THE BLACK PARROT
_A Tale of the Golden Chersonese_
BY HARRY HERVEY
AUTHOR OF "CARAVANS BY NIGHT," ETC.
"... You perceive, then, it is by the grace of Romance
that man has been exalted above the other animals...."
JAMES BRANCH CABELL
F. D. GOODCHILD
TORONTO
1923
Copyright, 1923, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Printed in U. S. A.
* * * * *
TO CHARLES BEDELL HERVEY
_Do you remember? I told you of the Khmers, the ancient Brahmans, who,
with elephants and war-chariots, with legions of mailed swordsmen
and archers, crashed through Manipur and Arakan, to the Lake of
Tonle Sap, and there built an empire; built the long cloisters, the
tremendous towers and stairways that now mourn beside the drowned
forests of Angkor. I said that were you to go there some night when a
full moon hangs over the jungle, you would hear the tread of perished
armies (fierce, arrogant warriors, drunken with power and conquest)
and see the Tevadas come down from the walls and dance about Naga,
the Seven-Headed Cobra. And you said, "Put it into a story!" Do you
remember?_
CONTENTS
I THE MAN FROM GUIANA
II EPISODE
III THE BLUE SLENDONG
IV S. S. _Cambodia_
V CONQUEST
VI THE DREAM CHANDLER
VII MALAY HOUSE
VIII SALAZAR
IX BARABBAS TOWN
THE BLACK PARROT
CHAPTER I
THE MAN FROM GUIANA
He had come up from that necklace of islands that trails its emeralds
over the Pacific, which is to say, he stepped out of Nowhere.
Perhaps he was a planter. Or a trader. Or a shell-hunter. Or an agent
from one of those brazen ports where white men turn brown like bricks
in a kiln. Certainly he was not a tourist.
This the proprietor of the Hotel Oost-Indie--one da Vargas, a
Portuguese from Malacca--told himself as he sat in the stern-sheets of
his launch alongside the newly arrived mail-packet and gazed at the
man by the rail. The latter, his features shadowed by a topee, stood
near the top of the ladder, a black bag in one hand and a bird-cage
in the other. He wore a white silk suit, and the sunlight seemed to
take refuge in it and give it a golden sheen. A blue slendong, such as
Javanese women wear, was bound carelessly about his middle, its fringed
ends rippling in the wind. Behind him, across the low, flat deck-house
and through the web of rigging, the straights spread out like a purple
map, contoured with rich gleams; the west was peach-red, its bloom
reflected on the canvas.
A plaintive whistle, audible above the creaks and squelches, drifted
down to Mr. da Vargas, and he focused upon the occupant of the
bird-cage: a large white cockatoo.
A man who wore a slendong and carried a bird!
To Mr. da Vargas, it suggested the quixotic. A naturalist? Many
of these fellows--a gregarious lot--came and went among the toy
archipelagos strung between Singapore and the Coral Sea. At least,
thought the Portuguese by way of justification, they never left
accounts unpaid.
A signal from the white-clad figure cut short these reflections, and
Mr. da Vargas brought his craft nearer the ladder; launches of other
hotels hovered about.
"Oost-Indie?" asked the man perfunctorily, preparing to descend.
"Yes, mynheer," replied Mr. da Vargas, using the form of address
current in Dutch possessions; if one kept a hotel in a Javanese port,
why not contribute to the atmosphere? "Excellent cuisine," he added;
"tarriff reasonable."
He of the slendong passed his bag to the Portuguese, then, cage in
hand, stepped into the launch and seated himself in the stern-sheets.
The cockatoo, frightened by the sudden violent _pop-pop_ of the engine,
raised its crest and shrieked. A magnificent creature: feathers
deepening to coral on the wings and tail, crest jetting up to a golden
tip.
"A beautiful bird, mynheer," observed Mr. da Vargas by way of opening
conversation as the launch cleft the water quayward.
The other nodded indifferently and removed his helmet, thus offering
the proprietor, who considered himself a keen judge of physiognomy, a
better opportunity for study.
He was a person of inscrutable age, with skin brown as sandalwood and
crinkled at the corners of the eyes. His hands, lithe, slender hands,
moved incessantly, one moment fingering his lapel, the next, drumming
on the gunwhale or tugging at his short, well trimmed beard; a beard
that was reddish in one light and dark gold in another.
