men of the forests and the sea, who
can talk most of the day and all the night; who never exhaust a subject,
never seem able to thresh a matter out; to whom that talk is poetry and
painting and music, all art, all history; their only accomplishment,
their only superiority, their only amusement. The talk of camp fires,
which speaks of bravery and cunning, of strange events and of far
countries, of the news of yesterday and the news of to-morrow. The talk
about the dead and the living--about those who fought and those who
loved.

Lakamba came out on the platform before his own house and sat
down--perspiring, half asleep, and sulky--in a wooden armchair under the
shade of the overhanging eaves. Through the darkness of the doorway
he could hear the soft warbling of his womenkind, busy round the looms
where they were weaving the checkered pattern of his gala sarongs. Right
and left of him on the flexible bamboo floor those of his followers to
whom their distinguished birth, long devotion, or faithful service had
given the privilege of using the chief's house, were sleeping on mats
or just sat up rubbing their eyes: while the more wakeful had mustered
enough energy to draw a chessboard with red clay on a fine mat and were
now meditating silently over their moves. Above the prostrate forms
of the players, who lay face downward supported on elbow, the soles of
their feet waving irresolutely about, in the absorbed meditation of the
game, there towered here and there the straight figure of an attentive
spectator looking down with dispassionate but profound interest. On the
edge of the platform a row of high-heeled leather sandals stood ranged
carefully in a level line, and against the rough wooden rail leaned the
slender shafts of the spears belonging to these gentlemen, the broad
blades of dulled steel looking very black in the reddening light of
approaching sunset.

A boy of about twelve--the personal attendant of Lakamba--squatted
at his master's feet and held up towards him a silver siri box. Slowly
Lakamba took the box, opened it, and tearing off a piece of green leaf
deposited in it a pinch of lime, a morsel of gambier, a small bit of
areca nut, and wrapped up the whole with a dexterous twist. He paused,
morsel in hand, seemed to miss something, turned his head from side
to side, slowly, like a man with a stiff neck, and ejaculated in an
ill-humoured bass--

"Babalatchi!"

The players glanced up quickly, and looked do