s are generally
simple if one is quick enough to think of them in time. He became aware
very soon that the attempt to pursue him had been given up, but he had
taken the forest path and had kept up his pace because he had left his
Rajah and the lady Immada beset by enemies on the edge of the forest, as
good as captives to a party of Tengga's men.

Belarab's hesitation had proved too much even for Hassim's hereditary
patience in such matters. It is but becoming that weighty negotiations
should be spread over many days, that the same requests and arguments
should be repeated in the same words, at many successive interviews, and
receive the same evasive answers. Matters of state demand the dignity of
such a procedure as if time itself had to wait on the power and wisdom
of rulers. Such are the proceedings of embassies and the dignified
patience of envoys. But at this time of crisis Hassim's impatience
obtained the upper hand; and though he never departed from the tradition
of soft speech and restrained bearing while following with his sister in
the train of the pious Belarab, he had his moments of anger, of anxiety,
of despondency. His friendships, his future, his country's destinies
were at stake, while Belarab's camp wandered deviously over the back
country as if influenced by the vacillation of the ruler's thought, the
very image of uncertain fate.

Often no more than the single word "Good" was all the answer vouchsafed
to Hassim's daily speeches. The lesser men, companions of the Chief,
treated him with deference; but Hassim could feel the opposition from
the women's side of the camp working against his cause in subservience
to the mere caprice of the new wife, a girl quite gentle and kind to her
dependents, but whose imagination had run away with her completely and
had made her greedy for the loot of the yacht from mere simplicity and
innocence. What could Hassim, that stranger, wandering and poor, offer
for her acceptance? Nothing. The wealth of his far-off country was but
an idle tale, the talk of an exile looking for help.

At night Hassim had to listen to the anguished doubts of Immada, the
only companion of his life, child of the same mother, brave as a man,
but in her fears a very woman. She whispered them to him far into the
night while the camp of the great Belarab was hushed in sleep and the
fires had sunk down to mere glowing embers. Hassim soothed her gravely.
But he, too, was a native of Wajo where men ar