We continued our walk, and in five minutes had bade each other good-night in the hotel gardens, and separated.
By sundown next day we were on board the Messageries Maritimes Company's boat, steaming out of Tanjong Priok Harbour, bound for Singapore. I joined the steamer some time before her advertised sailing hour, but it was close upon the time of her departure when Alie and her companion made their appearance.
In my capacity of casual acquaintance I raised my hat to them as they came up the gangway, but did not do more. They went below, while I stayed on deck, watching the business of getting under way.
Just as the last sign of the coast line disappeared beneath the waves someone came up and stood beside me. On looking round I discovered that it was Alie!
"So you managed to get on board safely," she said, after the usual polite preliminaries had been gone through. "Our enterprise has now fairly started, and if we have ordinary luck we ought to be able to carry it through successfully."
"Let us hope we shall have that luck then," I answered. "But I confess I tremble when I think of the risk you are running in appearing in a place like Singapore, where you have so many enemies."
"Even disguised as Miss Sanderson, the American heiress? No, you cannot mean it. If you think that, what will you say to another plot I am hatching?"
"Another? Good gracious! and what is this one to be?"
"Listen, and you shall learn. Three years ago, in a certain island of the South Pacific, there was a man—an official holding a high office under Government—who very nearly got into serious trouble. The charge against him was that by his orders two native women had been flogged to death. By some means he managed to disprove it and to escape punishment, but the feeling against him was so bitter that it was thought advisable to transfer him elsewhere. You would have imagined that that lesson would have been enough for him. Not a bit. On the new island he began his reign of tyranny again, and once more a death occurred; this time, however, the victim was a man. The authorities at home were immediately appealed to, with the result that an inquiry was held and his retention on that island was also considered injudicious. He was removed from his high estate. That was all; he had murdered, I repeat it, deliberately murdered three people; in fact, flogged the lives out of two women and one man, and the only sentence passed upon him was that he should be transferred elsewhere. It makes my blood boil to think of it."
"I can quite understand it."