Karain's tone had been getting lower and lower, as though he had been
going away from us, till the last words sounded faint but clear, as if
shouted on a calm day from a very great distance. He moved not. He
stared fixedly past the motionless head of Hollis, who faced him, as
still as himself. Jackson had turned sideways, and with elbow on the
table shaded his eyes with the palm of his hand. And I looked on,
surprised and moved; I looked at that man, loyal to a vision, betrayed
by his dream, spurned by his illusion, and coming to us unbelievers
for help--against a thought. The silence was profound; but it seemed
full of noiseless phantoms, of things sorrowful, shadowy, and mute, in
whose invisible presence the firm, pulsating beat of the two ship's
chronometers ticking off steadily the seconds of Greenwich Time seemed
to me a protection and a relief. Karain stared stonily; and looking at
his rigid figure, I thought of his wanderings, of that obscure Odyssey
of revenge, of all the men that wander amongst illusions faithful,
faithless; of the illusions that give joy, that give sorrow, that give
pain, that give peace; of the invincible illusions that can make life
and death appear serene, inspiring, tormented, or ignoble.
A murmur was heard; that voice from outside seemed to flow out of a
dreaming world into the lamp-light of the cabin. Karain was speaking.
"I lived in the forest.
"She came no more. Never! Never once! I lived alone. She had
forgotten. It was well. I did not want her; I wanted no one. I found
an abandoned house in an old clearing. Nobody came near. Sometimes I
heard in the distance the voices of people going along a path. I
slept; I rested; there was wild rice, water from a running stream--and
peace! Every night I sat alone by my small fire before the hut. Many
nights passed over my head.
"Then, one evening, as I sat by my fire after having eaten, I looked
down on the ground and began to remember my wanderings. I lifted my
head. I had heard no sound, no rustle, no footsteps--but I lifted my
head. A man was coming towards me across the small clearing. I waited.
He came up without a greeting and squatted down into the firelight.
Then he turned his face to me. It was Matara. He stared at me fiercely
with his big sunken eyes. The night was cold; the heat died suddenly
out of the fire, and he stared at me. I rose and went away from there,
leaving him by the fire that had no heat.
"I walked all that night, all next day, and in the evening made up a
big blaze and sat down--to wait for him. He had not come into the
light. I heard him in the bushes here and there, whispering,
whispering. I understood at last--I had heard the words before, 'You
are my friend--kill with a sure shot.'
"I bore it as long as I could--then leaped away, as on this very night
I leaped from my stockade and swam to you. I ran--I ran crying like a
child left alone and far from the houses. He ran by my side, without
footsteps, whispering, whispering--invisible and heard. I sought
people--I wanted men around me! Men who had not died! And again we two
wandered. I sought danger, violence, and death. I fought in the Atjeh
war, and a brave people wondered at the valiance of a stranger. But we
were two; he warded off the blows . . . Why? I wanted peace, not life.
And no one could see him; no one knew--I dared tell no one. At times
he would leave me, but not for long; then he would return and whisper
or stare. My heart was torn with a strange fear, but could not die.
Then I met an old man.
"You all knew him. People here called him my sorcerer, my servant and
sword-bearer; but to me he was father, mother, protection, refuge and
peace. When I met him he was returning from a pilgrimage, and I heard
him intoning the prayer of sunset. He had gone to the holy place with
his son, his son's wife, and a little child; and on their return, by
the favour of the Most High, they all died: the strong man, the young
mother, the little child--they died; and the old man reached his
country alone. He was a pilgrim serene and pious, very wise and very
lonely. I told him all. For a time we lived together. He said over me
words of compassion, of wisdom, of prayer. He warded from me the shade
of the dead. I begged him for a charm that would make me safe. For a
long time he refused; but at last, with a sigh and a smile, he gave me
one. Doubtless he could command a spirit stronger than the unrest of
my dead friend, and again I had peace; but I had become restless, and
a lover of turmoil and danger. The old man never left me. We travelled
together. We were welcomed by the great; his wisdom and my courage are
remembered where your strength, O white men, is forgotten! We served
the Sultan of Sula. We fought the Spaniards. There were victories,
hopes, defeats, sorrow, blood, women's tears . . . What for? . . . We
fled. We collected wanderers of a warlike race and came here to fight
again. The rest you know. I am the ruler of a conquered land, a lover
of war and danger, a fighter and a plotter. But the old man has died,
and I am again the slave of the dead. He is not here now to drive away
the reproachful shade--to silence the lifeless voice! The power of his
charm has died with him. And I know fear; and I hear the whisper,
'Kill! kill! kill!' . . . Have I not killed enough? . . ."
For the first time that night a sudden convulsion of madness and rage
passed over his face. His wavering glances darted here and there
like scared birds in a thunderstorm. He jumped up, shouting--
"By the spirits that drink blood: by the spirits that cry in the
night: by all the spirits of fury, misfortune, and death, I
swear--some day I will strike into every heart I meet--I . . ."
