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_ 'The defeated Sherif Ali fled the country without making another
stand, and when the miserable hunted villagers began to crawl out
of the jungle back to their rotting houses, it was Jim who, in
consultation with Dain Waris, appointed the headmen. Thus he became
the virtual ruler of the land. As to old Tunku Allang, his fears at
first had known no bounds. It is said that at the intelligence of the
successful storming of the hill he flung himself, face down, on the
bamboo floor of his audience-hall, and lay motionless for a whole
night and a whole day, uttering stifled sounds of such an appalling
nature that no man dared approach his prostrate form nearer than
a spear's length. Already he could see himself driven ignominiously
out of Patusan, wandering abandoned, stripped, without opium,
without his women, without followers, a fair game for the first
comer to kill. After Sherif Ali his turn would come, and who could
resist an attack led by such a devil? And indeed he owed his life and
such authority as he still possessed at the time of my visit to Jim's
idea of what was fair alone. The Bugis had been extremely anxious
to pay off old scores, and the impassive old Doramin cherished the
hope of yet seeing his son ruler of Patusan. During one of our
interviews he deliberately allowed me to get a glimpse of this secret
ambition. Nothing could be finer in its way than the dignified
wariness of his approaches. He himself--he began by declaring--had
used his strength in his young days, but now he had grown old and
tired. . . . With his imposing bulk and haughty little eyes darting
sagacious, inquisitive glances, he reminded one irresistibly of a
cunning old elephant; the slow rise and fall of his vast breast went
on powerful and regular, like the heave of a calm sea. He too, as he
protested, had an unbounded confidence in Tuan Jim's wisdom. If
he could only obtain a promise! One word would be enough! . . .
His breathing silences, the low rumblings of his voice, recalled the
last efforts of a spent thunderstorm.
'I tried to put the subject aside. It was difficult, for there could
be no question that Jim had the power; in his new sphere there did
not seem to be anything that was not his to hold or to give. But
that, I repeat, was nothing in comparison with the notion, which
occurred to me, while I listened with a show of attention, that he
seemed to have come very near at last to mastering his fate. Doramin
was anxious about the future of the country, and I was struck by
the turn he gave to the argument. The land remains where God had
put it; but white men--he said--they come to us and in a little
while they go. They go away. Those they leave behind do not know
when to look for their return. They go to their own land, to their
people, and so this white man too would. . . . I don't know what
induced me to commit myself at this point by a vigorous "No,
no." The whole extent of this indiscretion became apparent when
Doramin, turning full upon me his face, whose expression, fixed in
rugged deep folds, remained unalterable, like a huge brown mask,
said that this was good news indeed, reflectively; and then wanted
to know why.
'His little, motherly witch of a wife sat on my other hand, with
her head covered and her feet tucked up, gazing through the great
shutter-hole. I could only see a straying lock of grey hair, a high
cheek-bone, the slight masticating motion of the sharp chin. Without
removing her eyes from the vast prospect of forests stretching
as far as the hills, she asked me in a pitying voice why was it that
he so young had wandered from his home, coming so far, through
so many dangers? Had he no household there, no kinsmen in his
own country? Had he no old mother, who would always remember
his face? . . .
'I was completely unprepared for this. I could only mutter and
shake my head vaguely. Afterwards I am perfectly aware I cut a
very poor figure trying to extricate myself out of this difficulty.
From that moment, however, the old nakhoda became taciturn. He
was not very pleased, I fear, and evidently I had given him food for
thought. Strangely enough, on the evening of that very day (which
was my last in Patusan) I was once more confronted with the same
question, with the unanswerable why of Jim's fate. And this brings
me to the story of his love.
'I suppose you think it is a story that you can imagine for yourselves.
We have heard so many such stories, and the majority of us don't
believe them to be stories of love at all. For the most part we
look upon them as stories of opportunities: episodes of passion at
best, or perhaps only of youth and temptation, doomed to forgetfulness
in the end, even if they pass through the reality of tenderness
and regret. This view mostly is right, and perhaps in this case
too. . . . Yet I don't know. To tell this story is by no means so easy
as it should be--were the ordinary standpoint adequate. Apparently
it is a story very much like the others: for me, however, there is
visible in its background the melancholy figure of a woman, the
shadow of a cruel wisdom buried in a lonely grave, looking on
wistfully, helplessly, with sealed lips. The grave itself, as I came
upon it during an early morning stroll, was a rather shapeless brown
mound, with an inlaid neat border of white lumps of coral at the
base, and enclosed within a circular fence made of split saplings,
with the bark left on. A garland of leaves and flowers was woven
about the heads of the slender posts--and the flowers were fresh.
