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It was a very clean native compound: and the big native woman, with bare brown legs as thick as bedposts, pursuing on all fours a silver dollar that came rolling out from somewhere, was Mrs. Johnson herself. "Your man`s at home," said the ex-sergeant, and stepped aside in complete and marked indifference to anything that might follow. Johnson--at home--stood with his back to a native house built on posts and with its walls made of mats. In his left hand he held a banana. Out of the right he dealt another dollar into space. The woman captured this one on the wing, and there and then plumped down on the ground to look at us with greater comfort. My man was sallow of face, grizzled, unshaven, muddy on elbows and back; where the seams of his serge coat yawned you could see his white naked- ness. The vestiges of a paper collar encircled his neck. He looked at us with a grave, swaying sur- prise. "Where do you come from?" he asked. My heart sank. How could I have been stupid enough to waste energy and time for this? But having already gone so far I approached a little nearer and declared the purpose of my visit. He would have to come at once with me, sleep on board my ship, and to-morrow, with the first of the ebb, he would give me his assistance in getting my ship down to the sea, without steam. A six-hun- dred-ton barque, drawing nine feet aft. I pro- posed to give him eighteen dollars for his local knowledge; and all the time I was speaking he kept on considering attentively the various aspects of the banana, holding first one side up to his eye, then the other. "You`ve forgotten to apologise," he said at last with extreme precision. "Not being a gentleman yourself, you don`t know apparently when you in- trude upon a gentleman. I am one. I wish you to understand that when I am in funds I don`t work, and now . . ." I would have pronounced him perfectly sober hadn`t he paused in great concern to try and brush a hole off the knee of his trousers. "I have money--and friends. Every gentle- man has. Perhaps you would like to know my friend? His name is Falk. You could borrow some money. Try to remember. F-A-L-K, Falk." Abruptly his tone changed. "A noble heart," he said muzzily. "Has Falk been giving you some money?" I asked, appalled by the detailed finish of the dark plot. "Lent me, my good man, not given me. Lent," he corrected suavely. "Met me taking the air last evening, and being as usual anxious to oblige -- Hadn`t you better go to the devil out of my compound?" And upon this, without other warning, he let fly with the banana which missed my head, and took the constable just under the left eye. He rushed at the miserable Johnson, stammering with fury. They fell. . . . But why dwell on the wretched- ness, the breathlessness, the degradation, the sense- lessness, the weariness, the ridicule and humiliation and--and--the perspiration, of these moments? I dragged the ex-hussar off. He was like a wild beast. It seems he had been greatly annoyed at losing his free afternoon on my account. The gar- den of his bungalow required his personal atten- tion, and at the slight blow of the banana the brute in him had broken loose. We left Johnson on his back, still black in the face, but beginning to kick feebly. Meantime, the big woman had remained sitting on the ground, apparently paralysed with extreme terror. For half an hour we jolted inside our rolling box, side by side, in profound silence. The ex-ser- geant was busy staunching the blood of a long scratch on his cheek. "I hope you`re satisfied," he said suddenly. "That`s what comes of all that tomfool business. If you hadn`t quarrelled with that tugboat skipper over some girl or other, all this wouldn`t have happened." "You heard THAT story?" I said. "Of course I heard. And I shouldn`t wonder if the Consul-General himself doesn`t come to hear of it. How am I to go before him to-morrow with that thing on my cheek--I want to know. Its YOU who ought to have got this!" After that, till the gharry stopped and he jumped out without leave-taking, he swore to him- self steadily, horribly; muttering great, purpose- ful, trooper oaths, to which the worst a sailor can do is like the prattle of a child. For my part I had just the strength to crawl into Schomberg`s coffee- room, where I wrote at a little table a note to the mate instructing him to get everything ready for dropping down the river next day. I couldn`t face my ship. Well! she had a clever sort of skip- per and no mistake--poor thing! What a horrid mess! I took my head between my hands. At times the obviousness of my innocence would reduce me to despair. What had I done? If I had done something to bring about the situation I should at least have learned not to do it again. But I felt guiltless to the point of imbecility. The room was empty yet; only Schomberg prowled round me goggle-eyed and with a sort of awed respectful cu- riosity. No doubt he had set the story going him- self; but he was a good-hearted chap, and I am really persuaded he participated in all my troubles. He did what he could for me. He ranged aside the heavy matchstand, set a chair straight, pushed a spittoon slightly with his foot--as you show small attentions to a friend under a great sorrow-- sighed, and at last, unable to hold his tongue: "Well! I warned you, captain. That`s what comes of running your head against Mr. Falk. Man`ll stick at nothing." I sat without stirring, and after surveying me with a sort of commiseration in his eyes he burst out in a hoarse whisper: "But for a fine lump of a girl, she`s a fine lump of a girl." He made a loud smacking noise with his thick lips. "The finest lump of a girl that I ever . . ." he was going on with great unction, but