The Argus Pheasant Part 10

"Tell me about it," Sachsen urged, with an imperceptible gesture to the governor to say nothing. He leaned forward expectantly.

Peter Gross c.o.c.ked an eye at the ceiling. "Let me see, it was about a year ago," he said. "I was with McCloud, on the brig _Mary Dietrich_.

McCloud heard at Maca.s.sar that there was a settlement of Dyaks at the mouth of the Abbas that wanted to trade in dammar gum and gambir and didn't ask too much _balas_ (tribute money). We crossed the straits and found the village. Wolang, the chief, gave us a big welcome. We spent one day palavering; these natives won't do anything without having a _b.i.t.c.hara_ first. The next morning I began loading operations, while McCloud entertained the _orang kaya_, Wolang, with a bottle of gin.

"The natives crowded around pretty close, particularly the women, anxious to see what we were bringing ash.o.r.e. One girl, quite a pretty girl, went so far as to step into the boat, and one of my men swung an arm around her and kissed her. She screamed."

The governor took his pipe out of his mouth and looked up with interest.

"The next minute the mob of Dyaks parted as though cut with a scythe.

Down the lane came a woman, a white woman."

He turned to the secretary. "You have seen her, Sachsen?"

"_Ja_, Pieter."

"Then you can guess how she keeled me over," Peter Gross said. "I took her for white woman, a pure blood. She is white; the brown in her skin is no deeper than in a Spaniard's. She walked up to me--I could see a hurricane was threatening--and she said:

"'You are English? Go back to your ship, now; don't wait a minute, or you will leave your heads here.'

"'Madam,' I said, 'the lad was hasty, but meant no harm. It will not happen again. I will make the lady a present.'

"She turned a look on me that fairly withered me. '_You_ think you can buy our women, too?' she said, fairly spitting the words. 'Go! go! Don't you see my Dyaks fitting arrows in their blow-pipes?'

"McCloud came running up with Chief Wolang. 'What's this?' he bl.u.s.tered, but Koyala only pointed to the sea and said the one word:

"'Go!'

"McCloud spoke to Wolang, but at a nod from Koyala the chief gave an order to his followers. Fifty Dyaks fitted poisoned arrows into their _sumpitans_. McCloud had good judgment; he knew when it was no use to _b.i.t.c.hara_ and show gin. We rowed back to the ship without the cargo we expected to load and set sail at once. Not an arrow followed us, but the last thing I saw of the village was Koyala on the beach, watching us dip into the big rollers of the Celebes Sea."

"She is beautiful?" Sachsen suggested softly.

"Ay, quite an attractive young female," Peter Gross agreed in utmost seriousness. The governor's grim smile threatened to break out into an open grin.

Sachsen looked at the table-top thoughtfully and rubbed his hands. "She lost you a cargo," he stated. "You have a score to settle with her." He flashed a keen glance at his protege.

"By G.o.d, no!" Peter Gross exclaimed. He brought his fist down on the table. "She was right, eternally right. If a scoundrelly sc.u.m from over the sea tried to kiss a woman of my kin in that way I'd treat him a lot worse than we were treated."

Van Schouten blew an angry snort that cut like a knife the huge cloud of tobacco-smoke in which he had enveloped himself. Peter Gross faced him truculently.

"We deserved what we got," he a.s.serted. "When we whites get over the notion that the world is a playground for us to spill our l.u.s.ts and vices on and the lower races the playthings we can abuse as we please, we'll have peace in these islands. Our missionaries preach morals and Christianity; our traders, like that d.a.m.ned whelp, Leveque, break every law of G.o.d and man. Between the two the poor benighted heathen loses all the faith he has and sinks one grade lower in brutishness than his ancestors were before him. If all men were like Brooke of Sarawak we'd have had the East Indies Christianized by now. The natives were ready to make G.o.ds out of us--they did it with Brooke--but now they're looking for a chance to put a knife in our backs--a good many of them are."

He checked himself. "Here I'm preaching. I beg your pardon, your excellency."

Van Schouten blew another great cloud of tobacco-smoke and said nothing.

Through the haze his eagle-keen eyes searched Peter Gross's face and noted the firm chin and tightly drawn lips with stern disapproval.

Sachsen flashed him a warning glance to keep silent.

"Mynheer Gross," the secretary entreated, "let me again beg the privileges of an old friend. Is it admiration for Koyala's beauty or your keen sense of justice that leads you to so warm a defense?"

