When the women had gone, the men continued discussing the day’s events as they sat on their heels round the nearly burnt-out torches and at last they began to yawn. Sarda collected broken coconut shells and driftwood and made a fire. The night was lonely, cold and perilous. Pak crossed his arms and put his hands round his shoulders to warm himself. Some of the watch had vanished and others fallen asleep. Pak stared into the darkness and his fears gained on him. He drew nearer to Sarda. After a time the fisherman fell asleep with his head on his knees and Pak succumbed also. If lejaks or evil spirits emerged now from the darkness he was defenceless. He quickly felt for the garlic in his girdle which Dasni had given him and rubbed himself all over with it, so that the smell should keep away the evil spirits, and finally stuck the rest in the bored lobe of his ear. Now he felt safer, for it was well known that the demons could not endure the smell of garlic. He gave Sarda a cautious shake, but it did not wake him, so he left him alone; it was not right to be too tough with people when they were asleep, for then their souls might not have time to return to their bodies. He felt a great longing for his sleeping bench safe within the walls of his house and for the warmth of his wife Puglug, who was good even though not beautiful, and for the little girls on the other bench. Nobody came stealing stinking fish or going off with the stranded wreck. I told Krkek, thought Pak, that my eyes would refuse to stay open; and he let them close. He dreamt of the gap in his wall and saw it mended again and better than before. He heard a great noise in his dream coming from the battered ship. He also saw men going by in the light of the watch fire and the face of the Chinese, Kwe Tik Tjiang, bent over him and his foot in a black shoe kicked against him. Pak turned unwillingly on to the other side and ceased dreaming. He heard the cocks crow and opened his eyes. The kulkul beat the last hour of the night. He thought he was at home and groped about him, but the things he touched were unfamiliar. He was chilled to the marrow and biting cold nipped his feet. It was this that woke him and he sat up. Now he recognized Sanur beach where he had been when he fell asleep. It was still dark but for a strip of greenish light where sky and water met. This was the herald of Suria, the sun-god, who would soon leave his house bringing the day with him. The tide was high again and sang with a loud voice and flung the waves up to Pak’s feet. He jumped up in terror, and looking round for the others saw that they had vanished. The fire had burnt out; there were only a few embers in which Pak warmed his hands. His limbs ached, his stomach was empty and his heart had gone small. He pondered for a minute or two and then decided to go home. Even Sarda had gone. He had his sawah to see to; that was his job—not watching over the battered ship of a Chinaman who looked like a dead fish and left the smell of dead fish behind him on the shore. The spirits had already retreated and all wandering souls had returned to every sleeper’s body. Pak felt full of courage again as he set off on his way home.
But his heart stood still when he saw a light coming over the water. His feet became as heavy as stone and he could no more move them than if he had been bewitched. He tried to remember the incantation his father had taught him when he was a child to protect him if he encountered lejaks or spirits. But his head was as empty as a pot with a hole in the bottom. The light came nearer and he heard the sound of a laden boat grating on the sand. Pak was relieved to see a man get out of the boat and come towards him with a light in his hand: it was at least nothing supernatural. It was just an ordinary lantern, a wick in the hollow of a bamboo stem, covered with a dried pisang leaf. Pak waited. At first he thought it was Sarda, but when he recognized who it was he began to feel afraid once more.
The man with the light was Bengek, the husky fisherman. He was a hideous man with a bad throat which prevented him speaking out loud, though he was not dumb. On the contrary he had a quick and bitter tongue. His mother was reputed to be a witch, with the power of turning herself into a lejak, and for that reason people avoided her son as far as possible. Yet no one dared to offend Bengek, for all feared him and his mother.
“Peace on your coming,” Pak therefore said with trembling lips, and Bengek stood still and shading the light with his hand peered into the darkness.
“Is that you, Pak?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. “Are you not on your sawah yet, you industrious neighbor?” he asked again. Pak decided not to notice the sarcasm, but to behave as though this encounter at the edge of the sea in the last hour of the night was nothing out of the common.
“Where are you coming from?” he asked therefore—the usual question on meeting anybody.
“From my mother’s house,” Bengek replied.
“Were you not on the sea? I saw your light on the water,” Pak said.
“Why do you ask, then, you clever Pak?” Bengek said.
“I was told to keep watch over the ship,” Pak said. It sounded more imposing than he had meant it to. Bengek came close up to him and shone the light in his face.
“And have you kept good watch to see that no one stole the ship and went off with it in his sirih pouch?” he asked hoarsely. Pak stood his ground in the odor of garlic and felt fairly safe.
“Had you been to the Chinaman’s ship?” he asked.
The fisherman made no answer. He turned back to the shore, where the outline of his boat grew slowly more distinct. Soon he returned with a wet box on his head as though he were a woman. As he passed Pak he remarked casually, “And if I had been to the Chinaman’s boat, what would you do then?”
Pak caught him up, for he felt his liver grow hot with anger.
“I should denounce you to the punggawa,” he said breathlessly. “No, no, my brother, you would not do that,” Bengek replied. Pak felt for the knife in his girdle, and standing in the husky fisherman’s path he commanded, “Put the box down. I must see what is in it.” “Fish I have caught,” Bengek whispered in a sing-song. He put the box down at Pak’s feet contemptuously, as though to say: I dare you to open it. Pak did in fact feel that poisonous sea-serpents and things with prickles might bite his hands as soon as he groped under the lid. “Take up the box and follow me to the punggawa,” he said all the same, trying to speak in Krkek’s authoritative manner. Bengek caught sight of the knife in Pak’s hand and squatted down beside the box. “Come, brother, let us consider the matter,” he said. “I tell you it would be very mistaken if you denounced me to the punggawa. And you know why, too.”
“Why?” Pak asked with a tremor, for he knew the answer already. “Because it would do you and your family no good. If I choose, your cow will fall sick, your fields will dry up and your children die.”
Pak raised his hands in horror and shut his eyes. He knew how Bengek and his mother got power over people and money from them by such threats and how some who had not given way had suffered for it. He did not know what to say and he wished his father was there, for he had the wisdom of the evening of life.
“You have seen me come from the sea with a basketful of fish I have caught,” Bengek said. Pak considered this and said nothing. What were the Chinese foreigner and his miserable ship to him that he should put his family in peril?
“I have seen you come from the sea with a basket of fish you have caught,” he said obediently.
Bengek laughed and caught hold of his hand to pull him down to the ground beside him. “Wait a moment,” he said. “As you are my friend I’ll show you what I have caught in my net.”
Pak could not resist his curiosity. He crouched down and watched open-mouthed while the fisherman opened the case. Bengek lifted out three bundles of seaweed from which he slowly and carefully unwrapped three plates. Then he held his lantern close to them and let Pak see the treasure in all its splendor and beauty.
What he saw was white plates with a garland of roses on them, so life-like that you felt you could take hold of them. Pak put out his forefinger and touched the flowers timidly. The plate was cold and smooth and the roses were painted or rather,