. . Why? She was always by our side. . . . We starved. We begged. We
left Java at last.

"We went West, we went East. We saw many lands, crowds of strange faces,
men that live in trees and men who eat their old people. We cut rattans
in the forest for a handful of rice, and for a living swept the decks of
big ships and heard curses heaped upon our heads. We toiled in villages;
we wandered upon the seas with the Bajow people, who have no country.
We fought for pay; we hired ourselves to work for Goram men, and were
cheated; and under the orders of rough white faces we dived for pearls
in barren bays, dotted with black rocks, upon a coast of sand and
desolation. And everywhere we watched, we listened, we asked. We asked
traders, robbers, white men. We heard jeers, mockery, threats--words of
wonder and words of contempt. We never knew rest; we never thought of
home, for our work was not done. A year passed, then another. I ceased
to count the number of nights, of moons, of years. I watched over
Matara. He had my last handful of rice; if there was water enough for
one he drank it; I covered him up when he shivered with cold; and when
the hot sickness came upon him I sat sleepless through many nights and
fanned his face. He was a fierce man, and my friend. He spoke of her
with fury in the daytime, with sorrow in the dark; he remembered her in
health, in sickness. I said nothing; but I saw her every day--always!
At first I saw only her head, as of a woman walking in the low mist on
a river bank. Then she sat by our fire. I saw her! I looked at her! She
had tender eyes and a ravishing face. I murmured to her in the night.
Matara said sleepily sometimes, 'To whom are you talking? Who is there?'
I answered quickly, 'No one' . . . It was a lie! She never left me. She
shared the warmth of our fire, she sat on my couch of leaves, she swam
on the sea to follow me. . . . I saw her! . . . I tell you I saw her
long black hair spread behind her upon the moonlit water as she struck
out with bare arms by the side of a swift prau. She was beautiful, she
was faithful, and in the silence of foreign countries she spoke to me
very low in the language of my people. No one saw her; no one heard her;
she was mine only! In daylight she moved with a swaying walk before me
upon the weary paths; her figure was straight and flexible like the stem
of a slender tree; the heels of her feet were round and polished like
shells of eggs; with her round arm sh