CORNELL 
 
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 LIBRARY 
 
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Cornell University 
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 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023395985 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 MR. PODD OF BORNEO 
 THE FINGER OF MR. BLEE 
 LOVE BIRDS IN THE COCONUTS 
 LUNATICS ABOARD 
 OH, MR. BIDGOOD ! 
 WANTED, A TORTOISE-SHELL 
 THE SIN OF GODFREY NEIL 
 
PRINCESS OF 
 YELLOW MOON 
 
 BY 
 
 PETER BLUNDELL 
 
 METHUEN & GO. LTD. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.G. 
 
 LONDON 
 
First Published in igzi 
 
To 
 
 W. H. L-W. 
 
 In memory of Bornbo days 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW 
 MOON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MOST people, it is said, have the material for one 
 novel in them. If they are wise they keep it to 
 themselves. The other sort write the novel. 
 But there are stories which the wisest and most secre- 
 tive of mankind, even solicitors, find themselves unable 
 to retain, stories that bubble forth, stories that write 
 themselves, stories therefore that are obviously meant 
 by Providence to be given to mankind. This story, I 
 have an instinct, is one. And as it is not about myself 
 entirely I feel my instinct may be reUed on. 
 
 Of course I figure in the story. This doubtless is why 
 it is so interesting to me. But there will be readers — 
 and I shall forgive them for it — who find that among the 
 characters it is not me, Harry Lavington, who attracts 
 their notice. There are others. But for Pierre Mesner, 
 friend of friends, the story I should have to tell would 
 be very different. But for Princess Adanya I might 
 even now be living the himidrum life which — from a 
 defect of natiure, I suppose — I had been quietly content 
 to look forward to. I might have been improperly 
 married off to a person most appallingly suitable. I 
 might even have a seat on the Singapore Municipal 
 Council and (dreadful thought !) be serving on the 
 Sanitary Board. 
 
 1 1 
 
2 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 There is a vast difference between going home from 
 Singapore at schoolboy age in charge of the steward of 
 a cargo boat, as I did, and coming out as I did also a 
 bachelor by first-class mail. In the one case nobody 
 
 loves you — not even the cook. In the other My 
 
 memories of that trip out are still delightful. I learnt 
 the fox- trot and how to jazz in spite of the monsoon ; I 
 saw the sights of Port Said, the tanks at Aden, and the 
 beauties of Colombo. All the American tourists left us 
 at the latter port, which was just as well for my spare 
 cash (at twenty-two all one's cash is spare) had come to 
 an end. At Penang I did not go ashore. 
 
 Evening found me lying in the warm darkness on my 
 long chair by the ship's rail. The deck was nearly 
 empty. Most of the passengers were ashore, there 
 among the steadily burning lights of Penang. Long 
 though I had been away I remembered as I lay looking 
 at them through the ship's rail how the town lay. That 
 straight line of glowing beads marked the promenade in 
 front of the principal hotel. The irregular cluster far- 
 ther along, the customs office. Those at the back there 
 Government buildings. The grand old hill loomed dark 
 against the stars. Lascars flitted by me through the 
 luminous darkness each on an errand. A Goanese 
 steward appeared, busy with the saloon portholes. At 
 the dimly-lighted gangway a European quartermaster 
 had already taken up his station for the night. 
 
 At this moment one of the passengers came up to my 
 long chair. 
 
 " Then you're not ashore either," said she. 
 
 I rose and confirmed the fact that I was still on board. 
 The lady had joined the ship at Colombo. She knew 
 my uncle, the Singapore solicitor, and unlike some I had 
 met she was not ashamed to own it. In fact from her 
 demeanour when with me and her conversation when 
 not the other passengers had quickly gained the impres- 
 sion that I was the nephew of a great man. 
 
 I naturally felt well-disposed towards Miss Brown- 
 lie. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 3 
 
 " Do you feel inclined for a turn up and down ? " I 
 said. 
 
 She did. We stepped out aft. When we came back 
 we found the European quartermaster at the gangway 
 engaged in an altercation with a new arrival. 
 
 " But I tell you, sir, that it is permitted that I come 
 on board." 
 
 " No you don't ! " said the quartermaster angrily as 
 a queer lean figure pressed forward from the outer dark- 
 ness of the accommodation ladder. He stretched out 
 both arms to bar the way. 
 
 " But, monsieur," protested the fellow on the ladder- 
 grating, "my errand is an entirely respectable one. 
 Why should you — mon Dieu ! " 
 
 This last in an undertone of such despair that I 
 stopped short by the gangway, and stared at the bizarre- 
 looking creature in darkness. 
 
 " He wants to come on board and tell fortunes," 
 explained the sailor. 
 
 " WeU, why shouldn't he ? " snapped Miss Brown- 
 lie. 
 
 My eyes were still on the forlorn creature in the gang- 
 way. The hard electric light made his features stand 
 out as in a newspaper black and white sketch. He had 
 taken off the dilapidated sombrero that I had noticed at 
 the first glimpse of him. In a country where every 
 respectable gentleman wears a topee this hat had 
 stamped him at once. The hair above his narrow fanatic 
 forehead stood up en brousse. Gaunt cheeks he had, an 
 imperial, a large grizzled moustache, grey transparent 
 singularly soft eyes. I remember not without a twitch 
 of emotion even now the look that came into these eyes 
 when he realized that he had run against two passengers 
 who seemed willing to help him. 
 
 " I for one should like my fortune told," said I to 
 Miss Brownlie. "Wouldn't you ? " 
 
 " Awfully," she replied with enthusiasm. " Let him 
 come on board 1 " 
 
 The fortune-teller came on board, thanking us in 
 
4 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 emotional French. Miss Brownlie and I swept him on 
 magnificently to the music-room. 
 
 The piano was going. A high thin voice was ringing 
 out. Tenors wiU be tenors unfortunately even in the 
 hottest of weathers. We paused at the door. 
 
 " Better let him finish," I said. 
 
 Miss Brownlie giggled. " There're two more verses," 
 she remarked warningly. " And he does take them so 
 slowly." 
 
 She pushed the music-room door open, stole in with 
 exaggerated precaution and took a seat. Through the 
 open door I saw on the table the debris of sandwiches 
 and lemonade. The dozen people in the music-room, 
 festive creatures, had evidently been having an extra 
 supper. 
 
 " Shall we enter, monsieur ? " asked the fortune- 
 teller at my elbow. 
 
 " No," said I. " I'm hanged if we will. We'll have 
 supper too." 
 
 I tiptoed into the music-room, annexed a plate of 
 sandwiches and two large glasses of lemonade ; then 
 regardless of the tenor's frowns as he loudly called 
 attention to the fact that he wanted Thora to speak to 
 him, I tiptoed out again. 
 
 " If monsieur will sit down," I said in my best French, 
 grinning at myself self-consciously in the darkness. 
 
 " Merci, monsieur I Merci I " 
 
 I heard his wicker chair creak as he seated himself, 
 and at the signal held out the plate of sandwiches. 
 
 In the gloom I could not see his hand, but I could 
 feel it trembling as it touched the plate. Trembling. 
 ... By Jove, he was hungry ! . . . 
 
 I ate slowly to keep him company. 
 
 In the music-room the frenzy of the tenor was over. 
 A tentative tinkle of the piano gave warning that some- 
 body else was ready to perform if given any encourage- 
 ment. I rose hastily and flung open the door. 
 
 " Are you all ready, Miss Brownlie ? " I asked. 
 
 The music-room was a space enclosed from the deck 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 5 
 
 about the head of the grand stairway leading to the 
 saloon. One got an impression of white enamel, brass 
 work, small brown plush curtains hung over the port- 
 holes, soft cornice illumination and panels of beautifully 
 polished maple. Sofas and basket chairs were plentiful. 
 In a corner stood the grand piano together with the 
 tenor, and a pair of maidens in crepe-de-chine frocks. 
 The three were deep in discussion. The tenor, from his 
 coy look, was being pressed to choose another song. 
 
 " I haven't mentioned the fortune-teller yet," whis- 
 pered Miss Brownlie to me. " There hasn't been a 
 chance. Who wants their fortune told ? " she asked 
 loudly. " We've just secured the services of the greatest 
 fortune-teller in Penang." 
 
 " How splendid ! " exclaimed one of the girls at the 
 piano. " But Mr. Avery was going to sing another 
 song." 
 
 The tenor smiled constrainedly. 
 
 " No doubt Mr. Lavington's fortune-teller will be 
 more interesting," he said, frowning. Plainly he 
 thought I had produced a fortune-teller for the purpose 
 of interrupting his singing. 
 
 From the moment Avery and I had met on board at 
 Tilbury there had been no love lost between us. He was 
 round chested and short armed, something Uke a pigeon 
 in appearance. Naturally he would be suspicious of a 
 lanky swarthy crow like me, and vice versa. 
 
 " If you wish to sing again," said I resignedly, " sing 
 by all means." 
 
 " I don't think I will, thanks all the same," he said. 
 And with his two flippers of arms he raised the music 
 book he held and placed it with decision on the top of 
 the piano. 
 
 This done, he retired moodily into the background. 
 His late audience were now free to give their attention 
 to us. 
 
 " We are singularly fortunate here to-night," Miss 
 Brownlie explained, taking the part of showman with a 
 readiness that surprised every one, myself included. 
 
6 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " This gentleman now standing before you has a repu- 
 tation for skill in divining the future exceeded by none 
 in the Malay Peninsula, not even excepting the Governor. 
 The seventh son of a seventh son, and bom with a caul, 
 he was reared among the g3T)sies and served an appren- 
 ticeship with a noted Parisian palmist. Since then he 
 has wandered through the East from court to court, and 
 from fakir to fakir, studying his terrifying art. And 
 now he stands before you ready, for an absurdly small 
 fee, to put that art at your disposal, to delineate your 
 characters and foretell your fates. Kindly step for- 
 ward. Monsieur " 
 
 " Pierre Mesner, if you please," said our find with 
 a bow. 
 
 His appearance stood the brilliant light better than 
 might have been expected. His khaki suit was thread- 
 bare, but clean, his canvas shoes had been recently 
 pipe-clayed. His face might have been a model for El 
 Greco, so ascetic, apostolic and wild in expression was 
 it. Best of all for the purposes of Miss Brownlie and 
 me it looked the face of a born fortune-teller. The 
 audience at first were doubtful, but the stranger's 
 charming smile, the glimpse of white even teeth below 
 his grey moustache, finally influenced them in his 
 favour. 
 
 " I'm going first," added Miss Brownlie as an en- 
 couragement to the others. 
 
 " Monsieur Mesner's fee, reduced," I announced, " is 
 one dollar, or half-a-crown, paid in advance." 
 
 Down into the saloon went the fortune-teUer and the 
 bold Miss Brownlie. Presently she returned alone, 
 flushed with pleasure. The fortune-teller, she an- 
 nounced, had told her things about her past that 
 nobody could possibly have known. After such a 
 testimonial we had to form a queue. 
 
 I don't think one single woman on board that evening 
 missed the chance of getting to know something definite 
 about what fate had in store for her. Both stewardesses 
 lined up and, judging from their faces when they came 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 7 
 
 back, were awarded dukes at least. After a while some 
 of the men-passengers in a state of ostentatious amuse- 
 ment took their places at the end of the queue. Avery 
 was among them. He was the last to return from the 
 saloon. He rejoined his friends and they sat in a corner 
 talking. 
 
 Business now being at an end I went down and fetched 
 Mesner. His pockets were bulging with half-crowns. 
 We stood at the doorway talking. Success had added 
 dignity to his appearance. He looked more of a fortune- 
 teller if possible than ever. People hovered near us 
 trpng to catch a word. I noticed Avery and two of his 
 friends approach and, nodding distantly, drew aside to 
 let them pass. 
 
 " Look here," said Avery in a loud voice. " This is 
 a swindle. We want our half-crowns back." 
 
 " It can't be done," said I. 
 
 " Certainly not," said Miss Brownlie. 
 
 " Do you know," Avery cried, working himself up 
 into a rage, " that this rogue has told five of us to be- 
 ware of a dark tall thin man with black eyes ! " 
 
 " Well, what of it ? " said Miss Brownlie. 
 
 " Five of us ! " shouted Avery's bosom friend. 
 
 " Mr. Lavington," pointed out Miss Brownlie, glower- 
 ing, " is a taU thin man with black eyes." 
 
 They pondered it. 
 
 " D'you mean to Say ? " stuttered Avery.' 
 
 " Of course I do ! " giggled Miss Brownlie. 
 
 " Monsieur Mesner," said I, "is anxious to return the 
 money of those who are not satisfied : in fact he is eager 
 to do so " 
 
 " I shall insist on handing back the money of these 
 gentlemen," cried Mesner. " I have given of my best. 
 I have provided for aU good entertainment and, perhaps, 
 something further. Here is the money." 
 
 He held out a fistful of half-crowns with a gesture. 
 
 " You mustn't give it back," cried Miss Brownlie 
 quickly, putting a hand on his arm. " For the honour 
 of your profession-^ — " 
 
8 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " For the honour of his profession ! " exclaimed Avery 
 with exaggerated merriment. 
 
 " But perhaps the gentleman needs the money," 
 pointed out Mesner. 
 
 " It isn't that," said the tenor hastily. " It's the 
 fraud of the thing I object to. It's too palpable. Do 
 you know that he told me that I had the heart of a tiger. 
 Meaning to say," he added, looking angrily at Miss 
 Brownlie, who was beginning to giggle again, " that I 
 was a brave man." 
 
 " So you are, to ask for your money back," said Miss 
 Brownlie. 
 
 " But he told the other five of us that we had hearts 
 like tigers," objected the tenor. 
 
 " So you have — all of you ! " shrieked Miss Brownlie 
 between her giggles. " Haven't they ? " she demanded 
 of the other ladies. Sympathetic laughter coming from 
 all quarters proved that they thought as she did. 
 
 " I think, Mr. Avery," I said gravely, " from what 
 you have told us that you have got off cheaply for half- 
 a-crown. However, since you make such a point of it, 
 I shall permit Monsieur Mesner to return you your 
 money. . . . Here it is." 
 
 I fished out one of my few remaining coins from my 
 pocket and dropped it into his palm. 
 
 He looked at it. 
 
 " But— but " he began. He wanted to say that 
 
 it was only a two-shilling piece and not half-a-crown, but 
 fear that he should be thought mean by the company 
 restrained him. 
 
 Taking advantage of his paralysed silence I withdrew 
 our fortune-teller with his fortune still intact. 
 
 " It is a veritable triumph," I remarked in French as 
 we walked along the moonlit deck. 
 
 " These passengers, they think that I really tell 
 their fortunes," said Mesner in a surprised undertone. 
 " People who know about palmistry only half-think 
 that. The other half constitutes in their opinion an 
 entertainment." 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 9 
 
 "It is a triumph veritable," I remarked once 
 more. 
 
 " Nevertheless," said Mesner, " I am still prepared to 
 return the money, or at least, a portion of it." 
 
 " No," I said with emphasis. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " As you wish, monsieur," said he. 
 
 We halted at the gangway. I held out my hand. 
 
 " We may not meet again," said I. " This being so, 
 you won't perhaps think it impertinent of me to offer 
 you a piece of advice, or rather a recipe for success given 
 me by an uncle of mine, a solicitor at Singapore, who 
 has been quite successful in his way." 
 
 My fortune-teller spread his hands expressively. 
 
 " Look at me," he said with mock seriousness. " I 
 need such a recipe, monsieur." 
 
 " My uncle puts down his success in life to the fact 
 that he has made it a rule never to return any money 
 to any one whatever." 
 
 " An excellent rule," Mesner cried. " But what if 
 one never has inoney to return ? And now a thousand 
 thanks for what you have done this evening for a 
 stranger. I shall never forget it ! " he cried with sudden 
 emotion, wringing my hand. " Never ! Ah, you little 
 
 know " He broke off, looked at me with all his 
 
 eyes, then suddenly said in a changed voice : " Whom 
 have I to thank for all this kindness ? I do not know 
 your name, monsieur. Is it perhaps Lavington ? " 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " You have heard of the uncle I referred to just now, 
 I see," said I. 
 
 " Heard of him ! Tonnene de Dieu ! 1-^ — " 
 
 He dropped my hand, then caught and wrurtg it 
 again. 
 
 " No, no ! It is not your fault. You are no enemy ! 
 You have been my friend ! " And then, as I stared at 
 him in surprise at this sudden outburst, he said in a 
 hard, deep voice, " Ask your uncle what he has done 
 with Mesner's wife." 
 
10 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 He pushed away my hand, and ran down the accom- 
 modation ladder. From the darkness of the water came 
 the creak of sculls as his sampan made for the 
 shore. 
 
A 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 VERY was in the Straits Civil Service, and had 
 
 a sister married to a Commandant. Facts like 
 
 these mean nothing at home where owing to a 
 
 scarcity of elephants Colonial governors themselves 
 
 have to travel by bus. But they count for something 
 
 out East. 
 
 A large white launch came alongside for him at 
 Singapore and Hindoo understrappers clad in red were 
 to be seen on deck handling his luggage with as much 
 reverence as if it belonged to Budcfiia. As for me, 
 a couple of greasy Chinamen in dungaree tumbled my 
 small luggage into a sampan and rowed me ashore. 
 
 This little trip by sampan was unexpected. An 
 accident had prevented the mail-boat from going straight 
 alongside at Tanjong Pagar wharf as usual. The 
 misfortune was to my benefit. I got a preliminary 
 view of the town where I expected to pass the greater 
 part of my life. Heavy afternoon sunshine had turned 
 it into a city of gold. The high, light-coloured buildings 
 that run in terraces for a mile along the granite water 
 front stood exhibiting themselves like so many peacocks. 
 Above, out of vivid greenery rose the scarred hill of 
 Fort Canning, tile-red against the azure sky. White 
 bungalows, the minarets of mosques, the cathedral 
 spire showed above a thick web of casuarinas. 
 
 Soon in a gharry behind a little fiery pony, I was 
 rattling through airless, sunlit streets, past the gay 
 
 11 
 
12 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 shop windows and the high white flaring buildings that 
 I remembered so well. 
 
 The town had changed in detail during the years 
 of my absence, but the general effect of its architecture 
 had not altered. The charm was still there. I expected 
 to find my uncle much the same also. 
 
 My uncle was a man of mystery. His enemies said 
 of him that he ran the shadiest solicitor's business 
 in Singapore, but knowing the place as I do, I should 
 say they exaggerated. The clients of the other im- 
 portant firms were Europeans or at least solid Chinese. 
 But Lavington and Son specialized in Arabs, Klings, 
 Turks, Malays. When a child I often encountered 
 some of these clients of evenings creeping stealthily 
 up the drive to interview my uncle at the bungalow. 
 Many of them were such undesirable looking fellows 
 that I used to run away and hide. I was more par- 
 ticular in those days. And there were women too, 
 fat and thin, veUed and otherwise, with smooth hair, 
 sloe-black eyes and henna-dyed finger-nails. The 
 perfumes they used and the smoke of their cigarettes 
 made the air of the bungalow hectic after one of their 
 visits. My aunt hated all the clients, I heard. She 
 never got used to the shady nature of my uncle's busi- 
 ness, and she never, I believe, got used to Singapore. 
 She died when her daughter Kate was born and I was 
 two years old, having omitted to fulfil her duty and 
 provide my uncle with a son. My uncle had no legal 
 redress. 
 
 Kate and I were brought up together in the big 
 bungalow. We ran wild among the native servants. 
 Malay was the first language we learned. Even now 
 I catch myself thinking in it. I believe I have lost 
 some of my vocabulary, but my childhood away from 
 English surroundings gave a twist to my mentality 
 which a public school even, I believe, has failed to 
 straighten. 
 
 Wliat Kate would be like now, that was the question 
 in my mind as the gharry jerked round into the narrow 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 13 
 
 lane between high bamboo hedges that led to the bunga- 
 low. Kate — Carrots ! — with her freckles and her 
 enormous plait of red hair that we used to cut off 
 occasionally in the hot weather ! 
 
 The gharry pulled up with a jerk. The Javanese 
 driver hopped off his box and over the umber-coloured 
 road like some tropical grasshopper, and swung open 
 the long white gate. 
 
 There was a rush of footsteps coming down the drive. 
 
 " Harry 1 " 
 
 There she was in a white drill frock, hatless in spite 
 of the afternoon sun, her red hair glinting like a helmet. 
 
 " Hallo, Kate ! " 
 
 We rushed at each other. We kissed. We kissed 
 again. It was after ten years. 
 
 " Bawa barang sampei rumah," I said to the gharry 
 driver who, standing at his pony's head, had been a 
 horrified spectator of the scene. What a tale he would 
 have to teU concerning the loose kissings of the white 
 people to his harem of one in the Kampong Glam. 
 
 " Tuan," said he, saluting sourly. 
 
 We two stood looking at each other while he led his 
 pony out of sight up the drive. 
 
 " Don't teU me I haven't altered a bit," Kate said 
 with a delighted smile. 
 
 She had. She used to grin, not smile. 
 
 " Where are the freckles ? " I asked. 
 
 " Gone," she said, taking my arm and leading me 
 up the drive in her usual masterful way. " Wrinkles 
 are what I'm afraid of." 
 
 " Nonsense," I told her. " How's Uncle ? " 
 
 We rounded the bend of the drive. The big white 
 double storey bungalow standing in a flood of sunshine 
 came into view. Its latticed veranda, green lawns, 
 traveller palms, looked as they did the day I left them. 
 
 " It's great to see it all again ! " I cried enthusiastic- 
 ally. 
 
 Yet my enthusiasm was tempered. Though I did 
 not feel any particular yearning for my uncle, still, 
 
14 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 he was a relative. When we turned the corner and 
 the porch came into view, I had half expected to see 
 him standing there, on his threshold, arms held out to 
 welcome me after my long absence. It would have 
 been a finishing touch to a pretty picture. 
 
 " Shall we have tea first ? " asked Kate as we arrived 
 opposite the entrance. "Or do you want to begin 
 sight -seeing at once ? " 
 
 I hesitated. 
 
 " Say tea ! " Kate advised. " For I know the ' boy ' 
 has it ready. Chinese servants aren't as good as they 
 used to be. They try to run us nowadays." 
 
 " Tea, then," said I. 
 
 " And the worst of it is we don't mind being run," 
 she went on. " We are a degenerate lot. Come 
 along then, tea's in the same place as ever." 
 
 We went round the side of the bungalow. 
 
 " Nothing's altered you see," said she. 
 
 " It looks just as it did." 
 
 " Even the shadows," she pointed out ironically, 
 " are the same length as before." 
 
 They were. They nearly covered the lawn. 
 
 " And what about Uncle ? " I asked again as we 
 sat down at the tea table. It was laid on the lawn 
 under a mimosa. 
 
 Kate hesitated, I noticed. But for an instant 
 only. 
 
 " His shadow also doesn't grow less," she replied. 
 
 " Meaning to say " 
 
 " He's as well as ever. If anything rather stouter." 
 
 " StiU as hard at work as ever ? " 
 
 " Yes," said. Kate briefly. " Try some of this cake." 
 
 She began to cut it and so necessarily avoided looking 
 straight at me. Kate's large, courageous blue eyes 
 are her strong point. 
 
 " He's a wonderful man," said I, tentatively. 
 
 " I can recommend it," said Kate holding out the 
 cake. " It's not home-made." 
 
 A whimsical smile played about her lips for an instant. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 15 
 
 " I've had the tennis court marked out," she told 
 me. " You've played a lot at Oxford ? " 
 
 I had. My letters, I suppose, had been full of it. 
 
 " I play a Uttle too," said Kate. 
 
 " I suppose you belong to a club ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " We're just as quiet as ever, as far as that goes," 
 she explained. " But you mustn't faU into our silly 
 ways." 
 
 We spent the interval between tea and dinner in 
 going over the property. The horses had been put 
 down and the stables converted into a garage. The 
 gardens looked as well cared for as ever, and were 
 naturally more mature. So was Ah Bee, the cook. 
 His yeUow face, his expansive grih, were both of them 
 a bit more wrinkled, his pigtail had been cut off in 
 accordance with the decree from China, and his once 
 milk white teeth were discoloured and filled with gold. 
 But it was the same Ah Bee, and judging from various 
 little signs he had not forgotten me. 
 
 " He has learnt a new way of doing banana fritters 
 since you left," Kate told me as we strolled round the 
 veranda. " Now he has lost his pigtail he is all for 
 progress. You know this room ? " 
 
 It was my uncle's study, built apart from the rest 
 of the bungcilow, with an inner and an outer door. A 
 large room, a room which had heard many secrets, 
 some of them shameful no doubt. A room which 
 always struck me as hiding something, with a bare 
 table and a towering safe painted brilliant green. I 
 don't think I had ever seen a paper of any kind lying 
 on that table. 
 
 Kate and I had dinner together on the veranda, 
 for the evening was very hot. A place was laid for 
 my uncle, but rather to my surprise and to Kate's 
 evident consternation, he did not come home. 
 
 She went to the telephone, rang up the office, but 
 could get no reply. Evidently the office was closed. 
 I suggested that we should keep back dinner, but she 
 
i6 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 would not hear of it. Later in the evening she became 
 confidential. Her father it seemed had grown more 
 secretive than ever. He was frequently away for 
 days at a time, never let her know his movements, and 
 if she attempted to question him evaded her pointedly. 
 His business seemed to lie more and more among the 
 natives. 
 
 " So you see what you are in for, Harry," she ended 
 with a rueful smile. 
 
 I said and with truth that whilst I was concerned 
 for her, for myself I did not mind. And in fact my 
 point of view then was that the more mysterious and 
 adventurous this solicitor's practice the better I should 
 like it. Something in my blood drew me towards 
 these dark, strange people of Malaya, away from my 
 less interesting fellow-countrymen. 
 
 Kate, thoughtful always, had hung on the bedroom 
 wall photographs of my poor father and mother. They 
 were in front of my eyes as I lay under my mosquito 
 net before switching off the light. But it was not of 
 them that my dreams were. It was of a yellow moon 
 shining on a broad still river fringed with palms, and 
 of lotus eaters vaguely robed who dwelt in their shadow. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 NO wonder my dreams were of a yellow moon, 
 for when I awoke in the middle of the night 
 a yellow moon the size of a soup-plate occupied 
 a goodly portion of the window facing me. Its light 
 flooded the room, and transformed my mosquito net 
 into a silver meat safe. 
 
 I sat up in bed wide awake and looked at my watch. 
 Two a.m. ! At that moment I heard the faint sound of 
 a car coming slowly up the drive outside. 
 
 Without hesitation I untucked my mosquito net, 
 hopped out of bed, tiptoed over the polished floor to 
 the window, drew aside some sprays of bougainvillia 
 and looked out. 
 
 The car, a big one, had stopped opposite the porch. 
 In the brilliant moonlight its lamps burned dim. The 
 Malay chauffeur sat grasping the wheel. Next moment 
 the closed door in the covered-in body swung open 
 and a man stepped out. Even in the vague moonlight 
 I couldn't have mistaken that thin stiff figure. My 
 uncle was hatless and wore an old-fashioned, high- 
 necked white driU smt such as he had affected ten 
 years before. He looked to me rather bent, and his 
 air as he took the handle of the door and held the 
 door wide open seemed strangely obsequious. He 
 carried his solar topee in his other hand. 
 
 Another person stepped from the car, a tall Malay, 
 stoutly built, and with a hard Red-Indian profile, 
 who held his head high as he walked across to the steps 
 2 17 
 
i8 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 of the bungalow. He wore a sarong folded across his 
 white drill suit and a turbash on his head. 
 
 I saw the Malay syce, the driver, turn suddenly and 
 give the salute these folk reserve for those of royal 
 blood. Another instant and my uncle and his guest 
 had disappeared into the bungalow and the big car was 
 gliding noiselessly away. 
 
 All this happened so quickly and silently that the 
 drive was empty again before I had made up my mind 
 whether to give my uncle a hail or not. The garden 
 and drive lay deserted in the moonlight. There might 
 never have been a car there. And so deathly still 
 was the bungalow even now that had I not known to 
 the contrary I would have refused to believe that there 
 were at least two persons astir somewhere beneath me. 
 A huge bat came whispering by the window and settled 
 in the mangosteen trees beside the traveller palms. 
 The branches shook. But not a sound came. In spite 
 of the heat I shivered ; and drawing to the shutters I 
 crept back to bed. 
 
 It goes without saying that after such a night I was 
 late for breakfast next morning. 
 
 Kate knocked at my door when passing, or I should 
 have been later. Two bananas and a cup of cold tea 
 by my bedside showed that the Chinese " boy " had 
 called with my early tea and departed in despair. 
 Probably he didn't know whether it was dangerous to 
 waken me or not. 
 
 In a clean white suit, with a shining, morning face, I 
 dashed into the dining-room. 
 
 " Ah, it's Harry," said my uncle from the bottom of 
 the table. " The coo's tail, as usual ! " 
 
 A queer greeting after ten years, but my uncle's 
 manners were not Hke other people's. Had he merely 
 nodded on my entrance it wouldn't have surprised 
 me. 
 
 He held out his bony hand as he sat at the table. 
 
 " Your cousin's grown, Kate," said he, with a smile 
 on his thin hps. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 19 
 
 " Yes ! Hasn't he 1 " exclaimed Kate. 
 
 " That's one of the few things the law can't prevent 
 me from doing," I said easily as I took my seat at the 
 table. 
 
 "The law could stunt your growth if it wanted," 
 said he. 
 
 " I intend to keep out of its clutches," I said, unfold- 
 ing my napkin. 
 
 " And get other people into them," he chuckled. 
 
 Outwardly my uncle looked much the same as ever. 
 His thatch of hair was quite white, his frosty blue eyes 
 smaller and if possible more wicked, the veins about 
 his high cheekbones and his tomahawk of a nose 
 had gone entirely purple. These were the main differ- 
 ences ten years had made in him. 
 
 I helped myself to iced papaw. 
 
 " Did you have a good night ? " Kate asked. 
 
 " Very," I returned. " But I woke up in the middle 
 of it," I added, pensively smrveying the wall opposite. 
 
 My uncle gave me a keen look and returned to his 
 eggs and bacon with an air of great busyness. Whoever 
 the distinguished visitor of the previous night may have 
 been he was evidently not to be brought into the con- 
 versation at that moment. 
 
 " You must have made a night of it, Uncle," I went 
 on. " Are you usually so late ? " 
 
 He frowned. 
 
 " My goings and comings concern no one," he retorted. 
 
 " I thought I heard a motor car during the small 
 hours," I returned perseveringly. " Probably the 
 milkman." 
 
 " Probably it was," said he, glaring at me. He 
 pushed back his chair and rose. " Well, I'm not so 
 fortunately placed as you leisurely people," he remarked, 
 " I have my work to attend to. I must be off." 
 
 " So early ? " I queried. 
 
 " It's not early for father," remarked Kate, looking 
 at her bracelet watch. 
 
 " We don't keep Oxford hours here," sneered my 
 
20 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 uncle. "iNo doubt one of these days," he added to me, 
 " we shall have the pleasure of seeing you down at the 
 office." 
 
 " I haven't come out to Singapore for my health," 
 said I quickly. 
 
 He favoured me with a cynical grin. 
 
 " I'm quite aware of that," he returned. " You 
 have come, no doubt, to do what you can for the benefit 
 of mankind. And my office is one of the best places 
 in Singapore to enable you to carry out your intentions ! 
 Although," he added, " Kate doesn't think so." 
 
 " I've said nothing," said Kate in a low voice, growing 
 red. 
 
 " No, but you think a deal," my uncle cried harshly. 
 " I don't care for your attitude of silent disapproval." 
 He made a step towards her and half-raised his hand. 
 Then turned to me. "It is the finest business in 
 Singapore ! " he remarked with conviction. 
 
 " I'm very glad to hear it," I returned as amiably as 
 I could. 
 
 " There's not another solicitor in Malaya that stands 
 to make as much this year as I do in the present month," 
 he bragged. " They'd give their eyes to get my con- 
 nection. They can't. No, by God, they can't ! So 
 they run me down and try to ruin me ! " 
 
 " I'm very anxious to make the acquaintance of the 
 business," I said soothingly. Never before had I 
 seen my uncle in such an excited mood. A cold man 
 with a bitter tongue, his self-control had been always 
 remarkable. Evidently age had effected a change in 
 him. 
 
 " If it's quite convenient to you," I went on, " I 
 should like to start in at the office to-day." 
 
 " Oh," said Kate in a disappointed voice. " So 
 soon ? " 
 
 My uncle glanced at her, looking pleased. 
 
 " Just as you wish," he said. " Get your topee. 
 You can come down with me in the car." 
 
 That journey in the big limousine beside my uncle 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 2I 
 
 through the rapidly growing heat of the day was the 
 first of many. As the first, it is naturally the one I 
 best remember. My uncle was in a njood of expansion 
 that morning as rare with him as blooms on an aloe. 
 As we rolled over the red laterite roads between bamboo 
 hedges, through palm groves and into the city he 
 expatiated on the rare benefit he was bestowing on me 
 to allow me to enter such a wonderful business as his. 
 He advised me not to take any notice of what Kate 
 thought about the business, as she was prejudiced ; 
 said that I was to keep my eyes open and exercise my 
 own judgment, but that I was also to keep my eyes 
 shut to a good deal that went on in the office, as the 
 business was a peculiar one and took time to under- 
 stand. 
 
 " But," ended my imcle, " though it may have its 
 peculiarities, there's money in it." 
 
 The car drew up at the office entrance. He led the 
 way up some narrow stone stairs to the first floor. 
 The ground floor was half godown, half shop in the 
 occupancy of an Arab piece-goods dealer. My uncle 
 rented the other two stories. 
 
 A red-clad Tamil messenger sitting in a sort of 
 sentry-box at the entrance to the office got up and saluted 
 as we walked in. Two or three doors opened off a 
 bare passage, painted stone yellow. My uncle opened 
 one of these, revealing a small dirty room littered 
 with papers, and two Chinese clerks bending over 
 ledgers. 
 
 " Send Mr. Gubb to my room at once," he called out 
 and banged to the door again. 
 
 My uncle's room lay at the end of the passage. It 
 was a large room, furnished much more luxuriously 
 than the one occupied by the Chinese clerks. A worn 
 bamboo mat covered the entire floor. There were 
 horse-hair covered chairs from which the stuffing pro- 
 truded, a sofa to match, a couple of large safes, the 
 usual array of white-lettered, japanned deed boxes 
 and a long desk with side drawers. 
 
33 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 Dust was everywhere. A thick layer on the pole 
 gave evidence that the punkah hung above the desk 
 had not been in use for some time. I walked over to 
 the open window and looked out. A deserted alley 
 lay below. Opposite was the high blank wall of the 
 next building. 
 
 " We are not overlooked here you wiU observe," 
 pointed out my uncle when I withdrew my head. 
 
 He sat down at the table and surreptitiously examined 
 the envelopes of the three or four letters that lay on the 
 blotting-pad. The top one I noticed had a superscrip- 
 tion in Arabic. 
 
 " You've a law degree, I believe ? " my uncle asked, 
 and on my reply hastened to add that he did not sup- 
 pose it would be of much use to me. " Gaudeamus 
 Gubb will teach you what he can," he added. " He is 
 my chief clerk." He began to draw a design on the 
 blotting-pad with the butt of a wooden penholder. 
 " I do not keep a managing clerk," he went on to 
 explain. " For a managing clerk to be of any use he 
 has to know something about the business and that 
 would not do here. Gubb will teach you aU about 
 our office routine. For anything further you will 
 have to come to me." 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " You will not have time to go home for tiffin," went 
 on my uncle, still busy with his design. " There is a 
 good dining-room in Raffles Square. Gubb will show 
 you it. He knows all about that sort of thing. Here 
 he comes." 
 
 A quick footstep sounded outside. There came a 
 business-hke knock on the door. Before my uncle's 
 harsh " Come m " could have penetrated the glass 
 panel, the door was flung open and an ebony-coloured 
 gentleman in a fashionably cut black and white striped 
 tweed suit revealed himself. The gentleman grinned, 
 said " Good morning " affably to my uncle, bestowed 
 a doubtful bow on me, a bow that seemed to indicate 
 a willingness to be agreeable in spite of the fact that 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 23 
 
 we had not yet been introduced, and advanced to the 
 table. 
 
 " You're late again, Gubb," said my uncle harshly. 
 
 " But not too late to be of service, sir, I hope," urged 
 the gentleman in the striped suit persuasively. .^ _ 
 
 " I say you're late," snapped my uncle, frowning. "^ 
 
 " I should be the last gentleman to dispute your 
 assertion, sir," said Mr. Gubb, waving a ring-covered 
 hand deprecatingly. " Still we know the old pro- 
 verb, ' It is better to be late than to be never.'" 
 
 " Don't let it occur again," buUied my uncle. 
 
 " I will take a note of what you say, sir," replied the 
 chief clerk. " Is there anything else I can do, sir ? " he 
 inquired effusively. 
 
 " This is my nephew, Mr. Lavington," said my uncle 
 in harsh tones. 
 
 " Ah, indeed, sir," said Gubb, rolling his eyes over me.' ' 
 " A worthy son of a worthy uncle, permit me to hope." 
 
 " He will be here daily and will learn the business," 
 barked my uncle. " See that he gets every attention." 
 
 " That can be easily arranged, sir," said Gubb 
 pleasantly. 
 
 " I don't need to be told that," rasped my uncle. 
 
 " Very good, sir," said Gubb in a non-committal 
 tone. 
 
 " Take Mr. Lavington into your room," directed my 
 uncle, " and give him something to do at once. Or 
 
 stay Perhaps he had better have that empty room 
 
 opening out of yours." 
 
 The chief clerk bowed. 
 
 " Why not ? " he observed. 
 
 " Why not ? " rapped my uncle. " Don't you say 
 ■ why not ' to me. You're to give Mr. Lavington every 
 assistance, every information. You're to be at his 
 beck and call." 
 
 " What, at both of them ? " asked the chief clerk, 
 lifting his eyebrows. " Very well, sir, then, if you say 
 so, then, all I can remark is, very good, sir." 
 
 " You are to reveal to him all the seerets of the 
 
24 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 business," continued my uncle, a mocking smile playing 
 about his lips. 
 
 " It shall be done," said Gubb. " Where would you 
 wish me begin, Mr. Lavington ? " 
 
 My uncle reflected. 
 
 " Start him on a little engrossing," he decided. 
 
 The chief clerk bowed again once more, then nodded 
 understandingly. He retreated to the door, opened it, 
 fixed his eye on me and, raising again his be-ringed hand, 
 beckoned mysteriously. 
 
 I rose submissively and followed him from the room. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOW dull that office would have been without the 
 all-pervading figure of Mr. Gaudeamus Gubb doesn't 
 bear thinking of. From the moment when he 
 drew me into his private room and through into the 
 next, selected with dash and decision a paper or two 
 and set me on a high stool with the words, " Let us 
 commence our engrossing task, mister," he never ceased 
 for an instant his efforts, unintentional principally, 
 at making life pass lightly. 
 
 I took to him from the first, as did most other people. 
 Even my uncle, strict man of business though he was, 
 had at that time, it seemed to me, a weakness for the 
 gallant Gaudeamus. Or perhaps he found him so 
 splendidly stupid that he was determined not to part 
 with him. Something which occurred that very morn- 
 ing gave me an insight into what their relations were. 
 It was nearly tiffin time, an event for which Mr. Gubb 
 had been preparing for some fifteen minutes. Through 
 the open door which separated his small office from the 
 tiny apartment allotted to me, I, at my engrossing, 
 could see him before a good-sized looking-glass that hung 
 on the plaster wall, now parting and re-parting his well- 
 oiled hair, now examining the condition of a small 
 pimple on his broad, flat nose, now grinning at himself 
 in order apparently to see if he looked better with his 
 teeth showing or without. 
 
 He had undone his red butterfly tie and was engaged 
 in knotting it again when the door opened quietly and 
 my uncle came in. 
 
 25 
 
26 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " I did not know this office was used as a dfessing- 
 room," said my uncle acidly, stopping in the door- 
 way. 
 
 The thick dark fingers busy on the necktie finished 
 their task at lightning speed, legal papers dropping from 
 a pile as if by magic covered the comb and brush. 
 
 " We use it generally more as an ad-dressing room, 
 sir," returned Gaudeamus oilily, facing about and waving 
 a deprecating hand. " For envelopes, Mr. Lavington. 
 But of course in other directions we make the most of 
 the space at our disposal, sir." 
 
 " A man of your age," said my uncle rudely, " ought 
 to be at his work instead of wasting his time in front 
 of a looking-glass." 
 
 " But, my dear Mr. Lavington " began Gubb. 
 
 " I'm not your dear Mr. Lavington," said my uncle 
 harshly, pushing by him into my office. 
 
 " My worthy employer, I should say," amended Gubb, 
 walking after him. " Let us be fair ! If I were to 
 appear in the street neglectful of my appearance, what 
 would be results on credit of this firm of Lavington and 
 Son ? It would go down, sir. It would go down wallop. 
 People knowing whom I am would stare at me and 
 whisper that Lavington and Son was growing bank- 
 rupt, sir. I want to redound to credit of firm, sir, that 
 is my ambition. And thus, sir, at certain seasons you 
 find me before the looking-glass, a glass which I may 
 mention while passing was purchased entirely with my 
 own savings, and has not cost the firm one miserable 
 cent, sir." 
 
 My uncle turned his back. 
 
 " You've made a beginning, I see," he said to me. 
 He bent over the desk and examined my work. " You're 
 not likely to make a name as a caligraphist," he 
 commented. 
 
 " He will improve, Mr. Lavington," said the perse- 
 vering Mr. Gubb from the background. " Industry 
 and determination will do wonders for him in this per- 
 spiring life — as I may say they have done for me, and 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 27 
 
 I have no doubt, between ourselves, have done for you, 
 my dear Mr. Lavington." 
 
 " Will you kindly keep quiet ? " snapped my uncle 
 over his shoulder. 
 
 " Certainly," said Gubb. " Sorry my noise disturbed 
 you, sir." 
 
 " This is quite a new line for me," I said apologetically: 
 
 " They don't teach you anything so useful as writing 
 at Oxford," my uncle sneered. 
 
 Considering he sent me there it was strange he was 
 so ready to sneer at Oxford. 
 
 " It's not a bad place," I said, defending it. 
 