for some reason or other broke off. I fancied myself throwing something at his head. "I don`t blame you, captain. Hang me if I do," he said with a patronising air. "Thank you," I said resignedly. It was no use fighting against this false fate. I don`t know even if I was sure myself where the truth of the matter began. The conviction that it would end disas- trously had been driven into me by all the succes- sive shocks my sense of security had received. I began to ascribe an extraordinary potency to agents in themselves powerless. It was as if Schomberg`s baseless gossip had the power to bring about the thing itself or the abstract enmity of Falk could put my ship ashore. I have already explained how fatal this last would have been. For my further action, my youth, my inexperience, my very real concern for the health of my crew must be my excuse. The ac- tion itself, when it came, was purely impulsive. It was set in movement quite undiplomatically and simply by Falk`s appearance in the doorway. The room was full by then and buzzing with voices. I had been looked at with curiosity by every one, but how am I to describe the sensation produced by the appearance of Falk himself block- ing the doorway? The tension of expectation could be measured by the profundity of the silence that fell upon the very click of the billiard balls. As to Schomberg, he looked extremely frightened; he hated mortally any sort of row (fracas he called it) in his establishment. Fracas was bad for busi- ness, he affirmed; but, in truth, this specimen of portly, middle-aged manhood was of a timid dis- position. I don`t know what, considering my pres- ence in the place, they all hoped would come of it. A sort of stag fight, perhaps. Or they may have supposed Falk had come in only to annihilate me completely. As a matter of fact, Falk had come in because Hermann had asked him to inquire after the precious white cotton parasol which, in the worry and excitement of the previous day, he had forgot- ten at the table where we had held our little discus- sion. It was this that gave me my opportunity. I don`t think I would have gone to seek Falk out. No. I don`t think so. There are limits. But there was an opportunity and I seized it--I have already tried to explain why. Now I will merely state that, in my opinion, to get his sickly crew into the sea air and secure a quick despatch for his ship a skip- per would be justified in going to any length, short of absolute crime. He should put his pride in his pocket; he may accept confidences; explain his in- nocence as if it were a sin; he may take advantage of misconceptions, of desires and of weaknesses; he ought to conceal his horror and other emotions, and, if the fate of a human being, and that human being a magnificent young girl, is strangely in- volved--why, he should contemplate that fate (whatever it might seem to be) without turning a hair. And all these things I have done; the ex- plaining, the listening, the pretending--even to the discretion--and nobody, not even Hermann`s niece, I believe, need throw stones at me now. Schomberg at all events needn`t, since from first to last, I am happy to say, there was not the slightest "fracas." Overcoming a nervous contraction of the wind- pipe, I had managed to exclaim "Captain Falk!" His start of surprise was perfectly genuine, but afterwards he neither smiled nor scowled. He sim- ply waited. Then, when I had said, "I must have a talk with you," and had pointed to a chair at my table, he moved up to me, though he didn`t sit down. Schomberg, however, with a long tumbler in his hand, was making towards us prudently, and I discovered then the only sign of weakness in Falk. He had for Schomberg a repulsion resembling that sort of physical fear some people experience at the sight of a toad. Perhaps to a man so essentially and silently concentrated upon himself (though he could talk well enough, as I was to find out presently) the other`s irrepressible loquacity, em- bracing every human being within range of the tongue, might have appeared unnatural, disgust- ing, and monstrous. He suddenly gave signs of restiveness--positively like a horse about to rear, and, muttering hurriedly as if in great pain, "No. I can`t stand that fellow," seemed ready to bolt. This weakness of his gave me the advantage at the very start. "Verandah," I suggested, as if ren- dering him a service, and walked him out by the arm. We stumbled over a few chairs; we had the feeling of open space before us, and felt the fresh breath of the river--fresh, but tainted. The Chi- nese theatres across the water made, in the sparsely twinkling masses of gloom an Eastern town pre- sents at night, blazing centres of light, and of a distant and howling uproar. I felt him become suddenly tractable again like an animal, like a good-tempered horse when the object that scares him is removed. Yes. I felt in the darkness there how tractable he was, without my conviction of his inflexibility--tenacity, rather, perhaps--being in the least weakened. His very arm abandoning it- self to my grasp was as hard as marble--like a limb of iron. But I heard a tumultuous scuffling of boot-soles within. The unspeakable idiots inside were crowding to the windows, climbing over each other`s backs behind the blinds, billiard cues and all. Somebody broke a window pane, and with the sound of falling glass, so suggestive of riot and devasta- tion, Schomberg reeled out after us in a state of funk which had prevented his parting with his brandy and soda. He must have trembled like an aspen leaf. The piece of ice in the long tumbler he held in his hand tinkled with an effect of chat- tering teeth. "I beg you, gentlemen," he expost- ulated thickly. "Come! Really, now, I must in- sist . . ." How