a mean side, there were not a few who pretended to be indignant on no
better authority than a general propensity to believe every evil report;
and a good many others who found it simply funny to call Heyst the
Spider--behind his back, of course. He was as serenely unconscious of
this as of his several other nicknames. But soon people found other
things to say of Heyst; not long afterwards he came very much to the
fore in larger affairs. He blossomed out into something definite. He
filled the public eye as the manager on the spot of the Tropical Belt
Coal Company with offices in London and Amsterdam, and other things
about it that sounded and looked grandiose. The offices in the two
capitals may have consisted--and probably did--of one room in each;
but at that distance, out East there, all this had an air. We were more
puzzled than dazzled, it is true; but even the most sober-minded among
us began to think that there was something in it. The Tesmans appointed
agents, a contract for government mail-boats secured, the era of steam
beginning for the islands--a great stride forward--Heyst's stride!
And all this sprang from the meeting of the cornered Morrison and of the
wandering Heyst, which may or may not have been the direct outcome of a
prayer. Morrison was not an imbecile, but he seemed to have got himself
into a state of remarkable haziness as to his exact position towards
Heyst. For, if Heyst had been sent with money in his pocket by a direct
decree of the Almighty in answer to Morrison's prayer then there was no
reason for special gratitude, since obviously he could not help himself.
But Morrison believed both, in the efficacy of prayer and in the
infinite goodness of Heyst. He thanked God with awed sincerity for his
mercy, and could not thank Heyst enough for the service rendered as
between man and man. In this (highly creditable) tangle of strong
feelings Morrison's gratitude insisted on Heyst's partnership in the
great discovery. Ultimately we heard that Morrison had gone home through
the Suez Canal in order to push the magnificent coal idea personally
in London. He parted from his brig and disappeared from our ken; but
we heard that he had written a letter or letters to Heyst, saying that
London was cold and gloomy; that he did not like either the men or
things, that he was “as lonely as a crow in a strange country.” In
truth, he pined after the Capricorn--I don't mean only the tropic; I
mean the ship too. Finally he went into Dorsetshire to see his people,
caught a bad cold, and died with extraordinary precipitation in the
bosom of his appalled family. Whether his exertions in the City of
London had enfeebled his vitality I don't know; but I believe it was
this visit which put life into the coal idea. Be it as it may, the
Tropical Belt Coal Company was born very shortly after Morrison,
the victim of gratitude and his native climate, had gone to join his
forefathers in a Dorsetshire churchyard.
Heyst was immensely shocked. He got the news in the Moluccas through the
Tesmans, and then disappeared for a time. It appears that he stayed with
a Dutch government doctor in Amboyna, a friend of his who looked after
him for a bit in his bungalow. He became visible again rather suddenly,
his eyes sunk in his head, and with a sort of guarded attitude, as if
afraid someone would reproach him with the death of Morrison.
Naive Heyst! As if anybody would . . . Nobody amongst us had any
interest in men who went home. They were all right; they did not count
any more. Going to Europe was nearly as final as going to Heaven. It
removed a man from the world of hazard and adventure.
As a matter of fact, many of us did not hear of this death till months
afterwards--from Schomberg, who disliked Heyst gratuitously and made up
a piece of sinister whispered gossip:
“That's what comes of having anything to do with that fellow. He
squeezes you dry like a lemon, then chucks you out--sends you home to
die. Take warning by Morrison!”
Of course, we laughed at the innkeeper's suggestions of black mystery.
Several of us heard that Heyst was prepared to go to Europe himself,
to push on his coal enterprise personally; but he never went. It wasn't
necessary. The company was formed without him, and his nomination of
manager in the tropics came out to him by post.
From the first he had selected Samburan, or Round Island, for the
central station. Some copies of the prospectus issued in Europe, having
found their way out East, were passed from hand to hand. We greatly
admired the map which accompanied them for the edification of the
shareholders. On it Samburan was represented as the central spot of the
Eastern Hemisphere with its name engraved in enormous capitals. Heavy
lines radiated from it in all directions through the tropics, figuring a
mysterious and effective star--lines of influence or lines of distance,
or something of that sort. Company promoters have an imagination of
their own. There's no more romantic temperament on earth than the
temperament of a company promoter. Engineers came out, coolies were
imported, bungalows were put up on Samburan, a gallery driven into the
hillside, and actually some coal got out.
