Sir Ralph looked searchingly at McKenzie. Leon took the dagger out of its sheath and seemed to be measuring its sharpness against the palm of his left hand, as he said: ‘There is no “antidote”.’

The rajah now feared that Leon’s anger against this starving, anguished man would lead to a fatal end and decided he must hasten his departure before this happened.

‘I can give you some Jesuit’s Bark,’ he said, ‘which seems to be effective against Malaria but the only cure for this fever rests in Fate’s hand. I don’t lie to you.’

‘In the longhouse, there are nurses, giving medicine to the sick. I’ve seen them, rajah. Why is that medicine being given if it will not cure?’

‘It is arak, not medicine. It is arak mixed with a little water. It can deaden pain. But most of those who suffer in that house will die. And your friend Billy will die. Indeed, I suspect that you will all die, now that the fever has entered the place where you sleep, unless you leave before tomorrow’s sunset.’

The cruelty of this last utterance was so unexpected that it brought into McKenzie’s heart a feeling of black despair. He stood there, all skin and bone inside his filthy clothes, watched by Leon’s malevolent stare and felt himself begin to break.

‘We have nothing!’ he cried out. ‘We endured storms and sickness and thirst to get here and all we find is barren earth. We live on the bodies of rats. I was told you were a compassionate man, rajah, but you show no pity.’

‘Why should he show pity?’ said Leon. ‘You trespass on his land. You usurp buildings built by me as a hospital. You are despicable men.’

‘No! We are not “despicable”! Rajah, Sir, I appeal to you. We are simply poor. You of all people should be able to see the difference!’

The rajah sighed. ‘There are many on my lands who are poor, but they do not behave as you have done, despoiling the earth, stealing what is not rightly theirs. So you go back to your men and warn them that they are all going to die unless they leave.’

‘I promised!’ McKenzie burst out. ‘I promised Billy I wouldn’t let him die! Please give me something, rajah. Something to give me hope …’

‘Hope of what?’ said Sir Ralph.

‘Give me that!’ McKenzie shouted. He lunged forward with all the force his emaciated body could manage, grabbed the golden candelabra from the ebony table, and held it high in the air, out of Sir Ralph’s reach. Leon raised his dagger, but McKenzie scuttled fast for the door while the rajah laid a restraining hand on Leon’s arm.

That evening, the miners left the barren field for the last time and began to load their possessions into their boats. When these were in, they carried Billy to the door of the longhouse hospital and the elderly woman with the strangely pigmented face was about to take him in, when McKenzie realised that this was Leon’s mother, and changed his mind. He told her they would take the boy with them and nurse him as they travelled and she gave them a vial of the medicine, which might have been only arak and water or something else, something which would save Billy, but McKenzie did not know which.