these isles," either in the direction of New
Guinea or in the direction of Saigon--to cannibals or to cafes. The
enchanted Heyst! Had he at last broken the spell? Had he died? We were
too indifferent to wonder overmuch. You see we had on the whole liked
him well enough. And liking is not sufficient to keep going the interest
one takes in a human being. With hatred, apparently, it is otherwise.
Schomberg couldn't forget Heyst. The keen, manly Teutonic creature was a
good hater. A fool often is.

"Good evening, gentlemen. Have you got everything you want? So! Good!
You see? What was I always telling you? Aha! There was nothing in it. I
knew it. But what I would like to know is what became of that--Swede."

He put a stress on the word Swede as if it meant scoundrel. He detested
Scandinavians generally. Why? Goodness only knows. A fool like that is
unfathomable. He continued:

"It's five months or more since I have spoken to anybody who has seen
him."

As I have said, we were not much interested; but Schomberg, of course,
could not understand that. He was grotesquely dense. Whenever three
people came together in his hotel, he took good care that Heyst should
be with them.

"I hope the fellow did not go and drown himself," he would add with a
comical earnestness that ought to have made us shudder; only our crowd
was superficial, and did not apprehend the psychology of this pious
hope.

"Why? Heyst isn't in debt to you for drinks is he?" somebody asked him
once with shallow scorn.

"Drinks! Oh, dear no!"

The innkeeper was not mercenary. Teutonic temperament seldom is. But he
put on a sinister expression to tell us that Heyst had not paid perhaps
three visits altogether to his "establishment." This was Heyst's crime,
for which Schomberg wished him nothing less than a long and tormented
existence. Observe the Teutonic sense of proportion and nice forgiving
temper.

At last, one afternoon, Schomberg was seen approaching a group of his
customers. He was obviously in high glee. He squared his manly chest
with great importance.

"Gentlemen, I have news of him. Who? why, that Swede. He is still
on Samburan. He's never been away from it. The company is gone,
the engineers are gone, the clerks are gone, the coolies are gone,
everything's gone; but there he sticks. Captain Davidson, coming by from
the westward, saw him with his own eyes. Something white on the wharf,
so he steamed in and went ashore in a small boat. Heys