These manifestations shook the soberest minds. For a time everybody in
the islands was talking of the Tropical Belt Coal, and even those who
smiled quietly to themselves were only hiding their uneasiness. Oh, yes;
it had come, and anybody could see what would be the consequences--the
end of the individual trader, smothered under a great invasion of
steamers. We could not afford to buy steamers. Not we. And Heyst was the
manager.
“You know, Heyst, enchanted Heyst.”
“Oh, come! He has been no better than a loafer around here as far back
as any of us can remember.”
“Yes, he said he was looking for facts. Well, he's got hold of one that
will do for all of us,” commented a bitter voice.
“That's what they call development--and be hanged to it!” muttered
another.
Never was Heyst talked about so much in the tropical belt before.
“Isn't he a Swedish baron or something?”
“He, a baron? Get along with you!”
For my part I haven't the slightest doubt that he was. While he was
still drifting amongst the islands, enigmatical and disregarded like an
insignificant ghost, he told me so himself on a certain occasion. It
was a long time before he materialized in this alarming way into the
destroyer of our little industry--Heyst the Enemy.
It became the fashion with a good many to speak of Heyst as the Enemy.
He was very concrete, very visible now. He was rushing all over the
Archipelago, jumping in and out of local mail-packets as if they had
been tram-cars, here, there, and everywhere--organizing with all his
might. This was no mooning about. This was business. And this sudden
display of purposeful energy shook the incredulity of the most
sceptical more than any scientific demonstration of the value of these
coal-outcrops could have done. It was impressive. Schomberg was the
only one who resisted the infection. Big, manly in a portly style,
and profusely bearded, with a glass of beer in his thick paw, he would
approach some table where the topic of the hour was being discussed,
would listen for a moment, and then come out with his invariable
declaration:
“All this is very well, gentlemen; but he can't throw any of his
coal-dust in my eyes. There's nothing in it. Why, there can't be
anything in it. A fellow like that for manager? Phoo!”
Was it the clairvoyance of imbecile hatred, or mere stupid tenacity of
opinion, which ends sometimes by scoring against the world in a most
astonishing manner? Most of us can remember instances of triumphant
folly; and that ass Schomberg triumphed. The T.B.C. Company went into
liquidation, as I began by telling you. The Tesmans washed their hands
of it. The Government cancelled those famous contracts, the talk died
out, and presently it was remarked here and there that Heyst had faded
completely away. He had become invisible, as in those early days when
he used to make a bolt clear out of sight in his attempts to break away
from the enchantment of “these isles,” either in the direction of New
Guinea or in the direction of Saigon--to cannibals or to cafes. The
enchanted Heyst! Had he at last broken the spell? Had he died? We were
too indifferent to wonder overmuch. You see we had on the whole liked
him well enough. And liking is not sufficient to keep going the interest
one takes in a human being. With hatred, apparently, it is otherwise.
Schomberg couldn't forget Heyst. The keen, manly Teutonic creature was a
good hater. A fool often is.
“Good evening, gentlemen. Have you got everything you want? So! Good!
You see? What was I always telling you? Aha! There was nothing in it. I
knew it. But what I would like to know is what became of that--Swede.”
He put a stress on the word Swede as if it meant scoundrel. He detested
Scandinavians generally. Why? Goodness only knows. A fool like that is
unfathomable. He continued:
“It's five months or more since I have spoken to anybody who has seen
him.”
As I have said, we were not much interested; but Schomberg, of course,
could not understand that. He was grotesquely dense. Whenever three
people came together in his hotel, he took good care that Heyst should
be with them.
“I hope the fellow did not go and drown himself,” he would add with a
comical earnestness that ought to have made us shudder; only our crowd
was superficial, and did not apprehend the psychology of this pious
hope.
“Why? Heyst isn't in debt to you for drinks is he?” somebody asked him
once with shallow scorn.
“Drinks! Oh, dear no!”
The innkeeper was not mercenary. Teutonic temperament seldom is. But he
put on a sinister expression to tell us that Heyst had not paid perhaps
three visits altogether to his “establishment.” This was Heyst's crime,
for which Schomberg wished him nothing less than a long and tormented
existence. Observe the Teutonic sense of proportion and nice forgiving
temper.
At last, one afternoon, Schomberg was seen approaching a group of his
customers. He was obviously in high glee. He squared his manly chest
with great importance.
