THE MAN FROM GUIANA-2

At that particular moment he who called himself Garon also was conjecturing—but upon a subject quite different. He had been conjecturing for many days. Many weeks. And now, as he rode toward the hotel, his brain seemed atrophied; hung, withered, in his skull.

He lighted the cheroot that da Vargas had given him, and the bitter, acrid tobacco (black leaves from Trichinopoli) burned his tongue. But he enjoyed it fiercely, for it stimulated him, like strong drink. At that thought he smiled—smiled insolently, as a man smiles at an antagonist. Drink. Flint on tinder. It ignited a spark. Fool. He had slipped at Macassar. Perhaps it was the town: the crooning surf, the white roadways unrolling in the dusk like paths to adventure; something lazy and loose and amorous about it....

"Name of a name!" he muttered, half aloud. "Cities and women are alike: angels or devils—positive or negative—no compromise. And seaports are bad."

A habit, that. And a good one, he assured himself. Ah, if he could be sure that he had talked only to himself! Confound that slip at Macassar——

"Too much introspection, my zig," he announced sharply, breaking in upon himself.

Whereupon he delivered his attention to the pattern of sounds and colors that wove about the carriage. Lamps were beginning to appear—hot moons in the already humid dusk—and the roadway was a torrid, dusty world; a world that swarmed with life. Perspiring white men in linens, helmeted soldiers, coolies with bent carrying-poles, and bronze Chinese, Arabs, and Javanese. On the right ran a canal, seeming crowded with boats as it reflected the many craft moored by its banks. This, he told himself, was not the picturesque confusion of the Straits Settlement or the towns of the China coast—towns whose names inflame the dreams of youth. There was a sense of order, of cleanliness and activity, that was not eastern.

"Tropical Netherlands," he soliloquized ironically, "well regulated and organized—even in their vices!"

The carriage rattled across a bridge and came to a street of Chinese houses—rows of dim bazaars and shops. Large signs hung over the doors, flamboyant with ideographs. And numbers. Great gilded numbers——

Numbers! They seemed to spring out and strike him. Numbers! To the devil with them! But to the devil they would not go; they persisted and developed a series of negatives, pictures that unreeled like a film. Cayenne, lost in forests of silence ... Cayenne, with its Caribs and tropic-tired surveillants ... white-helmeted warders, libérés and déportés in drab burlap ... men who were numbered. Five months of it! Five months in that brazen hush, that awful hush: superheated days, nights that dropped like black flannel. And no one knew. Not a soul. Alone he had worked. Alone he had waited. Alone he had endured the strain. Alone—until his release from Ile Diable, until the night at the house of Finot, the libéré. A muffled lantern; whispers, a ring of obscure faces; then a file of silhouettes stealing back into town. Followed other nights at the house of Finot, the libéré; and a last night when the silhouettes did not steal back into town. Black forests; torment of heat and hunger. How they suffered! these men who were numbered. At length, a river, a raft of mocomoco. Came then a chain of breathless days, of bitter days. Smell of swamps and rotting jungle; odors that tainted. They fought among themselves, these men who were numbered. Finally, the raft glided from river-gloom into the glare of the sea; glided to the side of the waiting ship....

He was put ashore on Thursday Island, one of those sun-scorched outposts where men, believing in destiny, sit on the beach to wait for it. Without regret he watched the ship melt into the horizon. He was alone—yet he felt that a shadow clung to his heels. It haunted him. And there were three days before the next boat left! Three days on Thursday Island, with its molten sky, its monotonous dazzle of sand and sea. He took his cue from a pallid youngster sprawled on a fishnet, in the shadow of a warehouse. Suddenly, as one who sees a revelation, he perceived the way. For the next three days he drank just enough to sink his thoughts in a golden haze and keep his tongue still. Then he departed, without sorrow, from that port of derelicts.

Macassar. To his surprise the shadowy tracker did not materialize. But he understood. The time was not ripe. Perhaps the realization made him careless. Ensued that indefinite, foggy period: yellow faces and the smell of bilge-water. He returned to complete cognizance on the ship.

And now Surabaya. (This as he gazed at the numbers.) So far he had won—alone. He who had always ridden alone! At this thought he clamped his teeth tighter on the cheroot; drew a deep breath. Ruthless? Yes, he had been. Trampling men as if they were husks. But never uselessly, always with a purpose. Hard? Perhaps. For he never reckoned the cost. A cold man with but one passion, achievement. An adventurer, riding alone toward a star. That was it. Some day he would ride out beyond life, still following his star. And then——

"Thousand thunders!" he exclaimed, interrupting his own thoughts. "Sentimentalism! It is this climate—nothing but coffee thrives!"

He smiled derisively, which is to say bitterly; passed one hand over his forehead. For a moment he looked very young, very tired, like a boy aroused from a dream. Something cold uncoiled in his heart and struck him, an emotion cruel as a scalpel. Sentiment! It had withered. Only the roots remained, dead things. Pluck them out—ride on—alone—trampling men—toward the star—a ruthless adventurer——

A soft note, uttered by the cockatoo, broke into his introspection. His eyes swerved to the cage. After a few seconds he chuckled, without humor. Even this creature fitted into his scheme, his callous sacrifice of man for motive. Indeed, it had been acquired for a purpose and when that was fulfilled it would pass as his every friendship had done, this feathery companion of his solitude.

Thus he was musing when he came at length to the hotel. Sunset had furled its geranium petals, and the long white main building, set back in an inclosure in the midst of trees and gardens, gleamed coolly in the darkness. A few stars had broken out like white heat on the torrid sky.

He paid the driver; moved up the steps, swinging the bird-cage. As he crossed the veranda he noticed several linen-clad figures sitting around a table, and the sudden flare of a match, as one of the men lighted a cheroot, reclaimed from the dark a pair of lean wrists—wrists that were ringed with scars.