wretches, that keep watch over the streets of stone campongs, asked us
who we were. We lied, we cringed, we smiled with hate in our hearts,
and we kept looking here, looking there for them--for the white man with
hair like flame, and for her, for the woman who had broken faith, and
therefore must die. We looked. At last in every woman's face I thought
I could see hers. We ran swiftly. No! Sometimes Matara would whisper,
'Here is the man,' and we waited, crouching. He came near. It was
not the man--those Dutchmen are all alike. We suffered the anguish of
deception. In my sleep I saw her face, and was both joyful and sorry
. . . . Why? . . . I seemed to hear a whisper near me. I turned swiftly.
She was not there! And as we trudged wearily from stone city to stone
city I seemed to hear a light footstep near me. A time came when I heard
it always, and I was glad. I thought, walking dizzy and weary in
sunshine on the hard paths of white men I thought, She is there--with
us! . . . Matara was sombre. We were often hungry.

"We sold the carved sheaths of our krisses--the ivory sheaths with
golden ferules. We sold the jewelled hilts. But we kept the blades--for
them. The blades that never touch but kill--we kept the blades for her.
. . . Why? She was always by our side. . . . We starved. We begged. We
left Java at last.

"We went West, we went East. We saw many lands, crowds of strange faces,
men that live in trees and men who eat their old people. We cut rattans
in the forest for a handful of rice, and for a living swept the decks of
big ships and heard curses heaped upon our heads. We toiled in villages;
we wandered upon the seas with the Bajow people, who have no country.
We fought for pay; we hired ourselves to work for Goram men, and were
cheated; and under the orders of rough white faces we dived for pearls
in barren bays, dotted with black rocks, upon a coast of sand and