ssments caused by Dain's return to
Sambir he began to lose such composure as he had been, till then, able to
maintain; and now he raised his voice loudly above the whistling of the
wind and the patter of rain on the roof in the hard squall passing over
the house.

"You came here first as a trader with sweet words and great promises,
asking me to look the other way while you worked your will on the white
man there. And I did. What do you want now? When I was young I fought.
Now I am old, and want peace. It is easier for me to have you killed
than to fight the Dutch. It is better for me."

The squall had now passed, and, in the short stillness of the lull in the
storm, Lakamba repeated softly, as if to himself, "Much easier. Much
better."

Dain did not seem greatly discomposed by the Rajah's threatening words.
While Lakamba was speaking he had glanced once rapidly over his shoulder,
just to make sure that there was nobody behind him, and, tranquillised in
that respect, he had extracted a siri-box out of the folds of his waist-
cloth, and was wrapping carefully the little bit of betel-nut and a small
pinch of lime in the green leaf tendered him politely by the watchful
Babalatchi. He accepted this as a peace-offering from the silent
statesman--a kind of mute protest against his master's undiplomatic
violence, and as an omen of a possible understanding to be arrived at
yet. Otherwise Dain was not uneasy. Although recognising the justice of
Lakamba's surmise that he had come back to Sambir only for the sake of
the white man's daughter, yet he was not conscious of any childish lack
of understanding, as suggested by Babalatchi. In fact, Dain knew very
well that Lakamba was too deeply implicated in the gunpowder smuggling to
care for an investigation the Dutch authorities into that matter. When
sent off by his father, the independent Rajah of Bali, at the time when
the hostilities between Dutch and Malays threatened to spread from
Sumatra over the whole archipelago, Dain had found all the big traders
deaf to his guarded proposals, and above the temptation of the great
prices he was ready to give for gunpowder. He went to Sambir as a last
and almost hopeless resort, having heard in Macassar of the white man
there, and of the regular steamer trading from Singapore--allured also by
the fact that there was no Dutch resident on the river, which would make
things easier, no doubt. His hopes got nearly wrecked against t