CHAPTER VII

MYNHEER MULLER WORRIES

Seated in a low-framed rattan chair on the broad veranda of his cottage, Mynheer Hendrik Muller, _controlleur_, and acting resident of Bulungan, awaited in perspiring impatience the appearance of his military associate, Captain Gerrit Van Slyck.

State regulations required daily conferences, that the civil arm of the government might lay its commands upon the military and the military make its requisitions upon the civil. An additional incentive to prompt attendance upon these was that _mynheer_ the resident rarely failed to produce a bottle of Hollands, which, compounded with certain odorous and acidulated products of the tropics, made a drink that cooled the fevered brow and mellowed the human heart, made a hundred and twenty in the shade seem like seventy, and chased away the home-sickness of folk pining for the damp and fog of their native Amsterdam.

It was no urgent affair of state, however, that made Muller fume and fuss like a washerwoman on a rainy Monday at Van Slyck's dilatoriness. A bit of gossip, casually dropped by the master of a trading schooner who had called for clearance papers an hour before, was responsible for his agitation.

"When does your new resident arrive?" the visiting skipper had asked.

"The new resident?" Muller returned blankly. "What new resident?"

The skipper perceived that he was the bearer of unpleasant tidings and diplomatically minimized the importance of his news.

"Somebody down to Batavia told me you were going to have a new resident here," he replied lightly. "It's only talk, I s'pose. You hear so many yarns in port."

"There is nothing official--yet," Muller declared. He had the air of one who could tell much if he chose. But when the sailor had gone back to his ship he hurriedly sent Cho Seng to the stockade with an urgent request to Van Slyck to come to his house at once.

Van Slyck was putting the finishing touches to an exquisite toilet when he received the message.

"What ails the doddering old fool now?" he growled irritably as he read Muller's appeal. "Another Malay run amuck, I suppose. Every time a few of these _bruinevels_ (brown-skins) get krissed he thinks the whole province is going to flame into revolt."

Tossing the note into an urn, he leisurely resumed his dressing. It was not until he was carefully barbered, his hair shampooed and perfumed, his nails manicured, and his mustache waxed and twisted to the exact angle that a two-months old French magazine of fashion dictated as the mode, that the dapper captain left the stockade. He was quite certain that the last living representative of the ancient house of Van Slyck of Amsterdam would never be seen in public in dirty linen and unwashed, regardless how far _mynheer the controlleur_ might forget his self-respect and the dignity of his office.

Van Slyck was leisurely strolling along the tree-lined lane that led from the iron-wood stockade to the cluster of houses colloquially designated "Amsterdam" when the impatient Muller perceived his approach.

"Devil take the man, why doesn't he hurry?" the _controlleur_ swore. With a peremptory gesture he signaled Van Slyck to make haste.

"By the beard of Nassau," the captain exclaimed. "Does that swine think he can make a Van Slyck skip like a butcher's boy? Things have come to a pretty pass in the colonies when a Celebes half-breed imagines he can make the best blood of Amsterdam fetch and carry for him."

Deliberately turning his back on the _controlleur_, he affected to admire the surpassingly beautiful bay of Bulungan, heaven's own blue melting into green on the shingly shore, with a thousand sabres of iridescent foam stabbing the morning horizon. Muller was fuming when the commandant finally sauntered on the veranda, selected a fat, black cigar from the humidor, and gracefully lounged in an easy chair.

"_Donder en bliksem! kapitein_, but you lie abed later every morning," he growled.

Van Slyck's thin lips curled with aristocratic scorn.

"We cannot all be such conscientious public servants as you, _mynheer_," he observed ironically.

Muller was in that state of nervous agitation that a single jarring word would have roused an unrestricted torrent of abuse. Fortunately for Van Slyck, however, he was obtuse to irony. He took the remark literally and for the moment, like oil on troubled waters, it calmed the rising tide of his wrath at what he deemed the governor-general's black ingratitude.

"Well, _kapitein, gij kebt gelijk_ (you are right, captain)" he assented heavily. The blubbery folds under his chin crimsoned with his cheeks in complacent self-esteem. "There are not many men who would have done so well as I have under the conditions I had to face--under the conditions I had to face--_kapitein_. _Ja!_ Not many men. I have worked and slaved to build up this residency. For two years now I have done a double duty--I have been both resident and _controlleur_. _Jawel!_"

Recollection of the skipper's unpleasant news recurred to him. His face darkened like a tropic sky before a cloudburst.