 " It is the second largest regret of my life, sir," came 
 from behind in support of my remark, " that I have 
 never been to Oxford or to Cambridge University. 
 The first largest is that I have not been to both. Had 
 I been to both nothing could have held me back from 
 highest positions in Malay Peninsula, sir, whereas when 
 society in general at Singapore becomes aware that one 
 is merely an attempted matriculate of the University 
 at Hong Kong it looks at one with the eye of askance, 
 sir, and caustically comments on the event by saying 
 nothing most severely." 
 
 My uncle turned. 
 
 " I know what I'll do with you," he said spitefully. 
 " I'll check your petty cash." 
 
 The chief clerk eyed him in astonishment. 
 
 " But my dear Mr. Lavington," he expostulated, 
 "let me point out that this is not first day of the 
 month." 
 
 " I'm perfectly aware of that fact," my uncle snapped. 
 
 The fat countenance of Gubb paled. The black 
 pigment began to run into hiding so to speak. 
 
 " Such an tmforeseen-by-the-chief-clerk proceeding as 
 checking our petty cash at this moment," he pointed 
 out anxiously, " may throw entire office off its balance, 
 Mr. Lavington." 
 
 " Be quick now," said my uncle. " Where's the 
 petty cash-book ? " 
 
28 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " But, sir," expostulated Gubb, slowly opening a 
 drawer and producing it. " Permit me to offer up my 
 protests. This work of checking is done on the first 
 of every month. You now suddenly initiate the per- 
 formance of it on any old day, such as to-day. Yet 
 you hold me responsible for smooth running of office. 
 My position grows untenanted." 
 
 "There should be," observed my uncle, rtmning an 
 eye along the entries, " a balance in the cash-box of 
 exactly ten dollars, twenty-six cents. What do you 
 make it ? " 
 
 He handed me the book. I added up the few figures 
 and nodded. 
 
 " Open your cash-box, Gubb," directed my uncle. 
 
 Gaudeamus felt reluctantly in his pocket. 
 
 " Now that we know sum total, sir," he suggested 
 anxiously, " we might [reserve final counting until later. 
 The day is young, sir." 
 
 " But I am not," retorted my uncle in a grim voice. 
 " Now then, produce your cash-box and open it without 
 any more nonsense." 
 
 There being no further help for it Mr. Gubb yielded 
 at once. He drew from his pocket a large bunch of 
 keys attached to the end of a brass key chain, walked 
 briskly over to a cupboard and came back with a small 
 battered cash-box which might in its spring-time have 
 been worth say three-and-six. He held the bunch up 
 to the light, selected a key, unlocked the box and threw 
 back the lid. 
 
 " You will fin' all correct, Mr. Lavington, to minutest 
 fraction of a cent, sir," he observed proudly. 
 
 My uncle drew out the stamps and cents, counted 
 them and gave a nod. 
 
 " And the ten dollars ? " he asked in a thin voice. 
 
 " This is it, Mr. Lavington," replied Gubb. He drew 
 from the cash-box a small piece of white paper on which 
 the word " ten " was printed in pencil and held it 
 out. My uncle, his hands behind his back, bent and 
 inspected it. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 29 
 
 " What is this ? " he demanded after a short silence. 
 
 " Dead cash," said Gaudeamus with emphasis. 
 
 " I have never heard of such a thing," said my uncle 
 acidly. " Have you, Harry ? " 
 
 " It is a well-loiown term in accounting circles," ex- 
 plained Gubb glibly, with an imeasy glance at me. 
 " It is a something in the nature of a recurring asset, 
 sir. Had you come on first of next month you would, 
 I assure you, Mr. Lavington, have found ten live doUars, 
 sir, disporting themselves at the bottom of this cash- 
 box. But at out-of-the-way moment like this to expect 
 to find them would be quite unreasonable, as experience 
 tells all us business men." ' 
 
 "Where are they ? " demanded my uncle harshly. 
 
 " If, as might easily happen, Mr. Lavington," went 
 on Gubb, his appearance every moment becoming more 
 uneasy, " burglars should penetrate this ofiice and force 
 open our cash-box with their jemmies they would be 
 very much disappointed, ha, ha ! They would find our 
 ten doUars elsewhere, Mr. Lavington. So in this way, 
 unknown to you, are interests of Lavington and Son 
 quietly safeguarded by their chief clerk. A pleasant 
 surprise for all,- sir, is it not ? " 
 
 " Harry," said my uncle sternly, " go to my room 
 at once and telephone the police. Tell them to send a 
 man down — ^with handcuffs." 
 
 " But, my dear Mr. Lavington," wailed Gubb, tr5dng to 
 turn pale but failing miserably. " Between gentlemen, 
 
 sir, surely Handcuffs ! Benjamin Jehoshaphat ! 
 
 This seems to me beside the mark entirely. Mister 
 Lavington. . . ." 
 
 Suddenly my uncle began to laugh harshly. He had 
 succeeded in his enterprise. He had "put the wind 
 up " Gubb. 
 
 " Very well," he said. " Put away your dead cash. 
 And mind this I If it is not alive on the first of the 
 month it will be the worse for you." 
 
 He turned and left the room without another word. 
 
 I didn't see him again that day, but in the afternoon 
 
30 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 one of the Chinese clerks came in with an envelope 
 which on opening I found to contain a cheque book, 
 and a small sum in cash, together with a letter from a 
 local bank stating that at my uncle's request an account 
 with them had been opened in my name and would I 
 call. I did, and drove home afterwards in a ricksha. 
 
 Kate was in. We had tea on the lawn and afterwards 
 tried the new tennis court. Again dinner was kept 
 waiting for my uncle and again he did not appear. 
 
 We had coffee on the lawn after dinner, and there 
 for a whUe we strolled up and down, mostly in silence. 
 The sky was ablaze that evening. The soft warm air 
 had not a ripple in it. Suddenly in the stillness a 
 gramophone began to play. It was a desecration. 
 
 " What a song to play on a night like this ! " I 
 remarked indignantly. 
 
 " It sounds quite decent," said Kate. 
 
 "As a matter of fact it's quite indecent. If you 
 knew the words ! " 
 
 " I don't," she said. 
 
 A god coming from the machine supplied her defi- 
 ciency. A tenor voice picked up the melody in the 
 middle of a verse and gave forth the words with 
 remarkable distinctness. 
 
 I took hold of Kate's arm and led her away with 
 some determination. 
 
 "They do sound fairly poisonous," she admitted, 
 disgusted. 
 
 " Absolute bilge," said I. 
 
 After a while the song ceased. A round of uproarious 
 applause followed. 
 
 " The bungalow next door," explained Kate, " has 
 been empty for some time. A bachelor mess have 
 taken it. I heard they moved in to-day." 
 
 " They seem to be celebrating the event," I remarked. 
 
 " Don't you wish you were with them ? " she asked. 
 
 " Not for an instant," I exclaimed indignantly. 
 " Indeed, I'd pay good money to stay away. I happen 
 to know the singer. He was on board the mail boat. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 31 
 
 I never knew that bvingalow was so close before. You 
 can almost see on to its veranda from here." 
 
 We could also hear the voices of the people on it as 
 they talked and shouted for further drinks and the pop 
 and hiss of soda water being opened. The house warm- 
 ing at the bungalow was being done in thorough fashion. 
 Through the bamboo hedge came glimpses of figures 
 moving about. 
 
 " Another song, old bean ! " shouted some one. 
 " Come on, tune up ! " 
 
 " Not before some of you other fellows have done 
 your twra," cried my detested tenor. 
 
 "What, you won't ! You'll defy the company ? " 
 
 " I don't care two hoots for any of you," the high, 
 thin voice crowed. 
 
 " You little sawn-of£ chunk of impudence ! " roared 
 somebody. 
 
 There was a scuffle, a one-two-three, and a frightened 
 shout. A heavy body came over the bamboo hedge 
 and crashed into some alamanda bushes a few yards 
 from where we stood. Glimmering white in the star- 
 shine the body lay silent for ten seconds or so. Then 
 sounds came from it, sounds of one in mortal anger, 
 curses loud and shrill. 
 
 I rushed forward and dragged the gentleman into an 
 upright position. It was Avery. He expiressed, small 
 wonder, a desire for blood. 
 
 " Come in and have a — a brush down," I suggested. 
 " You know me. I'm Lavington." 
 
 My tenor stopped rubbing his knees and blinked at 
 me in the starshine. " Great Scott ! " he said stupidly. 
 " How does it come about that you're here ? " 
 
 " I live here," I explained. " I was walking about 
 the lawn just now, listening to your beautiful singing — 
 it brought back old times — when suddenly you dropped 
 in, or rather you were dropped in." 
 
 " They wanted me to sing again," he explained. He 
 was quite sober. His recent flight would have sobered 
 anyone. " We are having a celebration. I hate horse- 
 
32 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 play," he added confidentially as leaning heavily on my 
 arm he limped over the lawn. " This is my first ex- 
 perience of a bachelor mess, and I'm afraid there is a 
 tendency to horse-play amongst them." 
 
 " They seem a fairly merry crowd," I suggested. 
 
 " Topping," he agreed. " But an hotel would suit 
 me better, I think, than a bachelor mess. There's more 
 privacy. However, I shall give the place a trial." 
 
 Kate had fled the scene directly, I believe, she saw 
 the victim was unharmed. As I expected we found her 
 on the veranda. I stood aside and watched her come 
 towards us. In the soft lamplight she looked as pretty 
 as a peach. To a man just arrived from a bachelor 
 mess, a man moreover whose predilection for the so- 
 called softer sex was marked, she must have appeared 
 ravishing. 
 
 I saw the little mouth under the yellow moustache 
 droop open. 
 
 " This is Mr. Avery," said I. " He has just been 
 dropped in for a few minutes." 
 
 " I say, Lavington," burst out the visitor. " That's 
 too bad of you. Need I say, Mrs. Lavington " 
 
 " I'm Miss Lavington," said Kate, holding out her 
 hand. 
 
 The little man shook it tenderly. 
 
 " I needn't say. Miss Lavington," he continued 
 eagerly, " that I'm not the — I wouldn't dream of in- 
 truding so late. It's trespassing on your good nature. 
 I'm really too frightfully sorry. My arrival was — quite 
 due to an accident, quite." 
 
 " It's a pleasure to have you, I'm sure," said Kate 
 politely. 
 
 " It's too awfully good of you ! " warbled Avery. 
 
 He accepted the glass of brandy and soda I brought 
 him, took a large gulp and promptly sat down. 
 
 " I'd not the faintest idea, Lavington," he said effu- 
 sively, " that we were to be next-door neighbours. 
 Topping, isn't it ? We shall see quite a lot of each 
 other now we've met again." He beamed on my 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 33 
 
 cousin. " I shouldn't be too awfully in the way, 
 should I, if I came in one afternoon, Miss Lavington ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " I hope you'll come," Kate murmured. 
 
 " Especially now you know the way," said I. 
 
 The tone of neither of us was at all enthusiastic. 
 But he took us at our word and from that time onwards, 
 in spite of all I could do, our bungalow saw as much 
 as it wanted of Mr. Horace Avery. Kate didn't seem 
 to see eye to eye with me about him. But he always 
 got on well with women. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ON the previous evening my uncle had dined at 
 the bungalow. At ten o'clock I had seen him 
 enter his bedroom clad in the sarong and baju 
 he always wore at night. So when I came down to 
 breakfast the following morning, a shade late — as usual 
 I'm afraid — and saw his empty chair I couldn't help 
 tapping the back of it. 
 
 " I'm not the coo's tail to-day, you'll notice ! " I 
 remarked in triumph. 
 
 " Oh, yes you are," said Kate. " There's the note 
 father left. He went off at six. Read it ! You see 
 he promises to be back for dinner. I've never known 
 him promise such a thing before, but of course it's 
 not often we have any one for dinner. I wish he'd 
 always let me know his plans. Housekeeping would be 
 easier." 
 
 I nodded gloomily. Horace Avery was coming to 
 dinner that evening. It was understood that my uncle 
 had taken quite a fancy to Avery. 
 
 " Dinner's the usual time, I s'pose ? " 
 
 " At eight o'clock," replied Kate. " But you'll be 
 home before then ? " 
 
 I said that I ought to be, but that I could not pro- 
 mise. Something or other might turn up at the office, 
 I explained, and in my uncle's absence might make it 
 necessary for me to work overtime. 
 
 " I see," murmured Kate reverently. " I believe 
 every word you say." Then after a slight pause, 
 
 34 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 35 
 
 " But," said she with a crafty smile, " that doesn't tell 
 me where you are going this afternoon." 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 " Wdl, the fact is that I fixed up a week ago with 
 Gubb to take me round China town this evening. He 
 says that there are a lot of things worth seeing, and 
 that being well known in vicious circles he is the man 
 to show these things to m^." 
 
 " It ought to be interesting. But you must be home 
 in time for eight. What are you going to see ? " 
 
 " Opium dens. Gambling houses " 
 
 I saw her eyes glint with envy. 
 
 " Curio shops, Chinese dentists, doctors, magicians — ■ — 
 You're sure I shan't be needed before eight ? " 
 
 " Quite," said Kate. 
 
 " I expect Avery wiU turn up early," I said con- 
 solingly. " It would be like him. So you won't be 
 lonely." 
 
 " No," said Kate. " I shan't. But he will. That 
 is, if he comes before eight." 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 " You don't mean to say," said Kate, " that you'd 
 be mean enough to go round China town without taking 
 me?" 
 
 We got down to the office about five that afternoon, 
 I showed Kate into my uncle's room and went with 
 the news of her arrival to Gubb. 
 
 Gubb when I entered his room was attempting un- 
 successfully to part his rather frizzy hair in the middle, 
 There must have been an African branch to his genea- 
 logical tree. He nearly dropped his brush and comb 
 when he was told who intended to go with us, 
 
 " But, my dear Mr. Lavington," he began. " How 
 very unfortunate that I was not warned. Consider my 
 appearance 1 Glance over the shabbiness of my suit ! " 
 
 " You look splendid," I told him. " Besides, it wiU 
 soon be dark and then no one will know whether you 
 look nice or whether you don't." 
 
36 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " But I shall know, Mr. Lavington," returned Gau- 
 deamus gravely. He brushed his hair with violence, 
 put on his striped coat and buttoned it up. 
 
 " To think that when this important occasion arrives 
 I should be found unprepared, or to be precise, partly 
 unprepared I " he continued, producing a pair of sulphur- 
 coloured cotton gloves which I had never seen before, 
 and pulling them on distractedly. " But I have noticed, 
 Mr. Lavington, throughout my perspiring life, that the 
 unforeseen always pops up when unexpected. Why have 
 I not my best clothes on to do honour to this lady? 
 Simply dam interference of Fate, Mr. Lavington." 
 
 I went to my uncle's room and brought out Kate. 
 She shook hands with Gubb and said she hoped he was 
 well. He replied in some confusion that he wasn't, 
 but that since she so hoped, he would try to be. 
 Then laughed uneasily, dropped his topee, snatched it 
 up again, and bolted for the street. 
 
 From this fit of shyness he must have at once re- 
 covered, for when, following slowly, Kate and I arrived 
 at the street door we found a gharry drawn up at the 
 keirb awaiting us. The small Javanese driver, the red 
 of whose turban contrasted strongly with his brown 
 withered face, squatted on the box looking in the dying 
 sunlight like a monkey on a barrel organ. Gaudeamus 
 bowed us into the gharry, banged to the door with a 
 flourish and took his seat on the box also. We rattled 
 off. 
 
 The lamps of the city were alight now. Europeans 
 in tennis flannels passed us on the pavement. Streets 
 grew narrower. Lofty godowns, many-storied shops 
 and offices were left behind. The houses on either side 
 dwindled in size. 
 
 Presently we came to a broader street along which 
 tramcars rushed at intervals that seemed extraordin- 
 arily short. The dust they made blew in at the open 
 windows of the gharry, and with it came the scent of native- 
 town. At one time the wind brought into the gharry 
 the sour depressing smell of raw sago, a smell so pene- 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 37 
 
 trating that I thought we should never get quit of it. 
 It vanished suddenly as we turned into a side street 
 and across a bridge under which lolled in a greasy canal 
 a toncan laden with putrifying raw hides. The gharry 
 mounted to the apex of the bridge as a ship lifts with 
 the wave, Down into the trough we slid, and drew 
 up beside a row of colonnaded Chinese shops. 
 
 Gaudeamus leaped from the box and threw open the 
 door. 
 
 "Sir and miss," he said, "will you kindly alight if 
 you please. Also take pains to avoid the gutter into 
 which these Chinese in accordance with peculiar habits 
 are accustomed to deposit their old bananas, rotten 
 pineapples, dead cats, and such other materials as are 
 of no further use to the thrifty housewife." 
 
 It was as well he warned us, for the gutter, an elaborate 
 affair in cement, the size of a wayside ditch, yawned 
 at our feet. I helped Kate across it and up on to the 
 pavement. 
 
 " Shall we pay off the gharry ? " I inquired. 
 
 Gubb smiled knowingly. 
 
 " If you go away a few paces out of earshot, Mr. 
 Lavington," he whispered, " I will settle his hash. I 
 can do better unwitnessed by civilization." 
 
 I jumped up on to the pavement beside Kate. We 
 sauntered past the dimly-lighted shops. They were 
 narrow but so far as could be judged by the glimmering 
 lights within ran a long way back. We caught glimpses 
 of stacks of piece-goods and rough iron ware, of naked 
 bodies glistening with sweat, of slit-eyed men in black 
 alpaca squatting on polished counters working the 
 abacus. Sometimes there was no one to guard the 
 goods exhibited for sale in the windowless shop fronts. 
 But often Chinese, pale men, expressionless of face, 
 stood in the narrow doorways, eyeing us. 
 
 " Hot stuff, this tobacco of theirs," I gasped, as we 
 ran into a cloud of it which one of these silent watch- 
 men had just breathed out. 
 
 " Absolutely poisonous," said Kate. " I'm glad none 
 
38 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 of father's clients smoke it in our bungalow. Do you 
 know what all these things in the shops are ? " 
 
 " Things for making curry-powder, I suppose." 
 
 Kate stooped and examined a row of pigeon-holes 
 full of queer withered roots and seeds, varied in colour 
 and of many shapes. 
 
 " That looks hke ginger to me," she remarked, 
 pointing. 
 
 " Or an artichoke," I suggested. 
 
 Gubb came up looking hot but triumphant. She 
 asked him about the contents of the pigeon-holes. 
 
 " I am not a natural-historian, Miss Lavington," he 
 replied loftily. " We lawyers are busy about higher 
 occupations. We have in these pigeon-holes odds and 
 ends appertaining to Chinese community's stomachs, 
 without doubt. Please notice smell of Bombay-duck 
 factory here. Miss Lavington. It is one of most noted 
 smells in Chinese quarter. We always show to tourists 
 passing through Singapore. . . . We wiU now proceed 
 on to something more ocular." 
 
 He bustled ahead of us to the end of the colonnade. 
 
 " Chinese barber at work," he said, stopping before 
 a better-lighted but very narrow shop. " You will 
 notice without difficulty. Miss Lavington, that this sort 
 of barber does not devote entire attention to the hair, 
 but thirows in ears and, if required by the customer, 
 the teeth. I myself am a hard and working man. Miss 
 Lavington, which all respectable Singapore will testify, as 
 well as our dear Mr. Lavington here. I am no shirk. 
 But if called upon at any time to become a Chinese 
 barber, I should think more than twice I assure you." 
 
 " One gets used to anything," said Kate. 
 
 " I should rather get used to being corpse, my dear 
 miss, than to being Chinese barber," returned Gau- 
 deamus. "However, we have now exhausted this barber 
 and will pass on to something further. . . . You 
 observe," he continued, as topee in hand he led us 
 onward — he had carried it in his hand I noticed ever 
 since Kate had joined us — " at the corner this aged 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 39 
 
 fruit-seller. This man is reported to have sat at this 
 comer for nearly sixty years. Owing to report many 
 people give him money. And then some officious per- 
 son comes along and says that the corner hasn't been 
 there for more than fifty. So the fruit-seller's business 
 becomes less. Nevertheless, he is extremely ancient, as 
 you can see, and cannot with justice be called an entire 
 swindle. Turning our backs on this steady old chap, 
 we will now, if you please, Miss Lavington, walk down 
 the street. . . . This, I may inform you, lady and 
 gentleman," continued Gaudeamus, pausing and speak- 
 ing with the detached but impressive air of a professional 
 guide, " is a street given over more to the pleasures 
 of life. We have here, as you observe, people disporting 
 themselves in an up-to-date manner." 
 
 The dirty pavement was thronged with natives out 
 for an evening's pleasure ; with smart Malays in sarongs 
 with kepias balanced on their well-barbered heads; 
 with Chinese tradesmen, clean and otherwise, blue- 
 clad ricksha coolies, with a sprinkling of pompous 
 Sikhs in red turbans, and threadbare Eurasians wearing 
 straw hats. They fluttered like moths about the 
 brilliant lights, and as the street we advanced along 
 grew darker, so the crowd thinned. 
 
 There were still many people in badly-lighted shops. 
 We could hear the low murmur of voices. Small 
 Chinese lanterns, red and variegated, hung above the 
 doors. At the upper end of the street the throng had 
 been composed of males entirely. Here I noticed a 
 woman or so. And I caught the ripple of laughter. 
 
 I seized one of our guide's swinging arms as he 
 strutted along. 
 
 " Are you sure we're in the right direction, Mr. 
 Gubb ? " I asked. " I don't quite like the look of it 
 here." 
 
 " I am going to show you and Miss Lavington the 
 most respectable opium den in Singapore," he said re- 
 assuringly. "It is very fine den and has been visited 
 during its time by the highest in Singapore, including 
 
40 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 our worthy Governor. I have been in it on many 
 occasions, and always accompanied by ladies, so our 
 employer's daughter is quite safe. Now, very sharp 
 turn, if you and Miss Lavington pleases." 
 
 He wheeled to the right and along a narrow passage 
 between two shops. At the end, above a low doorway, 
 a paper lantern burned dimly. The door was open. 
 This fact plainly puzzled Gaudeamus. Another extra- 
 ordinary feature, it appeared, was that the porch was 
 left unguarded. 
 
 " There's something gone wrong with the opium den, 
 Mr. Lavington," said Gaudeamus. " Kindly hang on. 
 I go to inquire within." 
 
 He disappeared. A moment later came back looking 
 glum. 
 
 " We're up against it, sir," he announced, " So we will 
 now beat graceful retreat to pastures new. The opium 
 den is lately abolished. Now some fortune-teller occu- 
 pies the business. The venerable female within wants 
 me to let her boss, who she says is holy man from 
 Egypt, tell my fortune. I told her, ' nothing doing.' " 
 
 " Do you think he's a real holy man from Egj^t ? " 
 Kate asked. 
 
 " I cannot guarantee him, miss," replied Gaudeamus, 
 " but it 'peared to me when I was in there that I could 
 smeU the Nile." 
 
 " I should like my fortune told," said Kate with 
 decision. 
 
 After a short discussion, we entered. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE walls of the passage were draped with black 
 doth. A single tiny lamp hung close to the 
 blackened ceiling shone fitfully on a series of 
 cabalistic signs cut out of yellow paper and pasted in a 
 row breast high on the black curtains. Thick matting 
 covered the floor. 
 
 A beam of light coming through a chink in a heavily- 
 curtained door added to the stingy illumination. Mr. 
 Gubb drew this curtain aside and was about to lead 
 us in to join a number of waiting clients we had already 
 caught a glimpse of. But the old Malay hag who had 
 met us in the doorway hastily beckoned us on. 
 
 She lifted another black cmrtain, revealing a large 
 room, and told us to enter. A high partition ornamented 
 with dragons in gilt on a red ground screened off the 
 farther end of the room. The hag tiptoed behind it. 
 We heard her whispering. 
 
 She came back. 
 
 "The holy one," she said in Malay, coming back, 
 " says that he will first see the gentleman from Ethiopia." 
 
 She pronounced the proper name carefully, evidently 
 without the slightest notion of what it meant. Gubb 
 had no notion either, for when I told him that he was 
 the gentleman mentioned he said he was sure it couldn't 
 be, for he, personally, except for his stay in Hong Kong 
 had never been out of Singapore. 
 
 " You go first, Mr. Gubb," directed Kate, smiling. 
 •' Please ! " 
 
 " My dear Miss Lavington," cried Gaudeamus 
 
 41 
 
42 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 effusively. " Ladies first as every perfect gentleman 
 knows ! — Very well, certainly, if you indeed wish it. 
 Miss Lavington." 
 
 He followed the old woman behind the screen. 
 
 " Do you think it's genuine ? " asked Kate in a 
 whisper. 
 
 I squeezed her arm affectionately. 
 
 " I believe yours is going to be a good one," said L 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " But— don't joke ? " 
 
 " The Egyptian priests were about the cleverest ever." 
 
 Mr. Gubb came back smiling broadly, evidently 
 pleased. Kate's turn came next. She grimaced at me 
 and disappeared behind the screen. 
 
 " A most laudably excellent chap, this Egyptian, Mr. 
 Lavington," Gubb confided to me in a loud whisper. 
 " He deserves great encouragements. He knew about 
 my blameless past, had, he informs me, made special 
 study of it, and also my character which he considers 
 is of the finest." 
 
 " Did he say anything definite ? " I asked. 
 
 " He says I have great powers of influencing the 
 female sex," replied Gubb complacently, " They have 
 not been extended yet to fullest capacity and I must 
 be careful how I exert them as I may cause great misery 
 to more than one deserving lady. Also that would 
 attain my ambitions by merely working hard enough. 
 He could see a rich widow in the immediate future, 
 that's what he said, dark and fat-like, and another 
 high-born lady, dark of complexion too, but thinly 
 disposed. They was quarrelling about me desperately, 
 sir. But I, Mr. Lavington, would refuse to marry 
 either of them, so the chap said, and would care but 
 httle for their love-sickness about me, because I was 
 ambitious and had the heart of a tiger " 
 
 " Of a what ? " I asked. 
 
 " The heart of a tiger, sir — very brave and cruel if 
 required," replied Gaudeamus with a smile of intense 
 vanity. " Not that I would show that, the chap said. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 43 
 
 unless required. Rather would I behave gently like a 
 small gazelle, when in the presence of the ladies." 
 
 I only half heard what he went on to say. There 
 seemed to be, I was thinking, a familiar ring about this 
 magician's patter. When Kate came back, shaking 
 her head and smiling at me whimsically, I went behind 
 that gaudy screen pretty certain whom I should find. 
 
 " Good evening, Monsieur Mesner." 
 
 He had trimmed his heavy grey moustache, he had 
 darkened his eyebrows. Black-robed, black-hooded, with 
 a silver fillet round his forehead, he squatted on a black 
 platform, the paraphernalia of his horrible art about him. 
 Had I not been on the look-out I shouldn't have known 
 him. 
 
 I held out my hand with a grin. He attempted no 
 further pretence. 
 
 "A thousand welcomes," he whispered. He stuck 
 out his feet from beneath the robe. They were shod in 
 rubber shoes that had clearly come from the U.S.A. 
 " Ouch ! " he grimaced. " What a thing to be a 
 magician ! The posture makes one stiff ! And one 
 does not get younger." 
 
 " You've got richer though, it seems to me." 
 
 " All your blame, monsieur," he smiled, showing a 
 row of even white teeth below his trimmed moustache. 
 He waved his hand. " These furnishings were purchased 
 partly with my takings on that memorable evening," 
 
 " And how did you get here ? " 
 
 "On a broomstick," he grinned, "via Egypt, that 
 goes without saying. Would you care to purchase a 
 phial of the sacred water of old Nile ? Or perchance, 
 more expensive yet, a decoction of crocodile's tears 
 warranted if swallowed to give a man a heart like " 
 
 " Like a tiger " I whispered, laughing. 
 
 " I have sold many phials, Mr, Lavington," he 
 returned solemnly. " I hope to sell many more. There 
 is money to be had in the business, so make no fun of it 
 if you please. My name begins to ring through native 
 Singapore. The Malays know it. A Rajah even has 
 
44 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 consulted me here in this room. I hope that many 
 others ..." 
 
 We talked about our fortune-telling on the mail boat 
 at Penang. After a while I held out my hand to say 
 good-bye. 
 
 " You will come and see me again ? " he asked eagerly, 
 picking up a card and giving it to me. " I should like 
 to speak to you again. The morning is a better time 
 to come. We shall be alone. You will ? " 
 
 " Of course I will," said I cheerily. 
 
 Kate, having looked at her watch in my absence, had 
 now developed an intense wish to get home. We went 
 out into the street where the resourceful Mr. Gubb 
 managed to find us a gharry. But for this piece of luck 
 we should have been hopelessly late for dinner. What 
 Kate's fortune was as told by the Egyptian I spent half 
 the journey home trying to get her to teU me. She 
 refused all information unless I told her first what the 
 magician said to me. As I couldn't very well do that 
 without giving away Mesner I made no progress. 
 
 We stopped the gharry in the drive and dashed up 
 to our bedrooms through a back entrance. My uncle, 
 we found on coming down after dressing, had been 
 enduring the pleasure of entertaining Avery for over 
 half an hour. He looked redder in the face than ever 
 and spoke quite snappily to Kate. 
 
 Dinner gave the sufferer time to recover. When he 
 liked, which was not often, he could converse brilliantly. 
 Avery's sister, the wife of the Commandant, was coming 
 down from Labuan to Singapore on a shopping tour. 
 My uncle told us about that island while we had coffee 
 on the veranda. He had apparently lived there for a 
 year or two in his early days, had sat in council with 
 Admiral Keppel and had helped to sink a dozen war 
 praus full of Bajau pirates and burn their kampong on 
 Muara Island. He spoke of Rajah Brooke and his staff 
 of white men, of the old Sultan of Brunei, of the Sultan's 
 Prime Minister, old and wicked and yet the j oiliest of 
 company, of Cowie and the coal mines> of the Borneo 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 45 
 
 prince who surrounded in his house by enemies called 
 his wives to his side and fired a pistol into a barrel of 
 gunpowder. 
 
 Avery was greatly impressed and said that my uncle 
 must be sure to meet his brother-in-law, the Com- 
 mandant ; which I have an idea was exactly what my 
 uncle wished him to say, for directly afterwards he rose 
 and remarking that he would leave us youngsters to 
 enjoy ourselves said " Good night " and retired to his 
 study. 
 
 " Mr. Lavington is absolutely priceless," remarked 
 Avery next moment. 
 
 " He'll be pleased to know that," I put in. 
 
 Avery gave me a supercilious look — ^it was about the 
 only sort of look he ever had given me except on that 
 evening when I pulled him out of the alamanda bush — 
 and turned to devote himself to Kate. 
 
 " My brother-in-law, the Commandant, is awfully 
 hot on all these old Malay chaps, rajahs and so forth, 
 don't you know," I heard him explaining. 
 
 " I Uke the Malays myself," Kate replied. 
 
 "Topping for them," returned Avery flatteringly. 
 " But you'd be fond of anything, I know. I say, do you 
 care about Pekinese ? " 
 
 "I like the Chinese as a rule." 
 
 "No, I didn't mean the Chinks, Miss Lavington," 
 Avery protested. " I mean Pekinese terriers." 
 
 " Oh yes." 
 
 " Frightfully jolly little chaps, aren't they ? I 
 believe that I can get you one." 
 
 " You mustn't dream of doing so," Kate said hastily. 
 
 " You'd be doing a frightful kindness if you would 
 take the little chap," he went on. It seemed to me that 
 his voice had quite a .tender ring in it in spite of my being 
 there. " The lady who has it is going to England. She 
 can't take it with her. The regulations about landing 
 dogs there are simply hopeless. She wants a good home 
 for the little feUow." 
 
 Kate was silent. I knew she loved dogs. 
 
46 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " It's an absolutely top-hole little dog," said Avery, 
 his back now entirely turned towards me. " Wonderful 
 pedigree and all that." 
 
 I got up in some disgust and wandered off on to the 
 lawn. 
 
 The two were still sitting talking when I passed the 
 veranda after my stroll. Going in by the back way I 
 came across my uncle who, in sarong and baju, was 
 stealing downstairs from his bedroom. 
 
 " Has he gone yet ? " he asked in a whisper, stabbing 
 the air in the direction of the veranda with a long 
 forefinger. 
 
 I shook my head, smiling. 
 
 " Come in and have a stengah," he said. 
 
 " Into the study ? " I asked, surprised. I had never 
 dreamed of being invited there. I entered with the 
 sensations of a GuUiver. 
 
 He at once produced a bottle of whisky of a very 
 much better brand than the one we drank generally. 
 
 " This young Avery," he observed coolly, " is getting 
 fond of Kate." 
 
 " I hadn't noticed " I began in some surprise. 
 
 " You need not say anything to alarm her," said my 
 uncle, winking. " Let the fool go ahead. The fondness 
 may be useful to us. We can easily stop it if required. 
 I have a reason for it." 
 
 I felt his small frosty eyes fixed on me. 
 
 " If Kate likes the man," he went on deUberately, " I 
 should be the last to interfere." 
 
 " She'd never marry a fellow like that," I burst out. 
 " Kate has too much sense."' 
 
 " An excellent match," declared my uncle with a thin 
 chuckle. " She might do very much worse." 
 
 " But " I began combatively. 
 
 " I know all about that," he declared. " However, 
 in his exalted circles brains do not matter much. There 
 are plenty to go round. And it is not for you to question 
 Kate's fancy," he added. " You, in my opinion, are not 
 unbiassed. You are an interested party." 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 47 
 
 " I want to see her happy." 
 
 He grinned. 
 
 " No doubt," sneered he. " But you will not mind 
 me as an old lawyer adding that from the point of view 
 of your interest you would also be likely to bear in mind 
 when considering Kate's suitors that whoever marries 
 Kate inherits my fortune and the business." 
 
 " Meaning to say — that I " I began. I felt 
 
 myself growing more than a little indignant. 
 
 " I say this," he said, eyeing me as he lay back in his 
 chair, " that if Kate and you quietly decide to do what 
 is obviously in your best interests to do, there is nothing 
 stands in the way of your doing it. . . . I could have 
 made that young Avery's hair stand on end about 
 Labuan," he went on, changing the subject without 
 giving me time to make any observation on what he had 
 just said. " I know things about the inner history Of 
 that place which have never yet come to the ears of the 
 Government. But then, as you will see when later on 
 you get thoroughly into touch with my business, I am 
 in a similar position with regard to very many of the other 
 Malay States. The natives give me their confidence. 
 No other white man, I am certain, has ever penetrated 
 so far behind the veU." He began to chuckle. " I've 
 enough evidence in that office of mine to hang a 
 dozen." 
 
 It was immensely interesting. He must have had 
 some marvellous adventures. 
 
 " Did you ever meet a man named Mesner in your 
 travels, uncle ? " I asked casually. 
 
 Had I known the effect such a simple question was 
 going to have on the poor man I should have thought 
 twice before putting it. 
 
 My imcle gasped. His mouth opened. His prawn- 
 like eyebrows in his astonishment went up at least an 
 inch. 
 
 " Uncle ! " I exclaimed in alarm, jumping up. " Are 
 you ill ? " 
 
 He waved me away with a feeble motion of his hand. 
 
48 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 His pale, mottled face began to come back to its original 
 colour. 
 
 " What made you mention that name ? " he asked 
 hoarsely. 
 
 " There was a Frenchman on the boat at Penang who 
 told our fortimes," I explained in a hurry. 
 
 " Did he tell you he knew me ? " demanded my uncle 
 quickly. 
 
 " He seemed to know the name of the firm," I hedged. 
 
 My uncle picked up his glass and drained it. 
 
 " Mesner is a common enough name," he said in a 
 moment in his usual tone. " I did come across a man 
 of the name once. A sad case. He ill-treated his wife. 
 She disappeared and left no trace. He took to drink, 
 went] mad, and had to be locked up. Afterwards I heard, 
 he died. Can that be your man ? " 
 
 " It doesn't sound like it," I replied cautiously. 
 
 " What sort of a feUow was he ? " 
 
 " Oh, just the ordinary sort of fortune-teller," I 
 answered easily. I rose. " Perhaps I'd better look 
 up Kate and Avery," I suggested. " It must be nearly 
 midnight." 
 
 My uncle gave a tired nod. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ALTHOUGH I had promised to say nothing to 
 my uncle about Mesner's presence in Singapore, 
 I couldn't prevent Kate from launching at break- 
 fast next morning into a glowing description of our 
 adventures at the fortune-teller's. Luckily her descrip- 
 tion of the seer as a youngish man with a black mous- 
 tache and other oriental characteristics was calculated 
 to allay suspicion. My uncle was unlikely to connect 
 this swindler from Egj^t with the Frenchman I en- 
 countered at Penang. 
 
 That half hour with him in the study was the last 
 heart-to-heart talk we had for many a day. Either 
 because he felt that he had given me enough advice 
 to " get on with " or because the shock of the mention 
 of the word " Mesner " had been sufficient for him to 
 " get on with," he from that evening did not seek my 
 society. He even, I noticed, took quiet steps when 
 necessary to avoid us being left alone together. 
 
 Time drifted on. Of work in the office but little 
 came my way. I got home early most days and played 
 tennis with Kate. Owing to the bachelor mess next 
 door and the exertions of Avery, who in my jaundiced 
 idea seemed to be anxious to get his friends' opinions 
 of Kate before taking the final plunge, we were making 
 new acquaintances everj^where. People wondered, so 
 they frequently informed me, why they bad never 
 met the celebrated Mr.lLavington before. They did 
 not meet him often now, but occasionally he would 
 4 49 
 
50 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 appear on the lawn when Kate had a tennis party on, 
 and dressed in Shantung silk and a panama, would be 
 very agreeable to everybody. 
 
 My uncle was a born dissimulator. We who knew 
 him intimately at the bungalow had some difficulty 
 in recognizing the rather morose old man who had 
 a liking for solitude in sarong and singlet in that cour- 
 teous, rather jovial elderly nabob who exhibited himself 
 to our guests. Princely in manner and condescending 
 to all he was like other nabobs, on his dignity at once 
 if anybody appeared to resent the patronage. But 
 he had the knack of suiting himself to his com- 
 pany. 
 
 This I noticed particularly when Avery's sister and 
 the much advertised Commandant, Mr. Peddam- 
 Smythe, came down from Labuan. 
 
 Avery's sister was a little talkative woman much 
 like Avery. She had been " queening it " for long at 
 Labuan over the ladies of the telegraph service and the 
 half-caste wives of the traders and her conceit was 
 sublime. Her husband, the Commandant, did not 
 lack a favourable opinion of himself either. This 
 fact peeped out whenever he spoke, which, as might 
 have been expected in one married to such a talker, 
 was but seldom. He had a long lean figure, a sallow 
 shaven face, and carried himself stiffly like a wax- 
 work. 
 
 People like this obviously wouldn't put up with 
 the condescension of a mere nabob. Were they not 
 the Peddam-Smythes of Labuan ? 
 
 Nevertheless, my uncle got on with them splendidly. 
 They dined several times with us. In return they had 
 Kate and her father to dinner with them at the RafHes 
 Hotel. I wasn't asked and I didn't meet them again 
 until the day of the picnic which my uncle gave to 
 celebrate their departure for Labuan. 
 
 On that day the Peddam-Smythes and Avery came 
 round to the bungalow early. We had two cars and 
 drove down in state to Johnston's Pier. I never heard 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 51 
 
 where my uncle obtained the launch, but she certainly 
 was a beauty. She had the lines of a yacht. 
 
 We threaded a way through the crowd of shipping, 
 passing liners, warships with pennants flying and 
 washing hanging out to dry, Chinese junks thick in 
 the body as an old maid's pug, rusty tramps, fishing 
 pakamnan. 
 
 Soon we ran clear of all shipping. On our quarter 
 lay spread out the glittering city and the Chinese 
 harbour with its forest of masts. Away to port and 
 starboard smiled emerald hiUs nestling amid groves of 
 palms. Ahead the calm water, molten in the sunlight, 
 shone like a jewel. 
 
 Kate came towards me, carrying her Pekinese 
 (Avery had persuaded her to accept it), as I stood by 
 the skylight of the engine-room. 
 
 " He's no sailor," she said, patting the little brute's 
 head. She'U be kissing it next I thought with disgust. 
 
 " He was born in Singapore," said she. " Weren't 
 you, darling ? " 
 
 The darling I noticed was shivering all over. Its 
 wrinkled nose sniffed the salt air with distaste and 
 alarm. 
 
 " We're having long chairs brought to the bow, 
 under the awning," said Kate. " There's a very good 
 breeze there." 
 
 " We shall want all the breeze we can get. It's going 
 to be a scorcher ! " 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " 
 
 " I'm going to capture this Chinaman below here 
 and get him to show me the engines." 
 
 " All right," said Kate good-humouredly. " Come 
 along as soon as you've finished." She went forward, 
 looking as fresh and lovely as a peach. 
 
 In due course I captured the Chinaman. I spent 
 half an hour under the windsail in the hot cramped 
 engine-room watching the small cranks champ round, 
 whilst the old enthusiast told me in fluent Malay 
 about his troubles with leaking boiler tubes, scored 
 
52 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 cylinders and other important items. Then I crawled 
 up on deck again and went right aft in search of a 
 bucket, some soap and a towel. 
 
 We were going about fourteen knots. Abeam stood 
 the Horsburgh light, striped and spindly as a sugar 
 stick, with brown rocks about its base. 
 
 Plop! 
 
 The sound came faint but not the yelp which preceded it. 
 
 I rushed to the rail just in time to see the struggling 
 Pekinese fly past me on the moving sheet of water. 
 Its round head with the drenched hair clinging to it 
 looked the size of a drowned kitten's. Its huge eyes 
 protruded agonized. 
 
 There was a loud cry of distress from Kate, a high- 
 pitched shout from Avery. I saw them running aft. 
 
 Sometimes a man doesn't get time to think. I was 
 in the water before I thought. It was laughable ! 
 I was swimming after that beastly little dog. If I 
 had paused to consider the situation ! If my jacket 
 had been on instead of off ! If I had given myself 
 sufficient time to remember that the death of the animal 
 would cause me not a pang, and also that there are 
 more sharks off the Horsburgh light than in any part 
 of the Singapore Strait ! To crown all, when I got 
 to the horrible terrified little worm it promptly bit my 
 finger. 
 
 The launch swooped round like a seagull. Those 
 Malays had me back on board before the sharks, if 
 there were any, had recovered sufficiently from their 
 surprise to return and investigate. 
 
