"Then you may do a great service to me and to another. Go to Jacatra in Batavia, and ask for Pieter Erberveld. Hendrik van der Have tells him to cease--before it is too late, before the thing becomes accursed. Tell him this. You will have done well, and I--shall sleep again. Give him the message----" The voice did not stop, so much as fade away unfinished. And the man, the appearance, the eyes, moved away further into the dark, dissolving, retreating. A shock like waking came over me--a rush of clear consciousness---- Humph! Yes, been too long away from home; for I know (mind you, _know_) that I saw the white of that ruff, the shadowy sweep of a cloak, as something turned its back and moved up the path under the pointed arch of bamboos, and was gone slowly in the blackness. I'm as sure of this as I am that the fire gave no heat. But whether the time of it all had been seconds or hours, I can't tell you. What? Yes, naturally. I jumped and ran up the path after it. Nothing there but starlight. I must have gone on for half a mile. Nothing: only ahead of me, along the path, the monkeys would chatter and break into an uproar, and then stop short--every treetop silent, as they do when a python comes along. I went back to the clearing, sat down on the mat, stayed there by clinching my will power, so to speak,--and watched myself for other symptoms, till morning. None came. The fire, when I heaped it, was as hot as any could be. By dawn I had persuaded myself that it was a dream. No footprints in the path, though I mentioned a shower before. At sunrise, the _kapala's_ men came down the path, little chaps in black mediaeval armor made of petroleum tins, and coolies carrying piculs of stuff that I wanted. So I was busy,--but managed to dismast the _hantu_ prau and wrap it up in matting, so that it went aboard with the plunder. Yet this other thing bothered me so that I held the schooner over, and made pretexts to stay ashore two more nights. Nothing happened. Then I called myself a grandmother, and sailed for Batavia. Two nights later, a very singular thing happened. The mate--this one with the sharp eyes--is a quiet chap; seldom speaks to me except on business. He was standing aft that evening, and suddenly, without any preliminaries, said: "Tuan was not alone the other night." "What's that, Sidin?" I spoke sharply, for it made me feel quite angry and upset, of a sudden. He laughed a little, softly. "I saw that the fire was a cold fire," he said. That was all he would say, and we've never referred to it again.