DWALA
DWALA
A ROMANCE
BY
GEORGE CALDERON
AUTHOR OF ‘THE ADVENTURES OF DOWNY V. GREEN’
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1904
[All rights reserved]
TO
KITTIE
DWALA
I
The sun was sinking towards the Borneo mountains.The forest and the sea, inscrutable to thebullying noon, relented in this discreeter light,revealing secrets of green places. Birds began torustle in the big trees; the shaking of broadleaves in the undergrowth betrayed the movementof beasts of prey going about their daily work.The stately innocence of Nature grew lovelier ina sudden trouble of virginal consciousness.
There was only one sign of human habitationin the landscape—a worn patch by the shore, likea tiny wilderness in a vast oasis. Battered meat-tins,empty bottles, and old newspapers litteredthe waterline; under the rock was a tumble-downhut and a shed; from a stable at the side a ponylooked out patiently over the half-door; something[2]rustled in a big cage. In the twilightunder the shed a man lay sleeping in a lowhammock, grizzled and battered, with one barebrown foot hanging over the edge. He yawnedand opened his eyes.
‘Are ye thar, Colonel?’
Another figure, which had been crouchingbeside the hammock with a palm-leaf, watchingthe sleeper, slowly uprose. Hardly a human figurethis, though dressed like a man; something ratherakin to the surrounding forest; a thing of largemajestic motions, and melancholy eyes, deep-setunder thick eyebrows. The man sat up andcoughed for a little while.
‘Whar’s the dinner, Colonel? You’ve not litthe fire yet.’
‘Fire crackles,’ said the Colonel.
The man stretched and spat.
‘Ah, you was afraid the noise’d wake me,sonny. Wahl, hurry up now, for I’m as peckishas a pea-hen.’
The man refilled his pipe from the big tinthat lay in the hammock with him, while theColonel, going hither and thither with large, deft[3]movements, piled a fire, boiled a pot and spreadthe dinner. Dinner ready, he brought it to theman; crouching at his feet he watched him reverentlyas he handled knife and fork. At the smellof dinner a number of large monkeys came swingingdown from the trees and collected outside theshed. A captive chimpanzee came out of a tub-kenneland began to ramble swiftly and silentlyto and fro on its chain, as if developing in movementsome unwholesome purpose conceived in thehours of quiescence. The man threw them piecesfrom time to time, for which they scrambled andfought in a way that called for interference.
‘Now, Chauncey, you leave pore Amélie’swhiskers alone. That piece was meant for her....Go slow, Marie! and you, William J. Bryan,get up off Talmage, unless you’ve a yearn for thefar-end of my teacher’s help.’
When the meal was over the American