n her fingers and free his hand, he succeeded without
provoking the slightest stir.

"There is some very simple explanation, no doubt," he thought, as he
stole out into the living-room.

Absent-mindedly he pulled a book out of the top shelf, and sat down with
it; but even after he had opened it on his knee, and had been staring
at the pages for a time, he had not the slightest idea of what it was
about. He stared and stared at the crowded, parallel lines. It was only
when, raising his eyes for no particular reason, he saw Wang standing
motionless on the other side of the table, that he regained complete
control of his faculties.

"Oh, yes," he said, as if suddenly reminded of a forgotten appointment
of a not particularly welcome sort.

He waited a little, and then, with reluctant curiosity, forced himself
to ask the silent Wang what he had to say. He had some idea that the
matter of the vanished revolver would come up at last; but the guttural
sounds which proceeded from the Chinaman did not refer to that delicate
subject. His speech was concerned with cups, saucers, plates, forks, and
knives. All these things had been put away in the cupboards on the
back veranda, where they belonged, perfectly clean, "all plopel." Heyst
wondered at the scrupulosity of a man who was about to abandon him;
for he was not surprised to hear Wang conclude the account of his
stewardship with the words:

"I go now."

"Oh! You go now?" said Heyst, leaning back, his book on his knees.

"Yes. Me no likee. One man, two man, three man--no can do! Me go now."

"What's frightening you away like this?" asked Heyst, while through his
mind flashed the hope that something enlightening might come from that
being so unlike himself, taking contact with the world with a simplicity
and directness of which his own mind was not capable. "Why?" he went on.
"You are used to white men. You know them well."

"Yes. Me savee them," assented Wang inscrutably. "Me savee plenty."

All that he really knew was his own mind. He had made it up to withdraw
himself and the Alfuro woman from the uncertainties of the relations
which were going to establish themselves between those white men. It
was Pedro who had been the first cause of Wang's suspicion and fear. The
Chinaman had seen wild men. He had penetrated, in the train of a Chinese
pedlar, up one or two of the Bornean rivers into the country of the
Dyaks. He had also been in the interior of Mindanao, where the