s, and where strange stone
idols--carved images of devils with many arms and legs, with snakes
twined round their bodies, with twenty heads and holding a hundred
swords--seemed to live and threaten in the light of our camp fire.
Nothing dismayed us. And on the road, by every fire, in resting-places,
we always talked of her and of him. Their time was near. We spoke
of nothing else. No! not of hunger, thirst, weariness, and faltering
hearts. No! we spoke of him and her! Of her! And we thought of them--of
her! Matara brooded by the fire. I sat and thought and thought, till
suddenly I could see again the image of a woman, beautiful, and young,
and great and proud, and tender, going away from her land and her
people. Matara said, 'When we find them we shall kill her first to
cleanse the dishonour--then the man must die.' I would say, 'It shall
be so; it is your vengeance.' He stared long at me with his big sunken
eyes.

"We came back to the coast. Our feet were bleeding, our bodies thin. We
slept in rags under the shadow of stone enclosures; we prowled, soiled
and lean, about the gateways of white men's courtyards. Their hairy dogs
barked at us, and their servants shouted from afar, 'Begone!' Low-born
wretches, that keep watch over the streets of stone campongs, asked us
who we were. We lied, we cringed, we smiled with hate in our hearts,
and we kept looking here, looking there for them--for the white man with
hair like flame, and for her, for the woman who had broken faith, and
therefore must die. We looked. At last in every woman's face I thought
I could see hers. We ran swiftly. No! Sometimes Matara would whisper,
'Here is the man,' and we waited, crouching. He came near. It was
not the man--those Dutchmen are all alike. We suffered the anguish of
deception. In my sleep I saw her face, and was both joyful and sorry
. . . . Why? . . . I seemed to hear a whisper near me. I turned swiftly.
She was not there! And as we trudged wearily from stone city to stone
city I seemed to hear a light footstep near me. A time came when I heard
it always, and I was glad. I thought, walking dizzy and weary in
sunshine on the hard paths of white men I thought, She is there--with
us! . . . Matara was sombre. We were often hungry.

"We sold the carved sheaths of our krisses--the ivory sheaths with
golden ferules. We sold the jewelled hilts. But we kept the blades--for
them. The blades that never touch but kill--we kept the blades for her.
.