‘… And one of the malefactors which were hanged, railed on him, saying, if thou be Christ, save thyself and us, ‘But the other answering rebuked him, saying, dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

‘And we indeed justly, for we receive the true reward for our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss.

‘And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

‘And Jesus said unto him, verily I say unto you, today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

‘And it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour …’

Ross could not go on. He could not weep, either, but only felt in his heart a terrible suffocation, as though all through his body his faculties of speech and sound and movement had been brought to an end. He could do nothing except to stand there, staring down at the bible in his hands and beyond it to the grass mound. Yet through his mind came whirling memories of his brother. He saw him running – always running – in his never-ending quest to capture the marvels of the earth. His legs were strong and lithe, his golden hair was lifted by the wind, his arms waved his butterfly net towards the sky, and on his features was a look of rapture. That this joyful person had died, this favoured son, for whom their mother always tenderly worried and waited, and that he, Valentine Ross, less loved, had lived on in discontent and despair, having now no purpose to his life, made him want to howl with fury. But he knew that he could not even cry out. What life remained to him would be lived in silence.

It was Chesterfield who understood what he might be feeling and suggested to the rajah that Ross be taken inside to rest. Sir Ralph perhaps hoped that the mourner would resume his reading, or even say some words of his own over the buried body of Edmund, but he soon enough saw that the man appeared to be at the end of his forces. He took the bible gently from his hands and he and Chesterfield turned him round and together they began to walk towards the house.

When they led Ross into his room – the one which Edmund had once occupied – they found Leon there, going through the few possessions and medicines which remained in Ross’s trunk. The rajah knew that the sight of Edmund’s brother had woken all the old anger at the ‘Jesus boy’, and this, when they and all around them had recently suffered such depredations from sickness and invasion, dismayed him to the point where he found himself promising to Leon that if Ross did not ‘sail away’ of his own accord, he would refuse to give him shelter for more than a week or two. But now, he saw, to his weary dismay, that Leon had not been reassured sufficiently by this promise. He was suspicious and jealous of the doctor from England. And at all times, he wore the lapis dagger in his belt. He had said to Sir Ralph, ‘one day soon, the dagger will talk to me and I will answer.’