The Argus Pheasant

"S-ss-st," he hissed.

Koyala's voice hardened. "Tell your master this," she said. "The spirits of the highlands speak no more through the mouth of the Bintang Burung till the eyes and ears of Ah Sing become her eyes and ears, too."

There was a significant pause. Cho Seng's face shifted and he looked at her slantwise to see how seriously he should take the declaration. What he saw undoubtedly impressed him with the need of promptly placating her, for he announced:

"Cho Seng tellee Mynheer Muller Koyala go hide in bush – big baas in Batavia say muchee damn-damn, give muchee gold for Koyala."

The displeasure in Koyala's flushed face mounted to anger.

"No, you cannot take credit for that, Cho Seng," she exclaimed sharply. "Word came to Mynheer Muller from the governor direct that a price of many guilders was put on my head."

Her chin tilted scornfully. "Did you think Koyala was so blind that she did not see the gun-boat in Bulungan harbor a week ago to-day?"

Cho Seng met her heat with Oriental calm.

"Bang-bang boat, him come six-seven day ago," he declared. "Cho Seng, him speakee Mynheer Muller Koyala go hide in bush eight-nine day."

"The gun-boat was in the harbor the morning Mynheer Muller told me," Koyala retorted, and stopped in sudden recollection. A tiny flash of triumph lit the Chinaman's otherwise impassive face as he put her unspoken thought into words:

"Kapitein him bang-bang boat come see Mynheer Muller namiddag," (afternoon) he said, indicating the sun's position an hour before sunset. "Mynheer Muller tellee Koyala voormiddag" (forenoon). He pointed to the sun's morning position in the eastern sky.

"That is true," Koyala assented thoughtfully, and paused. "How did you hear of it?"

Cho Seng tucked his hands inside his sleeves and folded them over his paunch. His neck was bent forward and his eyes lowered humbly. Koyala knew what the pose portended; it was the Chinaman's refuge in a silence that neither plea nor threat could break. She rapidly recalled the events of that week.

"There was a junk from Macassar in Bulungan harbor two weeks – no, eleven days ago," she exclaimed. "Did that bring a message from Ah Sing?"

A startled lift of the Chinaman's chin assured her that her guess was correct. Another thought followed swift on the heels of the first.

"The same junk is in the harbor to-day – came here just before sundown last night," she exclaimed. "What message did it bring, Cho Seng?"

The Chinaman's face was like a mask. His lips were compressed tightly – it was as though he defied her to wedge them open and to force him to reveal his secret. An angry sparkle lit Koyala's eyes for a moment, she stepped a pace toward him and her hand dropped to the hilt of the jeweled kris, then she stopped short. A fleeting look of cunning replaced the angry gleam; a half-smile came and vanished on her lips almost in the same instant.

Her face lifted suddenly toward the leafy canopy. Her arms were flung upward in a supplicating gesture. The Chinaman, watching her from beneath his lowered brow, looked up in startled surprise. Koyala's form became rigid, a Galatea turned back to marble. Her breath seemed to cease, as though she was in a trance. The color left her face, left even her lips. Strangely enough, her very paleness made the Dyak umber in her cheeks more pronounced.

Her lips parted. A low crooning came forth. The Chinaman's knees quaked and gave way as he heard the sound. His body bent from the waist till his head almost touched the ground.

The crooning gradually took the form of words. It was the Malay tongue she spoke – a language Cho Seng knew. The rhythmic beating of his head against his knees ceased and he listened eagerly, with face half-lifted.

"Hanu Token, Hanu Token, spirits of the highlands, whither are you taking me?" Koyala cried. She paused, and a deathlike silence followed. Suddenly she began speaking again, her figure swaying like a tall lily stalk in a spring breeze, her voice low-pitched and musically mystic like the voice of one speaking from a far distance.

"I see the jungle, the jungle where the mother of rivers gushes out of the great smoking mountain. I see the pit of serpents in the jungle – "

A trembling seized Cho Seng.

"The serpents are hungry, they have not been fed, they clamor for the blood of a man. I see him whose foot is over the edge of the pit, he slips, he falls, he tries to catch himself, but the bamboo slips out of his clutching fingers – I see his face – it is the face of him whose tongue speaks double, it is the face of – "

A horrible groan burst from the Chinaman. He staggered to his feet.

