‘It is not true that I do not think of them any more,’ said the rajah.

‘I am not seeing it, that thinking,’ said Leon.

‘You may not see it. But my mind is always turning on ways to improve their world.’

‘You say your mind turns. But this mind is an empty cage, like a mouse wheel. It does not go anywhere.’

Sir Ralph knew that there was truth in what Leon had said. And he felt that it was the Savage Road, in all its uselessness, which was to blame. If only the road had had some destination, had led to some mighty portal opening upon an enterprise where trading could have taken place, then both he and the people would have prospered.

‘What more can I do, Leon?’ asked Sir Ralph.

‘You listen to me, rajah.’

‘I always listen to you.’

‘That is very right. And my mind has turned. But my wheel is not empty. I have talked to the people along the river. We make a plan for you.’

‘What plan?’

‘You will build a cannery.’

‘A cannery? For what?’

‘For fish. A cannery with steam power. Cut trees to burn. Bring engineers from Singapore to design the canning sheds and show how to shape tin and seal with lead.’

‘Where have you learned all this?’

‘I am vigilant, rajah. While you lie in your hammock, I am travelling to the markets in Kuching. I see inferior tins for beef and sardines. Everything leaking and stinking. But I will discover how to make tins properly sealed.’

Hearing of this new idea, Sir Ralph felt a familiar excitement at the prospect of starting something radical and unexpected. Nobody but he, after all, had imagined his magnificent house, but there it stood, in all its bewildering grandeur. If that could appear in the middle of the forest, then why not other miracles? Why not – when the rivers teemed with fish – a canning factory to give everybody work and pay and purpose?

Sensing that he had got Sir Ralph’s attention, Leon went on, ‘after the rains, hundreds big soft shell turtles in the Sadong. Come to feed near the mangrove banks. Men spear and kill. Women chop turtle meat, boil in brine. Then to the cannery and send for sale. Catfish also. Subaru and frogs. Import–export.’

‘Oh, very good,’ said the rajah. ‘Import–export! Where did you learn that? From traders in Kuching? But I like it. Import free from the river, export to Singapore for silver.’

‘That is it, Sir Raff. We make plenty money.’

‘Excellent. You see how helpful you are to me? I will form a company. The Savage Cannery Company. No more sadness.’

‘Good,’ said Leon. ‘And now, Sir Raff, no more Jesus-reading.’

Sir Ralph looked at Leon, who was standing in the darkness of the evening near a window. A garish lightning flash arrived and, for a moment, lit up his slender body in magnificent silhouette, confirming in Sir Ralph’s mind the godlike beauty of his paramour, the wisdom of his own erotic choice. But he had not expected Leon’s last request. He knew it was useless to try to explain to Leon the peace and harmony which Edmund’s bible readings brought to his mind and the way they led him to a spiritual excitement that was not totally separated from bodily arousal and yet seemed to confirm, day by day, the loving Christ’s tender understanding of his yearnings. He was sometimes able to believe that a lasting state of absolution was coming near, a forgiveness for all his sins, past, present and future. If his thinking about this was not perfectly rational, it did not stop him from believing that if the ecstasy in his mind – as he lay listening to St. Luke on his hammock – could be brought to a furnace so strong that he might faint from its power, then this gift of absolution would arrive from his Saviour.