eebly in the vast darkness. Babalatchi
remained with his arm stretched out into the empty night.

"There," he said, "you can see the white man's courtyard, Tuan, and his
house."

"I can see nothing," answered Lingard, putting his head through the
shutter-hole. "It's too dark."

"Wait, Tuan," urged Babalatchi. "You have been looking long at the
burning torch. You will soon see. Mind the gun, Tuan. It is loaded."

"There is no flint in it. You could not find a fire-stone for a hundred
miles round this spot," said Lingard, testily. "Foolish thing to load
that gun."

"I have a stone. I had it from a man wise and pious that lives in Menang
Kabau. A very pious man--very good fire. He spoke words over that stone
that make its sparks good. And the gun is good--carries straight and
far. Would carry from here to the door of the white man's house, I
believe, Tuan."

"Tida apa. Never mind your gun," muttered Lingard, peering into the
formless darkness. "Is that the house--that black thing over there?" he
asked.

"Yes," answered Babalatchi; "that is his house. He lives there by the
will of Abdulla, and shall live there till . . . From where you stand,
Tuan, you can look over the fence and across the courtyard straight at
the door--at the door from which he comes out every morning, looking
like a man that had seen Jehannum in his sleep."

Lingard drew his head in. Babalatchi touched his shoulder with a groping
hand.

"Wait a little, Tuan. Sit still. The morning is not far off now--a
morning without sun after a night without stars. But there will be light
enough to see the man who said not many days ago that he alone has made
you less than a child in Sambir."

He felt a slight tremor under his hand, but took it off directly and
began feeling all over the lid of the chest, behind Lingard's back, for
the gun.

"What are you at?" said Lingard, impatiently. "You do worry about that
rotten gun. You had better get a light."

"A light! I tell you, Tuan, that the light of heaven is very near,"
said Babalatchi, who had now obtained possession of the object of his
solicitude, and grasping it strongly by its long barrel, grounded the
stock at his feet.

"Perhaps it is near," said Lingard, leaning both his elbows on the lower
cross-piece of the primitive window and looking out. "It is very black
outside yet," he remarked carelessly.

Babalatchi fidgeted about.

"It is not good for you to sit where you may be seen," he muttere