The Argus Pheasant

"Your people have conquered, mynheer," she said. "Mine are in flight. Therefore I have come to surrender myself – to you."

"I do not ask your surrender," Peter Gross, replied gravely, beginning to understand.

"You do not ask it, mynheer, but some one must suffer for what has happened. Some one must pay the victor's price. I am responsible, I incited my people. So I offer myself – they are innocent and should not be made to suffer."

"Ah Sing is responsible," Peter Gross said firmly. "And I."

"You, mynheer?" The question came from Koyala's unwilling lips before she realized it.

"Yes, I, juffrouw. It is best that we forget what has happened – I must begin my work over again." He closed his lips firmly, there were lines of pain in his face. "That is," he added heavily, "if his excellency will permit me to remain here after this fiasco."

"You will stay here?" Koyala asked incredulously.

"Yes. And you, juffrouw?"

A moment's silence. "My place is with my people – if you do not want me as hostage, mynheer?"

Peter Gross took a step forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. She trembled violently.

"I have a better work for you, juffrouw," he said.

Her eyes lifted slowly to meet his. There was mute interrogation in the glance.

"To help me make Bulungan peaceful and prosperous," he said.

Koyala shook herself free and walked toward the door. Peter Gross did not molest her. She stood on the threshold, one hesitating foot on the jungle path that led to the grove of big banyans. For some minutes she remained there. Then she slowly turned and reëntered the hut.

"Mynheer Gross," she said, in a choking voice, "before I met you I believed that all the orang blanda were vile. I hated the white blood that was in me, many times I yearned to take it from me, drop by drop, many times I stood on the edge of precipices undecided whether to let it nourish my body longer or no. Only one thing kept me from death, the thought that I might avenge the wrongs of my unhappy country and my unhappy mother."

A stifled sob shook her. After a moment or two she resumed:

"Then you came. I prayed the Hanu Token to send a young man, a young man who would desire me, after the manner of white men. When I saw you I knew you as the man of the Abbas, the man who had laughed, and I thought the Hanu Token had answered my prayer. I saved you from Wobanguli, I saved you from Ah Sing, that you might be mine, mine only to torture." Her voice broke again.

"But you disappointed me. You were just, you were kind, righteous in all your dealings, considerate of me. You did not seek to take me in your arms, even when I came to you in your own dwelling. You did not taunt me with my mother like that pig, Van Slyck – "

"He is dead," Peter Gross interrupted gently.

"I have no sorrow for him. Sangjang has waited over-long for him. Now you come to me, after all that has happened, and say: 'Koyala, will you forget and help me make Bulungan happy?' What shall I answer, mynheer?"

She looked at him humbly, entreatingly. Peter Gross smiled, his familiar, confident, warming smile.

"What your conscience dictates, Koyala."

She breathed rapidly. At last came her answer, a low whisper. "If you wish it, I will help you, mynheer."

Peter Gross reached out his hand and caught hers. "Then we're pards again," he cried.

CHAPTER XXX

The Governor's Promise

Peter Gross had just concluded an account of his administration in Bulungan to Governor-General Van Schouten at the latter's paleis in Batavia. The governor-general was frowning.

"So! mynheer," he exclaimed gruffly. "This is not a very happy report you have brought me."

Peter Gross bent his head.

"No census, not a cent of taxes paid, piracy, murders, my controlleurs– God knows where they are, the whole province in revolt. This is a nice kettle of fish."

Sachsen glanced sympathetically at Peter Gross. The lad he loved so well sat with bowed head and clenched hands, lines of suffering marked his face, he had grown older, oh, so much older, during those few sorry months since he had so confidently declared his policies for the regeneration of the residency in this very room. The governor was speaking again.

"You said you would find Mynheer de Jonge's murderer for me," Van Schouten rasped. "Have you done that?"

"Yes, your excellency. It was Kapitein Van Slyck who planned the deed, and Cho Seng who committed the act, pricked him with a upas thorn while he slept, as I told your excellency. Here are my proofs. A statement made by Mynheer Muller to Captain Carver and Lieutenant Banning before he died, and a statement made by Koyala to me." He gave the governor the documents. The latter scanned them briefly and laid them aside.

"How did Muller come to his death?" he demanded.

"Like a true servant of the state, fighting in defense of the fort," Peter Gross replied. "A splinter of a shell struck him in the body."

"H-m!" the governor grunted. "I thought he was one of these traitors, too."

"He expiated his crimes two weeks ago at Fort Wilhelmina, your excellency."

"And Cho Seng?" the governor demanded. "Is he still alive?"

"He fell on his own dagger." Peter Gross described the incident. "It was not the dagger thrust that killed him," he explained. "That made only a flesh wound. But the dagger point had been dipped in a cobra's venom." Softly he added: "He always feared that he would die from a snake's poison."

"It is the judgment of God," Van Schouten pronounced solemnly. He looked at Peter Gross sharply.

"Now this Koyala," he asked, "where is she?"

"I do not know. In the hills, among her own people, I think. She will not trouble you again."

The governor stared at his resident. Gradually the stern lines of his face relaxed and a quaintly humorous glint came into his eyes.

"So, Mynheer Gross, the woman deceived you?" he asked sharply.

Peter Gross made no reply. The governor's eyes twinkled. He suddenly brought down his fist on the table with a resounding bang.

"Donder en bliksem!" he exclaimed, "I cannot find fault with you for that. The fault is mine. I should have known better. Why, when I was your age, a pretty woman could strip the very buttons from my dress coat – dammit, Mynheer Gross, you must have had a heart of ice to withstand her so long."

He flourished a highly colored silk handkerchief and blew his nose lustily.

"So you are forgiven on that count, Mynheer Gross. Now for the other. It appears that by your work you have created a much more favorable feeling toward us among many of the natives. The hill Dyaks did not rise against us as they have always done before, and some of the coast Dyak tribes were loyal. That buzzard, Lkath, stayed in his lair. Furthermore, you have solved the mysteries that have puzzled us for years and the criminals have been muzzled. Lastly, you were the honey that attracted all these piratical pests into Bulungan harbor where Kapitein Enckel was able to administer them a blow that will sweep those seas clear of this vermin for years to come, I believe. You have not done so badly after all, Mynheer Gross. Of course, you and your twenty-five men might have come to grief had not Sachsen, here, heard reports that caused me to send the Prins Lodewyk post-haste to Bulungan, but we will overlook your too great confidence on the score of your youth." He chuckled. "Now as to the future."

He paused and looked smilingly into the eyes that looked so gratefully into his.

"What say you to two more years at Bulungan, mynheer, to straighten out affairs there, work out your policies, and finish what you have so ably begun?"