ng that celebrated his valour and wisdom. The singer
rocked himself to and fro, rolling frenzied eyes; old women hobbled
about with dishes, and men, squatting low, lifted their heads to listen
gravely without ceasing to eat. The song of triumph vibrated in the
night, and the stanzas rolled out mournful and fiery like the thoughts
of a hermit. He silenced it with a sign, "Enough!" An owl hooted far
away, exulting in the delight of deep gloom in dense foliage; overhead
lizards ran in the attap thatch, calling softly; the dry leaves of the
roof rustled; the rumour of mingled voices grew louder suddenly. After
a circular and startled glance, as of a man waking up abruptly to the
sense of danger, he would throw himself back, and under the downward
gaze of the old sorcerer take up, wide-eyed, the slender thread of his
dream. They watched his moods; the swelling rumour of animated talk
subsided like a wave on a sloping beach. The chief is pensive. And above
the spreading whisper of lowered voices only a little rattle of weapons
would be heard, a single louder word distinct and alone, or the grave
ring of a big brass tray.

III

For two years at short intervals we visited him. We came to like him,
to trust him, almost to admire him. He was plotting and preparing a war
with patience, with foresight--with a fidelity to his purpose and with
a steadfastness of which I would have thought him racially incapable.
He seemed fearless of the future, and in his plans displayed a sagacity
that was only limited by his profound ignorance of the rest of the
world. We tried to enlighten him, but our attempts to make clear the
irresistible nature of the forces which he desired to arrest failed to
discourage his eagerness to strike a blow for his own primitive ideas.
He did not understand us, and replied by arguments that almost drove
one to desperation by their childish shrewdness. He was absurd and
unanswerable. Sometimes we caught glimpses of a sombre, glowing fury
within him--a brooding and vague sense of wrong, and a concentrated lust
of violence which is dangerous in a native. He raved like one inspired.
On one occasion, after we had been talking to him late in his campong,
he jumped up. A great, clear fire blazed in the grove; lights and
shadows danced together between the trees; in the still night bats
flitted in and out of the boughs like fluttering flakes of denser
darkness. He snatched the sword from the old man, whizzed it out of