's only comment 
 was: 
 
 "Funny notion of defying the fates— to take a woman 
 in tow!"
 
 VII 
 
 Some considerable time afterward — we did not meet 
 very often — I asked Davidson how he had managed about 
 the shawl and heard that he had tackled his mission in a 
 direct way, and had found it easy enough. At the very 
 first call he made in Samarang he rolled the shawl as 
 tightly as he could into the smallest possible brown paper 
 parcel, which he carried ashore with him. His business in 
 the town being transacted, he got into a gharry with the 
 parcel and drove to the hotel. With his previous experi- 
 ence, he timed his arrival accurately for the hour of 
 Schomberg's siesta. Finding the place empty as on the 
 former occasion, he marched into the billiard-room, took a 
 seat at the back, near the sort of dais which Mrs. Schom- 
 berg would in due course come to occupy, and broke the 
 slumbering silence of the house by thumping a bell vigor- 
 ously. Of course a Chinaman appeared promptly. David- 
 son ordered a drink and sat tight. 
 
 "I would have ordered twenty drinks one after an- 
 other, if necessary," he said — Davidson's a very abstemi- 
 ous man — "rather than take that parcel out of the house 
 again. Couldn't leave it in a corner without letting the 
 woman know it was there. It might have turned out worse 
 for her than not bringing the thing back at all." 
 
 And so he waited, ringing the bell again and again, and 
 swallowing two or three iced drinks which he did not 
 want. Presently, as he hoped it would happen, Mrs. 
 Schomberg came in, silk dress, long neck, ringlets, scared 
 eyes, and silly grin — all complete. Probably that lazy beast 
 had sent her out to see who was the thirsty customer 
 
 S6
 
 VICTORY 57 
 
 waking up the echoes of the house at this quiet hour. Bow, 
 nod — and she clambered up to her post behind the raised 
 counter, looking so helpless, so inane, as she sat there, that 
 if it hadn't been for the parcel, Davidson declared, he 
 would have thought he had merely dreamed of all that had 
 passed between them. He ordered another drink, to get the 
 Chinaman out of the room, and then seized the parcel, 
 which was reposing on a chair near him, and with no more 
 than a mutter — "This is something of yours" — he rammed 
 it swiftly into a recess in the counter, at her feet. There! 
 The rest was her affair. And just in time, too. Schom- 
 berg turned up, yawTiing affectedly, almost before David- 
 son had regained his seat. He cast about suspicious and 
 irate glances. An invincible placidity of expression helped 
 Davidson wonderfully at the moment, and the other, of 
 course, could have no grounds for the slightest suspicion 
 of any sort of understanding between his wife and this 
 customer. 
 
 As to Mrs. Schomberg, she sat there like a joss. David- 
 son was lost in admiration. He believed, now, that the 
 woman had been putting it on for years. She never even 
 winked. It was immense ! The insight he had obtained 
 almost frightened him ; he couldn't get over his wonder 
 at knowing more of the real Mrs. Schomberg than any- 
 body in the Islands, including Schomberg himself. She 
 was a miracle of dissimulation. No wonder Heyst got 
 the girl away from under two men's noses, if he had her 
 to help with the job ! 
 
 The greatest wonder, after all, was Heyst getting mixed 
 up with petticoats. The fellow's life had been open to us 
 for years and nothing could have been more detached 
 from feminine associations. Except that he stood drinks 
 to people on suitable occasions, like any other man, this 
 observer of facts seemed to have no connection with 
 earthly affairs and passions. The very courtesy of his 
 manner, the flavour of plavfulness in the voice set bin'
 
 58 VICTORY 
 
 apart He was like a feather floating lightly in the work-a- 
 clay atmosphere which was the breath of our nostrils. For 
 this reason whenever this looker-on took contact with 
 things he attracted attention. First, it was the Morrison 
 partnership of mystery ; then came the great sensation of 
 the Tropical Belt Coal where indeed varied interests were 
 involved : a real business matter. And then came this elope- 
 ment, this incongruous phenomenon of self-assertion, the 
 greatest wonder of all, astonishing and amusing. 
 
 Davidson admitted to me that the hubbub was sub- 
 siding; and the affair would have been already forgotten, 
 perhaps, if that ass Schomberg had not kept on gnashing 
 his teeth publicly about it. It was really provoking that 
 Davidson should not be able to give one some idea of the 
 girl. Was she pretty? He didn't know. He had stayed 
 the whole afternoon in Schomberg's hotel, mainly for the 
 purpose of finding out something about her. But the story 
 was growing stale. The parties at the tables on the veran- 
 dah had other, fresher, events to talk about and Davidson 
 shrank from making direct inquiries. He sat placidly there, 
 content to be disregarded and hoping for some chance 
 word to turn up. I shouldn't wonder if the good fellow 
 hadn't been dozing. It's difficult to give you an adequate 
 idea of Davidson's placidity. 
 
 Presently Schomberg, wandering about, joined a party 
 that had taken the table next to Davidson's. 
 
 "A man like that Swede, gentlemen, is a public danger," 
 he began. "I remember him for years. I won't say any- 
 thing of his spying — well, he used to say himself he was 
 looking for out-of-the-way facts, and what is that if not 
 spying? He was spying into everybody's business. He got 
 hold of Captain Morrison, squeezed him dry, like you 
 would an orange, and scared him off to Europe to die 
 there. Everybody knows that Captain Morrison had a 
 weak chest. Robbed first and murdered afterward ! I don't 
 mince words — not I. Next he gets up that swindle of the
 
 VICTORY 5^ 
 
 Belt Coal. You all know about it. And now, after lining 
 his pockets with other people's money, he kidnaps a white 
 girl belonging to an oi'chestra which is performing in my 
 public room for the benefit of my patrons, and goes oflf 
 to live like a prince on that island, where nobody can get 
 at him. A dam' silly girl . . . It's disgusting — tfui !" 
 
 He spat. He choked with rage — for he saw visions, 
 no doubt. He jumped up from his chair, and went away to 
 flee from them — perhaps. He went into the room v/here 
 Mrs. Schomberg sat. Her aspect could not have been very 
 soothing to the sort of torment from which he was suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 Davidson did not feel called upon to defend Heyst. 
 His proceeding was to enter into conversation with one 
 and another, casually, and showing no particular knowl- 
 edge of the aflfair, in order to discover something about 
 the girl. Was she anything out of the way? Was she 
 pretty? She couldn't have been markedly so. She had 
 not attracted special notice. She was young — on that 
 everybody agreed. The English clerk of Tesm.ans re- 
 membered that she had a sallow face. He was respectable 
 and highly proper. He was not the sort to associate with 
 such people. Most of these women were fairly battered 
 specimens. Schomberg had them housed in what he called 
 the Pavilion, in the grounds, where they were hard at it 
 mending and washing their white dresses, and could be 
 seen hanging them out to dry between the trees, like a 
 lot of washerwomen. They looked very much like middle- 
 aged washerwomen on the platform, too. But the girl had 
 been living in the main building along with the boss, the 
 directoi , the fellow with the black beard, and a hard- 
 bitten, oldish woman who took the piano and was under- 
 stood to be the fellow's wife. 
 
 This was not a very satisfactory result. Davidson 
 stayed on, and even joined the table d'hote dinner, without 
 gleaning any more information. He was resigned.
 
 6o VICTORY 
 
 "I suppose," he wheezed placidly, "I am bound to see 
 her some day." 
 
 He meant to take the Samburan channel every trip, 
 as before, of course. 
 
 "Yes," I said. "No doubt you will. Some day Heyst 
 will be signalling to you again ; and I wonder what it will 
 be for." 
 
 Davidson made no reply. He had his own ideas about 
 ihat, and his silence concealed a good deal of thought. 
 We spoke no more of Heyst's girl. Before we separated, 
 he gave me a piece of unrelated observation. 
 
 "It's funny," he said, "but I fancy there's some gam- 
 bling going on in the evening at Schomberg's place, on 
 the quiet. I've noticed men strolling away in twos and 
 threes towards that hall where the orchestra used to play. 
 The windows must be specially well shuttered, because I 
 could not spy the smallest gleam of light from that direc- 
 tion ; but I can't believe that those beggars would go in 
 there only to sit and think of their sins in the dark." 
 
 "That's strange. It's incredible that Schomberg should 
 risk that sort of thing," I said.
 
 PART II
 
 I 
 
 As WE know, Heyst had gone to stay in Schomberg's 
 hotel in complete ignorance that his person was odious 
 to that worthy. When he arrived, Zangiacomo's Ladies' 
 Orchestra had been estabHshed there for some time. 
 
 The business which had called him out from his se- 
 clusion in his lost corner of the Eastern seas was with the 
 Tesmans, and it had something to do with money. He 
 transacted it quickly, and then found himself with nothing 
 to do while he awaited Davidson, who was to take him 
 back to his solitude ; for back to his solitude Heyst meant 
 to go. He whom we used to refer to as the Enchanted 
 Heyst was suffering from thorough disenchantment. Not 
 with the islands, however. The Archipelago has a lasting 
 fascination. It is not easy to shake off the spell of island 
 life. Heyst was disenchanted with life as a whole. His 
 scornful temperament, beguiled into action, suffered from 
 failure in a subtle way unknown to men accustomed to 
 grapple with the realities of common human enterprise. 
 It was like the gnawing pain of useless apostasy, a sort 
 of shame before his own betrayed nature ; and, in addition, 
 he also suffered from plain, downright remorse. He 
 deemed himself guilty of Morrison's death. A rather 
 absurd feeling, since no one could possibly have foreseen 
 the horrors of the cold, wet summer lying in wait for 
 poor Morrison at home. 
 
 It was not in Heyst's character to turn morose ; but 
 his mental state was not compatible with a sociable mood. 
 He spent his evenings sitting apart on the verandah of 
 Schomberg's hotel. The lamentations of strmg instru- 
 
 63
 
 64 VICTORY 
 
 ments issued from the building in the hotel compound, 
 ihe approaches to which were decorated with Japanese 
 paper lanterns strung up between the trunks of several big 
 trees. Scraps of tunes more or less plaintive reached his 
 ears. They pursued him even into his bedroom, which 
 opened into an upstairs verandah. The fragmentary and 
 rasping character of these sounds made their intrusion 
 inexpressibly tedious in the long run. Like most dreamers, 
 to whom it is given sometimes to hear the music of the 
 spheres, Heyst, the wanderer of the Archipelago, had a 
 taste for silence which he had been able to gratify for 
 years. The islands are very quiet. One sees them lying 
 about, clothed in their dark garments of leaves, in a great 
 hush of silver and azure, where the sea without murmurs 
 meets the sky in a ring of magic stillness. A sort of 
 smiling somnolence broods over them ; the very voices of 
 their people are soft and subdued, as if afraid to break 
 some protecting spell. 
 
 Perhaps this was the very spell which had enchanted 
 Heyst in the early days. For him, however, that was 
 broken. He was no longer enchanted, though he was still 
 a captive of the islands. He had no intention to leave them 
 ever. Where could he have gone to, after all these years? 
 Not a single soul belonging to him lived anywhere on 
 earth. Of this fact — not such a remote one, after all — he 
 had only lately become aware ; for it is failure that makes 
 a man enter into himself and reckon up his resources. 
 And though he had made up his mind to retire from the 
 world in hermit fashion, yet he was irrationally moved 
 by this sense of loneliness which had come to him in the 
 hour of renunciation. It hurt him. Nothing is more painful 
 than the shock of sharp contradictions that lacerate our 
 intelligence and our feelings. 
 
 Meantime Schomberg watched Heyst out of the corner 
 of his eye. Towards the unconscious object of his en- 
 mity he preserved a distant Lieutenant-of-the-Reserve de-
 
 VICTORY 65 
 
 meanour. Nudging certain of his customers with his elbow, 
 he begged them to observe what airs "tliat Swede" was 
 giving himself. 
 
 "I really don't know why he has come to stay in my 
 house. This place isn't good enough for him, I wish to 
 goodness he had gone somewhere else to show off his 
 superiority. Here I have got up this series of concerts for 
 you gentlemen, just to make things a little brighter gen- 
 erally ; and do you think he'll condescend to step in and 
 listen to a piece or two of an evening? Not he. I know 
 him of old. There he sits at the dark end of the piazza, 
 all the evening long — planning some new swindle, no 
 doubt. For twopence I would ask him to go and look for 
 quarters somewhere else ; only one doesn't like to treat a 
 white man like that out in the tropics. I don't know how 
 long he means to stay, but I'm willing to bet a trifle that 
 he'll never work himself up to the point of spending the 
 fifty cents of entrance money for the sake of a little good 
 music." 
 
 Nobody cared to bet, or the hotel-keeper would have 
 lost. One evening Heyst was driven to desperation by the 
 rasped, squeaked, scraped snatches of tunes pursuing him 
 even to his hard couch, with a mattress as thin as a pan- 
 cake and a diaphanous mosquito net. He descended among 
 the trees, where the soft glow of Japanese lanterns picked 
 out parts of their great rugged trunks, here and there, 
 in the great mass of darkness under the loftv foliage. 
 More lanterns, of the shape of cylindrical concertinas, 
 hanging in a row from a slack string, decorated the door- 
 way of what Schomberg called grandiloquently "my 
 concert-hall." In his desperate mood Heyst ascended three 
 steps, lifted a calico curtain, and went in. 
 
 The uproar in that small, barn-like structure, built of 
 imported pine boards, and raised clear of the ground, was 
 simply stunning. An instrumental uproar, screaming, 
 grunting, whining, sobbing, scraping, squeaking some kind
 
 (j<^ VICTORY 
 
 of lively air; while a grand piano, operated upon by a 
 bony, red-faced woman with bad-tempered nostrils, rained 
 hard notes like hail through the tempest of fiddles. The 
 small platform was filled with white muslin dresses and 
 crimson sashes slanting from shoulders provided with 
 bare arms, which sawed away without respite. Zangiacomo 
 conducted. He wore a white mess-jacket, a black dress 
 waistcoat, and white trousers. His longish, tousled hair 
 and his great beard were purple-black. He wag horrible. 
 The heat was terrific. There were perhaps thirty people 
 having drinks at several little tables. Heyst, quite overcom.e 
 by the volume of noise, dropped into a chair. In the quick 
 time of that music, in the varied, piercing clamour of the 
 strings, in the movements of the bare arms, in the low 
 dresses, the coarse faces, the stony eyes of the executants, 
 there was a suggestion of brutality — something cruel, 
 sensual and repulsive. 
 
 "This is awful!" Heyst murmured to himself. 
 But there is an unholy fascination in systematic noise. 
 He did not flee from it incontinently, as one might have 
 expected him to do. He remained, astonished at himself 
 for remaining, since nothing could have been more repul- 
 sive to his tastes, more painful to his senses, and, so to 
 speak, more contrary to his genius, than this rude exhibi- 
 tion of vigour. The Zangiacomo band was not making 
 music; it was simply murdering silence with a vulgar, 
 ferocious energy. One felt as if witnessing a deed of vio- 
 lence ; and that impression was so strong that it seemed 
 marvellous to see the people sitting so quietly on their 
 chairs, drinking so calmly out of their glasses, and giving 
 no signs of distress, anger or fear. Heyst averted his gaze 
 from the unnatural spectacle of their indifference. 
 
 When the piece of music came to an end, the relief 
 was so great that he felt slightly dizzy, as if a chasm of 
 silence had yawned at his feet. When he raised his eyes, 
 the audience, most perversely, was exhibiting signs of
 
 VICTORY 67 
 
 animation and interest in their faces, and the women in 
 white mushn dresses were coming down in pairs fron' 
 the platform into the ])ody of Schomberg's "concert-hall." 
 They dispersed themselves all over the place. The male 
 creature with the hooked nose and purple-black beard dis- 
 appeared somewhere. This was the interval during which, 
 as the astute Schomberg had stipulated, the members of 
 the orchestra were encouraged to favour the members of 
 the audience with their company — that is, such members 
 as seemed inclined to fraternize with the arts in a familiar 
 and generous manner ; the symbol of familiarity and gen- 
 erosity consisting in offers of refreshment. 
 
 The procedure struck Heyst as highly incorrect. How- 
 ever, the impropriety of Schomberg's ingenious scheme 
 was defeated by the circumstances that most of the women 
 were no longer young, and that none of them had ever 
 been beautiful. Their more or less worn cheeks were 
 slightly rouged ; but apart from that fact, which might 
 have been simply a matter of routine, they did not seem 
 to take the success of the scheme unduly to heart. The 
 impulse to fraternize with the arts being obviously weak in 
 the audience, some of the musicians sat down listlessly at 
 unoccupied tables, while others went on perambulating 
 the central passage arm in arm, glad enough, no doubt, 
 . -iretch their legs while resting their arms. Their crim- 
 son sashes gave a factitious touch of gaiety to the smokv' 
 atmosphere of the concert-hall ; and Heyst felt a sudden 
 pity for these beings, exploited, hopeless, devoid of chanr 
 and grace, whose fate of cheerless dependence invested 
 their coarse and joyless features with a touch of pathos. 
 
 Heyst was temperamentally sympathetic. To have them 
 passing and repassing close to his little table was painful 
 to him. He was preparing to rise and go out when he 
 noticed that two white muslin dresses and crimson sashes 
 had not yet left the platform. One of these dresses con- 
 cealed the raw-iioned frame of the woman with the bad-
 
 68 VICTORY 
 
 tempered curve to her nostrils. She was no less a person- 
 age than Mrs. Zangiacomo. She had left the piano, and, 
 with her back to the hall, was preparing the parts for the 
 second half of the concert, with a brusque, impatient 
 action of her ugly elbows. This task done, she turned, and, 
 perceiving the other white muslin dress motionless on a 
 chair in the second row, she strode towards it between the 
 music-stands with an aggressive and masterful gait. On 
 the lap of that dress there lay, unclasped and idle, a pair 
 of small hands, not very white, attached to well- formed 
 arms. The next detail Heyst was led to observe was the 
 arrangement of the hair — two thick brown tresses rolled 
 round an attractively shaped head. 
 
 "A girl, by Jove!" he exclaimed mentally. 
 
 It was evident that she was a girl. It was evident in 
 Ihe outline of the shoulders, in the slender white bust 
 springing up, barred slantwise by the crimson sash, from 
 the bell-shaped spread of muslin skirt hiding the chair 
 on which she sat averted a little from the body of the hall. 
 Her feet, in low white shoes, were crossed prettily. 
 
 She had captured Heyst's awakened faculty of ob- 
 servation ; he had the sensation of a new experience. That 
 was because his faculty of observation had never before 
 been captured by any feminine creature in that marked 
 and exclusive fashion. He looked at her anxiously, as no 
 man ever looks at another man ; and he positively forgot 
 where he was. He had lost touch with his surroundings. 
 The big woman, advancing, concealed the girl from his 
 sight for a moment. She bent over the seated youthful 
 figure, in passing it very close, as if to drop a word into 
 its ear. Her lips did certainly move. But what sort of 
 word could it have been to make the girl jump up so 
 swiftly? Heyst, at his table, was surprised into a sympa- 
 thetic start. He glanced quickly round. Nobody was look- 
 ing towards the platform ; and when his eyes swept back 
 here again, the girl, with the big woman tread.ing at her
 
 VICTORY 6^ 
 
 heels, was coming down the three steps from the platform 
 to the floor of the hall. There she paused, stumbled one 
 pace forward, and stood still again, while the other — the 
 escort, the dragoon, the coarse big woman of the piano — 
 passed her roughly, and, marching truculently down the 
 centre aisle between the chairs and tables, went out to 
 rejoin the hook-nosed Zangiacomo somewhere outside. 
 During her extraordinary transit, as if everything in the 
 hall were dirt under her feet, her scornful eyes met the 
 upward glance of Heyst, who looked away at once to- 
 wards the girl. She had not moved. Her arms hung down ; 
 her eyelids were lowered. 
 
 Heyst laid down his half -smoked cigar and compressed 
 his lips. Then he got up. It was the same sort of impulse 
 which years ago had made him cross the sandy street of 
 the abominable town of Delli in the island of Timor and 
 accost Morrison, practically a stranger to him then, a man 
 in trouble, expressively harassed, dejected, lonely. 
 
 It was the same impulse. But he did not recognize it. 
 He was not thinking of Morrison then. It may be said 
 that, for the first time since the final abandonment of 
 the Samburan coal mine, he had completely forgotten the 
 late Morrison. It is true that to a certain extent he had 
 forgotten also where he was. Thus, unchecked by any sort 
 of self-consciousness, Heyst walked up the central pas- 
 sage. 
 
 Several of the women, by this time, had found anchor- 
 age here and there among the occupied tables. They 
 talked to the men, leaning on their elbows, and suggest- 
 ing funnily — if it hadn't been for the crimson sashes — ■ 
 in their white dresses an assembly of middle-aged brides 
 with free and easy manners and hoarse voices. The mur- 
 muring noise of conversations carried on with some spirit 
 filled Schomberg's concert-room. Nobody remarked 
 Heyst's movements ; for indeed he was not the only man 
 on his legs there. He had been confronting the girl fof
 
 ^o VICTORY 
 
 some time before she became aware of his presence. She 
 was looking down, very still, without colour, without 
 glances, without voice, without movement. It was only 
 when Heyst addressed her in his courteous tone that 
 she raised her eyes. 
 
 "Excuse me," he said in English, "but that horrible 
 female has done something to you. She has pinched you, 
 hasn't she? I am sure she pinched you just now, when she 
 stood by your chair." 
 
 The girl received this overture with the wide, motion- 
 less stare of profound astonishment. Heyst, vexed with 
 himself, suspected that she did not understand what he 
 said. One could not tell what nationality these women 
 were, except that they were of all sorts. But she was aston- 
 ished almost more by the near presence of the man him- 
 self, by this largely bald head, by the white brow, the 
 sunburnt cheeks, the long, horizontal moustaches of 
 crinkly bronze hair, by the kindly expression of the man's 
 blue eyes looking into her own. He saw the stony ama-^e- 
 ment in hers give way to a momentary alarm, which was 
 succeeded by an expression of resignation. 
 
 "I am sure she pinched your arm most cruelly," he 
 murmured, rather disconcerted now at what he had done. 
 
 It was a great comfort to hear her say : 
 
 "It wouldn't have been the first time. And suppose she 
 did — what are you going to do about it?" 
 
 "I don't know," he said with a faint, remote playfulness 
 in his tone which had not been heard in it lately, and 
 which seemed to catch her ear pleasantly. "I am grieved 
 to say that I don't know. But can I do anything? What 
 would you wish me to do? Pray command me." 
 
 Again the greatest astonishment became visible in her 
 face; for she now perceived how different he was from 
 the other men in the room. He was as different from them 
 as she was different from the other members of the 
 ladies' orchestra.
 
 VICTORY 71 
 
 'Command you?" she breathed, after a time, In a 
 beivildered tone. "Who are you?" she asked a little louder. 
 
 "I am staying in this hotel for a few days. I just 
 dropped in casually here. This outrage " 
 
 "Don't yoi! try to interfere," she said so earnestly that 
 Heyst asked, in his faintly playful tone: 
 
 "Is it your wish that I should leave you?" 
 
 "I haven't said that," the girl answered. "She pinched 
 me because I didn't get down here quick enough." 
 
 "I can't tell you how indignant I am," said Heyst. "But 
 since you are down here now," he went on, with the ease 
 of a man of the world speaking to a young lady in ?, 
 drawing-room, "hadn't we better sit down?" 
 
 She obeyed his inviting gesture, and they sat down on 
 the nearest chairs. They looked at each other across a 
 little round table with a surprised, open gaze, self-con- 
 sciousness growing on them so slowly that it was a 
 long time before they averted their eyes ; and very soon 
 they met again, temporarily, only to rebound, as it were. 
 At last they steadied in contact, but by that time, say some 
 fifteen minutes from the moment when they sat down, the 
 "interval" came to an end. 
 
 So much for their eyes. As to the conversation, it had 
 been perfectly insignificant, because naturally they had 
 nothing to say to each other. Heyst had been interested 
 by the girl's physiognomy. Its expression was neither 
 simple nor yet very clear. It was not distinguished — ^that 
 could not be expected — but the features had more fine- 
 ness than those of any other feminine countenance he had 
 ever had the opportunity to observe so ciosely. There was 
 in it something indefinably audacious and infinitely miser- 
 able — because the temperament and the existence of that 
 girl were reflected in it. But her voice! It seduced Heyst 
 by its amazing quality. It was a voice fit to utter the 
 most exquisite things, a voice which would have made 
 silly chatter supportable and the roughest talk fascinat-
 
 72 VICTORY 
 
 ing. Heyst drank in its charm as one listens to the tone 
 of sorae instrument without heeding the tune. 
 
 "Do you sing as well as play?" he asked her abruptly. 
 
 "Never sang a note in my life," she said, obviously 
 surprised by the irrelevant question ; for they had not been 
 discoursing of sweet sounds. She was clearly unaware of 
 her voice. "I don't remember that I ever had much reason 
 to sing since I was little," she added. 
 
 That inelegant phrase, by the mere vibrating, warm 
 nobility of sound, found its way into Heyst's heart. His 
 mind, cool, alert, watched it sink there with a sort of 
 vague concern at the absurdity of the occupation, till it 
 rested at the bottom, deep down, where our unexpressed 
 longings lie. 
 
 "You are English, of course?" he said. 
 
 "What do you think?" she answered in the most charm- 
 ing accents. Then, as if thinking that it was her turn to 
 place a question : "Why do you always smile when you 
 speak?" 
 
 It was enough to make any one look grave ; but her 
 good faith was so evident that Heyst recovered himself 
 at once. 
 
 "It's my unfortunate manner," he said with his delicate, 
 polished playfulness. "Is it very objectionable to you?" 
 
 She was very serious. 
 
 "No. I only noticed it. I haven't come across so many 
 pleasant people as all that, in my life." 
 
 "It's certain that this woman who plays the piano is 
 infinitely more disagreeable than any cannibal I have 
 ever had to do with." 
 
 "I believe you !" She shuddered. "How did you come 
 to have anything to do with cannibals ?" 
 
 "It would be too long a tale," said Heyst, with a faint 
 smile. Heyst's smiles were rather melancholy, and ac- 
 cor(fed badly with his great moustaches, under which his 
 *ier'» playfulness lurked as comfortably as a shy bird
 
 VICTORY 73 
 
 in its native thicket. "Much too long. How did you get 
 amongst this lot here?" 
 
 "Bad luck," she answered briefly, 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt," Heyst assented with slight nods. 
 Then, still indignant at the pinch which he had divined 
 rather than actually seen inflicted : "I say, couldn't you 
 defend yourself somehow?" 
 
 She had risen already. The ladies of the orchestra were, 
 slowly regaining their places. Some were already seated, 
 idle, stony-eyed, before the music-stands. Heyst wa« 
 standing up, too. 
 
 "They are too many for me," she said. 
 
 These few words came out of the common experience 
 of mankind ; yet by virtue of her voice, they thrilled 
 Heyst like a revelation. His feelings were in a state of 
 confusion, but his mind was clear. 
 
 "That's bad. But it isn't actual ill-usage that this girl 
 '" complaining of," he thought lucidly after she left him.
 
 II 
 
 That was how it began. How it was that it ended 
 as we know it did end, is not so easy to state precisely. 
 It is very clear that Heyst was not indifferent. I won't say 
 to the girl, but to the girl's fate. He was the same man 
 who had plunged after the submerged Morrison whom 
 he hardly knew otherwise than by sight and through the 
 usual gossip of the islands. But this was another sort of 
 plunge altogether, and likely to lead to a very different 
 kind of partnership. 
 
 Did he reflect at all? Probably. He was sufficiently re- 
 flective. But if he did, it was with insufficient knowledge. 
 F'or there is no evidence that he paused at any time be- 
 tween the date of that evening and the morning of the 
 night. Truth to say, Heyst was not one of those men who 
 pause much. Those dreamy spectators of the world's agita- 
 tion are terrible once the desire to act gets hold of them. 
 They lower their heads and charge a wall with an amaz- 
 ing serenity which nothing but an indisciplined imagina- 
 tion can give. 
 
 He was not a fool. I suppose he knew — or at least he 
 felt — where this was leading him. But his complete in- 
 experience gave him the necessary audacity. The girl's 
 voice was charming when she spoke to him of her miser- 
 able past, in simple terms, Vv^ith a sort of unconscious 
 cynicism inherent in the truth of the ugly conditions of 
 ])overty. And whether because he was humane or be- 
 cause her voice included all the modulations of pathos, 
 cheerfulness and courage in its compass, it was not dis- 
 gust that the tale awakened in him, but the sense of an 
 •mmense sadness. 
 
 74
 
 VICTORY rs 
 
 On a later evening, during the interval between the 
 iwo parts of the concert, the girl told Heyst about herself. 
 She was almost a child of the streets. Her father was a 
 musician in the orchestras of small theatres. Her mother 
 ran away from him while she was little, and the landladies 
 of various poor lodging-houses had attended casually to 
 her abandoned childhood. It was never positive starvation 
 and absolute rags, but it was the hopeless grip of poverty 
 all the time. It was her father who taught her to play the 
 violin. It seemed that he used to get drunk sometimes, uut 
 without pleasure, and only because he was unable to forget 
 his fugitive wife. After he had a paralytic stroke, falHng 
 over with a crash in the well of a music-hall orchestra 
 during the performance, she had joined the Zangiacomo 
 company. He was 2i0w in a home for incurables. 
 
 "And I am here," she finished, "with no one to care 
 if I make a hole in the water the next chance I get or not." 
 
 Heyst told her that he thought she could do a little 
 better than that, if it was only a question of getting out 
 of the world. She looked at him with special attention, 
 and with a puzzled expression which gave to her face an 
 air of innocence. 
 
 This was during one of the "intervals" between the 
 two parts of the concert. She had come down that time 
 without being incited thereto by a pinch from the awful 
 Zangiacomo woman. It is difficult to suppose that she 
 was seduced by the uncovered intellectual forehead and 
 the long reddish moustaches of her new friena. New is 
 not the right word. She had never had a friend before; 
 and the sensation of this friendliness going out to her 
 was exciting by its novelty alone. Besides, any man who 
 did not resemble Schomberg appeared for that very 
 reason attractive. She was afraid of the hotel-keeper, who, 
 in the daytime, taking advantage of the fact that she lived 
 in the hotel itself, and not in the Pavilion with the other 
 "artists." prowled round her, mute, hungry, portentoui
 
 j6 VICTORY 
 
 behind his great beard, or else assailed her in quiet cof' 
 iiers and empty passages with deep, mysterious murmurs 
 from behind, which, notwithstanding their clear import, 
 sounded horribly insane somehow. 
 
 The contrast of Heyst's quiet, polished manner gave 
 her special delight and filled her with admiration. She had 
 never seen anything like that before. If she had, perhaps, 
 known kindness in her life, she had never met the forms 
 of simple courtesy. She was interested by it as by a very 
 novel experience, not very intelligible, but distinctly 
 pleasurable. 
 
 "I tell you they are too many for me," she repeated, 
 sometimes recklessly, but more often shaking her head 
 with ominous dejection. 
 
 She had, of course, no money at all. The quantities 
 of "black men" all about frightened her. She really had 
 no definite idea where she was on the surface of the globe. 
 The orchestra was generally taken from the steamer to 
 some hotel, and kept shut up there till it was time to go 
 on board another steamer. She could not remember the 
 names she heard. 
 
 "How do you call this place again?" she used to ask 
 Heyst. 
 
 "Sourabaya," he would say distinctly, and would watch 
 the discouragement at the outlandish sound coming into 
 her eyes, which were fastened on his face. 
 
 He could not defend himself from compassion. He 
 suggested that she might go to the consul, but it was his 
 conscience that dictated this advice, not his conviction. 
 She had never heard of the animal or of its uses, A 
 consul! What was it? Who was he? What could he do? 
 And when she learned that perhaps he could be induced 
 to send her home, her iiead dropped on her breast. 
 
 "What am I to do when I get there?" she murmured 
 with an intonation so just, with an accent so penetrating 
 —the charm of her voice did not fail her even in whisper-
 
 VICTORY 77 
 
 ing — that Heyst seemed to see the illusion of human 
 fellowship on earth vanish before the naked truth of her 
 existence, and leave them both face to face in a moral 
 desert as arid as the sands of Sahara, without restful 
 shade, without refreshing water. 
 
 She leaned slightly over the little table, the same little 
 table at which they had sat when they first met each other ; 
 and with no other memories but of the stones in the 
 streets her childhood had known, in the distress of the 
 incoherent, confused, rudimentary impressions of her 
 travels inspiring her with a vague terror of the world, 
 she said rapidly, as one speaks in desperation : 
 
 "You do something! You are a gentleman. It wasn't I 
 who spoke to you first, was it? I didn't begin, did I? It 
 was you who came along and spoke to me when I was 
 standing over there. What did you want to speak to me 
 for? I don't care what it is, but 3^ou must do something." 
 
 Her attitude was fierce and entreating at the same time 
 — clamorous, in fact, though her voice had hardly risen, 
 above a breath. It was clamorous enough to be noticed. 
 Heyst, on purpose, laughed aloud. She nearly choked with 
 indignation at this brutal heartlessness. 
 
 "What did you mean, then, by saying 'command me'?" 
 she almost hissed. 
 
 Something hard in his mirthless stare, and a quiet 
 final "All right," steadied her. 
 
 "I am not rich enough to buy you out," he went on, 
 speaking with an extraordinary detached grin, "even if it 
 were to be done ; but I can always steal you." 
 
 She looked at him profoundly, as though these word? 
 had a hidden and very complicated meaning. 
 
 "Get away now," he said rapidly, "and try to smile as 
 you go." 
 
 She obeyed with unexpected readiness ; and as she had 
 a set of very good white teeth, the efifect of the mechani- 
 cal, ordered smile was joyous, radiant. It astonishe<i
 
 /8 VICTORY 
 
 He3'st. No wonder, it flashed though his mind, women 
 can deceive men so completely. The faculty was inherent 
 in them ; they seemed to be created with a special aptitude. 
 Here was a smile the origin of which was well known 
 to him ; and yet it had conveyed a sensation of warmth, 
 had given him a sort of ardour to live which was very 
 new to his experience. 
 
 By this time she was gone from the lable, and had 
 joined the other "ladies of the orchestra." They trooped 
 towards the platform, driven in truculently by the haughty 
 mate of Zangiacomo, who lookea as though she were re- 
 straining herself with difficulty from punching their backs. 
 Zangiacomo followed, with his great, pendulous dyed 
 beard and short mess-jacket, with an aspect of hang-dog 
 concentration imparted by his drooping head and the un- 
 easiness of his eyes, which were set very close together. 
 He climbed the steps last of all, turned about, displaying 
 his purple beard to the hall, and tapped with his bow. 
 Heyst winced in anticipation of the horrible racket. It 
 burst out immediately unabashed and awful. At the end 
 of the platform the woman at the piano, presenting her 
 cruel profile, her head tilted back, banged the keys without 
 looking at the music. 
 
 Heyst could not stand the uproar for more than a 
 minute. He went out, his brain racked by the rhythm of 
 some more or less Hungarian dance music. The forests 
 inhabited by the New Guinea cannibals where he had en- 
 countered the most exciting of his earlier futile adven- 
 tures were silent. And this adventure, not in its execution, 
 perhaps, but in its nature, required even m.ore nerve than 
 anything he had faced before. Walking among the paper 
 lanterns suspended to trees he remembered with regret the 
 gloom and the dead stillness of the forests at the back 
 of Geelvink Bay, perhaps the wildest, the unsafest, the 
 tnost deadly spot on earth from which the sea can be 
 seen. Oppressed by his thoughts, he sought the obscurity
 
 VICTORY 79 
 
 rind peace of his bedroom ; but they were not complete 
 The distant sounds of the concert reached his ear, faint 
 indeed but still disturbing. Neither did he feel very safe 
 in there ; for that sentiment depends not on extraneous 
 circumstances but on our inward conviction. He did not 
 attempt to go to sleep ; he did not even unbutton the top 
 button of his tunic. He sat in a chair and mused. For- 
 merly, in solitude and in silence, he had been used to 
 think clearly and sometimes even profoundly, seeing life 
 outside the flattering optical delusion of everlasting hope, 
 of conventional self-deceptions, of an ever-expected hap- 
 piness. But now he was troubled; a light veil seemed tc 
 hang before his mental vision ; the awakening of a tender- 
 ness, indistinct and confused as yet, towards an unknowr 
 woman. 
 
 Gradually silence, a real silence, had established itseli 
 round him. The concert was over ; the audience had gone ; 
 the concert-hall was dark ; and even the PaviHon, where 
 the ladies' orchestra slept after its noisy labours, showed 
 not a gleam of light. Heyst suddenly felt restless in alf 
 his Hmbs. As this reaction from the long immobility would 
 not be denied, he humoured it by passing quietly alon^ 
 the back verandah and out into the grounds at the side of 
 the house, into the black shadows under the trees, where 
 the extinguished paper lanterns were gently swinging 
 their globes like withered fruit. 
 
 He paced there to and fro for a long time, a calrr. 
 meditative ghost in his white drill suit, revolving in his 
 head thoughts absolutely novel, disquieting, and seductive ; 
 accustoming his mind to the contemplation of his purpose, 
 in order that by being faced steadily it should appear 
 praiseworthy and wise. For the use of reason is to justify 
 the obscure desires that move our conduct, impulses, pas- 
 sions, prejudices and follies, and also our fears. 
 
 He felt that he had engaged himself by a rash promise 
 ^o an action big with incalculable consequences. And
 
 Bo VICTORY 
 
 then he asked himself if the girl had understood what he 
 meant. Who could tell? He was assailed by all sorts of 
 doubts. Raising his head, he perceived something white 
 flitting between the trees. It vanished almost at once ; but 
 there could be no mistake. He was vexed at being detected 
 roaming like this in the middle of the night. Who could 
 that be? It never occurred to him that perhaps the girl, 
 too, would not be able to sleep. He advanced prudently. 
 Then he saw the white, phantom-like apparition again; 
 and next moment all his doubts as to the state of her mind 
 were laid at rest, because he felt her clinging to him after 
 the manner of supplicants all the world over. Her whis- 
 pers were so incoherent that he could not understand 
 anything; but this did not prevent him from being pro- 
 foundly moved. He had no illusions about her ; but his 
 sceptical mind was dominated by the fulness of his heart. 
 
 "Calm yourself, calm yourself," he murmured in her 
 ear, returning her clasp at first mechanically, and after- 
 ward with a growing appreciation of her distressed 
 humanity. The heaving of her breast and the trembling 
 of all her limbs, in the closeness of his embrace, seemed to 
 enter his body, to infect his very heart. While she was 
 growing quieter in his arms, he was becoming more agi- 
 tated, as if there were only a fixed quantity of violent 
 emotion on this earth. The very night seemed more dumb, 
 more still, and the immobility of the vague, black shapes 
 surrounding him more perfect. 
 
 "It will be all right," he tried to reassure her, with a 
 tone of conviction, speaking into her ear, and of necessity 
 clasping her more closely than before. 
 
 Either the words or the action had a very good effect. 
 He heard a light sigh of relief. She spoke with a calmed 
 ardour. 
 
 "Oh, I knew it would be all right from the first time 
 you spoke to me ! Yes, indeed, I knew directly you came 
 top to me that evening. I knew it wouldjbe all right, if you
 
 VICTORY 8« 
 
 only cared to make it so ; but of course I could not tell if 
 you meant it. 'Command me,' you said. Funny thing for a 
 man like you to say. Did you really mean it ? You weren't 
 making fun of me?" 
 
 He protested that he had been a serious person all his 
 life. 
 
 "I believe you," she said ardently. He was touched by 
 this declaration. "It's the way you have of speaking as if 
 you were amused with people," she went on. "But J 
 wasn't deceived. I could see you were angry with that 
 l)east of a woman. And you are clever. You spotted some- 
 thing at once. You saw it in my face, eh? It isn't a bad 
 face — say ? You'll never be sorry. Listen — I'm not twenty 
 yet. It's the truth, and I can't be so bad looking, or else — • 
 I will tell you straight that I have been worried and pes- 
 tered by fellows like this before. I don't know what comes 
 to them " 
 
 She was speaking hurriedly. She choked, and then 
 exclaimed, with an accent of despair : 
 
 "What is it? What's the matter?" 
 
 Heyst had removed his arms from her suddenly, and 
 had recoiled a little. "Is it my fault? I didn't even lool< 
 at them, I tell you straight. Never! Have I looked at you? 
 Tell me. It was you that began it." 
 
 In truth, Heyst had shrunk from the idea of competition 
 with fellows unknown, with Schomberg the hotel-keeper. 
 The vaporous white figure before him swayed pitifully 
 in the darkness. He felt ashamed of his fastidiousness. 
 
 "I am afraid we have been detected," he murmured. 
 "I think I saw somebody on the path between the house 
 and the bushes behind you." 
 
 He had seen no one. It was a compassionate lie, if 
 there ever was one. His compassion was as genuine a? 
 his shrinking had been, and in his judgment more honour- 
 able. 
 
 She didn't turn her head. She was obviously relieved
 
 8a \' I C T O R Y 
 
 "Would it be that brute?" she breathed out. meaning 
 Schonibcrp, of course. "He's (jetting too forward with 
 me now. What can you expect? Only this evening, after 
 supper, he — hut I sIii)iH<l away. You don't mind him, do 
 you? Why, I could face hmi myself now that I know 
 you care for me. A j^'irl can always put up a fiRht. You 
 l)clieve me? Only it isn't easy to stand up for yourself 
 when you feel there's nothinj;» and nobody at your back. 
 There's nothinij so lonely in the world as a girl who has 
 pot to look after herself. When I left poor dad in that 
 home — it was in the country, near a village — I came out 
 of the pates with seven shillings and threepence in my 
 old purse, and my railway ticket. I tramiKd a mile, and 
 got into a train " 
 
 She broke otT, and was silent for a moment. 
 
 "Don't you throw me over now," she went on. "If you 
 did, what slundd I di)' I should have to live, to be sure, 
 because I'd be afraid to kill myself ; but you would have 
 done a thousand times worse than kiliin;.^ a Iwdy. You 
 told me you had been always alone, you had never had 
 a dog, even. Well, then. I won't be in anybody's way 
 if I live with you — not even a dog's. And what else did 
 you mean when you came up and looked at me so close?" 
 
 "Close? Did I?*' he murmured unstirring before her 
 in the profound darkness. "So close as that?" 
 
 She had an outbreak of anger and despair in subdued 
 tones. 
 
 "Have you forgotten, then? What did you expect to 
 find? I know what sort of girl I am: but all the same I 
 am not the sort that men turn their backs on — and you 
 ought to know it, unless you aren't made Hke the others. 
 Oh, forgive me ! You aren't like the others : you are like 
 vio one in the world I ever spoke to. Don't you care for 
 me? Don't you see ?" 
 
 What he saw was that, white and spectral, she was put- 
 ting out her arms to him out of the black shadows like
 
 V I C T v) R V H3 
 
 an appealing ghost. He took her hands, and was affected. 
 aUiiost surpribed, to find them so warm, so real, so firm, 
 so living in his grasp. He drew her to him, and she 
 dropped her head on his shoulder with a deep sigh. 
 
 "I am dead tired," she whispered plaintively. 
 
 He put his arms around her. and only by the convul- 
 sive movements of her body became aware that she was 
 sobbing without a sound. Sustaining her. he lost himself 
 in the profound silence of the night. After a while she 
 beaime still, and cried quietly. Then, suddenly, as if 
 waking up, she asked : 
 
 "Vou haven't seen any nvire of that somebody you 
 thought was spying about ?" 
 
 He started at her quick, sharp whisper, and answered 
 that ver>' likely he liad been mistaken. 
 
 "If it was anybody at all," she reflected aloud, "it 
 wouldn't have been any one but that hotel woman — the 
 landlord's wife." 
 
 "Mrs. Schomberg?" Heyst said, surprised. 
 
 "Ves. Another one that can't sleep o' nights. Why? 
 Don't you see why? Because, of course, she sees what's 
 going on. That beast doesn't even try to keep it from 
 her. H she had only the least bit of spirit! She knows 
 how I feel, too, only she's too frightened even to look 
 him in the face, let alone open her mouth. He would tell 
 her to go hang herself." 
 
 Fur some time Heyst said nothing. A public, active 
 contest with the hotel-keeper was not to be thought of. 
 The idea was horrible. Whispering gentl> to the girl, he 
 tried to explain to her that as things stood, an open with- 
 drawal from the company would be probably opposed. 
 She listened to his explanation anxiously, from time to 
 time pressing the hand she had sought and got hold of 
 in the dark. 
 
 "As I told you, I am not rich enough to buy you out : 
 SG I shall steal you as soon as I can arrange some means
 
 84 V I C r O R Y 
 
 of getting away from lure. Meantime it would be fatal 
 to be seen together at nij^ht. We mustn't give ourselves 
 away. We had better part at once. I think I was mistaken 
 just now; but if, as you say, that poor Mrs. Schombcrg 
 can't sleep of nights, we must be more careful. She would 
 tell the fellow." 
 
 The girl had disengaged herself from his l(>)se hold 
 while he talked, and now stotxl free of him, hut still 
 clasping his hand lirmly. 
 
 "Oh, no." she said with |)<.-rfect assurance. "I tell you 
 she daren't o|)en her mouth to him. And she isn't as silly 
 as she looks. She woiddn't give us away. She knows a 
 trick worth two of that. She'll help — that's what she'll 
 <1(). if she dares do anything at all." 
 
 "Vou seem to have a very clear view of the situation, 
 said Heyst, and received a warm, lingering kiss for this 
 conunendation. 
 
 He discovered ih.it to part from her was not such an 
 easy matter as he had supi)<)sed it would be. 
 
 "Upon my word," he said before they separated. "I 
 don't even know your name." 
 
 "Don't you? They call me .\Ima. I don't know why. 
 Silly name! Magdalen t(Mj. It doesn't matter; you can call 
 me by whatever name you choose. Yes, you give me a 
 name. Think of one you would like the sound of — some- 
 thing quite new. How I should like to forget everything 
 that has gone lie fore, as one forgets a dream that's done 
 with, fright and all ! I would try." 
 
 "Would you really?" he asked in a murmur. "Hut 
 that's not forbidden. I understand that women easily for- 
 get whatever in their past diminishes them in their eyes." 
 
 "It's your eyes that I was thinking of, for I'm sure 
 I've never wished to forget anything till you came up 
 to me that night and looked me through and through. I 
 know I'm not much account ; but I know how to stand by 
 a man. I stood bv father evir since I couH understand.
 
 VICTORY 85 
 
 He wasn't a bad chap. Now that I can't be of any use 
 to him, I would just as soon forget all that and make a 
 fresh start. But these aren't things that I could talk to 
 you about. What could I ever talk to you about?" 
 
 "Don't let it trouble you," Heyst said. "Your voice is 
 enough. I am in love with it, whatever it says." 
 
 She remained silent for a while, as if rendered breath- 
 less by this quiet statement. 
 
 "Oh ! I wanted to ask you •" 
 
 He remembered that she probably did not know his 
 name, and expected the question to be put to him now; 
 but after a moment of hesitation she went on: 
 
 "Why was it that you told me to smile this evening 
 in the concert-room there — 3'ou remember?" 
 
 "I thought we were being observed. A smile is the best 
 of masks. Schomherg was at a table next but one to us, 
 drinking with some Dutch clerks from the town. No doubt 
 he was watching us — watching you, at least. That's why 
 I asked you to smile." 
 
 "Ah, that's why. It never came into my head." 
 
 "And you did it very well, too — very readily, as if you 
 had understood my intention." 
 
 "Readily!" she repeated. "Oh. I was ready enough to 
 smile then. That's the truth. It was the first time for years 
 I may say that I felt disposed to smile. I've not had many 
 chances to smile in my life. I can tell you; especially 
 of late." 
 
 "But you do it most charmingly — in a perfectly fasci- 
 nating way." 
 
 He paused. She stood still, waiting for more with the 
 stillness of extreme delight, wishing to prolong the 
 sensation. 
 
 "It astonished me," he added. "It went as straight to 
 my heart as though you had smiled for the purpose of 
 dazzling me. I felt as if I had never seen a sn'ile before
 
 Ji6 VICTORY 
 
 in my life. I thought <>f it after I left you. It made nic 
 restless." 
 
 "It did all tlut?" came her voice, unsteady, pcntlc. and 
 incredulous. 
 
 "If you had not smiled as you did, perhaps I should 
 not have come out here to-nij^ht." he said, with his playful 
 earnestness of tone. "It was your triumph." 
 
 He felt her lips touch his li^'htly, and the next moment 
 she was m)iie. Her white dress gleamed in the distance, 
 and then the opaque darkness of the house seemed to 
 swallow it. Hcyst waited a little l)efore he went the same 
 way. round the corner, up the steps of the verandah, and 
 into his room, where he lay down at last — not to sleep, 
 hut to go over in his mind all that had heen said at their 
 meeting. 
 
 "It's exactly true ahx3ut that smile," he thought. There 
 lie had spoken the truth to her; and aixmt her voice, too. 
 hor the rest — what must be must be. 
 
 .•\ great wave of heat passed over him. He turned on 
 his iKick, flung his arms crosswise on the broad, hard bed. 
 and lay still, open-eyed under the mosquito net, till day- 
 light entered his room, brightened swiftly, and turned 
 to unfailing .sunlight. He got up then, went to a small 
 looking-glass hanging on the wall, and stared at himself 
 steadily. It was not a new-born vanity which induced this 
 long survey. He felt so strange that he could not resist 
 the suspicion of his personal appearance having changed 
 during the night. What he saw in the glass, however, was 
 the man he knew before. It was almost a disappointment 
 — a belittling of his recent experience. And then he smiled 
 at his nalvencss ; for. being over five and thirty years of 
 age. he ought to have known that in most cases the body 
 is the unalterable mask of the soul, which even death 
 itself changes but little, till it is put out of sight where 
 no changes matter any more, either to our friends or to 
 Cur enemies-
 
 VICTORY 87 
 
 Heyst was not conscious of either friends or of enemies. 
 It was the very essence of his Hfe to be a sohtary achieve- 
 ment, accompHshed not by hermit-hke withdrawal with 
 its silence and immobility, but by a system of restless 
 wandering, by the detachment of an impermanent dweller 
 amongst changing scenes. In this scheme he had perceived 
 tiie means of passing through life without suffering and 
 almost without a single care in the world — invulnerable 
 because elusive.
 
 Ill 
 
 For fifteen years Heyst had wandered, invariably 
 courteous and unapproachable, and in return was generally 
 considered a "queer chap." He had started oil on these 
 travels of his after the death of his father, an expatriated 
 Swede who died in London, dissatisfied with his country 
 and angry with all the world, which had instinctively 
 rejected his wisdom. 
 
 Thinker, stylist, and man of the world in his time, the 
 elder Heyst had begun by coveting all the joys, those of 
 the great and those of the humble, those of the fools and 
 those of the sages. For more than sixty years he had 
 dragged on this painful earth of ours the most weary, the 
 most uneasy soul that civilisation had ever fashioned to 
 its ends of disillusion and regret. One could not refuse 
 him a measure of greatness, for he was unhappy in a way 
 unknown to mediocre souls. His mother Heyst had never 
 known, but he kept his father's pale, distinguished face 
 in aflfectionate memory. He remembered him mainly in an 
 ample blue dressing-gown in a large house of a quiet 
 London suburb. For three years, after leaving school at 
 the age of eighteen, he had lived with the elder Heyst, 
 who was then writing his last book. In this work, at the 
 end of his life, he claimed for mankind that right to abso- 
 lute moral and intellectual liberty of which he no longer 
 believed them worthy. 
 
 Three years of such companionship at that plastic and 
 impressionable age were bound to leave in the boy a pro- 
 found mistrust of life. The young man learned to reflect, 
 which is a destructive process, a reckoning of the cost. 
 
 88
 
 VICTORY 89 
 
 It is not the clear-sighted who lead the world. Great 
 achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm mental 
 io^, which the pitiless cold blasts of the father's analysis 
 had blown away from the son. 
 
 "Fll drift," Heyst had said to himself deliberately. 
 
 He did not mean intellectually or sentimentally or 
 morally. He meant to drift altogether and literally, body 
 and soul, like a detached leaf drifting in the wind-currents 
 under the immovable trees of a forest glade ; to drift with- 
 out ever catching on to anything. 
 
 "This shall be my defence against life," he had said to 
 himself with a sort of inward consciousness that for the 
 son of his father there was no other worthy alternative. 
 
 He became a waif and stray, austerely, from convic- 
 tion, as others do through drink, from vice, from some 
 weakness of character — with deliberation, as others do in 
 despair. This, stripped of its facts, had been Heyst's life 
 up to that disturbing night. Next day, when he saw the 
 girl called Alma, she managed to give him a glance of 
 frank tenderness, quick as lightning, and leaving a pro- 
 found impression, a secret touch on the heart. It was in 
 the grounds of the hotel, about tiffin time, while the ladies 
 of the orchestra were strolling back to their pavilion aftef 
 rehearsal, or practice, or whatever they called their morn- 
 ing musical exercises in the hall. Heyst. returning from 
 the town, where he had discovered that there would be 
 difficulties in the way of getting away at once, was cross- 
 ing the compound, disappointed and worried. He had 
 walked almost unwittingly into the straggling group of 
 Zangiacomo's performers. It was a shock to him, on 
 coming out of his brown study, to find the girl so near 
 him. as if one waking suddenly should see the figure of 
 his dream turned into flesh and blood. She did not raise 
 her shapely head, but her glance was no dream thing. It 
 was real, the most real impression of his detached exist- 
 ence — so far.
 
 90 VICTORY 
 
 Heyst had not acknowledged it in any way, though it 
 seemed to him impossible that its effect on him should 
 not be visible to any one who happened to be looking on. 
 And there were several men on the verandah, steady 
 customers of Schoniberg's table d'hote, gazing in his direc- 
 tion — at the ladies of the orchestra, in fact. Heyst's dread 
 arose, not out of shame or timidity, but from his 
 fastidiousness On getting amongst them, however, he 
 noticed no signs of interest or astonishment on their faces, 
 iny more than if they had been blind men. Even Schom- 
 l)crg himself, who had to make way for him at the top 
 of the stairs, was completely unperturbed, and continued 
 the conversation he was carrying on with a client. 
 
 Schombcrg, indeed, had observed "that Swede" talking 
 with the girl in the intervals. A crony of his had nudged 
 him ; and he had thought that it was so much the better ; 
 tlie silly fellow would keep everybody else off. He was 
 rather pleased than otherwise and watched them out of 
 the corner of his eye with a malicious enjoyment of the 
 situation — a sort of Satanic glee. For he had little doubt 
 of his personal fascination, and still less of his power to 
 get hold of the girl, who seemed too ignorant to know how 
 to help herself, and who was worse than friendless, since 
 she had for some reason incurred the animosity of Mrs. 
 Zangiacomo, a woman with no conscience. The aversion 
 she showed him as far as she dared (for it is not always 
 safe for the helpless to display the delicacy of their senti- 
 ments), Schomberg pardoned on the score of feminine 
 conventional silliness. He had told Alma, as an argument, 
 that she was a clever enough girl to see that she could do 
 no better than to put her trust in a man of substance, in 
 the prime of life, who knew his way about. But for the 
 excited trembling of his voice, and the extraordinary way 
 in which his eyes seemed to be starting out of his crimson, 
 hirsute countenance, such speeches had every character of
 
 VICTORY 91 
 
 calm, unselfish advice — which, after the manner of lovers, 
 passed easily into sanguine plans for the future. 
 
 "We'll soon get rid of the old woman," he whispered 
 to her hurriedly, with panting ferocity. "Hang her! I've 
 never cared for her. The climate don't suit her; I shall 
 tell her to go to her people in Europe. She will have to go, 
 too! I will see to it. Eins, zzvei, march! And then we shall 
 sell this hotel and start another somewhere else." 
 
 He assured her that he didn't care what he did for her 
 sake ; and it was true. Forty-five is the age of recklessness 
 for many men, as if in defiance of the decay and death 
 waiting with open arms in the sinister valley at the bottom 
 of the inevitable hill. Her shrinking form, her downcast 
 eyes, when she had to listen to him, cornered at the end 
 of an empty corridor, he regarded as signs of submission 
 to the overpowering force of his will, the recognition of 
 his personal fascinations. For every age is fed on illusions, 
 lest men should renounce life early and the human race 
 come to an end. 
 
 It's easy to imagine Schomberg's humiliation, his 
 shocked fury, when he discovered that the girl who had 
 tor weeks resisted his attacks, his prayers, and his fiercest 
 protestations, had been snatched from under his nose by 
 "that Swede," apparently without any trouble worth 
 speaking of. He refused to believe the fact. He would 
 have it, at first, that the Zangiacomos, for some unfathom- 
 able reason, had played him a scurvy trick ; but when no 
 further doubt was possible, he changed his view of Heyst. 
 The despised Swede became for Schomberg the deepest, 
 the most dangerous, the most hateful of scoundrels. He 
 could not believe that the creature he had coveted with 
 so much force and with so little effect, was in reality ten- 
 der, docile to her impulses, and had almost ofifered herself 
 to Heyst without a sense of guilt, in a desire of safety, 
 and from a profound need of placing her trust where
 
 92 
 
 \- 1 c r O R Y 
 
 her woman's instinct guided her ignorance. Nothing woiila 
 serve Schomberg but tliat she must have l)een circum- 
 vented by some occult exercise of force or craft, by the 
 laying of some subtle trap. His wounded vanity wondered 
 ceaselessly at the means "that Swede" had employed t(> 
 seduce her away from a man like him — Schomberg — as 
 though those means were bound to have been extraordi- 
 nary, unheard of, inconceivable. He slapped his forehead 
 openly before his customers; he would sit brooding in 
 silence or else would burst out unexpectedly declaiming 
 against Heyst without measure, discretion or prudenc: 
 with swollen features and an affectation of outraged vir- 
 tue which could not have deceived the mnst childlike of 
 moralists for a moment — and greatly amused his audience. 
 
 It became a recognised entertainment to go and hear 
 his abuse of Heyst, while si[)ping iced drinks on the 
 verandah of the hotel. It was. in a manner, a more suc- 
 cessful draw than the Zangiacomo concerts had ever been 
 — intervals and all. There was never any difficulty in .start- 
 ing the performer off. Anybody could do it, by almost 
 any distant allusion. As likely as not he would start his 
 endless denunciations in the very billiard-room where Mrs. 
 Schomberg sat enthroned as usual, swallowing her .sobs, 
 concealing her tortures of abject humiliation and terror 
 under her stupid, set. everlasting grin, which, having been 
 provided for her by nature, was an excellent mask, inas- 
 much as nothing — not even death itself, perhaps — could 
 tear it away. 
 
 But nothing lasts in this world, at least without chang- 
 ing its physiognomy. So, after a few weeks, Schoml)erg 
 regained his outward calm, as if his indignation had dried 
 up within him. And it was time. He was becoming a bore 
 with his inability to talk of anything else but Heyst's 
 unfitness to be at large, Heyst's wickedness, his wiles, 
 his astuteness, and his criminality. Schomberg no longer 
 pretendedtc despise him. He could not have done it.
 
 VICTORY 9j 
 
 After what had happened he could not pretend, even to 
 himself. But his bottled-up indignation was fermenting 
 venomously. At the time of his immoderate loquacity one 
 of his customers, an elderly man. had remarked one 
 evening : 
 
 "If that ass keeps on like this, he will end by going 
 crazy." 
 
 And this belief was less than half wrong. Schomberg 
 had Heyst on the brain. Even the unsatisfactory state 
 of his affairs, which had never been so unpromising since 
 he came out East directly after the Franco-Prussian War, 
 he referred to some subtly noxious influence of Heyst. 
 It seemed to him that he could never be himself again till 
 he had got even with that artful Swede. He was ready 
 to swear that Heyst had ruined his life. The girl so 
 unfairly, craftily, basely decoyed away would have in- 
 spired him to success in a new start. Obviously Mrs. 
 Schomberg, whom he terrified by savagely silent moods 
 combined with underhand, poisoned glances, could give 
 him no inspiration. He had grown generally neglectful 
 but with a partiality for reckless expedients, as if he did 
 not care when and how his career as a hotel-keeper wa.s 
 to be brought to an end. This demoralized state accounted 
 for what Davidson had observed on his last visit to the 
 Schomberg establishment, some two months after Heyst's 
 secret departure with the girl to the solitude of Samburan. 
 
 The Schomberg of a few years ago — the Schomberg 
 of the Bangkok days, for instance, when he started the 
 first of his famed table-d'hote dinners — would never have 
 risked anything of the sort. His genius ran to catering, 
 '"white man for white men," and to the inventing, elabo- 
 rating, and retailing of scandalous gossip with asinine 
 unction and .mpudent delight. But now his mind was 
 perverted by the pangs of wounded vanity and of 
 thwarted passion. In this state of moral weakness Schom- 
 l)erg allowed himself to be corrupted.
 
 IV 
 
 The business was done by a guest who arrived one 
 fine mornini; by mail-boat — immediately from Celebes, 
 having boarded her in Macassar, but generally, Schoni- 
 berg understood, from up China Sea way ; a wanderer 
 clearly, even as Heyst was, but not alone and of quite 
 another kind. 
 
 Schomberg, looking up from the stcrn-shcets of his 
 steam-launch, which he used for boarding passenger 
 ships on arrival, discovered a dark, sunken stare plung- 
 ing down on him over the rail of the first-class part of 
 the deck. He was no great judge of physiognomy. Human 
 beings, for him, were either the objects of scandalous 
 gossip or else the recipients of narrow strips of paper, 
 with proper bill-heads stating the name of his hotel. — "W, 
 Schomberg, proprietor; accounts settled weekly." 
 
 So in the clean-shaven, extremely thin face hanging 
 over the mail-boat's rail Schomberg saw only the face 
 of a possible "account." The steam-launches of other 
 hotels were also alongside, but he obtained the preference. 
 
 "You are Mr. Schomberg, aren't you?" the face asked 
 quite unexpectedly. 
 
 "I am, at your service," he answered from below ; for 
 business is business, and its forms and formulas must be 
 observed, even if one's manly bosom is tortured by that 
 dull rage which succeeds the fury of baffled passion, like 
 the glow of embers after a fierce blaze. 
 
 Presently the possessor of the handsome but emaciated 
 face was seated beside Schomberg in the stern-sheets of 
 the launch. His body was long and loose-jointed ; his 
 slender fingers, intertwined, clasped the leg resting on his
 
 VICTORY 93 
 
 knee, as he lolled back in a careless yet tense attitude. 
 On the other side of Schomberg sat another passenger, 
 who was introduced by the clean-shaven man as — 
 
 "My secretary. He must have the room next to mine." 
 "We can manage that easily for you." 
 Schomberg steered with dignity, staring straight ahead, 
 but very much interested by these two promising "ac- 
 counts." Their belongings, a couple of large leather trunks 
 browned by age and a few smaller packages, were piled 
 up in the bows. A third individual — a nondescript, hairy 
 creature — had modestly made his way forward and had 
 perched himself on the luggage. The lower part of his 
 physiognomy was over-developed ; his narrow and low 
 forehcr.d, unintelligently furrowed by horizontal wrinkles, 
 surmounted wildly hirsute cheeks and a flat nose with 
 wide, balxion-like nostrils. There was something equivocal 
 in the appearance of his shaggy, hair-smothered humanity. 
 jHe, too, seemed to be a follower of the clean-shaven man, 
 and apparently had travelled on deck with native passen- 
 gers, sleeping under the awnings. His broad, squat frame 
 denoted great strength. Grasping the gtmwales of the 
 launch, he displayed a pair of remarkably long arms, 
 terminating m thick, brown hairy paws of simian aspect. 
 
 "What shall we do with that fellow of mine?" the 
 chief of the party asked Schomberg. "There must be a 
 boarding-house somewhere near the port — some grog-shop 
 where they could let him have a mat to sleep on?" 
 
 Schomberg said there was a place kept by a Portu- 
 guese half-caste. 
 
 "A servant of yours?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, he hangs on to me. He is an alligator-hunter, 
 I picked him up in Colombia, you know. Ever been in 
 Colombia?" 
 
 "No," said Schomberg, very much surprised. "An 
 alligator-hunter? Funny trade! Are you coming from 
 Colombia, then?"
 
 96 VICTORY 
 
 "Yes, but I have been coniinj:; for a long time. I conic 
 from a good many places. 1 am travelling west, you see." 
 "For sport, jjcrhaps?" suggested Schomberg. 
 "Yes. Sort of sport. What do you say to chasing the 
 
 sun 
 
 ?" 
 
 "I see — a gentleman at large," said Schomberg, watch- 
 ing a sailing canoe about to cross his bow, and ready 
 lo clear it by a touch of the helm. 
 
 The other passenger made himself heard suddenly. 
 
 "Hang these native craft ! They always get in the way." 
 
 He was a muscular, short man with eyes that gleamed 
 and blinked, a harsh voice, and a round, toneless, pock- 
 marked face ornamented by a thin, dishevelled moustache 
 sticking out quaintly under tiie tip of a rigid nose. Schom- 
 berg made the reflection that there was nothing secretarial 
 about him. Both he and his long, lank principal wore the 
 usual white suit of the tropics, cork helmets. ])ipe-claycd 
 white shoes — all correct. The hairy nondescript creature 
 perched on their luggage in the bow had a check shirt 
 and blue dungaree trousers. He gazed in their direction 
 from forward in an expectant, trained-animal manner. 
 
 "You spoke to me first," said Schomberg in his manly 
 tones. "You were acquainted with my name. Where did 
 you hear of me, gentlemen, may I ask?" 
 
 "In Manila," answered the gentleman at large, readily. 
 "From a man with whom I had a game of cards one eve- 
 ning in the Hotel Castille." 
 
 "What man? Fve no friends in Manila that I know 
 of." wondered Schomberg with a severe frown. 
 
 "I can't tell you his name. Fve clean forgotten it ; but 
 don't you worry. He was an}-thing but a friend of yours. 
 He called you all the names he could think of. He said 
 you set a lot of scandal going about him once, somewhere 
 — in Bangkok, I think. Yes, that's it. You were running 
 i table d'hote in Bangkok at one time, weren't you?" 
 
 Schomberg, astounded by the turn of the information,
 
 VICTORY <,7 
 
 could only throw out his chest more ana exagg"erate his 
 austere Lieutenant-of-the-Reserve manner. A table d'hote? 
 Yes, certainly. He always — for the sake of white men. 
 And here in this place, too? Yes, in this place, too. 
 
 "That's all right, then." The stranger turned his black, 
 cavernous, mesmerising glance away from the bearded 
 Schomberg, who sat gripping the brass tiller in a sweating 
 palm. "Many people in the evening at your place?" 
 
 Schomberg had recovered somewhat. 
 
 "Twenty covers or so, take one day with another," he 
 answered feelingly, as befitted a subject on which he was 
 sensitive. "Ought to be more, if only people would see 
 that it's for their own good. Precious little profit I get 
 out of it. You are partial to table d'hotes, gentlemen?" 
 
 The new guest made answer that he liked a hotel where 
 one could find some local people in the evening. It was 
 infernally dull otherwise. The secretary, in sign of ap- 
 proval, emitted a grunt of astonishing ferocity, as if pro- 
 posing to himself to eat the local people. All this sounded 
 like a longish stay, thought Schomberg, satisfied under 
 his grave air ; till, remembering the girl snatched away 
 from him by the last guest who had made a prolonged 
 stay in his hotel, he ground his teeth so audibly that the 
 other two looked at him in wonder. The momentary con- 
 vulsion of his florid physiognomy seemed to strike them 
 dumb. They exchanged a quick glance. Presently the clean- 
 shaven man fired out another question in his curt, uncere- 
 monious manner : 
 
 "You have no women in your hotel, eh?" 
 
 "Women!" Schomberg exclaimed indignantly, but also 
 as if a little frightened. "What on earth do you mean by 
 women? What women? There's Mrs. Schomberg, of 
 course," he added, suddenly appeased, with lofty indiffer- 
 ince. 
 
 "If she knows how to keep her place, then it will rU»
 
 98 VICTORY 
 
 I can't stand women near nie. They give me the horrors,** 
 declared the other, "They are a perfect curse!" 
 
 During this outburst the secretary wore a savage grin. 
 The chief guest closed his sunken eyes, as if exhausted, 
 and leaned the back of his head against the stanchion of 
 the awning. In this pose, his long feminine eyelashes were 
 very noticeable, and his regular features, sharp line of 
 the jaw, and well-cut chin were brought into prominence, 
 giving liim a used-up, weary, depraved distinction. He did 
 not open his eyes till the steam-launch touched the quay. 
 Then he and the other man got ashore quickly, entered 
 a carriage, and drove away to the hotel, leaving Schom- 
 berg to looiv after their luggage and take care of their 
 strange companion. The latter, looking more like a per- 
 forming bear abandoned by his showmen than a human 
 being, followed all Schomberg's movements step by step, 
 close behind his back, muttering to himself in a language 
 that sounded like seme sort of uncouth Spanish. The hotel- 
 keeper felt uncomfortable till at last he got rid of him at 
 an obscure den where a very clean, portly Portuguese 
 half-caste, standing serenely in the doorway, seemed to 
 understand exactly how to deal with clients of every kind. 
 He took from the creature the strapped bundle it had 
 been hugging closely through all its peregrinations in that 
 strange town, and cut short Schomberg's attempts at ex- 
 planation by a most confident — 
 
 "I comprehend very well, sir." 
 
