Читать книгу The Argus Pheasant - Beecham John Charles - Страница 6

Electric tapers were burning dimly in Governor-General Van Schouten's sanctum at the paleis that evening as Peter Gross was ushered in. The governor was seated in a high-backed, elaborately carved mahogany chair before a highly polished mahogany table. Beside him was the omniscient, the indispensable Sachsen. The two were talking earnestly in the Dutch language. Van Schouten acknowledged Peter Gross's entrance with a curt nod and directed him to take a chair on the opposite side of the table.

At a word from his superior, Sachsen tucked the papers he had been studying into a portfolio. The governor stared intently at his visitor for a moment before he spoke.

"Mynheer Gross," he announced sharply, "your captain tells me your contract with him runs to the end of the voyage. He will not release you."

"Then I must fill my contract, your excellency," Peter Gross replied.

Van Schouten frowned with annoyance. He was not accustomed to being crossed.

"When will you be able to take over the administration of Bulungan, mynheer?"

Peter Gross's brow puckered thoughtfully. "In three weeks – let us say thirty days, your excellency."

"Donder en bliksem!" the governor exclaimed. "We need you there at once."

"That is quite impossible, your excellency. I will need help, men that I can trust and who know the islands. Such men cannot be picked up in a day."

"You can have the pick of my troops."

"I should prefer to choose my own men, your excellency," Peter Gross replied.

"Eh? How so, mynheer?" The governor's eyes glinted with suspicion.

"Your excellency has been so good as to promise me a free hand," Peter Gross replied quietly. "I have a plan in mind – if your excellency desires to hear it?"

Van Schouten's face cleared.

"We shall discuss that later, mynheer. You will be ready to go the first of June, then?"

"On the first of June I shall await your excellency's pleasure here at Batavia," Peter Gross agreed.

"Nu! that is settled!" The governor gave a grunt of satisfaction and squared himself before the table. His expression became sternly autocratic.

"Mynheer Gross," he said, "you told us this afternoon some of the history of our unhappy residency of Bulungan. You demonstrated to our satisfaction a most excellent knowledge of conditions there. Some of the things you spoke of were – I may say – surprising. Some touched upon matters which we thought were known only to ourselves and to our privy council. But, mynheer, you did not mention one subject that to our mind is the gravest problem that confronts our representatives in Bulungan. Perhaps you do not know there is such a problem. Or perhaps you underestimate its seriousness. At any rate, we deem it desirable to discuss this matter with you in detail, that you may thoroughly understand the difficulties before you, and our wishes in the matter. We have requested Mynheer Sachsen to speak for us."

He nodded curtly at his secretary.

"You may proceed, Sachsen."

Sachsen's white head, that had bent low over the table during the governor's rather pompous little speech, slowly lifted. His shrewd gray eyes twinkled kindly. His lips parted in a quaintly humorous and affectionate smile.

"First of all, Vrind Pieter, let me congratulate you," he said, extending a hand across the table. Peter Gross's big paw closed over it with a warm pressure.

"And let me thank you, Vrind Sachsen," he replied. "It was not hard to guess who brought my name to his excellency's attention."

"It is Holland's good fortune that you are here," Sachsen declared. "Had you not been worthy, Vrind Pieter, I should not have recommended you." He looked at the firm, strong face and the deep, broad chest and massive shoulders of his protégé with almost paternal fondness.

"To have earned your good opinion is reward enough in itself," Peter Gross asserted.

Sachsen's odd smile, that seemed to find a philosophic humor in everything, deepened.

"Your reward, Vrind Pieter," he observed, "is the customary recompense of the man who proves his wisdom and his strength – a more onerous duty. Bulungan will test you severely, vrind (friend). Do you believe that?"

"Ay," Peter Gross assented soberly.

"Pray God to give you wisdom and strength," Sachsen advised gravely. He bowed his head for a moment, then stirred in his chair and sat up alertly.

"Nu! as to the work that lies before you, I need not tell you the history of this residency. For Sachsen to presume to instruct Peter Gross in what has happened in Bulungan would be folly. As great folly as to lecture a dominie on theology."

Again the quaintly humorous quirk of the lips.

"If Peter Gross knew the archipelago half so well as his good friend Sachsen he would be a lucky man," Peter Gross retorted spiritedly.

Sachsen's face became suddenly grave.