"Do you have many guests now?" he demanded abruptly, speaking with a
perfect enunciation that suggested that English was not his native
tongue.
His eyes, green as the shallows off Madoera, had an insolent
expression. This, Mr. da Vargas perceived, was due to his right
eyebrow, which slanted toward a scar that made a pale crescent on his
temple.
The Portuguese took on a distressed air. "It is not the season yet," he
answered.
The bearded one turned and for a moment gazed out toward the horizon,
where the water melted imperceptibly into a belt of dusk. The
mail-packet, gilded by the glow in the west, seemed to hang in the
welded globe of sea and sky like a toy ship in a bottle.
Presently he spoke again.
"Are any of your recently arrived guests from Macassar?"
Was it an accent that Mr. da Vargas detected--in his pronunciation of
Macassar? A foreigner? Russian? Spanish? French?
He wrinkled his forehead as though the question caused him thought.
Something of an actor, this da Vargas, with his exaggerated eyebrows
and mustache.
"Macassar?" he repeated; and drew from his pocket some of those
black cheroots that seem rolled exclusively for men in the tropics.
"Macassar? No--no, I think not. Were you expecting some one, a
friend?"--proffering a smoke.
The stranger nodded; placed the cheroot in his coat pocket. Then,
abstractedly, he thrust a finger between the bars of the cage and poked
at the cockatoo. His indifference challenged the Portuguese to probe
deeper behind the veil of obscurity which, from the very first, had
surrounded him.
"You live in Macassar?" he persisted after a few seconds.
The man of the slendong smiled, an elusive, rather impudent expression,
and shook his head.
"A filthy place----" thus Mr. da Vargas. "No decent hotels, no...." The
sentence expired suddenly, like a gramophone that is shut off without
warning. A shrug; then, with a sigh, he delivered himself over to
silence and supineness.
Shortly before they reached the quay the man from the mail-packet came
out of his abstraction to ask:
"Has there been a message left at your hotel for me?" As an
afterthought he added, "My name is Garon."
Mr. da Vargas half shut one eye: a habit which he considered quite
effective. Meanwhile, his brain repeated the name. Garon. French.
An officer from up Saigon way. Or from Hué. Or Hai Fong. Or from one
of those sweltering towns along the coast of Indo-China. He was so
absorbed that for a moment he forgot the other's question.
"N-no," he replied slowly. "No, monsieur"--the "monsieur" rather
pleased him--"there has been no message."
Presently the launch touched the quay, a great antenna feeling out into
a wilderness of masts and spars, and he of the slendong sprang out with
the bird-cage. The cockatoo, almost losing its balance, spread its
crest and scolded. Its owner started toward a _kossong_ but paused and
turned back to Mr. da Vargas, who was still in the launch.
"When is there a boat to Singapore?"
"Singapore?"--one eye half closed. "Day after to-morrow. But if you
wish to stay longer...."
"Thank you." And the bearded man got into the carriage, leaving the
Portuguese to bring his bag.
A moment later when another launch came alongside the quay Mr. da
Vargas recognized in it a Eurasian whom he had noticed by the rail of
the mail-packet. Upon an impulse he hailed him.
"Did you see the gentleman I brought ashore?" he interrogated. "The one
who wore the blue slendong? Do you know if he came aboard at Macassar?"
He did, the Eurasian replied. He himself had seen the gentleman walk
out on the pier: and he was quite drunk.
At this information Mr. da Vargas half shut his eye again. Drunk.
Undoubtedly, he concluded, the man of the blue slendong was an officer
from French Indo-China. But what--as he signaled for his _sado_--was he
doing in Surabaya? And with that bird!
Mr. da Vargas did not know, would never know; but had he known he would
have been more interested in the man with the scarred wrists.
2
At that particular moment he who called himself Garon also was
conjecturing--but upon a subject quite different. He had been
conjecturing for many days. Many weeks. And now, as he rode toward the
hotel, his brain seemed atrophied; hung, withered, in his skull.
