Hollis looked smiling into the box. He had lately made a dash home through the Canal. He had been away six months, and only joined us again just in time for this last trip. We had never seen the box before. His hands hovered above it; and he talked to us ironically, but his face became as grave as though he were pronouncing a powerful incantation over the things inside.
“Every one of us,” he said, with pauses that somehow were more offensive than his words—“every one of us, you’ll admit, has been haunted by some woman . . . And . . . as to friends . . . dropped by the way . . . Well! . . . ask yourselves . . .”
He paused. Karain stared. A deep rumble was heard high up under the deck. Jackson spoke seriously—
“Don’t be so beastly cynical.”
“Ah! You are without guile,” said Hollis, sadly. “You will learn . . . Meantime this Malay has been our friend . . .”
He repeated several times thoughtfully, “Friend . . . Malay. Friend, Malay,” as though weighing the words against one another, then went on more briskly—
“A good fellow—a gentleman in his way. We can’t, so to speak, turn our backs on his confidence and belief in us. Those Malays are easily impressed—all nerves, you know—therefore . . .”
He turned to me sharply.
“You know him best,” he said, in a practical tone. “Do you think he is fanatical—I mean very strict in his faith?”
I stammered in profound amazement that “I did not think so.”