visitor, did not answer at
once. "No, not there," he said at last, placing his foot on the lowest
rung and looking back. "Not there, Tuan--yet not very far. Will you sit
down in my dwelling? There may be rice and fish and clear water--not
from the river, but from a spring . . ."

"I am not hungry," interrupted Lingard, curtly, "and I did not come here
to sit in your dwelling. Lead me to the white man who expects me. I have
no time to lose."

"The night is long, Tuan," went on Babalatchi, softly, "and there are
other nights and other days. Long. Very long . . . How much time it
takes for a man to die! O Rajah Laut!"

Lingard started.

"You know me!" he exclaimed.

"Ay--wa! I have seen your face and felt your hand before--many years
ago," said Babalatchi, holding on halfway up the ladder, and bending
down from above to peer into Lingard's upturned face. "You do not
remember--but I have not forgotten. There are many men like me: there is
only one Rajah Laut."

He climbed with sudden agility the last few steps, and stood on the
platform waving his hand invitingly to Lingard, who followed after a
short moment of indecision.

The elastic bamboo floor of the hut bent under the heavy weight of the
old seaman, who, standing within the threshold, tried to look into the
smoky gloom of the low dwelling. Under the torch, thrust into the cleft
of a stick, fastened at a right angle to the middle stay of the ridge
pole, lay a red patch of light, showing a few shabby mats and a corner
of a big wooden chest the rest of which was lost in shadow. In the
obscurity of the more remote parts of the house a lance-head, a brass
tray hung on the wall, the long barrel of a gun leaning against the
chest, caught the stray rays of the smoky illumination in trembling
gleams that wavered, disappeared, reappeared, went out, came back--as if
engaged in a doubtful struggle with the darkness that, lying in wait in
distant corners, seemed to dart out viciously towards its feeble enemy.
The vast space under the high pitch of the roof was filled with a thick
cloud of smoke, whose under-side--level like a ceiling--reflected the
light of the swaying dull flame, while at the top it oozed out through
the imperfect thatch of dried palm leaves. An indescribable and
complicated smell, made up of the exhalation of damp earth below, of
the taint of dried fish and of the effluvia of rotting vegetable matter,
pervaded the place and caused Lingard to sniff stro