"And what is my reward, _kapitein_? What is my reward? To have some _Amsterdamsche papegaai_ (parrot) put over me." His fist came down wrathily on the arm of his chair. "Ten thousand devils! It is enough to make a man turn pirate."

Van Slyck's cynical face lit with a sudden interest.

"You have heard from Ah Sing?" he inquired.

"Ah Sing? No. _Drommel noch toe!_" Muller swore. "Who mentioned Ah Sing? That thieving Deutscher who runs the schooner we had in port over-night told me this not an hour ago. The whole of Batavia knows it. They are talking it in every _rumah makan_. And we sit here and know nothing. That is the kind of friends we have in Batavia."

Van Slyck, apprehensive that the impending change might affect him, speculated swiftly how much the _controlleur_ knew.

"It is strange that Ah Sing hasn't let us know," he remarked.

"Ah Sing?" Muller growled. "Ah Sing? That bloodsucker is all for himself. He would sell us out to Van Schouten in a minute if he thought he saw any profit in it. _Ja!_ I have even put money into his ventures, and this is how he treats me."

"Damnably, I must say," Van Slyck agreed sympathetically. "That is, if he knows."

"If he knows, _mynheer kapitein_? Of course he knows. Has he not _agenten_ in every corner of this archipelago? Has he not a spy in the _paleis_ itself?"

"He should have sent us word," Van Slyck agreed. "Unless _mynheer_, the new resident, is one of us. Who did you say it is, _mynheer_?"

"How the devil should I know?" Muller growled irritably. "All I know is what I told you--that the whole of Batavia says Bulungan is to have a new resident."

Van Slyck's face fell. He had hoped that the _controlleur_ knew at least the identity of the new executive of the province. Having extracted all the information Muller had, he dropped the cloak of sympathy and remarked with cool insolence:

"Since you don't know, I think you had better make it your business to find out, _mynheer_."

Muller looked at him doubtfully. "You might make an effort also, _kapitein_," he suggested. "You have friends in Batavia. It is your concern as well as mine, a new resident would ruin our business."

"I don't think he will," Van Slyck replied coolly. "If he isn't one of us he won't bother us long. Ah Sing won't let any prying reformer interfere with business while the profits are coming in as well as they are."

A shadow of anxiety crossed Muller's face. He cast a troubled look at Van Slyck, who affected to admire the multi-tinted color display of jungle, sun, and sea.

"What--what do you mean, _kapitein_?" he asked hesitantly.

"People sometimes begin voyages they do not finish," Van Slyck observed. "A man might eat a pomegranate that didn't agree with him--pouf--the colic, and it is all over. There is nothing so uncertain as life, _mynheer_."

The captain replaced his cigar between his teeth with a flourish. Muller's pudgy hands caught each other convulsively. The folds under his chin flutterred. He licked his lips before he spoke.

"_Kapitein_--you mean he might come to an unhappy end on the way?" he faltered.

"Why not?" Van Slyck concentrated his attention on his cigar.

"_Neen, neen_, let us have no bloodshed," Muller vetoed anxiously. "We have had enough--" He looked around nervously as though he feared someone might be overhearing him. "Let him alone. We shall find some way to get rid of him. But let there be no killing."

Van Slyck turned his attention from the landscape to the _controlleur_. There was a look in the captain's face that made Muller wince and shift his eyes, a look of cyincal contempt, calm, frank, and unconcealed. It was the mask lifting, for Van Slyck despised his associate. Bold and unscrupulous, sticking at nothing that might achieve his end, he had no patience with the timid, faltering, often conscience-stricken _controlleur_.

"Well, _mynheer_," Van Slyck observed at length, "you are getting remarkably thin-skinned all of a sudden."

He laughed sardonically. Muller winced and replied hastily:

"I have been thinking, _kapitein_, that the proa crews have been doing too much killing lately. I am going to tell Ah Sing that it must be stopped. There are other ways--we can unload the ships and land their crews on some island--"

"To starve, or to be left to the tender mercies of the Bajaus and the Bugis," Van Slyck sneered. "That would be more tender-hearted. You would at least transfer the responsibility."

Muller's agitation became more pronounced.

"But we must not let it go on, _kapitein_," he urged. "It hurts the business. Pretty soon we will have an investigation, one of these gun-boats will pick up one of our proas, somebody will tell, and what will happen to us then?"

"We'll be hung," Van Slyck declared succinctly.

