He found later that the bribe was unnecessary. No one wanted the mountain. Europeans would visit the Dutchman in his castle, but they could find no guides to take them there. No island cooks would come to the place, no maids to clean it. No messengers, farmers, laborers. The islanders would not touch Devil's Mountain with the soles of their shoes.

So, bitter and lonely, the Dutchman sailed back to Holland, leaving his castle to fall into neglect and decay for more than a hundred years.

Then, amazingly, the castle came alive again. The natives whispered to one another as the helicopters whirred above the plateau of Devil's Mountain and as the team of burros led by a single, silent man made its way up the slope, dragging behind it the bulky furnace that was to heat the place. They gasped in amazement as the small planes at Juliana Airport disgorged their cargoes of dozens of magnificently beautiful women bound by helicopter for Devil's Mountain. And they stared up at the castle with curiosity and dread as they discussed its new occupant. Who would live in such a place, some asked, with its crumbling walls and smell of death and sadness? Only a European, others answered, like the old Dutchman himself.

Some had seen him, walking through the village with the small, silent man who obeyed his orders and talked to him with his hands. He was extraordinarily handsome, the women said, with yellow hair and eyes of ice blue. He walked like a cat. He would be a good lover. Still, there was something odd about him, something too still. He never smiled, and when he walked into a store, where people could see him, his footsteps made no noise on the floorboards. Animals hated him. He could not come within twenty feet of a donkey or a goat without sending the beast into panic. And though he spoke many languages, he never talked except in the briefest of business exchanges. He had no friends. Not even the Europeans on the island knew him.