at? Yes, naturally. I jumped and ran up the path after it. Nothing
there but starlight. I must have gone on for half a mile. Nothing: only
ahead of me, along the path, the monkeys would chatter and break into an
uproar, and then stop short--every treetop silent, as they do when a
python comes along. I went back to the clearing, sat down on the mat,
stayed there by clinching my will power, so to speak,--and watched
myself for other symptoms, till morning. None came. The fire, when I
heaped it, was as hot as any could be. By dawn I had persuaded myself
that it was a dream. No footprints in the path, though I mentioned a
shower before.

At sunrise, the _kapala's_ men came down the path, little chaps in black
mediaeval armor made of petroleum tins, and coolies carrying piculs of
stuff that I wanted. So I was busy,--but managed to dismast the _hantu_
prau and wrap it up in matting, so that it went aboard with the plunder.

Yet this other thing bothered me so that I held the schooner over, and
made pretexts to stay ashore two more nights. Nothing happened. Then I
called myself a grandmother, and sailed for Batavia.

Two nights later, a very singular thing happened. The mate--this one
with the sharp eyes--is a quiet chap; seldom speaks to me except on
business. He was standing aft that evening, and suddenly, without any
preliminaries, said:

"Tuan was not alone the other night."

"What's that, Sidin?" I spoke sharply, for it made me feel quite angry
and upset, of a sudden. He laughed a little, softly.

"I saw that the fire was a cold fire," he said. That was all he would
say, and we've never referred to it again.

You may guess the rest, if you know your history of Java. I didn't then,
and didn't even know Batavia,--had been ashore often, but only for a
_toelatingskaart_ and some good Dutch chow. Well, one afternoon, I was
loafing down a street, and suddenly noticed that the sign-board said,
"Jacatra-weg." The word made me jump, and brought the whole affair on
Celebes back like a shot,--and not as a dream. It became a live
question; I determined to treat it as one, and settle it.

I stopped a fat Dutchman who was paddling down the middle of the street
in his pyjamas, smoking a cigar.

"Pardon, Mynheer," I said. "Does a man live here in Jacatra-weg named
Erberveld?"

"_Nej_," he shook his big shaved head. "_Nej_, Mynheer, I do not know."

"Pieter Erberveld," I suggested.

The man broke into a horse-laugh.

"_Ja,