You just imagine it. Us three white men, disheveled and half-dressed, on the deck of a fifty-foot schooner in an unmapped harbor with the furtive jungle noises a hundred yards away. Talking to these three who’d come out of nowhere, dressed like princes and a princess in a dream. Off on the other side of the river there was Vetter’s house with a light burning somewhere and his toy soldiers standing guard while he slept. And those three silk-clad figures sitting on our deck, regarding us with a poise and courtesy that made me feel like a clumsy fool.
The old chap twisted his mustache gently and looked at us. He was the picture of an honorable gentleman, somehow. Brown skinned, but you liked him. He asked quietly if he might ask advice for his daughter, without Vetter hearing that he had asked.
“You understand,” said the doctor, “if there’s anything we ought to repeat to him—anything political⸺”
“No, Tuan,” said the old chap gravely. “I am Buro Sitt.”
The doctor sat up at that, and so did I. I’d heard a yarn or so about him. He’d fought the French to a standstill, years back, and he’d been licked. But he’d fought like a gentleman and when it was over he took his medicine like a man. One or two old-time Colonials had yarned to us in Saigon about the fighting in times past and an ancient colonel had sworn that Buro Sitt was the finest fighter and the most chivalrous opponent that ever gladdened the heart of his enemy.
“Go ahead,” said the doctor. “I know you. I’d like to shake hands.”
Buro Sitt did not move, but he bowed very politely.
“It may be, Tuan,” he said, “that you understand the ways of we Orang Malagi.” He talked quite impersonally. “You know that our ways are not as your ways. But you know that we have our honor, also.”
“Yes,” grunted the doctor. “Especially Buro Sitt.”
Buro Sitt’s face did not change.