“Miss Doddie is out, excellency,” whispered the man, while with his two hands, the fingers placed together, he sketched the reverential gesture of the salaam.
“Where has she gone?”
“I did not ask, excellency,” said the man, by way of excuse for not knowing, again with his sketchy salaam.
The resident reflected for a moment. Then he said:
“My cap. My stick.”
The chief messenger, still bending his knees as though reverently shrinking into himself, scuttled across the room, and, squatting, presented an undress uniform cap and a walking-stick.
The resident went out. The chief messenger hurried after him, carrying in his hand a long, burning slow-match, of which he waved the glowing tip from side to side so that the resident might be seen by any one passing in the dark. The resident walked slowly through the garden to the Lange Laan. Along this lane, an avenue of tamarind-trees and flamboyants, lay the villas of the more important townsfolk, faintly lighted, deathly silent, apparently uninhabited, with their rows of whitewashed flower-pots gleaming in the vague dusk of the evening.
The resident first passed the secretary’s house; then, on the other side, a girls’ school; then the notary’s house, an hotel, the post-office, and the house of the president of the Criminal Court. At the end of the Lange Laan stood the Catholic church; and, farther on, across the river-bridge, lay the railway-station. Near the station was a large European store, which was more brilliantly lighted than the other buildings. The moon had climbed higher, turning a brighter silver in its ascent, and now shone down upon the white bridge, the white store and the white church, all standing round a square, treeless, open space, in the middle of which was the town-clock, a small monument with a pointed spire.
The resident met nobody; now and then, however, an occasional Javanese, like a moving shadow, appeared out of the darkness; and then the messenger waved the glowing point of his wick with great ostentation behind his master. As a rule, the Javanese understood and made himself small, cowering along the edge of the road and passing with a scuttling gait. Now and again an ignorant native, just arrived from his village, did not understand, but went by, looking in terror at the messenger, who merely waved his wick, and, in passing, sent a curse after the fellow, behind his master’s back, because he, the village yokel, had no manners. When a cart or trap approached he waved his little fiery star again and again through the darkness and made signs to the driver, who either stopped and alighted or squatted in his little carriage, and, so squatting, drove on along the farther side of the road.
The resident went on gloomily, with the smart step of a resolute walker. He had turned off to the right of the little square and was now walking past the Protestant church, making straight for a handsome villa adorned with slender, fairly correct Ionian plaster pillars and brilliantly lighted with paraffin lamps set in chandeliers. This was the Concordia Club. A couple of native servants in white jackets sat on the steps. A European in a white suit, the steward, passed along the verandah. But there was no one sitting at the great gin-and-bitters-table; and the wide cane chairs opened their arms expectantly but in vain.