the doorway of the cabin. His bare breast and his face glistened in
the light; his sarong, soaked, clung about his legs; he had his

sheathed kriss in his left hand; and wisps of wet hair, escaping from
under his red kerchief, stuck over his eyes and down his cheeks. He

stepped in with a headlongstride and looking over his shoulder like a
man pursued. Hollis turned on his side quickly and opened his eyes.

Jackson clapped his big hand over the strings and the jingling
vibration died suddenly. I stood up.

"We did not hear your boat's hail!" I exclaimed.
"Boat! The man's swum off," drawled out Hollis from the locker. "Look

at him!"
He breathed heavily, wild-eyed, while we looked at him in silence.

Water dripped from him, made a dark pool, and ran crookedly across the
cabin floor. We could hear Jackson, who had gone out to drive away our

Malay seamen from the doorway of the companion; he swore menacingly in
the patter of a heavy shower, and there was a great commotion on deck.

The watchmen, scared out of their wits by the glimpse of a shadowy
figure leaping over the rail, straight out of the night as it were,

had alarmed all hands.
Then Jackson, with glittering drops of water on his hair and beard,

came back looking angry, and Hollis, who, being the youngest of us,
assumed an indolent superiority, said without stirring, "Give him a

dry sarong--give him mine; it's hanging up in the bathroom." Karain
laid the kriss on the table, hilt inwards, and murmured a few words

in a strangled voice.
"What's that?" asked Hollis, who had not heard.

"He apologizes for coming in with a weapon in his hand," I said,
dazedly.

"Ceremonious beggar. Tell him we forgive a friend . . . on such a
night," drawled out Hollis. "What's wrong?"

Karain slipped the dry sarong over his head, dropped the wet one at
his feet, and stepped out of it. I pointed to the wooden armchair--his

armchair. He sat down very straight, said "Ha!" in a strong voice; a
short shiver shook his broad frame. He looked over his shoulder

uneasily, turned as if to speak to us, but only stared in a curious
blind manner, and again looked back. Jackson bellowed out, "Watch well

on deck there!" heard a faint answer from above, and reaching out with
his foot slammed-to the cabin door.

"All right now," he said.
Karain's lips moved slightly. A vivid flash of lightning made the two

round sternports facing him glimmer like a pair of cruel and
phosphorescent eyes. The flame of the lamp seemed to wither into brown

dust for an instant, and the looking-glass over the little sideboard
leaped out behind his back in a smooth sheet of livid light. The roll

of thunder came near, crashed over us; the schooner trembled, and the
great voice went on, threatening terribly, into the distance. For less

than a minute a furiousshower rattled on the decks. Karain looked
slowly from face to face, and then the silence became so profound that

we all could hear distinctly the two chronometers in my cabin ticking
along with unflagging speed against one another.

And we three, strangely moved, could not take our eyes from him. He
had become enigmatical and touching, in virtue of that mysterious

cause that had driven him through the night and through the
thunderstorm to the shelter of the schooner's cuddy. Not one of us

doubted that we were looking at a fugitive, incredible as it appeared
to us. He was haggard, as though he had not slept for weeks; he had

become lean, as though he had not eaten for days. His cheeks were
hollow, his eyes sunk, the muscles of his chest and arms twitched

slightly as if after an exhausting contest. Of course it had been a
long swim off to the schooner; but his face showed another kind of

fatigue, the tormented weariness, the anger and the fear of a struggle
against a thought, an idea--against something that cannot be grappled,

that never rests--a shadow, a nothing, unconquerable and immortal,
that preys upon life. We knew it as though he had shouted it at us.

His chest expanded time after time, as if it could not contain the
beating of his heart. For a moment he had the power of the

possessed--the power to awaken in the beholders wonder, pain, pity,
and a fearful near sense of things invisible, of things dark and mute,

that surround the loneliness of mankind. His eyes roamed about
aimlessly for a moment, then became still. He said with effort--

"I came here . . . I leaped out of my stockade as after a defeat. I
ran in the night. The water was black. I left him calling on the edge

of black water. . . . I left him standing alone on the beach. I
swam . . . he called out after me . . . I swam . . ."

He trembled from head to foot, sitting very upright and gazing
straight before him. Left whom? Who called? We did not know. We could

not understand. I said at all hazards--
"Be firm."

The sound of my voice seemed to steady him into a sudden rigidity, but
otherwise he took no notice. He seemed to listen, to expect something

for a moment, then went on--
"He cannot come here--therefore I sought you. You men with white faces

who despise the invisible voices. He cannot abide your unbelief and
your strength."

He was silent for a while, then exclaimed softly--
"Oh! the strength of unbelievers!"

"There's no one here but you--and we three," said Hollis, quietly. He
reclined with his head supported on elbow and did not budge.

"I know," said Karain. "He has never followed me here. Was not the
wise man ever by my side? But since the old wise man, who knew of my

trouble, has died, I have heard the voice every night. I shut myself
up--for many days--in the dark. I can hear the sorrowful murmurs of

women, the whisper of the wind, of the running waters; the clash of
weapons in the hands of faithful men, their footsteps--and his voice!

. . . Near . . . So! In my ear! I felt him near . . . His breath
passed over my neck. I leaped out without a cry. All about me men

slept quietly. I ran to the sea. He ran by my side without footsteps,
whispering, whispering old words--whispering into my ear in his

old voice. I ran into the sea; I swam off to you, with my kriss
between my teeth. I, armed, I fled before a breath--to you. Take me

away to your land. The wise old man has died, and with him is gone the
power of his words and charms. And I can tell no one. No one. There is

no one here faithful enough and wise enough to know. It is only near
you, unbelievers, that my trouble fades like a mist under the eye of

day."
He turned to me.

"With you I go!" he cried in a contained voice. "With you, who know so
many of us. I want to leave this land--my people . . . and

him--there!"
He pointed a shaking finger at random over his shoulder. It was hard

for us to bear the intensity of that undisclosed stress" target="_blank" title="n.痛苦 vt.使苦恼">distress. Hollis
stared at him hard. I asked gently--

"Where is the danger?"
"Everywhere outside this place," he answered, mournfully. "In every

place where I am. He waits for me on the paths, under the trees, in
the place where I sleep--everywhere but here."

He looked round the little cabin, at the painted beams, at the
tarnished varnish of bulkheads; he looked round as if appealing to all

its shabby strangeness, to the disorderly jumble of unfamiliar
things that belong to an inconceivable life of stress, of power, of

endeavour, of unbelief--to the strong life of white men, which rolls
on irresistible and hard on the edge of outer darkness. He stretched

out his arms as if to embrace it and us. We waited. The wind and rain
had ceased, and the stillness of the night round the schooner was as

dumb and complete as if a dead world had been laid to rest in a grave
of clouds. We expected him to speak. The necessity within him tore

at his lips. There are those who say that a native will not speak to
a white man. Error. No man will speak to his master; but to a wanderer

and a friend, to him who does not come to teach or to rule, to him who
asks for nothing and accepts all things, words are spoken by the

camp-fires, in the shared solitude of the sea, in riverside villages,