idea of what was fair alone.  The Bugis had been extremely anxious to pay off old scores, and the impassive old Doramin cherished the hope of yet seeing his son ruler of Patusan.  During one of our interviews he deliberately allowed me to get a glimpse of this secret ambition.  Nothing could be finer in its way than the dignified wariness of his approaches.  He himself—­he began by declaring—­had used his strength in his young days, but now he had grown old and tired. . . .  With his imposing bulk and haughty little eyes darting sagacious, inquisitive glances, he reminded one irresistibly of a cunning old elephant; the slow rise and fall of his vast breast went on powerful and regular, like the heave of a calm sea.  He too, as he protested, had an unbounded confidence in Tuan Jim’s wisdom.  If he could only obtain a promise!  One word would be enough! . . .  His breathing silences, the low rumblings of his voice, recalled the last efforts of a spent thunderstorm.

’I tried to put the subject aside.  It was difficult, for there could be no question that Jim had the power; in his new sphere there did not seem to be anything that was not his to hold or to give.  But that, I repeat, was nothing in comparison with the notion, which occurred to me, while I listened with a show of attention, that he seemed to have come very near at last to mastering his fate.  Doramin was anxious about the future of the country, and I was struck by the turn he gave to the argument.  The land remains where God had put it; but white men—­he said—­they come to us and in a little while they go.  They go away.  Those they leave behind do not know when to look for their return.  They go to their own land, to their people, and so this white man too would. . . .  I don’t know what induced me to commit myself at this point by a vigorous “No, no.”  The whole extent of this indiscretion became apparent when Doramin, turning full upon me his face, whose expression, fixed in rugged deep folds, remained unalterable, like a huge brown mask, said that this was good news indeed, reflectively; and then wanted to know why.

’His little, motherly witch of a wife sat on my other hand, with her head covered and her feet tucked up, gazing through the great shutter-hole.  I could only see a straying lock of grey hair, a high cheek-bone, the slight masticating motion of the sharp chin.  Without removing her eyes from the vast prospect of forests stretching as far as the hills, she asked me in a pitying voice why was it that he so young had wandered from his home, coming so far, through so many dangers?  Had he no household there, no kinsmen in his own country?  Had he no old mother, who would always remember his face? . . .

’I was completely unprepared for this.  I could only mutter and shake my head vaguely.  Afterwards I am perfectly aware I cut a very poor figure trying to extricate myself out of this difficulty.  From that moment, however, the old nakhoda became taciturn.  He was not very pleased, I fear, and evidently I had given him food for thought.  Strangely enough, on the evening of that very day (which was my last in Patusan) I was once more confronted with the same question, with the unanswerable why of Jim’s fate.  And this brings me to the story of his love.