“Gentlemen, I have news of him. Who? why, that Swede. He is still
on Samburan. He's never been away from it. The company is gone,
the engineers are gone, the clerks are gone, the coolies are gone,
everything's gone; but there he sticks. Captain Davidson, coming by from
the westward, saw him with his own eyes. Something white on the wharf,
so he steamed in and went ashore in a small boat. Heyst, right enough.
Put a book into his pocket, always very polite. Been strolling on
the wharf and reading. 'I remain in possession here,' he told Captain
Davidson. What I want to know is what he gets to eat there. A piece of
dried fish now and then--what? That's coming down pretty low for a man
who turned up his nose at my table d'hote!”
He winked with immense malice. A bell started ringing, and he led the
way to the dining-room as if into a temple, very grave, with the air
of a benefactor of mankind. His ambition was to feed it at a profitable
price, and his delight was to talk of it behind its back. It was very
characteristic of him to gloat over the idea of Heyst having nothing
decent to eat.
CHAPTER FOUR
A few of us who were sufficiently interested went to Davidson for
details. These were not many. He told us that he passed to the north of
Samburan on purpose to see what was going on. At first, it looked as if
that side of the island had been altogether abandoned. This was what he
expected. Presently, above the dense mass of vegetation that Samburan
presents to view, he saw the head of the flagstaff without a flag. Then,
while steaming across the slight indentation which for a time was known
officially as Black Diamond Bay, he made out with his glass the white
figure on the coaling-wharf. It could be no one but Heyst.
“I thought for certain he wanted to be taken off, so I steamed in. He
made no signs. However, I lowered a boat. I could not see another living
being anywhere. Yes. He had a book in his hand. He looked exactly as we
have always seen him--very neat, white shoes, cork helmet. He explained
to me that he had always had a taste for solitude. It was the first I
ever heard of it, I told him. He only smiled. What could I say? He isn't
the sort of man one can speak familiarly to. There's something in him.
One doesn't care to.
“'But what's the object? Are you thinking of keeping possession of the
mine?' I asked him.
“'Something of the sort,' he says. 'I am keeping hold.'
“'But all this is as dead as Julius Caesar,' I cried. 'In fact, you have
nothing worth holding on to, Heyst.'
“'Oh, I am done with facts,' says he, putting his hand to his helmet
sharply with one of his short bows.”
Thus dismissed, Davidson went on board his ship, swung her out, and as
he was steaming away he watched from the bridge Heyst walking shoreward
along the wharf. He marched into the long grass and vanished--all but
the top of his white cork helmet, which seemed to swim in a green sea.
Then that too disappeared, as if it had sunk into the living depths of
the tropical vegetation, which is more jealous of men's conquests than
the ocean, and which was about to close over the last vestiges of the
liquidated Tropical Belt Coal Company--A. Heyst, manager in the East.
Davidson, a good, simple fellow in his way, was strangely affected. It
is to be noted that he knew very little of Heyst. He was one of those
whom Heyst's finished courtesy of attitude and intonation most strongly
disconcerted. He himself was a fellow of fine feeling, I think, though
of course he had no more polish than the rest of us. We were naturally
a hail-fellow-well-met crowd, with standards of our own--no worse, I
daresay, than other people's; but polish was not one of them. Davidson's
fineness was real enough to alter the course of the steamer he
commanded. Instead of passing to the south of Samburan, he made it his
practice to take the passage along the north shore, within about a mile
of the wharf.
“He can see us if he likes to see us,” remarked Davidson. Then he had an
afterthought: “I say! I hope he won't think I am intruding, eh?”
We reassured him on the point of correct behaviour. The sea is open to
all.
This slight deviation added some ten miles to Davidson's round trip, but
as that was sixteen hundred miles it did not matter much.
“I have told my owner of it,” said the conscientious commander of the
Sissie.
His owner had a face like an ancient lemon. He was small and
wizened--which was strange, because generally a Chinaman, as he grows in
prosperity, puts on inches of girth and stature. To serve a Chinese firm
is not so bad. Once they become convinced you deal straight by them,
their confidence becomes unlimited. You can do no wrong. So Davidson's
old Chinaman squeaked hurriedly:
“All right, all right, all right. You do what you like, captain--”
And there was an end of the matter; not altogether, though. From time to
time the Chinaman used to ask Davidson about the white man. He was still
there, eh?