"We do not doubt your knowledge of conditions in our unhappy province, Vrind Pieter. Nor do we doubt your ability, your courage, or your sound judgment. But, Pieter – "

He paused. The clear gray eyes of Peter Gross met his questioningly.

" – You are young, Vrind Pieter."

The governor rose abruptly and plucked down from the wall a long-stemmed Dutch pipe that was suspended by a gaily colored cord from a stout peg. He filled the big china bowl of the pipe with nearly a half-pound of tobacco, touched a light to the weed, and returned to his chair. There was a pregnant silence in the room meanwhile.

"How old are you, Vrind Pieter?" Sachsen asked gently.

"Twenty-five, mynheer," Peter Gross replied. There was a pronounced emphasis on the "mynheer."

"Twenty-five," Sachsen murmured fondly. "Twenty-five! Just my age when I was a student at Leyden and the gayest young scamp of them all." He shook his head. "Twenty-five is very young, Vrind Pieter."

"That is a misfortune which only time can remedy," Peter Gross replied drily.

"Yes, only time." Sachsen's eyes misted. "Time that brings the days 'when strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders shall cease because they are few, and the grasshopper shall become a burden, and desire shall fail.' I wish you were older, Vrind Pieter."

The old man sighed. There was a far-away look in his eyes as though he were striving to pierce the future and the leagues between Batavia and Bulungan.

"Vrind Gross," he resumed softly, "we have known each other a long time. Eight years is a long time, and it is eight years since you first came to Batavia. You were a cabin-boy then, and you ran away from your master because he beat you. The wharfmaster at Tanjong Priok found you, and was taking you back to your master when old Sachsen saw you. Old Sachsen got you free and put you on another ship, under a good master, who made a good man and a good zeeman (seaman) out of you. Do you remember?"

"I shall never forget!" Peter Gross's voice was vibrant with emotion.

"Old Sachsen was your friend then. He has been your friend through the years since then. He is your friend to-day. Do you believe that?"

Peter Gross impulsively reached his hand across the table. Sachsen grasped it and held it.

"Then to-night you will forgive old Sachsen if he speaks plainly to you, more plainly than you would let other men talk? You will listen, and take his words to heart, and consider them well, Pieter?"

"Speak, Sachsen!"

"I knew you would listen, Pieter." Sachsen drew a deep breath. His eyes rested fondly on his protégé, and he let go Gross's hand reluctantly as he leaned back in his chair.

"Vrind Pieter, you said a little while ago that old Sachsen knows the people who live in these kolonien (colonies). His knowledge is small – "

Peter Gross made a gesture of dissent, but Sachsen did not let him interrupt.

"Yet he has learned some things. It is something to have served the state for over two-score years in the Netherlands East Indies, first as controlleur, then as resident in Celebes, in Sumatra, in Java, and finally as secretary to the gouverneur, as old Sachsen has. In those years he has seen much that goes on in the hearts of the black, and the brown, and the yellow, and the white folk that live in these sun-seared islands. Much that is wicked, but also much that is good. And he has seen much of the fevers that seize men when the sun waves hot and the blood races madly through their veins. There is the fever of hate, and the fever of revenge, the fever of greed, and the fever to grasp God. But more universal than all these is the fever of love and the fever of lust!"

Peter Gross's brow knit with a puzzled frown. "What do you mean, Sachsen?" he demanded.

Sachsen smoothed back his thinning white hair.

"I am an old, old man, Vrind Pieter," he replied "Desire has long ago failed me. The passions that our fiery Java suns breed in men have drained away. The light that is in a comely woman's eyes, the thrill that comes at a touch of her warm hand, the quickened pulse-beat at the feel of her silken hair brushing over one's face – all these things are ashes and dust to old Sachsen. Slim ankles, plump calves, and full rounded breasts mean nothing to him. But you, Vrind Pieter, are young. You are strong as a buffalo, bold as a tiger, vigorous as a banyan tree. You have a young man's warm blood in your veins. You have the poison of youth in your blood. You are a man's man, Peter Gross, but you are also a woman's man."

Peter Gross's puzzled frown became a look of blank amazement. "What in the devil are you driving at, Sachsen?" he demanded, forgetting in his astonishment that he was in the governor's presence.

Sachsen leaned forward, his eyes searching his protégé's.

"Have you ever loved a woman, Pieter?" he countered softly.

Peter Gross appeared to be choking. The veins in his forehead distended.