proud I am of my presence of mind! "Hallo," I said instantly in a loud and naive tone, "somebody`s breaking your windows, Schomberg. Would you please tell one of your boys to bring out here a pack of cards and a couple of lights? And two long drinks. Will you?" To receive an order soothed him at once. It was business. "Certainly," he said in an immensely relieved tone. The night was rainy, with wander- ing gusts of wind, and while we waited for the can- dles Falk said, as if to justify his panic, "I don`t interfere in anybody`s business. I don`t give any occasion for talk. I am a respectable man. But this fellow is always making out something wrong, and can never rest till he gets somebody to believe him." This was the first of my knowledge of Falk. This desire of respectability, of being like every- body else, was the only recognition he vouchsafed to the organisation of mankind. For the rest he might have been the member of a herd, not of a so- ciety. Self-preservation was his only concern. Not selfishness, but mere self-preservation. Sel- fishness presupposes consciousness, choice, the pres- ence of other men; but his instinct acted as though he were the last of mankind nursing that law like the only spark of a sacred fire. I don`t mean to say that living naked in a cavern would have satis- fied him. Obviously he was the creature of the conditions to which he was born. No doubt self- preservation meant also the preservation of these conditions. But essentially it meant something much more simple, natural, and powerful. How shall I express it? It meant the preservation of the five senses of his body--let us say--taking it in its narrowest as well as in its widest meaning. I think you will admit before long the justice of this judg- ment. However, as we stood there together in the dark verandah I had judged nothing as yet--and I had no desire to judge--which is an idle practice anyhow. The light was long in coming. "Of course," I said in a tone of mutual under- standing, "it isn`t exactly a game of cards I want with you." I saw him draw his hands down his face--the vague stir of the passionate and meaningless ges- ture; but he waited in silent patience. It was only when the lights had been brought out that he opened his lips. I understood his mumble to mean that "he didn`t know any game." "Like this Schomberg and all the other fools will have to keep off," I said tearing open the pack. "Have you heard that we are universally supposed to be quarrelling about a girl? You know who-- of course. I am really ashamed to ask, but is it possible that you do me the honour to think me dan- gerous?" As I said these words I felt how absurd it was and also I felt flattered--for, really, what else could it be? His answer, spoken in his usual dis- passionate undertone, made it clear that it was so, but not precisely as flattering as I supposed. He thought me dangerous with Hermann, more than with the girl herself; but, as to quarrelling, I saw at once how inappropriate the word was. We had no quarrel. Natural forces are not quarrelsome. You can`t quarrel with the wind that inconveniences and humiliates you by blowing off your hat in a street full of people. He had no quarrel with me. Neither would a boulder, falling on my head, have had. He fell upon me in accordance with the law by which he was moved--not of gravitation, like a detached stone, but of self-preservation. Of course this is giving it a rather wide interpretation. Strictly speaking, he had existed and could have existed without being married. Yet he told me that he had found it more and more difficult to live alone. Yes. He told me this in his low, careless voice, to such a pitch of confidence had we arrived at the end of half an hour. It took me just about that time to convince him that I had never dreamed of marrying Hermann`s niece. Could any necessity have been more extrava- gant? And the difficulty was the greater because he was so hard hit that he couldn`t imagine any- body being able to remain in a state of indifference. Any man with eyes in his head, he seemed to think, could not help coveting so much bodily magnifi- cence. This profound belief was conveyed by the manner he listened sitting sideways to the table and playing absently with a few cards I had dealt to him at random. And the more I saw into him the more I saw of him. The wind swayed the lights so that his sunburnt face, whiskered to the eyes, seemed to successively flicker crimson at me and to go out. I saw the extraordinary breadth of the high cheek-bones, the perpendicular style of the features, the massive forehead, steep like a cliff, denuded at the top, largely uncovered at the tem- ples. The fact is I had never before seen him with- out his hat; but now, as if my fervour had made him hot, he had taken it off and laid it gently on the floor. Something peculiar in the shape and setting of his yellow eyes gave them the provoking silent intensity which characterised his glance. But the face was thin, furrowed, worn; I discov- ered that through the bush of his hair, as you may detect the gnarled shape of a tree trunk lost in a dense undergrowth. These overgrown cheeks were sunken. It was an anchorite`s bony head fitted with a Capuchin`s beard and adjusted to a herculean body. I don`t mean athletic. Hercules, I take it, was not an athlete. He was a strong man, suscep- tible to female charms, and not afraid of dirt. And thus with Falk, who was a strong man. He was extremely strong, just as the girl (since I must think of them together) was magnificently at- tractive by the masterful power of flesh and blood, expressed in shape, in size, in attitude--that is by a straight appeal to the senses. His mind mean- time, preoccupied with respectability, quailed be- fore