er like any other man, but bigger, red-faced, white-haired and
mysterious. It was the future clothed in flesh; the to-morrow; the day
after; all the days, all the years of her life standing there before her
alive and secret, with all their good or evil shut up within the breast
of that man; of that man who could be persuaded, cajoled, entreated,
perhaps touched, worried; frightened--who knows?--if only first he could
be understood! She had seen a long time ago whither events were tending.
She had noted the contemptuous yet menacing coldness of Abdulla; she
had heard--alarmed yet unbelieving--Babalatchi's gloomy hints, covert
allusions and veiled suggestions to abandon the useless white man whose
fate would be the price of the peace secured by the wise and good who
had no need of him any more. And he--himself! She clung to him. There
was nobody else. Nothing else. She would try to cling to him always--all
the life! And yet he was far from her. Further every day. Every day he
seemed more distant, and she followed him patiently, hopefully, blindly,
but steadily, through all the devious wanderings of his mind. She
followed as well as she could. Yet at times--very often lately--she had
felt lost like one strayed in the thickets of tangled undergrowth of a
great forest. To her the ex-clerk of old Hudig appeared as remote, as
brilliant, as terrible, as necessary, as the sun that gives life to
these lands: the sun of unclouded skies that dazzles and withers; the
sun beneficent and wicked--the giver of light, perfume, and pestilence.
She had watched him--watched him close; fascinated by love, fascinated
by danger. He was alone now--but for her; and she saw--she thought she
saw--that he was like a man afraid of something. Was it possible? He
afraid? Of what? Was it of that old white man who was coming--who had
come? Possibly. She had heard of that man ever since she could remember.
The bravest were afraid of him! And now what was in the mind of this
old, old man who looked so strong? What was he going to do with the
light of her life? Put it out? Take it away? Take it away for ever!--for
ever!--and leave her in darkness:--not in the stirring, whispering,
expectant night in which the hushed world awaits the return of sunshine;
but in the night without end, the night of the grave, where nothing
breathes, nothing moves, nothing thinks--the last darkness of cold and
silence without hope of another sunrise.

She cried--"Your purpose! Y