der a red umbrella, and escorted by a score of boats.
All the paddles flashed and struck together with a mighty splash that
reverberated loudly in the monumental amphitheatre of hills. A broad
stream of dazzling foam trailed behind the flotilla. The canoes appeared
very black on the white hiss of water; turbaned heads swayed back and
forth; a multitude of arms in crimson and yellow rose and fell with
one movement; the spearmen upright in the bows of canoes had variegated
sarongs and gleaming shoulders like bronze statues; the muttered
strophes of the paddlers' song ended periodically in a plaintive shout.
They diminished in the distance; the song ceased; they swarmed on the
beach in the long shadows of the western hills. The sunlight lingered on
the purple crests, and we could see him leading the way to his stockade,
a burly bareheaded figure walking far in advance of a straggling
cortege, and swinging regularly an ebony staff taller than himself. The
darkness deepened fast; torches gleamed fitfully, passing behind bushes;
a long hail or two trailed in the silence of the evening; and at last
the night stretched its smooth veil over the shore, the lights, and the
voices.

Then, just as we were thinking of repose, the watchmen of the schooner
would hail a splash of paddles away in the starlit gloom of the bay; a
voice would respond in cautious tones, and our serang, putting his head
down the open skylight, would inform us without surprise, "That Rajah,
he coming. He here now." Karain appeared noiselessly in the doorway of
the little cabin. He was simplicity itself then; all in white; muffled
about his head; for arms only a kriss with a plain buffalo-horn handle,
which he would politely conceal within a fold of his sarong before
stepping over the threshold. The old sword-bearer's face, the worn-out
and mournful face so covered with wrinkles that it seemed to look out
through the meshes of a fine dark net, could be seen close above his
shoulders. Karain never moved without that attendant, who stood or
squatted close at his back. He had a dislike of an open space
behind him. It was more than a dislike--it resembled fear, a nervous
preoccupation of what went on where he could not see. This, in view of
the evident and fierce loyalty that surrounded him, was inexplicable.
He was there alone in the midst of devoted men; he was safe from
neighbourly ambushes, from fraternal ambitions; and yet more than one of
our visitors had ass