 I was a hero 1 Every man is of course his own hero. 
 But it seemed other people thought I was one. 
 
 I don't accuse any of them of thinking so reaUy. 
 Indeed, if I gathered anything from the expression 
 in my uncle's cold eye, it was the news that my impulsive 
 behaviour had merely confirmed his private opinion 
 concerning my suitability for the profession of solicitor. 
 But all said polite things and Mrs. Peddam-Smythe 
 was loud in her praises. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 53 
 
 Kate gave me a couple of words and one look of 
 gratitude, and went away to dry the dog. 
 
 Dr5dng oneself is easy in the tropics, accomplished 
 by merely sitting in a patch of sunshine. I went aft, 
 borrowed a cusMon, got pipe and matches from my 
 coat pocket, clambered up a davit and stretched myself 
 out comfortably on top of the awning in the shade 
 of the funnel. 
 
 The Straits began to widen. We passed scattered 
 islands Ijnng hke down in the shimmer of the horizon. 
 Before us opened out the immense expanse of the 
 China Sea. It looked bare but not desolate under the 
 kindly fire of the sun. I saw an island looming through 
 the haze to starboard. It seemed to float towards us, 
 standing out of the turquoise water like a rubber ball 
 on a duck pond. As it came nearer I detected a few 
 palms and some rounded rocks with a narrow beach 
 of sand twisting about them like a silver flood. 
 
 The launch ran in at fuU speed. Her anchor dropped 
 with a rattle. The propellor churned foam as she went 
 astern. 
 
 With the ceasing of the patter of the engines there 
 came to me, as I sat on the awning in the shadow of 
 the funnel, the rattle of crockery. I crawled stern- 
 wards and clambering down came across my uncle 
 and our head " boy." They were mixing cocktails. 
 
 One of these days when the inner history of Singapore 
 comes to be written we shall get an account of those 
 of its citizens whose talent for this art lifted them out 
 of the ruck. We shall learn whether it is ether they 
 used, chloroform, or merely old gin. 
 
 Kate and I were the only ones who did not par- 
 take of the rose-coloured specimens of my uncle's 
 skiU when the " boy " brought them round. Perhaps 
 we enjoyed the curry tiffin that followed rather less 
 without such apeiQifs.' 
 
 It was a real curry tiffin, such as only an old stager 
 like my uncle knows how to get together. The sambals 
 created a sensation. There was gula malacca for a 
 
54 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 sweet and those who wished had a choice of cognac and 
 creme de menthe with the coffee. 
 
 " We might defer going on shore," suggested my uncle 
 after tiffin was over from his long chair, " till it gets 
 cooler." 
 
 " Later. Certainly," yawned Peddam-Smythe. 
 
 " After — tea," sighed Mrs. Peddam-Smythe powder- 
 ing her nose sleepily. 
 
 A loud single snore was all that came from the settee 
 where sprawled the fair Avery. His head slid lower 
 and lower on the pink cushion. His small mouth hung 
 open. 
 
 There ensued a beautiful silence, broken only by the 
 strenuous breathing of those who had consumed my 
 uncle's cocktails. Even Kate's Pekinese was asleep. 
 But she was not 1 
 
 I put a finger on my lip. I pointed shorewards. I 
 pointed energetically at the convenient little ship's 
 dinghy that floated at the stem. 
 
 She smiled. She nodded. Our long chairs squeaked 
 alarmingly as we rose. . . . 
 
 I laid down the paddle, jumped into the warm clear 
 water and pulled the dinghy up on to the strip of silver 
 beach. A hundred small crabs transparent as egg- 
 shells in the sunlight, ran off to their hiding places at 
 lightning speed. Ghostly they looked, like leaves blown 
 along by the wind. 
 
 " How lovely ! " said Kate. " It's a desert island." 
 
 " What there is of it." 
 
 You could almost have covered the place with a 
 handkerchief. A few rocks, a little earth, tangled 
 creepers, a tuft of palms. 
 
 I made fast the dinghy to a log of driftwood. We 
 clambered over the rocks, past the creepers and reached 
 the summit. It was hot as an oven even in the shade, 
 but, joy of joys, hanging from one of the palms, an 
 easy climb overhead, were several green coconuts. 
 
 I shirmed up the smooth scaly trunk and threw two 
 down to Kate. We sat on the bare earth in the sun- 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 55 
 
 dappled shade and sawed them open with my penknife. 
 It took more than a little patience to do it. 
 
 " Your health, my dear," said I, holding up my nut, 
 green, and as big as my head, in both hands. 
 
 We clinked nuts. 
 
 Kate had brought the Pekinese with her. It lay in 
 her lap, blinking and half asleep still, obviously con- 
 tented to be on dry land again. Her sun-hat was on 
 the ground beside her. One can't drink from coconuts 
 in a sun-hat. 
 
 " They're all asleep still," Kate remarked. 
 
 From our seat we could look right on to the launch 
 as she lay like a toy on the turquoise water. 
 
 " I never could resist a desert island," I said, putting 
 down my half empty coconut. " I could have no more 
 slept till tea-time with this place lying unexplored in 
 front of me than flown." 
 
 " We have flown," said Kate. 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Columbus ! " 
 
 " Was he married ? I don't remember reading about 
 his wife." 
 
 " Sure to have been," I replied. " But marriage 
 was so usual in those days that probably no historian 
 thought it worth while to mention it." 
 
 "I don't think he could have been," she mused. 
 " Married men don't take such risks as discovering 
 Americas mean." 
 
 "They make wonderful discoveries without leaving 
 the fireside." 
 
 " Oh, women aren't so wonderful," said Kate. 
 " There's not much to discover in them." 
 
 " I shall know one day, I s'pose," said I lazily. 
 
 Kate bent and stroked the head of her pet, now dry 
 and silky again. The little thing stirred in its sleep, 
 gave a single short yap and was silent. In dreams 
 perhaps it was again attacking enemies in the water. 
 A long-tailed, crested lizard, vivid green, ran up a 
 fronded creeper and clung there staring at us out of 
 yellow eyes. " Look," I said in a whisper. 
 
56 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 We watched the vivid green fade into dull gold as 
 the animal took on the hue of its surroundings. 
 
 " If I were a native woman," Kate murmured, " I 
 should expect something to happen to me to-day." 
 
 I knew what she meant. Such a creature appearing 
 at a woman's right hand was an omen indicating a 
 betrothal. On the left, a troth broken. 
 
 " You never know your luck," I laughed. 
 
 And then my thoughts flew back to Avery lying 
 there in his long chair hke a pig, his mouth open. That 
 such a creature 'should aspire to Kate — our Kate ! 
 
 Some obscure passion swept me. I seized her hand 
 as idly she stroked the dog's smooth head. 
 
 " Let it be a true omen," I said, trying in vain to 
 keep the trembling from my voice. " You mustn't 
 leave us, Kate." 
 
 " Why . . . ! " she exclaimed, looking up, surprised. 
 Her colour had fled. 
 
 " It will please your father," I whispered. " It's 
 what we ought to do. Besides — besides, we like each 
 other, Kate." 
 
 " No," she said in a low, distressed voice. " Oh, 
 no!" 
 
 " Kate," I urged, putting my arm about her. " Kate, 
 darling, I love you, I swear I love you, Kate." 
 
 The omen had proved true. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NONE of the rest of the picnic party could have 
 gathered from the demeanour of Kate and me 
 what a momentous thing for both of us had hap- 
 pened after tiffin on that island. I believe Avery did 
 have a suspicion that all was not as it should be. He 
 sat next to Kate at tea-time, and during the visit to 
 the island afterwards and the trip home at sundown 
 stuck very close to her. 
 
 But he couldn't stick for ever. We dropped him, 
 sun-scorched and dissatisfied, at the gate of the bachelors' 
 mess. 
 
 After dinner we broke it to my uncle. From the hint 
 he had given I thought the news would delight him. 
 But not a bit of it. 
 
 " How do you propose to keep a wife ? " he demanded 
 abruptly. 
 
 " Well," I stammered, " I always thought — I always 
 understood " 
 
 " You've only the monthly allowance I make you to 
 live on," he reminded me nastily, " and that might cease 
 at any moment." 
 
 " I could get a berth of some kind," I said, irritated. 
 " I don't want to be dependent on any one." 
 
 " Harry f " cried Kate imploringly. She laid a hand 
 on my arm. " Don't quarrel." 
 
 I gathered from the change in my uncle's expression 
 that he was as anxious for peace now as Kate. I sup- 
 pose I looked unexpectedly warhke. 
 
 " I never quarrel," he said loftily. 
 
 57 
 
58 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " No, you don't," Kate admitted. " You " she 
 
 bit her lip. " I quite agree with Harry," she said in 
 a low voice. " I shouldn't feel inclined to stay in your 
 office a day longer. It's not so desirable a place as all 
 that." 
 
 " What, you back him, do you, ! " exclaimed my uncle, 
 obviously in some dismay at finding himself attacked 
 by her. " Now then," he said peremptorily, " let us 
 have no more bickering ! My office is the best place 
 for your cousin, as he will recognize when he gets in 
 a cooler frame of mind. As for you, Kate, I am pained 
 and astonished that you should say anything reflecting 
 on a place from which you get your bread and butter. 
 It soimds most ungrateful." 
 
 Having thus put us in our places my uncle went on 
 to say that as we both felt so strongly about the matter 
 — he could not resist that sarcasm — ^he would consent 
 provisionally to the engagement, but that he made it 
 a condition that we should keep it a secret for six 
 months. 
 
 With this he gave me a contemptuous nod, shrugged 
 his shoulders and walked stiffly away. 
 
 " WeU," I gasped after he had turned the corner of 
 the veranda, " of all the surprises this is about the 
 biggest." 
 
 " He's too bad," said Kate indignantly. " But never 
 mind ! " 
 
 " You can't expect me to like it, can you ? " I asked. 
 " Why, he as good as told me I might propose to you." 
 
 " And you did as you were told, I s'pose," said she, 
 drawing away and walking to the veranda rail. 
 
 We were not discussing the subject from that point 
 of view at all. 
 
 " Look here, Kate," I said following her. " Don't 
 be stupid." 
 
 After that trying conversation my uncle never referred 
 again to the subject of our engagement. But I felt 
 that he was watching me and, swallowing my pride, 
 set myself to gain his good opinion. During those two 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 59 
 
 or three months no one in Singapore could possibly 
 have worked harder than I did. I hired a munshi and 
 perfected my Malay. I learnt to write both Malay and 
 Arabic, and I dived deep into the law as it affected both 
 Mohammedans and the people of Singapore. 
 
 My difficulties were many. At first I used to consult 
 Gaudeamus Gubb, but a few weeks soon took me out 
 of his depth, and I had to turn to my uncle. I soon 
 found that there was little about the business that he 
 didn't know. Or perhaps, he never let me find out his 
 weak places. This one thing I will give him credit for, 
 when he saw that I was in earnest he turned over a 
 lot of work to me. 
 
 All this assistance I gave him made it necessary 
 for me to be in and out of my uncle's room several times 
 a day. I seldom intruded when he was interviewing 
 a client, never when I knew he was thus engaged. 
 
 I had been busy that morning translating into Eng- 
 lish from the French a deed that concerned a pineapple 
 plantation in Saigon which one of my uncle's Chinese 
 clients was about to purchase. It had been, as Gubb 
 would have put it, an " engrossing " task. 
 
 I made a fair copy and, it being nearly tiffin time, 
 went into my uncle's room to lay it on his desk. I 
 thought the room was empty. People talk about 
 premonitions and nonsense of that sort. I had none. 
 
 I went into that room carelessly, as happy as a lark. 
 I left it trembling in every limb, intoxicated, bewildered, 
 breathless and (yes, I say it) almost afraid. . . . 
 
 I closed the door and stood there leaning against 
 the wall. Something had happened which proved 
 that Fate had indeed cast me for the r61e of hero. 
 
 Even now I can see her, sitting at my uncle's desk, 
 a quill pen held poised in her little ivory-coloured hand, 
 the veil of her Malay head-dress flung back, showing 
 her dark hair. Her pale face was wildly beautiful, 
 appealing, bewitching, but not at all madonna-Hke. 
 Neither in dreams nor in reality had anything so lan- 
 guorously perfect ever existed. Her big dark eyes. 
 
6o PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 wide set, with pencilled brows, caught mine as I entered 
 silently, and held them. And so, as I stood there, 
 weakly gripping the door handle, our eyes rested, mine 
 dim with amazement and delight, hers, it seemed to me, 
 looking into my inmost soul. . . . 
 
 A guttural exclamation of intense armoyance brought 
 me to my senses. A big Malay who, with my imcle, 
 had been bending over a document reached out a huge 
 ringed hand and twitched down the girl's veil, a veil 
 trimmed with the deep yeUow ribbon worn only by 
 Malays of royal blood. 
 
 " We are busy, can't you see ? " cried my uncle in a 
 harsh voice. 
 
 And I had gone without a word, softly closing the 
 door. . . . 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THIS sort of thing, of course, happens to heroes 
 every day. But that it should have happened 
 to me, to a careless sort of person who had been in 
 the habit of thinking of love as something very joUy, 
 but still rather comic, something ladies read about in 
 books ! 
 
 My room was empty when I reached it. All the 
 clerks had gone to tiffin. I sat in my chair with my 
 head in both hands, half-dazed with the surprise of 
 it all. 
 
 That this should have happened, and happened to 
 me. . . ! 
 
 I didn't feel at all happy about it. She was a Moham- 
 medan, a lady of the harem. That I should ever have 
 set eyes on her was probably crime enough in the view 
 of her Malay friend. As for marriage with me, a kafir, 
 that from his point of view would be too laughable even 
 to contemplate. And my position in the view of those 
 of my own race would be much the same. Marriage 
 with a native, even with a high-born Malay, damns 
 one socially for ever in Singapore. I might as well 
 think of marrying the moon 
 
 Next moment I had determined to marry the moon 
 and let Singapore go to blazes ! 
 
 I got up from my chair and ran back to my uncle's 
 room. The door was wide open. The room was empty. 
 They must have hurried her off soon after I had intruded 
 upon them. Going back to my room I met one of the 
 Chinese clerks in the passage. In answer to my question 
 
 61 
 
62 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 he said he had seen the two Malays, together with my 
 uncle, get into a car and drive off. He knew nothing 
 about these clients, he said, but the man (I had 
 recognized him at once as my uncle's guest that night of 
 my arrival at Singapore) had been to the office several 
 times before. I interviewed the other clerk when he 
 came in, but he knew nothing either. 
 
 My uncle did not come back to the office until after 
 three o'clock. Having allowed a suitable time to elapse 
 I picked up the translation of the Saigon land grant and 
 took it to him. 
 
 " Why don't you knock ? " he rasped out as I entered. 
 
 " I did," said 1, truthfully. 
 
 " Knock so that people can hear, then," he retorted. 
 " It's only by a miracle that through your clumsy 
 intrusion I did not lose the client you saw me with 
 altogether. He is still most annoyed and has taken a 
 strong dislike to you. So keep'out of his way in future. 
 As for the lady, she was so upset at having been caught 
 unveiled by a young man that she was unable to sign a 
 document of great importance." 
 
 " I regret it most sincerely," I apologized. 
 
 " Pah I " muttered my uncle. " What does it matter 
 to you ? I lose the money, not you. You are in the 
 fortunate position of not having these risks to run. Five 
 hundred dollars were to be paid to me on her signing of 
 the marriage contract," he went on bitterly. " And all 
 may be lost through your blundering." 
 
 " Whose marriage contract was it ? " I asked. 
 
 " Hers, you infernal fool," he rapped out. " The 
 Istiri Adanya's. Money lost by you just as if you'd picked 
 my pocket of it." 
 
 Muttering, he bent again over the documents on his 
 blotting-pad, and taking this as a sign that he wanted 
 me no longer I withdrew. 
 
 I caught the words " ought to be whipped," but to 
 this day I do not know whether he was referring to me 
 or to his clients. 
 
 He had let slip her name. Perhaps if I had taken 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 63 
 
 advantage of his excited mood I might have been success- 
 ful in extracting from him who she was, who these chents 
 were. 
 
 Later on, I tried him with a few questions, but he would 
 tell me nothing. Not that he suspected then what the 
 state of affairs was. But he never did care to be cross- 
 examined about his clients. Every man has his 
 weaknesses. 
 
 But though baulked at the office my attempts to 
 solve the mystery continued. I haunted Singapore, 
 both the l:?usiness quarter and the suburb where dwell 
 most of the wealthy Malays. I spent afternoon after 
 afternoon lounging round the esplanade in the hope that 
 I should see the big car which the Chinese derk had 
 described to me. 
 
 My work at the office went to the devil of course, and 
 my uncle noticing this after a week or two became so 
 offensive in and out of season that the bungalow was 
 impossible. One could dine away from home, however. 
 There was the Raffles Hotel, the Europe, the Adelphi, 
 at all of which one was served well, could hear a band of 
 sorts and see a little of the night side of Singapore. The 
 de la Paix was smaller and quieter, but on the whole the 
 diners there were more interesting. I met a Russian 
 from Baku there who insisted on my going to his sitting- 
 room after dinner and, when he found I knew something 
 of the differential calculus, slapped two loaded revolvers 
 on the table and kissed me on both cheeks for being his 
 master in the mathematical art. He was going to bore 
 for oil in Pontianak. There were Dutch planters with 
 large gold watch-chains and still larger wives, and a 
 sprinkling of Italians, Portuguese and French. My 
 friend, Gibberson, who had lived there for years, knew 
 the ways of all of them. More than that, he knew the 
 ways of Singapore and a deal about the inner lives of 
 most of its celebrities, having lived in that moist but 
 interesting city for over forty years. And luckily he 
 was a man willing to talk. 
 
 I had found Gibberson one evening at his usual table 
 
64 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 in the corner of the dimly-lighted veranda. We were 
 in process, I regret to say it, of consuming our third gin 
 and bitters previous to dinner. Gin was poison to 
 Gibberson, according to his doctor, but such are the 
 ways of Singapore. 
 
 He raised the wine-glass, brimming amber, half-way 
 to his lips. Then put it down, the contents untasted. You 
 might live in Singapore for years without witnessing the 
 performance of a similar feat. Something indeed had 
 happened to disturb Gibberson's equilibrium ! I fol- 
 lowed his astonished gaze. 
 
 A stranger was coming towards us, an oldish, tallish 
 man, whose faultless evening dress was in the very height 
 of fashion, whose distinguished bearing would have 
 been far more in keeping with, say, the Tuileries than the 
 oriental matting and bamboo blinds of the comfortable 
 veranda of the de la Paix. His stiff white shirt and 
 waistcoat were of a whiteness beyond the reach of any 
 Chinese laundryman. He carried white gloves in his 
 hand. A diamond, winking at its full capacity, shone 
 in the midst of this stranger's immaculate bosom. 
 
 Gibberson let go of his wine-glass, rose heavily — he 
 was of a ponderous figure — walked round the table and 
 went to meet him. The stranger beaming, advanced, 
 his hand outstretched. 
 
 " My dear fellow ! " Gibberson cried, hesitation gone. 
 " I thought I couldn't be mistaken ! " 
 
 I sat behind my glass, staring unobtrusively. There 
 was something queerly familiar to me about this visitor, 
 about that grey hair cut en brousse, those hoUow cheeks, 
 that neat moustache. But I was not quite certain. 
 
 The visitor turned. His grey eyes caught mine. 
 
 " And you also, Monsieur Lavington ! " he cried in 
 delight. " You here too ! Ah, how splendid it is to 
 meet you once again ! " 
 
 " You've met before, then ? " Gibberson queried. 
 
 " Met before ? " Mesner cried, shaking my hand 
 ecstatically. " Met before ? Let me tell you, my dear 
 Gibberson, that this gentleman, my friend, I shall call 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 65 
 
 him, has done more than permitted me that honour. 
 You are aware how fortune was with me when we 
 encountered each other last ? " 
 
 Gibberson nodded. 
 
 " You see me now ? " continued Mesner, clicking his 
 heels together and spreading his hands as if in an en- 
 deavour to transform himself into a mannequin for the 
 purpose of exhibiting his dress suit. " For the change 
 Monsieur Lavington is responsible. Yes, we have much 
 to say to each other, have Monsieur LavingtOn and I ! " 
 
 Gibberson, kindly soul and best of hosts, after chat- 
 ting for a moment longer, moved off elsewhere to make 
 some other friend comfortable. Mesner drew me into 
 a seat and insisted on ordering more aper^ifs. 
 
 " I have yeais of parchedness to quench," he ex- 
 plained. " The good wines and other things I have not 
 been able to drink would fill an ocean. And now I 
 begin to make reparations to my ill-used person. That 
 I can do so is due entirely to you ! A votre sanie, 
 Monsieur Lavington ! " 
 
 He raised his glass. If I am vouchsafed an addi- 
 tional year of life for every time he drank my health 
 that evening verily I believe I shall be a centenarian. 
 
 " Fortune has turned her face towards me," he ex- 
 plained. " I don these habihments in orda: to be the 
 more worthy to embrace her." 
 
 Descending to detail later in the evening he told me 
 that the business he had established as a fortune-teller 
 was prospering amazingly, and that more work now 
 came to him than he could cope with. He was, in fact, 
 turning work away. 
 
 " Come and be my partner I " he suggested with a 
 joking air. " I want a partner. Yes, the rich natives 
 fill my consulting-rooms" (his consulting-rooms!). 
 " Luck has smiled on me. Last wedc I foretold two 
 deaths of old rich men and also that a certain Chinese 
 woman, wife of a millionaire merchant, would be con- 
 fined of twin boys. In such a manner is a reputation 
 firmly established." 
 5 
 
66 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " I've no skill at it," I returned, laughing. 
 
 " I quite understand that you are in a better position 
 in your present business," he admitted, serious again. 
 " Never for an instant did I dream that you would for- 
 sake it for fortune-telling. That goes without saying. 
 I make a joke, n'est-ce-paa ? Nevertheless, if you can 
 recommend any one to me, Mr. Lavington, with black 
 eyes such as yours, and also sufficiently skilled in the 
 Malay tongue, I would consider him for partner." 
 
 I answered him that I knew nobody. 
 
 " He should also have," Mesner added, caution over- 
 taking him in spite of the champagne he had drunk, 
 ' " the hair of his head screw on the right way,' with, 
 in addition, a certain quantity of capital, not too much, 
 but sufficient to prove his interest in the business." 
 
 After dinner we had some of the cognac kept for 
 special friends of the hotel. Gibberson, a man of in- 
 fluence with the proprietor, saw to that for us. Later 
 he joined us on the veranda and Mesner and he swapped 
 yarns about some of the city fathers of Singapore, 
 yams that would make their children's hair curl if they 
 heard them. My uncle's name was carefully avoided, 
 probably out of respect for me, but I haven't the slightest 
 doubt that either of them could have provided him with 
 horns and a tail without any difficulty whatever. 
 
 We saw Mesner into a gharry a little after midnight 
 and I got a ricksha and padded ofE home. We had made 
 all sorts of vague promises to meet each other ^ain. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ONE can't play tricks with the Singapore climate. 
 Regular hours and early to bed is the best rule 
 on that island. There's alwas^ some bacillus or 
 other lurking in the neighbourhood ready to connect 
 up with the man who lets himself get out of foma. 
 Presently I was down with malaria and complications. 
 The stormy hfe I was leading, the late nights at hotels — 
 I remember, with horror now, that I even went down in 
 the company of a chance acquaintance and danced with 
 the painted ladies at the Tingel Tangel ! — and the 
 terrible heat and drought that knocked over nearly 
 everybody just then h£id made me an easy victim of 
 the anopheles. 
 
 Curiously, it's the lady mosquito that gives men fever, 
 yellow, malarial, dengue, all brands. My lady gave me 
 an inociJation of peculiar virulence. My temperature 
 went up to io6° and stayed there until the doctor said 
 there was no hope for me. Then, as if to show its dis- 
 respect for his opinion, it went down with a run as if 
 intending that I should become stone cold for ever. 
 That this last didn't happen was entirely due to Kate. 
 She nursed me night and day, so the doctor told me. 
 He advised me to go out to Tanjong Katong for con- 
 valescence. The air on that sandy spit, he said, was 
 far better than that of Tanglin. 
 
 " The Singapore climate's rotten," I remarked in a 
 weak voice. 
 
 " The climate," said the doctor, his eyes twinkling, 
 "is contained in a bottle." 
 
 67 
 
68 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 We were on the veranda. It was a day or two after 
 I'd been allowed up. 
 
 " Tanjong Katong is the best place for you," Kate 
 said, coming back after accompanying the doctor to 
 his car. "The sea air wiU make you ever so much 
 stronger. And you want a good rest." 
 
 I looked at her as she stood beside my long chair. 
 She needed one more than I did, goodness knows. She 
 had lost all her colour. There were dark rings under 
 her eyes. 
 
 " You've been a brick to me," I said somewhat 
 shamefacedly. 
 
 " Me ? " 
 
 Her hand was resting on the arm of my long chair. 
 I put out mine and touched it, but she drew it away. 
 
 " You heard what the doctor said," I murmured, 
 slightly confused. I'd never known her draw her hand 
 away before. The action, showing as it did that we 
 had lost touch of each other, ought to have pleased me, 
 things being as they were. But somehow it didn't. 
 
 " If it hadn't been for you," I cried, " I should have 
 been dead I " 
 
 " Nonsense," she smiled. 
 
 Two or three days afterwards she took me down to 
 Tanjong Katong in the car and left me comfortably 
 established at the hotel. 
 
 I had a spotless bedroom facing the sea. Salt and 
 sunshine came in with the breezes. Health was fanned 
 into me. From my white bed as I lay I could see the 
 broad blue ribbon of the Straits, the brown sails of the 
 fishing boats, the hills and islands of the Sumatra coast, 
 soft shapes of mauve in the grey heat haze. 
 
 At first Kate came to see me often. But as I grew 
 stronger her visits became less frequent. I used to miss 
 them, for in the daytime Tanjong Katong is a lonely 
 place. The hotel stood right among big coconut groves. 
 The sandy beach ran almost up to it. One listened day 
 and night to the gentle music of the surf. Most of the 
 guests were engaged in business in Singapore and had 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 69 
 
 driven into town long before I crawled out of a morn- 
 ing on to the little lawn facing the bathing pagar. A 
 few faded mems, a pale-faced child or two, ayahs and 
 Chinese amahs, noisy and important as clucking hens, 
 these comprised our little society on the lawn of a 
 morning. I never was on more than nodding terms 
 with any of them. In the heat of the afternoon every- 
 one slept. The lawn was empty. 
 
 There are few more lonely, silent places than a big 
 coconut grove at two in the aftemoctti. To be lost in 
 one as happened to me one day about that hour is a 
 trpng experience. It was when I had grown strong 
 again and had begun to explore the country round the 
 hotel that I found myself lost in such a grove. Around 
 me wherever I looked were the palms. Grey and brown, 
 their trunks [curved out of the sandy ground as they 
 shot up snake-hke to hide the heavens. So numberless 
 were they, so silent, and such was their ciir of sapless, 
 pitiless age that when I had halted and sat considering 
 them a slight feeUng of chilliness came over me in spite 
 of the stifling, almost overpowering heat. In a moment 
 or two I got up and walked through the appalling 
 silence back towards the beach. I walked fast for some 
 minutes. Again I halted, streaming with perspiration. 
 The grey trunks of the coconut palms were thicker than 
 ever. They seemed to me in my nervy condition 
 rather like an army of skeletons advancing against me 
 from every side. I found myself shivering again. Then 
 suddenly my nerves went all to pieces and I bolted. . . . 
 
 When I came to I was walMng along a path. The 
 palms had grown thinner and were interspersed with 
 low trees and bamboo. Sunlight spangled the bare 
 groimd. A white blaze showing through the trunks in 
 the distance hinted that not far off lay the edge of the 
 grove. 
 
 I rounded a clump of bamboo and stumbled into an 
 open clearing covered with short turf. A high, well- 
 trimmed bamboo hedge was in front of me and behind 
 it between fronds of palms and the broad emerald leaves 
 
70 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 of banana plants showed yellow the roof of a newly- 
 thatched Malay house. 
 
 As I stood there blinking — after the gloom of the 
 groves the light was strong — I heard at my elbow a 
 faint cry of surprise and a rustle of silk. Two women, 
 brilliantly dressed in native costume, had jumped up 
 from under the shade of a mango tree no more than 
 three yards away and veil over head were hurr37ing 
 towards the house. 
 
 I saw one of them lag behind. She hesitated, turned, 
 came quick as a deer towards me. Her bare feet shone 
 white on the green turf. Her scarlet sarong and 
 clumsily cut yellow satin coat couldn't hide her grace. 
 She came near. 
 
 Something had told me who she was before she 
 rather hesitatingly half drew aside her heavy veil. My 
 heart beating as never before, I took a step towards 
 her and, pulling off my topee, stood bareheaded in the 
 blazing sunshine. 
 
 " Tuan," she murmured, standing close to me. And 
 then as her eyes caught mine : 
 
 " Chinta aku," she said. " My love ! " 
 
 The unexpectedness of the meeting had taken me 
 completely aback. I remember remarking incoherently 
 that I loved her, bending over the henna-dyed manicured 
 fingers of the small ivory-coloured hand she gave me, 
 swearing I would never forget her. Next moment the 
 woman who had been with her, along with another and 
 older one who was coarsely dressed and apparently 
 something in the housemaid line, came running up to us, 
 screamed out an order in a dialect I didn't know and, 
 seizing my princess, dragged her towards the house. 
 
 " Better the Tuan goes from here quickly," cried the 
 lady I took for the housemaid savagely over her shoulder. 
 " The bangsa Malay does not mate with the bangsa pig. 
 If my Rajah gets to know much trouble will occur to 
 this young lady." 
 
 They reached the gate. The princess wrenched herself 
 free, turned and waved her hand. She was gone. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 71 
 
 The trim house stood a blaze of colour in the after- 
 noon sunshine. The smoke of its cooking fire wreathed 
 up Into the calm sky. I waited patiently for something 
 more to happen. But no sign came from that house. 
 The bamboo hedge seemed to grow higher all the while. 
 At last I turned away. 
 
 Having now discovered where she lived other oppor- 
 tunities could no doubt be devised for meeting her. 
 That was provided I found the house again. A little 
 further down the path an elderly Malay of the coolie 
 class stepped out from among the palms and, as he 
 gave me a friendly grin, I asked him the best way to 
 the hotel. 
 
 " The Tuan goes quite in the wrong direction," he 
 declared. 
 
 I said that if he would take me straight to the place 
 I would give him fifty cents. 
 
 " Buleh, Tuan," said he, grinning like a yokel. 
 
 The hotel proved to be very much further off than I 
 had considered probable. 
 
 It has often been a painful thought of mine since 
 that that yokel was not such a yokel after all and that 
 he led me a long way round. For I noted as carefully 
 as I could the path we took to the hotel and next day 
 tried unsuccessfully to retrace it. It struck me at the 
 time that his answers to my inquiries were of a 
 remarkably elusive quality. 
 
 Love has a corrosive action on the sense of humour. 
 Mine by this time had worn terribly thin. When I 
 found thp house again after a week's search — empty — 
 I began on the spot to curse Fate in my best heroic 
 manner. 
 
 " Why should she come near me only to be snatched 
 away ? — Why wasn't I left alone to live my old com- 
 fortable life ? " — And so on, and so on. 
 
 I remember I told myself, as I returned to the hotel, 
 that I would never give in, that I would find Princess 
 
 Adanya in spite of everything, that I would ■ Well, 
 
 I don't know what I wasn't going to do ! . . . 
 
72 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 And Kate was waiting for me on the lawn. 
 
 My appearance must have been pretty desperate. 
 She looked scared. I don't wonder at it. But she 
 smiled her usual welcome. 
 
 " I've brought the car," she announced. " I've come 
 to take you home if you're ready to go." 
 
 " Not just yet, I'm afraid," said I, drawing another 
 rattan chair into the shade beside her. 
 
 " I'll do it," said the Adelphi villain (or hero) inside 
 of me. " It's best to get the whole thing over. Best 
 for both of us." 
 
 " I'm not coming back to the bungalow," I said. 
 
 I watched her face stealthily, feeling about the worst 
 cur God ever made. 
 
 She didn't look at all surprised. 
 
 " You think you'd better stay on here for another 
 week ? " she asked. " Just as you like. You aren't 
 looking quite so well as you were a little while ago." 
 J " I'm never coming back," said I heavily. 
 
 " Never ? " she echoed, her eyes on me. " Then " 
 
 " The situation has become impossible," I broke in. 
 " I'm anxious for a little more freedom. Er — I'm 
 thinking of taking a room at — a hotel. ..." 
 
 With her honest eyes on me what I proposed saying 
 was becoming horribly difficult. 
 
 " We shall miss you," she remarked simply. 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders in a pitiful attempt at 
 bravado. 
 
 " You'll get used to it." 
 
 " Does father know ? " she asked. 
 
 " I don't suppose he'd interfere with my private 
 affairs," I returned. "And as for you — as for you ! ' ' 
 
 " As for me ? " she asked gently. . . . 
 
 I couldn't ! Thank God there are some things that 
 even heroes are not permitted to do ! I'd made up 
 my mind (pitifxil confession !) to tell her coolly and 
 collectedly that there were plenty of other men about, 
 that she could amuse herseU well enough with Avery, 
 and that, indeed, she seemed to be doing that already. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 73 
 
 Instead, the hero found himself kneeling on the turf 
 beside her, his face buried in her lap. . . . My illness, 
 the excitement of the past week had done this for me. 
 What a spectacle I must have been to her ! 
 
 " Oh, Kate," I muttered after a while. " If you only 
 knew what a devilish lot of trouble I've let myself in 
 for." 
 
 " Hush, hush," she said, lasdng a hand on my head. 
 
 We were in a comer of the lawn not overlooked by 
 the windows of the hotel. Nobody but she saw my 
 weakness. 
 
 " We shall have to break oft our engagement," she 
 said when I had recovered myself a little. " I'd in- 
 tended to tell you that, Harry, after you were strong 
 again. When you were delirious you said a great many 
 things." 
 
 " About — her ? " I whispered, glancing up. 
 
 She winced. 
 
 " It was a mistake — our engagement," she said 
 
 hurriedly. " I thought " She stopped. " It was 
 
 my fault it occurred. You are not to blame." 
 
 " I am," I began, eager to make amends. 
 
 " No," she contradicted. 
 
 I was silent. I got up from my knees. She rose and 
 stood leaning against the trunk of a palm. 
 
 " So that's settled," she observed with an attempt 
 at a smile. " And now I think I'U go." 
 
 She took a pace or two towards the hotel and, then 
 recollecting something, stopped, drew o£E the cheap 
 little engagement ring I had bought her and held it 
 out to me. 
 
 I saw her to the car in silence. Except for a brief 
 good-bye we exchanged no word. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 I STAYED at Tanjong Katong for another week, 
 and then a peremptory letter from my uncle saying 
 that if I was well and had leisure (one of his little 
 touches !) he would be glad to be accorded an inter- 
 view, brought me back to Singapore. 
 
 A busy place it seemed after my solitude among those 
 coconut groves. The glare of the pink buildings, the 
 red roads, marble steps of banks and other triumphs 
 of civilization was trjdng. The procession of scurrying 
 rickshas seemed without end. It all looked queer and 
 unreal, as familiar scenes are apt to look to the eyes of 
 a convalescent. 
 
 I climbed up the narrow disgraceful stairs and entered 
 the office of Lavington and Son with a curious feeling 
 that I was no longer one of the firm. 
 
 My uncle was disengaged. He beckoned me Into his 
 office. 
 
 " What is this about your engagement with Kate ? " 
 he asked as soon as the door was shut. 
 
 I told him. 
 
 " So that is your decision," he said, drumming on the 
 blotting-pad as he sat at his desk. 
 
 " Ours." 
 
 " Ah ! " he muttered. He didn't contradict my state- 
 ment, but I saw that he scarcely believed it. " Have 
 you anything more to say ? " he asked, darting a look 
 at me from under his bushy eyebrows. 
 
 There was trouble in the air ! One can't be a hero 
 without its being somewhere about. 
 
 74 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 75 
 
 " Any remarks to offer ? " my uncle asked. I stood 
 silent. " You have not ? Then allow me to say a word 
 or two. For some time past now, as I have heard from 
 various sources, you have been making inquiries con- 
 cerning a Malay woman for whom apparently you 
 have an attachment. You will confirm that ? " 
 
 " A perfectly honest attachment," I said on recover- 
 ing from my surprise at such an unexpected question. 
 " I saw her first in this office." 
 
 " And what would you with that woman ? " 
 
 I hesitated. The answer would, I knew, seem crack- 
 brained to him. 
 
 " I want to make her my wife," I said at last. 
 
 A sound, something between a laugh of derision and 
 a scream of surprise, came from my uncle's tight-shut 
 lips. 
 
 " Youfve been striving to mix yourself up with a 
 black thing like her," he said harshly, " and at the 
 same time pretending love for my daughter." 
 
 " I know I'm in the wrong." 
 
 " You come out here, you wretched pauper," he went 
 on in a voice thick with rage, " after an education at my 
 expense. You interfere with my business ! You insult 
 my daughter ! " 
 
 " Never ! " I cried feebly. 
 
 " You have ! " he shouted, jumping up. " You've 
 insulted my daughter I You've been spending money 
 in dissipation, neglecting your work, idling away your 
 time with those women at the Tingel Tangel, with every 
 low scamp in Singapore. But now, you brazen rip, 
 you have come to the end of your tether. Get out of 
 niy sight 1 Never come near me again ! I've finished 
 with you ! " 
 
 He was turning me away ! 
 
 " Do you hear ! " screamed my uncle, his shaking 
 forefinger pointing to the door. 
 
 " Very well," I muttered. 
 
 It was incredible ! And the information he seemed 
 to possess concerning my doings in Singapore ! The 
 
76 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 man must have had somebody watching me for weeks. 
 
 I wrote a brief note and sent It to Kate by hand 
 asking her to pack up my few possessions and hand them 
 over to the messenger. They came at dusk but without 
 any reply from her, and I unpacked them and put them 
 away in my comfortable bedroom at the hotel. Then 
 after dinner I sat among the palms on the hotel balcony 
 quit of my feeling of dependence on my uncle, happier 
 in a way than I had felt for weeks. 
 
 My cheerfulness hadn't left me when I rose next 
 morning. The hotel servant brought me coffee and 
 bananas. I asked him about his friends, having decided 
 now I was living a bachelor life to indulge in the luxury 
 of a servant of my own. Then, after splashing about 
 in the bathroom, I dressed and walked through the 
 colonnaded garden to breakfast. 
 
 It was a glorious morning. White fleecy clouds that 
 an EngUsh April might have manufactured dappled 
 the blue sky. Gleaming flycatchers flirted in the sun- 
 light about the red flowers of the hibiscus shrubs. 
 The large white dining-room was full of fresh-looking 
 men in white drill breakfasting. Ice cUnked. Fans 
 and punkahs were going. 
 
 After breakfast I went to my room. The post had 
 come in. A letter awaited me. It was brief and to 
 the point. The manager of my bank had found, it 
 seemed, that my account was overdrawn and, as he 
 understood that Mr. Lavington declined to be respon- 
 sible for the overdraft, he would be glad if I would either 
 refund it or find some other security. 
 
 This was war with a vengeance. My uncle had 
 evidently lost no time. I put on my topee and walked 
 round to the bank. The assistant I saw was inexorable 
 and none too polite either. He said that had they 
 known that my uncle was not at my back they would 
 never have allowed such an overdraft. The impudent 
 fellow evidently suspected me of some kind of fraud. 
 I returned to the hotel boiling inwardly. 
 
 However, to boil inwardly isn't particularly heroic. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON T] 
 
 The situation had to be faced. I ran over in my mind 
 all my acquaintances and found that I knew none of 
 them well enough to go to for a berth in the city. 
 Friends as distinct from acquaintances I had none, it 
 seemed to me, in Singapore. 
 
 Later, imitating Mr. Micawber, I got out my papers 
 and began to do accounts. The condition of the patient 
 was awful ! My ideas on expenditure had in truth 
 been remarkably lavish. I went through the counter- 
 foils. There were cheques paid to my tailor, to the 
 stores, to florists, for motor-car hire. One in favour 
 of the Hotel de la Paix caught my eye. I couldn't 
 help smiUng. I remembered the dinner. 
 
 Then, as perspiring slightly and slapping at a stray 
 mosquito or so, I sat sorting the jumble of letters, chits 
 and biUs, a large white card fell out on to the floor. I 
 picked it up. It had a gilt bevelled edge. 
 
 MARAMAT. 
 
 TUKANG SILAP MATA. 
 Ainan Street. 
 
 This, I remembered, was Mesner's card, which he 
 had pressed on me on the day we visited him. He 
 called himself, I noticed for the first time, a conjuror. 
 Well, It was a perfectly respectable profession, akin 
 indeed to that of solicitor. 
 
 I laid the card on the polished table and stared at it 
 
 hopefully. It was more than a noticeable card, it was 
 
 an opulent one. I remembered Mesner's joking offer 
 
 of a partnership, his faultless dress suit, his obvious 
 
 air of being well supplied with money. 
 
 * * * « « 
 
 The place was within a ten-cent ricksha fare of the 
 hotel. From all appearances trade was as good as ever. 
 A whiS of stale humanity coming from the crowded 
 general waiting-room blew in my face as I entered the 
 narrow doorway and gave me additional proof of my 
 
78 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 friend's prosperity. Slightly overcome, I sank on to 
 a bench m the first-class compartment, a bench already 
 occupied by a dignified Sikh, two giggling Eurasian 
 clerte in frayed white duck suits, and a fat person of 
 doubtful nationality dressed in light blue silk bordered 
 with gilt tasselling, of whose sex even I could only make 
 a guess. 
 
 Customers were so many that evening that those In 
 front of me got but short shrift and presently my turn 
 came. 
 
 The magician's room was arranged as on my previous 
 visit. The black hangings hung there still. The skulls 
 of monkeys and other animals, the dried lizards, and 
 other paraphernalia of the profession grinned prominent. 
 The Malay woman who showed me into the room had 
 grown, it seemed to me, more wizened and evil-looking 
 than ever. But on this occasion the magician himself, 
 instead of occupying a seat on the platform, was bending 
 over a small table with his back towards me, stirring 
 at something in a bowl, something doubtless connected 
 with his horrible art. 
 
