XII
Mr. Van Wyk, the white man of Batu Beru, an ex-
naval officer who, for reasons best known to himself, had
thrown away the promise of a brilliant career to become
the pioneer of tobacco-planting on that remote part of
the coast, had learned to like Captain Whalley. The
appearance of the new skipper had attracted his atten-
tion. Nothing more unlike all the diverse types he had
seen succeeding each other on the bridge of the Sofala
could be imagined.
At that time Batu Beru was not what it has become
since: the center of a prosperous tobacco-growing dis-
trict, a tropically suburban-looking little settlement of
bungalows in one long street shaded with two rows of
trees, embowered by the flowering and trim luxuriance
of the gardens, with a three-mile-long carriage-road for
the afternoon drives and a first-class Resident with a
fat, cheery wife to lead the society of married estate-
managers and unmarried young fellows in the service
of the big companies.
All this prosperity was not yet; and Mr. Van Wyk
prospered alone on the left bank on his deep clearing
carved out of the forest, which came down above and
below to the water's edge. His lonely bungalow faced
across the river the houses of the Sultan: a restless and
melancholy old ruler who had done with love and war,
for whom life no longer held any savor (except of evil
forebodings) and time never had any value. He was
afraid of death, and hoped he would die before the white
men were ready to take his country from him. He
crossed the river frequently (with never less than ten
boats crammed full of people), in the wistful hope of
extracting some information on the subject from his
own white man. There was a certain chair on the
veranda he always took: the dignitaries of the court
squatted on the rugs and skins between the furniture:
the inferior people remained below on the grass plot
between the house and the river in rows three or four
deep all along the front. Not seldom the visit began at
daybreak. Mr. Van Wyk tolerated these inroads. He
would nod out of his bedroom window, tooth-brush or
razor in hand, or pass through the throng of courtiers in
his bathing robe. He appeared and disappeared hum-
ming a tune, polished his nails with attention, rubbed
his shaved face with eau-de-Cologne, drank his early
tea, went out to see his coolies at work: returned, looked
through some papers on his desk, read a page or two
in a book or sat before his cottage piano leaning back
on the stool, his arms extended, fingers on the keys, his
body swaying slightly from side to side. When abso-
lutely forced to speak he gave evasive vaguely soothing
answers out of pure compassion: the same feeling per-
haps made him so lavishly hospitable with the aerated
drinks that more than once he left himself without soda-
water for a whole week. That old man had granted him
as much land as he cared to have cleared: it was neither
more nor less than a fortune.
Whether it was fortune or seclusion from his kind that
Mr. Van Wyk sought, he could not have pitched upon
a better place. Even the mail-boats of the subsidized
company calling on the veriest clusters of palm-thatched
hovels along the coast steamed past the mouth of Batu
Beru river far away in the offing. The contract was
old: perhaps in a few years' time, when it had expired,
Batu Beru would be included in the service; meantime
all Mr. Van Wyk's mail was addressed to Malacca,
whence his agent sent it across once a month by the
Sofala. It followed that whenever Massy had run short
of money (through taking too many lottery tickets),
or got into a difficulty about a skipper, Mr. Van Wyk
was deprived of his letter and newspapers. In so far
he had a personal interest in the fortunes of the Sofala.
Though he considered himself a hermit (and for no
passing whim evidently, since he had stood eight years
of it already), he liked to know what went on in the
world.
Handy on the veranda upon a walnut etagere (it had
come last year by the Sofala--everything came by the
Sofala) there lay, piled up under bronze weights, a pile
of the Times' weekly edition, the large sheets of the
Rotterdam Courant, the Graphic in its world-wide
green wrappers, an illustrated Dutch publication with-
out a cover, the numbers of a German magazine with
covers of the "Bismarck malade" color. There were
also parcels of new music--though the piano (it had
come years ago by the Sofala in the damp atmosphere
of the forests was generally out of tune. It was vexing
to be cut off from everything for sixty days at a stretch
sometimes, without any means of knowing what was the
matter. And when the Sofala reappeared Mr. Van Wyk
would descend the steps of the veranda and stroll over
the grass plot in front of his house, down to the water-
side, with a frown on his white brow.
"You've been laid up after an accident, I presume."