Schomberg`s tongue and seemed absolutely impervious to my protestations; and I went so far as to protest that I would just as soon think of marrying my mother`s (dear old lady!) faithful female cook as Hermann`s niece. Sooner, I pro- tested, in my desperation, much sooner; but it did not appear that he saw anything outrageous in the proposition, and in his sceptical immobility he seemed to nurse the argument that at all events the cook was very, very far away. It must be said that, just before, I had gone wrong by appealing to the evidence of my manner whenever I called on board the Diana. I had never attempted to approach the girl, or to speak to her, or even to look at her in any marked way. Nothing could be clearer. But, as his own idea of--let us say--courting, seemed to consist precisely in sitting silently for hours in the vicinity of the beloved object, that line of argu- ment inspired him with distrust. Staring down his extended legs he let out a grunt--as much as to say, "That`s all very fine, but you can`t throw dust in MY eyes." At last I was exasperated into saying, "Why don`t you put the matter at rest by talking to Her- mann?" and I added sneeringly: "You don`t ex- pect me perhaps to speak for you?" To this he said, very loud for him, "Would you?" And for the first time he lifted his head to look at me with wonder and incredulity. He lifted his head so sharply that there could be no mistake. I had touched a spring. I saw the whole extent of my opportunity, and could hardly believe in it. "Why. Speak to . . . Well, of course," I proceeded very slowly, watching him with great at- tention, for, on my word, I feared a joke. "Not, perhaps, to the young lady herself. I can`t speak German, you know. But . . ." He interrupted me with the earnest assurance that Hermann had the highest opinion of me; and at once I felt the need for the greatest possible diplomacy at this juncture. So I demurred just enough to draw him on. Falk sat up, but except for a very noticeable enlargement of the pupils, till the irises of his eyes were reduced to two narrow yellow rings, his face, I should judge, was incapa- ble of expressing excitement. "Oh, yes! Hermann did have the greatest . . ." "Take up your cards. Here`s Schomberg peep- ing at us through the blind!" I said. We went through the motions of what might have been a game of e`carte`. Presently the intoler- able scandalmonger withdrew, probably to inform the people in the billiard-room that we two were gambling on the verandah like mad. We were not gambling, but it was a game; a game in which I felt I held the winning cards. The stake, roughly speaking, was the success of the voy- age--for me; and he, I apprehended, had nothing to lose. Our intimacy matured rapidly, and before many words had been exchanged I perceived that the excellent Hermann had been making use of me. That simple and astute Teuton had been, it seems, holding me up to Falk in the light of a rival. I was young enough to be shocked at so much duplic- ity. "Did he tell you that in so many words?" I asked with indignation. Hermann had not. He had given hints only; and of course it had not taken very much to alarm Falk; but, instead of declaring himself, he had taken steps to remove the family from under my in- fluence. He was perfectly straightforward about it--as straightforward as a tile falling on your head. There was no duplicity in that man; and when I congratulated him on the perfection of his arrangements--even to the bribing of the wretched Johnson against me--he had a genuine movement of protest. Never bribed. He knew the man wouldn`t work as long as he had a few cents in his pocket to get drunk on, and, naturally (he said-- "NATURALLY") he let him have a dollar or two. He was himself a sailor, he said, and anticipated the view another sailor, like myself, was bound to take. On the other hand, he was sure that I should have to come to grief. He hadn`t been knocking about for the last seven years up and down that river for nothing. It would have been no disgrace to me-- but he asserted confidently I would have had my ship very awkwardly ashore at a spot two miles below the Great Pagoda. . . . And with all that he had no ill-will. That was evident. This was a crisis in which his only object had been to gain time--I fancy. And presently he mentioned that he had written for some jewel- lery, real good jewellery--had written to Hong- Kong for it. It would arrive in a day or two. "Well, then," I said cheerily, "everything is all right. All you`ve got to do is to present it to the lady together with your heart, and live happy ever after." Upon the whole he seemed to accept that view as far as the girl was concerned, but his eyelids drooped. There was still something in the way. For one thing Hermann disliked him so much. As to me, on the contrary, it seemed as though he could not praise me enough. Mrs. Hermann too. He didn`t know why they disliked him so. It made everything most difficult. I listened impassive, feeling more and more dip- lomatic. His speech was not transparently clear. He was one of those men who seem to live, feel, suffer in a sort of mental twilight. But as to being fascinated by the girl and possessed by the desire of home life with her--it was as clear as daylight. So much being at stake, he was afraid of putting it to the hazard of declaration. Besides, there was something else. And with Hermann being so set against him . . . "I see," I said thoughtfully, while my heart beat fast with the excitement of my diplomacy. "I don`t mind sounding Hermann. In fact, to show you how mistaken you were, I am ready to do all I can for you in that way." A light sigh escaped him. He drew his hands down his face, and it emerged, bony, unchanged of expression, as if