"What has that to do with Bulungan?" he demanded. "You've known me since I was a lad, Sachsen; you've known all my comings and goings; why do you ask me such – rot?"

A grimly humorous smile lit the governor's stern visage.

"'Let the strong take heed lest they fall,'" Sachsen quoted quietly. "Since you say that you love no woman, let me ask you this – have you ever seen Koyala?"

The little flash of passion left Peter Gross's face, but the puzzled frown remained.

"Koyala," he repeated thoughtfully. "It seems to me I have heard the name, but I cannot recall how or when."

"Think, think!" Sachsen urged, leaning eagerly over the table. "The half-white woman of Borneo, the French trader's daughter by a native woman, brought up and educated at a mission school in Sarawak. The Dyaks call her the Bintang Burung. Ha! I see you know her now."

"Leveque's daughter, Chawatangi's grandchild?" Peter Gross exclaimed. "Of course I know her. Who doesn't?" His face sobered. "The unhappiest woman in the archipelago. I wonder she lives."

"You have seen her?" Sachsen asked.

Peter Gross's eyes twinkled reminiscently. "Ay, that I have."

"Tell me about it," Sachsen urged, with an imperceptible gesture to the governor to say nothing. He leaned forward expectantly.

Peter Gross cocked an eye at the ceiling. "Let me see, it was about a year ago," he said. "I was with McCloud, on the brig Mary Dietrich. McCloud heard at Macassar that there was a settlement of Dyaks at the mouth of the Abbas that wanted to trade in dammar gum and gambir and didn't ask too much balas (tribute money). We crossed the straits and found the village. Wolang, the chief, gave us a big welcome. We spent one day palavering; these natives won't do anything without having a bitchara first. The next morning I began loading operations, while McCloud entertained the orang kaya, Wolang, with a bottle of gin.

"The natives crowded around pretty close, particularly the women, anxious to see what we were bringing ashore. One girl, quite a pretty girl, went so far as to step into the boat, and one of my men swung an arm around her and kissed her. She screamed."

The governor took his pipe out of his mouth and looked up with interest.

"The next minute the mob of Dyaks parted as though cut with a scythe. Down the lane came a woman, a white woman."

He turned to the secretary. "You have seen her, Sachsen?"

"Ja, Pieter."

"Then you can guess how she keeled me over," Peter Gross said. "I took her for white woman, a pure blood. She is white; the brown in her skin is no deeper than in a Spaniard's. She walked up to me – I could see a hurricane was threatening – and she said:

"'You are English? Go back to your ship, now; don't wait a minute, or you will leave your heads here.'

"'Madam,' I said, 'the lad was hasty, but meant no harm. It will not happen again. I will make the lady a present.'

"She turned a look on me that fairly withered me. 'You think you can buy our women, too?' she said, fairly spitting the words. 'Go! go! Don't you see my Dyaks fitting arrows in their blow-pipes?'

"McCloud came running up with Chief Wolang. 'What's this?' he blustered, but Koyala only pointed to the sea and said the one word:

"'Go!'

"McCloud spoke to Wolang, but at a nod from Koyala the chief gave an order to his followers. Fifty Dyaks fitted poisoned arrows into their sumpitans. McCloud had good judgment; he knew when it was no use to bitchara and show gin. We rowed back to the ship without the cargo we expected to load and set sail at once. Not an arrow followed us, but the last thing I saw of the village was Koyala on the beach, watching us dip into the big rollers of the Celebes Sea."

"She is beautiful?" Sachsen suggested softly.

"Ay, quite an attractive young female," Peter Gross agreed in utmost seriousness. The governor's grim smile threatened to break out into an open grin.

Sachsen looked at the table-top thoughtfully and rubbed his hands. "She lost you a cargo," he stated. "You have a score to settle with her." He flashed a keen glance at his protégé.

"By God, no!" Peter Gross exclaimed. He brought his fist down on the table. "She was right, eternally right. If a scoundrelly scum from over the sea tried to kiss a woman of my kin in that way I'd treat him a lot worse than we were treated."

Van Schouten blew an angry snort that cut like a knife the huge cloud of tobacco-smoke in which he had enveloped himself. Peter Gross faced him truculently.