He addressed the bridge, but before anybody could
answer Massy was sure to have already scrambled ashore
over the rail and pushed in, squeezing the palms of his
hands together, bowing his sleek head as if gummed all
over the top with black threads and tapes. And he
would be so enraged at the necessity of having to offer
such an explanation that his moaning would be posi-
tively pitiful, while all the time he tried to compose
his big lips into a smile.
"No, Mr. Van Wyk. You would not believe it. I
couldn't get one of those wretches to take the ship out.
Not a single one of the lazy beasts could be induced,
and the law, you know, Mr. Van Wyk . . ."
He moaned at great length apologetically; the words
conspiracy, plot, envy, came out prominently, whined
with greater energy. Mr. Van Wyk, examining with
a faint grimace his polished finger-nails, would say,
"H'm. Very unfortunate," and turn his back on him.
Fastidious, clever, slightly skeptical, accustomed to the
best society (he had held a much-envied shore appoint-
ment at the Ministry of Marine for a year preceding
his retreat from his profession and from Europe), he
possessed a latent warmth of feeling and a capacity for
sympathy which were concealed by a sort of haughty,
arbitrary indifference of manner arising from his early
training; and by a something an enemy might have
called foppish, in his aspect--like a distorted echo of
past elegance. He managed to keep an almost mili-
tary discipline amongst the coolies of the estate he had
dragged into the light of day out of the tangle and
shadows of the jungle; and the white shirt he put
on every evening with its stiff glossy front and high
collar looked as if he had meant to preserve the decent
ceremony of evening-dress, but had wound a thick crim-
son sash above his hips as a concession to the wilderness,
once his adversary, now his vanquished companion.
Moreover, it was a hygienic precaution. Worn wide
open in front, a short jacket of some airy silken stuff
floated from his shoulders. His fluffy, fair hair, thin
at the top, curled slightly at the sides; a carefully ar-
ranged mustache, an ungarnished forehead, the gleam
of low patent shoes peeping under the wide bottom of
trowsers cut straight from the same stuff as the gossa-
mer coat, completed a figure recalling, with its sash, a
pirate chief of romance, and at the same time the ele-
gance of a slightly bald dandy indulging, in seclusion,
a taste for unorthodox costume.
It was his evening get-up. The proper time for the
Sofala to arrive at Batu Beru was an hour before sun-
set, and he looked picturesque, and somehow quite cor-
rect too, walking at the water's edge on the background
of grass slope crowned with a low long bungalow with
an immensely steep roof of palm thatch, and clad to the
eaves in flowering creepers. While the Sofala was being
made fast he strolled in the shade of the few trees left
near the landing-place, waiting till he could go on
board. Her white men were not of his kind. The old
Sultan (though his wistful invasions were a nuisance)
was really much more acceptable to his fastidious taste.
But still they were white; the periodical visits of the
ship made a break in the well-filled sameness of the
days without disturbing his privacy. Moreover, they
were necessary from a business point of view; and
through a strain of preciseness in his nature he was
irritated when she failed to appear at the appointed
time.
The cause of the irregularity was too absurd, and
Massy, in his opinion, was a contemptible idiot. The
first time the Sofala reappeared under the new agree-
ment swinging out of the bend below, after he had
almost given up all hope of ever seeing her again, he
felt so angry that he did not go down at once to the
landing-place. His servants had come running to him
with the news, and he had dragged a chair close against
the front rail of the veranda, spread his elbows out,
rested his chin on his hands, and went on glaring at
her fixedly while she was being made fast opposite his
house. He could make out easily all the white faces on
board. Who on earth was that kind of patriarch they
had got there on the bridge now?
At last he sprang up and walked down the gravel path.
It was a fact that the very gravel for his paths had
been imported by the Sofala. Exasperated out of his
quiet superciliousness, without looking at anyone right
or left, he accosted Massy straightway in so determined
a manner that the engineer, taken aback, began to
stammer unintelligibly. Nothing could be heard but
the words: "Mr. Van Wyk . . . Indeed, Mr. Van
Wyk . . . For the future, Mr. Van Wyk"--and by the
suffusion of blood Massy's vast bilious face acquired an
unnatural orange tint, out of which the disconcerted
coal-black eyes shone in an extraordinary manner.
