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.