Chapter 1- THE MAN FROM GUIANA -1

He had come up from that necklace of islands that trails its emeralds over the Pacific, which is to say, he stepped out of Nowhere.

Perhaps he was a planter. Or a trader. Or a shell-hunter. Or an agent from one of those brazen ports where white men turn brown like bricks in a kiln. Certainly he was not a tourist.

This the proprietor of the Hotel Oost-Indie—one da Vargas, a Portuguese from Malacca—told himself as he sat in the stern-sheets of his launch alongside the newly arrived mail-packet and gazed at the man by the rail. The latter, his features shadowed by a topee, stood near the top of the ladder, a black bag in one hand and a bird-cage in the other. He wore a white silk suit, and the sunlight seemed to take refuge in it and give it a golden sheen. A blue slendong, such as Javanese women wear, was bound carelessly about his middle, its fringed ends rippling in the wind. Behind him, across the low, flat deck-house and through the web of rigging, the straights spread out like a purple map, contoured with rich gleams; the west was peach-red, its bloom reflected on the canvas.

A plaintive whistle, audible above the creaks and squelches, drifted down to Mr. da Vargas, and he focused upon the occupant of the bird-cage: a large white cockatoo.

A man who wore a slendong and carried a bird!

To Mr. da Vargas, it suggested the quixotic. A naturalist? Many of these fellows—a gregarious lot—came and went among the toy archipelagos strung between Singapore and the Coral Sea. At least, thought the Portuguese by way of justification, they never left accounts unpaid.

A signal from the white-clad figure cut short these reflections, and Mr. da Vargas brought his craft nearer the ladder; launches of other hotels hovered about.

"Oost-Indie?" asked the man perfunctorily, preparing to descend.

"Yes, mynheer," replied Mr. da Vargas, using the form of address current in Dutch possessions; if one kept a hotel in a Javanese port, why not contribute to the atmosphere? "Excellent cuisine," he added; "tarriff reasonable."

He of the slendong passed his bag to the Portuguese, then, cage in hand, stepped into the launch and seated himself in the stern-sheets. The cockatoo, frightened by the sudden violent pop-pop of the engine, raised its crest and shrieked. A magnificent creature: feathers deepening to coral on the wings and tail, crest jetting up to a golden tip.

"A beautiful bird, mynheer," observed Mr. da Vargas by way of opening conversation as the launch cleft the water quayward.

The other nodded indifferently and removed his helmet, thus offering the proprietor, who considered himself a keen judge of physiognomy, a better opportunity for study.

He was a person of inscrutable age, with skin brown as sandalwood and crinkled at the corners of the eyes. His hands, lithe, slender hands, moved incessantly, one moment fingering his lapel, the next, drumming on the gunwhale or tugging at his short, well trimmed beard; a beard that was reddish in one light and dark gold in another.

"Do you have many guests now?" he demanded abruptly, speaking with a perfect enunciation that suggested that English was not his native tongue.

His eyes, green as the shallows off Madoera, had an insolent expression. This, Mr. da Vargas perceived, was due to his right eyebrow, which slanted toward a scar that made a pale crescent on his temple.

The Portuguese took on a distressed air. "It is not the season yet," he answered.

The bearded one turned and for a moment gazed out toward the horizon, where the water melted imperceptibly into a belt of dusk. The mail-packet, gilded by the glow in the west, seemed to hang in the welded globe of sea and sky like a toy ship in a bottle.

Presently he spoke again.

"Are any of your recently arrived guests from Macassar?"

Was it an accent that Mr. da Vargas detected—in his pronunciation of Macassar? A foreigner? Russian? Spanish? French?

He wrinkled his forehead as though the question caused him thought. Something of an actor, this da Vargas, with his exaggerated eyebrows and mustache.

"Macassar?" he repeated; and drew from his pocket some of those black cheroots that seem rolled exclusively for men in the tropics. "Macassar? No—no, I think not. Were you expecting some one, a friend?"—proffering a smoke.

The stranger nodded; placed the cheroot in his coat pocket. Then, abstractedly, he thrust a finger between the bars of the cage and poked at the cockatoo. His indifference challenged the Portuguese to probe deeper behind the veil of obscurity which, from the very first, had surrounded him.

"You live in Macassar?" he persisted after a few seconds.

The man of the slendong smiled, an elusive, rather impudent expression, and shook his head.

"A filthy place——" thus Mr. da Vargas. "No decent hotels, no...." The sentence expired suddenly, like a gramophone that is shut off without warning. A shrug; then, with a sigh, he delivered himself over to silence and supineness.

Shortly before they reached the quay the man from the mail-packet came out of his abstraction to ask:

"Has there been a message left at your hotel for me?" As an afterthought he added, "My name is Garon."

Mr. da Vargas half shut one eye: a habit which he considered quite effective. Meanwhile, his brain repeated the name. Garon. French. An officer from up Saigon way. Or from Hué. Or Hai Fong. Or from one of those sweltering towns along the coast of Indo-China. He was so absorbed that for a moment he forgot the other's question.

"N-no," he replied slowly. "No, monsieur"—the "monsieur" rather pleased him—"there has been no message."

Presently the launch touched the quay, a great antenna feeling out into a wilderness of masts and spars, and he of the slendong sprang out with the bird-cage. The cockatoo, almost losing its balance, spread its crest and scolded. Its owner started toward a kossong but paused and turned back to Mr. da Vargas, who was still in the launch.

"When is there a boat to Singapore?"

"Singapore?"—one eye half closed. "Day after to-morrow. But if you wish to stay longer...."

"Thank you." And the bearded man got into the carriage, leaving the Portuguese to bring his bag.

A moment later when another launch came alongside the quay Mr. da Vargas recognized in it a Eurasian whom he had noticed by the rail of the mail-packet. Upon an impulse he hailed him.

"Did you see the gentleman I brought ashore?" he interrogated. "The one who wore the blue slendong? Do you know if he came aboard at Macassar?"

He did, the Eurasian replied. He himself had seen the gentleman walk out on the pier: and he was quite drunk.

At this information Mr. da Vargas half shut his eye again. Drunk. Undoubtedly, he concluded, the man of the blue slendong was an officer from French Indo-China. But what—as he signaled for his sado—was he doing in Surabaya? And with that bird!

Mr. da Vargas did not know, would never know; but had he known he would have been more interested in the man with the scarred wrists.