He lighted the cheroot that da Vargas had given him, and the bitter,
acrid tobacco (black leaves from Trichinopoli) burned his tongue. But
he enjoyed it fiercely, for it stimulated him, like strong drink. At
that thought he smiled--smiled insolently, as a man smiles at an
antagonist. Drink. Flint on tinder. It ignited a spark. Fool. He had
slipped at Macassar. Perhaps it was the town: the crooning surf, the
white roadways unrolling in the dusk like paths to adventure; something
lazy and loose and amorous about it....
"Name of a name!" he muttered, half aloud. "Cities and women are alike:
angels or devils--positive or negative--no compromise. And seaports are
bad."
A habit, that. And a good one, he assured himself. Ah, if he could
be sure that he had talked only to himself! Confound that slip at
Macassar----
"Too much introspection, my zig," he announced sharply, breaking in
upon himself.
Whereupon he delivered his attention to the pattern of sounds
and colors that wove about the carriage. Lamps were beginning to
appear--hot moons in the already humid dusk--and the roadway was a
torrid, dusty world; a world that swarmed with life. Perspiring white
men in linens, helmeted soldiers, coolies with bent carrying-poles, and
bronze Chinese, Arabs, and Javanese. On the right ran a canal, seeming
crowded with boats as it reflected the many craft moored by its banks.
This, he told himself, was not the picturesque confusion of the Straits
Settlement or the towns of the China coast--towns whose names inflame
the dreams of youth. There was a sense of order, of cleanliness and
activity, that was not eastern.
"Tropical Netherlands," he soliloquized ironically, "well regulated
and organized--even in their vices!"
The carriage rattled across a bridge and came to a street of Chinese
houses--rows of dim bazaars and shops. Large signs hung over the doors,
flamboyant with ideographs. And numbers. Great gilded numbers----
Numbers! They seemed to spring out and strike him. Numbers! To the
devil with them! But to the devil they would not go; they persisted and
developed a series of negatives, pictures that unreeled like a film.
Cayenne, lost in forests of silence ... Cayenne, with its Caribs and
tropic-tired _surveillants_ ... white-helmeted warders, _libérés_ and
_déportés_ in drab burlap ... men who were numbered. Five months of it!
Five months in that brazen hush, that awful hush: superheated days,
nights that dropped like black flannel. And no one knew. Not a soul.
Alone he had worked. Alone he had waited. Alone he had endured the
strain. Alone--until his release from Ile Diable, until the night at
the house of Finot, the _libéré_. A muffled lantern; whispers, a ring
of obscure faces; then a file of silhouettes stealing back into town.
Followed other nights at the house of Finot, the _libéré_; and a last
night when the silhouettes did not steal back into town. Black forests;
torment of heat and hunger. How they suffered! these men who were
numbered. At length, a river, a raft of mocomoco. Came then a chain of
breathless days, of bitter days. Smell of swamps and rotting jungle;
odors that tainted. They fought among themselves, these men who were
numbered. Finally, the raft glided from river-gloom into the glare of
the sea; glided to the side of the waiting ship....
He was put ashore on Thursday Island, one of those sun-scorched
outposts where men, believing in destiny, sit on the beach to wait for
it. Without regret he watched the ship melt into the horizon. He was
alone--yet he felt that a shadow clung to his heels. It haunted him.
And there were three days before the next boat left! Three days on
Thursday Island, with its molten sky, its monotonous dazzle of sand and
sea. He took his cue from a pallid youngster sprawled on a fishnet,
in the shadow of a warehouse. Suddenly, as one who sees a revelation,
he perceived the way. For the next three days he drank just enough to
sink his thoughts in a golden haze and keep his tongue still. Then he
departed, without sorrow, from that port of derelicts.
Macassar. To his surprise the shadowy tracker did not materialize. But
he understood. The time was not ripe. Perhaps the realization made him
careless. Ensued that indefinite, foggy period: yellow faces and the
smell of bilge-water. He returned to complete cognizance on the ship.
And now Surabaya. (This as he gazed at the numbers.) So far he had
won--alone. He who had always ridden alone! At this thought he clamped
his teeth tighter on the cheroot; drew a deep breath. Ruthless? Yes,
he had been. Trampling men as if they were husks. But never uselessly,
always with a purpose. Hard? Perhaps. For he never reckoned the cost.
