"She came no more. Never! Never once! I lived alone. She had forgotten.
It was well. I did not want her; I wanted no one. I found an abandoned
house in an old clearing. Nobody came near. Sometimes I heard in the
distance the voices of people going along a path. I slept; I rested;
there was wild rice, water from a running stream--and peace! Every night
I sat alone by my small fire before the hut. Many nights passed over my
head.

"Then, one evening, as I sat by my fire after having eaten, I looked
down on the ground and began to remember my wanderings. I lifted my
head. I had heard no sound, no rustle, no footsteps--but I lifted my
head. A man was coming towards me across the small clearing. I waited.
He came up without a greeting and squatted down into the firelight. Then
he turned his face to me. It was Matara. He stared at me fiercely with
his big sunken eyes. The night was cold; the heat died suddenly out of
the fire, and he stared at me. I rose and went away from there, leaving
him by the fire that had no heat.

"I walked all that night, all next day, and in the evening made up a big
blaze and sat down--to wait for him. He had not come into the light.
I heard him in the bushes here and there, whispering, whispering.
I understood at last--I had heard the words before, 'You are my
friend--kill with a sure shot.'

"I bore it as long as I could--then leaped away, as on this very night
I leaped from my stockade and swam to you. I ran--I ran crying like a
child left alone and far from the houses. He ran by my side, without
footsteps, whispering, whispering--invisible and heard. I sought
people--I wanted men around me! Men who had not died! And again we two
wandered. I sought danger, violence, and death. I fought in the Atjeh