All eyes were fixed on the approaching sail. The vessel tacked once, faintly, as it corrected its angle into the bay. Four men became visible on deck: two of pale skin, and two dark. One of the darker men was small and slight: the other stood centrally, watching the watchers and turning his head at times to supervise the sailing.

‘Natives,’ declared Parish. ‘But it’s not the women.’

There were snorts from among his men.

The sloop ran straight in under full sail. It carried no dinghy, I could see, so they were not going to anchor it. The flat sand glistened in front of the sloop’s pointed nose and they nudged it onto the sandbank. The occupants held on as the vessel came to an abrupt halt. All of this we watched without comment.

The four of them fussed over rigging and laid anchors on the sand fore and aft. Then one by one they dropped over the side and came ashore, stepping around the puddles left by the tide on the sandbank. They could not have known how awkward their arrival would be, but now it was plain for all to see. They walked up the beach and the crowd on the boulder, of which I was one, did not attempt to move in their direction. We just stared, dumbly.

The white men had the scarred, taciturn look of lags. Before them came the two dark men, the heavier one considerably older than the other. Up the slope of the beach, among the tussocks now, and the older man removed his hat and craned his neck to look up at us.

It was incredible, improbable that it should be him who stood there, squinting into the sun. His expression was calm, serious, unhurried. Of all of us standing about on that foreshore on that lost and troubled day in December 1830, he appeared to be the only one who understood the mood of the world and the people in it.

Srinivas.

~

A meeting was convened hurriedly in the sheltered area where I had watched a young girl play the piano just two days before.

Srinivas was watchful, polite. He waited until the men had seated themselves, until I had manoeuvred my shocked father into a comfortable position. It was put to Srinivas that he should explain himself. The straitsmen were tired and exasperated: a boatload of strangers had brought them a killer, then the missionaries had driven their women and children into hiding, and now this man was here. He was unthreatening on the surface, but they sensed our unease and fed off it.

‘I am Srinivas,’ he began, ‘son of Prasad. I am a timber trader from the south coast of New South Wales. These two men are prisoners of His Majesty, commissioned to me under executive order of the governor. The lad is my son, Neelanjan.’