like a self-communion of one being carried on in two tones.  Later on, tossing on my bed under the mosquito-net, I was sure to hear slight creakings, faint breathing, a throat cleared cautiously—­and I would know that Tamb’ Itam was still on the prowl.  Though he had (by the favour of the white lord) a house in the compound, had “taken wife,” and had lately been blessed with a child, I believe that, during my stay at all events, he slept on the verandah every night.  It was very difficult to make this faithful and grim retainer talk.  Even Jim himself was answered in jerky short sentences, under protest as it were.  Talking, he seemed to imply, was no business of his.  The longest speech I heard him volunteer was one morning when, suddenly extending his hand towards the courtyard, he pointed at Cornelius and said, “Here comes the Nazarene.”  I don’t think he was addressing me, though I stood at his side; his object seemed rather to awaken the indignant attention of the universe.  Some muttered allusions, which followed, to dogs and the smell of roast-meat, struck me as singularly felicitous.  The courtyard, a large square space, was one torrid blaze of sunshine, and, bathed in intense light, Cornelius was creeping across in full view with an inexpressible effect of stealthiness, of dark and secret slinking.  He reminded one of everything that is unsavoury.  His slow laborious walk resembled the creeping of a repulsive beetle, the legs alone moving with horrid industry while the body glided evenly.  I suppose he made straight enough for the place where he wanted to get to, but his progress with one shoulder carried forward seemed oblique.  He was often seen circling slowly amongst the sheds, as if following a scent; passing before the verandah with upward stealthy glances; disappearing without haste round the corner of some hut.  That he seemed free of the place demonstrated Jim’s absurd carelessness or else his infinite disdain, for Cornelius had played a very dubious part (to say the least of it) in a certain episode which might have ended fatally for Jim.  As a matter of fact, it had redounded to his glory.  But everything redounded to his glory; and it was the irony of his good fortune that he, who had been too careful of it once, seemed to bear a charmed life.

’You must know he had left Doramin’s place very soon after his arrival—­much too soon, in fact, for his safety, and of course a long time before the war.  In this he was actuated by a sense of duty; he had to look after Stein’s business, he said.  Hadn’t he?  To that end, with an utter disregard of his personal safety, he crossed the river and took up his quarters with Cornelius.  How the latter had managed to exist through the troubled times I can’t say.  As Stein’s agent, after all, he must have had Doramin’s protection in a measure; and in one way or another he had managed to wriggle through all the deadly complications, while I have no doubt that his conduct, whatever line he