There
was nothing forcible in the process, however. It was slow; and while the
liquidation--in London and Amsterdam--pursued its languid course, Axel
Heyst, styled in the prospectus "manager in the tropics," remained at
his post on Samburan, the No. 1 coaling-station of the company.
And it was not merely a coaling-station. There was a coal-mine there,
with an outcrop in the hillside less than five hundred yards from the
rickety wharf and the imposing blackboard. The company's object had been
to get hold of all the outcrops on tropical islands and exploit them
locally. And, Lord knows, there were any amount of outcrops. It was
Heyst who had located most of them in this part of the tropical belt
during his rather aimless wanderings, and being a ready letter-writer
had written pages and pages about them to his friends in Europe. At
least, so it was said.
We doubted whether he had any visions of wealth--for himself, at any
rate. What he seemed mostly concerned for was the "stride forward,"
as he expressed it, in the general organization of the universe,
apparently. He was heard by more than a hundred persons in the islands
talking of a "great stride forward for these regions." The convinced
wave of the hand which accompanied the phrase suggested tropical
distances being impelled onward. In connection with the finished
courtesy of his manner, it was persuasive, or at any rate silencing--for
a time, at least.
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