The Argus Pheasant

It was Inchi who brought the news of Paddy's return. Three days after Koyala's departure the little Dyak lad burst breathlessly upon a colloquy between Peter Gross and Captain Carver and announced excitedly:

"Him, Djath boy, him, orang blanda Djath boy, him come."

"What the devil is he driving at?" Carver growled. The circumlocution of the south-sea islander was a perennial mystery to him.

"Paddy is coming," Peter Gross cried. "Now get your breath, Inchi, and tell us where he is."

His scant vocabulary exhausted, Inchi broke into a torrent of Dyak. By requiring the lad to repeat several times, Peter Gross finally understood his message.

"Paddy, Koyala, and some of Koyala's Dyaks are coming along the mountain trail," he announced. "They will be here in an hour. She sent a runner ahead to let us know, but the runner twisted an ankle. Inchi found him and got the message."

There was a wild cheer as Paddy, dusty and matted with perspiration, several Dyaks, and Koyala emerged from the banyan-grove and crossed the plain. Discipline was forgotten as the entire command crowded around the lad.

"I shot two Chinamans for you," Vander Esse announced. "An' now daat vas all unnecessary."

"Ye can't keep a rid-head bottled up," Larry Malone, another member of the company, shouted exultingly.

"Aye ban tank we joost get it nice quiet van you come back again," Anderson remarked in mock melancholy. The others hooted him down.

Koyala stood apart from the crowd with her Dyaks and looked on. Glancing upward, Peter Gross noticed her, noticed, too, the childishly wistful look upon her face. He instantly guessed the reason – she felt herself apart from these people of his, unable to share their intimacy. Remorse smote him. She, to whom all their success was due, and who now rendered this crowning service, deserved better treatment. He hastened toward her.

"Koyala," he said, his voice vibrant with the gratitude he felt, "how can we repay you?"

Koyala made a weary gesture of dissent.

"Let us not speak of that now, mynheer," she said.

"But come to my home," he said. "We must have luncheon together – you and Captain Carver and Paddy and I." With a quick afterthought he added: "I will invite Mynheer Muller also."

The momentary gleam of pleasure that had lit Koyala's face at the invitation died at the mention of Muller's name.

"I am sorry," she said, but there was no regret in her voice. "I must go back to my people, to Djath's temple and the priests. It is a long journey; I must start at once."

"You cannot leave us now!" Peter Gross exclaimed in consternation.

"For the present I must," she said resignedly. "Perhaps when the moon is once more in the full, I shall come back to see what you have done."

"But we cannot do without you!"

"Is a woman so necessary?" she asked, and smiled sadly.

"You are necessary to Bulungan's peace," Peter Gross affirmed. "Without you we can have no peace."

"If you need me, send one of my people," she said. "I will leave him here with you. He will know where to find me."

"But that may be too late," Peter Gross objected. His tone became very grave. "The crisis is almost upon us," he declared. "Ah Sing will make the supreme test soon – how soon I cannot say – but I do not think he will let very many days pass by. He is not accustomed to being thwarted. I shall need you here at my right hand to advise me."

Koyala looked at him searchingly. The earnestness of his plea, the troubled look in his straight-forward, gray eyes fixed so pleadingly upon her, seemed to impress her.

"There is a little arbor in the banyan-grove yonder where we can talk undisturbed," she said in a voice of quiet authority. "Come with me."

"We can use my office," Peter Gross offered, but Koyala shook her head.

"I must be on my journey. I will see you in the grove."

Peter Gross walked beside her. He found difficulty in keeping the pace she set; she glided along like a winged thing. Koyala led him directly to the clearing and reclined with a sigh of utter weariness in the shade of a stunted nipa palm.

"It has been a long journey," she said with a wan smile. "I am very tired."

"Forgive me," Peter Gross exclaimed in contrition. "I should not have let you go. You must come back with me to the residency and rest until to-morrow."

"A half-hour's rest will be all I need," Koyala replied.

"But this is no place for you," Peter Gross expostulated.

"The jungle is my home," Koyala said with simple pride. "The Argus Pheasant nests in the thickets."

"Surely not at night?"

"What is there to harm me?" Koyala smiled wearily at his alarm.

"But the wild beasts, the tigers, and the leopards, and the orang-utans in the hill districts, and the snakes?"

"They are all my friends. When the tiger calls, I answer. If he is hungry, I keep away. I know all the sounds of the jungle; my grandfather, Chawatangi, taught them to me. I know the warning hiss of the snake as he glides through the grasses, I know the timid hoofbeat of the antelope, I know the stealthy rustle of the wild hogs. They and the jackals are the only animals I cannot trust."

"But where do you sleep?"

"If the night is dark and there is no moon, I cut a bundle of bamboo canes. I bind these with creepers to make a platform and hang it in a tree. Then I swing between heaven and earth as securely or more securely, than you do in your house, for I am safe from the malice of men. If it rains I make a shelter of palm-leaves on a bamboo frame. These things one learns quickly in the forest."

"You wonderful woman!" Peter Gross breathed in admiration.

Koyala smiled. She lay stretched out her full length on the ground. Peter Gross squatted beside her.

"You haven't told me where you found Paddy?" he remarked after a pause.

"Oh, that was easy," she said. "Ah Sing has a station a little way this side of the Sadong country – "

Peter Gross nodded.

"I knew that he would go there. So I followed. When I got there Ah Sing was loading his proa with stores. I learned that your boy was a prisoner in one of the houses of his people. I went to Ah Sing and begged his life. I told him he was sacred to Djath, that the Dyaks of Bulungan thought him very holy indeed. Ah Sing was very angry. He stormed about the loss of his proa and refused to listen to me. He said he would hold the boy as a hostage.

"That night I went to the hut and found one of my people on guard. He let me in. I cut the cords that bound the boy, dyed his face brown and gave him a woman's dress. I told him to wait for me in the forest until he heard my cry. The guard thought it was me when he left."

Her voice drooped pathetically.

"They brought me to Ah Sing. He was very angry, he would have killed me, I think, if he had dared. He struck me – see, here is the mark." She drew back the sleeve of her kabaya and revealed a cut in the skin with blue bruises about it. Peter Gross became very white and his teeth closed together tightly.

"That is all," she concluded.