A gunshot released Colet’s grip. There below him was the tall figure of an engineer, standing at the foot of the ladder in singlet and trousers, his uniform cap on the back of his head. He was pointing a revolver at the Malay. The gun clicked with a silly inconsequence as the coloured figure reached the ladder, and the engineer crumpled. When Colet got to his cabin door the eyes of the Malay on the ladder stared up at him from the deck planking, and were coming higher. The door shook while he was making it fast, and then the face of the man darkened the open port window. The shadow passed. Colet stood holding the handle of the door till the silence told him his arm was aching with an unnecessary effort.
“What are you standing there for? Do open that door. I’m breathing steam.” Norrie was sitting up, looking sleepy.
“Can’t open it. There’s a johnny outside knifing everybody.”
“Keep the devil out, then. Is it locked?”
“Yes. It’s fast all right, now.”
“I should close the port. He might throw something in.”
Norrie got up, and made the port fast, and then sat listening, on the couch. He stretched himself again.
“Lucky you got here first. Why doesn’t someone shoot him?”
Colet looked round for a weapon. There was only the water-bottle. The ship was very quiet. It might have been deserted. Were they left aboard with that lunatic?
“Norrie, have you got a gun?”
“Several, in that trunk under the bunk. But no ammunition, of course. But he’ll be downed by someone. Don’t worry. They’re slow about it, though.”
Once cries broke out in the after-part of the ship. Once feet pattered rapidly past their cabin. Once there was a challenge in a strange language, but nobody answered it. Something warm trickled down his nose. He put his hand to his face quickly. Sweat.
How much more of this? Norrie was a cool customer. Colet peered out of the port. There was nothing to be seen; only the usual patch of deck and the rail. But heading for the ship was a steam launch. He watched its progress. It was bringing four Malay policemen with rifles, and a white officer. The launch reached them and got under the ship, out of sight.
Nothing could be heard. Two of the little noiseless policemen, with their officer, went by the cabin. Then they heard the white man’s voice calling some orders at the head of the ladder. They opened the door and went out. All the police were there, and were beginning to descend to the foredeck. The men advanced cautiously towards the empty forecastle entrance, and one of the policemen chanted to that vacant door words which sounded like taunts. There came the Malay again. He was still cool and leisured, and answered the taunting with dignity. The police halted. The white officer talked quietly to that figure in the doorway and signed for him to drop his parang. But the fellow jumped for the police, toppled into a sliding heap, and was still.
XXVII
One day on the China Sea side, well up the coast from Singapore, they reached a hut. It was night, and it rained. Here they would begin their inland journey. It was somewhere near a beach. It had no other description. When coming up from the landing-place Colet had no faith that any roof could have resisted that abrupt smash of rain, even if a roof once had graced that outlandish shore, which did not seem likely. Yet Norrie moved as though he used to believe it, and knew of no reason yet to give up the idea. There was a sleeping-place, cavernous and bare, partly discovered by a mournful lamp; and one of its shadows, and a large one, did not behave normally like the rest. The lamp set it going. It gyrated ceaselessly amid the stationary shadows. Colet was satisfied that it was a bat. It might have been a black cloth circulated about by silent magic.
Then came morning, and the morning when they were to start for the interior of the land. Colet, on the verandah of the house, with the packs for travel about him, did not share Norrie’s annoyance over the delay. Any later time would do to start from there. Don’t let a good thing go too soon. It was folly to hurry from a place like Kuala something or other. By the map, these coastal hamlets were nearly always kualas, or river mouths, and he was not quite sure which one this was. But Norrie knew. There was Norrie now, outside the chief’s house, gossiping with a bunch of men as though he had lived in that kampong for years. Perhaps he had. A character of that place. If anything, Norrie knew too much—more than was good for him. He seemed to be amusing those informal Malays, who somehow gave themselves an air of distinction and good mettle, though Norrie was a head taller. They certainly accepted Norrie as an equal. The village headman was smiling knowingly. Now and then one of the men in the group would glance his way, as though he too had been accepted. A quiet and understanding people. Norrie himself could not hurry them, though from the ease of his manner he did not appear to be attempting it. Women, slight and limber, who walked slowly in a way you had to watch, strolled past the group
