obeyed by Jim’s “own people,” who, quitting in a body their little settlement under the stockade, had gone in to form the garrison.  The refugees crowded round her; and through the whole affair, to the very disastrous last, she showed an extraordinary martial ardour.  It was to her that Dain Waris had gone at once at the first intelligence of danger, for you must know that Jim was the only one in Patusan who possessed a store of gunpowder.  Stein, with whom he had kept up intimate relations by letters, had obtained from the Dutch Government a special authorisation to export five hundred kegs of it to Patusan.  The powder-magazine was a small hut of rough logs covered entirely with earth, and in Jim’s absence the girl had the key.  In the council, held at eleven o’clock in the evening in Jim’s dining-room, she backed up Waris’s advice for immediate and vigorous action.  I am told that she stood up by the side of Jim’s empty chair at the head of the long table and made a warlike impassioned speech, which for the moment extorted murmurs of approbation from the assembled headmen.  Old Doramin, who had not showed himself outside his own gate for more than a year, had been brought across with great difficulty.  He was, of course, the chief man there.  The temper of the council was very unforgiving, and the old man’s word would have been decisive; but it is my opinion that, well aware of his son’s fiery courage, he dared not pronounce the word.  More dilatory counsels prevailed.  A certain Haji Saman pointed out at great length that “these tyrannical and ferocious men had delivered themselves to a certain death in any case.  They would stand fast on their hill and starve, or they would try to regain their boat and be shot from ambushes across the creek, or they would break and fly into the forest and perish singly there.”  He argued that by the use of proper stratagems these evil-minded strangers could be destroyed without the risk of a battle, and his words had a great weight, especially with the Patusan men proper.  What unsettled the minds of the townsfolk was the failure of the Rajah’s boats to act at the decisive moment.  It was the diplomatic Kassim who represented the Rajah at the council.  He spoke very little, listened smilingly, very friendly and impenetrable.  During the sitting messengers kept arriving every few minutes almost, with reports of the invaders’ proceedings.  Wild and exaggerated rumours were flying:  there was a large ship at the mouth of the river with big guns and many more men—­some white, others with black skins and of bloodthirsty appearance.  They were coming with many more boats to exterminate every living thing.  A sense of near, incomprehensible danger affected the common people.  At one moment there was a panic in the courtyard amongst the women; shrieking; a rush; children crying—­Haji Sunan went out to quiet them.  Then a fort sentry fired at something moving on the river, and nearly killed a villager bringing in his women-folk in a canoe