A cold man with but one passion, achievement. An adventurer, riding
alone toward a star. That was it. Some day he would ride out beyond
life, still following his star. And then----
"Thousand thunders!" he exclaimed, interrupting his own thoughts.
"Sentimentalism! It is this climate--nothing but coffee thrives!"
He smiled derisively, which is to say bitterly; passed one hand over
his forehead. For a moment he looked very young, very tired, like
a boy aroused from a dream. Something cold uncoiled in his heart
and struck him, an emotion cruel as a scalpel. Sentiment! It had
withered. Only the roots remained, dead things. Pluck them out--ride
on--alone--trampling men--toward the star--a ruthless adventurer----
A soft note, uttered by the cockatoo, broke into his introspection.
His eyes swerved to the cage. After a few seconds he chuckled, without
humor. Even this creature fitted into his scheme, his callous sacrifice
of man for motive. Indeed, it had been acquired for a purpose and when
that was fulfilled it would pass as his every friendship had done, this
feathery companion of his solitude.
Thus he was musing when he came at length to the hotel. Sunset had
furled its geranium petals, and the long white main building, set back
in an inclosure in the midst of trees and gardens, gleamed coolly in
the darkness. A few stars had broken out like white heat on the torrid
sky.
He paid the driver; moved up the steps, swinging the bird-cage.
As he crossed the veranda he noticed several linen-clad figures
sitting around a table, and the sudden flare of a match, as one of
the men lighted a cheroot, reclaimed from the dark a pair of lean
wrists--wrists that were ringed with scars.
3
The sudden black night of the tropics settled. A black, limitless sea
was the firmament, a black reef the somber horizon where the tide of
stars surged up and broke. A breeze blew in from the straits, tepid
and briny; it wandered across the city, acquiring the scent of warm
soil and over-ripe fruit; and drifted lazily into the gardens of the
Oost-Indie, where trees and men alike shivered as it whispered of fever
and worse.
Dinner being over, the usual groups collected on the veranda. (You will
find them at any caravansary along the equator soon after nightfall,
men who probably have nothing in common except a desire to talk.)
Cigar-ends smoldered. Ice clinked as "boys" moved back and forth with
trays; this augmented by the drone of voices and mosquitos.
The man of the blue slendong, emerging from the lighted interior,
glanced right and left at the gleaming cheroots and likened them
whimsically to the cones of distant volcanoes. After a pause he
strolled toward a table at the end of the veranda, quite aware that a
man had followed him from the billiard-room. He sat down, not even
glancing at the white figure that passed. The latter paused a few feet
beyond, then turned.
"May I share your table?"--a genial British voice.
He who called himself Garon nodded; made a gesture. The other seated
himself and tapped the bell for a "boy."
"Won't you join me?" he inquired. "A man has to keep his liver afloat
somehow down here, and the Oost-Indie has just the proper mixture--a
pale-green, frosty drink, with a slice of orange floating in it, for
all the world like a swollen goldfish." He laughed, frankly pleased
with his own simile. "That reminds me of those fighting-fish in Siam.
Ever see the little beggars?"
"Yes"; thus Garon, smiling to himself with grim satisfaction.
A "boy" approached silently and took their order.
"You're a stranger in Surabaya, aren't you?" came from the man whose
face formed a pale oval above the dead white of his linens.
Garon murmured affirmatively and drew out cigarettes, passing them, not
without a purpose. The man took one and lighted it. A flickering glow
upon long, narrow features; a glimpse of scars on the wrists.
"I noticed you when you arrived," went on the voice from the pale oval;
an oval that advanced from the gloom and receded as the man drew on his
cigarette. "Does your cockatoo perform?"
"I do not train birds," Garon answered. "I collect them. I bought that
one on Thursday Island."
"Collect them?--to stuff and exhibit in museums?"
The Frenchman was still smiling to himself. "I buy and sell them."
"I see. A broker of birds. Novel business."
Garon laughed; no humor in it.
"It is not a business; it is a precaution. Wherever I go I carry some
sort of bird; then, if there rises any emergency, I sell it."
"But don't you grow attached to them?"
Attached! Garon almost laughed again. He said, "Sentiment does not
enter into business."