 "It's more than I do," thought Schomberg, going away 
 thankful at being relieved of the alligator-hunter's com- 
 pany. He wondered what these fellows were, without 
 being able to form a guess of sufficient probability. Their 
 names he learned that very day by direct inquiry — ^"to 
 enter in my books," he explained in his formal military 
 manner, chest thrown out, beard very much in evidence. 
 
 The shaven man, sprawling in a long chair, with his 
 air of withered youth, raised his eyes languidly.
 
 VICTORY 90 
 
 "My name? Oh, plain Mr. Jones — put that down — a 
 ^^entleman at large. And this is Ricardo." The pock-marked 
 man, lying prostrate in another long chair, made a grimace, 
 as if something had tickled the end of his nose, hut did 
 not come out of his supineness. "Martin Ricardo, secre- 
 tary. You don't want any more of our history, do you? 
 Eh, what? Occupation? Put down, well — tourists. We've 
 lieen called harder names before now; it won't hurt our 
 ieclings. And that fellow of mine — where did you tuck 
 him away? Oh, he will be all right. When he wants any- 
 thing he'll take it. He's Peter. Citizen of Colombia, Peter, 
 Pedro — I don't know that he ever had any other name. 
 Pedro, alligator-hunter. Oh, yes — I'll pay his board with 
 the half-caste. Can't help myself. He's so confoundedly 
 devoted to me that if I were to give him the sack he would 
 fly at my throat. Shall I tell you how I killed his brother 
 in the wilds of Colombia? Well, perhaps some other time 
 — it's a rather long story. What I shall always regret 
 is that I didn't kill him, too. I could have done it without 
 any extra trouble then ; now it's too late. Great nuisance ; 
 but he's useful sometimes. I hope you are not going to 
 put all this in your book?" 
 
 The offhand, hard manner and the contemptuous tone 
 of "plain Mr. Jones" disconcerted Schomberg utterly. He 
 had never been spoken to like this in his life. He shook 
 his head in silence and withdrew, not exactly scared — • 
 though he was in reality of a timid dispositon under his 
 manly exterior — but distinctly mystified and impressed.
 
 TiiRF.K weeks later, after putting his cash-box away 
 in the safe which ftlled witli its iron bulk a corner of 
 their beilrooin, Schoinherj^ tunud towards his wife, but 
 without looking at her exactly, and said : 
 
 "I must ^et rid of these two. It won't do!" 
 
 Mrs. Schonil>crj^ luul entertained that very opinion 
 from the first ; but she had been broken years a^ni into 
 kcepinj^ her opinions to herself. Sitting in her night attire 
 in the light of a single caiulle. she was careful not to make 
 a sound, knowing from exi)erience that her very assent 
 would be resented. With her eyes she followed the tigtire 
 of Schomberg, clad in his sleeping suit, and nutving rest- 
 lessly about the room. 
 
 He never glanced her way, for the reason that Mrs. 
 SchomlK'rg, in lu-r night attire, lookcfl the most unattrac- 
 tive object in existence — miserable, insigniticant. faded, 
 crushed, old. And the contrast with the feminine form 
 he had ever in his mind's eye made his wife's appearance 
 painful to his esthetic sense. 
 
 Schomberg walked about swearing and fuming for the 
 purpose of screwing his courage up to the sticking ]ioint. 
 
 "Hang me if I ought not to go now, at once, this 
 minute, into his bedroom, and tell him to be ott — him 
 and that secretary of hi.s — early in the morning. I don't 
 mind a round game of cards, but to make a decoy of my 
 table d'hote — my blood boils! He came here because some 
 lying rziscal in Manila told him I kept a table d'hote." 
 
 He said these things, not for Mrs. Schomberg's infor- 
 mation, but simply thinking aloud, and trying to work 
 
 lOO
 
 VICTORY loi 
 
 his fury up to a point where it would give him courage 
 enough to face "plain Mr. Jones." 
 
 "Impudent, overbearing, swindling sharper," he went 
 on. "I have a good mind to " 
 
 He was beside himself in his lurid, heavy, Teutonic 
 manner, so unlike the picturesque, lively rage of the Latin 
 races ; and though his eyes strayed about irresolutely, yet 
 his swollen, angry features awakened in the miserable 
 woman over whom he had been tyrannising for years a 
 tear for his precious carcass, since the poor creature had 
 nothing else but that to hold on to in the world. She 
 knew him well ; but she did not know him altogether. The 
 last thing a woman will consent to discover in a man whom 
 she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of 
 courage. And, timid in her corner, she ventured to say 
 pressingly : 
 
 "Be careful, Wilhelm ! Remember the knives and re- 
 volvers in their trunks." 
 
 In guise of thanks for that anxious reminder, he swore 
 horribly in the direction of her shrinking person. In her 
 scanty night-dress, and barefooted, she recalled a mediae- 
 val penitent being reproved for her sins in blasphemous 
 terms. Those lethal weapons were always present to 
 Schomberg's mind. Personally, he had never seen them. 
 His part, ten days after his guests' arrival, had been to 
 lounge in manly, careless attitudes on the verandah — 
 keeping watch — while Mrs. Schomberg, provided with a 
 bunch of assorted keys, her discoloured teeth chattering 
 and her globular eyes absolutely idiotic with fright, was 
 "going through" the luggage of these strange clients. 
 Her terrible Wilhelm had insisted on it. 
 
 "I'll be on the look-out, I tell you," he said. "I shall 
 give you a whistle when I see them coming back. You 
 couldn't whistle. And if he were to catch you at it, and 
 chuck you out by the scrulT of the neck, it wouldn't hurt 
 vou much; but he won't touch a woman. Not he! He
 
 io« VICTORY 
 
 has told nic so. AtTccted Ijcast. I must find oiit scmiething 
 about tlicir little game, and so there's an end of it. Go 
 m! Go now! Quick march!" 
 
 It had l)ccn an awful jo|>; but she did go in, Ijccausc 
 she was much more afraid of Schoml)crg tlian of any 
 possible consequences of the act. Her greatest concern 
 was lest no key of the bunch he had provided her with 
 should fit the locks. It would have been such a di.sap|K)int- 
 mcnt for W ilhelm. However, the trunks, slic found, had 
 l)ecn left open; but her investigation did not last long. 
 She was fri«,'htrncd of fircarnis, and generally of all 
 weapons, not from personal cowanlice, but as some women 
 are, almost su{)crstitiously, from an abstract horror of 
 violence and murder. She was out again on the verandah 
 long before VVilliclm had any occasion for a warning 
 whistle. The instinctive, motiveless fear being the most 
 difficult to overcome, nothing could induce her to return 
 to her investigations, neither threatening growls nor fero- 
 cious hisses, nor yet a poke or two in the ribs. 
 
 "Stupid female!" muttered the hotel-keeper, perturbed 
 by the notion of that armoury in one of his bedrooms. 
 This was from no abstract sentiment ; with him it was 
 constitutional. "Get out of my sigiit ! " he snarled. "G<j 
 and dress yourself for the table d'hote." 
 
 Left to himself, Schomberg had meditated. What the 
 devil did ♦his mean? His thinking processes were sluggish 
 and spasmodic; but suddenly the truth came to him. 
 
 "By heavens, they are desjxjradoes !" he thought. 
 
 Just then he beheld "plain Mr. Jones" and his secretary 
 with the ambiguous name rif Ricardo entering the grounds 
 of the hotel. They had lieeu down to the port on some 
 business, and now were returning; Mr. Jones lank, spare. 
 opening his long legs with antjular regularity like a pair 
 of compasses, the other stepping out briskly by his side. 
 Conviction entered Schoniberg's heart. They were two 
 desperadoes — no doubt about it. But as the funk which
 
 VICTORY lo.^ 
 
 he experienced was merely a general sensation, he 
 managed to put on his most severe Officer-of-the-Reserve 
 manner, long before they had closed with him. 
 
 "Good morning, gentlemen." 
 
 Being answered with derisive civility, he became con- 
 firmed in his sudden conviction of their desperate charac 
 ter. The way Mr. Jones turned his hollow eyes on one. 
 like an incurious spectre, and the way the other, when 
 addressed, suddenly retracted his lips and exhibited his 
 teeth without looking round — here was evidence enough 
 to settle that point. Desperadoes. They passed through 
 the billiard-room, inscrutably mysterious, to the back ot 
 the house, to join their violated trunks. 
 
 ■'Tiffin bell will ring in five minutes, gentlemen," 
 Schomberg called after them, exaggerating the deep man- 
 liness of his tone. 
 
 He had managed to upset himself very much. He ex 
 pected to see them come back infuriated and begin to 
 bully him with an odious lack of restraint. Desperadoes! 
 However they didn't ; they l^ad not noticed anything un- 
 usual about their trunks and Schomberg recovered his 
 composure and said to himself that he must get rid of 
 this deadly incubus as soon as practicable. They couldn't 
 possibly want to stay very long ; this was not the town — 
 the colony — for desperate characters. He shrank from 
 action. He dreaded any kind of disturbance — "fracas," 
 he called it — in his hotel. Such things were not good for 
 business. Of course, sometimes one had to have a "fracas" ; 
 but it had been a comparatively trifling task to seize the 
 frail Zangiacomo — whose bones were no larger than a 
 chicken's — round the ribs, lift him up bodily, dash him 
 to the ground, and fall on him. It had been easy. The 
 wretched, hook-nosed creature lay without movement, 
 buried under its purple beard. 
 
 Suddenly, remembering the occasion of that "fracas," 
 Schomberg groaned with the pain as of a hot coal imder
 
 I04 V I C I < ) R Y 
 
 his breastbone, and jjavc biiiisclf up to desolation. Ah. 
 if he only had that jjirl with him he would have been 
 mastcrf j1 and resolute and fearless — t'lijht twenty despe- 
 radoes-care for nolnidy <>n earth! Whereas the posses- 
 sion of Mrs. Schoniberj; was no incitement to a display 
 of manly virtues. Instead of caring for no one, he felt 
 that he cared for nothini^. Life was a hollow sham; he 
 wasn't K<^ing to risk a shot llirough his lungs or his liver 
 in order to preserve its integrity. It had no savour — 
 damn it ! 
 
 In his state of moral (kct)m|K)sition. Sclu)ml)erg, master 
 as he was of the art of hotel-keeping, and careful of 
 giving no occasion for criticism to the powers regulating 
 that branch of human activities, let things take their 
 course; though he .saw very well where that course was 
 tending. It l)egan I'lrst with a game or two after dinner 
 — for the drinks, ajjparcntly — with some lingering cus- 
 tomer, at one of the little tables ranged against the walls 
 of the billiard-room. Schomberg detected the meaning 
 of it at once. That's what it was! This was what they 
 were! And, moving about restlessly (at that time his 
 morose silent period had set in), he cast sidelong looks 
 at the game ; but he said nothing. It was not worth while 
 having a row with men who were so overbearing. Even 
 when money appeared in connection with these postpran- 
 dial games, into which more and more people were l)eing 
 drawn, he still refrained from raising the question; he 
 was reluctant to draw unduly the attention of "plain Mr. 
 Jones" and of the equivocal Ricardo. to his person. One 
 evening, however, after the public rooms of the hotel 
 had become empty, Schomberg made an attempt to grap- 
 ple with the problem in an indirect way. 
 
 In the distant corner the tired China boy dozed on his 
 heels, his back against the wall. Mrs. Schomberg had dis- 
 appeared, as usual, between ten and eleven. Schomberg 
 walked about slowlv, in and out of the room and the
 
 Victory 105 
 
 verandah, thoughtful, waiting for his two guests \c ^'O to 
 bed. Then suddenly he approached them, militarily, his 
 chest thrown out, his voice curt and soldierly. 
 
 "Hot night, gentlemen." 
 
 Mr. Jones, lolling back idly in a chair, looked up. 
 Ricardo, as idle, but more upright, made no sign. 
 
 "Won't you have a drink with me before retiring?" 
 went on Schomberg, sitting down by the little tabie. 
 
 "By all means," said Mr. Jones lazily. 
 
 Ricardo showed his teeth in a strange, quick grin 
 Schomberg felt painfully how difficult it was to get in 
 touch with these men, both so quiet, so deliberate, so 
 menacingly unceremonious. He ordered the Chinaman 
 to bring in the drinks. His purpose was to discover how 
 l<ing these guests intended to stay. Ricardo displayed no 
 conversational vein, but Mr. Jones appeared communica- 
 tive enough. His voice somehow matched his sunken eyes. 
 It was hollow without being in the least mournful ; it 
 sounded distant, uninterested, as though he were speak- 
 ing from the bottom of a well. Schomberg learned that 
 he would have the privilege of lodging and lx)arding these 
 gentlemen for at least a month more. He could not con- 
 ceal his discomfiture at this piece of news. 
 
 "What's the matter? Don't you like to have people in 
 your house?" asked plain Mr. Jones languidly. "I should 
 have thought the owner of a hotel would be pleased." 
 
 He lifted his delicate and beautifully pencilled eye- 
 brows. Schomberg muttered something about the locality 
 being dull and uninteresting to travellers — nothing going 
 on — too quiet altogether ; but he only provoked the decla- 
 ration that quiet had its charms sometimes, and even dull- 
 ness was welcome as a change. 
 
 "We haven't had time to be dull for the last three 
 -ears." added plain Mr. Jones, his eyes fixed darkly on 
 Schomberg, whom he furthermore invited to have another 
 drink, this time with him, and not to worry himself about
 
 ie6 VICroUV 
 
 thinps ho did n.jt uadcrstind; and especially not to be 
 inhospitable — which in a hotcl-kcepcr was highly unpro- 
 fessional. 
 
 "I don't understand," pruiubled Schombcrg. "Oh, yes, 
 I understand perfectly well. I " 
 
 "^'()U are frij;!ucne«l," interrupted Mr. Jones. "What 
 is the mattfi .''" 
 
 "I don't Vsant any soittdal in my place. Tliat's wlut's 
 the matter." 
 
 Schoinbervj tried to face the situation bravely, but that 
 steady, blacK stare atTectcd hijii. And when he glanced 
 aside uncouiforlably, he met Ricardo's grin uncovering a 
 lot of tecvh, though the man seemed absorbed in his 
 thoughts all the time. 
 
 "And, »nor(.'over," went on Mr. Jones in that distant 
 tune of his, "you can't help yourself. Here we arc and 
 here we stay. Would you try to put us out? I dare say 
 you could do it : but you couKln't do it without getting 
 badly hurt — ver>' badly hurl. We can promise him Uiat. 
 can't we, Martin?" 
 
 The secretary retracted his lips and looked up sharply 
 at ScKomberg. as if only too anxious to leap uix)n him 
 'vith tocth and claws. 
 
 Schombcrg managed to produce a deep laugh, 
 
 "Ha! Ha! Ha!" 
 
 Mr. Jones closed his ;yes wearily, as if the light hurt 
 them, and lookcrl remarkably like a corpse for a moment. 
 This was bad enough ; but when he oj>ened them again, 
 it was almost a worse trial for Schomberg's nerves. The 
 spectral intensity of that glance, fixed on the hotel-keeper 
 (and this was most frightful), without any definite ex- 
 pression, seemed to dissolve the last grain of resolution 
 in his character. 
 
 "You don't think, l)y any chance, that you have to do 
 A'ith ordinary people, do you?" inquired Mr. Jone-s. in
 
 VICTORY 107 
 
 his lifeless manner, which seemed to imply some sort of 
 menace from beyond the grave. 
 
 "He's a gentleman," testified Martin Ricardo with a 
 sudden snap of the lips, alter which his moustaches stirred 
 hy themselves in an odd, feline manner. 
 
 "Oh, I wasn't thinking of that," said plain Mr. Jones, 
 while Schomberg, dumb and planted heavily in his chair, 
 looked from one to the other, leaning forward a little. 
 'Of course I am that; but Ricardo attaches too much 
 importance to a social advantage. What I mean, for in- 
 stance, is that he, quiet and inofTensive as you see him 
 .sitting here, would think nothing of setting fire to this 
 house of entertainment of yours. It would blaze like a 
 box of matches. Think of that! It wouldn't advance your 
 afYairs much, would it? — whatever happened to us." 
 
 "Come, come, gentlemen," remonstrated Schomberg in 
 a murmur. "This is very wild talk!" 
 
 "And you have been used to deal with tame people, 
 haven't you? But we aren't tame. We once kept a whole 
 angry town at bay for two days, and then we got away 
 with our plunder. It was in Venezuela. Ask Martin here 
 — he can tell you." 
 
 Instinctively Schomberg looked at Ricardo, who only 
 passed the tip of his tongue over his lips with an un- 
 canny sort of gusto, but did not offer to begin. 
 
 "Well, perhaps it would be a rather long story," Mr, 
 Jones conceded after a short silence. 
 
 "I have no desire to hear it, I am sure," said Schom- 
 berg. "This isn't Venezuela. You wouldn't get away from 
 here like that. But all this is silly talk of the worst sort. 
 Du you mean to say you would make deadly trouble for 
 the sake of a few guilders that you and that other" — 
 eyeing Ricardo suspiciously, as one would look at a 
 strange animal — "gentleman can win of an evening? 
 'Tisn't as if my customers were a lot of rich men with
 
 co8 VICTORY 
 
 pockets full of cash. I wonder you take so much trouble 
 and risk for so little money."' 
 
 Schomberg's argument was met by Mr. Jones's state- 
 ment that one must do something to kill time. Killin;;' 
 time was not forbidden. For tiie rest, l)eing in a com- 
 municative mood, Mr. Jones said languidly and in a voice 
 indiflFerent, as if issuing from a tomb, that he dei)ended 
 on himself, as if the world were still one great, wild 
 jungle without law. Martin was something like that, too — 
 for reasons of his own. 
 
 All these statements Ricardo confirmed by short, in- 
 human grins. Schomberg lowered his eyes, for the sight 
 of these two men intimidated him ; but he was losing 
 patience. 
 
 "Of course, I could see at once that you were two des- 
 perate characters — something like what you say. But what 
 would you think if I told you that I am pretty near as 
 desperate as you two gentlemen? 'Here's that Schomberg 
 has an easy time running his hotel,' people think ; and yet 
 it seems to me I would just as soon let you rip me open 
 and burn the whole show as not. There!" 
 
 A low whistle was heard. It came from Ricardo, and 
 was derisive. Schomberg, breathing heavily, looked on 
 the floor. He was really desperate. Mr. Jones remained 
 languidly sceptical. 
 
 "Tut, tut ! You have a tolerable business. You are per- 
 fectly tame ; you " He paused, then added in a tone 
 
 of disgust : "You have a wife." 
 
 Schomberg tapped the floor angrily with his foot and 
 uttered an indistinct, laughing curse. 
 
 "What do you mean by flinging that damned trouble 
 at my head?" he cried. "I wish you would carry her oflf 
 with you somewhere to the devil! I wouldn't run after 
 you." 
 
 The unexpected outburst affected Mr. Jones strangely.
 
 VICTORY 109 
 
 He had a horrified recoil, chair and all, as if Schomberg 
 had thrust a wriggling viper in his face. 
 
 "What's this infernal nonsense?" he muttered thickly. 
 "What do you mean? How dare you?" 
 
 Ricardo chuckled audibly. 
 
 "I tell you I am desperate," Schomberg repeated. "I 
 am as desperate as any man ever was. I don't care a 
 hang what happens to me !" 
 
 "Well, then" — Mr. Jones began to speak with a quietly 
 threatening effect, as if the common words of daily use 
 had some other deadly meaning to his mind — "well, then, 
 why should you make yourself ridiculously disagreeable 
 to us? If you don't care, as you say, you might just as 
 well let us have the key of that music-shed of yours for 
 a quiet game ; a modest bank — a dozen candles or so. It 
 would be greatly appreciated by your clients, as far as 1 
 can judge from the way they betted on a game of ecarte 
 I had with that fair, baby-faced man — what's his name? 
 They just yearn for a modest bank. And I am afraid 
 Martin here would take it badly if you objected ; but of 
 course you won't. Think of the calls for drinks !" 
 
 Schomberg, raising his eyes at last, met the gleams in 
 two dark caverns under Mr. Jones's devilish eyebrows, 
 directed upon him impenetrably. He shuddered as if hor- 
 rors worse than murder had been lurking there, and said, 
 nodding towards Ricardo : 
 
 "I dare say he wouldn't think twice about sticking me, 
 if he had you at his back! I wish I had sunk my launch, 
 and gone to the bottom myself in her, before I boarded 
 the steamer you came by. Ah, well, I've been already 
 living in hell for weeks, so you don't make much differ- 
 ence. I'll let you have the concert-room — and hang the 
 consequences. But what about the boy on late duty? If 
 he sees cards and actual money passing, he will be sure 
 to blab, and it will be all over the town in no time." 
 
 A ghastly smile stirred the lips of Mr. lones.
 
 no VICIORY 
 
 "Ah, I s^c you v\ant to i\iakf a success of it. \'cry ^(xxi. 
 That's the way to get on. Don't lot it disturb you. You 
 chase all tlie Chinamen to l)c(] early, and we'll get IVdro 
 here every evening, lie isn't the conventional waiter's 
 cut, hut he will do to run to and fro wit'.i the tray, while 
 you sit here from nine to eleven serving out drinks anrj 
 gathering the money." 
 
 "There will be three of them now." thought the unlucky 
 Schomherg. 
 
 But IVdro. at any rate, was just a simple, straightfor- 
 ward l)rule. if a murderous one. Tliere was no mystery 
 about him, nothing uncanny, no suKge>lion of a slMlthy. 
 delil)erale wiUl-cat turned into a man. or of an insolent 
 spectre on leave from Hades, endowed with skin and 
 bones and a suljtlc power of terror. Pedro with his fangs, 
 his tangled beard and queer stare of his little bear's eyes 
 was, by comparison, deligiit fully natural. Besides, Schom- 
 herg could no longer help himself. 
 
 "That will do very well," he assented mournfully. 
 "But mind, gentlemen, if you had turned up here only 
 three months ago — ay, less than three months ago — you 
 would have found somebody very dilTcrcnt from what I 
 am now to talk to you. It's true. What do you think mi 
 that?" 
 
 "I scarcely know what to think. I should think it was 
 a lie. You were probably as tame three months ago as 
 you are now. You were born tame, like most people in 
 the world." 
 
 Mr. Jones got up spectrally, and Ricardo imitated him 
 mth a snarl and a stretch. Schomherg, in a brown study, 
 ivent on, as if to himself : 
 
 "There has been an orchestra here — eighteen women." 
 
 Mr. Jones let out an exclamation of dismay, and looked 
 about as if the walls around him and the whole house 
 had been infected with plague. Then he became very 
 angry, and swore violently at Schomherg for daring to
 
 VICTORY m 
 
 bring up such subjects. The hotel-keeper was too much 
 surprised to get up. He gazed from his chair at Mr. 
 Jones's anger, which had nothing spectral in it, but was 
 not the more comprehensible for that. 
 
 "What's the matter?" he stammered out. "What sub- 
 ject? Didn't you hear me say it was an orchestra? There's 
 nothing wrong in that. Well, there was a girl amongst 
 
 them " Schomberg's eyes went stony ; he clasped his 
 
 hands in front of his breast with such force that his 
 knuckles came out white. "Such a girl! Tame, am I? I 
 would have kicked everything to pieces about me for her. 
 And she, of course. ... I am in the prime of life. . . . 
 Then a fellow bewitched her — a vagabond, a false, lying, 
 swindling, underhand, stick-at-nothing brute. Ah !" 
 
 His entwined fingers cracked as he tore his hands apart, 
 flung out his arms, and leaned his forehead on them in a 
 passion of fury. The other two looked at his shaking back 
 — tlie attenuated Mr. Jones with mingled scorn and a sort 
 of fear, Ricardo with the expression of a cat which sees 
 a piece of fish in the pantr>' out of reach. Schomberg 
 flung himself backwards. He was dr\'-eyed, but he gulped 
 as if swallowing sobs. 
 
 "No wonder you can do with me what you like. YoU' 
 have no idea — just let me tell you of my trouble " 
 
 "I don't want to know anything of your beastly trouble," 
 said Mr. Jones, in his most lifelessly positive voice. 
 
 He stretched forth an arresting hand, and, as Schomberg 
 remained open-mouthed, he walked out of the billiard* 
 room in all the uncanniness of his thin shanks. Ricardo 
 followed at his leader's heels ; but he showed his teetj 
 to Schomberg over his shoulder.
 
 VI 
 
 From that evening dated those mysterious but signifi- 
 cant plicnonicna in Schonibcrg's estabhsluncnt which at- 
 cractcd Captain Davidson's casual notice when he dropped 
 in. placid yet astute, in order to return Mrs. Schonif)erg*s 
 Indian shawl. Anrl. strangely enough, they lasted some 
 considerable time. It argued either honesty and bad luck 
 or extraordinary restraint on the part of "plain Mr. Jones 
 and Co." in their discreet ()|ierations with cards. 
 
 It was a curious and iinj)ressive sight, the inside of 
 Schomberg's concert-hall, encumbered at one end by a 
 great stack of chairs piled up on and about the musicians' 
 platform, and lighted at the other by two dozen candles 
 disposed about a long trestle table covered with green 
 cloth. In the middle, Mr Jones, a starved spectre turned 
 into a banker, faced Ricardo. a rather nasty, slow-moving 
 rat turned into ^ croupier. By contrast, the other faces 
 round that table, anything between twenty and thirty, 
 must have looked like collected samples of intensely art- 
 less, helpless humanity — pathetic in their innocent watch 
 for the small turns of luck which indeed might have 
 been serious enough for them. They had no notije to 
 spare for the hairy Pedro, carrying a tray with the clum- 
 siness of a creature caught in the woods and taught to 
 walk on its hind legs. 
 
 As to Schomberg, he kept out of the way. He remained 
 in the billiard-room, serving out drinks to the unspeakable 
 Pedro with an air of not seeing the growling monster, of 
 not knowing where the drinks went, of ignoring that there 
 was such a thing as a music-room over there under the 
 
 112
 
 VICTORY "3 
 
 trees within fifty yards of the hotel. He submitted himself 
 to the situation with a low-spirited stoicism compounded 
 of fear and resignation. Directly the party had broken 
 up (he could see dark shapes of the men drifting singly 
 and in knots through the gate of the compound), he would 
 withdraw out of sight behind a door not quite closed, in 
 order to avoid meeting his two extraordinary guests ; but 
 he would watch through the crack their contrasted forms 
 :>ass through the billiard-room and disappear on their way 
 to bed. Then he would hear doors being slammed upstairs ; 
 and a profound silence would fall upon the whole house, 
 upon his hotel appropriated, haunted by those insolently 
 (Aitspoken men provided with a whole armoury of weap- 
 ons in their trunks. .A. profound silence. Schomberg 
 sometimes could not resist the notion that he must be 
 dreaming. Shuddering, he would pull himself together, 
 and creep out, with movements strangely inappropriate 
 to the Lieutcnant-of-the-Reserve bearing by which he 
 tried to keep up his self-respect l)efore the world. 
 
 A great loneliness oppressed him. One after another 
 he would extinguish the lamps, and move softly towards 
 liis bedroom, where Mrs. Schomberg waited for him — 
 no fit companion for a man of his ability and "in the 
 prime of life." But that Hfe, alas, was blighted. He felt 
 it ; and never with such force as when on opening the 
 door he perceived that woman sitting patiently in a chair, 
 her toes peeping out under the edge of her night-dress, 
 an amazingly small amount of hair on her head drooping 
 on the long stalk of scraggy neck, with that everlasting 
 scared grin showing a blue tooth and meaning nothing — 
 not even real fear. For she was used to him. 
 
 Sometimes he was tempted to screw the head off the 
 stalk. He imagined himself doing it — with one hand, a 
 twisting movement. Not seriously, of course. Just a simple 
 indulgence for his exasperated feelings. He wasn't capable 
 of murder. He was certain of that. And, remembering
 
 114 VICTORY 
 
 nuUlcnly the plain speeches of Mr. Jones, he would think: 
 "I supijcj-sc I am too tainc for that" — quite unaware that 
 he had murdered the p<j<>r woman morally years ago. He 
 was too unintelligent to have the noti(;n of such a crime. 
 Mer hodily presence was bitterly otTensive, because of its 
 c iMtra.it with a very dilTerenl feminine image. Ana it wa.-. 
 no use getting rid of her. She was a habit of year.s, and 
 there would be nothing to put in her place. At any rate. 
 he could talk to that idiot half the night if he ch(»se. 
 
 That night he had been vapouring before her as to 
 his intention to face his two guests and. instead of that 
 inspiration he needed, had merely received the usual warn 
 ing : "Be careful, VVilhelm."' He did not want to be told 
 lo be careful by an imbecile female. What he needed was 
 a pair of woman's arms whicl:, flung round his neck, 
 would brace him up for the encounter. Inspire him, he 
 called it to himself. 
 
 He lay awake a long time; and his slumbers, when 
 I hey came, were unsatisfactory and short. The morning 
 light had no joy for his eyes. He listened dismally to the 
 movements in the house. The Chinamen were unlocking 
 aiul flinging wide the doors of the public rooms which 
 opened on the verandah. Horrors! Another poisoned day 
 to get through somehow ! The recollection of his resolve 
 made him feel actually sick for a moment. First of all 
 the lordly, abandoned attitudes of Mr. Jones disconcerted 
 !nm. Then there was his contemptuous silence. Mr. Jones 
 never addressed himself to Schomberg with any general 
 remarks, never opened his lips to him unless to say "Good 
 morning" — two simple words which, uttered by that man, 
 seemed a mockery of a threatening character. And, lastly, 
 it was not a frank physical fear he inspired — for, as to 
 that, even a cornered rat will fight — but a superstitious 
 shrinking awe, something like an invincible repugnance 
 to seek speech with a wicked ghost. That it was a daylight
 
 VICTORY 115 
 
 ^'host. surprisingly angular in his attitudes, and for tht 
 most part spread out on three chairs, did not make it any 
 easier. Daylight only made him a more weird, a more dis- 
 turbing and unlawful apparition. Strangely enough in the 
 evening, when he came out of his mute supineness, this 
 unearthly side of him was less obtrusive. At the gaming- 
 table, when actually handling the cards, it was probably 
 sunk quite out of sight; but Schomberg, having made up 
 his mind in ostrich-like fashion to ignore what was going 
 on, never entered the desecrated music-room. He had 
 never seen Mr. Jones in the exercise of his vocation — or 
 perhaps it was only his trade. 
 
 "I will speak to him to-night," Schomberg said to 
 himself, while he drank his morning tea, in pyjamas, on 
 the verandah, before the rising sun had topped the trees 
 of the compound, and while the undried dew still lay sil- 
 very on the grass, sparkled on the blossoms of the central 
 flower-bed, and darkened the yellow gravel of the drive. 
 "That's what I'll do. I won't keep out of sight to-night. 
 I shall come out and catch him as he goes to bed carrying 
 the cash-box." 
 
 After all, what was the fellow but a common desper- 
 ado? Murderous? Oh, yes; murderous enough, perhaps — 
 and the muscles of Schomberg's stomach had a quiv- 
 ering contraction under his airy attire. But even a com- 
 mon desperado would think twice or, more likely, a 
 hundred times, before openly murdering an inoffensive 
 citizen in a civilised, European-ruled town. He jerked 
 his shoulders. Of course ! He shuddered again, and 
 paddled back to his room to dress himself. His mind was 
 made up, and he would think no more about it ; but still 
 he had his doubts. They grew and unfolded themselves 
 with the progress of the day, as some plants do. At times 
 they made him perspire more than usual, and they did 
 away with the possibility of his afternoon siesta. Aftei
 
 ,,0 VICTORY 
 
 turning «*ver on his couch more than a dozen times, he 
 ^'.ive up this mockery of repose, got up. aiul went down- 
 >tairs. 
 
 It was between three and tt)ur o'clock, tlie hour ai 
 profound |)eace. The very flowers seemed to doze on 
 ilieir stalks set with sleepy leaves. Not even the air stirred. 
 for the sea-breeze was not due till later. The servants 
 were out of sight, catching naps in the shade somewhere 
 iK-hind the house. Mrs. SchomlxTg, in a dim upstairs 
 room with closed jaU)Usies, was clal)<)rating tlxwe two 
 long |)endent ringlets which were such a feature of her 
 h;iir-(lreshing for her afternoon duties. At that time no 
 ' ustomcrs ever troubled the rei>ose of the establishment. 
 Wandering al)Out his premises in profound solitude, 
 .^chomlKTg recoiled at the door of the billiard-room, as 
 if he had seen a snake in his path. All alone with the 
 billiards, the bare little tables, and a lot of untenanted 
 chairs. Mr. Secretary Kicardo sat near the wall, |)er form- 
 ing with lightning raj)idity sfjinething that looked like 
 tricks with his own j^)ersonal pack of cards, which he 
 always carried about in his ixKket. Schomberg would have 
 backed out quietly if Ricardo had not turned his head. 
 Having been seen, the hotel-keejx'r elected to walk in as 
 the lesser risk of the two. The consciousness of his 
 inwardly abject attitude towards these men caused him 
 always to throw his chest out and assume a severe ex- 
 pression. Ricardo watched his approach, clasping the pack 
 of cards in both hands. 
 
 "You want something, perhaps?" suggested Schom- 
 herg in his Lieutenant-of-the-Reserve voice. 
 
 Ricardo shook his head in silence and looked ex- 
 pectant. With him Schomberg exchanged at least twentv 
 words every day. He was infinitely more communicative 
 than his patron. At times he looked very much like an 
 ordinary human being of his class ; and he seemed to l)e 
 In an amiable mood at that moment. Suddenly spreading
 
 VICTORY ] 17 
 
 some ten cards face downward in the form of a fan, he 
 thrust them towards Schomberg. 
 
 "Come, man, take one quick!" 
 
 Schomherg was so surprised that he took one luir- 
 riedly. after a very perceptible start. The eyes of Martin 
 Kicardo gleamed phosphorescent in the half-light of the 
 room screened from the heat and glare of the tropics. 
 
 "That's a king of hearts you've got," he chuckled, 
 showing his teeth in a quick flash. 
 
 Schomberg. after looking at the card, admitted that it 
 was. and laid it down on the table. 
 
 "I can make you take any card I like nine times out 
 of ten," exulted the secretary, with a strange curl of his 
 lips and a green flicker in his raised eyes. 
 
 Schomberg looked dcjwn at him dumbly. For a few 
 seconds neither of them stirred; then Ricardo lowered 
 his glance, and, opening his fingers, let the whole pack 
 fall on the table. Schomberg sat down. He sat down 
 because of the faintness in his legs, and for no other 
 reason. His mouth was dry. Having sat down, he feU 
 that he must speak. He squared his shoulders in parade 
 style. 
 
 "Vou are pretty good at that sort of thing," he said. 
 
 "Practice makes perfect," replied the secretary. 
 
 His precarious amiability made it impossible for 
 Schomberg to get away. Thus, from his very timidity, 
 the hotel-keeper found himself engaged in a conversation 
 the thought of which had filled him with apprehension. 
 It must be said, in justice to Schomberg, that he concealed 
 iiis funk vcr}- creditably. The habit of throwing out his 
 chest and speaking in a severe voice stood him in good 
 stead. With him, too, practice made perfect; and he 
 would probably have kept it up to the end, to the very 
 last moment, to the uhimate instant of breaking strain 
 which would leave him grovelling on the floor. To add
 
 ;i8 VICTORY 
 
 to his secret trouble, he was at a loss what to say. He 
 found nothing else but the remark : 
 
 "I suppose you are fond of cards." 
 
 "What would you expect?" asked Ricardo in a simple, 
 philosophical tone. "Is it likely I should not be?" Then, 
 with sudden fire: "Fond of cards? Ay, passionately!" 
 
 The effect of this outburst was augmented by the 
 quiet lowering of the eyelids, by a reserved pause as 
 though this had been a confession of another kind of love. 
 Schomberg cudgelled his brains for a new topic, but he 
 could not find one. His usual scandalous gossip would 
 not serve this turn. That desperado did not know any one 
 anywhere within a thousand miles. Schomberg was almost 
 compelled to keep to the subject. 
 
 "I suppose you've always been so — from your early 
 youth." 
 
 Ricardo's eyes remained cast down. His fingers toyed 
 absently with the pack on the table. 
 
 "I don't know that it was so early. I first got in the 
 way of it playing for tobacco — in forecastles of ships, 
 you know — common sailor games. We used to spend 
 whole watches below at it, round a chest, under a slush 
 lamp. We would hardly spare the time to get a bite of 
 salt horse — ^neither eat nor sleep. We could hardly stand 
 when the watches were mustered on deck. Talk of gam- 
 bling!" He dropped the reminiscent tone to add the in- 
 formation, "I was bred to the sea from a boy, you know." 
 
 Schomberg had fallen into a reverie, but without losing 
 the sense of impending calamity. The next words he heard 
 were : 
 
 "I got on all right at sea, too. Worked up to be mate. 
 I was mate of a schooner — a yacht, you might call her — 
 a special good berth too, in the Gulf of Mexico, a soft 
 job that you don't run across more than once in a lifetime. 
 Yes, I was mat'^ ^f her when I left the sea to follow 
 him."
 
 VICTORY m 
 
 Ricardo tossed up his chin to indicate the room above; 
 from which Sehomberg, his wits painfully aroused by 
 this reminder of Mr. Jones's existence, concluded that 
 the latter had withdrawn into his bedroom. Ricardo, ob- 
 serving him from under lowered eyelids, went on : 
 
 "It so happened that we were shipmates." 
 
 "Mr. Jones, you mean? Is he a sailor too?" 
 
 Ricardo raised his eyelids at that. 
 
 "He's no more Mr. Jones than you are," he said with 
 obvious pride. "He a sailor ! That just shows your igno- 
 rance. But there ! A foreigner can't be expected to know 
 any better. I am an Englishman, and I know a gentle- 
 man at sight. I should know one drunk, in the gutter, in 
 jail, under the gallows. There's a something — it isn't 
 exactly the appearance, it's a — no use nie trying to tell 
 you. You ain't an Englishman; and if you were, you 
 wouldn't need to be told." 
 
 An unsuspected stream of loquacity had broken its 
 dam somewhere deep within the man, had diluted his 
 fiery blood and softened his pitiless fibre. Sehomberg 
 experienced mingled relief and apprehension as if sud- 
 denly an enormous savage cat had begun to wind itself 
 about his legs in inexplicable friendliness. No prudent 
 man under such circumstances would dare to stir. Sehom- 
 berg didn't stir. Ricardo assumed an easy attitude, with 
 an elbow on the table. Sehomberg squared his shoulders 
 afresh. 
 
 "I was employed, in that there yacht — schooner, what- 
 ever you call it — by ten gentlemen at once. That surprises 
 you, eh? Yes, yes, ten. Leastwise there were nine of them 
 gents good enough in their way, and one downright 
 gentleman, and that was . . ." 
 
 Ricardo gave another upward jerk of his chin as much 
 as to say : He ! The only one. 
 
 "And no mistake," he went on, "I spotted him from 
 the first day. How? Why? Ay, you may ask. Hadn't
 
 I20 VICTORY 
 
 seen that many gentlemen in my life. Well, somehow I 
 did. If you were an Englishman, you would " 
 
 "What was your yacht?" Schomberg interrupted as 
 impatiently as he dared ; for this harping on nationality 
 jarred on his already tried nerves. "What was the 
 game ?" 
 
 "You have a headpiece on you ! Game ! 'Xactly. That's 
 what it was — the sort of silliness gentlemen will get up 
 among themselves to play at adventure. A treasure- 
 hunting expedition. Each of them put down so much 
 money, you understand, to buy the schooner. Their agent 
 in the city engaged me and the skipper. The greatest 
 secrecy and all that. I reckon he had a twinkle in his eye 
 all the time — and no mistake. But that wasn't our busi- 
 ness. Let them bust their money as they like. The pity 
 of it was that so little of it came our way. Just fair pay 
 and no more. And damn any pay, much or little, anyhow 
 — ^that's what I say !" 
 
 He blinked his e3'es greenishly in the dim light. The 
 heat seemed to have stilled everything in the world but 
 his voice. He swore at large, abundantly, in snarling 
 undertones, it was impossible to say why ; then calmed 
 down as inexplicably and went on, as a sailor yarns, 
 
 "At first there were only nine of them adventurous 
 sparks; then, just a day or two before the sailing date, 
 he turned up. Heard of it somehow, somewhere — I would 
 say from some woman, if I didn't know him as I do. 
 He would give any woman a ten-mile berth. He can't 
 stand them. Or maybe in a flash bar. Or maybe in one 
 of them grand clubs in Pall Mall. Anyway the agent 
 netted him in all right — cash down, and only about four 
 and twenty hours for him to get ready ; but he didn't 
 miss his ship. Not he ! You might have called it a pier- 
 head jump — for a gentleman. I saw him come along 
 Know the West India Docks, eh?" 
 
 Schomberg did not know the West India Docks
 
 VICTORY 121 
 
 Ricardo looked at him pensively for a while, and then 
 continued, as if such ignorance had to be disregarded. 
 
 "Our tug was already alongside. Two loafers were 
 carrying his dunnage behind him. I told the dockmen at 
 our moorings to keep all fast for a minute. The gangway 
 was down already; but he made nothing of it. Up he 
 jumps, one leap, swings his long legs over the rail, and 
 there he is on board. They pass up his swell dunnage, 
 and he puts his hand in his trousers pocket and throws 
 all his small change on the wharf for them chaps to pick 
 up. They were still promenading that wharf on all fours 
 when we cast off. It was only then that he looked at me — ■ 
 quietly, you know ; in a slow way. He wasn't so thin then 
 as he is now ; but I noticed he wasn't so young as he 
 looked— not by a long chalk. He seemed to touch me 
 inside somewhere. I went away pretty quick from there ; 
 I was wanted forward anyhow. I wasn't frightened. 
 What should I be frightened for? I only felt touched — ■ 
 on the very spot. But Jee-miny, if anybody had told me 
 we should be partners before the year was out — well, I 
 would have " 
 
 He swore a variety of strange oaths, some common, 
 others quaintly horrible to Schomberg's ears, and all 
 mere innocent exclamations of wonder at the shifts and 
 changes of human fortune. Schomberg moved slightly 
 in his chair. But the admirer and partner of "plain Mr. 
 Jones" seemed to have forgotten Schomberg's existence 
 for the moment. The stream of ingenuous blasphemy — 
 some of it in bad Spanish — had run dry, and Martin 
 Ricardo, connoisseur in gentlemen, sat dumb with a stony 
 gaze as if still marvelling inwardly at the amazing elec- 
 tions, conjunctions and associations of events which in- 
 fitience man's pilgrimage on this earth. 
 
 At last Schomberg spoke tentatively : 
 
 "And so the — the gentleman, tip there, talked you over 
 into leaving a good berth?"
 
 122 VICTORY 
 
 Ricardo started. 
 
 "Talked me over ! Didn't need to talk me over. He 
 just beckoned to me, and that was enough. By that time 
 we were in the Gulf of Mexico. One night we were lying 
 at anchor, close to a dry sandbank — ^to this day I am 
 not sure where it was — oi'i the Colombian coast or there- 
 abouts. We were to start digging the next morning, and 
 all hands had turned in early, expecting a hard day with 
 the shovels. Up he comes, and in his quiet, tired way of 
 speaking — you can tell a gentleman by that as much as 
 by anything else almost — up he comes behind me and 
 says, just like that into my ear, in a manner: 'Well, and 
 what do you think of our treasure hunt now?' 
 
 "I didn't even turn my head ; 'xactly as I stood, I 
 remained, and I spoke no louder than himself : 
 
 " 'If you want to know, sir, it's nothing but just damned 
 tomfoolery.' 
 
 "We had, of course, been having short talks together 
 at one time or another during the passage. I dare say 
 he had read me like a book. There ain't much to me, 
 except that I have never been tame, even when walking 
 the pavement and cracking jokes and standing drinks 
 to chums — ay, and to strangers, too. I would watch them 
 lifting their elbows at my expense, or splitting their 
 sides at my fun — I can be funny when I like, you bet !" 
 
 A pause for self-complacent contemplation of his own 
 fun and generosity checked the flow of Ricardo's speech. 
 Schomberg was concerned to keep within bounds the 
 enlargement of his eyes, which he seemed to feel grow- 
 ing bigger in his head. 
 
 "Yes, yes," he whispered hastily. 
 
 "I would watch them and think: 'You boys don't 
 
 know who I am. If you did !' With girls, too. Once I 
 
 was courting a girl. I used to kiss her behind the ear 
 and say to myself: 'If you only knew who's kissing you. 
 my dear, you would scream and bolt!' Ha! ha! Not that
 
 VICTORY 123 
 
 I wanted to do them any harm ; but I felt the power in 
 myself. Now, here we sit, friendly like, and that's all 
 right. You aren't in my way. But I am not friendly to 
 you. I just don't care. Some men do say that ; but I 
 really don't. You are no more to me one way or another 
 than that fly there. Just so. I'd squash you or leave you 
 alone. I don't care what I do." 
 
 If real force of character consists in overcoming our 
 sudden weaknesses, Schomberg displayed plenty of that 
 quality. At the mention of the fly, he re-enforced the 
 severe dignity of his attitude as one inflates a collapsing 
 toy balloon with a great effort of breath. The easy- 
 going, relaxed attitude of Ricardo was really appalling. 
 
 "That's so," he went on. 'T am that sort of fellow. 
 You wouldn't think it, would you? No. You have to 
 be told. So I am telling you, and I dare say you only 
 half believe it. But you can't say to yourself that I am 
 drunk, stare at me as you may. I haven't had anything 
 stronger than a glass of iced water all day. Takes a real 
 gentleman to see through a fellow. Oh, yes — ^he spotted 
 me. I told you we had a few talks at sea about one thing 
 or another. And I used to watch him down the skylight, 
 playing cards in the cuddy with the others. They had to 
 pass the time away somehow. By the same token he 
 caught me at it once, and it was then that I told him I 
 was fond of cards — and generally lucky in gambling, too. 
 Yes, he had sized me up. Why not? A gf^^ntleman's just 
 like any other man — and something more." 
 
 It flashed through Schomberg's mind that these two 
 were indeed well matched in their enormous dissimilar- 
 ity, identical souls in different disguises. 
 
 "Says he to me" — Ricardo started again in a gossip- 
 ing manner — " 'I'm packed up. It's about time to go, 
 Martin.' 
 
 "It was the first time he called me Martin. Says I : 
 
 "'Is that it, sir?'
 
 124 VICTORY 
 
 " 'You didn't think I was after that sort of treasure, 
 did you? I wanted to clear out from home quietly. It's 
 a pretty expensive way of getting a passage across, but 
 it has served my turn.' 
 
 "I let him know very soon that I was game for any- 
 thing, from pitch and toss to wilful murder, in his 
 company. 
 
 ** 'Wilful murder?' says he in his quiet way. 'What the 
 deuce is that? What are you talking about? People do 
 get killed sometimes when they get in one's way, but 
 that's self-defence — ^you understand?' 
 
 "I told him I did. And then I said I would run below 
 for a minute, to ram a few of my things into a sailor's 
 bag I had. I've never cared for a lot of dunnage ; I 
 believed in going about flying light when I was at sea. I 
 came back and found him strolling up and down the deck, 
 as if he were taking a breath of fresh air before turning 
 in, like on any other evening. 
 
 "'Ready?' 
 
 " 'Yes, sir.' 
 
 "He didn't even look at me. We had had a boat in the 
 water astern ever since we came to anchor in the after- 
 noon. He throws the stump of his cigar overboard. 
 
 " 'Can you get the captain out on deck ?' he asks. 
 
 "That was the last thing in the world I should have 
 thought of doing. I lost my tongue for a moment. 
 
 " 'I can try,' says I. 
 
 " 'Well, then, I am going below. You get him up and 
 keep him with you till I come back on deck. Mind! 
 Don't let him go below till I return.' 
 
 "I could not help asking why he told me to rouse a 
 sleeping man, when we wanted everybody on board to 
 sleep sweetly till we got clear of the schooner. He laughs 
 a little and says that I didn't see all the bearings of this 
 business. 
 
 "■'Mind,* he says, 'don't let him leave you till you see
 
 VICTORY 12S 
 
 me come up again.' He puts his eyes close to mine. 'Keep 
 him with you at all costs.' 
 
 " 'And that means?' says I. 
 
 " 'AH costs to him — by every possible or impossible 
 means. I don't want to be interrupted in my business 
 down below. He would give me lots of trouble. I take 
 you with me to save myself trouble in various circum- 
 stances ; and you've got to enter on your work right 
 away.' 
 
 " 'Just so, sir,' says I ; and he slips down the com- 
 panion. 
 
 "With a gentleman you know at once where you are ; 
 but it was a ticklish job. The skipper was nothing to me 
 one way or another, any more than you are at this mo- 
 ment, Mr. Schomberg. You may Hght your cigar or 
 blow your brains out this minute, and I don't care a hang 
 which you do, both or neither. To bring the skipper up 
 was easy enough. I had only to stamp on the deck a few 
 times over his head. I stamped hard. But how to keep him 
 up when he got there? 
 
 "'Anything the matter, Mr. Ricardo?' I heard his 
 voice behind me. 
 
 "There he was, and I hadn't thought of anything to 
 say to him; so I didn't turn around. The moonlight was 
 brighter than many a day I could remember in the North 
 Sea. 
 
 " 'Why did you call me ? What are you staring at oul 
 there, Mr. Ricardo?' 
 
 "He was deceived by my keeping my back to him. I 
 wasn't staring at anything, but his mistake gave me a 
 notion. 
 
 " 'I am staring at something that looks like a canoe 
 over there,' I said very slowly. 
 
 "The skipper got concerned at once. It wasn't any 
 danger from the inhabitants, whoever they were. 
 
 " 'Oh, hang it !' says he. 'That's very unfortunate.'
 
 t*6 VICTORY 
 
 He had hoped that the schooner being- on the coast 
 would not get known so very soon. 'Dashed awkward, 
 with the business we've got in hand, to have a lot of 
 niggers watching operations. But are you certain this 
 is a canoe?' 
 
 " 'It may be a drift-log,' I said ; 'but I thought you 
 had better have a look with your own eyes. You may make 
 it out better than I can.' 
 
 "His eyes weren't anything as good as mine. But he 
 says: 
 
 " 'Certainly. Certainly. You did quite right.' 
 
 "And it's a fact I had seen some drift-logs at sunset. 
 I saw what they were then and didn't trouble my head 
 about them, forgot all about it till that very moment. 
 Nothing strange in seeing drift-logs off a coast like that; 
 and I'm hanged if the skipper didn't make one out in 
 the wake of the moon. Strange what a little thing a man's 
 life hangs on sometimes — a single word! Here you are, 
 sitting unsuspicious before me, and you may let out 
 something unbeknown to you that would settle your hash. 
 Not that I have any ill-feeling. I have no feelings. If the 
 skipper had said, 'Oh, bosh !' and had turned his back 
 on me, he would not have gone three steps towards his 
 bed; but he stood there and stared. And now the job was 
 to get him off the deck when he was no longer wanted 
 there. 
 
 " 'We are just trying to make out if that object there 
 is a canoe or a log,' says he to Mr. Jones. 
 
 "Mr. Jones had come up, lounging as carelessly as 
 when he went below. While the skipper was jawing 
 about boats and drifting logs, I asked by signs, from be- 
 hind, if I hadn't better knock him on the head and drop 
 him quietly overboard. The night was slipping by, and 
 we had to go. It couldn't be put off till next night no 
 more. No. No more. And do you know why?" 
 
 Schomberg made a slight negative sign with his head.
 
 VICTORY 127 
 
 This direct appeal annoyed him. jarred on the induced 
 quietude of a great talker forced into the part of a lis' 
 tener and sunk in it as a man sinks into slumber. Mr, 
 Ricardo struck a note of scorn. 
 
 "Don't know why? Can'*" you guess? No? Because 
 the boss had got hold of the skipper's cash-box by then. 
 See?"
 
 VII 
 
 "A COMMON thief!" 
 
 Schomberg bit his tongue just too late, and woke up 
 completely as he saw Ricardo retract his lips in a cat-like 
 grin; but the companion of "plain Mr. Jones" didn't 
 alter his comfortable, gossiping attitude. 
 
 "Garn ! What if he did want to see his money back, 
 like any tame shopkeeper, hash-seller, gin-slinger, or 
 ink-spewer does? Fancy a mud-turtle like you trying to 
 pass an opinion on a gentleman ! A gentleman isn't to be 
 sized up so easily. Even I ain't up to it sometimes. For 
 instance, that night, all he did was to waggle his finger 
 at me. The skipper stops his silly chatter, surprised. 
 
 "'Eh? What's the matter?' asks he. 
 
 "The matter! It was his reprieve — that's what was 
 the matter. 
 
 " 'Oh, nothing, nothing,' says my gentleman. 'You 
 are perfectly right. A log — ^nothing but a log.' 
 
 "Ha, ha! Reprieve, I call it, because if the skipper had 
 gone on with his silly argument much longer he would 
 have had to be knocked out of the way. I could hardly 
 hold myself in on account of the precious minutes. How- 
 ever, his guardian angel put it into his head to shut up 
 and go back to his bed. I was ramping mad about the 
 lost time. 
 
 " 'Why didn't you let me give him one on his silly 
 coconut, sir?' I asks. 
 
 " 'No ferocity, no ferocity,' he says, raising his finger 
 at me as calm as you please. 
 
 "You can't tell how a gentleman takes that sort of 
 
 128
 
 VICTORY 1^9 
 
 thing. They don't lose their temper. It's bad form. You'll 
 never see him lose his temper — not for anybody to see, 
 anyhow. Ferocity ain't good form, either — that much I've 
 learned by this time, and more, too. I've had that school- 
 ing that you couldn't tell by my face if I meairt to rip 
 you up the next minute — as of course I could do in 
 less than a jifify. I have a knife up the leg of my trousers." 
 
 "You haven't!" exclaimed Schomberg incredulously. 
 
 Mr. Ricardo was as quick as lightning in changing his 
 lounging, idle attitude for a stooping position, and ex- 
 hibiting the weapon with one jerk at the left leg of his 
 trousers. Schomberg had just a view of it, strapped to a 
 very hairy limb, when Mr. Ricardo, jumping up, stamped 
 his foot to get the trouser-leg down, and resumed his 
 careless pose with one elbow on the table. 
 
 "It's a more handy way to carry a tool than you 
 would think," he went on, gazing abstractedly into Schoin- 
 berg's wide-open eyes. "Suppose some little difference 
 comes up during a game. Well, you stoop to pick up a 
 dropped card, and when you come up — there you are 
 ready to strike, or with the thing up your sleeve ready to 
 throw. Or you just dodge under the table when there's 
 some shooting coming. You wouldn't believe the damage 
 a fellow with a knife under the table can do to ill- 
 conditioned skunks that want to raise trouble, before 
 they begin to understand what the screaming's about, 
 and make a bolt — those that can, that is." 
 
 The roses of Schomberg's cheek at the root of his 
 chestnut beard faded perceptibly. Ricardo chuckled 
 faintly. 
 
 "But no ferocity — no ferocity ! A gentleman knows. 
 What's the good of getting yourself into a state? And 
 no shirking necessity, either. No gentleman ever shirks. 
 What I learn I don't forget. Why! We gambled on the 
 plains, with a damn lot of cattlemen in ranches ; played 
 fair, mind — and then had to fight for our winnings after-
 
 I30 VICTORY 
 
 wards as often as not. We've gambled on the hills and in 
 the valleys and on the sea-shore, and out of sight of 
 land — mostly fair. Generally it's good enough. We began 
 in Nicaragua first, after we left that schooner and her 
 fool errand. There were one hundred and twenty-seven 
 sovereigns and some Mexican dollars in that skipper's 
 cash-box. Hardly enough to knock a man on the head for 
 from behind, I must confess ; but that the skipper had 
 a narrow escape, the governor himself could not deny 
 afterwards." 
 
 "'Do you want me to understand, sir, that you mind 
 there being one life more or less on this earth?' I asked 
 him, a few hours after we got away. 
 
 " 'Certainly not,' says he. 
 
 "'Well, then, why did you stop me?' 
 
 " 'There's a proper way of doing things. You'll have 
 to learn to be correct. There's also unnecessary exertion. 
 That must be avoided, too — if only for the look of the 
 thing.' A gentleman's way of putting things to you, — 
 and no mistake ! 
 
 "At sunrise we got into a creek, to lie hidden in case 
 the treasure-hunt party had a mind to take a spell hunt- 
 ing for us. And dash me if they didn't! We saw the 
 schooner away out, ruiming to leeward, with ten pairs of 
 binoculars sweeping the sea, no doubt, on all sides. I 
 advised the governor to give her time to beat back again 
 before we made a start. So we stayed up that creek 
 something like ten days, as snug as can be. On the seventh 
 day we had to kill a man, though — tlie brother of this 
 Pedro here. They were alligator-hunters, right enough. 
 We got our lodgings in their hut. Neither the boss nor 
 I could habla Espanol — speak Spanish, you know — much 
 then. Dry bank, nice shade, jolly hammocks, fresh fish, 
 good game, everything lovely. The governor chucked 
 them a few dollars to begin with ; but it was like boarding 
 with a pair of savage apes, anyhow. By and by we noticed
 
 VICTORY \i> 
 
 them talking a lot together. They had twigged the cash- 
 box, and the leather portmanteaus, and my bag — a jolly 
 lot of plunder to look at. They must have been saying to 
 each other : 
 
 " 'No one's ever likely to come looking for these two 
 fellows, who seem to have fallen from the moon. Let's 
 cut their throats.' 
 
 "Why, of course! Clear as daylight. I didn't need to 
 spy one of them sharpening a devilish long knife behind 
 some bushes, while glancing right and left with his wild 
 eyes, to know what was in the wind. Pedro was standing 
 by, trying the edge of another long knife. They thought 
 we were away on our look-out at the mouth of the river, 
 as was usual with us during the day. Not that we ex- 
 pected to see much of the schooner, but it was just a5 
 well to make certain, if possible ; and then it was cooler 
 out of the woods, in the breeze. Well, the governor was 
 there right enough, lying comfortable on a rug, where 
 he could watch the offing, but I had gone back to the hut 
 to get a chew of tobacco out of my bag. I had not broken 
 myself of tlie habit then, and I couldn't be happy unless 
 I had a lump as big as a baby's fist in my cheek." 
 
 At the cannibalistic comparison, Schomberg muttered 
 a faint sickly "don't." Ricardo hitched himself up in his 
 seat and glanced down his outstretched k^s complacently. 
 
 'T am tolerably light on my feet, as a general thing," 
 he went on. "Dash me if I don't think I could drop ;i 
 pinch of salt on a sparrow's tail, if I tried. Anyhow, 
 they didn't hear me. I watched them two brown, hairy 
 brutes not ten yards oiT. All they had on was white 
 linen drawers rolled up on their thighs. Not a word they 
 said to each other. Antonio was down on his thick hams, 
 busy rubbing the knife on a flat stone ; Pedro was leaning 
 against a small tree and passing his thumb along the 
 edge of his blade. I got away quieter than a mouse, you 
 bet.
 
 ii2 VICTORY 
 
 "I didn't say anything to the boss then. He was lean- 
 ing on his eibow on his rug, and didn't seem to want to be 
 spoken to. He's Hke that— sometimes that famiUar you 
 might think he would eat out of your hand, and at others 
 he would snub you sharper than a devil — but always 
 quiet. Perfect gentleman, I tell you. I didn't bother him 
 then; but I wasn't likely to forget them two fellows, so 
 business-like with their knives. At that time we had 
 only one revolver between us two — the governor's six- 
 shooter, but loaded only in five chambers ; and we had 
 no more cartridges. He had left the box behind in a 
 drawer in his cabin. Awkward ! I had nothing but an old 
 clasp-knife — no good at all for anything serious. 
 
 "In the evening we four sat round a bit of fire outside 
 the sleeping-shed, eating broiled fish off plantain leaves, 
 with roast yams for bread — ^the usual thing. The governor 
 and I were on one side, and these two beauties, cross- 
 legged on the other, grunting a word or two to each other 
 now and then, hardly human speech at all, and their eyes 
 down, fast on the ground. For the last three days we 
 couldn't get them to look us in the face. Presently I 
 began to talk to the boss quietly, just as I am talking to 
 you now, careless like, and I told him all I had observed. 
 He goes on picking up pieces of fish and putting them 
 into his mouth as calm as anything. It's a pleasure to 
 have anything to do with a gentleman. Never looked 
 across at them once. 
 
 " 'And now,' says I, yawning on purpose, 'we've got 
 to stand watch at night, turn about, and keep our eyes 
 skinned all day, too, and mind we don't get jumped upon 
 suddenly.' 
 
 " 'It's perfectly intolerable,' says the governor. 'And 
 you with no weapon of any sort !' 
 
 " 'I mean to stick pretty close to you, sir, from this 
 on, if you don't mind, says I. 
 
 "He just nods the least bit, wipes his fingers on the
 
 VICTORY 13^ 
 
 plantain leaf, puts his hand behind his back, as if to help 
 himself to rise from the ground, snatches his revolver 
 from under his jacket, and plugs a bullet plumb centre 
 into Mr. Antonio's chest. See what it is to have to do 
 with a gentleman. No confounded fuss, and things done* 
 out of hand. But he might have tipped me a wink or 
 something. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Scared ain't 
 in it ! I didn't even know who had fired. Everything had 
 been so still just before that the bang of the shot seemed 
 the loudest noise I had ever heard. The honourable An- 
 tonio pitches forward — ^they always do, towards the shot ; 
 you must have noticed that yourself — yes, he pitches for- 
 ward on to the embers, and all that lot of hair on hi? 
 face and head flashes up like a pinch of gunpowder. 
 Greasy, I expect ; always scraping the fat off them alli- 
 gators' hides — — " 
 
 "Look here," exclaimed Schomberg violently, as ii 
 trying to burst some invisible bonds, "do you mean t<7 
 say that all this happened?" 
 
 "No," said Ricardo coolly. "I am making it all up ar 
 I go along, just to help you through the hottest part of 
 the afternoon. So down he pitches, his nose on the red 
 embers, and up jumps our handsome Pedro and I at the 
 same time, like two Jacks-in-the-box. He starts to bolt 
 away, with his head over his shoulder, and I, hardly 
 knowing what I was doing, spring on his back, I had 
 the sense to get my hands round his neck at once, and 
 it's about all I could do to lock my fingers tight under his 
 jaw. You saw the beauty's neck, didn't you? Hard ar 
 iron, too. Down we both went. Seeing this the governoi 
 puts his revolver in his pocket. 
 
 " 'Tie his legs together, sir,' I yell. 'I'm trying to 
 strangle him.' 
 
 "There was a lot of their fibre-lines lying about. I 
 gave him 3 last squeeze and then got up.
 
 t34 VICTORY 
 
 " 'I mi^ht have shot you,' says the governor, quite con- 
 cerned. 
 
 " 'But you are glad to have saved a cartridge, sir,' I 
 tell him. 
 
 "My jump did save it. It wouldn't have done to let 
 him get away in the dark like that, and have the beauty 
 dodging around in the bushes, perhaps, with the rusty 
 flint-lock gun they had. The governor ownea up that the 
 jump was the correct thing. 
 
 " 'But he isn't dead,' says he, bending over him. 
 
 "Might as well hope to strangle an ox. We made haste 
 to tie his elbows back, and then, before he came to him- 
 self, we dragged him to a small tree, sat him up, and 
 bound him to it, not by the waist but by the neck — some 
 twenty turns of small line round his throat and the trunk, 
 finished off with a reef-knot under his ear. Next thing we 
 did was to attend to the honourable Antonio, who was 
 making a great smell frizzling his face on the red coals. 
 We pushed and rolled him into the creek, and left the 
 rest to the alligators. 
 
 "I was tired. That little scrap took it out of me some- 
 thing awful. The governor hadn't turned a hair. That's 
 where a gentleman his the pull of you. He don't get 
 excited. No gentleman does — or hardly ever. I fell asleep 
 all of a sudden and left him smoking by the fire I had 
 made up, his railway rug round his legs, as calm as if 
 he were sitting in a first-class carriage. We hardly spoke 
 ten words to each other after it was over, and from that 
 day to this we have never talked of the business. I 
 wouldn't have known he remembered it if he hadn't al- 
 luded to it when talking with you the other day — you 
 know, with regard to Pedro. 
 
 "It surprised you, didn't it? That's why I am giving 
 /ou this yarn of how he came to be with us, like a sort 
 of dog — dashed sight more useful, though. You know 
 how he can trot around with trays? Well, he could bring
 
 VICTORY 135 
 
 down an ox with his fist, at a word from the boss, just 
 as cleverly. And fond of the governor ! Oh, my word ! 
 More than any dog is of any man." 
 
 Schomberg squared his chest. 
 
 "Oh, and that's one of the things I wanted to mention 
 to Mr. Jones," he said. "It's unpleasant to have that 
 fellow round the house so early. He sits on the stairs at 
 the back for hours before he is needed here, and frightens 
 people so that the service suffers. The Chinamen " 
 
 Ricardo nodded and raised his hand. 
 
 "When I first saw him he was fit to frighten a grizzly 
 bear, let alone a Chinaman. He's become civilised now 
 to what he once was. Well, that morning, first thing on 
 opening my eyes, I saw him sitting there, tied up by the 
 neck to the tree. He was blinking. We spent the day 
 watching the sea, and we actually made out the schooner 
 working to windward, which showed that she had given 
 us up. Good ! W^hen the sun rose again, I took a squint 
 at our Pedro. He wasn't blinking. He was rolling his 
 eyes, all white one minute and black the next, and his 
 tongue was hanging out a yard. Being tied up short by the 
 neck like this would daunt the arch devil himself — in 
 time — in time, mind ! I don't know but that even a real 
 gentleman would find it difficult to keep a stiff lip to the 
 end. Presently we went to work getting our boat ready. 
 I was busying myself setting up the mast, when the 
 governor passes the remark : 
 
 " 'I think he wants to say something.' 
 
 "I had heard a sort of croaking going on for som^*. 
 time, only I wouldn't take any notice ; but then I got out 
 of the boat and went up to him, with some water. His 
 eyes were red — red and black and half out of his head. 
 He drank all the water I gave him, but he hadn't much 
 to say for himself. I walked back to the governor. 
 
 " 'He asks for a bullet in his head iDefore we go,' I 
 said. I wasn't at all pleased.
 
 136 VICTORY 
 
 " *Oh, that's out of the question ahogether,' says the 
 ijovernor. 
 
 "He was right there. Only four shots left, and ninety 
 miles of wild coast to put behind us before coming to the 
 first place where you could expect to buy revolver car- 
 tridges. 
 
 '■ 'Anyhow,' I tells him, 'he wants to be killed some 
 way or other, as a favour.' 
 
 "And then I go on setting the boat's mast. I didn't 
 :are much for the notion of butchering a man bound 
 liand and foot and fastened by the neck besides. I had a 
 knife then — the honourable Antonio's knife ; and that 
 knife is this knife," 
 
 Ricardo gave his leg a resounding slap. 
 
 "First spoil in my new life," he went on with harsh 
 joviality. "The dodge of carrying it down there I learned 
 later. I carried it stuck in my belt that day. No, I hadn't 
 much stomach for the job; but when you work with a 
 gentleman of the real right sort you may depend on your 
 feelings being seen through your skin. Says the governor 
 suddenly : 
 
 " *It may even be looked upon as his right' — ^you hear 
 a gentleman speaking there? — 'but what do you think of 
 taking him with us in the boat?' 
 
 "And the governor starts arguing that the beggar 
 u'ould be useful in working our way along the coast. We 
 could get rid of him before coming to the first place that 
 was a little civilised. I didn't want much talking over. Out 
 I scrambled from the boat. 
 
 " 'Ay, but will he be manageable, sir?' 
 
 '' 'Oh, yes. He's daunted. Go on, cut him loose — I take 
 the responsibility.' 
 
 " 'Right you are, sir.' 
 
 "He sees me come along smartly with his brother's 
 knife in my hand — I wasn't thinking how it looked from 
 his side Df the fence, you know — ^and jiminy, it nearly
 
 VICTORY 137 
 
 killed him! He stared like a crazed bullock and began to 
 sweat and twitch all over, something amazing. I was so 
 surprised that I stopped to look at him. The drops were 
 pouring over his eyebrows, down his beard, off his nose — 
 and he gurgled. Then it struck me that he couldn't see 
 what was in my mind. By favour or by right he didn't 
 like to die when it came to it; not in that way, anyhow. 
 When I stepped round to get at the lashing, he let out a 
 sort of soft bellow. Thought I was going to stick him 
 from behind, I guess. I cut all the turns with one slash, 
 and he went over on his side, flop, and started kicking 
 with his tied legs. Laugh! I don't know what there was 
 so funny about it, but I fairly shouted. What between my 
 laughing and his wriggling, I had a job in cutting him 
 free. As soon as he could feel his limbs he makes for the 
 bank, where the governor was standing, crawls up to him 
 on his hands and knees, and embraces his legs. Gratitude, 
 eh? You could see that iK-ing allowed to live suited that 
 chap down to the ground. The governor gets his legs away 
 from him gently and just mutters to me : 
 
 " 'Let's be off. Get him into the boat.' 
 
 "It was not difficult," continued Ricardo, after eyeins.; 
 Schomberg fixedly for a moment. "He was ready enough 
 to get into the boat, and — here he is. He would let himself 
 be chopped into small pieces — with a smile, mind; with 
 a smile ! — for the governor. I don't know about him 
 doing that much for me ; but pretty near, pretty near. I 
 did the tying up and the untying, but he could see who 
 was the boss. And then he knows a gentleman. A dog 
 knows a gentleman — any dog. It's only some foreigners 
 that don't know ; and nothing can teach them, either." 
 
