"Do you?" Van Slyck asked, quick as a flash.
"I have seen him," Koyala acknowledged. "Once. It was at the mouth of the Abbas River." She described the incident.
"He is no fool," she concluded. "He is a strong man, and an able man, one you will have to look out for."
"And a devilish handsome young man, too, I'll wager," Van Slyck observed maliciously with a sidelong glance at Muller. The controlleur's ruddy face darkened with a quick spasm of jealousy, at which the captain chuckled.
"Yes, a remarkably handsome man," Koyala replied coolly. "We need handsome men in Bulungan, don't we, captain? Handsome white men?"
Van Slyck looked at her quickly. He felt a certain significance in her question that eluded him. It was not the first time she had indulged in such remarks, quite trivial on their face, but invested with a mysterious something the way she said them. He knew her tragic history and was sharp enough to guess that her unholy alliance with Ah Sing grew out of a savage desire to revenge herself on a government which had permitted her to be brought up a white woman and a victim of appetites and desires she could never satisfy. What he did not know, did not even dream, was the depth of her hate against the whole white race and her fixed purpose to sweep the last white man out of Bulungan.
"We do have a dearth of society here in Bulungan," he conceded. "Do you find it so, too?"
The question was a direct stab, for not a white woman in the residency would open her doors to Koyala. The Dyak blood leaped to her face; for a moment it seemed that she would spring at him, then she controlled herself with a powerful effort and replied in a voice studiedly reserved:
"I do, mynheer kapitein, but one must expect to have a limited circle when there are so few that can be trusted."
At this juncture Muller's jealous fury overcame all bounds. Jealousy accomplished what all Van Slyck's scorn and threats could not do, it made him eager to put the newcomer out of the way.