"Nonsense. I am tired of this. I wonder you have
the impudence to come alongside my jetty as if I had
it made for your convenience alone."
Massy tried to protest earnestly. Mr. Van Wyk was
very angry. He had a good mind to ask that German
firm--those people in Malacca--what was their name?--
boats with green funnels. They would be only too glad
of the opening to put one of their small steamers on
the run. Yes; Schnitzler, Jacob Schnitzler, would in a
moment. Yes. He had decided to write without delay.
In his agitation Massy caught up his falling pipe.
"You don't mean it, sir!" he shrieked.
"You shouldn't mismanage your business in this
ridiculous manner."
Mr. Van Wyk turned on his heel. The other three
whites on the bridge had not stirred during the scene.
Massy walked hastily from side to side, puffed out his
cheeks, suffocated.
"Stuck up Dutchman!"
And he moaned out feverishly a long tale of griefs.
The efforts he had made for all these years to please
that man. This was the return you got for it, eh?
Pretty. Write to Schnitzler--let in the green-funnel
boats--get an old Hamburg Jew to ruin him. No,
really he could laugh. . . . He laughed sobbingly. . . .
Ha! ha! ha! And make him carry the letter in his own
ship presumably.
He stumbled across a grating and swore. He would
not hesitate to fling the Dutchman's correspondence
overboard--the whole confounded bundle. He had
never, never made any charge for that accommodation.
But Captain Whalley, his new partner, would not let
him probably; besides, it would be only putting off the
evil day. For his own part he would make a hole in the
water rather than look on tamely at the green funnels
overrunning his trade.
He raved aloud. The China boys hung back with the
dishes at the foot of the ladder. He yelled from the
bridge down at the deck, "Aren't we going to have any
chow this evening at all?" then turned violently to
Captain Whalley, who waited, grave and patient, at
the head of the table, smoothing his beard in silence
now and then with a forbearing gesture.
"You don't seem to care what happens to me. Don't
you see that this affects your interests as much as mine?
It's no joking matter."
He took the foot of the table growling between his
teeth.
"Unless you have a few thousands put away some-
where. I haven't."
Mr. Van Wyk dined in his thoroughly lit-up bunga-
low, putting a point of splendor in the night of his
clearing above the dark bank of the river. Afterwards
he sat down to his piano, and in a pause he became aware
of slow footsteps passing on the path along the front.
A plank or two creaked under a heavy tread; he swung
half round on the music-stool, listening with his finger-
tips at rest on the keyboard. His little terrier barked
violently, backing in from the veranda. A deep voice
apologized gravely for "this intrusion." He walked out
quickly.
At the head of the steps the patriarchal figure, who
was the new captain of the Sofala apparently (he had
seen a round dozen of them, but not one of that sort),
towered without advancing. The little dog barked un-
ceasingly, till a flick of Mr. Van Wyk's handkerchief
made him spring aside into silence. Captain Whalley,
opening the matter, was met by a punctiliously polite
but determined opposition.
They carried on their discussion standing where they
had come face to face. Mr. Van Wyk observed his
visitor with attention. Then at last, as if forced out of
his reserve--
"I am surprised that you should intercede for such a
confounded fool."
This outbreak was almost complimentary, as if its
meaning had been, "That such a man as you should
intercede!" Captain Whalley let it pass by without
flinching. One would have thought he had heard noth-
ing. He simply went on to state that he was personally
interested in putting things straight between them.
Personally . . .
But Mr. Van Wyk, really carried away by his disgust
with Massy, became very incisive--
"Indeed--if I am to be frank with you--his whole
character does not seem to me particularly estimable or
trustworthy . . ."
Captain Whalley, always straight, seemed to grow an
inch taller and broader, as if the girth of his chest had
suddenly expanded under his beard.
"My dear sir, you don't think I came here to discuss
a man with whom I am--I am--h'm--closely asso-
ciated."
A sort of solemn silence lasted for a moment. He was
not used to asking favors, but the importance he at-
tached to this affair had made him willing to try. . . .
Mr. Van Wyk, favorably impressed, and suddenly mol-
lified by a desire to laugh, interrupted--
"That's all right if you make it a personal matter;
but you can do no less than sit down and smoke a cigar
with me."
