CHAPTER EIGHT
Heyst walked away slowly. There was still no light in his bungalow, and
he thought that perhaps it was just as well. By this time he was much
less perturbed. Wang had preceded him with the lantern, as if in a hurry
to get away from the two white men and their hairy attendant. The light
was not dancing along any more; it was standing perfectly still by the
steps of the veranda.
Heyst, glancing back casually, saw behind him still another light--the
light of the strangers' open fire. A black, uncouth form, stooping over
it monstrously, staggered away into the outlying shadows. The kettle had
boiled, probably.
With that weird vision of something questionably human impressed upon
his senses, Heyst moved on a pace or two. What could the people be who
had such a creature for their familiar attendant? He stopped. The vague
apprehension, of a distant future, in which he saw Lena unavoidably
separated from him by profound and subtle differences; the sceptical
carelessness which had accompanied every one of his attempts at action,
like a secret reserve of his soul, fell away from him. He no longer
belonged to himself. There was a call far more imperious and august. He
came up to the bungalow, and at the very limit of the lantern's light,
on the top step, he saw her feet and the bottom part of her dress.
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