al fiery death from afar. Over the hill and
over the forest--O! Tuan Lakamba! they dropped whistling fireballs into
the creek where our praus took refuge, and where they dared not follow
men who had arms in their hands."

He shook his head with mournful regret and threw another handful of
fuel on the fire. The burst of clear flame lit up his broad, dark, and
pock-marked face, where the big lips, stained with betel-juice, looked
like a deep and bleeding gash of a fresh wound. The reflection of the
firelight gleamed brightly in his solitary eye, lending it for a moment
a fierce animation that died out together with the short-lived flame.
With quick touches of his bare hands he raked the embers into a heap,
then, wiping the warm ash on his waistcloth--his only garment--he
clasped his thin legs with his entwined fingers, and rested his chin
on his drawn-up knees. Lakamba stirred slightly without changing his
position or taking his eyes off the glowing coals, on which they had
been fixed in dreamy immobility.

"Yes," went on Babalatchi, in a low monotone, as if pursuing aloud a
train of thought that had its beginning in the silent contemplation of
the unstable nature of earthly greatness--"yes. He has been rich and
strong, and now he lives on alms: old, feeble, blind, and without
companions, but for his daughter. The Rajah Patalolo gives him rice, and
the pale woman--his daughter--cooks it for him, for he has no slave."

"I saw her from afar," muttered Lakamba, disparagingly. "A she-dog with
white teeth, like a woman of the Orang-Putih."

"Right, right," assented Babalatchi; "but you have not seen her near.
Her mother was a woman from the west; a Baghdadi woman with veiled face.
Now she goes uncovered, like our women do, for she is poor and he is
blind, and nobody ever comes near them unless to ask for a charm or a
blessing and depart quickly for fear of his anger and of the Rajah's
hand. You have not been on that side of the river?"

"Not for a long time. If I go . . ."

"True! true!" interrupted Babalatchi, soothingly, "but I go often
alone--for your good--and look--and listen. When the time comes; when we
both go together towards the Rajah's campong, it will be to enter--and
to remain."

Lakamba sat up and looked at Babalatchi gloomily.

"This is good talk, once, twice; when it is heard too often it becomes
foolish, like the prattle of children."

"Many, many times have I seen the cloudy sky and have heard the w