A slight pause, then Captain Whalley stepped forward
heavily. As to the regularity of the service, for the
future he made himself responsible for it; and his name
was Whalley--perhaps to a sailor (he was speaking to
a sailor, was he not?) not altogether unfamiliar. There
was a lighthouse now, on an island. Maybe Mr. Van
Wyk himself . . .
"Oh yes. Oh indeed." Mr. Van Wyk caught on at
once. He indicated a chair. How very interesting.
For his own part he had seen some service in the last
Acheen War, but had never been so far East. Whalley
Island? Of course. Now that was very interesting.
What changes his guest must have seen since.
"I can look further back even--on a whole half-
century."
Captain Whalley expanded a bit. The flavor of a
good cigar (it was a weakness) had gone straight to his
heart, also the civility of that young man. There was
something in that accidental contact of which he had
been starved in his years of struggle.
The front wall retreating made a square recess fur-
nished like a room. A lamp with a milky glass shade,
suspended below the slope of the high roof at the end
of a slender brass chain, threw a bright round of light
upon a little table bearing an open book and an ivory
paper-knife. And, in the translucent shadows beyond,
other tables could be seen, a number of easy-chairs of
various shapes, with a great profusion of skin rugs
strewn on the teakwood planking all over the veranda.
The flowering creepers scented the air. Their foliage
clipped out between the uprights made as if several
frames of thick unstirring leaves reflecting the lamp-
light in a green glow. Through the opening at his
elbow Captain Whalley could see the gangway lantern
of the Sofala burning dim by the shore, the shadowy
masses of the town beyond the open lustrous darkness
of the river, and, as if hung along the straight edge
of the projecting eaves, a narrow black strip of the
night sky full of stars--resplendent. The famous cigar
in hand he had a moment of complacency.
"A trifle. Somebody must lead the way. I just
showed that the thing could be done; but you men
brought up to the use of steam cannot conceive the
vast importance of my bit of venturesomeness to
the Eastern trade of the time. Why, that new route
reduced the average time of a southern passage by
eleven days for more than half the year. Eleven days!
It's on record. But the remarkable thing--speaking
to a sailor--I should say was . . ."
He talked well, without egotism, professionally. The
powerful voice, produced without effort, filled the
bungalow even into the empty rooms with a deep and
limpid resonance, seemed to make a stillness outside;
and Mr. Van Wyk was surprised by the serene quality
of its tone, like the perfection of manly gentleness.
Nursing one small foot, in a silk sock and a patent
leather shoe, on his knee, he was immensely entertained.
It was as if nobody could talk like this now, and the
overshadowed eyes, the flowing white beard, the big
frame, the serenity, the whole temper of the man, were
an amazing survival from the prehistoric times of the
world coming up to him out of the sea.
Captain Whalley had been also the pioneer of the early
trade in the Gulf of Pe-tchi-li. He even found occasion
to mention that he had buried his "dear wife" there
six-and-twenty years ago. Mr. Van Wyk, impassive,
could not help speculating in his mind swiftly as to
the sort of woman that would mate with such a man.
Did they make an adventurous and well-matched pair?
No. Very possible she had been small, frail, no doubt
very feminine--or most likely commonplace with do-
mestic instincts, utterly insignificant. But Captain
Whalley was no garrulous bore, and shaking his head
as if to dissipate the momentary gloom that had settled
on his handsome old face, he alluded conversationally to
Mr. Van Wyk's solitude.
Mr. Van Wyk affirmed that sometimes he had more
company than he wanted. He mentioned smilingly
some of the peculiarities of his intercourse with "My
Sultan." He made his visits in force. Those people
damaged his grass plot in front (it was not easy to
obtain some approach to a lawn in the tropics, and the
other day had broken down some rare bushes he had
planted over there. And Captain Whalley remembered
immediately that, in 'forty-seven, the then Sultan, "this
man's grandfather," had been notorious as a great pro-
tector of the piratical fleets of praus from farther East.
They had a safe refuge in the river at Batu Beru. He
financed more especially a Balinini chief called Haji
Daman. Captain Whalley, nodding significantly his
bushy white eyebrows, had very good reason to know
something of that. The world had progressed since
that time.