"Birds, eh?" mused the other. He chuckled. "Thursday Island....
Hm-m.... Ghastly place. You didn't by any chance run across the Black
Parrot down there, did you?"
Garon smiled, an expression unobserved in the darkness, and restlessly
fingered the lapel of his coat.
"A black parrot?"--simulating thoughtfulness. "Is there such a bird? I
know of the great black cockatoo which naturalists call----"
"Surely," interrupted the other, "surely you've heard of the Black
Parrot!"
"I confess ignorance. You see," he lied, "I have just come up from the
New Cumberlands. I have been buried for ... for five months."
The "boy" came then with the drinks. The rattle of ice sounded cool,
for the breeze had gone. In the breathless hush the voices from the
several groups along the veranda melted into a languorous murmur. Even
the trees sighed faintly, as though oppressed by the heat and the
stillness.
After a moment the man of the scarred wrists resumed.
"Le Perroquet Noir; that's what he's called at Cayenne. The Black
Parrot. Sounds romantic, doesn't it? Fancy anything being romantic in
this day!"
"But who is he?" pressed Garon. "Why is he called that?"
A chuckle. "May as well ask who the devil is." A pause, then: "Perhaps
he is the devil sojourning among mortals for a spell. Recruiting. If
so, he began near home; Guiana's just across from Hades, you know. But,
devil or not, he's raising particular hell in the penal colony. The
officials believe he's an escaped _relégué_ from Ile Diable, a fellow
named Letourneau, a garroter. They think he's helping others....
"But you asked why he's called the Black Parrot, didn't you? Well, I've
heard one version. A French officer from St.-Laurent told me the story;
used to belong to the Corps Militaire des Surveillants. There was a
murderer, a swarthy brute, son of an Annamite woman and a merchant of
Hai Fong, who was sent to Guiana. The prisoners dubbed him the Black
Parrot. Don't know why; perhaps he looked like one. Soon after he
reached the colony he killed a _chantier_ with a machete. Horrible
affair. It didn't take the Tribunal Maritime Special long to decide to
introduce him to Madame Guillotine. Picture the scene...."
He gestured, and sparks fell from his cheroot like meteors from a
comet. Garon was staring at his glass.
"Picture the scene," the former repeated. "The colorless dawn.... Why
are executions usually at daybreak, can you tell me?... Le Perroquet,
shut in his cell, hears the dread summons, 'C'est pour aujourd'hui,'
and is initiated into what they call _la toilette de la mort_.
Horrible, these preparations for death. Then he is marched into the
courtyard of the condemned. I say, picture the scene: the throng of
prisoners, there by compulsion, the guards and the big, dark brute on
the scaffold--a half-caste, you remember--with arms bound and collar
cut away. Perhaps a priest beside him; Monsieur de l'Ile Diable, the
headsman, waiting. Not a chance of escape. How do you suppose he
felt, this callous creature, twice a murderer? Do you imagine he was
afraid? Sebillot--he's the officer who told me the story and who saw
the execution--said he smiled, smiled as if he knew something grimly
amusing, smiled at Madame Guillotine. You can see he was a--a hard
customer, as the Americans put it. Just before tying him under the
blade he was allowed to speak; that's customary, you know. 'You may cut
off my head,' he said or words to that effect, 'but I will come back
and repay.' A foolish threat, vain.... So they guillotined him, this
brute. Sebillot--he was standing close by--swears that the head of Le
Perroquet Noir smiled as it dropped into the basket. Ridiculous, these
illusions a man has at times.
"A week or two later, Letourneau, the garroter, escaped. Following that
were a number of other escapes--or evasions, as they say in Guiana.
Then, one day, the very man who had guillotined the Parrot was drowned.
No one saw it or knew how it happened. His body was found in the river;
not a mark on it. An accident, the colonial governor pronounced it.
Poetic justice, you say? The prisoners said another thing, that it was
the vengeance of the Black Parrot. Fantastic, isn't it?...
