Sumatra, a Crafty Sultan and a Girl who tried to outwit him
Brundage nearly went mad when he saw the girl coming down the gang-plank into Sumatra and comprehended the fate to which she was going so innocently, so smilingly, with so happy a glory glinting in her brown eyes. Brundage was the only white man in Port Santur.
Other men there had white skins. Notably the Dutch under-resident, and the two Aussi traders, and the captain in command of the sepoys, and those three gentlemen over the hill who administered Sultan Ibrahim's territory in the interest of the Dutch East Indies. Take them one by one, and what did the skin amount to? The Dutch under-resident had three native wives and something of a record. The two Australians, when sober, were not the sort to be asked for aid by any white woman; when drunk, as they usually were, both were fairly decent fellows. The sepoy captain had Eurasian eyes and nails in his white skin, and was reputed to have the soul of a snake. The three gentlemen over the hill in the sultan's capital were strictly there to help themselves. Brundage knew instantly they were in the plot to betray this girl.
However, one had to make sure; there was the skipper of the steamer. Brundage was a trader, a man of hard repute, suffered. by the Dutch without love, he had been hoping to depart on the morrow when this boat left. He watched the girl go ashore and enter Hop Soy's very clean and respectable hotel—it was just sunset, too late for her to go on over the hill—then he went aboard and got the skipper to one side. He knew the man slightly.
"Nobody can hear us," he said, his rather bitter gray eyes boring deep. "Tell me who the woman is. Another governess?"
The Dutchman swallowed hard. "Another," he said in a dull voice.
"You damned dirty cur!" said Brundage, without heat. "And you, knowing everything, let her come?"
"No." The skipper's jaw set hard for an instant. "No, mynheer. I warned her covertly, and she smiled. I hinted, and she smiled. At length, I came out and told her the truth. And what do you think she did? She smiled. That was all."
"All!" repeated Brundage suspiciously. "Did you tell her about the girl who came out here from England last year?"
"That was part of the truth I told her," said the other, honestly enough. "I spared her nothing. And she smiled! Well, you can not understand until you meet the smile. There was no more to be said. My friend, the devil of it is that she is on the same errand."
"Of course," said Brundage, and went ashore.
When the heart of an impetuous man is hot within him, he has regard for nothing. Brundage had little regard for anything at the best of times, but now he went straight to Hop Soy's hotel and straight up to the one room over the court reserved for the occasional white person who came to Port Santur. He knew his way and paused for none. He rapped sharply at the door, tried it, found it unlocked, and stepped into the room. The girl was there, leaning over a grip she had half unpacked.
"Well?" she asked. "What do you want?"
Brundage shut the door and took off his helmet.
"I want to talk to you," he said crisply. "My name's Brundage. I'm a trader here. Is it true you've come to take the job of governess?"
"Yes," she said quietly. No more.
"Then sit down." Brundage gestured to a chair and pulled up one for himself. He took out a cheroot and lighted it. She took the chair and regarded him, all in a quietly poised fashion as though she were neither astonished nor disconcerted.
BRUNDAGE knew suddenly he had met his match in will. Nothing bitter in her gaze, nothing hard and cold and efficient, like his own; wide-set eyes, very blue, and a face leaving an indistinct impression of fresh spring flowers and golden sunlight, impossible to describe. Not beautiful at all, as a camera registers beauty, and therefore the truer. All the same, when he looked into her eyes, Brundage felt himself baffled and queerly vagrant in fancy.
"Pack up again," he said, with an access of gruffness. "You're going right out on that boat. You're not going on to that job."
She smiled, and suddenly he remembered what the skipper had said. A quiet little smile, and pretty indeed to see, yet touching her face alone—not her eyes. By contrast, they seemed more deep and baffling than ever, in their perfect poise. Brundage noted that she sat in her chair absolutely without movement, and this backed up the warning of her eyes. No ordinary girl here.