Peter Gross's reply was prompt and decisive.

"Vrind Sachsen, if she had been a hag I'd have thought no different."

"Search your heart, Vrind Pieter. Is it not because she was young and comely, a woman unafraid, that you remember her?"

"Women are nothing to me," Peter Gross retorted irritably. "But right is right, and wrong is wrong, whether in Batavia or Bulungan."

Sachsen shook his head.

"Vrind Pieter," he declared sadly, "you make me very much afraid for you. If you had acknowledged, 'The woman was fair, a fair woman stirs me quickly,' I would have said: 'He is young and has eyes to see with, but he is too shrewd to be trapped.' But when you say: 'The fault was ours, we deserved to lose the cargo,' then I know that you are blind, blind to your own weakness, Pieter. Clever, wicked women make fools of such as you, Pieter."

One eyebrow arched the merest trifle in the direction of the governor.

Then Sachsen continued:

"Vrind Pieter, I am here to-night to warn you against this woman. I have much to tell you about her, much that is unpleasant. Will you listen?"

Peter Gross shrugged his shoulders.

"I am at your service, Sachsen."

"Will you listen with an open mind? Will you banish from your thoughts all recollection of the woman you saw at the mouth of the Abbas River, all that you know or think you know of her fancied wrongs, and hear what old Sachsen has to say of the evil she has done, of the crimes, the piracies, ay, even rebellions and treasons for which she has been responsible? What do you say, Vrind Pieter?"

Pieter Gross swallowed hard. Words seemed to be struggling to his lips, but he kept them back. His teeth were pressed together tightly, the silence became tense.

"Listen, Sachsen," he finally said. His voice was studiedly calm. "You come from an old, conservative race, a race that clings faithfully to the precepts and ideals of its fathers and is certain of its footing before it makes a step in advance. You have the old concept of woman, that her lot is to bear, to suffer, and to weep. I come from a fresher, newer race, a race that gives its women the same liberty of thought and action that it gives its men. Therefore there are many things concerning the conduct of this woman that we look at in different ways. Things that seem improper, ay, sometimes treasonable, to you, seem a perfectly natural protest to me. You ignore the wrongs she has suffered, wrongs that must make life a living h.e.l.l to her. You say she must be content with the place to which G.o.d has called her, submerge the white blood in her, and live a savage among savages."

Peter Gross pulled his chair nearer the table and leaned forward. His face glowed with an intense earnestness.

"Great Scot, Sachsen, think of her condition! Half white, ay, half French, and that is as proud a race as breathes. Beautiful--beautiful as the sunrise. Taught in a missionary school, brought up as a white child among white children. And then, when the glory of her womanhood comes upon her, to learn she is an illegitimate, a half-breed, sister to the savage Dyaks, her only future in their filthy huts, to kennel with them, breed with them--G.o.d, what a horror that revelation must have been!"

He raked his fingers through his hair and stared savagely at the wall.

"You don't feel these things, Sachsen," he concluded. "You're Dutch to begin with, and so a conservative thinker. Then you've been ground through the routine of colonial service so many years that you've lost every viewpoint except the state's expediency. Thank G.o.d, I haven't!

That is why I think I can do something for you in Bulungan--"

He checked himself. "Common sense and a little elemental justice go a long, long way in dealing with savages," he observed.

Sachsen's eyes looked steadily into Peter Gross's. Sachsen's kindly smile did not falter. But the governor's patience had reached its limit.

"Look you here, Mynheer Gross," he exclaimed, "I want no sympathy for that she-devil from my resident."

An angry retort leaped to Peter Gross's lips, but before it could be uttered Sachsen's hand had leaped across the table and had gripped his warningly.

"She may be as beautiful as a houri, but she is a witch, a very Jezebel," the governor stormed. "I have nipped a dozen uprisings in the bud, and this Koyala has been at the bottom of all of them. She hates us _orang blandas_ with a hate that the fires of h.e.l.l could not burn out, but she is subtler than the serpent that taught Mother Eve. She has bewitched my _controlleur_; see that she does not bewitch you. I have put a price on her head; your first duty will be to see that she is delivered for safe-keeping here in Batavia."

The governor's eyes were sparkling fire. There was a like anger in Peter Gross's face; he was on the point of speaking when Sachsen's nails dug so deeply into his hand that he winced.

"Mynheer Gross is an American, therefore he is chivalrous," Sachsen observed. "He aims to be just, but there is much that he does not understand. If your excellency will permit me--"