all the tissues had been ossified. All the passion was in those big brown hands. He was satisfied. Then there was that other matter. If there were anybody on earth it was I who could persuade Hermann to take a reasonable view! I had a knowledge of the world and lots of expe- rience. Hermann admitted this himself. And then I was a sailor too. Falk thought that a sail- or would be able to understand certain things best. . . . He talked as if the Hermanns had been living all their life in a rural hamlet, and I alone had been capable, with my practice in life, of a large and indulgent view of certain occurrences. That was what my diplomacy was leading me to. I began suddenly to dislike it. "I say, Falk," I asked quite brusquely, "you haven`t already a wife put away somewhere?" The pain and disgust of his denial were very striking. Couldn`t I understand that he was as respectable as any white man hereabouts; earning his living honestly. He was suffering from my sus- picion, and the low undertone of his voice made his protestations sound very pathetic. For a moment he shamed me, but, my diplomacy notwithstanding, I seemed to develop a conscience, as if in very truth it were in my power to decide the success of this matrimonial enterprise. By pretending hard enough we come to believe anything--anything to our advantage. And I had been pretending very hard, because I meant yet to be towed safely down the river. But through conscience or stupidity, I couldn`t help alluding to the Vanlo affair. "You acted rather badly there. Didn`t you?" was what I ventured actually to say--for the logic of our conduct is always at the mercy of obscure and un- foreseen impulses. His dilated pupils swerved from my face, glan- cing at the window with a sort of scared fury. We heard behind the blinds the continuous and sudden clicking of ivory, a jovial murmur of many voices, and Schomberg`s deep manly laugh. "That confounded old woman of a hotel-keeper then would never, never let it rest!" Falk ex- claimed. "Well, yes! It had happened two years ago." When it came to the point he owned he couldn`t make up his mind to trust Fred Vanlo-- no sailor, a bit of a fool too. He could not trust him, but, to stop his row, he had lent him enough money to pay all his debts before he left. I was greatly surprised to hear this. Then Falk could not be such a miser after all. So much the better for the girl. For a time he sat silent; then he picked up a card, and while looking at it he said: "You need not think of anything bad. It was an accident. I`ve been unfortunate once." "Then in heaven`s name say nothing about it." As soon as these words were out of my mouth I fancied I had said something immoral. He shook his head negatively. It had to be told. He con- sidered it proper that the relations of the lady should know. No doubt--I thought to myself-- had Miss Vanlo not been thirty and damaged by the climate he would have found it possible to entrust Fred Vanlo with this confidence. And then the fig- ure of Hermann`s niece appeared before my mind`s eye, with the wealth of her opulent form, her rich youth, her lavish strength. With that powerful and immaculate vitality, her girlish form must have shouted aloud of life to that man, whereas poor Miss Vanlo could only sing sentimental songs to the strumming of a piano. "And that Hermann hates me, I know it!" he cried in his undertone, with a sudden recrudescence of anxiety. "I must tell them. It is proper that they should know. You would say so yourself." He then murmured an utterly mysterious allu- sion to the necessity for peculiar domestic arrange- ments. Though my curiosity was excited I did not want to hear any of his confidences. I feared he might give me a piece of information that would make my assumed role of match-maker odious-- however unreal it was. I was aware that he could have the girl for the asking; and keeping down a desire to laugh in his face, I expressed a confident belief in my ability to argue away Hermann`s dis- like for him. "I am sure I can make it all right," I said. He looked very pleased. And when we rose not a word had been said about towage! Not a word! The game was won and the honour was safe. Oh! blessed white cotton um- brella! We shook hands, and I was holding myself with difficulty from breaking into a step dance of joy when he came back, striding all the length of the verandah, and said doubtfully: "I say, captain, I have your word? You--you --won`t turn round?" Heavens! The fright he gave me. Behind his tone of doubt there was something desperate and menacing. The infatuated ass. But I was equal to the situation. "My dear Falk," I said, beginning to lie with a glibness and effrontery that amazed me even at the time--"confidence for confidence." (He had made no confidences.) "I will tell you that I am already engaged to an extremely charming girl at home, and so you understand. . . ." He caught my hand and wrung it in a crushing grip. "Pardon me. I feel it every day more difficult to live alone . . ." "On rice and fish," I interrupted smartly, gig- gling with the sheer nervousness of a danger es- caped. He dropped my hand as if it had become sud- denly red hot. A moment of profound silence en- sued, as though something extraordinary had hap- pened. "I promise you to obtain Hermann`s consent," I faltered out at last, and it seemed to me that he could not help seeing through that humbug- ging promise. "If there`s anything else to get over I shall endeavour to stand by you," I conceded further, feeling somehow defeated and overborne; "but you must do your best yourself." "I have been unfortunate once," he muttered unemotionally, and turning his back on me he went away, thumping slowly the plank floor as if his feet had been shod with iron. Next