March 30, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
CHAYA 
A Romance of the South Seas 
By H. de Vere Stacpoole 
19 
Synopsis : Macquart, an advenimer who has spent 
most of his life at sea, finds himself in Sydney on his beam 
ends. He has a wonderful story of gold hidden up a river in 
New Guinea, and makes the acquaintance of Tillman, a sporting 
man about town, fond of yachting and racing, and of Houghton, 
a well-educated Englishman out of a job. Through Tillman's 
influence he is introduced to a wealthy imolbroker , . Screed, who, 
having heard Macquart's story and examined his plans, which 
agree with an Admiralty chart, agrees to finance the enterprise. 
Screed purchases a yawl, the " Barracuda." Just before they 
leave Macquart encounters an old shipmate, Captain Hull, 
who is fully acquainted with his villainies. Hull gets in touch 
with Screed,'who engages him and brings him aboard the yacht 
just as they are about to sail. By degrees Captain Hull prac- 
tically assumes command of the enterprise through force of 
character. After adventures they arrive at New Guinea and 
anchor in a lagoon. Macquart guides him to the place where 
he declares the cache to be. They dig through the night but 
find nothing and begin to think he is deceiving them. Here 
they make the acquaintance of a drunken Dutchman, Wiart. 
who is in charge of a rubber and camphor station. They catch 
sight of a beautiful Dyak girl, Chaya. According to Macquart's 
story a man named Lant, who had seized this treasure, sunk his 
ship and murdered his crew leith the exception of one man, 
" Smith." Lant then settled here, burie.i the treasure, and married 
a Dyak woman, chief of her tribe. Lant was murdered by 
" Smith," whom Captain Hull and the rest make little doubt 
was no other than Macquart. Chaya, with whom Houghton 
has fallen in love, is Lant's half-caste daughter. 
Chapter XVII. 
Saji 
THE Dyak village situated about a quarter of a mile 
from the Papuan village, constituted only a miser- 
able remnant of what it had once been. There 
were scarcely forty members of the tribe that ages 
ago had come here from Borneo. Saribas Dyaks, sea 
plunderers and fishermen wlio had found the river and fixed 
themselves here, well sheltered from pursut of enemies yet 
within touching distance of the sea. 
E\en in the days when John Lant had come here and 
•settled down, marrying the mother of Chaya, the tribe had 
been in decadence. 
When Lant died his wife had been chief woman of the 
tribe. She was still. 
The mother of Chaya was a full-blooded Saribas woman, 
with all the instincts, all the pertinacity, all the ferocity, all 
the tenacity of her race 
She was not an olo woman in years, but she was old in 
appearance, with a far-seeing and fateful look in her face 
that was daunting. 
Her husband, whom she had loved, had been murdered. 
The murderer had done his work so skilfully that in a civilised 
community no suspicion would have been attached to him 
and no process of law could have been put in operation 
against him. 
But the mother of Chaya knew that the father of her 
child had been murdered, and though the murderer had 
escaped her and made good his escape, she knew that he 
would come back. 
Even civilised people have " feelings " that amount to 
sure knowledge. Chaya' s mother, with an inherited instinct 
for men and events preternaturally developed, had the sure 
feeling that the murderer would return. 
On an every-daj^ basis that event might have been pre- 
dicted, for he had gone without the gold for which the crime 
had been committed. Chaya's motlier did not know where 
the gold was buried, she only knew that it was somewhere 
in the vicinity of the river ; the man would come back to the 
river, and for fifteen years she had waited. 
The fishing Dyaks of the tribe — there were no pirates 
now — had always been on the watch to give her news of 
strangers arriving. It was part of their business in life, and 
liad turned into a sort of rehgious observance. 
The Barracuda had been observed even before she had 
engaged tlie reefs, and Saji', one of the youngest of the fisher- 
m:;n, had tracked her up to the lagoon. Hiding his canoe he 
had observed everything to do with her berthing in the 
lagoon, and then, when Macquart and his companions had 
taken the boat and come up to the village, Saji had followed. 
It was his canoe that they had found tied up to the landing 
stage when they came out of Wiart's house. 
Saji had obeyed not only his orders and his own natural 
tracking instincts, but the desire to please the chief woman 
of the tribe. 
Saji was in love with Chaya. 
The tribe had fallen into that condition which scarcely 
allows for grades of rank ; Saji as one of the best fishermen 
though he had no special rank or standing, was as likely a 
suitor for Chaya as any of the others. He was eighteen years 
of age, straight as a dart, well-formed, and even to a European 
eye not bad-looking, but he was a pure-blooded Saribas, his 
dress was little more than an apron, and in the eyes of Chaya 
he did not exist as a man. 
The white traders had shown her the edge of civilisation, 
and her instincts inherited from John Lant raised her above 
the level of the tribe. To complete the matter, Saji had 
let her perceive the nature of his feelings f owards her. Besides 
being a good fisherman he was a skilful metal worker, and he 
had only a month ago constructed a bangle of copper, beating 
it out from a copper rod with infinite pains and care ; taking 
his courage in one hand and the bangle in the other, he had 
approached Chaya with the gift — and she had refused it. 
" Give it to Maidan," she had said. 
Maidan was one of the tribe girls, and the least good- 
looking of them. 
Though disdaining him as a lover, Chaya did not show 
any dislike for him ; she allowed him to accompany her in 
the woods, and it was his half-naked form they had glimpsed 
the day before amidst the leaves. He had led her to show 
her the strangers, just as an hour before he had sought her 
mother to tell of the new arrivals. 
Last night when the party were digging on the spit of 
river bank, Saji led the old woman to inspect them. In the 
full moonlight, she had seen the face and form that her eyes 
had been aching to see for fifteen years. 
Revenge was at last in her grasp, and as they returned to 
the Dyak village after watching the fruitless work of the 
diggers, she said to Saji : 
" You shall have Chaya." 
" Aie," whined Saji as he trotted beside her. They 
were going full speed down the jungle path to the village ; 
" but she cares nought for me." 
" You shall have Chaya on the word of her mother, and 
the gift you will bring her will fetch her to your feet." 
" What gift ? " said Saji. 
" That I will tell you soon. You have each stranger 
clear in your mind so that you would know each even in the 
dark ? " • 
" Ay, I could teU each by his spoor or his smell." 
" Then watch them all, but more especially the one I 
pointed out last — the others do not count." 
They spoke in the Saribas dialect. 
At the village they parted, Saji returning to keep a watch 
on the newcomers even as they slept. 
That watch was never relaxed. 
Fortunately for Houghton, he was not the man specially 
pointed out to Saji as the man never to be lost sight of. 
Otherwise his meeting with Chaya might have been observed 
with disastrous consequences to him. 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
Soundings 
When Houghton got back to the tent he found Tillman 
waiting for him. Hull was down by the boat attending to 
some matter or other. 
" Macquart is in there in the house with Wiart," said 
Tillman. " They seem to have chummed up very much. There 
they are smoking cigarettes and drinking gin and water." 
" I don't think Macquart is a man to drink much," said 
Houghton. 
" No, he's not, but there he is with that soaker. I wonder 
what they're talking about. I went to the door and the 
smell of the place nearly knocked me down. Wiart asked me 
in but I excused myself — said I had business to attend to." 
" O, I don't think there's anything dangerous in it," 
replied the other. " Wiart has his business here to look after 
and between that and drink, his hands are pretty full." 
As a matter of fact, Houghton's mind was so filled by 
Chaya that he did not want for the moment to think of any- 
thing else. 
