Dwala: A romance

DWALA
A ROMANCE
BY GEORGE CALDERON AUTHOR OF ‘THE ADVENTURES OF DOWNY V. GREEN’
LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1904
TO KITTIE
DWALA
The sun was sinking towards the Borneo mountains. The forest and the sea, inscrutable to the bullying noon, relented in this discreeter light, revealing secrets of green places. Birds began to rustle in the big trees; the shaking of broad leaves in the undergrowth betrayed the movement of beasts of prey going about their daily work. The stately innocence of Nature grew lovelier in a sudden trouble of virginal consciousness.
There was only one sign of human habitation in the landscape—a worn patch by the shore, like a tiny wilderness in a vast oasis. Battered meat-tins, empty bottles, and old newspapers littered the waterline; under the rock was a tumble-down hut and a shed; from a stable at the side a pony looked out patiently over the half-door; something rustled in a big cage. In the twilight under the shed a man lay sleeping in a low hammock, grizzled and battered, with one bare brown foot hanging over the edge. He yawned and opened his eyes.
‘Are ye thar, Colonel?’
Another figure, which had been crouching beside the hammock with a palm-leaf, watching the sleeper, slowly uprose. Hardly a human figure this, though dressed like a man; something rather akin to the surrounding forest; a thing of large majestic motions, and melancholy eyes, deep-set under thick eyebrows. The man sat up and coughed for a little while.
‘Whar’s the dinner, Colonel? You’ve not lit the fire yet.’
‘Fire crackles,’ said the Colonel.