Every visit began with that inquiry; he was insatiable of details; he was fascinated by the holder of a sceptre the shadow of which, stretching from the westward over the earth and over the seas, passed far beyond his own hand’s-breadth of conquered land.  He multiplied questions; he could never know enough of the Monarch of whom he spoke with wonder and chivalrous respect—­with a kind of affectionate awe!  Afterwards, when we had learned that he was the son of a woman who had many years ago ruled a small Bugis state, we came to suspect that the memory of his mother (of whom he spoke with enthusiasm) mingled somehow in his mind with the image he tried to form for himself of the far-off Queen whom he called Great, Invincible, Pious, and Fortunate.  We had to invent details at last to satisfy his craving curiosity; and our loyalty must be pardoned, for we tried to make them fit for his august and resplendent ideal.  We talked.  The night slipped over us, over the still schooner, over the sleeping land, and over the sleepless sea that thundered amongst the reefs outside the bay.  His paddlers, two trustworthy men, slept in the canoe at the foot of our side-ladder.  The old confidant, relieved from duty, dozed on his heels, with his back against the companion-doorway; and Karain sat squarely in the ship’s wooden armchair, under the slight sway of the cabin lamp, a cheroot between his dark fingers, and a glass of lemonade before him.  He was amused by the fizz of the thing, but after a sip or two would let it get flat, and with a courteous wave of his hand ask for a fresh bottle.  He decimated our slender stock; but we did not begrudge it to him, for, when he began, he talked well.  He must have been a great Bugis dandy in his time, for even then (and when we knew him he was no longer young) his splendour was spotlessly neat, and he dyed his hair a light shade of brown.  The quiet dignity of his bearing transformed the dim-lit cuddy of the schooner into an audience-hall.  He talked of inter-island politics with an ironic and melancholy shrewdness.  He had travelled much, suffered not a little, intrigued, fought.  He knew native Courts, European Settlements, the forests, the sea, and, as he said himself, had spoken in his time to many great men.  He liked to talk with me because I had known some of these men:  he seemed to think that I could understand him, and, with a fine confidence, assumed that I, at least, could appreciate how much greater he was himself.  But he preferred to talk of his native country—­a small Bugis state on the island of Celebes.  I had visited it some time before, and he asked eagerly for news.  As men’s names came up in conversation he would say, “We swam against one another when we were boys”; or, “We hunted the deer together—­he could use the noose and the spear as well as I.”  Now and then his big dreamy eyes would roll restlessly; he frowned or smiled, or he would become pensive, and, staring in silence, would nod slightly for a time at some regretted vision of the past.