“I never see him,” Davidson had to confess to his owner, who would peer
at him silently through round, horn-rimmed spectacles, several sizes too
large for his little old face. “I never see him.”
To me, on occasions he would say:
“I haven't a doubt he's there. He hides. It's very unpleasant.” Davidson
was a little vexed with Heyst. “Funny thing,” he went on. “Of all the
people I speak to, nobody ever asks after him but that Chinaman of
mine--and Schomberg,” he added after a while.
Yes, Schomberg, of course. He was asking everybody about everything, and
arranging the information into the most scandalous shape his imagination
could invent. From time to time he would step up, his blinking,
cushioned eyes, his thick lips, his very chestnut beard, looking full of
malice.
“Evening, gentlemen. Have you got all you want? So! Good! Well, I am
told the jungle has choked the very sheds in Black Diamond Bay. Fact.
He's a hermit in the wilderness now. But what can this manager get to
eat there? It beats me.”
Sometimes a stranger would inquire with natural curiosity:
“Who? What manager?”
“Oh, a certain Swede,”--with a sinister emphasis, as if he were saying
“a certain brigand.” “Well known here. He's turned hermit from shame.
That's what the devil does when he's found out.”
Hermit. This was the latest of the more or less witty labels applied
to Heyst during his aimless pilgrimage in this section of the tropical
belt, where the inane clacking of Schomberg's tongue vexed our ears.
But apparently Heyst was not a hermit by temperament. The sight of his
land was not invincibly odious to him. We must believe this, since
for some reason or other he did come out from his retreat for a while.
Perhaps it was only to see whether there were any letters for him at the
Tesmans. I don't know. No one knows. But this reappearance shows that
his detachment from the world was not complete. And incompleteness of
any sort leads to trouble. Axel Heyst ought not to have cared for his
letters--or whatever it was that brought him out after something more
than a year and a half in Samburan. But it was of no use. He had not the
hermit's vocation! That was the trouble, it seems.
Be this as it may, he suddenly reappeared in the world, broad chest,
bald forehead, long moustaches, polite manner, and all--the complete
Heyst, even to the kindly sunken eyes on which there still rested the
shadow of Morrison's death. Naturally, it was Davidson who had given him
a lift out of his forsaken island. There were no other opportunities,
unless some native craft were passing by--a very remote and
unsatisfactory chance to wait for. Yes, he came out with Davidson, to
whom he volunteered the statement that it was only for a short time--a
few days, no more. He meant to go back to Samburan.
Davidson expressing his horror and incredulity of such foolishness,
Heyst explained that when the company came into being he had his few
belongings sent out from Europe.
To Davidson, as to any of us, the idea of Heyst, the wandering drifting,
unattached Heyst, having any belongings of the sort that can furnish a
house was startlingly novel. It was grotesquely fantastic. It was like a
bird owning real property.
“Belongings? Do you mean chairs and tables?” Davidson asked with
unconcealed astonishment.
Heyst did mean that. “My poor father died in London. It has been all
stored there ever since,” he explained.
“For all these years?” exclaimed Davidson, thinking how long we all had
known Heyst flitting from tree to tree in a wilderness.
“Even longer,” said Heyst, who had understood very well.
This seemed to imply that he had been wandering before he came under our
observation. In what regions? And what early age? Mystery. Perhaps he
was a bird that had never had a nest.
“I left school early,” he remarked once to Davidson, on the passage. “It
was in England. A very good school. I was not a shining success there.”
The confessions of Heyst. Not one of us--with the probable exception of
Morrison, who was dead--had ever heard so much of his history. It
looks as if the experience of hermit life had the power to loosen one's
tongue, doesn't it?
During that memorable passage, in the Sissie, which took about two days,
he volunteered other hints--for you could not call it information--about
his history. And Davidson was interested. He was interested not because
the hints were exciting but because of that innate curiosity about our
fellows which is a trait of human nature. Davidson's existence, too,
running the Sissie along the Java Sea and back again, was distinctly
monotonous and, in a sense, lonely. He never had any sort of company on
board. Native deck-passengers in plenty, of course, but never a white
man, so the presence of Heyst for two days must have been a godsend.
Davidson was telling us all about it afterwards. Heyst said that his
father had written a lot of books. He was a philosopher.