 "And you mean to say," asked Schomberg, disregard- 
 ing what might have been annoying for himself in the 
 emphasis of the final remark, "you mean to say that you 
 left steady employment at good waees for a life like 
 this?"
 
 l.t8 VICTORY 
 
 "There!" began Ricardo quietly. "That's just what a 
 man hke you would say. You are that tame ! I follow a 
 gentleman. That ain't the same thing as to serve an em- 
 ployer. They give you wages as they'd fling a bone to a 
 dog, and they expect you to be grateful. It's worse than 
 slavery. You don't expect a slave that's bought for money 
 to be grateful. And if you sell your work — what is it but 
 selling your own self? You've got so many days to live 
 and you sell them one after another. Hey? Who can pay 
 me enough for my life? Ay! But they throw at you your 
 week's money and expect you to say, 'thank you' before 
 you pick it up." 
 
 He mumbled some curses, directed at employers gen- 
 erally, as it seemed, then blazed out : 
 
 "Work be damned ! I ain't a dog walking on its hind 
 legs for a bone; I am a man who's following a gentle- 
 man. There's a difference which you will never under- 
 stand, Air. Tame Schomberg." 
 
 He yawned slightly. Schomberg, preserving a military 
 stiffness reinforced by a slight frown, had allowed his 
 thoughts to stray away. They were busy detailing the 
 image of a young girl — absent — gone — stolen from him. 
 He became enraged. There was that rascal looking at him 
 insolently. If the girl had not been shamefully decoyed 
 away from him, he would not have allowed any one to 
 look at him insolently. He would have made nothing of 
 hitting that rogue between the eyes. Afterwards he would 
 have kicked the other without hesitation. He saw himself 
 doing it; and in sympathy with this glorious vision 
 Schomberg's right foot and right arm moved convulsively. 
 
 At this moment he came out of his sudden reverie to 
 note with alarm the wide-awake curiosity of Mr. Ricardo's 
 stare. 
 
 "And so you go like this about the world, gambling," 
 he remarked inanelv, tn rover his confusion. But Ricardo's
 
 VICTORY 130 
 
 stare did not change its character, and he continuec 
 vaguely : 
 
 "Here and there and everywhere." He pulled himsell 
 together, squared his shoulders. "Isn't it very precarious?" 
 he said firmly. 
 
 The word precarious seemed to be effective, because 
 Ricardo's eyes lost their dangerously interested expres- 
 sion. 
 
 "No. not so bad," Ricardo said, with indifiFerence. "It's 
 my opinion that men will gamble as long as they have 
 anything to put on a card. Gamble ? That's nature. What's 
 life itself? You never know what ma}' turn up. The worst 
 of it is that you never can tell exactly what sort of cards 
 you are holding yourself. What's trumps?— that is the 
 question. See? Any man will gamble if only he's given 
 a chance, for anything or everything. You too " 
 
 "I haven't touched a card now for twenty years," said 
 Schomberg in an austere tone. 
 
 "Well, if you got your living that way you would be 
 no worse than you are now, selling drinks to people — 
 beastly beer and spirits, rotten stuff fit to make ar old 
 he-goat yell if you poured it down its throat. Pooh ! I 
 can't stand the confounded liquor. Never could. A whiflF 
 of neat brandy in a glass makes me feel sick. Always did. 
 If everybody was like me, liquor would be going a-beg- 
 ging. You think it's funny in a man, don't you?" 
 
 Schomberg made a vague gesture of toleration. Ricardo 
 hitched up in his chair and settled his elbow afresh on the 
 table. 
 
 "French siros I must say I do like. Saigon's the place 
 for them. I see you have siros in the bar. Hang me if 
 I ain't getting dry, conversing like this with you. Come, 
 Mr. Schomberg, be hospitable, as the governor says." 
 
 Schomberg rose and walked with dignity to the counter, 
 His footsteps echoed loudly on the floor 01 polished
 
 I40 VICTORY 
 
 •joards. He took down a bottle labelled Strop de Groseille. 
 The little sounds he made, the clink of glass, the gurgling 
 of the liquid, the pop of the soda-water cork had a preter- 
 natural sharpness. He came back carrying a pink and 
 glistening tumbler. Mr. Ricardo had followed his move- 
 ments with oblique, coyly expectant yellow eyes, like a cat 
 watching the preparation of a saucer of milk ; and the 
 satisfied sound after he had drunk might have been a 
 slightly modified form of purring, very soft and deep in 
 his throat. It affected Schomherg unpleasantly as another 
 example of something inhuman in those men wherein lay 
 the difficulty of dealing with them. A spectre, a cat, an 
 ape — there was a pretty association for a mere man to 
 remonstrate with, he reflected with an inward shudder; 
 for Schomberg had been overpowered, as it were, by his 
 imagination, and his reason could not react against that 
 fanciful view of his guests. And it was not only their ap- 
 pearance. The morals of Mr. Ricardo seemed to him to 
 be pretty much the morals of a cat. Too much. What 
 sort of argument could a mere man offer to a . . . or to a 
 spectre, either ! What the morals of a spectre could be, 
 Schomberg had no idea. Something dreadful, no doubt. 
 Compassion certainly had no place in them. As to the ape 
 — well, everybody knew what an ape was. It had no 
 m.orals. Nothing could be more hopeless. 
 
 Outwardly, however, having picked up the cigar which 
 he had laid aside to get the drink, with his thick fingers, 
 one of them ornamented by a gold ring, Schomberg 
 smoked with moody composure. Facing him, Ricardo 
 blinked slowly for a time, then closed his eyes altogether, 
 with the placidity of the domestic cat dozing on the 
 hearth-rug. In another moment he opened them very wide, 
 and seemed surprised to see Schomberg there. 
 
 "You're having a very slack time to-day, aren't you?" 
 he observed. "But then this whole town is confoundedly 
 Slack, anyhow ; and I've never faced such a slack party
 
 VICTORY 14I 
 
 at a table before. Come eleven o'clock, they begin to talk 
 of breaking up. What's the matter with them? Want to go 
 to bed so early, or what ?" 
 
 "I reckon you don't lose a tortune by their wanting to 
 go to bed," said Schomberg, with sombre sarcasm. 
 
 "No," admitted Ricardo, with a grin that stretched 
 his thin mouth from ear to ear, giving a sudden glimpse 
 of his white teeth. "Only, you see, when I once start, I 
 would play for nuts, for parched peas, for any rubbish. 
 I would play them for their souls. But these Dutchmen 
 aren't any good. They never seem to get warmed up 
 properly, win or lose. I've tried them both ways, too. 
 Hang them for a beggarly, bloodless lot of animated 
 cucumbers !" 
 
 "And if anything out of the way was to happen, they 
 would be just as cool in locking you and your gentleman 
 up," Schomberg snarled unpleasantly. 
 
 "Indeed!" said Ricardo slowly, taking Schomberg'u 
 measure with his eyes. "And what about you?" 
 
 "You talk mighty big," burst out the hotel-keeper. 
 "You talk of ranging all over the world and doing greai 
 things, and taking fortune by the scruff of the neck, but 
 here you stick at this miserable business !" 
 
 "It isn't much of a lay — ^that's a fact," admitted Ri- 
 cardo unexpectedly. 
 
 Schomberg was red in the face with audacity. 
 
 "I call it paltry," he spluttered. 
 
 "That's how it looks. Can't call it anything else." 
 Ricardo seemed to be in an accommodating mood. "I 
 should be ashamed of it myself, only you see the governor 
 is subject to fits " 
 
 "Fits!" Schomberg cried out, but in a low tone. "You 
 don't say so!" He exulted inwardly, as if this disclosure 
 had in some way diminished the difficulty of the situa- 
 tion. "Fits! That's a serious thing, isn't it? You ought to 
 take him to the civil hospital — a lovely place."
 
 «42 VICTORY 
 
 Ricardo nodded slightly, with a faint grin. 
 
 "'Serious enough. Regular fits of laziness, I call them. 
 Now and then he lays down on me like this, and there's 
 no moving him. If you think I like it, you're a long way 
 out. Generally speaking, I can talk him over. I know 
 how to deal with a gentleman. I am no daily-bread slave. 
 But when he has said, 'Martin, I am bored,' then look 
 out! There's nothing to do but to shut up, confound it!" 
 
 Schomberg, very much cast down, had listened open- 
 mouthed. 
 
 "What's the cause of it?" he asked. "Why is he like 
 this? I don't understand." 
 
 "I think I do," said Ricardo. "A gentleman, you know, 
 is not such a simple person as you or I ; and not so easy 
 to manage, either. If only I had something to lever 
 him out with I" 
 
 "What do you mean, to lever him out with?" muttered 
 Schomberg hopelessly. 
 
 Ricardo was impatient with this denseness. 
 
 "Don't you understand English? Look here! I couldn't 
 make this billiard-table move an inch if I talked to it from 
 now till the end of days — could I? Well, the governor is 
 like that, too, when the fits are on him. He's bored. 
 Nothing's worth while, nothing's good enough, that's mere 
 8ense. But if I saw a capstan bar lying about here, I would 
 soon manage to shift that billiard-table of yours a good 
 many inches. And that's all there is to it." 
 
 He rose noiselessly, stretched himself, supple and 
 stealthy, with curious sideways movements of his head 
 and unexpected elongations of his thick body, glanced 
 out of the corners of his eyes in the direction of the door, 
 and finally leaned back against the table, folding his arms 
 on his breast comfortably, in a completely human atti- 
 tude. 
 
 "That's another thing you can tell a gentleman by — 
 His f reakishness. A gentleman ain't accountable to nobody,
 
 VICTORY 143 
 
 any more than a tramp on the roads. He ain't got to keep 
 time. The governor got Hke this once in a one-horse 
 Mexican pueblo on the uplands, away from everywhere. 
 He lay all day long in a dark room " 
 
 "Drunk?" This word escaped Schomberg by inadvert- 
 ence, at which he became frightened. But the devoted 
 secretary seemed to find it natural. 
 
 "No, that never comes on together with this kind of 
 fit. He just lay there full length on a mat, while a rag- 
 ged, bare-legged bo^^ that he had picked up in the street 
 sat in the patio, between two oleanders near i-he open 
 door of his room, strumming on a guitar and singing 
 tristes to him from morning to night. You know tris'es 
 — twang, twang, twang, aouh, hoo ! Chroo, yah !" 
 
 Schomberg uplifted his hands in distress. This tribute 
 seemed to flatter Ricardo. His mouth twitched grimly. 
 
 "Like that — enough to give colic to an ostrich, eh? 
 Awful. Well, there was a cook there who loved me — 
 an old fat, negro woman with spectacles. I used to hide 
 in the kitchen and turn hei' to, to make me dukes — 
 sweet things, you know, mostly eggs and sugar — to pass 
 the time away. I am like a kid for sv/eet things. And, by 
 the way, why don't you ever have a pudding at your tably- 
 dott, Mr. Schomberg? Nothing but fruit, morning, noon, 
 and night. Sickening! What do you think a fellow is — a 
 wasp?" 
 
 Schomberg disregarded the injured tone. 
 
 "And how long did that fit, as you call it, last?" he 
 asked anxiously. 
 
 "Weeks, months, years, centuries, it seemed to me," 
 returned Mr. Ricardo with feeling. "Of an evening the 
 governor would stroll out into the sala and fritter his 
 life away playing cards with the jues of the place — a 
 little Dago with a pair of black whiskers — ekarty, you 
 know, a quick French game, for small change. And the 
 comandante, a one-eyed, half -Indian, flat-nosed ruffian
 
 44 VICTORY 
 
 and I, we had to stand around and bet on their hands. It 
 was awful!" 
 
 "Awful," echoed Schomberg, in a Teutonic throaty 
 tone of despair. "Look here, I need your rooms." 
 
 "To be sure. I have been thinking that for some time 
 past,'' said Ricardo indifferently. 
 
 "I was mad when I listened to you. This must end !" 
 
 "I think you are mad yet," said Ricardo, not even 
 unfolding his arms or shifting his attitude an inch. He 
 lowered his voice to add : "And if I thought you had been 
 to the police, I would tell Pedro to catch you round the 
 waist and break your fat neck by jerking your head 
 backward — snap! I saw him do it to a big buck nigger 
 who was flourishing a razor in front of the governor. 
 It can be done. You hear a low crack, that's all — and the 
 man drops down like a limp rag." 
 
 Not even Ricardo's head, slightly inclined on the left 
 shoulder, had moved ; but when he ceased the green- 
 ish irises which had been staring out of doors glided into 
 the corners of his eyes nearest to Schomberg and stayed 
 there with a coyly voluptuous expression.
 
 VIII 
 
 ScHOMBERG felt desperation, that lamentable substitute; 
 for courage, ooze out of him. It was not so much the 
 threat of death as the weirdly circumstantial manner of 
 its declaration which affected him. A mere "I'll murder 
 you," however ferocious in tone and earnest in purpose, 
 he could have faced ; but before this novel mode of speech 
 and procedure, his imagination being very sensitive to 
 the unusual, he collapsed as if indeed his moral neck had 
 been broken — snap ! 
 
 "Go to the police? Of course not. Never dreamed of it. 
 Too late now. I've let myself be mixed up in this. You 
 got my consent while I wasn't myself. I explained it to 
 you at the time." 
 
 Ricardo's eyes glided gently off Schomberg to stare 
 far away. 
 
 "Ay ! Some trouble with a girl. But that's nothing to 
 us." 
 
 "Naturally. What I say is, what's the good of all that 
 savage talk to me?" A bright argument occurred to him. 
 "It's out of proportion; for even if I were fool enough 
 to go to the police now, there's nothing serious to com- 
 plain about. It would only mean deportation for you. 
 They would put you on board the first westbound steamer 
 to Singapore." He had become animated. "Out of this to 
 the devil," he added between his teeth for his own private 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Ricardo made no comment, and gave no sign of hav- 
 ing heard a single word. This discouraged Schomberg. 
 who had looked up hopefully. 
 
 145
 
 146 VICTORY 
 
 "Why do you want to stick here?" he cried. "It can't 
 pay you people to fool around like this. Didn't you worry 
 fUst now about moving your governor? Well, the police 
 would move him for you ; and from Singapore you can 
 go on to the east coast of Africa." 
 
 "I'll be hanged if the fellow isn't up to that silly 
 .irick!" was Ricardo's comment, spoken in an ominous 
 tone which recalled Schomberg to the realities of his 
 position. 
 
 "No ! No !" he protested. "It's a manner of speak- 
 ing. Of course I wouldn't." 
 
 "1 think that trouble about the girl has really muddled 
 your brains, Mr. Schomberg. Believe me, you had better 
 part friends with us ; for, deportation or no deportation, 
 you'll be seeing one of us turning up before long to pay 
 you ofif for any nasty dodge you may be hatching in that 
 fat head of yours." 
 
 "Gctt iin Himmel!" groaned Schomberg. "Will nothing 
 move him out? Will he stop here immer — I mean always? 
 Suppose I were to make it worth your while, couldn't 
 you " 
 
 "No," Ricardo interrupted. "I couldn't, unless I had 
 something to lever him out with. I've told you that be- 
 fore." 
 
 "An inducement?" muttered Schomberg. 
 
 "Ay. The east coast of Africa isn't good enough. He 
 told me the other day that it will have to wait till he is 
 ready for it; and he may not be ready for a long time, 
 because the east coast can't run away, and no one is 
 likely to run off with it." 
 
 These remarks, whether considered as truisms or as 
 depicting Mr. Jones's mental state, were distinctly dis- 
 couraging to the long-sufifering Schomberg; but there is 
 truth in the well-known saying that places the darkest 
 hour before the dawn. The sound of words, apart from 
 the context, has its power ; and these two words, "run
 
 VICTORY 147 
 
 off," had a special affinity to the hotel-keeper's haunting 
 idea. It was always present in his brain, and now it came 
 forward evoked by a purely fortuitous expression. No, 
 nobody could run oft' with a continent; but Heyst had 
 run off with the girl! 
 
 Ricardo could have had no conception of the cause 
 of Schomberg's changed expression. Yet it was notice- 
 able enough to interest him so much that he stopped 
 the careless swinging of his leg and said, looking at the 
 hotel-keeper : 
 
 "There's not much use arguing against that sort of 
 talk — is there?" 
 
 Schomberg was not listening. 
 
 "I could put you on another track," he said slowly, 
 and stopped, as if suddenly choked by an unholy emo- 
 tion of intense eagerness combined with fear of failure. 
 Ricardo waited, attentive, yet not without a certain con- 
 tempt. 
 
 "On the track of a man !" Schomberg uttered con- 
 vulsively, and paused again, consulting his rage and his 
 conscience. 
 
 "The man in the moon, eh?" suggested Ricardo, in a 
 jeering murmur. 
 
 Schomberg shook his head. 
 
 "It would be nearly as safe to rook him as if he were 
 the man in the moon. You go and try. It isn't so very far." 
 
 He reflected. These men were thieves and murderers 
 as well as gamblers. Their fitness for purposes of ven- 
 geance was appallingly complete. But he preferred not 
 to think of it in detail. He put it to himself summarily 
 that he would be paying Heyst out and would, at the 
 same time, relieve himself of these men's oppression. He 
 had only to let loose his natural gift for talking scandal- 
 ously about his fellow creatures. And in this case his 
 great practice in it was assisted by hate, which, like love, 
 has an eloquence of its own. With the utmost ease he
 
 148 VICTORY 
 
 portrayed for Ricardo, now seriously attentive, a Heyst 
 fattened by years of private and public rapines, the 
 murderer of Morrison, the swindler of many shareholders, 
 a wonderful mixture of craft and impudence, of deep 
 purposes and simple wiles, of mystery and futility. In 
 this exercise of his natural function Schomberg revived, 
 the colour coming back to his face, loquacious, florid, 
 eager, his manliness set off by the military bearing. 
 
 "That's the exact story. He was seen hanging about this 
 part o*f the world for years, spying into everybody's 
 business ; but I am the only one who has seen through 
 him from the first — contemptible, double-faced, stick-at- 
 nothing, dangerous fellow." 
 
 "Dangerous, is he?" 
 
 Schomberg came to himself at the sound of Ricardo 's 
 voice. 
 
 "Well, you know what I mean," he said uneasily. "A 
 lying, circumventing, soft-spoken, polite, stuck-up rascal. 
 Nothing open about him." 
 
 Mr. Ricardo had slipped off the table, and was prowling 
 about the room in an oblique, noiseless manner. He 
 flashed a grin at Schomberg in passing, and a snarling: 
 
 "Ah! H'm!" 
 
 "Well, what more dangerous do you want?" argued 
 Schomberg. "He's in no way a fighting man, I believe," 
 he added negligently. 
 
 "And you say he has been living alone there?" 
 
 ''Like the man in the moon," answered Schomberg 
 readily. "There's no one that cares a rap what becomes 
 of him. He has been lying low, you understand, after 
 bagging all that plunder." 
 
 "Plunder, eh? Why didn't he go home with it?" in- 
 quired Ricardo. 
 
 The henchman of "plain Mr. Jones" was beginning 
 to think that this was something worth looking into. 
 And he was pursuing truth in the manner of men of
 
 VICTORY 149 
 
 sounder morality and purer intentions than his own ; that 
 is he pursued it in the Hght of his own experience and 
 prejudices. For facts, whatever their origin (and God 
 only knows where they come from), can be only tested 
 by our own particular suspicions. Ricardo was suspicious 
 all round. Schomberg, such is the tonic power of recov- 
 ered self-esteem, Schomberg retorted fearlessly: 
 
 "Go home? Why don't yov^ go home? To hear your 
 talk, you must have made a pretty considerable pile going 
 round winning people's money. You ought to be ready 
 by this time." 
 
 Ricardo stopped to look at Schomberg with surprise. 
 
 "You think yourself very clever, don't you?" he said. 
 
 Schomberg just then was so conscious of being clever 
 that the snarling irony left him unmoved. There wag 
 positively a smile in his noble Teutonic beard, the first 
 smile for weeks. He was in a felicitous vein. 
 
 "How do you know that he wasn't thinking of going 
 home? As a matter of fact, he was on his way home." 
 
 "And how do I know that you are not amusing your- 
 self by spinning out a blamed fairy tale?" interrupted 
 Ricardo roughly. "I wonder at myself listening to the 
 silly rot !" 
 
 Schomberg received this turn of temper unmoved. 
 He did not require to be very subtly observant to notice 
 that he had managed to arouse some sort of feeling, 
 perhaps of greed, in Ricardo's breast. 
 
 "You won't believe me? Well! You can ask any- 
 body that comes here if that — ^that Swede hadn't got 
 as far as this house on his way home. Why should he 
 turn up here if not for that? You ask anybody." 
 
 "Ask, indeed !" returned the other. "Catch me asking 
 at large about a man I mean to drop on ! Such jobs must 
 be done on the quiet — or not at all." 
 
 The peculiar intonation of the last phrase touched the 
 naoe of Schomberg's neck with a chill. He_cleared hi."
 
 JSO VICTORY 
 
 throat slightly and looked away as though he had heard 
 something indelicate. Then, with a jump as it were : 
 
 "Of course he didn't tell me. Is it likely? But haven't 
 I got eyes? Haven't I got my common sense to tell me? 
 I can see through people. By the same token, he called on 
 the Tesmans. Why did lie call en the Tesmans two days 
 running, eh? You don't know? You can't tell?" 
 
 He waited complacently till Ricardo had finished 
 swearing quite openly at him for a confounded chatterer, 
 and then went on : 
 
 "A fellow doesn't go to a counting-house in business 
 hours for a chat about the weather, two days running. 
 Then why? To close his account with them one day, and 
 to get his money out the next! Clear, what?" 
 
 Ricardo, with his trick of looking one way and moving 
 another, approached Schomberg slowly. 
 
 "To get his money?" he purred. 
 
 "Gczmss;' snapped Schomberg with impatient superi- 
 ority. "What else? That is, only the money he had with 
 the Tesmans. What he has buried or put away on the 
 island, devil only knows. When you think of the lot of 
 hard cash that passed through that man's hands, for 
 wages and stores and all that — and he's just a cunning 
 thief, I tell you." Ricardo's hard stare discomposed the 
 hotel-keeper, and he added in an embarrassed tone : "I 
 mean a common, sneaking thief — no account at all. And he 
 calls himself a Swedish baron, too! Tf ui !" 
 
 "He's a baron, is he? That foreign nobility ain't much," 
 commented Mr. Ricardo seriously. "And then what? He 
 hung about here?" 
 
 "Yes, he hung about," said Schomberg, making a wry 
 mouth. "He — hung about. That's it. Hung " 
 
 His voice died out. Curiosity was depicted in Ricardo's 
 countenance. 
 
 "Just like that ; for nothing? And then turned about and 
 went back to that island again?"
 
 VICTORY 151 
 
 ''And went back to that island again," Schomberg 
 echoed lifelessly, fixing his gaze on the floor, 
 
 "What's the matter with you?" asked Ricardo with 
 genuine surprise. "What is it?" 
 
 Schomberg, without looking up. made an impatient 
 gesture. His face was crimson, and he kept it lowered. 
 Ricardo went back to the point. 
 
 "Well, but how do you account for it? What was 
 his reason? What did he go back to the island for?" 
 
 "Honeymoon !" spat out Schomberg viciously. 
 
 Perfectly still, his eyes downcast, he suddenly, witl\ 
 no preliminary stir, hit the table with his fist a blow which 
 caused the utterly unprepared Ricardo to leap aside. And 
 only then did Schomberg look up with a dull, resentful 
 expression. 
 
 Ricardo stared hard for a moment, spun on his heel, 
 walked to the end of the room, came back smartly and 
 muttered a profound "Ay ! Ay !" above Schomberg's rigid 
 head. That the hotel-keeper was capable of a great moral 
 effort was proved by a gradual return of his severe. 
 Lieutenant-of-the-Reserve manner. 
 
 "Ay, ay !" repeated Ricardo more deliberately than 
 before, and as if after a further survey of the circum- 
 stances. "I wish I hadn't asked you, or that you had 
 told me a lie. It don't suit me to know that there's a 
 woman mixed up in this affair. What's she like? It's 
 the girl you " 
 
 "Leave off!" muttered Schomberg, utterly pitiful be- 
 hind his stiff military front. 
 
 "Ay, ay !" Ricardo ejaculated for the third time, more 
 and more enlightened and perplexed. "Can't bear to talk 
 about it — so bad as that? And yet I would bet she isn't 
 a miracle to look at." 
 
 Schomberg made a gesture as if he didn't know, as it 
 he didn't care. Then he squared his shoulders and frowned 
 at vacancy.
 
 152 VICTORY 
 
 "Swedish baron — h'm!" Ricardo continued medi- 
 tatively. "I believe the governor would think that business 
 worth looking up, quite, if I put it to him properly. The 
 governor likes a duel, if you will call it so; but I don't 
 know a man that can stand up to him on the square. Have 
 vou ever seen a cat play with a mouse? It's a pretty 
 sight." 
 
 Ricardo, with his voluptuously gleaming eyes and the 
 coy expression, looked so much like a cat that Schomberg 
 would have felt all the alarm of a mouse if other feelings 
 had not had complete possession of his breast. 
 
 "There are no lies between you and me," he said, more 
 steadily than he thought he could speak. 
 
 "What's the good now? He funks women. In that 
 Mexican pueblo where we lay grounded on our beef- 
 bones, so to speak, I used to go to dances of an evening. 
 The girls there would ask me if the English cahallero in 
 the posada was a monk in disguise, or if he had taken a 
 vow to the sanctissima madre not to speak to a woman or 
 
 whether You can imagine what fairly free-spoken 
 
 girls will ask when they come to the point of not caring 
 what they say; and it used to vex me. Yes, the governor 
 funks facing women." 
 
 "One woman?" interjected Schomberg in guttural 
 iones. 
 
 "One may be more awkward to deal with than two, or 
 two hundred, for that matter. In a place that's full of 
 women you needn't look at them unless you like ; but if 
 you go into a room where there is only one woman, young 
 or old, pretty or ugly, you have got to face her. And, 
 unless you are after her, then — the governor is right 
 enough — she's in the way." 
 
 "Why notice them?" muttered Schomberg. "What can 
 ihey do?" 
 
 "Make a noise, if nothing else," opined Mr. Ricardo 
 curtly, with the distaste of a man whose path is a path
 
 VICTORY IS.1 
 
 of silence ; for indeed, nothing is more odious than a 
 noise when one is engaged in a weighty and absorbing 
 card game. "Noise, noise, my friend," he went on 
 forcibly ; "confounded screeching about something or 
 other, and I like it no more than the governor does. But 
 with the governor there's something else besides. He can't 
 stand them at all." 
 
 He paused to reflect on this psychological Dhenomenon, 
 and as no philosopher was at hand to tell him that there 
 is no strong sentiment without some terror, as there is no 
 real religion without a little fetichism, he emitted his 
 own conclusion, which surely could not go to the root of 
 the matter. 
 
 "I'm hanged if I don't think they are to him what liquor 
 is to me. Brandy — pah !" 
 
 He made a disgusted face, and produced a genuine 
 shudder. Schomberg listened to him in wonder. It looked 
 as if the very scoundrelism of that — ^that Swede would 
 protect him ; the spoil of his iniquity standing between 
 the thief and the retribution. 
 
 "That's so, old buck." Ricardo broke the silence after 
 contemplating Schomberg's mute dejection with a sort of 
 sympathy. "I don't think this trick will work." 
 
 "But that's silly," whispered the man deprived of the 
 vengeance which he had seemed already to hold in his 
 hand, by a mysterious and exasperating idiosyncrasy. 
 
 "Don't you set yourself to judge a gentleman." Ricardo 
 without anger administered a moody rebuke. "Even I 
 can't understand the governor thoroughly. And I am an 
 Englishman and his follower. No ; I don't think I care 
 to put it before him, sick as I am of staying here." 
 
 Ricardo could not be more sick of staying than Schom- 
 berg was of seeing him stay. Schomberg believed so 
 firmly in the reality of Heyst as created by his own 
 power of false inferences, of his hate, of his love of 
 scandal, that he could not contain a stifled cry of con-
 
 J54 VICTORY 
 
 viction as sincere as most of our convictions, the disguised 
 servants of our passions, can appear at a supreme mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "It would have been Hke going to pick up a nugget of 
 a thousand pounds, or two or three times as much, for all 
 I know. No trouble, no " 
 
 "The petticoat's the trouble," Ricardo struck in. 
 
 He had resumed his noiseless, feline, oblique prowling, 
 in which an observer would have detected a new char- 
 acter of excitement, such as a wild animal of the cat 
 species, anxious to make a spring, might betray. Schom- 
 berg saw nothing. It would probably have cheered his 
 drooping spirits ; but in a general way he preferred not 
 to look at Ricardo. Ricardo, however, with one of his 
 slanting, gliding, restless glances, observed the bitter smile 
 on Schomberg's bearded lips — the unmistakable smile of 
 ruined hopes. 
 
 "You are a pretty unforgiving sort of chap," he said, 
 stopping for a moment with an air of interest. "Hang 
 me if I ever saw anybody look so disappointed! I bet 
 you would send black plague to that island if you only 
 knew how — eh, what? Plague too good for them? Ha, 
 ha, ha !" 
 
 He bent down to stare at Schomberg who sat unstir- 
 ring with stony eyes and set features, and apparently 
 deaf to the rasping derision of that laughter so close to 
 his red fleshy ear. 
 
 "Black plague too good for them, ha, ha!" Ricardo 
 pressed the point on the tormented hotel-keeper. Schom- 
 berg kept his eyes down obstinately. 
 
 "I don't wish any harm to the girl," he muttered. 
 
 "But she did bolt from you? A fair bilk? Come!" 
 
 "Devil only knows what that villainous Swede had 
 done to her — what he promised her, how he frightened 
 her. She couldn't have cared for him, I know." Schom- 
 berg's vanity clung to the belief in some atrocious, ex-
 
 VICTORY IS5 
 
 traordinary means of seduction employed by Heyst. 
 "Look how he bewitched that poor Morrison," he mur- 
 mured. 
 
 "Ah, Morrison — got all his money, what?" 
 
 "Yes— and his life." 
 
 "Terrible f ellow^ that Swedish baron ! How is one tc 
 get at him?" 
 
 Schomberg exploded. 
 
 "Three against one! Are you shy? Do you want me 
 to give you a letter of introduction?" 
 
 "You ought to look at yourself in a glass," PJcardi 
 said quietly. "Dash me if you don't get a stroke of some 
 kind presently. And this is the fellow who says women 
 can do nothing! That one will do for you, unless you 
 manage to forget her." 
 
 "I wish I could," Schomberg admitted earnestly. "And 
 it's all the doing of that Swede. I don't get enough sleep, 
 Mr. Ricardo. And then, to finish me off, you gentlemen 
 turn up . . . as if I hadn't enough worry." 
 
 "That's done you good," suggested the secretary with 
 ironic seriousness. "Takes your mind off that silly trouble. 
 At your age too." 
 
 He checked himself, as if in pity, and changing his 
 tone : 
 
 "I would really like to oblige you while doing a stroke 
 of business at the same time." « 
 
 "A good stroke," insisted Schomberg, as if it were 
 mechanically. In his simplicity he was not able to give 
 up the idea which had entered his head. An idea must be 
 driven out by another idea, and with Schomberg ideas 
 were rare and therefore tenacious. "Minted gold," he 
 murmured with a sort of anguish. 
 
 Such an expressive combination of words was not 
 without effect on Ricardo. Both these men were amen- 
 able to the influence of verbal suggestions. The secretary 
 of "plain Mr. Jones" sighed and murmured:
 
 ts6 VICTORY 
 
 "Yes. But how is one to get at it?" 
 
 "Being three to one," said Schomberg, "I suppose you 
 could get it for the asking." 
 
 "One would think the fellow lived next door," 
 Ricardo growled impatiently. "Hang it all, can't you 
 understand a plain question? I have asked you the way." 
 
 Schomberg seemed to revive. 
 
 "The way?" 
 
 The torpor of deceived hopes underlying his super- 
 ficial changes of mood had been pricked by these words 
 which seemed pointed with purpose. 
 
 "The way is over the water, of course," said the hotel- 
 keeper. "For people like you, three days in a good, big 
 boat is nothing. It's no more than a little outing, a bit 
 of a change. At this season the Java Sea is a pond. I 
 have an excellent, safe boat — a ship's life-boat — carry 
 thirty, let alone three, and a child could handle her. You 
 wouldn't get a wet face at this time of the year. You 
 might call it a pleasure-trip." 
 
 "And yet, having this boat, you didn't go after her your- 
 self — or after him? Well, you are a fine fellow for a 
 disappointed lover." 
 
 Schomberg gave a start at the suggestion. 
 
 "I am not three men," he said sulkily, as the shortest 
 answer of the several he could have given. 
 
 "Oh, I knwv your sort," Ricardo let fall negligently. 
 "You are like most people — or perhaps just a little more 
 peaceable than the rest of the buying and selling gang 
 that bosses this rotten show. Well, well, you respectable 
 citizen," he went on, "let us go thoroughly into the mat- 
 ter." 
 
 When Schomberg had been made to understand that 
 Mr. Jones's henchman was ready to discuss, in his own 
 words, "this boat of yours, with courses and distances," 
 and such concrete matters of no good augury to that vil-
 
 VICTORY 15; 
 
 lainous Swede, he recovered his soldierly bearing, squared 
 his shoulders, and asked in his military manner : 
 
 "You wish, then, to proceed with the business?" 
 
 Ricardo nodded. He had a great mind to, he said. A 
 gentleman had to be humoured as much as possible ; but 
 he must be managed, too, on occasions, for his own good. 
 And it was the business of the right sort of "follower" 
 to know the proper time and the proper methods of that 
 delicate part of his duty. Having exposed this theor}i 
 Ricardo proceeded to the application. 
 
 "I've never actually lied to him," he said, "and I ain't 
 going to now. I shall just say nothing about the girl. He 
 will have to get over the shock the best he can. Hang 
 it all ! Too much humouring won't do here." 
 
 "Funny thing," Schomberg observed crisply. 
 
 "Is it? Ay, you wouldn't mind taking a woman by the 
 throat in some dark corner and nobody by, I bet !" 
 
 Ricardo's dreadful, vicious, cat-like readiness to get his 
 claws out at any moment startled Schomberg as usual. 
 But it was provoking too. 
 
 "And you?" he defended himself. "Don't you want me 
 to believe you are up to anything?" 
 
 "I, my boy? Oh, yes. I am not that gentleman; neither 
 are you. Take 'em by the throat or chuck 'em under the 
 chin is all one to me — almost," affirmed Ricardo, with 
 something obscurely ironical in his complacency. "Now, 
 as to this business. A three days' jaunt in a good boat 
 isn't a thing to frighten people like us. You are right, 
 so far; but there are other details" 
 
 Schomberg was ready enough to enter into details. He 
 explained that he had a small plantation, with a fairlj 
 habitable hut on it, on Madura. He proposed that his 
 guest should start from town in his boat, as if going for 
 an excursion to that rural spot. The custom-house people 
 on the quay were used to see his boat go off on such trips.
 
 rs8 VICTORY 
 
 From Madura, after some repose and on a convenient 
 day, Mr. Jones and party would make the real start. It 
 would all be plain sailing. Schomberg undertook to pro- 
 vision the boat. The greatest hardship the voyagers need 
 apprehend would be a mild shower of rain. At that season 
 of the year there were no serious thunderstorms. 
 
 Schomberg's heart began to thump as he saw himself 
 nearing his vengeance. His speech was thick but per- 
 suasive. 
 
 "No risk at all — none whatever!" 
 
 Ricardo dismissed these assurances of safety with an 
 impatient gesture. He was thinking of other risks. 
 
 "The getting away from here is all right; but we may 
 be sighted at sea, and that may bring awkwardness later 
 on. A ship's boat with three white men in her, knocking 
 about out of sight of land, is bound to make talk. Are we 
 likely to be seen on our way?" 
 
 "No, unless by native craft," said Schomberg. 
 
 Ricardo nodded, satisfied. Both these white men looked 
 on native life as a mere play of shadows. A play of shad- 
 ows the dominant race could walk through unafifected and 
 disregarded in the pursuit of its incomprehensible aims and 
 needs. No. Native craft did not count, of course. It was 
 an empty, solitary part of the sea, Schomberg expounded 
 further. Only the Ternate mail-boat crossed that region 
 about the 8th of every month, regularly — nowhere near 
 the island, though. Rigid, his voice hoarse, his heart 
 thumping, his mind concentrated on the success of his 
 plan, the hotel-keeper multiplied words, as if to keep as 
 many of them as possible between himself and the mur- 
 derous aspect of his purpose. 
 
 "So, if you gentlemen depart from my plantation 
 quietly at sunset on the 8th — always best to make a start 
 at night, with a land breeze — it's a hundred to one — what 
 am I saying? — it's a thousand to one that no human eye 
 will see you on the passage. All you've got to do is to keep
 
 VICTORY 150 
 
 her heading northeast for, say, fifty hours; perhaps no! 
 quite so long. There will always be draft enough to keep a 
 boat moving ; you may reckon on that ; and then " 
 
 The muscles about his waist quivered under his clothes 
 with eagerness, with impatience, and with something like 
 apprehension, the true nature of which was not clear to 
 him. And he did not want to investigate it. Ricardo re- 
 garded him steadily, with those dry eyes of his shining 
 more like polished stones than living tissue. 
 
 "And then what ?" he asked. 
 
 "And then — why, you will astonish der herr baron — 
 ha, ha !" 
 
 Schomberg seemed to force the words and the laugh 
 out of himself in a hoarse bass. 
 
 "And you believe he has all that plunder by him?" 
 asked Ricardo. rather perfunctorily, because the fact 
 seemed to him extremely probable when looked at all 
 round by his acute mind. 
 
 Schomberg raised his hands and lowered them slowly. 
 
 "How can it be otherwise? He was going home, he was 
 on his way, in this hotel. Ask people. Was it likely he 
 would leave it behind him?" 
 
 Ricardo was thoughtful. Then, suddenly raising his 
 head, he remarked : 
 
 "Steer northeast for fifty hours, eh? That's not much 
 of a sailing direction. I've heard of a port being missed 
 before on better information. Can't you say what sort of 
 landfall a fellow may expect? But I suppose you have 
 never seen that island yourself." 
 
 Schomberg admitted that he had not seen it, in a tone 
 in which a man congratulates himself on having escaped 
 the contamination of an unsavoury experience. No. cer- 
 tainly not. He had never had any business to call him 
 there. But what of that? He could give Mr. Ricardo as 
 good a sea-mark as anybody need wish for. He laughed 
 nervously. Miss itl He defied any one that came within
 
 TOO VICTORY 
 
 forty miles of it to miss the retreat of that villainous 
 Swede. 
 
 "What do you think of a pillar of smoke by day and a 
 loom of fire at night? There's a volcano in full blast near 
 that island — enough to guide almost a blind man. What 
 more do you want ? An active volcano to steer by !" 
 
 These last words he roared out exultingly, then jumped 
 up and glared. The door to the left of the bar had swung 
 open, and Mrs. Schomberg, dressed for duty, stood facing 
 him down the whole length of the room. She clung to the 
 handle for a moment, then came in and glided to her place, 
 where she sat down to stare straight before her, as usual.
 
 FART III
 
 Tropical nature had been kind tc, the failure of the 
 commercial enterprise. The desolation of the headquar^ 
 ters of the Tropical Belt Coal Company had been screened 
 from the side of the sea; from the side where prying 
 eyes — if any were sufficiently interested, either in malice 
 or in sorrow — could have noted the decaying bones of that 
 once sanguine enterprise. 
 
 Heyst had been sitting among the bones buried so kindly 
 in the grass of two wet seasons' growth. The silence of 
 his surroundings, broken only by such sounds as a distant 
 roll of thunder, the lash of rain through the foliage of 
 some big trees, the noise of the wind tossing the leaves of 
 the forest, and of the short seas breaking against the 
 shore, favoured rather than hindered his solitary medita- 
 tion. 
 
 A meditation is always — in a white man, at least — 
 more or less an interrogative exercise. Heyst meditated 
 in simple terms on the mystery of his actions ; and he 
 answered himself with the honest reflection : 
 
 "There must be a lot of the original Adam in me, after 
 all." 
 
 He reflected, too, with the sense of making a discov- 
 ery, that this primeval ancestor is not easily suppressed. 
 The oldest voice in the world is just the one that never 
 ceases to speak. If anybody could have silenced its im- 
 perative echoes, it should have been Heyst's father, with 
 his contemptuous, inflexible negation of all effort; but 
 apparently he could not. There was in the son a lot of 
 that first ancestor who, as soon as he could uplift hi« 
 
 i6i
 
 i64 VICTORY 
 
 muddy frame from the celestial mould, started inspecting 
 and naming the animals of that paradise which he was so 
 soon to lose. 
 
 Action — the first thought, or perhaps the first impulse, 
 on earth ! The barbed hook, baited with the illusion ot 
 progress, to bring out of the lightless void the shoals of 
 unnumbered generations ! 
 
 "And I, the son of my father, have been caught too, 
 like the silliest fish of them all," Heyst said to himself. 
 
 He suffered. He was hurt by the sight of his own life, 
 ivhich ought to have been a masterpiece of aloofness. He 
 remembered always his last evening with his father. He 
 remembered the thin features, the great mass of white 
 hair, and the ivory complexion. A five-branched candle- 
 stick stood on a little table by the side of the easy chair. 
 They had been talking a long time. The noises of the street 
 had died out one by one, till at last, in the moonlight, the 
 London houses began to look like the tombs of an unvis- 
 ited, unhonoured cemetery of hopes. 
 
 He had listened. Then, after a silence, he had asked — 
 for he was really young then : 
 
 "Is there no guidance?" 
 
 His father was in an unexpectedly soft mood on that 
 night, when the moon swam in a cloudless sky over the 
 begrimed shadows of the town. 
 
 "You still believe in something, then?" he said in a 
 clear voice, which had been growing feeble of late. "You 
 believe in flesh and blood, perhaps? A full and equable 
 contempt would soon do away with that, too. But since 
 you have not attained to it, I advise you to cultivate that 
 form of contempt which is called pity. It is perhaps the 
 least difficult — always remembering that you, too, if you 
 are anything, are as pitiful as the rest, yet never expect- 
 ing any pity for yourself." 
 
 "What is one to do, then?" sighed the young man, re- 
 garding his father, rigid in the high-backed chair.
 
 VICTORY i6S 
 
 "Look on — make no sound," were the last words of the 
 man who had spent his Hfe in blowing blasts upon a ter- 
 rible trumpet which had filled heaven and earth with 
 ruins, while mankind went on its way unheeding. 
 
 That very night he died in his bed, so quietly that they 
 found him in his usual attitude of sleep, lying on his side, 
 one hand under his cheek, and his knees slightly bent. He 
 had not even straightened his legs. 
 
 His son buried the silenced destroyer of systems, of 
 hopes, of beliefs. He observed that the death of that bit- 
 ter contemner of life did not trouble the flow of life's 
 stream, where men and women go by thick as dust, rx:- 
 volving and jostling one another like figures cut out of 
 cork and weighted with lead just sufficiently to keep them 
 in their proudly upright posture. 
 
 After the funeral, Heyst sat alone, in the dusk, and 
 his meditation took the form of a definite vision of the 
 stream, of the fatuously jostling, nodding, spinning fig- 
 ures hurried irresistibly along, and giving no sign of being 
 aware that the voice on the bank had been suddenly 
 silenced. . . . Yes. A few obituary notices generally in- 
 significant and some grossly abusive. The son had read 
 them all with mournful detachment. 
 
 "This is the hate and rage of their fear," he thought to 
 himself, "and also of wounded vanity. They shriek their 
 little shriek as they fly past. I suppose I ought to hate 
 him too. . . ." 
 
 He became aware of his eyes being wet. It was not 
 that the man was his father. For him it was purely a 
 matter of hearsay which could not in itself cause this 
 emotion. No ! It was because he had looked at him so long 
 that he missed him so much. The dead man had kept him 
 on the bank by his side. And now Heyst felt acutely that 
 he was alone on the bank of the stream. In his pride he 
 determined not to enter it. 
 
 A few slow tears rolled down his face. The rooms.
 
 »66 VICTORY 
 
 filling with shadows, seemed haunted by a melancholy, 
 uneasy presence which could not express itself. The young 
 man got up with a strange sense of making way for some- 
 thing impalpable that claimed possession, went out of the 
 house, and locked the door. A fortnight later he started on 
 his travels — to "look on and never make a sound." 
 
 The elder Heyst had left behind him a little money and 
 a certain quantity of movable objects, such as books, 
 tables, chairs, and pictures, which might have complained 
 of heartless desertion after many years of faithful service ; 
 for there is a soul in things. Heyst, our Heyst, had often 
 thought ot them, reproachful and mute, shrouded and 
 locked up in those rooms, far away in London with the 
 sounds of the street reaching them faintly, and sometimes 
 a little sunshine, when the blinds were pulled up and the 
 windows opened from time to time in pursuance of his 
 original instructions and later reminders. It seemed as if 
 in his conception of a world not worth touching, and per- 
 haps not substantial enough to grasp, these objects familiar 
 to his childhood and his youth and associated with the 
 memory of an old man, were the only realities, something 
 having an absolute existence. He would never have them 
 sold, or even moved from the places they occupied when 
 he looked upon them last. When he was advised from 
 London that his lease had expired, and that the house, 
 with some others as like it as two peas, was to be demol- 
 ished, he was surprisingly distressed. 
 
 He had entered by then the broad, human path of in- 
 consistencies. Already the Tropical Belt Coal Company 
 was in existence. He sent instructions to have some of the 
 things sent out to him at Samburan, just as any ordinary, 
 credulous person would have done. They came, torn out 
 from their long repose — a lot of books, some chairs and 
 tables, his father's portrait in oils, which surprised Heyst 
 by its air of youth, because he remembered his father as 
 a much older man ; a lot of small objects, such as candle-
 
 VICTORY 16^ 
 
 Sticks, inkstands, and statuettes from his father's study, 
 which surprised him because they looked so old and so 
 much worn. 
 
 The manager of the Tropical Belt Coal Company, un- 
 packing them on the verandah in the shade besieged by a 
 fierce sunshine, must have felt like a remorseful apostate 
 before these relics. He handled them tenderly; and it 
 was perhaps their presence there which attached him to 
 the island when he woke up to the failure of his apostasy. 
 Whatever the decisive reason, Heyst had remained where 
 another would have been glad to be off. The excellent 
 Davidson had discovered the fact without discovering the 
 reason, and took a humane interest in Heyst's strange ex- 
 istence, while at the same time his native delicacy kept 
 him from intruding on the other's whim of solitude. He 
 could not possibly guess that Heyst, alone on the island, 
 felt neither more nor less lonely than in any other place, 
 desert or populous. Davidson's concern was, if one may 
 express it so, the danger of spiritual starvation ; but this 
 was a spirit which had renounced all outside nourishment, 
 and was sustaining itself proudly on its own contempt of 
 the usual coarse aliments which life offers to the common 
 appetites of men. 
 
 Neither was Heyst's body in danger of starvation, as 
 Schomberg had so confidently asserted. At the beginning 
 of the company's operations the island had been pro- 
 visioned in a manner which had outlasted the need. Heyst 
 did not need to fear hunger ; and his very loneliness had 
 not been without ?ome alleviation. Of the crowd of im- 
 ported Chinese labourers, one at least had remained in 
 Samburan, solitary and strange, like a swallow left behind 
 at the migrating season of his tribe. 
 
 Wang was not a common coolie. He had been a servant 
 to white men before. The agreement between him and 
 Heyst consisted in the exchange of a few words on the 
 day when the last batch of the mine coolies was leaving
 
 i68 VICTORY 
 
 Samburan. Heyst, leaning over the balustrade of the 
 verandah, was looking on, as calm in appearance as 
 though he had never departed from the doctrine that this 
 world, for the wise, is nothing but an amusing spectacle. 
 Wang came round the house, and standing below, raised 
 tip his yellow, thin face. 
 
 "All finish?" he asked. 
 
 Heyst nodded slightly from above, glancing towards 
 the jetty. A crowd of blue-clad figures with yellow faces 
 and calves was being hustled down into the boats of the 
 chartered steamer lying well out, like a painted ship on a 
 painted sea; painted in crude colours, without shadows, 
 without feeling, with brutal precision. 
 
 "You had better hurry up if you don't want to be left 
 behind." 
 
 But the Chinaman did not move. 
 
 "Me stop," he declared. Heyst looked down at him for 
 the first time. 
 
 "You want to stop here ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What were you? What was your work here?" 
 
 "Mess-lcom boy." 
 
 "Do you want to stay with me here as my boy?" in- 
 (juired Heyst, surprised. 
 
 The Chinaman unexpectedly put on a deprecatory ex- 
 pression, and said, after a marked pause : 
 
 "Can do." 
 
 "You needn't," said Heyst, "unless you like. I propose 
 to stay on here — it may be for a very long time. I have no 
 power to make you go if you wish to remain, but I don't 
 see why you should." 
 
 "Catchee on^. piecee wife," remarked Wang unemotion- 
 ally, and marched ofif, turning his back on the wharf and 
 the great world beyond, represented by the steamer wait- 
 "ng for her boats. 
 
 Heyst learned presently that Wang had persuaded one
 
 VICTORY X69 
 
 of the women of the Alfuro village, on the west shore 
 of the island, beyond the central ridge, to come over to 
 live with him in a remote part of the company's clearing. 
 It was a curious case, inasmuch as the Alfuros, having 
 been frightened by the sudden invasion of Chinamen, 
 had blocked the path over the ridge by felling a few trees, 
 and had kept strictly on their own side. The coolies, as g 
 body, mistrusting the manifest mildness of these harmless 
 fisher-folk, had kept to their lines, without attempting to 
 cross the island. Wang was the brilliant exception. He 
 must have been uncommonly fascinating, in a way that 
 was not apparent to Heyst, or else uncommonly persua- 
 sive. The woman's services to Heyst were limited to the 
 fact that she had anchored Wang to the spot by her 
 charms, which remained unknown to the white man, be- 
 cause she never came near the houses. The couple lived at 
 the edge of the forest, and she could sometimes be seen 
 gazing towards the bungalow shading her eyes with her 
 hand. Even from a distance she appeared to be a shy, wild 
 creature, and Heyst, anxious not to try her primiti'/e 
 nerves unduly, scrupulously avoided that side of the clear- 
 ing in his strolls. 
 
 The day — or rather the first night — after his hermit life 
 began, he was aware of vague sounds of revelry in that 
 direction. Emboldened by the departure of the invading 
 strangers, some Alfuros, the woman's friends and rela- 
 tions, had ventured over the ridge to attend something in 
 the nature of a wedding feast. Wang had invited them. 
 But this was the only occasion when any sound louder than 
 the buzzing of insects had troubled the profound silence 
 of the clearing. The natives were never invited again. 
 Wang not only knew how to live according to conven- 
 tional proprieties, but had strong personal views as to the 
 manner of arranging his domestic existence. After a time 
 Heyst perceived that Wang had annexed all the keys. Any 
 key left lying about vanished after Wang had passed thai
 
 xyi VICTORY 
 
 way. Subsequently some of them — those that did not be- 
 long to the storerooms and the empty bungalows, and 
 could not be regarded as the common property of this 
 community of two — were returned to Heyst, tied in a 
 bunch with a piece of string. He found them one morning 
 lying by the side of his plate. He had not been inconve- 
 nienced by their absence, because he never locked up any- 
 thing in the way of drawers and boxes. Heyst said noth- 
 ing. Wang also said nothing. Perhaps he had always been 
 a taciturn man ; perhaps he was influenced by the genius 
 of the locality, which was certainly that of silence. Till 
 Heyst and Morrison had landed in Black Diamond Bay, 
 and named it, that side of Samburan had hardly ever 
 heard the sound of human speech. It was easy to be taci- 
 turn with Heyst, who had plunged himself into an abyss 
 of meditation over books, and remained in it till the shadow 
 of Wang falling across the page, and the sound of a 
 rough, low voice uttering the Malay word "makan," 
 would force him to climb out to a meal. 
 
 Wang in his native province in China might have been 
 an aggressively, sensitively genial person; but in Sam- 
 buran he had clothed himself in a mysterious stolidity, 
 and did not seem to resent not being spoken to except 
 in single words, at a rate which did not average half a 
 dozen per day. And he gave no more than he got. It is to 
 be presumed that if he suffered constraint, he made up for 
 it with the Alfuro woman. He always went back to her at 
 the first fall of dusk, vanishing from the bungalow sud- 
 denly at this hour, like a sort of topsy-turvy, day-hunting 
 Chinese ghost with a white jacket and a pigtail. Presently, 
 giving way to a Chinaman's ruling passion, he could be 
 observed breaking the ground near his hut, between the 
 mighty stumps of felled trees, with a miner's pickaxe. 
 After a time, he discovered a rusty but serviceable spade 
 jn one of the empty storerooms, and it is to be supposed 
 that he got on famously; but nothing of it could be seen.
 
 VICTORY 171 
 
 because he went to the trouble of pulling to pieces one of 
 the company's sheds in order to get materials for making 
 a high and very close fence round his patch, as if the 
 growing of vegetables were a patented process, or an 
 awful and holy mystery entrusted to the keeping of hi& 
 race. 
 
 Heyst, following from a distance the progress of 
 Wang's gardening and of these precautions — there was 
 nothing else to look at — ^was amused at the thought that 
 he, in his own person, represented the market for its prod- 
 uce. The Qiinaman had found several packets of seeds 
 in the storerooms, and had surrendered to an irresistible 
 impulse to put them into the ground. He would make his 
 master pay for the vegetables which he was raising ta 
 satisfy his instinct. And, looking silently at the silent Wang 
 going about his work in the bungalow in his unhasty, 
 steady way, Heyst envied the Chinaman's obedience to 
 his instincts, the powerful simplicity of purpose which 
 made his existence appear almost automatic in the mys- 
 terious precision of its facts.
 
 II 
 
 During his master's absence at Sourabaya, Wang had 
 busied himself with the ground immediately in front of 
 the principal bungalow. Emerging from the fringe of 
 grass growing across the shore end of the coal-jetty, Heyst 
 beheld a broad, clear space, black and level, with only one 
 or two clumps of charred twigs, where the flame had 
 swept from the front of his house to the nearest trees of 
 the forest. 
 
 "You took the risk of firing the grass?" Heyst asked. 
 
 Wang nodded. Hanging on the arm of the white man 
 before whom he stood was the girl called Alma; but 
 neither from the Chinaman's eyes nor from his expres- 
 sion could any one have guessed that he was in the slight- 
 est degree aware of the fact. 
 
 "He has been tidying the place in this labour-saving 
 way," explained Heyst, without looking at the girl, whose 
 hand rested on his forearm. "He's the whole establish- 
 ment, you see. I told you I hadn't even a dog to keep me 
 company here." 
 
 Wang had marched oflf towards the wharf. 
 
 "He's like those waiters in that place," she said. That 
 place was Schomberg's hotel. 
 
 "One Chinaman looks very much like another," Heyst 
 remarked. "We shall find it useful to have him here. This 
 is the house." 
 
 They faced, at some distance, the six shallow steps lead- 
 ing up to the verandah. The girl had abandoned Heyst's 
 arm. 
 
 "This is the house," he repeated. 
 
 172
 
 VICTORY X73 
 
 She did not offer to budge away from his side, but 
 stood staring fixedly at the steps, as if they had been 
 something unique and impracticable. He waited a little, 
 but she did not move. 
 
 "Don't you want to go in?" he said, without turning his 
 head to look at her. "The sun's too heavy to stand about 
 here." He tried to overcome a sort of fear, a sort of im- 
 patient faintness, and his voice sounded rough. "You had 
 better go in," he concluded. 
 
 They both moved then, but at the foot of the stairs 
 Heyst stopped, while the girl went on rapidly, as if noth- 
 ing could stop her now. She crossed the verandah swiftly, 
 and entered the twilight of the big central room opening 
 upon it, and then the deeper twilight of the room beyond. 
 She stood still in the dusk, in which her dazzled eyes could 
 scarcely make out the forms of objects, and sighed a sigh 
 of relief. The impression of the sunlight, of sea and sky, 
 remained with her like a memory of a painful trial gone 
 through — done with at last ! 
 
 Meanwhile Heyst had walked back slowly towards the 
 jetty ; but he did not get so far as that. The practical and 
 automatic Wang had got hold of one of the little trucks 
 that had been used for running baskets of coal alongside 
 ships. He appeared pushing it before him, loaded lightly 
 with Heyst's bag and the bundle of the girl's belongings, 
 wrapped in Mrs. Schomberg's shawl. Heyst turned about 
 and walked by the side of the rusty rails on which the 
 truck ran. Opposite the house Wang stopped, lifted the 
 bag to his shoulder, balanced it carefully, and then took 
 the bundle in his hand. 
 
 '"Leave those things on the table in the big room — ^un- 
 derstand ?" 
 
 "Me savee," grunted Wang, moving off. 
 
 Heyst watched the Chinaman disappear from the veran- 
 dah. It was not till he had seen Wang come out that he 
 himself entered the twilight of the big room. By that time
 
 174 VICTORY 
 
 Wang was out of sight at the back of the house, but by no 
 means out cif hearing. The Chinaman could hear the voice 
 of him who, when there were many people there, was gen- 
 erally refei.red to as "Number One." Wang was not able 
 to understand the words, but the tone interested him. 
 
 "Where are you?" cried Number One. 
 
 Then Wang heard, much more faint, a voice he had 
 never heard before — ^a novel impression which he acknowl- 
 edged by cocking his head slightly to one side. 
 
 "I am here — out of the sun." 
 
 The new voice sounded remote and uncertain. Wang 
 heard nothing more, though he waited for some time, 
 very still, the top of his shaven poll exactly level with the 
 floor of the back verandah. His face meanwhile preserved 
 an inscrutable immobility. Suddenly he stooped to pick up 
 the lid of a deal candle-box which was lying on the ground 
 by his foot. Breaking it up with his fingers, he directed his 
 steps towards the cook-shed, where, squatting on his heels, 
 he proceeded to kindle a small fire under a very sooty ket- 
 tle, possibly CO make tea. Wang had some knowledge o^ 
 the more superficial rites and ceremonies of white men's 
 existence, otherwise so enigmatically remote to his mind, 
 and containing unexpected possibilities of good and evil, 
 vhich had to be watched for with prudence and care.
 
 Ill 
 
 That morning, as on all the others of the full tale of 
 mornings since his return with the girl to Samburan, 
 Heyst came out on the verandah and spread his elbows on 
 the railing, in an easy attitude of proprietorship. The bulk 
 of the central ridge of the island cut off the bungalow 
 from sunrises, whether glorious or cloudy, angry or 
 serene. The dwellers therein were debarred from reading 
 early the fortune of the new-born day. It sprang upon 
 them in its fulness with a swift retreat of the great shadow 
 when the sun, clearing the ridge, looked down, hot and 
 dry, with a devouring glare like the eye of an enemy. But 
 Heyst, once the Number One of this locality, while it was 
 comparatively teeming with mankind, appreciated the pro- 
 longation of early coolness, the subdued, lingering half 
 light, the faint ghost of the departed night, the fragrance 
 of its dewy, dark soul captured for a moment longer be- 
 tween the great glow of the sky and the intense blaze of 
 the uncovered sea. 
 
 It was naturally difficult for Heyst to keep his mind 
 from dwelling on the nature and consequences of this, his 
 latest departure from the part of an unconcerned spec- 
 tator. Yet he had retained enough of his wrecked philoso- 
 phy to prevent him from asking himself consciously how 
 it would end. But at the same time he could not help be- 
 ing temperamentally, from long habit and from set pur- 
 pose, a spectator still, perhaps a little less naive but (as he 
 discovered with some surprise) not much more far-sighted 
 than the common run of men. Like the rest of us who act. 
 all he could say to himself, with a somewhat affected grim- 
 ness, was : 
 
 175
 
 X76 VICTORY 
 
 "We shall see !" 
 
 This mood of grim doubt intruded on him only when 
 he was alone. There were not many such moments in his 
 day now; and he did not like them when they came. On 
 this morning he had no time to grow uneasy. Alma came 
 out to join him long before the sun, rising above the Sam- 
 buran ridge, swept the cool shadow of the early mornmg 
 and the remnant of the night's coolness clear off the roof 
 under which they had dwelt for more than three months 
 already. She came out as on other mornings. He had 
 heard her light footsteps in the big rooin — the room where 
 he had unpacked the cases from London ; the room now 
 lined with the backs of books halfway up on its three 
 sides. Above the cases the fine matting met the ceiling of 
 tightly stretched white calico. In the dusk and coolness 
 nothing gleamed except the gilt frame of the portrait of 
 Heyst's father, signed by a famous painter, lonely in the 
 middle of a wall. 
 
 Heyst did not turn round. 
 
 "Do you know what I was thinking of?" he asked. 
 
 "No," she said. Her tone betrayed always a shade of 
 anxiety, as though she were never certain how a conver- 
 sation with him would end. She leaned on the guard-rail 
 by his side. 
 
 "No," she repeated. "What was it?" She waited. Then, 
 rather with reluctance than shyness, she asked : 
 
 "Were you thinking of me?" 
 
 *T was wondering when you would come out," said 
 Heyst still without looking at the girl — to whom, after 
 several experimental essays in combining detached letters 
 and loose syllables, he had given the name of Lena. 
 
 She remarked after a pause : 
 
 "I was not very far from you." 
 
 "Apparently you were not near enough for m'e.** 
 
 "You could have called if you wanted me," she said 
 ■"And I wasn't so long doing my hair."
 
 VICTORY 177 
 
 "Apparently it was too long for me." 
 
 "Well, you were thinking of me, anyhow. I am glad 
 of it. Do you know, it seems to me, somehow, that if you 
 were to stop thinking of me I shouldn't be in the world at 
 all!" 
 
 He turned round and looked at her. She often said 
 things which surprised him. A vague smile faded away on 
 her lips before his scrutiny. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked. "Is it a reproach?" 
 
 "A reproach! Why, hoM' could it be?" she defended 
 herself. 
 
 "Well, what did it mean?" he insisted. 
 
 "What I said — just what I said. Why aren't you fair?" 
 
 "Ah, this at least is a reproach!" 
 
 She coloured to the roots of her hair. 
 
 "It looks as if you were trying to make out that I am 
 disagreeable," she murmured. "Am I? You will make me 
 afraid to open my mouth presently. I shall end by believ- 
 ing I am no good." 
 
 Her head drooped a little. He looked at her smooth, 
 low brow, the faintly coloured cheeks, and the red lips 
 parted slightly, with the gleam of her teeth within. 
 
 "And then I zvon't be any good," she added with con- 
 viction. "That I won't! I can only be what you think I 
 am." 
 
 He made a slight movement. She put her hand on his 
 arm, without raising her head, and went on, her voice 
 animated in the stillness of her body: 
 
 "It is so. It couldn't be any other way with a girl like 
 me and a man like you. Here we are, we two alone, and I 
 can't even tell where we are." 
 
 "A very well-known spot of the globe," Heyst uttered 
 gently. "There must have been at least fifty thousand cir- 
 culars issued at the time — a hundred and fifty thousand, 
 more likely. My friend was looking after that, and his 
 ideas were large and his belief very strong. Of us two it
 
 178 VICTORY 
 
 was he who had the faith. A hundred and fifty thousand, 
 certainly." 
 
 "What is it you mean ?" she asked in a low tone. 
 
 "What should I find fault with you for?" Heyst went 
 on. "For being amiable, g^ood, gracious — and pretty?" 
 
 A silence fell. Then she said : 
 
 "It's all right that you should think that of me. There's 
 no one here to think anything of us, good or bad." 
 
 The rare timbre of her voice gave a special value to 
 what she uttered. The indefinable emotion which certain 
 intonations gave him, he was aware, was more physical 
 than moral. Every time she spoke to him she seemed to 
 abandon to him something of herself — something exces- 
 sively subtle and inexpressible, to which he was infinitely 
 sensible, which he would have missed horribly if she were 
 to go away. While he was looking into her eyes she raised 
 her bare forearm, out of the short sleeve, and held it in 
 the air till he noticed it and hastened to pose his great 
 bronze moustaches on the whiteness of the skin. Then they 
 went in. 
 
 Wang immediately appeared in front, and, squatting on 
 his heels, began to potter mysteriously about some plants 
 at the foot of the verandah. When Heyst and the girl 
 came out again, the Chinaman had gone in his peculiar 
 manner, which suggested vanishing out of existence rather 
 than out of sight, a process of evaporation rather than of 
 movement. They descended the steps, looking at each 
 other, and started off smartly across the cleared ground ; 
 but they were not ten yards away when, without percepti- 
 ble stir or sound, Wang materialized inside the empty 
 room. The Chinaman stood still with roaming eyes, exam- 
 ining the walls as if for signs, for inscriptions ; exploring 
 the floor as if for pitfalls, for dropped coins. Then he 
 cocked his head slightly at the profile of Heyst's father, 
 pen m hand above a white sheet of paper on a crimson
 
 VICTORY 179 
 
 tablecloth ; and, moving forward noiselessly, began to clear 
 away the breakfast things. 
 
 Though he proceeded without haste, the unerring pre- 
 cision of his movements, the absolute soundlessness of the 
 operation, gave it something of the quality of a conjuring 
 trick. And, the trick having been performed, Wang van- 
 ished from the scene, to materialize presently in front of 
 the house. He materialized walking away from it, with no 
 visible or guessable intention; but at the end of some ten 
 paces he stopped, made a half turn, and put his hand up to 
 shade his eyes. The sun. had topped the grey ridge of Sam- 
 buran. The great morning shadow was gone ; and far 
 away in the devouring sunshine Wang was in time to see 
 Number One and the woman, two remote white specks 
 against the sombre line of the forest. In a moment they 
 vanished. With the smallest display of action, Wang also 
 vanished from the sunlight of the clearing. 
 
 Heyst and Lena entered the shade of the forest path 
 which crossed the island, and which, near its highest point, 
 had been blocked by felled trees. But their intention was 
 not to go so far. After keeping to the path for some dis- 
 tance, they left it at a point where the forest was bare of 
 undergrowth, and the trees, festooned with creepers, stood 
 clear of one another in the gloom of their own making. 
 Here and there great splashes of light lay on the ground. 
 They moved, silent in the great stillness, breathing the 
 calmness, the infinite isolation, the repose of a slumbei 
 without dreams. They emerged at the upper limit of vege- 
 tation, among some rocks ; and in a depression of the sharp 
 slope, like a small platform, they turned about and looked 
 from on high over the sea, lonely, its colour efifaced by 
 sunshine, its horizon a heat mist, a mere unsubstantial 
 shimmer in the pale and blinding infinity overhung by the 
 darker blaze of the sky. 
 
 "It makes my head swim," the girl murmured, shutting 
 her eyes and putting her hand on his shoulder
 
 «8o VICTORY 
 
 Heyst, gazing fixedly to the southward, exclaimed * 
 
 •'Sail ho!" 
 
 A moment of silence ensued. 
 
 "It must be very far away," he went on. "I do-ii't think 
 you could see it. Some native craft making for t'.ie Moluc- 
 cas, probably. Come, we mustn't stay here." 
 
 With his arm round her waist, he led her down a little 
 distance, and they settled themselves in the shade; she, 
 seated on the ground, he a little lowe:, recHning at her 
 feet. 
 
 "You don't like to look at the sea from up there?" he 
 said after a time. 
 
 She shook her head. That empty space was lo her the 
 abomination of desolation. But she only said again: 
 
 "It makes my head swim." 
 
 "Too big?" he inquired. 
 
 "Too lonely. It makes my heart sink, too," she added in 
 a low voice, as if confessing a secret. 
 
 "I am afraid," said Heyst, "that you would be justified 
 in reproaching me for these sensations. But what would 
 you have?" 
 
 His tone was playful, but his eyes, directed at her face, 
 were serious. She protested. 
 
 "I am not feeling lonely with you — not a bit. It is only 
 when we come up to that place, and I look at all that water 
 and all that light " 
 
 "We will never come here again, then," he interrupted 
 her. 
 
 She remained silent for a while, returning his gaze till 
 he removed it. 
 
 "It seems as if everything that there is had gone 
 under," she said. 
 
 "Reminds you of the story of the deluge," muttered the 
 man, stretched at her feet and looking at them. "Are you 
 frightened at it?"
 
 VICTORY i8i 
 
 "I should be rather frightened to be left behind alone. 
 When I say I, of course I mean zve." 
 
 "Do you?" . . . Heyst remained silent for a while. 
 "The vision of a world destroyed," he mused aloud. 
 "Would you be sorry for it?" 
 
 "I should be sorry for the happy people in it," she said 
 simply. 
 
 His gaze travelled up her figure and reached her face, 
 where he seemed to detect the veiled glow of intelligence, 
 as one gets a glimpse of the sun through the clouds. 
 
 "I should have thought it's they specially who ought to 
 have been congratulated. Don't you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes — I understand what you mean ; but there were 
 forty days before it was all over." 
 
 "You seem to be in possession of all the details." 
 
 Heyst spoke just to say something rather than to gaze 
 at her in silence. She was not looking at him. 
 
