But McKenzie had been told, since arriving at the mine, that Sir Ralph Savage was a charitable man who tried to see the truth of things in the Sadong Territories and to make things better for everybody under his jurisdiction, not only for himself. The Australian was gambling on this now, on this unlikely strain of charity to be found in a rajah whose mind had been shaped by the self-serving hierarchies of the British Empire.

McKenzie stood his ground and told the servant that he had come to ‘make a bargain’ with the rajah and that he must be heard.

He was allowed into the hallway and told to wait there. He looked down at his dirty boots standing on the polished marble floor, then his eye was caught by a many-branched candelabra placed on an ebony table. It stood about two feet high and it appeared to be made of solid gold. It made McKenzie feel dizzy to see this. He could not help but imagine it lying deep underground, in the blue clay. He saw his pick breaking into the dark compacted earth, and then his eyes – which had searched for so long and found nothing – staring in helpless disbelief as the first glint of it was revealed …

This reverie was interrupted by the arrival of Sir Ralph. If he stood some way from McKenzie, it was not so much that he was afraid of him but because the stink of the miner’s body made him wonder if this man was not already suffering from the fever. Wishing him to depart as soon as possible, the rajah asked him why he had come. He added that his servant had mentioned something about a bargain, but that as ruler of the South Sadong Territories, he was seldom forced into any kind of bargaining position.

Though disinclined to make any show of deference to the rajah, McKenzie forced himself to lower his head just a little as he said, ‘you will appreciate, Sir Ralph, that I would not have come here, knowing how unwelcome I and my compatriots are on your land, unless it was with a proposition to put to you.’

‘Yes?’ said Sir Ralph. ‘Speak up then, and be on your way.’

At this moment, Leon appeared. He stared disdainfully at McKenzie – the very same ignorant gold prospector who had given him his painful black eye. Leon wore a jewelled dagger at his waist and his hand now clutched the lapis lazuli handle. McKenzie took this in, but didn’t back away and continued with his ‘proposition’ to the rajah.

‘You see, Sir Ralph,’ he said. ‘One of my number has fallen ill. He is still almost a boy and cannot be allowed to die. But we have no medicine and no knowledge of the peste which had arrived on Borneo. If you will give me some antidote … something which will save Billy, then we will give up on the infernal mine and leave the island.’