He clasped his knees and leaned back against the slope, following the grey horse and its rider with idolatrous gaze; and I noted that one of the clasped hands lacked the two middle fingers.

“You know him?” I asked.  “You have seen him out there, at Sarawak?”

“I never saw him; but I heard of him.”  He smiled to himself.  “It’s not easy to pass certain gates in the East without hearing tell of the Rajah Brooke.”

For a while he sat nursing his knee while I filled and lit a pipe.  Then he turned abruptly, and over the flame of the match I saw his eyes, the pupils clouded around the iris and, as it were, withdrawn inward and away from the world.  “Ever heard of Cagayan Sulu?” he asked.

“Never,” said I.  “Who or what is it?”

“It’s an island,” said he.  “It lies a matter of eighty miles off the north-east corner of Borneo—­facing Sandakan, as you might say.”

“Who owns it?”

He seemed to be considering the question.  “Well,” he answered slowly, “if you asked the Spanish Government I suppose they’d tell you the King of Spain; but that’s a lie.  If you asked the natives—­the Hadji Hamid, for instance—­you’d be told it belonged to them; and that’s half a lie.  And if you asked the Father of Lies he might tell you the truth and call me for witness.  I lost two fingers there—­the only English flesh ever buried in those parts—­so I’ve bought my knowledge.”

“How did you come there?” I asked,—­“if it’s a fair question.”

He chuckled without mirth.  “As it happens, that’s not a fair question.  But I’ll tell you this much, I came there with a brass band.”

I began to think the man out of his mind.

“With the instruments, that is.  I’d dropped the bandmaster on the way.  Look here,” he went on sharply, “the beginning is funny enough, but I’m telling you no lies.  We’ll suppose there was a ship, a British man-of-war—­name not necessary just now.”

“I think I understand,” I nodded.

“Oh no, you don’t,” said he.  “I’m not a deserter—­at least not exactly—­or I shouldn’t be telling this to you.  Well, we’ll suppose this ship bound from Labuan to Hong-Kong with orders to keep along the north side of Borneo, to start with, and do a bit of exploring by the way.  This would be in ’forty-nine, when the British Government had just taken over Labuan. Very good.  Next we’ll suppose the captain puts in at Kudat, in Marudu Bay, to pay a polite call on the Rajah there or some understrapper of the Sultan’s, and takes his ship’s band ashore by way of compliment, and that the band gets too drunk to play ‘Annie Laurie.’” He chuckled again.  “I never saw such a band as we were, down by the water’s edge; and O’Hara, the bandmaster, took on and played the fool to such a tune, while we waited for the boat to take us aboard, that for the very love I bore him I had to knock him down and sit on him in a quiet corner.