prawns when he raised his head and stood motionless. 'That must be the Sultan arriving,' he said.
The drums and trumpets grew louder, then suddenly louder by far as the procession turned the corner and filed in through the outer palace gate. More trumpets within and the sound of shouting wafted over on the seaward breeze so that it was almost at hand.
'Before the light fades, I should like to show you the drawings I made of Kumai,' said Stephen. 'They are inept, they suffered much from the rain, particularly the outer leaves, but they may give you some notion of what I saw.'
'Oh please do,' cried Fox, his whole attitude changing. 'I long to see what you have brought down.'
'This is my attempt at the great figure which dominates the temple. The stone is a smooth light-grey fine- grained volcanic rock. The drawing gives no sense of its majestic serenity nor any of that feeling of far greater size than its actual twelve feet which is so strong when you stand before it. Nor can you easily see that the raised right hand has its palm facing outwards.'
'Oh, I can make out the hand very well. A capital drawing, Maturin; I am so grateful to you. This is the Buddha in the abhaya mudra attitude, signifying Fear not, all is well. Oh, such an omen! As far as I know, no other has ever been recorded in these parts.'
'Here are my paced-out plans; and this is what I call the narthex, where I slept. These are the particular carvings of a sculptured frieze where the narthex roof joins the main body. The marks show where the beams have impinged upon the frieze, obscuring it in places: obviously the carvings are earlier than the roof.'
'Oh yes,' said Fox, studying the pages with great attention, 'these are very early indeed. Perhaps earlier than anything I have ever seen in Malay country. Lord, what a discovery!'
While there was still day enough he took Stephen over them again and again, and then he said, 'It would be a pity to call for a lamp. I have all the plans and drawings clear in my head, and I could follow you pace by pace if you would be so very kind as to describe everything you saw.'
'That would take us well into next year, but I will try to give some general impression. Will I begin with the nectarincas, which take the place of humming-birds here? Do nectarincas interest you?'
'Only moderately.'
'Orang-utangs, then?'
'To tell you the truth, Maturin, there are already so many orang-utangs among my acquaintance that I would not cross the street to see another.'
'Well, well: perhaps I had better start with the Hindu temple, and confine myself to holy things and their surroundings.' This he did, and as his tale rose up the Thousand Steps, shrine by shrine, so the sun sank to the western sea; and by the time he was describing his first sight of the temple, its former immensity and the disposition of its parts, Jupiter had appeared.
Stephen reached the narthex, the opening of the temple door, the sunlight showing him the figure within, and Fox said, 'Oh, I quite agree. I have had a greater sense of holiness- sanctity - detachment - unworldliness in the severer Buddhist temples of the ancient rite than in any but the most austere Christian monasteries.'
Fox was making a long parenthetical remark about his travels on the border of Tibet and in Ceylon when there was a clash of discordant drums and cymbals from the palace, a volley of musket-fire, the sound of trumpets and of a great long roaring horn. This was followed by a more regular beating of drums, and the innermost courtyard was lit with great lanterns by the score. Then came the wavering orange glare of a fire, a fire that rose and rose so that sometimes its flames showed high above the outer wall. Its smoke drifted straight over them as they sat there silent on the balcony. The hoarse roaring horn again and the firelight turned blood-red as a powder was thrown on the blaze.
'Someone is going to catch it,' said Fox. 'I hope to God it is Ledward. I hope to God the sack is tying round his neck this moment.'
Now there was shouting from the palace, loud shouting and laughter, perhaps some muffled screams. The fire leapt higher still, flame-coloured once more; the lights increased and the shouting - it was very like the sound of a rising or a hysterical mob. How long it went on there was no telling: once or twice Stephen saw great bats pass between him and the glare: and all the time Fox stood gripping the rail, dead still, hardly breathing.
At length the mob-noise diminished; the fire died down so that its flames could no longer be seen; the drums fell silent and the lanterns moved off, leaving no more than a ruddy glow behind the walls.
'What happened? What happened?' cried Fox. 'What happened exactly? I have no one inside the palace: I cannot make my visit until his fasting for an heir is over. I cannot even see the council straight away. To act on mere gossip or an inaccurate account would be disastrous; yet I must act. Can you help me, Maturin?'
'I know a person who will have the details within the hour,' said Stephen coldly. 'I shall call on him tomorrow morning.'
'Could you not go now?'
'No, sir.'
Stephen had in fact no need to call on van Buren; they met in the buffalo-market. For a while they talked about the animals' wild relations, the banteng and the gaur, either of which might have breathed upon Stephen by night at Kumai - creatures of enormous size - and then Stephen said, 'My colleague is importunate to know what happened last night. Did Abdul's pretty face and gazelle-like eyes save him?'
'By the time Hafsa had finished he had no pretty face and no gazelle-like eyes, either. No. The sack was tied over his head and he was beaten round and round the fire until the pepper and the beating killed him.'
'Ledward and Wray?'
'Untouched. Some people thought they were going to be seized, immunity or no; but I believe the Sultan had a sickening of it all - Abdul's body was given to his family for burial rather than being thrown into the street - and they are only forbidden the court.'
It had always appeared to Jack Aubrey, ever since he was a little boy, that one of the purest joys in the world was sailing a small, well-conceived, weatherly boat: the purest form of sailing too, with the sheet alive in one's hand, the tiller quivering under the crook of one's knee and the boat's instant response to the movement of either, and to the roll and the breeze. A more stirring, obvious joy, of course, in a moderate gale and a lively sea, but
