I told him that it was perhaps because the accent of a man’s mind was largely influenced by his profession, and that as the morbid was my source of livelihood and his the rare and sui generis of Nature, our interests touched these topics.
“Ach! there is something in that,” said Leyden, “but not all. It is that only in these violent upheavals do we get to see the hidden things of life, the more superficial of which are evident to a man who can translate the languages of his five senses and has perhaps a dialect or two in reserve.”
He was silent for a moment, letting his steady gray eyes rest upon the streaks of phosphorescent spume churned up about us by the stiff following trade. Abeam lay the moonlit isle of Curaçao, so near that one could see the towering yuccas standing sentinels upon the ridges of the broken hills—could almost see the yellow of their blossoms, for this moon gave color as well as perspective.
“This was in Borneo, Doctor,” he began abruptly. “I had been sent there on a head-hunting expedition. Odd, is it not, but appropriate! A countryman of mine who was writing a book on anthropology had sent me there to take photographs and notes and measurements and to collect specimens of skulls as I saw fit—attached or unattached, that was my lookout. You know, Doctor, that although the coast of Borneo is occupied by Malays, Bajaus, or Sea Gypsies, Bugis, Chinese and immigrants from Polynesia, very little is known of the interior, which is the exclusive domain of the great family of Dyaks, which is itself divided into several tribes. It was of the Punan and Olo-ot, who are fairly pure, that my employer wanted specious information.
“I had taken with me one white man, oddly enough a tourist, a New York lawyer named Lynch, whom I had met in Singapore—a gentleman who had inherited a little money and was taking a trip around the world. A great explorer was lost in that man, Doctor—and there are too many good lawyers already.
“As a rule, I prefer to go into a savage country with no other white man, as once or twice it has been my misfortune to have all of my work undone by the single careless or tactless act of a companion; in the present case I needed an assistant, as I had just come down from the Irawady and was running a temperature which I thought possible the hills of Borneo might develop into a sharp attack of fever.
“I will not attempt to describe our adventures, nor what we found inside the island, for all of that you can read in my patron’s book. Eventually we struck the head of a river which, according to my reckoning, would take us down to a little trading port called Bangan, and I had learned from a few friendly natives that there was a missionary station not far below us. I had not known that there were any missionaries in that section; but then, they are universal perennials which one is apt to encounter anywhere.
“We slipped down this rapid stream, and late upon the third day, as we turned into a long reach of the river, saw a clearing at the other end. I was heartily glad, for my fever, which had developed, as I feared, did not yield to medication as it should, and, to tell the truth, Doctor, I did not really believe that I would reach sea-water alive. Lynch was in perfect condition—hard, seasoned, alert—but then, you see, he was not chock full of Irawady microbes when we started, and the country through which we had passed was not unhealthy.
“He had been of the greatest value to me; three times I owed my life to him that trip. Often he made me laugh by the ease with which he adapted his ultra-modernism to his primitive surroundings, for he was not a man who was used to roughing it. He treated our half-wild Dyaks as if they were the bellboys of his club; appeared to have not the slightest notion in the world that they could so far forget their manners as to become insubordinate; would sometimes relax and joke with them a bit. He would turn his back upon the most dangerous, sleep with both eyes apparently shut, seemed contemptuous of danger or treachery; yet the twice that it did occur he had anticipated it. Between us we were an efficient combination, for I am governed by instinct, Doctor; Lynch acted only from coldly wrought logic.
“To continue: We arrived at this clearing and were surprised to find near the edge of the bank a new stockade; the gum was still oozing from the stakes. To the right were some long, low buildings, of which I did not like the look. These also were very new—in fact, still in process of construction—and as I examined them through my glass I discovered some bungling contrivances hanging from a projecting rafter.