He looked so dangerous that we all three leaped to our feet, and
Hollis, with the back of his hand, sent the kriss flying off the
table. I believe we shouted together. It was a short scare, and the
next moment he was again composed in his chair, with three white men
standing over him in rather foolish attitudes. We felt a little
ashamed of ourselves. Jackson picked up the kriss, and, after an
inquiring glance at me, gave it to him. He received it with a stately
inclination of the head and stuck it in the twist of his sarong, with
punctilious care to give his weapon a pacific position. Then he looked
up at us with an austere smile. We were abashed and reproved. Hollis
sat sideways on the table and, holding his chin in his hand,
scrutinized him in pensive silence. I said--
"You must abide with your people. They need you. And there is
forgetfulness in life. Even the dead cease to speak in time."
"Am I a woman, to forget long years before an eyelid has had the time
to beat twice?" he exclaimed, with bitter resentment. He startled me.
It was amazing. To him his life--that cruel mirage of love and
peace--seemed as real, as undeniable, as theirs would be to any saint,
philosopher, or fool of us all. Hollis muttered--
"You won't soothe him with your platitudes."
Karain spoke to me.
"You know us. You have lived with us. Why?--we cannot know; but you
understand our sorrows and our thoughts. You have lived with my
people, and you understand our desires and our fears. With you I will
go. To your land--to your people. To your people, who live in
unbelief; to whom day is day, and night is night--nothing more,
because you understand all things seen, and despise all else! To
your land of unbelief, where the dead do not speak, where every man is
wise, and alone--and at peace!"
"Capital description," murmured Hollis, with the flicker of a smile.
Karain hung his head.
"I can toil, and fight--and be faithful," he whispered, in a weary
tone, "but I cannot go back to him who waits for me on the shore. No!
Take me with you . . . Or else give me some of your strength--of your
unbelief . . . A charm! . . ."
He seemed utterly exhausted.
"Yes, take him home," said Hollis, very low, as if debating with
himself. "That would be one way. The ghosts there are in society, and
talk affably to ladies and gentlemen, but would scorn a naked human
being--like our princely friend. . . . Naked . . . Flayed! I should
say. I am sorry for him. Impossible--of course. The end of all this
shall be," he went on, looking up at us--"the end of this shall be,
that some day he will run amuck amongst his faithful subjects and send
'ad patres' ever so many of them before they make up their minds to
the disloyalty of knocking him on the head."
I nodded. I thought it more than probable that such would be the end
of Karain. It was evident that he had been hunted by his thought along
the very limit of human endurance, and very little more pressing was
needed to make him swerve over into the form of madness peculiar to
his race. The respite he had during the old man's life made the return
of the torment unbearable. That much was clear.
He lifted his head suddenly; we had imagined for a moment that he had
been dozing.
"Give me your protection--or your strength!" he cried. "A charm . . .
a weapon!"
Again his chin fell on his breast. We looked at him, then looked at
one another with suspicious awe in our eyes, like men who come
unexpectedly upon the scene of some mysterious disaster. He had given
himself up to us; he had thrust into our hands his errors and his
torment, his life and his peace; and we did not know what to do with
that problem from the outer darkness. We three white men, looking at
the Malay, could not find one word to the purpose amongst us--if
indeed there existed a word that could solve that problem. We
pondered, and our hearts sank. We felt as though we three had been
called to the very gate of Infernal Regions to judge, to decide the
fate of a wanderer coming suddenly from a world of sunshine and
illusions.
"By Jove, he seems to have a great idea of our power," whispered
Hollis, hopelessly. And then again there was a silence, the feeble
plash of water, the steady tick of chronometers. Jackson, with bare
arms crossed, leaned his shoulders against the bulkhead of the cabin.
He was bending his head under the deck beam; his fair beard spread out
magnificently over his chest; he looked colossal, ineffectual, and
mild. There was something lugubrious in the aspect of the cabin; the
air in it seemed to become slowly charged with the cruel chill of
helplessness, with the pitiless anger of egoism against the
incomprehensible form of an intruding pain. We had no idea what to
do; we began to resent bitterly the hard necessity to get rid of him.
Hollis mused, muttered suddenly with a short laugh, "Strength . . .
Protection . . . Charm." He slipped off the table and left the cuddy
without a look at us. It seemed a base desertion. Jackson and I
exchanged indignant glances. We could hear him rummaging in his
pigeon-hole of a cabin. Was the fellow actually going to bed? Karain
sighed. It was intolerable!
Then Hollis reappeared, holding in both hands a small leather box. He
put it down gently on the table and looked at us with a queer gasp, we
thought, as though he had from some cause become speechless for a
moment, or were ethically uncertain about producing that box. But in
an instant the insolent and unerring wisdom of his youth gave him the
needed courage. He said, as he unlocked the box with a very small key,
"Look as solemn as you can, you fellows."
Probably we looked only surprised and stupid, for he glanced over his
shoulder, and said angrily--
"This is no play; I am going to do something for him. Look serious.
Confound it! . . . Can't you lie a little . . . for a friend!"
Karain seemed to take no notice of us, but when Hollis threw open the
lid of the box his eyes flew to it--and so did ours. The quilted
crimson satin of the inside put a violent patch of colour into the
sombre atmosphere; it was something positive to look at--it was
fascinating.