"Mynheer Resident," the chief said with dignity, "your mission in Sadong is accomplished. You have saved us from a needless war with the hill people. But I and the elders of my tribe have talked over this thing, and we have decided that it is best you should go. The Sadong Dyaks owe nothing to the orang blanda. They ask nothing of the orang blanda. You came in peace. Go in peace."
A tumult of emotions rose in Peter Gross's breast. To see the fruits of his victory snatched from him in this way was unbearable. A wild desire to plead with Lkath, to force him to reason, came upon him, but he fought it down. It would only hurt his standing among the natives, he knew; he must command, not beg.
"It shall be as you say, Lkath," he said. "Give me a pilot and let me go."
"He awaits you on the beach," Lkath replied. With this curt dismissal, Peter Gross was forced to go.
The failure of his mission weighed heavily upon Peter Gross, and he said little all that day. Paddy could see that his chief was wholly unable to account for Lkath's change of sentiment. Several times he heard the resident murmur: "If only Koyala had stayed."
Shortly before sundown, while their proa was making slow headway against an unfavorable breeze Paddy noticed his chief standing on the raised afterdeck, watching another proa that had sailed out of a jungle-hid creek-mouth shortly before and was now following in their wake. He cocked an eye at the vessel himself and remarked:
"Is that soap-dish faster than ours, or are we gaining?"
"That is precisely what I am trying to decide," Peter Gross answered gravely.
Paddy observed the note of concern in the resident's voice.
"She isn't a pirate, is she?" he asked quickly.