20 
LAND & WATER 
May II, igi6 
on him, all the time the sweat was pouring from him, and a 
thirst, tremendous as the thirst of fever, withered his soul. 
Then, when the last coin was salved, he took the basket 
carefully oy both handles, rose to his feet and lifted it. 
He had intended to fill both baskets, but he had com- 
pletely forgotten this intention, and indeed the present load 
was as much as he could carry — almost more than he could 
carry. 
He had got halfway between the cache and the lagoon 
bank when one of the handles of the basket broke, the basket 
swung over and a torrent of coin fell with a noise like the rush 
of rain amidst the leaves and grass. 
A faint jingle told of coin striking coin, then nothing 
could be heard but the crying of the parrots in the trees and 
the wind stirring the branches. 
Macquart carefully seized the basket by the edge on the 
bide of the broken handle so that no more of the contents could 
escape, then he placed the basket by a tree trunk, then he 
proceeded to hunt for the lost treasure. He seemed quite 
unmoved by this disaster, but in reahty he was stunned. It 
is not the weight that makes the last straw figure as the last 
straw, it is the psychological moment. This accident that 
would have made Macquart swear earlier in the day now 
made him dumb. 
Then, with what seemed a terrible patience, he went 
down on his knees and began to collect the coins. He stripped 
away the long leaves as well as he could and the ground vines. 
Here and there he could see the faint ghnt of a metal disc and 
whenever he saw one he pounced. The light was not very 
strong, on account of the foliage above, yet it was sufficient 
for his purpose. 
And now as he laboured on hands and knees, rooting 
about like an animal, movements in the branches above 
became apparent, and twenty little faces, some upside down, 
could be seen watching the worker with an earnestness 
ludicrous, yet somehow horrible. 
A monkey is a grin when it is not a grimace, and nothing 
can be imagined further removed from honest mirth than these 
incarnations of laughter — nothing certainly than these little 
faces amidst the leaves looking down at Macquart. 
Then one of them plucked a big, squashy-looking fruit 
from one of the branches and flung it. 
It hit Macquart in the small of the back and he sprang 
to his feet with a yell. The blow had been a sharp one, and 
coming unexpectedly there, where he fancied himself alone, 
the shock had badly upset his nerves. 
He glanced wildly about him. Then he saw his tor- 
mentors and shook his fist at them. 
His outcry had startled them, but they recognised at 
once that he was unarmed ; they knew that he was ^ngry 
and that they were the cause of this anger, and they knevv 
that he was impotent and the knowledge of all this filled them 
with joy. 
They pehed him now with Uttk nuts whilst, pretending 
to ignore them, he went on his hands and knees again. As he 
worked he placed the recovered coins in the side pocket of his 
coat. TheH as he worked, something that was not a nut hit 
liim on the brim of the hat which he had pushed back to save 
liis neck — bounced over his- shoulder and struck a broad leaf 
in front of him. It was a gold coin. 
He had made a great mistake in placing the basket by 
the tree trunk, for there was an air shoot hanging by the tree, 
and sliding down the air shoot one of the monkey folk had 
captured the basket and its contents, spilling most of them 
on the way up. 
But there was enough left for ammunition, and Macquart, 
looking up, got a fistful of sovereigns in his face. He turned, 
saw that the basket was gone and then, forgetting that he was a 
man, with the howl of a wolf he began to climb the tree that was 
nearest to him. As he climbed, he shouted and swore at the 
creatures skipping above him, and the higher he climbed the 
liigher they went. 
Then suddenly the branch he was climbing by broke and 
he fell, the next branch caught him, but only for a moment, 
before it snapped under his weight, dehvering him to the branch 
immediatdy below. 
He clung to it swinging by his hands twenty feet above 
the ground. 
The monkeys above, enraptured at this fine game that 
had been suddenly provided for them, pelted him, but he did 
not heed. 
He did not know how far the ground was beneath him ; 
he felt that he was at an enormous height in the air and that 
to fall would be sure death. He clung. He tried to work his 
way along the branch towards the bole, it was impossible ; 
to do so he would have been forced to hang by one hand at 
a time and that was beyond his strength ; besides, the branch 
had bowed beneath his weight. He knew that he could not 
go on clinging for ever, that the fall must come certain and 
soon, yet his mind found room for fantastic thoughts. It 
seemed to him the forest was in a conspiracy with John 
Lant against him. Trees, monkeys, leaves,' vines, hanas and 
birds, all were " setting on " him to rob him of his Hfe ; he 
saw himself swinging there, pelted bv monkeys, the picture 
came to him as though it were the picture of another man. 