 " Young man," he said in deep impressive tones, 
 " I, Maramat, have been expecting a visit from thee 
 for more than many days." 
 
 " You had the advantage of me then, Mesner," I 
 chuckled, " for I only knew half an hour ago that I was 
 coming." 
 
 It was a pleasure to see the start which the venerable 
 magician gave. His long robe swept the matted floor 
 as he twisted round with a jerk. 
 
 " My dear friend I " he called out. " You ! But 
 that silly woman told me it was a total stranger, one 
 who had never been here before I " 
 
 He frowned perplexedly. 
 
 " She has never made such a bad mistake," he mut- 
 tered. It evidently worried him. " You know," he 
 explained, " I place some reliance on her memory." 
 
 " Perhaps she didn't recognize me," I suggested, 
 taking the bentwood chair he brought out from a recess. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 79 
 
 " That may easily be possible," Mesner agreed. " I 
 scarcely know you myself. So thin, so brown ! So 
 much older I Why is it ? " 
 
 I smiled self-consdously. 
 
 " The Singapore climate plays the dickens with one 
 sometimes." 
 
 " Gibberson told me you had been ill," he said easily. 
 " Otherwise I should have felt wounded that you had 
 not come again to see me. No, not wounded. Some- 
 thing less than that. . . . Yes, I flourish like a dozen 
 green bay trees." 
 
 He touched a gong and at the feiint silvery sound 
 the old woman came out from behind the hangings. 
 
 " I see no more clients to-night," said Mesner briefly 
 in Malay. " Let those in waiting know." 
 
 The old woman gave a gasp. 
 
 " No more ! " she exclaimed. " But they are here, 
 waiting in numbers altogether too many. Some have 
 been waiting long. They will show anger." 
 
 " Tell them that I am in a trance and am communi- 
 cating with a certain superior spirit whom I have sunv- 
 moned from the top of the Borneo mountain Kina 
 Balu. Bid them depart quietly and come again to- 
 morrow ! Go quickly 1 And now, dear friend," he 
 continued, as the woman looking alarmed and rather 
 puzzled disappeared, " I am at your disposition. Where 
 shall we go ? " 
 
 " If I'd have known you would have turned away 
 clients like that," I protested, " I would never " 
 
 " A little independence does no great harm," said 
 Mesner, throwing back his hood with a laugh. " A 
 doctor who cannot come until to-morrow is always 
 the most sought after. Also, you do not every day 
 honour me. Come to my rooms I I have whisky, 
 brandy, soda water, ice, tobacco, everything that makes 
 the tropics endurable." 
 
 I followed Mesner up the dark wooden stairway 
 wondering what was coming next. He pushed aside 
 a bamboo screen. I heard a key grate. Then Mesner 
 
8o PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 switched on the electric light and I stood gaping in 
 astonishment. 
 
 Out of that dismal attic of a Singapore tenement 
 dwelling the man had managed to rig up a set of apart- 
 ments that a king wouldn't have disdained to occupy. 
 The rooms — there were three of them — were all panelled 
 with Borneo hard-woods, beautifully poHshed. A 
 centre skylight with frosted glass and hanging pots of 
 ferns had a jet of water sprajdng on it. Underneath, 
 a big two-bladed fan revolved quickly and noiselessly, 
 making the atmosphere beautifully fresh. The ceilings 
 were painted, the floors covered with grass mats. 
 There were new brass bedsteads in the bedrooms, and 
 the furniture looked of the best European manufacture 
 except for the long chairs under the fan which I saw 
 at a glance had been made in Hong Kong. 
 
 " Except for these chairs there is no Eastern thing 
 about," Mesner told me. " Sometimes I get tired of 
 Eastern things. There is an Eastern kitchen some- 
 where in the back-yard ruled over by the Chinaman 
 who brought in the aperatifs just now. What it is 
 like, I know not. The food that comes from it is not 
 to be despised. You will stay and share my meal ? 
 Or if you care we could go down to the la Paix and see 
 Gibberson." 
 
 Prosperity hadn't spoiled Mesner. Sympathetically 
 he extracted my story. He told me afterwards, laughing, 
 that such an eminent magician as himself had no diffi- 
 culty in detecting directly he saw me that something, 
 as he put it, had happened to my scheme for the universe. 
 
 When I told him about Princess Adanya — I said not 
 a word concerning Kate — ^he looked grave. He advised 
 me straightaway to think of her no more. 
 
 " Absolutely impossible ! " I cried. 
 
 " You must forget her," he said with great vehemence. 
 " I tell you from my own experience you must forget 
 her." 
 
 He drained his glass. Rising from his long chair, he 
 took up the decanter and filled up both our glasses 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 8i 
 
 again. He had put on a sarong for the sake of comfort. 
 The singlet he wore had shrunk so in the wash that I 
 could literally count the ribs below it. Out of the 
 low collar above projected, ugly as those of a trussed 
 rooster, his bony, hairy chest and long, wrinkled 
 neck. 
 
 " You cannot comprehend what you do when you 
 mix with the Malays," he said, seating himself again. 
 " On the surface they are simple people. But their 
 minds and consciences are different from those of 
 Europeans. What is right to us to them is wrong, 
 what is black is white. Especially is this so with the 
 rajah-bom. Remember, I do not speak without know- 
 ledge." 
 
 " I'll overcome all that," I said. 
 
 " You cannot," he returned with decision. " Their 
 religion, that itself presents a complete obstacle. Take 
 warning ! Trouble yourself no more ! " 
 
 " I suppose you're established in Singapore now 
 for good ? " asked I, making an effort to change the 
 subject. 
 
 " I cannot leave it," he said. " I should like to go 
 away occasionally. I have other things to do. But 
 I cannot leave the business." 
 
 This was an opportunity. 
 
 " You haven't got the partner you spoke of ? " I 
 asked as off-handedly as possible. 
 
 " Such a man does not grow on every bush." 
 
 " That's so." 
 
 We went on to talk of other things. Evidently 
 if he had ever seriously thought of me as a partner he 
 had dismissed the idea long before. It was the way of 
 the world, I reflected. Jobs are thick as blackberries 
 when a man doesn't need them. 
 
 I might have spared my cynicism., For when later 
 on I rose to go and was making for the door Mesner 
 said to me just as jokingly as he had on that evening 
 at the Hotel de la Paix but with, I was convinced, very 
 much more seriousness behind it : 
 6 
 
82 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " And what do you say now, Lavington, to the ques- 
 tion of coming into partnership with me ? " 
 
 " My dear Meaner," said I after a gasp of surprise, 
 " if you really wish it I shall be delighted." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 BEHOLD me now an inmate of the household of 
 Maramat the teller of fortunes, a diligent assistant, 
 a reverent pupil, an indefatigable bottle-washer, 
 pew opener, and general sitter-at-the-feet-of one of the 
 most famous gums of Singapore. 
 
 Civilization knew me no more. I had bidden it a 
 disdainful farewell, torn up most of my papers, sold 
 my superfluous effects, paid my hotel bills and for- 
 sworn tea-fights for ever. Avery and his friends could 
 lord it over the European end of Singapore without 
 further competition from me. I had sworn it. Any- 
 how they would henceforth so lord it whether I had 
 sworn it or not, for I had disappeared, gone native like 
 Mesner, put myself beyond the pale. 
 
 So far beyond the pale was quite comfortable. Mesner, 
 in retiring to native town, had taken some of the luxuries 
 of civilization with him. There was no lack of meat 
 and drink. And for food for the mind, as they call it 
 in serious circles, Mesner had made use of some of his 
 earliest earnings by purchasing a complete set of Balzac. 
 It was a glorious edition by Laurens of Paris on thick 
 paper wititi broad margins. And my first job after 
 my arrival was to go over the red cloth bindings with 
 Chinese varnish in order to prevent the cockroaches 
 from eating them. Pearl among authors, I had never 
 read him in the French. I tasted P^re Goriot and 
 ' found the difference between it in its original and the 
 translated work I possessed as great as that between 
 an orange plucked in a Seville orchard and the wilted 
 globule of the suburban fruiterer. A long chair, sarong 
 
 83 
 
84 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 and singlet, a tumbler fuU of fiz and clink in the holder, 
 a fan in the zenith, and all Balzac to browse over, let 
 the lions of Singapore roar their loudest they got no 
 attention from me ! 
 
 And now, Mesner. Remember I knew nothing about 
 him. I had gone to him confidently and had not been 
 disappointed. But I must own I hadn't been prepared 
 for the side of him that our new intimacy revealed. 
 
 Mesner was a man of culture, culture so deep that 
 I felt a boor beside him. Mesner was a brilliant lawyer, 
 a prizeman of the University of Paris. Why he had 
 left France in the first instance he didn't tell me. I 
 believe his family had been intimate friends of de 
 Lesseps and had come to grief financially over something 
 connected with the Panama Canal. Whatever [the 
 reason, he must have left France young, for he talked 
 familiarly of what had been going on in the Malay 
 States nearly forty years before. At the time of the 
 murder of Birch, he apparently was living in Malacca. 
 
 " Home of all good Cathohcs," he laughed. " I 
 thought to start as an advocate in the courts there, but 
 I was before my time." 
 
 " It's about the oldest settlement," said I. " A 
 sleepy place." 
 
 " You English have spoiled it," he cried. " You 
 are too go-ahead, you EngHsh. For a life, which must 
 be easy and comfortable if it is worth living, give 
 me the Portuguese as governors. They know what 
 to do when the weather is hot. They go to sleep. 
 But you EngUsh, you crowd in, digging for tin, plant- 
 ing coffee. You upset the whole place. You get 
 riches and abscess on the Uver and presently you take 
 your siesta too, but it is a terribly long one and a little 
 white tombstone sits on your stomach." 
 
 " There's a deal in what you say. But we're not aU 
 built that way. I " 
 
 " Yes, you," he broke in. " But you're a Lavington. 
 There is a southern strain in you Lavingtons. Span- 
 ish ? " 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 85 
 
 " There was a great grandmother." 
 " I knew it," he cried triumphantly. ^ Witness 
 your tmcle. He in his own way is simpaU^ with the 
 Malays. And your father, God rest him, he also was 
 understood and beloved by all the native races." 
 
 " You knew my father then ? " I asked, rather excited. 
 " Well, I might have guessed it. He lived in Malacca." 
 " I knew him," said Mesner. " Not very well, for 
 he did not stay in Malacca long. He went to Kuala 
 Lumpur to plant coffee. When I came back from 
 Borneo I heard that he had died." 
 " Of cholera." 
 
 He nodded, his eyes turned away, and took a deep 
 whiff of his cigarette lying back in his long chair. 
 " He was beloved by all," he said after a while. 
 " He may have been," I remarked with a tinge of 
 C3micism, " but some of them in Kuala Lumpur had 
 a queer way of showing it. They sold him some very 
 bad land for his coffee plantation. A lot of it was 
 swamp." 
 Mesner looked at me surprised. 
 " No one told me that ! " he exclaimed. Then after 
 a moment, " It was not like your father to buy bad 
 land," he added. " Where is it now ? " 
 
 " Oh, sold long ago. My uncle got what he could 
 for it." 
 Mesner nodded. 
 
 " If your father had lived he would have been a 
 rich man," he remarked. " All the old coffee-planters 
 did well over rubber. I knew most of them." He 
 gave a short sigh, then laughed and turned the conver- 
 sation. 
 
 We discussed a new method of determining the length 
 of life by a coniparison of the lines on the right and 
 left hands. I showed him a handbook of Cheiro's 
 bought in a book shop that morning, which gave the 
 metiiod in full, and he produced a volume of Caglios- 
 tro's written in Spanish and, turning to a wood-cut, 
 proved to me that Cheiro's method was not new but 
 
86 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 had in fact been known on the Continent for more than 
 two centuries. 
 
 I mention this last as an example of our methods. 
 Fortune-telling, needless to say, isn't yet an exact 
 science. Like psycho-pathology it's a happy hunting- 
 ground for quacks. But we as intelligent men took 
 an interest in the profession we got our living at, and 
 strove to give our clients the best value for their money. 
 Mesner had accumulated quite a library on his subject. 
 Astrology, palmistry, phrenology, physiognomy, books 
 on everything from the card to the tea-cup were at 
 the service of those who came to consult us. We could 
 tell them what Lavater would have thought of their 
 noses, or lack of noses, what Spurzheim would have 
 read as he fingered the bumps and wrinkles of their 
 foreheads. Aye, and if pressed we could even have 
 given them information about their future, gathered 
 from an inspection of their entrails should they care 
 to produce them, for Mesner had a learned tome on 
 the subject written on parchment by some Greek 
 monk of former days, and beautifully illuminated. 
 
 My part in the actual running of the business con- 
 sisted at first as I said in serving as assistant generally. 
 But when through study I had gained expertness and 
 had learned the patter and the way to bluff I was 
 allowed to take a hand in interviewing clients. 
 
 Except for the colour of our eyes, Mesner and I were 
 sufficiently alike in build and features to be indistin- 
 guishable one from the other in a darkish room when 
 " made up." We darkened our consulting-room and 
 took shift about. Four hours' work apiece — from dusk 
 till after midnight between us — and we on an average 
 day raked in as much as most of our white-shirted 
 fellow-Europeans managed to get hold of in a 
 week. 
 
 The work was interesting, mostly amusing, sometimes 
 sufficiently sad. Wives whose husbands had strayed 
 and who wanted to tempt them back. Wives whose 
 husbands had not strayed. Men who fancied them- 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 87 
 
 selves not a little ; few of the other kind ever came, 
 they are as scarce in Singapore as elsewhere. And then 
 a sprinkling of poor folk of all races — humanity is 
 much the same East or West — who saw no future for 
 themselves and their little ones and came to us in the 
 hope that we could show them one. 
 
 The Chinese were on the whole the best payers. 
 But the Eurasian community furnished us with the 
 best fun. The men without exception were in passion's 
 toils. They get into them at fourteen in Singapore, 
 it seems, and never escape. At any rate, I have had 
 a man of seventy come to me who positively reeked 
 of poadre d'amour, and had matrimonial designs on a 
 girl of fifteen. He said he thought that if he married 
 her she might when he grew old become discontented. 
 I sold him a hair oil to prevent this, a hair oil which, 
 if used by a gentleman, irresistibly attracts the lady of 
 his passion. This oil had an enormous sale among our 
 clients at five dollars a phial. We used to make it up 
 by the quart of a morning out of coconut oil and elang- 
 Jelang. 
 
 Perhaps the most trying feature of the work was the 
 atmosphere. Singapore folk are comparatively cleanly, 
 but sardined humanity can never be anything but a 
 little foetid. By midnight often our hot airless consult- 
 ing-room so lacked fresh oxygen as to be something of 
 a lethal chamber. 
 
 It was like that one evening. I sat and gasped, per- 
 spired, and mopped, careful always of the grease paint. 
 My takings that evening had been fifty dollars, and 
 there was yet another half hour to go before we closed. 
 Though almost done to death, I was smiling. The 
 labourer is worthy of his hire, but he isn't always paid it. 
 I had been paid ; and above there waited me a long 
 chair and a bubbling iced whisky soda. 
 
 The gong went. Frowning ostentatiously I drew 
 my magic robe about me. 
 
 " Satu serani lagi," whispered the old woman to me. 
 " One Eurasian more. He has been before. A con- 
 
88 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 ceited person, fond of dress, who works in the office 
 of a lawyer." 
 
 She drew aside the black hangings. My lowered eye- 
 lids blinked instinctively as a vision in loud tweeds 
 smote them. 
 
 " Good evening, Guru," said heartily a voice I knew 
 well. " I have slipped in to spare you a minute." 
 
 I acknowledged the greeting in a well-disguised bass. 
 
 The gentleman infthe doorway started. 
 
 " Benjamin Jehoshaphat ! " he observed sympathetic- 
 ally. " You have caught a dam cold, I guess, since 
 I was here more than several weeks ago." 
 
 He approached and gingerly took a seat. 
 
 " An icy spirit came from the silent tomb and blew 
 on me," I explained. The explanation reads laugh- 
 able in English, but as spoken by me it sounded plausible 
 and dignified. My client looked impressed. 
 
 " Yours is a dangerous profession notarf," he remarked, 
 wagging his head solemnly. " Worse'n lawyering. 
 Have you have to have had many interviews with 
 spirits from icy tomb. Guru ? " 
 
 " Do not inquire too closely," I boomed solemnly, 
 " lest th€y snatch at thee and thou becomest cold even 
 as they. What wouldst thou, Gaudeamus Gubb ? " 
 
 My uncle's confidential clerk started. 
 
 " I am known here then ? " he gasped. 
 
 " The name Gaudeamus Gubb is well known in the 
 spirit world." 
 
 " Benjamin Jehoshaphat ! " exclaimed my friend, 
 obviously scared. 
 
 " Oftentimes has the good and industrious labour 
 of Gubb in the service of his employer, lawyer Laving- 
 ton, been brought to my notice by the spirits that 
 frequent your office." 
 
 " You ain't meaning to say there are spirits in that 
 dam office ? " muttered Gubb, stirring uneasily in his 
 seat. 
 
 " Not all the time," I explained. " They were pre- 
 sent this morning, they tell me, just before thou didst 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 89 
 
 sally forth for tiffin, Gubb. They witnessed thee 
 brushing thy hair and arranging the silken gaud round 
 thy neck." 
 
 The ebony walking stick of Gaudeamus clattered to 
 the ground. 
 
 " Benjamin Jehoshaphat ! " he muttered in an awe- 
 struck voice. " But I was brushing my hair and tying 
 my tie at the time you speak about." 
 
 " Thou wast thinking as thou didst so, as thou 
 smiledst pleasantly at thyself in the looking-glass, O 
 Gubb," I boomed on monotonously, my face turned 
 downwards to hide a smile, " thou wast thinking ' I 
 wonder how the ladies of Singapore will like me in the 
 new tweed suit I have acquired.' " 
 
 " No, Guru," contradicted Gubb, looking brighter. 
 " No — sir." He bent and picked up his stick with 
 the gloved hand that held his new straw hat. For the 
 first time since his entrance he grinned broadly. " The 
 spirits was wrong that time. Guru. I was not thinking 
 about the Singapore ladies. I was thinking about the 
 ladies of Labuan, Guru. Now, I inquire of you in per- 
 fect confidence. Do you think these ladies. Guru, will 
 be struck all of heaps on having pleasure of making 
 my acquaintance ? " 
 
 " Labuan ! " I interjected. 
 
 " We upsticks for Labuan to-morrow," explained 
 Gubb. " Mr. Lavington and I myself. Business of 
 great importance calls us — connected with — um — the 
 law." 
 
 A stranger might have thought here, from his hesita- 
 tion and toying with his hat brim, that Gubb was 
 endeavouring to conceal from me what his mission to 
 Labuan was. But I knew better. Gubb, thought I, 
 doesn't know himself. 
 
 " I see thee, O Gubb," I boomed, waving a dignified 
 hand, " in a ricksha, driving through the sunshine to 
 the wharf. I see thee on board the steamer, the observed 
 of all observers. Thy costume creates envy in the 
 hearts of the male passengers." 
 
90 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " Never heard anything hke it in whole of perspiring 
 life," muttered my client, hanging on my words. 
 
 " As for the lady passengers, they adore thee. Thou 
 flittest among them like some gorgeous butterfly." 
 
 " Are there any great heiresses on board that steamer 
 or at Labuan ? " Gubb inquired, with interest. " That's 
 very important information. Guru." 
 
 " There are," I said. " Several. One of them, dark 
 of complexion and extremely beautiful, will show herself 
 favourably disposed towards thee, O Gubb." 
 
 " Doan't be scared to ask a pretty handsome fee for 
 services. Guru," said Gaudeamus, rubbing his hands. 
 " I am a perfect gentleman also in money matters. Is 
 she rich heiress or merely poor and contemptible ? " 
 
 " I have lost touch of the spirit for the moment," 
 boomed I. " Exhibit me thy hands, O Gubb. Both 
 of them." 
 
 After a preliminary wiping on a large green silk hand- 
 kerchief Gaudeamus held out a pair of palms the size 
 of soup plates. They were horrible palms, pale grey in 
 colour. Lines on them indicated that Gubb had mur- 
 dered, been divorced and was a bigamist. 
 
 " Thou hast been through great trouble in the office 
 lately," I said, inspecting them solemnly. " It has 
 left a mark here." 
 
 " Trouble connected with unavailable efforts at 
 getting rise in salary ? " suggested my client after a 
 moment's thought. 
 
 " No, not that," I said with emphasis. " Trouble 
 about some man whom thou didst hold in affection. 
 Put that hand closer to the light ! So ! I see now. 
 He is a European. His name is Harry Lavington." 
 
 " Harry Lavington," echoed Gubb. " Yes, Guru. 
 We're all sorry 'bout him." 
 
 " This European is indeed an unfortunate fellow," I 
 fished. 
 
 " In some ways he was lucky," commented Gubb. 
 " He hopped off completely together with several 
 hundred dollars, much to sorrow of respected imcle." 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 91 
 
 By clenching my hands I managed to stop myself 
 from uttering an astonished exclamation ; and bent 
 my head stUl lower over the soup-plate of a hand. 
 
 " The man will be found," I boomed. " He will come 
 back. I read on your palm that it will be discovered 
 that the explanation of his respected but villainous 
 uncle has given of his disappearance is false and that he 
 did not steal the money." 
 
 " 'Pears to be a lot on that dam palm," commented 
 Gubb, squinting at his large hand with some respect. 
 
 " There is room for a lot," I explained. " It is a big 
 palm. There are other things on it also. This small 
 crease by the mount of wisdom, for instance — which as 
 doubtless thou hast observed, O Gubb, is of great 
 magnitude, showing that the owner of the hand has a 
 remarkable brain — this small crease indicates thou hast 
 seen recently a lady, far above thee, for whom thou 
 hast nothing but a very deep respect. I see her enter- 
 ing the ofBce. Her hair, so says thy hand to me, is red. 
 She speaks to the clerks pleasantly. She asks for Mr. 
 Lavington." 
 
 Gubb who had been sitting with his features screwed 
 up as if puzzled to know which lady this could be, 
 brightened at once as I gave him his cue. 
 
 " That," he said in some excitement, " was Miss 
 Lavington, my respectable employer's young daughter." 
 
 " She goes into her father's room," I boomed. " Is 
 that some one leading her onwards ? A tall well-dressed 
 man, dark of complexion. In the twilight of the 
 passage I cannot see his features distinctly but he appears 
 to be handsome." 
 
 " I showed the missie in to Mr. Lavington," broke in 
 Gubb complacently. 
 
 " On the opening of the office door the passage grows 
 lighter.} The features of the man are revealed. They 
 are thos% of Gaudeamus Gubb. The lady enters. Her 
 father tells her of the missing money taken by Harry 
 Lavington. She expresses great sorrow and " 
 
 " No— Guru ! " interrupted Gubb loudly. " No— 
 
92 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 sir ! Miss Lavington says she didn't believe a word of 
 it and that Mr. Harry wasn't the man to steal no money. 
 And I with my usual impecuniosity, Tuan Guru, I told 
 the old man I 'grees fully with that statement. And 
 then he got up and threw the inkpot at my head and 
 chased me out of the office. Benjamin Jehoshaphat ! 
 What a lesson ! You'll never catch me speaking a 
 good word for no one any more. After that there was 
 such a ter'ble row between the two parties that I was 
 nearly going in again, but then I thought of old proverb, 
 two's company and three's often a rough house. So I 
 lay congealed in my private office." 
 
 " I see the maiden coming out of the office," I boomed. 
 " Weeping bitterly." 
 
 " She wasn't weeping," cried Gubb. " Not her ! 
 She's a real lady ! She slammed the glass door so hard 
 that a pane of glass broke. And that was the last we 
 saw of her in our office, for the very next morning she 
 ran off with a chap in the Government Service named 
 Avery. They mizzled in the steamer to Labuan." 
 
 " Ran off ! " I ejaculated loudly, surprised out of 
 myself. 
 
 But Gubb was too full of himself and his news to 
 notice my excitement. " And when my employer 
 heard the news," he continued, " some time about 
 middle day, he treated me to an exhibition of bad 
 temper which I assure you, Guru, was positively offen- 
 sive to a perfect gentleman of quiet tastes. And in 
 strick confidence I may say that he has been treating 
 me to this exhibition ever since. While I am here 
 patronizing your establishment, can you inform me 
 about any charm or medicine that might be used to 
 soothe bad temper of employer, for I'm about sick of 
 all this one-sided quarrelling. ..." 
 
 But I was too put out to talk to him further. I got 
 rid of him as soon as possible and teUing the old woman 
 to close the place for the night, I ran upstairs. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " T% ^Y uncle sails for Labuan to-morrow morning ! " 
 
 I y I I called out in an excited voice, bursting into 
 our sitting-room. 
 
 Mesner sat up in his long chair. His hairy legs 
 dangled below his short cotton sarong. The heels of 
 his grass slippers touched the floor. 
 
 " On a family affair," I added, sadly enough. 
 
 I told him about Kate, at first intending to give him 
 the bare outline, then, as he cross-questioned me, going 
 back to the beginning. 
 
 " You remember that little, stout, fair man who was 
 so rude to you on board the mail steamer at Penang ? 
 The one to whom I returned a half-crown." 
 
 " That mouche I She's run away with him ? " 
 
 " So Gubb said." 
 
 " But impossible." He flicked the ash from his 
 cigarette on to the matted floor and stared unbelieAdngly 
 at the wall opposite, " You describe to me some one 
 like Minerva, full of wisdom, gloriously beautiful, kind 
 of disposition, and with red hair that ravishes. You 
 wish me to believe that she has fulfilled her destiny 
 by eloping with that lump of stupidity and conceit ? " 
 
 " But ^e has done so," I pointed out. 
 
 " Never out of love of him," cried Mesner with 
 emphasis. " Women do not do these things." He 
 paused, I noticed a spasm of pain flash over his face. 
 " Jealousy, perhaps. Yes, that would explain it. 
 The best of women will sacrifice themselves in a fit of 
 pique. Women will do anything from pique. That 
 
 r. 93 
 
94 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 is what has governed your cousin. There is a case 
 I can put before you, a case I know intimately of — 
 one of my dearest friends. He married a girl of the — 
 in the country. It was for love. Afterwards he brought 
 her to town. Naturally in the town there was society. 
 There were other women to whom ordinary caution 
 made it necessary for him to be polite. His wife from 
 the country did not understand it. She grew angry. 
 He explained. She still grew angry. One day she 
 disappeared. And he had loved her to distraction. . . ." 
 
 He paused and lifting the tumbler at his side gidped 
 down half its contents. 
 
 " The man with whom she ran away," he ended, 
 " or rather with whom she was thought to have run 
 away, for they were never found, neither of them 
 was ever seen again, was one of the most worthless. 
 mon Dieu I One of the most worthless ! " 
 
 Glass resting on his saronged knee, he sat staring 
 miserably in front of him. His face had gone quite grey. 
 
 We went off to bed soon after that. In the morning 
 he had become his usual self again. 
 
 " We will now see what the position is," he remarked 
 when the Chinese " boy " had brought in the daily 
 newspaper to us at breakfast next morning. " People 
 cannot move in and out of Singapore without our 
 friend the editor noting the fact." He waved the buff- 
 coloured sheet at me jovially. " What will you bet, 
 Lavington ? Has your uncle sailed by the Borneo 
 boat this morning or is our gentleman. Monsieur 
 Gaudeamus Gubb, a delicate player on your astonishing 
 credulity ? " 
 
 " Five dollars on the veracity of Gubb I " cried I. 
 
 We bent over the palely-printed end sheet of the 
 paper. In a moment it was apparent that Mesner 
 had won. My uncle's name didn't appear in the list 
 of passengers. I fished out the money and put it on 
 the table by Mesner's side. He nodded absently and 
 continued to peruse the oriental-looking sheet. Glancing 
 over[his shoulder I noted an announcement by a doctor. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 95 
 
 written in Chinese character, and an advertisement 
 in Malay of a particularly horrible Yankee pain-killer. 
 
 " VoM I " cried Mesner suddenly. He raised the 
 paper towards me as I stood at his shoulder, keeping 
 his index finger on a small paragraph at the bottom 
 of the page. I read : 
 
 "Among the passengers by the s.s. Siri S clangor 
 to Klang yesterday was Mr. Lavington, the well-known 
 solicitor, who is taking a short trip for the benefit 
 of his health." 
 
 " So he has gone somewhere after all," I muttered. 
 
 Mesner threw the newspaper into the farthest corner 
 of the room. 
 
 " I withdraw all imputations against L'Amico 
 Gubb I " he shouted. " Gubb as a teller of the truth 
 stands out great and glorious. His geography is 
 imperfect and his brain something of the nature of a 
 boiled rabbit's. But his intentions are admirable. 
 Harry, take back your five dollars." 
 
 '• Why ? " 
 
 " Because," said Mesner, jumping up, " you'll need 
 more than that to pay your train fare to Kuala Lumpur 
 this morning. Come, come, don't stare I The non- 
 chalance of boys who are certain of a good dinner, 
 that is what we must aim at, according to the learned 
 Emerson. Be surprised at nothing I " 
 
 " But why go to Kuala Lumpur," I demanded, 
 absolutely declining to follow his advice. 
 
 " You don't see ? " cried Mesner. " Then I will 
 tell you. Klang is the port for Kuala Lumpur. That 
 is one reason. Also, you need a change of air. You 
 are becoming flabby. Is not your health as important 
 as that of your uncle ? For me, I am interested, having 
 thought deeply concerning the subject, in your late 
 father's swamp at Kuala Lumpur and what now grows 
 on it. I go, most certainly, and at once. For you, 
 if you insist on stashing here in Singapore and minding 
 the shop . . ." 
 
 I stared at him stupidly. 
 
96 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " But what do you propose to do with the business 
 if I go ? " 
 
 " Close it ! Are we slaves ? Put a placard on the 
 door stating that we are called away on matters affecting 
 royalty. There's a certain old sultan's uncle living 
 near Klang close by your late father's land, whom we 
 might do worse than visit. And I may mention that 
 this old gentleman knows all the Malay princesses 
 west of Java by repute or otherwise, and is or used to 
 be acquainted with your uncle. If I were desperately 
 in love with a Malay princess I should assuredly not 
 hesitate to call on him." 
 
 I tried to catch his eye, certain of finding a twinkle. But 
 he calmly evaded my glance by bending with deliberation 
 over the durian with which he was finishing his breakfast. 
 
 " You think we ought to see what my uncle is after ? " 
 I asked feebly. 
 
 " Impetuous lover of unknown princesses," he 
 returned, pausing spoon in air, " if you must have 
 the truth, I long to breathe the forest air again." 
 
 I really believe he did and that it wasn't entirely 
 for my sake he had decided to close down our flourishing 
 business for a day or two. 
 
 We drove down in a gharry to the railway station, 
 our faces slightly disguised, our dress respectable 
 khaki. We wore large pith helmets like planters of 
 the more practical sort. 
 
 Once we were clear of native town Mesner grew quite 
 boyish. A man in white duck with a large moustache 
 and large feet brushed against us on the platform in 
 an obvious endeavour to listen to our conversation. 
 
 " And what shall we do," remarked Mesner loudly, 
 nudging me, " when our directorate in Paris receives 
 the news of the presence of fungus disease on the rubber 
 plantation, of that I tremble to think ! " 
 
 " We must use disinfectant on the roots of the trees," 
 I ejaculated, taking the cue. 
 
 The large nines and big waxed moustache retreated 
 satisfied. Mesner took the hand-bag from the Kling 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 97 
 
 porter and pushed me into an empty first-class carriage. 
 
 " Monsieur Sherlock 'Olmes mistook us for French 
 planters," he said in a delighted whisper. " There 
 are many such in the Malay States, and tin miners 
 also. Your police never interfere with them. They 
 think them slightly mad, like the wild Irish." 
 
 " Was he after me ? " I asked, subdued. 
 
 " No, no. But there is always a detective here, 
 watching the station, and he may have had general 
 orders to look out for you among others." 
 
 " I don't think my uncle would have told the police 
 about me," I objected. 
 
 " Perhaps no," agreed Mesner soothingly. " But 
 shall we not take precautions ? " 
 
 The train wheezed out of the station. We began 
 to pass through the mixture of dust and allotments 
 of which Singapore island now consists. 
 
 Once across the Straits and in Johore, the country 
 grew better to look on. 3ut here, too, acres of mono- 
 tonous rubber made us turn from the plate-glass windows 
 of the comfortable carriage. 
 
 " Strange that your uncle shoiild go by sea when 
 such a train as this is available," said Mesner. 
 
 " Perhaps he really is a bit run down." 
 
 " Age and his long stay in this climate must have 
 their effect in time," said Mesner. " Without doubt 
 he is feeling the strain. But his control of himself is 
 like iron." 
 
 " He loses his temper much more easily than he 
 did," I said with feeling. 
 
 Mesner spread his hands expressively. 
 
 " The effect of years," he pointed out. " For instance, 
 twenty years ago he would not without previous 
 intention have quarrelled with you. I am sure that 
 quarrel was unpremeditated. His natural wish would 
 be for you to marry your cousin. But now his ill-nature 
 is beyond control. He must give vent to his spite 
 against mankind. Yes, aU men like him are at war 
 with mankind and imagine mankind is at war with 
 7 
 
98 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 them. But in impetuously casting you out he passed 
 the bounds of caution — and he knows it." 
 
 He nodded gravely, brought out his woven grass 
 cigarette-case, one of the things comparative wealth 
 had not yet managed to part him from, and opened it. 
 I took a cigarette. 
 
 " You think my uncle's sorry because he's given me 
 the sack ? " 
 
 " Regard the position dispassionately I " said Mesner. 
 " Why should he wish you to go ? Again, when you 
 have gone, and as he must think broken with him 
 definitely, why should he have suddenly shown this 
 feverish activity ? What reason had he to accuse you 
 to your cousin of theft and to quarrel with her concerning 
 you ? I will tell you. Because he is old — Because he 
 is obstinate — Because he is — afraid I " 
 
 " Afraid ? " 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " We will carry our reasoning yet a little further," 
 said he and, puf&ng out a thin cloud of cigarette smoke, 
 bent forward in his seat, and touched my knee with 
 his thin hairy hand. 
 
 " Having quarrelled with you, your uncle would 
 think about you more than a little. He would believe 
 you were his enemy, and would examine his defences. 
 Where would you strike him ? Obviously among the 
 things left for you to do would be to demand from him 
 an account of his trusteeship. Perhaps you have 
 already done so ? Could you injure him here ? " 
 
 " The only thing I have inherited so far as I know," 
 I murmured rather stupidly, " was that piece of marsh 
 land I told you of." 
 
 " Yes. But was it marsh land ? " 
 
 Mesner tapped my knee again. 
 
 " I thought over what you told me. My mind went 
 back. I remembered that some one told me what a 
 beautiful piece of land yom: father had bought." 
 
 He leant back in his seat. 
 
 "What your uncle does in Kuala Lumpur," said 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 99 
 
 he \vith a slow smile, " that is what I wish to find out. 
 You, of course, being younger and more sensible, do 
 not trouble about such matters I Your object no 
 doubt is to force the palace of every rajah in the 
 Peninsula in search of your beautiful princess I " 
 
 " You don't believe in her I " I cried, very annoyed. 
 
 " Oh, yes, most certainly," said he with a cynical 
 smile. " But you must admit, knowing the Malays as 
 you do, that she sounds just a — leetle too good to be — 
 let us say — true." 
 
 At that remark I relapsed into silence. It gave me 
 food for disagreeable thought. Malay women are not 
 as a rule good. Neither do they set much store on the 
 virtue of being " true." 
 
 The town of Kuala Lumpur, seat of the Selangor 
 Government, has been so often described by abler pens 
 than mine (both before and after a visit to the principal 
 club, the " Spotted Dog ") that I intend wearying the 
 patience of nobody with yet another account of its 
 magnificence. There are gardens where a curator 
 from Kew has made a lake and planted it about with 
 precious trees and beautiful fiowers, gathered from every 
 tropical forest. Palaces glitter amid foliage on the 
 gentle hills around. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 SOME Malays hate the European and don't hesitate 
 to show it. Dato Kahar, the old gentleman Mesner 
 took me to see, certainly wasn't one of those. 
 
 We didn't have any difficulty at all in seeing Kahar. 
 A stout youth in the midst of a perspiring slumber on 
 the big veranda — a hot, dark place with bamboo chicks, 
 a floor made of palm laths, and with no sign of paint 
 anywhere — got up at Mesner's respectful shout in his 
 right ear and, having looked at us stupidly, went within. 
 A buzz of voices and a feminine giggle or two told us 
 his message was delivered. 
 
 Presently the bamboo curtain hung in front of the 
 door swung wide aside. The house emitted the Dato. 
 My impression was of a large smile with a small dark 
 man distributed round it unevenly, bald, shaven head 
 uppermost. 
 
 Mesner rushed to him. They were shaking hands 
 with much demonstration of affection. 
 
 " Twenty years since I saw you last, Dato," I heard 
 Mesner say. 
 
 That no doubt partly explained the Dato's smile ! 
 
 " Brentkali ! — Perhaps ! — Like enough ! " jerked out 
 the Dato, his thin, wise face alive. " It seems longer, 
 Tuan. So long, that I thought you were dead. So you 
 
 have had sorrow ? People bore the news " He 
 
 broke off and shouted the Malay equivalent of " What 
 ho, within ! " calling for the instant production of betel 
 utensils and cigarettes. " And sweet cakes for the 
 youthful Tuan here," he added with a chuckle, waving 
 
 100 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON loi 
 
 a courteous hand in my direction. " He has a child's 
 tooth still, I know." 
 
 Mesner introduced me. We squatted on grass mats 
 laid o];i a floor all interstices. They believe in broad 
 floor cracks in Malaya, keep their chickens below the 
 house and sweep- the crumbs through to them. It saves 
 chicken food. 
 
 " So you came by the fire-carriage, not by the fire- 
 ship," the Dato commented, " I myself prefer the 
 ship." 
 
 " The Malays are a seafaring race," pointed out 
 Mesner. 
 
 " Quite true," the old fellow nodded, squatting in 
 his sarong like a collection of bones in a petticoat. 
 " And you will remember also in my day there were 
 not such things as fire-carriages. None of them had 
 been brought from Europe when last you came here, 
 Tuan Mesner." 
 
 He pushed the beautifully engraved silver betel box 
 over to us. With astonishment I watched Mesner take up 
 the scissors, cut off a piece of nut, wrap it in the sirih 
 leaf together with a smear of lime from a little brass 
 pot. He rolled up the package, popped it into his 
 mouth. 
 
 Mesner was chewing betel ! MOre than that, chewing 
 it like an expert. Horrible sight ! 
 
 In my hottest dreams I had never seen myself suffi- 
 ciently Malayanized to indulge in this unsavoury habit, 
 and to see my friend squatting there, with the bright 
 red juice beslavering his lips, didn't delight me. But 
 I'll acknowledge that, if such could be, Mesner chewed 
 with dignity, whereas the Dato's jaws worked with the 
 rapidity of a greedy monkey's. 
 
 Mesner told the Dato who I was. The Dato shifted 
 his quid in order to rhapsodize about my father, whom 
 apparently he'd known in the old days. He patted my 
 coat sleeve affectionately with a skinny stained hand. 
 
 " Tuan Lavington, a quite good man," he commented, 
 the red betel juice foaming between his blackened teeth 
 
102 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 as he grinned at me. " His mem, a lady altogether 
 quite too good. But dead many years ago. Allah ! 
 All-a-h 1 He had land near here, within a stone's 
 throw." 
 
 "That is what his son comes to visit," Mesner 
 explained. 
 
 " Ah, he will see the fine rabber trees growing on it," 
 cried the Dato. " Bigger than that." He touched 
 the betel box. " As thick perhaps as the leg of an 
 elephant." 
 
 I stared, my hand full of sugar cake half-way to my 
 mouth. 
 
 " What did I say to you ? " chuckled Mesner, 
 triumphant. 
 
 A little later, the sun being well down, we all went 
 out to see my land. It wasn't quarter of a mile away. 
 The going across country was easy with a man or two 
 In front to cut down the thorn palms and rattan. Of 
 swamp now there was nothing. The fine system of 
 drainage the European company who owned it had 
 installed did away with aU water lodgment. Dato 
 Kahar hadn't exaggerated. 
 
 Halting beside the first big rubber tree he came to, 
 he asked me to confess he hadn't exaggerated. I re- 
 quested him in my best Malay to furnish an elephant's 
 leg so that I might judge. And we walked on through 
 the big rubber grove, most of us chuckling. 
 
 " Tell me, Dato," Mesner said as we struck the 
 government road at the edge of the plantation, " what 
 price did the European company pay for the land ? " 
 
 The Dato confessed he didn't know. He suggested 
 walking along the road to the government station. In 
 the land office, he said, there was an Eurasian clerk who 
 had all information of that sort at his finger-tips. 
 
 Followed by armies of mosquitoes, we marched 
 through the rapidly descending twilight between rows 
 of flourishing rubber. In the neat little district office 
 we found the Eurasian clerk just locking up for the 
 night. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 103 
 
 After the manner of his kind he suggested we should 
 come to-morrow. 
 
 " To-morrow I " screamed the Dato in mock rage. 
 "Knowest thou not that for an old man like me to- 
 morrow means nothing more than perhaps ? " 
 
 " I can tell you at once," said the clerk, " that the 
 land was not sold to the company by any one pf the 
 name of Lavington. We had a gentleman in this morn- 
 ing about the question, though that side of it only 
 cropped up accidentally. The gentleman was a his- 
 torian." 
 
 " Indeed ? " said Mesner, interested. " Who was 
 this gentleman ? " 
 
 With great accuracy the clerk described my uncle. 
 The gentleman, he said, hadn't mentioned his name. 
 
 " He is from Singapore," he went on to say, " and 
 is compiling a historee of the rubber planting with, I 
 am given to understand confeedentially, the Approval 
 of Governor and general community there. This piece 
 of land is unique, because a Borneo Malay connected 
 by marriage with an offshoot of the Selangor royal 
 family owned this land and sold it to the rubber com- 
 pany. The correspondence connected with it proved, 
 the gentleman found this morning, so interesting that 
 he has borrowed the file to make copy for his historee. 
 It was previous to this Borneo rajah that a person 
 named Lavington owned the land. On going through 
 the file this morning the gentleman and I' came across 
 a letter written to the then district of&cer, Mr. Peddam- 
 Smythe, by a relation of the deceased Lavington stating 
 that the transfer from Lavington to the Borneo Malay 
 was quite in order, and that the signatures of himself 
 and the other trustee he could personally vouch for." 
 
