handsprings and dance with the most demure grace.
I took no notice of him, and after a few vain efforts to attract my attention, he
hopped dejectedly off the veranda across the lawn, and disappeared among the
timboso trees and rubber-vines.
Two weeks later Hamat returned from Mecca. He paid me a visit in state—white
robe and green turban. I shook hands and called him by his new title of nobility,
Tuan Hadji, but he did not refer to Lepas.
Before many minutes he commenced to look wistfully about. I pointed to the
trees back of the house. He went out under them and called two or three times.
There was a great chattering among the rubber-vines, and in a moment down
came Lepas and sprang to his old master’s shoulder as happy as a lover.
I never saw Lepas but once again, and that was one evening on the ocean
esplanade. He was in the centre of an admiring circle of half-nude Malay and
Hindu boys, going through his quaint antics, while Hamat squatted before him
beating on a crocodile-hide drum and singing a plaintive, monotonous song.
When it was finished, Lepas took an empty cocoanut shell and went out into the
crowd to collect pennies.
I threw in a dollar. Lepas salaamed low as he snatched it out and bit it to test its
genuineness. It was his latest accomplishment. Then he hid himself among the
laughing crowd.
That Lepas knew me, I could tell by the droop in his eye and the quick glance he
gave to the right and left, to see if there was room to escape in case I made an
effort to avenge my wrongs.
I had no desire, however, to renew the acquaintance, and was quite willing to let
by-gones be by-gones.