at us and stampeded my lot. Eh? Anyhow, he
had come up there to die if anything went wrong.
No mistake! Jove! It thrilled me to see
him there—like a rock. But the Sherif
must have thought us mad, and never troubled to come
and see how we got on. Nobody believed it could
be done. Why! I think the very chaps who
pulled and shoved and sweated over it did not believe
it could be done! Upon my word I don’t
think they did. . . .”
’He stood erect, the smouldering brier-wood
in his clutch, with a smile on his lips and a sparkle
in his boyish eyes. I sat on the stump of a tree
at his feet, and below us stretched the land, the great
expanse of the forests, sombre under the sunshine,
rolling like a sea, with glints of winding rivers,
the grey spots of villages, and here and there a clearing,
like an islet of light amongst the dark waves of continuous
tree-tops. A brooding gloom lay over this vast
and monotonous landscape; the light fell on it as
if into an abyss. The land devoured the sunshine;
only far off, along the coast, the empty ocean, smooth
and polished within the faint haze, seemed to rise
up to the sky in a wall of steel.
’And there I was with him, high in the sunshine
on the top of that historic hill of his. He dominated
the forest, the secular gloom, the old mankind.
He was like a figure set up on a pedestal, to represent
in his persistent youth the power, and perhaps the
virtues, of races that never grow old, that have emerged
from the gloom. I don’t know why he should
always have appeared to me symbolic. Perhaps this
is the real cause of my interest in his fate.
I don’t know whether it was exactly fair to
him to remember the incident which had given a new
direction to his life, but at that very moment I remembered
very distinctly. It was like a shadow in the
light.’
CHAPTER 27
’Already the legend had gifted him with supernatural
powers. Yes, it was said, there had been many
ropes cunningly disposed, and a strange contrivance
that turned by the efforts of many men, and each gun
went up tearing slowly through the bushes, like a
wild pig rooting its way in the undergrowth, but .
. . and the wisest shook their heads. There was
something occult in all this, no doubt; for what is
the strength of ropes and of men’s arms?
There is a rebellious soul in things which must be
overcome by powerful charms and incantations.
Thus old Sura—a very respectable householder
of Patusan—with whom I had a quiet chat
one evening. However, Sura was a professional
sorcerer also, who attended all the rice sowings and
reapings for miles around for the purpose of subduing
the stubborn souls of things. This occupation
he seemed to think a most arduous one, and perhaps
the souls of things are more stubborn than the souls
of men. As to the simple folk of outlying villages,
they believed and said (as the most natural thing in
the world) that Jim had carried the guns up the hill
on his back—two at a time.