Mr. Van Wyk demurred with unexpected acrimony.
Progressed in what? he wanted to know.
Why, in knowledge of truth, in decency, in justice, in
order--in honesty too, since men harmed each other
mostly from ignorance. It was, Captain Whalley con-
cluded quaintly, more pleasant to live in.
Mr. Van Wyk whimsically would not admit that Mr.
Massy, for instance, was more pleasant naturally than
the Balinini pirates.
The river had not gained much by the change. They
were in their way every bit as honest. Massy was less
ferocious than Haji Daman no doubt, but . . .
"And what about you, my good sir?" Captain
Whalley laughed a deep soft laugh. "YOU are an im-
provement, surely."
He continued in a vein of pleasantry. A good cigar
was better than a knock on the head--the sort of wel-
come he would have found on this river forty or fifty
years ago. Then leaning forward slightly, he became
earnestly serious. It seems as if, outside their own sea-
gypsy tribes, these rovers had hated all mankind with
an incomprehensible, bloodthirsty hatred. Meantime
their depredations had been stopped, and what was the
consequence? The new generation was orderly, peace-
able, settled in prosperous villages. He could speak
from personal knowledge. And even the few survivors
of that time--old men now--had changed so much, that
it would have been unkind to remember against them
that they had ever slit a throat in their lives. He had
one especially in his mind's eye: a dignified, venerable
headman of a certain large coast village about sixty
miles sou'west of Tampasuk. It did one's heart good
to see him--to hear that man speak. He might have
been a ferocious savage once. What men wanted was
to be checked by superior intelligence, by superior
knowledge, by superior force too--yes, by force held in
trust from God and sanctified by its use in accordance
with His declared will. Captain Whalley believed a dis-
position for good existed in every man, even if the
world were not a very happy place as a whole. In the
wisdom of men he had not so much confidence. The dis-
position had to be helped up pretty sharply sometimes,
he admitted. They might be silly, wrongheaded, un-
happy; but naturally evil--no. There was at bottom
a complete harmlessness at least . . .
"Is there?" Mr. Van Wyk snapped acrimoniously.
Captain Whalley laughed at the interjection, in the
good humor of large, tolerating certitude. He could
look back at half a century, he pointed out. The smoke
oozed placidly through the white hairs hiding his kindly
lips.
"At all events," he resumed after a pause, "I am
glad that they've had no time to do you much harm as
yet."
This allusion to his comparative youthfulness did not
offend Mr. Van Wyk, who got up and wriggled his
shoulders with an enigmatic half-smile. They walked
out together amicably into the starry night towards
the river-side. Their footsteps resounded unequally on
the dark path. At the shore end of the gangway the
lantern, hung low to the handrail, threw a vivid light
on the white legs and the big black feet of Mr. Massy
waiting about anxiously. From the waist upwards he
remained shadowy, with a row of buttons gleaming up
to the vague outline of his chin.
"You may thank Captain Whalley for this," Mr. Van
Wyk said curtly to him before turning away.
The lamps on the veranda flung three long squares
of light between the uprights far over the grass. A bat
flitted before his face like a circling flake of velvety
blackness. Along the jasmine hedge the night air
seemed heavy with the fall of perfumed dew; flower-
beds bordered the path; the clipped bushes uprose in
dark rounded clumps here and there before the house;
the dense foliage of creepers filtered the sheen of the
lamplight within in a soft glow all along the front;
and everything near and far stood still in a great im-
mobility, in a great sweetness.
Mr. Van Wyk (a few years before he had had occasion
to imagine himself treated more badly than anybody
alive had ever been by a woman) felt for Captain
Whalley's optimistic views the disdain of a man who
had once been credulous himself. His disgust with the
world (the woman for a time had filled it for him com-
pletely) had taken the form of activity in retirement,
because, though capable of great depth of feeling, he
was energetic and essentially practical. But there was
in that uncommon old sailor, drifting on the outskirts
of his busy solitude, something that fascinated his
skepticism. His very simplicity (amusing enough) was
like a delicate refinement of an upright character. The
striking dignity of manner could be nothing else, in a
man reduced to such a humble position, but the ex-
pression of something essentially noble in the character.
