“Thrice Matara, standing by my side, called aloud her name with grief and imprecations.  He stirred my heart.  It leaped three times; and three times with the eyes of my mind I saw in the gloom within the enclosed space of the prau a woman with streaming hair going away from her land and her people.  I was angry—­and sorry.  Why?  And then I also cried out insults and threats.  Matara said, ’Now they have left our land their lives are mind.  I shall follow and strike—­and, alone, pay the price of blood.’  A great wind was sweeping towards the setting sun over the empty river.  I cried, ‘By your side I will go!’ He lowered his head in sign of assent.  It was his destiny.  The sun had set, and the trees swayed their boughs with a great noise above our heads.

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

“The sea met us—­the sea, wide, pathless, and without voice.  A sailing prau leaves no track.  We went south.  The moon was full; and, looking up, we said to one another, ’When the next moon shines as this one, we shall return and they will be dead.’  It was fifteen years ago.  Many moons have grown full and withered and I have not seen my land since.  We sailed south; we overtook many praus; we examined the creeks and the bays; we saw the end of our coast, of our island—­a steep cape over a disturbed strait, where drift the shadows of shipwrecked praus and drowned men clamour in the night.  The wide sea was all round us now.  We saw a great mountain burning in the midst of water; we saw thousands of islets scattered like bits of iron fired from a big gun; we saw a long coast of mountain and lowlands stretching away in sunshine from west to east.  It was Java.  We said, ’They are there; their time is near, and we shall return or die cleansed from dishonour.’

“We landed.  Is there anything good in that country?  The paths run straight and hard and dusty.  Stone campongs, full of white faces, are surrounded by fertile fields, but every man you meet is a slave.  The rulers live under the edge of a foreign sword.  We ascended mountains, we traversed valleys; at sunset we entered villages.  We asked everyone, ‘Have you seen such a white man?’ Some stared; others laughed; women gave us food, sometimes, with fear and respect, as though we had been distracted by the visitation of God; but some did not understand our language, and some cursed us, or, yawning, asked with contempt the reason of our quest.  Once, as we were going away, an old man called after us, ‘Desist!’

“We went on.  Concealing our weapons, we stood humbly aside before the horsemen on the road; we bowed low in the courtyards of chiefs who were no better than slaves.  We lost ourselves in the fields, in the jungle; and one night, in a tangled forest, we came upon a place where crumbling old walls had fallen amongst the trees, and where strange stone idols—­carved images of devils with many arms and legs, with snakes twined round their bodies,