I woke at sunrise, listening to noise of the surf down at the sea splashing and roaring among the mangrove roots. It’s always strangely loud at daybreak. And the jungle was making noises as the night things went to their hiding places and the day things came out again. And presently a boat came out from Vetter, asking us not to go away because he’d have something amusing to show us that night.
We guessed more or less what it was, from our opinion of Vetter and Buro Sitt’s call. But we didn’t leave. We loafed on the boat all day and Cary talked morosely about how pretty the girl was and wondered what her name was and how old she was. And the doctor fished.
Meanwhile I wondered how Buro Sitt, who was obviously Malay, could be a raja up on the China Sea, and learned that about one in four people up there are Malays, the other three-fourths being Chinese and so on.
And then night came on and the jungle that had looked very tropic and pleasant during the day began to make unpleasant noises. And Vetter sent his steam launch for us to come and see what he had to show.
The doctor had it right when he said Vetter thought he was lord of creation. Political agent over a district nobody else wanted, with a gunboat coming in every six months or so. Twenty little soldiers to back him up. Not even a telegraph line to connect him with the outside world. But in his own district he was the Almighty.
Vetter’s soldiers were stiff as ramrods. They saluted when we came ashore and took us into a room to wait for him. He kept us waiting, like an emperor. When he came in he was strutting. Oh, he thought he was the great old Bhud, all right. He clapped his hands for drinks, and his servants served him with exquisite haste. Then he flung himself into a chair and grinned at us.
“You’ve come from the north,” he reminded us. “Japan, and China, and so on. Not very respectful to white men, these Asiatics, eh?”
We agreed politely.
“I will show you,” he said, showing his teeth in a grin, “how a strong man treats these swine. I keep them under.”
He held out his open hand and clenched it like he was crushing something. He didn’t wait for us to say anything. We weren’t important except as an audience. But he wasn’t crazy. He just had a case of swelled head that had been aggravated by authority, and he wanted to show off. He was feverishly anxious to show off. He believed he was lord of creation, and some people with that belief are pitiful, and some are amusing, but Vetter managed to be unpleasant.