one of the moribund Spanish gun-boats be suddenly galvanized into a
flicker of active life did not trouble us, once we were inside the
bay--so completely did it appear out of the reach of a meddling world;
and besides, in those days we were imaginative enough to look with
a kind of joyous equanimity on any chance there was of being quietly
hanged somewhere out of the way of diplomatic remonstrance. As to
Karain, nothing could happen to him unless what happens to all--failure
and death; but his quality was to appear clothed in the illusion of
unavoidable success. He seemed too effective, too necessary there, too
much of an essential condition for the existence of his land and his
people, to be destroyed by anything short of an earthquake. He summed up
his race, his country, the elemental force of ardent life, of tropical
nature. He had its luxuriant strength, its fascination; and, like it, he
carried the seed of peril within.

In many successive visits we came to know his stage well--the purple
semicircle of hills, the slim trees leaning over houses, the yellow
sands, the streaming green of ravines. All that had the crude and
blended colouring, the appropriateness almost excessive, the suspicious
immobility of a painted scene; and it enclosed so perfectly the
accomplished acting of his amazing pretences that the rest of the world
seemed shut out forever from the gorgeous spectacle. There could be
nothing outside. It was as if the earth had gone on spinning, and had
left that crumb of its surface alone in space. He appeared utterly cut
off from everything but the sunshine, and that even seemed to be made
for him alone. Once when asked what was on the other side of the hills,
he said, with a meaning smile, "Friends and enemies--many enemies;
else why should I buy your rifles and powder?" He was always like
this--word-perfect in his part, playing up faithfully to the mysteries
and certitudes of his surroundings. "Friends and enemies"--nothing else.