“Yes. You helped me out of that trouble nicely.”
His friend laughed, and turned to the lady to explain the fun of it. “Found him on our plantation, near the Kling compound, looking for the Europe.” Bennett smiled shyly, and the lady glanced at him with tired and faintly insolent eyes. “Why ever was he doing that?” she asked, indifferently, looking away across the room.
Bennett said, with an attempt at humor, that he was looking for the romance of the Orient. The lady did not appear to hear him. She began a conversation in a low tone with her companion. Bennett was about to leave, with an excuse, when he felt his arm nudged, and saw Mr. Hopkins beside him in the next chair, severe and correct in evening dress, his white beard and hair scrupulously groomed. “Hullo, Mr. Nobody!” he rumbled. “Strictly proper and comfortable here, cocktails and all. Have one.” He plunged a bell, and when the Chinese apparition appeared, merely looked at it. The apparition vanished, but almost at once returned with two little glasses containing a golden liquor in which were scarlet cherries on match sticks.
“I didn’t finish that story. You were in a hurry to get away, but you can’t go now.” Mr. Hopkins pushed over a cocktail, holding away a finger on which was a remarkable topaz. “Men who just come out, and here they are! But you can tell Poplar about the Nellie Bligh, when you get back. They may wonder where she went. And you can say I said so. Hopkins—there’s been lots of Hopkinses, perhaps even in my family.” The old fellow had an interval of private mirth. The young man opposite, and the lady in rosy silk, were conversing in oblivious animation. “Wasn’t that Chinaman just getting away with a burning rag when you ran out? I couldn’t stop him. And the Dago, who was a fool, thought we had finished with the mutiny. But he soon knew better. He knew when he saw some smoke coming up by the fore hatch. Of course, Chinks are almost reasonable creatures. Almost reasonable, Mr. Nobody. We couldn’t let them roast, could we? Of course not. Not if we wanted to put the fire out. Our Dago had the puzzle of his life before him. The Chinks were below us again, clamoring to be let out and pointing back at the fire. They thought they’d got the right argument that time. And that Dago was going to do it, too, and save his ship, I suppose, with hundreds of murderous maniacs round him. Not when I was there, though. Not when I had a gun. Let ’em roast. There’s lots of Chinks, but only one Mr. Hopkins, and the Pelews were only three days back. I don’t think, Mr. Nobody, you’ve ever seen anything like it. But by the time we had the boats provisioned and away all was quiet again, except for the flames. We made the Pelews. Anyhow, my boat did. I never heard what became of the other two.”
The lady in rose laughed prettily. Bennett, shocked, stared at her instantly, but she was not looking at Mr. Hopkins. The other pair had a joke between them.
“Well, come along, you two. Dinner!” Mr. Hopkins rose, a tall patriarch, a venerable image of disillusioned wisdom. The young man rose, too, and moved his chair to allow the lady a path to the dining room. He turned with a polite smile to Bennett. “Let me hear when you’ve found any romance in the East. But don’t come looking for it on our plantation. We haven’t got any there.”
CHAPTER XI
One morning I escaped from the heat and the bewildering life of Singapore into a shaded office. Its windows opened south and east to a glowing panorama of ships, clouds, and islands. The long traffic of that office with the Orient had settled into a tradition of intent ease which seemed the same as cool leisure. A mounted telescope projected from an open window toward the anchorage. A man stood there with straddled legs, watching a ship coming in. He left the telescope and came to me, and talked familiarly, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief, of America, England, China, and Japan; he spoke even of Java. But when I mentioned such places as Lombok, Flones, Flores, and Gilolo, he picked up a massive shell which was keeping a pile of papers in one place and examined it as though he hoped to divine from it what I wanted to know. The shell did not help him. Only one thing became certain: the Moluccas were as far from Singapore as that city is from New York. It was easier to get to New York. I discovered at Singapore that to talk there of Timor and Halmaheira was as profitless as asking a policeman at Charing Cross the way to the Faroes. It would be tactless and inconsiderate to embarrass the friendly fellow with such a question.
I was shown, through the office telescope, a Dutch steamer at anchor in the roads. She was bound, so I gathered, for Java and the outer blue. She would be away for months, and she might go, according to fate and local cocoanuts, to some of the islands I had named. Why not board her and see what happened? There is much to be said, when traveling, for keeping a mind as open and doubtful as to where you are going as that of a great diplomatist when negotiating a peace treaty; and more still for not caring. I boarded that Dutchman, the Savoe, went into an empty cabin, and waited. Her windlass began at once to labor with the anchor, as though she had been waiting for me. The picture of distant Singapore began to revolve across my cabin port. That settled it. Now it was certain I should have to take whatever came.