"We deserved what we got," he asserted. "When we whites get over the notion that the world is a playground for us to spill our lusts and vices on and the lower races the playthings we can abuse as we please, we'll have peace in these islands. Our missionaries preach morals and Christianity; our traders, like that damned whelp, Leveque, break every law of God and man. Between the two the poor benighted heathen loses all the faith he has and sinks one grade lower in brutishness than his ancestors were before him. If all men were like Brooke of Sarawak we'd have had the East Indies Christianized by now. The natives were ready to make gods out of us – they did it with Brooke – but now they're looking for a chance to put a knife in our backs – a good many of them are."

He checked himself. "Here I'm preaching. I beg your pardon, your excellency."

Van Schouten blew another great cloud of tobacco-smoke and said nothing. Through the haze his eagle-keen eyes searched Peter Gross's face and noted the firm chin and tightly drawn lips with stern disapproval. Sachsen flashed him a warning glance to keep silent.

"Mynheer Gross," the secretary entreated, "let me again beg the privileges of an old friend. Is it admiration for Koyala's beauty or your keen sense of justice that leads you to so warm a defense?"

Peter Gross's reply was prompt and decisive.

"Vrind Sachsen, if she had been a hag I'd have thought no different."

"Search your heart, Vrind Pieter. Is it not because she was young and comely, a woman unafraid, that you remember her?"

"Women are nothing to me," Peter Gross retorted irritably. "But right is right, and wrong is wrong, whether in Batavia or Bulungan."

Sachsen shook his head.

"Vrind Pieter," he declared sadly, "you make me very much afraid for you. If you had acknowledged, 'The woman was fair, a fair woman stirs me quickly,' I would have said: 'He is young and has eyes to see with, but he is too shrewd to be trapped.' But when you say: 'The fault was ours, we deserved to lose the cargo,' then I know that you are blind, blind to your own weakness, Pieter. Clever, wicked women make fools of such as you, Pieter."

One eyebrow arched the merest trifle in the direction of the governor. Then Sachsen continued:

"Vrind Pieter, I am here to-night to warn you against this woman. I have much to tell you about her, much that is unpleasant. Will you listen?"

Peter Gross shrugged his shoulders.

"I am at your service, Sachsen."

"Will you listen with an open mind? Will you banish from your thoughts all recollection of the woman you saw at the mouth of the Abbas River, all that you know or think you know of her fancied wrongs, and hear what old Sachsen has to say of the evil she has done, of the crimes, the piracies, ay, even rebellions and treasons for which she has been responsible? What do you say, Vrind Pieter?"

Pieter Gross swallowed hard. Words seemed to be struggling to his lips, but he kept them back. His teeth were pressed together tightly, the silence became tense.

"Listen, Sachsen," he finally said. His voice was studiedly calm. "You come from an old, conservative race, a race that clings faithfully to the precepts and ideals of its fathers and is certain of its footing before it makes a step in advance. You have the old concept of woman, that her lot is to bear, to suffer, and to weep. I come from a fresher, newer race, a race that gives its women the same liberty of thought and action that it gives its men. Therefore there are many things concerning the conduct of this woman that we look at in different ways. Things that seem improper, ay, sometimes treasonable, to you, seem a perfectly natural protest to me. You ignore the wrongs she has suffered, wrongs that must make life a living hell to her. You say she must be content with the place to which God has called her, submerge the white blood in her, and live a savage among savages."

Peter Gross pulled his chair nearer the table and leaned forward. His face glowed with an intense earnestness.

"Great Scot, Sachsen, think of her condition! Half white, ay, half French, and that is as proud a race as breathes. Beautiful – beautiful as the sunrise. Taught in a missionary school, brought up as a white child among white children. And then, when the glory of her womanhood comes upon her, to learn she is an illegitimate, a half-breed, sister to the savage Dyaks, her only future in their filthy huts, to kennel with them, breed with them – God, what a horror that revelation must have been!"

He raked his fingers through his hair and stared savagely at the wall.

"You don't feel these things, Sachsen," he concluded. "You're Dutch to begin with, and so a conservative thinker. Then you've been ground through the routine of colonial service so many years that you've lost every viewpoint except the state's expediency. Thank God, I haven't! That is why I think I can do something for you in Bulungan – "

He checked himself. "Common sense and a little elemental justice go a long, long way in dealing with savages," he observed.

Sachsen's eyes looked steadily into Peter Gross's. Sachsen's kindly smile did not falter. But the governor's patience had reached its limit.

"Look you here, Mynheer Gross," he exclaimed, "I want no sympathy for that she-devil from my resident."