 " I should like to see that letter," I observed. 
 
 Nobody had ever told me that I had another trustee ! 
 
 " Come in two three days' time," suggested the cleric, 
 " The Singapore gentleman has taken it away with deed 
 of transfer in order to copy them. By then he wiU have 
 returned them." 
 
104 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " We are evidently a little too late," I said in some 
 disappointment, turning to Mesner. I was about to 
 add the suggestion that we might as well go home 
 again, when it dawned upon me as I looked at him 
 that what we had just heard seemed to be affecting 
 him strongly. His two thin, hairy hands gripped the 
 mahogany counter. With tense arms he strained himself 
 against it. 
 
 " You have not told us the name of this — man from 
 Borneo," he said with a painful effort. 
 
 " The name ! " said the Eurasian clerk carelessly. 
 " I forget. He was from Brunei. Pangiran — they are 
 all pangirans there, ha, ha ! " (I may explain that 
 " pangiran " is the title given in Borneo to all those 
 of royal blood and that the harems and families of 
 Borneo sultans are wont to be large.) 
 
 He turned over the big leaves of the ledger, found 
 the page and ran a blue-nailed finger along the entries. 
 
 " Pangiran Nebudin, that was the name," he said at 
 last. 
 
 I noticed Mesner stagger. 
 
 " Nebudin," he muttered. " mon Dieu ! 
 Nebudin ! " 
 
 " Yes, Nebudin," said the clerk, eyeing him. " Shall 
 I write it down on a piece of paper for you ? " 
 
 With an effort Mesner recovered himself. 
 
 " I shall not forget the name," said he in a loud 
 harsh voice. 
 
 We pushed along homewards through the gloom of 
 the rubber plantation. The trees were wintering. Our 
 feet rustled through a myriad withered leaves. In the 
 jungle the cicadas shrilled their evensong. 
 
 Darkness had fallen when we reached the Dato's house. 
 Standing near the foot of the rough steps leading to 
 the veranda I looked through the fretted leaves of the 
 coconut palms down the channel of mud bared by the 
 tide where the river trickled out to sea. Embers of 
 sunset were in the night sky. For long I stood and 
 watched them die away. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 105 
 
 Presently Mesner came out of the house. He had 
 been to the harem I understood, to greet the Dato's 
 wife, so close was the friendship between him and our 
 host. 
 
 He climbed down the steps and came slowly over to 
 me. 
 
 " It is better we stay the night here," he said in a 
 low voice. 
 
 "But we have booked rooms at the hotel," I 
 objected. 
 
 He made an impatient movement. 
 
 " It is necessary for us to stay," he said with decision. 
 " If you leave now, we have had our trouble for nothing. 
 Almost for nothing," he added, correcting himself. He 
 put up his hand to hide his face. Even in that tvraUght 
 I saw that he was still in torment. 
 
 " I'll stay willingly," said I. 
 
 He took my arm and drew me unresisting into the 
 darkness of the coconut palms. 
 
 Our hostess and he were to meet again, he told me, 
 after the evening rice. He hinted that the Dato was 
 not so open as he seemed. 
 
 We went back to the house. Later, small tin lamps, 
 innocent of globes, were lighted on the veranda. 
 Squatting in the flickering illumination cast by one of 
 them, Mesner and I ate the rice and curry some one 
 brought us. An old woman came with cigarettes. The 
 men, shy of Europeans at such close quarters, quickly 
 deserted the veranda. Mesner disappeared with the 
 Dato, no doubt to have his promised talk with the 
 Dato's wife. 
 
 The night breeze blew faintly in from the west. A 
 patch of weak luminousness began to bleach the sky. 
 The tops of mangroves were silhouetted against it, in- 
 tensely black. I lay, head on elbow, smoking my 
 palrn-leaf cigarette. 
 
 It must have been near midnight when Mesner 
 appeared, carr37ing pillows and a pair of cotton coverlets. 
 
 " We must sleep here on the veranda," he told me. 
 
io6 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 I struggled to my feet, horribly stiff with having 
 remained so long in one attitude. 
 
 " I have not been too successful at gathering news," 
 he said as I took one of the pillows and a coverlet. 
 " You shall hear all in the morning." 
 
 He sighed heavUy. 
 
 " Where are you going to lie down ? " he asked. 
 "It is better to come in here near to the wall out of 
 the draught." 
 
 We lay down in a corner close to one another. 
 
 I awoke to find the darkness intenser than ever. To 
 ease my body, aching from the hardness of the floor, 
 I turned over very gently for fear of disturbing Mesner, 
 who was sound asleep. 
 
 Lying on my back, I stared up into the blackness of 
 the roof. There ought, I remember thinking, to have 
 been more light than this. There was a moon when I 
 lay down. Perhaps it had become clouded over. Other- 
 wise dawn must be near. I recollected that when we 
 had settled for the night there had been a small lamp 
 burning beside me on my right hand. The wind, I 
 thought to myself sleepily, as I lazily groped for the 
 lamp in the darkness, had put it out. 
 
 Unable to find the lamp, I roUed over noiselessly to 
 the edge of the mat, groping still. It began to dawn 
 on me that the lamp had gone, a fact which seemed 
 very strange, considering. 
 
 At that moment there sounded a low noise, a grunt, 
 from directly below me. Something came tearing up- 
 wards through the floor, through the mat, grazing my 
 side. 
 
 I knew, terrified, what it was before I'd turned, 
 before I'd gripped it and, straining like a madman, had 
 risen, shouting, to my feet. 
 
 Suddenly whoever was below the house let go. I 
 staggered back against the wall. The Malays rushing 
 out to the veranda, carrying lamps, found me there, 
 blinking and holding a spear. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE darkness and the flickering of the lights, the 
 rough woodwork and the gaunt roof beams lent 
 a wildness to the scene. There must have been 
 twenty or more able-bodied Malays sleeping in that 
 house. They came out thick as wasps and were under 
 the veranda and scouring the surrounding plantation 
 almost before I knew where I was. 
 
 " That spear, it was meant for me," cried Mesner 
 again. 
 
 " Sharpened up for the occasion," said I, intending 
 waggishness, but slightly hysterical still. I touched the 
 point with my thumb. 
 
 They declined to be waggish. Lamp in hand the 
 Dato examined the broad blade. It was bitten with 
 acid, duU and rough to the touch, and had a kris-wave 
 in it. The silver ferrule of the socket was elaborately 
 engraved. 
 
 " Who could have attempted the, crime ? " Mesner 
 demanded. " Nobody knew we were here ? " 
 
 The Dato looked up, blinking his eyes rapidly, and 
 bent down to further examination of the spear. He 
 was considerably worried, was the Dato, 
 
 " It was my ill they intended," said Mesner in a low 
 voice, " There always have been those against me. 
 Ever since—— But I thought they had forgotten. 
 And in this district in my belief I have no enemies," 
 
 Dawn broke and presently a woman came out bring- 
 ing coffee. It was made according to the usual horrible 
 Malay recipe, with badly boiled water, too much sugar, 
 
 107 
 
io8 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 condensed milk, and plenty of grounds. But chilled as 
 we were by the raw morning breeze, poison would have 
 been acceptable provided it was hot. 
 
 Mists still wreathed the plantation and shrouded the 
 river. From the veranda I saw men slowly searching 
 the banks. Presently one of them shouted. His com- 
 panions joined him. We observed them gathering 
 round and examining something on a bush. A youth 
 came hurrying back, drew the Dato aside, and talked 
 to him in whispers. From the uneasy glances he cast 
 in our direction it seemed to me that the Dato was 
 hearing something rather unpalatable about us. He 
 said nothing, however. Presently he followed the youth 
 out into the feeble suidight and down to the river bank 
 where we saw him talking to the group of Malays, at 
 least one of whom seemed to have reached a pitch of 
 great excitement. 
 
 The Dato came back looking gloomier than ever and 
 clambered up on to the veranda. 
 
 " There were two men concerned in the spearing," he 
 said. " They have fled across the river." 
 
 " Beyond chance of capture ? " Mesner asked. 
 
 The Dato spread his hands resignedly. 
 
 " Siapa tau ? " said he. " Who knows ? " He 
 brightened. " The Tuans can, if they will, call in the 
 help of the police." 
 
 " What were you looking at on the bush ? " demanded 
 Mesner, suspiciously. 
 
 Our host hesitated. 
 
 " One of the assassins was in a hurry," he explained. 
 " He tore his coat in running down to the water." 
 
 " Show me the piece of it he left on the bush," said 
 Mesner quickly. 
 
 The Dato turned to his men with ostentatious willing- 
 ness and spoke to them rapidly in Malay. One of them 
 produced the piece found, a strip of soiled turkey-red 
 cotton that might have been torn from the clothes of 
 any coolie. 
 
 " I will keep it," said the Dato as Mesner gravely 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 109 
 
 handed it back. " It will be evidence against the rascal. 
 I will also take the spear he aimed at you, Tuan," he 
 added to me, " for production at the proper time. And 
 when do the Tuans go back to Kuala Lumpur ? " 
 
 " At once," said Mesner without hesitation. 
 
 I noticed a satisfied gleam in the Dato's eye. He 
 didn't press us to stay. We left the premises amid a 
 shower of blessings and caught the train back to Kuala 
 Lumpur. 
 
 " Now," said I to Mesner as soon as we were seated 
 in the railway carriage, " teE me what you think of 
 it all." 
 
 " Dato Kahar was right," he said promptly. " We 
 are best away from here." 
 
 " But he didn't say anything about us going." 
 
 "Is it possible you did not note how uneasy he 
 was ! " Mesner exclaimed. " Why, another minute 
 and the old fellow would have turned us out neck 
 and crop." 
 
 For the first time since our visit to the clerk on the 
 day before I saw the shadow of a smile flit across his 
 face. 
 
 " The Dato was thinking that it might be his turn 
 to be speared next," he went on. " To an old friend 
 like me his perturbation was quite apparent. What he 
 would have said to the police if your unknown assailant 
 had indeed been successful in transfixing you through 
 the floor, I avoid thinking. A dead European in a 
 native house would take some explaining, n'est-ce-pas ? " 
 
 " You seem to infer now that the fellow was after 
 me. 
 
 " I have arrived at that opinion in the last hour. 
 You were, I am certain, the intended victim." 
 
 " But why ? " I insisted. " What motive was there ? 
 It couldn't have been robbery. And I've injured no 
 cooUe that I'm aware of." 
 
 " It was no coolie," said Mesner quickly. " That 
 piece of rag they produced just now was certainly not 
 the strip they found on the bush. They tried to deceive 
 
no PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 us, that is all. The colour of the piece they found was 
 similar to this." 
 
 He pulled his hand from his coat pocket and laid a 
 button on my open palm. It was about the size of a 
 marble and had a covering of yellow silk. 
 
 " I picked that up on the vei'anda floor beside the 
 door immediately before we bade the Dato adieu," 
 Mesner explained. " It was certainly not there on the 
 previous evening. Do you notice anything about it ? " 
 
 I rolled the button over in my palm stupidly as the 
 smoky little train rattled through the rubber groves. 
 
 " It is of the royal yellow," said Mesner. " You can- 
 not, as I told you, my friend," he continued grimly, 
 " interfere with the Malay palace ladies and escape 
 danger. No, not even in these enlightened days. You 
 have a rival, it appears. Last night he paid you a visit." 
 
 " But if that's so, how could he possibly have known 
 that I was in Kuala Lumpur ? " 
 
 My objection seemed difficult to meet. 
 
 " Who can tell how these palace people get informa- 
 tion ? " Mesner said at last. " Their spies are every- 
 where. Especially, no doubt, would they watch the 
 railway terminus to note the coinings and goings of 
 government officials. One of the hotel porters, I ob- 
 served, was a Malay. He would have access to the 
 register of guests and could communicate at once with 
 his headquarters." 
 
 " But we entered false names," I pointed out, 
 
 " There is such a thing as a Singapore and Straits 
 Directory," retorted Mesner. " A false name under that 
 circumstance becomes less useful." He mused. " Nam 
 de Dieu I Yes ! Decidedly less useful 1 " 
 
 His reasoning seemed plausible provided the system 
 of spying in the Federated Malay States was as elaborate 
 as he insinuated. 
 
 " Headquarters made up their mind quickly about 
 me then," I observed with a sickly grin. Being a 
 marked man, although heroes of course revel in it, has 
 its disadvantages. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON iii 
 
 " There is a royal summer palace, a tempat makan 
 angin, on the sea coast within a mile or two of Dato 
 Kahar's," said Mesner. 
 
 " Is the Sultan there now ? " 
 
 " The palace does not belong to the Sultan or any 
 of his connections, but to another princely family," 
 replied Mesner. " The Sultan certainly has nothing to 
 do with it or with the spying," he continued with em- 
 phasis. " Nor have any responsible Malays. But this 
 is a Mohammedan country and a certain fanaticism 
 lurks in many quarters. You have, too, court gallants, 
 jealous of disposition, burning to distinguish them- 
 selves. When I saw the spear and its silver ferrule I 
 knew at once that your assailant was no coolie. There 
 was a certain pattern engraved on the ferrule which is 
 not permitted for use to those of ignoble birth. So 
 comfort yourself, my friend, with the idea that your 
 rival, though of a bloodthirsty disposition, is, like Mr, 
 Gubb, a perfect gentleman I " 
 
 The amused twinkle in his grey eyes struck me as 
 rather premature. 
 
 " It isn't proved yet that the spear thrust wasn't 
 meant for you," I stated. 
 
 " It is proved," he retorted. " Almost absolutely. 
 The intending assassin was first of all led to the veranda 
 by some one who knew you and Who, after holding the 
 lamp to our faces, pointed yOu out. That is incontest- 
 able. Then, too, Malay assassins never thrust their spear 
 through the wrong sleeping mat. And I will tell you 
 also this, that this person who pointed you out was not 
 of the Dato's household, for he, too, fled across the river,"' 
 
 There were flaws in this argument of Mesner's, I 
 saw them, but dismissed them as being of no real im- 
 portance. We were dealing with probabilities, and it 
 seemed really probable that there were persons within 
 a few miles of me at that moment determined on my 
 death. Who was this inmate of the simimer palace who 
 had pointed me out to smother? Was it possible 
 that ? 
 
112 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 Suddenly the hero inside made me say very 
 quietly : 
 
 " Mesner, you go back to Singapore. I want to stay 
 on here." 
 
 He understood what my reasons were before I had 
 begun to give them. 
 
 " Does he think he could reach her, even though she 
 be in that summer palace ? " he shouted to the ratthng 
 of the train. " Does he not, the dolt, realize that she 
 sits there like a chicken in a coop, with hands about 
 her eager to wring her neck if he is even seen in the 
 riejghbourhood ? Sacrc Dieu, protect me from fools ! 
 You pose as a man of sense," he went on. " Surely you 
 must know that your meeting with her at Tanjong 
 Katong and your being found here puts her life into 
 imminent danger. Let me persuade you ! Even if you 
 will not give this madness up, give the turmoil you have 
 caused by coming here time to quieten. It is your only 
 chance." 
 
 Arguments on the other side were not easy to find. 
 My instincts as hero bade me stay in Selangor. Reason, 
 to do as Mesner's cooler brain suggested. He had more 
 advice to give me. First of aU wily old lago's. " Put 
 money in your purse," said Mesner. " You will need 
 it for the wild-goose chase you seem to be set on. Go, 
 see your uncle directly we get back to Singapore ! Be 
 firm with the man ! Try and get possession of that 
 letter he has borrowed from the government clerk 
 before he destroys it ! Insist on an account of his 
 trusteeship ! " 
 
 We discussed the situation all the way to Kuala 
 Lumpur. That same day we returned to Singapore. 
 
 At Johore Bharu we left the train and, hiring a sam- 
 pan, got the Chinaman to land us on a bit of mangrove 
 beach within reach of the Bukit Timah Road. We did 
 this to elude any persons who might be accompanying 
 us in the train in order to find out where we lived in 
 Singapore. 
 
 Twilight had come before we reached the road. The 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 113 
 
 rest was easy enough. We walked along slowly through 
 the warm, moist night and reached our home in Ainan 
 Street just before dawn. 
 I can tell you the hero was glad to get to bed. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 A TERRIFIC noise awoke me, a noise akin to that 
 of the chorus of steam whistles which assaults the 
 ear at the meal hour in a factory town. 
 
 " La donna e mobile qual piuma al vento. . . ," 
 
 The bed was also vibrating with some violence. I 
 opened my eyes, caught sight of Mesner in the act of 
 singing, and closed them to shut out the dreadful spec- 
 tacle. He beat time by bumping himself up and down 
 as he sat on the bed. My bed ! The torn mosquito 
 net gaped wide. 
 
 " Ah ! " he exclaimed, mercifully pausing. " You are 
 awake I A notre santi." 
 
 He raised the large tumbler in his right hand, tossed 
 down the contents, and at once refilled it from the large 
 jug at his side. " Beer," he explained, leering horribly. 
 " A drink for men ! Once there were six bottles. Now 
 remain but three. One little, two little, three little, 
 four little, five little, six little boys. And then — there 
 were — only three." 
 
 Evidently he had been drinking ! Evidently he was 
 still drinking ! 
 
 " I think I shall get up," I decided, as a beginning, 
 and thrust my legs out of the bed. 
 
 " You take the jug," commanded Mesner, swajdng as 
 he handed it to me. " I have already taken half of 
 it. And I am older than you. Also I have not been 
 to bed." 
 
 His appearance vouched for the truth of that last 
 114 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 115 
 
 statement. He was unshaved, his grey eyes were blood- 
 shot and, to be plain, he looked appallingly dirty. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " I asked. 
 
 " The matter 1 " shouted Mesner. " I as magician 
 am superior to all matter. Nothing is matter to me. 
 Am I a dormouse that I should celebrate a victory over 
 my enemies by going to bed ? Bah I Such people fill 
 me with melancholy. A notre santS, I give you that 
 again," 
 
 He raised the glass and, finding it empty, held it 
 out to me. I dutifully refilled it from the jug and, to 
 humour him, joined in the toast. After all, it was a 
 harmless one. 
 
 " Now, Mesner," I said gently but firmly, " the best 
 thing you can do is to get to bed for a bit." 
 
 " Bed ? Me ? " 
 
 He looked at me in withering scorn and then, decid- 
 ing apparently that I wasn't to be trusted, snatched the 
 big jug from my astonished grasp and clasped it to his 
 bosom. Tearing his way through my ill-used mosquito 
 curtain he began to sing again, waltzing round the 
 room : 
 
 " La donna e mobile qual piuma al vento. . . . 
 
 " Yes, comrade," he shouted, " that is the nature of 
 women folk ! Feathers in the wind I But you and I 
 we know — better than to trust them any more. We 
 stick to this good liquor 1 What is it your KipUng 
 remarks with such admirable truth ? A woman's — only 
 a woman, but a glass of beer is a good cigar. 'Tis abso- 
 lutely true. Now, imp of the wind, where are you 
 going ? " 
 
 " Out ! " I shouted in a voice of disgust. 
 
 I left the room. Drink, I reflected, was probably the 
 secret of the man's downfall in the first instance. Now 
 he had broken out again. 
 
 I snatched up a towel and went down to the bath- 
 room. When I came back to the bedroom for my 
 
ii6 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 clothes I found the backslider laid on my bed fast 
 asleep. His mouth was open, his snoring like the 
 trumpeting of elephants. I noticed a pool on the 
 matted floor and, investigatiitg, found that he was still 
 clasping the beer jug to his bosom with both arms. 
 My mattress was sodden and the smell of beer abominable. 
 
 I covered him up with the sheet, pinned together the 
 torn mosquito curtain and, after dressing, went and sat 
 in the sitting-room. It was difficult to know what to 
 do. My uncle when telling me about him had said, I 
 remembered, that drink was his failing. If his matri- 
 monial tragedy had been as bad as my uncle stated he 
 had his excuse, poor fellow ! 
 
 As often before I wondered what sort of a wife she 
 had been. A quick, excitable woman no doubt, like 
 himself from Southern France. I pictured her arrival 
 in Singapore, hating exUe as all Frenchwomen do, find- 
 ing the English stiff and triste, desperate in her loneliness 
 making the final mess of her life. . . . 
 
 The Chinese servant bringing in a tray put an end 
 to my reflections. I noted with some astonishment a 
 tea-pot and cups. 
 
 " But Where's tiffin ? " I demanded. 
 
 The man grinned. 
 
 " You, Tuan, slept," he replied. " Tuan Mesner, he 
 drank. No tiffin was asked for. So no tiffin was made. 
 It is now near to strike four." 
 
 " Four o'clock I " I almost shouted. 
 
 I must indeed have slept. My uncle's office shut at 
 five-thirty. If I were going to catch him that day as 
 Mesner and I had decided I should I must hurry. 
 
 I got to my uncle's office at five o'clock and walked 
 into his room. I didn't feel a bit upset to find my 
 uncle not at home. 
 
 The papers in the drawer I examined first were mostly 
 stationery bills. Except for a discoloured envelope bear- 
 ing my name that I found pushed well to the back, 
 my luck was out. Of course it would have been by 
 the merest off-chance had my uncle put the letters he'd 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 117 
 
 obtained from the government clerk in such an accessible 
 position. But in his hurry he might have done so. 
 
 And then, such is the^ genius some people have for 
 appearing at the wrong moment, the door flew open. 
 
 " My dear-r-r Mr. Lavington I " 
 
 " Is that you, Gubb ? " I returned, unobtrusively 
 closing the drawer, 
 
 " Why, sir, doan't you recknize me ? " exclaimed 
 Gubb, astonished at my blank stare of unwelcome. 
 
 " Yes, I do," said I with a frown. " But I'm pleased 
 to see you nevertheless. My uncle's not in ? " 
 
 " No, sir, not in just now. In fact," he added with a 
 grin, " I myself am not in in the strick business senge 
 of the term." 
 
 " Oh," said I, staring. " And where are you ? " 
 
 " And if I was in, Mr. Harry," he added mysteriously, 
 grinning more widely than ever, " I should be looking 
 the other way when I saw you," 
 
 " You would, in fact, cut me dead," said I with an 
 inkling of what he was after. 
 
 " Benjamin Jehoshaphat, no — sir I " exclaimed Gubb 
 indignantly. " I am not a violent, I wouldn't raise a 
 han' against you anyhow. And neither would any 
 creature or Chinaman in this office. They doan't be- 
 lieve you done it, Mr, Harry. They doan't believe you 
 done it," 
 
 " Done what ? " 
 
 " Pinched five hundred dollars in notes from Mr. 
 Lavington's desk," Gubb explained. " They was miss- 
 ing the day after you left us and never come back any 
 more." 
 
 " I certainly did nothing of the sort," said I. 
 
 " The consubstantial evidence was strong," said Gubb 
 volubly, " Mr, Lavington was able to kindly point to 
 the place from where the notes was stolen and to give 
 the inspector their numbers. On that there was a 
 warrant issued against you and I have strick orders that 
 if you came here I must restrain you even should 
 you attempt a blow at me which your worthy uncle 
 
ii8 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 considered possibly probable. So now,- Mr. Lavington, 
 you will unnerstan' why it is that I am absent in the 
 business sense of the term and that when I see you I 
 look the other way." 
 
 " Quite, Gubb, thank you," said I. 
 
 " There is no reward and consequently no temptation 
 to having my nose blown in, so that makes my position 
 as a strick business man more simple," proceeded 
 Gaudeamus. " Otherwise my conscience might have 
 severely pricked me. The clerks also when they saw 
 me on arrival a moment since said, ' No dam reward, 
 no dam arrest.' They said they wasn't going to work 
 for nothing. In my opinion they are not blameworthy." 
 
 " They are a set of very fine fellows," I agreed. 
 
 " Mr. Lavington's treatment of them is hardly plau- 
 sible," continued Gubb. " He keeps them in a constant 
 state of expecting-a-rise-in-salary-and-not-getting-it. 
 You cannot in this perspiring life expect good work 
 and loyalty to the firm from men in such states of 
 suspenses, Mr. Harry." 
 
 " Where is my uncle now ? " I asked. " I came down 
 here to see him." 
 
 " At home, sir, indulging in a burst of packing," 
 replied Gubb promptly. " Benjamin Jehoshaphat, I 
 forgot ! Fancy me ! Seeing you, Mr. Harry, blew 
 it out of my thoughts. Do you know this, sir ? Mr. 
 Lavington and I are touring off to Labuan by steamer 
 to-morrow morning. What a surprise ! " 
 
 " Indeed," said L "Why?" 
 
 " On business of great importance to us both," 
 replied Gaudeamus with a magnificent gesture. " You 
 will see my name in the newspaper mentioning the 
 fact. Mr. Lavington's daughter has proceeded ahead 
 of us," he went on hesitatingly, looking at me as if 
 not quite sure of his ground, "on an errand which as 
 all kindly hope may be connected in the end with 
 matrimony. You have heard of the scandalous fact, 
 no doubt, sir ? " 
 
 I nodded grimly. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 119 
 
 " I may take matrimony in my stride also," went 
 on Gubb in a meditative tone. " One can never tell 
 on board a steamer. A male there is so extremely 
 get-at-able. And I may tell you in great confidence 
 also that I have obtained a very good tip about what 
 is likely to happen to me from an Egyptian fakir whom 
 I sometimes use, a man not entirely a numskull, I can 
 assure you." 
 
 " I shouldn't be in a hurry t6 marry," I advised him, 
 
 " Mr. Harry," quoth Gubb earnestly, " I never was 
 in a hurry about marrying. Plenty of ladies have 
 jogged my elbow. I've jus' allowed 'em to jog. But 
 there does come a time of perspiring life when a man 
 can stick out his elbow to utmost limits and not a lady 
 troubles to jog it. I happens to be brushing my hair 
 in front of the glass yesterday and a grey hair what 
 certainly was never growing there before stood upon 
 its hind legs as if it was saying ' Gaudeamus, honey, 
 it's about time you was a marrying man.' " 
 
 " Well, ask me to the wedding when it comes oif," 
 said I. "I hope the lady, whoever she turns out to 
 be, will know how lucky she is. Good-bye, Gubb." 
 
 He followed me along the passage and saw me half- 
 way down the stairs. 
 
 " Mr. Harry," said he, detaining me as I turned to 
 give him a final wave of farewell. 
 
 " Yes ? " 
 
 " I been talking like a dam fool all 'bout myself and 
 not enough 'bout you," he said penitently. " Never 
 asked you how you was living. Never asked you for 
 a single blessed dam particular." 
 
 " Oh, I'm aU right/' I said carelessly. 
 
 " My entire savings bank is at your service," he 
 
 whispered jerkily. " Needless to remark Between 
 
 perfect gentlemen — Mr. Harry " 
 
 I looked at him. His eyes were moist. He was, I 
 realized, offering me all he had. 
 
 " My dear Gaudeamus," I said, taking his limp, 
 African hand and wringing it, " you're awfully kind. 
 
120 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 I shan't forget it. But I don't need money. I'm on 
 velvet just now. Absolute velvet ! " 
 
 I left him standing on the stairs gazing wistfully at 
 me as I entered my gharry. He seemed as if he were 
 looking for the velvet and couldn't find it. Neither in 
 real truth could I. 
 
 Once in the gharry I pulled out the envelope and 
 tore it open. Inside was a piece of foolscap, yellow 
 with age, wrapped round a small key. The key was 
 rusty, so rusty indeed that it had marked an impression 
 in red on the paper. Evidently it had lain in that 
 envelope for long. The foolscap was quite blank. I 
 couldn't find anything to point to the fact of the key's 
 being connected with me, as my name on the outside 
 of the envelope- seemed to suggest it was. Tearing off 
 a piece of the foolscap I got rid by rubbing of as much 
 rust as possible, and then slipped the key on to my 
 key-ring with the others. It was, I decided, the dupli- 
 cate key of some drawer or cupboard, the other key 
 being in my uncle's possession. 
 
 The sun had disappeared for the night before we 
 reached native town. I paid off the gharry in the 
 street where I had hired it and walked home through 
 a crowded back alley. Our notice in Malay and Chinese 
 characters that the place would be closed for the time 
 being still adorned the door. Mesner's intention, ex- 
 pressed the evening before, had been to re-open at 
 once. The deduction was therefore that he still lay 
 on my bed. 
 
 I went upstairs. He did still lie on my bed ! But 
 the snoring had ceased. He slept like a log, still em- 
 bracing the jug. Retiring to the sitting-room in a 
 depressed condition I prescribed for myself a whisky 
 and soda. Having made up the prescription in a 
 tumbler with ice I took it to my long chair underneath 
 the fan. 
 
 I selected from the shelf Balzac's " Quest of the 
 Absolute." This book is a fine tonic for the pessimist. 
 He arises from its perusal refreshed, cheerful in the 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 121 
 
 discovery that serious as are his misfortunes they are 
 nothing compared with those from which Madame 
 Balthazar suffered. 
 
 The " boy " brought dinner. I shpped into the bed- 
 room after the meal and rescued the jug from imminent 
 disaster without waking the sleeper. 
 
 He must have felt lonely without something to 
 embrace, for about ten o'clock I heard in the silence 
 the bed springs clink. He was awake. Another sound 
 told me, as if I had seen the action, that he had lurched 
 out on to the floor. Whereat, lying in my long chair, 
 I kept a curious watch on the quadrangle of darkness 
 of the open bedroom door. 
 
 After a while he staggered out, clutched at the jamb 
 of the door and stood leaning against it" with one arm, 
 glancing stupidly round. Unshaven, haggard-eyed, the 
 buttons of his crumpled suit undone, he looked as if 
 he had been on the wrong road for weeks. 
 
 " I must have beerl asleep," he said, catching sight 
 of me. By the way he said it I knew at once that he 
 had become comparatively sober. 
 
 " How do you feel now ? " I asked solicitously, 
 getting up. 
 
 " A little dizzy," he confessed. An embarrassed 
 smile flitted over his face. I condoled. 
 
 " You'll be better when you've had something to 
 eat," I suggested. " I've made a few sandwiches for 
 you. They're under that cover at the end of the 
 table." 
 
 He sat down at the table and obediently started to 
 tackle the sandwiches. I stood at his side ministering 
 to his wants. 
 
 " I must have been asleep a long time," h& remarked. 
 
 " You have," said I. " Just about twenty-four 
 hours." 
 
 " Nom de Dieu ! " he muttered. "How one does 
 dream. When I awoke I thought I was again in Labuan 
 in my bungalow. When I came out into the room here 
 I could not understand for a moment. You saw that ? " 
 
122 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " You looked around strangely," I agreed. 
 
 " The dream was vivid as life." 
 
 It seemed a coincidence that his mind should have 
 been on Labuan when within the last hour or so Gubb 
 had been talking to me about that island. 
 
 " My uncle is off to Labuan to-morrow," said I. 
 " Perhaps my wonderings about his journey influenced 
 your dreams. An instance of telepathy." 
 
 He looked at me, evidently puzzled. Clearly he 
 wasn't quite awake yet. " Your uncle ? " he murmured. 
 " Ah yes, old Lavington. He was in my dream. But 
 not in Labuan. Not with Nebudin." 
 
 " Who is Nebudin ? " I inquired bluntly. I'd in- 
 tended asking that question ever since I'd noticed in 
 the government office that day how the mention of the 
 name affected him. 
 
 " Who is Nebudin ? " he repeated in astonished tones. 
 He suddenly roused himself. " I forgot. You do not 
 know. A Malay gentleman I used to be acquainted 
 with. Somebody of no consequence. Of — no — conse- 
 quence," he repeated with determination, gripping the 
 table. " Mille cochons, Harry, my throat is like a piece 
 of coke ! " 
 
 He got up at that remark, walked over with perfect 
 steadiness to the sideboard, took the whisky, mixed 
 himself a siengah and gulped down half of it. 
 
 " But, after all, you will know about Nebudin soon 
 enough," he said loudly, coming back to me. " Why 
 not now ? Is it anything that I am ashamed of that 
 I never mention it ? You say your uncle is going to 
 Labuan ? " He put down the glass with a bang on to 
 the table. " I also," he shouted, " I go to Labuan." 
 
 " Why ? " I asked, somewhat alarmed at the effect of 
 the whisky. 
 
 " To find my wife," he cried. " To find her who was 
 so treacherously taken from me ! My wife ! My 
 beloved wife ! " 
 
 He sank down in his place at the table and buried 
 his face in his arms. Tremendous sobs shook him. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 123 
 
 " Mesner ! Mesner ! " I murmured, horribly dis- 
 tressed, putting a hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " I will demand her of Nebudin," he said in fierce 
 broken tones, raising his head. " I will take him by 
 the throat and make him give her back to me. Dieu 
 de Dieu ! To think that I never suspected him until 
 
 now But he had always posed as my greatest 
 
 friend. I would have trusted him — with anything! 
 I understand it now. Within these last days a light has 
 been vouchsafed. Come, let us be men ! " 
 
 He stood up. 
 
 " I blamed others then for my loss," he said in a 
 more composed tone. " An Englishman. A dissipated 
 young man of Singapore. My wife being not of his 
 race, would be considered fair game. I thought he had 
 spirited her away. Where to I could not find out, but 
 certainly not far. I stayed in Malaya and for years I 
 searched but never found her. She vanished without 
 a trace. No message ! " 
 
 He stopped speaking and, turning, covered his face 
 with his hands. 
 
 " Your uncle had been to the bungalow and was 
 acquainted with my wife," he went on after a moment. 
 " He was there the night before she vanished. I sus- 
 pected him of knowing something but had no strong 
 reason for so doing. Nevertheless, I accused him. He 
 laughed at me, asked me to inspect his bungalow, denied 
 all knowledge of the crime. Now I understand. My 
 wife always liked Nebudin. Nebudin came down from 
 Labuan. Had I seen him near my bungalow I should 
 have suspected. Your uncle must have acted as his 
 emissary while he himself remained in hiding. And so 
 she ran away." 
 
 " Your wife ran away with Nebudin ! " I gasped. 
 
 The man was a Malay. The idea of a European 
 woman eloping with a Malay seemed absolutely horrible. 
 
 He nodded. " Yes, I am convinced of it." 
 
 " But why should my uncle of all persons have acted 
 as intermediary ? " 
 
124 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " He was at that time doing some work in Labuan 
 for influential Malays there, ' ' said Mesner stonily. ' ' But 
 it never occurred to me that he was acquainted with 
 Nebudin. That piece of information of the government 
 clerk's came to me as astonishing. But I shall go to 
 Brunei. I shall confront Nebudin and, if she is alive, 
 they shall give her back to me." 
 
 I couldn't help thinking in my horror that it would 
 be better for him if she weren't alive. The idea of 
 taking to one's bosom any woman who had voluntarily 
 run off with a Malay sickened me. 
 
 " When do you intend to go ? " I asked. 
 
 " If there is a boat to-morrow I go by that boat," 
 said Mesner, now grown calmer. " And you ? — I for- 
 got," he interrupted himself quickly. " You saw your 
 uncle ? What did he say about your rubber land ? " 
 
 I told him my mission had been in vain so far 
 as that was concerned. He sat down and, more him- 
 self again, puUed out paper and tobacco pouch and 
 rolled a cigarette. 
 
 " We will ask your uncle about that land when we 
 see him in Labuan," said he. 
 
 " But I'm not going to Labuan, am I ? " I asked 
 rather protestingly. " Aren't you going to re-open 
 our business here after being so long away ? If I go 
 who wUl look after the clients ? " 
 
 " The business," said Mesner, " can go to Gehenna ! 
 Harry, you wouldn't desert me ? Just at a moment 
 when my enemies may be too strong for me alone." 
 
 " I'll come if you like, of course." 
 
 Rather a tepid answer for a hero to make. A poor 
 return for all Mesner had done for me. But he thanked 
 me gravely, promising that when I went back again 
 to Kuala Lumpur in search of my princess I, too, should 
 not lack a friend. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 LIFE is made up of the unexpected, and so some 
 folk find it interesting and others lose patience 
 with it. I should have classed myself with the 
 others, for at Oxford I was one of the tame variety of 
 undergraduate. Had anybody told me while at that 
 dehghtfuUy peaceful and dignified centre of learning 
 that within a year of leaving it I should be travelling 
 deck passenger on an equatorial steamer disguised as a 
 Persian [Mohammedan of the Shia sect I should prob- 
 ably have called in the police and had the lunatic 
 arrested. 
 
 Yes, we went on our journey elaborately disguised. 
 Mesner insisted on that. 
 
 He gave reasons for the step, brief and not particu- 
 larly satisfjdng. In my case, he said, the danger of 
 being arrested for my alleged theft would be greater at 
 Labuan even than in Singapore. In those back-yard 
 islands, he pointed out, the police were alert and, owing 
 to the population being small, very well informed. 
 Besides, my uncle would be at Labuan. 
 
 In his own case — well, he was rather vague about his 
 own case. I gathered that Nebudin was something of 
 a power up there in Borneo. His spies haunted both 
 Labuan and Brunei on the mainland, and little that 
 went on among the white people could be concealed 
 from the Sultan's court at Brunei, a court of which 
 Nebudin was a prominent member. 
 
 As we made our preparations Mesner told me a little 
 about this court, told me tales about its former wealth 
 
 125 
 
126 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 and magnificence, of gorgeously attired princes riding 
 on elephants caparisoned in cloth of gold, of miles of 
 flourishing pepper plantations on the terraced hills, of 
 a river full of trading junks. 
 
 " But all that prosperity no longer exists," he ended. 
 
 " Why ? " I asked, looking up from a small yellow 
 tin trunk in which I was trying to pack a European 
 suit without crushing. I had already by Mesner's direc- 
 tion crammed in our black professional robes in case 
 of need. 
 
 " As your idiom goes, ' they killed the goose which 
 laid the golden eggs.' Ah, they were greedy these 
 Brunei Sultans, with their harems full of vampirish 
 women, their dependants, their retainers ! " 
 
 I shut down the lid of my box, sat on it, hitched up 
 my sarong and lit a cigarette. 
 
 " They don't sound pleasant people." 
 
 " They would certainly not welcome me back," said 
 Mesner. " I know over-much about them all. The 
 biggest thieves, I think, since the ever to be respected 
 and admired Villon. All Malaya knows this reputation 
 of theirs. But it has not travelled perhaps so far as 
 Persia." 
 
 " I wondered why you decided that we should travel 
 as Persians," I put in. 
 
 " That is one reason," said Mesner. " Secure in the 
 belief that we do not know them, they will take us to 
 their bosoms at Brunei, Persian lambs ready to be 
 shorn. Remember this also, they are bigoted Mohamme- 
 dans there, that goes without saying. But luckily for 
 us they are not too well skilled in the Persian variations 
 of the Mussulman ritual, so any little mistakes we 
 happen to make ! " 
 
 " I understand," I said with a grin. 
 
 A sarong reaching to the ankles, white Chinese-made 
 shoes, a singlet and laced and embroidered silk coats 
 and tasselled fezes from Mesner's store, these comprised 
 our costumes. Whether this was Persian attire good- 
 ness knows, Mesner certainly didn't. But then, as he 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 127 
 
 pointed out, neither would any of the natives we were 
 likely to meet. 
 
 Luggage on back we walked through the early dark- 
 ness down to the wharf. For two cents apiece — Mesner 
 knew the fare ; I strongly suspect that in more thread- 
 bare days he had travelled similarly — we were allowed 
 to become part of a welter of tawny Orientals in the 
 hold of a tongkong waiting to be ferried out to the 
 Borneo mail boat. 
 
 I had never suspected before, although I had lived 
 much among them, how ingrained is the selfishness 
 of Oriental peoples. Although we were Persians and 
 therefore entitled to respect as having had at one time 
 sufficient money to pay the fare to Singapore from a 
 distant place like Persia, were we treated with con- 
 sideration ? Not a bit of it [ I had to drop my tin 
 box on the clog-shod feet of a mandor — he was in charge 
 of a gang of Chinese labourers bound for a rubber 
 plantation — in order to get breathing space. 
 
 He acknowledged the receipt of the box in a rattle 
 of Cantonese. 
 
 I replied fluently in the French of Stratford-atte- 
 Bow and he retired defeated, his slit-like eyes agleam. 
 
 Through the raw dawn the tongkong lurched, shipping 
 water by the spoonful from the chops of the harbour. 
 
 " Allah I — Allah ! " said a woman in semi-Malay 
 attire, squatting among her parcels next to me. " Much 
 wind. Allah!" 
 
 She settled her battered black straw hat on her head. 
 Her glance, wandering to the bow, dwelt to her evident 
 entertainment on the huddle of coolies clad in blue, 
 their feet bare and covered with grime and callosities, 
 on the greasy Indian traders near them who were in 
 a blue funk lest the water should damage their bursting 
 bundles of goods. 
 
 I felt her keen brown eyes on me. 
 
 " Where from, thou ? " she demanded shortly. 
 
 I lied to her in my best Malay and she emitted her 
 customary exclamation of surprise, " Allah ! " 
 
128 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 Soon we reached the Borneo mail boat. Sailors 
 appeared on her deck above, high up like angels in 
 heaven. They lowered a rope fender. But their lan- 
 guage was not particularly angelic. Our Malay crew 
 on the thatch-covered bow and poop replied loudly and 
 with apposition as using boat-hook and bare hand they 
 held the feebly framed tongkong off the mail boat's 
 high steel side. 
 
 Mesner seized me by the arm and pulled me through 
 a scatter of spray to the swasdng accommodation ladder. 
 We stumbled up it, luggage in hand ; then ran along 
 aft to the poop bulkhead. Mesner deposited his bundle 
 near a steel door with the air of a man who stakes out 
 a claim. 
 
 " This," said he, confirming my guess as to his ex- 
 perience as a deck passenger, "is, I have always found, 
 the best position on the ship." 
 
 Our hurry proved needless. Deck passengers were 
 many but the after deck wasn't crowded. The steamer 
 did not sail at her advertised time. Extra cargo came 
 alongside at the last moment. The ship's crew appeared 
 and with the hasteless expertness of Malays afloat, 
 stripped the hatch and started the winch. Sacks of 
 cement, liuzzling together three in a chain sUng, were 
 hauled aboard. As they swung over from the side to 
 the hold a powder floated from them whitening the 
 deck. 
 