morning, however, he was lively enough as man-boat, a combination of splashing and shout- ing; of the insolent commotion below with the steady overbearing glare of the silent head-piece above. He turned us out most unnecessarily at an ungodly hour, but it was nearly eleven in the morn- ing before he brought me up a cable`s length from Hermann`s ship. And he did it very badly too, in a hurry, and nearly contriving to miss altogether the patch of good holding ground, because, for- sooth, he had caught sight of Hermann`s niece on the poop. And so did I; and probably as soon as he had seen her himself. I saw the modest, sleek glory of the tawny head, and the full, grey shape of the girlish print frock she filled so perfectly, so satisfactorily, with the seduction of unfaltering curves--a very nymph of Diana the Huntress. And Diana the ship sat, high-walled and as solid as an institution, on the smooth level of the water, the most uninspiring and respectable craft upon the seas, useful and ugly, devoted to the support of domestic virtues like any grocer`s shop on shore. At once Falk steamed away; for there was some work for him to do. He would return in the even- ing. He ranged close by us, passing out dead slow, without a hail. The beat of the paddle-wheels re- verberating amongst the stony islets, as if from the ruined walls of a vast arena, filled the anchorage confusedly with the clapping sounds of a mighty and leisurely applause. Abreast of Hermann`s ship he stopped the engines; and a profound si- lence reigned over the rocks, the shore and the sea, for the time it took him to raise his hat aloft before the nymph of the grey print frock. I had snatched up my binoculars, and I can answer for it she didn`t stir a limb, standing by the rail shapely and erect, with one of her hands grasping a rope at the height of her head, while the way of the tug carried slowly past her the lingering and profound homage of the man. There was for me an enormous significance in the scene, the sense of having witnessed a solemn declaration. The die was cast. After such a man- ifestation he couldn`t back out. And I reflected that it was nothing whatever to me now. With a rush of black smoke belching suddenly out of the funnel, and a mad swirl of paddle-wheels provoking a burst of weird and precipitated clapping, the tug shot out of the desolate arena. The rocky islets lay on the sea like the heaps of a cyclopean ruin on a plain; the centipedes and scorpions lurked un- der the stones; there was not a single blade of grass in sight anywhere, not a single lizard sunning him- self on a boulder by the shore. When I looked again at Hermann`s ship the girl had disappeared. I could not detect the smallest dot of a bird on the immense sky, and the flatness of the land continued the flatness of the sea to the naked line of the hori- zon. This is the setting now inseparably connected with my knowledge of Falk`s misfortune. My di- plomacy had brought me there, and now I had only to wait the time for taking up the role of an ambas- sador. My diplomacy was a success; my ship was safe; old Gambril would probably live; a feeble sound of a tapping hammer came intermittently from the Diana. During the afternoon I looked at times at the old homely ship, the faithful nurse of Hermann`s progeny, or yawned towards the dis- tant temple of Buddha, like a lonely hillock on the plain, where shaven priests cherish the thoughts of that Annihilation which is the worthy reward of us all. Unfortunate! He had been unfortunate once. Well, that was not so bad as life goes. And what the devil could be the nature of that misfortune? I remembered that I had known a man before who had declared himself to have fallen, years ago, a victim to misfortune; but this misfortune, whose effects appeared permanent (he looked desper- ately hard up) when considered dispassionately, seemed indistinguishable from a breach of trust. Could it be something of that nature? Apart, however, from the utter improbability that he would offer to talk of it even to his future uncle- in-law, I had a strange feeling that Falk`s physique unfitted him for that sort of delinquency. As the person of Hermann`s niece exhaled the profound physical charm of feminine form, so her ador- er`s big frame embodied to my senses the hard, straight masculinity that would conceivably kill but would not condescend to cheat. The thing was obvious. I might just as well have suspected the girl of a curvature of the spine. And I per- ceived that the sun was about to set. The smoke of Falk`s tug hove in sight, far away at the mouth of the river. It was time for me to assume the character of an ambassador, and the negotiation would not be difficult except in the matter of keeping my countenance. It was all too extravagantly nonsensical, and I conceived that it would be best to compose for myself a grave de- meanour. I practised this in my boat as I went along, but the bashfulness that came secretly upon me the moment I stepped on the deck of the Diana is inexplicable. As soon as we had exchanged greetings Hermann asked me eagerly if I knew whether Falk had found his white parasol. "He`s going to bring it to you himself directly," I said with great solemnity. "Meantime I am charged with an important message for which he begs your favourable consideration. He is in love with your niece. . . ." "Ach So!" he hissed with an animosity that made my assumed gravity change into the most genuine concern. What meant this tone? And I hurried on. "He wishes, with your consent of course, to ask her to marry him at once--before you leave here, that is. He would speak to the Consul." Hermann sat down and smoked violently. Five minutes passed in that furious meditation, and then, taking the long pipe out of