With a remark that it was getting late, and that he was a married man,
he would say a patronizing good-night and step out into the long,
empty street. At that hour its white dust was like a dazzling streak of
moonlight where the eye sought repose in the dimmer gleam of rare oil
lamps. Willems walked homewards, following the line of walls overtopped
by the luxuriant vegetation of the front gardens. The houses right and
left were hidden behind the black masses of flowering shrubs. Willems
had the street to himself. He would walk in the middle, his shadow
gliding obsequiously before him. He looked down on it complacently.
The shadow of a successful man! He would be slightly dizzy with the
cocktails and with the intoxication of his own glory. As he often told
people, he came east fourteen years ago--a cabin boy. A small boy. His
shadow must have been very small at that time; he thought with a smile
that he was not aware then he had anything--even a shadow--which
he dared call his own. And now he was looking at the shadow of the
confidential clerk of Hudig & Co. going home. How glorious! How good
was life for those that were on the winning side! He had won the game
of life; also the game of billiards. He walked faster, jingling his
winnings, and thinking of the white stone days that had marked the path
of his existence. He thought of the trip to Lombok for ponies--that
first important transaction confided to him by Hudig; then he reviewed
the more important affairs: the quiet deal in opium; the illegal traffic
in gunpowder; the great affair of smuggled firearms, the difficult
business of the Rajah of Goak. He carried that last through by sheer
pluck; he had bearded the savage old ruler in his council room; he had
bribed him with a gilt glass coach, which, rumour said, was used as a
hen-coop now; he had over-persuaded him; he had bested him in every way.
That was the way to get on. He disapproved of the elementary dishonesty
that dips the hand in the cash-box, but one could evade the laws and
push the principles of trade to their furthest consequences. Some call