"Twenty-five men, men like I have in mind, will be all I will need, your excellency," Peter Gross assured gravely.
Van Schouten edged his chair nearer. "Mynheer Gross, do you understand me correctly?" he asked doubtfully. "I would make you resident of Bulungan. I would give you supreme authority in the province. The commandant, Captain Van Slyck, would be subject to your orders. You will be answerable only to me."
"Under no other conditions would I accept your excellency's appointment," Peter Gross declared.
"But, Mynheer Gross, what can twenty-five do? Bulungan has more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, few of whom have ever paid a picul of rice or kilo of coffee as tax to the crown. On the coast there are the Chinese pirates, the Bugi outlaws from Macassar and their traitorous allies, the coast Dyaks of Bulungan, of Tidoeng, and Pasir, ay, as far north as Sarawak, for those British keep their house in no better order than we do ours. In the interior we have the hill Dyaks, the worst thieves and cut-throats of them all. But these things you know. I ask you again, what can twenty-five do against so many?"
"With good fortune, bring peace to Bulungan," Peter Gross replied confidently.
The governor leaned aggressively across the table and asked the one-word pointed question:
"How?"
Peter Gross uncrossed his legs and tugged gravely at his chin.
"Your excellency," he said, "I have a plan, not fully developed as yet, but a plan. As your excellency well knows, there are two nations of Dyaks in the province. There are the hillmen—"
"Damned thieving, murdering, head-hunting scoundrels!" the governor growled savagely.