 "Sunday school," she murmured. "I went regularly 
 from the time I was eight till I was thirteen. We lodged 
 in the north of London, off Kingsland Road. It wasn't 
 a bad time. Father was earning good money then. The 
 woman of the house used to pack me off in the afternoon 
 with her own girls. She was a good woman. Her husband 
 was in the post-office. Sorter or something. Such a quiet 
 man. He used to go off after supper for night duty, some- 
 times. Then one day they had a row, and broke up the 
 home. I remember I cried when we had to pack up all of 
 a sudden and go into other lodgings. I never knew what it 
 was, though " 
 
 "The deluge," muttered Heyst absently. 
 
 He felt intensely aware of her per.sonality, as if this 
 were the first moment of leisure he had found to look at 
 her since they had come together. The peculiar timbre of 
 her voice, with its modulations of audacity and sadness, 
 would have given interest to the most inane chatter. But 
 she was no '"batterer. She was rather silent, with a capacit}'
 
 i82 VICTORY 
 
 for immobility, an upright stillness, as when resting on 
 the concert platform between the musical numbers, her 
 feet crossed, her hands reposing on her lap. But in the in' 
 timacy of their life her grey, unabashed gaze forced upon 
 him the sensation of something inexplicable reposing 
 within her; stupidity or inspiration, weakness or force — 
 or simply an abysmal emptiness, reserving itself even in 
 the moments of complete surrender. 
 
 During a long pause she did not look at him. Then sud- 
 denly, as if the word "deluge" had stuck in her mind, she 
 asked, looking up at the cloudless sky : 
 
 "Does it ever rain here?" 
 
 "There is a season when it rains almost every day," said 
 Heyst, surprised. "There are also thunderstorms. We had 
 once a mud-shower." 
 
 "Mud-shower?" 
 
 "Our neighbour there was shooting up ashes. He some- 
 times clears his red-hot gullet like that ; and a thunder- 
 storm came along at the same time. It was very messy; 
 but our neighbour is generally well behaved — just smokes 
 quietly, as he did that day when I first showed you the 
 smudge in the sky from the schooner's deck. He's a good- 
 natured, lazy fellow of a volcano." 
 
 "I saw a mountain smoking like that before," she said, 
 staring at the slender stem of a tree-fern some dozen feet 
 in front of her. "It wasn't very long after we left England 
 — some few days, though. I was so ill at first that I lost 
 count of days. A smoking mountain — J can't think how 
 they called it." 
 
 "Vesuvius, perhaps," suggested Heyst. 
 
 "That's the name." 
 
 "I saw it, too, years, ages ago," said Heyst. 
 
 "On your way here?" 
 
 "No, long before I ever thought of coming into this 
 part of the world. I was yet a boy." 
 
 She turned and looked at him attentively, as if seeking
 
 VICTORY 183 
 
 to discover some trace of that boyhood in the mature face 
 of the man with the hair thin at the top and the long, thick 
 moustaches. Heyst stood the frank examination with a 
 playful smile, hiding the profound effect these veiled grey 
 eyes produced — whether on his heart or on his nerves, 
 whether sensuous or spiritual, tender or irritating, he was 
 unable to say. 
 
 "Well, princess of Samburan," he said at last, "have I 
 ♦"ound favour in your sight ?" 
 
 She seemed to wake up, and shook her head. 
 
 "I was thinking," she murmured very low. 
 
 "Thought, action — so many snares! If you begin to 
 tliink you will be unhappy." 
 
 "I wasn't thinking of myself," she declared with a sim- 
 plicity which took Heyst aback somewhat. 
 
 "On the lips of a moralist this would sound like a re- 
 buke," he said, half seriously; "but I won't suspect you 
 of being one. Moralists and ^ haven't been friends for 
 many years." 
 
 She had listened with an air of attention. 
 
 "I understood you had no friends," she said. "I am 
 pleased that there's nobody to find fault with you for what 
 you have done. I like to think that I am in no one's way." 
 
 Heyst would have said something, but she did not give 
 him time. Unconscious of the movement he made she went 
 on: 
 
 "What I was thinking to myself was, why are you 
 here ?" 
 
 Heyst let himself sink on his elbow again. 
 
 "If by 'you' you mean 'we' — well, you know why we are 
 here." 
 
 She bent her gaze down at him. 
 
 "No, it isn't that. I meant before — all that time before 
 you came across me and guessed at once that I was in 
 trouble, with no one to turn to. And you know it was des- 
 perate trouble too."
 
 i84 VICTORY 
 
 Her voice fell on the last words, as if she would end 
 there ; but there was something so expectant in Heyst's 
 attitude as he sat at her feet, looking up at her steadily, 
 fhat she continued, after drawing a short, quick breath : 
 
 "It was, really. I told you I had been worried before by 
 bad fellows. It made me unhappy, disturbed — angry, too. 
 But oh, how I hated, hated, hated that man !" 
 
 "That man" was the florid Schomberg with the mili- 
 tary bearing, benefactor of white men ("decent food to 
 eat in decent company") — mature victim of belated pas- 
 sion. The girl shuddered. The characteristic harmonious- 
 ness of her face became, as it were, decomposed for an in- 
 stant. Heyst was startled. 
 
 "Why think of it now?" he cried. 
 
 "It's because I was cornered that time. It wasn't as be- 
 fore. It was worse, ever so much. I wished I could die of 
 my fright ; — and yet it's only now that I begin to under- 
 stand what a horror it might have been. Yes, only now, 
 since we " 
 
 Heyst stirred a little. 
 
 "Came here," he finished. 
 
 Her tenseness relaxed, her flushed face went gradually 
 back to its normal tint. 
 
 "Yes," she said indifferently, but at the same time she 
 gave him a stealthy glance of passionate appreciation ; and 
 then her face took on a melancholy cast, her whole figure 
 drooped imperceptibly. "But you were coming back here 
 anyhow?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes. I was only waiting for Dalvidson. Yes, I was com- 
 ing back here, to these ruins — to Wang, who perhaps did 
 not expect to see me again. It's impossible to guess at the 
 way that Chmaman draws his conclusions, and how he 
 looks upon one." 
 
 "Don't talk about him. He makes me feel uncomforta- 
 fcle. Talk about yourself." 
 
 "About myself ? 1 see you are still busy with the mys-
 
 VICTORY 1S5 
 
 tery of my existence here; but it isn't at all mysterious. 
 Primarily the man with the quill pen in his hand in that 
 picture you so often look at is responsible for my existence. 
 He is also responsible for what my existence is, or rather 
 has been. He was a great man in his way. I don't know 
 much of his history. I suppose he began like other people ; 
 took fine words for good, ringing coin and noble ideals for 
 valuable banknotes. He was a great master of both, him- 
 self, by the way. Later he discovered — ^how am I to ex- 
 plain it to you ? Suppose the world were a factory and all 
 mankind workmen in it. Well, he discovered that the 
 wages were not good enough. That they were paid in coun- 
 terfeit money." 
 
 "I see !" the girl said slowly. 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 Heyst, who had been speaking as if to himself, looked 
 up curiously. 
 
 "It wasn't a new discovery, but he brought his capacity 
 for scorn to bear on it. It was immense. It ought to have 
 withered this globe. I don't know how many minds he 
 convinced. But my mind was very young then, and youth 
 I suppose can be easily seduced — even by a negation. He 
 was very ruthless, and yet he was not without pity. He 
 dominated me without difficulty. A heartless man could 
 not have done so. Even to fools he was not utterly merci- 
 less. He could be indignant, but he was too great for 
 flouts and jeers. What he said was not meant for the 
 crowd ; it could not be ; and I was flattered to find myself 
 among the elect. They read his books, but I have heard his 
 living word. It was irresistible. It was as if that mind were 
 taking me into its confidence, giving me a special insight 
 into its mastery of despair. Mistake, no doubt. There is 
 something of my father in every man who lives long 
 enough. But they don't say anything. They can't. They 
 wouldn't know how, or perhaps, they wouldn't speak ii 
 they could. Man on this earth is an unforeseen acciden'
 
 i86 VICTORY 
 
 which does not stand close investigation. However, that 
 particular man died as quietly as a child goes to sleep. But, 
 after listening to him, I could not take my soul down into 
 the street to fight there. I started off to wander about, an 
 independent spectator — if that is possible." 
 
 For a long time the girl's grey eyes had been watching 
 his face. She discovered that, addressing her, he was really 
 talking to himself. Heyst looked up, caught sight of her 
 as it were, and caught himself up, with a low laugh and a 
 change of tone. 
 
 "All this does not tell you why I ever came here. Why, 
 indeed? It's like prying into inscrutable mysteries which 
 are not worth scrutinising. A man drifts. The most suc- 
 cessful men have drifted into their successes. I don't want 
 to tell you that this is a success. You wouldn't believe me 
 if I did. It isn't; neither is it the ruinous failure it looks. 
 It proves nothing, unless perhaps some hidden weakness 
 in my character — and even that is not certain." 
 
 He looked fixedly at her, and with such grave eyes that 
 she felt obliged to smile faintly at him, since she did not 
 understand what he meant. Her smile was reflected, still 
 fainter, on his lips. 
 
 "This does not advance you much in your inquiry," he 
 went on. "And in truth your question is unanswerable ; 
 but facts have a certain positive value, and I will tell you 
 a fact. One day I met a cornered man. I use the word be- 
 cause it expresses the man's situation exactly, and because 
 you just used it yourself. You know what that means?" 
 
 "What do you say?" she whispered, astounded. "A 
 man !" 
 
 Heyst laughed at her wondering eyes. 
 
 "No! No! I mean in his own way." 
 
 "I knew very well it couldn't be anything like that," she 
 observed under her breath. 
 
 "I won't bother you with the story. It was a custom- 
 house affair, strange as it may sound to you. He would
 
 VICTORY 187 
 
 have preferred to be killed outright — that is, to have his 
 soul despatched to another world, rather than to be robbed 
 of his substance, his very insignificant substance, in this. 
 I saw that he believed in another world because, being 
 cornered, as I have told you, he went down on his knees 
 and prayed. What do you think of that?" 
 
 Heyst paused. She looked at him earnestly. 
 
 "You didn't make fun of him for that?" she said. 
 
 Heyst made a brusque movement of protest. 
 
 "My dear girl, I am not a ruffian," he cried. Then, re- 
 turning to his usual tone : "I didn't even have to conceal 
 a smile. Somehow it didn't look a smiling matter. No, it 
 was not funny ; it was rather pathetic ; he was so repre- 
 sentative of all the past victims of the Great Joke. But it 
 is by folly alone that the world moves, and so it is a re- 
 spectable thing upon the whole. And besides, he was what 
 one would call a good man. I don't mean especially be- 
 cause he had offered up a prayer. No! He was really a 
 decent fellow, he was quite unfitted for this world, he was 
 a failure, a good man cornered — ^a sight for the gods ; for 
 no decent mortal cares to look at that sort." A thought 
 seemed to occur to him. He turned his face to the girl 
 "And you, who have been cornered too — did you think of 
 offering a prayer?" 
 
 Neither her eyes nor a single one of her features moved 
 the least bit. She only let fall the words : 
 
 "I am not what they call a good girl." 
 
 "That sounds evasive," said Heyst after a short silence. 
 "Well, the good fellow did pray and after he had con- 
 fessed to it I was struck by the comicality of the situation. 
 No, don't misunderstand me — I am not alluding to his act, 
 of course. And even the idea of Eternity, Infinity, Omni- 
 potence, being called upon to defeat the conspiracy of 
 two miserable Portuguese half-castes did not move my 
 mirth. From the point of view of the supplicant, the dan- 
 ger to be conjured was something like the end of the
 
 i88 VICTORY 
 
 world, or worse. No ! What captivated my fancy was that 
 I, Axel Heyst, the most detached of creatures in this 
 earthly captivity, the veriest tramp on this earth, an indif- 
 ferent stroller going through the world's bustle — that I 
 should have been there to step into the situation of an 
 agent of Providence. I, a man of universal scorn and un- 
 belief. . . ." 
 
 "You are putting it on," she interrupted in her seduc- 
 tive voice, with a coaxing intonation. 
 
 "No. I am like that, born or fashioned, or both. I am 
 not for nothing the son of my father, of that man in the 
 painting. I am he, all but the genius. And there is even 
 less in me than I make out, because the very scorn is fall- 
 ing away from me year after y ar. I have never been so 
 amused as by that episode in which I was suddenly called 
 to act such an incredible part. For a moment I enjoyed it 
 greatly. I got him out of his corner, you know." 
 
 "You saved a man for fun — is that what you mean? 
 Just for fun?" 
 
 "Why this tone of suspicion?" remonstrated Heyst. "I 
 suppose the sight of this particular distress was disagree- 
 able to me. What you call fun came afterward, when it 
 dawned on me that I was for him a walking, breathing, 
 incarnate proof of the efficacy of prayer. I was a little 
 fascinated by it — and then, could I have argued with him ? 
 You don't argue against such evidence, and besides it 
 would have looked as if I had wanted to claim all the 
 merit. Already his gratitude was simply frightful. Funny 
 position, wasn't it ? The boredom came later, when we lived 
 together on board his ship. I had, in a moment of inad- 
 vertence, created for myself a tie. How to define it pre- 
 cisely I don't know. One gets attached in a way to people 
 one has done something for. But is that friendship? I am 
 not sure what it was. I only know that he who forms a tie 
 is lost. The germ of corruption has entered into his soul." 
 
 Heyst's tone was light, with the flavour of playfulness
 
 VICTORY 189 
 
 which seasoned all his speeches and seemed to be of the 
 very essence of his thoughts. The girl he had come across, 
 of whom he had possessed himself, to whose presence he 
 was not yet accustomed, with whom he did not yet know 
 how to live ; that human being so near and still so strange, 
 gave him a greater sense of his own reality than he had 
 ever known in all his life.
 
 IV 
 
 With her knees drawn up, Lena rested her elbows on 
 them and held her head in both her hands. 
 
 "Are you tired of sitting here?" Heyst asked. 
 
 An almost imperceptible negative movement of the head 
 was all the answer she made. 
 
 "Why are you looking so serious?" he pursued, and im- 
 mediately thought that habitual seriousness, in the long 
 run, was much more bearable than constant gaiety. "How- 
 ever, this expression suits you exceedingly," he added, 
 not diplomatically, but because, by the tendency of his 
 taste, it was a true statement. "And as long as I can be 
 certain that it is not boredom which gives you this severe 
 air, I am willing to sit here and look at you till you are 
 ready to go." 
 
 And this was true. He was still under the fresh sorti- 
 lege of their common life, the surprise of novelty, the 
 flattered vanity of his possession of this woman ; for a 
 man must feel that, unless he has ceased to be masculine. 
 Her eyes moved in his direction, rested on him, then re- 
 turned to their stare into the deeper gloom at the foot of 
 the straight tree-trunks, whose spreading crowns were 
 slowly withdrawing their shade. The warm air stirred 
 slightly about her motionless head. She would not look at 
 him, from some obscure fear of betraying herself. She felt 
 in her innermost depths an irresistible desire to give her- 
 self up to him more completely, by some act of absolute 
 sacrifice. This v/as something of which he did not seem to 
 have an idea. He was a strange being without needs. She 
 felt his eyes fixed upon her ; and as he kept silent, she said 
 
 igo
 
 VICTORY 191 
 
 uneasily — for she didn't know what his silences mighfi 
 mean: 
 
 "And so you lived with that friend — that good man?" 
 
 "Excellent fellow," Heyst responded, with a readiness 
 that she did not expect. "But it was a weakness on my 
 part. I really didn't want to, only he wouldn't let me off, 
 and I couldn't explain. He was the sort of man to whom 
 you can't explain anything. He was extremely sensitive, 
 and it would have been a tigerish thing to do to mangle his 
 delicate feelings by the sort of plain speaking that would 
 have been necessary. His mind was like a white-walled, 
 pure chamber, furnished with, say, six straw-bottomed 
 chairs, and he was always placing and displacing them in 
 various combinations. But they were always the same 
 chairs. He was extremely easy to live with; but then he 
 got hold of this coal idea — or, rather, the idea got hold of 
 him. It entered into that scantily furnished chamber of 
 which I have just spoken, and sat on all the chairs. There 
 was no dislodging it, you know ! It was gomg to make his 
 fortune, my fortune, everybody's fortune. In past years, 
 in moments of doubt that will come to a man determined 
 to remain free from absurdities of existence, I often asked 
 myself, with a momentary dread, in what way would life 
 try to get hold of me ? And this was the way ! He got it 
 into his head that he could do nothing without me. And 
 was I now, he asked me, to spurn and ruin him? Well, 
 one morning — I wonder if he had gone down on his knees 
 to pray that night! — one morning I gave in." 
 
 Heyst tugged violently at a tuft of dried grass, and cast 
 it away from him with a nervous gesture. 
 
 "I gave in," he repeated. 
 
 Looking towards him with a movement of her eyes only, 
 the girl noticed the strong feeling on his face with that 
 intense interest which his person awakened in her mind 
 and in her heart. But it soon passed away, leaving only a 
 moody expression.
 
 192 VICTORY 
 
 "It's difficult to resist where nothing matters," he ob- 
 served. "And perhaps there is a grain of freakishness in 
 my nature. It amused me to go about uttering siliy, com- 
 monplace phrases. I was never so well thought of in the 
 islands till I began to jabber commercial gibberish like the 
 veriest idiot. Upon my word, I believe that I was actually 
 respected for a time. I was as grave as an owl over it ; I 
 had to be loyal to the man. I have been from first to last, 
 completely, utterly loyal to the best of my ability. I thought 
 he understood something about coal. And if I had been 
 aware that he knew nothing of it, as in fact he didn't, well 
 — I don't know what I could have done to stop him. In 
 one way or another I should have had to be loyal. Truth, 
 work, ambition, love itself, may be only counters in the 
 lamentable or despicable game of life, but when one takes 
 a hand one must play the game. No, the shade of Morri- 
 son needn't haunt me. What's the matter? I say, Lena, 
 why are you staring like that? Do you feel ill?" 
 
 Heyst made as if to get on his feet. The girl extended 
 her arm to arrest him, and he remained staring in a sit- 
 ting posture, propped on one arm, observing her indefin- 
 able expression of anxiety, as if she were unable to draw 
 breath. 
 
 "What has come to you?" he insisted, feeling strangely 
 unwilling to move, to touch her. 
 
 "Nothing." She swallowed painfully. "Of course it 
 can't be. What name did you say? I didn't hear it prop- 
 erly." 
 
 "Name?" repeated Heyst dazedly. "I only mentioned 
 Morrison. It's the name of that man of whom I've been 
 speaking. What of it ?" 
 
 "And you mean to say that he was your friend?" 
 
 "You have heard enough to judge for yourself. You 
 know as much of our connection as I know myself. The 
 people in this part of the world went by appearances, and 
 called us friends, as far as I can remember. Appearances
 
 VICTORY X9I 
 
 — what more, what better can you ask for? In fact you 
 can't have better. You can't have anything else." 
 
 "You are trying to confuse me with your talk," she 
 cried. "You can't make fun of this." 
 
 "Can't? Well, no, I can't. It's a pity. Perhaps it would 
 have been the best way," said Heyst, in a tone which for 
 him could be called gloomy. "Unless one could forget the 
 silly business altogether." His faint playfulness of man- 
 ner and speech returned, like a habit one has schooled one- 
 self into, even before his forehead had cleared completely. 
 "But why are you looking so hard at me? Oh, I don't 
 object, and I shall try not to flinch. Your eyes " 
 
 He was looking straight into them, and as a matter of 
 fact had forgotten all about the late Morrison at that mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "No," he exclaimed suddenly. "What an impenetrable- 
 girl you are, Lena, with those grey eyes of yours ! Win- 
 dows of the soul, as some poet has said. The fellow must 
 have been a glazier by vocation. Well, nature has pro- 
 vided excellently for the shyness of your soul." 
 
 When he ceased speaking, the girl came to herself with 
 a catch of her breath. He heard her voice, the varied 
 charm of which he thought he knew so well, saying with 
 an unfamiliar intonation: 
 
 "And that partner of yours is dead?" 
 
 "Morrison? Oh, yes, as I've told you, he " 
 
 "You never told me." 
 
 "Didn't I ? I thought I did ; or, rather, I thought you 
 must know. It seems impossible that anybody with whom 
 I speak should not know that Morrison is dead." 
 
 She lowered her eyelids, and Heyst was startled by 
 something like an expression of horror on her face. 
 
 "Morrison!" she whispered in an appalled tone. "Mor- 
 rison !" Her head drooped. Unable to see her features, 
 Heyst could tell from her voice that for some reason or 
 other she was profoundly moved by the syllables of that
 
 (94 
 
 VICTORY 
 
 iinromantic name. A thought flashed through his head — 
 could she have known Morrison? But the mere differ- 
 ence of their origins made it wildly improbable. 
 
 "This is very extraordinary !" he said. "Have you ever 
 heard the name before?" 
 
 Her head moved quickly several times in tiny affirma- 
 tive nods, as if she could not trust herself to speak, or 
 even to look at him. She was biting her lower lip. 
 
 "Did you ever know anybody of that name?" he asked. 
 
 The girl answered by a negative sign : and then at last 
 she spoke, jerkily, as if forcing herself against some doubt 
 or fear. She had heard of that very man, she told Heyst. 
 
 "Impossible !" he said positively. "You are mistaken. 
 You couldn't have heard of him. It's " 
 
 He stopped short, with the thought that to talk like this 
 was perfectly useless ; that one doesn't argue against thin 
 uir. 
 
 "But I did hear of him ; only I didn't know then, I 
 couldn't guess, that it was your partner they were talking 
 about." 
 
 "Talking about my partner?" repeated Heyst slowly. 
 
 "No." Her mind seemed almost as bewildered, as full 
 of incredulity, as his. "No. They were talking of you, 
 really ; only I didn't know it." 
 
 "Who were they?" Heyst raised his voice. "Who was 
 talking of me? Talking where?" 
 
 With the first question he had lifted himself from his 
 reclining position ; at the last he was on his knees before 
 her, their heads on a level. 
 
 "Why, in that town, in that hotel. Where else could it 
 have been?" she said. 
 
 The idea of being talked about was always novel to 
 Heyst's simplified conception of himself. For a moment 
 he was as much surprised as if he had believed himself to 
 be a mere gliding shadow among men. Besides, he had in
 
 VICTORY 19. 
 
 him a half -unconscious notion that he was above the level 
 of island gossip. 
 
 "But you said first that it was of Morrison they talked," 
 he remarked to the girl, sinking on his heels, and no longer 
 much interested. "Strange that you should have the op- 
 portunity to hear any talk at all ! I was rather under the 
 impression that you never saw anybody belonging to the 
 town except from the platform." 
 
 "You forget that I was not living with the other girls," 
 she said. "After meals they used to go back to the Pavil- 
 ion, but I had to stay in the hotel and do my sewing, or 
 what not, in the room where they talked." 
 
 "I didn't think of that. By the by, you never told me 
 who they were." 
 
 "Why, that horrible red-faced beast," she said, with all 
 the energy of disgust which the mere thought of the hotel- 
 keeper provoked in her. 
 
 "Oh, Schomberg!" Heyst murmured carelessly. 
 
 "He talked to the boss — to Zangiacomo, I mean. I had 
 to sit there. That devil-woman sometimes wouldn't let me 
 go away. I mean Mrs. Zangiacomo." 
 
 "I guessed," murmured Heyst. "She liked to torment 
 you in a variety of ways. But it is really strange that the 
 hotel-keeper should talk of Morrison to Zangiacomo. As 
 far as I can remember he saw very little of Morrison pro- 
 fessionally. He knew many others much better." 
 
 The girl shuddered slightly. 
 
 "That was the only name I ever overheard. I would 
 get as far away from them as I could, to the other end of 
 the room; but when that beast started shouting, I could 
 not help hearing. I wish I had never heard anything. If 
 I had got up and gone out of the room I don't suppose 
 the woman would have killed me for it; but she would 
 have rowed me in a nasty way. She would have threatened 
 me and called me names. That sort, when they know yob 
 are helpless, there's nothing to stop them. I don't know
 
 196 VICTORY 
 
 how it is, but bad people, real bad people that you can see 
 are bad, they get over me somehow. It's the way they set 
 about downing one. I am afraid of wickedness." 
 
 Heyst watched the changing expressions of her face. 
 He encouraged her, profoundly sympathetic, a little 
 ftmused. 
 
 "I quite understand. You needn't apologize for your 
 great delicacy in the perception of inhuman evil. I am a 
 little like you." 
 
 "I am not very plucky," she said. 
 
 "Well ! I don't know myself what I would do, what 
 countenance I would have before a creature which would 
 strike me as being the evil incarnate. Don't you be 
 ashamed." 
 
 She sighed, looked up with her pale, candid gaze and a 
 timid expression of her face, and murmured : 
 
 "You don't seem to want to know what he was saying." 
 
 "About poor Morrison? It couldn't have been anything 
 bad, for the poor fellow was innocence itself. And then, 
 you know, he is dead, and nothing can possibly matter to 
 him now." 
 
 "But I tell you that it was of you he was talking!" she 
 cried, "He was saying that Morrison's partner first got all 
 there was to get out of him, and then, and then — well, as 
 good as murdered him — sent him out to die somewhere!" 
 
 "You believe that of me?" said Heyst, after a moment 
 of perfect silence. 
 
 "I didn't know it had anything to do with you. Schom- 
 herg was talking of some Swede. How was I to know? It 
 was only when you began telling me about how you came 
 here " 
 
 "And now you have my version." Heyst forced him- 
 self to speak quietly. "So that's how the business looked 
 from outside !" he muttered. 
 
 "I remember him saying that everybody in these parts 
 knew the story," the girl added breathlessly.
 
 VICTORY X97 
 
 "Strange that it should hurt me !" mused Heyst to him- 
 self ; "yet it does. I seem co be as much of a fool as those 
 everybodies who know the story — and no doubt believe it. 
 Can you remember any more ?" he addressed the girl in a 
 grimly polite tone. "I've often heard of the moral advan- 
 tages of seeing oneself as others see one. Let us investi- 
 gate further. Can't you recall something else that every- 
 body knows ?" 
 
 "Oh ! Don't laugh !" she cried. 
 
 "Did I laugh? I assure you I was not aware of it. I 
 won't ask you whether you believe the hotel-keeper's ver- 
 sion. Surely you must know the value of human judg- 
 ment." 
 
 She unclasped her hands, moved them slightly, and 
 twined her fingers as before. Protest? Assent? Was there 
 to be nothing more? He was relieved when she spoke in 
 that warm and wonderful voice which in itself comforted 
 and fascinated one's heart, which made her lovable. 
 
 "I heard this before you and I ever spoke to each other. 
 It went out of my memory afterwards. Everything went 
 out of my memory then; and I was glad of it. It was a 
 fresh start for me, with you — and you know it. I wish I 
 had forgotten who I was — that would have been best ; and 
 I very nearly did forget." 
 
 He was moved by the vibrating quality of the last 
 words. She seemed to be talking low of some wonderful 
 enchantment, in mysterious terms of special significance. 
 He thought that if she only could talk to him in some un- 
 known tongue, she would enslave him altogether by the 
 sheer beauty of the sound, suggesting infinite depths of 
 wisdom and feeling. 
 
 "But," she went on, "the name stuck in my head, it 
 seems ; and when you mentioned it " 
 
 "It broke the spell," muttered Heyst in angry disap- 
 pointment, as if he had been deceived in some hope. 
 
 The girl, from her position a little above him, surveyed
 
 (98 VICTORY 
 
 with still eyes the abstracted silence of the man on whom 
 she now de{>ended with a completeness of which she had 
 not been vividly conscious before, because, till then, she 
 had never felt herself swinging between the abysses of 
 earth and heaven in the hollow of his arm. What if he 
 should grow weary of the burden ! 
 
 "And, moreover, nobody had ever believed that tale!" 
 
 Heyst came out with an abrupt burst of sound which 
 made her open her steady eyes wider, with an effect of im- 
 mense surprise. It was a purely mechanical efifect, because 
 she was neither surprised nor puzzled. In fact, she could 
 understand him better then than at any moment since she 
 first set eyes on him. 
 
 He laughed scornfully. 
 
 "What am I thinking of ?" he cried. "As if it could mat- 
 ter to me what anybody had ever said or believed, from 
 the beginning of the world till the crack of doom !" 
 
 "I never heard you laugh till to-day," she observed. 
 "This is the second time." 
 
 He scrambled to his feet and towered above her. 
 
 "That's because, when one's heart has been broken into 
 in the way you have broken into mine, all sorts of weak- 
 nesses are free to enter — shame, anger, stupid indigna- 
 tions, stupid fears — stupid laughter, too. I wonder what 
 interpretation you are putting on it?" 
 
 "It wasn't gay, certainly," she said. "But why are you 
 angry with me? Are you sorry you took me away from 
 those beasts? I told you who I was. You could see it." 
 
 "Heavens !" he muttered. He had regained his com- 
 mand of himself. "I assure you I could see much more 
 than you could tell me. I could see quite a lot that you 
 don't even suspect yet; but you can't be seen quite 
 through." 
 
 He sank to the ground by her side and took her hand. 
 , )he asked gently : 
 
 "What more do you want from me?"
 
 VICTORY 199 
 
 He made no sound for a time. 
 
 "The impossible, I suppose," he said very low, as one 
 makes a confidence, and pressing the hand he grasped. 
 
 It did not return the pressure. He shook his head as if 
 to drive away the thought of this, and added in a louder, 
 light tone : 
 
 "Nothing less. And it isn't because I think little of what 
 I've got already. Oh, no ! It is because I think so much of 
 this possession of mine that I can't have it complete 
 enough. I know it's unreasonable. You can't hold back 
 anything — now." 
 
 "Indeed I couldn't," she whispered, letting her hand lie 
 passive in his tight grasp. "I only wish I could give you 
 something more, or better, or whatever it is you want." 
 
 He was touched by the sincere accent of these simple 
 words. 
 
 "I tell you what you can do — ^you can tell me whether 
 you would have gone with me like this if you had known 
 of whom that abominable idiot of a hotel-keeper was 
 speaking. A murderer — ^no less !" 
 
 "But I didn't know you at all then," she cried. "And J 
 had the sense to understand what he was saying. It wasn't 
 murder, really. I never thought it was." 
 
 "What made him invent such an atrocity?" Heyst ex- 
 claimed. "He seems a stupid animal. He is stupid. How 
 did he manage to hatch that pretty tale ? Have I a particu- 
 larly vile countenance ? Is black selfishness written all over 
 my face? Or is that sort of thing so universally human 
 that it might be said of anybody ?" 
 
 "It wasn't murder," she insisted earnestly. 
 
 "I know. I understand. It was worse. As to killing a 
 man, which would be a comparatively decent thing to do. 
 well — I have never done that." 
 
 "Why should you do it?" she asked in a frightened 
 voice. 
 
 "My dear girl, you don't know the sort of life I have
 
 200 VICTORY 
 
 been leading in unexplored countries, in the wilds; it's 
 difficult to give you an idea. There are men who haven't 
 been in such tight places as I have found myself in who 
 have had to — to shed blood, as the saying is. Even the 
 wilds hold prizes which tempt some people ; but I had 
 no schemes, no plans — and not even great firmness of 
 mind to make me unduly obstinate. I was simply moving 
 un, while the others, perhaps, were going somewhere. An 
 mdifference as to roads and purposes makes one meeker, 
 as it were. And I may say truly, too, that I never did care, 
 I won't say for life — I had scorned what people call by 
 that name from the first — but for being alive. I don't know 
 if that is what men call courage, but I doubt it very 
 much." 
 
 "You! You have no courage?" she protested. 
 
 "I really don't know. Not the sort that always itches 
 for a weapon, for I have never been anxious to use one in 
 the quarrels that a man gets into in the most innocent way, 
 sometimes. The dififerences for which men murder each 
 other are, like everything else they do, the most contemp- 
 tible, the most pitiful things to look back upon. No, I've 
 never killed a man or loved a woman — not even in my 
 thoughts, not even in my dreams." 
 
 He raised her hand to his lips, and let them rest on it 
 for a space, during which she moved a little closer to him. 
 After the lingering kiss he did not relinquish his h:)ld. 
 
 "To slay, to love — the greatest enterprises of life upon 
 a man ! And I have no experience of either. You must 
 forgive me anything that may have appeared to you awk- 
 ward in my behaviour, inexpressive in my speeches, un- 
 timely in my silences." 
 
 He moved uneasily, a little disappointed by her atti- 
 tude, but indulgent to it, and feeling, in this moment of 
 perfect quietness, that in holding her surrendered hand he 
 had found a closer communion than they had ever achieved 
 before. But even then there still lingered in him a sense of
 
 VICTORY 201 
 
 incompleteness not altogether overcome — which, it seemed 
 nothing ever would overcome — the fatal imperfection oi 
 all the gifts of life, which makes of them a delusion and 
 a snare. 
 
 All of a sudden he squeezed her hand angrily. His deli- 
 cately playful equanimity, the product of kindness and 
 scorn, had perished with the loss of his bitter liberty. 
 
 "Not murder, you say! I should think not. But when 
 you led me to talk just now, when the name turned up, 
 when you understood that it was of me that these things 
 had been said, you showed a strange emotion. I could see 
 it." 
 
 "I was a bit startled," she said. 
 
 "At the baseness of my conduct?" he asked. 
 
 "I wouldn't judge you; not for anything." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 "It would be as if I dared to judge everything that 
 there is." With her other hand she made a gesture that 
 seemed to embrace in one movement the earth and the 
 heaven. "I wouldn't do such a thing." 
 
 Then came a silence, broken at last by Heyst : 
 
 "I ! I ! do a deadly wrong to my poor Morrison !" he 
 cried. "I, who could not bear to hurt his feelings. I, who 
 respected his very madness ! Yes, this madness, the wreck 
 of which you can see lying about the jetty of Diamond 
 Bay. What else could I do? He insisted on regarding me 
 as his saviour ; he was always restraining the eternal obli- 
 gation on the tip of his tongue, till I was burning with 
 shame at his gratitude. What could I do? He was gomg 
 to repay me with this infernal coal, and I had to join him 
 as one joins a child's game in a nursery. One would no 
 more have thought of humiliating him than one would 
 think of humiliating a child. What's the use of talking ot 
 all this ! Of course, the people here could not understand 
 the truth of our relation to each other. But what business 
 of theirs was it? Kill old Morrison! Well, it is less crimi-
 
 202 VICTORY 
 
 nal, less base — I am not saying it is less difficult — to kill a 
 man than to cheat him in that way. You understand that ?" 
 
 She nodded slightly, but more than once and with evi- 
 dent conviction. His eyes rested on her, inquisitive, ready 
 for tenderness. 
 
 "But it was neither one nor the other," he went on. 
 "Then, why your emotion? All you confess is that you 
 wouldn't judge me." 
 
 She turned upon him her veiled, unseeing grey eyes in 
 which nothing of her wonder could be read. 
 
 "I said I couldn't," she whispered. 
 
 "But you thought that there was no smoke without 
 fire !" The playfulness of tone hardly concealed his irrita- 
 tion. "What power there must be in words, only imper- 
 fectly heard — for you did not listen with particular care, 
 did you? What were they? What evil effort of invention 
 drove them into that idiot's mouth out of his lying throat? 
 If you were to try to remember, they would perhaps con- 
 vince me, too." 
 
 "I didn't listen," she protested. "What was it to me 
 what they said of anybody? He was saying that there 
 never were such loving friends to look at as you two; 
 then, when you got all you wanted out of him and got 
 thoroughly tired of him, too, you kicked him out to go 
 home and die." 
 
 Indignation, with an undercurrent of some other feel- 
 ing, rang in these quoted words, uttered in her pure and 
 enchanting voice. She ceased abruptly and lowered her 
 long, dark lashes, as if mortally weary, sick at heart. 
 
 "Of course, why shouldn't you get tired of that or any 
 other — company? You aren't like any one else and — and 
 the thought of it made me unhappy suddenly ; but indeed, 
 I did not believe anything bad of you. I " 
 
 A brusque movement of his arm, flinging her hand 
 away, stopped her short. Hevst had again lost control of
 
 VICTORY 203 
 
 himself. He would have shouted, if shouting had been in 
 his character. 
 
 "No, this earth must be the appointed hatching planet 
 of calumny enough to furnish the whole universe ! I feel 
 a disgust at my own person, as if I had tumbled into some 
 filthy hole. Pah ! And you — all you can say is that you 
 won't judge me ; that you " 
 
 She raised her head at this attack, though indeed he 
 had not turned to her. 
 
 "I don't believe anything bad of you," she repeated. "I 
 couldn't." 
 
 He made a gesture as if to say: 
 
 "That's sufficient." 
 
 In his sou/ and in his body he experienced a nervous 
 reaction from tenderness. All at once, without a transi- 
 tion, he detested her. But only for a moment. He remem- 
 bered that she was pretty, and, more, that she had a special 
 grace in the intimacy of life. She had the secret of indi' 
 viduality which excites — and escapes. 
 
 He jumped up and began to walk to and fro. Presently 
 his hidden fury fell into dust within him, like a crazy 
 structure, leaving behind emptiness, desolation, regret. 
 His resentment was not against the girl, but against life 
 itself — that commonest of snares, in which he felt himself 
 caught, seeing clearly the plot of plots and unconsoled by 
 the lucidity of his mind. 
 
 He swerved and, stepping up to her, sank to the ground 
 by her side. Before she could make a movement, or even 
 turn her head his way, he took her in his arms and kissed 
 her lips. He tasted on them the bitterness of a tear fallen 
 there. He had never seen her cry. It was like another ap- 
 peal to his tenderness — a new seduction. The girl glanced 
 round, moved suddenly away, and averted her face. With 
 her hand she signed imperiously to him to leave her alone 
 — 3l command which Heyst did not obey.
 
 When she opened her eyes at last and sat up, Heyst 
 scrambled quickly to his feet and went to pick up her cork 
 helmet, which had rolled a little way off. Meanwhile she 
 busied herself in doing up her hair, plaited on the top of 
 her head in two heavy, dark tresses, which had come 
 loose. He tendered her the helmet in silence, and waited 
 as if unwilling to hear the sound of his own voice. 
 
 "We had better go down now," he suggested in a low 
 tone. 
 
 He extended his hand to help her up. He had the in- 
 tention to smil*"^, but abandoned it at the nearer sight of 
 her still face, in which was depicted the infinite lassitude 
 of her soul. On their way to regain the forest path they 
 had to pass through the spot from which the view of the 
 sea could be obtained. The flaming abyss of emptiness, 
 the liquid, undulating glare, the tragic brutality of the 
 light, made ber long for the friendly night, with its stars 
 stilled by an austere spell ; for the velvety dark sky and 
 the mysterious great shadow of the sea, conveying peace 
 to the day-weary heart. She put her hand to her eyes. Be- 
 hind her back Heyst spoke gently. 
 
 "Let irs get on, Lena." 
 
 She walked ahead in silence. Heyst remarked that they 
 had never been out before during the hottest hours. It 
 would do her no good, he feared. This solicitude pleased 
 and soothed her. She felt more and more like herself — a 
 poor London girl playing in an orchestra, and snatched 
 out from the humiliations, the squalid dangers of a mis- 
 erable existence, by a man like whom there was not, there 
 \:ould not be, another in this world. She felt this with ela- 
 
 204
 
 VICTORY 20S 
 
 tion, with uneasiness, with an intimate pride — and with a 
 pecuHar sinking of the heart. 
 
 "I am not easily knocked out by any such thing as 
 heat," she said decisively. 
 
 "Yes, but I don't forget that you're not a tropical bird." 
 
 "You weren't born in these parts, either," she returned 
 
 "No, and perhaps I haven't even your physique. I am 
 a transplanted being. Transplanted ! I ought to call myself 
 uprooted — an unnatural state of existence ; but a man is 
 supposed to stand anything." 
 
 She looked back at him and received a smile. He told 
 her to keep in the shelter of the forest path, which was 
 very still and close, full of heat if free from glare. Now 
 and then they had glimpses of the company's old clearing 
 blazing with light, in which the black stumps of trees 
 stood charred, without shadows, miserable and sinister. 
 They crossed the open in a direct line for the bungalow. 
 On the verandah they fancied they had a glimpse of a 
 vanishing Wang, though the girl was not at all sure that 
 she had seen anything move. Heyst had no doubts. 
 
 "Wang has been looking out for us. We are late." 
 
 "Was he? I thought I saw something white for a mo- 
 ment, and then I did not see it any more." 
 
 "That's it — he vanishes. It's a very remarkable gift in 
 that Chinaman." 
 
 "Are they all like that?" she asked with naive curiosity 
 and uneasiness. 
 
 "Not in such perfection," said Heyst, amused. 
 
 He noticed with approval that she was not heated b}' 
 the walk. The drops of perspiration on her forehead were 
 like dew on the cool, white petal of a flower. He looked at 
 her figure of grace and strength, solid and supple, with an 
 ever-growing appreciation. 
 
 "Go in and rest yourself for a quarter of an hour ; and 
 then Mr. Wang will give us something to eat," he said. 
 
 They had found the table laid. When they came to-
 
 2o6 VICTORY 
 
 gether again and sat down to it, Wang materialised with- 
 or.t a sound, unheard, uncalled, and did his office. Which 
 being accomplished, at a given moment he was not. 
 
 A great silence brooded over Samburan — the silence of 
 the great heat that seems pregnant with fatal issues, like 
 the silence of ardent thought. Heyst remained alone in the 
 big room. The girl seeing him take up a book, had re- 
 treated to her chamber. Heyst sat down under his father's 
 portrait ; and the abominable calumny crept back into his 
 recollection. The taste of it came on his lips, nauseating 
 and corrosive like some kinds of poison. He was tempted 
 to spit on the floor, naively, in sheer unsophisticated dis- 
 gust of the physical sensation. He shook his head, sur- 
 prised at himself. He was not used to receive his intel- 
 lectual impressions in that way — reflected in movements 
 of carnal emotion. He stirred impatiently in his chair, and 
 raised the book to his eyes with both hands. It was one of 
 his father's. He opened it haphazard, and his eyes fell on 
 the middle of the page. The elder Heyst had written of 
 everything in many books — of space and of time, of ani- 
 mals and of stars ; analysing ideas and actions, the laugh- 
 ter and the frowns of men, and the grimaces of their 
 agony. The son read, shrinking into himself, composing 
 his face as if under the author's eye, with a vivid con- 
 sciousness of the portrait on his right hand, a little above 
 his head ; a wonderful presence in its heavy frame on the 
 flimsy wall of mats, looking exiled and at home, out of 
 place and masterful, in the painted immobility of profile. 
 
 And Heyst, the son, read : 
 
 Of the stratagems of life the most cruel is the consolation 
 of love — the most subtle, too; for the desire is the bed of 
 dreams. 
 
 He turned the pages of the little volume, "Storm and 
 Dust," glancing here and there at the broken text of re- 
 flections, maxims, short phrases, enigmatical sometimes
 
 VICTORY 207 
 
 and sometimes eloquent. It seemed to him that he was 
 hearing his father's voice, speaking and ceasing to speak 
 again. Startled at first, he ended by finding a charm in the 
 illusion. He abandoned himself to the half-belief that 
 something of his father dwelt yet on earth — a ghostly 
 voice, audible to the ear of his own flesh and blood. With 
 what strange serenity, mingled with terrors, had that man 
 considered the universal nothingness ! He had plunged into 
 it headlong, perhaps to render death, the answer that faced 
 one at every inquiry, more supportable. 
 
 Heyst stirred, and the ghostly voice ceased ; but his 
 eyes followed the words on the last page of the book : 
 
 Men of tormented conscience, or of a criminal imagination. 
 are aware of much that minds of a peaceful, resigned cast do 
 not even suspect. It is not poets alone who dare descend into 
 the abyss of infernal regions, or even who dream of such a 
 descent. The most inexpressive of human beings must have 
 said to himself, at one time or another : "Anything but 
 this !" . . . 
 
 We all have our instants of clairvoyance. They are not very 
 helpful. The character of the scheme does not permit that or 
 anything else to be helpful. Properly speaking its character, 
 judged by the standards established by its victims, is infa- 
 mous. It excuses every violence of protest and at the same time 
 never fails to crush it, just as it crushes the blindest assent 
 The so-called wickedness must be, like the so-called virtue, its 
 own reward — to be anything at all. . . . 
 
 Clairvoyance or no clairvoyance, men love their captivity. 
 To the unknown force of negation they prefer the miserably 
 tumbled bed of their servitude. Man alone can give one the 
 disgust of pity ; yet I find it easier to believe in the misfor- 
 tune of mankind than in its wickedness. 
 
 These were the last words. Heyst lowered the book to 
 his knees. Lena's voice spoke above his drooping head : 
 
 "You sit there as if you were unhappy." 
 
 "I thought you were asleep," he said. 
 
 "I was lying down, right enough, but I never closed my 
 eyes."
 
 268 VICTORY 
 
 "The rest would have done you good after our walk. 
 ^Didn't you try ?" 
 •* "I was lying down, I tell you, but sleep I couldn't." 
 
 "And you made no sound ! What want of sincerity ! Or 
 did you want to be alone for a time ?" 
 
 "I — alone!" she murmured. 
 
 He noticed her eyeing the book, and got up to put it 
 back in the bookcase. When he turned round, he saw that 
 she had dropped into the chair — it was the one she always 
 used — and looked as if her strength had suddenly gone 
 from her, leaving her only her youth, which seemed very 
 pathetic, very much at his mercy. He moved quickly 
 towards the chair. 
 
 "Tired, are you? It's my fault, taking you up so high 
 and keeping you out so long. Such a windless day, too !" 
 
 She watched his concern, her pose languid, her eyes 
 raised to him, but as unreadable as ever. He avoided 
 looking into them for that very reason. He forgot himself 
 in the contemplation of those passive arms, of those de- 
 fenceless lips, and — yes, one had to go back to them — of 
 those wide-open eyes. Something wild in their grey stare 
 made him think of sea-birds in the cold murkiness of high 
 latitudes. He started when she spoke, all the charm of 
 physical intimacy revealed suddenly in that voice. 
 
 "You should try to love me!" she said. 
 
 He made a movement of astonishment. 
 
 "Try!" he muttered. "But it seems to me " He 
 
 broke off, saying to himself that if he loved her, he had 
 never told her so in so many words. Simple words ! They 
 died on his lips. "What makes you say that?" he asked. 
 
 She lowered her eyelids and turned her head a little. 
 
 "I have done nothing," she said in a low voice. "It's you 
 who have been good, helpful and tender to me. Perhaps 
 you love me for that — just for that ; or perhaps you love 
 me for company, and because — well ! But sometimes it 
 seems to me that you can never love me for myself, only
 
 VICTORY 209 
 
 for myself, as people do love each other when it is to be 
 for ever." Her head drooped. "For ever," she breathed 
 out again; then, still more faintly, she added an entreat- 
 ing: "Do try!" 
 
 These last words went straight to his heart — the sound 
 of them more than the sense. He did not know what to 
 say, either from want of practice in dealing with women 
 or simply from his innate honesty of thought. All his de- 
 fences were broken now. Life had him fairly by the throat. 
 But he managed a smile, though she was not looking at 
 him ; yes, he did manage it — the well-known Heyst smile 
 of playful courtesy, so familiar to all sorts and conditions 
 of men in the islands. 
 
 "My dear Lena," he said, "it looks as if you were try- 
 ing to pick a very unnecessary quarrel with me — of all 
 people !" 
 
 She made no movement. With his elbows spread out he 
 was twisting the ends of his long moustaches, very mascu- 
 line and perplexed, enveloped in the atmosphere of femi- 
 ninity as in a cloud, suspecting pitfalls, and as if afraid to 
 move. 
 
 "I must admit, though," he added, "that there is no one 
 else ; and I suppose a certain amount of quarrelling is 
 necessary for existence in this world." 
 
 That girl, seated in her chair in graceful quietude, was 
 to him like a script in an unknown language, or even more 
 simply mysterious: like any writing to the illiterate. As 
 far as women went he was altogether uninstructed and he 
 had not the gift of intuition which is fostered in the days 
 of youth by dreams and visions, exercises of the heart fit- 
 ting it for the encounters of a world in which love itself 
 rests as much on antagonism as on attraction. His mental 
 attitude was that of a man looking this way and that on a 
 piece of writing which he is unable to decipher, but which 
 may be big with some revelation. He didn't know what to 
 say. All he found to add was •
 
 210 VICTORY 
 
 "I don't even understand what I have done or left un- 
 done to distress you Hke this." 
 
 He stopped, struck afresh by the physical and moral 
 sense of the imperfection of their relations — a sense which 
 made him desire her constant nearness, before his eyes, 
 under his hand, and which, when she was out of his sight, 
 made her so vague, so elusive and illusory, a promise that 
 could not be embraced and held. 
 
 "No! I don't see clearly what you mean. Is your mind 
 turned towards the future?" he interpellated her with 
 marked playfulness, because he was ashamed to let such 
 a word pass his lips. But all his cherished negations were 
 falling off him one by one. 
 
 "Because if it is so there is nothing easier than to dis- 
 miss it. In our future, as in what people call the other 
 life, there is nothing to be frightened of." 
 
 She raised her eyes to him ; and if nature had formed 
 them to express anything else but blank candour he would 
 have learned how terrified she was by his talk and the fact 
 that her sinking heart loved him more desperately than 
 ever. He smiled at her. 
 
 "Dismiss all thought of it," he insisted. "Surely you 
 don't suspect after what I have heard from you, that I 
 am anxious to return to mankind. III! murder my poor 
 Morrison ! It's possible that I may be really capable of 
 that which they say I have done. The point is that I 
 haven't done it. But it is an unpleasant subject to me. I 
 ought to be ashamrd to confess it — but it is ! Let us for- 
 get it. There's that in you, Lena, which can console me for 
 worse things, for uglier passages. And if we forget, there 
 are no voices here to remind us." 
 
 She had raised her head before he paused. 
 
 "Nothing can break in on us here," he went on and as 
 if there had been an appeal or a provocation in her up- 
 ward glance, he bent down and took her under the arms, 
 raising her straight out of the chair into a sudden and
 
 VICTORY 211 
 
 close embrace. Her alacrity to respond, which made her 
 seem as light as a feather, warmed his heart at that mo- 
 ment more than closer caresses had done before. He had 
 not expected that ready impulse towards himself which 
 had been dormant in her passive attitude. He had just felt 
 the clasp of her arms round his neck, when, with a slight 
 exclamation — "He's here !" — she disengaged herself and 
 bolted away into her room.
 
 VI 
 
 Heyst was astounded. Looking all round, as if to take 
 the whole room to witness of this outrage, he became 
 aware of Wang materialised in the doorway. The intru- 
 sion was as surprising as anything could be, in view of the 
 strict regularity with which Wang made himself visible. 
 Heyst was tempted to laugh at first. This practical com- 
 ment on his affirmation that nothing could break in on 
 them relieved the strain of his feelings. He was a little 
 vexed, too. The Chinaman preserved a profound silence. 
 
 "What do you want?" asked Heyst sternly. 
 
 "Boat out there," said the Qiinaman sternly. 
 
 "Where? What do you mean? Boat adrift in the 
 straits ?" 
 
 Some subtle change in Wang's bearing suggested his 
 being out of breath ; but he did not pant, and his voice was 
 steady. 
 
 "No— row." 
 
 It was Heyst now who was startled and raised his voice. 
 
 "Malay man, eh?" 
 
 Wang made a slight negative movement with his head. 
 
 "Do you hear, Lena?" Heyst called out. "Wang says 
 there is a boat in sight — somewhere near, apparently. 
 Where's that boat, Wang?" 
 
 "Round the point," said Wang, leaping into Malay un- 
 expectedly, and in a loud voice. "White men — three." 
 
 "So close as that?" exclaimed Heyst, moving out on the 
 verandah followed by Wang. "White men? Impossible!" 
 
 Over the clearing the shadows were already lengthen- 
 \ng. The sun hung low; a ruddy glare lay on the burnt
 
 VICTORY 213 
 
 black patch in front of the bungalow, and slanted on the 
 ground between the straight, tall, mast-like trees soaring 
 a hundred feet or more without a branch. The growth of 
 bushes cut off all view of the jetty from the verandah. Far 
 away to the right Wang's hut, or rather its dark roof of 
 mats, could be seen above the bamboo fence which insured 
 the privacy of the Alfuro woman. The Chinaman looked 
 that way swiftly. Heyst paused, and then stepped back a 
 pace into the room. 
 
 "White men, Lena, apparently. What are you domg?" 
 
 "I am just bathing my eyes a little," the girl's voice said 
 from the inner room. 
 
 "Oh, yes ; all right !" 
 
 "Do you want me?" 
 
 "No. You had better — I am going down to the jetty. 
 Yes, you had better stay in. What an extraordinary 
 thing!" 
 
 It was so extraordinary that nobody could possibly ap' 
 preciate how extraordinary it was but himself. His mind 
 was full of mere exclamations, while his feet were carry- 
 ing him in the direction of the jetty. He followed the line 
 of the rails, escorted by Wang. 
 
 "Where were you when you first saw the boat?" he 
 asked over his shoulder. 
 
 Wang explained in Malay that he had gone to the shore 
 end of the wharf, to get a few lumps of coal from the big 
 heap, when, happening to raise his eyes from the ground, 
 he saw the boat — a white man boat, not a canoe. He had 
 good eyes. He had seen the boat, with the men at the 
 oars; and here Wang made a particular gesture over his 
 eyes, as if his vision had received a blow. He had turned 
 at once and run to the house to report. 
 
 "No mistake, eh ?" said Heyst, moving on. At the very 
 outer edge of the belt he stopped short. Wang halted be- 
 hind him on the path, till the voice of Number One called 
 him sharply forward into the open. He obeyed.
 
 214 VICTORY 
 
 "Where's that boat?" asked Heyst forcibly. "I say - 
 where is it?" 
 
 Nothing whatever was to be seen between the point and 
 the jetty. The stretch of Diamond Bay was like a piece of 
 purple shadow, lustrous and empty, while beyond the 
 land, the open sea lay blue and opaque under the sun. 
 Heyst's eyes swept all over the offing till they met, far 
 off, the dark cone of the volcano, with its faint plume of 
 smoke broadening and vanishing everlastingly at the top, 
 without altering its shape in the glowing transparency of 
 the evening. 
 
 "The fellow has been dreaming," he muttered to him- 
 self. 
 
 He looked hard at the Chinaman. Wang seemed turned 
 into stone. Suddenly, as if he had received a shock, he 
 started, flung his arm out with a pointing forefinger, and 
 made guttural noises to the effect that there, there, there, 
 he had seen a boat. 
 
 It was very uncanny. Heyst thought of some strange 
 hallucination. Unlikely enough ; but that a boat with three 
 men in it should have sunk between the point and the 
 jetty, suddenly, like a stone, without leaving as much on 
 the surface as a floating oar, was still more unlikely. The 
 theory of a phantom boat would have been more credible 
 than that. 
 
 "Confound it!" he muttered to himself. 
 
 He was unpleasantly affected by this mystery ; but now 
 a simple explanation occurred to him. He stepped hastily 
 out on the wharf. The boat, if it had existed and had re- 
 treated, could perhaps be seen from the far end of the 
 long jetty. 
 
 Nothing was to be seen. Heyst let his eyes roam idly 
 over the sea. He was so absorbed in his perplexity that a 
 hollow sound, as of somebody tumbling about in a boat, 
 vith a clatter of oars and spars, failed to make him move 
 for a moment When his mind seized its meaning, he had
 
 VICTORY 215 
 
 no difficulty in locating the sound. It had come from be- 
 low — from under the jetty ! 
 
 He ran back for a dozen yards or so, and then looked 
 over. His sight plunged straight into the stern-sheets of 
 a big boat, the greater part of which was hidden from 
 him by the planking of the jetty. His eyes fell on the thin 
 back of a man doubled up over the tiller in a queer, un- 
 comfortable attitude of drooping sorrow. Another man, 
 more directly below Heyst, sprawled on his back from 
 gunwale to gunwale, half off the after thwart, his head 
 lower than his feet. This second man glared wildly up- 
 ward, and struggled to raise himself, but to all appearance 
 was much too drunk to succeed. The visible part of the 
 boat contained also a flat, leather trunk, on which the first 
 man's long legs were tucked up nervelessly. A large 
 earthenware jar, with its wide mouth uncorked, rolled out 
 on the bottom-boards from under the sprawling man. 
 
 Heyst had never been so much astonished in his life. 
 He stared dumbly at the strange boat's crew. From the 
 first he was positive that these men were not sailors. They 
 wore the white drill suit of tropical civilisation ; but their 
 apparition in a boat Heyst could not connect with any- 
 thing plausible. The civilisation of the tropics could have 
 had nothing to do with it. It was more like those myths, 
 current in Polynesia, of amazing strangers, who arrive at 
 an island, gods or demons, bringing good or evil to the 
 innocence of the inhabitants — gifts of unknown things, 
 words never heard before. 
 
 Heyst noticed a cork helmet floating alongside the boat, 
 evidently fallen from the head of the man doubled over 
 the tiller, who displayed a dark, bony poll. An oar, too, 
 had been knocked overboard, probably by the sprawling 
 man, who was still struggling between the thwarts. By 
 this time Heyst regarded the visitation no longer with sur- 
 prise, but with the sustained attention demanded by a dif- 
 ficult problem. With one foot posed on the string-piece.
 
 2i6 VICTORY 
 
 and leaning on his raised knee, he was taking in every- 
 thing. The sprawhng man rolled off the thwart, collapsed, 
 and, most unexpectedly, got on his feet. He swayed diz- 
 zily, spreading his arms out, and uttered faintly a hoarse, 
 dreamy "Hallo!" His upturned face was swollen, red, 
 peeling all over the nose and cheeks. His stare was irra- 
 tional. Heyst perceived stains of dried blood all over the 
 front of his dirty white coat, and also on one sleeve. 
 
 "What's the matter? Are you wounded?" 
 
 The other glanced down, reeled — one of his feet was 
 inside a large pith hat — and, recovering himself, let out a 
 dismal, grating sound in the manner of a grim laugh. 
 
 "Blood — not mine. Thirst's the matter. Exhausted's the 
 matter. Done up. Drink, man ! Give us water !" 
 
 Thirst was in the very tone of his words, alternating 
 a broken croak and a faint, throaty rustle which just 
 reached Heyst's ears. The man in the boat raised his hands 
 to be helped up on the jetty, whispering: 
 
 "I tried. I am too weak. I tumbled down." 
 
 Wang was coming along the jetty slowly, with intent, 
 straining eyes. 
 
 "Run back and bring a crowbar here. There's one lying 
 by the coal-heap," Heyst shouted to him. 
 
 The man standing in the boat sat down on the thwart 
 behind him. A horrible coughing laugh came through his 
 swollen lips. 
 
 "Crowbar? What's that for?" he mumbled, and his 
 head dropped on his chest mournfully. 
 
 Meantime Heyst, as if he had forgotten the boat, 
 .'jt.'trted kicking hard at a large brass tap projecting above 
 Ihje planks. To accommodate ships that came for coal and 
 happened to need water as well, a stream had been tapped 
 in the interior and an iron pipe led along the jetty. It ter- 
 minated with a curved end almost exactly where the stran- 
 gers' boat had been <^-'"en h<»tween thf* ^^iles; but the tap 
 was set fast.
 
 VICTORY 217 
 
 • Hurry up !" Heyst yelled to the Chinaman, who was 
 running with the crowbar in his hand. 
 
 Heyst snatched it from him and, obtaining a leverage 
 against the string-piece, wrung the stiff tap round with a 
 mighty jerk. 
 
 "I hope that pipe hasn't got choked!" he muttered to 
 himself anxiously. 
 
 It hadn't ; but it did not yield a strong gush. The sound 
 of a thin stream, partly breaking on the gunwale of the 
 boat and partly splashing alongside, became at once audi- 
 ble. It was greeted by a cry of inarticulate and savage 
 joy. Heyst knelt on the string-piece and peered down. 
 The man who had spoken was already holding his open 
 mouth under the bright trickle. Water ran over his eye- 
 lids and over his nose, gurgled down his throat, flowed 
 over his chin. Then some obstruction in the pipe gave way, 
 and a sudden thick jet broke on his face. In a moment his 
 shoulders were soaked, the front of his coat inundated; 
 he streamed and dripped ; water ran into his pockets, down 
 his legs, into his shoes ; but he had clutched the end of the 
 pipe, and, hanging on with both hands, swallowed, splut- 
 tered, choked, snorted with the noises of a swimmer. Sud 
 denly a curious dull roar reached Heyst's ears. Something 
 hairy and black flew from under the jetty. A dishevelled 
 head, coming on like a cannon-ball, took the man at the 
 pipe in flank, with enough force to tear his grip loose and 
 fling him headlong into the stern-sheets. He fell upon the 
 folded legs of the man at the tiller, who, roused by the 
 commotion in the boat, was sitting up, silent, rigid, and 
 very much like a corpse. His eyes were but two black 
 patches, and his teeth glistened with a death's head grin 
 between his retracted lips, no thicker than blackish parch- 
 ment glued over the gums. 
 
 From him Heyst's eyes wandered to the creature who 
 had replaced the first man at the end of the water-pipe. 
 Enormous brown paws clutched it savagely ; the wild, big
 
 2i8 VICTORY 
 
 head hung back, and in a face covered with a wet mass of 
 hair there gaped crookedly a wide mouth full of fangs. 
 The water filled it, welled up in hoarse coughs, ran down 
 on each side of the jaws and down the hairy throat, soaked 
 the black pelt of the enormous chest, naked under a torn 
 check shirt, heaving convulsively with a play of massive 
 muscles carved in red mahogany. 
 
 As soon as the first man had recovered the breath 
 knocked out of him by the irresistible charge, a scream of 
 nad cursing issued from the stern-sheets. With a rigid, 
 angular crooking of the elbow, the man at the tiller put his 
 hand back to his hip. 
 
 "Don't shoot him, sir!" yelled the first man. "Wait! Let 
 Jne have that tiller. I will teach him to shove himself in 
 front of a cahallcro!" 
 
 Martin Ricardo flourished the heavy piece of wood, 
 leaped forward with astonishing vigour, and brought it 
 down on Pedro's head with a crash that resounded all 
 over the quiet sweep of Black Diamond Bay. A crimson 
 patch appeared on the matted hair ; red veins appeared in 
 the water flowing all over his face, and it dripped in rosy 
 drops ofif his head. But the man hung on. Not till a sec- 
 ond furious blow descended did the hairy paws let go 
 their grip and the squirming body sink limply. Before it 
 could touch the bottom-boards, a tremendous kick in the 
 ribs from Ricardo's foot shifted it forward out of sight, 
 whence came the noise of a heavy thud, a clatter of spars, 
 and a pitiful grunt. Ricardo stooped to look under the 
 jetty. 
 
 "Aha, dog ! This will teach you to keep back where you 
 belong, you murdering brute, you slaughtering savage, 
 you ! You infidel, you robber of churches ! Next time I 
 will rip you open from neck to heel, you carrion-eater! 
 Esclavo !" 
 
 He backed a little and straightened himself up.
 
 VICTORY 219 
 
 "I don't mean it really," he remarked to Heyst, whose 
 steady eyes met his from above. He ran aft briskly. 
 
 "Come along, sir. It's your turn. I oughtn't to have 
 drunk first. 'S truth, I forgot myself ! A gentleman like 
 you will overlook that, I know." As he made these apolo- 
 gies, Ricardo extended his hand. "Let me steady you, sir." 
 
 Slowly Mr. Jones unfolded himself in all his slender- 
 ness, rocked, staggered, and caught Ricardo's shoulder. 
 His henchman assisted him to the pipe, which went on 
 gushing a clear stream of water, sparkling exceedingly 
 against the black piles and the gloom under the jetty. 
 
 "Catch hold, sir," Ricardo advised solicitously. "All 
 right ?" 
 
 He stepped back, and, while Mr. Jones revelled in the 
 abundance of water, he addressed himself to Heyst with 
 a sort of justificatory speech, the tone of which, reflecting 
 his feelings, partook of purring and spitting. They had 
 been thirty hours tugging at the oars, he explained, and 
 they had been more than forty hours without water, ex- 
 cept that the night before they had licked the dew off the 
 gunwales. 
 
 Ricardo did not explain to Heyst how it happened. At 
 that precise moment he had no explanation ready for the 
 man on the wharf, who, he guessed, must be wondering 
 much more at the presence of his visitors than at theis 
 plight.
 
 VII 
 
 The explanation lay in the two simple facts that the 
 light winds and strong currents of the Java Sea had 
 drifted the boat about until they partly lost their bear- 
 ings; and that by some extraordinary mistake one of the 
 two jars put into the boat by Schomberg's man contained 
 salt water. Ricardo tried to put some pathos into his tones. 
 Pulling for thirty hours with eighteen-foot oars ! And the 
 sun ! Ricardo relieved his feelings by cursing the sun. 
 They had felt their hearts and lungs shrivel within them. 
 And then, as if all that hadn't been trouble enough, he 
 complained bitterly, he had had to waste his fainting 
 Btrength in beating their servant about the head with a 
 stretcher. The fool had wanted to drink sea water, and 
 wouldn't listen to reason. There was no stopping him 
 otherwise. It was better to beat him into insensibility than 
 to have him go crazy in the boat, and to be obliged to shoot 
 him. The preventive, administered with enough force to 
 brain an elephant, boasted Ricardo, had to be applied on 
 two occasions — the second time all but in sight of the 
 jetty. 
 
 "You have seen the beauty," Ricardo went on expan- 
 sively, hiding his lack of some sort of probable story under 
 this loquacity. 'T had to hammer him away from the 
 spout. Opened afresh all the old broken spots on his head. 
 You saw how hard I had to hit. He has no restraint, no 
 restraint at all. If it wasn't that he can be made useful in 
 one way or another, I would just as soon have let the 
 governor shoot him." 
 
 He smiled up at Heyst in his peculiar lip- retracting 
 manner, and added by way of afterthought:
 
 VICTORY 221 
 
 "That's what will happen to him in the end, if he 
 doesn't learn to restrain himself. But I've taught him to 
 mind his manners for a while, anyhow !" 
 
 And again he addressed his quick grin up to the man 
 on the wharf. His round eyes had never left Heyst's face 
 ever since he began to deliver his account of the voyage. 
 
 "So that's how he looks !" Ricardo was saying to him- 
 self. 
 
 He had not expected Heyst to be like this. He had 
 formed for himself a conception containing the helpful 
 suggestion of a vulnerable point. These solitary men were 
 often tipplers. But no ! — this was not a drinking man's 
 face; nor could he detect the weakness of alarm, or even 
 the weakness of surprise, on these features, in these steady 
 eyes. 
 
 "We were too far gone to climb out," Ricardo went on. 
 "I heard you walking along, though. I thought I shouted ; 
 I tried to. You didn't hear me shout?" 
 
 Heyst made an almost imperceptible negative sign, 
 which the greedy eyes of Ricardo — ^greedy for all signs — 
 did not miss. 
 
 "Throat too parched. We didn't even care to whisper 
 to each other lately. Thirst chokes one. We might have 
 died there under this wharf before you found us." 
 
 "I couldn't think where you had gone to." Heyst was 
 heard at last, addressing directly the newcomers from the 
 sea. "You were seen as soon as you cleared that point." 
 
 "We were seen, eh?" grunted Mr. Ricardo. "We pulled 
 like machines — daren't stop. The governor sat at the tiller, 
 but he couldn't speak to us. She drove in between the piles 
 till she hit something, and we all tumbled off the thwarts 
 as if we had been drunk. Drunk — ha, ha ! Too dry, by 
 George ! We fetched in here with the very last of our 
 strength, and no mistake. Another mile would have done 
 for us. When I heard your footsteps above, I tried to get 
 up, and I fell down."
 
 222 VICTORY 
 
 "That was the first sound I heard," said Heyst. 
 
 Mr. Jones, the front of his soiled white tunic soaked 
 'ind plastered against his l)reast-bone, staggered away from 
 the water-pipe. Steadying himself on Ricardo's shoulder, 
 he drew a long breath, raised his dripping head, and pro- 
 duced a smile of ghastly amiability, which was lost upon 
 the thoughtful Heyst. Behind his back the sun, touching 
 the water, was like a disc of iron cooled to a dull red glow, 
 ready to start rolling round the circular steel plate of the 
 sea, which, under the darkening sky, looked more solid 
 than the high ridge of Samburan ; more solid than the 
 point, whose long outlined slope melted into its own un- 
 fathomable shadow blurring the dim sheen on the bay. 
 The forceful stream from the pipe broke like shattered 
 glass on the boat's gunwale. Its loud, fitful, and persistent 
 splashing revealed the depth of the world's silence. 
 
 "Great notion, to lead the water out here," pronounced 
 Ricardo appreciatively. 
 
 Water was life. He felt now as if he could run a mile, 
 scale a ten-foot wall, sing a song. Only a few minutes 
 ago he was next door to a corpse, done up, unable to 
 stand, to lift a hand; unable to groan. A drop of water 
 had done that miracle. 
 
 "Didn't you feel life itself running and soaking into 
 you, sir?" he asked his principal, with deferential but 
 forced vivacity. 
 
 Without a word. Mr. Jones stepped off the thwart and 
 sat down in the stern-sheets. 
 
 "Isn't that man of yours bleeding to death in the bows 
 under there?" inquired Heyst. 
 
 Ricardo ceased his ecstasies over the life-giving water 
 and answered in a tone of innocence: 
 
 "He? You may call him a man. but his hide is a jolly 
 sight tougher than the toughest alligator he '^ver skinned in 
 the good old days. You don't know how much he can 
 stand: I do. We have tried him long time ago. Ola, there i
 
 VICTORY 223 
 
 Pedro ! Pedro !" he yelled, with a force of lung testifying 
 to the regenerative virtues of water. 
 
