"Ah," said Nivin.
"In zeir pride," added De Haan reflectively.
"And if he did?"
De Haan smoothed a glossy beard with a deliberate hand the size of a spade. He was controller in a district of some tens of thousands of brown population and long had been, and his father before him.
"If he did—I cannot say," he answered. "In such affairs we always remember zese folk haf been alife in ze land a few years before us. Who shall say? But it would be somesing fitting—mos' fitting and op-propriate. Zere was once a man came to steal liddle stone pictures from old temples in ze hills. He wanted ze heads for souvenirs, you see?" He rocked complacently. "I haf seen his head, nicely smoked. Which was alzo a souvenir."
But he met Nivin's melancholy gaze and his tone changed.
"You tell me you los' your frien' at Lol Raman's? Haf you been to look?"
"Three times. There's no trace. I found a servant who sold the lad drink; no more."
"Come wit' me, zen," said the controller. "And do not half such trouble at heart. We will find him. He is only schleeping off zat fever cure."
They searched high and low, among the terraces and through the water front where De Haan questioned all manner of natives: stolid, self-possessed little men who looked him between the eyes at answering—but they found no nook wherein Tunstal might be slumbering, nor any clue, and Nivin's lean jaw lengthened.