"But men continued to escape. And after each disappearance the
_surveillant principal_ received a card, most mysteriously of course,
bearing an inscription something like this: 'Le Perroquet Noir--viens
me chercher.'... It goes like a shilling-shocker, doesn't it?... The
prison officials are quite mystified. How do these men get away,
through the jungle?--or do they put to sea and land somewhere further
along the coast? In either event, there's the danger of being captured
by bush negroes; those black fellows are anything but tame, I'm told,
and the _surveillants_ don't encourage gentle tactics. Where do you
suppose these convicts go after they've escaped? I've heard that at
Paramaribo there's a society to help escaped _déportés_. I've heard
other things, too; for instance, this yarn I picked up in Samarang."
He paused; sipped his liquor; resumed.
"Some sailors had collected in a bar along the waterfront. You know
how they talk; a bit of the sewer in their words. Conversation turned
to the Black Parrot. One of the chaps said he knew of an amazing rogue
such as one reads of in novels, who hired men to steal priceless art
treasures, ornaments and jewels with a history, and he in turn sold
them to collectors and rich fools for fabulous sums. He was a sort of
gentleman buccaneer; his life was like a romance. And, the sailor chap
went on to say, perhaps the Black Parrot was this rogue and he had
struck upon the idea of collecting a flock--adopting it, as it were,
from the jailbirds of Cayenne. An excellent way to gather a faithful
band, so the sailor chap maintained. He claimed he knew a fellow, a
shell-hunter, who indulged in questionable business, so this fellow got
his crew by picking up beach-combers and setting them on their feet."
He of the scarred wrists laughed--a soft, genial laugh. Garon merely
smiled and continued to tug at his lapel.
"But sailors," observed the stranger, "have the reputation of being
more interesting than veracious. This buccaneer de luxe may have been
a fabrication; fact is, I fancy he had his origin in a bottle. At any
rate, it's a good tale."
He picked up his glass. Garon, in the act of lighting his burnt-out
cheroot, glimpsed a smile on the long, narrow face. Even after the
match expired and they were in darkness, two pale ghosts at the very
frontier of the stars, he imagined he could still see the smile. Rather
mocking. Rather haunting.
"You, being a broker of birds," suggested the man with the scarred
wrists, humorously, "should be interested in Monsieur the Parrot. If
you catch him you'll profit a pretty penny. Something of a task, eh?
The question is: Who is he? Letourneau, the garroter? Or that amazing
rogue I heard of in Samarang? Or the ghost of Le Perroquet Noir? As the
Black Parrot himself would tell you, _viens me chercher_!"
Garon regarded the other grimly; lifted his glass.
"I go on the next boat to Singapore," he announced deliberately. "And
there"--a shrug--"well, it is not likely I shall find the Parrot
there.... To your hospitality!"
* * * * *
Later that night Garon went into the city. Mr. da Vargas, who saw him
leave the hotel, wondered where his guest, that quixotic person who
affected a blue slendong and carried a cockatoo, was going at that
hour. Not being clairvoyant, he could not know that the Frenchman was
bound for the beer-hall of Oei Moo Lim. But the man with the scarred
wrists knew. He made it a point to know.
4
Morning and a burnished sun.
Garon, rising late, looked out into purgatorial glare and was not
cheered. A glance into the mirror showed him a pallor beneath his
tanned skin and dark half-moons under his eyes. His depression
increased when he examined his money-belt.
"Ah, God!" he muttered, then, shrugging, soliloquized, "A key to every
lock, an answer to every riddle."
Then sudden doubt shook him. Suppose when he reached Singapore the
expected--name of a dog! more than expected, the anticipated--suppose
the anticipated did not happen. What then? Failure? Impossible. He
would succeed. Or be murdered. With his knowledge he would not be
permitted to live unless he passed the test. And what a test! he
reflected. He had, within the space of a few weeks, buried his pride,
his self-respect (which is the last virtue a man will sell) and
become--yes, a beach-comber. And all because ... because he had locked
his dreams in a dungeon with his past and consecrated himself to a
purpose. He could come back, he who had ever been lord of his body; he
would. But the waiting! That was the rending period.
He took the cockatoo with him when he went below, leaving it on the
veranda while he breakfasted. Afterward he made certain inquiries of
Mr. da Vargas; inquiries that gained him little.
"So he calls himself that, eh?" he mused, taking a seat on the veranda.
"But names! Pah! Rogues have a different one in every port!"