Muller's fingers leaped in an involuntary frantic gesture to his throat, as though he felt cords tightening around his windpipe. His face paled.

"_Lieve hemel, kapitein_, don't speak of such things," he gasped.

"Then don't talk drivel," Van Slyck snarled. "You can't make big profits without taking big chances. And you can't have piracy without a little blood-letting. We're in this now, and there's no going back. So stop your squealing."

Settling back into his chair, he looked calmly seaward and exhaled huge clouds of tobacco smoke. The frown deepened on Muller's troubled brow as he stared vacantly across the crushed coral-shell highway.

"You can think of no reason why his excellency should be offended with us, _kapitein_?" he ventured anxiously.

The _controlleur's_ eagerness to include him in his misfortune, evidenced by the use of the plural pronoun, evoked a sardonic flicker in Van Slyck's cold, gray eyes.

"No, _mynheer_, I cannot conceive why the governor should want to get rid of so valuable a public servant as you are," he assured ironically. "You have certainly done your best. There have been a few disturbances, of course, some head-hunting, and the taxes have not been paid, but outside of such minor matters everything has done well, very well indeed."

"_Donder en bliksem_," Muller exclaimed, "how can I raise taxes when those Midianites, the hill Dyaks, will not let my coast Dyaks grow a spear of rice? Has there been a month without a raid? Answer me, _kapitein_. Have you spent a whole month in the stockade without being called to beat back some of these thieving plunderers and drive them into their hills?"

The sardonic smile flashed across Van Slyck's face again.

"Quite true, _mynheer_. But sometimes I don't know if I blame the poor devils. They tell me they're only trying to get even because your coast Dyaks and Ah Sing's crowd rob them so. Ah Sing must be making quite a profit out of the slave business. I'll bet he shipped two hundred to China last year."

He glanced quizzically at his associate.

"By the way, _mynheer_," he observed, "you ought to know something about that. I understand you get a per cent on it."

"I?" Muller exclaimed, and looked affrightedly about him. "I, _kapitein_?"

"Oh, yes you do," Van Slyck asserted airily. "You've got money invested with Ah Sing in two proas that are handling that end of the business. And it's the big end just now. The merchandise pickings are small, and that is all I share in."

He looked at Muller meaningly. There was menace in his eyes and menace in his voice as he announced:

"I'm only mentioning this, _mynheer_, so that if the new resident should happen to be one of us, with a claim to the booty, his share comes out of your pot, not mine. Remember that!"

For once cupidity overcame Muller's fear of the sharp-witted cynical soldier.

"_Wat de drommel_," he roared, "do you expect me to pay all, _kapitein_, all? Not in a thousand years! If there must be a division you shall give up your per cent as well as I, _stuiver_ for _stuiver_, _gulden_ for _gulden_!"

A hectic spot glowed in each of Van Slyck's cheeks, and his eyes glittered. Muller's anger rose.

"Ah Sing shall decide between us," he cried heatedly. "You cannot rob me in that way, _kapitein_."

Van Slyck turned on his associate with an oath. "Ah Sing be damned. We'll divide as I say, or--"

The pause was more significant than words. Muller's ruddy face paled. Van Slyck tapped a forefinger significantly on the arm of his chair.

"Just remember, if the worst comes to the worst, there's this one difference between you and me, _mynheer_. I'm not afraid to die, and you--are!" He smiled.

Muller's breath came thickly, and he stared fascinatedly into the evilly handsome face of the captain, whose eyes were fixed on his with a basilisk glare. Several seconds passed; then Van Slyck said:

"See that you remember these things, _mynheer_, when our next accounting comes."

The silence that followed was broken by the rhythmic pad-pad of wicker sandals on a bamboo floor. Cho Seng came on the veranda, bearing a tray laden with two glasses of finest crystal and a decanter of colorless liquid, both of which he placed on a small porch table. Drops of dew formed thickly on the chilled surface of the decanter and rolled off while the Chinaman mixed the juices of fruits and crushed leaves with the potent liquor. The unknown discoverer of the priceless recipe he used receives more blessings in the Indies daily than all the saints on the calendar. When Cho Seng had finished, he withdrew. Muller swallowed the contents of his glass in a single gulp. Van Slyck sipped leisurely. Gradually the tension lessened. After a while, between sips, the captain remarked:

"I hear you have a chance to pick up some prize money."

Muller looked up with interest. "So, _kapitein_!" he exclaimed with forced jocularity. "Have you found a place where guilders grow on trees?"

