CHAPTER XVIII

A SUMMONS TO SADONG

With pen poised, Peter Gross sat at his desk in the residency building and stared thoughtfully at the blank sheets of stationery before him. He was preparing a letter to Captain Rouse, to assure that worthy that all was going well, that Paddy was in the best of health and proving his value in no uncertain way, and to give a pen picture of the situation. He began:

DEAR CAPTAIN:

Doubtless you have heard from Paddy before this, but I want to add my assurance to his that he is in the best of health and is heartily enjoying himself. He has already proven his value to me, and I am thanking my lucky stars that you let me have him.

We have been in Bulungan for nearly a month, and so far all is well. The work is going on, slowly, to be sure, but successfully, I hope. I can already see what I think are the first fruits of my policies.

The natives are not very cordial as yet, but I have made some valuable friends among them. The decisions I have been called upon to make seem to have given general satisfaction, in most instances. I have twice been obliged to set aside the judgments of _controlleurs_, whose rulings appeared unjust to me, and in both cases my decision was in favor of the poorer litigant. This has displeased some of the _orang kayas_, or rich men, of the villages, but it has strengthened me with the tribesmen, I believe.

He described the council and the result, and continued:

I am now having a census taken of each district in the residency. I have made the _controlleur_ in each district responsible for the accuracy of the census in his territory, and have made Mynheer Muller, the acting-resident prior to my coming, chief of the census bureau. He opposed the count at first, but has come round to my way of thinking, and is prosecuting the work diligently. The chief difficulty is the natives--some one has been stirring them up--but I have high hopes of knowing, before the next harvest, how many people there are in each village and what proportion of the tax each chief should be required to bring. The taxation system has been one of the worst evils in Bulungan in the past; the poor have been oppressed, and all the tax-gatherers have enriched themselves, but I expect to end this....

I had a peculiar request made of me the other day. Captain Van Slyck asked that Captain Carver and his company be quartered away from Bulungan. The presence of Carver's irregulars was provoking jealousies among his troops, he said, and was making it difficult to maintain discipline. There is reason in his request, yet I hesitate to grant it. Captain Van Slyck has not been very friendly toward me, and a mutiny in the garrison would greatly discredit my administration. I have not yet given him my answer....

Inchi tells me there is a persistent rumor in the town that the great Datu, the chief of all the pirates, is in Bulungan. I would have believed his story the day after the council, for I thought I recognized his voice there; but I must have been mistaken. Captain Enckel, of the _Prins Lodewyk_, who was here a week ago, brings me positive assurance that the man is at Batavia. He saw him there himself, he says. It cannot be that my enemy has a double; nature never cast two men in that mold in one generation. Since Inchi cannot produce any one who will swear positively that he has seen the Datu, I am satisfied that the report is unfounded. Maybe you can find out something.

As Peter Gross was affixing the required stamp, the door opened and Paddy Rouse entered.

"The baby doll is here and wants to see you," Paddy announced.

"Who?" Peter Gross asked, mystified.

"The yellow kid; old man Muller's chocolate darling," Paddy elucidated.

Peter Gross looked at him in stern reproof.

"Let the Juffrouw Koyala be the Juffrouw Koyala to you hereafter," he commanded harshly.

"Yes, sir." Paddy erased the grin from his lips but not from his eyes. "Shall I ask the lady to come in?"

"You may request her to enter," Peter Gross said. "And, Paddy--"

"Yes, sir."

"--leave the door open."

"Yes, sir."

The red head bobbed to hide another grin.

Koyala glided in softly as a kitten. She was dressed as usual in the Malay-Javanese costume of kabaya and sarong. Peter Gross could not help noticing the almost mannish length of her stride and the haughty, arrogant tilt of her head.

"Unconquerable as the sea," he mused. "And apt to be as tempestuous. She's well named--the Argus Pheasant."

He placed a chair for her. This time she did not hesitate to accept it. As she seated herself she crossed her ankles in girlish unconsciousness. Peter Gross could not help noticing how slim and perfectly shaped those ankles were, and how delicately her exquisitely formed feet tapered in the soft, doe-skin sandals.

"Well, _juffrouw_, which of my _controlleurs_ is in mischief now?" he asked in mock resignation.

Koyala flashed him a quick smile, a swift, dangerous, alluring smile.

"Am I always complaining, _mynheer_?" she asked.

Peter Gross leaned back comfortably. He was smiling, too, a smile of masculine contentment. "No, not always, _juffrouw_," he conceded. "But you kept me pretty busy at first."

"It was necessary, _mynheer_."

Peter Gross nodded assent. "To be sure, _juffrouw_, you did have reason to complain," he agreed gravely. "Things were pretty bad, even worse than I had expected to find them. But we are gradually improving conditions. I believe that my officers now know what is expected of them."

He glanced at her reprovingly. "You haven't been here much this week; this is only the second time."

A mysterious light flashed in Koyala's eyes, but Peter Gross was too intent on admiring her splendid physical sufficiency to notice it.

"You are very busy, Mynheer Resident," Koyala purred. "I take too much of your time as it is with my trifling complaints."

