and motionless like a despoiled corpse; at
his head Jackson twanged the guitar, and gasped out in sighs a mournful
dirge about hopeless love and eyes like stars. Then we heard startled
voices on deck crying in the rain, hurried footsteps overhead, and
suddenly Karain appeared in the doorway of the cabin. His bare breast
and his face glistened in the light; his sarong, soaked, clung about his
legs; he had his sheathed kriss in his left hand; and wisps of wet hair,
escaping from under his red kerchief, stuck over his eyes and down
his cheeks. He stepped in with a headlong stride and looking over his
shoulder like a man pursued. Hollis turned on his side quickly and
opened his eyes. Jackson clapped his big hand over the strings and the
jingling vibration died suddenly. I stood up.

"We did not hear your boat's hail!" I exclaimed.

"Boat! The man's swum off," drawled out Hollis from the locker. "Look at
him!"

He breathed heavily, wild-eyed, while we looked at him in silence. Water
dripped from him, made a dark pool, and ran crookedly across the cabin
floor. We could hear Jackson, who had gone out to drive away our Malay
seamen from the doorway of the companion; he swore menacingly in the
patter of a heavy shower, and there was a great commotion on deck. The
watchmen, scared out of their wits by the glimpse of a shadowy figure
leaping over the rail, straight out of the night as it were, had alarmed
all hands.

Then Jackson, with glittering drops of water on his hair and beard, came
back looking angry, and Hollis, who, being the youngest of us, assumed
an indolent superiority, said without stirring, "Give him a dry
sarong--give him mine; it's hanging up in the bathroom." Karain laid
the kriss on the table, hilt inwards, and murmured a few words in a
strangled voice.

"What's that?" asked Hollis, who had not heard.

"He apologizes for coming in with a weapon in his hand," I said,
dazedly.

"Ceremonious beggar. Tell him we forgive a friend . . . on such a
night," drawled out Hollis. "What's wrong?"

Karain slipped the dry sarong over his head, dropped the wet one at
his feet, and stepped out of it. I pointed to the wooden armchair--his
armchair. He sat down very straight, said "Ha!" in a strong voice;
a short shiver shook his broad frame. He looked over his shoulder
uneasily, turned as if to speak to us, but only stared in a curious
blind manner, and again looked back. Jackson bellowed out, "Watch well
on deck there