Often no more than the single word "Good" was all the answer vouchsafed
to Hassim's daily speeches. The lesser men, companions of the Chief,
treated him with deference; but Hassim could feel the opposition from
the women's side of the camp working against his cause in subservience
to the mere caprice of the new wife, a girl quite gentle and kind to her
dependents, but whose imagination had run away with her completely and
had made her greedy for the loot of the yacht from mere simplicity and
innocence. What could Hassim, that stranger, wandering and poor, offer
for her acceptance? Nothing. The wealth of his far-off country was but
an idle tale, the talk of an exile looking for help.
At night Hassim had to listen to the anguished doubts of Immada, the
only companion of his life, child of the same mother, brave as a man,
but in her fears a very woman. She whispered them to him far into the
night while the camp of the great Belarab was hushed in sleep and the
fires had sunk down to mere glowing embers. Hassim soothed her gravely.
But he, too, was a native of Wajo where men are more daring and quicker
of mind than other Malays. More energetic, too, and energy does not go
without an inner fire. Hassim lost patience and one evening he declared
to his sister Immada: "To-morrow we leave this ruler without a mind and
go back to our white friend.
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