"Not at all, not at all," Peter Gross negatived vigorously. "The more you come, the better I am pleased." Koyala flashed a swift glance at him. "Come every day if you can. You are my interpreter, the only voice by which I can speak to the people of Bulungan and be heard. I want you to know what we are doing and why we are doing it; there is nothing secret here that you should not know."

He leaned forward earnestly.

"We must work out the salvation of Bulungan together, _juffrouw_. I am relying very much upon you. I cannot do it alone; your people will not believe in me. Unless you speak for me there will be misunderstandings, maybe bloodshed."

Koyala's eyes lowered before his beseeching gaze and the earnestness of his plea.

"You are very kind, _mynheer_," she said softly. "But you overestimate my powers. I am only a woman--it is the Rajahs who rule."

"One word from Koyala has more force in Bulungan than the mandate of the great council itself," Peter Gross contradicted. "If you are with me, if you speak for me, the people are mine, and all the Rajahs, Gustis, and Datus in the residency could not do me harm."

He smiled frankly.

"I want to be honest with you, _juffrouw_. I am thoroughly selfish in asking these things. I want to be known as the man who redeemed Bulungan, even though the real work is yours."

Koyala's face was hidden. Peter Gross saw that her lips pressed together tightly and that she was undergoing some powerful emotion. He looked at her anxiously, fearful that he had spoken too early, that she was not yet ready to commit herself utterly to his cause.

"I came to see you, _mynheer_, about an affair that happened in the country of the Sadong Dyaks," Koyala announced quietly.

Peter Gross drew back. Koyala's reply showed that she was not yet ready to join him, he perceived. Swallowing his disappointment, he asked in mock dismay:

"Another complaint, _juffrouw_?"

"One of Lkath's own people, a Sadong Dyak, was killed by a poisoned arrow," Koyala stated. "The arrow is tufted with heron's feathers; Jahi's people use those on their arrows. Lkath has heard that the head of his tribesman now hangs in front of Jahi's hut."

The smile that had been on Peter Gross's lips died instantly. His face became drawn and hard.

"I cannot believe it!" he exclaimed at length in a low voice. "Jahi has sworn brotherhood with me and sworn to keep the peace. We rubbed noses and anointed each others' foreheads with the blood of a fresh-killed buffalo."

"If you choose the hill people for your brothers, the sea people will not accept you," Koyala said coldly.

"I choose no nation and have no favorites," Peter Gross replied sternly. "I have only one desire--to deal absolute and impartial justice to all. Let me think."

He bowed his head in his hands and closed his eyes in thought. Koyala watched him like a tigress in the bush.

"Who found the body of the slain man?" he asked suddenly, looking up again.

"Lkath himself, and some of his people," Koyala replied.

"Do the Sadong Dyaks use the sumpitan?"

"The Dyaks of the sea do not fight their enemies with poison," Koyala said scornfully. "Only the hill Dyaks do that."

"H-m! Where was the body? How far from the stream?"

"It was by a water-hole."

"How far from Lkath's village?"

"About five hours' journey. The man was hunting."

"Was he alone? Were there any of Lkath's people with him?"

"One. His next younger brother. They became separated in the baba, and he returned home alone. It was he who found the body, he and Lkath."

"Ah!" Peter Gross exclaimed involuntarily. "Then, according to Dyak custom, he will have to marry his brother's wife. Are there any children?"

"One," Koyala answered. "They were married a few moons over a year ago." Pensively she added, in a woman's afterthought: "The woman grieves for her husband and cannot be consoled. She is very beautiful, the most beautiful woman of her village."

"I believe that I will go to Sadong myself," Peter Gross said suddenly. "This case needs investigating."

"It is all I ask," Koyala said. Her voice had the soft, purring quality in it again, and she lowered her head in the mute Malay obeisance. The action hid the tiny flicker of triumph in her eyes.

"I will go to-morrow," Peter Gross said. "I can get a proa at Bulungan."

"You will take your people with you?"

"No, I will go alone."

It seemed to Peter Gross that Koyala's face showed a trace of disappointment.

"You should not do that," she reproved. "Lkath is not friendly to you. He will not welcome a blood-warrior of Jahi since this has happened."

"In a matter like this, one or two is always better than a company," Peter Gross dissented. "Yet I wish you could be there. I cannot offer you a place in my proa--there will be no room for a woman--but if you can find any other means of conveyance, the state will pay." He looked at her wistfully.

Koyala laughed. "The Argus Pheasant will fly to Sadong faster than your proa," she said. She rose. As her glance roved over the desk she caught sight of the letter Peter Gross had just finished writing.

"Oh, you have been writing to your sweetheart," she exclaimed. Chaffingly as the words were spoken, Peter Gross felt a little of the burning curiosity that lay back of them.

"It is a letter to a sea-captain at Batavia whom I once served under," he replied quietly. "I told him about my work in Bulungan. Would you care to read it?"

He offered her the envelope. Quivering with an eagerness she could not restrain, Koyala half reached for it, then jerked back her hand. Her face flamed scarlet and she leaped back as though the paper was death to touch. With a choking cry she exclaimed:

"I do not want to read your letters. I will see you in Sadong--" She bolted through the door.

Peter Gross stared in undisguised bewilderment after her. It was several minutes before he recovered and placed the letter back in the mailing receptacle.

"I never will be able to understand women," he said sadly, shaking his head.