A few minutes later he summoned a carriage and with the inevitable bird
was driven to a steamship office near Aloon-Aloon. There he secured
his passage. This done, he had but a few coins left, not even cab-fare.
So he set out on foot.
Overhead, a copperish sun glowed and smoldered; underfoot, dust rose
in gauzy waves. In the palpable haze thus produced, men and vehicles
moved back and forth like figures behind a transparent drop, remote,
ineffectual. Garon loomed tall and white in the glare, an individual
marked for observation as he sifted through the traffic.
His walk led him across two bridges and to a long street of shifting
shadow and color, an artery that seemed to come from the very heart
of China itself. Yellow faces in the doorways and windows of gaudy
houses, yellow faces beneath awnings, beneath crimson and gold signs,
beneath lacquered, ideographed scrolls, beneath balconies and quaint
projections. Shops where silks from Fu-chau and Chi-fu were sold; shops
that smelled of perfumes and aromatic gums from Africa, and odors less
enticing; shops where gods from Burma and Siam gazed contemptuously at
gods of European make; shops that boasted gold-dust from the Celebes,
pearls from Ceylon, and precious stones from Cambay. And one shop where
gay-plumed birds preened their feathers in ill smelling cages.
To the latter Garon took himself after inquiring the way of a
blue-helmeted policeman. A warm, musty smell, reek of birds and
animals, breathed into his face as he entered. Dusk within, the corners
deepening to sable. From these dark recesses came soft cooing sounds,
twitters and shrill squawks. Through a doorway in the rear sunlight
poured, like water released from a flood-gate, sluicing a raised
portion of the floor where a Chinaman sat cross-legged on a cushion. At
Garon's entrance he rose and came forward. He glanced at the cockatoo,
nodded to its owner, and waited.
The Frenchman, his vision becoming regulated to the artificial dusk,
saw a sleek, sable cat caged in one corner; heard a faint growl. Small
feathered creatures blinked at him: blue parrots, green parrots,
crimson parrots, and gray parrots. But (this to himself whimsically)
not a black parrot.
"My no wanchee buy," he announced in Pidgin, the common tongue of the
archipelago. "My wanchee sell."
The Chinaman blinked, like one of his birds, informing him gravely:
"I speak English." And he added: "My name is Soy Lim; you have heard of
me? For many years I had a shop in Rochore Road, Singapore."
A gleam of humor animated Garon's eyes.
"Very well, Soy Lim. I wish to sell this bird"--indicating the
cockatoo. "It belongs to the species known as _Cacatua leadbeteri_;
very rare. I should not part with it except ... well, I need money.
Too, I am interested in other--er--birds now."
The eyes of Oriental and white man met. Soy Lim blinked again; took the
bird-cage; appraised its occupant. The cockatoo uttered a plaintive
whistle; to Garon, thrice plaintive. He felt a barb of regret; a barb
that he plucked out quickly.
"What will you give me for him?" he asked.
The Chinaman appeared to be considering for a moment; then he named a
price.
"Add ten guilders and you may have him"; thus Garon.
"I would not buy the bird," Soy Lim said, "if it were not that a doctor
in Goebeng wishes a cockatoo like this one. I will add two guilders."
"Ten," the Frenchman insisted.
"Two."
"Ten."
"Three."
"I said ten."
The astute yellow man shook his head. "Four. No more."
Garon started toward the door.
"Five," Soy Lim called after him.
He hesitated. "Very well," he agreed. "Five guilders added to the
original offer."
The Chinaman melted into a dark corner and returned with the money.
Garon counted it, then thrust it into his pocket, and, with a nod,
departed. A soft, plaintive whistle followed him into the street: a
reproach and a farewell.
A moment after he left the shop Soy Lim resumed his seat, the bird-cage
beside him. In his deliberate manner he slipped on a pair of loose
gloves, opened the cage door, and clutched at the cockatoo. A shriek;
the flutter of coral-tipped wings. But the gloved hand was implacable.
Soy Lim drew out the frightened creature and held it to his breast,
mouthing soft words. Slowly the bird quieted. Then the Chinaman pulled
off one glove, using his teeth, groped under the feathers, and, like a
magician conjuring an object from the air, produced a tiny cylinder of
paper.