“Seems to me he must have been something of a crank, too,” was
Davidson's comment. “Apparently he had quarrelled with his people in
Sweden. Just the sort of father you would expect Heyst to have. Isn't
he a bit of a crank himself? He told me that directly his father died he
lit out into the wide world on his own, and had been on the move till he
fetched up against this famous coal business. Fits the son of the father
somehow, don't you think?”
For the rest, Heyst was as polite as ever. He offered to pay for his
passage; but when Davidson refused to hear of it he seized him heartily
by the hand, gave one of his courtly bows, and declared that he was
touched by his friendly proceedings.
“I am not alluding to this trifling amount which you decline to take,”
he went on, giving a shake to Davidson's hand. “But I am touched by your
humanity.” Another shake. “Believe me, I am profoundly aware of having
been an object of it.” Final shake of the hand. All this meant that
Heyst understood in a proper sense the little Sissie's periodic
appearance in sight of his hermitage.
“He's a genuine gentleman,” Davidson said to us. “I was really sorry
when he went ashore.”
We asked him where he had left Heyst.
“Why, in Sourabaya--where else?”
The Tesmans had their principal counting-house in Sourabaya. There had
long existed a connection between Heyst and the Tesmans. The incongruity
of a hermit having agents did not strike us, nor yet the absurdity of a
forgotten cast-off, derelict manager of a wrecked, collapsed, vanished
enterprise, having business to attend to. We said Sourabaya, of course,
and took it for granted that he would stay with one of the Tesmans.
One of us even wondered what sort of reception he would get; for it was
known that Julius Tesman was unreasonably bitter about the Tropical
Belt Coal fiasco. But Davidson set us right. It was nothing of the
kind. Heyst went to stay in Schomberg's hotel, going ashore in the hotel
launch. Not that Schomberg would think of sending his launch alongside
a mere trader like the Sissie. But she had been meeting a coasting
mail-packet, and had been signalled to. Schomberg himself was steering
her.
“You should have seen Schomberg's eyes bulge out when Heyst jumped in
with an ancient brown leather bag!” said Davidson. “He pretended not
to know who it was--at first, anyway. I didn't go ashore with them. We
didn't stay more than a couple of hours altogether. Landed two thousand
coconuts and cleared out. I have agreed to pick him up again on my next
trip in twenty days' time.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Davidson happened to be two days late on his return trip; no great
matter, certainly, but he made a point of going ashore at once, during
the hottest hour of the afternoon, to look for Heyst. Schomberg's hotel
stood back in an extensive enclosure containing a garden, some large
trees, and, under their spreading boughs, a detached “hall available
for concerts and other performances,” as Schomberg worded it in his
advertisements. Torn, and fluttering bills, intimating in heavy red
capitals CONCERTS EVERY NIGHT, were stuck on the brick pillars on each
side of the gateway.
The walk had been long and confoundedly sunny. Davidson stood wiping his
wet neck and face on what Schomberg called “the piazza.” Several doors
opened on to it, but all the screens were down. Not a soul was in sight,
not even a China boy--nothing but a lot of painted iron chairs and
tables. Solitude, shade, and gloomy silence--and a faint, treacherous
breeze which came from under the trees and quite unexpectedly caused the
melting Davidson to shiver slightly--the little shiver of the tropics
which in Sourabaya, especially, often means fever and the hospital to
the incautious white man.
The prudent Davidson sought shelter in the nearest darkened room. In the
artificial dusk, beyond the levels of shrouded billiard-tables, a white
form heaved up from two chairs on which it had been extended. The middle
of the day, table d'hote tiffin once over, was Schomberg's easy time. He
lounged out, portly, deliberate, on the defensive, the great fair beard
like a cuirass over his manly chest. He did not like Davidson, never a
very faithful client of his. He hit a bell on one of the tables as he
went by, and asked in a distant, Officer-in-Reserve manner:
“You desire?”
The good Davidson, still sponging his wet neck, declared with simplicity
that he had come to fetch away Heyst, as agreed.
“Not here!”
A Chinaman appeared in response to the bell. Schomberg turned to him
very severely:
“Take the gentleman's order.”
Davidson had to be going. Couldn't wait--only begged that Heyst should
be informed that the Sissie would leave at midnight.
“Not--here, I am telling you!”
Davidson slapped his thigh in concern.