"Almost as good as that," Van Slyck replied, playing his fish.

Finesse and indirection were not Muller's forte. "Well, tell us about it, _kapitein_," he demanded bluntly.

Van Slyck's eyes twinkled.

"Catch Koyala," he replied.

The captain's meaning sank into Muller's mind slowly. But as comprehension began to dawn upon him, his face darkened. The veins showed purple under the ruddy skin.

"You are too clever this morning, _kapitein_," he snarled. "Let me remind you that this is your duty. The _controlleur_ sits as judge, he does not hunt the accused."

Van Slyck laughed.

"And let me remind you, _mynheer_, that I haven't received the governor's orders as yet, although they reached you more than a week ago." Ironically he added: "You must not let your friendship with Koyala blind you to your public duties, _mynheer_."

Muller's face became darker still. He had not told any one, and the fact that the orders seemed to be public property both alarmed and angered him.

"How did you hear of it?" he demanded.

"Not from you, _mynheer_," Van Slyck mocked. "I really do not remember who told me." (As a matter of fact it was Wang Fu, the Chinese merchant.)

Muller reflected that officers from the gun-boat which carried Van Schouten's mandate might have told more than they should have at the stockade. But Koyala had received his warning a full week before, so she must be safely hidden in the jungle by now, he reasoned. Pulling himself together, he replied urbanely:

"Well, _kapitein_, it is true that I have rather neglected that matter. I intended to speak to you to-day. His excellency orders Koyala Bintang Burung's arrest."

"The argus pheasant," Van Slyck observed, "is rarely shot. It must be trapped."

"_Nu, kapitein_, that is a chance for you to distinguish yourself," Muller replied heartily, confident that Van Slyck could never land Koyala.

Van Slyck flecked the ash from his cigar and looked at the glowing coal thoughtfully.

"It seems to me that you might be of material assistance, _mynheer_," he observed.

"In what way?"

"I have noticed that the witch-woman is not--er--" He glanced at Muller quizzically, wondering how far he might venture to go--"not altogether indifferent to you."

Muller drew a deep breath. His ruddy face became a grayish purple. His clenched hands gripped each other until the bones crunched and the veins stood in ridges. Drops of perspiration gathered on his forehead, he wiped them away mechanically.

"_Kapitein!_" he gasped.

Van Slyck looked at him increduously, for he had not dreamed Muller's feelings ran so deeply.

"You think--she--sometimes thinks of me?"

Van Slyck's nimble wits were calculating the value to him of this new weakness of the _controlleur_. He foresaw infinite possibilities, Muller in love would be clay in his hands.

"I am positive, _mynheer_," he assured with the utmost gravity.

"_Kapitein_, do not make a mistake," Muller entreated. His voice trembled and broke. "Are you absolutely sure?"

Van Slyck restrained a guffaw with difficulty. It was so ridiculous--this mountain of flesh, this sweaty, panting porpoise in his unwashed linen in love with the slender, graceful Koyala. He choked and coughed discreetly.

"I am certain, _mynheer_," he assured.

"Tell me, _kapitein_, what makes you think so?" Muller begged.

Van Slyck forced himself to calmness and a judicial attitude.

"You know I have seen something of women, _mynheer_," he replied gravely. "Both women here and in the best houses in Amsterdam, Paris, and London. Believe me, they are all the same--a fine figure of a man attracts them."

He ran his eye over Muller's form in assumed admiration.

"You have a figure any woman might admire, _mynheer_. I have seen Koyala's eyes rest on you, and I know what she was thinking. You have but to speak and she is yours."

"Say you so, _kapitein_!" Muller cried ecstatically.

"Absolutely," Van Slyck assured. His eyes narrowed. The devilish humor incarnate in him could not resist the temptation to harrow this tortured soul. Watching Muller closely, he inquired:

"Then I can expect you to spread the net, _mynheer_?"

The light died in Muller's eyes. A slow, volcanic fury succeeded it. He breathed deeply and exhaled the breath in an explosive gasp. His hands clenched and the veins in his forehead became almost black. Van Slyck and he leaped to their feet simultaneously.

"Kapitein Van Slyck," he cried hoarsely, "you are a scoundrel! You would sell your own mother. Get out of my sight, or God help you, I will break you in two."

The door of the _controlleur's_ dwelling opened. Muller leaped back, and Van Slyck's hand leaped to his holster.

"I am here, Kapitein Van Slyck," a clear, silvery voice announced coolly.

Koyala stood in the doorway.