Carver laid his cigar aside. It was not casually done, but with the deliberateness of the man who feels he has an unpleasant duty before him.
"I was trying to decide whether Koyala is an asset or a liability," he replied.
Peter Gross, too, listened for a moment to the chirping of the crickets before he answered.
"She saved my life," he said simply.
"She did," Captain Carver acknowledged. "I'm wondering why."
Peter Gross stared into the evening silence.
"I believe you misjudge her, captain," he remonstrated gently. "She hasn't had much chance in life. She's had every reason for hating us—all whites—but she has the welfare of her people at heart. She's a patriot. It's the one passion of her life, the one outlet for her starved and stunted affections. Her Dyak blood leads her to extremes. We've got to curb her savage nature as far as we can, and if she does break the bounds occasionally, overlook it. But I don't question her absolute sincerity. That is why I trust her."
"If she were all Dyak I might think as you do," Captain Carver said slowly. "But I never knew mixed blood to produce anything noble. It's the mixture of bloods in her I'm afraid of. I've seen it in the Philippines and among the Indians. It's never any good."
"There have been some notable half-breed patriots," Peter Gross remarked with a half-smile that the darkness curtained.
"Dig into their lives and you'll find that what an infatuated people dubbed patriotism was just damned meanness. Never a one of them, but was after loot, not country."