You tell them we’ll go shell-fishing in Devil Bay.’

There followed about a quarter of an hour of excited discussion, with the whole village taking part, especially the old women. Eventually the half-breed turned to the captain. ‘They’re saying, sir, one can’t go to Devil Bay.’

The captain grew red in the face. ‘And why not?’

The half-breed shrugged his shoulders. ‘Because of the tapa-tapa there. The devils, sir.’

The captain’s face was beginning to turn puce. ‘Tell them if they won’t come … I’ll knock all their teeth in … I’ll tear their ears off …I’ll hang them … and that I’ll burn their lousy kampong down, d’you understand?’

The half-breed translated faithfully, whereupon another lively consultation took place. In the end the half-breed turned to the captain. ‘They’re saying, sir, they’ll go and complain to the police in Padang that the tuan has threatened them. There are laws about this. The mayor says he won’t leave it at that.’

Captain J. van Toch began to turn blue. ‘Tell him then,’ he roared, ‘that he is …’ And he spoke for a good eleven minutes without drawing breath.

The half-breed translated as much as his vocabulary permitted, and after another prolonged but businesslike consultation among the Bataks he interpreted to the captain: ‘They’re saying, sir, that they might be willing to drop legal proceedings if the tuan captain paid a fine to the local authorities. They say,’ here he hesitated, ‘200 rupees; but that’s a bit steep, sir. Why not offer them five.’

Captain van Toch’s colour began to break up into russet blotches. At first he offered to massacre all Bataks the world over, then he came down to 300 kicks, and finally he would have settled for stuffing the mayor for the Colonial Museum in Amsterdam. The Bataks on their part came down from 200 rupees to one iron pump with a wheel and in the end insisted that the captain should, by way of a fine, give the mayor a petrol cigarette lighter. (‘Give it to them, sir,’ the cross between a Cuban and a Portuguese pleaded, ‘I’ve got three lighters in stock but they’ve got no wick.’) Thus peace was restored on Tana Masa but Captain J. van Toch realised that the honour of the white race was now at stake.

In the afternoon a boat put off from the Dutch ship Kandong Bandoeng: it contained, more particularly, Captain van Toch, a Swede called Jensen, an Icelander called Gudmunson, a Finn called Gillemainen and two Singhalese pearl-fishers. The boat made straight for Devil Bay.

At three o’clock, just as the low tide was turning, the captain was standing on the beach, the boat was bobbing up and down about a hundred yards offshore to keep a look-out for sharks, and the two Singhalese divers, each with a knife in hand, were waiting for the signal to jump into the water.

‘OK, you first,’ the captain ordered the taller one of the naked figures. The Singhalese jumped in, waded a few steps and disappeared under the surface. The captain glanced at his watch.

Four minutes and twenty seconds later a brown head broke surface some sixty yards to the left; in a curiously desperate and at the same time paralysed rush the Singhalese scrambled up on the rocks, in one hand his knife for cutting the shells loose and in the other a pearl-oyster.

The captain scowled. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said sharply.

The Singhalese was still climbing over the boulders, gasping noisily with fright.

‘What’s up?’ yelled the captain.

‘Sahib, sahib,’ the Singhalese managed to utter, sinking down on the shore and letting his breath out in gasps. ‘Sahib … sahib …’

‘Sharks?’

‘Djins,’ the Singhalese moaned. ‘Devils, sir. Thousands and thousands of devils!’ He dug his fists into his eyes. ‘Nothing but devils, sir!’

‘Let’s see that shell,’ the captain ordered. He opened it with a knife. It contained a small clear pearl. ‘This is all you found?’

The Singhalese took out three more shells from the bag slung around his neck.