 A weak "Senor?" came from under the wharf. 
 
 "What did I tell you?" said Ricardo triumphantly. 
 "Nothing can hurt him. He's all right. But, I say, the 
 boat's getting swamped. Can't you turn this water off be- 
 fore you sink her under us? She's half full already." 
 
 At a sign from Heyst, Wang hammered at the brass 
 tap on the wharf, then stood behind Number One, crow- 
 bar in hand, motionless as before. Ricardo was perhaps 
 not so certain of Pedro's toughness as he affirmed ; for he 
 stooped, peering under the v/harf , then moved forward out 
 of sight. The gush of water, ceasing suddenly, made a 
 silence which became complete when the after-trickle 
 stopped. Afar, the sun was reduced to a red spark, glow- 
 ing very low in the breathless immensity of twilight. Pur- 
 ple gleams lingered on the water all round the boat. The 
 spectral figure in the stern-sheets spoke in a languid tone : 
 
 "That — er — companion — er — secretary of mine is a 
 queer chap. I am afraid we aren't presenting ourselves in 
 a very favourable light." 
 
 Heyst listened. It was the conventional voice of an 
 educated man, only strangely lifeless. But more strange 
 yet was this concern for appearances, expressed, he did 
 not know, whether in jest or in earnest. Earnestness was 
 hardly to be supposed under the circumstances, and no one 
 had ever jested in such dead tones. It was something 
 which could not be answered, and Heyst said nothing. 
 The other went on : 
 
 "Travelling as I do, I find a man of his sort extremely 
 useful. He has his little weaknesses, no doubt." 
 
 "Indeed !" Heyst was provoked into speaking. "Weak- 
 ness of the arm is not one of them; neither is an exag- 
 gerated humanity, as far as I can judge." 
 
 "Defects of temper," explained Mr. Jones from the 
 stern-sheets.
 
 224 VICTORY 
 
 The subject of this dialogue, coming out just then 
 from under the wharf into the visible part of the boat, 
 made himself heard in his own defence, in a voice full 
 of life, and with nothing languid in his manner. On the 
 contrary, it was brisk, almost jocose. He begged pardon 
 for contradicting. He was never out of temper with "our 
 Pedro." The fellow was a Dago of immense strength and 
 of no sense whatever. This combination made him dan- 
 gerous, and he had to be treated accordingly, in a manner 
 which he could understand. Reasoning was beyond him. 
 
 "And so" — Ricardo addressed Heyst with animation — 
 "'you mustn't be surprised if " 
 
 "I assure you," Heyst interrupted, "that my wonder at 
 your arrival in your boat here is so great that it leaves no 
 room for minor astonishments. But hadn't you better 
 land?" 
 
 "That's the talk, sir !" Ricardo began to bustle about the 
 boat, talking all the time. Finding himself unable to "size 
 up" this man, he was inclined to credit him with extraor- 
 dinary powers of penetration, which, it seemed to him, 
 would be favoured by silence. Also, he feared some point- 
 blank question. He had no ready-made story to tell. He 
 and his patron had put off considering that rather im- 
 portant detail too long. For the last two days, the horrors 
 of thirst, coming on them unexpectedly, had prevented 
 consultation. They had had to pull for dear life. But the 
 man on the wharf, were he in league with the devil him- 
 self, would pay for all their sufferings, thought Ricardo 
 with an unholy joy. 
 
 Meantime, splashing in the water which covered the 
 bottom-boards, Ricardo congratulated himself aloud on 
 the luggage being out of the way of the wet. He had 
 piled it up forward. He had roughly tied up Pedro's 
 head. Pedro had nothing to grumble about. On the con- 
 trary, he ought to be mighty thankful to him, Ricardo, for 
 being alive at all.
 
 VICTORY 225 
 
 "Well, now, let me give you a leg up, sir," he said 
 cheerily to his motionless principal in the stern-sheets. 
 "All our troubles are over — for a time, anyhow. Ain't it 
 luck to find a white man on this island? I would have 
 just as soon expected to meet an angel from heaven — eh, 
 Mr. Jones? Now then — ready, sir? One, two, three, up 
 you go !" 
 
 Helped from below by Ricardo, and from above by the 
 man more unexpected than an angel, Mr. Jones scrambled 
 up and stood on the wharf by the side of Heyst. He 
 swayed like a reed. The night descending on Samburan 
 turned into dense shadow the point of land and the wharf 
 itself, and gave a dark solidity to the unshimmering water 
 extending to the last faint trace of light away to the west. 
 Heyst stared at the guests whom the renounced world had 
 sent him thus at the end of the day. The only other vestige 
 of light left on earth lurked in the hollows of the thin 
 man's eyes. They gleamed, mobile and languidly evasive. 
 The eyelids fluttered. 
 
 "You are feeling weak," said Heyst. 
 
 "For the moment, a little," confessed the other. 
 
 With loud panting, Ricardo scrambled on his hands 
 and knees upon the wharf, energetic and unaided. He 
 rose up at Heyst's elbow and stamped his foot on the 
 r/lanks, with a sharp, provocative, double beat, such as is 
 heard sometimes in fencing-schools before the adversaries 
 engage their foils. Not that the renegade seaman Ricardo 
 knew anything of fencing. What he called "shooting- 
 irons" were his weapons, or the still less aristocratic knife, 
 such as was f.ven then ingeniously strapped to his leg. 
 He thought of it, at that moment. A swift stooping mo- 
 tion, then, on the recovery, a ripping blow, a shove off the 
 wharf, and no noise except a splash in the water that 
 would scarcely disturb the silence. Heyst would have no 
 time for a cry. It would be quick and neat, and immensely 
 in accord with Ricardo's humour. But he repressed this
 
 226 VICTORY 
 
 gnst of savagery. The job was not such a simple one. 
 This piece had to be played to another tune, and in much 
 slower time. He returned to his note of talkative 
 simplicity. 
 
 "Ay; and I too don't feel as strong as I thought I was 
 when the first drink set me up. Great wonder-worker 
 water is ! And to get it right here on the spot ! It was 
 heaven — hey, sir?" 
 
 Mr. Jones, being directly addressed, took up his part 
 in the concerted piece: 
 
 "Really, when I saw a wharf on what might have been 
 an uninhabited island, I couldn't believe my eyes. T 
 doubted its existence. I thought it was a delusion, till the 
 boat actually drove between the piles, as you see her lying 
 now." 
 
 While he was speaking faintly, in a voice which did not 
 seem to belong to the earth, his henchman, in extremely 
 loud and terrestrial accents, was fussing about their be- 
 longings in the boat, addressing himself to Pedro : 
 
 "Come, now — pass up the dunnage there ! Move your- 
 self, hombre, or I'll have to get down again and give you 
 a tap on those bandages of yours, you growling bear, 
 you 1" 
 
 "Ah! You didn't believe in the reality of the wharf?" 
 Heyst was saying to Mr. Jones. 
 
 " Yoxx ought to kiss my hands !" 
 
 Ricardo caught hold of an ancient Gladstone bag and 
 swung it on the wharf with a thump. 
 
 "Yes! You ought to burn a candle before me as they 
 do before the saints in your country. No saint has ever 
 done so much for you as I have, you ungrateful vagabond. 
 Now then ! Up you get." 
 
 Helped by the talkative Ricardo, Pedro scrambled up 
 on the wharf, where he remained for some time on all 
 fours, swinging to and fro his shaggy head tied up in
 
 VICTORY 227 
 
 white rags. Then he got up clumsily, like a bulky animal 
 in the dusk, balancing itself on its hind legs. 
 
 Mr. Jones began to explain languidly to Heyst that 
 they were in a pretty bad state that morning, when they 
 caught sight of the smoke of the volcano. It nerved them 
 to make an effort for their lives. Soon afterwards they 
 made out the island. 
 
 "I had just wits enough left in my baked brain to alter 
 the direction of the boat," the ghostly voice went on. "As 
 to finding asistance, a wharf, a white man — nobody would 
 have dreamed of it. Simply preposterous !" 
 
 "That's what I thought when my Chinaman came and 
 told me he had seen a boat with white men pulling up," 
 said Heyst. 
 
 "Most extraordinary luck," interjected Ricardo, stand- 
 ing by anxiously attentive to every word. "Seems a 
 dream," he added. "A lovely dream!" 
 
 A silence fell on that group of three, as if every one 
 had become afraid to speak, in an obscure sense of an 
 impending crisis. Pedro on one side of them and Wang 
 on the other had the air of watchful spectators. A few 
 stars had come out pursuing the ebbing twilight. A light 
 draught of air, tepid enough in the thickening twilight 
 after the scorching day, struck a chill into Mr. Jones in 
 his soaked clothes. 
 
 "I may infer, then, that there is a settlement of white 
 people here?" he murmured, shivering visibly. 
 
 Heyst roused himself. 
 
 "Oh, abandoned, abandoned. I am alone here — practi- 
 cally alone ; but several empty houses are still standing. 
 No lack of accommodation. We may just as well — ^here, 
 Wang, go back to the shore and run the trolley out here." 
 
 The last words having been spoken in Malay, he ex- 
 plained courteously that he had given directions for the 
 transport of the luggage. Wang had melted into the night 
 in his soundless manner.
 
 228 VICTORY 
 
 "My word! Rails laid down and all," exclaimed Ricardo 
 ioftly, in a tone of admiration. "Well, I never!" 
 
 "We were working a coal-mine here," said the late man- 
 ager of the Tropical Belt Coal Company. "These are only 
 the ghosts of things that have been." 
 
 Mr. Jones's teeth were suddenly started chattering by 
 another faint puff of wind, a mere sigh from the west, 
 where Venus cast her rays on the dark edge of the hori- 
 zon, like a bright lamp hung above the grave of the sun. 
 
 "We might be moving on," proposed Heyst. "The 
 Chinaman and that — ah — ungrateful servant of yours, 
 with the broken head, can load the things and come along 
 after us." 
 
 The suggestion was accepted without words. Moving 
 towards the shore, the three men met the trolley, a mere 
 metallic rustle which whisked past them, the shadowy 
 Wang running noiselessly behind. Only the sound of their 
 footsteps accompanied them. It was a long time since so 
 many footsteps had rung together on that jetty. Before 
 they stepped on to the path trodden through the grass, 
 Heyst said : 
 
 "I am prevented from offering you a share of my own 
 quarters." The distant courtliness of this beginning ar- 
 rested the other two suddenly, as if amazed by some mani- 
 fest incongruity. "I should regret it more," he went on, 
 "if I Vv'ere not in a position to give you the choice of those 
 empty bungalows for a temporary home." 
 
 He turned round and plunged into the narrow tracks, 
 the two others following in single file. 
 
 "Queer start !" Ricardo took the opportunity for whis- 
 pering, as he fell behind Mr. Jones, who swayed in the 
 gloom, enclosed by the stalks of tropical grass, almost as 
 sknder as a stalk of grass himself. 
 
 In this order they emerged into the open space kept 
 clear of vegetation by Wang's judicious system of period- 
 ical firing. The shapes of buildings, unlighted, high-
 
 VICTORY 229 
 
 roofed, looked mysteriously extensive and featureless 
 against the increasing glitter of the stars. Heyst was 
 pleased at the absence of lights in his bungalow. It looked 
 as uninhabited as the others. He continued to lead the 
 way, inclining to the right. His equable voice was heard. 
 
 "This one would be the best. It was our counting-house. 
 There is some furniture in it yet. I am pretty certain that 
 you'll find a couple of camp bedsteads in one of the 
 rooms." 
 
 The high-pitched roof of the bungalow towered up 
 very close, eclipsing the sky. 
 
 "Here we are. Three steps. As you see, there's a wide 
 verandah. Sorry to keep you waiting for a moment; the 
 door is locked, I think." 
 
 He was heard trying it. Then he leaned against the 
 rail, saying: 
 
 "Wang will get the keys." 
 
 The others waited, two vague shapes nearly mingled 
 together in the darkness of the verandah, from which 
 issued a sudden chattering of Mr. Jones's teeth, directly 
 suppressed, and a slight shuffle of Ricardo's feet. Their 
 guide and host, his back against the rail, seemed to have 
 forgotten their existence. Suddenly he moved, and mur- 
 mured : 
 
 "Ah, here's the trolley." 
 
 Then he raised his voice in Malay, and was answered, 
 "Ya tuan," from an indistinct group that could be made 
 out in the direction of the track. 
 
 "I have sent Wang for the key and a light," he said, 
 in a voice that came out without any particular direction 
 — a peculiarity which disconcerted Ricardo. 
 
 Wang did not tarry long on his mission. Very soon 
 from the distant recesses of obscurity appeared the swing- 
 ing lantern he carried. It cast a fugitive ray on the ar- 
 rested trolley with the uncouth figure of the wild Pedro 
 drooping over the load ; then it moved towards the bunga-
 
 830 VICTORY 
 
 low and ascended the stairs. After working at the stiff 
 lock, Wang appHed his shoulder to the door. It came open 
 with explosive suddenness, as if in a passion at being thus 
 disturbed after two years' repose. From the dark slope of 
 a tall stand-up writing-desk a forgotten, solitary sheet of 
 paper flew up and settled gracefully on the floor. 
 
 Wang and Pedro came and went through the offended 
 door, bringing the things off the trolley, one flitting 
 swiftly in and out, the other staggering heavily. Later, 
 directed by a few quiet words from Number One, Wang 
 made several journeys with the lantern to the storerooms, 
 bringing in blankets, provisions in tins, coffee, sugar, and 
 a packet of candles. He lighted one, and stuck it on the 
 ledge of the stand-up desk. Meantime Pedro, being intro- 
 duced to some kindling-wood and a bundle of dry sticks, 
 had busied himself outside in lighting a fire, on which he 
 placed a ready-filled kettle handed to him by Wang im- 
 passively, at arm's length, as if across a chasm. Having 
 received the thanks of his guests, Heyst wished them 
 good-pight and withdrew, leaving them to their repose.
 
 VIII 
 
 Heyst walked away slowly. There was still no light in 
 his bungalow, and he thought that perhaps it was just as 
 well. By this time he was much less perturbed. Wang had 
 preceded him with the lantern, as if in a hurry to get away 
 from the two white men and their hairy attendant. The 
 light was not dancing along any more; it was standing 
 perfectly still by the steps of the verandah. 
 
 Heyst, glancing back casually, saw behind him still an- 
 other light, — the light of the strangers' open fire. A black, 
 uncouth form, stooping over it monstrously, staggered 
 away into the outlying shadows. The kettle had boiled, 
 probably. 
 
 With that weird vision of something questionably 
 human impressed upon his senses, Heyst moved on a pace 
 or two. What could the people be who had such a creature 
 for their familiar attendant? He stopped. The vague ap- 
 prehension of a distant future, in which he saw Lena 
 unavoidably separated from him by profound and subtle 
 differences ; the sceptical carelessness which had accom- 
 panied every one of his attempts at action, like a secret 
 reserve of his soul, fell away from him. He no longer be- 
 longed to himself. There was a call far more imperious 
 and august. He came up to the bungalow, and, at the very 
 limit of the lantern's light, on the top step, he saw her 
 feet and the bottom part of her dress. The rest of her 
 person was suggested dimly as high as her waist. She sat 
 on a chair, and the gloom of the low eaves descended upon 
 her head and shoulders. She didn't stir. 
 
 "You haven't gone to sleep here?" he psked. 
 
 331
 
 ZX2 VICTORY 
 
 "Oh, no! I was waiting for you — in the dark." 
 
 Hey St, on the top step, leaned against a wooden pillar, 
 after moving the lantern to one side. 
 
 "I have been thinking that it is just as well you had 
 no light. But wasn't it dull for you to sit in the dark?" 
 
 "I don't need a light to think of you." Her charming 
 voice gave a value to this banal answer, which had also 
 the merit of truth. Heyst laughed a little, and said that he 
 had had a curious experience. She made no remark. He 
 tried to figure to himself the outlines of her easy pose. 
 A spot of dim light here and there hinted at the unfailing 
 grace of attitude which was one of her natural posses- 
 sions. 
 
 She had thought of him, but not in connection with the 
 strangers. She had admired him from the first; she had 
 been attracted by his warm voice, his gentle eye, but she 
 had felt him too wonderfully difficult to know. He had 
 given to life a savour, a movement, a promise mingled 
 with menaces, which she had not suspected were to be 
 found in it — or, at any rate, not by a girl wedded to mis- 
 ery as she was. She said to herself that she must not be 
 irritated because he seemed too self-contained, and as if 
 shut up in a world of his own. When he took her in his 
 arms, she felt that his embrace had a great and compelling 
 force, that he was moved deeply, and that perhaps he 
 would not get tired of her so very soon. She thought that 
 he had opened to her the feelings of delicate joy, that the 
 very uneasiness he caused her was delicious in its sadness, 
 and that she would try to hold him as long as she could — 
 till her fainting arms, her sinking soul, could cling to him 
 no more. 
 
 "Wang's not here, of course?" Heyst said suddenly. 
 She answered as if in her sleep. 
 
 "He put this light down here without stopping, and 
 ran." 
 
 "Ran, did he? H'm ! Well, it's considerably later than
 
 VICTORY «33 
 
 his usual time to go home to his Alf uro wife ; but to be 
 seen running is a sort of degradation for Wang, who has 
 mastered the art of vanishing. Do you think he was 
 startled out of his perfection by something?" 
 
 "Why should he be startled?" 
 
 Her voice remained dreamy, a little uncertain. 
 
 "I have been startled," Heyst said. 
 
 She was not listening. The lantern at their feet threw 
 the shadows of her face upward. Her eyes glistened, aa 
 if frightened and attentive, above a lighted chin and a 
 A^ery white throat. 
 
 "Upon my word," mused Heyst, "now that I don't see 
 them, I can hardly believe that those fellows exist !" 
 
 "And what about me?" she asked, so swiftly that he 
 made a movement like somebody pounced upon from an 
 ambush. "When you don't see me, do you believe that I 
 exist?" 
 
 "Exist? Most charmingly! My dear Lena, you don't 
 know your own advantages. Why, your voice alone would 
 be enough to make you unforgettable !" 
 
 "Oh, I didn't mean forgetting in that way. I dare say 
 if I were to die you would remember me right enough. 
 And what good would that be to anybody? It's while I 
 am alive that I want " 
 
 Heyst stood by her chair, a stalwart figure imperfectly 
 lighted. The broad shoulders, the martial face that was 
 like a disguise of his disarmed soul, were lost in the gloom 
 above the plane of light in which his feet were planted. 
 He suffered from a trouble with which she had nothing 
 to do. She had no general conception of the conditions of 
 the existence he had offered to her. Drawn into its peculiar 
 stagnation she remained unrelated to it because of her 
 ignorance. 
 
 For instance, she could never perceive the prodigious 
 improbability of the arrival of that boat. She did not seem 
 to be thinking of it. Perhaps she had already forgotten the
 
 «34 VICTORY 
 
 fact herself. And Heyst resolved suddenly to say nothing 
 more of it. It was not that he shrank from alarming her. 
 Not feeling anything definite himself he could not imagine 
 a precise effect being produced on her by any amount of 
 explanation. There is a quality in events w^hich is appre- 
 hended differently by different minds or even by the same 
 mind at different times. Any man living at all consciously 
 knows that embarrassing truth. Heyst was aware that this 
 visit could bode nothing pleasant. In his present soured 
 temper towards all mankind he looked upon it as a visita- 
 tion of a particularly off'ensive kind. 
 
 He glanced along the verandah in the direction of the 
 other bungalow. The fire of sticks in front of it had gone 
 out. No faint glow of embers, not the slightest thread of 
 light in that direction, hinted at the presence of strangers. 
 The darker shapes in the obscurity, the dead silence, be- 
 trayed nothing of that strange intrusion. The peace of 
 Samburan asserted itself as on any other night. Every- 
 thing was as before, except — Heyst became aware of it 
 suddenly — that for a whole minute, perhaps, with his 
 hand on the back of the girl's chair and within a foot of 
 her person, he had lost the sense of her existence, for the 
 first time since he had brought her over to share this in- 
 vincible, this undefiled peace. He picked up the lantern, 
 and the act made a silent stir all along the verandah. A 
 spoke of shadow swung swiftly across her face, and the 
 strong light rested on the immobility of her features, as 
 of a woman looking at a vision. Her eyes were still, her 
 lips serious. Her dress, open at the neck, stirred slightly 
 to her even breathing. 
 
 "We had better go in, Lena," suggested Heyst, very 
 low, as if breaking a spell cautiously. 
 
 She rose without a word. Heyst followed her indoors. 
 As they passed through the living-room, he left the lan- 
 tern burning on the centre table.
 
 IX 
 
 That night the girl woke up, for the first time in her 
 new experience, with the sensation of having been aban- 
 doned to her own devices. She woke up from a painful 
 dream of separation brought about in a way which she 
 could not understand, and missed the relief of the waking 
 instant. The desolate feeling of being alone persisted. She 
 was really alone. A night-light made it plain enough in thr 
 dim, mysterious manner of a dream; but this was reality, 
 it startled her exceedingly. 
 
 In a moment she was at the curtain that hung in the 
 doorway, and raised it with a steady hand. The conditions 
 of their life in Samburan would have made peeping ab- 
 surd ; nor was such a thing in her character. This was not 
 a movement of curiosity, but of downright alarm — the 
 continued distress and fear of the dream. The night could 
 not have been very far advanced. The light in the lantern 
 was burning strongly, striping the floor and walls of the 
 room with thick black bands. She hardly knew whether 
 she expected to see Heyst or not ; but she saw him at once, 
 standing by the table in his sleeping-suit, his back to the 
 doorway. She stepped in noiselessly with her bare feet, 
 and let the curtain fall behind her. Something characteris- 
 tic in Heyst's attitude made her say, almost in a whisper : 
 
 "You are looking for something." 
 
 He could not have heard her before ; but he didn't start 
 at the unexpected whisper. He only pushed the drawer of 
 the table in and, without even looking over his shoulder, 
 asked quietly, accepting her presence as if he had been 
 aware of all her movements : 
 
 23s
 
 2j6 VICTORY 
 
 "I say, are you certain that Wang didn't go through 
 this room this evening?" 
 
 "Wang? When?" 
 
 "After leaving the lantern, I mean." 
 
 "Oh, no. He ran on. I watched him." 
 
 "Or before, perhaps — while I was with these boat 
 people? Do you know? Can you tell?" 
 
 "I hardly think so. I came out as the sun went down, 
 and sat outside till you came back to me." 
 
 "He could have popped in for an instant through the 
 back verandah." 
 
 "I heard nothing in here," she said. "What is the mat- 
 ter?" 
 
 "^Naturally you wouldn't hear. He can be as quiet as 
 .'a shadow, when he likes. I believe he could steal the 
 'pillows from under our heads. He might have been here 
 ten minutes ago." 
 
 "What woke you up? Was it a noise?" 
 
 "Can't say that. Generally one can't tell ; but is it likely, 
 Lena? You are, I believe, the lighter sleeper of us two. 
 A noise loud enough to wake me up would have awakened 
 you, too. I tried to be as quiet as I could. What roused 
 you?" 
 
 "I don't know — a dream, perhaps. I woke up crying." 
 
 "What was the dream?" 
 
 Heyst, with one hand resting on the table, had turned 
 in her direction, his round, uncovered head set on a 
 fighter's muscular neck. She left his question unanswered, 
 as if she had not heard it. 
 
 "What is it you have missed?" she asked in her turn, 
 very grave. 
 
 Her dark hair, drawn smoothly back, was done in two 
 thick tresses for the night. Heyst noticed the good form 
 of her brow, the dignity of its width, its unshining white- 
 ness. It was a sculptural forehead. He had a moment of 
 %cute appreciation intruding upon another order of
 
 VICTORY 237 
 
 thoughts. It was as if there could be no end of his discov- 
 eries about that girl, at the most incongruous moments. 
 
 She had on nothing but a hand-woven cotton sarong — 
 one of Heyst's few purchases, years ago, in Celebes, where 
 they are made. He had forgotten all about it till she came, 
 and then had found it at the bottom of an old sandalwood 
 trunk dating back to pre-Morrison days. She had quickly 
 learned to wind it up under her armpits with a safe twist, 
 as Malay village girls do when going down to bathe in a 
 river. Her shoulders and arms were bare; one of her 
 tresses, hanging forward, looked almost black against the 
 white skin. As she was taller than the average Malay 
 woman, the sarong ended a good way above her ankles. 
 She stood poised firmly, halfway between the table and 
 the curtained doorway, the insteps of her bare feet gleam- 
 ing like marble on the over-shadowed matting of the floor. 
 The fall of her lighted shoulders, the strong and fine 
 modelling of her arms hanging down her sides, her im- 
 mobility, too, had something statuesque, the charm of art 
 tense with life. She was not very big — Heyst used to think 
 of her, at first, as "that poor little girl" — ^but revealed free 
 from the shabby banality of a white platform dress, in 
 the simple drapery of the sarong, there was that in her 
 form and in the proportions of her body which suggested 
 a reduction from an heroic size. 
 
 She moved forward a step. 
 
 "What is it you have missed?" she asked again. 
 
 Heyst turned his back altogether on the table. The 
 black spokes of darkness over the floor and the walls, 
 joining up on the ceiling in a patch of shadow, were Hke 
 the bars of a cage about them. It was his turn to ignore 
 a question. 
 
 "You woke up m a fright, you say?" he said. 
 
 She walked up to him, exotic yet familiar, with her 
 white woman's face and shoulders above the Malay sa-
 
 238 VICTORY 
 
 rong, as if it were an airy disguise ; but her expression was 
 ecrious. 
 
 "No!" she repHed. "It was distress, rather. You see, 
 you weren't there, and I couldn't tell why you had gone 
 away from me. A nasty dream — the first I've had, too, 
 since " 
 
 "You don't believe in dreams, do you?" asked Heyst. 
 
 "I once knew a woman who did. Leastwise, she used 
 to tell people what dreams meant, for a shilling." 
 
 "Would you go now and ask her what this dream 
 means?" inquired Heyst jocularly. 
 
 "She lived in Camberwell. She was a nasty old thing !" 
 
 Heyst laughed a little uneasily. 
 
 "Dreams are madness, my dear. It's things that happen 
 in the waking world, while one is asleep, that one would 
 be glad to know the meaning of." 
 
 "You have missed something out of this drawer," she 
 said positively. 
 
 "This or some other. I have looked into every single 
 one of them and come back to this again, as people do. 
 It's difficult to believe the evidence of my own senses; but 
 it isn't there. Now, Lena, are you sure that you 
 didn't " 
 
 "I have touched nothing in the house but what you have 
 given me." 
 
 "Lena!" he cried. 
 
 He was painfully affected by this disclaimer of a charge 
 which he had not made. It was what a servant might have 
 said — an inferior open to suspicion — or, at any rate, a 
 stranger. He was angry at being so wretchedly misunder- 
 stood ; disenchanted at her not being instinctively aware 
 of the place he had secretly given her in his thoughts. 
 
 "After all," he said to himself, "we are strangers to 
 each other." 
 
 And then he felt sorry for her. He spoke calmly: 
 
 "I was about to say, are you sure you have no reason
 
 VICTORS 23Q 
 
 to think that the Chinaman has been in this room to- 
 night?" 
 
 "You suspect him?" she asked, knitting her eyebrows. 
 
 "There is no one else to suspect. You may call it a cer- 
 titude." 
 
 "You don't want to tell me what it is?" she inquired, 
 in the equable tone in which one takes a fact into account. 
 
 Heyst only smiled faintly. 
 
 "Nothing very precious, as far as value goes," he 
 replied. 
 
 "I thought it might have been money," she said. 
 
 "Money 1" exclaimed Heyst, as if the suggestion had 
 been altogether preposterous. She was so visibly surprised 
 that he hastened to add : "Of course, there is some money 
 in the house — there, in that writing-desk, the drawer on 
 the left. It's not locked. You can pull it right out. There 
 is a recess, and the board at the back pivots ; a very simple 
 hiding-place, when )'OU know the way to it. I discovered 
 it by accident, and I keep our store of sovereigns in there. 
 The treasure, my dear, is not big enough to require a 
 cavern." 
 
 He paused, laughed very low, and returned her steady 
 stare. 
 
 "The loose silver, some guilders and dollars, 1 have 
 always kept in that unlocked left drawer. I have no doubt 
 Wang knows what there is in it ; but he isn't a thief, and 
 that's why I — no, Lena, what I've missed is not gold or 
 jewels ; and that's what makes the fact interesting — which 
 the theft of money cannot be." 
 
 She took a long breath, relieved to hear that it was not 
 money. A great curiosity was depicted on her face, but 
 she refrained from pressing him with questions. She only 
 gave him one of her deep-gleaming smiles. 
 
 "It isn't me, so it must be Wang. You ought to make 
 him give it back to you." 
 
 Heyst said nothing to that naive and practical sugges-
 
 240 VICTORY 
 
 don, for the object that he missed from the drawer was 
 his revolver. 
 
 It was a heavy weapon which he had owned for many 
 years and had never used in his hfe. Ever since the Lon- 
 don furniture had arrived in Sarnburan, it had been repos- 
 ing in the drawer of the table. The real dangers of life, for 
 him, were not those which could be repelled by swords or 
 bullets. On the other hand, neither his manner nor his 
 appearance looked sufficiently inoffensive to expose him to 
 light-minded aggression. 
 
 He could not have explained what had induced him to 
 go to the drawer in the middle of the night. He had started 
 up suddenly — which was very unusual with him. He had 
 found himself sitting up and extremely wide awake all at 
 once, with the girl reposing by his side, lying with her face 
 iway from him, a vague, characteristically feminine form 
 in the dim light. She was perfectly still. 
 
 At that season of the year there were no mosquitoes in 
 Sarnburan, and the sides of the mosquito net were looped 
 up. Hey St swung his feet to the floor, and found himself 
 standing there, almost before he had become aware of his 
 intention to get up. Why he did this he did not know. He 
 didn't wish to wake her up, and the slight creak of the 
 board bedstead had sounded very loud to him. He turned 
 round apprehensively and waited for her to move; but 
 she did not stir. While he looked at her, he had a vision 
 of himself lying there too, also fast asleep, and — it oc- 
 curred to him for the first time in his life — very defence- 
 less. This quite novel impression of the dangers of 
 slumber made him think suddenly of his revolver. He left 
 the bedroom with noiseless footsteps. The lightness of 
 the curtain he had to lift as he passed out, and the outer 
 door, wide open on the blackness of the verandah — for 
 the roof eaves came down low, shutting out the starlight 
 — gave him a sense of having been dangerously exposed, 
 he could not have said to what. He pulled the drawer
 
 VICTORY 241 
 
 open. Its emptiness cut his train of self-communion fthort. 
 He murmured to the assertive fact : 
 
 "Impossible! Somewhere else!" 
 
 He tried to remember where he had put the thing; but 
 those provoked whispers of memory were not encourag- 
 ing. Foraging in every receptacle and nook big enough to 
 contain a revolver, he came slowly to the conclusion that 
 it was not in that room. Neither was it in the other. The 
 whole bungalow consisted of the two rooms and a pro- 
 fuse allowance of verandah all round. Heyst stepped out 
 on the verandah. 
 
 "It's Wang, beyond a doubt," he thought, staring into 
 the night. "He has got hold of it for some reason." 
 
 There was nothing to prevent that ghostly Chinaman 
 from materialising suddenly at the foot of the stairs, or 
 anywhere, at any moment, and toppling him over with a 
 dead sure shot. The danger was so irremediable that it 
 was not worth worrying about, any more than the general 
 precariousness of human life. Heyst speculated on this 
 added risk. How long had he been at the mercy of a 
 slender yellow finger on the trigger? That is, if that was 
 the fellow's reason for purloining the revolver. 
 
 "Shoot and inherit," thought Heyst. "Very simple !" 
 Yet there was in his mind a marked reluctance to regard 
 the domesticated grower of vegetables in the light of a 
 murderer. 
 
 "No, it wasn't that. For Wang could have done it any 
 time this last twelve months or more." 
 
 Heyst's mind had worked on the assumption that Wang 
 had possessed himself of the revolver during his own 
 absence from Samburan; but at that period of his specu- 
 lation his point of view changed. It struck him with the 
 force of manifest certitude that the revolver had been 
 taken only late in the day, or on that very night. Wang, 
 
 of course But why ? So there had been no danger in 
 
 the past. It was all ahead.
 
 242 VICTORY 
 
 "He has me at his mercy now," thought Heyst, without 
 particular excitement. 
 
 The sentiment he experienced was curiosity. He forgot 
 himself in it ; it was as if he were considering somebody 
 else's strange predicament. But even that sort of interest 
 was dying out when, looking to his left, he saw the accus- 
 tomed shapes of the other bungalows looming in the night, 
 and remembered the arrival of the thirsty company in the 
 boat. Wang would hardly risk such a crime in the presence 
 of other white men. It was a peculiar instance of the 
 "safety in numbers" principle, which somehow was not 
 much to Heyst's taste. 
 
 He went in gloomily, and stood over the empty drawer 
 in deep and unsatisfactory thought. He had just made up 
 his mind that he must breathe nothing of this to the girl, 
 when he heard her voice behind him. She had taken him 
 by surprise, but he resisted the impulse to turn round at 
 once under the impression that she might read his trouble 
 in his face. Yes, she had taken him by surprise ; and for 
 that reason the conversation which began was not exactly 
 as he would have conducted it if he had been prepared for 
 her pointblank question. He ought to have said at once : 
 "I've missed nothing." It was a deplorable thing that he 
 should have let it come so far as to have her ask what it 
 was he missed. He closed the conversation by saying 
 lightly : 
 
 "It's an object of very small value. Don't worry about 
 it — it isn't worth while. The best you can do is to go and 
 lie down again, Lena." 
 
 Reluctant she turned away, and only in the doorway 
 asked : 
 
 "And you ?" 
 
 "I think I shall smoke a cheroot on the verandah. I 
 don't feel sleepy for the moment." 
 
 "Well, don't be long." 
 
 He made no answer. She saw him standing there, very
 
 VICTORY 243 
 
 Still, with a frown on his brow, and slowly dropped the 
 curtain. 
 
 Heyst did really light a cheroot before going out again 
 on the verandah. He glanced up from under the low eavec, 
 to see by the stars how the night went on. It was going 
 very slowly. Why it should have irked him he did not 
 know ; for he had nothing to expect from the dawn ; but 
 everything round him had become unreasonable, un- 
 settled, and vaguely urgent, laying him under an 
 obligation, but giving him no line of action. He felt con- 
 temptuously irritated with the situation. The outer world 
 had broken upon him ; and he did not know what wrong 
 he had done to bring this on himself, any more than he 
 knew what he had done to provoke the horrible calumny 
 about his treatment of poor Morrison. For he could not 
 forget this. It had reached the ears of one who needed to 
 have the most perfect confidence in the rectitude of his 
 conduct. 
 
 "And she only half disbelieves it," he thought, with 
 hopeless humiliation. 
 
 This moral stab in the back seemed to have taken some 
 of his strength from him, as a physical wound would have 
 done. He had no desire to do anything — neither to bring 
 Wang to terms in the matter of the revolver nor to find 
 out from the strangers who they were, and how their pre- 
 dicament had come about. He flung his glowing cigar away 
 into the night. But Samburan was no longer a solitude 
 wherein he could indulge in all his moods. The fiery para- 
 bolic trail the cast-out stump traced in the air was seen 
 from another verandah at a distance of some twenty 
 yards. It was noted as a symptom of importance by an 
 observer with his faculties greedy for signs, and in a state 
 of alertness tense enough almost to hear the grass grow.
 
 X 
 
 The observer was Martin Ricardo. To him life was not 
 a matter of passive renunciation, but of a particularly 
 active warfare. He was not mistrustful of it. he was not 
 disgusted with it. still less was he inclined to be suspicious 
 of its disenchantments ; but he was vividly aware that it 
 held many possibilities of failure. Though very far from 
 being a pessimist, he was not a man of foolish illusions. 
 He did not like failure; not only because of its unpleas- 
 ant and dangerous consequences, but also because of its 
 damaging effect upon his own appreciation of Martin 
 Ricardo. And this was a special job, of his own contriving, 
 and of considerable novelty. It was not, so to speak, in 
 his usual line of business — except, perhaps, from a moral 
 standpoint, about which he was not likely to trouble his 
 head. For these reasons Martin Ricardo was unable to 
 sleep. 
 
 Mr. Jones, after repeated shivering fits, and after drink- 
 ing much hot tea, had apparently fallen into deep slumber. 
 He had very peremptorily discouraged attempts at con- 
 versation on the part of his faithful follower. Ricardo 
 listened to his regular breathing. It was all very well for 
 the governor. He looked upon it as a sort of sport. A 
 gentleman naturally would. But this ticklish and important 
 job had to be pulled off at all costs, both for honour ;«"* 
 for safety. Ricardo rose quietly, and made his way on the 
 verandah. He could not lie still. He wanted to go out tor 
 air ; and he had a feeling that by the force of his eagerness 
 even the darkness and the silence could be made to yield 
 something to his eyes and ears. 
 
 344
 
 VICTORY 24S 
 
 He noted the stars, and stepped back again into the 
 dense darkness. He resisted the growing impulse to go 
 out and steal toward the other bungalow. It would have 
 been madness to start prowling in the dark on unknown 
 ground. And for what end? Unless to relieve the oppres- 
 sion. Immobility lay on his limbs like a leaden garment. 
 And yet he was unwilling to give up. He persisted in his 
 objectless vigil. The man of the island was keeping quiet. 
 
 It was at that moment that Ricardo's eyes caught the 
 vanishing red trail of light made by the cigar — a startling 
 revelation of the man's wakefulness. He could not sup- 
 press a low "Hallo!" and began to sidle along towards 
 the door, with his shoulders rubbing the wall. For all he 
 knew, the man might have been out in front by this time, 
 observing the verandah. As a matter of fact, after flinging 
 away the cheroot, Heyst had gone indoors with the feeling 
 of a man who gives up an unprofitable occupation. But 
 Ricardo fancied he could hear faint footfalls on the open 
 ground, and dodged quickly into the room. There he drew 
 breath, and meditated for a while. His next step was to 
 feel for the matches on the tall desk, and to light the 
 candle. He had to communicate to his governor views and 
 reflections of such importance that it was absolutely 
 necessary for him to watch their efifect on the very coun- 
 tenance of the hearer. At first he had thought that these 
 matters could have waited till daylight, but Heyst's wake- 
 fulness, disclosed in that startling way, made him feel 
 suddenly certain that there could be no sleep for him that 
 night. 
 
 He said as much to his governor. When the little dag- 
 ger-hke flame had done its best to dispel the darkness, Mr. 
 Jones was to be seen reposing on a camp bedstead, in a 
 distant part of the room. A railway rug concealed his 
 spare form up to his very head, which rested on the other 
 railway rug rolled up for a pillow. Ricardo plumped him- 
 self down cross-legged on the floor, very close to the low
 
 i46 VICTORY 
 
 bedstead ; so that Mr. Jones — who perhaps had not been 
 io very profoundly asleep — on opening his eyes found 
 Uiem conveniently levelled at the face of his secretary. 
 
 "Eh? What is it you say? No sleep for you to-night? 
 But why can't you let me sleep? Confound your fussi- 
 ftiess!" 
 
 "Because that there fellow can't sleep — that's why. 
 Dash me if he hasn't been doing a think just now ! What 
 business has he to think in the middle of the night?" 
 
 "How do you know?" 
 
 "He was out, sir — up in the middle of the night. My 
 own eyes saw it." 
 
 "But how do you know that he was up to think?" in- 
 quired Mr. Jones. "It might have been anything — tooth- 
 ache, for instance. And you may have dreamed it for all 
 I know. Didn't you try to sleep?" 
 
 "No, sir. I didn't even try to go to sleep." 
 
 Ricardo informed his patron of his vigil on the ve- 
 randah, and of the revelation which put an end to it. He 
 concluded that a man up with a cigar in the middle of the 
 night must be doing a think. 
 
 Mr. Jones raised himself on his elbow. This sign of in- 
 terest comforted his faithful henchman. 
 
 "Seems to me it's time we did a little think ourselves." 
 added Ricardo, with more assurance. Long as they had 
 been together the moods of his governor were still a 
 source of anxiety to his simple soul. 
 
 "You are always making a fuss," remarked Mr. Jones, 
 (U a tolerant tone. 
 
 "Ay, but not for nothing, am I ? You can't say that, sir. 
 Mine may not be a gentleman's way of looking round a 
 thing, but it isn't a fool's way, either. You've admitted 
 that much yourself at odd times." 
 
 Ricardo was growing warmly argumentative. Mr. Jones 
 interrupted him without heat.
 
 VICTORY 247 
 
 "You haven't roused me to talk about yourself, I pre- 
 sume." 
 
 "No, sir." Ricardo remained silent for a minute, with 
 the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth. "I don't 
 think I could tell you anything about myself that you 
 don't know," he continued. There was a sort of amused 
 satisfaction in his tone which changed completely as he 
 went on. "It's that man, over there, that's got to be talked 
 over. I don't like him!" 
 
 He failed to observe the flicker of a ghastly smile on his 
 governor's lips. 
 
 "Don't you?" murmured Mr. Jones, whose face, as he 
 reclined on his elbow, was on a level with the top of his 
 follower's head. 
 
 "No, sir," said Ricardo emphatically. The candle from 
 the other side of the room threw his monstrous black 
 shadow on the wall. "He — I don't know how to say it — 
 he isn't hearty-like." 
 
 Mr. Jones agreed languidly in his own manner: 
 
 "He seems to be a very self-possessed man." 
 
 "Ay, that's it. Self " Ricardo choked with indigna- 
 tion. "I would soon let out some of his self-possession 
 through a hole between his ribs, if this weren't a special 
 job !" 
 
 Mr. Jones had been making his own reflections, for 
 he asked : 
 
 "Do you think he is suspicious?" 
 
 "I don't see very well what he can be suspicious of," 
 pondered Ricardo. "Yet there he was, doing a think. And 
 what could be the object of it? What made him get out of 
 his bed in the middle of the night? 'Tain't fle&s, surely." 
 
 "Bad conscience, perhaps," suggested Mr. Jones 
 jocularly. 
 
 His faithful secretary sufi^ered from irritation, and did 
 not see the joke. In a fretful tone he declared that there
 
 248 VICTORY 
 
 was no such thing as conscience. There was such a thing 
 as funk ; but there was nothing to make that fellow funky 
 in any special way. He admitted, however, that the man 
 might have been uneasy at the arrival of strangers, be- 
 cause of all that plunder of his put away somewhere. 
 
 Ricardo glanced here and there, as if he were afraid 
 of being overheard by the heavy shadows cast by the dim 
 light all over the room. His patron, very quiet, spoke in 
 'I calm whisper : 
 
 "And perhaps that hotel-keeper has been lying to you 
 about him. He may be a very poor devil indeed." 
 
 Ricardo shook his head slightly. The Schombergian 
 theory of Heyst had become in him a profound convic- 
 tion, which he had absorbed as naturally as a sponge takes 
 up water. His patron's doubts were a wanton denying of 
 what was self-evident ; but Ricardo's voice remained as 
 before, a soft purring with a snarling undertone. 
 
 'T am sup-prised at you, sir ! It's the very way them 
 tame ones — the common 'yporcrits of the world — get on. 
 When it comes to plunder drifting under one's very nose, 
 there's not one of them that would keep his hands off. 
 And I don't blame them. It's the way they do it that sets 
 my back up. Just look at the story of how he got rid of 
 that pal of his ! Send a man home to croak of a cold on 
 the chest — that's one of your tame tricks. And d'you 
 mean to say, sir, that a man that's up to it wouldn't bag* 
 whatever he could lay his hands on in his 'yporcritical 
 way? What was all that coal business? Tame citizen 
 dodge ; 'yporcrisy — nothing else. No, no, sir ! The thing is 
 to 'xtract it from him as neatly as possible. That's the job ; 
 and it isn't so simple as it looks. I reckon you have looked 
 at it all round, sir, before you took up the notion of this 
 trip." 
 
 "No." Mr. Jones was hardly audible, staring far away 
 from his couch. "I didn't think about it much. I was 
 bored."
 
 VICTORY 24y 
 
 "Ay, that you were — bad. I was feeling pretty desper- 
 ate that afternoon when that bearded softy of a landlord 
 got talking to me about this fellow here. Quite acciden- 
 tally, it was. Well, sir, here we are after a mighty narrow 
 squeak. I feel all limp yet ; but never mind — his swag will 
 pay for the lot!" 
 
 "He's all alone here," remarked Mr. Jones in a hollow 
 murmur. 
 
 "Ye-es, in a way. Yes, alone enough. Yes, you may say 
 he is." 
 
 "There's that Chinaman, though." 
 
 "Ay, there's the Chink," assented Ricardo rather 
 absentmindedly. 
 
 He was debating in his mind the advisability of making 
 a clean breast of his knowledge of the girl's existence. 
 Finally he concluded he wouldn't. The enterprise was 
 difficult enough without complicating it with an upset to 
 the sensibilities of the gentleman with whom he had the 
 honour of being associated. Let the discovery come of 
 itself, he thought, and then he could swear that he had 
 known nothing of that offensive presence. 
 
 He did not need to lie. He had only to hold his tongue. 
 
 "Yes," he muttered reflectively, "there's that Chink, 
 certainly." 
 
 At bottom, he felt a certain ambiguous respect for his 
 governor's exaggerated dislike of women, as if that horror 
 of feminine presence were a sort of depraved morality ; 
 but still morality, since he counted it as an advantage. 
 It prevented many undesirable complications. He did not 
 pretend to understand it. He did not even try to investigate 
 this idiosyncrasy of his chief. All he knew was that he 
 himself was differently inclined, and that it did not make 
 him any happier or safer. He did not know how it would 
 have acted if he had been knocking about the world on 
 his own. Luckily he was a subordinate, not a wage-slave 
 but a follower — which was a restraint. Yes! The other
 
 250 VICTORY 
 
 sort of disposition simplified matters in general ; it wasn't 
 to be gainsaid. But it was clear that it could also compli- 
 cate them — as in this most important and, in Ricardo's 
 view, already sufficiently delicate case. And the worst of 
 it was that one could not tell exactly in what precise man- 
 ner it would act. 
 
 It was unnatural, he thought somewhat peevishly. How 
 was one to reckon up the unnatural ? There were no rules 
 for that. The faithful henchman of plain Mr. Jones, fore- 
 seeing many difficulties of a material order, decided to 
 keep the girl out of the governor's knowledge ; out of his 
 sight, too, for as long a time as it could be managed. That, 
 alas, seemed to be at most a matter of a few hours; 
 whereas Ricardo feared that to get the afiFair properly 
 going would take some days. Once well started, he was 
 not afraid of his gentleman failing him. As is often the 
 case with lawless natures, Ricardo's faith in any given 
 individual was of a simple, unquestioning character. For 
 man must have some support in life. 
 
 Cross-legged, his head drooping a little and perfectly 
 still, he might have been meditating in a bonze-like atti- 
 tude upon the sacred syllable "Om." It was a striking 
 illustration of the untruth of appearances, for his con- 
 tempt for the world was of a severely practical kind. 
 There was nothing oriental about Ricardo but the amaz- 
 ing quietness of his pose. Mr. Jones was also very quiet. 
 He had let his head sink on the rolled-up rug, and lay 
 stretched out on his side with his back to the light. In that 
 position the shadows gathered in the cavities of his eyes 
 made them look perfectly empty. When he spoke, his 
 ghostly voice had only to travel a few inches straight into 
 Ricardo's left ear. 
 
 "Why don't you say something, now that you've got 
 me awake?" 
 
 'T wonder if you were sleeping as sound as you are 
 trying to make out, sir," said the unmoved Ricardo.
 
 VICTOR V 2St 
 
 "I wonder," repeated Mr. Jones. "At any rate, I was 
 resting quietly." 
 
 "Come, sir!" Ricardo's whisper was alarmed. "You 
 don't mean to say you're going to be bored?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Quite right!" The secretary was very much relieved. 
 "There's no occasion to be, I can tell you, sir," he whis- 
 pered earnestly. "Anything but that ! If I didn't say any- 
 thing for a bit, it ain't because there isn't plenty to talk 
 about. Ay, more than enough." 
 
 "What's the matter with you?" breathed out his patron. 
 "Are you going to turn pessimist?" 
 
 "Me turn? No, sir! I ain't of those that turn. You may 
 call me hard names, if you like, but you know very well 
 that I ain't a croaker." Ricardo changed his tone. "If I 
 said nothing for a while, it was because I was meditating 
 over the Chink, sir." 
 
 "You were ? Waste of time, my Martin. A Chinaman is 
 unfathomable." 
 
 Ricardo admitted that this might be so. Anyhow, a 
 Chink was neither here nor there, as a general thing, un- 
 fathomable as he might be ; but a Swedish baron wasn't — 
 couldn't be ! The woods were full of such barons. 
 
 "I don't know that he is so tame," was Mr. Jones's re«? 
 mark, in a sepulchral undertone. 
 
 "How do you mean, sir? He ain't a rabbit, of course. 
 You couldn't hypnotise him, as I saw you do to more than 
 one Dago, and other kinds of tame citizens, when it came 
 to the point of holding them down to a game." 
 
 "Don't you reckon on that," murmured plain Mr. Jones 
 seriously. 
 
 "No, sir, I don't ; though you have a wonderful power 
 of the eye. It's a fact." 
 
 "I have a wonderful patience," remarked Mr. Jones 
 drily.
 
 2.S2 VICTORY 
 
 A dim smile flitted over the lips of the faithful Ricardo 
 who never raised his head. 
 
 "I don't want to try you too much, sir ; but this is like 
 no other job we ever turned our minds to." 
 
 "Perhaps not. At any rate let us think so." 
 
 A weariness with the monotony of life was reflected in 
 the tone of this qualified assent. It jarred on the nerves 
 of the sanguine Ricardo. 
 
 "Let us think of the way to go to work," he retorted 
 a little impatiently. "He's a deep one. Just look at the way 
 he treated that chum of his. Did you ever hear of anything 
 so low? And the artfulness of the beast — the dirty, tame 
 artfulness !" 
 
 "Don't you start moralising, Martin," said Mr. Jones 
 warningly. "As far as I can make out the story that Ger- 
 man hotel-keeper told you, it seems to show a certain 
 amount of character; and independence from common 
 feelings which is not usual. It's very remarkable, if true." 
 
 "Ay, ay ! Very remarkable. It's mighty low down, all 
 the same," muttered Ricardo obstinately. "I must say I 
 am glad to think he will be paid off for it in a way that'll 
 surprise him !" 
 
 The tip of his tongue appeared Hvely for an instant, as 
 if trying for the taste of that ferocious retribution on his 
 compressed lips. For Ricardo was sincere in his indigna- 
 tion before the elementally principle of loyalty to a chum 
 violated in cold blood, slowly, in a patient duplicity of 
 years. There are standards in villainy as in virtue, and the 
 act as he pictured it to himself acquired an additional 
 horror from the slow pace of that treachery so atrocious 
 and so tame. But he understood too the educated judg- 
 ment of his governor, a gentleman looking on all this with 
 the privileged detachment of a cultivated mind, of an 
 elevated personality. 
 
 "Ay, he's deep — he's artful," he mumbled between his 
 sharp teeth.
 
 VICTORY 253 
 
 "Confound you!" Mr. Jones's calm whisper crept into 
 his ear. "Come to the point." 
 
 Obedient, the secretary shook off his thoughtfulness. 
 There was a similarity of mind between these two — one 
 the outcast of his vices, the other inspired by a spirit of 
 scornful defiance, the aggressiveness of a beast of prey 
 looking upon all the tame creatures of the earth as its 
 natural victims. Both were astute enough, however, and 
 both were aware that they had plunged into this adventure 
 without a sufficient scrutiny of detail. The figure of a 
 lonely man far from all assistance had loomed up largely, 
 fascinating and defenceless in the middle of the sea, filling 
 the whole field of their vision. There had not seemed to 
 be any need for thinking. As Schomberg had been saying : 
 "Three to one." 
 
 But it did not look so simple now in the face of that 
 solitude which was like an armour for this man. The feel- 
 ing voiced by the henchman in his own way — "We don't 
 seem much forwarder now we are here" — was acknowl- 
 edged by the silence of the patron. It was easy enough to 
 rip a fellow up or drill a hole in him, whether he was alone 
 or not, Ricardo reflected in low, confidential tones, 
 but 
 
 "He isn't alone," Mr. Jones said faintly, in his attitude 
 of a man composed for sleep. "Don't forget that China- 
 man." Ricardo started slightly. 
 
 "Oh, ay— the Chink!" 
 
 Ricardo had been on the point of confessing about the 
 girl ; but no ! He wanted his governor to be unperturbed 
 and steady. Vague thoughts, which he hardly dared to look 
 in the face, were stirring in his brain in connection with 
 that girl. She couldn't be much account, he thought. She 
 could be frightened. And there were also other possibili- 
 ties. The Chink, however, could be considered openly. 
 
 "What I was thinking about it, sir," he went on ear- 
 nestly, "is this — here we've got a man. He's nothing. If
 
 254 VICTORY 
 
 he won't be good, he can be made quiet. That's easy. But 
 then there's his plunder. He doesn't carry it in his pocket.' 
 
 "I hope not," breathed Mr. Jones. 
 
 "Same here. It's too big, we know ; but if he were alone, 
 he would not feel worried about it overmuch — I mean the 
 safety of the pieces. He would just put the lot into any 
 box or drawer that was handy." 
 
 "Would he ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. He would keep it under his eye, as it were. 
 Why not? It is natural. A fellow doesn't put his swag 
 underground, unless there's a very good reason for it." 
 
 "A very good reason, eh ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. What do you think a fellow is — a mole?" 
 
 From his experience, Ricardo declared that man was 
 not a burrowing beast. Even the misers very seldom 
 buried their hoard, unless for exceptional reasons. In the 
 given situation of a man alone on an island, the company 
 of a Chink was a very good reason. Drawers would not be 
 safe, nor boxes, either, from a prying, slant-eyed Chink. 
 No, sir; unless a safe — a proper office safe. But the safe 
 was there in the room. 
 
 "Is there a safe in this room? I didn't notice it," whis- 
 pered Mr. Jones. 
 
 That was because the thing was painted white, like the 
 walls of the room ; and besides, it was tucked away in the 
 shadows of a corner. Mr. Jones had been too tired to 
 observe anything on his first coming ashore; but Ricardo 
 had very soon spotted the characteristic form. He only 
 wished he could believe that the plunder of treachery, 
 duplicity, and all the moral abominations of Heyst had 
 been there. But no ; the blamed thing was open. 
 
 "It might have been there at one time or another," he 
 commented gloomily, "but it isn't there now." 
 
 "The man did not elect to live in this house," remarked 
 Mr. Jones. "And by the by, what could he have meant by 
 speaking of circumstances which prevented him lodging
 
 VICTORY 25s 
 
 us in the other bungalow? You remember what he said, 
 Martin? Sounded cryptic." 
 
 Martin, who remembered and understood the phrase as 
 directly motived by the existence of the girl, waited a 
 little before saying: 
 
 "Some of his artfulness, sir; and not the worst of it 
 either. That manner of his to us, this asking no questions, 
 is some more of his artfulness. A man's bound to be 
 curious, and he is ; yet he goes on as if he didn't care. He 
 does care — or else what was he doing up with a cigar in 
 the middle of the night, doing a think? I don't Hke it!" 
 
 "He may be outside, observing the light here, and say- 
 ing the very same thing to himself of our own wakeful- 
 ness," gravely suggested Ricardo's governor. 
 
 "He may be, sir; but this is too important to be talked 
 over in the dark. And the light is all right. It can be 
 accounted for. There's a light in this bungalow in the 
 middle of the night because — why, because you are not 
 well. Not well, sir — that's what's the matter ; and you will 
 have to act up to it." 
 
 This consideration had suddenly occurred to the faith- 
 ful henchman, in the light of a felicitous expedient to 
 keep his governor and the girl apart as long as possible, 
 Mr. Jones received the suggestion without the slightest 
 stir, even in the deep sockets of his eyes, where a steady, 
 faint gleam was the only thing telling of life and attention 
 in his attenuated body. But Ricardo, as soon as he had 
 enunciated his happy thought, perceived in it other pos- 
 sibilities more to the point and of greater practical advan- 
 tage. 
 
 "With your looks, sir, it will be easy enough," he went 
 on evenly, as if no silence had intervened, always respect- 
 ful, but frank, with perfect simplicity .of purpose. "All 
 you've got to do is just to lie down quietly. I noticed him 
 looking sort of surprised at you on the wharf, sir." 
 
 At these words, a naive tribute to the aspect of his
 
 2S6 VICTORY 
 
 physique, even more suggestive of the grave than of the 
 sick-bed, a fold appeared on that side of the governor's 
 face which was exposed to the dim light — a deep, 
 shadowy, semicircular fold from the side of the nose to 
 bottom of the chin — a silent smile. By a side glance Ri- 
 cardo had noted this play of feature. He smiled, too, 
 appreciative, encouraged. 
 
 "And you as hard as nails all the time," he went on. 
 "Hang me if anybody would believe you aren't sick, if 
 I were to swear myself black in the face! Give us a day 
 or two to look into matters and size up that 'yporcrit." 
 
 Ricardo's eyes remained fixed on his crossed shins. The 
 chief, in his lifeless accents, approved. 
 
 "Perhaps ic would be a good idea." 
 
 "The Chink, he's nothing. He can be made quiet any 
 time." 
 
 One of Ricardo's hands, reposing palm upwards on his 
 folded legs, made a swift thrusting gesture, repeated by 
 the enormous darting shadow of an arm very low on the 
 wall. It broke the spell of perfect stillness in the room. 
 The secretary eyed moodily the wall from which the 
 shadow had gone. Anybody could be made quiet, he 
 pointed out. It was not anything that the Chink could 
 do ; no, it was the effect that his company must have pro- 
 duced on the conduct of the doomed man. A man ! What 
 was a man? A Swedish baron could be ripped up, or else 
 holed by a shot, as easily as any other creature ; but that 
 was exactly what was to be avoided, till one knew where 
 he had hidden his plunder. 
 
 "I shouldn't think it would be some sort of hole in his 
 bungalow," argued Ricardo with real anxiety. 
 
 No. A house can be burnt — set on fire accidentally, or 
 on purpose, while a man's asleep. Under the house — or 
 in some crack, cranny, or crevice? Something told him it 
 wasn't that. The anguish of mental effort contracted
 
 VICTORY 257 
 
 Ricardo's brow. The skin of his head seemed to move in 
 this travail of vain and tormenting suppositions, 
 
 "What did you think a fellow is, sir — a baby?" he said, 
 in answer to Mr. Jones's objections. "I am trying to find 
 out what I would do myself. He wouldn't be likely to be 
 cleverer than I am." 
 
 "And what do you know about yourself ?" 
 
 Mr. Jones seemed to watch his follower's perplexities 
 with amusement concealed in a death-like composure. 
 
 Ricardo disregarded the question. The material vision 
 of the spoil absorbed all his faculties. A great vision! He 
 seemed to see it. A few small canvas bags tied up with thin 
 cord, their distended rotundity showing the inside pres- 
 sure of the disk-like forms of coins — gold, solid, heavy, 
 eminently portable. Perhaps steel cash-boxes with a chased 
 design on the covers ; or perhaps a black and brass box 
 with a handle on the top, and full of goodness knows 
 what. Bank notes? Why not? The fellow had been going 
 home ; so it was surely something worth going home with. 
 
 "And he may have put it anywhere outside — any 
 where!" cried Ricardo in a deadened voice. "In the 
 forest " 
 
 That was it ! A temporary darkness replaced the dim 
 light of the room. The darkness of the forest at night, and 
 in it the gleam of a lantern, by which a figure is digging 
 at the foot of a tree-trunk. As likely as not, another figure 
 holding that lantern — ha, feminine ! The girl ! 
 
 The prudent Ricardo stifled a picturesque and profane 
 exclamation, partly joy, partly dismay. Had the girl been 
 trusted or mistrusted by that man? Whatever it was, it 
 was bound to be wholly ! With women there could be no 
 half -measures. He could not imagine a fellow half -trust- 
 ing a woman in that intimate relation to himself, and in 
 those particular circumstances of conquest and loneliness 
 where no confidences could appear dangerous since, appar- 
 ently, there could be no one she could give him away to-
 
 258 VICTORY 
 
 Moreover in nine cases out of ten, the woman would be 
 trusted. But, trusted or mistrusted, was her presence a 
 favourable or unfavourable condition of the problem? 
 That was the question ! 
 
 The temptation to consult his chief, to talk over the 
 weighuv fact and get his opinion on it, was great indeed. 
 Ricardo resisted it; but the agony of his solitary mental 
 conflict was extremely sharp. A woman in a problem is 
 an incalculable quantity, even if you have something to go 
 upon in forming your guess. How much more so when 
 you haven't even once caught sight of her. 
 
 Swift as were his mental processes, he felt that a longer 
 silence was inadvisable. He hastened to speak : 
 
 "And do you see us, sir, you and I, with a couple of 
 spades having to tackle this whole confounded island?" 
 
 He allowed himself a slight movement of the arm. The 
 shadow enlarged it into a sweeping gesture. 
 
 "This seems rather discouraging, Martin" murmured 
 the unmoved governor. 
 
 "We mustn't be discouraged — that's all," retorted his 
 henchman. "And after what we had to go through in that 
 boat too ! Why it would be " 
 
 He couldn't find the qualifying words. Very calm, 
 faithful, and yet astute, he expressed his new-born hopes 
 darkly. 
 
 "Something's sure to turn up to give us a hint ; only 
 this job can't be rushed. You may depend on me to pick 
 up the least little bit of a hint; but you, sir — you've got 
 to play him very gently. For the rest you can trust me." 
 
 "Yes ; but I ask myself what you are trusting to." 
 
 "Our luck," said the faithful Ricardo. "Don't say a 
 word against that. It might spoil the run of it." 
 
 "You are a superstitious beggar. No, I won't say any- 
 thing against it." 
 
 "That's right, sir. Don't you even think lightly of it. 
 Luck's not to be played with."
 
 VICTORY 259 
 
 "Yes, luck's a delicate thing," assented Mr. Jones in 3 
 dreamy whisper. 
 
 A short silence ensued, which Ricardo ended in a dis- 
 creet and tentative voice. 
 
 "Talking of luck, I suppose he could be made to take 
 a hand with you, sir — two-handed picket or ekarty, you 
 being seedy and keeping indoors — just to pass the time. 
 For all we know, he may be one of them hot ones once 
 they start " 
 
 "Is it likely?" came coldly from the principal. "Con- 
 sidering what we know of his history — say with his part' 
 ner." 
 
 "True, sir. He's a cold-blooded beast ; a cold-blooded, 
 inhuman " 
 
 "And I'll tell you another thing that isn't likely. He 
 would not be likely to let himself be stripped bare. We 
 haven't to do with a young fool that can be led on by 
 chaff or flattery, and in the end simply over-awed. This u 
 a calculating man." 
 
 Ricardo recognised that clearly. What he had in hi.' 
 mind was something on a small scale, just to keep the 
 enemy busy while he, Ricardo, had time to nose around 
 a bit. 
 
 "You could even lose a little money to him, sir," he 
 suggested. 
 
 "I could." 
 
 Ricardo was thoughtful for a moment. 
 
 "He strikes me, too, as the sort of man to start prancing 
 when one didn't expect it. What do you think, sir? Is he 
 a man that would prance? That is, if something startled 
 him. More likely to prance than to run — what?" 
 
 The answer came at once, because Mr. Jones under- 
 stood the peculiar idiom of his faithful follower. 
 
 "Oh, without doubt! Without doubt!" 
 
 "It does me good to hear that you think so. He's a
 
 t6o V^ICTORY 
 
 prancing beast, and so we mustn't startle him — not till I 
 have located the stuff. Afterwards " 
 
 Ricardo paused, sinister in the stillness of his pose. 
 Suddenly he got up with a swift movement and gazed 
 down at his chief in moody abstraction. Mr. Jones did not 
 stir. 
 
 "There's one thing that's worrying me," began Ricardo 
 in a subdued voice. 
 
 "Only one?" was the faint comment from the motion- 
 less body on the bedstead. 
 
 "I mean more than all the others put together." 
 
 "That's grave news." 
 
 "Ay, grave enough. It's this — how do you feel in your- 
 self, sir? Are you likely to get bored? I know them fits 
 come on you suddenly; but surely you can tell " 
 
 "Martin, you are an ass." 
 
 The moody face of the secretary brightened up. 
 
 "Really, sir? Well, I am quite content to be on these 
 terms — I mean as long as you don't get bored. It wouldn't 
 do, sir." 
 
 For coolness, Ricardo had thrown open his shirt and 
 rolled up his sleeves. He moved stealthily across the room, 
 bare-footed, towards the candle, the shadow of his head 
 and shoulders growing bigger behind him on the opposite 
 wall, to which the face of plain Mr. Jones was turned. 
 With a feline movement, Ricardo glanced over his shoul- 
 der at the thin back of the spectre reposing on the bed, 
 and then blew out the candle. 
 
 "In fact, I am rather amused, Martin," Mr. Jones said 
 in the dark. 
 
 He heard the sound of a slapped thigh and the jubilant 
 exclamation of his henchman : 
 
 "Good ! That's the way to talk, sir !"
 
 PART IV
 
 RiCARDO advanced prudently by short darts from one 
 tree-trunk to another, more in the manner of a squirrel 
 than a cat. The sun had risen some time before. Already 
 the sparkle of open sea was encroaching rapidly on the 
 dark, cool, early-morning blue of Diamond Bay ; but the 
 deep dusk lingered yet under the mighty pillars of the 
 forest, between which the secretary dodged. 
 
 He was watching Number One's bungalow with an 
 animal-like patience, if with a very human complexity of 
 purpose. This was the second morning of such watching. 
 The first one had not been rewarded by success. Well, 
 strictly speaking, there was no hurry. 
 
 The sun, swinging above the ridge all at once, inun- 
 dated with light the space of burnt grass in front of 
 Ricardo and the face of the bungalow, on which his eyes 
 were fixed, leaving only the one dark spot of the doorway. 
 To his right, to his left, and behind him, splashes of gold 
 appeared in the deep shade of the forest, thinning the 
 gloom under the ragged roof of leaves. 
 
 This was not a very favourable circumstance for Ricar- 
 do's purpose. He did not wish to be detected in his patient 
 occupation. For what he was watching for was a sight 
 of the girl — that girl ! Just a glimpse across the burnt 
 patch to see what she was like. He had excellent eyes, 
 and the distance was not so great. He would be able to 
 distinguish her face quite easily if she only came out 
 on the verandah ; and she was bound to do that sooner 
 or later. He was confident that he could form some opin- 
 ion about her — which, he felt, was very necessary, before 
 
 263
 
 264 VICTORY 
 
 venturing on some steps to get in touch with her behind 
 that Swedish baron's back. His theoretical view of the 
 girl was such that he was quite prepared, on the strength 
 of that distant examination, to show himself discreetly 
 — perhaps even make a sign. It all depended on his read- 
 ing of the face. She couldn't be much. He knew that sort ! 
 
 By protruding his head a little he commanded, through 
 the foliage of a festooning creeper, a view of the three 
 bungalows, irregularly disposed along a flat curve. Over 
 the verandah rail of the farthermost one hung a dark rug 
 of a tartan pattern, amazingly conspicuous. Ricardo could 
 see the very checks. A brisk fire of sticks was burning on 
 the ground in front of the steps, and in the sunlight the 
 thin, fluttering flame had paled almost to invisibility — a 
 mere rosy stir under a faint wreath of smoke. He could 
 see the white bandage on the head of Pedro bending over 
 it, and the wisps of black hair sticking up weirdly. He 
 had wound that bandage himself, after breaking that 
 shaggy and enormous head. The creature balanced it like 
 a load, staggering towards the steps. Ricardo could see 
 a small, long-handled saucepan at the end of a great hairy 
 paw. 
 
 Yes, he could see all that there was to be seen, far and 
 near. Excellent eyes ! The only thing they could not pene- 
 trate was the dark oblong of the doorway on the verandah 
 under the low eaves of the bungalow's roof. And that was 
 vexing. It was an outrage. Ricardo was easily outraged. 
 Surely she would come out presently! Why didn't she? 
 Surely the fellow did not tie her up to the bed-post before 
 leaving the house ! 
 
 Nothing appeared. Ricardo was as still as the leafy 
 cables of creepers depending in a convenient curtain from 
 the mighty limb sixty feet above his head. His very eye- 
 lids were still, and this unblinking watchfulness gave him 
 the dreamy air of a cat posed on a hearth-rug contem- 
 nlating the fire. Was he dreaming? There, in plain sight,
 
 VICTORY 26s 
 
 he had before him a white, blouse-Hke jacket, short blue 
 trousers, a pair of bare yellow calves, a pigtail, long and 
 slender ■ 
 
 "The confounded Chink!" he muttered, astounded. 
 
 He was not conscious of having looked away ; and yet 
 right there, in the middle of the picture, without having 
 come round the right-hand corner or the left-hand corner 
 of the house, without falling from the sky or surging up 
 from the ground, Wang had become visible, as large as 
 life, and engaged in the young-ladyish occupation of pick- 
 ing flowers. Step by step, stooping repeatedly over the 
 flower-beds at the foot of the verandah, the startlingly 
 materialised Chinaman passed off the scene in a very com- 
 monplace manner, by going up the steps and disappearing 
 in the darkness of the doorway. 
 
