Heyst walked away slowly. There was still no light in his bungalow¹, and he thought that perhaps it was just as well. By this time he was much less perturbed². 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 standing³ perfectly⁴ still by the steps of the veranda⁵.

Heyst, glancing back casually⁶, saw behind him still another light — the light of the strangers’ open fire. A black, uncouth⁷ form, stooping over it monstrously⁸, staggered away into the outlying shadows. The kettle had boiled, probably.

With that weird⁹ vision of something questionably¹⁰ 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 apprehension¹¹, 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. The rest of her person was suggested dimly as high as her waist. She sat on a chair, and the gloom of the low eaves

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