“’They were not sent.  He was a fool, yet within bounds.  Nevertheless a time may come for us—­not for Hassan and me, we shall die in our beds—­but for our sons.  Even for this we are prepared.’  He would have said more, but checked himself. (I learned later on that the islanders kept one of the craters fortified for emergency, to make a last stand there; but they never allowed me to see the place.) ’We have gods of our own,’ said Hamid slily, ’who will be helpful—­the more so that we do not bother them over trifles.  Also there are—­other things; and the lake Sinquan, and another which you have not seen, are full of crocodiles.’  He stamped his foot.  ’My son, beneath this spot there has been fire, and still the men of Cagayan walk warily and go not without their spears.  For you it is different; yet when you come upon aught that puzzles you, it were well to put no questions even to yourself.’

“‘Not even about this?’ I asked, and showed him the purse and stone which Aoodya had tossed to me.

“‘You are in luck’s way,’ said he, ‘whoever gave you that.’  He pulled a small pouch from his breast, opened it, and showed me a stone exactly like mine.  ’It is a cocoanut pearl.  Keep it near to your hand, and forget not to touch it if you hear noises in the air or a man meet you with eyes like razors.’

“I wanted to ask him more, but he started to walk back hastily, and when I caught him up would talk of nothing but the sugar and sweet-potato crops, and the yield of cocoanut oil to be carried to Kudat at the next north-east monsoon.  I noticed that the fruit-trees planted along the shore were old, and that scores of them had ceased bearing.  ’They will last my day,’ said he.  ‘Let my sons plant others if they so will.’  He always spoke in this careless way of his children, and I believe he had many, for an islander keeps as many wives as he can afford; but they lived about the villages, and could not be told from the other inhabitants by any sign of rank or mark of favour he showed them.

“For a long while I believed that Aoodya must be a daughter of his.  She always denied it, but owned that she had never known her mother and had lived in Hamid’s house ever since she could remember.  Anyhow, he took the greatest care of me, and never allowed me to join the expeditions which sailed twice a year from the island—­to Palawan for paddy, and to the north of Borneo with oil and nuts and pandanus mats.  He may have mistrusted me; but more likely he forbade it out of care for me and the music I played; for the prahus regularly came back with three or four of their number missing—­either capsized on the voyage or blown away towards Tawi-Tawi, where the pirates accounted for them.

“Though I might not sail abroad he allowed me to join the tuburing parties off the shore.  We would work along the reefs there in rafts of bamboo, towing with us two or three dug-outs filled with mashed tubur-roots.  At the right spot the dug-outs would be upset, and after a while the fish came floating up on their sides, or belly uppermost, to be speared by us; for the root puddles the water like milk, and stupefies them somehow without hurting the flesh, which in an hour or so is fit to eat.