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Thus the interest in these proceedings was not centred upon X. to some he played quite a secondary part in the matter, being merely an incident connected with the departure of Usoof, who was going to Java, which was his birthplace as all the world knew but which he had left years ago, when little more than a baby in arms.
To Usoof and his mother the great Wodena was kindness itself, and conversed with them in Javanese with much affability. X. wishing to see a real country village, and obtain speech with its people, away from the all-subduing eye of the local authority, promised to go that afternoon and visit the good lady in her ancestral home, and a few hours later he took the train for the next station, Tambak.
The hotel at Bandong was the best which the traveller had yet visited, and, contrary to expectation, dinner was warm and comforting. The others of the party, however, Usoof and Abu, were not so fortunate, for they had no means of getting anything to eat. It was not permitted them to go out after dark without lights, and they could not get lights. Added to this it was raining hard.
Reaching the hotel X. was relieved to find that Usoof and Abu had discarded their boots, and were picking their way delicately across the mud of the courtyard. Also they had been provided with an excellent curry. Then he prepared to get ready for his own lunch, and next to bathe.
It seemed an outrageous thing to do, to put on dress clothes in broad daylight in an hotel and to go out about dinner time to call, and when he summoned Usoof to assist him, that grave-faced individual did so with a kind of silent pity for his master compelled to do unaccountable things in a land of strangers.
Usoof was going home to find his relations and tell them all about himself, and "Tuan" X. happened to be going too.
While gazing upon this warm picture, and congratulating himself that someone had had the forethought to plant this pleasant row of trees, the voice of Usoof from the rear announced that they must now turn to the right. To turn to the right naturally meant to go across that sunlit plain.
Be that as it may, or perhaps as it may not, X. allowed himself the satisfaction of believing that it was the first time that any Englishman had seen it. After the fair the traveller returned home, and there received a visit from Usoof and his mother. He had found her, and the object of his journey to Java was accomplished.
The reality equalled expectation, for moonlight in the beautiful gardens of Singapore, with the elite of society sitting in their carriages or strolling along the grass by the lake would have been a pleasant evening even to people more blasé than X., nor did that person enjoy it any the less from catching sight of Usoof and Abu standing as lonely amongst this mass of strangers as ever he was wont to feel when brooding in his solitude at home, while they sang songs in the moonlight to their friends.
The only people who were not contented were Usoof and Abu, for each of whom their employer was paying the sum of three dollars a night.
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