In this instant, Sir Ralph understood that the woeful invasion could not, at this moment, be resisted, either by words or by the display of power residing in his ‘fancy dress’. Staining his white robe in the mud, he reached down and helped Leon to his feet. His lover had been hit in the eye and seemed unable to speak. The rajah knew that he must be in excruciating pain, but that he would die rather than reveal his suffering.

Now, Taminah, who had been watching everything from a safe distance, came to her son’s side. ‘Ah-yeh, ah-yeh!’ she began crying, trying to put her arms around Leon. ‘Ah-yeh! Ah-yeh!’

And one of the miners called out, ‘that’s it, old lady. Take your baby home!’

The rajah retreated to his house and sat in the grandest of his parlours and looked about him at the objects of value he’d amassed and imagined the gold miners crowding in, stinking of sweat and mud, and helping themselves to his treasures and carrying them away. There would be raucous laughter as golden candelabra were broken like beech twigs and handed out like plugs of tobacco, rising currents of sniggering as a Ming vase was used as a pissoir. For the rajah had understood: these ‘citizens of the world’ had no more respect for man-made boundaries than did the forest. They felt that the succeeding seasons had ravaged them as harshly as they had tormented the trees. They were sticks of men. They tried to put down roots wherever the wind pushed them and their scarred hopes. Their own survival was all that counted.

It was this world of hungry, clamouring people which the rajah had fled when he’d decided to build his palace in the forest. If he knew that only his money and the authority bestowed upon him by a distant Sultan had made him master of his little kingdom, he had also sincerely believed that he would rule over a peaceable, thriving community, united in quietness and in love for their rajah. And Leon’s tantrums aside, the years had passed without terror or catastrophe. He had truly believed that he was regarded as a benign ruler. As for his beloved garden, it had flourished to the point where the colours and scents of the flowers were of such intoxicating sweetness that Taminah had once fainted in a bed of lilies.

Now, all was under threat. If gold was found, word would travel by canoe along the river and then more and more boats would come crowding in, bringing more and more desperate men. It wasn’t difficult to imagine them cutting down the forest, setting fires, spreading out from clearing to clearing until they arrived within sight of the rajah’s lawns. And it was then, Sir Ralph supposed, that they would decide upon their mission to strip the spoiled rajah of his treasures. And, perhaps, they would not stop at the treasures – for why should one white man inhabit so many rooms, when they were living in shacks made of bamboo and palm leaf thatch? But again, why should they stop when they had taken possession of every room in the house? They would not stop. For the idea of torturing an Englishman who wore gold turbans on his head, whose squat little Queen pretended to rule over half the world, including their beloved Australia, would then begin to take root in their collective mind. Leon would not be able to save him, nor his servants. The gold seekers would truss the rajah up like an animal. They would take turns at relieving themselves in various ways upon or in his naked person. And then they would put a bullet through his heart.