The Argus Pheasant Part 4

While Ah Sing salaamed again, the governor strode pompously away, followed at a respectful distance by Peter Gross. It was not until they had disappeared beyond a curve in the road that Ah Sing let his face show his feelings. Then an expression of malignant fury before which even the two Thibetans quailed, crossed it.

He uttered a harsh command to have the debris removed. The Thibetans jumped forward in trembling alacrity. Without giving them another glance he waddled into the building, into a little den screened off for his own use. From a patent steel safe of American make he took an ebony box, quaintly carved and colored in glorious pinks and yellows with a flower design. Opening this, he exposed a row of gla.s.s vials resting on beds of cotton. Each vial contained some nail parings.

He took out the vials one by one, looked at their labels inscribed in Chinese characters, and placed them on an ivory tray. As he read each label a curious smile of satisfaction spread over his features.

When he had removed the last vial he sat at his desk, dipped a pen into India ink, and wrote two more labels in similar Chinese characters. When the ink had dried he placed these on two empty vials taken from a receptacle on his desk. The vials were placed with the others in the ebony box and locked in the safe.

The inscriptions he read on the labels were the names of men who had died sudden and violent deaths in the East Indies while he had lived at Batavia. The labels he filled out carried the names of Adriaan Adriaanszoon Van Schouten and Peter Gross.

CHAPTER III

PETER GROSS IS NAMED RESIDENT

"Sailor, the penalty for threatening the life of any citizen is penal servitude on the state's coffee-plantations."

The governor's voice rang harshly, and he scowled across the big table in his cabinet-room at the _Coryander's_ mate sitting opposite him. His hooked nose and sharp-pointed chin with its finely trimmed Van d.y.k.e beard jutted forward rakishly.

"I ask no other justice than your excellency's own sense of equity suggests," Peter Gross replied quietly.

"H'mm!" the governor hummed. He looked at the _Coryander's_ mate keenly for a few moments through half-closed lids. Suddenly he said:

"And what if I should appoint you a resident, sailor?"

Peter Gross's lips pressed together tightly, but otherwise he gave no sign of his profound astonishment at the governor's astounding proposal.

Sinking deeper into his chair until his head sagged on his breast, he deliberated before replying.

"Your excellency is in earnest?"

"I do not jest on affairs of state, Mynheer Gross. What is your answer?"

Peter Gross paused. "Your excellency overwhelms me--" he began, but Van Schouten cut him short.

"Enough! When I have work to do I choose the man who I think can do it.

Then you accept?"

"Your excellency, to my deep regret I must most respectfully decline."

A look of blank amazement spread over the governor's face. Then his eyes blazed ominously.

"Decline! Why?" he roared.

"For several reasons," Peter Gross replied with disarming mildness. "In the first place I am under contract with Captain Threthaway of the _Coryander_--"

"I will arrange that with your captain," the governor broke in.

"In the second place I am neither a soldier nor a politician--"

"That is for me to consider," the governor retorted.

"In the third place, I am a citizen of the United States and therefore not eligible to any civil appointment from the government of the Netherlands."

"_Donder en bliksem!_" the governor exclaimed. "I thought you were a freeholder here."

"I am," Peter Gross admitted. "The land I won is at Riswyk. I expect to make it my home when I retire from the sea."

"How long have you owned that land?"

"For nearly seven years."

The governor stroked his beard. "You talk Holland like a Hollander, Mynheer Gross," he observed.

"My mother was of Dutch descent," Peter Gross explained. "I learned the language from her."

"Good!" Van Schouten inclined his head with a curt nod of satisfaction.

"Half Holland is all Holland. We can take steps to make you a citizen at once."

"I don't care to surrender my birthright." Peter Gross negatived quietly.

"What!" Van Schouten shouted. "Not for a resident's post? And eight thousand guilders a year? And a land grant in Java that will make you rich for life if you make those hill tribes stick to their plantations?

What say you to this, Mynheer Gross?" His lips curved with a smile of antic.i.p.ation.

"The offer is tempting and the honor great," Peter Gross acknowledged quietly. "But I can not forget I was born an American."

Van Schouten leaned back in his chair with a look of astonishment.

"You refuse?" he asked incredulously.

"I am sorry, your excellency!" Peter Gross's tone was unmistakably firm.

"You refuse?" the governor repeated, still unbelieving.

"Eight--thousand--guilders! And a land grant that will make you rich for life!"

"I am an American, and American I shall stay."

The governor's eyes sparkled with admiration.

"By the beard of Orange!" he exclaimed, "it is no wonder you Yankees have sucked the best blood of the world into your country." He leaned forward confidentially.

"Mynheer Gross, I cannot appoint you resident if you refuse to take the oath of allegiance to the queen. But I can make you special agent of the _gouverneur-generaal_. I can make you a resident in fact, if not in name, of a country larger than half the Netherlands, larger than many of your own American States. I can give you the rewards I have pledged you, a fixed salary and the choice of a thousand hectares of our fairest state lands in Java. What do you say?"

He leaned forward belligerently. In that posture his long, coa.r.s.e hair rose bristly above his neck, giving him something of the appearance of a gamec.o.c.k with feathers ruffled. It was this peculiarity that first suggested the name he was universally known by throughout the Sundas, "De Kemphaan" (The Gamec.o.c.k).

"To what province would you appoint me?" Peter Gross asked slowly.