a petty chief of a conveniently isolated corner of Mindanao, where we could in comparative safety break the law against the traffic in firearms and ammunition with the natives.  What would happen should one of the moribund Spanish gun-boats be suddenly galvanized into a flicker of active life did not trouble us, once we were inside the bay—­so completely did it appear out of the reach of a meddling world; and besides, in those days we were imaginative enough to look with a kind of joyous equanimity on any chance there was of being quietly hanged somewhere out of the way of diplomatic remonstrance.  As to Karain, nothing could happen to him unless what happens to all—­failure and death; but his quality was to appear clothed in the illusion of unavoidable success.  He seemed too effective, too necessary there, too much of an essential condition for the existence of his land and his people, to be destroyed by anything short of an earthquake.  He summed up his race, his country, the elemental force of ardent life, of tropical nature.  He had its luxuriant strength, its fascination; and, like it, he carried the seed of peril within.

In many successive visits we came to know his stage well—­the purple semicircle of hills, the slim trees leaning over houses, the yellow sands, the streaming green of ravines.  All that had the crude and blended colouring, the appropriateness almost excessive, the suspicious immobility of a painted scene; and it enclosed so perfectly the accomplished acting of his amazing pretences that the rest of the world seemed shut out forever from the gorgeous spectacle.  There could be nothing outside.  It was as if the earth had gone on spinning, and had left that crumb of its surface alone in space.  He appeared utterly cut off from everything but the sunshine, and that even seemed to be made for him alone.  Once when asked what was on the other side of the hills, he said, with a meaning smile, “Friends and enemies—­many enemies; else why should I buy your rifles and powder?” He was always like this—­word-perfect in his part, playing up faithfully to the mysteries and certitudes of his surroundings.  “Friends and enemies”—­nothing else.  It was impalpable and vast.  The earth had indeed rolled away from under his land, and he, with his handful of people, stood surrounded by a silent tumult as of contending shades.  Certainly no sound came from outside.  “Friends and enemies!” He might have added, “and memories,” at least as far as he himself was concerned; but he neglected to make that point then.  It made itself later on, though; but it was after the daily performance—­in the wings, so to speak, and with the lights out.  Meantime he filled the stage with barbarous dignity.  Some ten years ago he had led his people—­a scratch lot of wandering Bugis—­to the conquest of the bay, and now in his august care they had forgotten all the past, and had lost all concern for the future.  He gave them wisdom, advice, reward, punishment, life