crossed a grassy glade. We
ran down to the water. I saw a low hut above the black mud, and a small
canoe hauled up. I heard another shot behind me. I thought, 'That is his
last charge.' We rushed down to the canoe; a man came running from the
hut, but I leaped on him, and we rolled together in the mud. Then I got
up, and he lay still at my feet. I don't know whether I had killed him
or not. I and Diamelen pushed the canoe afloat. I heard yells behind me,
and I saw my brother run across the glade. Many men were bounding after
him, I took her in my arms and threw her into the boat, then leaped in
myself. When I looked back I saw that my brother had fallen. He fell
and was up again, but the men were closing round him. He shouted, 'I am
coming!' The men were close to him. I looked. Many men. Then I looked
at her. Tuan, I pushed the canoe! I pushed it into deep water. She was
kneeling forward looking at me, and I said, 'Take your paddle,' while
I struck the water with mine. Tuan, I heard him cry. I heard him cry my
name twice; and I heard voices shouting, 'Kill! Strike!' I never turned
back. I heard him calling my name again with a great shriek, as when
life is going out together with the voice--and I never turned my head.
My own name! . . . My brother! Three times he called--but I was not
afraid of life. Was she not there in that canoe? And could I not with
her find a country where death is forgotten--where death is unknown!"

The white man sat up. Arsat rose and stood, an indistinct and silent
figure above the dying embers of the fire. Over the lagoon a mist
drifting and low had crept, erasing slowly the glittering images of
the stars. And now a great expanse of white vapour covered the land: it
flowed cold and gray in the darkness, eddied in noiseless whirls round
the tree-trunks and about the platform of the house, which seemed to
float upon a restless and impalpable illusion of a sea. Only far away
the tops of the trees stood outlined on the twinkle of heaven, like a
sombre and forbidding shore--a coast deceptive, pitiless and black.

Arsat's voice vibrated loudly in the profound peace.

"I had her there! I had her! To get her I would have faced all mankind.
But I had her--and--"

His words went out ringing into the empty distances. He paused, and
seemed to listen to them dying away very far--beyond help and beyond
recall. Then he said quietly--

"Tuan, I loved my brother."

A breath of wind made him shiver. High