Then cramp seized him and he fell. 
The fall, so far from killing him. did not even break a 
bone, but he was half stunned, and he sat for a while with 
his hands to his head, whilst the world rocked and reeled 
beneath him, and the monkeys, who had descended hmb by 
limb, pelted him and jibed at him as if to show the boundless 
and tireless malignity that life can tap through its creatures. 
Then, after a while, Macquart rose up. He stood up a 
moment as if undecided and then made off back towards the 
cache. He went half running, half stumbHng, talking and 
muttering to himself in a crazy sort of way, defeated, beaten, 
yet still led by the gold that was destroying him. At the edge 
of the cache he sat down and began digging with his hands. 
He had brought the other basket up close beside fiim and 
as he burst another gold box open he began tHling the basket, 
but his half crazy mind was now so obsessed by the idea of 
the basket breaking that he did not load it with more than 
five handfuls of coin and earth, for there was no thought now 
of sifting the coin from earth or earth from coin, only the 
overwhelming and overmastering thought of speed. 
Then, with a load that a child could have carried, he 
started off at a trot for the lagoon edge, discharged his burden 
into the fo'c'sle of the yawl and returned. 
So it went on. and when the sun sank and the stars broke 
out above he was still running, whimpering hke a child who is 
late on an errand and fears a beating, heedless of the rushing 
monkeys that flitted above him like a breeze in the fohage, 
heedless of everytliing except the vast labour on wliich he was 
engaged— for he was not carrying gold now in his basket, 
but earth, under the belief that he had to empty the whole 
world into the fo'c'sle of the Barracuda. 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
The Pursuer 
SAJI, when he parted from Chaya after having seen 
Macquart and his party vanish in the thorn maze, made 
.back for the river at a trot. 
It was a nine or ten hours' journey from the river to 
the thorn for Europeans cumbered with luggage. The 
return journey took Saji slightly over four hours. The 
runner who brought the news from Marathon to Athens would 
have had Httle chance in a long distance race against Saji. 
Like a centipede, this man seemed to have a hundred pair 
of legs at his service to be used a pair at a time, so that he 
might run forever, or at least till all were worn out ; his lungs 
were practically inexhaustible. 
It was towards ten o'clock when he reached tlie Dyak 
village, and there under the stars he met the old woman who 
was waiting for news. 
He told her everything. 
" So." said she, " he has led them into the thora city; 
that means he will come back, he and the other one. he will 
lead him to the hiding-place or he will destroy him before they 
get there. Now is your time to strike, but not till yoH have 
marked down the hiding-place." 
Saji nodded. 
" Where is Chaya ? " asked the woman. 
" She is following after," said Saji. " I came swiftly." 
The old woman went to the hut where she Hved and re- 
turned with something in her hand. It was a parang, a 
Dyak knife in a leather sheath. She held it out to Saji, but 
he showed her that he was already possessed of one, taking 
it from his girdle and holding it beifore her in the starKght. 
" Give it to me and take this," said she. " It belonged to 
Lant, it will know what is to be done and lead you." 
Saji took the parang and placed it in his girdle. Then with 
another word or two to the old woman he started off through 
the trees. By the river bank he took up his position amongst 
the bushes at a point that gave him a good view of Wiart's 
house and the landing stage, then he squatted down to wait 
and watch. 
He was watching chiefly by means of his ears, his eyes told 
him little of what was going on around him beyond the span 
of river bank where the house stood. His ears told him much. 
He could hear the river, a sound made up of a thousand httle 
sounds, from the weak voice of the water washing bank and 
tree roots and landing stage, to the splash of fish jumping in 
the distance. The smell of the river came with its voice, a 
smell of damp and decay, mixed with the musky perfume of 
river mud. 
Then on the other hand he could hear the voices of the 
forest, swept by the night wind. Hour after hour passed 
without lessening in the slightest the deadly vigilance of the 
watcher. He was thinking of Chaya. The success of this 