 Incidentally it whitened us as we sat leaning against 
 the bulkhead. I heard Mesner breathe a sacre or so 
 as he brushed himself. 
 
 " Leave it alone," said I. " It'll be taken for sherbet. 
 We shall look more like Persians than ever," 
 
 Mesner smiled and I saw his Ups move but what he 
 said was lost in the rattle of the winch. The last body 
 of deck passengers was now filing aft. Sikhs, Bengalis, 
 Klings, a fat Chinaman or two, all burdened with weird 
 luggage, they clambered through piles of cargo and over 
 hatch boards, avoiding coils of coir rope, bobbing out 
 of the way of the swinging derrick chainsj A ^oup of 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 129 
 
 Malay women, veiled within the meaning of the Act, 
 but of whose claim to beauty all spectators were able 
 to judge without difficulty, settled near us, spreading 
 grass mats on the steel deck. A wizened old man with 
 an egg-shaped shaven head, on the top of which was 
 balanced a knotted handkerchief, was in ostensible 
 charge of the party. He looked, I thought, somewhat 
 wearied of responsibility. 
 
 " That's a Brunei Malay," shouted Mesner in my ear. 
 " By their economical turbans ye shall know them." 
 
 It was necessary to shout, for we were in the middle 
 of what was gradually becoming an inferno. The sun, 
 a molten sixpence half-way up the bleached sky, sent 
 rays of fire upon the steel deck and from the deck the 
 heat leaped back. Up and down the white cement 
 dust danced, covering rusty plates, wooden hatches, 
 tarpaulins, rigging, lodging in hair, penetrating eyes and 
 mouth, forming a paste on our sweating faces. The 
 steam from the winches puffed and sobbed, gear wheels 
 rattled, chains banged against the steel sides. From 
 the invisible water beyond the bulwarks came now and 
 again the shrill whistle of a launch. 
 
 And ever louder, rising gradually with the sun, at 
 last almost a scream, rang the shouting of the sailors 
 and the coolies as they banged the last of the cargo 
 into the after hold of the Borneo mail. 
 
 At length what was to be accomplished was accom- 
 plished. Noises died away. The captains and the 
 kings — the cargo men, the tally clerk and the mahogany- 
 coloured foreman — perspiring, exhausted, but obviously 
 retaining sufficient of violent indignation still within 
 them to extract a good day's work from the coolies in 
 the next ship, picked up their cotton wraps and 
 departed. 
 
 And now we, leaning against the poop bulkhead, be- 
 came aware of a violent trembling coming from within 
 the ship. White steam darted from the funnel swift as 
 a serpent's tongue. Deep and vibrating, the chest note 
 of a giant, a whistle sounded thrice. We were off. 
 e 
 
130 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 Shortly after the steamer had got under weigh a 
 gentleman came down from the promenade deck and 
 picked his way daintily aft. I was not surprised to see 
 that all eyes were upon him. 
 
 The gentleman, judging from his demeanour, was 
 conscious of this gaze. Indeed he seemed to revel in 
 it as a sunflower revels in the sun. He was tall, stout, 
 and anthracitic of complexion. His light striped tweed 
 suit had all the creases decreed by fashion, no more, 
 no less ; and his gloves and tie had been obviously 
 bought to match his lemon-coloured boots. The gentle- 
 man wore a white pith helmet of the shape Stanley, 
 according to illustrations, was wearing when he rescued 
 Livingstone. He carried a yellow canvas dispatch case 
 which he held well above the hatch, thus enabling all 
 to see the printing on it. I read perfunctorily : 
 
 G. GUBB, ESQ. CHIEF CLERK. 
 
 I didn't really require to read the inscription. I 
 had recognized him already. 
 
 Mesner received the information of whose presence 
 we were in with becoming awe. 
 
 " He travels second class without doubt," he observed. 
 " The second-class cabins are on the poop, just above 
 here." 
 
 He touched the bulkhead with his hand and at once 
 withdrew it, crying out at the heat. Gubb, casting 
 disdainful glances round, reached the poop ladder, 
 paused and expectorated superciliously over the side. 
 He then disappeared up the ladder and as we didn't 
 see him again that day, I could only conclude that 
 Mesner's deduction was correct, and that my late 
 colleague was indeed travelling second class. 
 
 There was plenty to occupy us for the remainder of 
 the day. To unroll mats and unship piQows, that was 
 our first task, to distribute around us such furniture as 
 we might need during the voyage another. Mesner got 
 a piece of splitfrattan from a hairy-legged sailor who had 
 come aft in order to spread the awning. With it he 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 131 
 
 made fast our tin trunk to a bollard. I slipped away 
 by myself to acquire a knowledge of the geography of 
 the vessel as it concerned the deck passengers. I gazed 
 at the form of Jove, our captain, as pacing the bridge 
 he navigated us through the Straits. I caught a glimpse 
 of gods (my uncle was not among them) perambulating 
 the Ol5anpus of the promenade deck. Attempting to 
 go forward, I encountered in the port allejrway a fat 
 man in a white suit who from the ferocious boiled blue 
 eye he fixed on me might have been Scylla, but who, 
 I afterwards found, was the chief engineer. Fleeing, I 
 tried to pass to starboard. A bucketful of water that 
 narrowly missed my head told me that in the galley 
 Charybdis was also busy. Whereupon I retired aft again 
 to find our awning spread, quiet reigning, and Mesner 
 in the shadow, with his thin back turned towards the 
 wicked world, l5^ng gently and peacefully asleep. 
 
 I spent the rest of the day at his side in perfect com- 
 fort. There was little to disturb us. After a splendid 
 supper, as native suppers go — the sambals with the 
 curry raised my hair — we lay on our grass mats and 
 smoked, listening to the regular gurgle of the water 
 against the sides. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 I AWOKE suddenly from my siesta next afternoon 
 and sat up, my eyes blinking with the strong sunlight. 
 Somebody, I was certain of it, had pronounced 
 my name. 
 
 " Mr. Lavington." 
 
 I listened hard, puzzled, a little alarmed. 
 
 The hiss of the water slipping by the ship's side and 
 the mumble of the propeUor at the stern, that was all 
 I heard. It must have been fancy. 
 
 Lying down again I drew a corner of my coat over 
 my eyes to shield them from the light. As I did so I 
 noticed two people descending the poop ladder on the 
 other side of the deck. The white helmet and the suit 
 made the first of them easy to recognize. From behind 
 my coat I watched him reach the foot of the ladder, 
 turn and extend a polite hand to the other, whose white 
 skirt only was as yet visible. 
 
 In the sleepy afternoon hush the words of the 
 gallant cavalier floated across to me distinctly as 
 he exhorted his damosel to take the very greatest 
 care. 
 
 " These ships are extremely ticklish undertakings," 
 cried the cavalier — his tone a judicious mixture of gay 
 badinage and quivering anxiety. " That is why we 
 call them colloquially ' she.' " 
 
 I was fidgeting to catch a glimpse of the lady for 
 whom Gubb had put on his armour, or rather his helmet, 
 on such a hot afternoon. I saw large feet in high-heeled 
 white shoes feeling blindly for the ladder rungs. 
 
 132 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 133 
 
 " Jangan main," shrilled a voice. " Don't make 
 fun ! " 
 
 Gubb was swearing on his honour that he would never 
 make fun of her when the lady descended into the picture. 
 But for the voice I should not have known her even 
 then. Gone was the rather dowdy native woman who 
 had accosted me aboard the tongkong. The butterfly — 
 as it was white with black points I suppose it would be 
 the cabbage variety, but what of that ? — had emerged 
 from its chrysalis. An elegant Eurasian lady was 
 before me, walking down the deck. She hobbled as 
 if unaccustomed to heels. The two passed along 
 forward and disappeared into the alleyway. 
 
 Mesner awoke and together we watched the pair 
 return about tea-time. And that was the last we saw 
 of either Gubb or the lady during the voyage. They 
 kept closely to the second-class deck. 
 
 The weather became squally. We ran into rain-storms. 
 This anchored the deck passengers to their places. 
 The dripping awnings and the general cheerlessness 
 made them all look after their own welfare and not 
 bother too much about us. Not that we invited 
 criticism. Far from it. We clung to our corner in the 
 shadow of the poop, preserved an attitude of mingled 
 aloofness and importance calculated to impress any 
 Oriental, and performed our devotions with the utmost 
 regularity. 
 
 Prayer, punctual and in public, is the first duty of the 
 true believer. Mesner executed the necessary bending 
 of knees, bowing of head, and lasting forehead on the 
 deck with the ease and dignity of one bom in the Shia 
 variety of the faith. He dso emitted loudly in a tongue 
 strange to me strings of words that sounded very like 
 the passages from the Koran as I had heard them spoken 
 by Singapore hadjis from Mecca in former days. Taxed 
 by me, he admitted to some slight knowledge of Arabic 
 and the Mohammedan religion. It was a religion, he 
 said, not at all to be despised. 
 
 As at home the renting of a pew often increases one's 
 
134 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 circle of acquaintances, so did our determined goodness 
 act as a passport to society on board the Borneo mail. 
 Offers of friendship came from many. The old man 
 in the Brunei turban was one of the last to shuffle over 
 to our corner and speak to us. No doubt as custodian 
 of four frisky women he had to be rather wary of strangers. 
 On hearing we were Persians he said he was delighted. 
 Although an old man, he said, he was always willing to 
 try new things. 
 
 " And you, O father ? " asked Mesner. 
 
 " From the country of Brunei, I," said the old man 
 proudly. 
 
 " I have heard of the people of Brunei," returned 
 Mesner with becoming gravity. " They have the 
 reputation of being honest, rich, and extremely hospit- 
 able." 
 
 The old gentleman started slightly, settled his small 
 turban on his shaven conical head and peered at Mesner 
 with increased attention. 
 
 " You heard that in Persia ? " he asked at last as if 
 an idea had occurred to him. 
 
 Mesner bent his head. " Ya, Allah ! " 
 
 " Persia is no doubt exceeding far from Brunei," 
 commented the old man after another minute's thought. 
 " And from afar things are seen more clearly, as the 
 river hawk well knows when in pursuit of its prey. We 
 men of Brunei, of a truth, are not inclined to a mean 
 handling of others, as if thou venturest into our country 
 thou wilt see." 
 
 " What thou sayest inclines me more than ever to 
 visit this country of thine," Mesner returned with a 
 dignified inclination of the head. " Its fame, verily, 
 has spread as far as Stamboul." 
 
 " As far as Stamboul ? " exclaimed our new acquaint- 
 ance, surprised. 
 
 " The Sultan of Turkey himself was astonished and 
 hurt," proceeded Mesner, " to find that the Sultan of 
 Brunei had more and better sounding titles than had he 
 himself. He has ordered the almanac in which this fact 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 135 
 
 is stated to be burnt by the public executioner and since 
 has sulked in his seraglio refusing to be comforted." 
 
 " Ya, Allah, great is my master the Sultan of Brunei I " 
 chortled the oldster. " And daily doth he add to his 
 titles. Now the English king doth propose to bestow 
 on him the ' Seemgee.' But Nebudin is not in favour 
 of it being accepted. Men say that Nebudin is jealous, 
 but that I do not think, for he hath always refused all 
 honours, contenting himself with upholding the dignity 
 of the state and our religion. A great man is Nebudin." 
 
 On Mesner asking who Nebudin was the old fellow at 
 once grew garrulous. Nebudin was evidently a man 
 of influence, though belonging to the party in opposition 
 to the Sultan, and was to be admired and dreaded. 
 Our new friend — his name, he said, was Pangiran Abdul 
 Rahman (" Small man am I among the great and great 
 among the small ") — did both. Nebudin's spies, he 
 said, were everywhere. Europeans even were in his 
 employ. 
 
 Our new friend's voice dropped to a whisper. He 
 became confidential. 
 
 " There is one of these spies on board now. His name 
 is Tuan Lavington. He is a worker at the law. Yes, 
 I know ! " 
 
 He hugged himself as he squatted on the mat, trium- 
 phant that he too was not entirely ignorant of Nebudin's 
 little arrangements. Then suddenly gave us a suspicious 
 look and hobbled back to his women beside the hatch. 
 Probably it struck him he had been over-talkative. 
 
 Of my uncle we saw absolutely nothing until the after- 
 noon before our arrival at Labuan. He was, I knev^, 
 a bad sailor, but the weather alone was no explanation 
 of his absence from the promenade deck. Perhaps he had 
 work to do in his cabin. 
 
 When I caught a glimpse of him in his plain white 
 timic suit as he leant on the rail abaft the saloon and 
 stared aft, it seemed to me that in the short time since 
 we had met he had grown a good deal older. The hands 
 that hung listlessly in front of him were thin as a skele- 
 
136 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 toft's. His face was blotched and emaciated, his frosty 
 eyes more sunken than ever. On seeing him stare in 
 my direction I turned away to avoid the chance of 
 recognition. When I looked again he had gone. 
 
 The weather that afternoon was perfect. After the 
 heavy rains the world wore an astoundingly fresh ap- 
 pearance. Bits of feathery cloud lurked in the washed 
 blue sky. The air was clear as crystal. In a land 
 where spring is not I could almost smell the spring. 
 
 Whether because of his knowledge of the emotions 
 which stir the bosom of youth at such a time of year 
 or for other reasons, Pangiran Abdul Rahman evidently 
 thought this a favourable moment for introducing me 
 and Mesner to his charges. 
 
 They proved to be harmless ladies, brazenly coy and 
 given to giggling. Their Malay was extremely provin- 
 cial. Nyato where they meant betul and glaga for sugar- 
 cane. Awful ! Whatever old Abdul Rahman's position 
 may have been, they themselves certainly didn't belong 
 to the court. 
 
 We chatted for a while, gave them cigarettes, and 
 retired to our corner. Evidently the impression we made 
 was good, for late in the evening old Abdul Rahman 
 hobbled across and said that if we did visit Brunei we 
 must be sure and stay with him. 
 
 We discussed the invitation before we settled for the 
 night. Mesner felt inclined to accept it. Staying with 
 a well-known man in Brunei, he said, would lessen 
 suspicion although it might hamper our movements. 
 
 " The old boy seems to have taken quite a liking to 
 us," said I. 
 
 Mesner laughed cynically. 
 
 " More probably he argues that as we shall certainly 
 be relieved of all our valuables when we go to Brunei, 
 he may as well be the one to perform that operation," 
 said he, and turned over on his way to sleep. 
 
 I awoke in the middle of the night, again feeling 
 certain that some one had spoken my name. This 
 time I wasn't mistaken. A wicker chair creaked 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 137 
 
 somewhere above. A low gurgling laugh floated down 
 to me. Next, in the darkness a sUghtly husky voice 
 said : 
 
 " You would not dare to do such a thing ? " 
 
 " I assure you, my dear Mrs. Suliemina," contradicted 
 another voice, politely but decidedly, " although I am 
 perfect gentleman, without slightest hesitations I would 
 — yes — sir." 
 
 " You are a brave feUow, Mr. Gubb," said the husky 
 voice with a slight inflection of unbelief. 
 
 They were talking on the poop above me rather 
 loudly. Probably they presumed on their neighbours' 
 ignorance of English. I couldn't very well imdeceive 
 them. 
 
 " My motto with all employers," continued Gubb, 
 " throughout my brief business careers, which have not 
 been few, for I am a man of extreme impudence, has 
 been ' You have hired my services for a sum per week 
 that in my esteem is paltry, but you have not hired my 
 person.' The unpleasant head of our firm is one 
 Lavington as I have mentioned " 
 
 " I have heard the name," put in the lady. 
 
 "It is a name I am becoming extremely tired of," 
 quoth Gubb confidentially. " He had better be on the 
 beware, or one or two of these days and I shall change 
 it by accepting emoluments in a different direction." 
 
 " I don't xmderstand." 
 
 " In the colloquial I shall get another job." 
 
 " You don't like Mr. Lavington ? " 
 
 " Now my dearest Mrs. Suliemina, could you as a lady 
 fin' it possible to feel affections for a gentleman who 
 greets you in the morning by saying ' Retire or I will 
 kick you in the stomach ' ? " 
 
 Deep silence, broken only by the gurgle of the wavelets 
 against the side. In the warm darkness beyond the 
 violet waters stretched, a moving plain vanishing into 
 mystery. Stars sprinkled them as with shadowy 
 jewels. 
 
 " Not that I would wish to insinuate that ladies possess 
 
138 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 such vulgar items as stomachs," said the voice mincingly. 
 " Benjamin Jehoshaphat, no ! " 
 
 Another silence. Through the hawse-hole at my side 
 I saw a wavelet flash as it caught its first glimpse of 
 the sickle moon. 
 
 "What does your master do at Labuan ? " asked 
 the other. " He is in the employ of Nebudin, is he not ? " 
 
 " We have many things to see into," I heard Gubb 
 reply evasively. " This person, Nebudin, I, for one 
 gentleman, have never heard mentioned ; but we are 
 in no man's employ. We are far above that, my dearest 
 Mrs. Suliemina, I assure you. Furthermore our present 
 intention is to reside with the Commandant himself at 
 Labuan Fort. That wiU indicate our enormous social 
 position." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 The warm darkness was closing down, the vague dis- 
 tance appeared every moment more impenetrable. My 
 fancy peopled it with spirits of the sea. Mermaids were 
 there, nymphs of more than mortal beauty. Through 
 the hawse-hole, I swear it, there came on a zephyr the 
 scent of their hair. 
 
 " Needless to say," continued Gubb from his long chair 
 — I knew he lay in a long chair ; I had heard it creak — 
 " we are pursuing investigations connected with several 
 ladies. These sorts of investigations, as you will unner- 
 stan', are kept peculiarly private. But in the greatest 
 confidence I may tell you ..." 
 
 I heard his chair creak again as he presumably bent 
 towards her. 
 
 The voice died away to a low growl. 
 
 " And she is you say at Labuan ! " gasped the female 
 voice at last. 
 
 " She stays at Labuan Fort along with the scandalous 
 young person Avery. As I told her grieved father, Mrs. 
 Suliemina, it was enough to bring his grey hairs down in 
 sorrow to the grave, if they hadn't all been white." 
 
 " These European women I " sniffed the lady. " They 
 are no better than any others ! " 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 139 
 
 " She is very affable young person," Gubb remarked. 
 " She and me were extreme friends on my side." 
 
 " You're a sad flirt, Mr. Gubb, I'm afraid." 
 
 A chair creaked. Which I could not make out, 
 
 " I took her to a fortune-teller called Martaiat in 
 Ainan Street. One of my oldest and most used friends. 
 She w^s extremely impressed, I assure you. When you 
 are in Singapore I shall take you also one night. He is 
 a reliable." 
 
 " Never will I go about with you at night, sir," 
 returned the lady. " You are too gallant." 
 
 Crinkled waters gleamed in a thin scarf of light thrown 
 by the moon. Patches of phosphorescence floated by, 
 yellow-bright as liquid gold. I saw them but vaguely. 
 My unobservant eyes took in little detail. To tell the 
 truth I was slightly puzzled. Why was it that Gubb's 
 chair creaked and the lady's did not. I decided pre- 
 sently that she sat on a wooden chair which did not 
 creak. Or perhaps, Malay-like, she squatted on the 
 deck. 
 
 " These fortune-telling chaps have an enormous 
 insight, my dearest Mrs. Suliemina. They see into your 
 past. They see into your future. . . . No, no, my 
 darUng Mrs. Suliemina, you need not be going to turn 
 up nose at my past. Maramat couldn't find any fault 
 with my past. No fortune-teller could. In fact I 
 may say I've got quite a superior implacable past. I 
 ain't afraid to look back at it — no — sir." 
 
 " And the future, Mr. Gubb ? " 
 
 " That is what I was coming to. Do you know, my 
 dearest Mrs. Suliemina, this fortune-teller told me that 
 I was going to arrive on board of this identical steamer 
 and meet you." 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 " You're laughing at me now, Mr. Gubb. With your 
 falsehoods ! " 
 
 I heard Gubb's chair creak. 
 
 " Oh, noa, I'm not. And do you know what he told 
 me next, my darling Mrs. Suliemina ? " 
 
140 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " What, Mr. Gubb ? " 
 
 " That I was going to give you jolly fine smacking kiss. 
 And now at once I'm going to prove that dam fortune- 
 teller spoke true." 
 
 The chair of Gubb creaked violently. It continued 
 to creak. Why he had not jumped from it to seize his 
 inamorata was a mystery to me. 
 
 And then suddenly : 
 
 " You cheekee fellow, Mr. Gubb ! Lett mee go, Mr. 
 Gubb ! " 
 
 The creaking ceased instantly. I heard the lady's 
 slippers drag on the deck as she walked away. 
 
 The mystery was a mystery no longer. They had 
 both been seated on the same long chair. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A SANDY flat bounded by a shallow sea, a flat 
 sun-stained island, ringed by beaches fringed with 
 coconut palms, an island tame but pleasing, that 
 was my impression of Labuan. 
 
 We steamed slowly past its outlying islets — huddles 
 of red rock covered with thorn palms and tangled 
 creepers — and into a small harbour. The shallow water 
 was tinted saffron by the sunrise. 
 
 By breakfast-time the steamer was tied up to the ancient 
 wooden wharf in the next berth to the downward mail, 
 and Mesner and I were ashore, looking about us. Per- 
 haps I should say half ashore, for through the cracks of 
 the wooden battens of the wharf we stood on, limpid 
 water, green seaweed, teredo-riddled piles and gam- 
 bolling parrot fish were visible. The view of the land 
 was entirely shut off by a row of corrugated iron coaling 
 sheds, on tiie roofs of which the red paint was already 
 in process of being blistered by the violent morning sun. 
 
 " The place has altered since I left it," said Mesner, 
 casting a baleful eye at the coal sheds. " Twenty years 
 ago it was a paradise in petto. I think," he added 
 confidentially, " that the infernal regions must be lined 
 with corrugated iron." 
 
 " And asbestos," I supplemented. " Now where did 
 our friend Pangiran Abdul Rahman say that yacht of 
 his was Ijnng ? " 
 
 " This way," said Mesner, He picked up his bundle 
 and moved on. 
 
 I settled my turbash on my head, hitched up my sarong 
 141 
 
142 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 anew — they are garments that always give me a feeling 
 of insecurity — caught hold of my yellow tin trunk and 
 followed him past the piles of merchandise which hordes 
 of blue-knickered, half-naked coolies were already 
 hauling out of the hold of our steamer and dumping on 
 the rickety wharf. We passed from the imports dis- 
 charged from our steamer through the exports which 
 were being loaded by another gang of Chinese into the 
 downward mail. Raw sago, tripang, dried fish, copra, 
 gatar jelutong, the stench of all of these as they lay in 
 loose bundles sweltering in the sun nearly knocked us 
 down. Gasping, we gripped our luggage and hurried 
 by at the double. 
 
 " Here we are ! " cried Mesner, stopping suddenly 
 in his swift passage along the edge of the wharf. 
 
 In the depths beneath — it was low tide— basked a 
 small vessel, looking something like half a walnut. 
 There was, I saw, a mast like a broomstick tied up 
 negligently with rattan. Such of the deck as had 
 covering was covered with a sort of thatch. 
 
 " This is the vessel," said Mesner. 
 
 " What 1 " I cried in horror. " That the yacht I 
 Why, a good-sized crocodile could swallow it." 
 
 "This is the vessel," said Mesner. "Ulysses never 
 had a better." 
 
 As if to prove that the first part of his statement was 
 correct and possibly the second, the oldest and ugliest of 
 the four Malay ladies looked out of a small opening, the 
 hatchway I suppose of some sort of cabin, and waved 
 a welcome. 
 
 " The Pangiran," she cried in shrill Malay, " has gone 
 to the shops to buy goods for eating and other purposes. 
 In a moment more he will return." 
 
 " Bai'la, sediang," shouted Mesner, waving a cheery 
 hand. 
 
 The lady smiled at him bewitchingly. For sediang, 
 freely translated, means " sweet sixteen." 
 
 " Better you come down and wait here," cried the lady. 
 
 Mesner made a movement to obey, but wisdom came 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 143 
 
 to my aid and I placed my tin box on the wharf and took 
 my seat firmly upon it. There was, I pointed out, no 
 sign of any male being on board that craft. I was, I 
 said, too young and beautiful to go unchaperoned among 
 four such enterprising damsels. 
 
 Mesner laughed, waved reassuringly at the disappointed 
 lady and squatted beside me. 
 
 " You are beginning to know more about Malay 
 women, my friend," he said with point. 
 
 " There are Malays and Malays," I retorted, slightly 
 nettled. 
 
 He was too ready, I felt, was Mesner, to generalize 
 about Malay women. 
 
 Mechanically I took the cigarette he offered me and sat 
 smoking in silence, staring across the blue strip of har- 
 bour water at a white beach backed by dense yellow- 
 green palms. 
 
 Pangiran Abdul Rahman came hobbling along sur- 
 rounded by his crew. All bore packages bought — or 
 more probably obtained on credit — at the Chinese 
 grocers. 
 
 " There is news from Brunei," he panted on coming up, 
 " Hence my delay. News that is not good. Never- 
 theless you can come with us. Descend into the vessel 
 then I pray you, sirs. It is better to sail at once." 
 
 " What is this news, Pangiran ? " I asked. 
 
 He hesitated, giving me a questioning look. His eyes 
 were beady with excitement. 
 
 " Men say there has been trouble outside the palace," 
 he said, deciding finally to tell us what he knew. " During 
 Nebudin's absence in Singapore his enemies at the 
 Sultan's court had grown strong. When he returned a 
 day or so ago in a fast steamer by Sarawak, and arrived 
 unexpectedly as his wont is, they taxed him with 
 treachery. Krises were drawn and Nebudin was badly 
 wounded." 
 
 " Nebudin wounded ! " exclaimed Mesner. 
 
 The Pangiran gave an excited nod. 
 
 " He lies now very sick," he croaked. " The whole 
 
144 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 of Brunei is in a ferment. His life is despaired of. 
 Strangely enough, he must have expected some trouble, 
 for only an hour before he sallied forth to ascend to the 
 palace he despatched the contents of his house, his wives 
 and children, by ship to Labuan. Lucky he did so, for 
 his enemies after their deed sought his house intent on 
 slaughter. Allah, a crafty one is Nebudin ! " 
 
 " Where in Labuan lodge Nebudin's wives ? " asked 
 Mesner in a low eager voice. 
 
 The news of his rival's fate was overwhelming him I 
 saw. Hands clutching his sarong he crouched on the 
 wharf. 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 " You don't ? " 
 
 " Who knows where Nebudin would hide his women 
 folk in time of danger ? " jabbered the excited Abdul 
 Rahman in a tone of pity for the other's ignorance. " I 
 have told you already he is crafty beyond all, is Nebudin. 
 Come, friends, no time to be lost. . . . Here, you 
 older one, you must not go away ! . . . Where ? " 
 
 For Mesner had risen, picked up his bundle and was 
 striding off across the wharf. 
 
 My most vivid recollection of poor Pangiran Abdul 
 Rahman wiU always be his expression of absolute 
 astonishment as he stood watching us, his new acquaint- 
 ances and, probably, intended victims, vanishing into 
 the distance with luggage which he no doubt already 
 looked upon as his. Nobody, I'm persuaded, will ever 
 succeed in convincing him that Persians are not as a 
 race fickle creatures, unworthy of the confidence of 
 honest men. 
 
 " Then you're not going to Brunei in that boat," I 
 panted as I caught Mesner up and walked alongside him 
 through a covered passage between the coal sheds. 
 
 " No," he said briefly. 
 
 We came out into the blinding sunlight again. There 
 was a street of smaU Chinese shops facing us. They were 
 painted white and boasted of a colonnade, 
 
 " You might have given the poor old chap a little 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 145 
 
 notice," I contended, hurrying after him as he wheeled 
 to the right and proceeded along a cinder track laid 
 between the sheds and a piece of neglected railway line. 
 
 " What will he think of us ? "I asked in some irritation 
 when after a long struggle I caught him up. We had 
 cleared the town and now were on fine green turf. On 
 the left across the white road were bungalows. On the 
 right, the flat sandy beach. 
 
 Mesner slackened off for an instant. 
 
 " That we're mad, that is what he'll think," he cried 
 in a tone so loud that two phlegmatic Chinamen on the 
 white roadway turned and stared at us. " So we are," 
 he added joyously, clapping me on the shoulder. And 
 away he rushed again. 
 
 As I jogged along after him in a vile perspiration 
 I mentally agreed with Mesner. We were mad. He 
 certainly was. 
 
 The road we were skirting now bent away abruptly 
 and left us marching over what seemed to be a race- 
 course. Casuarinas (a sort of giant tamarisk) lined the 
 beach. We reached their shade and Mesner dropped 
 his bundle and sank beside it panting. 
 
 " Is it not a day of days ? " he asked in delighted tones. 
 
 " It's a very hot day at any rate," I agreed doubtfully 
 as I cast my box from me and flopped down beside him 
 in the scented shade. " And," I added, " a most puzzhng 
 one. I thought we were going to Brunei." 
 
 " Mille cochons!" shouted Mesner in affected 
 astonishment. " And what should we do in Brunei ? 
 Pay our respects to His Highness the Sultan ? Attend 
 the obsequies of the great Nebudin ? Or perhaps you 
 would wish me to wait beside his sick-bed and nurse 
 him back to health ? " 
 
 " I thought you wanted to see Nebudin," I observed, 
 stupidly enough. 
 
 " And haven't other people seen him for me ? " 
 
 demanded Mesner triumphantly. " Have they not 
 
 meted out to him the treatment he deserved ? " He 
 
 ceased speaking for a moment and looked down at the 
 
 10 
 
146 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 ground. " May all such treacherous ones receive an 
 equal due," he muttered in a low hard voice. . . . 
 
 He rose to his feet. 
 
 " It is a hard path I have to tread, Harry," he said 
 sadly. " I ought not to have brought you up here on 
 this wild chase." 
 
 " No wilder than mine." 
 
 " The downward mail steamer for Singapore sails to- 
 morrow at midnight," said he. " Better you go back 
 in her." 
 
 " My dear Mesner," said the hero inside me, getting 
 busy, " I haven't the slightest intention of doing any- 
 thing of the sort, and you know it." 
 
 " Come then," said Mesner, picking up his bundle. 
 In the shadow of the casuarinas we walked slowly along 
 the beach. 
 
 " The town is small," said Mesner. " In the old days 
 most of the people knew me. I do not wish to go among 
 them unnecessarily for fear of recognition. Also when 
 lodging in the house of an Oriental pretence would be 
 difficult, irksome. At such close quarters night and day 
 I am afraid our Mohammedanism would scarcely pass 
 muster. To pitch our tent in solitude wiU be better. 
 You see that monument ahead of us ? " 
 
 Looking along the line of yellow beach I saw, close at 
 hand, what appeared to be a white obelisk glimmering 
 among the dark green trees. 
 
 " It was erected by the crew of a ship of war many 
 years ago to mark where they landed," said Mesner. 
 " Our destination ought to be somewhere hereabouts." 
 
 A lawn of close-cut turf in the midst of the trees, a 
 weather-beaten timber gate, a low stone wall above 
 which a few crumbling crosses of white marble showed, 
 was before us. We came at once to a wooden shed 
 hidden amon|; the trees. 
 
 " Built for the convenience of the men who tend this 
 place," explained Mesner. " But never used by them 
 after sundown because of the fear of ghosts in the 
 cemetery over yonder. We stay here for the night." 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 147 
 
 In the afternoon Mesner left me guarding the luggage 
 and, dressed as he was, went off into the town. Our 
 luggage scattered around me I lounged in the shadow 
 of a casuarina. At sunset I moved the luggage into the 
 shed and closed the door. 
 
 Now that the sun was gone the place seemed lonelier 
 than ever. I was lounging by the hut door, putting in 
 the time until Mesner came back, when something tore 
 through the trees, struck the hut and rolled to my feet. 
 It was a golf ball. 
 
 Unless the ghosts of our little cemetery were already 
 getting busy this phenomenon indicated a golf course in 
 the neighbourhood. 
 
 There were Englishmen in Labuan, a telegraph 
 station, ladies. That the island should contain a golf 
 course was natural enough. Nevertheless I was rather 
 taken aback at the sight of that golf ball. It seemed a 
 bit out of the picture. 
 
 " Don't trouble to look for it," came in a woman's 
 voice from the other side of the thicket. " I'll tell the 
 gardeners to search in the morning." 
 
 " No," replied a masculine voice with decision. 
 " Since they have gone up to a dollar, the gardeners 
 never find them. We will look ourselves." 
 
 I retired discreetly behind a bush. 
 
 Twigs crackled, the undergrowth of the thicket waved 
 and ^most directly afterwards two stooping figures 
 disclosed themselves. In one of them I recognized my 
 uncle. The other I did not identify until he came out 
 into the hut clearing and stood erect. I then saw it 
 was the Commandant, Peddam-Smythe. 
 
 He spotted the baU at once and with a dignified " I've 
 found it," picked it up. 
 
 " This is the gardener's hut," he remarked as my 
 uncle pushed through the undergrowth and came 
 towards him. ' ' Over there is an old European cemetery. 
 Would you care to see it ? " 
 
 I saw my uncle make a grimace. 
 
 " I am not interested in cemeteries, thank you. 
 
148 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 Commandant," he answered. " I will tell Kate about 
 it though. She and your young brother-in-law might 
 hke to inspect it." 
 
 " I have not observed," said Peddam-Smythe, " any 
 marked eagerness on Miss Lavington's part to go any- 
 where with my brother-in-law." 
 
 " Shyness, my dear sir," returned my uncle grimly. 
 " Now she has me with her she will be more herself. 
 You shall see the difference." 
 
 He added something of which I did not catch the 
 purport. I watched them disappear through the trees. 
 
 It was nearly dark when Mesner returned. He'd been 
 the round of the bazaar, he told me, and had heard but 
 little of service. 
 
 " I shall try to-morrow again," he said hopefully, 
 " Somebody must know." 
 
 To get out of the way of the mosquitoes we went and 
 sat inside the hut. We struck matches. Mesner 
 produced a tin hand-lamp and a bottle of paraffin, 
 bought at the bazaar. 
 
 He fished out another parcel from below his baju. 
 
 " I also purchased these," he said, undoing the wrap- 
 ping. " The Chinese grocer charged me double price. 
 Evidently he thought I was a Malay gone mad." 
 
 " These " consisted of a piece of cheese, a tin of butter, 
 two loaves. " And this," cried Mesner, waving another 
 parcel — he was made of parcels — " Vin ordinaire, from 
 the vineyards of the Rue d'Enfer. The Chinaman said 
 it was quite fresh ! " 
 
 He fished out a knife from the luggage and with the 
 tin trunk for a table we began our supper. After half a 
 day of starvation I could have eaten anything. The 
 wine, said I, reminded me of Volnay. 
 
 " TThe colour is similar doubtless," conceded Mesner 
 disdainfully. 
 
 I noticed, however, that he drank his fair share and 
 that he grew at once rather more cheerful. 
 
 He would admit, he said, that the intelligence of the 
 Chinese grocer was not to be despised. The man hated 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 149 
 
 Nebudin, it seemed, and yet desired Nebudin's recovery 
 as Nebudin owed him several hundred dollars for 
 groceries supplied. 
 
 " A perfectly logical position for a grocer to occupy," 
 I commented. 
 
 "It is difficult to recover anything from the estate 
 of a deceased Brunei pangiran," said Mesner. " But 
 the Chinaman 'does not think Nebudin will die. A 
 friend of his who is usually well-informed says that 
 Nebudin's wound is not dangerous. I asked the 
 Chinaman where his friend lived," ended Mesner. 
 
 I saw what the inference was. 
 
 " But it isn't hkely a Mohammedan would send his 
 family to live with a Chinaman," I objected. 
 
 " Certainly it is not," agreed Mesner calmly. " But 
 I don't know that he is a Chinaman. I shall search 
 everjnvhere. I shall not rest. I think of visiting this 
 friend of the grocer's without any delay. His house, 
 I know it, is not very far from here." 
 
 He corked the bottle of wine, thumping the cork in 
 with decision. 
 
 " We will drink the remainder to-morrow," he an- 
 nounced. ... " Harry, Harry, where is your humanity ? 
 Observe those red ants gathered on the butter. 
 The poor creatures will certainly overeat themselves. 
 Lock it away in that never-again-to-be-despised tin 
 trunk with the bread and the cheese — And while you 
 are about it please hand me out my black robe." 
 
 " Your black robe ! " I echoed, looking up from the 
 opened Ud. 
 
 " Most certainly," said Mesner. " Both black robes. 
 That is what we brought them for. We are men of 
 sense, and men of sense do not wear light clothes when 
 they flit about by night, especially outside the bungalows 
 of Labuan Chinamen. They would run the risk of a 
 charge of duck shot." 
 
 Really, in spite of all I've said I must have an heroic 
 taint in me. For at the time it seemed quite natural 
 for Mesner and me to go creeping through the shadows. 
 
150 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 arrayed like two mediaeval thieves. But it doesn't seem 
 natural now by any means ! And in humdrum Labuan 
 of all places, with a golf course next door, and a cable 
 station within a stone's throw of us ! . . . 
 
 The Chinaman's house lay along the sea-shore. We 
 pushed open the unlatched, decrepit, wooden gate and 
 glided into the garden. The frayed rattan blinds of 
 the veranda were lowered. A brilliant light burned 
 within. We crept up and peered through one of the 
 blinds. 
 
 A dark gentleman in a light striped tweed suit was 
 lounging on a long chair under the lamp. A sun helmet 
 of fashionable shape lay on the table near him and 
 beside it a newly opened box of cigars. A large cigar 
 from the box protruded from the gentleman's thick hps. 
 
 The gentleman put down the illustrated fashion paper 
 he was perusing and sat up as a lady in an elegant 
 dressing-gown came in through the doorway. He held 
 out a ringed hand and took from her the tumbler she 
 carried, sipped at the contents and lay back luxuriously. 
 
 " Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Gubb," said the 
 lady. 
 
 " I am mediumly comfortable already, I thank you, 
 Mrs. Suliemina." 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE lady retired by the door through which she 
 had come. 
 I felt an iron grip on my wrist. Mesner drew 
 me back into the black shadow of a bamboo hedge. 
 
 " Wait here ! " he whispered. " Keep still ! You 
 he must not see. He knows your appearance too 
 well." 
 
 His long cloak rustled against the thick grass as he 
 made off across the garden. I saw him next in the 
 sharply-defined flood of light that poured from the 
 opening in the blinds at the veranda entrance and 
 illuminated the steps. Or rather it wasn't Mesner my 
 flabbergasted eyes were riveted on. It was a tall 
 figure draped from head to foot in deepest black, a 
 figure dignity incarnate. As it slowly ascended to the 
 veranda, leaning with one draped arm on the rail, the 
 figure paused, turned and eyed me fixedly. A silver fillet 
 bound its forehead. The face beneath was stern and 
 forbidding. 
 
 It was Maramat, the fortune-teller of Ainan Street. 
 
 Over to my torn blind I bolted. Chains would have 
 been needed to keep me away from it. I arrived just 
 in time to see the big cigar slide from the open mouth 
 of Gubb and faU unheeded to the floor as its owner, 
 his horrified eyes staring at the black figure in the door- 
 way, unobtrusively crawled off his long chair and 
 crouched behind the table. 
 
 " Salaamat, son of Ethiopia I " came from the figure 
 in a deep voice. How often at the beginning of our 
 
 151 
 
152 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 partnership had I practised my imitation of that voice ! 
 " Salaamat, Gaudeamus Gubb ! " 
 
 " Benjamin Jehoshaphat I " ejaculated the horrified 
 figure crouching behind the table. 
 
 " In thy many conversations with the woman SuHe- 
 mina on the mail steamer, Gubb," said Mesner in 
 sepulchral tones, " thou didst mention the name of me, 
 Maramat the seer, to her saying that thou wouldst 
 bear her to me to read her fate. Lo, I am here to do 
 thy bidding ! " 
 
 This piece of information would have been good 
 enough proof to any reasonable being of the super- 
 natural powers of the celebrated fortune-teller. Its 
 effect on poor old Gubb was paralysing. 
 
 " Ain't got any bidding, Guru," he gasped hurriedly. 
 
 " What meanest thou ? " demanded Mesner. " Hast 
 thou then lightly summoned me, even me, the powerful 
 magician ? Dost seek to make me, Maramat, the sport 
 of thy audacity ? 'TwiU cost thee a pretty sum." 
 
 " Benjamin Jehoshaphat ! " muttered Gubb, his face 
 a dirty white. " Wish I'd never left Singapore." 
 
 " What sayest thou, Gubb," pursued Mesner, " to 
 my demand for the immediate payment to me of five 
 hundred silver dollars for the hire of the magic carpet 
 which transported me hither, or wouldst prefer for thy 
 audacity to at once wither away ? " 
 
 " Doan't want to wither away. Guru," said Gubb 
 wildly. " Doan't want to wither away just at present 
 when there's ladies about. Doan't want to be doing 
 that sort of thing on other people's verandas anyhow." 
 
 " Wither ! " boomed the black-robed figure, suddenly 
 extending both arms. " Blacken and decay like the 
 pallid banana blasted by winter's icy breath 1 Rot 
 like No, no, Mr. Gubb ! " 
 
 This last exclamation in a tone of some alarm as 
 suddenly the flabby ringed hands of his victim came to- 
 gether and their owner began to gabble a sort of prayer. 
 I thought his reason had gone. Something of this sort 
 must have struck Mesner too. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 153 
 
 " My good soul, calm yourself," he said lightly in 
 English, coming across the veranda. 
 
 " — And keep all devils from pestering — and especi- 
 ally — from pestering — from pestering this congregation 
 here present ! " babbled poor old Gubb. 
 
 " I am no devil," said Mesner soothingly. 
 
 " Ow — ow — ow ! The devil's got me ! Ow — ow — 
 I'm a clean-goner, mother ! Ow — ow — ow ! — Preserve 
 our perspiring lives from slipping " 
 
 " A big strong man-of-the-world like you should not 
 be frightened of devils," said Mesner with a smile. 
 " What would the girls say if they saw you ? " 
 
 " Eh ? " muttered Gubb, stopping his prayer. 
 
 " The girls," repeated Mesner, sitting down and help- 
 ing himself to a cigar. " The beautiful girls of Singa- 
 pore. They would laugh to see you shivering there." 
 
