"Do you mean here, in your
pocket?"
"Yes, on me. Glad to be of use."
Morrison, staring open-mouthed, groped over his shoulder for the cord of
the eyeglass hanging down his back. When he found it, he stuck it in his
eye hastily. It was as if he expected Heyst's usual white suit of the
tropics to change into a shining garment, flowing down to his toes,
and a pair of great dazzling wings to sprout out on the Swede's
shoulders--and didn't want to miss a single detail of the
transformation. But if Heyst was an angle from on high, sent in answer
to prayer, he did not betray his heavenly origin by outward signs.
So, instead of going on his knees, as he felt inclined to do, Morrison
stretched out his hand, which Heyst grasped with formal alacrity and a
polite murmur in which "Trifle--delighted--of service," could just be
distinguished.
"Miracles do happen," thought the awestruck Morrison. To him, as to
all of us in the Islands, this wandering Heyst, who didn't toil or spin
visibly, seemed the very last person to be the agent of Providence in
an affair concerned with money. The fact of his turning up in Timor or
anywhere else was no more wonderful than the settling of a sparrow on
one's window-sill at any given moment. But that he should carry a sum of
money in his pocket seemed somehow inconceivable.
So inconceivable that as they were trudging together through the sand
of the roadway to the custom-house--another mud hovel--to pay the
fine, Morrison broke into a cold sweat, stopped short, and exclaimed in
faltering accents:
"I say! You aren't joking, Heyst?"
"Joking!" Heyst's blue eyes went hard as he turned them on the
discomposed Morrison.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41