 Only then the yellow eyes of Martin Ricardo lost their 
 intent fixity. He understood that it was time for him 
 to be moving. That bunch of flowers going into the house 
 in the hand of a Chinaman was for the breakfast-table. 
 What else could it be for? 
 
 "I'll give you flowers!" he muttered threateningly. 
 "You wait!" 
 
 Another moment, just for a glance towards the Jones 
 bungalow, whence he expected Heyst to issue on his way 
 to that breakfast so offensively decorated, and Ricardo 
 began his retreat. His impulse, his desire, was for a rush 
 into the open, face to face with the appointed victim, for 
 what he called a "ripping up," visualised greedily, and 
 always with the swift preliminary stooping movement 
 on his part — the forerunner of certain death to his adver- 
 sary. This was his impulse ; and it was, so to speak, con- 
 stitutional, it was extremely difficult to resist when his 
 blood was up. What could be more tryirxg than to have 
 to skulk and dodge and restrain oneself, mentally and 
 physically, when one's blood was up? Mr. Secretary 
 Ricardo began his retreat from his post of observation
 
 266 VICTORY 
 
 behind a tree opposite Heyst's bungalow, using great care 
 to remain unseen. His proceedings were made easier by 
 the dechvity of the ground, which sloped sharply down to 
 the water's edge. There, his feet feeling the warmth of the 
 tsland's rocky foundation already heated by the sun, 
 through the thin soles of his straw slippers he was, as it 
 were, sunk out of sight of the houses. A short scramble 
 of some twenty feet brought him up again to the upper 
 level, at the place where the jetty had its root in the shore. 
 He leaned his back against one of the lofty uprights which 
 still held up the company's sign-board above the mound 
 of derelict coal. Nobody could have guessed how much 
 his blood was up. To contain himself he folded his arms 
 tightly on his breast. 
 
 Ricardo was not used to a prolonged effort of self- 
 control. His craft, his artfulness, felt themselves always 
 at the mercy of his nature, which was truly feral and only 
 held in subjection by the influence of the "governor," the 
 prestige of a gentleman. It had its cunning too, but it was 
 being almost too severely tried since the feral solution 
 of a growl and a spring was forbidden by the problem. 
 Ricardo dared not venture out on the cleared ground. He 
 dared not. 
 
 "If I meet the beggar," he thought, "I don't know what 
 I mayn't do. I daren't trust myself." 
 
 What exasperated him just now was his inability to 
 understand Heyst. Ricardo was human enough to suffer 
 from the discovery of his limitations. No, he couldn't size 
 Heyst up. He could kill him with extreme ease — a growl 
 and a spring — ^but that was forbidden ! However, he could 
 not remain indefinitely under the funereal blackboard. 
 
 "I must make a move," he thought. 
 
 He moved on, his head swimming a little with the re- 
 pressed desire of violence, and came out openly in front 
 of the bungalows, as if he had just been down to the jetty 
 to look at the boat. The sunshine enveloped him, very
 
 VICTORY 26» 
 
 brilliant, very still, very hot. The three buildings faced 
 him. The one with the rug on the balustrade was the 
 most distant ; next to it was the empty bungalow ; the 
 nearest, with the flower-beds at the foot of its verandah, 
 contained that bothersome girl, who had managed so 
 provokingly to keep herself invisible. That was why Ricar- 
 do's eyes lingered on that building. The girl would surely 
 be easier to "size up" than Heyst. A sight of her, a mere 
 glimpse, would have been something to go by, a step 
 nearer to the goal — the first real move, in fact. Ricardo 
 saw no other move. And any time she might appear on 
 that verandah ! 
 
 She did not appear; but, like a concealed magnet, she 
 exercised her attraction. As he went on, he deviated to- 
 wards the bungalow. Though his movements were deliber- 
 ate, his feral instincts had such sway that if he had met 
 Heyst walking towards hun, he would have had to satisfy 
 his need of violence. But he saw nobody. Wang was at 
 the back of the house, keeping the coffee hot against 
 Number One's return for breakfast. Even the simian 
 Pedro was out of sight, no doubt crouching on the door- 
 step, his red little eyes fastened with animal-like devotion 
 on Mr. Jones, who was in discourse with Heyst in the 
 other bungalow — the conversation of an evil spectre with 
 a disarmed man, watched by an ape. 
 
 His will having very little to do with it, Ricardo, dart- 
 ing swift glances in all directions, found himself at the 
 steps of the Heyst bungalow. Once there, falling under 
 an uncontrollable force of attraction, he mounted them 
 with a savage and stealthy action of his limbs, and paused 
 for a moment under the eaves to listen to the silence. 
 Presently he advanced over the threshold one leg — it 
 seemed to stretch itself, like a limb of india-rubber — 
 planted his foot within, brought up the other swiftly, 
 and stood inside the room, turning his head from side to 
 side. To his eyes, brought in there from the dazzling
 
 if68 VICTORY 
 
 sunshine, all was gloom for a moment. His pupils, like a 
 cat's, dilating swiftly, he distinguished an enormous quan- 
 tity of books. He was amazed ; and he was put off, too. 
 He was vexed in his astonishment. He had meant to note 
 the aspect and nature of things, and hoped to draw some 
 useful inference, some hint as to the man. But what guess 
 could one make out of a multitude of books? He didn't 
 know what to think ; and he formulated his bewilderment 
 in the mental exclamation : 
 
 "What the devil has this fellow been trying to set up 
 here — a school?" 
 
 He gave a prolonged stare to the portrait of Heyst's 
 father, that severe profile ignoring the vanities of this 
 earth. His eyes gleamed sideways at the heavy silver 
 candlesticks — signs of opulence. He prowled as a stray 
 cat entering a strange place might have done ; for if 
 Ricardo had not Wang's miraculous gift of materialising 
 and vanishing, rather than coming and going, he could 
 be nearly as noiseless in his less elusive movements. He 
 noted the back door standing just ajar; and all the time 
 his slightly pointed ears, at the utmost stretch of watch- 
 fulness, kept in touch with the profound silence outside, 
 enveloping the absolute stillness of the house. 
 
 He had not been in the room two minutes when it 
 occurred to him that he must be alone in the bungalow. 
 The woman, most likely, had sneaked out, and was walk- 
 ing about somewhere in the grounds at the back. She 
 had been probably ordered to keep out of sight. Why? 
 Because the fellow mistrusted his guests ; or was it be- 
 cause he mistrusted hcrf 
 
 Ricardo reflected that from a certain point of view 
 it amounted nearly to the same thing. He remembered 
 Schomberg's story. He felt that running away with some- 
 body only to get clear of that beastly, tame, hotel-keeper's 
 attentions, was no proof of hopeless infatuation. She 
 could be got in touch with.
 
 VICTORY " 269 
 
 His moustaches stirred. For some time he had been 
 looking at a closed door. He would peep into that other 
 room, and perhaps see something more informing than 
 a confounded lot of books. As he crossed over, he thought 
 recklessly : 
 
 "H the beggar comes in suddenly, and starts to prance, 
 I'll rip him up and be done with it !" 
 
 He laid his hand on the handle, and felt the door come 
 unlatched. Before he pulled it open, he listened again to 
 the silence. He felt it all about him, complete, without 
 a flaw. 
 
 The necessity of prudence had exasperated his self- 
 restraint. A mood of ferocity woke up in him, and, a? 
 always at such times, he became physically aware of the 
 sheeted knife strapped to his leg. He pulled at the door 
 with fierce curiosity. It came open without a squeak of 
 hinge, without a rustle, with no sound at all ; and h& 
 found himself glaring at the opaque surface of some 
 rough blue stuff, like serge. A curtain was fitted inside, 
 heavy enough and long enough not to stir. 
 
 A curtain ! This unforeseen veil, baffling his curiosity, 
 checked his brusqueness. He did not fling it aside with 
 an impatient movement ; he only looked at it closely, as if 
 its texture had to be examined before his hand could 
 touch such stuff. In this interval of hesitation he seemed 
 to detect a flaw in the perfection of the silence, the faint- 
 est possible rustle, which his ears caught and instantly, 
 in the effort of conscious listening, lost again. No ! 
 Everything was still inside and outside the house, only 
 he had no longer the sense of being alone there. 
 
 When he put out his hand towards the motionless folds 
 it was with extreme caution, and merely to push the stuff 
 aside a little, advancing his head at the same time to peep 
 within. A moment of complete immobility ensued. Then, 
 without anything else of him stirring, Ricardo's head 
 shrank back on his shoulders, his arm descended slowly
 
 270 VICTORY 
 
 to his side. There was a woman in there. The very 
 woman ! Lighted dimly by the reflection of the outer glare, 
 ?ne loomed up strangely big and shadowy at the other end 
 of the long, narrow room. With her back to the door, she 
 was doing her hair with her bare arms uplifted. One of 
 them gleamed pearly white ; the other detached its perfect 
 form in black against the unshuttered, uncurtained square 
 window-hole. She was there, her fingers busy with her 
 dark hair, utterly unconscious, exposed and defenceless — 
 and tempting. 
 
 Ricardo drew back one foot and pressed his elbows 
 close to his sides ; his chest started heaving convulsively, 
 as if he were wrestling or running a race ; his body began 
 to sway gently back and forth. The self-restraint was 
 at an end : his psychology must have its way. The instinct 
 for the feral spring could no longer be denied. Ravish 
 or kill — it was all one to him, as long as by the act he 
 liberated the suffering soul of savagery repressed for so 
 long. After a quick glance over his shoulder, which hunt- 
 ers of big game tell us no lion or tiger omits to give 
 before charging home, Ricardo charged, head down, 
 straight at the curtain The stuff, tossed up violently by 
 his rush, settled itself with a slow, floating descent into 
 vertical folds, motionless, v/ithout a shudder even, in th** 
 still, warm air
 
 II 
 
 The clock — which once upon a time had measured the 
 hours of philosophic meditation — could not have ticked 
 away more than five seconds when Wang materialised 
 within the living-room. His concern primarily was with 
 the delayed breakfast, but at once his slanting eyes became 
 immovably fixed upon the unstirring curtain. For it was 
 behind it that he had located the strange, deadened scuf- 
 fling sounds which filled the empty room. The slanting 
 eyes of his race could not achieve a round, amazed stare ; 
 but they remained still, dead still, and his impassive yel- 
 low face grew all at once careworn and lean with the 
 sudden strain of intense, doubtful, frightened watchful- 
 ness. Contrary impulses swayed his body, rooted to the 
 floor-mats. He even went so far as to extend his hand 
 towards the curtain. He could not reach it, and he didn't 
 make the necessary step forward. 
 
 The mysterious struggle was going on with confused 
 thuds of bare feet, in a mute wrestling match, no human 
 sound, hiss, groan, murmur, or exclamation coming 
 through the curtain. A chair fell over, not with a crash 
 but lightly, as if just grazed, and a faint metaUic ring 
 of the tin bath succeeded. Finally the tense silence, as 
 of two adversaries locked in a deadly grip, was ended 
 by the heavy, dull thump of a soft body flung against 
 the inner partition of planks. It s'^emed to shake the whole 
 bungalow. By that time, walking backward, his eyes, his 
 very throat, strained with fearful excitement, his extender'. 
 arm still pointing at the curtain, Wang had disappeared 
 
 271
 
 272 VICTORY 
 
 through the back door. Once out in the compound, he 
 bolted round the end of the house. Emerging innocently 
 between the two bungalows he lingered and lounged in 
 the open, where anybody issuing from any of the dwell- 
 ings was bound to see him — a self-possessed Chinaman 
 idling there, with nothing but perhaps an unserved break- 
 fast on his mind. 
 
 It was at this time that Wang made up his mind to 
 give up all connection with Number One, a man not 
 only disarmed but already half vanquished. Till that 
 morning he had had doubts as to his course of action, but 
 this overheard scufifie decided the question. Number One 
 was a doomed man — one of those beings whom it is un- 
 rucky to help. Even as he walked in the open with a fine 
 air of unconcern, Wang wondered that no sound of any 
 sort was to be heard inside the house. For all he knew, 
 the white woman might have been scufifling in there with 
 an evil spirit, which had of course killed her. For nothing 
 visible came out of the house he watched out of the 
 slanting corner of his eye. The sunshine and the silence 
 outside the bungalow reigned undisturbed. 
 
 But in the house the silence of the big room would not 
 have struck an acute ear as perfect. It was troubled by 
 a stir so faint that it could hardly be called a ghost of 
 whispering from behind the curtain. 
 
 Ricardo, feeling his throat with tender care, breathed 
 out admiringly : 
 
 "You have fingers like steel. Jimminy ! You have 
 muscles like a giant!" 
 
 Luckily for Lena, Ricardo's onset had been so sudden 
 — she was winding her two heavy tresses round her head 
 — that she had no time to lower her arms. This, which 
 saved them from being pinned to her sides, gave her a 
 better chance to resist. His spring had nearly thrown her 
 down. Luckily, again, she was standing so near the wall 
 that, though she was driven against it headlong, yet the
 
 VICTORY 273 
 
 shock was not heavy enougn to knock all the breath out 
 of her body. On the contrary, it helped her first instinc- 
 tive attempt to drive her assailant backward. 
 
 After the first gasp of a surprise that was really too 
 overpowering for a cry, she was never in doubt of the 
 nature of the danger. She defended herself in the full, 
 clear knowledge of it, from the force of instinct which is 
 the true source of -^very great display of energy, and with 
 a determination which could hardly have been expected 
 from a girl who, cornered in a dim corridor by the red 
 faced, stammering Schomberg, had trembled with sh^mf 
 disgust, and fear; had drooped, terrified, before mere 
 words spluttered out odiously by a man who had never 
 in his life laid his big paw on her. 
 
 This new enemy's attack was simple, straightforward 
 violence. It was not the slimy, underhand plotting to 
 deliver her up like a slave, which had sickened her heart 
 and made her feel in her loneliness that her oppressors 
 were too many for her. She was no longer alone in the 
 world now. She resisted without a moment of faltering, 
 because she was no longer deprived of moral support ; 
 because she was a human being who counted ; because 
 she was no longer defending herself for herself alone; 
 because of the faith that had been born in her — the 
 faith in the man of her destiny, and perhaps in the 
 Heaven which had sent him so wonderfully to cros^' ler 
 path. 
 
 She had defended herself principally by maintainmg a 
 desperate, murderous clutch on Ricardo's windpipe, till 
 she felt a sudden relaxation of the terrific hug in which 
 he stupidly and ineffectually persisted to hold her. Thei 
 with a supreme effort of her arms and of her suddenly 
 raised knee, she sent him flying against the. partition. 
 The cedar-wood chest stood in the way, and Ricardo, 
 with a thump which boomed hollow through the whole 
 bungalow, fell on it in a sitting posture, half strangled
 
 274 VICTORY 
 
 and exhausted not so much by the efforts as by the emo- 
 tions of the struggle. 
 
 With the recoil of her exerted strength, she too reeled, 
 staggered back, and sat on the edge of the bed. Out of 
 breath, but calm and unabashed, she busied herself in 
 readjusting under her arms the brown and yellow figured 
 Celebes sarong, the tuck of which had come undone during 
 the fight. Then, folding her bare arms tightly on her 
 breast, she leaned forward on her crossed legs, deter- 
 mined and without fear. 
 
 Ricardo, leaning forward too, his nervous force gone, 
 crestfallen like a beast of piey that has missed its spring, 
 met her big grey eyes looking at him — wide open, observ- 
 ing, .mysterious — from under the dark arches of her 
 courageous eyebrows. Their faces were not a foot apart. 
 He ceased feeling about his aching throat and dropped 
 the palms of his hands heavily on his knees. He was not 
 looking at her bare shoulders, at her strong arms ; he was 
 looking down at the floor. He had lost one of his straw 
 slippers. A chair with a white dress on it had been over- 
 turned. These, with splashes of water on the floor out 
 of a brusquely misplaced sponge-bath, were the only 
 traces of the struggle. 
 
 Ricardo swallowed twice consciously, as if to make 
 sure of his throat, before he spoke again : 
 
 "All right. I never meant to hurt you — though I am 
 no joker when it comes to it." 
 
 He pulled up the leg of his pyjamas to exhibit the 
 strapped knife. She glanced at it without moving her 
 head, and murmured, with scornful bitterness : 
 
 "Ah, yes — with that thing stuck in my side. In no 
 other way." 
 
 He shook his head with a shamefaced smile. 
 
 "Listen ! I am quiet now. Straight — I am, I don't need 
 to explain why — you know how it is. And I can see, now, 
 this wasn't the way with you "
 
 VICTORY 27i 
 
 She made no sound. Her still, upward gaze had a 
 p^.tient mournfulness which troubled him like a sugges- 
 tion of an inconceivable depth. He added doubtfully : 
 
 "You are not going to make a noise about this silly 
 try of mine?" 
 
 She moved her head the least bit. 
 
 "Jee-mmy! You are a wonder/' he murmured ear- 
 nestly, relieved more than she could have guessed. 
 
 Of course, if she had attempted to run out, he would 
 have stuck the knife between her shoulders, to stop her 
 screaming; but all the fat would have been in the fire, 
 the business utterly spoiled, and the rage of the governor 
 — especially when he learned the cause — ^boundless. A 
 woman who does not make a noise after an attempt of 
 that kind has tacitly condoned the offence. Ricardo had 
 no small vanities. But clearly, if she would pass it over 
 like this, then he could not be so utterly repugnant to her. 
 He felt flattered. And she didn't seem afraid of him 
 either. He already felt almost tender towards the girl — • 
 that plucky, fine girl who had not tried to run screaming 
 from him. 
 
 "We shall be friends yet. I don't give you up. Don't 
 think it. Friends as friends can be!" he whvspered confi 
 dently. "Jee-miny ! You aren't a tame one. Neither am I, 
 You will find that out before long." 
 
 He could not know that if she had not run out, it was 
 because that morning, under the stress of growing un- 
 easiness at the presence of the incomprehensible visitors, 
 Heyst had confessed to her that it was his revolver he 
 had been looking for in the night ; that it was gone ; that 
 he was a disarmed, defenceless man. She had hardly com- 
 prehended the meaning of his confession. Now she under- 
 stood better what it meant. The effort of her self-control, 
 her stillness, impressed Ricardo. Suddenly she spoke : 
 
 "What are you after?" 
 
 He did not raisp his eyes. His hands reposing on his
 
 li^6 VICTORY 
 
 knees, his droopi^.g head, something reflective in his pose, 
 suggested the v.eariness of a simple soul, the fatigue of a 
 mental rather than physical contest. He answered the 
 direct question by a direct statement, as if he were too 
 tired to dissemble : 
 
 "After the swag." 
 
 The word was strange to her. The veiled ardour of her 
 grey gaze from under the dark eyebrows never left Ricar- 
 do's face. 
 
 "A swag?" she murmured quietly. "What's that?" 
 
 'Why, swag, plunder — what your gentleman has been 
 pinching right and left for years — the pieces. Don't you 
 know? This!" 
 
 Without looking up, he made the motion of counting 
 money into the palm of his hand. She lowered her eyes 
 slightly to observe this bit of pantomime, but returned 
 ;:hem to his face at once. Then, in a mere breath: 
 
 "How do you know anything about him?" she asked, 
 concealing her puzzled alarm. "What has it got to do with 
 you?" 
 
 "Everything," was Ricardo's concise answer, in a low, 
 emphatic whisper. He reflected that this girl was really 
 his best hope. Out of the unfaded impression of past 
 violence there was growing the sort of sentiment which 
 prevents a man from being indifferent to a woman he 
 has once held in his arms — if even against her will — and 
 itill more so if she has pardoned ^he outrage. It becomes 
 then a sort of bond. He felt positively the need to confide 
 in her — a subtle trait of masculinity, this, almost physical, 
 need of trust which can exist side by side with the most 
 brutal readiness of suspicion. 
 
 "It's a game of grab — see?" he went on, with a new 
 inflection of intimacy in his murmur. He was looking 
 straight at her now. "That fat- tame slug of a gin-slinger, 
 Schomberg, put us up to it." 
 
 So strong is the impression of helpless and persecuted
 
 VICTORY 271 
 
 misery, that the girl who had fought down a savage 
 assault without faltering could not completely repress a 
 shudder at the mere sound of the abhorred name. 
 
 Ricardo became more rapid and confidential : 
 
 "He wants to pay him off — pay both of you, at that ; so 
 he told me. He was hot after you. He would have given 
 all he had into those hands of yours that have nearly 
 strangled me. But you couldn't, eh? Nohow — what?" He 
 paused. "So, rather than — you followed a gentleman?" 
 
 He noticed a slight movement of her head and spoke 
 quickly. 
 
 "Same here — rather than be a wage-slave. Only these 
 foreigners aren't to be trusted. You're too good for him. 
 A man that will rob his best chum !" She raised her head, 
 He went on, well pleased with his progress, whispering 
 hurriedly : "Yes. I know all about him. So you may guess 
 how he's likely to treat a woman after a bit !" 
 
 He did not know that he was striking terror into hef 
 breast now. Still the grey eyes remained fixed on him 
 unmovably watchful, as if sleepy, under the white fore- 
 head. She was beginning to understand. His words con- 
 veyed a definite, dreadful meaning to her mind, which he 
 proceeded to enlighten further in a convinced murmur. 
 
 "You and I are made to understand each other. Born 
 alike, bred alike, I guess. You are not tame. Same here ! 
 You have been chucked out into this rotten world of 
 '"yporcrits. Same here !" 
 
 Her stillness, her appalled stillness, wore to him an air 
 "1^ fascinated attention. He asked abruptly: 
 
 "Where is it?" 
 
 She made an effort to breathe out : 
 
 "Where's what?" 
 
 His tone expressed excited secrecy. 
 
 "The swag — plunder — pieces. It's a game of grab. We 
 must have it ; but it isn't easy, and so you will have to 
 lend a hand. Come ! Is it kept in the house ?"
 
 278 VICTORY 
 
 As often with women, her wits were sharpened by the 
 very terror of the ghmpsed menace. She shook her head 
 negatively. 
 
 -No." 
 
 "Sure?" 
 
 "Sure," she said. 
 
 "Ay! Thought so. Does your gentleman trust you?" 
 
 Again she shook her head. 
 
 "Blamed 'yporcrit," he said feelingly, and then he re- 
 flected: "He's one of the tame ones, ain't he?" 
 
 "You had better find out for yourself," she said. 
 
 "You trust me. I don't want to die before you and 
 I have made friends." This was said with a strange air 
 of feline gallantry. Then, tentatively : "But he could be 
 brought to trust you, couldn't he?" 
 
 "Trust me?" she said, in a tone which bordered on 
 despair, but which he mistook for derision. 
 
 "Stand in with us," he urged. "Give the chuck to all 
 this blamed 'yporcrisy. Perhaps, without being trusted, you 
 have managed to find out something already, eh?" 
 
 "Perhaps I have," she uttered with lips that seemed 
 to her to be freezing fast. 
 
 Ricardo now looked at her calm face with something 
 like respect. He was even a little awed by her stillness, 
 by her economy of words. Womanlike, she felt the effect 
 she had produced, the effect of knowing much and of 
 keeping all her knowledge in reserve. So far, somehow, 
 this had come about of itself. Thus encouraged, directed 
 in the way of duplicity, the refuge of the weak, she made 
 a heroically conscious effort and forced her stiff, cold 
 lips into a smile. 
 
 Duplicity — the refuge of the weak and the cowardly, 
 but of the disarmed, too ! Nothing stood between the 
 enchanted dream of her existence and a cruel catastrophe 
 but her duplicity. It seemed to her that the man sitting 
 there before her was an unavoidable presence, which had
 
 VICTORY 279 
 
 attended all her life. He was the embodied evil of the 
 world. She was not ashamed of her duplicity. With a 
 woman's frank courage, as soon as she saw that opening 
 she threw herself into it without reserve, with only one 
 doubt — that of her own strength. She was appalled by the 
 situation ; but already all her aroused femininity, under- 
 standing that whether Hey^t loved her or not she loved 
 liim, and feeling that she had brought this on his head, 
 faced the danger with a passionate desire to defend 
 her own.
 
 Ill 
 
 To RiCARDO the girl had been so unforeseen that he was 
 unable to bring upon her the hght of his critical faculties. 
 Her smile appeared to him full of promise. He had not 
 expected her to be what she was. Who, from the talk he 
 had heard, could expect to meet a girl like this? She was 
 a blooming miracle, he said to himself, familiarly, yet with 
 a tinge of respect. She was no meat for the likes of that 
 tame, respectable gin-slinger. Ricardo grew hot with indig- 
 nation. Her courage, her physical strength, demonstrated 
 at the cost of his discomfiture, commanded his sympathy. 
 He felt himself drawn to her by the proofs of her amaz- 
 ing spirit. Such a girl! She had a strong soul; and her 
 reflective disposition to throw over her connection proved 
 that she was no hypocrite. 
 
 "Is your gentleman a good shot?" he said, looking 
 down on the floor again, as if indifferent. 
 
 She hardly understood the phrase ; but in its form it 
 suggested some accomplishment. It was safe to whisper 
 an afflrmative. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Mine, too — and better than good," Ricardo mur- 
 mured, and then, in a confidential burst : "I am not so 
 good at it, but I carry a pretty deadly thing about me, 
 all the same !" 
 
 He tapped his leg. She was past the stage of shudders 
 now. Stiff all over, unable even to move her eyes, she 
 felt an awful mental tension which was like blank forget- 
 fulness. Ricardo tried to influence her in his own way. 
 
 "And my gentleman is not the sort that would drop 
 
 280
 
 VICTORY 2b 
 
 me. He ain't no foreigner ; whereas you, with your baron, 
 you don't know what's before you — or, rather, being a 
 woman, you know only too well. Much better not to wait 
 for the chuck. Pile in with us and get your share — of the 
 plunder, I mean. You have some notion about it already." 
 
 She felt that if she as much as hinted by word or sign 
 that there was no such thing on the island, Heyst's life 
 wouldn't be worth half an hour's purchase ; but all power 
 of combining words had vanished in the tension of her 
 mind. Words themselves were too difficult to think of — 
 all except the word "yes." The saving word! She whis- 
 pered it with not a feature of her face moving. To 
 Ricardo the faint and concise sound proved a cool, re- 
 served assent, more worth having from that amazing 
 mistress of herself than a thousand words from any other 
 woman. He thought with exultation that he had come 
 upon one in a milHon — in ten millions ! His whisper be- 
 came frankly entreating. 
 
 "That's good ! Now all you've got to do is to make 
 sure where he keeps his swag. Only do be quick about it ! 
 I can't stand much longer this crawling-on-the-stomach 
 business so as not to scare your gentleman. What do you 
 think a fellow is — a reptile?" 
 
 She stared without seeing any one, as a person in the 
 night sits staring and listening to deadly sounds, to evil 
 incantations. And always in her head there was that ten- 
 sion of the mind trying to get hold of something, of a 
 saving idea which seemed to be so near and could not be 
 captured. Suddenly she seized it. Yes — she had to get 
 that man out of the house. At that very moment, raised 
 outside, not very near, but heard distinctly, Heyst's voice 
 uttered the words : 
 
 "Have you been looking out for me, Wang?" 
 
 It was for her like a flash of lightning framed in the 
 darkness which had beset her on all sides, showing » 
 deadly precipice right under her feet. With a convulsive
 
 382 VICTORY 
 
 movement she sat up straight, but had no power to rise. 
 Ricardo, on the contrary, was on his feet on the instant, 
 as noiseless g.f a zat. His yellow eyes gleamed, gliding 
 here and there; but he, too, seemed unable to make an- 
 other movement. Only his moustaches stirred visibly, like 
 the feelers of some animal. 
 
 Wang's answer, "Ya, Tuaii," was heard by the two in 
 the room, but more faintly. Then Heyst again: 
 
 "All right! You may bring the coffee in. Mem Putih 
 out in the room yet?" 
 
 To this question Wang made no answer. 
 
 Ricardo's and the girl's eyes met, utterly without ex- 
 pression, all their faculties being absorbed in listening for 
 the first sound of Heyst's footsteps, for any sound out- 
 side which would mean that Ricardo's retreat was cut off. 
 Both understood perfectly well that Wang must have 
 gone round the house, and that he was now at the back, 
 making it impossible for Ricardo to slip out unseen that 
 way before Heyst came in at the front. 
 
 A darkling shade settled on the face of the devoted 
 secretary. Here was the business utterly spoiled! It was 
 the gloom of anger, and even of apprehension. He would 
 perhaps have made a dash for it through the back door. 
 if Heyst had not been heard ascending the front steps. 
 He climbed them slowly, very slowly, like a man who is 
 discouraged or weary — or simply thoughtful ; and Ricardo 
 had a mental vision of his face, with its martial mous- 
 taches, the lofty forehead the impassive features, and 
 the quiet, meditative eyes. Trapped! Confound it! After 
 all, perhaps the governor was right. Women had to be 
 shunned. Fooling with this one had apparently ruined the 
 whole business. For, trapped as he was, he might just 
 as well kill, since, anvhow, to be seen was to be un- 
 masked. But he was too fair-minded to be angry with 
 the girl.
 
 VICTORY 283 
 
 Heyst had paused on the verandah, or in the very 
 doorway. 
 
 "I shall be shot down Hke a dog if I ain't quick," 
 Ricardo muttered excitedly to the girl. 
 
 He stooped to get hold of his knife; and the next 
 moment would have hurled himself out through the cur- 
 tain, nearly as prompt and fully as deadly to Heyst as 
 an unexpected thunderbolt. The feel more than the 
 strength of the girl's hand, clutching at his shoulder, 
 checked him. He swung round, crouching with a yel- 
 low upward glare. Ah! Was she turning against him? 
 
 He would have stuck his knife into the hollow of her 
 bare throat if he had not seen her other hand pointing 
 to the window. It was a long opening, high up, close 
 under the ceiling almost, with a single pivoting shutter. 
 
 While he was still looking at it, she moved noiselessly 
 away, picked up the overturned chair, and placed it 
 under the wall. Then she looked round; but he didn't 
 need to be beckoned to. In two long, tiptoeing strides 
 he was at her side. 
 
 "Be quick!" she gasped. 
 
 He seized her hand and wrung it with all the force 
 of his dumb gratitude, as a man does to a chum when 
 there is no time for words. Then he mounted the chair. 
 Ricardo was short — too short to get over without a noisy 
 scramble. He hesitated an instant ; she, watchful, bore 
 rigidly on the seat with her beautiful bare arms, while, 
 light and sure, he used the back of the chair as a ladder. 
 The masses of her brown hair fell all about her face. 
 
 Footsteps resounded in the next room, and Heyst's 
 voice, not very loud, called her by name. 
 
 "Lena !" 
 
 "Yes ! In a minute," she answered with a particular 
 intonation which she knew would prevent Heyst frore 
 coming in at once.
 
 fa84 VICTORY 
 
 When she looked up, Ricardo had vanished, letting 
 himself down outside so lightly that she had not heard 
 the slightest noise. She stood up then, bewildered, fright- 
 ened, as if awakened from a drugged sleep, with heavy, 
 downcast, unseeing eyes, her fortitude tired out, her 
 imagination as if dead within her and unable to keep her 
 fear alive. 
 
 Heyst moved about aimlessly in the other room. This 
 sound roused her exhausted wits. At once she began to 
 think, hear, see ; and what she saw — or rather recog- 
 nized, for her eyes had been resting on it all the time — 
 was Ricardo's straw slipper, lost in the scuffle, lying near 
 the bath. She had just time to step forward and plant 
 her foot on it when the curtain shook, and, pushed aside, 
 disclosed Heyst in the doorway. 
 
 Out of the appeased enchantment of the senses she 
 had found with him, like a sort of bewitched state, his 
 danger brought a sensation of v-armth to her breast. 
 She felt something stir in there, something profound, like 
 a new sort of life. 
 
 The room was in partial darkness, Ricardo having acci- 
 dentally swung the pivoted shutter as he went out of the 
 window. Heyst peered from the doorway. 
 
 "Why, you haven't done your hair yet," he said. 
 
 "I won't stop to do it now. I sha'n't be long," she 
 replied steadily, and remained still, feeling Ricardo's 
 slipper under the sole of her foot. 
 
 Heyst, with a movement of retreat, let the curtain drop 
 ;lowly. On the instant she stooped for the slipper, and, 
 with it in her hand, spun round wildly, looking for some 
 hiding-place ; but there was no such spot in the bare room. 
 The chest, the leather trunk, a dress or two of hers hang- 
 ing on pegs — there was no place where the 'merest hazard 
 might not guide Heyst's hand at any moment. Her wildly 
 roaming eyes were caught by the half -closed window. She 
 ran to it, and by raising herself on her toes was able to
 
 VICTORY 285 
 
 reach the shutter with her fingertips. She pushed it square, 
 stole back to the middle of the room, and, turning about, 
 swung her arm, regulating the force of the throw so as 
 not to let the slipper fly too far out and hit the edge 
 of the overhanging eaves. It was a task of the nicest 
 judgment for the muscles of those round arms, still quiv- 
 ering from the deadly wrestle with a man, for that brain, 
 tense with the excitement of the situation and for the 
 unstrung nerves flickering darkness before her eyes. At 
 last the slipper left her hand. As soon as it passed the 
 opening, it was out of her sight. She listened. She did 
 not hear it strike anything; it just vanished, as if it had 
 wings to fly on through the air. Not a sound! It had 
 gone clear. 
 
 Her valiant arms hanging close against her side, she 
 stood as if turned into stone. A faint whistle reached her 
 ears. The forgetful Ricardo, becoming very much aware 
 of his loss, had been hanging about in great anxiety, 
 which was relieved by the appearance of the slipper flying 
 from under the eaves ; and now, thoughtfully, he had ven- 
 tured a whistle to put her mind at ease. 
 
 Suddenly the girl reeled forward. She saved herself 
 from a fall only by embracing with both arms one of the 
 tall, roughly carved posts holding the mosquito net above 
 the bed. For a long time she clung to it, with her fore- 
 head leaning against the wood. One side of her loosened 
 sarong had slipped down as low as her hip. The long 
 brown tresses of her hair fell in lank wisps, as if wet, 
 almost black against her white body. Her uncovered flank, 
 damp with the sweat of anguish and fatigue, gleamed 
 coldly with the immobility of polished marble in the hot, 
 diffused light falling through the window above her head 
 — a dim reflection of the consuming, passionate blaze of 
 sunshine outside, all aquiver with the effort to set the 
 earth on fire, to burn it to ashes.
 
 IV 
 
 Heyst, seated at the table with his chin on his breast, 
 raised his head at the faint rustle of Lena's dress. He was 
 startled by the dead pallor of her cheeks, by something 
 lifeless in her eyes, which looked at him strangely, with- 
 out recognition. But to his anxious inquiries she answered 
 reassuringly that there was nothing the matter with her, 
 really. She had felt giddy on rising. She had even had a 
 moment of faintness, after her bath. She had to sit down 
 to wait for it to pass. This had made her late dressing. 
 
 "I didn't try to do my hair. I didn't want to keep you 
 waiting any longer," she said. 
 
 He was unwilling to press her with questions about her 
 health, since she seemed to make light of this indisposi- 
 tion. She had not done her hair, but she had brushed it. 
 and had tied it with a ribbon behind. With her forehead 
 uncovered, she looked very young, almost a child, a care- 
 worn child ; a child with something on its mind. 
 
 What surprised Heyst was the non-appearance of 
 Wang. The Chinaman had always materialised at the pre- 
 cise moment of his service, neither too soon nor too late. 
 This time the usual miracle failed. What was the meaning 
 of this? 
 
 Heyst raised his voice — a thing he disliked doing. It 
 was promptly answered from the compound : 
 
 ''Ada, Tumi!" 
 
 Lena, leaning on her elbow, with her eyes on her plate, 
 did not seem to hear anything. When Wang entered with 
 a tray, his narrow eyes, tilted inward by the prominence 
 
 286
 
 VICTORY 287 
 
 of salient cheekbones, kept her under stealthy observation 
 all the time. Neither the one nor the other of that white 
 couple paid the slightest attention to him and he withdrew 
 without having heard them exchange a single word. He 
 squatted on his heels on the back verandah. His China- 
 man's mind, very clear but not far-reaching, was made up 
 according to the plain reason of things, such as it appeared 
 to him in the light of his simple feeling for self- 
 preservation, untrammelled by any notions of romantic 
 honour or tender conscience. His yellow hands, lightly 
 clasped, hung idly between his knees. The graves of 
 Wang's ancestors were far away, his parents were dead, 
 his elder brother was a soldier in the yamen of some 
 Mandarin away in Formosa. No one near by had a claim 
 on his veneration or his obedience. He had been for years 
 a labouring, restless vagabond. His only tie in the world 
 was the Alfuro woman, in exchange for whom he had 
 given away some considerable part of his hard-earned 
 substance ; and his duty, in reason, could be to no one 
 but himself. 
 
 The scufifle behind the curtain was a thing of bad augury 
 for that Number One for whom the Chinaman had neither 
 love nor dislike. He had been awed enough by that devel- 
 opment to hang back vv'ith the coffee-pot till at last the 
 white man was induced to call him in. Wang went in 
 with curiosity. Certainly, the white woman looked as if 
 she had been wrestling with a spirit which had managed 
 to tear half her blood out of her before letting her go. 
 As to the man, Wang had long looked upon him as being 
 :n some sort bewitched; and now he was doomed. He 
 heard their voices in the room. Heyst was urging the girl 
 to go and lie down again. He was extremely concerned. 
 She had eaten nothing. 
 
 "The best thing for you. You really must!" 
 She sat listless, shaking her head from time to time 
 negatively, as if nothing could be any good. But he in-
 
 288 VICTORY 
 
 sisted; she saw the beginning of wonder in his eyes, and 
 suddenly gave way. 
 
 "Perhaps I had better." 
 
 She did not want to arouse his wonder, which would 
 lead him straight to suspicion. He must not suspect ! 
 
 Already, with the consciousness of her love for this 
 man, of that something rapturous and profound going 
 beyond the mere embrace, there was born in her a 
 woman's innate mistrust of masculinity, of that seductive 
 strength allied to an absurd, delicate shrinking from the 
 recognition of the naked necessity of facts, which never 
 yet frightened a woman worthy of the name. She had 
 no plan ; but her mind, quieted down somewhat by the 
 very effort to preserve outward composure for his sake, 
 perceived that her behaviour had secured, at any rate, a 
 short period of safety. Perhaps because of the similarity 
 of their miserable origin in the dregs of mankind, she 
 had understood Ricardo perfectly. He would keep quiet 
 for a time now. In this momentarily soothing certitude 
 her bodily fatigue asserted itself, the more overpoweringly 
 since its cause was not so much the demand of her 
 strength as the awful suddenness of the stress she had 
 had to meet. She would have tried to overcome it from 
 the mere instinct of resistance, if it had not been for 
 Heyst's alternate pleadings and commands. Before this 
 eminently masculine fussing she felt the woman's need 
 to give way, the sweetness of surrender. 
 
 "I will do anything you like," she rjaid. 
 
 Getting up, she was surprised by a wave of languid 
 weakness that came over her, embracing and enveloping 
 her like warm water, with a noise in her ears as of ?- 
 breaking sea. 
 
 "You must help me along," she added quickly- 
 
 While he put his arm round her waist — not by any 
 means an uncommon thing for him to do — she found 
 a special satisfaction in the feeling of being thus sus-
 
 VICTORY ^80 
 
 • 
 
 lained. She abandoned all her weight to that encircling 
 and protecting pressure, while a thrill went through hei 
 at the sudden thought that it was she who would have 
 to protect him, to be the defender of a man who was 
 strong enough to lift her bodily, as he was doing even 
 then in his two arms. For Heyst had done this as soon 
 as ih-iy had crept through the doorway of the room. He 
 thought it was quicker and simpler to carry her the last 
 step or two. He had grown really too anxious to be aware 
 of the effort. He lifted her high and deposited her on the 
 bed, as one lays a child on its side in a cot. Then he sat 
 down on the edge, masking his concern with a smile 
 which obtained no response from the dreamy immobility 
 of her eyes. But she sought his hand, seized it eagerly ; 
 and while she was pressing it with all the force of which 
 she was capable, the sleep she needed overtook her sud- 
 denly, overwhelmingly, as it overtakes a child in a cot, 
 with her lips parted for a safe, endearing word which 
 she had thought of but had no time to utter. 
 
 The usual flaming silence brooded over Samburan, 
 
 "What in the world is this new mystery?" murmured 
 Heyst to himself, contemplating her deep slumber. 
 
 It was so deep, this enchanted sleep, that when some 
 time afterward he gently tried to open her fingers and 
 free his hand, he succeeded without provoking the slight- 
 est stir. 
 
 "There is some very simple explanation, no doubt," 
 he thought, as he stole out into the living-room. 
 
 Absent-mindedly he pulled a book out of the top shelf, 
 and sat down with it ; but even after he had opened it on 
 his knee, and had been staring at the pages for a time, he 
 had not the slightest idea of what it was about. He stared 
 and stared at the crowded, parallel lines. It was only 
 when, raising his eyes for no particular reason, he saw 
 Wang standing motionless on the other side o£4he table, 
 ihat he regained complete contro- of his faculties.
 
 290 VICTORY 
 
 "Oh, yes," he said, as if suddenly reminded of a for- 
 gotten appointment of a not particularly welcome sort. 
 
 He waited a little, and then, with reluctant curiosity, 
 ;orced himself to ask the silent Wang what he had to say 
 He had some idea that the matter of the vanished re- 
 volver would come up at last ; but the guttural sounds 
 which proceeded from the Chinaman did not refer to that 
 delicate subject. His speech was concerned with cups, 
 saucers, plates, forks, and knives. All these things had 
 been put away in the cupboards on the back verandah 
 where they belonged, perfectly clean, "all plopel." Hey si 
 wondered at the scrupulosity of a man who was about 
 fo abandon him ; for he was not surprised to hear Wang 
 conclude the account of his stewardship with the words: 
 
 "Me go now." 
 
 "Oh! You go now?" said Heyst, leaning back, his book 
 on his knees. 
 
 "Yes. Me no likee. One man, two man, thlee man — no 
 can do! Me go now." 
 
 "What's frightening you away like this?" asked Heyst, 
 while through his mind flashed the hope that something 
 enlightening might come from that being so unlike him- 
 self, taking contact with the world with a simplicity and 
 directness of which his own mind was not capable. 
 "Why?" he went on. "You are used to white men. You 
 know them well." 
 
 "Yes. Me savee them," assented Wang inscrutably. 
 "Me savee plenty." 
 
 All that he really knew was hi? own mind. He had 
 made it up to withdraw himself and the Alfuro woman 
 from the uncertainties of the relations which were going 
 to establish themselves between those white men. It was 
 Pedro who had been the first cause of Wang's suspicion 
 and fear. The Chinaman had seen wild men. He had 
 penetrated, in the train of a Chinese pedlar, up one or two 
 of the Bornean vivers into the country of che Dyaks. He
 
 VICTORY 29? 
 
 had also been in the interior of Mindanao, where therr: 
 are people who live in trees — savages, no better than ani- 
 mals ; but a hairy brute like Pedro, with his great fangs 
 and ferocious growls, was altogether beyond his concep- 
 tion of anything that could be looked upon as human. 
 The strong impression made on him by Pedro was the 
 prime inducement which had led Wang to purloin the 
 revolver. Reflection on the general situation, and on the 
 insecurity of Number One, came later, after he had ob- 
 tained possession of the revolver and of the box of car- 
 tridges out of the table drawer in the living-room. 
 
 "Oh, you savee plenty about white men," Heyst went on 
 in a slightly bantering tone, after a moment of silent 
 reflection in which he had confessed to himself that the 
 recovery of the revolver was not to be thought of, either 
 by persuasion or by some more forcible means. "You 
 speak in that fashion, but you are frightened of those 
 white men over there !" 
 
 "Me no flightened," protested Wang raucously, throw- 
 ing up his head — which gave to his throat a more strained, 
 anxious appearance than ever. "Me no likee," he added 
 in a quieter tone. "Me velly sick." 
 
 He put his hand over the region under the breastbone. 
 
 "That," said Heyst. serenely positive, "belong one 
 piecee lie. That isn't proper man-talk at all. And after 
 stealing my revolver, too !" 
 
 He had suddenly decided to speak about it, because 
 this frankness could not make the situation much worse 
 than it was. He did not suppose for a moment that 
 Wang had the revolver anywhere about his person ; and 
 after having thought the matter over, he had arrived at 
 the conclusion that the Chinaman never meant to use the 
 weapon against him. After a slight start, because the 
 direct charge had taken him unawares, Wang tore open 
 the front of his jacket with a convulsive show of indig- 
 nation.
 
 ^^> VICTORY 
 
 "Wo hab got. Look see !" he mouthed in pretended 
 ringer. 
 
 He slapped his bare chest violently; he uncovered his 
 very ribs, all astir with the panting of outraged virtue ; 
 his smooth stomach heaved with indignation. He started 
 his wide blue breeches flapping about his yellow calves. 
 Heyst watched him quietly. 
 
 "I never said you had it on you," he observed, with- 
 out raising his voice, "but the revolver is gone from 
 where I kept it." 
 
 "Me no savee levolvel," Wang said obstinately. 
 
 The book lying open on Heyst's knee slipped suddenly 
 and he made a sharp movement to catch it up. Wang 
 was unable to see the reason of this because of the talile. 
 and leaped away from what seemed to him a threatening 
 symptom. When Heyst looked up, the Chinaman was 
 already at the door facing the room, not frightened, but 
 alert. 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked Heyst. 
 
 Wang nodded his shaven head significantly at the cum* 
 lain closing the doorway of the bedroom. 
 
 "Me no likee," he repeated. 
 
 "What the devil do you mean?" Heyst was genuinely 
 amazed. "Don't like what?" 
 
 Wang pointed a long, lemon-coloured finger at the mo- 
 tionless folds, 
 
 "Two," he said. 
 
 "Two what? I don't understand." 
 
 "Suppose you savee, you no like that fashion. Me savee 
 plenty. Me go now." 
 
 Heyst had risen from his chair, but Wang kept his 
 ground in the doorway for a little while longer. His 
 almond-shaped eyes imparted to his face an expression 
 of soft and sentimental melancholy. The muscles of his 
 :-hroat moTcd visibly while he uttereO a distinct and gut-
 
 VICTORY 293 
 
 tural "Good-bye," and vanished from Number One's 
 sight. 
 
 The Chinaman's departure altered the situation Heys1 
 reflected on what would be best to do in view of that 
 fact. For a long time he hesitated ; then, shrugging his 
 shoulders wearily, he walked out on the verandah, down 
 the steps, and continued at a steady gait, with a thought- 
 ful mien, in the direction of his guests' bungalow. He 
 wanted to make an important communication to them, 
 and he had no other object — least of all to give them 
 the shock of a surprise call. Nevertheless, their brutish 
 henchman not being on watch, it was Heyst's fate to 
 startle Mr. Jones and his secretary by his sudden appear- 
 ance in the doorway. Their conversation must have been 
 very interesting to prevent them from hearing the visi' 
 tor's approach. In the dim room — the shutters were kept 
 constantly closed against the heat — Heys' saw them start 
 apart. It was Mr. Jones who spoke. 
 
 "Ah, here you are again ! Come in, come in !" 
 Keyst, taking his hat off in the doorway, entered the 
 room.
 
 V 
 
 Waking up suddenly, Lena looked, without raising her 
 head from the pillow, at the room in which she was alone. 
 She got up quickly, as if to counteract the awful sinking 
 of her heart by the vigorous use of her limbs. But thi:> 
 sinking was only momentary. Mistress of herself from 
 pride, from love, from necessity, and also because of a 
 woman's vanity in self-sacrifice, she met Heyst, returning 
 from the strangers' bungalow, with a clear glance and 
 a smile. 
 
 The smile he managed to answer ; but, noticing that 
 "he avoided her eyes, she composed her lips and lowered 
 her gaze. For the same reason she hastened to speak to 
 him in a tone of indifference, which she put on without 
 effort, as if she had grown adept in duplicity since sunrise. 
 
 "You have been over there again?" 
 
 "I have. I thought — but you had better know first that 
 we have lost Wang for good." 
 
 She repeated "For good?" as if she had not understood. 
 
 "For good or evil — I shouldn't know which if you were 
 to ask me. He has dismissed himself. He's gone." 
 
 "You expected him to go, though, didn't you?" 
 
 Heyst sat down on the other side of the table. 
 
 "Yes. I expected it as soon as I discovered that he 
 had annexed my revolver. He says he hasn't taken it. 
 That's of course. A Chinaman would not see the sense 
 of confessing under any circumstances. To deny any 
 charge is a principle of right conduct ; but he hardly 
 expected to be believed. He was a little enigmatic at the 
 last, Lena. He startled me." 
 
 294
 
 VICTORY <95 
 
 Heyst paused. The girl seemed absorbed in her own 
 thoughts. 
 
 "He startled me," repeated Heyst. She noted the anxiety 
 in his tone, and turned her head sHghtly to look at him 
 across the table. 
 
 "It must have been something — to startle you," jhe said. 
 In the depth of her parted lips, like a ripe pomegranate, 
 there was a gleam of white teeth. 
 
 "It was only a single word — and some of his gestures. 
 He had been making a good deal of noise. I wonder we 
 didn't wake you up. How soundly you can sleep! I say, 
 do you feel all right now?" 
 
 "As fresh as can be," she said, treating him to another 
 deep gleam of a smile. "I heard no noise, and I'm glad 
 of it. The way he talks in his harsh voice frightens me. 
 I don't like all these foreign people." 
 
 "It was just before he went away — bolted out, I 
 should say. He nodded and pointed at the curtain of our 
 room. He knew you were there, of course. He seemed 
 to think — he seemed to try to give me to understand that 
 you were in special — well, danger. You know how he 
 talks." 
 
 She said nothing; she made no sound, only the faint 
 tinge of colour ebbed out of her cheek. 
 
 "Yes," Heyst went on. "He seemed to try to warn me. 
 That must have been it. Did he imagine I had forgotten 
 your existence? The only word he said was 'two.' It 
 sounded so, at least. Yes, 'two' — and that he didn't like it." 
 
 "What does that mean?" she whispered. 
 
 "We know what the word two means, don't we, Lena? 
 We are two. Never were such a lonely two out of the 
 world, my dear! He might have tried ^.o remind me that 
 he himself has a woman to look after. Why are you so 
 pale, Lena?" 
 
 "Am I pale?" sh^ asked negligently. 
 
 "You are." He^^st was really anxious.
 
 196 VICTORY 
 
 "Well, it isn't from fright," she protested truthfully. 
 
 Indeed, what she felt was a sort of horror which left 
 her absolutely in the full possession of all her faculties ; 
 more difficult to bear, perhaps, for that reason, but not 
 paralysing to her fortitude. 
 
 Heyst in his turn smiled at her. 
 
 "I really don't know that there is any reason to be 
 frightened." 
 
 "I mean I am not frightened for myself." 
 
 "I believe you are very plucky," he said. The colour 
 had returned to her face. "I," continued Heyst, "am so 
 rebellious to outward impressions that I can't say that 
 much about myself. I don't react with sufficient distinct- 
 ness." He changed his tone. "You know I went to see 
 those men first thing this morning," 
 
 "I know. Be careful!" she murmured. 
 
 "I wonder how one can be careful! I had a long talk 
 with — but I don't believe you have seen them. One of 
 them is a fantastically thin, long person, apparently ailing ; 
 I shouldn't wonder if he were really so. He makes rather 
 a point of it in a mysterious manner. I imagine he must 
 have suffered from tropical fevers, but not so much as 
 he tries to make out. He's what people would call a 
 gentleman. He seemed on the point of volunteering a tale 
 of his adventures — for which I didn't ask him — but re- 
 marked that it was a long story ; some other time, perhaps. 
 
 " 'I suppose you would like to know who I am ?' he 
 asked me. 
 
 "I told him I would leave it to him, in a tone which, 
 between gent/iemen, could have left no doubt in his mind. 
 He raised himself on his elbow — he was lying down on the 
 camp-bed — and said : 
 
 " *I am he who is ' " 
 
 Lena seemed not to be listening; but when Heysj- 
 paused, she turned her head quickly to him. He took it 
 for a movement of inquiry, but in this he was wrong.
 
 VICTORY 29? 
 
 A great vagueness enveloped her impressions, but all her 
 energy was concentrated on the struggle that she wanted 
 to take upon herself, in a great exaltation of love and 
 self-sacrifice, which is woman's sublime faculty; alto- 
 gether on herself, every bit of it, leaving him nothing, 
 not even the knowledge of what she did, if that were 
 possible. She would have liked to lock him up by dome 
 stratagem. Had she known of some means to put him 
 to sleep for days she would have used incantations 01 
 philtres without misgivings. He seemed to her too good 
 for such contacts, and not sufficiently equipped. This last 
 feeling had nothing to do with the material fact of the 
 revolver being stolen. She could hardly appreciate that 
 fact at its full value. 
 
 Observing her eyes fixed and as if sightless- -for the 
 concentration on her purpose took all expression out of 
 them — Hey St imagined it to be the efifect of a great mental 
 efTort. 
 
 "No use asking me what he meant, Lena ; I don't know, 
 and I did not ask him. The gentleman, as I have told you 
 before, seems devoted to mystification. I said nothing, and 
 he laid down his head again on the bundle of rugs he uses 
 for a pillow. He affects a state of great weakness, but 
 I suspect that he's perfectly capable of leaping to his 
 feet if he likes. Having been ejected, he said, from his 
 proper social sphere because he had refused to conform 
 to certain usual conventions, he was a rebel now, and was 
 coming and going up and down the earth. As I really 
 did not want to listen to all this nonsense, I told him 
 that I had heard that sort of story about somebody else 
 before. His grin is really ghastly. He confessed that 1 
 was very far from the sort of man he expected to meet. 
 Then he said : 
 
 " 'As to me, I am no blacker than the gentleman you 
 are thinking of, and I have neither more nor less deter- 
 mination.' "
 
 298 VICTORS 
 
 Hey^ ix^kcii across the table at Lena. Propped on 
 her elbows, and holding her head in both hands, she 
 moved it a little with an air of understanding. 
 
 "Nothing could be plainer, eh?" said Heyst grimly. 
 "Unless, indeed, this is his idea of a pleasant joke ; for. 
 when he finished speaking, he burst into a long, loud 
 augh. I didn't join him !" 
 
 "1 wish you had," she breathed out. 
 
 "I didn't join him. It did not occur to me. I am not 
 much of a diplomatist. It would probably have been wise ; 
 for, indeed, I believe he had said more than he mea.. 
 to say, and was trying to take it back by this aflectea 
 jocularity. Yet, when one thinks of it, diplomacy without 
 force in the background is but a rotten reed to lean upon. 
 And I don't know whether I could have done it if I had 
 thought of it. I don't know. It would have been against 
 the grain. Could I have done it? I have lived too long 
 within myself, watching the mere shadows and shades 
 of life. To deceive a man on some issue which could 
 be decided quicker by his destruction wmle one is dis- 
 armed, helpless, without even the power to run away — 
 ^o ! That seems to me too degrading. And yet I have 
 you here! I have your very existence in my keeping. 
 What do you say, Lena? Would I be capable of throw- 
 ing you to the lions to save my dignity ?" 
 
 She got up, walked quickly round the table, posed 
 herself on his knees lightly, throwing one arm round his 
 neck, and whispered in his ear : 
 
 "You may, if you like. And maybe that's the only way 
 I would consent to leave you. For something like that. 
 If it were something no bigger than your little finger." 
 
 She gave him a light kiss on the lips and was gone 
 before he could detain her. She regained her seat and 
 propped her elbows again on the table. It was hard to 
 believe that she had moved from the spot at all. The 
 lleeting weight of her body on his knees, the hug round
 
 VICTORY 2V5 
 
 his neck, the whisper in his ear, the kiss on his iips, might 
 have been the unsubstantial sensations of a dream invad- 
 ing the reaHty of waking Hfe ; a sort of charming mirage 
 in the barren aridity of his thoughts. He hesitated to 
 speak till she said, business-like: 
 
 "Well. And what then?" 
 
 Heyst gave a start. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I didn't join hii.i. I let him have his laugh 
 out by himself. He was shaking all over, like a merry 
 skeleton, under a cotton sheet he was covered with — 1 
 believe in order to conceal the revolver that he had in 
 his right hand. I didn't see it, but I have a distinct im- 
 pression it was there in his fist. As he had not been looking 
 at me for some time, but staring into a certain part of 
 the room, I turned my head and saw a hairy, wild sort 
 of creature which they take about with them, squatting or. 
 its heels in the angle of the walls behind me. He wasn't 
 there when I came in. I didn't like the notion of that 
 watchful monster behind my back. HI had been less 
 at their mercy, I should certainly have changed my posi- 
 tion. As things are now, to move would have been a mere 
 weakness. So I remained where I was. The gentleman on 
 the bed said he could assure me of one thing; and that 
 was that his presence here was no more morally repre- 
 hensible than mine. 
 
 " 'We pursue the same ends,' he said, 'only perhaps 1 
 pursue them with more openness than you — with more 
 simplicity.' 
 
 "That's what he said," Heyst went on, after looking 
 at Lena in a sort of inquiring silence. "I asked him if 
 he knew beforehand that I was living here; but he only 
 gave me a ghastly grin. I didn't press him for an answer, 
 Lena. I thought I had better not." 
 
 On her smooth forehead a ray of light always seemed 
 to rest. Her loose hair, parted in the middle, covered the 
 hands sustaining her head. She seemed spellbound by th''
 
 300 
 
 VICTORY 
 
 interest of the narrative. Heyst did not pause long. He 
 managed to continue his relation smoothly enough, be- 
 ginning afresh with a piece of comment. 
 
 "He would have lied impudently — and I detest being 
 Void a lie. It makes me uncomfortable. It's pretty clear 
 that I am not fitted for the affairs of the wide world. 
 But I did not want him to think that I accepted his pres- 
 ence too meekly; so I said that his comings or goings 
 on the earth were none of my business, of course, except 
 that I had a natural curiosity to know when he would 
 find it convenient to resume them. 
 
 "He asked me to look at the state he was in. Had I 
 been all alone here, as they think I am, I should have 
 laughed at him. But not being alone — I say, Lena, you 
 are sure you haven't shown yourself where you could be 
 seen?" 
 
 "Certain," she said promptly. 
 
 He looked relieved. 
 
 "You understand, Lena, that when I ask you to keep 
 so strictly out of sight, it is because you are not for them 
 to look at — ^to talk about. My poor Lena! I can't help 
 that feeling. Do you understand it?" 
 
 She moved her head slightly in a manner that was 
 neither affirmative nor negative. 
 
 "People will have to see me some day," she said. 
 
 "I wonder how long it will be possible for you to keep 
 out of sight !" murmured Heyst thoughtfully. He herii 
 over the table. "Let me finish telling you. I asked him 
 pointblank what it was he wanted with me ; he appeared 
 extremely unwilling to come to the point. It was not 
 really so pressing as all that, he said. His secretary, who 
 was in fact his partner, was not present, having gone 
 down to the wharf to look at their boat. Finally the fellow 
 proposed that he should put off a certain communication 
 he had to make till the day after to-morrow. I agreed; 
 but I Ti'^jo told him that I was not at all anxious to hear it
 
 VICTORY 30. 
 
 1 had no conception in what way his affaiis could con- 
 cern me. 
 
 " 'Ah, Mr. Heyst,' he said, 'you and I have much more 
 in common than you think.' " 
 
 Heyst struck the table with his fist unexpectedly. 
 
 "It was a jeer; I am sure it was!" 
 
 He seemed ashamed of this outburst and smiled faintly 
 into the motionless eyes of the girl. 
 
 "What could I have done — even if I had had my 
 pockets full of revolvers?" 
 
 She made an appreciative sign. 
 
 "Killing's a sin, sure enough," she murmured. 
 
 "I went away," Heyst continued. "I left him there, 
 lying on his side with his eyes shut. When I got back 
 here, I found you looking ill. What was it, Lena? You 
 did give me a scare ! Then I had the interview with Wang 
 while you rested. You were sleeping quietly, I sat here 
 to consider all these things calmly, to try to penetrate 
 their inner meaning and their outward bearing. It struck 
 me that the two days we have before us have the charactet 
 of a sort of truce. The more I thought of it, the more I feU 
 that this was tacitly understood between Jones and my- 
 self. It was to our advantage, if anything can be of advan- 
 tage to people caught so completely unawares as we are. 
 Wang was gone. He, at any rate, had declared himself, 
 but as I did not know what he might take it into his head 
 to do, I thought I had better warn these people that I 
 was no longer responsible for the Chinaman. I did not 
 want Mr. Wang making some move which would precipi- 
 tate the action against us. Do you see my point of view?" 
 
 She made a sign that she did. All her soul was wrapped 
 in her passionate determination, in an exalted belief in 
 herself — in the contemplation of her amazing opportunity 
 to win the certitude, the eternity, of that man's love. 
 
 "I never saw two men," Heyst was saying, "more 
 affected by a piece of information than Jones and his
 
 502 VICTORY 
 
 secretary, who was back in the bungalow by then. They 
 had not heard me come up. I told them I was sorry to 
 intrude. 
 
 " 'Not at all ! Not at all," said Jones. 
 
 "The secretary backed away mto a corner and watched 
 me like a wary cat. In fact, they both were visibly on their 
 guard. 
 
 " T am come,' I told them, 'to let you know that my 
 servant has deserted — gone off.' 
 
 "At first they looked at each other as if they had not 
 understood what I was saying ; but very soon they seamed 
 quite concerned. 
 
 " 'You mean to say your Chink's cleared out ?' said 
 Ricardo, coming forward from his corner. 'Like this — 
 all at once? What did he do it for?' 
 
 "I said that a Chinaman had always a simple and pre- 
 cise reason for what he did, but that to get such a reason 
 out of him was not so easy. All he had told me, I said, 
 was that he 'didn't like.' 
 
 "They looked extremely disturbed at this. Didn't like 
 what, they wanted to know. 
 
 " 'The looks of you and your party,' I told Jones. 
 
 " 'Nonsense !' he cried out ; and immediately Ricardo, 
 the short man, struck in. 
 
 " 'Told you that? What did he take you for, sir — an 
 infant? Or do you take us for kids? — meaning no offence. 
 Come, I bet you will tell us next that you've missed some- 
 thing.' 
 
 " 'I didn't mean to tell you anything of the sort,' I 
 said, 'but as a matter of fact it is so.' 
 
 "He slapped his thigh. 
 
 " 'Thought so. What do you think of this trick, gov- 
 ernor?' 
 
 "Jones made some sort of sign to him, and then that 
 extraordinary cat- faced associate proposed that he and
 
 VICTORY 30J 
 
 their servant should come out and help me to catch or 
 kill the Chink. 
 
 "My object, I said, was not to get assistance. I did 
 not intend to chase the Chinaman. I had come only to 
 warn them that he was armed, and that he really objected 
 to their presence on the island. I wanted them to under- 
 stand that I was not responsible for anything that might 
 happen. 
 
 *' 'Do you mean to tell us,' asked Ricardo, 'that there 
 is a crazy Chink with a six-shooter broke loose on this 
 island, and that you don't care?' 
 
 "Strangely enough, they did not seem to believe my 
 story. They were exchanging significant looks all the time. 
 Ricardo stole up close to his principal ; they had a con- 
 fabulation together, and then something happened which 
 I did not expect. It's rather awkward, too. 
 
 "Since I would not have their assistance to get hold of 
 the Chink and recover my property, the least they could 
 do was to send me their servant. It was Jones who said 
 that, and Ricardo backed up the idea. 
 
 " 'Yes, yes — let our Pedro cook for all hands in your 
 compound. He isn't so bad as he looks. That's what we 
 will do !' 
 
 "He bustled out of the room to the verandah, and let 
 out an air-splitting whistle for their Pedro. Having heard 
 the brute's answering howl, Ricardo ran back into the 
 room. 
 
 " 'Yes, Mr. Heyst. This will do capitally, Mr. Heyst. 
 You just direct him to do whatever you are accustomed 
 to have done for you in the way of attendance. See?' 
 
 "Lena, I confess to you that I was taken completely by 
 surprise. I had not expected anything of the sort. I don't 
 know what I expected. I am so anxious about you that 
 1 can't keep away from these infernal scoundrels. And 
 only three months ago I would not have cared. I would 
 have defied their scoundrelism as much as I have scorned
 
 J04 VICTORY 
 
 all the other intrusions of life. But now I have you! You 
 stole into my life, and " 
 
 Heyst drew a deep breath. The girl gave him a quick, 
 wide-eyed glance. 
 
 "Ah ! That's what you are thinking of — that you have 
 me !" 
 
 It was impossible to read the thoughts veiled by her 
 steady grey eyes, to penetrate the meaning of her silences, 
 her words, and even her embraces. He used to come out 
 of her very arms with the feeling of a baffled man. 
 
 "If I haven't you, if you are not here, then where are 
 you?" cried Heyst. "You understand me very well!" 
 
 She shook her head a little. Her red lips, at which he 
 looked now, her lips as fascinating as the voice that came 
 out of them, uttered the words : 
 
 "I hear what you say; but what does it mean?" 
 
 "It means that I could lie and perhaps cringe for your 
 sake." 
 
 "No! No! Don't you ever do that," she said in haste, 
 while her eyes glistened suddenly. "You would hate me 
 for it afterwards!" 
 
 "Hate you?" repeated Heyst, who had recalled his 
 polite manner. "No ! You needn't consider the extremity 
 of the improbable — as yet. But I will confess to you that 
 I — how shall I call it? — that I dissembled. First I dis- 
 sembled my dismay at the unforeseen result of my idiotic 
 diplomacy. Do you understand, my dear girl?" 
 
 It was evident that she did not understand the word. 
 Heyst produced his playful smile, which contrasted oddly 
 with the worried character of his whole expression. His 
 temples seemed to have sunk in, his face looked a little 
 leaner. 
 
 "A diplomatic statement, Lena, is a statement of which 
 everything is true but the sentiment which seems to 
 prompt it. I have never been diplomatic in my relation 
 with mankind — not from regard for its feelings, but from
 
 VICTORY 305 
 
 a certain regard for my own. Diplomacy doesn't go well 
 with consistent contempt. I cared little for life and still 
 less for death." 
 
 "Don't talk like that !" 
 
 "1 dissembled my extreme longing to take these wan- 
 dering scoundrels by their throats," he went on. "I have 
 only two hands — L wish I had a hundred to defend you — 
 and there were three throats. By that time their Pedro 
 was in the room too. Had he seen me engaged with their 
 two throats, he would have been at mine like a fierce dog, 
 or any other savage and faithful brute. I had no difficulty 
 in dissembling my longing for the vulgar, stupid, and 
 hopeless argument of fight. I remarked that I really did 
 not want a servant. I couldn't think of depriving them 
 of their man's services ; but they would not hear me. They 
 had made up their minds. 
 
 " 'We shall send him over at once,' Ricardo said, *to 
 start cooking dinner for everybody. I hope you won't 
 mind me coming to eat in with you in your bungalow ; and 
 we will send the governor's dinner over to him here.* 
 
 "I could do nothing but hold my tongue or bring on a 
 quarrel — some manifestation of their dark purpose, which 
 we have no means to resist. Of course, you may remain 
 invisible this evening; but with that atrocious brute 
 prowling all the time at the back of the house, how long 
 can your presence be concealed from these men?" 
 
 Heyst's distress could be felt in his silence. The girl's 
 head, sustained by her hands buried in the thick masses 
 of her hair, had a perfect immobility. 
 
 "You are certain you have not been seen so far?" he 
 asked suddenly. 
 
 The motionless head spoke. 
 
 "How can I be certain? You told me you wanted me to 
 keep out of the way. I kept out of the way. I didn't ask 
 your reason. I thought you didn't want people to know 
 that you had a girl like me about you."
 
 j(o6 VICTORY 
 
 "What? Ashamed?" cried Heyst. 
 
 "It isn't what's right, perhaps — I mean for you — is it?" 
 
 Heyst lifted his hands, reproachfully courteous. 
 
 "I look upon it as so very much right that I couldn't 
 bear the idea of any other than sympathetic, respectful 
 eyes resting on you. I disliked and mistrusted these fel- 
 lows from the first. Didn't you understand?" 
 
 "Yes; I did keep out of sight," she said. 
 
 A silence fell. At last Heyst stirred slightly. 
 
 "All this is of very little importance now," he said with 
 a sigh. "This is a question of something infinitely worse 
 than mere looks and thoughts, however base and con- 
 temptible. As I have told you, I met Ricardo's suggestions 
 by silence. As I was turning away he said : 
 
 " 'If you happen to have the key of that storeroom of 
 yours on you, Mr. Heyst, you may just as well let me 
 have it ; I will give it to our Pedro.' 
 
 "I had it on me, and I tendered it to him without speak- 
 ing. The hairy creature was at the door by then, and 
 caught the key, which Ricardo threw to him, better than 
 any trained ape could have done. I came away. All the 
 time I had been thinking anxiously of you, whom I had 
 left asleep, alone here, and apparently ill." 
 
 Heyst interrupted himself, with a listening turn of his 
 head. He had heard the faint sound of sticks being 
 snapped in the compound. He rjse and crossed the room 
 to look out of the back door. 
 
 "And here the creature is," he said, returning to the 
 table. "Here he is, already attending to the fire. Oh, my 
 dear Lena!" 
 