 He put his other hand from his robe, picked up the 
 matches and Ughted his cigar. 
 
 The sight of the other hand and of the cigar being 
 lighted was evidence in favour of the speaker's harm- 
 lessness. Gubb with an effort pulled himself together. 
 He rose from behind his table. 
 
 " I ain't shivering," he remarked briefly. 
 
 " Excellent," said Mesner. He puffed out a cloud of 
 smoke with great deliberation. 
 
 " I ain't afraid," explained Gubb, coming gingerly 
 from behind his table. " Benjamin jehoshaphat, no — 
 sir. I'm merely a very precautionary personage. As 
 for those girls in Singapore, you doan't catch them 
 laughing at me — no — sir." 
 
 "Draw nearer, O Gubb," said Mesner. "I, have 
 something to say to thee." 
 
 The conversation that ensued I couldn't hear, but 
 presently both rose and, going over to the door through 
 which the woman had emerged, knocked. I saw them 
 admitted, went back to my place beside the garden 
 gate and sat down. I felt a bit dazed still by what I 
 had seen. If I hadn't had experience in the course of 
 business in Singapore of the gross gullibility of human- 
 
154 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 kind in general and my old friend Gubb in particular, 
 I should have felt still more dazed. 
 
 Voices again sounded on the veranda. The lamp 
 went out. A creaking sound told me that someone 
 was coming down the steps. I got up, a question on 
 my lips, but the person, pausing, struck a match in 
 order to light a new cigar, and gave me the opportunity 
 of recognizing him. It was Gubb. His expression as I 
 saw it in the exaggerating light of the match was serious 
 but satisiied. He strolled along humming a music-hall 
 song, and slammed the decrepit gate behind him 
 cheerfully. 
 
 I don't know how long I sat there before Mesner 
 came. It seemed hours to me. When at last he did 
 come, without warning, stealing through the garden hke 
 a shadow, the night mist had risen and he was up to 
 me before I caught sight of him. 
 
 He took my arm without a word. We groped our 
 way outside the gate, and on to the beach. The tide 
 was high. The noiseless wavelets glimmered phos- 
 phorescent as they washed the shore. 
 
 " My wife is dead," said Mesner in a low tired voice. 
 In his tone there seemed to be no bitterness. Resig- 
 nation, grief, a dull acquiescence in the decree of fate. 
 That was aU. 
 
 I felt for his hand in the darkness and gripped it. 
 
 " I learned all soon after I went within," he told me. 
 " There was an old Malay woman there, She pene- 
 trated my disguise at once, but while your office friend 
 was there she said not a word. First of all after we 
 went within I read his hand in order to give the others 
 confidence. I told him marvellous things and aston- 
 ished even Mrs. Suliemina. And, Harry, one piece of 
 information he gave me that you ought to know. There 
 was terrible trouble early this morning between your 
 uncle and your cousin Kate, such a scene that the very 
 servants at the Commandant's house are talking about 
 it. Gubb seemed scarcely to know why this scene 
 occurred. Mrs. Suliemina and the old woman — Mina 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 155 
 
 is her name, for a long time she was servant to my 
 wife — sat whispering together in a corner and after a 
 while Mrs. Suliemina persuaded Gubb to go. Then 
 they sprang and tore my robe from me. Yes, those 
 two women. There was no one else in the room. You 
 should have seen old Mina's face when I, her old friend, 
 acknowledged my identity and greeted her. Sacrd 
 Dieu ! I thought she would go mad with joy. So, 
 without our knowing it, does the good God permit us on 
 occasion to kindle affection in another soul. Then they 
 took me in to see my child — — " 
 
 " Your child ? " 
 
 I was surprised. I didn't know he had one. 
 
 " My wife, before she left me, had told me that in 
 some months' time that gift was to be given to us," 
 he explained quietly. " So you will understand my 
 astonishment and grief at losing her were greatly 
 intensified. Harry — My child " 
 
 He paused. I gathered that his feelings had mastered 
 him. 
 
 " My wife did not want to leave me," he continued 
 in a hesitating way. " Afterwards she wanted to send 
 me a letter. But Nebudin would not permit it. Yes, 
 it was Nebudin who took her from me. She grew to 
 hate Nebudin. She was tempted in the first instance 
 by his wealth and grandeur. Never did she love him, 
 Mina swears that. And they all hate him now, Sulie- 
 mina, Mina, aU of them. They are glad, glad that he 
 has at last met with his end." 
 
 " Mrs. Suliemina was in Nebudin's pay ? " 
 
 " She was under his thumb, in his power. She re- 
 joices to have escaped that tjnranny. She, too, is willing 
 to restore to me what as a father is mine. So the way 
 is made clear. To-morrow night my child and Mina 
 return with us by the mail steamer to Singapore." 
 
 It was great news. We walked back to the hut, 
 Mesner still talking about his wife. He told me about 
 her charm, her beauty, that she had enthralled him, 
 that he had loved her as his life. Her disappearance 
 
156 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 and the mystery connected with it had, he explained, 
 driven him mad for a time. In those days he had sunk 
 very low, he had gone native, taken to drink, lost all 
 his friends. . . . 
 
 It was long after midnight before we got to sleep. 
 
 Through the open door stole an ever-brightening 
 light. Mesner had risen and was now outside the hut. 
 Yawning, I watched through the branches of the 
 trees the changing colours of the dawn. Rose and 
 primrose were in the limpid sky. The skirts of the 
 clouds were lined with gold. On the grass dew was 
 glistening. A black and white songster, something like 
 a blackbird, had settled on the nearest branch and was 
 pouring out the richest of melodies. 
 
 " It's almost," I was saying to myself, " like a May 
 morning at home," when Mesner appeared from round 
 the corner carrying a small tin of water. 
 
 The songster fled at the sight, 
 
 " What's that f or ? " I asked in a disgusted voice. 
 
 " We must shave, my friend," he replied with deter- 
 mination. He went over and lighted our smaU lamp, 
 put the tin on a couple of stones and held the flame 
 under it. 
 
 " You'll never heat it with that," I said, sitting up. 
 " Why not wait tiU we get on board ? There's plenty 
 of hot water there." 
 
 " And be taken for a pair of ruffians," he retorted. 
 " Not I, nom d'un chien I I am a man of respectabiUty, 
 of decent bourgeois habits. Did I wear a shirt I would, 
 I assure you, change it every day ! That is the kind 
 of person I am ! " 
 
 " You certainly don't look it," said I. 
 
 His cheeks were scrubbly, his general^appearance ex- 
 tremely discreditable. From the purple hollows under 
 his eyes I should say he had hardly slept a wink. Never- 
 theless he was in quite a good humour. He whistled 
 as he shaved. I didn't imitate him. Tepid water, poor 
 soap, and a blunt razor made my shaving torture. Still 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 157 
 
 I felt a better man when the operation was over. 
 
 After a bath in the warm shallow sea we sat half 
 naked under the casuarinas and had breakfast. Then 
 we went to the hut and dressed. Mesner again put on 
 his native dress and the impressive fez. I, after con- 
 sideration, began operations by getting out of my 
 closely packed tin trunk shoes, socks, a shirt and a 
 European suit. 
 
 " I've been thinking ever since I woke up this morn- 
 ing," I explained, " that before we leave Labuan I ought 
 at least to make an effort to see my cousin. I'm going 
 to try to see her this morning." 
 
 " You will wish to see her," Mesner admitted readily. 
 " Yes, go by all means. I will wait for you here. 
 Excuse me, I was so fuU of my own concerns that I 
 forgot yours for the time." 
 
 " No wonder," said I sympathetically. 
 
 And I really meant it, for untU that English dawn 
 reminded me of her I'd scarcely since reaching Labuan 
 given a thought to seeing Kate, so interested had I 
 been in Mesner's affairs. It had been our intention 
 before we left Singapore that I should tackle my uncle 
 and get a statement from him about his trusteeship. 
 But we hadn't discussed the subject further. 
 
 When a little later I set out for Labuan Fort I still 
 had no plan of campaign. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE path led past emerald golf greens whose faded 
 red flags drooped, over a plain of close-cropped 
 turf, through some woods, and out on to a well- 
 made road. 
 
 This road debouched into a wider road and some way 
 up a hill half concealed by the undipped shoots of a 
 thick hedge, the white gate of Labuan Fort gleamed 
 in the sunlight. 
 
 I entered the gate and walked along the drive. 
 Large trees were on both sides of me. Many of their 
 rough trunks were partly covered with ferns and on 
 one at least a pigeon orchid had taken root and was 
 sending out a waterfall of white blossom. White acacia 
 blossom flashed pure in the sun-dappled green arch 
 overhead. 
 
 Very peaceful was that stretch of road. A calmness 
 seemed to come from the giant trees. When I turned 
 a corner and saw Kate I somehow was not a bit 
 surprised. 
 
 Her head was bent in thought, her back was towards 
 me. 
 
 Walking quickly along the turf border I caught her 
 up before she knew. 
 
 " Kate," I said, and then : " You didn't expect to 
 see me." 
 
 She turned, gave a stare of amazement, smiled, held 
 out her hand. 
 
 " You must be a magician," she cried, looking me 
 up and down. " I was thinking about you. How did 
 you come ? " 
 
 158 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 159 
 
 " Not in a brass bottle anyhow, although I may look 
 like it," said L " In a tin trunk and uncommonly 
 cramped it was." 
 
 " Still you have come," said she. 
 
 "I'm here with a friend who has come to see about 
 a child of his," I explained as we walked along the 
 drive. " Not on any business of my own. But I 
 thought I'd look you up." 
 
 " Your uncle also," said Kate in a slightly revengeful 
 tone, " has come to see about a child of his." 
 
 " Gaudeamus Gubb told me you had come up here." 
 
 " And what did he say ? " 
 
 I hesitated. 
 
 " He told me some gandering tale about you travel- 
 ling with young Avery," said I at last. " Of course I 
 knew there was nothing in it." 
 
 "There is everything in it," she cried hotly, "All 
 you like to believe. I did travel here with Mr, Avery. 
 He was most kind, most sympathetic." 
 
 This praise wasn't exactly what I had wanted to 
 hear. 
 
 " You never cared for him, I know," she went on. 
 
 " I never said anything against him," I returned, the 
 curmudgeony feeling strong still. 
 
 " You never give him credit for anything ! " she 
 exclaimed. " I don't know why. He always speaks 
 so weU of you. Even now when you, accused of all 
 sorts of things, and when — when he has every tempta- 
 tion to run you down, he has never spoken a word 
 against you to me," 
 
 " I'm sure it's very kind of him," I said with an 
 effort. 
 
 " If things weren't as they are between you and me 
 people would say you were jealous of him," she cried 
 angrily, " But you — you •" 
 
 What she was referring to was clear enough. I 
 avoided her eye. 
 
 " Then you are going to marry Avery ? " I exclaimed, 
 blurting out the uppermost thought in ray mind. 
 
i6o PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " Marry him 1 " said Kate. " You too ! Can't you 
 understand that if a woman likes a man she doesn't 
 always want to marry him ? " 
 
 "I suppose I can," I admitted. 
 
 " Father and the rest of them think I ought," said 
 Kate bitterly. " But I should have thought better of 
 you. After all, you're different — somewhat. You take 
 an independent attitude about such matters. Conven- 
 tion doesn't bind you I " 
 
 " No, convention doesn't bind me," I agreed, wincing. 
 
 " It binds most of us," said Kate. She caught my 
 arm and wheeled me round. We walked back down 
 the drive. " Mr. Avery has asked me to marry him," 
 she added, " and I am considering his offer." 
 
 " But you said just now " I began. 
 
 " Don't start arguing, please," she cried. " Is what 
 I say now to them to be binding for ever ? I'll tell 
 you how it all happened," she went on. " I had to go 
 down to the office to get some money. I couldn't run 
 the bungalow on nothing. He wouldn't give me any 
 and said in excuse that he had just found you'd stolen 
 five hundred dollars. That was the end of things. 
 When I got home Mr. Avery called. He had a letter 
 for me from his sister asking me to come and stay. I 
 was so angry that I made him go and book our passages 
 then and there." 
 
 " I'll give you my Singapore address," I offered. 
 " I might be able to help — if necessary." 
 
 " I didn't even know you lived in Singapore," she 
 remarked with a hint of reproach. " We heard nothing 
 of you after you went away." 
 
 " What could I do ? " I asked in a low voice. Then 
 as her eyes avoided mine : " You remember our visit 
 to Maramat, the fortune-teller that evening ? Well, 
 I'm in partnership with him. The address is Two, 
 Ainan Street." 
 
 " Two, Ainan Street," she repeated looking, I thought, 
 slightly horrified. " Isn't that quite in the native 
 quarter ? " 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON i6i 
 
 '■' We live a bachelor life," I hastened to explain. 
 " Fortune-telling's a queer occupation. Maramat is a 
 Frenchman really. Pierre Mesner is his correct name. 
 I met him in Penang." 
 
 " You do know all sorts of people nowadays ! " she 
 murmured. 
 
 " He's a very decent fellow," I went on defensively. 
 " A man of quite good family. A graduate of a French 
 University as a matter of fact. He has been out East 
 for years but has had fearful troubles in his time, poor 
 chap. I hope that's coming to an end now. You'll 
 remember the address ? " 
 
 She nodded. Again we turned and walked along the 
 drive. 
 
 " I want to know lots more about you," said she 
 more affectionately. " How did you come to Labuan, 
 where are you stasdng, when are you going away ? 
 Don't teU me if you'd rather not. I'm an outsider 
 nowadays, I know." 
 
 " It's a funny world." 
 
 She gave a sad little laugh. 
 
 " Yours is a funnier world than mine," she sighed. 
 " Mine's the old world still." 
 
 I was absorbed in her. The hero had clean for- 
 gotten the princess — a thing which no hero has any 
 right to do. That old world ! After all it was rather 
 a jolly old world. Kate ! It might be long enough 
 before we saw each other again. She might eventually 
 be persuaded — horrible thought — to marry Avery. And 
 what could I do to prevent it ? What could any one 
 in my position do ? No man with encumbrances can 
 be very successful as hero. Small wonder that, worried 
 as I was, she saw those two white-clad figures coming 
 before I did. And touched my arm. They were walk- 
 ing quickly and were close to us before I realized who 
 they were. 
 
 " Well ! " exclaimed my uncle in an outraged voice 
 as he came up. 
 
 Peddam-Smythe said nothing, but eyed my crumpled 
 11 
 
i62 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 suit with strong disfavour. I stood my ground. Un- 
 heroic as I am at heart I felt easier in the knowledge 
 that I had shaved. 
 
 " Good morning, uncle," said I. 
 
 He glowered at me out of his frosty little 
 eyes. 
 
 " Leave that fellow at once, Kate ! " he rapped out. 
 " After what has occurred you ought to be ashamed to 
 be seen with him." 
 
 I saw my cousin fling her head back. 
 
 " I shall never be that," said she. 
 
 " WiU you kindly do as I bid you ? " my uncle asked 
 icily. 
 
 " No." 
 
 She came closer to me. I felt a touch and realized 
 in more than a little triumph that she had linked her 
 arm in mine. And so we stood shoulder to shoulder 
 on the sun-dappled drive. 
 
 This confident front was clearly puzzling to the 
 enemy. After another lengthy and ferocious stare my 
 uncle took his supporter aside and began whispering 
 in his ear. 
 
 " I think you would be well advised to withdraw, 
 Miss Lavington," observed Peddam-Smythe in a 
 moment. 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Because," cried my uncle furiously, " after the way 
 he has treated you any woman with a sense of decency 
 would withdraw." 
 
 " But you told me, father," said Kate calmly, " only 
 yesterday evening, that I hadn't any sense of decency 
 left." 
 
 " That was concerning an entirely different matter, 
 as well you know," he retorted. 
 
 " But surely," argued Kate wjth exasperating quiet- 
 ness, " you can't expect me to have one sense of decency 
 for one thing and another for another." 
 
 " I haven't come here to argue with you," shouted 
 my uncle, his self-control evaporating rapidly. " You 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 163 
 
 do as you're bid, or I'll turn you out too ! Yes, I will, 
 by God ! " 
 
 Peddam-Smythe, with the dignity which, to give him 
 his due, he was an expert in, caught the shaking arm 
 that my uncle had raised. 
 
 " You had better go. Miss Lavington," he said again. 
 " And you, sir, you go too. Let me tell you that you 
 intrude in condng here." 
 
 " I came to see my cousin," said I. 
 
 " You are impudent," said Peddam-Smythe, " with 
 your record, in daring to trespass here." 
 
 " My record," I retorted with some untruth, " is as 
 good as the next man's." 
 
 He looked at me threateningly. I wonder now that 
 he didn't arrest me on the spot, for he knew there was 
 a warrant out. I suppose that what kept him back 
 was an idea that the dignity of his position forbade 
 him from doing the work of the police. Besides he 
 would have been usurping the functions of another 
 department, a proceeding extremely repugnant to the 
 bureaucrat. 
 
 " I shall perhaps talk to you further concerning your 
 record in another place," he said menacingly. 
 
 " Why not now ? " said I. The hero inside me was 
 beginning to get busy. " There's my accuser, there 
 beside you. Let's hear what he says ! " 
 
 " You scoundrel I " shouted my uncle, raising his arm 
 again. 
 
 " Control yourself, Mr. Lavington," implored Peddam- 
 Smythe. 
 
 " Let him go ahead," said the hero, mth flashing eye. 
 
 " You low blackguard ! " howled my uncle, beside 
 himself. " You with a record ! Living at my expense 
 all these years ! Coming out and painting Singapore 
 red ! Lazy, dissipated, idle, insulting my daughter, a 
 thief ! " 
 
 " What ! " 
 
 " Yes, a thief ! " he shrieked. " You stole five 
 hundred dollars. I can prove it ! " 
 
i64 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " Very well," said the hero, striving to imitate Kate's 
 exasperating calm. " Go ahead. I'll be ready to meet 
 your accusation when the time comes. But as you are 
 here, before the Commandant, would you let me ask 
 you one or two questions ? " 
 
 " Go on, you blackguard, go on ! " 
 
 " TeU me in the first place what has become of that 
 deed regarding the sale of my land that you took from 
 the government office outside Kuala Lumpur the other 
 day ! Tell me who forged the consent of my other 
 trustee to the sale ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he cried, foaming with rage 
 and surprise. " Tell me what you mean ! I'll answer 
 you quick enough." 
 
 " Thirdly," said the hero in his best third-act tone, 
 " tell us all how much you received for selling to 
 Nebudin Pierre Mesner's wife." 
 
 A horrible look came into my uncle's face. He tried 
 to speak. No sound came. He clutched his breast, 
 turned livid. 
 
 I heard a cry of alarm at my elbow, then an uncouth 
 dreadful noise, a dull thud. 
 
 The hero had defended himself only too well. My 
 uncle had fallen down in a fit. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 KATE bent over the twitching form and began 
 to loosen the coat. 
 " Go away ! " she said to me in an agonized 
 whisper, as I bent to help her. " You mustn't stay 
 here. It would kill him to see you again now." 
 
 " I'll run for the doctor," I offered in a fever, " if 
 you'll tell me where he lives." 
 
 Peddam-Smythe gave me an outraged stare, produced 
 a silver whistle and began to blow it. A couple of 
 Chinese gardeners crashed through the side bushes 
 and came nmning towards us down the drive. 
 
 " You must go," said Kate to me again. " He'll 
 recover in a moment. He's had one of these attacks 
 before. Go away ! It's the kindest thing you can do." 
 
 " But I can't leave you like this," I muttered help- 
 lessly. " I wish — I " 
 
 " If you don't go at once," she said intensely, " I 
 don't want ever to see you again." 
 
 The hero crawled away down the drive. 
 
 At the corner I turned. The gardeners and Peddam- 
 Smythe had lifted my uncle and, followed by Kate, 
 were canying him towards the house. I stood there 
 among the bushes. My eyes followed the sad procession 
 as it slowly went along the sun-dappled drive and round 
 a bend. It passed out of sight. 
 
 Half an hour must have gone by before I departed. 
 At the hut I found Mesner waiting impatiently. He 
 wanted to go to the office and book our passages. When 
 he heard my news his impatience redoubled. 
 
 165 
 
i66 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " If I delay longer," he declared, " the Commandant 
 will have warned the people at the ticket office to be 
 on the guard for us." 
 
 I said I didn't think there was any danger and that 
 if Peddam-Smythe had intended to have me arrested 
 he would have done so there and then. But Mesner 
 wasn't to be reassured, and almost at once left on his 
 errand full-saU along the beach, his red sarong, baju, 
 and the tassel of his fez flying in the breeze. 
 
 Acting on his strict instructions I went to the hut 
 and changed back into native costume, then removed 
 myself together with our luggage to a sheltered nook 
 on the beach, hidden from casual view by dwarf rhodo- 
 dendrons and shaded by casuarina trees. There I sat 
 deep in thought for most of the day. The tide came up 
 and wavelets like liquid glass washed the sand at my 
 feet. A chain of green islands lay directly in front of 
 me some two miles away. They seemed to float on 
 the flashing sea. Beyond them were low red cliffs 
 backed by forest thick as barley in a field, ridge after 
 ridge of forest mounting, receding, melting into the 
 blue distance. It was the island of Borneo. 
 
 Mesner came back towards dusk. He looked fagged 
 and was in a pretty state of excitement. 
 
 " Here are aU the tickets," he cried, pulling a 
 bundle of papers from the breast-pocket of his loose 
 coat. 
 
 Standing opposite to me on the beach he sorted out 
 four pieces of cardboard. Mine, I saw when he handed 
 it to me, was made out in the native name I used when 
 in Singapore. 
 
 I handed it back. 
 
 " I'm not going by this boat after all," I said, acquaint- 
 ing him rather abruptly with the decision I had come to 
 during my hours of waiting. 
 
 He stared at me in utter amazement. 
 
 " Not going ! " he echoed in a stupefied voice. " But 
 why ? " 
 
 " Not by this boat at any rate," I said. " I'U follow 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 167 
 
 on the next very likely." I cleared my throat. " My 
 cousin's in trouble. I can't desert her." 
 
 " So am I in trouble," said Mesner. 
 
 " My decision needn't upset your plans, Mesner," 
 I remarked awkwaf dly. I squared my shoulders. 
 After all, the hero this time was doing the right thing. 
 " The fact is my uncle's had a stroke, and I don't want 
 to leave my cousin. She might need me." 
 
 I told him a little more of what had occurred on the 
 drive. 
 
 " But you cannot do anything," he pointed out. 
 
 " I may be able to," said I. 
 
 He di^'t reply. My decision I saw had upset him 
 extraordinarily. He walked up and down the beach 
 for some moments, his head bent in thought, the fingers 
 of his thin hands, clasped behind his back, twisting and 
 untwisting themselves. 
 
 " Very well, Harry," he said at last in a tired way. 
 " Since you will not come in the steamer, who am I 
 that I should try to force you ? " 
 
 " I'm sorry," I began. I hadn't thought he would 
 have taken it to heart so much. " But you can under- 
 stand " 
 
 " I can understand perfectly," he said dully. " We 
 will say no more." 
 
 "I'll help take the luggage down to the ship and 
 see you off anyhow," said I, eager to make some amends 
 if possible. " I can keep your place on board and 
 watch the luggage while you fetch Mina and the child 
 from their bungalow." 
 
 He accepted my offer in a toneless way that hit 
 me harder than an outburst of anger Would have done. 
 
 Presently the sun sank. We set out for the ship, 
 carrying the- luggage. I took my tin box with me for, 
 as I explained to Mesner, I was going to look for lodgings 
 in the town. 
 
 " You have plenty of money ? " he asked. 
 
 " Plenty to go on with." 
 
 We plodded along in the sand of the beach. TwiUght 
 
i68 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 was deepening rapidly. Now the sun had gone the 
 sea looked to have grown immensely vaster. The 
 palms on the islands had the appearance of being 
 already huddled together for the night. From the 
 houses in the town the thin smoke of cooking fires 
 ascended almost perpendicularly. The people, gathered 
 for the evening rice, had deserted the streets. The 
 crew of the mail boat, too, were at supper. She lay 
 with moorings slack beside the rickety wharf. The 
 last rays of the sun were gilding the tips of her two 
 tall masts. 
 
 At a pedlar's stall near the wharf we bought packets 
 of curried rice, bananas, and a pomelo. Without being 
 challenged by the sailor on watch, we crept up the 
 gangway, across the deserted deck, and into the shadow 
 of the poop. And there we squatted and had our 
 evening meal. 
 
 There also, when it had grown dark, I lounged and 
 waited for Mesner to come back bringing Mina and 
 his child. Cigarette after cigarette I smoked. I 
 wondered where I should go after the ship sailed. 
 Labuan was a sealed book to me ; I had no idea how 
 to set about getting lodgings. But I felt, nevertheless, 
 quite unperturbed about that. What I should do next 
 day, whether I should await events or again try to 
 see Kate, that too was a point I was not worrying 
 over. It could be decided in the morning. Lazily, 
 with the god-like imperturbability of one who has 
 both dined and done the right thing, I sat and waited 
 for Mesner. 
 
 Lights sprang up in the darkness ashore. Passengers 
 came and squatted near me on the badly-lighted deck, 
 whispering, giggling. Somewhere forward there sounded 
 the clink of a winch. The mail steamer was waking 
 up for her voyage. 
 
 I began to grow a bit impatient for Mesner's arrival. 
 
 He came at last rather hurriedly, stumbling over an 
 uncovered winch pipe as he ran across the dark 
 deck. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 169 
 
 " Here I am," I cried out in Malay from my corner. 
 " Where are they ? " 
 
 " They are not here," he answered in a strained 
 whisper. 
 
 I jumped up and stood beside him. 
 
 " They now refuse to come," said he with a despairing 
 gesture. " I have done my best to persuade them, 
 but. Mother of God, they wiU not come." 
 
 " But, good lord, Mesner," said I in placid annoyance. 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " There are reasons," said Mesner, and was silent. 
 
 " I thought you'd finally arranged everything," I 
 almost expostulated with Mesner. " What a dis- 
 appointment for you ! " 
 
 " It isn't their fault," said he, dully. 
 
 That statement was, on the face of it, quite un- 
 beUevable. 
 
 " Something frightened them at the last moment ? " 
 I suggested. 
 
 I was almost certain he nodded, but what he said 
 almost directly afterwards seemed to point to the fact 
 that he had not nodded. 
 
 " Nom de Dieu ! " he cried, waving his hands in a 
 distressed way. " The obstinacy of people ! It is 
 incredible. They are there in the house when I arrive, 
 their possessions packed ready for conveyance to the 
 steamer, themselves dressed and on tiptoe waiting for 
 the moment of departure. And I — I happen to mention 
 that you do not sail with us. Then at once, point blank, 
 they refuse to sail also. And Mrs. Suliemina backs 
 them ! " 
 
 " Me ! " said I, astounded. " And how do I affect 
 it one way or another ? " 
 
 " That is exactly what I have told them," said Mesner. 
 " Plainly it could not make a difference. And also I 
 said that, later, you would without doubt visit us at 
 Singapore." 
 
 " But it's unbelievable," I protested. " They don't 
 know me even." 
 
170 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 It was puzzling. But we were dealing with Mina 
 and Mrs. Suliemina, I remembered, rather ignorant 
 women. I began to laugh. 
 
 " Good Heavens, Mesner ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Suliemina has a very lively recollection of 
 you, that no doubt is the explanation," said Mesner 
 volubly. " My friend, you have no knowledge of your 
 attractions. Also — I confess it — in former days I had 
 my eccentricities (I suppose he was hinting at mighty 
 deeds with the cognac bottle), which fact Mina has not 
 forgotten. She prefers for safety's sake a partie canie." 
 
 Mina and Mrs. Suliemina, indeed ! 
 
 " It's all right, Mesner," I said easily. " We'll leave 
 the luggage here. Nobody will see it in the darkness, 
 so there's only a small risk of its being stolen. I, my 
 dear chap, will go up to the bungalow with you now at 
 once and persuade the silly creatures." 
 
 " It will do no good," said he. 
 
 " Come along ! " I urged, taking his arm. " Don't 
 you be downhearted ! I'll tell them since they've taken 
 this queer attitude that I'll come and see them next 
 week in Singapore." 
 
 But Mesner refused to budge. 
 
 " I've told them all that," he said. " The only 
 condition on which they will leave the bungalow is 
 that they should receive your assurance that you wiU 
 sail with them on the steamer." He paused. " The 
 condition, as I told them, was impossible for me to 
 fulfil." 
 
 " But " I began. 
 
 " They won't listen," he cried in a distressed voice. 
 " And there will never be such a chance again of rescuing 
 my child. The gods do not knock at one's door every 
 day in this manner." 
 
 " Don't sail to-night," I suggested, much concerned. 
 " We'll all go to Singapore together by the next down- 
 ward mail I " 
 
 " A fortnight to wait ! " he pointed out. " A fortnight 
 in which Nebudin's friends can make their arrangements. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 171 
 
 No, this is my chance given by Providence of rescuing 
 my child." 
 
 The statement bore the mark of truth. My change 
 of mind looked like possibly upsetting all his plans. 
 So I made another suggestion, not an agreeable one 
 for me as hero, because it seemed like a weakening of 
 the decision I had come to not to leave Kate. But 
 after my default it was the least I could do. 
 
 " If there is no other way out," I said reluctantly, 
 " I could go down to Singapore with you and then come 
 back here at once via Sarawak. How would that do ? " 
 
 " You will ? " he cried. 
 
 " With luck it only means five or six days' absence 
 from here," said I. 
 
 My consent, grudging though it was, put him in such 
 a seventh heaven that I didn't regret giving way. 
 
 " I go back to the house now quickly, quickly ! " 
 he said in a deUghted whisper. " Oh, Harry ! " He 
 caught my hand. " So another time you have come 
 to my rescue. Never will I forget it ! I go now to 
 give them your assurances. They will accept them. 
 My friend, little do you know what you have done 
 for the happiness of all of us." 
 
 He was off again, and I sank feebly on a bollard. 
 A vague feeling that I had been weak I dismissed with 
 an effort as not worthy of consideration. A few days 
 would see me back again in Labuan. Perhaps it was 
 just as well to give Kate's affairs time to settle down 
 a bit before I intruded again. 
 
 Every moment the noise that heralded the steamer's 
 departure was growing. Crowds were assembling on 
 the wharf to bid their friends farewell and wish them 
 safety from the perils of the deep. Now and again 
 came a rustle of affectionate speeches as a passenger 
 or so dropped from the wharf on to the deck much as • 
 an apple drops from the tree. 
 
 The whistle roared. Our winch on the poop gave out 
 spasmodically a protesting sound and began to turn 
 sweetly* Guests going ashore filed past the gangway 
 
172 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 light and were swallowed up in the darkness of the 
 wharf. Late-comers in a stream pushed by them on 
 to the ship. I saw Mesner's pale face in the lamplight 
 as he passed on board in the midst of a throng. 
 
 A little later the ship glided clear of the wharf, veered 
 slowly round and moved out on her voyage. 
 
 So far as could be seen in the darkness this child of 
 Mesner's looked like a girl. I hadn't imagined him 
 with a girl-chUd. In fact, that he should have a child 
 at all took some getting used to. To give the party 
 an opportunity of settling down I went along the deck 
 and stood looking over the side, my elbows on the broad 
 bulwarks. The island receded fast. An indeterminate 
 shape, a sort of deeper darkness below the dark clear 
 sky, was soon the only trace of it left. Presently this 
 too vanished, and all that was visible beyond the dimly 
 glowing ship was the faint gleam of the water as it 
 tore past from night to night, and a luminousness 
 low down and far away that told of the coming of the 
 moon. 
 
 Diffidence kept me from our corner by the poop 
 until Mesner came along and informed me that the 
 others had settled down for the night, and that he 
 had taken the liberty of unroUing my sleeping mat 
 next to his own. 
 
 I awoke during the night. The moon had risen 
 and a yellow moonbeam concentrated like the shaft 
 from a searchlight was playing through a hawse-hole 
 on to my face. Intense quiet reigned. All the passengers 
 seemingly had gone to sleep. The beam of moonUght 
 swung round. It dwelt for a moment on an oblong 
 patch of brown, Mesner's deserted sleeping mat. I 
 could make out in the vague darkness beyond the 
 outline of a woman's form. Something showed dimly 
 white and oval near her pUlow. I understood at once 
 what that something was. Daughter or serving-maid, 
 she was unveiled. 
 
 I should, in courtesy, have turned my head the 
 other way. But I did not turn my head the other 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 173 
 
 way. Instead, with a certain curiosity which most 
 men know, I watched that patcli of yellow moonlight 
 swing slowly over. 
 
 The moonlight touched her hair and lingered there, 
 dwelt on her gilt-ended, red pillow, moved over quickly 
 and illumined aU her face. 
 
 The dark eyes of Princess Adanya were on mine. 
 Her lips were parted in a smUe. . . . 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 MESNER, looking pale and stern in the moonlight, 
 appeared next moment and parted us as we 
 stood by the bulwarks. It seems far away now, 
 all that, but the picture isn't dim. 
 
 Then I remember, having awakened Mina and given 
 his daughter into her charge, he took me by the arm 
 and led me away. He told me very little that night. 
 The rest of his story came out during the voyage to 
 Singapore. It was this : 
 
 Mesner met his wife in Brunei. She was young and 
 of extreme beauty. She was of royal birth. There 
 was opposition to the match or would have been if 
 he hadn't done his courting very secretly. He ran away 
 from Borneo with her and they were married by a 
 registrar in Singapore. 
 
 His trusted friend, who for some reason or other 
 (there were aU sorts of jealousies, it appeared, between 
 the rival factions of the Brunei court at that time) 
 had secretly helped on the elopement was one, Pangiran 
 Nebudin, a relative of the late Sultan. 
 
 The love match — it was one — didn't turn out well. 
 Mesner and his wife settled down in a small bungalow 
 outside Singapore and to Singapore every day he went 
 to look for work. Work wasn't easy to obtain. His 
 acquaintances were inclined to give him the cold 
 shoulder. He had, by marrying a Malay, put himself 
 outside the pale. The Malays, those of them worth 
 knowing, acted much as did the Europeans. They 
 couldn't be expected to Jiave anything to do with a 
 
 174 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 175 
 
 woman who had forsaken Islam. Money grew scarce, 
 friends were lacking, and at last, though she seems to 
 have hidden the fact well, poverty and loneliness told 
 on the woman and the love she'd had for Mesner 
 departed. 
 
 About this time Nebudin came down to Singapore 
 on business for an uncle of the Sultan's. He was his 
 usual pleasant self and husband and wife were glad to 
 have him at the bungalow. He stayed about a month 
 and then, his business being over, left again for Labuan. 
 
 After his visit, events took a turn for the better. 
 Mesner obtained a minor appointment and some of his 
 newer Singapore acquaintances (among them my uncle) 
 came of evenings to the bungalow, where they played 
 cards and drank Mesner's whisky. And then, without 
 the slightest warning, Mesner's wife vanished. He, as 
 I have already said, suspected one of his Singapore 
 acquaintances. He never for a moment suspected 
 Nebudin, whom he thought was back in Brunei. But, 
 according to Mina, Nebudin had returned to Singapore 
 and using my uncle as intermediary, had persuaded 
 Mesner's wife to elope with him. He had difficulty 
 at first, owing to the fact that her family and his were 
 not on friendly terms. But Islam and longing for 
 home fought for him and he prevailed in tiie end. 
 The couple fled by Sarawak. The nika or rehgious 
 ceremony was performed directly after their arrival 
 in Brunei. 
 
 Then (again this is Mina's tale) the erring woman was 
 left alone until her child was born. That she had some 
 lingering affection for her former hustand more than 
 one of her actions proved. Prisoner in the harem again, 
 she asked permission to write to him. It was per- 
 emptorily refused. She endured, I gathered, a certain 
 amount of cruelty. But afterwards Nebudin grew 
 kinder. The child, a daughter, he looked upon as his. 
 But his wife got him to promise before she died that, 
 no matter what happened, their daughter should not 
 be married without her consent in writing before a 
 
176 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 European, should not be forced against her inclination. 
 
 When the time came Nebudin who, it appeared, was 
 a man of his word, remembered this promise. He was 
 now a great man among the Malays. His daughter 
 was fit mate for any one in Malaya. The fame of her 
 beauty had spread. Her hand was asked for by a 
 rich scion of the younger branch of a former royal 
 house of Selangor. The match seemed in every respect 
 advantageous. The daughter, who had been named 
 significantly Adanya, persuaded by the other women 
 of the palace, appeared wiUing. Presently Nebudin 
 himself took her down to Singapore. After her meeting 
 with the bridegroom, who was not remarkable for 
 beauty, a little further persuasion became necessary. 
 Finally, the contract was drawn up and Nebudin 
 brought her to my uncle's office on that memorable 
 mprning to sign it. 
 
 There was trouble afterwards. Nebudin took Adanya 
 to the small house at Tanjong Katong, hoping that 
 with coaxing she would change her mind. But she 
 proved obstinate. She wouldn't change her mind, and 
 my advent that day made her more determined than 
 ever. Nebudin was furious. He packed Adanya back 
 to Brunei and went himself with apologies and explana- 
 tions to Selangor. 
 
 When it was found out that I, as they thought, 
 had tracked him to Kuala Lumpur all concerned 
 completely lost their heads with rage and tried that 
 night at Dato Kahar's house to put me finally out of 
 the running. 
 
 " And I think," said Mesner with a chuckle, as he told 
 me this last a day or so before we landed at Singapore, 
 " that when Nebudin heard that I, too, had put in an 
 appearance in your company, that must also have 
 caused him considerable perturbation. For both of 
 us to appear together ! Tonnene de Dieu I The man 
 must have., thought Satan himself was in the field 
 against him." i 
 
 The coincidence certainly must have appeared 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 177 
 
 remarkable. So was the whole story. But what had 
 come upon me as the greatest surprise of all was that 
 Mesner's wife had been a Malay. As he was a Frenchman, 
 one would naturally have thought of his wife as being 
 French, just as Britishers' wives were usually British. 
 So I'd pictured her on the occasions when I had troubled 
 to wonder where she had gone. And yet if one came 
 to consider the matter there was nothing particularly 
 queer about his marrjdng a Malay. Why, I intended 
 to marry one myself ! 
 
 That voyage to Singapore was delightful in some 
 ways. Under the strict eye of Mesner and, when that 
 eye was otherwise occupied, of his faithful satellite 
 Mina, Adanya and I sat together through the days 
 and, if I remember rightly, a good part of the nights. 
 In the purest of court Malay and regardless of the 
 presence of chaperons we told each other all about 
 ourselves and about our emotions — something. 
 
 I am afraid I did most of the talking, for, except for 
 her Singapore adventure, she had little to tell. The 
 walls of the harem had Umited her experience strangely. 
 Needlework, embroidery, the making of sweetmeats, 
 gossiping about the doings of others in other harems, 
 particularly about their love affairs, that was her life 
 in Brunei. Poor child, they hadn't even taught her 
 to read. 
 
 " The Tuan must teach me," she said when making 
 that appalling confession of illiteracy. " Afterwards ! " 
 
 "Don't call me Tuan," I begged her. "Tuan" 
 means " lord." I didn't want to be that to her. " You 
 know what my name is." 
 
 " 'Arry," she said with a serious look. " I had 
 forgotten. 'Any." 
 
 The aspirate is as much beyond the power of the 
 Malay as of the Frenchwoman. 
 
 Except for the European regularity of her features, 
 
 and her light complexion, I couldn't see any resemblance 
 
 between Adanya and her father. Her eyes were larger 
 
 than those of most Malays, very bright, very intelligent, 
 
 12 
 
178 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 and of a warm, soft brown. Her ignorance appalled 
 me, but I hadn't the slightest fear of her failing to 
 adapt herself to her new surroundings. She had such 
 a remarkable memory and was so keen to learn. 
 
 The English names of the various parts of the ship 
 she memorized in one lesson. Next day, after tiffin, 
 I produced pencil and paper, and sitting close beside 
 her on the mat, made a rough attempt at drawing 
 various trees and animals. A coconut she recognized 
 at once, a bamboo, a banana, the tiger, the elephant. 
 I sketched a camel and showed it to her. 
 
 Out came a ripple of laughter. 
 
 " There isn't such a thing, Tuan," she cried. " Thou'rt 
 making fun." 
 
 Camels apparently aren't known among the women 
 of Brunei. Yet those from that town who had performed 
 the haj and visited Arabia ought, one would have 
 thought, to have acquainted their wives with the queer 
 things, camels among them, they had seen on the trip. 
 
 Next I drew a cockerel. She laughed delightedly 
 and nudged me with her elbow as she made a motion 
 in imitation of flapping of wings, and said " Cluck, 
 cluck ! " 
 
 Whereupon I drew a pig. 
 
 Thoughtless idiot that I was, in showing her that I 
 was inviting trouble. She uttered a cry, screamed out 
 some word I didn't know the meaning of, threw the 
 drawing into the scupper and went and lay down next 
 to Mina. 
 
 The noise awoke Mesner from his siesta. He wanted 
 to know what was wrong. 
 
 " She is very young," he commented when I told him. 
 
 " It's my fault," I said disgustedly, looking at the 
 quivering bundle of gaudy silks Ijdng beside the serving- 
 maid. " I oughtn't to have been such a putrid ass as 
 to forget her religion." 
 
 I wanted to go over and try and make friends with 
 her there and then, but Mesner wouldn't permit it. 
 She was harem-spoilt, he said, and was best left alone. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 179 
 
 After a time she would come to herself and be all the 
 better for the lesson. What lesson he meant I could 
 not fathom unless it was that white people as a rule 
 had not much respect for Mohammedanism. But I 
 took his advice. 
 
 Adanya did not speak until dinner-time. Then, as 
 the four of us were squatted gathered round the dishes 
 in the sunset, she suddenly threw one slender arm round 
 my neck and, drawing down my head, dipped her 
 fingers into the curry and put them to my lips. 
 
 My astonished mouth, opened involuntarily and 
 closed again. To signify her forgiveness she had deftly 
 administered to me — shooting it in like a marble with 
 a dainty thumb — a titbit from the dish. 
 
 Grinning faintly, but feeling somehow slightly un- 
 dignified, I shot a glance at Mesner. I don't think he 
 noticed the incident. At any rate, he seemed to be 
 looking the other way. 
 
