Tales of Unrest | Page 7

or death, with the same serenity of
attitude and voice. He understood irrigation and the art of war--the
qualities of weapons and the craft of boat-building. He could conceal
his heart; had more endurance; he could swim longer, and steer a canoe
better than any of his people; he could shoot straighter, and negotiate
more tortuously than any man of his race I knew. He was an adventurer
of the sea, an outcast, a ruler--and my very good friend. I wish him a
quick death in a stand-up fight, a death in sunshine; for he had known
remorse and power, and no man can demand more from life. Day after
day he appeared before us, incomparably faithful to the illusions of the
stage, and at sunset the night descended upon him quickly, like a falling
curtain. The seamed hills became black shadows towering high upon a
clear sky; above them the glittering confusion of stars resembled a mad
turmoil stilled by a gesture; sounds ceased, men slept, forms
vanished--and the reality of the universe alone remained--a marvellous

thing of darkness and glimmers.
II
But it was at night that he talked openly, forgetting the exactions of his
stage. In the daytime there were affairs to be discussed in state. There
were at first between him and me his own splendour, my shabby
suspicions, and the scenic landscape that intruded upon the reality of
our lives by its motionless fantasy of outline and colour. His followers
thronged round him; above his head the broad blades of their spears
made a spiked halo of iron points, and they hedged him from humanity
by the shimmer of silks, the gleam of weapons, the excited and
respectful hum of eager voices. Before sunset he would take leave with
ceremony, and go off sitting under a red umbrella, and escorted by a
score of boats. All the paddles flashed and struck together with a
mighty splash that reverberated loudly in the monumental amphitheatre
of hills. A broad stream of dazzling foam trailed behind the flotilla. The
canoes appeared very black on the white hiss of water; turbaned heads
swayed back and forth; a multitude of arms in crimson and yellow rose
and fell with one movement; the spearmen upright in the bows of
canoes had variegated sarongs and gleaming shoulders like bronze
statues; the muttered strophes of the paddlers' song ended periodically
in a plaintive shout. They diminished in the distance; the song ceased;
they swarmed on the beach in the long shadows of the western hills.
The sunlight lingered on the purple crests, and we could see him
leading the way to his stockade, a burly bareheaded figure walking far
in advance of a straggling cortege, and swinging regularly an ebony
staff taller than himself. The darkness deepened fast; torches gleamed
fitfully, passing behind bushes; a long hail or two trailed in the silence
of the evening; and at last the night stretched its smooth veil over the
shore, the lights, and the voices.
Then, just as we were thinking of repose, the watchmen of the schooner
would hail a splash of paddles away in the starlit gloom of the bay; a
voice would respond in cautious tones, and our serang, putting his head
down the open skylight, would inform us without surprise, "That Rajah,
he coming. He here now." Karain appeared noiselessly in the doorway

of the little cabin. He was simplicity itself then; all in white; muffled
about his head; for arms only a kriss with a plain buffalo-horn handle,
which he would politely conceal within a fold of his sarong before
stepping over the threshold. The old sword-bearer's face, the worn-out
and mournful face so covered with wrinkles that it seemed to look out
through the meshes of a fine dark net, could be seen close above his
shoulders. Karain never moved without that attendant, who stood or
squatted close at his back. He had a dislike of an open space behind
him. It was more than a dislike--it resembled fear, a nervous
preoccupation of what went on where he could not see. This, in view of
the evident and fierce loyalty that surrounded him, was inexplicable.
He was there alone in the midst of devoted men; he was safe from
neighbourly ambushes, from fraternal ambitions; and yet more than one
of our visitors had assured us that their ruler could not bear to be alone.
They said, "Even when he eats and sleeps there is always one on the
watch near him who has strength and weapons." There was indeed
always one near him, though our informants had no conception of that
watcher's strength and weapons, which were both shadowy and terrible.
We knew, but only later on, when we had heard the story. Meantime
we noticed that, even during the most