He handled them tenderly;
and it was perhaps their presence there which attached him to the island
when he woke up to the failure of his apostasy. Whatever the decisive
reason, Heyst had remained where another would have been glad to be off.
The excellent Davidson had discovered the fact without discovering the
reason, and took a humane interest in Heyst's strange existence, while
at the same time his native delicacy kept him from intruding on the
other's whim of solitude. He could not possibly guess that Heyst, alone
on the island, felt neither more nor less lonely than in any other
place, desert or populous. Davidson's concern was, if one may express it
so, the danger of spiritual starvation; but this was a spirit which had
renounced all outside nourishment, and was sustaining itself proudly on
its own contempt of the usual coarse ailments which life offers to the
common appetites of men.
Neither was Heyst's body in danger of starvation, as Schomberg had so
confidently asserted. At the beginning of the company's operations the
island had been provisioned in a manner which had outlasted the need.
Heyst did not need to fear hunger; and his very loneliness had not been
without some alleviation. Of the crowd of imported Chinese labourers,
one at least had remained in Samburan, solitary and strange, like a
swallow left behind at the migrating season of his tribe.
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