 Taking advantage of his negligent eye I put a hand 
 on Adanya's wrist and pressed it gently. Her forgiveness 
 thrilled me, though the manner in which she exhibited 
 it might have been a little strange. 
 
 She was generous-hearted I She was a darling ! I 
 was going to devote my whole life to making her happy. 
 I would teach her things, I told myself with swelling 
 heart, take her about the world, make her existence 
 full, joyful. It would mean, I knew, constant devotion. 
 But what of that when one loves ! 
 
 She was, it appeared from a comparison of dates, 
 no more than sixteen, which would account for a certain 
 wa5rwardness and lack of self-control I thought I noted. 
 She looked older than her age, and often exhibited the 
 dignity of a fully-grown Englishwoman. Mesner said 
 that in looks and manner she was strikingly like his 
 wife. The comparison didn't interest me much. Doubt- 
 less he meant his remark to be flattering, but its effect 
 on me was otherwise. Mesner's wife had been — what 
 she had been. But my Adanya, ignorant, beautiful, 
 savage, generous, she, poor child, was unique. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 SINGAPORE again, but a Singapore very changed 
 for me. The European quarter as the four of us 
 rattled through it in a gharry crammed to the doors 
 with bundles of luggage, wore in the late sunlight a curi- 
 ously foreign air. My spruce fellow-countrymen on the 
 pavement might have been men of an alien race so far 
 seemed they and I to have already drifted apart. 
 
 Mina, untravelled old lady that she was, got rather 
 scared at the sight of so many houses and white men. 
 But Adanya didn't. She had been in the place before. 
 Talking incessantly and with a free use of gesture, she 
 pointed out the sights to her bucolic serving-maid. It 
 was blatant showing-off, but the naive charm of her 
 manner more than balanced that defect in my eyes. 
 
 What tickled me most was the way that both women 
 metaphorically bowed down and worshipped the brass 
 bedstead in their bedroom. Never had they beheld a 
 brass bedstead before, never a mattress with springs. 
 
 And so we settled down in the native city once again. 
 
 It was a crowded house with the two women in it, and 
 quiet evenings in the company of Balzac were few and 
 far between. Not that I minded the change. Far 
 otherwise ! Not that Mesner minded either. Or if he 
 did, he realized that one can't be a dutiful father and 
 at the same time enjoy the privileges of bachelorhood. 
 And he took his duties as a father very seriously did 
 Mesner, if sometimes his ideas were rather whimsical. 
 
 To see him after dinner when the table had been 
 cleared, sitting under the lamp, book in hand and with 
 
 180 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON i8i 
 
 Adanya beside him, was a pretty sight. But the know- 
 ledge that he was engaged in teaching her French did 
 not, I confess it, add to my pleasure. This subject of 
 languages was the cause of the second difference of 
 opinion I had with Mesner about Adanya. I, of course, 
 wished her to learn English. 
 
 He wouldn't hear of it. 
 
 " Do you want to give her a language that will make 
 her miserable for ever ? " he blazed. " What chance 
 has she of being received on equal terms by your country- 
 women in England, or in Singapore either for that mat- 
 ter ? No, she shall acquire what wiU come natural to 
 her, her father's tongue. Then she can reside in France 
 or if she prefers it in Cochin China, where she will be 
 treated by those of my race with the respect to which 
 her birth entitles her." 
 
 There was much truth in what he said. The French 
 
 treat half-castes as their equals. But still ! I 
 
 made another protest. 
 
 " EngUsh'll be more useful to her," I contended. 
 
 " I would rather teach her Dutch than EngUsh ! " 
 shouted Mesner. 
 
 This I knew was final, for Mesner disliked the Dutch, 
 regarding them as a sort of German, as much inferior 
 to the hated real article as is the onion to the garUc 
 beloved of his compatriots. 
 
 I smothered my feelings and yielded to his wishes, 
 unpleasant though it was to have my intended wife 
 educated as it were away from me. I smothered them 
 lest worse should follow. 
 
 And this brings me to the first difference of opinion 
 between Mesner and myself about Adanya. He wouldn't 
 consent to our engagement ! 
 
 He told me this du'ectly after he had safely landed us 
 all at the house in Ainan Street. Me, who from the 
 first had looked on Adanya as more my property than 
 his ! It nearly took my breath away. 
 
 " But you know the state of affairs between us," I 
 protested hotly. " She wouldn't even leave Labuan 
 
i83 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 without my being on the steamer. If such were your 
 intentions, Mesner, why did you make me come down 
 with you ? " 
 
 He grinned complacently. 
 
 " A father's cunning," he explained with a wave of the 
 hand. " I made use of her childish liking for you to 
 tempt her away. As for an engagement, an engagement 
 is unthinkable. She is too young. She is ignorant. 
 She does not know the world." 
 
 " I wiU look after her," I cried. 
 
 " We will discuss it no further," he retorted with an 
 air of finality. " My dear Harry, be reasonable. 
 Remember the responsibilities of a parent ! For 
 instance, what are your prospects ? " 
 
 " My prospects ? " I echoed blankly. 
 
 " That is one of the first things a French parent asks," 
 he reminded me. " StiU, in the circumstances I am not 
 going to refuse you altogether. Let us consider my 
 answer to be in the balance. Meanwhile remember 
 your promise to me, and treat Adanya with the distant 
 respect due from a young man to the daughter of his 
 friend." 
 
 Disappointment (or was it injured pride ?) made me 
 mutter something rude. 
 
 " My friend," said Mesner, putting a hand on my 
 shoulder, " if circumstances become kind to us there is 
 nobody I shall eventually more welcome as a son." 
 
 So, lest I should upset the balance mentioned above, 
 I prudently suffered Adajiya to learn French. As for 
 circumstances, they were materially worse than when 
 we left Singapore. Our business as fortune-tellers had 
 suffered considerably. In our absence a rival had set 
 up farther along the street. He came from Tibet, and 
 all our clients were flocking to him. On some evenings 
 our consulting rooms were nearly empty. 
 
 Mesner took our new lack of prosperity philosophically. 
 But he made valiant efforts to attract chents. He had 
 handbills printed in TamU, Malay and Chinese, and we 
 took it in turns to go oUt distributing them. Gibberson, 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 183 
 
 who came up from the de la Paix and dined with us one 
 night, went away with a pocketful, promising to dis- 
 tribute them among the hotel people. But no good 
 came of it. 
 
 I think the life in that slum after the fresh air of Brunei 
 must have proved very trjnng to Adanya and old Mina. 
 But they didn't complain. Mina was allowed out from 
 time to time and used to come back from the Kling 
 shops laden with packages of rubbish, such as mouth 
 organs, musical boxes, cheap sweets and scents, to the 
 delight of both of them. But Mesner had forbidden 
 his daughter to as much as descend to the ground storey. 
 
 She obeyed him. For a young, good-looking woman 
 to be so confined probably didn't strike her as otherwise 
 than natural. 
 
 But there were some things she didn't understand. 
 
 One afternoon Mesner went out with his handbills. 
 He left Adanya and Mina at their usual siesta in the bed- 
 room. He left me at mine in my long chair under the 
 fan. When I awoke I got up and sat at the table looking 
 at the newspaper, an afternoon edition of which had 
 just been delivered. 
 
 Adanya came in, saw me, hesitated a moment and 
 then advanced across the room. 
 
 " 'Arry," said she. 
 
 " What is it, Adanya ? " 
 
 " Thou lovest me still, dost thou not ? " 
 
 " Assuredly I do," I replied with fervour. 
 
 " Then why do we not get married ? " 
 
 Here was the primitive female with a vengeance. I 
 was strongly tempted to take her in my arms and kiss 
 her, but Mesner — ^wily father — had put me on my 
 honour. 
 
 " Thy education must be considered," I answered 
 lamely. 
 
 " I don't see what education has to do with marriage," 
 she sniffed. 
 
 She hung there a moment longer, leaning heavily 
 against me as I sat gripping the table with both hands 
 
i84 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 in order to preserve my said honour. Giving me an 
 amazed, scornful look she went back to the bedroom. 
 
 For a moment I sat quite still, tingling with shame 
 from head to heel. Then with a groan of resignation 
 I returned to my newspaper. 
 
 The newspapers just then were very interesting to us, 
 for my uncle was a sufficiently distinguished person for 
 a bulletin recording his condition to be cabled daily 
 from Labuan. That condition had, so we learned on 
 our arrival, been serious. He was still in bed, unable 
 to undertake any business. This being so, it was diffi- 
 cult to see what good I could do Kate by returning to 
 Labuan, and therefore, after consultation with Mesner, 
 my journey had been put off. 
 
 Lately the news had been better. The patient was, 
 however, still confined to his room. And this was the 
 substance of the bulletin I now found hidden away in a 
 corner of the newspaper. 
 
 Mesner came back near dinner-time, very cock-a-hoop. 
 Dressed as he was in native costume he had, he said, 
 been round all the big hotels in Singapore, and had dis- 
 tributed his handbills without his nationality being for 
 a moment suspected. Better still, he had earned money. 
 In the biggest hotel of all, the Armenian manager, having 
 first ordered him into the office and made him read his 
 hand (for nothing, said Mesner, in accordance with the 
 universal custom of Armenians), had turned him loose in 
 the hotel to earn what he could. 
 
 " There is a German steamer in the harbour," cried 
 Mesner. " It sailed from Boston recently on a world 
 tour. On every long chair, under every fan in that 
 hotel, was planted an American citizen — male or female. 
 Sometimes both ! And all in full bloom ! Never in my 
 life have I seen an hotel so gorgeously decorated. Envis- 
 age me there ! I flit from flower to flower sipping the 
 honey. Listen ! " 
 
 He caught up his coat pocket and rattled it. DoUars 
 clinked. 
 
 " Afterwards I went to the de la Paix and saw Gibber- 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 185 
 
 son. He did not know me till I gave him one of our 
 handbills. When he recovered from his astonishment 
 he took me round to his private room. We celebrated 
 my success as gallant gentlemen should." 
 
 It had already struck me that he was new come from 
 some such celebration. 
 
 " Take the dollars," he shouted, and ladled them 
 out into my hands. " Count them, sum them, set the 
 total in a book to testify to future generations what an 
 oldish man can do when he tries." 
 
 " Fifty-five here," said I stacking them in heaps on 
 the table. " Is that all ? " 
 
 " All ? " cried Mesner. " Isn't that enough for you, 
 avaricious sapling ? " 
 
 He fumbled in the other pocket. I noticed his joyous 
 expression fade away. 
 
 He pulled out a yellow piece of paper and handed it 
 to me. 
 
 " Gibberson gave me this," he said more soberly. 
 " There is news that affects you." 
 
 It was a sheet of press cablegrams. What he referred 
 to caught my eye at once — 
 
 Mr. Lavington died at Labuan Fort this afternoon. 
 
 There was a long obituary notice in the next morning's 
 paper. Mesner read it aloud as we sat at breakfast. 
 
 " You ought to be proud of having had such an uncle," 
 he said gravely as he handed me back the newspaper. 
 
 " Did he really do all these things ? " I asked, mystified. 
 
 " Forty years is a long time," returned Mesner. " I 
 believe your uncle was mixed up in most of Singapore's 
 public ventures. To take the scattered good in a man's 
 life and build with it a splendid mosaic is the business 
 of the writer of obituary notices. It is a pity for most 
 of us that when we pass we cannot take our obituary 
 notices with us. Our task with Peter would be thereby 
 rendered easier." 
 
 ". I think I ought to go to Labuan," said I. 
 
 " Just as you prefer," replied Mesner considerately. 
 
 I didn't go, for news came through that the funeral 
 
i86 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 had taken place and that Kate was sailing at once for 
 Singapore. Instead I wrote a letter, telling her in a 
 postscript where I was, and posted it addressed to the 
 Tanglin bungalow. Then I sat down to wait. 
 
 Faint rumours reached me from time to time. Gib- 
 berson came to dinner again one night. He said my 
 uncle, according to gossip, hadn't left anything like as 
 much as people had anticipated. His affairs, too, were 
 in horrible disorder. " Solicitors' affairs generally are," 
 said Gibberson, as if that were any consolation. 
 
 This little dinner party was an event of considerable 
 state, for Adanya, who had now learned to use spoon 
 and fork, although she couldn't yet manage a knife, was 
 present at it. 
 
 She was very shy at first and I could see her eyeing 
 our guest's big stomach as if she were a Columbus dis- 
 covering a third hemisphere. But Gibberson had a 
 silver tongue — after all, shape is of no importance in a 
 musical instrument — and the two were soon on friendly 
 terms. We asked her after he had gone what was her 
 opinion of him. 
 
 " Terlampau gemok skali," she said and pursed out 
 
 her cheeks. " Te-pi baik." (" Fat but good.") Well, that 
 
 would have been the verdict on him of much wiser people. 
 
 " Would you like to marry him, Adanya ? " chaffed 
 
 Mesner, who was obviously feeling rather gay. 
 
 She flashed at him a sudden, startUng angry look. 
 Her good humour fled in an instant. 
 
 " You don't want me to marry any one," she said 
 bluntly. 
 
 This staggering accusation finished off Mesner for the 
 evening. It was so absolutely true. He gave her a 
 stupefied stare, tried to smile at me whimsically, failed, 
 and at last in a sort of fury ordered us all off to bed. 
 
 The long awaited letter from Kate was delivered by 
 the postman next evening, when all four of us were in 
 the sitting-room. The Chinese servant brought it up on 
 a large tray, awe contorting his dirty face. It must 
 have been the first properly stamped communication 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 187 
 
 that he had ever been called upon to hand to his present 
 employers. And so he bore it on the tray, treating it 
 with marked respect. 
 
 The three remained silent while I opened the envelope 
 and glanced at the contents. 
 
 " My cousin hasn't been very well," I said to Mesner 
 in English. " She wants me to go and see her some 
 time next week." 
 
 But that wasn't enough for the women. Such an 
 important communication ought to be the property of 
 the household, this thought was plainly written on their 
 faces. Adanya, squatting on the mat, reached up and 
 took the letter from me, unfolded it, held it all ways, 
 laughing. I translated it for her into Malay. 
 
 "The father of thy female cousin is dead," she 
 commented, shooting a glance at me. " Susa I " (sad.) 
 
 Old Mina pulled a cigarette paper, took tobacco from 
 a tin, rolled a cigarette with fingers marvellously deft 
 considering their rheumaticky appearance, hghted it, 
 took a trial puff and handed it to her mistress. 
 
 Adanya smoked the cigarette slowly. She was evi- 
 dently deep in thought, for she didn't utter a word for 
 nearly a minute. Then she looked up and said to me 
 with startling suddenness : 
 
 " Hast thou ever kissed thy female cousin ? " 
 
 The total unexpectedness of the question took my 
 breath away. My face must have been a picture, for 
 Mesner burst into fits of laughter. 
 
 Of course my explanations were vain. I said that 
 Kate being a cousin was almost like a sister. Adanya 
 knew better. Even in Brunei harems there are such 
 things as female cousins. 
 
 " Why didst thou not tell me thou hadst a female 
 cousin ? " she cried angrily. She made to rise off the 
 mat. Mina reached over, caught her into her arms, 
 saying something in Brunei Malay that neither Mesner 
 nor I could xmderstand. And at once Adanya began 
 a loud strained sobbing that continued for nearly half 
 an hour. 
 
i88 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 When she finally rose to go to her bedroom she gave 
 me a look like a sword. 
 
 Next day she plainly showed that she had not for- 
 gotten. 
 
 I know now what was working in her simple savage 
 mind, though then I did not. That a man who professed 
 love for her shouldn't take every opportunity, honest 
 or dishonest, of demonstrating his affection was to her 
 simply not understandable. There must be, she would 
 argue, another woman somewhere. And in Kate she 
 had now found that woman. 
 
 From that evening she changed right round. She 
 would hardly eat. When she did sit down at last to a 
 meal she threw the spoon beside her plate to the other 
 end of the room and used finger and thumb. 
 
 As for French lessons ! 
 
 She told her horror-struck father that the French were 
 if anything worse than the English. That both races 
 were pig-eating kafirs that didn't know the meaning of 
 the wor4 " shame." This to one whose relatives had had 
 the honour of losing their money shoulder to shoulder 
 with the great de Lesseps ! 
 
 I never saw a man more puzzled and alarmed. In spite 
 of my own state of trepidation the expression on his 
 face nearly made me burst out laughing. Instead of a 
 dutiful daughter he had, he found, caged a tiger cat. 
 He made an effort there and then and tried to assert 
 himself. She shouted him down. Yes, my beautiful 
 Adanya stood there on the mat under the fan, with old 
 Mina at her elbow, and shouted her father down. And 
 shouted me down too ! But she couldn't be bothered 
 with a poor thing like me. She had plainly finished with 
 me for ever. 
 
 Then when the altercation had ended the two of them 
 squatted on the mat and defiantly chewed betel, a habit 
 the exercise of which Mesner had absolutely forbidden 
 in his house. I can remember, and I still shudder 
 slightly at the memory, their savage glowing eyes and the 
 scarlet foam exuding from their moving lips. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 ONE effect this rebeUion had on Mesner. His 
 disHke to the idea of my being engaged to his 
 daughter disappeared during the night as if some 
 good fairy had visited his bedroom and carried the 
 selfish thing a.way. 
 
 He drew me aside before breakfast next morning and, 
 with great pathos, confessed to the error he had made. 
 
 " I was deceived in the strength of her Uking for you," 
 he said. "I did not allow for the early arrival to woman- 
 hood in this hot country. We must lay our plans anew, 
 Harry." 
 
 Considering his previous refusals to give me any share 
 in the arranging these plans I thought the last remark 
 rather cool. 
 
 " I'm entirely in your hands," I said non-committally. 
 
 The lack of enthusiasm in my tone I saw appalled 
 him. I wasn't surprised. There was a next-morning 
 sound about my voice that I myself felt ashamed of. 
 
 " In my hands ! " he shouted. " Is that all you are 
 when a fond father withdraws his opposition ? You 
 ought to be in a different place entirely ! You ought 
 to be in the seventh heaven of delight ! " 
 
 I assured him with fervour that I was. 
 
 " But we must not press her," I pointed out. 
 
 " No," he agreed cautiously. " A slow, almost im- 
 perceptible veering round to the idea of your early 
 marriage, that should be the summation of our policy. 
 A sudden change in your demeanour would cause her to 
 suspect deception." 
 
 189 
 
igo PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 I nodded, but well I knew in my heart how little a 
 change in me would affect her now. My pitiful lack of 
 enterprise had put me in Adanya's black books for 
 ever. 
 
 " Mille cochons ! " cried Mesner. " To think a daugh- 
 ter of mine should exhibit such savage traits." He 
 sighed. " But she will become different, Harry," he 
 added eagerly. " She will learn, you wiU see. She is 
 young. Now, however, caution is the watchword." 
 
 He was afraid lest Mina and her charge should take it 
 into their heads to run away and for a day or two watched 
 them like a hawk. But neither of them showed further 
 signs of restlessness. Mina went on her ordinary 
 shopping errands. Adanya spent more time in soUtary 
 state, smoking cigarettes in the bedroom. She spoke 
 but little. We hoped she was quietening down. 
 
 My own condition now was one of mingled 
 
 No, I won't write like that ! What's the good ? It 
 will deceive nobody. Adanya taught me very effectively 
 with a single look what my place is in the scale of 
 heroes. It is pretty low, I'm afraid. 
 
 I think it was her popping that piece of curry into my 
 mouth, charming though the intention was, that first 
 shook the foundations of my romance. Then there were 
 other things, all sorts of details that I haven't dared set 
 down. And the betel chewing ! Last thing of aU she 
 had summed me up and handed me the result. What 
 man can stand that from a woman ? 
 
 It was in fact a poorish sort of hero that crawled 
 up to the Tanglin bungalow that hot afternoon. 
 
 Kate made me first of all have tea. They might, she 
 said, give me good teas at Ainan Street, but this one 
 would be a change at any rate. It certainly was a 
 treat to me to see the old tea things again, the silver 
 tea-pot, the silver tray, the Worcester service that had 
 been in use ever since I could remember. And to see her 
 too sitting near me on " our " veranda. She had never 
 to my knowledge worn black before. That was the 
 only difference from the old days. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 191 
 
 " He spoke about you before he died," she told me. 
 " I think you were much in his thoughts." 
 
 " Did he have any pain ? " 
 
 " No, none, the doctor said. He was never quite 
 himself, mentally, after he recovered consciousness," 
 she added. 
 
 The end had come very unexpectedly. Kate had left 
 him in the morning lying as she thought asleep, and 
 gone downstairs. A little later a servant dusting round 
 the landing heard a cry, and running into the bedroom 
 found my imcle lying prone by a door that led on to a 
 small veranda. He had evidently got up with the 
 intention of going out into the fresh air, and the exertion 
 had brought on another fit. 
 
 " The doctor told me," said Kate, " that if he hadn't 
 been so rash he might with care have got quite well again. 
 He was making a good recovery." 
 
 A certain weight was partially lifted from my 
 mind. 
 
 The Peddam-Smythes couldn't have been kinder. 
 After the simple funeral Avery had brought Kate back 
 to Singapore. 
 
 " And now," she said with a grimace, " the lawyers 
 have got hold of me. They are awful I " 
 
 " Dog doesn't eat dog," I reminded her. " You are 
 a lawyer's daughter. Their charges will be merciful." 
 
 " Not awful in that way," she amended. " Awful in 
 their sharpness and perseverance at trying to find out 
 something about father's affairs. There's a frightful 
 muddle somewhere." 
 
 " So rumour says." 
 
 " Oh," said Kate viciously. " Are the Singapore 
 
 "scandal-mongers busy again ? Well, rumour this time 
 
 doesn't lie. Father's affairs are in a frightful muddle. 
 
 Another thing too, and rather an important one for me, 
 
 is that there's apparently very little money." 
 
 " But that's impossible," I exclaimed incredulously. 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " I hope you're right," said she. " But so far all we 
 
192 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 can find is a tiny balance at the bank, and the bungalow 
 and the car. And that's all." 
 
 People who live right up to their means are plentiful 
 enough, but that my uncle should have been one of them 
 I simply couldn't believe. 
 
 " Something will turn up yet," I suggested. 
 
 She smiled doubtfully and said that the search had 
 been thorough. It was thought, she added, that he 
 had lost a fortune in coffee in the nineties. 
 
 " I put your deed-box aside for you," she told me, 
 " and perhaps you'll take it with you when you go. It 
 isn't at all heavy. You can carry it easily." 
 
 " There is something of mine, then ? " 
 
 " Well, the box is marked with your name," said Kate. 
 " No doubt it's papers connected with the trustees." 
 
 We went into the big bare study a little afterwards and 
 she brought out the box from a cupboard and stood it 
 with an air of triumph on the table. 
 
 " It was the first thing I noticed when I opened the 
 safe," said she. " So I put it aside for you at once. 
 Directly I came back from Labuan I took father's keys 
 and opened everything I could. His business was a 
 queer one and the clients such very funny people I 
 wanted to — to make his memory safe. You under- 
 stand ? " 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " Everything was locked. You know how particular 
 father was about that bunch of keys he always carried. 
 He cherished those keys right to the end. He insisted 
 on having them under his pillow even when ill in Labuan. 
 Wasn't that characteristic ? He'd taken them with him 
 when he got out of bed. When they — they found him 
 the bunch was clutched in his hand. . . ." 
 
 " Poor old uncle ! " I murmured. 
 
 " I haven't opened your deed-box," said Kate briskly 
 after an instant. " In fact nobody knows it exists." 
 
 " We'll open it at once if you'll give me the key," 
 said I, and going over to the table tipped up the square 
 black-japanned battered thing and examined the 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 193 
 
 lettering. Kate handed me the big bunch of keys with 
 my uncle's silver key-chain still attached to it. Selecting 
 a likely key, I tried it in the lock. No use I I tried 
 another, then another, 
 
 I glared at the deed-box as it stood on the table, square 
 to the world. 
 
 " Give me a poker or something," said I. " We'll 
 break it open." 
 
 " I'll get Mr. Gubb to look round the office again," 
 said Kate. " The new people have kept him on in his 
 old berth. There may be some keys there. Don't you 
 think it's likely there would be ? " 
 
 " There might," I agreed. " There might " 
 
 The start I gave then I No wonder Kate jimiped. 
 But die wasn't nearly as surprised as I was. 
 
 " Keys at the office ! " I yelled, pulling out my bunch. 
 " What a footling idiot I was not to have thought of it 
 before I " 
 
 The key fitted. I threw back the lid. Next moment 
 Kate was examining a bundle of notes which I rather 
 hesitatingly handed to her. 
 
 They were lying on an accoimt book on the top of the 
 contents of the box and had evidently been thrown there 
 by some one in a hurry. There was a list of numbers 
 in my uncle's handwriting cUpped to one of them. 
 
 " This is awful," said Kate in a distressed voice. " I 
 don't think he was quite himself for the last few 
 months." 
 
 What he wished to incriminate me for we both learned 
 In the next half hour from an examination of the account 
 book and the various papers in the box. No one who 
 looked through these could have beheved otherwise 
 than that my uncle had for many years been insane. 
 The event that upset his balance was the disastrous 
 fall in the price of coffee in the late nineties. He with 
 many others in Singapore lost heavily. To escape 
 bankruptcy then 'he helped himself to the money of 
 clients. Then came the rubber boom and the demand 
 for rubber land and there he saw his way out. 
 13 
 
194 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 He forged on documents the signature of my other 
 trustee, who by then had retired and was living in Lon- 
 don, called in Nebudin, and by means of a dummy sale 
 to him put into his own pocket the large sum a well- 
 known rubber company paid for my land. Queerly 
 enough, when he had done all this his conscience seems 
 to have pricked him. He refunded his clients' money, 
 and then appears to have devoted the rest of his life to the 
 good work of replacing the sum he had taken from me. 
 
 And he had gone even further, so the remarkably 
 clear accounts showed, for he had invested the money 
 replaced with great sagacity and doubled it. 
 
 The whole sum in sterling amounted to over £20,000. 
 
 But where was it ? We went through all the papers 
 again and could find nothing. Then, just as we were 
 putting them into the box, Kate called my attention to 
 a queer-looking document she had found among the pages 
 at the back of the account book. I was puzzled at first. 
 But only for a moment. 
 
 " Why," I said in great excitement, " it seems to be a 
 bearer bond of some Japanese municipal loan or other, 
 for ten thousand yen." 
 ' There were twenty of them hidden in that book ! 
 
 Afterwards we went and sat on the veranda to cool 
 down. We needed to. 
 
 " Don't let's talk about why he did it," Kate begged. 
 " It was a hideous thing for him to do." 
 
 "If he hadn't been insane " I began. 
 
 " He was, quite," she said quickly. " He must have 
 been insane." 
 
 As I have said he couldn't have been otherwise. He 
 was insane when he grumbled at our engagement. He 
 was insane when, els I think, he rose from his death-bed 
 and threw away the key of my despatch-box in order to 
 try and prevent discovery of his wrong-doing. But 
 what he had done so insanely was generally to my 
 benefit, not to his, not to Kate's. She couldn't be 
 permitted to suffer because of his insanity. That was 
 clear. What should I do ? The hero in me stirred. 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 195 
 
 " That £20,000 is yours ! " the hero said with kind- 
 ling eye. 
 
 •• Don't talk so stupidly." 
 
 " He thought we had quarrelled, that I should investi- 
 gate his trusteeship and that he would have to pay over 
 the money." 
 
 " If he ever thought at all," she put in. 
 
 " His idea was, although his peculiar nature didn't 
 permit him to be open about it, that it didn't matter 
 whose name the money was in, for eventually you and 
 I would share it." 
 
 " I don't think for an instant that he ever had such 
 an idea." 
 
 " You must take your share at any ratfe. Take half ! 
 I'm going to hand it over now." 
 
 " You'U please do nothing of the kind." 
 
 The hero bounded to the study, brought back the 
 deed-box and produced his key. 
 
 " Wait a moment," said Kate, " before you open it. 
 Try and think about the matter from my point of view." 
 
 She rose and stood beside the table, her hand on the 
 lid of the box. 
 
 " Suppose you and I had never known each other," 
 she began. 
 
 " It's hard to suppose." 
 
 " And suppose the point we are discussing went before 
 a court of law and the clear, sane accoimts and papers 
 as we saw^them just now were produced. D'you think 
 the judge would give me half that £20,000 ? " 
 
 " But we know the case is different." 
 
 " You know he wouldn't," she cried with sudden 
 vehemence. " You know he wouldn't. You want to 
 make me a gift ! You think I've come to that ? That 
 I'd take yoiu* money ? " 
 
 The hero's jaw fell slightly. 
 
 " Kate," he managed to mutter, " I never intended 
 to " 
 
 " Oh, for Heaven's sake, Harry, go away ! " she said 
 in a low, bitter tone. " I don't believe you meant 
 
 13* 
 
196 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 anything, I really don't believe you meant anything — 
 But you should think before you speak ! — Now I've 
 done what I intended and given you your things. There's 
 no need for you to stay here longer — Go back to the 
 horrible place where you're living ! " she cried in sudden 
 anger. " Your degraded Ufe ! That slum ! Go back 
 to that woman ! Go back to her ! " 
 
 Eyes ablaze, her bosom heaving, she swept off the 
 veranda. 
 
 " But there isn't any woman now," the hero moaned, 
 " There isn't any woman." God, if I could only have 
 told her " There isn't any woman ! There isn't any 
 ' her.' " 
 
 And then, as I stood dumfoundered, looking at the 
 swa5dng curtain of the doorway through which she had 
 disappeared, hurried footsteps sounded behind me on 
 the veranda stairs. And a voice shouted : 
 
 " Harry 1 She's gone ! Adanya has run away ! '- 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THEY had crept off without a sound while Mesner 
 was shut in his consulting-room. A back gate 
 wide open was the first sign of anything amiss. 
 When he came out of his cook-house and noticed this 
 gate, the cook, slightly alarmed, went back to see if 
 the key was in its usual place on the nail beside the oven. 
 It was no longer there. He at once gave the alarm. 
 
 Mesner, when he found what he feared had happened, 
 seems to have lost his head and could think of nothing 
 better than to jump into the first ricksha and come 
 to tell me. 
 
 He was beside himself. 
 
 " You after all have the greatest interest in her," 
 he shouted, gesticulating frantically with both his arms 
 and all his fingers. " You were to marry her ! You 
 were the cause of her coming to Singapore ! It was 
 right that I, her father, should give you immediate 
 notification of our joint misfortune ! " 
 
 I got him off the yeranda and into the ricksha. The 
 noise of his lamentations was so loud that I was in a 
 blue funk lest Kate should hear him. 
 
 " Perhaps they'll come back again," I suggested, as 
 we rattled full speed down the drive. 
 
 " I tell you they have gone ! " he cried. " Not for 
 a saunter. Not to take the air. But altogether gone. 
 They have borne away their apparel." 
 
 So it proved. They had been scrupulously honest. 
 Not a thing of ours was missing. But they'd packed 
 up every single one of their belongings to the last hairpin. 
 
 197 
 
198 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 Except for a faint smell of stale native cigarette smoke 
 they might never have been in the place. Afterwards 
 we went round to the back street and saw some of the 
 people in the houses there. They told a strange tale 
 of a foreign-looking Malay who had been hanging about 
 for days. That afternoon he had come with a gharry, 
 backing it slowly down the street, for there was no room 
 for it to turn. From their description of the man little 
 doubt remained in my mind that it was Nebudin himself. 
 They said they had seen no woman get into the gharry. 
 This might easily have happened. The position of the 
 roadway relative to our back door would have made 
 observation difficult. Their smiles at these inquiries 
 of ours were, I thought, dictated by the feeling — which 
 Chinese coolies share with the rest of humanity — of 
 sneaking sympathy for ladies who dare escape from the 
 clutches of their lawful owners. 
 
 But Mesner took a different view. 
 
 He roundly accused the whole street of treachery. 
 It was a rash act, especially as aU the inhabitants be- 
 longed to the notorious Keh clan, and only with diffi- 
 culty did I manage to get him uninjured through a 
 shower of filthy missiles and into our back-yard. Even 
 then he wasn't content ! He rushed into the cook- 
 house and I heard him hurHng accusations against the 
 cook. 
 
 " They did not steal the key," I heard him shouting. 
 " For them to come in here and take it without your 
 knowledge is impossible. Traitor ! Craven ! False to 
 your bread ! Acknowledge your guilt ! " 
 
 The cook wouldn't and Mesner came rushing out 
 again like a lunatic. 
 
 The helplessness of our position was, I think, the 
 feature that upset him most. Had we been ordinary 
 people and not rogues within the meaning of the Act, 
 we could have called in the police. As it was we had 
 to rely on ourselves and Nebudin was not likely to be 
 caught at a disadvantage a second time. 
 
 Towards evening Mesner calmed down a Uttle and we 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 199 
 
 decided what we had better do. I was to spend what 
 time I could in haunting the neighbourhood of the 
 Kling shops which old Mina had patronized. He had 
 come round to my view that Mina, if any one, had been 
 the traitor in the camp. He himself, it was arranged, 
 should take the first steamer back to Labuan. 
 
 He did not do as we had planned for one very awful 
 and sufficient reason. On that same day, although we 
 didn't know it for some hours afterwards, war had been 
 declared between Germany and France. 
 
 Everybody in Singapore at the time remembers the 
 ferment of those next few weeks. Rumours of disaster 
 flew around, rumours of victories. Anxious groups 
 gathered roimd the cablegrams in the clubs. There was 
 an attempt by Germans, luckily frustrated, to blow up 
 the principal telegraph station. Most of the German- 
 owned local vessels, Mesner's among them, made a mad 
 dash for Manila or some other neutral port. 
 
 In the stir and excitement of these terrible days my 
 little affairs shrank duly. Men of my own age were 
 flocking to the steamship of&ces. Several were already 
 homeward boimd. 
 
 " Are you going to join up ? " I asked Mesner. 
 
 " I'm too old," he sighed. 
 
 Kate was among the earliest to go home and offer 
 her services. I learnt of her departure from a short 
 note she sent me from Penang, stating that she had 
 put her affairs into good hands, sold the car to pay her 
 passage, and sent my deed-box down to the bank to be 
 cared for in my name. She had been given the chance, 
 she said, of learning nursing. She wished me luck. 
 
 That note, innocent of all hint of malice as it was, 
 took some swallowing. Apart from my wish to help 
 Mesner I had no more reason to stay in Singapore than 
 she had. And if Princess Adanya had been taken back 
 to Brunei, as appeared likely, it was difficult to see what 
 good I was doing even to him by sta3dng on. 
 
 I put my position before him when he came in that 
 day. He saw the force of my arguments at once. Every 
 
200 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 man desired to help his country now, he said. He, 
 naturally, would not prevent me. 
 
 I visited the bank, deposited with an astonished 
 manager the bearer bonds from the deed-box, and went 
 on to book my passage, Alas, for the coo's tail ! When 
 I got to the steamship office I found there was no vacant 
 berth for two months. 
 
 Mesner, I saw plainly when I reached home with my 
 news, was glad to hear of my iU-success. 
 
 " The longer you remain here," he reminded me con- 
 solingly, " the fewer days you wiU have to fight. War 
 is a terrible thing," said Mesner, " I have seen it. 
 This war will be more terrible than all others. It will, 
 I teU you, be annihilation." 
 
 He had other reasons for feehng pleased besides the 
 fact that the steamship companies were saving my life 
 for a month or two. Owing to the uncertain position 
 caused by the war, people were more than ever anxious to 
 know what the future held for them and our particular 
 trade had begun to brighten. No longer could we leave 
 our consulting rooms to look after themselves of an 
 evening secure in the comforting but bitter knowledge 
 that no money was thereby being turned away. One 
 or other of us had to be in attendance, and as Mesner 
 was still going about searching for traces of Adanya, 
 that one was usually me. 
 
 After Mesner went up to Selangor again I had to stand 
 by all the time. He came in one morning and quite 
 •quietly announced his intended journey. I wasn't 
 surprised. He had been fidgeting for long enough. 
 Next day he wrote me from the Dato Kahar's house 
 saying he was quite comfortable but might be away 
 some time and that — friend in need as I always had 
 proved — he knew I would carry on. 
 
 I did — for a fortnight. 
 
 Then I had a mysterious telegram from him. 
 
 Urgent and vital. Shut office and come to Kuala Lum- 
 pur by the train arriving noon to-morrow. I will meet you. 
 
 As it happened he didn't meet me. He sent the Dato 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 201 
 
 Kahar instead ; the Dato Kahar clad in white duck 
 and cloth of gold, with a kris stuck in his bunched sarong, 
 and a turban on his head, a Dato full of nods and winks 
 and chatterings about nothing at all. 
 
 I got into the luxurious car he had waiting for me, 
 and we sped away through the level country-side for 
 nules, coming in the end by way of a magnificent 
 entrance drive to a white summer palace the size of a 
 big hotel. And there, sitting on the veranda in Malay 
 garb, was Mesner. 
 
 " I have found Adanya, Harry," he called out as I 
 jumped from the car. From his smile of ineffable 
 content I had already guessed it. 
 
 " I am the man who assisted the Tuan to discover 
 his royal daughter," griimed the Dato. " Now the 
 happy father is at peace. Just as well you two have a 
 talk," said the Dato, strutting off Hke a small peacock 
 through a latticed door. 
 
 We took his advice. There was much to say. Mesner, 
 on arriving in Selangor, had gone straight to his old 
 friend's house, to find the Dato at home and just back 
 from Princess Adanya's wedding. For Nebudin, who 
 with Mina's help had managed to get his step-daughter 
 into his hands again, had found her in a very amenable 
 mood, only too anxious to marry the royal princeling she 
 had previously refused. And so aU three had gone from 
 Ainan Street straight on to Selangor where the marriage 
 contract was signed, a special dispensation obtained, 
 and the nika or prehmiaary religious ceremony celebrated' 
 forthwith. 
 
 " The best of it is," declared Mesner, regardless of my 
 feelings, or perhaps knowing that my feehngs were 
 engaged no longer, " that she likes her husband. And, 
 mm de Dieu 1 I don't wonder at it, for really he is a 
 very fine fellow." 
 
 " And how did you get here ? " I asked, looking round 
 the gorgeous veranda with eyes dazzled by the enormous 
 gilt mirrors, the richly upholstered divans, the bright silk 
 hangings emd elaborate mats. 
 
202 PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 
 
 " She and her husband gave the Dato Kahar a message 
 to me saying that whenever I wished I could come," 
 explained Meaner. " They knew I should meet him 
 sooner or later." 
 
 " And now ? " I asked. 
 
 Mesner smiled contentedly. 
 
 " They want me to stay," he said, " and really is there 
 any reason why I should not ? Look around you, 
 Harry, is it not a paradise ? " 
 
 I followed the sweep of his hand. The scene was 
 certainly full of peace and beauty. A noble terraced 
 garden lay in the foreground. Beyond was a sunlit 
 plain of grass and woodland where cattle browsed. 
 Through vistas I caught glimpses of the sea. 
 
 " But I shall not stay here in the palace," pursued 
 Mesner. " That has been discussed already. There is a 
 small plantation of coconuts near at hand, and that I 
 am purchasing. As for our Singapore business, what I 
 wish you to do is to take advantage of the present boom 
 and find a purchaser who has some concern for fair 
 dealing. Reserve for yourself your due proportion 
 of the purchase money and remit the rest to me. Also 
 you might, to save trouble, despatch my effects here and 
 discharge the cook — with my blessing." 
 
 Mesner's optimism concerning our property was not 
 justified. Thd gentleman from Tibet, on whom I called, 
 simply refused to consider a purchase. I had eventu- 
 ally to accept the meagre offer of a KUng. A week 
 before I sailed for home I sent the money to Mesner and 
 received a grateful letter of thanks. 
 
 I've heard from him several times during the last 
 five yeais. He appears to be prosperous and perfectly 
 happy. His daughter, he writes me, comes to see him 
 often. She still refuses to leam French, and for his 
 practice in that language he depends on a Roman 
 CathoUc missionary in a village near by with whom he 
 has formed a great friendship. 
 
 So has my old comrade passed the years since I left 
 him. So will he pass them till the end, far from the tur- 
 
PRINCESS OF YELLOW MOON 203 
 
 moil of the machine we call civilization. At least I 
 think and hope he will. Not that I am without gratitude 
 for what these years in Europe have brought me. 
 Comrades, some of them killed beside me, friends whose 
 qualities but for the war I should never have known, 
 the realization of the high purpose concealed in the breast 
 of humanity, of what men and women are prepared 
 to sufier in order that others shall be blessed, all these 
 have been mine. 
 
 Kate and I met a year after I was sent to France, in a 
 base hospital. Neither of us had the slightest notion 
 that we were stationed so near each other. We made the 
 most of our time together, but the hospital surgeon soon 
 fixed me up, and after a week or so, they reported me fit 
 for duty. We kept up a correspondence afterwards, 
 but I didn't see her again till a few days ago, when I met 
 her in Bond Street, newly and unexpectedly returned 
 from the East. 
 
 She wasn't stajdng in London, she said ; she was only 
 passing through. 
 
 Now, in spite of our talks and letters, we had never 
 referred since that afternoon on the veranda to my 
 besotted perfidy in Singapore. It remained, a thing 
 hard for her to forgive, a barrier between us, I'd thought, 
 for ever. 
 
 And so, when she went on to tell me, with a look so 
 friendly as to set my heart beating, that she was going 
 straight down to an aunt of ours in Devonshire for a 
 month's holiday, I cursed myself inwardly for the 
 abominable hash I'd made of things, and blurted out 
 some idiotic remark about her having an enjoyable time 
 and so on. 
 
 " After Mespot, June down there'll be lovely," said 
 she. " I'm going to do nothing but bask under that 
 big may tree on the hiU at the back, and look at the sea 
 glinting through Sidtnouth Gap." 
 
 " It soimds good," I muttered. 
 
 " Devon air, Devon lanes, sometimes when I'm down 
 there I get quite the feel of our Tanglin bungalow. 
 
204 PRINCESS OF YELLOVi^ MOON 
 
 D'you remember, in the old days, how we used to — 
 Harry I— Harry 1 " 
 
 For right in the middle of Bond Street, to the scandal 
 of duchesses, I had caught her hand. 
 
 " Dear," Impleaded, " I'm at your feet, my love. 
 Forgive me ! Let me come with you." 
 
 Printed m Great Britain by Butler & Tanner. Frame dad London