his mouth, he burst into a hot diatribe against Falk--against his cupidity, his stupidity (a fellow that can hardly be got to say "yes" or "no" to the simplest ques- tion)--against his outrageous treatment of the shipping in port (because he saw they were at his mercy)--and against his manner of walking, which to his (Hermann`s) mind showed a conceit positively unbearable. The damage to the old Diana was not forgotten, of course, and there was nothing of any nature said or done by Falk (even to the last offer of refreshment in the hotel) that did not seem to have been a cause of offence. "Had the cheek" to drag him (Hermann) into that coffee-room; as though a drink from him could make up for forty-seven dollars and fifty cents of damage in the cost of wood alone--not counting two days` work for the carpenter. Of course he would not stand in the girl`s way. He was going home to Germany. There were plenty of poor girls walking about in Germany. "He`s very much in love," was all I found to say. "Yes," he cried. "And it is time too after mak- ing himself and me talked about ashore the last voyage I was here, and then now again; coming on board every evening unsettling the girl`s mind, and saying nothing. What sort of conduct is that?" The seven thousand dollars the fellow was always talking about did not, in his opinion, justify such behaviour. Moreover, nobody had seen them. He (Hermann) seriously doubted if there were seven thousand cents, and the tug, no doubt, was mort- gaged up to the top of the funnel to the firm of Siegers. But let that pass. He wouldn`t stand in the girl`s way. Her head was so turned that she had become no good to them of late. Quite unable even to put the children to bed without her aunt. It was bad for the children; they got unruly; and yesterday he actually had to give Gustav a thrash- ing. For that, too, Falk was made responsible ap- parently. And looking at my Hermann`s heavy, puffy, good-natured face, I knew he would not ex- ert himself till greatly exasperated, and, therefore, would thrash very hard, and being fat would resent the necessity. How Falk had managed to turn the girl`s head was more difficult to understand. I sup- posed Hermann would know. And then hadn`t there been Miss Vanlo? It could not be his silvery tongue, or the subtle seduction of his manner; he had no more of what is called "manner" than an animal--which, however, on the other hand, is never, and can never be called vulgar. Therefore it must have been his bodily appearance, exhibiting a virility of nature as exaggerated as his beard, and resembling a sort of constant ruthlessness. It was seen in the very manner he lolled in the chair. He meant no offence, but his intercourse was charac- terised by that sort of frank disregard of suscepti- bilities a man of seven foot six, living in a world of dwarfs, would naturally assume, without in the least wishing to be unkind. But amongst men of his own stature, or nearly, this frank use of his ad- vantages, in such matters as the awful towage bills for instance, caused much impotent gnashing of teeth. When attentively considered it seemed ap- palling at times. He was a strange beast. But maybe women liked it. Seen in that light he was well worth taming, and I suppose every woman at the bottom of her heart considers herself as a tamer of strange beasts. But Hermann arose with pre- cipitation to carry the news to his wife. I had barely the time, as he made for the cabin door, to grab him by the seat of his inexpressibles. I begged him to wait till Falk in person had spoken with him. There remained some small matter to talk over, as I understood. He sat down again at once, full of suspicion. "What matter?" he said surlily. "I have had enough of his nonsense. There`s no matter at all, as he knows very well; the girl has nothing in the world. She came to us in one thin dress when my brother died, and I have a growing family." "It can`t be anything of that kind," I opined. "He`s desperately enamoured of your niece. I don`t know why he did not say so before. Upon my word, I believe it is because he was afraid to lose, perhaps, the felicity of sitting near her on your quarter deck." I intimated my conviction that his love was so great as to be in a sense cowardly. The effects of a great passion are unaccountable. It has been known to make a man timid. But Hermann looked at me as if I had foolishly raved; and the twilight was dying out rapidly. "You don`t believe in passion, do you, Her- mann?" I said cheerily. "The passion of fear will make a cornered rat courageous. Falk`s in a cor- ner. He will take her off your hands in one thin frock just as she came to you. And after ten years` service it isn`t a bad bargain," I added. Far from taking offence, he resumed his air of civic virtue. The sudden night came upon him while he stared placidly along the deck, bringing in contact with his thick lips, and taking away again after a jet of smoke, the curved mouthpiece fitted to the stem of his pipe. The night came upon him and buried in haste his whiskers, his glob- ular eyes, his puffy pale face, his fat knees and the vast flat slippers on his fatherly feet. Only his short arms in respectable white shirt-sleeves re- mained very visible, propped up like the flippers of a seal reposing on the strand. "Falk wouldn`t settle anything about repairs. Told me to find out first how much wood I should require and he would see," he remarked; and after he had spat peacefully in the dusk we heard over the water the beat of the tug`s floats. There is, on a calm night, nothing more suggestive of fierce and headlong haste than the rapid sound made by the paddle-wheels of a boat threshing her way through a quiet sea; and the approach of Falk towards his fate seemed to be