What he had also told Chesterfield, in answer to the old man’s questions about the silence and emptiness of Kuching, was that Fever had visited the town. It had passed now, but not before almost half the population had been ‘put into a pit for the dead’ at its northern edge. But Chesterfield kept this information to himself. On the long voyage aboard the Queen, he’d understood only too well how fragile was Ross’s state of mind. (On more than one morning, he had entered his cabin half expecting to find him dead from some poison taken from his doctor’s bag.) He judged that his new master – if indeed this was what he was, if indeed he was master of anything or anyone – could not now be burdened with news of widespread death and suffering.

The cart went on and soon enough veered off the dust track to arrive on a white road, a little overgrown by the encroachment of the forest but clearly a well-made thing, whose pale stones laid before them a luminous carpet in the near darkness. And then they saw it rising out of the jungle, silhouetted against the purple sky, the vast monument to wealth and power that was the Savage House, and Ross knew that he had arrived at last at his destination.

Torches burned at the grand entrance to the mansion and Valentine Ross stood and waited there, lit by the flames, with Chesterfield hovering some way behind him, like a penitent at his back. Out in the darkness, Ross could now hear the cries and screeches which he knew was the music of the forest night. He wondered, fretfully, how Edmund could have endured this never-ending lament, but now his heart was beating wildly at the thought that at any moment his brother would appear and he would take him in his arms. He told himself that their roles were now reversed: he was the searcher, the seeker of new worlds and Edmund would be the healer. Together, they would go on.

A Chinese servant guided Ross and Chesterfield into a hallway, where bright logs burned in an immense marble fireplace. Chesterfield set down the heavy trunk and his ragged features rearranged themselves into a condition of wonder as he took in his opulent surroundings.

Ross gave his name to the servant and fancied he saw on the man’s face a momentary flicker of fear. Behind him, Chesterfield began on one of the bouts of coughing which had afflicted him since the vast sea voyage, so it was to the accompaniment of this human distress that Valentine Ross and Sir Ralph Savage first set eyes on each other.

Sir Ralph, wearing one of his white robes and with his long grey hair loose about his shoulders perhaps resembled a godlike figure, albeit a little portly, a little too mountainous of girth to be anybody’s saviour, but Ross was nevertheless moved at the sight of him. He bowed and held out his hand and the rajah took it and bestowed upon Ross a long and thoughtful look.