animal or a plant but produces a pearl of some kind. Why, the eye of any fish is a pearl, if you like to stretch a point!"
As
I spoke, the sunset gun was fired and almost immediately bright day
turned into night. The doctor raised his hand and pointed to a clump of
trees. Every branch and twig, every stalk and leaf was ablaze with
moving fireflies, a multitude of pulsing lights. It was a wonderful
sight, the first of its kind I had seen on the island.
This
was only one of many conversations I used to have with my old friend
before he left the islands to return to Japan. Even after that I
managed to see a good deal of him for several years and to correspond
with him. But after a while his letters, first from Japan and then from
China, grew shorter and fewer. The last communication but one was a
request to submit a philosophical book of his in MS. to Mr. H. G. Wells
for comment. But I was still in the East and his book was sent on to
London. His last letter was like an S.O.S. It came from a
famine-stricken part of China whither he had gone to help and heal. I
remember he wrote—I did not understand then the full significance of
his words—"Our food is giving out." He was not the man to eat when
others starved. And from that day I have never been able to find out
through any of my correspondents in China or Japan what happened to him.
There
was always some little diversion to keep one amused. One day, for
instance, I was sitting on my porch writing my weekly letter home when
two Moros carrying a big load stepped up and asked me if I wanted to
buy a cayman for a pet. On the two bamboo poles they were carrying
between them were two ugly crocodiles tied up with thongs of reed. I
should say they each measured about five feet from head to tail.
I
had no intention of buying, but native-like the Moros were in no hurry
to depart and calmly set their burden upon the floor, while they stayed
to smoke my cigarettes. By some means or other, one of the crocs, had
rid himself of the thong
