struck
a chill into Mr. Jones in his soaked clothes.

"I may infer, then, that there is a settlement of white people here?" he
murmured, shivering visibly.

Heyst roused himself.

"Oh, abandoned, abandoned. I am alone here--practically alone; but
several empty houses are still standing. No lack of accommodation. We
may just as well--here, Wang, go back to the shore and run the trolley
out here."

The last words having been spoken in Malay, he explained courteously
that he had given directions for the transport of the luggage. Wang had
melted into the night--in his soundless manner.

"My word! Rails laid down and all," exclaimed Ricardo softly, in a tone
of admiration. "Well, I never!"

"We were working a coal-mine here," said the late manager of the
Tropical Belt Coal Company. "These are only the ghosts of things that
have been."

Mr Jones's teeth were suddenly started chattering by another faint puff
of wind, a mere sigh from the west, where Venus cast her rays on the
dark edge of the horizon, like a bright lamp hung above the grave of the
sun.

"We might be moving on," proposed Heyst. "My Chinaman and
that--ah--ungrateful servant of yours, with the broken head, can load
the things and come along after us."

The suggestion was accepted without words. Moving towards the shore,
the three men met the trolley, a mere metallic rustle which whisked past
them, the shadowy Wang running noiselessly behind. Only the sound of
their footsteps accompanied them. It was a long time since so many
footsteps had rung together on that jetty. Before they stepped on to the
path trodden through the grass, Heyst said:

"I am prevented from offering you a share of my own quarters." The
distant courtliness of this beginning arrested the other two suddenly,
as if amazed by some manifest incongruity. "I should regret it more,"
he went on, "if I were not in a position to give you the choice of those
empty bungalows for a temporary home."

He turned round and plunged into the narrow track, the two others
following in single file.

"Queer start!" Ricardo took the opportunity for whispering, as he fell
behind Mr. Jones, who swayed in the gloom, enclosed by the stalks of
tropical grass, almost as slender as a stalk of grass himself.

In this order they emerged into the open space kept clear of vegetation
by Wang's judicious system of periodic firing. The shapes of buildings,
unlighted, high-roofed, looked mysteriously extensive and