 She had followed him with her eyes. She watched him 
 go out on the front verandah cautiously. He lowered 
 stealthily a couple of screens that hung between the 
 columns, and remained outside very still, as if interested 
 by something on the open ground. Meantime she had risen
 
 VICTORY 307 
 
 in her turn, to take a peep into the compound. Heyst, 
 glancing over his shoulder, saw her returning to her seat. 
 He beckoned to her, and she continued to move, crossing 
 the shady room, pure and bright in her white dress, her 
 han- loose, with something of a sleep-walker in her un- 
 hurried motion, in her extended hand, in the sightless 
 effect of her grey eyes luminous in the half light. He had 
 never seen such an expression in her face before. It had 
 dreaminess in it, intense attention, and something like 
 sternness. Arrested in the doorway by Heyst's extended 
 arm, she seemed to wake up, flushed faintly — and this 
 flush, passing off, carried away with it the strange trans- 
 figuring mood. With a courageous gesture she pushed 
 back the heavy masses of her hair. The light clung to her 
 forehead. Her delicate nostrils quivered. Heyst seized her 
 arm and whispered excitedly : 
 
 "SHp out here, quickly! The screens will conceal you. 
 Only you must mind the stair-space. They are actually 
 out — I mean the other two. You had better see them be 
 fore you " 
 
 She made a barely perceptible movement of recoil, 
 checked at once, and stood still. Heyst released her arm. 
 
 "Yes, perhaps I had better," she said with unnatural 
 deliberation, and stepped out on the verandah to stand 
 close by his side. 
 
 Together, one on each side of the screen, they peeped 
 between the edge of the canvas and the verandah-post 
 entwined with creepers. A great heat ascended from the 
 sun-smitten ground, in an ever-rising wave, as if from 
 some secret store of earth's fiery heart ; for the sky was 
 growing cooler already, and the sun had declined suffi- 
 ciently for the shadows of Mr. Jones and his henchman 
 to be projected towards the bungalow side by side — one 
 infinitely slender, the other short and broad. 
 
 The two visitors stood still and gazed. To keep up the 
 fiction of his in^'alidism, Mr. Jones, the gentleman, leaned
 
 •308 VICTORY 
 
 on the arm of Ricardo, the secretary, the top of whose 
 hat just came up to his governor's shoulder. 
 
 "Do you see them?" Heyst whispered into the girl's 
 ear. "Here they are, the envoys of the outer world. Here 
 they are before you — evil intelligence, instinctive savagery, 
 arm in arm. The brute force is at the back. A trio of fit- 
 ting envoys perhaps — ^but what about the welcome? Sup- 
 pose I were armed, could I shoot those two down where 
 they stand? Could I?" 
 
 Without moving her head, the girl felt for Heyst' s 
 hand, pressed it, and thereafter did not let it go. He con- 
 tinued, bitterly playful : 
 
 "I don't know. I don't think so. There is a strain in me 
 which lays me under an insensate obligation to avoid even 
 the appearance of murder. I have never pulled a trigger 
 or lifted my hand on a man, even in self-defence." 
 
 The suddenly tightened grip of her hand checked him. 
 
 "They are making a move," she murmured. 
 
 "Can they be thinking of coming here?" Heyst won- 
 dered anxiously. 
 
 "No, they aren't coming this way," she said ; and there 
 was another pause. "They are going back to their house," 
 she reported finally. 
 
 After watching them a little longer, she let go Heyst's 
 hand and moved away from the screen. He followed her 
 into the room. 
 
 "You have seen them now," he began. "Think what it 
 was to me to see them land in the dusk, fantasms from 
 the sea — apparitions, chimaeras ! And they persist. That's 
 the worst of it — they persist. They have no right to be — 
 but they are. They ought to have aroused my fury. But 
 I have refined everything away by this time — anger, in- 
 dignation, scorn itself. Nothing's left but disgust. Since 
 vou have told me of that abominable calumny, it has be- 
 come immense — it extends even to myself." He looked up 
 at her.
 
 VICTORY 30^ 
 
 "But luckily I have you. And if only Wang had not 
 carried off that miserable revolver — ^yes, Lena, here we 
 are, we two !" 
 
 She put both her hands on his shoulders and looked 
 straight into his eyes. He returned her penetrating gaze. 
 It baffled him. He could not pierce the grey veil of her 
 eyes ; but the sadness of her voice thrilled him pro- 
 foundly. 
 
 "You are not reproaching me?" she asked slowly. 
 
 "Reproach ? What a word between us ! It could only be 
 myself — but the mention of Wang has given me an idea. 
 I have been, not exactly cringing, not exactly lying, but 
 still dissembling. You have been hiding yourself, to please 
 me, but still you have been hiding. All this is very digni- 
 fied. Why shouldn't we try begging now? A noble art! 
 Yes, Lena, we must go out together. I couldn't think of 
 leaving you alone, and I must — ^yes, I must speak to 
 Wang. We shall go and seek that man, who knows what 
 he wants and how to secure what he wants. We will gx? 
 at once 1" 
 
 "Wait till I put my hair up," she agreed instantly, and 
 vanished behind the curtain. 
 
 When the curtain had fallen behind her, she turned hef 
 head back with an expression of infinite and tender con- 
 cern for him — for him whom she could never hope tc 
 understand, and whom she was afraid she could never 
 satisfy ; as if her passion were of a hopelessly lower qual- 
 ity, unable to appease some exalted and delicate desire of 
 his superior soul. In a couple of minutes she reappeared. 
 They left the house by the door of the compound, and 
 passed within three feet of the thunderstruck Pedro, with- 
 out even looking in his direction. He rose from stooping 
 over a fire of sticks, and, balancing himself clumsily, un- 
 covered his enormous fangs in gaping astonishment. Then 
 suddenly he set off rolling on his bandy legs to impart to 
 his masters the astonishing discovery of a woman.
 
 VI 
 
 As LUCK would have it, Ricardo was lounging alone on 
 tlie verandah of the former counting-house. He scented 
 some new development at once, and ran down to meet the 
 trotting, bear-like figure. The deep, growling noises it 
 made, though they had only a very remote resemblance 
 to the Spjinish language, or indeed to any sort of human 
 speech, were from long practice quite intelligible to Mr. 
 Jones's secretary. Ricardo was rather surprised. He had 
 imagined that the girl would continue to keep out of sight. 
 That line apparently was given up. He did not mistrust 
 her. How could he? Indeed, he could not think of her 
 existence calmly. 
 
 He tried to keep her image out of his mind so that he 
 should be able to use its powers with some approach to 
 that coolness which the complex nature of the situation 
 demanded from him, both for his own sake and as the 
 faithful follower of plain Mr. Jones, gentleman. 
 
 He collected his wits and thought. This was a change 
 of policy, probably on the part of Heyst. li so, what could 
 it mean? A deep fellow ! Unless it was her doing; in which 
 case — h'm — all right ! Must be. She would know what she 
 was doing. Before him Pedro, lifting his feet alternately, 
 swayed to and fro sideways — his usual attitude of ex- 
 pectation. His little red eyes, lost in the mass of hair, were 
 motionless. Ricardo stared into them with calculated con- 
 tempt and said in a rough, angry voice : 
 
 "Woman! Of course there is. We know that without 
 you!" He gave the tame monster a push. "Git! Vanios !
 
 VICTORY 3n 
 
 Waddle! Get back and cook the dinner! Which way did 
 tb.ey go, then?" 
 
 Pedro extended a huge, hairy forearm to show the 
 direction, and went off on his bandy legs. Advancing a 
 few steps, Ricardo was just in time to see, above some 
 hushes, two white helmets moving side by side in the clear- 
 ing. They disappeared. Now that he had managed to keep 
 Pedro from informing the governor that there was a 
 woman on the island, he could indulge in speculation as 
 to the movements of these people. His attitude towards 
 Mr. Jones had undergone a spiritual change, of which 
 he himself was not yet fully aware. 
 
 That morning, before tiffin, after his escape from the 
 Heyst bungalow, completed in such an inspiring way by 
 the recovery of the slipper, Ricardo had made his way to 
 their allotted house, reeling as he ran, his head in a whirl. 
 He was wildly excited by visions of inconceivable prom- 
 ise. He waited to compose himself before he dared to 
 meet the governor. On entering the room, he found Mr. 
 Jones sitting on the camp bedstead like a tailor on his 
 board, cross-legged, his long back against the wall. 
 
 "I say, sir! You aren't going to tell me you are bored?" 
 
 "Bored? No! Where the devil have you been all this 
 time?" 
 
 "Observing — watching — nosing around. What else? I 
 knew you had company. Have you talked freely, sir?" 
 
 "Yes, I have," muttered Mr. Jones, 
 
 "Not downright plain, sir?" 
 
 "No. I wished you had been here. You loaf all the 
 morning, and now you come in out of breath. What's the 
 matter?" 
 
 "I haven't been wasting my time out there," said 
 Ricardo. "Nothing's the matter. I — I — might have hurried 
 a bit." He was in truth still panting ; only it was not with 
 running, but with the tumult of thoughts and sensations 
 long repressed, which had been set free by the adventure
 
 312 VICTORY 
 
 of the morning. He was almost distracted by them now. 
 He forgot himself in the maze of possibilities threatening 
 and inspiring. "And so you had a long talk?" he said, to 
 gain time. 
 
 "Confound you! The sun hasn't affected your head, 
 has it? Why are you staring at me like a basilisk?" 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir. Wasn't aware I stared," Ricardo 
 apologized good-humouredly. "The sun might well affect 
 a thicker skull than mine. It blazes. Phew ! What do you 
 think a fellow is, sir — a salamander?" 
 
 "You ought to have been here," observed Mr. Jones. 
 
 "Did the beast give any signs of wanting to prance?" 
 asked Ricardo quickly, with absolutely genuine anxiety. 
 "It wouldn't do, sir. You must play him easy for at least 
 a couple of days, sir. I have a plan. I have a notion that 
 I can find out a lot in a couple of days." 
 
 "You have? In what way?" 
 
 "Why, by watching," Ricardo answered slowly. 
 
 Mr. Jones grunted. 
 
 "Nothing new, that. Watch, eh? Why not pray a little, 
 too?" 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha! That's a good one," burst out the secre- 
 tary, fixing Mr. Jones with mirthless eyes. 
 
 The latter dropped the subject indolently. 
 
 "Oh, you may be certain of at least two days," he said. 
 
 Ricardo recovered himself. His eyes gleamed volup- 
 tuously. 
 
 "We'll pull this off yet — clean — whole — right through, 
 if you will only trust me, sir." 
 
 "I am trusting you right enough," said Mr. Jones. "It's 
 your interest, too." 
 
 And, indeed, Ricardo was truthful enough in his state- 
 ment. He did absolutely believe in success now. But he 
 couldn't tell his governor that he had intelligences in the 
 enemy's camp. It wouldn't do to tell him of the girl. Devil
 
 VICTORY $12 
 
 only knew what he would do if he learned there was a 
 woman about. And how could he begin to tell of it? He 
 couldn't confess his sudden escapade. 
 
 **We'll pull it ofif, sir," he said, with perfectly acted 
 cheerfulness. He experienced gusts of awful joy expand- 
 ing in his heart and hot like a fanned flame. 
 
 "We must," pronounced Mr. Jones. "This thing, Mar- 
 tin, is not like our other tries. I have a peculiar feeling 
 about this. It's a different thing. It's a sort of test." 
 
 Ricardo was impressed by the governor's manner; foi 
 the first time a hint of passion could be detected in him. 
 But also a word he used, the word "test," had struck him 
 as particularly significant somehow. It was the last word 
 uttered during that morning's conversation. Immediately 
 afterwards Ricardo went out of the room. It was imposv 
 sible for him to keep still. An elation in which an extraor- 
 dinary softness mingled with savage triumph would not 
 allow it. It prevented his. thinking, also. He walked up 
 and down the verandah far into the afternoon, eyeing the 
 other bungalow at every turn. It gave no sign of being 
 inhabited. Once or twice he stopped dead short and looked 
 down at his left slipper. Each time he chuckled audibly. 
 His restlessness kept on increasing till at last it frightened 
 him. He caught hold of the balustrade of the verandah 
 and stood still, smiling not at his thoughts, but at the strong 
 sense of life within him. He abandoned himself to it care- 
 lessly, even recklessly. He cared for no one, friend or 
 enemy. At that moment Mr. Jones called him by name 
 from within. A shadow fell on the secretary's face. 
 
 "Here, sir," he answered ; but it was a moment before 
 he could make up his mind to go in. 
 
 He found his governor on his feet. Mr. Jones was tired 
 of lying down when there was no necessity for it. His 
 slender form, gliding about the room, came to a stand- 
 still
 
 314 VICTORY 
 
 "I've been thinking, Martin, of something you sug- 
 gested. At the time it did not strike me as practical; but 
 on reflection it seems to me that to propose a game is as 
 good a way as any to let him understand that the time has 
 come to disgorge. It's less — how should I say? — vulgar. 
 He will know what it means. It's not a bad form to give 
 to the business — which in itself is crude, Martin, crude." 
 
 "Want to spare his feelings?" jeered the secretary in 
 such a bitter tone that Mr. Jones was really surprised. 
 
 "Why, it was your own notion, confound you!" 
 
 "Who says it wasn't?" retorted Ricardo sulkily. "But 
 I am fairly sick of this crawling. No ! No ! Get the exact 
 bearings of his swag and then a rip up. That's plenty good 
 enough for him." 
 
 His passions being thoroughly aroused, a thirst for 
 blood w^s allied in him with a thirst for tenderness — yes, 
 tenderness. A sort of anxious, melting sensation pervaded 
 and softened his heart when he thought of that girl — one 
 of his own sort. And at the same time jealousy started 
 gnawing at his breast as the image of Heyst intruded it- 
 self on his fierce anticipation of bliss. 
 
 "The crudeness of your ferocity is positively gross, 
 Martin," Mr. Jones said disdainfully. "You don't even 
 understand my purpose. I mean to have some sport out 
 of him. Just try to imagine the atmosphere of the game — 
 the fellow handling the cards — the agonising mockery of 
 it! Oh, I shall appreciate this greatly. Yes, let him lose 
 his money instead of being forced to hand it over. You, of 
 course, would shoot him at once, but I shall enjoy the re- 
 finement and the jest of it. He's a man of the best society. 
 I've been hounded out of my sphere by people very much 
 like that fellow. How enraged and humiliated he will be! 
 I promise myself some exquisite moments while watching 
 his play." 
 
 "Ay, and suppose he suddenly starts prancing ! He may 
 not appreciate the fun."
 
 VICTORY 315 
 
 "I mean you to be present," Mr. Jones remarked 
 calmly. 
 
 "Well, as long as I am free to plug him or rip him up 
 whenever I think the time has come, you are welcome tr 
 your bit of sport, sir. I sha'n't spoil it."
 
 VII 
 
 It was at this precise moment of their conversation that 
 Heyst had intruded on Mr. Jones and his secretary with 
 his warning about Wang, as he had related to Lena. When 
 he left them, the two looked at each other in wondering 
 silence. Mr. Jones was the first to break it. 
 
 "I say, Martin!" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "What does this mean?" 
 
 "It's some move. Blame me if I can understand !" 
 
 "Too deep for you?" Mr. Jones inquired drily. 
 
 "It's nothing but some of his infernal impudence," 
 growled the secretary. "You don't believe all that about 
 the Chink, do you, sir? 'Tain't true." 
 
 "It isn't necessary for it to be true to have a meaning 
 for us. It's the why of his coming to tell us this tale that's 
 important." 
 
 "Do you think he made it up to frighten us?" asked 
 Ricardo. 
 
 Mr. Jones scowled at him thoughtfully. 
 
 "The man looked worried," he muttered, as if to him- 
 self. "Suppose that Chinaman has really stolen his money ! 
 The man looked very worried." 
 
 "Nothing but his artfulness, sir," protested Ricardn 
 earnestly, for the idea was too disconcerting to entertain. 
 "Is it likely that he would have trusted a Chink with 
 enough knowledge to make it possible?" he argued 
 warmly. "Why, it's the very thing that he would kee]i 
 close about. There's something else there. Ay, but what?" 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha!" Mr. Jones let out a ghostly, squeaky 
 
 316
 
 VICTORY 313 
 
 laugh. "I've never been placed in such a ridiculous posi- 
 tion before," he went on, with a sepulchral equanimity of 
 tone. "It's you, Martin, who dragged me into it. However, 
 it's my fault too. I ought to — but I was really too bored 
 to use my brain, and yours is not to be trusted. You are 
 a hothead !" 
 
 A blasphemous exclamation of grief escaped from 
 Ricardo. Not to be trusted! Hothead! He was almost 
 tearful. 
 
 "Haven't I heard you, sir, saying more than twenty 
 times since we got fired out from Manila that we should 
 want a lot of capital to work the East Coast with? You 
 were always telling me that to prime properly all them 
 officials and Portuguese scallawags we should have to lose 
 heavily at first. Weren't you always worrying about some 
 means of getting hold of a good lot of cash? It wasn't 
 to be got hold of by allowing yourself to become bored in 
 that rotten Dutch town and playing a twopenny game with 
 confounded beggarly bank-clerks and such like. Well, I've 
 brought you here, where there is cash to be got — and a 
 big lot, to a moral," he added through his set teeth. 
 
 Silence fell. Each of them was staring into a different 
 corner of the room. Suddenly, with a slight stamp of his 
 foot, Mr. Jones made for the door. Ricardo caught him 
 up outside. 
 
 "Put your arm through mine, sir," he begged him 
 gently but firmly, "No use giving the game away. An 
 invalid may well come out for a breath of fresh air after 
 the sun's gone down a bit. That's it, sir. But where do you 
 want to go? Why did you come out, sir?" 
 
 Mr. Jones stopped short. 
 
 "I hardly know myself," he confessed in a hollow 
 mutter, staring intently at the Number One bungalow. 
 "It's quite irrational," he declared in a still lower tone. 
 
 "Better go in, sir," suggested Ricardo. "What's that? 
 Those screens weren't dov/n before. He's spying from
 
 ,i8 VICTORY 
 
 behind them now, I bet — ^the dodging, artful, plotting 
 beast !" 
 
 "Why not go over there and see if we can't get to the 
 bottom of this game?" was the unexpected proposal 
 uttered by Mr. Jones. "He will have to talk to us." 
 
 Ricardo repressed a start of dismay, but for a moment 
 could not speak. He only pressed the governor's hand to 
 his side instinctively. 
 
 "No, sir. What could you say? Do you expect to get 
 to the bottom of his lies? How could you make him talk? 
 It isn't time yet to come to grips with that gent. You 
 don't think I would hang back, do you? His Chink, of 
 course, I'll shoot like a dog the moment I catch sight of 
 him; but as to that Mr. Blasted Heyst, the time isn't yet. 
 My head's cooler just now than yours. Let's go in again. 
 Why, we are exposed here. Suppose he took it into his 
 head to let off a gun on us ! He's an unaccountable, 
 'yporcritical skunk." 
 
 Allowing himself to be persuaded, Mr, Jones returned 
 to his seclusion. The secretary, however, remained on the 
 verandah — for the purpose, he said, of seeing whether 
 that Chink wasn't sneaking around ; m which case he pro- 
 posed to take a long shot at the galoot and chance the 
 consequences. His real reason was that he wanted to be 
 alone, away from the governor's deep sunk eyes. He felt a 
 sentimental desire to indulge his fancies in solitude. A 
 great change had come over Mr. Ricardo since that morn- 
 ing. A whole side of him which from prudence, from 
 necessity, from loyalty, had been kept dormant, was 
 aroused now, colouring his thoughts and disturbing his 
 mental poise by the vision of such staggering consequences 
 as, for instance, the possibility of an active conflict with 
 his governor. The appearance of the monstrous Pedro 
 with his news drew Ricardo out of a feeling of dreami- 
 ness wrapped up in a sense of impending trouble. A 
 woman? Yes, there was one; and ic made all the dif-
 
 VICTORY 319 
 
 ference. After driving away Pedro, and watching tne 
 white helmets of Heyst and Lena vanish among the bushes 
 he stood lost in meditation. 
 
 "Where could they be off to like this?" he mentally 
 asked himself. 
 
 The answer found by his speculative faculties on their 
 utmost stretch was — to meet that Chink. For in the deser- 
 tion of Wang Ricardo did not believe. It was a lying yarn, 
 the organic part of a dangerous plot. Heyst had gone to 
 combine some fresh move. But then Ricardo felt sure that 
 the girl was with him — the girl full of pluck, full of 
 sense, full of understanding; an ally of his own kind! 
 
 He went indoors briskly. Mr. Jones had resumed his 
 cross-legged pose at the head of the bed, with his back 
 against the wall. 
 
 "Anything new?" 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 Ricardo walked about the room as if he had no car* 
 in the world. He hummed snatches of song. Mr. Jonei. 
 raised his waspish eyebrows at the sound. The secretary 
 got down on his knees before an old leather trunk, and, 
 rummaging in there, brought out a small looking-glass. 
 He fell to examining his physiognomy in it with silent 
 absorption. 
 
 "I think I'll shave," he decided, getting up. 
 
 He gave a sidelong glance to the governor, and repeated 
 it several times during the operation, which did not take 
 long, and even afterwards, when, after putting awa)' the 
 implements, he resumed his walking, humming more 
 snatches of unknown songs. Mr. Jones preserved a com- 
 plete immobility, his thin lips compressed, his eyes veiled. 
 His face was like a carving. 
 
 "So you would like to try your hand at cards with that 
 skunk, sir?" said Ricardo, stopping suddenly and rubbinr, 
 his hands. 
 
 Mr Jones gave no sign of having heard anything.
 
 320 VICTORY 
 
 "Well, why not? Why shouldn't he have the experi- 
 ence? You remember in that Mexican town — what's its 
 name? — ^the robber fellow they caught in the mountains 
 and condemned to be shot? He played cards half the 
 night with the jailer and the sheriff. Well, this fellow is 
 condemned, too. He must give you your game. Hang it all, 
 a gentleman ought to have some little relaxation ! And you 
 have been uncommonly patient, sir." 
 
 "You are uncommonly volatile all of a sudden," Mr. 
 Jones remarked in a bored voice. "What's come to you?" 
 
 The secretary hummed for a while, and then said: 
 
 "I'll try to get him over here for you to-night, after 
 dinner. If I ain't here myself, don't you worry, sir. I shall 
 be doing a bit of nosing round — see ?" 
 
 "I see," sneered Mr. Jones languidly. "But what do you 
 expect to see in the dark ?" 
 
 Ricardo made no answer, and after another turn or 
 fwo slipped out of the room. He no longer felt com- 
 iortable alone with the governor.
 
 VIII 
 
 Meantime Heyst and Lena, walking rather fast, aj:. 
 preached Wang's hut. Asking the girl to wait, Heyst 
 ascended the Httle ladder of bamboos giving access to the 
 door. It was as he had expected. The smoky interior was 
 empty, except for a big chest of sandalwood too heavy for 
 hurried removal. Its lid was thrown up, but whatever it 
 might have contained was no longer there. All Wang'3 
 possessions were gone. Without tarrying in the hut, Heyst 
 came back to the girl, who asked no questions, with her 
 strange air of knowing or understanding everything. 
 
 "Let us push on," he said. 
 
 He went ahead, the rustle of her white skirt following 
 him into the shades of the forest, along the path of their 
 usual walk. Though the air lay heavy between straight 
 denuded trunks, the sunlit patches moved on the ground, 
 and raising her eyes Lena saw far above her head the 
 flutter of the leaves, the surface shudder on the mighty 
 limbs extended horizontally in the perfect immobility of 
 patience. Twice Heyst looked over his shoulder at her. 
 Behind the readiness of her answering smile there was a 
 fund of devoted, concentrated passion, burning with the 
 hope of a more perfect satisfaction. They passed the spot 
 where it was their practice to turn towards the barren 
 summit of the central hill. Heyst held steadily on his way 
 towards the upper limit of the forest. The moment they 
 left its shelter, a breeze enveloped them, and a great cloud, 
 racing over the sun, threw a peculiar sombre tint over 
 everything. Heyst pointed up a precipitous, rugged path 
 clinging to the side of the hill. It ended in a barricade of 
 
 321
 
 J22 VICTORY 
 
 felled trees, a primitively conceived obstacle which must 
 have cost much labour to erect at just that spot. 
 
 "This," Heyst explained in his urbane tone, "is a barrier 
 against the march of civilisation. The poor folk over 
 there did not like it, as it appeared to them in the shape 
 of my company — a great step forward, as some people 
 used *"0 call it v/ith mistaken confidence. The advanced 
 foot has been drawn back, but the barricade remains." 
 
 They went on climbing slowly. The cloud had driven 
 over, leaving an added brightness on the face of the 
 world. 
 
 "It's a very ridiculous thing," Heyst went on ; "but then 
 it is the product of honest fear — fear of the unknown, of 
 the incomprehensible. It's pathetic, too, in a way. And I 
 heartily wish, Lena, that we were on the other side of it." 
 
 "Oh, stop, stop !" she cried, seizing his arm. 
 
 The face of the barricade they were approaching had 
 been piled up with a lot of fresh-cut branches. The leaves 
 were still green. A gentle breeze, sweeping over the top, 
 stirred them a little ; but what had startled the girl was 
 the discovery of several spear-blades protruding from the 
 mass of foliage. She had made them out suddenly. They 
 did not gleam, but she saw them with extreme distinct- 
 ness, very still, very vicious to look at. 
 
 "You had better let me go forward alone, Lena," said 
 Heyst. 
 
 She tugged persistently at his arm, but after a time, 
 during which he never ceased to look smilingly into her 
 terrified eyes, he ended by disengaging himself. 
 
 "It's a sign rather than a demonstration," he argued 
 persuasively. "Just wait here a moment. I promise not to 
 approach near enough to be stabbed." 
 
 As in a nightmare she watched Heyst go up the few 
 yards of the path as if he never meant to stop; and she 
 heard his voice, like voices heard in dreams, shouting 
 unknown words in an unearthly tone. Heyst was only
 
 VICTORY 323 
 
 denianaing to see Wang. He was not kept waiting very 
 long. Recovering from the first flurry of her fright, Lena 
 noticed a commotion in the green top-dressing of the bar- 
 ricade. She exhaled a sigh of relief when the spear-blades 
 retreated out of sight, sliding inward — the horrible things ! 
 In a spot facing Heyst a pair of yellow hands parted the 
 leaves, and a face filled the small opening- — a face with 
 very noticeable eyes. It was Wang's face, of course, with 
 no suggestion of a body belonging to it, like those card- 
 board faces at which she remembered gazing as a child in 
 the window of a certain dim shop kept by a mysterious 
 little man in Kingsland Road. Only this face, instead of 
 mere holes, had eyes which blinked. She could see the 
 beating of the eyelids. The hands on each side of the 
 face, keeping the boughs apart, also did not look as if 
 they belonged to any real body. One 01 them was holding 
 a revolver — a weapon which she recognised merely by 
 intuition, never having seen such an object before. 
 
 She leaned her shoulders against the rock of the per- 
 pendicular hillside and kept her eyes on Heyst, with com- 
 parative composure, since the spears were not menacing 
 him any longer. Beyond the rigid and motionless back he 
 presented to her, she saw Wang's unreal cardboard face 
 moving its thin lips and grimacing artificially. She was 
 too far down the path to hear the dialogue, carried on in 
 an ordinary voice. She waited patiently for its end. Her 
 shoulders felt the warmth of the rock; now and then a 
 whiff of cooler air seemed to slip down upon her head 
 from above ; the ravine at her feet, choked full of vegeta- 
 tion, emitted the faint, drowsy hum of insect life. Every- 
 thing was very quiet. She failed to notice the exact mo- 
 ment when Wang's head vanished from the foliage, taking 
 the unreal hands away with it. To her horror, the spear- 
 blades came gliding slowly out. The very hair on her head 
 stirred: but before she had time to cry out, Heyst, who 
 seemed rooted to the ground, turned round abruptly and
 
 3^4 VICTORY 
 
 began to move towards her. His great moustaches did not 
 quite hide an ugly but irresolute smile ; and when he had 
 come down near enough to touch her, he burst out into a 
 harsh laugh : 
 
 "Ha, ha, ha!" 
 
 She looked at him, uncomprehending. He cut short his 
 laugh and said curtly: 
 
 "We had better go down as we came." 
 
 She followed him into the forest. The advance of the 
 afternoon had filled it with gloom. Far away a slant of 
 light between the trees closed the view. All was dark be- 
 yond. Heyst stopped. 
 
 "No reason to hurry, Lena," he said in his ordinary, 
 serenely polite tones. "We return unsuccessful. I suppose 
 you know, or at least can guess, what was my object in 
 coming up there?" 
 
 "No, I can'"" guess, dear," she said, and smiled, noticing 
 with emotion that his breast was heaving as if he had 
 been out of breath. Nevertheless, he tried to command his 
 speech, pausing only a little between the words. 
 
 "No? I went up to find Wang. I went up" — he gasped 
 again here, but this was for the last time — "I made you 
 come with me because I didn't like to leave you unpro- 
 tected in the proximity of those fellows." Suddenly he 
 snatched his cork helmet off his head and dashed it on the 
 ground. "No!" he cried roughly. "All this is too unreal 
 altogether. It isn't to be borne! I can't protect you! I 
 haven't the power." 
 
 He glared at her for a moment, then hastened after his 
 hat, which had bounded away to some distance. He came 
 back looking at her face, which was very white. 
 
 "I ought to beg your pardon for these antics." he said, 
 adjusting his hat. "A movement of childish petulance ! In- 
 leed, I feel very much like a child in my ignorance, in my 
 powerlessness, in my want of resource, in everything ex-
 
 VICTORY 325 
 
 cept in the dreadful consciousness of some evil hanging 
 over your head — ^yours !" 
 
 "It's you they are after," she murmured. 
 
 "No doubt, but unfortunately " 
 
 "Unfortunately — what ?" 
 
 "Unfortunately, I have not succeeded with Wang," he 
 said. "I failed to move his Celestial heart — that is, if there 
 IS such a thing. He told me with horrible Chinese reason- 
 ableness that he could not let us pass the barrier, because 
 we should be pursued. He doesn't like fights. He gave me 
 to understand that he would shoot me with my own re- 
 volver without any sort of compunction, rather than risk 
 a rude and distasteful contest with the strange barbarians 
 for mv sake. He has preached to the villagers. They re- 
 spect him. He is the most remarkable man they have ever 
 seen, and their kinsman by marriage. They understand his 
 policy. And anyway only women and children and a few 
 old fellows are left in the village. This is the season when 
 the men are away in trading vessels. But it would have 
 been all the same. None of them have a taste for fighting 
 — and with white men too ! They are peaceable, kindly folk 
 and would have seen me shot with extreme satisfaction 
 Wang seemed to think my insistence — for I insisted, you 
 know — very stupid and tactless. But a drowning man 
 clutches at straws. We were talking in such Malay as we 
 are both equal to. 
 
 " 'Your fears are foolish,' I said to him. 
 
 "'FooHsh? Of course I am foolish,' he replied. 'If I 
 were a wise man, I would be a merchant with a big hong 
 in Singapore, instead of being a mine coolie turned house- 
 boy. But if you don't go away in time, I will shoot you 
 before it grows too dark to take aim. Not till then. Num- 
 ber One, but I will do it then. Now — finish !' 
 
 '* 'AH right,' I said. 'Finish as far as I am concerned ; 
 but you can have no objections to the mem putih coming 
 over to stay with the Orang Kaya's women for a few
 
 326 VICTORY 
 
 days. I will make a present in silver for it.' Orang Kaya 
 is the head man of the village, Lena," added Heyst. 
 
 She looked at him in astonishment. 
 
 "You wanted me to go to that village of savages?" she 
 gasped. "You wanted me to leave you?" 
 
 "It would have given me a freer hand." 
 
 Heyst stretched out his hands and looked at them for 
 1 moment, then let them fall by his side. Indignation was 
 expressed more in the curve of her lips than in her clear 
 eyes, which never wavered. 
 
 "I believe Wang laughed," he went on. "He made a 
 noise like a turkey-cock." 
 
 " 'That would be worse than anything,' he told me. 
 
 "I was taken aback. I pointed out to him that he was 
 talking nonsense. It could not make any difference to his 
 security where you were, because the evil men, as he calls 
 them, did not know of your existence. I did not lie exactly, 
 Lena, though I did stretch the truth till it cracked ; but the 
 fellow seems to have an uncanny insight. He shook his 
 head. He assured me they knew all about you. He made 
 a horribh grimace at me." 
 
 "It doesn't matter," said the girl. "I didn't want — / 
 would not have gone." 
 
 Heyst raised his eyes. 
 
 "Wonderful intuition ! As I continued to press him, 
 Wang made that very remark about you. When he smiles 
 his face looks like a conceited death's head. It was his very 
 last remark — that you wouldn't want to. I went away 
 then." 
 
 She leaned back against a tree. Heyst faced her in 
 the same attitude of leisure, as if they had done with 
 time and all the other concerns of the earth. Suddenly, 
 high above their heads, the roof of leaves whispered at 
 them tumultuously and then ceased, 
 
 "That was a strange notion of yours, to send me away/' 
 fihe said. "Send me away? What for? Yes, what for?"
 
 VICTORV^ 32: 
 
 "You seem indignant," he remarked listlessly. 
 
 "To these savages, too !" she pursued. "And }'ou think I 
 would have gone ? You can do what you like v/ith me — but 
 not that, not that !" 
 
 Heyst looked into the dim aisles of the forest. Every- 
 thing was so still now that the very ground on which 
 they stood seemed to exhale silence into the shade. 
 
 "Why be indignant?" he remonstrated. "It has not hap- 
 pened. I gave up pleading with Wang. Here we are, re 
 pulsed ! Not only without power to resist the evil, but un- 
 able to make terms for ourselves with the worthy envoys, 
 the envoys extraordinary of the world we thought we had 
 done with for years and years. And that's bad, Lena, ver>' 
 bad." 
 
 "It's funny," she said thoughtfully. "Bad? I suppose it 
 is. I don't know that it is. But do you? Do you? You talk 
 as if you didn't believe in it." 
 
 She gazed at him earnestly. 
 
 "Do I? Ah! That's it. I don't know how to talk. I 
 have managed to refine everything away. I've said to the 
 Earth that bore me: *I am I and you are a shadow.' And 
 by Jove, it is so ! But it appears that such words cannot be 
 uttered with impunity. Here I am on a Shadow inhabited 
 by Shades. How helpless a man is against the Shades 1 
 How is one to intimidate, persuade, resist, assert oneself 
 against them ? I have lost all belief in realities. . . . Lena, 
 give me your hand." 
 
 She looked at him surprised, uncomprehending. 
 
 "Your hand," he cried. 
 
 She obeyed ; he seized it with avidity as if eager to raise 
 it to his lips, but halfway up released his grasp. They 
 looked at each other for a time. 
 
 "What's the matter, dear?" she whispered timidly. 
 
 "Neither force nor conviction," Heyst muttered wearily 
 to himself. "How am I to meet this charmingly simple 
 problem ?"
 
 J28 VICTORY 
 
 "I am sorry," she murmured. 
 
 "And so am I," he confessed quickly. "And the bitterest 
 of this humiliation is its complete uselessness — which I 
 feel, I feel !" 
 
 She had never before seen him give such signs of feel- 
 ing. Across his ghastly face the long moustaches flamed in 
 the shade. He spoke suddenly : 
 
 "I wonder if I could find enough courage to creep 
 among them in the night, with a knife, and cut their 
 throats one after another, as they slept ! I wonder " 
 
 She was frightened by his unwonted appearance more 
 than by the words in his mouth, and said earnestly : 
 
 "Don't you try to do such a thing ! Don't you think of 
 it!" 
 
 "I don't possess anything bigger than a penknife. As 
 to thinking of it, Lena, there's no saying what one may 
 think of. I don't think. Something in me thinks — some- 
 thing foreign to my nature. What is the matter?" 
 
 He noticed her parted lips, and the peculiar stare in her 
 eyes, which had wandered from his face. 
 
 "There's somebody after us. I saw something white 
 moving," she cried. 
 
 Heyst did not turn his head ; he only glanced at her 
 outstretched arm. 
 
 "No doubt we are followed ; we are watched." 
 
 "I don't see anything now," she said. 
 
 "And it does not matter," Heyst went on in his 
 ordinary voice. "Here we are in the forest. I have neither 
 strength nor persuasion. Indeed, it's extremely difficult to 
 be eloquent before a Chinaman's head stuck at one out of 
 a lot of brushwood. But can we wander among these big 
 trees indefinitely? Is this a refuge? No! What else is left 
 to us? I did think for a moment of the mine; but even 
 there we could not remain very long. And then that gallery 
 is not safe. The props were too weak to begin with. Ants 
 have been at work there — ants after the men. A death-
 
 VICTORY 329 
 
 trap, at best. One can die but once, but there are many 
 manners of death." 
 
 The girl glanced about fearfully, in search of the 
 watcher or follower whom she had glimpsed once among 
 rhe trees ; but if he existed, he had concealed himself. 
 Nothing met her eyes but the deepening shadows of the 
 short vistas between the living columns of the still roof of 
 leaves. She looked at the man beside her expectantly, 
 tenderly, with suppressed affright and a sort of awed 
 wonder. 
 
 'T have also thought of these people's boat," Heyst 
 went on. "We could get into that, and — only they have 
 taken everything out of her. I have seen her oars and 
 mast in a corner of their room. To shove off in an empty 
 boat would be nothing but a desperate expedient, suppos- 
 ing even that she would drift out a good distance between 
 the islands before the morning. It would only be a com- 
 plicated* manner of committing suicide — ^to be found dead 
 in a boat, dead from sun and thirst. A sea mystery. I 
 wonder who would find us ! Davidson, perhaps ; but 
 Davidson passed westward ten days ago. I watched him 
 steaming past one early morning, from the jetty." 
 
 "He must have been looking at me through his big 
 binoculars. Perhaps, if I had raised my arm — ^but what 
 did we want with Davidson then, you and I ? He won't be 
 back this way for three weeks or more, Lena. I wish I 
 had raised my arm that morning." 
 
 "What would have been the good of it?" she sighed 
 out. 
 
 "What good? No good, of course. We had no fore- 
 bodings. This seemed to be an inexpugnable refuge, where 
 we could live untroubled and lea.rn to know each other." 
 
 "It's perhaps in trouble that people get to know each 
 other," she suggested. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said indifferently. "At any rate, we would 
 not have gone away from here with him ; though I believe
 
 J30 VICTORY 
 
 he would have come in eagerly enough, and ready for any 
 service he could render. It's that fat man's nature — a 
 delightful fellow. You would not come on the wharf that 
 time I sent the shawl back to Mrs. Schomberg through 
 him. He has never seen you." 
 
 "I didn't know that you wanted anybody ever to see 
 me," she said. 
 
 He had folded his arms on his breast and hung his 
 head. 
 
 "And I did not know that you cared to be seen as yet. 
 A misunderstanding evidently. An honourable misunder- 
 standing. But it does not matter now." 
 
 He raised his head after a silence. 
 
 "How gloomy this forest has grown ! Yet surely the sun 
 cannot have set already." 
 
 She looked round ; and as if her eyes had just been 
 opened, she perceived the shades of the forest surround- 
 ing her, not so much with gloom, but with a sullen, dumb, 
 menacing hostility. Her heart sank in the engulfing still- 
 ness ; at that moment she felt the nearness of death 
 breathing on her and on the man with her. If there had 
 been a sudden stir of leaves, the crack of a dry branch, 
 the faintest rustle, she would have screamed aloud. But 
 she shook off the unworthy weakness. Such as she was, a 
 fiddle-scraping girl picked up on the very threshold of 
 infamy, she would try to rise above herself, triumphant 
 and humble ; and then happiness would burst on her like 
 a torrent, flinging at her feet the man whom she loved. 
 
 Heyst stirred slightly. 
 
 "We had better be getting back, Lena, since we can't 
 stay all night in the woods — or anywhere else, for that 
 matter.^We are the slaves of this infernal surprise which 
 has been sprung on us by — shall I say fate ? — your fate, or 
 mine.i' 
 
 It was the man who had broken the silence, but it was 
 the woman who led the way. At the very edge of the
 
 VICTORY 331 
 
 torest she stopped, concealed by a tree. He joined her 
 
 cautiously. 
 
 "What is it? What do you see, Lena?" he whispered. 
 
 She said that it was only a thought that had come into 
 her head. She hesitated for a moment, giving him. over 
 her shoulder a shining gleam of her grey eyes. She wanted 
 to know whether this trouble, this danger, this evil, what- 
 ever it was, finding them out in their retreat, was not a 
 sort of punishment. 
 
 "Punishment?" repeated Heyst. He could not under- 
 stand what she meant. When she explained, he was still 
 more surprised. "A sort of retribution from an angry 
 Heaven?" he said in wonder. "On us? What on earth 
 for?" 
 
 He saw her pale face darken in the dusk. She had 
 blushed. Her whispering flowed very fast. It was the 
 way they lived together — that wasn't right, was it ? It waf^ 
 a guilty life. For she had not been forced into it, driven, 
 scared into it. No, no — she had come lo him of her own 
 free will, with her whole soul yearning unlawfully. 
 
 He was so profoundly touched that he could not speak 
 for a moment. To conceal his trouble, he assumed his best 
 Heystian manner. 
 
 "What? Are our visitors then messengers of morality, 
 avengers of righteousness, agents of Providence? That's 
 certainly an original view. How flattered they would be if 
 they could hear you !" 
 
 "Now you are making fun of me," she said in a sub- 
 dued voice which broke suddenly. 
 
 "Are you conscious of sin?" Heyst asked gravely. She 
 made no answer. "For I am not," he added ; "before 
 Heaven, I am not !" 
 
 "You ! You are diflferent. Woman is the tempter. You 
 took me up from pity. I threw myself at you." 
 
 "Oh. you exaggerate, you exaggerate, Tt was not so
 
 332 VICTORY 
 
 bad as tJiat," he said playfully, keeping his voice steady 
 with an effort. 
 
 He considered himself a dead man already, yet forced 
 to pretend that he was alive for her sake, for her defence. 
 He regretted that he had no Heaven to which he could 
 recommend this fair, palpitating handful of ashes and 
 dust — warm, living, sentient, his own — and exposed help- 
 lessly to insult, outrage, degradation, and infinite misery 
 of the body. 
 
 She had averted her face from him and was still. He 
 suddenly seized her passive hand. 
 
 "You will have it so ?" he said. "Yes ? Well, let us then 
 hope for mercy together." 
 
 She shook her head without looking at him, like an 
 abashed child. 
 
 "Remember," he went on, incorrigible with his deli- 
 cate raillery, "that hope is a Christian virtue, and surely 
 you can't want all the mercy for yourself." 
 
 Before their eyes the bungalow across the cleared 
 ground stood bathed in a sinister light. An unexpected 
 chill gust of wind made a noise in the tree-tops. She 
 snatched her hand away and stepped out into the open ; but 
 before she had advanced more than three yards, she stood 
 still and pointed to the west. 
 
 "Oh, look there !" she exclaimed. 
 
 Beyond the headland of Diamond Bay, lying black on a 
 purple sea, great masses of cloud stood piled up and bathed 
 in a mist of blood. A crimson crack like an open wound 
 zigzagged between them, with a piece of dark red sun 
 showing at the bottom. Heyst cast an indifferent glance at 
 the ill-omened chaos of the sky. 
 
 "Thunderstorm making up. We shall hear it all night, 
 "Dut it won't visit us, probably. The clouds generally gather 
 round the volcano." 
 
 She was not listening to him. Her eyes reflected the 
 Rombre and violent hues of the sunset.
 
 VICTORY 333 
 
 "That does not look much hke a sign of mercy," she said 
 slowly, as if to herself, and hurried on, followed by Heyst. 
 Suddenly she stopped. "I don't care. I would do more yet I 
 And some day you'll forgive me. You'll have to forgive 
 me!"
 
 IX 
 
 Stumbling up the steps, as if suddenly exhausted, 
 Lena entered the room and let herself fall on the nearest 
 chair. Before following her, Heyst took a survey of the 
 surroundings from the verandah. It was a complete soli- 
 tude. There was nothing in the aspect of this familiar 
 scene to tell him that he and the girl were not as com- 
 pletely alone as they had been in the early days of their 
 common life on this abandoned spot, with only Wang 
 discreetly materialising from time to time and the un- 
 complaining memory of Morrison to keep them company. 
 
 After the cold gust of wind there was an absolute still- 
 ness of the air. The thunder-charged mass hung unbroken 
 beyond the low, ink-black headland, darkening the twi- 
 light. By contrast, the sky at the zenith displayed pellucid 
 clearness, the sheen of a delicate glass bubble which the 
 merest movement of air might shatter. A little to the left, 
 between the black masses of the headland and of the 
 forest, the volcano, a feather of smoke by day and a cigar- 
 glow at night, took its first fiery expanding breath of the 
 evening. Above it a reddish star came out like an expelled 
 spark from the fiery bosom of the earth, enchanted into 
 permanency by the mysterious spell of frozen spaces. 
 
 In front of Heyst the forest, already full of the deepest 
 shades, stood like a wall. But he lingered, watching its 
 edge, especially where it ended at the line of bushes, 
 masking the land end of the jetty. Since the girl had 
 spoken of catching a glimpse of something white among 
 the trees, he believed pretty firmly that they had been 
 followed in their excursion up the mountain by Mr 
 
 334
 
 VICTORY 335 
 
 Jones's secretary. No doubt the fellow had watched them 
 out of the forest, and now, unless he took the trouble to 
 go back some distance and fetch a considerable circuit in- 
 land over the clearing, he was bound to walk out into the 
 open space before the bungalows. Heyst did, indeed, 
 imagine at one time some movement between the trees, 
 lost as soon as perceived. He stared patiently, but nothing- 
 more happened. After all, why should he trouble about 
 these people's actions? Why this stupid concern for the 
 preliminaries, since, when the issue was joined, it would 
 find him disarmed and shrinking from the ugliness and 
 degradation of it? 
 
 He turned and entered the room. Deep dusk reigned in 
 there already. Lena, near the door, did not move or speak. 
 The sheen of the white tablecloth was very obtrusive. The 
 brute these two vagabonds had tamed had entered on its 
 service while Heyst and Lena were away. The table was 
 laid. Heyst walked up and down the room several times. 
 The girl remained without sound or movement on the 
 chair. But when Heyst, placing the two silver candelabra 
 on the table, struck a match to light the candles, she got 
 up suddenly and went into the bedroom. She came out 
 again almost immediately, having taken off her hat. Heyst 
 looked at her over his shoulder. 
 
 "What's the good of shirking the evil hour? I've lighted 
 these candles for a sign of our return. After all, we might 
 not have been watched — while returning, I mean. Of 
 course we were seen leaving the house." 
 
 The girl sat down again. The great wealth of her hair 
 looked very dark above her colourless face. She raised 
 her eyes, glistening softly in the light with a sort of un- 
 readable appeal, with a strange effect of unseeing in- 
 nocence. 
 
 "Yes," said Heyst across the table, the fingertips of one 
 hand resting on the immaculate cloth. "A creature with 
 an antediluvian lower jaw, hairy like a mastodon, and
 
 336 VICTORY 
 
 formed like a prehistoric ape, has laid this table. Are you 
 awake, Lena? Am I? I would pinch myself, only I know 
 that nothing would do away with this dream. Three 
 covers. You know it is the shorter of the two who's com- 
 ing — the gentleman who, in the play of his shoulders as he 
 walks, and in his facial structure, recalls a jaguar. Ah, you 
 don't know what a jaguar is? But you have had a good 
 look at these two. It's the short one, you know, who's to 
 be our guest." 
 
 She made a sign with her head that she knew. Heyst's 
 insistence brought Ricardo vividly before her mental 
 vision. A sudden languor, like the physical echo of her 
 struggle with the man, paralysed all her limbs. She lay 
 still in the chair, feeling very frightened at this phenome- 
 non — ready to pray aloud for strength. 
 
 Heyst had started to pace the room. 
 
 "Our guest ! There is a proverb — in Russia, I believe — 
 that when a guest enters the house, God enters the house. 
 The sacred virtue of hospitality ! But it leads one into 
 trouble as well as any other." 
 
 The girl unexpectedly got up from the chair, swaying 
 her supple figure and stretching her arms above her head. 
 He stopped to look at her curiously, paused, and then 
 went on : 
 
 'T venture to think that God has nothing to do with 
 such a hospitality and with such a guest !" 
 
 She had jumped to her feet to react against the numb- 
 ness, to discover whether her body would obey her will. 
 It did. She could stand up, and she could move her arms 
 freely. Though no physiologist, she concluded that all that 
 sudden numbness was in her head, not in her limbs. Her 
 fears assuaged, she thanked God for it mentally, and to 
 Heyst murmured a protest : 
 
 "Oh, yes ! He's got to do with everything — every little 
 thing. Nothing can happen " 
 
 "Yes," he said hastily, "one of the two sparrows can't
 
 VICTORY 33- 
 
 be struck to the ground — you are thinking of that." The 
 habitual playful smile faded on the kindly lips under the 
 martial moustache. "Ah, you remember what you have 
 been told — as a child — on Sundays." 
 
 "Yes, I do remember." She sank into the chair again. 
 "It was the only decent bit of time I ever had when I 
 was a kid, with our ladylady's two girls, you know." 
 
 "I wonder, Lena," Heyst said, with a return of his 
 urbane playfulness, "whether you are just a little child, of 
 whether you represent something as old as the world." 
 
 She surprised Heyst by saying dreamily : 
 
 "Well — and what about you?" 
 
 "I ? I date later — much later. I can't call myself a child, 
 but I am so recent that I may call myself a man of th«! 
 last hour — or is it the hour before last ? I have been out of 
 it so long that I am not certain how far the hands of the 
 clock have moved since — since " 
 
 He glanced at the portrait of his father, exactly above 
 the head of the girl, and as it were ignoring her in its 
 painted austerity of feeling. He did not finish thf 
 sentence ; but he did not remain silent for long. 
 
 "Only what must be avoided are fallacious inferences 
 my dear Lena — especially at this hour." 
 
 "Now you are making fun of me again," she said with- 
 out looking up. 
 
 "Am I?" he cried. "Making fun? No, giving warning. 
 Hang it all, whatever truth people told you in the old days, 
 there is also this one — that sparrows do fall to the 
 ground, that they are brought down to the ground. This 
 is no vain assertion, but a fact. That's why" — again his 
 tone changed, while he picked up a table knife and let it 
 fall disdainfully — "that's why I wish these wretched 
 round knives had some edge on them. Absolute rubbish — 
 neither edge, point, nor substance. I believe one of these 
 forks would make a better weapon at a pinch. But can I
 
 333 VICTORY 
 
 go about with a fork in my pocket?" He gnashed his 
 veeth with a rage very real, and yet comic. 
 
 ■'There used to be a carver here, but it was broken and 
 thrown away a long time ago. Nothing much to carve 
 here. It would have made a noble weapon, no doubt; 
 but " 
 
 He stopped. The girl sat very quiet, with downcast eyes. 
 As he kept silent for some time, she looked up and said 
 thoughtfully : 
 
 "Yes, a knife — it's a knife that you would want, 
 wouldn't you, in case, in case " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "There must be a crowbar or two in the sheds ; but 1 
 !iave given up all the keys together. And then, do you see 
 me walking about with a crowbar in my hand ? Ha, ha ! 
 And besides, that edifying sight alone might start the 
 /rouble for all I kpow. In truth, why has it not started 
 vet ?" 
 
 "Perhaps they are afraid of you," she whispered, look- 
 tug down again. 
 
 "By Jove, it looks like it," he assented meditatively. 
 "They do seem to hang back for some reason. Is that 
 reason prudence, or downright fear, or perhaps the 
 leisurely method of certitude?" 
 
 Out in the black night, not very far from the bungalow, 
 resounded a loud and prolonged whistle. Lena's hands 
 grasped the sides of the chair, but she made no move- 
 ment. Heyst started, and turned his face away from the 
 door. 
 
 The startling sound had died away. 
 
 "Whistles, yells, omens, signals, portents — what do they 
 matter?" he said. "But what about that crowbar? Sup- 
 pose I had it ! Could I stand in ambush at the side of the 
 door — ^tliis door — and smash the first protruding head, 
 scatter blood and brains over the floor, over these walls, 
 and then run stealthily to the other door to do the same
 
 VICTORY 330 
 
 thing — and repeat the performance for a third time, per' 
 haps ? Could I ? On suspicion, without compunction, with a 
 calm and determined purpose? No, it is not in me. I date 
 too late. Would you like to see me attempt this thing while 
 that mysterious prestige of mine lasts — or their not less 
 mysterious hesitation?" 
 
 "No, no !" she whispered ardently, as if compelled to 
 speak by his eyes fixed on her face. "No, it's a knife you 
 want to defend yourself with — to defend — there will be 
 time " 
 
 "And who knows if it isn't really my duty?" he began 
 again, as if he had not heard her disjointed words at all. 
 "It may be — my duty to you, to myself. For why should 
 I put up with the humiliation of their secret menaces ? Do 
 you know what the world would say?" 
 
 He emitted a low laugh, which struck her with terror. 
 She would have got up, but he stooped so low over her 
 that she could not move without first pushing him away. 
 
 "It would say, Lena, that I — that Swede — after luring 
 my friend and partner to his death from mere greed of 
 money, have murdered these unofl^ending shipwrecked 
 strangers from sheer funk. That would be the story whis- 
 pered — perhaps shouted — certainly spread out, and be- 
 'ieved — and believed, my dear Lena!" 
 
 "Who would believe such awful things?" 
 
 "Perhaps you wouldn't — not at first, at any rate; but 
 the power of calumny grows with time. It's insidious and 
 penetrating. It can even destroy one's faith in oneself — 
 dry-rot the soul." 
 
 All at once her eyes leaped to the door and remained 
 fixed, stony, a little enlarged. Turning his head, Heyst 
 beheld the figure of Ricardo framed in the doorway. For 
 a moment none of the three moved ; then, looking from 
 the newcomer to the girl in the chair, Heyst formulate^^ 
 sardonic introduction, 
 
 "Mr, Ricardo. my dear."
 
 340 VICTORY 
 
 Her head drooped a little. Ricardo's hand went up to 
 his moustache. His voice exploded in the room. 
 
 "At your service, ma'am !" 
 
 He stepped in, taking his hat off with a flourish, and 
 dropping it carelessly on a chair near the door. 
 
 "At your service," he repeated, in quite another tone. 
 "I was made aware there was a lady about, by that Pedro 
 of ours ; only I didn't know I should have the privilege of 
 seeing you to-night, ma'am." 
 
 Lena and Heyst looked at him covertly, but he, with a 
 vague gaze avoiding them both, looked at nothing, seem- 
 ing to pursue some point in space. 
 
 "Had a pleasant walk?" he asked suddenly. 
 
 "Yes. And you?" returned Heyst, who had managed 
 to catch his glance. 
 
 "I ? I haven't been a yard away from the governor this 
 afternoon till I started for here." The genuineness of the 
 accent surprised Heyst, without convincing him of the 
 truth of the words. "Why do you ask?" pursued Ricardo 
 with every inflexion of perfect candour. 
 
 "You might have wished to explore the island a little," 
 said Heyst, studying the man, who, to render him justice, 
 did not try to free his captured gaze. "I may remind you 
 that it wouldn't be a perfectly safe proceeding." 
 
 Ricardo presented a picture of innocence. 
 
 "Oh, yes ! — meaning that Chink that has run away from 
 you. He ain't much !" 
 
 "He has a revolver," observed Heyst meaningly. 
 
 "Well, and you have a revolver, too," Mr. Ricardo 
 argued unexpectedly. "I don't worry myself about that." 
 
 "I? That's different. I am not afraid of you," Heyst 
 made answer after a short pause. 
 
 "Of me?" 
 
 "Of all of you." 
 
 "You have a queer way of putting things," began 
 Ricardo.
 
 VICTORY 341 
 
 At that moment the door on the compound side of the 
 house came open with some noise, and Pedro entered, 
 pressing the edge of a loaded tray to his breast. His big, 
 hairy head rolled a little, his feet fell in front of each 
 other with a short, hard thump on the floor. The arrival 
 changed the current of Ricardo's thought, perhaps, but 
 certainly of his speech. 
 
 "You heard me whistling a little while ago outside? 
 That was to give him a hint, as I came along, that it was 
 time to bring in the dinner ; and here it is." 
 
 Lena rose and passed to the right of Ricardo, who 
 lowered his glance for a moment. They sat down at the 
 table. The enormous gorilla back of Pedro swayed out 
 through the door. 
 
 "Extraordinary strong brute, ma'am," said Ricardo. He 
 had a propensity to talk about "his Pedro," as some men 
 will talk of their dog. "He ain't pretty, though. No, he 
 ain't pretty. And he has got to be kept under. I am his 
 keeper, as it might be. The governor don't trouble his 
 head much about dee-tails. All that's left to Martin. Mar- 
 tin, that's me, ma'am." 
 
 Heyst saw the girl's eyes turn towards Mr. Jones's 
 secretary and rest blankly on his face. Ricardo, however, 
 looked vaguely ^into space, and, with faint flickers of a 
 smile about his lips, made conversation indefatigably 
 against the silence of his entertainers. He boasted largely 
 of his long association with Mr. Jones — over four years 
 now, he said. Then, glancing rapidly at Heyst : 
 
 "You can see at once he's a gentleman, can't you?" 
 
 "You people," Heyst said, his habitual playful intona- 
 tion tinged with gloom, "are divorced from all reality in 
 my eyes." 
 
 Ricardo received this speech as if he had been expecting 
 to hear those very words, or else did not mind at all what 
 Heyst might say. He muttered an absent-minded "Ay, ay," 
 played with a bit of biscuit, sighed, and said, with ?
 
 34i VICTORY 
 
 peculiar stare which did not seem to carry any distance, 
 but to stop short at a point in the air very near his face : 
 
 "Anybody can see at once you are one. You and the 
 governor ought to understand each other. He expects to 
 see you to-night. The governor isn't well, and we've got 
 to think of getting away from here." 
 
 While saying these words he turned himself full to- 
 wards Lena, but without any marked expression. Leaning 
 back with folded arms, the girl stared before her as if she 
 had been alone in the room. But under that aspect of 
 almost vacant unconcern the perils and emotion that had 
 entered into her life warmed her heart, exalted her mind 
 with a sense of an inconceivable intensity of existence. 
 
 "Really? Thinking of going away from here?" Heyst 
 murmured. 
 
 "The oest of friends must part/' Ricardo pronounced 
 slowly. "And, as long as they part friends, there's no 
 harm done. We two are used to be on the move. You, 
 I understand, prefer to stick in one place." 
 
 It was obvious that all this was being said merely for 
 the sake of talking, and that Ricardo's mind was con- 
 centrated on some purpose unconnected with the words 
 that were coming out of his mouth. 
 
 "I should like to know," Heyst asked with incisive 
 politeness, "how you have come to understand this or any- 
 thing else about me? As far as I can remember, I've made 
 you no confidences." 
 
 Ricardo, gazing comfortably into space out of the back 
 of his chair — for some time all three had given up any 
 pretence of eating — answered abstractedly: 
 
 "Any fellow might have guessed it." He sat up sud- 
 denly, and uncovered all his teeth in a grin of extraor- 
 dinary ferocity, which was belied by the persistent 
 amiability of his tone. "The governor will be the man to 
 fell you someth'ng about that. I wish you would say you 
 would see my governor. He's the one who does all our
 
 VICTORY 343 
 
 talking. Let me take you to him this evening. He ain't at 
 all well ; and he can't make up his mind to go away with- 
 out having a talk with you." 
 
 Heyst, looking up, met Lena's eyes. Their expression 
 of candour seemed to hide some struggling intention. Her 
 head, he fancied, had made an imperceptible affirmative 
 movement. Why? What reason could she have? Was it 
 the prompting of some obscure instinct? Or was it simply 
 a delusion of h's own senses? But in this strange complica- 
 tion invading the quietude of his life, in his state of doubt 
 and disdain and almost of despair with which he looked 
 at himself, he would let a delusive appearance guide him 
 through a darkness so dense that it made for indifference. 
 
 "Well, suppose I do say so?" 
 
 Ricardo did not conceal his satisfaction, which for a 
 moment interested Heyst. 
 
 "It can't be my life they are after," he said to himself.- 
 "What good could it be to them?" 
 
 He looked across the table at the girl. What did it 
 matter whether she had nodded or not? As always when 
 looking into her unconscious eyes, he tasted something 
 like the dregs of tender pity. He had decided to go. Her 
 nod, imaginary or not imaginary, advice or illusion, had 
 tipped the scale. He reflected that Ricardo's invitation 
 could scarcely be anything in the nature of a trap. It 
 would have been too absurd. Why carry subtly into a 
 trap someone already bound hand and foot, as it were? 
 
 All this time he had been looking fixedly at the girl he 
 called Lena. In the submissive quietness of her being, 
 which had been her attitude ever since they had begun 
 their life on the island, she remained as secret as ever. 
 Heyst got up abruptly, with a smile of such enigmatic 
 and despairing character that Mr. Secretary Ricardo, 
 whose abstract gaze had an all-round efficiency, made a 
 slight crouching start, as if to dive under the table for 
 his leg-knife — a start that was repressed as soon as
 
 ^44 VICTORY 
 
 begun. He had expected Heyst to spring on him or draw 
 a revolver, because he created for himself a vision of him 
 in his own image. Instead of doing either of these obvious 
 things, Heyst walked across the room, opened the door, 
 and put his head through it to look out into the compound. 
 As soon as his back was turned, Ricardo's hand sought 
 the girl's arm under the table. He was not looking at 
 her, but she felt the groping, nervous touch of his 
 search, felt suddenly the grip of his fingers above her 
 wrist. He leaned forward a little; still he dared not look 
 at her. His hard stare remained fastened on Heyst's back. 
 In an extremelv low hiss, his fixed idea of argument 
 found expression scathingly : 
 "See ! He's no good. He's not the man for you !" 
 He glanced at her at last. Her lips moved a little, 
 and he was awed by that movement without a sound. 
 Next instant the hard grasp of his fingers vanished from 
 her arm. Heyst had shut the door. On his way back 
 to the table, he crossed the path of the girl they had 
 called Alma — she didn't know why — also Magdalen, 
 whose mind had remained so long in doubt as to the 
 reason of her own existence. She no longer wondered 
 at that bitter riddle, since her heart found its solution 
 in a blinding, hot glow of passionate purpose.
 
 X 
 
 jHE passed by Heyst as if she had indeed been blinded 
 by some secret, lurid, and consuming glare into which 
 she was about to enter. The curtain of the bedroom door 
 fell behind her into rigid folds. Ricardo's vacant gaze 
 seemed to be watching the dancing flight of a fly in 
 mid air. 
 
 "Extra dark outside, ain't it?" he muttered. 
 
 "Not so dark but that I could see that man of yours 
 prowling about there," said Heyst in measured tones, 
 
 "What — Pedro? He's scarcely a man, you know; or 
 else I wouldn't be so fond of him as I am." 
 
 "Very well. Let's call him your worthy associate." 
 
 "Ay ! Worthy enough for what we want of him. A 
 great stand-by is Peter in a scrimmage. A growl and a 
 bite — oh, my! And you don't want him about?" 
 
 "I don't." 
 
 *'You want him out of the way?" insisted Ricardo 
 with an affectation of incredulity which Heyst accepted 
 calmly, though the air in the room seemed to grow more 
 oppressive with every word spoken. 
 
 "That's it. I do want him out of the way." He forced 
 himself to speak equably. 
 
 "Lor' ! That's no great matter. Pedro's not much use 
 here. The business my governor's after can be settled by 
 ten minutes' rational talk with — with another gentleman. 
 Quiet talk!" 
 
 He looked up suddenly with hard, phosphorescent eyes. 
 Heyst didn't move a muscle. Ricardo congratulated him- 
 self on having left his revolver behind. He was so ex- 
 
 *4£
 
 ,46 VICTORY 
 
 asperated that he didn't know what he might have done. 
 He said at last : 
 
 "You want poor, harmless Peter out of the way be- 
 fore you let me take you to see the governor — is that it?" 
 
 "Yes, that is it." 
 
 "H'm ! One can see," Ricardo said with hidden venom, 
 'that you are a gentleman ; but all that gentlemanly 
 lancifulness is apt to turn sour on a plain man's stomach. 
 However — you'll have to pardon me." 
 
 He put his fingers into his mouth and let out a whistle 
 which seemed to drive a thin, sharp shaft of air solidly 
 against one's nearest ear-drum. Though he greatly en- 
 joyed Heyst's involuntary grimace, he sat perfectly stolid 
 waiting for the effect of the call. 
 
 It brought Pedro in with an extraordinary, uncouth, 
 primeval impetuosity. The door flew open with a clatter, 
 and the wild figure it disclosed seemed anxious to devas- 
 tate the room in leaps and bounds ; but Ricardo raised 
 his open palm, and the creature came in quietly. His 
 enormous half -closed paws swung to and fro a little in 
 front of his bowed trunk as he walked. Ricardo looked 
 on truculently. 
 
 "You go to the boat — understand? Go now!" 
 
 The little red eyes of the tame monster blinked with 
 painful attention in the mass of hair. 
 
 "Well? Why don't you get? Forgot human speech, 
 eh? Don't you know any longer what a boat is?" 
 
 "Si — boat," the creature stammered ouL doubtfully. 
 
 "Well, go there — the boat at the jetty. March off to 
 it and sit there, lie down there, do anything but go to 
 sleep there — till you hear my call, and then fly here. 
 Them's your orders. March! Get, vamos! No, not that 
 way — out through the front door. No sulks !" 
 
 Pedro obeyed with uncouth alacricy. When he had 
 gone, the gleam of pitiless savagery went out of Ricar- 
 do's yellow eyes, and his physiognomy took on, for the
 
 VICTORY 547 
 
 first time that evening, the expression of a domestic cat 
 which is being noticed. 
 
 "You can watch him right into the bushes, if you like. 
 Too dark, eh? Why not go with him to the very spot, 
 then?" 
 
 Heyst made a gesture of vague protest. 
 
 "There's nothing to assure me that he will stay there. 
 I have no doubt of his going; but it's an act without a 
 guarantee." 
 
 "There you are!" Ricardo shrugged his shoulders 
 philosophically. "Can't be helped. Short of shooting our 
 Pedro, nobody can make absolutely sure of his staying in 
 the same place longer than he has a mind to ; but I tell 
 you, he lives in holy terror of my temper. That's why 
 I put on my sudden-death air when I talk to him. And 
 yet I wouldn't shoot him — not I, unless in such a fit of 
 rage as would make a man shoot his favourite dog. Look 
 here, sir! This deal is on the square. I didn't tip him a 
 wink to do anything else. He won't budge from the jetty. 
 Are you coming along now, sir?" 
 
 A short silence ensiled. Ricardo's jaws were working 
 ominously under his skin. His eyes glided voluptuously 
 here and there, cruel and dreamy. Heyst checked a sud- 
 den movement, reflected for a while, then said : 
 
 "You must wait a little." 
 
 "Wait a little ! Wait a little ! What does he think a fel- 
 low is — a graven image?" grumbled Ricardo half audibly. 
 
 Heyst went into the bedroom, and shut the door after 
 him with a bang. Coming from the light, he could not 
 see a thing in there at first; yet he received the impres- 
 sion of the girl getting up from the floor. On the less 
 opaque darkness of the shutter-hole, her head detached 
 itself suddenly, very faint, a mere hint of a round, dark 
 shape without a face. 
 
 "I am going, Lena. I am going to confront these 
 scoundrels." He was surprised to feel two arms falling
 
 ,48 VICTORY 
 
 on his shoulders. "I thought that you " he began. 
 
 "Yes, yes!" the girl whispered hastily. 
 
 She neither clung to him, nor yet did she try to draw 
 him to her. Her hands grasped his shoulders, and she 
 seemed to him to be staring into his face in the dark. 
 And now he could see something of her face, too — an 
 oval without features — and faintly distinguish her person, 
 in the blackness, a form without definite lines. 
 
 "You have a black dress here, haven't you, Lena?" 
 he asked, speaking rapidly, and so low that she could just 
 hear him. 
 
 "Yes — an old thing." 
 
 "Very good. Put it on at once," 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "Not for mourning!" There was something peremp- 
 tory in the slightly ironic murmur. "Can you find it and 
 get into it in the dark?" 
 
 She could. She would try. He waited, very still. He 
 could imagine her movements over there at the far end 
 of the room; but his eyes, accustomed now to the dark- 
 ness, had lost her completely. When she spoke, her voice 
 surprised him by its nearness. She had done what he had 
 told her to do, and had approached him, invisible. 
 
 "Good! Where's that piece of purple veil I've seen 
 lying about?" he asked. 
 
 There was no answer, only a slight rustle. 
 
 "Where is it?" he repeated impatiently. 
 
 Her unexpected breath was on his cheek. 
 
 "In my hands." 
 
 "Capital ! Listen, Lena. As soon as I leave the bungalow 
 with that horrible scoundrel, you slip out at the back — 
 instantly, lose no time ! — and run round into the forest. 
 That will be your time, while we are walking away, 
 and I am sure he won't give me the slip. Run into the 
 forest behind the fringe of bushes between the big trees. 
 You will know, surely, how to find a place in full view
 
 VICTORY 349 
 
 of the front door. I fear for you ; but in this black 
 dress, with most of your face mufHed up in that dark veil, 
 I defy anybody to find you there before daylight. Wait 
 in the forest till the table is pushed into full view of 
 the doorway, and you see three candles out of four blown 
 out and one relighted — or, should the lights be put out 
 here while you watch them, wait till three candles are 
 lighted and then two put out. At either of these signals 
 run back as hard as you can, for it will mean that I am 
 waiting for you here." 
 
