em."

"Devil! Hey?" said Lingard, half aloud to himself, as if struck with the
obviousness of some novel idea. Babalatchi went on:

"At the first hour of the morning he sat up--he so weak--and said
plainly some words that were not meant for human ears. I held his hand
tightly, but it was time for the leader of brave men to go amongst the
Faithful who are happy. They of my household brought a white sheet, and
I began to dig a grave in the hut in which he died. She mourned aloud.
The white man came to the doorway and shouted. He was angry. Angry with
her because she beat her breast, and tore her hair, and mourned with
shrill cries as a woman should. Do you understand what I say, Tuan?
That white man came inside the hut with great fury, and took her by the
shoulder, and dragged her out. Yes, Tuan. I saw Omar dead, and I saw her
at the feet of that white dog who has deceived me. I saw his face grey,
like the cold mist of the morning; I saw his pale eyes looking down at
Omar's daughter beating her head on the ground at his feet. At the feet
of him who is Abdulla's slave. Yes, he lives by Abdulla's will. That is
why I held my hand while I saw all this. I held my hand because we are
now under the flag of the Orang Blanda, and Abdulla can speak into the
ears of the great. We must not have any trouble with white men. Abdulla
has spoken--and I must obey."

"That's it, is it?" growled Lingard in his moustache. Then in Malay, "It
seems that you are angry, O Babalatchi!"

"No; I am not angry, Tuan," answered Babalatchi, descending from the
insecure heights of his indignation into the insincere depths of safe
humility. "I am not angry. What am I to be angry? I am only an Orang
Laut, and I have fled before your people many times. Servant of this
one--protected of another; I have given my counsel here and there for a
handful of rice. What am I, to be angry with a white man? What is anger
without the power to strike? But you whites have taken all: the land,
the sea, and the power to strike! And there is nothing left for us in
the islands but your white men's justice; your great justice that knows
not anger."

He got up and stood for a moment in the doorway, sniffing the hot air of
the courtyard, then turned back and leaned against the stay of the ridge
pole, facing Lingard who kept his seat on the chest. The torch, consumed
nearly to the end, burned noisily. Small explosions took place in the
heart of the flame, driving through its