Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/217

 upon him. As the English factors at Batavia had said, he was "a subtle man," and like most men of that stamp he was inordinately suspicious. Seated in the isolation of his official residence his jaundiced eyes had visions of risings and dark conspiracies of which his government was the object. Not, however, that he was without sound reason for distrust of the outwardly peaceful horizon. From the remoter islands with every ship must have come warnings of native discontent mingled vdth definite news of sinister meetings in woods and of assassinations and other tragic happenings traceable to political unrest. The whole atmosphere, indeed, was charged with a note of disaffection which vibrated painfully upon the nerves of Van Speult and his brother officials.

Turn we now from the chief personalities in this drama of Amboina with which we are about to deal to the setting given to it. By way of contrast to the gloom of the tragedy nothing could have been more impressive than this. Captain Fitzherbert, who visited the place just before the occurrence, in a letter home said, "Amboina sitteth as a Queen between the Isles of Banda and the Moluccas. She b beautified with the fruits of several factories and dearly beloved of the Dutch." That sailor's impression vividly suggests the natural charms of this famous island. Over it all is the glamour of the East in its most fascinating form. A placid opalescent sea washes a palm- fringed shore, from which rise lofty verdure-clad hills suffused in the violet haze of the strong tropical sun, In the waters around like satellites about a star of the first magnitude are other isles equally beautiful though not so favoured in situation.

The capital is placed on the half of the island known as