ng introduced to some kindling-wood and a bundle of
dry sticks, had busied himself outside in lighting a fire, on which he
placed a ready-filled kettle handed to him by Wang impassively, at arm's
length, as if across a chasm. Having received the thanks of his guests,
Heyst wished them goodnight and withdrew, leaving them to their repose.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Heyst walked away slowly. There was still no light in his bungalow, and
he thought that perhaps it was just as well. By this time he was much
less perturbed. Wang had preceded him with the lantern, as if in a hurry
to get away from the two white men and their hairy attendant. The light
was not dancing along any more; it was standing perfectly still by the
steps of the veranda.

Heyst, glancing back casually, saw behind him still another light--the
light of the strangers' open fire. A black, uncouth form, stooping over
it monstrously, staggered away into the outlying shadows. The kettle had
boiled, probably.

With that weird vision of something questionably human impressed upon
his senses, Heyst moved on a pace or two. What could the people be who
had such a creature for their familiar attendant? He stopped. The vague
apprehension, of a distant future, in which he saw Lena unavoidably
separated from him by profound and subtle differences; the sceptical
carelessness which had accompanied every one of his attempts at action,
like a secret reserve of his soul, fell away from him. He no longer
belonged to himself. There was a call far more imperious and august. He
came up to the bungalow, and at the very limit of the lantern's light,
on the top step, he saw her feet and the bottom part of her dress. The
rest of her person was suggested dimly as high as her waist. She sat
on a chair, and the gloom of the low eaves descended upon her head and
shoulders. She didn't stir.

"You haven't gone to sleep here?" he asked.

"Oh, no! I was waiting for you--in the dark."

Heyst, on the top step, leaned against a wooden pillar, after moving the
lantern to one side.

"I have been thinking that it is just as well you had no light. But
wasn't it dull for you to sit in the dark?"

"I don't need a light to think of you." Her charming voice gave a value
to this banal answer, which had also the merit of truth. Heyst laughed
a little, and said that he had had a curious experience. She made no
remark. He tried to figure to himself the outlines of her easy pose.
A spot of dim ligh