Good! Will that bring her back do you think--Tuan?
If it is my doing it shall be well done, O white man! and--who knows--you will have to live without her." Willems gasped and started back like a confident wayfarer who, pursuing a path he thinks safe, should see just in time a bottomless chasm under his feet.

Babalatchi came into the light and approached Willems sideways, with his head thrown back and a little on one side so as to bring his only eye to bear full on the countenance of the tall white man.
"You threaten me," said Willems, indistinctly.
"I, Tuan!" exclaimed Babalatchi, with a slight suspicion of irony in the affected surprise of his tone.

"I, Tuan?
Who spoke of death?
Was it I?
No! I spoke of life only.

Only of life.

Of a long life for a lonely man!" They stood with the fire between them, both silent, both aware, each in his own way, of the importance of the passing minutes.