At length the man became silent and serious. We had no more of his fun; and for twenty hours he and I alone toiled through that inferno of water, mud, and trees, in a menacing silence and twilight of the earth. That fellow’s energy and his tireless and intense mind took me along, indifferent to anything that could happen now, as though his body and spirit were sufficient for two men, for any number of men.
Within an hour of night we came to a vantage above our hut, and that river, once so low and picturesque, was now a swollen power destroying the country. It had no confines. It was driving irresistibly through the jungle of the lower slopes, carrying acres of trees with it. Its deep roar shook the soul. A patch of land near us, which yet was unsubmerged, was alive with pigs and deer.
Our hut, though it had been high above the river, now had the water around its walls. A hundred yards of eddying but quieter river separated us from it. Beyond it again our canoe was tugging violently at its tether, which was attached to a tree. In a few minutes its nose would be pulled under. And the Chinaman was sitting on the roof of the hut. When he saw us he raised a melancholy howl.
Maguire undid his puttees, took off his boots, waded in, and off he went. It was lunacy, and I could not help him. I could not help myself, after almost a day in that forest. The swimmer passed the hut and reached the canoe. He got in, cut its mooring rattan, and presently had the Chinaman off the roof and beside me. The man sprawled at our feet, shivering and moaning. Maguire kicked him and loudly demanded to know why he had no food cooked. Had he been smoking opium all the time, to let the river rise like that? He could take his money and go. The Irishman pushed off again, called out that there was a rifle and map in the hut and he must get them. When he reached the miserable structure I saw that entrance to it was impossible; the water had almost reached the eaves of the thatch. But a figure in the last light of that day appeared on the ridge of the thatch and began hacking it desperately, casting the palm leaves into the stream; and presently it lowered itself through the hole it had made and disappeared within.
I watched for the silhouette of Maguire to reappear on the ridge of that precarious vantage in the waters. The Chinaman beside me continued to moan, and in frantic desperation I could have kicked him myself. It grew darker. The hut suddenly went oblique and continued slowly to decrease. Maguire’s head appeared above it like a black chimney pot. He began to chant aloud his ribald song. Then the flimsy structure flattened on the water, flattened and spread, with the Irishman in the midst of the vague rubbish, and hurried downstream, missed a headland of trees, tossed in the waves of a cataract, and all I could see of it went on and vanished at a place where some giant bamboos were stretching and rocking on the flood like slender rushes.
CHAPTER XXIII
July 12.—We are at Amurang, a village on the northwest coast of Celebes. It is only a line of palms and huts under the hills, but it serves to remind us that the world is inhabited. Our siren blared, and we waited for Amurang to bring to us its wealth. There is a huddle of dugout canoes with double outriggers by our side, most of them peddlers with fish and fruit for our native passengers. We idle and watch this invasion of spacious emptiness by a little happy life.
There were added some interesting figures to our saloon company at Macassar, and my position at table has again changed. Now I am sentenced to the bottom; but I have been at the top, and the last change assures me that the Dutch officers have accepted me as one of the ship’s company. Opposite to me now is a fragile young lady in white muslin with a pink sash. She is, I am told, a native of Minahasa, with no European admixture. Her crown of black hair dwindles her pale face, which is flattened, like the Malay, though it has no more color than would be cast by a soft, transparent shadow. Her lips are full and purplish, her nose broad, and her large eyes, widely separated, are as apprehensive and limpid as a deer’s. The chief officer tells me that a century ago her people were cannibals. She compares in graciousness and refinement most favorably with the best Europeans, and her occasional embarrassment during dinner when yet another hearty Dutch mess of pottage appears at her elbow is very funny, and a pleasant comment on our civilized habits. I like the way she recoils from a dish of oily meat. One would as soon offer it to a butterfly. She speaks French, as well as Malay and Dutch; but I do not intend to expose my Parisian accent to the regard of a daughter of cannibals, for I know what it would look like. I have not spoken to her; and to-day she left us. The farewells here are no concern of mine, so I do not stand at the gangway. To my agreeable surprise, the Minahasa nymph, who had never looked at me, floated across the deck to bid God-speed to the torpid and solitary Englishman, offering me a tiny hand in a way that would have honored a king. We need not stand in awe, perhaps, of the gap in time between a savage and the daughter of a hundred earls. And there is with us now another native lady, not quite the same, but I hear she is most deplorably rich. This must be so because her ears are weighted with diamonds as large as bottle stoppers; and she wears more rings than I should have thought the fingers of two hands could accommodate. She is middle-aged, haughty, and coffee-colored, and her elaborate European dress of silk gives her massive figure the shapeless bulk of a costumed elephant. Her bare brown arms with their freckles, like indelible stains, are heavier still with gold bangles. She was announced as Miss Evans, but she does not speak Cymry. What would not one give to learn her family history? What Welsh pirate—they were so often and so successfully Welsh—who retired to Java long ago for reasons that were sufficient, enriched her people by linking them to the men of Harlech?