An angry retort leaped to Peter Gross's lips, but before it could be uttered Sachsen's hand had leaped across the table and had gripped his warningly.

"She may be as beautiful as a houri, but she is a witch, a very Jezebel," the governor stormed. "I have nipped a dozen uprisings in the bud, and this Koyala has been at the bottom of all of them. She hates us orang blandas with a hate that the fires of hell could not burn out, but she is subtler than the serpent that taught Mother Eve. She has bewitched my controlleur; see that she does not bewitch you. I have put a price on her head; your first duty will be to see that she is delivered for safe-keeping here in Batavia."

The governor's eyes were sparkling fire. There was a like anger in Peter Gross's face; he was on the point of speaking when Sachsen's nails dug so deeply into his hand that he winced.

"Mynheer Gross is an American, therefore he is chivalrous," Sachsen observed. "He aims to be just, but there is much that he does not understand. If your excellency will permit me – "

Van Schouten gave assent by picking up his pipe and closing his teeth viciously on the mouthpiece.

Sachsen promptly addressed Peter Gross.

"Vrind Pieter," he said, "I am glad you have spoken. Now we understand each other. You are just what I knew you were, fearless, honest, frank. You have convinced me the more that you are the man we must have as resident of Bulungan."

Peter Gross looked up distrustfully. Van Schouten, too, evinced his surprise by taking the pipe from his mouth.

"But," Sachsen continued, "you have the common failing of youth. Youth dreams dreams, it would rebuild this sorry world and make it Paradise before the snake. It is sure it can. With age comes disillusionment. We learn we cannot do the things we have set our hands to do in the way we planned. We learn we must compromise. Once old Sachsen had thoughts like yours. To-day" – he smiled tenderly – "he has the beginnings of wisdom. That is, he has learned that God ordains. Do you believe that, Vrind Pieter?"

"Ay, of course," Peter Gross acknowledged, a trifle bewildered. "But – "

"Now, concerning this woman," Sachsen cut in briskly. "We will concede that she was wronged before she was born. We will concede the sin of her father. We will concede his second sin, leaving her mother to die in the jungle. We will concede the error, if error it was, to educate Koyala in a mission school among white children. We will concede the fatal error of permitting her to return to her own people, knowing the truth of her birth."

His voice took a sharper turn.

"But there are millions of children born in your own land, in my land, in every land, with deformed bodies, blind perhaps, crippled, with faces uglier than baboons. Why? Because one or both of their parents sinned. Now I ask you," he demanded harshly, "whether these children, because of the sin of their parents, have the right to commit crimes, plot murders, treasons, rebellions, and stir savage people to wars of extermination against their white rulers? What is your answer?"

"That is not the question," Peter Gross began, but Sachsen interrupted.

"It is the question. It was the sin of the parent in both cases. Leveque sinned; his daughter, Koyala, suffers. Parents sin everywhere, their children must suffer."

Peter Gross stared at the wall thoughtfully.

"Look you here, Vrind Pieter," Sachsen said, "learn this great truth. The state is first, then the individual. Always the good of the whole people, that is the state, first, then the good of the individual. Thousands may suffer, thousands may die, but if the race benefits, the cost is nothing. This law is as old as man. Each generation says it a new way, but the law is the same. And so with this Koyala. She was wronged, we will admit it. But she cannot be permitted to make the whole white race pay for those wrongs and halt progress in Borneo for a generation. She will have justice; his excellency is a just man. But first there must be peace in Bulungan. There must be no more plottings, no more piracies, no more head-hunting. The spear-heads must be separated from their shafts, the krisses must be buried, the sumpitans must be broken in two. If Koyala will yield, this can be done. If you can persuade her to trust us, Pieter, half your work is done. Bulungan will become one of our fairest residencies, its trade will grow, the piracies will be swept from the seas, and the days of head-hunting will become a tradition."

Peter Gross bowed his head.

"God help me, I will," he vowed.

"But see that she does not seduce you, Vrind Pieter," the old man entreated earnestly. "You are both young, she is fair, and she is a siren, a vampire. Hold fast to your God, to your faith, to the oath you take as a servant of the state, and do not let her beauty blind you – no, nor your own warm heart either, Pieter."

Sachsen rose. There were tears in his eyes as he looked fondly down at the young man that owed so much to him.

"Pieter," he said, "old Sachsen will pray for you. I must leave you now, Pieter; the governor desires to talk to you."