I saw that I was standing in a narrow muddy road, with deep ruts, which
led up from the bank of a wide river--a tidal river, as I could see,
from the great mudflats fringed with seaweed. The sun blazed down upon
the whole scene. Just below was a sort of landing-place, where lay a
number of long, low boats, shaded with mats curved like the hood of a
waggon; a little farther out was a big quaint ship, with a high stern
and yellow sails. Beyond the river rose great hills, thickly clothed
with vegetation. In front of me, along the roadside, stood a number of
mud-walled huts, thatched with some sort of reeds; beyond these, on the
left, was the entrance of a larger house, surrounded with high walls,
the tops of trees, with a strange red foliage, appearing over the
enclosure, and the tiled roofs of buildings. Farther still were the
walls of a great town, huge earthworks crowned with plastered
fortifications, and a gate, with a curious roof to it, running out at
each end into horns carved of wood. At some distance, out of a grove to
the right, rose a round tapering tower of mouldering brickwork. The rest
of the nearer country seemed laid out in low plantations of some
green-leaved shrub, with rice-fields interspersed in the more level
ground.
There were only a few people in sight. Some men with arms and legs
bare, and big hats made of reeds, were carrying up goods from the
landing-place, and a number of children, pale and small-eyed, dirty and
half-naked, were playing about by the roadside. I went a few paces up
the road, and stopped beside a house, a little larger than the rest,
with a rough verandah by the door. Here a middle-aged man was seated,
plaiting something out of reeds, but evidently listening for sounds
within the house, with an air half-tranquil, half-anxious; by him on a
slab stood something that looked like a drum, and a spray of azalea
flowers. While I watched, a man of a rather superior rank, with a dark
flowered jacket and a curious hat, looked out of a door which opened on
the verandah and beckoned him in; a sound of low subdued wailing came
out from the house, and I knew that my time was hard at hand. It was
strange and terrible to me at the moment to realise that my life was to
be bound up, I knew not for how long, with this remote place; but I was
conscious too of a deep excitement, as of a man about to start upon a
race on which much depends. There came a groan from the interior of the
house, and through the half-open door I could see two or three dim
figures standing round a bed in a dark and ill-furnished room. One of
the figures bent down, and I could see the face of a woman, very pale,
the eyes closed, and the lips open, her arms drawn up over her head as
in an agony of pain. Then a sudden dimness came over me, and a deadly
faintness. I stumbled through the verandah to the open door. The
darkness closed in upon me, and I knew no more.