XL

When Colet, some weeks later, walked into the lounge of the Penang hotel, the palms in the garden were awake in a cooling draught. The wind could just be felt. It was as though you knew of the stir of the invisible principle of life. The world was alive. He was in touch with it again. This was a return from another world. Over in that corner was where Norrie had talked to him, the night before they left to go round the coast. Colet would have gone to that corner, but three young ladies had the table. They were certainly a noteworthy phenomenon, after Gunong Berching and the leeches. As good to look upon as the order and colour of the garden, and a complete assurance that he had come back. Nothing like that for a long time. What a number of women, too, and all as cool and vivacious as the wind in the palms; perhaps not a shadow of the other world in the mind of one of them. He heard a girl laugh, and it was certain then the old world was on its proper axis. He could sit down and watch this all the morning.

A hand, a hearty hand, squeezed his shoulder. Not the hand of a lady. He looked behind him. Eh?

Sinclair, by all the miracles of Fate. He stood up, but couldn’t speak. Sinclair laughed, as though this was a great joke, meeting again.

“You old rascal, Colet. What have you been doing with yourself? Steering an open boat ever since on a half ration of hope? You look as if you had.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for my ship to turn round. Off to London tomorrow.”

“London⁠ ⁠… well⁠ ⁠…”

They talked it all over. It was good to talk, even when you had nothing more to say. Then the sailor declared that they must have another before he went back to the quay.

“Coming to Gallions Reach, Colet?” Sinclair laughed again at that, as he took the glasses from the Chinaman’s tray.

“Yes.”

Sinclair forgot to put the glasses on the table. He held one in each hand.

“What? You don’t mean it.”

“I do.”

“But it’s haunted, isn’t it? You don’t tell me you’ve seen so much out here that you’ve forgotten old Perriam.”

“Not me. That’s it, Sinclair. I’m going back to lay his miserable ghost.”

“Here, steady the helm. I’d see his ghost to hell first.”

“Well, it’s not his ghost, really. It’s mine, my son.”

Sinclair did not answer. He was watching Colet, trying to find something to say.

“It’s all right, Sinclair. You needn’t look. You won’t find any tile loose. You brought me out. Now, if you please, you’ll take me back. We’ll come full circle. We can’t have ghosts hanging about, can we? They must be attended to. They run our show for us, Sinclair.”

The sailor’s eye roved over the colours and animation of that inspiriting morning garden of ladies.

“Well, I’m damned,” he said.

“Yes, the unseen world we know governs us. Not always what you’re looking at now, Sinclair, so you needn’t draw my attention to it. I see it. It would move a heart of stone. But there’s no fun for us in life unless we obey the order we know.”