'Thus, whether the shadow is of my imagination or not, I can at
all events point out the significant fact of an unforgotten grave.
When I tell you besides that Jim with his own hands had worked
at the rustic fence, you will perceive directly the difference, the
individual side of the story. There is in his espousal of memory and
affection belonging to another human being something characteristic
of his seriousness. He had a conscience, and it was a romantic
conscience. Through her whole life the wife of the unspeakable
Cornelius had no other companion, confidant, and friend but her
daughter. How the poor woman had come to marry the awful little
Malacca Portuguese--after the separation from the father of her
girl--and how that separation had been brought about, whether by
death, which can be sometimes merciful, or by the merciless pressure
of conventions, is a mystery to me. From the little which Stein
(who knew so many stories) had let drop in my hearing, I am convinced
that she was no ordinary woman. Her own father had been
a white; a high official; one of the brilliantly endowed men who are
not dull enough to nurse a success, and whose careers so often
end under a cloud. I suppose she too must have lacked the saving
dullness--and her career ended in Patusan. Our common fate . . .
for where is the man--I mean a real sentient man--who does not
remember vaguely having been deserted in the fullness of possession
by some one or something more precious than life? . . . our common
fate fastens upon the women with a peculiar cruelty. It does not
punish like a master, but inflicts lingering torment, as if to gratify
a secret, unappeasable spite. One would think that, appointed to rule
on earth, it seeks to revenge itself upon the beings that come nearest
to rising above the trammels of earthly caution; for it is only women
who manage to put at times into their love an element just palpable
enough to give one a fright--an extra-terrestrial touch. I ask myself
with wonder--how the world can look to them--whether it has the shape
and substance _we_ know, the air _we_ breathe! Sometimes I fancy it must be
a region of unreasonable sublimities seething with the excitement of
their adventurous souls, lighted by the glory of all possible risks and
renunciations. However, I suspect there are very few women in the
world, though of course I am aware of the multitudes of mankind and of
the equality of sexes--in point of numbers, that is. But I am sure that
the mother was as much of a woman as the daughter seemed to be. I cannot
help picturing to myself these two, at first the young woman and
the child, then the old woman and the young girl, the awful sameness
and the swift passage of time, the barrier of forest, the solitude
and the turmoil round these two lonely lives, and every word spoken
between them penetrated with sad meaning. There must have been
confidences, not so much of fact, I suppose, as of innermost feelings--
regrets--fears--warnings, no doubt: warnings that the younger did not
fully understand till the elder was dead--and Jim came along. Then I
am sure she understood much--not everything--the fear mostly, it seems.
Jim called her by a word that means precious, in the sense of a precious
gem--jewel. Pretty, isn't it? But he was capable of anything. He was
equal to his fortune, as he--after all--must have been equal to his
misfortune. Jewel he called her; and he would say this as he might
have said "Jane," don't you know--with a marital, homelike, peaceful
effect. I heard the name for the first time ten minutes after I had
landed in his courtyard, when, after nearly shaking my arm off, he
darted up the steps and began to make a joyous, boyish disturbance
at the door under the heavy eaves. "Jewel! O Jewel! Quick! Here's a
friend come," . . .and suddenly peering at me in the dim verandah,
he mumbled earnestly, "You know--this--no confounded nonsense about
it--can't tell you how much I owe to her--and so--you understand--I--
exactly as if . . ." His hurried, anxious whispers were cut short by
the flitting of a white form within the house, a faint exclamation,
and a child-like but energetic little face with delicate features and a
profound, attentive glance peeped out of the inner gloom, like a bird
out of the recess of a nest. I was struck by the name, of course; but
it was not till later on that I connected it with an astonishing rumour
that had met me on my journey, at a little place on the coast about
230 miles south of Patusan River. Stein's schooner, in which I had my
passage, put in there, to collect some produce, and, going ashore, I
found to my great surprise that the wretched locality could boast of
a third-class deputy-assistant resident, a big, fat, greasy, blinking
fellow of mixed descent, with turned-out, shiny lips. I found him
lying extended on his back in a cane chair, odiously unbuttoned, with
a large green leaf of some sort on the top of his steaming head, and
another in his hand which he used lazily as a fan . . . Going to
Patusan? Oh yes. Stein's Trading Company. He knew. Had a permission?
