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Updated: June 26, 2025
Faringhea alone remained in gloomy silence, before the portrait of the man with the black-barred forehead. As for the fury of Father d'Aigrigny and Rodin, when they saw Samuel retake possession of the casket, we must also renounce any attempt to describe it.
It was close to this font, in a dark nook where he could hardly be seen, that Faringhea knelt down, early on the 1st of June, as soon indeed as the chapel doors were opened. The half-caste was exceedingly sad. From time to time he started and sighed, as if agitated by a violent internal struggle.
Notwithstanding his apparent calmness, Rodin could not behold, without some secret alarm, a wretch like Faringhea in possession of a long letter from Van Dael, wherein mention must necessarily have been made of Djalma.
After a moment's silence, and as if struggling with a painful feeling of hesitation, Faringhea threw himself at the feet of Djalma, and murmured in a weak, despairing, almost supplicating voice: "I am very miserable. Pity me, my good lord!"
Remember!" added the Indian, with gloomy enthusiasm, "this awful wayfarer passed through Java the cholera wasted Java. He passed through Bombay the cholera wasted Bombay. He went towards the north the cholera wasted the north." So saying, the Indian fell into a profound reverie. The negro and Faringhea were seized with gloomy astonishment.
"I will again humbly observe to you, M. Faringhea, that I have no time to give you a course of criminal jurisprudence; but, believe me, you had better resist the temptation to strangle or poison any one. One word more: will you deliver up to me the letters of M. Van Dael, or not?"
And yet Rodin ordered him to leave the house, at the moment when Faringhea had imagined himself so formidable. As he thought for the motives of this inexplicable conduct, it struck him that Rodin, notwithstanding the proofs he had brought him, did not yet believe that Djalma was in his power. On that theory, the contempt of Van Dael's correspondent admitted of a natural explanation.
"Perhaps," said Faringhea, after a moment's reflection, "the knot round the traveller's neck got jammed, and some breath was left him, the air may have penetrated the rushes with which we covered his grave, and so life have returned to him." "No, no," said the Indian, shaking his head, "this man is not of our race." "Explain." "Now I know it!" "What do you know?"
The man with the sallow complexion still lingered in a corner of the room, unperceived by Rodin. This man was Faringhea, the half-caste, one of the three chiefs of the Stranglers.
After some instants of contemplation, he said: "What o'clock is it?" but he asked this question of himself, rather than of any third person. "It will soon be two o'clock, my lord," said Faringhea. Having heard this answer, Djalma seated himself, and hid his face in his hands, as if completely absorbed in some ineffable meditation.
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