Brand gazed spell-bound for a moment at the strange spectacle. The old man’s profile was towards him. Then words in an unknown dialect were hoarsely shouted by some one on the roof, evidently at the aperture through which Brand had made his entrance. The old man slowly turned his head in the direction of the curtained door, and Brand then saw that he was stone blind.
At the opposite side of the room was another door also curtained, so Brand, hearing a sound as though some one was descending through the aperture by means of a ladder, crossed the room, stepping noiselessly upon the soft carpet. He passed close to the head of the bier, pushed the curtain to one side, opened the door, and entered the room into which he had been looking from the street.
The girl started up from the divan with a smothered cry and gazed wildly at the intruder. To his intense surprise he recognised in her the one whose life he had saved on the wharf.
The girl evidently recognised him as well, for she checked the cry upon her lips, and the terror faded out of her face. Brand closed the door softly behind him, and then advanced towards her, his hands stretched out with a gesture of appeal. As he did this he whispered in the Malay tongue:
“Save me, for God’s sake; they want to kill me.”
Just then a movement was heard in the next room, and immediately afterwards could be distinguished the hoarse, guttural tones which Brand associated with the bearded man who carried the knife between his teeth, and whose pursuit had filled him with such terror. The eyes of the girl softened; she hesitated for a second, and then hurriedly motioned to Brand to hide himself in the recess next to the divan. When he had effected this she laid herself down in her former position.
No sooner had this happened than the door opened, and some one, from the voice evidently a woman, entered the room. After discussing rapidly for a few seconds in Dutch so corrupt that Brand could barely understand a word here and there, this person left, closing the door behind her. Then a noise as of many people moving about on the roof, the pavement, and at the back of the premises arose. This, however, soon died down, and dead silence, only broken from time to time by a groan or a cry from the old mourner, again reigned.
After an interval the girl arose, turned the lamp down low, and whispered to Brand to emerge from his concealment. He had now completely regained his self-possession, and he fully expected to be able to escape from the house with the girl’s assistance, without much difficulty or delay. She had now put on a loose skirt, and wrapped a white, silken shawl over her shoulders and bosom.
Brand told her the exact truth as to the circumstances under which he had entered the room, and the girl evidently believed him. He thanked her warmly for what she had done, and begged of her to show him a way by which he might make his escape. This, however, she declared, to his horror, she was absolutely unable to do. The window was, she assured him, fastened down with nails, and the only other way of possible exit lay through the room in which the corpse was lying, and thence through a passage to the front door. This course was obviously impossible under the circumstances, so there was nothing for it but for him to remain where he was until the following morning, and then take advantage of circumstances as they might arise.
The recess in the wall was about two feet deep, and in this the girl made a sort of a couch for her uninvited and unwilling guest, who lay awake throughout the whole of the long July night, cursing his folly, and wondering as to what the end of his adventure was to be. The girl lay on the divan close to him, and although she hardly moved, Brand could tell from her breathing that she was as sleepless as himself.