a much older man; a lot of small objects, such
as candlesticks, inkstands, and statuettes from his father's study,
which surprised him because they looked so old and so much worn.

The manager of the Tropical Belt Coal Company, unpacking them on the
veranda in the shade besieged by a fierce sunshine, must have felt like
a remorseful apostate before these relics. He handled them tenderly;
and it was perhaps their presence there which attached him to the island
when he woke up to the failure of his apostasy. Whatever the decisive
reason, Heyst had remained where another would have been glad to be off.
The excellent Davidson had discovered the fact without discovering the
reason, and took a humane interest in Heyst's strange existence, while
at the same time his native delicacy kept him from intruding on the
other's whim of solitude. He could not possibly guess that Heyst, alone
on the island, felt neither more nor less lonely than in any other
place, desert or populous. Davidson's concern was, if one may express it
so, the danger of spiritual starvation; but this was a spirit which had
renounced all outside nourishment, and was sustaining itself proudly on
its own contempt of the usual coarse ailments which life offers to the
common appetites of men.

Neither was Heyst's body in danger of starvation, as Schomberg had so
confidently asserted. At the beginning of the company's operations the
island had been provisioned in a manner which had outlasted the need.
Heyst did not need to fear hunger; and his very loneliness had not been
without some alleviation. Of the crowd of imported Chinese labourers,
one at least had remained in Samburan, solitary and strange, like a
swallow left behind at the migrating season of his tribe.

Wang was not a common coolie. He had been a servant to white men before.
The agreement between him and Heyst consisted in the exchange of a few
words on the day when the last batch of the mine coolies was leaving
Samburan. Heyst, leaning over the balustrade of the veranda, was looking
on, as calm in appearance as though he had never departed from the
doctrine that this world, for the wise, is nothing but an amusing
spectacle. Wang came round the house, and standing below, raised up his
yellow, thin face.

"All finished?" he asked. Heyst nodded slightly from above, glancing
towards the jetty. A crowd of blue-clad figures with yellow faces and
calves was being hustled down into the boats of the chartere