urged by an impatient and pas- sionate desire. The engines must have been driven to the very utmost of their revolutions. We heard them slow down at last, and, vaguely, the white hull of the tug appeared moving against the black islets, whilst a slow and rhythmical clapping as of thousands of hands rose on all sides. It ceased all at once, just before Falk brought her up. A sin- gle brusque splash was followed by the long drawn rumbling of iron links running through the hawse pipe. Then a solemn silence fell upon the Road- stead. "He will soon be here," I murmured, and after that we waited for him without a word. Meantime, raising my eyes, I beheld the glitter of a lofty sky above the Diana`s mastheads. The multitude of stars gathered into clusters, in rows, in lines, in masses, in groups, shone all together, unanimously --and the few isolated ones, blazing by themselves in the midst of dark patches, seemed to be of a su- perior kind and of an inextinguishable nature. But long striding footsteps were heard hastening along the deck; the high bulwarks of the Diana made a deeper darkness. We rose from our chairs quickly, and Falk, appearing before us, all in white, stood still. Nobody spoke at first, as though we had been covered with confusion. His arrival was fiery, but his white bulk, of indefinite shape and without fea- tures, made him loom up like a man of snow. "The captain here has been telling me . . ." Hermann began in a homely and amicable voice; and Falk had a low, nervous laugh. His cool, neg- ligent undertone had no inflexions, but the strength of a powerful emotion made him ramble in his speech. He had always desired a home. It was difficult to live alone, though he was not answera- ble. He was domestic; there had been difficulties; but since he had seen Hermann`s niece he found that it had become at last impossible to live by him- self. "I mean--impossible," he repeated with no sort of emphasis and only with the slightest of pauses, but the word fell into my mind with the force of a new idea. "I have not said anything to her yet," Hermann observed quietly. And Falk dismissed this by a "That`s all right. Certainly. Very proper." There was a necessity for perfect frankness--in marrying, especially. Hermann seemed attentive, but he seized the first opportunity to ask us into the cabin. "And by-the-by, Falk," he said innocent- ly, as we passed in, "the timber came to no less than forty-seven dollars and fifty cents." Falk, uncovering his head, lingered in the pas- sage. "Some other time," he said; and Hermann nudged me angrily--I don`t know why. The girl alone in the cabin sat sewing at some distance from the table. Falk stopped short in the doorway. Without a word, without a sign, without the slight- est inclination of his bony head, by the silent in- tensity of his look alone, he seemed to lay his her- culean frame at her feet. Her hands sank slowly on her lap, and raising her clear eyes, she let her soft, beaming glance enfold him from head to foot like a slow and pale caress. He was very hot when he sat down; she, with bowed head, went on with her sewing; her neck was very white under the light of the lamp; but Falk, hiding his face in the palms of his hands, shuddered faintly. He drew them down, even to his beard, and his uncovered eyes as- tonished me by their tense and irrational expres- sion--as though he had just swallowed a heavy gulp of alcohol. It passed away while he was binding us to secrecy. Not that he cared, but he did not like to be spoken about; and I looked at the girl`s marvellous, at her wonderful, at her regal hair, plaited tight into that one astonishing and maidenly tress. Whenever she moved her well- shaped head it would stir stiffly to and fro on her back. The thin cotton sleeve fitted the irreproach- able roundness of her arm like a skin; and her very dress, stretched on her bust, seemed to palpitate like a living tissue with the strength of vitality ani- mating her body. How good her complexion was, the outline of her soft cheek and the small convo- luted conch of her rosy ear! To pull her needle she kept the little finger apart from the others; it seemed a waste of power to see her sewing--eter- nally sewing--with that industrious and precise movement of her arm, going on eternally upon all the oceans, under all the skies, in innumerable har- bours. And suddenly I heard Falk`s voice declare that he could not marry a woman unless she knew of something in his life that had happened ten years ago. It was an accident. An unfortunate ac- cident. It would affect the domestic arrangements of their home, but, once told, it need not be alluded to again for the rest of their lives. "I should want my wife to feel for me," he said. "It has made me unhappy." And how could he keep the knowledge of it to himself--he asked us--perhaps through years and years of companionship? What sort of companionship would that be? He had thought it over. A wife must know. Then why not at once? He counted on Hermann`s kindness for presenting the affair in the best possible light. And Her- mann`s countenance, mystified before, became very sour. He stole an inquisitive glance at me. I shook my head blankly. Some people thought, Falk went on, that such an experience changed a man for the rest of his life. He couldn`t say. It was hard, awful, and not to be forgotten, but he did not think himself a worse man than before. Only he talked in his sleep now, he believed. . . . At last I began to think he had accidentally killed some one; perhaps a friend--his own father may- be; when he went on to say that probably we were aware he never touched meat. Throughout he spoke English, of course of my account. He swayed forward heavily.
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