With all his trust in mankind he was no fool; the seren-
ity of his temper at the end of so many years, since it
could not obviously have been appeased by success, wore
an air of profound wisdom. Mr. Van Wyk was amused
at it sometimes. Even the very physical traits of the
old captain of the Sofala, his powerful frame, his re-
poseful mien, his intelligent, handsome face, the big
limbs, the benign courtesy, the touch of rugged severity
in the shaggy eyebrows, made up a seductive person-
ality. Mr. Van Wyk disliked littleness of every kind,
but there was nothing small about that man, and in
the exemplary regularity of many trips an intimacy had
grown up between them, a warm feeling at bottom under
a kindly stateliness of forms agreeable to his fastidious-
ness.
They kept their respective opinions on all worldly
matters. His other convictions Captain Whalley never
intruded. The difference of their ages was like another
bond between them. Once, when twitted with the un-
charitableness of his youth, Mr. Van Wyk, running his
eye over the vast proportions of his interlocutor, re-
torted in friendly banter--
"Oh. You'll come to my way of thinking yet. You'll
have plenty of time. Don't call yourself old: you look
good for a round hundred."
But he could not help his stinging incisiveness, and
though moderating it by an almost affectionate smile,
he added--
"And by then you will probably consent to die from
sheer disgust."
Captain Whalley, smiling too, shook his head. "God
forbid!"
He thought that perhaps on the whole he deserved
something better than to die in such sentiments. The
time of course would have to come, and he trusted to
his Maker to provide a manner of going out of which
he need not be ashamed. For the rest he hoped he
would live to a hundred if need be: other men had been
known; it would be no miracle. He expected no miracles.
The pronounced, argumentative tone caused Mr. Van
Wyk to raise his head and look at him steadily. Cap-
tain Whalley was gazing fixedly with a rapt expression,
as though he had seen his Creator's favorable decree
written in mysterious characters on the wall. He kept
perfectly motionless for a few seconds, then got his vast
bulk on to his feet so impetuously that Mr. Van Wyk
was startled.
He struck first a heavy blow on his inflated chest: and,
throwing out horizontally a big arm that remained
steady, extended in the air like the limb of a tree on
a windless day--
"Not a pain or an ache there. Can you see this shake
in the least?"
His voice was low, in an awing, confident contrast with
the headlong emphasis of his movements. He sat down
abruptly.
"This isn't to boast of it, you know. I am nothing,"
he said in his effortless strong voice, that seemed to
come out as naturally as a river flows. He picked up the
stump of the cigar he had laid aside, and added peace-
fully, with a slight nod, "As it happens, my life is
necessary; it isn't my own, it isn't--God knows."
He did not say much for the rest of the evening, but
several times Mr. Van Wyk detected a faint smile of
assurance flitting under the heavy mustache.
Later on Captain Whalley would now and then consent
to dine "at the house." He could even be induced to
drink a glass of wine. "Don't think I am afraid of it,
my good sir," he explained. "There was a very good
reason why I should give it up."
On another occasion, leaning back at ease, he remarked,
"You have treated me most--most humanely, my dear
Mr. Van Wyk, from the very first."
"You'll admit there was some merit," Mr. Van Wyk
hinted slyly. "An associate of that excellent Massy.
. . . Well, well, my dear captain, I won't say a word
against him."
"It would be no use your saying anything against
him," Captain Whalley affirmed a little moodily. "As
I've told you before, my life--my work, is necessary, not
for myself alone. I can't choose" . . . He paused,
turned the glass before him right round. . . . "I have
an only child--a daughter."
The ample downward sweep of his arm over the table
seemed to suggest a small girl at a vast distance. "I
hope to see her once more before I die. Meantime it's
enough to know that she has me sound and solid, thank
God. You can't understand how one feels. Bone of my
bone, flesh of my flesh; the very image of my poor wife.
Well, she . . ."
Again he paused, then pronounced stoically the words,
"She has a hard struggle."
And his head fell on his breast, his eyebrows remained
knitted, as by an effort of meditation. But generally his
mind seemed steeped in the serenity of boundless trust
in a higher power. Mr. Van Wyk wondered sometimes
how much of it was due to the splendid vitality of the
man, to the bodily vigor which seems to impart some-
thing of its force to the soul. But he had learned to
like him very much.
