The Black Parrot

He had come up from that necklace of islands that trails its emeralds over the Pacific, which is to say, he stepped out of Nowhere.

Perhaps he was a planter. Or a trader. Or a shell-hunter. Or an agent from one of those brazen ports where white men turn brown like bricks in a kiln. Certainly he was not a tourist.

This the proprietor of the Hotel Oost-Indie--one da Vargas, a Portuguese from Malacca--told himself as he sat in the stern-sheets of his launch alongside the newly arrived mail-packet and gazed at the man by the rail. The latter, his features shadowed by a topee, stood near the top of the ladder, a black bag in one hand and a bird-cage in the other. He wore a white silk suit, and the sunlight seemed to take refuge in it and give it a golden sheen. A blue slendong, such as Javanese women wear, was bound carelessly about his middle, its fringed ends rippling in the wind. Behind him, across the low, flat deck-house and through the web of rigging, the straights spread out like a purple map, contoured with rich gleams; the west was peach-red, its bloom reflected on the canvas.

A plaintive whistle, audible above the creaks and squelches, drifted down to Mr. da Vargas, and he focused upon the occupant of the bird-cage: a large white cockatoo.

A man who wore a slendong and carried a bird!

To Mr. da Vargas, it suggested the quixotic. A naturalist? Many of these fellows--a gregarious lot--came and went among the toy archipelagos strung between Singapore and the Coral Sea. At least, thought the Portuguese by way of justification, they never left accounts unpaid.

A signal from the white-clad figure cut short these reflections, and Mr. da Vargas brought his craft nearer the ladder; launches of other hotels hovered about.

"Oost-Indie?" asked the man perfunctorily, preparing to descend.

"Yes, mynheer," replied Mr. da Vargas, using the form of address current in Dutch possessions; if one kept a hotel in a Javanese port, why not contribute to the atmosphere? "Excellent cuisine," he added; "tarriff reasonable."

He of the slendong passed his bag to the Portuguese, then, cage in hand, stepped into the launch and seated himself in the stern-sheets. The cockatoo, frightened by the sudden violent pop-pop of the engine, raised its crest and shrieked. A magnificent creature: feathers deepening to coral on the wings and tail, crest jetting up to a golden tip.

"A beautiful bird, mynheer," observed Mr. da Vargas by way of opening conversation as the launch cleft the water quayward.

The other nodded indifferently and removed his helmet, thus offering the proprietor, who considered himself a keen judge of physiognomy, a better opportunity for study.

He was a person of inscrutable age, with skin brown as sandalwood and crinkled at the corners of the eyes. His hands, lithe, slender hands, moved incessantly, one moment fingering his lapel, the next, drumming on the gunwhale or tugging at his short, well trimmed beard; a beard that was reddish in one light and dark gold in another.

"Do you have many guests now?" he demanded abruptly, speaking with a perfect enunciation that suggested that English was not his native tongue.

His eyes, green as the shallows off Madoera, had an insolent expression. This, Mr. da Vargas perceived, was due to his right eyebrow, which slanted toward a scar that made a pale crescent on his temple.

The Portuguese took on a distressed air. "It is not the season yet," he answered.