Victory: An Island Tale

Chapter 6

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We said no more about Heyst on that occasion, and it so happened that

I did not meet Davidson again for some three months. When we did come

together, almost the first thing he said to me was:

Before I could exclaim, he assured me that he had taken no liberty,

that he had not intruded. He was called in. Otherwise he would not have

dreamed of breaking in upon Heyst's privacy.

"I am certain you wouldn't," I assured him, concealing my amusement at

his wonderful delicacy. He was the most delicate man that ever took a

small steamer to and fro among the islands. But his humanity, which was

not less strong and praiseworthy, had induced him to take his

steamer past Samburan wharf (at an average distance of a mile) every

twenty-three days--exactly. Davidson was delicate, humane, and regular.

Yes, Heyst had called him in as he was going by on his usual date.

Davidson was examining the shore through his glasses with his unwearied

and punctual humanity as he steamed past Samburan.

I saw a man in white. It could only have been Heyst. He had fastened

some sort of enormous flag to a bamboo pole, and was waving it at the

end of the old wharf.

Davidson didn't like to take his steamer alongside--for fear of being

indiscreet, I suppose; but he steered close inshore, stopped his

engines, and lowered a boat. He went himself in that boat, which was

manned, of course, by his Malay seamen.

Heyst, when he saw the boat pulling towards him, dropped his

signalling-pole; and when Davidson arrived, he was kneeling down engaged

busily in unfastening the flag from it.

"Was there anything wrong?" I inquired, Davidson having paused in his

narrative and my curiosity being naturally aroused. You must remember

that Heyst as the Archipelago knew him was not--what shall I say--was

not a signalling sort of man.

Heyst got up from his knees and began carefully folding up the flag

thing, which struck Davidson as having the dimensions of a blanket.

"No, nothing wrong," he cried. His white teeth flashed agreeably below

the coppery horizontal bar of his long moustaches.

I don't know whether it was his delicacy or his obesity which prevented

Davidson from clambering upon the wharf. He stood up in the boat,

and, above him, Heyst stooped low with urbane smiles, thanking him and

apologizing for the liberty, exactly in his usual manner. Davidson had

expected some change in the man, but there was none. Nothing in him

betrayed the momentous fact that within that jungle there was a girl, a

performer in a ladies' orchestra, whom he had carried straight off the

concert platform into the wilderness. He was not ashamed or defiant

or abashed about it. He might have been a shade confidential when

addressing Davidson. And his words were enigmatical.

"I took this course of signalling to you," he said to Davidson, "because

to preserve appearances might be of the utmost importance. Not to me, of

course. I don't care what people may say, and of course no one can hurt

me. I suppose I have done a certain amount of harm, since I allowed

myself to be tempted into action. It seemed innocent enough, but all

action is bound to be harmful. It is devilish. That is why this world

is evil upon the whole. But I have done with it! I shall never lift a

little finger again. At one time I thought that intelligent observation

of facts was the best way of cheating the time which is allotted to us

whether we want it or not; but now I, have done with observation, too."

Imagine poor, simple Davidson being addressed in such terms alongside

an abandoned, decaying wharf jutting out of tropical bush. He had

never heard anybody speak like this before; certainly not Heyst, whose

conversation was concise, polite, with a faint ring of playfulness in

the cultivated tones of his voice.

But, looking at the physiognomy above him on the wharf, he was obliged

to dismiss the notion of common, crude lunacy. It was truly most unusual

talk. Then he remembered--in his surprise he had lost sight of it--that

Heyst now had a girl there. This bizarre discourse was probably the

effect of the girl. Davidson shook off the absurd feeling, and asked,

wishing to make clear his friendliness, and not knowing what else to

say:

"No, no. Nothing of the kind. We are fairly well off here. Thanks, all

the same. If I have taken the liberty to detain you, it is I not from

any uneasiness for myself and my--companion. The person I was thinking

of when I made up my mind to invoke your assistance is Mrs. Schomberg."

"H'm--Yes. But that note of mine? Yes? She found an opportunity to give

it to you? That's good, very good. She's more resourceful than one would

give her credit for."

"Women often are--" remarked Davidson. The strangeness from which he had

suffered, merely because his interlocutor had carried off a girl, wore

off as the minutes went by. "There's a lot of unexpectedness about

women," he generalized with a didactic aim which seemed to miss its

mark; for the next thing Heyst said was:

"This is Mrs. Schomberg's shawl." He touched the stuff hanging over

his arm. "An Indian thing, I believe," he added, glancing at his arm

sideways.

"Very likely. The point is that it belongs to Schomberg's wife. That

Schomberg seems to be an unconscionable ruffian--don't you think so?"

"We out here have got used to him," he said, as if excusing a universal

and guilty toleration of a manifest nuisance. "I'd hardly call him that.

I only know him as a hotel-keeper."

"I never knew him even as that--not till this time, when you were so

obliging as to take me to Sourabaya, I went to stay there from economy.

The Netherlands House is very expensive, and they expect you to bring

your own servant with you. It's a nuisance."

After a short silence Heyst returned to the matter of the shawl. He

wanted to send it back to Mrs. Schomberg. He said that it might be very

awkward for her if she were unable, if asked, to produce it. This had

given him, Heyst, much uneasiness. She was terrified of Schomberg.

Apparently she had reason to be.

Davidson had remarked that, too. Which did not prevent her, he pointed

out, from making a fool of him, in a way, for the sake of a stranger.

"She told me so. I had quite a talk with her," Davidson informed him.

"Fancy anyone having a talk with Mrs. Schomberg! If I were to tell the

fellows they wouldn't believe me. How did you get round her, Heyst?

How did you think of it? Why, she looks too stupid to understand human

speech and too scared to shoo a chicken away. Oh, the women, the women!

You don't know what there may be in the quietest of them."

He then imparted to Heyst the story of the violent proceedings following

on the discovery of his flight. Heyst's polite attention to the tale

took on a sombre cast; but he manifested no surprise, and offered no

comment. When Davidson had finished he handed down the shawl into

the boat, and Davidson promised to do his best to return it to Mrs.

Schomberg in some secret fashion. Heyst expressed his thanks in a few

simple words, set off by his manner of finished courtesy. Davidson

prepared to depart. They were not looking at each other. Suddenly Heyst

spoke:

"I am not surprised to hear it," he said placidly. "Odious enough, I

dare say. And you, of course--not being a married man--were free to step

in. Ah, well!"

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