Chapter 12

Mr. Van Wyk, the white man of Batu Beru, an ex-naval officer who,
for reasons best known to himself, had thrown away the promise of a
brilliant career to become the pioneer of tobacco-planting on that
remote part of the coast, had learned to like Captain Whalley. The
appearance of the new skipper had attracted his attention. Nothing more
unlike all the diverse types he had seen succeeding each other on the
bridge of the Sofala could be imagined.

At that time Batu Beru was not what it has become since: the center of
a prosperous tobacco-growing district, a tropically suburban-looking
little settlement of bungalows in one long street shaded with two rows
of trees, embowered by the flowering and trim luxuriance of the gardens,
with a three-mile-long carriage-road for the afternoon drives and a
first-class Resident with a fat, cheery wife to lead the society of
married estate-managers and unmarried young fellows in the service of the
big companies.

All this prosperity was not yet; and Mr. Van Wyk prospered alone on the
left bank on his deep clearing carved out of the forest, which came down
above and below to the water's edge. His lonely bungalow faced across
the river the houses of the Sultan: a restless and melancholy old ruler
who had done with love and war, for whom life no longer held any savor
(except of evil forebodings) and time never had any value. He was afraid
of death, and hoped he would die before the white men were ready to take
his country from him. He crossed the river frequently (with never
less than ten boats crammed full of people), in the wistful hope of
extracting some information on the subject from his own white man. There
was a certain chair on the veranda he always took: the dignitaries of
the court squatted on the rugs and skins between the furniture: the
inferior people remained below on the grass plot between the house and
the river in rows three or four deep all along the front. Not seldom the
visit began at daybreak. Mr. Van Wyk tolerated these inroads. He would
nod out of his bedroom window, tooth-brush or razor in hand, or pass
through the throng of courtiers in his bathing robe. He appeared and
disappeared humming a tune, polished his nails with attention, rubbed
his shaved face with _eau-de-Cologne_, drank his early tea, went out to
see his coolies at work: returned, looked through some papers on his
desk, read a page or two in a book or sat before his cottage piano
leaning back on the stool, his arms extended, fingers on the keys, his
body swaying slightly from side to side. When absolutely forced to speak
he gave evasive vaguely soothing answers out of pure compassion: the
same feeling perhaps made him so lavishly hospitable with the aerated
drinks that more than once