mously; but
nothing of it could be seen, because he went to the trouble of pulling
to pieces one of the company's sheds in order to get materials for
making a high and very close fence round his patch, as if the growing
of vegetables were a patented process, or an awful and holy mystery
entrusted to the keeping of his race.

Heyst, following from a distance the progress of Wang's gardening and of
these precautions--there was nothing else to look at--was amused at
the thought that he, in his own person, represented the market for
its produce. The Chinaman had found several packets of seeds in the
store-rooms, and had surrendered to an irresistible impulse to put them
into the ground. He would make his master pay for the vegetables which
he was raising to satisfy his instinct. And, looking silently at the
silent Wang going about his work in the bungalow in his unhasty,
steady way; Heyst envied the Chinaman's obedience to his instincts, the
powerful simplicity of purpose which made his existence appear almost
automatic in the mysterious precision of its facts.

CHAPTER TWO

During his master's absence at Sourabaya, Wang had busied himself with
the ground immediately in front of the principal bungalow. Emerging
from the fringe of grass growing across the shore end of the coal-jetty,
Heyst beheld a broad, clear space, black and level, with only one or two
clumps of charred twigs, where the flame had swept from the front of his
house to the nearest trees of the forest.

"You took the risk of firing the grass?" Heyst asked.

Wang nodded. Hanging on the arm of the white man before whom he stood
was the girl called Alma; but neither from the Chinaman's eyes nor from
his expression could anyone have guessed that he was in the slightest
degree aware of the fact.

"He has been tidying the place in his labour-saving way," explained
Heyst, without looking at the girl, whose hand rested on his forearm.
"He's the whole establishment, you see. I told you I hadn't even a dog
to keep me company here."

Wang had marched off towards the wharf.

"He's like those waiters in that place," she said. That place was
Schomberg's hotel.

"One Chinaman looks very much like another," Heyst remarked. "We shall
find it useful to have him here. This is the house."

They faced, at some distance, the six shallow steps leading up to the
veranda. The girl had abandoned Heyst's arm.

"This is the house," he repeated.

She did not offer