 While he was speaking, the girl had sought and seized 
 one of his hands. She did not press it ; she held it loosely, 
 as it were timidly, caressingly. It was no grasp ; it was 
 a mere contact, as if only to make sure that he was there, 
 that he was real and no mere darker shadow in the ob- 
 scurity. The warmth of her hand gave Heyst a strange, 
 intimate sensation of all her person. He had to fight down 
 a new sort of emotion, which almost unmanned him. He 
 went on, whispering sternly : 
 
 "But if you see no such signals, don't let anything — ■ 
 fear, curiosity, despair, or hope — entice you back to this 
 house ; and with the first sign of the dawn steal away 
 along the edge of the clearing till you strike the path. 
 Wait no longer, because I shall probably be dead." 
 
 The murmur of the word "Never!" floated into his 
 ear as if it had formed itself in the air. 
 
 "You know the path," he continued. "Make your way 
 to the barricade. Go to Wang — yes, to Wang. Let nothing 
 stop you !" It seemed to him that the girl's hand trembled 
 a little. "The worst he can do to you is to shoot you ; 
 but he won't. I really think he won't, if I am not there. 
 Stay with the villagers, with the wild people, and fear 
 nothing. They will be more awed by you than you can be 
 frightened of them. Davidson's bound to turn up before 
 very long. Keep a look-out for a passing steamer. Think 
 of some sort of signal to call him."
 
 iSo VICTORY 
 
 She made no answer. The sense of the heavy, brooding 
 silence in the outside world seemed to enter and fill the 
 room — the oppressive infinity of it, without breath, 
 without light. It was as if the heart of hearts had ceased 
 to beat and the end of all things had come. 
 
 "Have you understood? You are to run out of the house 
 at once," Heyst whispered urgently. 
 
 She lifted his hand to her lips and let it go. He was 
 startled. 
 
 "Lena!" he cried out under his breath. 
 
 She was gone from his side. He dared not trust him- 
 self — no, not even to the extent of a tender word. 
 
 Turning to go out, he heard a thud somewhere in the 
 house. To open the door, he had first to lift the curtain: 
 he did so with his face over his shoulder. The merest 
 trickle of light, coming through the keyhole and one or 
 two cracks, was enough for his eyes to see her plainly, 
 all black, down on her knees, with her head and arms 
 flung on the foot of the bed — all black in the desolation 
 af a mourning sinner. What was this? A suspicion that 
 there were everywhere more things than he could un- 
 derstand crossed Heyst's mind. Her arm, detached from 
 the bed, motioned him away. He obeyed, and went out, 
 full of disquiet. 
 
 The curtain behind him had not ceased to tremble 
 when she was up on her feet, close against it, listening 
 for sounds, for words, in a stooping, tragic attitude of 
 stealthy attention, one hand clutching at her breast as if 
 to compress, to make less loud the beating of her heart. 
 Heyst had caught Mr. Jones's secretary in the contempla- 
 tion of his closed writing-desk. Ricardo might have been 
 meditating how to break into it ; but when he turned about 
 suddenly, he showed so distorted a face that it made 
 Heyst pause in wonder at the upturned whites of the 
 eyes, which were blinking horribly, as if the man were 
 inwardlv convulsed.
 
 VICTORY 35. 
 
 "I thought you were never coming," Ricardo mum- 
 bled. 
 
 "I didn't know you were pressed for time. Even if 
 your going away depends on this conversation, as you 
 say, I doubt if you are the men to put to sea on such a 
 night as this," said Heyst, motioning Ricardo to precede 
 him out of the house. 
 
 With feUne undulations of hip and shoulder, the secre- 
 tar}' left the room at once. There was something cruel 
 in the absolute dumbness of the night. The great cloud 
 covering half the sky hung right against one, like an 
 enormous curtain hiding menacing preparations of vio- 
 lence. As the feet of the two men touched the ground, 
 a rumble came from behind it, preceded by a swift. 
 mysterious gleam of light on the waters of the bay. 
 
 "Ha !" said Ricardo. "It begins." 
 
 "It may be nothing in the end," observed Heyst, step- 
 ping along steadily. 
 
 "No! Let it come!" Ricardo said viciously. "I am in 
 the humour for it!" 
 
 By the time the two men had reached the other bun- 
 galow, the far-off modulated rumble growled incessantly, 
 while pale lightning in waves of cold fire flooded and ran 
 off the island in rapid succession. Ricardo, unexpectedly, 
 dashed ahead up the steps and put his head through the 
 doorway. 
 
 "Here he is, governor! Keep him with you as long as 
 you can — till you hear me whistle. I am on the track." 
 
 He flung these words into the room with inconceivable 
 speed, and stood aside to let the visitor pass through the 
 doorway ; but he had to wait an appreciable moment, 
 because Heyst, seeing his purpose, had scornfully slowed 
 his pace. When Heyst entered the room it was with a 
 smile, the Heyst smile, lurking under his martial mous- 
 tache.
 
 XI 
 
 Two candles were burning on the stand-up desk. Mr. 
 Jones, tightly enfolded in an old but gorgeous blue silk 
 dressing-gown, kept his elbows close against his sides 
 and his hands deeply plunged into the extraordinarily 
 deep pockets of the garment. The costume accentuated his 
 emaciation. He resembled a painted pole leaning against 
 the edge of the desk, with a dried head of dubious dis- 
 tinction stuck on the top of it. Ricardo lounged in the 
 doorway. Indifferent, in appearance, to what was going 
 on, he was biding his time. At a given moment, between 
 two flickers of lightning, he melted out of his frame into 
 the outer air. His disappearance was observed on the in- 
 stant by Mr. Jones, who abandoned his nonchalant im- 
 mobility against the desk, and made a few steps calcu- 
 lated to put him between Heyst and the doorway. 
 
 "It's awfully close," he remarked. 
 
 Heyst, in the middle of the room, had made up his 
 mind to speak plainly. 
 
 "We haven't met to talk about the weather. You 
 favoured me earlier in the day with a rather cryptic 
 phrase about yourself. T am he that is,' you said. What 
 does that mean?" 
 
 Mr. Jones, without looking at Heyst, continued his 
 absent-minded movements till, attaining the desired posi- 
 tion, he brought his shoulders with a thump against the 
 wall near the door, and raised his head. In the emotion 
 of the decisive moment his haggard face glistened with 
 perspiration. Drops ran down his hollow cheeks and 
 almost blinded the spectral eyes in their bony caverns. 
 
 352
 
 VICTORY 353 
 
 "It means that I am a person to be reckoned with. No 
 — stop! Don't put your hand into your pocket — don't." 
 
 His voice had a wild, unexpected shrillness. Heyst 
 started, and there ensued a moment of suspended anima- 
 tion, during which the thunder's deep bass muttered dis- 
 tantly and the doorway to the right of Mr. Jones flickered 
 with bluish light. At last Heyst shrugged his shoulders ; 
 he even looked at his hand. He didn't put it in his pocket, 
 however. Mr. Jones, glued against the wall, watched him 
 raise both his hands to the ends of his horizontal mous- 
 taches, and answered the note of interrogation in his 
 steady eyes. 
 
 "A matter of prudence," said Mr, Jones in his natural 
 hollow tones, and with a face of deathlike composure. 
 "A man of your free life has surely perceived that. You 
 are a much talked-about man, Mr. Heyst — and though 
 as far as I understand, you are accustomed to employ 
 the subtler weapons of intelligence, still I can't aflford 
 to take any risks of the — er — grosser methods. I am not 
 unscrupulous enough to be a match for you in the use 
 of intelligence ; but I assure you, Mr, Heyst, that in the 
 other way you are no match for me. I have you covered 
 at this very moment. You have been covered ever since 
 you entered this room. Yes — from my pocket." 
 
 During this harangue Heyst looked deliberately over 
 his shoulder, stepped back a pace, and sat down on the 
 end of the camp bedstead. Leaning his elbow on ont 
 knee, he laid his cheek in the palm of his hand and seemed 
 to meditate on what he should say next, Mr, Jones, 
 planted against the wall, was obviously waiting for some 
 sort of overture. As nothing came, he resolved to speak 
 himself ; but he hesitated. For, though he considered that 
 the most difficult step had been taken, he said to himself 
 that every stage of progress required great caution, lest 
 the man, _in Ricardo's phraseology, should "start tc
 
 354 VICTORY 
 
 prance" — which would be most inconvenient. He fell 
 hack on a previous statement: 
 
 "And I am a person to be reckoned with." 
 
 The other man went on looking at the floor, as if he 
 were alone in the room. There was a pause. 
 
 "You have heard of me, then?" Heyst said at length, 
 looking up. 
 
 "I should think so! We have been staying at Schom- 
 berg's hotel." 
 
 "Schom " Heyst choked on the word. 
 
 "What's the matter, Mr. Heyst?" 
 
 "Nothing. Nausea," Heyst said resignedly. He re- 
 sumed his former attitude of meditative indifference. 
 "What is this reckoning you are talking about?" he 
 asked after a time, in the quietest possible tone. "I don't 
 Icnow you." 
 
 "It's obvious that we belong to the same — social 
 sphere," began Mr. Jones with languid irony. Inwardly 
 he was as watchful as he could be. "Something has driven 
 you out — the originality of your ideas, perhaps. Or your 
 tastes." 
 
 Mr. Jones indulged in one of his ghastly smiles. In 
 repose his features had a curious character of evil, ex- 
 hausted austerity ; but when he smiled, the whole mask 
 took on an unpleasantly infantile expression. A recru- 
 descence of the rolling thunder invaded the room loudly, 
 and passed into silence. 
 
 "You are not taking this very well," observed Mr. 
 Jones. This was what he said, but as a matter of fact he 
 thought that the business was shaping quite satisfactorily. 
 The man, he said to himself, had no stomach for a fight. 
 Aloud he continued: "Come! You can't expect to have 
 it always your own way. You are a man of the world." 
 
 "And you?" Heyst interrupted him unexpectedly. 
 "How do you define yourself?" 
 
 "1, my dear sir? In one way I am — ^yes, I am the
 
 VICTORY 35J 
 
 world itself, come to pay you a visit. In another sense 
 I am an outcast — almost an outlaw. If you prefer a less 
 materialistic view, I am a sort of fate — the retribution 
 that waits its time." 
 
 "I wish to goodness you were the commonest sort of 
 ruffian!" said Heyst, raising his equable gaze to Mr. 
 Jones. "One would be able to talk to you straight, then, 
 and hope for some humanity. As it is " 
 
 "I dislike violence and ferocity of every sort as much as 
 you do," Mr. Tones declared, looking very languid as he 
 leaned against the wall, but speaking fairly loud. "You can 
 ask my Martin if it is not so. This, Mr. Heyst, is a soft 
 age. It is also an age without prejudices. I've heard thai 
 you are free from them yourself. You mustn't be shocked 
 if I tell you plainly that we are after your money — or 
 I am, if you prefer to make me alone responsible. Pedro, 
 of course, knows no more of it than any other animal 
 would. Ricardo is of the faithful retainer class — ^abso- 
 lutely identified with all my ideas, wishes, and even 
 whims." 
 
 Mr. Jones pulled his left hand out of his pocket, got a 
 handkerchief out of another, and began to wipe the 
 perspiration from his forehead, neck and chin. The ex- 
 citement from which he suffered made his breathing 
 visible. In his long dressing-gown he had the air of a 
 convalescent invalid who had imprudently overtaxed his 
 strength. Heyst, broad-shouldered, robust, watched the 
 operation from the end of the camp bedstead, very calm, 
 his hands on his knees. 
 
 "And by the by," he asked, "where is he now, thaf 
 henchman of yours? Breaking into my desk?" 
 
 "That would be crude. Still, crudeness is one of life's 
 conditions." There was the slightest flavour of banter in 
 the tone of Ricardo's governor. "Conceivable, but un- 
 likely. Martin is a little crude; but you are not, Mr 
 Heyst. To tell you the truth, I don't know precise! >
 
 356 VICTORY 
 
 where he is. He has been a little mysterious of late ; but 
 he has my confidence. No, don't get up, Mr. Heyst!" 
 
 The viciousness of his spectral face was indescribable. 
 Heyst, who had moved a little, was surprised by the 
 tlisclosure. 
 
 "It was not my intention," he said. 
 
 "Pray remain seated," Mr. Jones insisted in a languid 
 voice, but with a very determined glitter in his black 
 eye-caverns. 
 
 "H you were more observant," said Heyst with dis- 
 passionate contempt, "you would have known before I 
 had been five minutes in the room that I had no weapon 
 of any sort on me." 
 
 "Possibly ; but pray keep your hands still. They are 
 very well where they are. This is too big an affair for me 
 to take any risks." 
 
 "Big? Too big?" Heyst repeated with genuine surprise. 
 "Good Heavens ! Whatever you are looking for, there's 
 very little of it here — very little of anything." 
 
 "You would naturally say so, but that's not what we 
 have heard," retorted Mr. Jones quickly, with a grin so 
 ghastly that it was impossible to think it voluntary. 
 
 Heyst's face had grown very gloomy. He knitted his 
 brows. 
 
 "What have you heard?" he asked. 
 
 "A lot, Mr. Heyst — a lot," affirmed Mr. Jones. He was 
 trying to recover his manner of languid superiority. "We 
 have heard, for instance, of a certain Mr. Morrison, once 
 your partner." 
 
 Pleyst could not repress a slight movement. 
 
 "Aha !" said Mr. Jones, with a sort of ghostly glee on 
 his face. 
 
 The mufifled thunder resembled the echo of a distant 
 cannonade below the horizon, and the two men seemed to 
 I'C listening to it in sullen silence.
 
 VICTORY 357 
 
 "This diabolical calumny will end in actually and liter- 
 ally taking my life from me," thought Heyst. 
 
 Then, suddenly, he laughed. Portentously spectral, Mr. 
 Jones frowned at the sound. 
 
 "Laugh as much as you please," he said. "I, who have 
 been hounded out from society by a lot of highly mora) 
 souls, can't see anything funny in that story. But here 
 we are, and you will now have to pay for your fun, Mr. 
 Heyst." 
 
 "You have heard a lot of ugly lies," observed Heyst. 
 "Take my word for it." 
 
 "You would say so, of course — very natural. As a 
 matter of fact, I haven't heard very much. Strictly speak- 
 ing, it was Martin. He collects information, and so on. 
 You don't suppose I would talk to that Schomberg animal 
 more than I could help ? It was Martin whom he took intc 
 his confidence." 
 
 "The stupidity of that creature is so great that it be 
 comes formidable," Hevst said, as if speaking to him- 
 self. 
 
 Involuntarily, his mind turned to the girl, wandering 
 in the forest, alone and terrified. Would he ever see her 
 again? At that thought he nearly lost his self-possession. 
 But the idea that if she followed his instructions those 
 men were not likely to find her, steadied him a little. 
 They did not know that the island had any inhabitants ; 
 and he himself once disposed of, they would be too anx- 
 ious to get away to waste time hunting for a vanished 
 girl. 
 
 All this passed through Heyst's mind in a flash, as 
 men think in moments of danger. He looked speculatively 
 at Mr. Jones, who, of course, had never for a momeni 
 taken his eyes from his intended victim. And the convic- 
 tion came to Heyst that this outlaw from the highei 
 spheres was an absolutely hard and pitiless scoundrel.
 
 55b VICTORY 
 
 Mr. Jones's voice made him start. 
 
 "It wouid be useless, for instance, to tell me that your 
 Chinaman has run off with your money. A man living 
 alone with a Chinaman on an island takes care to conceal 
 property of that kind so well that the devil himself " 
 
 "Certainly," Heyst muttered. 
 
 Again, with his left hand, Mr. Jones mopped his 
 frontal bone, his stalk-like neck, his razor jaws, his flesh- 
 less chin. Again his voice faltered and his aspect became 
 still more gruesomely malevolent, as of a wicked and 
 pitiless corpse. 
 
 "I see what you mean," he cried, "but you mustn't 
 put too much trust in your ingenuity. You don't strike 
 me as a very ingenious person, Mr. Heyst. Neither am T. 
 My talents lie another way. But Martin " 
 
 "Who is now engaged in rifling my desk," interjected 
 Heyst. 
 
 "I don't think so. What I was going to say is that 
 Martin is much cleverer than a Chinaman. Do you believe 
 in racial superiority, Mr. Heyst? I do, firmly. Martin is 
 great at ferreting out such secrets as yours, for instance." 
 
 "Secrets like mine!" repeated Heyst bitterly. "Well, 
 I wish him joy of all he can ferret out !" 
 
 "That's very kind of you," remarked Mr. Jones. He 
 was beginning to be anxious for Martin's return. Of 
 iron self-possession at the gaming-table, fearless in a 
 sudden affray, he found that this rather special kind of 
 work was telling on his nerves. "Keep still as you are!" 
 he cried sharply. 
 
 "I've told you I am not armed," said Heyst, folding 
 his arms on his breast. 
 
 "I am really inclined to believe that you are not," 
 admitted Mr. Jones seriously. "Strange!" he mused aloud, 
 the caverns of his eyes turned upon Heyst. Then briskly : 
 'But my object is to keep you in this room. Don't pro- 
 voke me. by some unguarded movement, to smash your
 
 VICTORY 359 
 
 knee or do something definite of that sort." He passed 
 his tongue over his Ups, which were dry and black, vvhile 
 his forehead ghstened with moisture. "I don't know if it 
 wouldn't be better to do it at once !" 
 
 \'He who deliberates is lost," said Heyst with grave 
 mockery. 
 
 Mr. Jones disregarded the remark. He had the air of 
 communing with himself. 
 
 "Physically I am no match for you," he said slowly, 
 his black gaze fixed upon the man sitting on the end of 
 the bed. ''You could spring " 
 
 "Are you trying to frighten yourself?" asked Heyst 
 abruptly. "You don't seem to have quite enough pluck 
 for your business. Why don't you do it at once?" 
 
 Mr. Jones, taking violent offence, snorted like a savage 
 skeleton. 
 
 "Strange as it may seem to you, it is because of my 
 origin, my breeding, my traditions, my early associations, 
 and such-like trifles. Not everybody can divest himself 
 of the prejudices of a gentleman as easily as you have 
 done, Mr. Heyst. But don't worry about my pluck. If 
 you were to make a clean spring at me, you would re- 
 ceive in mid air, so to speak, something that would makt 
 you perfectly harmless by the time you landed. No, don't 
 misapprehend us, Mr. Heyst. We are — er — adequate 
 bandits ; and we are after the fruit of your labours as a 
 — er — successful swindler, Ht s the way of the world — 
 gorge and disgorge !" 
 
 He leaned wearily the back of his head against the 
 wall. His vitality seemed exhausted. Even his sunken 
 eyelids drooped within the bon)- sockets. Only his thin, 
 waspish, beautifully pencilled eyebrows, drawn together 
 a little, suggested the will and the power to sting — some- 
 thir.g vicious, unconquerable, and deadly. 
 
 "Fruits! Swindler!" repeated Heyst, without heat, 
 almost without contempt. "You are giving yourself
 
 36o VICTORY 
 
 no end of trouble, you and your faithful henchman, to 
 crack an empty nut. There are no fruits here, as you 
 imagine. There are a few sovereigns, which you may 
 have if you like ; and since you have called yourself a 
 bandit " 
 
 "Yaas !" drawled Mr. Jones. "That, rather than a 
 swindler. Open warfare at least !" 
 
 "Very good ! Only let me tell you that there were never 
 in the world two more deluded bandits — never 1" 
 
 Heyst uttered these words with such energy that Mr. 
 Jones, stiffening up, seemed to become thinner and taller 
 in his metallic blue dressing-gown against the white- 
 washed wall. 
 
 "Fooled by a silly rascally innkeeper!" Heyst went on. 
 "Talked over like a pair of children with a promise of 
 sweets !" 
 
 "I didn't talk with that disgusting animal," muttered 
 Mr. Jones sullenly ; "but he convinced Martin, who is 
 no fool." 
 
 "I should think he wanted very much to be con- 
 vinced," said Heyst, with the courteous intonation so 
 well known in the islands. "I don't want to disturb your 
 touching trust in your — ^your follower, but he must be 
 the most credulous brigand in existence. What do you 
 imagine? If the story of my riches were ever so true, 
 do you think Schomberg would have imparted it to you 
 from sheer altruism? Is that the way of the world, Mr. 
 Jones?" 
 
 For a moment the lower jaw of Ricardo's gentleman 
 dropped ; but it came up with snap of scorn, and he said 
 with spectral intensity : 
 
 "The beast is cowardly ! He was frightened, and wanted 
 to get rid of us, if you want to know, Mr. Heyst. I don't 
 know that the material inducement was so very great, 
 but I was bored, and we decided to accept the bribe, 
 f don''' reeret it. All my life J have been seeking new
 
 VICTORY 36. 
 
 impressions, and you have turned out to be something 
 quite out of the common. Martin, of course, looks to the 
 material results. He's simple — and faithful — and won- 
 derfully acute." 
 
 "Ah, yes ! He's on the track" --and now Heyst's speech 
 had the character of politely grim raillery — "but not 
 sufficiently on the track, as yet, to make it quite convenient 
 to shoot me without more ado. Didn't Schomberg tell you 
 precisely where I conceal the fruit of my rapines? Pah! 
 Don't you know he would have lold you anything, true 
 or false, from a very clear motive? Revenge! Mad hate — • 
 tl'e unclean idiot !" 
 
 Mr. Jones did not seem very much moved. On his 
 right hand the doorway incessantly flickered with dis- 
 tant lightning, and the continuous rumble of thunder 
 went on irritatingly, like the growl of an inarticulate 
 giant muttering fatuously. 
 
 Heyst overcame his immense repugnance to allude 
 to her whose image, cowering in the forest, was con- 
 stantly before his eyes, with all the pathos and force of 
 its appeal, august, pitiful, and almost holy to him. It 
 was in a hurried, embarrassed manner that he went on : 
 
 "H it had not been for that girl whom he persecuted 
 with his insane and odious passion, and who threw her- 
 self on my protection, he would never have — but you 
 know well enough !" 
 
 "I doji't know!'' burst out Mr. Jones with amazing 
 heat. "That hotel-keeper tried to talk to me once of 
 some girl he had lost, but I told him I didn't want to 
 hear any of his beastly women stories. It had some- 
 thing to do with you, had it?" 
 
 Heyst looked on serenely at this outburst, then lost 
 his patience a little. 
 
 "What sort of comedy is this? You don't mean to say 
 that you didn't know that I had — that there was a girl 
 livinir with me here?"
 
 302 VICTORY 
 
 One could see that the eyes of Mr. Jones had become 
 fixed in the depths of their black holes by the gleam of 
 white becommg steady there. The whole man seemed 
 frozen still. 
 
 "Here! Here!" he screamed out twice. There was no 
 mistaking his astonishment, his shocked incredulity — 
 something like frightened disgust. 
 
 Heyst was disgusted also, but in another way. He too 
 was incredulous. He regretted having mentioned the girl ; 
 but the thing was done, his repugnance had been over- 
 come in the heat of his argument against the absurd 
 bandit. 
 
 "Is it possible that you didn't know of that significant 
 fact?" he inquired. "Of the only effective truth in the 
 welter of silly lies that deceived you so easily?" 
 
 "No, I didn't!" Mr. Jones shouted. "But Martin did!" 
 he added in a faint whisper, which Heyst's ears just 
 caught and no more. 
 
 "I kept her out of sight as long as I could," said Heyst. 
 "Perhaps, with your bringing up, traditions, and so on, 
 you will understand my reason for it." 
 
 "He knew. He knew before!" Mr. Jones mourned in 
 a hollow voice. "He knew of her from the first!" 
 
 Backed hard against the wall, he no longer watched 
 Heyst. He had the air of a man who had seen an abyss 
 yawning under his feet. 
 
 "li I want to kill him, this is my time," thought Heyst; 
 but he did not move. 
 
 Next moment Mr. Jones jerked his head up, glaring 
 with sardonic fury. 
 
 "I have a good mind to shoot you, you woman-ridden 
 hermit, you man in the moon, that can't exist without — 
 no, it won't be you that I'll shoot. It's the other woman- 
 lover — the prevaricating, sly, low-class, amorous cuss! 
 And he shaved — .shaved under my very nose. I'll shoot 
 him!"
 
 VICTORY 363 
 
 "He's gone mad," thought Heyst, startled by the 
 spectre's sudden fury. 
 
 He felt himself more in danger, nearer death, than 
 ever since he had entered that room. An insane bandit 
 is a deadly combination. He did not, could not know 
 that Mr. Jones was quick-minded enough to see already 
 the end of his reign over his excellent secretary's 
 thoughts and feelings ; the coming failure of Ricardo's 
 fidelity. A woman had intervened ! A woman, a girl, who 
 apparently possessed the power to awaken men's dis- 
 gusting folly. Her power had been proved in two instances 
 already — the beastly innkeeper, and that man with 
 moustaches, upon whom Mr. Jones, his deadly right hand 
 twitching in his pocket, glared more in repulsion than in 
 anger. The very ooject of the expedition was lost from 
 view in his sudden and overwhelming sense of utter 
 insecurity. And this made Mr. Jones feel very savage; 
 but not against the man with the moustaches. Thus, while 
 Heyst was really feeling that his life was not worth two 
 minutes' purchase, he heard himself addressed with no 
 aflfectation of languid impertinence, but with a burst of 
 feverish determination. 
 
 "Here! Let's call a truce!" said Mr. Jones. 
 
 Heyst's heart was too sick to allow him to smile. 
 
 "Have I been making war on you?" he asked wearily. 
 "How do you expect me to attach any meaninsr to your 
 words?" he went on. "You seem to be a morbid, sense- 
 less sort of bandit. We don't speak the same language. 
 If I were to tell you whyT am here, talking to you, you 
 wouldn't believe me, because you would not understand 
 me. It certainly isn't the love of life, from which I 
 have divorced myself long ago — not sufficiently, perhaps; 
 but if you are thinking of yours, then I repeat to you 
 that it has never been in danger from me. I am un- 
 armed." 
 
 Mr. Jones was biting his lower lip, in a deep medita-
 
 364 VICTOR\ 
 
 tion. It was only toward the last that he looked at Heyst. 
 
 "Unarmed, eh?" Then he burst out violently: "I tell 
 you, a gentleman is no match for the common herd. And 
 yet one must make use of the brutes. Unarmed, eh? And 
 I suppose that creature is of the commonest sort. You 
 could hardly have got her out of a drawing-room. Though 
 they're all alike, for that matter. Unarmed! It's a pity. 
 I am in much greater danger than you are, or were — 
 or I am much mistaken. But I am not — I know my man !" 
 
 He lost his air of mental vacancy and broke out into 
 shrill exclamations. To Heyst they seemed madder than 
 anything that had gone before. 
 
 "On the track! On the scent!" he cried, forgetting 
 himself to the point of executing a dance of rage in the 
 middle of the floor. 
 
 Heyst looked on, fascinated by this skeleton in a gay 
 dressing-gown, jerkily agitated like a grotesque toy on 
 \he end of an invisible string. It became quiet suddenly. 
 
 "I might have smelt a rat! I always knew that this 
 .would be the danger." He changed suddenly to a confi- 
 dential tone, fixing his sepulchral stare on Heyst. "And 
 yet here I am, taken in by the fellow, like the veriest 
 fool. I've been always on the watch for some such beastly 
 influence, but here I am, fairly caught. He shaved himself 
 right in front of me — and I never guessed I" 
 
 The shrill laugh, following on the low tone of secrecy, 
 sounded so convincingly insane that Heyst got up as if 
 moved by a spring. Mr. Jones stepped back two paces, 
 but displayed no uneasiness. 
 
 "It's as clear as daylight!" he uttered mournfully, and 
 fell silent. 
 
 Behind him the doorway flickered lividly, and the 
 sound as of a naval action somewhere away on the horizon 
 filled the breathless pause. Mr. Jones inclined his head 
 on his shoulder. His mood had completely changed. 
 
 "What do you say, unarmed man? Shall we go and
 
 VICTORY 365 
 
 see what is detaining my trusted Martin so long? He 
 asked me to keep you engaged in friendly conversation 
 till he made a further examination of that track. Ha, ha, 
 ha!" 
 
 "He is no doubt ransacking my house," said Heyst. 
 
 He was bewildered. It seemed to him that all this was 
 an incomprehensible dream, or perhaps an elaborate 
 other- world joke, contrived by that spectre in a gorgeous- 
 dressing-gown. 
 
 Mr. Jones looked at him with a horrible, cadaverous 
 smile of inscrutable mockery, and pointed to the door. 
 Heyst passed through it first. His feelings had become 
 so blunted that he did not care how soon he was shot in 
 the back. 
 
 "How oppressive the air is!" the voice of Mr. Jones 
 said at his elbow. "This stupid storm gets on my nerves. 
 I would welcome some rain, though it would be un- 
 pleasant to get wet. On the other hand, this exasperating 
 thunder has the advantage of covering the sound of our 
 approach. The lightning's not so convenient. Ah, your 
 house is fully illuminated ! My clever Martin is punish- 
 ing your stock of candles. He belongs to the uncere- 
 monious classes, which are also unlovely, untrustworthy, 
 and so on." 
 
 "I left the candles burning," said Heyst, "to save him 
 trouble." 
 
 "You really believed he would go to your house?" asked 
 Mr. Jones with genuine interest. 
 
 "I had that notion, strongly. I do believe he is there 
 now." 
 
 "And you don't mind?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "You don't?" Mr. Jones stopped to wonder. "You are 
 an extraordinary man," he said suspiciously, and nK)ved 
 on, touching elbows with Heyst. 
 
 In the latter's breast dwelt a deep silence, the com'
 
 366 VICTORY 
 
 plet^ nilence of unused faculties. At this moment, by 
 simply shouldering Mr. Jones, he could have thrown him 
 down and put himself by a couple of leaps beyond the 
 certain aun of the revolver; but he did not even think 
 of that. His very will seemed dead of weariness. He 
 moved antcmatically, his head low, like a prisoner cap- 
 tured by the evil power of a masquerading skeleton out 
 of a grave. Mr. Jones took charge of the direction. They 
 fetched a wide sweep. The echoes of distant thunder 
 seemed to dog their footsteps. 
 
 "By the by," said Mr. Jones, as if unable to restrain 
 lu\ curiosity, "aren't you anxious about that — ouch! — 
 that fascinating creature to whom you owe whatever 
 7^'*^.sure you can find in our visit?" 
 
 "I have placed her in safety," said Heyst. "I — I took 
 l^ood care of that." 
 
 Mr. Jones laid a hand on his arm. 
 
 "You have ? Look ! Is that what you mean ?" 
 
 Heyst raised his head. In the flicker of lightning the 
 desolation of the cleared ground on his left leaped out 
 and sank into the night, together with the elusive forms 
 of things distant, pale, unearthly. But in the brilliant 
 square of the door he saw the girl — the woman he had 
 longed to see once more — as if enthroned, with her hands 
 on the arms of the chair. She was in black ; her face was 
 white, her head dreamily inclined on her breast. He saw 
 her only as low as her knees. He saw her — there, in the 
 room, alive with a sombre reality. It was no mocking 
 vision. She was not in the forest — but there ! She sat there 
 in the chair, seemingly without strength, yet without 
 fear, tenderly stooping. 
 
 "Can you understand their power?" whispered the 
 Viot breath of Mr. Jones into his ear. "Can there be a 
 Tiore disgusting spectacle? It's enough to make the earth 
 detestable. She seems to have found her affinity. Move
 
 VICTORY 367 
 
 on closer. If I have to shoot you in the end, then perhaps 
 you will die cured." 
 
 Heyst obeyed the pushing pressure of a revolver barrel 
 between his shoulders. He felt it distinctly, but he did not 
 feel the ground under his feet. They found the steps, 
 without his being aware that he was ascending them — 
 slowly, one by one. Doubt entered into him — a doubt of 
 a new kind, formless, hideous. It seemed to spread itself 
 all over him, enter his limbs, and lodge in his entrails. 
 He stopped suddenly, with a thought that he who experi- 
 enced such a feeling had no business to live — or perhaps 
 was no longer living. 
 
 Everything — the bungalow, the forest, the open ground 
 — trembled incessantly; the earth, the sky itself, shiv- 
 ered all the time, and the only thing immovable in the 
 shuddering universe was the interior of the lighted room 
 and the woman in black sitting in the light of the eight 
 candle-flames. They flung around her an intolerable 
 brilliance which hurt his eyes, seemed to sear his very 
 brain with the radiation of infernal heat. It was some 
 time before his scorched eyes made out Ricardo seated on 
 the floor at some little distance, his back to the doorway, 
 but only partly so ; one side of his upturned face showing 
 the absorbed, all-forgetful rapture of his contemplation. 
 
 The grip o^ Mr. Jones's hard claw drew Heyst back a 
 little. In the roll of thunder, swelling and subsiding, he 
 whispered in his ear a sarcastic: "Of course!" 
 
 A great shame descended upon Heyst — ^the shame of 
 guilt, absurd and maddening. Mr. Jones drew him still 
 farther back into the darkness of the verandah. 
 
 "This is "serious," he went on, distilling his ghostly 
 venom into Heyst's very ear, "I had to shut my eyes 
 many times to his little flings ; but this is serious. He 
 has found his soul-mate. Mud souls, obscene and cun- 
 ning! Mud bodies, too — the mud of the gutter! I tell 
 YOU, we are no match for the vile populace. I, even I
 
 368 VICTORY 
 
 have been nearly caught. He asked me to detain you till 
 he gave me the signal. It won't be you that I'll have to 
 shoot, but him. I wouldn't trust him near me for five 
 minutes after this!" 
 
 He shook Heyst's arm a trifle. 
 
 "If you had not happened to mention the creature, 
 we should both have been dead before morning. He 
 would have stabbed you as you came down the steps 
 nfter leaving me, and then he would have walked up to 
 me and planted the same knife between my ribs. He 
 has no prejudices. The viler the origin, the greater the 
 freedom of these simple souls !" 
 
 He drew a cautious, hissing breath and added in an 
 agitated murmur : "I can see right into his mind ; I have 
 been nearly caught napping by his cunning." 
 
 He stretched his neck to peer into the room from the 
 side. Heyst, too, made a step forward, under the slight 
 impulse of that slender hand clasping his arm with a 
 thin, bony grasp. 
 
 "Behold!" the skeleton of the crazy bandit jabbered 
 thinly into his ear in spectral fellowship, "Behold the 
 simple Acis kissing the sandals of the nymph, on the way 
 to her lips, all forgetful, while the menacing fife of Poly- 
 phemus already sounds close at hand — if he could only 
 hear it! Stocp a little."
 
 XII 
 
 On returning to the Keyst bungalow, rapid as if on 
 wings, Ricardo found Lena waiting for him. She was 
 dressed in black; and at once his uplifting exultation 
 was replaced by an awed and quivering patience before 
 her white face, before the immobility of her reposeful 
 pose, the more amazing to him who had encountered the 
 strength of her limbs and the indomitable spirit in her 
 body. She had come out after Heyst's departure and 
 had sat down under the portrait to wait for the return 
 of the man of violence and death. While lifting the 
 curtain, she felt the anguish of her disobedience to her 
 lover, which was soothed by a feeling she had known 
 before — a gentle flood of penetrating sweetness. She was 
 not automatically obeying a momentary suggestion; she 
 was under influences more deliberate, more vague, and 
 of greater potency. She had been prompted, not by her 
 will, but by a force that was outside of her and more 
 worthy. She reckoned upon nothing definite ; she had 
 calculated nothing. She saw only her purpose of captur- 
 ing death — savage, sudden, irresponsible death, prowling 
 round the man who possessed her ; death embodied in the 
 knife ready to strike into his heart. No doubt it had been 
 a sin to throw herself into his arms. With that inspiration 
 that descends at times from above for the good or evil 
 of our common mediocrity, she had a sense of having been 
 for him only a violent and sincere choice of curiosity 
 and pity — a thing that passes. She did not know him. If 
 he were to go away from her and disappear, she would 
 :itter no reproach, she would not resent it ; for sh t would 
 
 369
 
 372 
 
 VICTORY 
 
 "For you! For you I will throw away money, lives 
 — all the lives but mine ! What you want is a man, a 
 master that will let you put the heel of your shoe on his 
 neck ; not that skulker, who will get tired of you in a 
 year — and you of him. And then what? You are not the 
 one to sit still; neither am I. I live for myself, and you 
 shall live for yourself, too — not for a Swedish baron. 
 They make a convenience of people like you and me. A 
 gentleman is better than an employer, but an equal part- 
 nership against all the 'yporcrits is the thing for you and 
 me. We'll go on wandering the world over, you and I, 
 both free and both true. You are no cage bird. We'll 
 rove together, for we are of them that have no homes. 
 We are boin rovers !" 
 
 She listened to him with the utmost attention, as if 
 any unexpected word might give her some sort of open- 
 ing to get that dagger, that awful knife — to disarm mur- 
 der itself, pleading for her love at her feet. Again she 
 nodded at him thoughtfully, rousing a gleam in his yellow 
 eyes, yearning devotedly upon her face. When he hitched 
 himself a little closer, her soul had no movement of re- 
 coil. This had to be. Anything had to be which would 
 bring the knife within her reach. He talked more confi- 
 dentially now. 
 
 "We have met, and their time has come," he began, 
 looking up into her eyes. "The partnership between me 
 and my gentleman has to be ripped up. There's no room 
 for him where we two are. Why, he would shoot me like 
 a dog ! Don't you worry. This will settle it not later than 
 to-night !" 
 
 He tapped his tolded leg below tiie knee, and was sur- 
 prised, flattered, by the lighting up of her face, which 
 stooped towards him eagerly and remained expectan", 
 the lips girlishly parted, red in the pale face, and quiver- 
 ing in the quickened drawing of her breath. 
 
 "You marvel, you miracle, you man's luck and joy
 
 VICTORY 373 
 
 — one in a million! No, the only one. You have found 
 your man in me," he whispered tremulously. "Listen I 
 They are having their last talk together; for I'll do for 
 your gentleman, too, by midnight!" 
 
 Without the slightest tremor she murmured, as soon 
 as the tightening of her breast had eased off and the 
 words would come : 
 
 "I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry — with him." 
 
 The pause, the tone, had all the value of meditated 
 advice. 
 
 "Good, thrifty girl!" he laughed low, with a strange 
 feline gaiety, expressed by the undulating movement of 
 his shoulders and the sparkling snap of his oblique eyes. 
 "You are still thinking about the chance of that swag. 
 You'll make a good partner, that you will! And, I say, 
 what a decoy you will make ! Jee-miny !" 
 
 He was carried away for a moment, but his face dark- 
 ened swiftly. 
 
 "No! No reprieve. What do you think a fellow is — 
 a scarecrow ? All hat and clothes and no feeling, no inside, 
 no brain to make fancies for himself? No!" he went 
 on violently. "Never in his life will he go again into 
 that room of yours — never any more!" 
 
 A silence fell. He was gloomy with the torment of his 
 jealousy, and did not even look at her. She sat up and 
 slowly, gradually, bent lower and lower over him, as if 
 ready to fall into his arms. He looked up at last, and 
 checked this droop unwittingly. 
 
 "Say ! You, who are up to fighting a man with your 
 bare hands, could you — eh? — could you manage to stick 
 one with a thing like that knife of mine?" 
 
 She opened her eyes very wide and gave him a wild 
 smile. 
 
 "How can I tell?" she whispered enchantingly. "Will 
 you let me have a look at it?" 
 
 Without taking his eyes from her face, he pulled the
 
 374 VICTORY 
 
 knife out of its sheath — a short, broad, cruel, double- 
 edged blade with a bone handle — and only then looked 
 down at it. 
 
 "A good friend," he said simply. "Take it in your hand 
 and feel the balance," he suggested. 
 
 At the moment when she bent forward to receive it 
 from him, there was a flash of tire in her mysterious 
 eyes — a red gleam in the white mist which wrapped tlie 
 promptings and longings of her soul. She had done it ! 
 The very sting of death was in her hands ; the venom 
 of the viper in her paradise, extracted, safe in her posses- 
 sion — and the viper's head all but lying under her heel. 
 Ricardo, stretched on the mats of the floor, crept closer 
 and closer to the chair in which she sat. 
 
 All her thoughts were busy planning how to keep 
 possession of that weapon which had seemed to have 
 drawn into itself every danger and menace on the death- 
 ridden earth. She said with a low laugh, the exultation 
 in which he failed to recognize : 
 
 "I didn't think that you would ever trust me with that 
 thing!" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "For fear I should suddenly strike you with it." 
 
 "What for? For this morning's work? Oh, no! There's 
 no spite in you for that. You forgave me. You saved 
 me. You got the better of me, too. And anyhow, what 
 good would it be?" 
 
 "No, no good,'' she admitted. 
 
 In her heart she felt that she would not know how to 
 do it; that if it came to a struggle, she would have to 
 drop the dagger and fight with her hai:ds. 
 
 "Listen. When we are going about the world together, 
 you shall always call me husband. Do you hear?" 
 
 "Yes," she said, bracing herself for the contest, in 
 tvhatever shape it was coming. 
 
 The knife was lying in her lap. She let it slip into the
 
 VICTORY 37S 
 
 fold of her dress, and laid her forearms with clasped fin- 
 gers over her knees, which she pressed desperately to- 
 gether. The dreaded thing was out of sight at last. She 
 felt a dampness break out all over her. 
 
 "I am not going to hide you, like that good-for-nothing, 
 finicky, sneery gentleman. You shall be my pride and my 
 chum. Isn't that better than rotting on an island for the 
 pleasure of a gentleman, till he gives you the chuck?" 
 
 "I'll be anything you like," she said. 
 
 In his intoxication he crept closer with every word 
 she uttered, with every movement she made. 
 
 "Give your foot," he begged in a timid murmur, and 
 in the full consciousness of his power. 
 
 Anything! Anything to keep murder quiet and dis- 
 armed till strength had returned to her limbs and she 
 could make up her mind what to do. Her fortitude had 
 been shaken by the very facility cf success that had come 
 to her. She advanced her foot forward a little from under 
 the hem of her skirt ; and he threw himself on it greedily. 
 She was not even aware of him. She had thought of the 
 forest, to which she had been told to run. Yes, the forest 
 — that was the place for her to carry off the terrible spoil, 
 the sting of vanquished death. Ricardo, clasping her 
 ankle, pressed his lips time after time to the instep 
 muttering gasping words that were like sobs, making little 
 noises that resembled the sounds of grief and distress. 
 Unheard by them both, the thunder growled distantly 
 with angry modulations of its tremendous voice, while 
 the world outside shuddered incessantly around the dead 
 stillness of the room where the framed profile of Heyst's 
 father looked severely into space. 
 
 Suddenly Ricardo felt himself spurned by the foot he 
 had been cherishing — spurned with a push of such vio- 
 lence into the very hollow of his throat that it swung 
 him back instantly into an upright position on his knees 
 He read his danger in the stony eyes of the girl ; anc'
 
 376 VICTORY 
 
 in the very act of leaping to his feet he heard sharply, 
 detached on the comminatory voice of the storm, the 
 brief report of a shot which half stunned him, in the 
 manner of a blow. He turned his burning head, and saw 
 Heyst towering in the doorway. The thought that the 
 beggar had started to prance darted through his mind. For 
 a fraction of a second his distracted eyes sought for his 
 weapon all over the floor. He couldn't see it. 
 
 "Stick him, you !" he called hoarsely to the girl, and 
 dashed headlong for the door of the compound. 
 
 While he thus obeyed the instinct of self-preservation, 
 his reason was telling him that he could not possibly 
 reach it alive. It flew open, however, with a crash, be- 
 fore his launched weight, and instantly he swung it to 
 behind him. There, his shoulder leaning against it, his 
 hands clinging to the handle, dazed and alone in the night 
 full of shudders and muttered menaces, he tried to pull 
 himself together. He asked himself if he had been shot 
 at more than once. His shoulder was wet with the blood 
 trickling from his head. Feeling above his ear, he ascer- 
 tained that it was only a graze, but the shock of the sur- 
 prise had unmanned him for the moment. 
 
 What the deuce was the governor about, to let the 
 beggar break loose like this? Or — was the governor dead, 
 perhaps ? 
 
 The silence within the room awed him. Of going back 
 there could be no question. 
 
 "But she knows how to take care of herself,'' he 
 muttered. 
 
 She had his knife. It was she now who was deadly, 
 while he was disarmed, no good for the moment. He 
 stole away from the door, staggering, the warm trickle 
 running down his neck, to find out what had become of 
 the governor and to provide himself with a firearm from 
 *.he armoury in the trunks.
 
 XIII 
 
 Mr. Jones, after firing his shot over Heyst's shoulder, 
 had thought it proper to dodge away. Like the spectre he 
 was, he had noiselessly vanished from the verandah. Heysl 
 stumbled into the room and looked around. All the objects 
 in there — the books, the gleam of old silver familiar to 
 him from boyhood, the very portrait on the wall — seemed 
 shadowy, unsubstantial, the dumb accomplices of an amaz- 
 ing dream-plot ending in ijn illusory effect of awakening 
 and the impossibility of ever closing his eyes again. With 
 dread he forced himself to look at the girl. Still in the 
 chair, she was leaning forward far over her knees, and had 
 hidden her face in her hands. Heyst remembered Wang 
 suddenly. How clear all this was — and how extremely 
 amusing! Ven/. 
 
 She sat up a little, then leaned back, and taking her 
 hands from her face, pressed both of them to her breast, 
 as if moved to the heart by seeing him there looking at 
 her with a black, horror-struck curiosity. He would have 
 pitied her, if the triumphant expression of her face had 
 not given him a shock which destroyed the balance of his 
 feelings. She spoke with an accent of wild joy: 
 
 "I knew you would come back in time ! You are safe 
 now. I have done it ! I would never, never have let him 
 
 " Her -^oice died out, while her eyes shone at him as 
 
 when the sun breaks through a mist. "Never get it back. 
 Oh, my beloved !" 
 
 He bowed his head gravely, and said in his polite, 
 Heystian tone : 
 
 "No doubt you acted from instinct. Women have been 
 provided with their own weapon. 1 was a disarmed man 
 
 J77
 
 j^a' VICTORY 
 
 4- 
 
 I have been a disarmed man all my life as I see it now. 
 You may glory in your resourcefulness and your pro- 
 found knowledge of yourself ; but I may say that the other 
 attitude, suggestive of shame, had its charm. For you art 
 tull of charm!" 
 
 The exultation vanished from her face. 
 
 "You mustn't make fun of me now. I know no shame. 
 I was thanking God with all my sinful heart for having 
 been able to do it — for giving you to me in that way — oh, 
 my beloved — all my own at last!" 
 
 lie stared as if mad. Timidly she tried to excuse herself 
 for disobeying his directions for her safety. Every modu- 
 lation of her enchanting voice cut deep into his very 
 breast, so that he could hardly understand the words for 
 the sheer pain of it. He turned his back on her ; but a 
 sudden drop, an extraordinary faltering of her tone, made 
 him spin round. On her white neck her pale head dropped 
 as in a cruel drought a withered flower droops on its 
 stalk. He caught his breath, looked at her closely, and 
 seemed to read some awful intelligence in her eyes. At the 
 moment when her eyelids fell as if smitten from above by 
 an invisible power, he snatched her up bodily out of the 
 chair, and disregarding an unexpected metallic clatter on 
 the floor, carried her off into the other room. The limpness 
 of her body frightened him. Laying her down on the bed, 
 he ran out again, seized a four-branched candlestick on 
 the table, and raa back, tearing down with a furious jerk 
 the curtain that swung stupidly in his way ; but after 
 putting the candlestick on the table by the bed, he re- 
 mained absolutely idle. There did not seem anything more 
 for him to do. Holding his chin in his hand, he looked 
 down intently at her still face. 
 
 "Has she been stabbed with this thing?" asked David- 
 son, whom suddenly he saw standing by his side and hold- 
 ing up Ricardo's dagger to his sight. Heyst uttered no 
 A^ord of recognition or surprise. He gave Davidson only a
 
 VICTORY 379 
 
 dumb look of unutterable awe ; then, as if possessed with 
 a sudden fury, started tearing open the f/ont of the girl's 
 dress. She remained insensible under his hands, and Heyst 
 let out a groan which made Davidson shudder inwardly — 
 the heavy plaint of a man who falls clubbed in the dark. 
 
 They stood side by side, looking mournfully at the little 
 black hole made by Mr. Jones's bullet under the swelling 
 breast of a dazzling and as it were sacred whiteness. It 
 rose and fell slightly — so slightly that only the eyes of the 
 lover could detect the faint stir of life. Heyst, calm and 
 utterly unlike himself in the face, moving about noise- 
 lessly, prepared a wet cloth, and laid it on the insignificant 
 wound, round which there was hardly a trace of blood to 
 mar the charm, the fascination, of that mortal flesh. 
 
 Her eyelids fluttered. She looked drowsily about, serene, 
 as if fatigued only by the exertions of her tremendous 
 victory, capturing the very sting of death in the service 
 of love. But her eyes became very wide awake when they 
 caught sight of Ricardo's dagger, the spoil of vanquished 
 death, which Davidson was still holding unconsciously. 
 
 "Give it to me !" she said. "It's mine." 
 
 Davidson put the symbol of her victory into her feebie 
 hands extended to him with the innocent gesture of a 
 child reaching eagerly for a toy. 
 
 "For you," she gasped, turnir.g her eyes to Heyst. "Kill 
 nobody." 
 
 "No," said Heyst, taking the dagger and laying it gently 
 on her breast, while her hands fell powerless by her side. 
 
 The faint smile on her deep-cut lips waned, and her 
 head sank deep into the pillow, taking on the majestic 
 pallor and immobility of marble. But over the muscles, 
 which seemed set in their transfigured beauty for ever, 
 passed a slight and awful tremor. With an amazing; 
 strength she asked loudly: 
 
 "What's the matter with me?" 
 
 "You have been shot, dear Lena," Heyst said in a
 
 38o VICTORY 
 
 Steady voice, while Davidson, at the question, turned away 
 and leaned his forehead against the post of the foot of 
 the bed. 
 
 "Shot? I did think, too, that something had struck me." 
 
 Over Samburan the thunder had ceased to growl at 
 last, and the world of material forms shuddered no more 
 undsr the emerging stars. The spirit of the girl which was 
 passing away from under them clung to her triumph, con- 
 vinced of the reality of her victory over death. 
 
 "No more," she muttered. "There will be no more! 0'\ 
 my beloved," she cried weakly, "I've saved you! Why 
 don't you take me into your arms and carry me out of 
 this lonely place ?" 
 
 Heyst bent low over her, cursing his fastidious soul, 
 which even at that moment kept the true cry of love 
 from his lips in its infernal mistrust of all life. He dared 
 not touch her, and she had no longer the strength to throw 
 her arms about his neck. 
 
 "Who else could have done this for you?" she whispered 
 gloriously. 
 
 "No one in the world," he answered her in a murmur 
 of unconcealed despair. 
 
 She tried to raise herself, but all she could do was to 
 lift her head a little from the pillow. With a terrified and 
 gentle movement, Heyst hastened to slip his arm under 
 her neck. She felt relieved at once of an intolerable weight, 
 and was content to surrender to him the infinite weariness 
 of her tremendous achievement. Exulting, she saw herself 
 extended on the bed, in a black dress, and profoundly at 
 peace ; while, stooping over her wiuh a kindly, playful 
 smile, he was ready to lift her up in his firm arms and 
 take here into the sanctuary of his innermost heart — for 
 ever ! The flush of rapture flooding her whole being broke 
 out in a smile of innocent, girlish happiness ; and with that 
 divine radiance on her lips she breathed her last, trium- 
 phant, seeking for his glance in the shades of death.
 
 XIV 
 
 **Yks, Excellenc>'," said DaA-idson in his placid voice: 
 "there are more dead in this affair — more white people, I 
 mean — than have been killed in many of the battles of the 
 last Achin •vs-ar." 
 
 Da\ndson was talking with an Excellency, because what 
 ift-as alluded to in conversation as "the mystery of Sam- 
 buran" had caused such a sensation in the Archipelago 
 that even those in the highest spheres were anxious to hear 
 something at first hand. DaA-idson had been summoned to 
 an audience. It was a high official on his tour. 
 
 "You knew the late Baron He\-st well?" 
 
 "The truth is that nobody out here can boast of ha\-ing 
 known him well," said Da\'idson. "He was a queer chap. 
 I doubt if he himself knew how queer he \^*as. But every- 
 body was aware that I was keeping my eye on him in a 
 friendly way. And that's how I got the \\-aming wliich 
 made me turn round in my tracks in the middle of my 
 trip and steam back to Samburan. where. I am grieved to 
 say, I arrived too late." 
 
 Without enlarging ven.- much. Davidson explained to 
 the attentive Excellency how a woman, the wife of a cer- 
 tain hotel-keeper named Schomberg, had overheard two 
 card-sharping rascals making inquiries from her husband 
 as to the exact position of tlie island. She caught only a 
 few words referring to the neighbouring volcano, but these 
 were enough to arouse her suspicions — "which." went on 
 Davidson, "she imparted to me. your Excellency. They 
 were only too well founded !"
 
 382 VICTORY 
 
 "That was very clever of her," remarked the great man. 
 
 "She's much cleverer than people have any conception 
 of," said Davidson. 
 
 But he refrained from disclosing to the Excellency the 
 real cause which had sharpened Mrs. Schomberg's wits. 
 The poor woman was in mortal terror of the girl being 
 brought back within reach of her infatuated Wilhelm. 
 Davidson only said that her agitation had impressed him ; 
 but ne confessed that while going back, he began to have 
 his doubts as to their being anything in it. 
 
 "I steamed into one of those silly thunderstorms that 
 hang about the volcano, and had some trouble in making 
 the island," narrated Davidson. "I had to grope my way 
 dead slow into Diamond Bay. I don't suppose that any- 
 body, even if looking out for me, could have heard me let 
 go the anchor." 
 
 He admitted that he ought to have gone ashore at once ; 
 but everything was perfectly dark and absolutely quiet. 
 He felt ashamed of his impulsiveness. What a fool he 
 would have looked, waking up a man w the middle of the 
 night just to ask him if he was all right ! And then, the 
 girl being there, he feared that Heyst would look upon 
 his visit as an unwarrantable intrusion. 
 
 The first intimation he had of there being something 
 wrong was a big white boat, adrift with the dead body 
 of a very hairy man inside, bumping against the bows of 
 his steamer. Then indeed he lost no time in going ashore 
 — alone, of course, from motives of delicacy. 
 
 "I arrived in time to see that poor girl die, as I have 
 told your Excellency," pursued Davidson. "I won't tell 
 you what a time I had with him afterwards. He talked to 
 me. His father seems to have been a crank, and to have 
 upset his head when he was young. He was a queer chap. 
 Practically the last words he said to me, as we came out 
 on the verandah, were :
 
 VICTORY 3«s 
 
 " *Ah, Davidson, woe to the man whose heart has not 
 learned while young to hope, to love — and to put its trust 
 in Hfe!' 
 
 "As we stood there, just before I left him, for he said 
 he wanted to be alone with his dead for a time, we heard 
 a snarly sort of voice near the bushes by the shore calling 
 out: 
 
 " 'Is that you, governor?' 
 
 " 'Yes, it's me.' 
 
 " 'Jeeminy ! I thought the beggar had done for you. He 
 has started prancing and nearly had me. I have been 
 dodging around, looking for you ever since.' 
 
 ** 'Well, here I am,' suddenly screamed the other voice, 
 and then a shot rang out. 
 
 " 'This time he has not missed him,' Heyst said to me 
 bitterly, and went back into the house. 
 
 "I returned on board as he had insisted I should do. I 
 didn't want to intrude on his grief. Later, about five in the 
 morning, some of my calashes came running to me, yelling 
 that there was a fire ashore. I landed at once, of course. 
 The principal bungalow was blazing. The heat drove us 
 back. The other two houses caught one after another like 
 kindling-wood. There was no going beyond the shore end 
 of the jetty till the afternoon." 
 
 Davidson sighed placidly. 
 
 "I suppose you are certain that Baron Heyst is 
 dead ?" 
 
 "He is — ashes, your Excellency," said Davidson, wheel 
 ing a little ; "he and the girl together. I suppose he 
 couldn't stand his thoughts before her dead body — and fire 
 purifies everything. That Chinaman of whom I told youi 
 Excellency helped me to investigate next day, when the 
 embers got cooled a little. We found enough to be sure. 
 He's not a bad Chinaman. He told me that he had fol 
 Inwrd Heyst and the girl through the forest from pity
 
 384 VICTORY 
 
 and partly out of curiosity. He watched the house till he 
 saw Heyst go out, after dinner, and Ricardo come back 
 alone. While he was dodging there, it occurred to him 
 that he had better cast the boat adrift, for fear those 
 scoundrels should come round by water and bombard the 
 village from the sea with their revolvers and Winchesters. 
 He judged that they were devils enough for anything. So 
 he walked down the wharf quietly ; and as he got into the 
 boat, to cast her off, that hairy man who, it seems, was 
 dozing in her, jumped up growling, and Wang shot him 
 dead. Then he shoved the boat off as far as he could 
 and went away." 
 
 There was a pause. Presently Davidson went on, in his 
 tranquil manner: 
 
 "Let Heaven look after what has been purified. The 
 wind and rain will take care of the ashes. The carcass 
 of that follower, secretary, or whatever the imclean ruffian 
 called himself, I left where it lay, to swell and rot in the 
 sun. His principal had shot him neatly through the heart. 
 Then, apparently, this Jones went down the wharf to look 
 for the boat and for the hairy man. I suppose he tumbled 
 into the water by accident — or perhaps not by accident. The 
 boat and the man were gone, and the scoundrel saw him- 
 self all alone, his game clearly up, and fairly trapped. Who 
 knows ? The water's very clear there, and I could see him 
 budded up on the bottom between two piles, like a heap 
 of bones in a blue silk bag, with only the head and the feet 
 sticking out. Wang was very pleased when he discovered 
 him. That made everything safe, he said, and he went at 
 once over the hill to fetch his Alfuro woman back to the 
 hut." 
 
 Davidson took out his handkerchief to wipe the per- 
 spiration off his forehead. 
 
 "And then, your Excellency, I went away. There was 
 «aothM\f» to be done there."
 
 VICTORY 385 
 
 "Clearly," assented the Excellency. 
 Davidson, thoughtful, seemed to weigh the matter u; 
 his mind, and then murmured with placid sadness : 
 "Nothing !" 
 
 October, 1912 — May, 1914. 
 
 THE END
 
 The Best of the World's Best Books 
 COMPLETE LIST OF TITLES IN 
 
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 For convenience in ordering use number at right of title 
 
 ADAMS, HENRY 
 
 AIKEN, CONRAD (Editor) 
 
 AIKEN, CONRAD (Editor) 
 ALEICHEM, SHOLOM 
 ANDERSON, SHERWOOD 
 AQUINAS, ST. THOMAS 
 ARISTOTLE 
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 The Education of Henry Adams 76 
 A Comprehensive Anthology o£ 
 
 American Poetry loi 
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 Selected Stories of 145 
 Wincshiirg, Ohio 104 
 Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas 259 
 Introtluction to Aristotle 248 
 Politics 228 
 
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 Selected Poetry of 1 60 
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 Pride and Prejudice and Sense and 
 
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 Selected Writings of 256 
 Cousin Bette 299 
 Droll Stories 193 
 
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 Creative Evolution 231 
 Selected Poetry & Prose of 285 
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 in Italy 32 
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 Don Juan 24 
 The Gallic War and Other Writings of 
 
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 COLERIDGE 
 
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 COMMAGER, HENRY STEELE 
 
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 CONFUCIUS 
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 CONRAD, JOSEPH 
 CONRAD, JOSEPH 
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 DANTE 
 
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 DICKENS, CHARLES 
 DICKENS, CHARLES 
 DICKENS, CHARLES 
 DICKENS, CHARLES 
 DICKINSON, EMILY 
 DINESEN, ISAK 
 DINESEN, ISAK 
 DONNE, JOHN 
 
 DOS PASSOS, JOHN 
 DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR 
 DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR 
 DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR 
 DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR 
 DOUGLAS, NORMAN 
 130YLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN 
 
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 EMERSON, RALPH WALDO 
 EMERSON, RALPH WALDO 
 FAULKNER, WILLIAM 
 FAULKNER, WILLIAM 
 FAULKNER, WILLIAM 
 FAULKNER, WILLIAM 
 FAULKNER, WILLIAM 
 
 RELDING, HENRY 
 FIELDING, HENRY 
 FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE 
 FORESTER, C. S. 
 FRANCE, ANATOLE 
 FRANK, ANNE 
 FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN 
 FREUD, SIGMUND 
 FROST, ROBERT 
 
 Selected Poetry and Prose of 279 
 Six Novels by 251 
 
 A Short History of the United States 235 
 
 The Wisdom of Confucius 306 
 
 Lord Jim 186 
 
 Nostromo 275 
 
 Victory 34 
 
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 Six Plays of Corneille and Racine 194 
 
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 Two Years Before the Mast 236 
 
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 Philosophical Writings 43 
 
 Human Nature and Conduct 173 
 
 David Copperfield no 
 
 Pickwick Papers 204 
 
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 Selected Poems of 25 
 
 Out of Africa 23 
 
 Seven Gothic Talcs 54 
 
 Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of 
 12 
 
 Three Soldiers 205 
 
 The Best Short Stories of 293 
 
 The Brothers Karamazov 151 
 
 Crime and Punishment 199 
 
 The Possessed 55 
 
 South Wind 5 
 
 The Adventures and Memoirs of Sher- 
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 Sister Carrie 8 
 
 Camille 69 
 
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 Rebecca 227 
 
 The Journals of 192 
 
 Essays and Other Writings 91 
 
 Absalom, Absalom! 271 
 
 Go Down, Moses 175 
 
 Light in August 88 
 
 Sanctuary 61 
 
 The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay 
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 Joseph Andrews 1 17 
 
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 Madame Bovary 28 
 
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 Penguin Island 210 
 
 Diary of a Young Girl 298 
 
 Autobiography, etc. 39 
 
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 GEORGE, HENRY 
 GOETHE 
 
 GOGOL, NIKOLAI 
 GOLDSMITH, OLIVER 
 
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 HACKETT, FRANCIS 
 
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 HARDY, THOMAS 
 
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 HART & KAUFMAN 
 
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 HELLMAN, LILLIAN 
 
 HENRY, O. 
 
 HERODOTUS 
 
 HOMER 
 
 HOMER 
 
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 HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN 
 
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 HUXLEY, ALDOUS 
 
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 IRVING, WASHINGTON 
 
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 JAMES, WILLIAM 
 
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 JOYCE, JAMES 
 
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 KAUFMAN & HART 
 
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 The Apple Tree 
 
 (in Great Modern Short Stories 168) 
 
 Progress and Poverty 36 
 
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 Dead Souls 40 
 
 The Vicar of Wakefield and other Writ- 
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 I, Claudius 20 
 
 Death Be Not Proud 286 
 
 The Personal History of Henry the 
 Eighth 265 
 
 She and King Solomon's Mines 16 
 
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 Tess of the D'Urbervilles 72 
 
 Six Plays by 233 
 
 The Best Stories of 250 
 
 The Scarlet Letter 93 
 
 The Philosophy of 239 
 
 Six Plays by 223 
 
 Best Short Stories of 26 
 
 The Persian Wars 255 
 
 The Iliad 166 
 
 The Odyssey 167 
 
 The Complete Works of 141 
 
 World's Great Operas 302 
 
 The Rise of Silas Lapham 277 
 
 Green Mansions 89 
 
 The Hunchback of Notre Dame 35 
 
 Antic Hay 209 
 
 Brave New World 48 
 
 Point Counter Point 180 
 
 Six Plays by 305 
 
 The Wild Duck and Other Plays 30 
 
 Selected Writings of 240 
 
 The Bostonians 16 
 
 The Portrait of a Lady 107 
 
 The Turn of the Screw 169 
 
 Washington Square 269 
 
 The Wings of the Dove 244 
 
 The Philosophy of William James 114 
 
 The Varieties of Religious Experience 70 
 
 The Life and Selected Writings of 234 
 
 Dubliners 124 
 
 Basic Writings of 300 
 
 Selected Stories of 283 
 
 Critique of Pure Reason 297 
 
 The Philosophy of 266 
 
 Six Plays by 233 
 
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 Darkness at Noon 74 
 
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 Lady Chatterley's Lover 148 
 
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 Fourteen Great Detective Stories 1 44 
 
 (ireat German Short Novels and Stories 
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 Great Modern Short Stories 168 
 
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 A Kierkegaard Anthology 303 
 
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 Anthology 149 
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 Meilieval Romances 133 
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 G22. THIRTY FAMOUS ONE-ACT PLAYS. 
 G23. TOLSTOY, LEO. Anna Karenina. 
 
 G24. LAMB, CHARLES. The Complete Works and Letters of 
 G25. THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF (JILRhRT AND SULLIVAN. 
 G26. MARX, KARL. Capital. 
 
 G27. DARWIN, CHARLES. Origin of Species & The Descent of Mdn. 
 G28. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF LEWIS CARROLL. 
 G29. PRESCOTT, WILLIAM H. The Conquest of Mexico and 
 
 The Conquest of Peru. 
 G30. MYERS, GUSTAVUS. History of the Great American 
 
 Fortunes. 
 G^i. FAMf>US SCIENCE-FICTION STORIES: ADVENTURES IN 
 
 TIME AND SPACE 
 G?2. SMITH. ADAM. The Wealth of Nations. 
 
 Gi^ COLLINS, WILKIE. The Moonstone and The Woman in White. 
 G34. NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH. Tlie Philosophy of Nietzsche. 
 G35. BURY, J. B. A History of Greece. 
 
 G36. DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR. The Brothers Karamazov. 
 G37. THE COMPLETE NOVELS AND SELECTED TALES OF 
 
 VATHAVTFL HAWTHORNE.
 
 GjS. MURASAKA, LADY, The Tale of Genji. 
 
 G39. THE BASIC WRITINGS OF SIGMUND FREUD. 
 
 G40. THE COMPLETE TALES AND POEMS OF EDGAR 
 
 ALLAN POE. 
 G41. FARRELL, JAMES T. Studs Lonicjan. 
 G42. THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF TENNYSON. 
 G43. DEWEY, JOHN. Intelligence in the Modem World: John 
 
 Dewey's Philosophy. 
 G44. DOS PASSOS, JOHN. U. S. A. 
 G45. STOIC AND EPICUREAN PHILOSOPHERS. 
 G46. A NEW ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN POETRY. 
 G47. THE ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS FROM BACON TO 
 
 MILL. 
 G48. THE METROPOLITAN OPERA GUIDE. 
 G49. TWAIN, MARK. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. 
 G50. WHITMAN, WALT. Leaves of Grass. 
 G51. THE BEST-KNOWN NOVELS OF GEORGE ELIOT. 
 G52. JOYCE, JAMES. Ulysses. 
 G53. SUE, EUGENE. The Wandering Jew. 
 G54. AN ANTHOLOGY OF FAMOUS BRITISH STORIES. 
 G55. O'NEILL, EUGENE. Nine Plays by 
 G56. THE WISDOM OF CATHOLICISM. 
 G57. MELVILLE. Selected Writings of Herman Melville. 
 (;58. THE COMPLETE NOVELS OF JANE AUSTEN. 
 c;59. THE WISDOM OF CHINA AND INDIA. 
 G60. DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR. The Idiot. 
 G61. SPAETH, SIGMUND. A Guide to Great Orchestral Music 
 G62. THE POEMS, PROSE AND PLAYS OF PUSHKIN. 
 G63. SIXTEEN FAMOUS BRITISH PLAYS. 
 G64. MELVILLE, HERMAN. Moby Dick. 
 G65. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF RABELAIS. 
 G66. THREE FAMOUS MURDiR NOVELS 
 Before the Fact, Francis lies. 
 Trent's Last Case. E. C. Bcntley. 
 The House of the Arrow, A. E. W. Mason. 
 
 G67. ANTHOLOGY OF FAMOUS ENGLISH AND AMERI- 
 CAN POETRY. 
 
 G68. THE SELECTED WORK OF TOM PAINE. 
 
 c;69. ONE HUNDRED AND ONE YEARS' ENTERTAIN- 
 MENT. 
 
 G70. THE COMPLETE POETRY OF JOHN DONNE AND 
 WILLIAM BLAKE. 
 
 G71. SIXTEEN FAMOUS EUROPEAN PLAYS. 
 
 C}72. GREAT TALES OF Tl'RROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL. 
 
 G73. A SUB-TREASURY OF AMERICAN HUMOR. 
 
 G74. ST. AUGUSTINE. The Citv of Go<\. 
 
 (;7=5. SELECTED WRITINGS OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 
 
 C,-;G. GRIMM AND ANDERSEN, TALES OF 
 
 G77. AN A.MTHOLOGY OF FAMOUS AMERICAN STORIES. 
 
 G78. HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL. The Mind and Faith of 
 Justice Holmes. 
 
 G79. THE WISDOM OF ISRAEL. 
 
 G80. DREISER, TIir.ODORE. An American Tragedy. 
 
 G81. AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MODERN AMERICAN HUMOR. 
 
 GS2. FAULKNER, WILLIAM, The Faulkner Reader
 
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 ^»TY LIBRARY