"Neen, neen, neen, neen," he cried hoarsely in an agonized negative. "Cho Seng tellee Bintang Burung – "

A tremulous sigh escaped from Koyala's lips. Her body shook as though swayed by the wind. Her eyes opened slowly, vacantly, as though she was awakening from a deep sleep. She looked at Cho Seng with an absent stare, seeming to wonder why he was there, why she was where she was. The Chinaman, made voluble through fear, chattered:

"Him junk say big baas gouverneur speakee muchee damn-damn; no gambir, no rice, no copra, no coffee from Bulungan one-two year; sendee new resident bimeby belly quick."

Koyala's face paled.

"Send a new resident?" she asked incredulously. "What of Mynheer Muller?"

The look of fear left Cho Seng's face. Involuntarily his neck bent and his fingers sought each other inside the sleeves. There was cunning mingled with malice in his eyes as he looked up furtively and feasted on her manifest distress.

"Him chop-chop," he announced laconically.

"They will kill him?" Koyala cried.

The Chinaman had said his word. None knew better than he the value of silence. He stood before her in all humbleness and calmly awaited her next word. All the while his eyes played on her in quick, cleverly concealed glances.

Koyala fingered the handle of the kris as she considered what the news portended. Her face slowly hardened – there was a look in it of the tigress brought to bay.

"Koyala bimeby mally him – Mynheer Muller, go hide in bush?" Cho Seng ventured. The question was asked with such an air of simple innocence and friendly interest that none could take offense.

Koyala flushed hotly. Then her nose and chin rose high with pride.

"The Bintang Burung will wed no man, Cho Seng," she declared haughtily. "The blood of Chawatangi dies in me, but not till Bulungan is purged of the orang blanda" (white race). She whipped the jeweled kris out of its silken scabbard. "When the last white man spills his heart on the coral shore and the wrongs done Chawatangi's daughter, my mother, have been avenged, then Koyala will go to join the Hanu Token that call her, call her – "

She thrust the point of the kris against her breast and looked upward toward the far-distant hills and the smoking mountain. A look of longing came into her eyes, the light of great desire, almost it seemed as if she would drive the blade home and join the spirits she invoked.

With a sigh she lowered the point of the kris and slipped it back into its sheath.

"No, Cho Seng," she said, "Mynheer Muller is nothing to me. No man will ever be anything to me. But your master has been a kind elder brother to Koyala. And like me, he has had to endure the shame of an unhappy birth." Her voice sank to a whisper. "For his mother, Cho Seng, as you know, was a woman of Celebes."

She turned swiftly away that he might not see her face. After a moment she said in a voice warm with womanly kindness and sympathy:

"Therefore you and I must take care of him, Cho Seng. He is weak, he is untruthful, he has made a wicked bargain with your master, Ah Sing, which the spirits of the hills tell me he shall suffer for, but he is only what his white father made him, and the orang blanda must pay!" Her lips contracted grimly. "Ay, pay to the last drop of blood! You will be true to him, Cho Seng?"

The Chinaman cast a furtive glance upward and found her mellow dark-brown eyes looking at him earnestly. The eyes seemed to search his very soul.

"Ja, ja," he pledged.

"Then go, tell the captain of the junk to sail quickly to Macassar and send word by a swift messenger to Ah Sing that he must let me know the moment a new resident is appointed. There is no wind and the sun is high; therefore the junk will still be in the harbor. Hurry, Cho Seng!"

Without a word the Chinaman wheeled and shuffled down the woodland path that led from the clearing toward the main highway. Koyala looked after him fixedly.

"If his skin were white he could not be more false," she observed bitterly. "But he is Ah Sing's slave, and Ah Sing needs me, so I need not fear him – yet."

She followed lightly after Cho Seng until she could see the prim top of the residency building gleaming white through the trees. Then she stopped short. Her face darkened as the Dyak blood gathered thickly. A look of implacable hate and passion distorted it. Her eyes sought the distant hills:

"Hanu Token, Hanu Token, send a young man here to rule Bulungan," she prayed. "Send a strong man, send a vain man, with a passion for fair women. Let me dazzle him with my beauty, let me fill his heart with longing, let me make his brain reel with madness, let me make his body sick with desire. Let me make him suffer a thousand deaths before he gasps his last breath and his dripping head is brought to thy temple in the hills. For the wrongs done Chawatangi's daughter, Hanu Token, for the wrongs done me!"