No business of his. It was not so bad there now, he remarked
negligently, and, he went on drawling, "There's some sort of white
vagabond has got in there, I hear. . . . Eh? What you say? Friend of
yours? So! . . . Then it was true there was one of these verdammte--
What was he up to? Found his way in, the rascal. Eh? I had not been
sure. Patusan--they cut throats there--no business of ours." He
interrupted himself to groan. "Phoo! Almighty! The heat! The heat!
Well, then, there might be something in the story too, after all,
and . . ." He shut one of his beastly glassy eyes (the eyelid went on
quivering) while he leered at me atrociously with the other. "Look
here," says he mysteriously, "if--do you understand?--if he has
really got hold of something fairly good--none of your bits of green
glass--understand?--I am a Government official--you tell the
rascal . . . Eh? What? Friend of yours?" . . . He continued wallowing
calmly in the chair . . . "You said so; that's just it; and I am
pleased to give you the hint. I suppose you too would like to get
something out of it? Don't interrupt. You just tell him I've heard the
tale, but to my Government I have made no report. Not yet. See? Why
make a report? Eh? Tell him to come to me if they let him get alive
out of the country. He had better look out for himself. Eh? I promise
to ask no questions. On the quiet--you understand? You too--you shall
get something from me. Small commission for the trouble. Don't interrupt.
I am a Government official, and make no report. That's business.
Understand? I know some good people that will buy anything worth
having, and can give him more money than the scoundrel ever saw in his
life. I know his sort." He fixed me steadfastly with both his eyes
open, while I stood over him utterly amazed, and asking myself whether
he was mad or drunk. He perspired, puffed, moaning feebly, and
scratching himself with such horrible composure that I could not bear the
sight long enough to find out. Next day, talking casually with the
people of the little native court of the place, I discovered that a story
was travelling slowly down the coast about a mysterious white man
in Patusan who had got hold of an extraordinary gem--namely, an
emerald of an enormous size, and altogether priceless. The emerald
seems to appeal more to the Eastern imagination than any other
precious stone. The white man had obtained it, I was told, partly
by the exercise of his wonderful strength and partly by cunning,
from the ruler of a distant country, whence he had fled instantly,
arriving in Patusan in utmost distress, but frightening the people
by his extreme ferocity, which nothing seemed able to subdue. Most
of my informants were of the opinion that the stone was probably
unlucky,--like the famous stone of the Sultan of Succadana,
which in the old times had brought wars and untold calamities upon
that country. Perhaps it was the same stone--one couldn't say.
Indeed the story of a fabulously large emerald is as old as the arrival
of the first white men in the Archipelago; and the belief in it is so
persistent that less than forty years ago there had been an official
Dutch inquiry into the truth of it. Such a jewel--it was explained
to me by the old fellow from whom I heard most of this amazing
Jim-myth--a sort of scribe to the wretched little Rajah of the place;--
such a jewel, he said, cocking his poor purblind eyes up at me (he
was sitting on the cabin floor out of respect), is best preserved by
being concealed about the person of a woman. Yet it is not every
woman that would do. She must be young--he sighed deeply--and
insensible to the seductions of love. He shook his head sceptically.
But such a woman seemed to be actually in existence. He had been
told of a tall girl, whom the white man treated with great respect
and care, and who never went forth from the house unattended.
People said the white man could be seen with her almost any day;
they walked side by side, openly, he holding her arm under his--
pressed to his side--thus--in a most extraordinary way. This might
be a lie, he conceded, for it was indeed a strange thing for any one
to do: on the other hand, there could be no doubt she wore the
white man's jewel concealed upon her bosom.' _
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